Torn

by Sahar Mustafah, Mark Para (Illustrator), Flyleaf Journal (Editor)

"We sat cross-legged on my bed, the globe wobbling between us on its plastic stand, and you turned it until a part of Asia and all of Australia faced me. You pressed your palm against Africa and teased a corner of South America until you peeled it off, taking most of the Atlantic Ocean with you. I held my breath, worried you were going to tear it away from the rest of the world—much too easily—and ball it up and throw it into my wastebasket.But you let it hang there and when I slowly spun the world I pushed my fingers through the hole as though, at nine years old, I might feel water and seaweed and a shoal of fish and maybe the rough dorsal ridges of a whale.You were ten then, older and wiser, and said if I could actually reach in and touch the core of the earth, my entire hand would instantly melt from red-hot magma. I pulled out my fingers and carefully lifted the thin paper and pressed it into its proper place, but it wouldn’t stick..."

7 pages, Kindle Edition

First published April 8, 2014

About the author

Sahar Mustafah is the daughter of Palestinian immigrants. Her short stories have been awarded the Guild Literary Complex Prize for fiction, a Distinguished Story honor from Best American Short Stories, and three Pushcart Prize nominations, among other honors. She writes and teaches outside of Chicago.