Size / / /

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I was born without eyes and limbs, for my
father was the first person to venture out to
the fringes of the universe only to return
seemingly unharmed. I may be eyeless but I
can see through the eyes of everyone and everything.
My parents put cameras all over the house so I could see
around the house when I’m all alone, but I
best prefer seeing through the eyes of my mother.
And I may be limbless but navigation comes
naturally, for I am able to levitate wherever I please,
if only I please

My parents love me just the way I am, but
they wanted another. So they were filled with
jubilation when my sister looked normal in the ultrasound.
But one morning my mother woke up screaming
and my father rushed her to the hospital.
I stayed alone in the house, watching

There was no reasonable explanation they
could give my parents. My sister simply
wasn’t in my mother anymore

My parents were sad for a long time after that,
and I noticed they were looking at me differently.
When my mother found out she was pregnant again
my parents gave me away to the government where
I wasn’t allowed to levitate wherever I please

The government gave me a large white dome for
a room, which was very spacious, and equally empty,
except when they came to ask me what I see.
On my fifteenth birthday the government gave me
a birthday present. They shaved my head and installed a small
camera on top of my scalp so that I could see from a normal
person's viewpoint. But they still wanted to know
what I see with the eyes of everyone else

Years later I heard her voice in my head.
She told me she was my sister and that she was
sorry for everything that has happened to me.
She told me she had had to leave and that she was
planning on returning to my mother’s belly
but that she was too afraid to hurt her.
I’ve never heard from her again, not until my
hundredth birthday. Her voice came to my head
sounding exactly like the first time she spoke
to me all those years ago.
She sang me happy birthday and then asked me
to join her, and the moment I thought about
saying yes I found myself surrounded by the
starkest of darknesses, and there she was, my
little sister; a rosy fetus floating about in a transparent
bubble, with two tiny black eyes and diaphanous skin.
When I turned around I saw the universe in its
entirety, and then my sister asked me if I wanted
to play with her and when I said yes she taught me
how to play with marbles



Born an emaciated preemie, Aber grew up to be the largest man of his lineage. He attributes his size to a lifelong consumption of hummus and his mother’s early life at a small town next to a nuclear power plant. His work appears or is forthcoming in The Southampton Review, Space and Time, Andromeda SpacewaysMithila ReviewLeading Edge, and Flash: The International Short-Short Story Magazine, and he has won the Bernice Schaffer Bessin Poetry Award.
Current Issue
22 Apr 2024

We’d been on holiday at the Shoon Sea only three days when the incident occurred. Dr. Gar had been staying there a few months for medical research and had urged me and my friend Shooshooey to visit.
...
Tu enfiles longuement la chemise des murs,/ tout comme d’autres le font avec la chemise de la mort.
The little monster was not born like a human child, yelling with cold and terror as he left his mother’s womb. He had come to life little by little, on the high, three-legged bench. When his eyes had opened, they met the eyes of the broad-shouldered sculptor, watching them tenderly.
Le petit monstre n’était pas né comme un enfant des hommes, criant de froid et de terreur au sortir du ventre maternel. Il avait pris vie peu à peu, sur la haute selle à trois pieds, et quand ses yeux s’étaient ouverts, ils avaient rencontré ceux du sculpteur aux larges épaules, qui le regardaient tendrement.
We're delighted to welcome Nat Paterson to the blog, to tell us more about his translation of Léopold Chauveau's story 'The Little Monster'/ 'Le Petit Monstre', which appears in our April 2024 issue.
For a long time now you’ve put on the shirt of the walls,/just as others might put on a shroud.
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