Public Republic

Nancy Jensen Stories: The Ones I Married Ever since I can remember, I have thought of myself as divorced. It started with my mother—trim, bright-eyed, thirtyish—with a sense of self-assurance so powerful that, for much of my childhood, I believed she had created me by herself out of sheer force of will. She made it […]

Ellie Ivanova Ponti Photo: woodleywonderworks The best time to learn a new language is around teenagerhood and beyond. Yes, learning at a younger age is always an advantage and young children absorb a new language faster if they are immersed in the respective culture. But they also forget it easier if they are removed from […]

Zdravka Evtimova Photo: lepiaf.geo I was carefully curling her thin hair that I had dyed from sickly blond to russet ginger more times than I could remember. I was using vintage silver rollers with the initials of the German company Kipheuer-Witsch, her scull under my fingers as brittle as paper, her shoulders almost intangible under […]

Angel Angelov Photo: rent-a-moose The stretching, the yawning, the numerous coffee houses, even the forceful movement of his stiff joints did not chase away the dream that came upon him. The insurmountable draw towards the kingdom of Morpheus was persistently dragging him in an undesirable direction and only the blinking screen of the monitor was […]

Ivailo Dimanov Photo: broma It’s summer! The birds are singing, the July sun is shining, the kids play care free, without knowing one day they’ll grow up only to start paying heating and electricity bills. In such weather some get married, others go to the scaffold (which is one and the same). As for me, […]

Elayne Clift Photo: celesteh I’ve been thinking about mothers, and I should note straight away that my thoughts were originally coincidental to the fact that this month we will celebrate their unconditional love (thanks in large part to the flower and greeting card industries.) The reason I found myself ruminating on mothers and motherhood is […]

Zdravka Evtimova Photo: Freddy The Boy Few customers visit my shop, perhaps three or four people a day. They look at the animals in the cages and seldom buy them. The room is narrow and there is no place for me behind the counter, so I usually sit on my old moth-eaten chair behind the […]

Raven Jordan VII. Photo: R’eyes’ Read chapters 4-6 here If there were any one thing in which the kingdom might count itself rich, it would be spies. Trouble was, for the most part they had little that they were specifically directed to do. The commissioners would meet their contacts and informants in strategic tavernas in […]

Ivailo Dimanov Photo: jesse.millan There are some people that nobody loves. Either because of their past, or their peculiar personality, others – just like that, without obvious reason. Sotir Peshev is not only unloved, he is feared. You, said Mr. Gavrailov – chief of a Ceremonial home, are no longer a simple undertaker; you are […]

Ludmila Filipova Photo: lepiaf.geo This story is based on real facts The Facts behind the story: Thousands of liters of blood plasma not screened for disease have been shipped to European, American and Asian laboratories over the past 30 years. Turned into expensive blood products there, they are then sold around the world. Hundreds of […]

Zdravka Evtimova Photo: Bolshakov Winter was wild this year. The sky was full of snow and wind; the trees in front of the cafe looked like stubbly old men in the white air; it was cold in the narrow room overlooking the Struma River that flowed tiredly, grumbling to its rocks. Gogo slept by her […]

Ann Lederer Photo: brokinhrt2   They said all the BLOOD in his BODY had been drained and replaced. They didn’t get into the technicalities. When they finally brought him HOME—a yellowish, waxy BUNDLE tucked into the legged BASKET in the dining room—he was too quiet. We were not allowed to get too close. We were […]

Raven Jordan Photo: lepiaf.geo Read chapters 1-3 here Even now, the pearl-blight raged. The king knew this; why were they telling him yet again? It was sunny, out beyond the colonnade. Out there, it was hot. The fountain bubbled and spat; hummingbirds browsed the vines. He watched one close in upon a flower, close and […]

Zdravka Evtimova Photo: ktylerconk Elinor Cunnigham was an exceptionally cold-blooded woman. Her eyes narrowed as she stared at a small, crumpled newspaper clipping. Her fingers trembled with suppressed rage. She found the clipping in her husband’s wallet during one of her regular searches. It was an advertisement carefully underlined by Henry. There could be no […]

Elayne Clift Photo: zenobia_joy Ever since my first job as a medical secretary, I have believed it would be useful for med students to be admitted anonymously to a teaching hospital where they could experience first-hand the indignities of a medical work-up. Whether for diagnostic or treatment purposes, I’m sure their empathy for patients would […]

Zdravka Evtimova Photo: jairo bd He drank his wine slowly, trying not to look at her. Her words were flat, and there was wine in their sounds. She had invited him to her study, to the armchair beside the heavy tomes by Shakespeare and Schiller. The books were arranged in alphabetical order, first and second […]

James Vincent Photo: semihundido The fortune read, ‘Accept the next proposition you hear.’  I found the familiar white rectangle outside my office around quitting time. Odd in these troubled times that someone would just leave a fortune laying around.  I wasn’t sure it applied to me.  I didn’t eat the cookie, I didn’t tip the […]

Julie Farkas Photo: howieluvzus Adele stood on the front porch in the dark and watched as car headlights cast yellow shafts of light on Audubon Park Boulevard. When the car turned onto the white shell road in front of their house, Adele opened the front door and yelled inside, “Bubba’s here,” then slammed it behind […]

Michael Todd Burns Photo: jacob botter Have you ever noticed how people’s philosophies tend to mimic their vices? I didn’t want to think about what I was doing. I didn’t think anymore about God and I certainly wasn’t thinking about the starving children back in Valle Aristo. I wanted to think about Gitana and the […]

Zdravka Evtimova Photo: darkpatator The men from Dono’s clan, broad-shouldered and surly, squashed the words between their teeth and the mere hissing sound left others guessing what had to be obeyed. But they all obeyed Dono. His wish was law. Everyone was shattered under it. At the age of twenty-five, he became the chieftain of […]