True Florida Stories
I rolled down our car’s window and extended my gloved hand. Another gloved hand gave me a high school diploma, and a muffled voice congratulated me. My mom drove out of the bus loop where our graduation ceremony was hosted in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown. The brown brick buildings that housed the final years of my adolescence shrunk in the rear view mirror for the last time. Ahead of me: the real world … Read moreA love letter to odd jobs
It’s 6:50 a.m. in a nondescript Dunnellon shopping center. Street lights and neon store signs cast a dim glow over the dark lot and Publix won’t open for another ten minutes.
The parking lot is almost empty, except for the scattering of cars belonging to the members of the Workout Anytime gym and those of a group of 14 old men sitting along the benches outside of the Breakfast Station restaurant … Read moreThe ROMEOs
A grizzled man smoking a cigarette in his Confederate flag adorned pickup truck was the first time I saw a Florida stereotype in the flesh … Read moreWarming up
At an ungodly 7:30 a.m., Noor Sukkar logged into Advanced Placement chemistry, her first subject of the school day and the last she’d ever label promising when delivered via online lecture … Read moreFrom Brooklyn to the brink
Growing up in a coastal town in Venezuela, I would often hear a story about an elderly woman known by others to be a witch. At night, she transformed into a large white bird and sneakily hid in the trees, waiting for dawn to break before returning to its human form … Read moreMagical, real