สอง. Rubies and Rucksacks

At one stop, we came alongside a tuk-tuk containing a large Western man. He lay limp in the back. A woman was screaming. She was German. Originally appeared in the Dec 2025 edition of Five on the Fifth magazine.

Fifteen. The Language Divides

The attendant watched me, his face in shadow from the shack’s awning, as he chewed on his stick. I could feel his eyes on my back while I held the pump in the tank of the car.

Тринадцать. The Mule

The decadent West it might have seemed but then a Muscovite student who mistook his cabin for ours came in, and found it such an experience that he left to fetch his heavy metal tapes. And he returned with a friend.

བཅུ་གཉིས. No Limits

At first glance it sounded nuts. On second glance, this matriarchal society was freed from the cycle of marriage and divorce that I saw from our Western norms. My second thought was that it made sense.