cicadamag

By Wong Chun Ying

She was surprised to see that he still smoked the same cigarettes, after all these years. It was what she used to run to get for him, when he started getting jittery and started pacing in the editorial room. Marlboro Black Menthol “without legs,” ng jiu goek.

By Ned Carter Miles

This year was my turn to light the fire, and I chose to do it on top of a rough black stone that looked unmistakably like Ernest Borgnine—the same roundness and folds. No one else knew, but earlier that day I’d come to the beach in our mother’s car and caught a mackerel—which I hadn’t done since I was a child—gutted it with a pocket-knife, wrapped it in foil, and buried it under a layer of flat stones before resting Borgnine on top.