Red’s whole thing is that life is fleeting & so is he. He lasts as long as Big Red gum, goes down like a shot of Fireball, & if you’re not paying attention – steals all your Altoids. He just wants to know how many mints he can bite before everything starts to burn.

I wear thigh-high boots and a skirt that doesn't cover my ass. You wear huge pants and a backward hat. Our faces are all angles—all cheekbone and chin. We are smooth and poreless, just like the ocean, like the road, like the bark of the palm trees. Our world is not one of textures.

Two seven-year-old girls—one Afghan, one American—entwine fingers at the crumbling runway in Kabul, the only city in their memories. The American’s passport—a navy book embossed with a gold eagle and sunflower crown—is tucked in her father’s suit beside his foreign diplomat papers.

Dear Newborn Baby Girl #3,979,258,451:

Congratulations! You are officially registered for the Beauty Pageant of Earth!

This is an exciting time for you, as you learn how to breathe air and intake nutrients, and guess what? You’ve also already been ranked. *\(^o^)/* Only one billion girls are ranked above you, and you’re only a few minutes old!

The story of your birth is a Persaud family fable. The Persauds are storytellers and cooks, so everyone tells it differently. Mumma adds salt, Nani twists the words dry, Bua clips feathers to the letters and tries to set them free.

Suppose we are 17 again and we are chasing our childhood. We spend twenty minutes illegally cramming five of us into one car while our reckless friend helms our journey towards jean jackets and the greasy booths of the mall food court. The first time we did this, we stayed silent so our friend wouldn’t crash on the highway. The last time we do this, we are silent because there is nothing left for us to talk about.

It started with nothing. A whiff of ozone, a burnt electric smell. But there were no fires; the sky stayed cloudless; the reports of planes plummeting to earth didn’t happen, though we all looked upward like we did years before when there was an eclipse. Then, each of us snuck glances toward the darkening sky. Now, we tilted our heads back, scanned the emptiness, and laughed.

Oh you're all back now, huh. Cool. Cool cool cool. There's room enough for everybody so come on in, stretch out, make yourself at home. I've been here for awhile, of course, since the Upside Down wasn't cool, since before we could all spell Demogorgon, when it was just funny dice and banana seats, brown bag lunches and nostalgia movies and red baseball hats. I've been eating pop rocks and drinking soda, slushing it all around in my mouth and forcing it down, hitting refresh and retweet and trying not to rub at the membranes while this foliage grows around me, all over, up my thighs and my fingers and and into my belly.