GLASSWORKS
  • home
  • about
    • history
    • staff bios
    • community outreach
    • affiliations
    • contact
  • Current Issue
    • read Issue 30
    • letter from the editor
    • looking glass spring 2025
    • interview with Dale M. Kushner
    • interview with Jessie vanEerden
  • submit
    • submission guidelines
  • looking glass
    • spring 2025
  • editorial content
    • book reviews
    • opinion
    • interviews >
      • Dale M. Kushner
      • Jessie vanEerden
  • flash glass
    • flash glass 2025
    • flash glass 2024
    • flash glass 2023
    • flash glass 2022
    • flash glass 2021
    • flash glass 2020
    • flash glass 2019
    • flash glass 2018
    • flash glass 2017
    • flash glass 2016
    • flash glass 2015
  • media
    • art
    • audio
    • video
  • archive
    • best of the net nominees
    • pushcart prize nominees
    • read and order back issues
  • Master of Arts in Writing Program
    • about Writing Arts at Rowan University
    • application and requirements
  • Newsletter
  • home
  • about
    • history
    • staff bios
    • community outreach
    • affiliations
    • contact
  • Current Issue
    • read Issue 30
    • letter from the editor
    • looking glass spring 2025
    • interview with Dale M. Kushner
    • interview with Jessie vanEerden
  • submit
    • submission guidelines
  • looking glass
    • spring 2025
  • editorial content
    • book reviews
    • opinion
    • interviews >
      • Dale M. Kushner
      • Jessie vanEerden
  • flash glass
    • flash glass 2025
    • flash glass 2024
    • flash glass 2023
    • flash glass 2022
    • flash glass 2021
    • flash glass 2020
    • flash glass 2019
    • flash glass 2018
    • flash glass 2017
    • flash glass 2016
    • flash glass 2015
  • media
    • art
    • audio
    • video
  • archive
    • best of the net nominees
    • pushcart prize nominees
    • read and order back issues
  • Master of Arts in Writing Program
    • about Writing Arts at Rowan University
    • application and requirements
  • Newsletter
GLASSWORKS
Picture

To Feed the Children by Karen Toralba

8/1/2021

0 Comments

 
Picture
A boy, perhaps eight or nine, shifted under the weight of a sleeping baby on his back in a makeshift sling. Hands and face smudged with dust and dirt, he begged for money with vacant eyes and an outstretched hand, and he moved on when my friend said he had nothing to give.

“They do that to get sympathy, and more money,” my friend said as we walked further, “and if you give money to one, the rest see it and swarm you.”

My heart burst into a smile as I headed to the border town alone on a quiet, gray morning. “Maybe they’re not up this early,” I thought. I walked carefully to find anyone, everyone. In the distance, I saw him. Yes, he had the baby on his back. I rushed to him. He held out his hand, and I wondered if he recognized me from the day before. His monotonous motions told me no. He looked up at me with those same dusty eyes. I slung off my backpack and dove in for the goods. I handed him a package of raisin bread and beamed as I dug for milk.

He looked away then at me again. “No food. Money,” he said in English.

“No, I don’t have money, but you need to eat something. Here’s some milk for your sister.” I held the provisions out again.

“Money,” he said. Drained by the experience, he shuffled away, and some other brazen children plucked the snacks from my hand and ran off giggling. I stared at the boy and the baby until they drifted out of sight. 

Karen Toralba is an American living in Bangkok, Thailand. She has worked in English education for 20 years, most of which have been overseas. This almost exotic lifestyle opens many doors to unique experiences which can transform into stories. She is embarking on her publishing journey with accepted pieces in The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature, Fiction on the Web, The Fictional Café and Buddy lit zine.
0 Comments

    FLASH GLASS: A MONTHLY PUBLICATION OF FLASH FICTION, PROSE POETRY, & MICRO ESSAYS


    Categories

    All
    Andrea Lynn Koohi
    Andrea Rinard
    Becky Jeeves
    Birthday Bear
    Entropy
    Family Tree
    Flash Fiction
    Hannah Marshall
    Heather Bourbeau
    How To Live In This Body
    Jer Xiong
    Karen Toralba
    Kathleen McGookey
    Katrina Papouskaya
    Life Goes On
    March Of Grief
    Meredith Sullivan
    Micro Essay
    Molly Andrea-Ryan
    Postcard From Edgewater Beach Hotel Flower Shop
    Postcard From Waterloo
    Prose Poetry
    Roses
    Saramanda Swigart
    Shoshauna Shy
    Snacking
    So What Now With The House Gone?
    The Blind Feast With The Deaf
    Thelma Zirkelbach
    To Feed The Children
    We Have Grown Tired Of
    What My Father Was Doing When He Learned That I Existed
    Yellow


    COVER IMAGE:
    ​"Bolt of Energy" 
    Britnie Walston
    ​ISSUE 22


    RSS Feed


Picture

Glassworks is a publication of
​Rowan University's Master of Arts in Writing
260 Victoria Street • Glassboro, New Jersey 08028 
[email protected]

​All Content on this Site (c) 2025 Glassworks
Photos from Filter Collective, Courtney Emery, Jean-François Thibault, thart2009, Scouse Smurf, Kalexanderson