Writers, enter here! Witness seeks original fiction, nonfiction, and poetry that is innovative in its approach, broad-ranging in its concerns, and unapologetic in its perspective. The magazine blends the features of a literary and an issue-oriented magazine to highlight the role of the modern writer as witness to their times. Our mission is to amplify extraordinary voices, feature writers… [Read More]

flower and died. This seemed ominous. A screened-in porch ran along the back. The poured concrete floors were covered in linoleum, except in the master bedroom, which was carpeted, the ceilings were popcorned, the windows rattled in their metal frames when the front door was opened. The builder had spared no expense, installing a cheap electric stove, hollow core doors,… [Read More]

“Usual booth, usual time,” was all it said. He walked back into the living room and sat down in front of the TV. Half an hour later he was asleep, the glass in one hand, the remote in the other. 6. As the cab pulled into view of the phone booth, it occurred to Charlie that he had begun to… [Read More]

what the cranes down there are building or how the cranes are built—If he asks about the invention of metallurgy or the inception of glass— Why is there brick, steel, and siding? Why is there duct tape instead of nothing?—as you’re reading this there in that nation World Cups and World Cups hence, and you find yourself uncertain of how… [Read More]

I’ve been awakened into the world of literature, you know?”) (And lest you be concerned that this was a popular persona: it was not.) Of course it was obnoxiously self-indulgent. But it was an obnoxious self-indulgence with a purpose—a pretentiousness in the service of determining exactly who it was that I sought to become as a fully actualized being-in-the-world. (“Being-In-The-World”… [Read More]

Summer Enrichment Seminars I lucked out. Mom enrolled in summer school so Dad would be driving me. No way would Dad confront me about anything to do with undergarments. That morning I insisted on wearing my yellow rainslicker to cover myself, even though it was July in Alabama. “I’ll freeze in there,” I insisted. I had a point. Southerners, in… [Read More]

in this possibility of a world, before he would have to be swept up into the fanfare of the occasion, into the unknown, into the life that was his far superior dice roll. Above the din of car horns blaring behind you from a seemingly endless line of taxicabs, stretching out behind you into infinity, all you were able to… [Read More]

nor there. The world I grew up in no longer exists, of that I am sure; I have no interest in visiting Algiers in order to confirm it. The war ended, lives resumed. And so my childhood exists only in dreams. It was Paris that severed it — brutally, absolutely. Our new homeland, after the first shock of excitement, was… [Read More]

cancel our lunch tomorrow. David tells me he’s “getting out of Dodge for a while.” Things to know about David: he wrote a book about Mexico City’s underbelly. In it, he portrays in detail the most crime-infested barrios in Mexico City. It’s first-hand reporting. David includes a chapter about express kidnappings — about the time David was kidnapped in a… [Read More]

spill had waned — had a pleasant aftermath, floating indolently in the warm waters while the boat lazed through a wide arc and returned to offer absolutions and further instruction. Waiting his turn on the floating dock, skis on, legs dangling in the water, a just-arrived but already sun-burned broker teased him about his form. Yakov in turn teased the… [Read More]

…were first gathered in the field. In the stomach, clumps of grass (They brought us to the garden), whole apple seeds with the poison still intact. Faces touching the ground. This remains hidden. I turned once to ask if there was an inspector. A rich, liquid-like gold. A policeman replied, “I am the inspector.” The smell inside the horse is… [Read More]

falling in impulsive, reckless love with this girl, which far outweighed any of her personal qualities. His father had met his mother in Trieste. As the story goes, his father, bags in hand and heading for the bus station, saw his mother, who was vacationing in Italy, sitting in a café and sat down across from her for the sole… [Read More]