Simon Iskander - Stories

After being kicked out of his drunk, abusive father's home for being gay, 22 year-old Stanley embarks on a road trip with two friends and an unlikely companion. Leaving his small Midwest hometown for the first time, he embarks on a journey of adventure down a highway of discovery.

"Every interaction was an opportunity to impress him, to teach him, to care for him. To make him love me. I wondered, in that moment, whether we could ever maintain a healthy relationship, or if I’d continue down a one way street of unrequited love."

When unrequited love occupies the largest part of your mind, it spills into your dreams. Charlie is the perfect boy, but he's an ocean apart even when in arm's reach. Oni is the story of a young man's unfulfilled romance and its manifestation in a world of Japanese mythology.

Following the loss of his boyfriend in a tragic accident, Rich is left in a state of limbo, unable to process or control his emotions. When reaching out to his wealthy, secretive uncle for legal advice, Rich's state leads him to actions he'd never thought possible; and down a rabbit-hole that will change the course of his life forever.

A tender story of boy's turbulent vacation , at turns heartwrenching and ecstatic.

"It's very cute" - My sister

"We look at each other for the longest two seconds, a knowing look, communicating something beyond the restraints of speech but to which we are both finely attuned; a common language...which, in its evolution, had turned our signals into pictures so vivid we were terrified of giving anything deeper than superficial away, and so we turn our heads, almost simultaneously, focusing our attention elsewhere."

When Stan's friend offers to be his personal trainer, the offer is too good to refuse. But the experience threatens to transform the pair in ways neither could have predicted.