THE PASTRY SHOP by Babak Lakghomi
He dipped his finger in the whipping cream and held it in front of the boy’s mouth. The boy looked down at his feet, then raised his head and licked the cream from the man’s finger.
Babak Lakghomi
Babak Lakghomi is the author of South (forthcoming from Dundurn Press, 2023) and Floating Notes (Tyrant Books, 2018). His fiction has appeared in American Short Fiction, NOON, Ninth Letter, New York Tyrant, and The Adroit Journal, among others.
I KEPT LOOKING FOR IT by Babak Lakghomi
After working as a dish washer, my sister found me a job that paid more than the minimum wage. Every morning, I had to wear a wetsuit and dip my hand deep into a pool of sewage for a sample. Sometimes I had to get into tanks and wash off sludge from filters with a hose. Otherwise, I mostly sat in a control room full of screens with the other operators. I kept an eye on pumps turning on and off, numbers changing on screens. I had only dropped out of college in the third year, so this was the…