My mother’s dead uncle showed up to dinner. We thought death would have turned him bad, but he was as kind as ever. He brought us capirotada from the land of the dead. It’s late, however there’s still soup, my mother said. But when he ate, the carrots sliced our uncle in two. My mother hadn’t made it with love enough. Of course, she wasn’t expecting her dead to come to dinner and judge her soup.

Monique Quintana is a Xicana writer and the author of the novella, Cenote City (Clash Books, 2019). She is an Associate Editor at Luna Luna Magazine and Fiction Editor at Five 2 One Magazine. She has received fellowships from The Community of Writers at Squaw Valley, The Sundress Academy of the Arts, and has been nominated for Best of the Net. Her work has appeared in Queen Mob’s Tea House, Winter Tangerine, Grimoire, Dream Pop, Bordersenses, and Acentos Review, among others. You can find her at www.moniquequintana.com