It started as an idea I couldn’t shake. After my mom died, I kept replaying her voice messages. I was living in São Paulo back then. Years later, now in San Francisco, USA, and working as a programmer, I pitched the concept: an AI that could replicate the voice and personality of the deceased. Investors loved it. We called it EchoSoul.

My youngest thinks the world is just this: dusty courtyards, women shouting from cell to cell, and the clatter of plastic cups against iron bars. He plays with broken toys, draws with chalk on the concrete floor. To him, this place is normal. He doesn’t know that this is not how children are supposed to grow up. But I do.

I don’t know how much seventy billion tons really is. I just know it changed everything. Two years ago, the drills hit phosphate down near Sokndal, Norway. Not just a bit, but a crazy amount. My dad’s company, which used to be a total mess, is now one of the most talked-about mining companies in Europe. They say the phosphate here could feed the whole world for fifty years.

I’ve been living in Phongsali, Laos, all my life. Life here is quiet and simple, and it’s hard to imagine the kind of suffering that many people in the world experience. But for the past two years, I’ve been helping those who are running for their lives. I volunteer with a small organization that assists refugees from North Korea. I know the risks are high, but when I hear their stories, I know I can’t turn away.

Every morning I walk the same path along the Danube. Not because I’m nostalgic, but because the water keeps me honest. There’s a rhythm to it, a cold, steady indifference that makes sense to me. Some mornings, I see a heron standing so still it could be carved from stone. I used to fish here with my brother before he moved to Canada. Now it’s just me and the river.

Every morning on my way to the office, I pass the same bus stop. There's a huge poster of a girl who could almost be my twin—same skin tone, same curls, same gap between the front teeth. She's advertising something ridiculous, like oat milk or sunglasses, but that’s not the point. The point is that ten years ago, a girl who looked like her—and me—would never have made it onto that poster.

The red vinyl of my taxi seat sticks to my back like always. It’s not even noon yet, and the heat has already curled itself around my spine. The sweat collects under the plastic sheet my brother-in-law stretched over the driver’s seat years ago, thinking it would protect the leather. It protects nothing and collects everything — but I’ve grown used to it.

The store smelled of dry bread and pickled cabbage, like most shops here in the winter. I had only come in for some tea and sugar, but as I stood in line, waiting for the cashier to finish a slow conversation with the man in front of me, I felt a tap on my shoulder.

It started when I was 25. My hair began falling out—first in the shower, then on my pillow. It was horrifying, but I was prepared. My brother was bald by 30, my father the same. It ran in the family. Still, knowing didn’t make it easier. I tried everything—shampoos, vitamins, medication. Some helped, but the side effects weren’t worth it.

Twelve years ago, my life unraveled. My husband walked out, leaving me alone with our two young children. I was terrified, barely keeping up with bills, daycare costs impossible. That’s when someone recommended Gabriela. She was warm, kind, and quickly became part of our home. Without her, I would have drowned. I could work, provide for my kids, and they adored her.

Last night, my son came home late. His T-shirt was soaked in blood, but he moved without injury, his steps steady, his breath calm. I didn’t ask. Maybe I should have. Maybe it was my duty as his father. But I have lived too long in this township to believe that asking always leads to the truth.

The metro was packed, as always. I held my purse tight, one hand over the zipper, my body angled away from the crowd. After living in Medellín, Colombia, my whole life, I knew how to move in a packed train, how to spot a pickpocket, how to keep my guard up without looking like I was keeping my guard up.

I wake before dawn, when Shanghai, China, is still quiet. From my window, I see Pudong’s towers flickering like distant fires, but my world is far from that glittering skyline. I live in an old lane house in Hongkou, where the walls are damp in winter and summers press down thick. It’s enough. It’s mine.

For most of my 54 years, I worked alongside my husband and our children at the small hotel we ran, one of the very few on Mangaia, the second largest and southernmost island in the Cook Islands. The island, ancient and quiet, has always been a peaceful place, where life moves at its own pace. Geologists say it's 18 million years old, and though its history is vast, the population has gradually shrunk. Once home to 2,000 people, now there are fewer than 500 of us.

They didn’t want to let me in. The young man at the door looked me up and down, took in my frayed coat, my scuffed shoes, and made that polite but firm expression people make when they’re about to turn someone away. I laughed, maybe a little too loudly. “Do I really look that rough?” I asked. He hesitated. Maybe I smelled like turpentine again—I forget sometimes when I’ve been working in the studio all day.

The office hums with tension as we finalize next month’s issue. I work in the photo editorial department of a famous Italian fashion magazine, and today, we’re publishing our first AI-generated cover. Some are fascinated, others uneasy, but the decision is made.

The morning sun had not yet climbed over the hills when I stepped outside, the cool air still clinging to the earth. I picked up my uncle’s tools and slung them over my shoulder. He usually carried them himself, but after his injury last week, the responsibility had fallen to me. I didn’t mind. It made me feel useful. Important.

The jungle swallowed the light faster than I expected. The thick canopy turned the afternoon into an eerie twilight, and every step felt heavier. My son walked ahead, his thin frame carrying our only bag, his eyes fixed on the barely visible trail. I tried to keep up, but my legs felt like they belonged to someone else—someone weaker, someone who should have stayed behind.

The border crossing had changed since the last time I was here. New fences, new guards, but the same waiting, the same dust in the air. The bus was packed with others making the journey—some for business, some for family, some for reasons they kept to themselves. I sat near the window, watching the road signs in Hebrew and Arabic blur past as we neared the bridge.

The bus ride home is always the worst part of my day. The heat presses in from all sides, the smell of sweat and exhaust mixing into something I’ve long since stopped noticing. I keep my bag clutched to my chest, not because I’m afraid of thieves—though there are plenty—but because I need something to hold onto. Something solid.