Pandora's Ink Digital Magazine

Written by Shinbi Lee from Orange County School of the Arts in California, YS It always rains when we visit the columbarium of our grandparents’ ashes. The structure is a walk down from a clean-paved road surrounded by evergreen forest; our car looks like it shouldn’t be parked in the middle of this empty road. But I guess it doesn’t really matter because no one is here but us and the ashes, ashes, ashes. We’ve only been here twice, once when we were much younger, when no

Written by Iris Zhu from Deerfield Academy, Massachusetts, USA Holes dot the earth like the lotus plant: wide-mouthed and eager. Beneath the dirt, there are girls with petals in their hair. When the rain falls next year, I think they will flower. The mothers arrive in flocks like carrion birds circling the dead. There is nothing to scavenge but limbs and schoolbags packed that morning. They shake pictures of their precious girls in front of cameras: Look at what you took fro

Written by Eric Li from College Station High School, Texas, USA Today is the final day of spring break, 2025. I should be at the beach, toes buried in warm sand, listening to waves crash against the shore. Instead, I'm standing in a funeral home, staring at my grandfather's faded baseball cap. This is my first funeral. My parents have no relatives in the U.S. I've never been to anything like this.' Laughter drifts from the service next door: warm, fond laughter. I hear them s