Yes, I remember that railroad flat we shared on the third floor, the one with the chandeliers and dumbwaiter closet and wall heater with no heat. In my narrow room with its blue desk and single bed, you sat between my knees while I braided your hair. We listened to the rhythmic rocking of the gay lovers making love above, and the alley echo of the boy below, with whom I’d mistakenly slept, who incessantly played his drum set. During my brief love affair with flamenco I bought a used pair of character shoes, black with a thin strap and the metal taps still nailed on, then stomped staccatos on his ceiling in defiance.

Here are six stories from diverse voices and literary publications that point to the profound power of personal narrative: a global record from multiple nuanced perspectives. [T]hese authors tackle social issues from structural racism and the stigma of disability to repressive political regimes. Each one chronicles the heartache of disconnection and demonstrates the importance of collective remembrance.

At the beginning of our relationship, whenever my wife asked for my help cooking, she would tell me exactly what to do and how to do it. "So here's what I want," she'd say, demonstrating how to wash endive leaves to make crudités before whipping up the dip. A culinary-school graduate with a commanding personality, Kristen spoke with authority and acted with efficiency. In other words, she was bossy.

Morning pages. Morning stillness. Starting anew on a Monday. Stars are still visible while birds sing up the day as you sit in your pajamas to write. If all you ever penned were these pages, would they be enough? Doubtful. Your hunger is a whisper, gnawing from within. No need to feed the beast an entire feast at once. It’s easy to get overwhelmed. Start with a few words, a few pages. No pressure to produce.

I awaken to dawn light illuminating the glossy privet, its white clusters of fragrant blossoms attracting honeybees to its branches. Their distant buzzing drifts through the open window as I slip back into drowsy sleep. Most mornings, still in my robe, I sip coffee on the side porch while the sun warms my back. Make bed. Wash face. Open the farm gate.

I’ll make you a little something to eat, just finish what’s on your plate and then brush your teeth, no, don’t lick your fingers, that’s obscene, use your napkin, please, would you stop picking your nose, and if you keep biting that lip it might peel right off, goddammit, get your feet off that chair, unless you want to pay for it, now why don’t you go get dressed, just holler when you’re ready, well, there’s no need to yell, I’m right here, why must you always torture me with that horrid sound...

Two decades ago I met a futurist. Maggie wore a peasant blouse over her ruffled skirt, but she didn’t pull out a tarot deck as I’d imagined. Instead, she spread out a map. She drew an index finger up the coastline of Western Australia and marked our location, just east of Geraldton. "Everyone claims the Outback as the epitome of this country, but most people cloister in cities along the coast,” she said, pointing to Perth.

In the middle of the night, sirens startle me awake. My ears prick to the wind. Oak branches whip the sky like Medusa’s head of snakes—a raspy hiss. Plastic pool chairs scuttle across asphalt. Beside me in bed, my wife’s breath halts, sensing, before the cadence shifts back into slumber. I write in red ink while she sleeps. It’s fire season in California. October, my birthday month. Fall was always my favorite. But that was before.

Last week I skipped my morning workout to sleep in after awakening at 4:50 with hot flashes. Instead, I ate a coffee cake muffin, adding to my muffin top, which is apparently aiding my hot flashes. I got rid of an old VHS of Buns of Steel (was that mine?!). I may have to add Lisa’s Jazzercise to my routine. Jazz hands! I, too, subsist on garden tomatoes on toast in late summer. And I like miso tuna.

My late father-in-law, Nels, helped out each day after school, collecting eggs and later hauling them to town in a Chevy truck with his special farmwork driver’s license. In addition, they sold milk and cream and raised hay, vetch, and oats for sale. Farmers typically worked 10-hour days. When someone needed a chicken house roof, friends worked together until they got it done.

Every Monday morning we gather on the sagging sofas, some of us crosslegged, holding cushions to our chests, and report on the week’s cases. There is the woman I accompanied to the courtroom to testify after she was held hostage by a fiancé in a cabin for three days. It took effort to ignore the swastika tattoos on her forearms. . .

Sometimes he took us to Original Joe’s where we watched the line cooks move fast pans over the flames from our counter stools. Otherwise it was Tommy’s Joynt on Van Ness or the Jewish deli on Polk where I’d order a block of cream cheese wedged between two halves of a bagel. For my father: corned beef on rye, a little yellow mustard, but otherwise dry.

Do not ask when we will open, our blooming like tides, cannot be hastened. If we seem as weeds where there was once lawn, don’t pull up. Wait. These petals will unfold like crepe paper cups each holding a golden sun.

Most of the beach bars were boarded up for the season, their stacked plastic chairs huddled against the wind. Walking in wet sand, I shirked the stares of a passing stranger and sulked. I longed for shared laughter with my lover and missed pouring Portuguese over my tongue.

During the summer of 1999, despite an impending world economic crisis and the speculative doom of Y2K, I quit my job to hit the open road. Whatever contents of my Humboldt County cottage weren’t sold at a yard sale were transferred to storage. I even gave away the cat. I packed the hatchback of my blue ‘82 Datsun B210 with what I believed to be a few road trip essentials . . .

I’ve grown accustomed to my brother’s rants as well as his delusions of grandeur. In five years he’ll own ten properties! He’ll become a millionaire! His obsession with money is matched only by his impulsivity. Two months before high school graduation, he had an epiphany: all he ever wanted, he realized, was love.

"I could just close my eyes and sleep," says my mother-in-law. She rubs at her temples then scoots back in her recliner to watch the evening news. When my wife and her brother took her shopping for a shower chair, the simple act of shuffling from car to store wore her out. Now, when her friends invite her to the movies or for a walk she says, "I don’t think I’m up for that."

As oceans-full of sky unleash spring storms to wash away drought it’s difficult to picture this earth parched, now wet with fresh bark from a pile by the barn. Even the sheep sound unsettled, their patterned movement between pastures disrupted. The lambs bleat—a call-and-response—to bridge the distance. Always after it rains there is a stillness. We creatures tune in, listening while we shelter: the drip of oak leaf onto gravel, the swish of a wing. . .

It is impossible, upon visiting Australia, to resist the allure of Uluru. The world’s largest monolith, also known as Ayers Rock, towers more than 1,000 feet above an arid desert plain in the so-called Red Centre of the island continent. For years, anyone determined to scale the massif could clamber up a mile-long route, assisted by a chain handrail bolted into the sandstone.