We had chosen our baseball teams in the alley behind our houses like always and started to walk down the block to the special lot, the one we still called our prairie; the only open space left in our neighborhood… Continue Reading
Every time my grandpa, my mother’s father, visited us he always brought a crate of fruits or vegetables, whatever he just harvested. I remember I was in second grade when he came by with the crate and asked how I… Continue Reading
How do you kill a vampire? It was a question Grigore Nicolau first asked when he was 4 years old. He was hardly unique. Many of the boys he knew growing up in his hometown wondered the same. There was… Continue Reading
Time to get going! My mother was calling from the kitchen. I turned over in bed and watched her stride into my room in her brisk way and pull the curtains open. The morning sun poured in. We have places… Continue Reading
Soldiers hurl armfuls of books into the fire as I stare in horror. All those words highlighting the human condition diminished to ash. Heartbreaking. A soldier pauses mid-haul, eyeing me. I adjust my glasses, then scramble to my borrowed postal… Continue Reading
Under a cloudless, moonless November sky, a little white Vauxhall bounced down the road, its nervous, inexpert driver grinding gears. Eamon, a round-shouldered giant who looked better suited to the University than the Provisional IRA, squashed into the backseat, stared… Continue Reading
I knew I was condemned from the moment they took the gold candlesticks. They ripped up the carpets and tore aged curtains from their oak rails. Workers clad in grey overalls lifted every part of me away, chucking it into… Continue Reading
Spraying machine gun bullets lit up the hillside as Zhang dodged behind a rock to protect himself. His foe, the American 49th division, was fighting north of what would be later the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ). He had been drafted as… Continue Reading
“It’s me! Your granddaughter, Rachel.” She leaned against the door jam, fingering her shotgun. “I never saw you before.” I nearly cried. “Don’t you remember me?” “Don’t remember much from before three years ago.” “Why not?” She pointed to a… Continue Reading
Tommaso balanced four glasses of beer, stretching his arthritic fingers to keep them from spilling. He placed one each in front of his old friends Sergio and Enrico and left one at an empty seat on the table.All three men… Continue Reading