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
Fabia wasn’t sure why her entrails grew suddenly cold, just where the baby had begun to stir. She wasn’t superstitious, she’d laughed at the crazy predictions of Aurelia the retired Vestal Virgin like everyone else in the city. When Aurelia… Continue Reading
No, I don’t want a cigarette. *** Everything was going according to plan. I met my contact in a dingy bar in the bowels of a low-class brothel. A cesspool of thieves and perverts looking to ply their sick fantasies… Continue Reading
Andromache thought that when they burned Hector upon his pyre, they should just burn the rest of Troy with him. It was to happen soon anyway, without him to guard their gates, and she had told him as much, the… Continue Reading
August 30th, 2005 It’s eerie: the stillness when I looked at everything I ever called home underwater. There was a surge of unease in the air. One that whispered, though the storm had passed, the worst had yet to come.… Continue Reading