I once taught a course called Literature of War at a small community college shortly before the first Iraq war. One assignment I gave was to interview someone who had been in a war about their experiences. For most of my students that would have been a father or...
Editor’s Note: This story is an excerpt from a novel-in-progress. In the dark of the hall, Faraaz watches his brothers Manzoor and Adil alternately going to the toilet. It’s okay. They’ll tell when they’re ready. You can’t expect fifteen- and thirteen-year-old boys to...
The night before sailing for America with Comte de Rochambeau’s naval fleet, Antoine Cocq cracked one kneepan while pleading to convince Marie Barbe to marry him. The force of his kneel didn’t split the bone, though he had with passion dropped to her skirt hem. He...
“Ok, you’re gonna feel a little pinch.” What I feel is not a little pinch. A white-hot spear of memory and consequence slowly twists its way into the small of my back. A serpent, coiled around my spine, thrashes against the violation hissing it memory-filled outrage....
How it happen like this. Listen: Melissa Jim say Rayburn can carry flag. The good flag? say Rayburn. Melissa Jim laugh. Same for Bubba and Jon-Jon. Even Grandpa snicker. Rayburn grit teeth and squeeze handle of pistol-gun in waistband. What you gonna do with that...
It’s like the face of her had changed—like she’s someone else, someone you used to know but can’t quite put your finger on. She greets you warmly, that same smile, her hair whitened by the years, makeup covering the lines that crisscross her skin. She’s visiting her...
Smiling like his patron saint Sisyphus, Squirrel guided the purple Mustang from the amber glow of sunset at Santa Monica Pier to a ridge in the San Gabriel mountains. Into the darkness. Always uphill. Squirrel had been there and done that. Shrapnel biting his...
Once again, I’m here at a hardware store, oddly inspecting at-attention shovels standing their platoon. Each shovel is in their designated cubbies and holes, one next to the other, like vertical coffins. Some appear homespun in length and with hickory handles, built...
Armenian professors massacred by the Turks. From: Amēnun taretsʻuytsʻě : zbōsali u pitani. (1921) We made our way across the culvert. The few of us left who remembered digging it exchanged glances. The waters now flowed and tadpoles teemed in the ripples. We were...
Our son was killed in action six months ago in Afghanistan on his third tour of duty. Mildred and I eat and sleep and dream in our small house by the old Sanford gristmill, keeping memories away like ice from a sensitive tooth. I stand by my writing desk near the bay...
