The forty-minute flight from Washington DC had been bad enough, their eighteen-seat prop jet bucking and yawing on every stray gust, but when Cheryl stepped out onto the tarmac at the tiny Lathrop airfield and felt that first rude slap of Southern humidity, her stomach lurched again into her throat. Cheryl Crawford had been raised […]
Death grabbed hold of my son’s body. Its power lingered over his head, attending without permission, bringing chaos, inspiring awe, and spreading a sense of anxiety and alarm. It demonstrated its inexorable strength as my four-year-old child made a temporary visit to the otherworld before Allah answered my invocations. That day began as a sunny, […]
I met my new roommate, John Clark Hoover, on the first day at college. He was spread out on a multicolored quilt reading Slaughterhouse Five, smoking a joint. He greeted me with a simple wave of his jointed hand without taking his eyes off the book’s page. He eventually offered me a toke, which I […]
For nearly forty years, the builder-grade split-levels had squatted side by side in a cul-de-sac south of Atlanta. Only skeletal remains of shrubs dotted the perimeter of the house on the right. Extravagant rosebushes adorned the house on the left, where Joan knelt with pruning shears, her cutting making a reassuring sssst-sssst sound as she […]