The explosion shatters the night. The room shudders; windowpanes rattle like the chains of the damned. Another mortar attack in East Asia. The echo of screams, the gut-punch blast of a grenade rips Stanley from the depths of sleep. Another day of horrors. His eyes snap open, pupils dilated in the darkness, senses sharpened to […]
How old was she? Some thought late sixties. Others said more than seventy-five. She lived on the old street since the war ended. Her row house was not among the few with two stories that were on the street corners. It was a simple house, a single story with two largish rooms off the small […]
When I was a child, I used to talk to Mr. Harrell, who had a habit of visiting me every Sunday. I don’t remember how old I was back then; probably eight or nine. At the time, we had just moved into a new neighborhood that was starting to settle. The street we lived on […]
My neighborhood was an urban menagerie. Snakes and snapping turtles mingled with fast–food wrappers in the creek. Tadpoles swam in street puddles after spring storms. Months later, cars left frog skins baking into the asphalt. The green anole lizard was my favorite. Something about their beady eyes and the way they fought their reflection in […]