I enjoy teaching 19th century novels for three years at a small private college before a student steps forward to query the bias in my curriculum. He is a serious, hardworking student with perfect attendance. He portends an earnestness for which I am not prepared. It is the unreported thunderstorms, the torrential rains presaged by quiet, windless skies, which cause the most damage.

My Dearest Sometimes I think they did it deliberately, these nations, started this war just to separate you and me. Sometimes I think they all did, these strange cowards who’ll follow me into battle. That’s unfair, after all I don’t know them – for all my bitter mind knows they could have their own Dearest waiting for them at home, pouring over the letters they write, waiting for that next train to bring them home.

Gerald is sitting in a wingchair in the lobby, waiting. His walker’s in easy reach of his right hand. Periodically his head drops to his chest and he wakes up startled. Tom comes to a stop in front of him and coughs gently into his hand. “Sorry I’m late, heavy traffic.” “No problem, Tom. I like being alone with my thoughts.” “Is that the good news or the bad news?” “You tell me. I’m trying to be philosophical. Like my doc tells me, ‘a day at a time.’”

It wasn’t that we particularly enjoyed Lolo Genesis’s death. It was more like a sigh of relief because the guy was kind of a dick. Buena and I were not purposefully attempting to live out an irreverent, dark comedy by playing music and dancing on his grave. We were raised with standards. The inherited musical and creative types by nature. Call it genetics.

After he awoke, he did not remember his name for many days. By then, the mess of line that had tangled around his ankle had peeled away. He’d also found the transom of his boat, The Aloha, broken over a sandbar and stretched and twisted and torn like chewing gum. Now he remembered her, a lovely little schooner with a cream-colored deck over a small one-man cabin. The atoll, too, was small. It was so small one could see its east coast from its westernmost point.

The first time he came to our house I was six or seven. My sister and I were playing on the carpet in the living room. Mom told us to be quiet and he sat down heavily on the couch. She served him a glass of water and we watched him drink it. His flannel shirt made crisp little tearing sounds against the cushion covers. Mom made those herself out of yarn from the hobby store.

Outside the funeral home wet, heavy snowflakes fell on an approaching incandescent Christmas while Binary stood before an open coffin with the echo of his father’s desperate screams reverberating in his head. “Ones and Zeros! Ones and Zeros!” Binary rubbed his face with his thick, moist hands dreading the onslaught of well-wishers and empathizers. He already missed the comfort of his house; the safe, familiar walls, the cushy easy chair sitting before a glowing television, and the absence of unfamiliar people expressing uncomfortable emotions.

Once upon a time there was a great forest that stretched for miles and miles along a tranquil river. The river was wide and long, and the azure water glimmered like crystals. If the river was followed deep enough into the wood, there could be found a small cottage tucked beneath the bosom of a mountain. The cottage was covered in countless flowers, and berries, and all sorts of vined things that grew out and up from a large garden. Inside the cottage there lived a little girl and her mother. This little girl was the sweetest, most docile child one could encounter. She had large eyes the color of umber and dark curly hair that shone reddish-brown in the springtime sun.

Yo-Yo Epic refereed over-the-moon contests were sponsored by Duncan Toys Inc outside the best local movie theater where we saw twenty-five cartoons for a quarter. Plus the raffle winner with the luckiest ticket got to bring a box of chocolates home to mother.

The Luminous Mysteries For the better part of an hour, I sit in an examination room, my nose dripping onto the butcher paper, having feigned interest in the fake breast handed to me by a doctor at this urgent care.

A Broken Hearted Orange The orange on the counter is no longer an orange, It can no longer be used for its nutritious value, For all I see is a sunset peeling atop the skyscrapers in the city. It can no longer smell like fresh citrus, For the sound of sweet jazz music fills the room. The orange can no longer be just an orange, Because of you—

Performer He stood adjusting on the small white pedestal Waiting for the lamb eyed crowd to bend their knees and soften Their breath. Looking out he weighed the gold that was still heavy in his heart, Felt its warmth in his palm as he prepared to cast it into the shining sea.

Sea Memories The red fish dangles Among a set of pictures Stuck to a wall with tape Which won’t stick for too long The photos depict sea nomads In a generation’s past When fish was abundant And boats were still scarce

Reflection Under Yellow Sky Sitting at a counter in the stoplight diner, I stared out the window, you staring back at me. The traffic had travelled down FM 202, Leaving the road dusty, chaff-filled After the thresher had fed. Only you kept me company.

Hearing I You sit in a dimly lit courtroom facing Maat. Her veiled face tilts downward at an oak board with etchings that you can’t make out. Shadows slither in the room, shuffling into position but you can’t see them; the spotlight is only on her and you.

Hidden Nature Heraclitus said, “Nature likes to hide itself.” At the heavy sound of human feet, Chipmunks scurry for leafy cover, While snails recoil and pretend not to be home, And moles find refuge beneath the sod.

Thoughts My Morning Coffee Stirs I believe in the strength of the first sip of coffee and the rickety leg on the chair at the table. I believe her tattooed shoulder, against my tattooed thigh never altered the planet’s arch, nor the speed cancer grows on a kidney, nor how many children will be cold tonight as they sleep.

He sat there on the edge of the pond, remembering the days before the edict was passed. He and the neighborhood kids used to sail boats on its still waters. Sometimes they would race their boats, and sometimes they would lazily let them float from shore to shore. Jack kept those moments locked away, trying not to think of the times where happiness thrived. By doing so, he missed it less, almost fooling himself into submission. Though, try as he might, he could never forget those days. With a sigh, he picked up his school bag from off the ground and headed towards his university. After a full day of math and science—the arts forgotten in the aftermath of the edict—Jack began his journey home. Jack meandered down the side streets in no hurry to reach his destination when something caught his eye. There, on a gate he’d passed by at least a couple of times on days like today when he had nowhere to go but still didn’t want to go home, was a rainbow.

Of all the goddamned places to be stuck when World War III kicks off, I thought. The news on the old TV in the restaurant was Russian – Cyrillic script scrolling by beneath the newscaster reading the headlines – but Zhenya was translating for me, occasionally going silent for long moments, her fingers tapping her front teeth, her eyes fixed on the screen. This can’t be for real, my mind raced, cavitating. I tried texting Jason, the copilot, still back at the Malah, but there was no service showing on my phone. No texts. No email. No service. Jesus Christ. Jason had stayed back at the squalid hovel that passed for an airport hotel. It was isolated, connected to town only by the ice road that crossed the frozen bay between Anadyr and the boneyard of crumbling Soviet Bloc tenements and the abandoned rusting equipment and gutted concrete bunkers that fringed the airport.

Looking back, she was my first love. She had the strength of character and the courage of her convictions to endure any hardship life could throw her way. On my second day as a firefighter, my captain ordered me to accompany him across the street to the local gas station on a call about “a cat stuck in a tree.” I did as I was told, donned my gear, and walked to the tree to ponder how I could climb it without scaring the small feline to higher elevations or encouraging it to confront my face with its claws. These are the decisions for officers, not rookie firefighters.

You do that quite well. Can you do it again. The repeat has a gold medal for showing up and making a fool out of itself. The comfortable repeat lives in a big house up on a hill. At night, his living room comes out and does a little dance. You can hear Dizzy Gillespie blowing a horn made out of brass that knows every note on the scale needs to be primped. A little lipstick here, eye liner, brush those cheeks like you wanted them to bear the beauty of jazz.

I walk into his office; the name in brass on the door reads Dr. Adam Reagan. I sit on the small plush chair and pull my feet under me, my warm mug of tea in my hands. He smiles when I slide into the seat and sigh. He thinks he is breaking me but there is no way I can allow that to happen, not after everything I think I have been through. “Where do I begin,” I say, I don’t mean it to sound sarcastic but to my ears the words sound sharp like tiny pieces of glass in my mouth.

My roommate and I were both freshers and had both been assigned temporary accommodation at the college hostel. My mother hadn’t paid the hostel fee and because she knew someone who knew one of the college administrators, I was allowed temporary accommodation for ten days. She promised she would send the money before those days were up. The matron, a portly nun with a serious face, said she didn’t care.

His country is the land of paradox and contradiction; where a frustrating government pleads for more productivity but can’t provide an efficient bus system to get people to work on time. Clifton—or the newly stylized Cliff, as his well-to-do friends call him—knows he should have been out of the apartment at least fifteen minutes ago if he wants to catch an early bus to get to work. He works doubly hard at his job in the ICT sector, which means he gives online technical support to people overseas. In his hurry, he pulls a T-shirt over his thin frame, only to realise it’s on backwards. He fixes it while struggling with his keys to lock the front door, then runs off before noticing that he’s left his phone and has to turn back.