It was picture day. Mom took us all to the park. The whole family, I mean. It was her, dad, both sets of grandparents, all 8 great-grandparents, my sister, my brother, his kid, and all our aunts and uncles and cousins and second cousins and third cousins and their dogs and cats and kindergarten teachers. There were 63,293 of us in all. And mom had us all wear the same thing: blue jeans and red shirts.
We all gathered under the shade of the mighty elm and then the photographer took the picture. She had to take 37 shots to...
Wide, flat expanses lend themselves to romance. The romance of the open air and the sky as they meet the horizon and walk away. In this dusty corner of the world the muezzin stirs. He who calls the believers to prayer.
Allahu Akbar, Allahu Akbar.
Allahu Akbar into the rising sun. Allahu Akbar to the departing night. Bleary eyed with sandalled feet, the faithful congregate through the thick dust. Voices hushed as though in respect as the light beckons.
Awake for morning in the bowl of night,
Has flung the stone that puts the stars to flight,
And Lo, the...
I was hit in the face with a solid WHAP!! A SMACK!! A fist hitting my face with a CRACK!! My nose is broken. Oh, why did I have to go and insult the gang leader in prison. I didn't know! All I knew was that he was being an a-hole to me, so I called him just that. And now I'm tied to a cafeteria chair and all I hear is CRACK SMACK WHAP!! The security aren't doing anything. I guess they're afraid of them too. Oh I'm screwed. Here it comes again. WHAP!!
A life of dots was all she'd known. At first it was the small dots that appeared in the corners of her vision on sunny days. Then those dots went away as the days grew dimmer.
The next dots were the tablets the doctors gave her to "slow the loss of function."
And ever since then, dots touching fingertips, bringing meaning, sometimes memory.
"Stacy, come on! Hurry up!"
I huffed as I ran behind him. "John-" pant, pant, "please, for the love of all-" pant, pant, "-that is holy. Slow down!"
He laughed, and continued to run, as though we were children still. Adults don't run. They tell other kids to stop running. And for good reason, too! It's tiring!
He stopped at the top and looked down at me, watching me walk the rest of the way. As soon as I reached his side, I frowned at his gorgeous hazle green stare.
And he smiled.
"Could kill you, ya know," I huffed....
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Once, in Beijing, a young girl in a red gown huddled in a doorway. She was tired - her mother had been taking her from door to door all morning looking for ... what exactly? She wasn't sure, but she knew more than her mother thought she did. She watched the kids play who weren't her.
She was the product of two Peace Corps volunteers, and this adventure teaching English in China was the next step. AmeriCorps, Peace Corps, MercyCorps, and now the less valiantly named R4 English Tutoring. She should have been starting second grade this year, but she...
The water was clear! 30 long years of work and finlly the whole barren wasteland could expirience an new life. we had acheived the most important feat for the rebuilding of world. now the whole world could focus on mo
I spent days in the field, hoping to see something bloom. The desert surrounded me like the ocean that surrounds an island. The farm was my island, but the desert seemed to stretch on forever. I could feel my spirits drop, the hope I previously had, burnt into wispy embers. Dark, black roots were sprawled all across the field and it only made my stomach droop as much as my hope. I heard my stomach grumble, and the craving biting into the edges of my abdomen. Desperation was my last resort. I searched one more time, holding onto the remnants...
Balanced on the line, he told her again, "Put it down!"
She couldn't move even if she had wanted to, the butt of the gun felt slippery in her clammy hands but she refused to reliquish her hold on it. The line was a mere streak in the dust, but the signifance of that line, oh the significance that it held. It held the entire future, hers and his, the future of nations.
"Put it down, and step toward me."
"Back off!" She shouted, readjusting her grip on the gun and aiming it squarely at his chest.
"Just step over...