I'll Meet You in the Woods
The breath of the earth flew across the land and shook the last leaves from the trees. Candra wrapped her shawl around herself tighter as she traveled along…
Relic
Upon a promontory dim With face set firm and grim “Once I might have chosen Had I once been him.” Turned from valley view Turned from village glow “Once I…
Knowing I Can Run, But I Can't Hide
I have reached a point of surrender, where I’m a little afraid of the future, and I’m definitely scared of feeling at home. You see, I do not wish to call…
Homecoming (2)
Liwliwa had already cast off the larger part of her sea-lion skin by the time Maricel pulled her noisy little boat up to the buoy. For years, she had had few…
Homecoming
Sometimes, on long afternoons like this, Maricel began to feel old. Her hair was still as dark as ever, but every so often she would feel an ache in her limbs…
With the road as our home...
With the road as our home we shall always be free. We’ll travel around with the best company. The ones who consent to forget all their plans. Those who laugh…
The Girl With the Sun in Her Hands
I bet you still sit there, with the sun in your hands. I bet you think about what you always thought about. I bet you talk with that spring in your voice, and…
Strangers Meet
At this point I felt I must try and calm things down. “How about we just have the window open a tiny bit? We’ve just had to run to catch this train. In a few…
Back to the Rain.
The sun shone down on the gleaming tarmac like a blowtorch on impossible ice as the plane finally came to a stop. England once more! the land of my fathers…
Objects in the rear-view mirror...
As the minivan to the airport pulled away from that tiny, insignificant dot that was the last stop on the road out of a country, I could only stare backwards…
Limousine
Jerry held the railing at the top of the stairs, doubled over and gasping for breath. After several minutes, he stood up and looked about. The city was…
The stairs
Jerry ran. The platform swayed and moved in impossible, incomprehensible ways around the oblivious commuters. The stairs no closer after each stride than they…
Wild
“Darling, how nice to see you again!” A pale, blonde woman wafted over to me in a cloud of perfume that contrasted the earthy smell in the air. “How long have…
American Car
Driving past windows of a gas station in a Camaro, eighteen, tattoos, lost. The smooth black surfaces outside shake with increasing speeds. It would be nice to…
The Retort Usually Occurs to Me Only Hours Later
The timing of this encounter (which, by the way, appeared to be quite entertaining to the other passengers judging by their smirks and sniggers) was such that…
The Trouble with Gary
-which is how I knew she was our contact. “I’m terribly sorry,” I said, “My name is Tim Chalmers-Smith.” (it wasn’t; I’d had six active identities that year…
Strangers on a Train... to Watford
I boarded a train at King’s Langley in 1978. Nothing remarkable in that, you might say other than the fact that I’m old enough to have done so. I, with my…
The good old days
The cell was damp and crowded, the air full of the scent of decay and humanity too long in the cage, too long without care, too long without hope. It had been…
Quiet Sendoff
Ben stood in the terminal near Gate 13 at DFW watching the Boeing jet get slowly pushed back into the taxiway. He leaned against a wall and tried to relax as…
Cowhide
“So, where to?” Hirc asked as he reclined the passenger seat of the Cadillac. He got comfortable and folded his hands behind his head. His unbuttoned denim…