The armor comes off, piece by piece. A strand of Kessia’s long red hair has twisted itself around the latch of the left pauldron. There’s no untangling it, caked in blood and gore and God knows what else. Kessia doesn’t flinch when I cut through it with a knife from the kitchen. She doesn’t do […]
The lock-step of soldiers struck the cracked dark cobbles, a bounding rhythm in time to the beats of Liwei’s heart.A line of people slumped by the entrance to his house. The half-light obscured their faces in shadow, yet he knew their figures even in death.Mama. Baba. Uncle. Old Bingwen.“Ge-Ge,” his sister whined beside him. “I […]
My neighbor spreads a blanket on his grease-stained garage floor, easing down with a grunt.“You okay, Bob?”“Oh, just fine. She’s so beautiful, thought I’d take a little nap with her.”He’s referring to his lawn mower, a simple apple-red push-mower. The old man’s losing it. I finish my morning walk and go inside to get some […]
How can you tell when something’s broken beyond repair? For some things, it’s easy to tell when they’re beyond the help of Gorilla Glue or duct tape: a shattered glass, a watch that no longer tells time, a semi truck tire spreading strips of popped rubber on the highway. But some things are more difficult […]