Suprise Me

Her mouth rounded as she faced us and said, "This is Oh--Oh--repeat after me: Read More

In 1989, there were several reports of tourists being killed while visiting game parks in Kenya. When people found out that we were about to travel to Africa, they asked with alarm, “Should you really go?” Read More

Once the shutdown happened, a friend phoned me asking when I thought we'd be released from it. "June," I replied without hesitation. I so wanted to be wrong, but the data guided me. Read More

Doctors and patients: the body politic. Read More

Revising the editor Limits, rules, restrictions, guidelines, walls, trigger my auto-response of arising fierce Kali-spirit that demands the shaking off of the yoke burdening my shoulders, spitting out the bit between my teeth, severing the ball and chain cutting into my ankle, and pulling the barbed wire from around my throat, to run wildly into… Read More

I imagine the smoke-filled room: a group of fat cats sit around a table. Their shirt sleeves are rolled up, they puff on stumpy cigars, their foreheads are slick with sweat. It’s getting late; the hours tick by while the discussion gets heated. Voices get louder and the shouted comments are laced with profanity. Fists… Read More

Trying my best to “keep calm and carry on.” Read More

(Note: this prompt first came up on July 23, 2018, which is when this story was originally written and published. I have added some new anecdotes and made some edits. It should be noted that as a high school teenager, I was not paying much attention to the political world around me.) The radio alarm… Read More

I don't remember much from that week, except for Tony ... Every time his eyes connected with mine, my heart gave a squeeze and then a leap. Read More

He marched into the high school and asked to be directed to "the headmaster's office." Read More