There was a cabin in the center of a grove. Trees like giants. It looked like they were scraping the sky. This cabin sat right in the middle of a small clearing. Tall ceilings. Big porch. Windows everywhere. It was beautiful. Once a girl found this cabin. It was like finding a gem after picking away at rubble for so long. She quickly settled in. After all, the cabin was empty and looked long forgotten. Also, she had been walking for days and days and days, wandering. It was s

Lucy stepped on an ancient landmine outside Girvetz Hall. I talked to her Brother, Suvin, about it while we were on the beach, and Lucy was treated in the aid center. “If it had been one of those new ones, I’m not sure there would be any Lucy left.” He said. Across the sea, the single oil platform stood proud and sturdy, impressing us from miles off the coast. The green, littered waves came lazily ashore in a way that almost made them look safe. We continued down the bea

Her eyes were shiny and still, like glass. Her skin, now the texture of porcelain, and devoid of any life; pale as the face of a ghost. The frequency of a thousand shattering dolls rang through the space between her ears as she mindlessly played the cello. She could not feel the bow in her right hand or the instrument pressing her thighs. She could not feel anything. The fair lady stared into the dull abyss of the crowd with a tragic blindness.  1968  Tabitha Rogers was a s

August of 1999  When Jim Gradferd died, everyone in the bloodline had rushed to the chapel, even those who weren’t speaking to him during his lifespan.  Mammilyn Gradferd, the feeble widow of Jim Gradferd, had taken a seat in the back row of the church, staring at her husband’s solemn portrait that was displayed on the left side of the casket. His black tie looked more faint and his limpid eyes looked more cloudy under the gleam of the pristine chandeliers.  The Pastor

It was just three quick days after his death that our father’s cremation appointment had us driving across town. He rode in the trunk. His body was all wrapped up in linen, just his shoes sticking out one end because they were so hard to contain. He died suddenly. “Something wrong with his guts,” they said in a diagnosis five days ago. His illness took over in a week, and soon enough he was more illness than anything else. It started with intense sweating that gave way to de