“Do you remember the couple we met at the Lalonde wedding,” Ellen asked, picking up a four-jar gift pack – Tandoori, Balti, two other labels Jack couldn’t read from where he stood – and examining it. She had convinced him to celebrate Diwali this year in support of their daughter Megan’s betrothal to Aarush, a med student from Jaipur. The thought of it gave him heartburn, the food, the possibility of meeting Aarush’s parents and celebrating a Hindu religious festival, penance Ellen exacted for his attitude toward their nuptials. Not that he cared about their religion, or any religion really. But Megan was only twenty-one and finishing her bachelor’s in music therapy. Aarush still had to complete two years of interning.
Now here he was following her around the aisles at Penzey’s Spices.… ...continue reading
Our plans were made in the wake of disaster. We endured two hours on a 27-mile-stretch of stop-and-go roadblocks and hazard-flashing work crew trucks before reaching what we assumed was downtown Miami. The television aerials of chaotic devastation since the storm had been dramatic. But on the ground, the smells, the rotting food in the tropical September heat, the stench of decomposing carcasses of pets, backyard animals, and vegetation was overwhelming, not something film footage could capture.
We had driven eight hours total. The massive hurricane ravaged Miami two weeks prior and four of us, a professor, a realtor, an engineer, and me, a physician decided to volunteer with the cleanup. We had been close friends for twenty years. But now we were just church guys trying to help: Life is for service.… ...continue reading
The third jump wakes the turtle, expatriate of the brackish backwater. And when no one is watching, the tides – inch by inch, neither salt nor fresh – erode my half acre. My half-life
spent sideswiping mile markers of gravel and tar and spinning spinning elliptically with inflated verve. Summoned
back not just to indentured space, but slingshot to lace and latticework, the familiar linens and pillows still holding
our heads’ heat and indented shapes. All trace evidence, all reluctant keepsakes.
I am a planet again.
I remember closing time when the cabana boys appeared. They would gather the sodden towels arch with sifted sand and roll their rickshaws along the boardwalk. The day ceiling… ...continue reading
The isolated village didn’t appear on any maps. It existed just below the timberline, surrounded by stands of white pine trees. Less than four hundred people lived there and those who did had done so their entire lives. When or how the sundown to sunrise Skeleton Day ritual became a tradition was unknown. But it had taken place every seven years at the Winter Solstice for as long as anyone could remember.
Preparations for the observance involved every man, woman, and child in the village. In the week leading up to Skeleton Day, the men gathered small branches, large tree limbs. They also trimmed logs to be the main poles of the three bonfires they’d construct on the village common. Heavy with frozen sap, the logs had to be trussed up with ropes and dragged by hand across the frozen ground.… ...continue reading
God-With-Us was walking through a Birmingham suburb, followed by a large crowd. Many who lived in that neighborhood came out on their front porches, angered that the crowd was trampling their lawns and setting off their car alarms. Assuming it was another peaceful protest, they shouted obscenities and waved their firearms in the air.
But one woman ran out to God-With-Us, saying, “I saw you healing people on the news! Please come inside and help my mother. She is terribly sick with the flu.”
So, God-With-Us went in and healed the woman. She got out of bed and, seeing the crowd, began making iced tea and brownies for everyone. God-With-Us rose to leave, but could not even make it to the front door because the crowd kept shoving another sick or injured or disabled person in front of him.… ...continue reading
