The Dead Lion
Of all the grim journeys a soldier must face, none may be more daunting and unpredictable than returning home from war. If accompanied by great personal loss, the tension, anxiety and uncertainty of survival never give way completely to normalcy. Anger, alienation, and feelings of helplessness remain. This is the emotional terrain of “The Dead Lion,” which tells the story of a young, Army vet raging against the futility and moral complexity of what happens when the enemy we face is inside us.
Hailstorm
Rook left the barracks and headed out onto the blacktop where a crowd of twenty or thirty protesters had gathered on this bright sunny day and were lined up along the open field on the opposite side of the street holding their signs aloft and hooting and caterwauling when they
Grief Wrapped in Guilt Wrapped in Loss
The two women were talking to one another across the counter when the phone rang. Excuse me, Edith said and answered it. Okay, sure. Okay. Yes, well can’t you make them? They can’t tell you anything? What’s their number then, I’ll call them myself? Hello? Sorry,
Misery Loves Company
After he’d left the CO’s office John David spent the rest of the afternoon sitting at a bar amongst the couple of other lone warriors scattered about, like buoys bobbing in the dark current, their shoulders slumped but for the occasional sigh and despite there being nothing but
Resolve, Part One
He sat at the table and by the light of the small table lamp studied the worn road atlas. There all the land opened wholly before him, flat, pallid and bleak, the corners curling skyward as he searched amongst the smudges and gray silhouettes, a bloodshot array of roadwork, for
Thanks for Nothing
Edith pulled down the drive to the house and rattled to a stop next to a late-model, blue sedan. She just sat there trying to place the owner and then finally got out and walked over and cupped her hands to the glass. The inside was spotless, glistening clean, floor
Clinging to Relevance
The motel sat back from the road along a tall stretch of longleaf pines where nested, according to the Restricted signs reflected in the Jeep’s headlights, a population of red-cockaded woodpeckers. John David parked beneath the lighted entranceway and turned off the engine and looked at the little dog,
Grounded
In a rhombus of chaff and sunlight perched a gray-haired, old man on a metal stool, his eyes were closed and his head bowed reverently, like some parody of a backwoods preacher in his dusty coveralls and open palms resting on a sprawling conveyor contraption as if communing with the