Federico tells me it's too cold here but some choice. You go out one morning, the car hood's open a little; three sticks of dynamite and this is the third time. In Salvador you take the hint: you leave. Ginny Fung writes of the love of her and her husband. The first English she learned was curses. Those faces she could read in any language. Cyrous on the most profound moment of his life writes a vague tribute to world harmony and brotherhood. When I question it, he says I am a Baha'i from Iran. This is for my friends, not wanting me to seem foolish. I nod dumbly as he explains he was made to watch as the blades fell and their heads dropped in the street. Leong Hiu who now signs her name Lisa has not seen her brother since the night the pirates boarded in the China Sea, tells me she likes the winter here because when she wakes all the white stars are lying on the ground. Shatha tells the class I am visiting my mother after work babysitting my sister's children when the sirens went. We hid under the table covering my nieces with our bodies as the bombs fell the teapot shattered. Everything crashing, it seemed forever. You were watching that night on your televisions: Desert Storm. Dan says it began in April. Two million of us sir, in the Square, I was so proud to be Chinese. I was a reporter when the official came into the office and said, no more stories! I was so angry I quit. When the tanks came in June - we ran, hearing the screams, too scared to look back. Now I can no longer write, I study computers Fardad speaks of a trip to the front with his friend who asked to drive. We stopped for water. I was gone a minute. When I came out, a missile, there was nothing left. At the court martial, his mother screamed at me, I should have been in his place. And me, what do I know. I am a man on the beach where the boats come in.
©Bruce Hunter, 2000 -- unauthorized duplication prohibited