The massive harvest table swelled with Soylent, Guinea Fowl, Sicilian oranges, Pule cheese, pandemain, honey, cloves, and black cardamon for the wedding . The dead bride propped in the cathedra. Her garland of Delphiniums shrivelling. A suckling pig, still shackled to the spit, its trotters tanned, skin crispy, made me swoon. We approached slowly uncertain if we would be welcome. They waved us forward, their hand motioning like the pope, partially outstretched with fourth and little fingers curled inward. Jerzy didn’t budge. Waited for me to do my thing. My garment concealing the weapon. Darkness obscuring everything, and nothing. Through the wee hours we gorged on the spoils, sucking bones and roux, leaving nothing but crumbs. Reclined in the winter garden beneath a mangled grapevine canopy until dawn, smoking fat hand-rolled cigars, the toothy wrappers full of dark flavour. When morning broke, the mayhem and horror of the previous night was laid bare. Stone walls executed with torre...
Outside the Heart of the North, it’s 2061 . Inside, it’s 1957, and the veterans prefer it this way. At the Heart, we keep the technology simple, hell, nostalgic: black and white televisions, a 1955 Frigidaire for the beer. A jukebox by the door. No computers. No phones. A cash register straight out of the Smithsonian, and definitely, no weapons. My wife, Latisha, suggested that the bar’s moniker should be, “Leave your war behind.” But that’s impossible. Even the best drugs can’t make you forget the killing. The terror. The guilt. They lie too deep within internal spaces to be eradicated. Despite the latest storm, almost a blizzard, many of the regulars have shown: Menawa, Aydan, and two others sit in the corner hunched over chessboards sharing good-natured insults, and, on occasion, stories of their tours in Mongolia, Vietnam, and other mineral-rich countries. To my left, next to the pinball machine, Cassie and Ellie share the latest pictures of their grandchildren—color prints. E...