On the couch again, she propped her feet up on the turquoise ottoman and picked up her book but found she couldn’t concentrate.

My chest is still buzzing when we rise together from the planks and wander into the meadow.

They followed a path down to the shore, suddenly aware of the silence,

I turned toward her, trying to appear as though I were looking for a seat or watching out the window.

Had I been asleep, I might have missed the sound, like a strange scuttling against the walls. I glanced over at the boy in the corner, but he remained silent

A few days later, when they reclaim some of their courage, they call their daughter once more. Kavita explains that her condition is called PTSD.

Megh flings himself on the bed and takes the calendar from the table beside his bed. He has marked today's date.

His covers were bunched up and his arm was stretched out towards the door in the ordering gesture. He laid back down.

The police asked him “to come down the station”.  Those were their exact words, as if spoken on a television show, as if there were a script for this kind of thing.

She left the next morning. Asif did not put up a fight. He simply sat at the kitchen table while she packed her things.

Yes, yes, she continued to work while I was building the company but look at what she has now? She drives a Mercedes!

As Didi walks away, you look around and notice the acadia tree by the neighbour’s yard. Two boys are gathered around it, struggling to reach the top branch which holds a prized mango.

Mansi looks at them. They seem terrified. A sense of guilt starts seeping into her heart.

There was no brain death. Even the night of the full moon came and went, but his brain had other plans.

I had my first seizure age 14. This created another original fear.

Only the car door and that chain-link fence separate me from the most glorious

She was determined to get the shop closed. It was destroying too many families.

The next day I wrote myself a check for $400, detasseling money from the summer,

He had the same easy smile as Patrick, but his eyes were more calculating. They roved over her red flared pants, her pale blue shirt, her hair done up in ringlets.

Father had gotten the fabric from a business partner who had been to Bombay and it was rumored to be the most expensive of fabrics.

Earlier at dinner Johnny had been singled out, oldest boy, to perform. “Tell us what’s up in the sky at night, Johnny.”

He watches it drop silently into the trench between the soldier’s legs. Yuri clenches, as if the grenade has dropped into his own lap. The Russian soldier scrambles to rise up as the grenade explodes. Yuri stubs out his cigarette in