It’s been two years since I’ve been home. I’ve always had a place to live, but it’s been two years since the place where I live has been my home. The strongest desire of my heart is to feel like I’m home. I’ve struggled to make the places where I’ve lived into homes, but was resisted by controlling people. Now I feel tired and depressed. I feel like there is no reason to care about anything. For many people, home is where...

It’s 1955, on a farm in Round Butte, Montana. I am Eloise, and I’m four. This is what happened today: After chores, and breakfast, and after my older sisters went to school, I followed my mom around. She was cranky and angry and shook her fingers at me in a way that said “leave.” So I sat and looked at my new brother for a minute, but he’s too small to be interesting yet. I climbed upstairs backwards, and sat on my bed an...

“Missus. Missus. Missus.” said the Iraqi teenaged boy. I looked up. The sound “Missus.” Had become like a bird call, a constant background sound that came from the boys on the other side of the wire. “What?” I said. They giggled. “Jiggi-jiggi.” I shrugged and looked away. “Jiggi-jiggi . . . Jiggi-jiggi . . . Jiggi-jiggi . . . Jiggi-jiggi . . . Jiggi-jiggi. . . Missus . . . Jiggi-jiggi . . .Missus . . . Jiggi-jiggi.” this...

It had been more than ten days since I had a shower. It was a sweltering summer in South Korea. I worked the night shift, plotting points on maps and playing war games. During the day I sat at the gate and made sure that only the right people visited. The forest wasn’t too different than the ones I was used to in Montana. Some of the bugs were more like the ones I’d seen in Texas. When I wasn’t working, or on guard duty,...

I’m a few hundred miles from Dogwood. The fuel gage says there’s a little more than a quarter tank of fuel left. The sun is setting. I see a golden glow on the wheat fields along the side of MSR Jackson. The sergeant took over driving. I lost my glasses and can’t see well. Irrationally I feel a thick sense of peace. God has folded His hands around me. Soon I’ll be home. I don’t criticize the sergeant. We were supposed to...

The toddler in diapers was screaming at the door of the cheap white trailer-house. "I think his diapers need changed." My mom looked across the street with concern. We were digging worms from the front flowerbed, a flowerbed that didn't grow anything, so that we could go fishing. The kid kept screaming at the door. It made my mom uncomfortable, but I didn't care. A few weeks later my mom and I were unloading a pickup truc...

Raj put his hands on the ceiling of his cell and pushed to stretch out his muscles. He’d put in a long day pulling out dead cells and loading them on lifts for transport, and installing new cells. He rolled over on his side and spit up his cud and began to chew. He could feel a difference in the texture of his cud because he had splurged on a cup of sweet-feed earlier. He watched the sunset through the clear wall of his c...

"She was a bitch," Jack said. I gave him a look that said that I heartily agree, even though I probably wouldn't use that word because I still have an innate respect for school teachers. "I hated how she played favorites," I said carefully. "It made me feel horrible that I always had to sit in the back of the class, and all her favorites got to sit in the front row. She made me feel so dumb. She had me put in special-ed a...

The band warms up.Do-Ra-Mi-Fa-So-La-Ti-Doand backwards.They start playing at two o'clock.Canopy frames and tarps are popping up.The beer garden is growing tables, booths, and fence.The soul food trailer has a sign on it that says "CLOSED."People are filling the lawn bowl that hangs from the stage.The Saint Johns Bridge's green arches over shadow us.I sit in the hot sun inside the bowl for a minute.Dragonflies swoop, dart,...

I take a long walk several times a week. I start off from the boathouse and stroll down the dyke and linger around the "alter," a platform where a crane used to unload logs from the river and put them on rail-cars. Then I continue down a paved walking path that covers where the railroad used to run. I was on this path when I heard a bold cat's "Mow" from the brush on the side of the path. "Mow." I answered. "Mow" the cat...

I was slurping coffee during my nine o'clock break. I was already grease streaked. The shop was grey, and my coveralls were blue. It was Valentines day. I wasn't dating anyone. "Got plans tonight?" Wayne asked. He was an older guy, who was not grease smeared and wouldn't be at the end of the day. "No, and you?" I said. He shook his head. "A few years back, there was this guy who was selling roses on the day before Valenti...

I'm standing in my basement, neck deep in stuffed toys. There are piles of Kermit the Frogs, and other muppets, there are a dozen Dora dolls and Bob the Builders. There are generic little seahorses and stars. Some of them are the size of my hand and others I won at fairs, and are life sized, most of them are somewhere in between. The basement is filled in archaeological layers of stuffed toys, with Rainbow Brite and My Li...

She just took more than I could give. I did my best to keep her. I went thousands of dollars into debt. I tried to take good care of her, but I couldn't provide the house she needed, the fancy oils and trinkets a lady of her caliber calls for. I tried. I really tried. She left with another man today. He told me I could look at her one last time. "I pick one up every couple of months. I've never seen one in as gooda shape...

The phone rang. My mom picked it up. “Hello… Well… Wow… Yeah… We'll come pick him up in a few hours… Okay… Bye” she said in a one-sided conversation. She left the coiled corded rotary phone that hung from the wall, and sat down at the kitchen table with her coffee. “Niemeyer’s just called. They have a sick pig they want to get rid of. Marsha’s going to be here any time though.” Marsha was the same age as my mom, had been...

Sometimes I think my soul has left me It must have ran away on a scary day It went to the neighbor’s house to hide And stayed for diner because it was nicer there Sometimes I think my soul isn’t with me Because I feel so empty and alone Because my mind always strays to where my soul is And I can’t think of anything else until I see it again It’s like being in love with someone far away It’s like being a ghost while I’m st...