Though it may be difficult to believe, being born and raised in a war zone had its advantages.

To the woman at Food Fair who screamed at her child last Tuesday somewhere between the boxed cereal and the bread aisle:

She heard you.

Every minute made a difference. I was selfish. I was a murderer.

We often have so little to work on when  trying to recreate the past. Today, there is a plethora of facts and information about everyone. Nothing is private. In our age of social media, it seems just about everything is available on that screen.

That day, I looked up to see a woman and a young boy about my age, walking on the sidewalk, coming from the area beyond my permitted range.  The woman was heavy-set, more than plump, and smiled at me.  I smiled back and looked with interest at the boy. He grinned shyly and ducked his head.  I remember the feathery length of his eyelashes, the wondrous shining of his eyes and his startlingly white teeth.

n the 1960s, the Afro was seen as a political statement of black consciousness. Angela Davis, who sported a famously large Afro, did much to change that negative perception of beauty, and she is still regarded as an icon of black empowerment.

I remember how it was before he left. The sun was shining a brilliant gold, the way that it does in late afternoon on a day somewhere between summer and autumn. The sky was a light shade of blue with those big fluffy clouds that change shape the longer you looked at them, the kind that when they traveled over the sun you could see its rays glimmering through.

Inhaling the stale air of the gym, he felt that he was in two worlds at once: the carnal reality of his childhood dreams and the spiritual realm of the philosophers.

Nobody knows that I come here at night, every night; nobody even cares enough to notice. I sneak out of my uncle’s cabin before he is even asleep, while he is still sitting like a fat drooling dog in front of the TV drinking his tenth beer.

Olive struck the ground with her foot as she drove her scooter over and over the same patch of sidewalk in front of her house. It was her car, and she was driving it to work; she must take care to stop at all of the stoplights and to never go above the speed limit. Her little sister, Amy, had decided to quit the  game, but the disappointment was only temporary. She had her imaginary friends to play with, and they made good playmates.

Maude Mabel was particular. Maude always kept her room spotless and her fur clean. Her clothes were all folded neatly in her dresser drawers, and her coats and dresses remained hanging in her closet with the hangers all facing in the same direction.

We met again later freshman year, and she was Fanny’s cool friend. My only friends were my roommates and some people who lived on my floor like Fanny, so Fanny bringing a girl from the outside conferred some sort of status upon them both. Well, at least to me it did.

“Knock, knock.”

“I’ve heard this one a million times, Bob.”

“No, not this one. It’s different. Come on.”

“All right. Fine. Who’s there?”

Look at that sky. Look at this man next to me who loves Mom better than anything. Will he say he loves me too? It’s so bright. I’m so high.