Howie Good
1
Pilots called them Flying Coffins. He scanned the dingy sky. The war had just started. Tourists listened in a daze to a cunning old woman who had outlived all her children.
2
His heart started going like an antiaircraft gun, a spy caught leaving coded messages. Dusk seemed to fall by 2 p.m. Reporters interviewed mothers with dead children in their arms. The wind from the heights acquired a touch of red. Look out the window, the caller said, summer is over.
3
The purpose of night and rain eluded him. Taxis ran on charcoal gas. The commissar’s highway was open in only one direction. A wino, after begging some change, asked what time was sunset. He shook his head. The road signs were blackened and twisted and not in a language he could understand.