non-fiction

As evening fell the soldiers outside began using a mobile crane as a sniper platform; raising its head like a mythological monstrosity, with a lamp shining out from its face, it became a terrible cycolpean dragon on the lookout for possible victioms.Whoever was foolish enough to be caught outside the fence was used as target practice by the two soldiers on the platform......................

I cannot cry. This is someone else's funeral.
People move on.

And all that crap about turbulent times, Christians massacred by crazy Muslims, egyptians bombing local markets, foreigners advised to enter with upmost caution, they can't help it, their religion tells them to kill people, what the fuck is going on?

How a family is supposed to be

During the Chinese New Year break, my mother and I traveled to Chiang Mai for our vacation, an experience unforgettable to me as it made me realized something I never had before. We went to stay at our cousin's place, whom I've never met before and my mother only met once decades ago.

Not the day for a cliff top walk

Eve of the Third Millennium

We sat quietly, watching the large screen television, marveling at the parade of the world's cities and people's that were passing by for our casual review, on this 31st day of December, the year of our lord 1999.

It makes me want silence.

It's Pleasantville patrolled by white-collar thugs.

It is a bright cold day in April, and Big Ben is striking twelve. Brian Haw leans against a steel barrier, puffing on a roll-up, gazing over the road at the Houses of Parliament. A gaggle of tourists stare back at him, more interested in Brian and his display than in Barry and Pugin's Victorian Gothic masterpiece.
It's hard to say if Brian notices them ' after all, he's witnessed the seasonal ebb and flow of visitors to Parliament Square for almost four years. Any Londoner who has taken a bus past Parliament knows him, even if they don't know his name: the crackpot protestor who camps outside the seat of government in protest against 'the war'.

Fractured Lives
By
Atul Gupta

I met Shafika while filming Waiting ' a documentary on the lives of missing people in Kashmir. In my first meeting with her, I was captivated by her large brown eyes and the soulful story they were yearning to tell. Shafika, in her early twenties, lives in a shanty on the banks of a dirty canal in Kashmir. She is a 'half-widow' ' her husband has been missing for a long time, and she is clueless as to whether he is dead or alive.

The first punk band that I ever saw was called 'The Vandals'. I was fifteen years old and they played my local youth club in Basildon. A very young and very abrasive Alison Moyet fronted them then. I thought that it was a great gig. I jumped up and down until I got shin splints. Punk eh? It made monkeys of us all. Alison ended up singing in the West End hit 'Chicago' and I ended up working for Enfield Council. The only anarchy I cause now is in my kitchen.

"The sky will not fall."

She ruffled through her purse looking for those lingering pieces of glass from last night, hoping the edges are not too dull by now. She pressed the sharpest edge down her wrist, hoping to draw some blood seeping through.

There are times when I kiss his eyes and think: "Bring it on, let all hell break loose, if it means this moment can happen again and again and again, I can take it."

"Your license plate says you're from alexandria," she insisted, "So you're not from here."

The fingers froze on the keyboard, unable to move on, hid head in hands, kept breathing, hands cold, body unwilling, can't do this, can't do this, sooner or later you knew I would break down, can't take this anymore.

The Internet, a new Rosetta Stone.

The internet has changed much more than our way of writing. It has changed substantively the very manner in which we think and express ourselves. No longer can we confidently proffer definitive positions and ideas from the splendid philosophical isolation of geography. Every written comment that we make on the internet is observed, noted and reviewed by billions of others with diverse cultures, languages and patterns of thought.

lowered veil
reveal...

What was it that drove you away? Was it my tears, my fears or me? I resent your happiness and I know how selfish it must be, it is impossible to love your cruelty. I apologize for my inability to satisfy you, for being unable to conceal my emotions.

My frail body; it's deteriorating because it has been deprived of the love that you had promised. You have abandoned me in the middle of this cold night disregarding the pain you could have or might have inflicted