Five hundred in cash and a pouch of rum was what we were each paid upon returning the flags. Yet another rally of the big leader behind us and yet another fruitful day of cheering done. . .

She remarks on his new yellow shoelaces, says how nice they look against the black of his boots, and in that moment feels how she’s missed him—what relief she feels. . . .

The cut on my cheek stings and I’m reminded that life is dangerously unpredictable. My son runs circles around me and I stand small in the vast vault of the Milano Centrale train station, with its stone drapes and eagles, wreaths of laurel, I guess they are, in their craggy talons, which is just as ...

It’s morning. I’m off again to my tree, my bundle of tricks slung over my shoulder, the summer solstice having played out a few weeks ago.

Every year since the event, when summer is beginning to close in, I go to a different part of the vast forest. There, I select a tree. . .

What people meant by hardest was how cold. What I meant about worst was how alone. Coldest in at least over a hundred, you’d hear over and over. And it was cold, and it was dark, and the winds never stopped from the season we used to call fall clear through to now, what before was called summer.

July and August used to be the best month because that is when school would be out for the summer. Is real funny how they call it summer when Guyana is summer all year round, eh? But back then them thing didn’t matter. All the children would rest up on the weekend after school close and by Monday...