More on: short stories

We watched from behind ballistic glass and mounted guns and steel doors with hinged openings large enough for a rifle barrel or for a bunch of contorted fingers to press through and wiggle return greetings, muted waves, as we rolled on and up the mountain. We engaged with no enemy combatants.

While in years past, evacuation drills at the Kaiserman Jewish Community Center took place only every few months, now they occurred every other week.

When things went wrong—and they did, some things went terrifyingly wrong—he turned to prayer. He opened his hands to an unknowable God and prayed as best he could.

Mama kept informing us that the Lord would provide if we only had faith the size of a mustard seed, but Timothy and I pretended not to hear.

What is heaven but the immortal fulfillment of a mortal longing? What is it but the most sublime synthesis of memory and dream?

It was another year or two before Brother Thibault whispered to Gérard the secret of his salt. He had, apparently, received unearthly assistance.

Doesn’t a fire, good and hot, burn back into a wound until there’s nothing left for it to do but heal?

FATHER BOB MORTON had always enjoyed the wedding season, until this year. Of course, the proper mood came upon him when he felt the adrenaline of bride, groom, and family, and he delivered his homilies, presided over the vows and rings, consecrated the Eucharist, and attended the receptions per protocol. But he did not eat much…

THE THREE OF US got on bus 20 and rode from Ir Ganim to the Jaffa Gate of the Old City. The other two, a lieutenant-general from the air force and an Australian reporter who hated Jews, sat facing me, knees touching knees. I reminded them who I was, the man who when young swore…

THIS IS WHAT THINGS ARE LIKE HERE. The Palestinian fedayeen raids continue without mercy. Hardly a week goes by without a civilian being shot or ambushed in the Israeli Sector. Aubrey visits now and then, the young man’s face unalterably severe. He says there is a sense of foreboding in the air, a quiet dread,…