“Fear ate the little boy’s breath as he stood before her and whispered, ‘Hide me.’ The woman’s eyes were thick with kohl and the sound of boots made her frown. Before an eye could blink, she stripped Jamal naked and pushed him into the soapy water, shoving his telltale red shirt beneath him, hidden from view. She began singing as she washed him, forcing her voice to be ironed smooth, which was how the soldiers found her a moment later when they clamored into the courtyard and shouted at her, ‘Where is the kid who ran through here?’ They asked her again and again, but she forced her face to look irritated and nothing more than that. They searched around her house as she poured love songs in whispers on Jamal, who quivered with fear while her hands prodded him harshly as his own mother’s would. The men in green stomped around, their hands moist on their guns. ‘You are sure you didn’t see anyone trying to flee?’ they asked her again, but her silence chased them off.

“When he was sure the soldiers were gone, Jamal got out of the vat and dried himself, embarrassed to be naked in front of this woman who then gave him dry clothes to wear. He thanked her many times, and as he was walking away, she called out to him, ‘Feel free to come here whenever you need a bath.’”

The granddaughter’s thick laughter rolls out of her and she looks at the old woman who smiles deeply, as though she has heard the whole story.

“Good story,” she says and squeezes the soft, moist hand that holds hers.

Shortly after this, after the morning’s silence has returned to the bright room, the grandmother’s eyes close and the girl lifts the frail hand from her own and places it just below her breasts. Then she leaves the old woman to sleep in peace, and prays that today will not be the day that life leaves her body.

30 SORAYA Clouds

30 SORAYA Clouds

Summer L.A. and it is gray and sticky like how can you get out of bed when there isn’t even school for distraction. Only chores and chores and TV and no more freedom than the mall and bad looks from everyone and nothing going anywhere.

With a grass-just-being-cut smell so loud I can’t hear my thoughts but not loud enough to drown the ache. Springtime ache lasted too long this year and brought pictures of hillsides dotted with white and yellow and quiet, which I can just barely conjure up thanks to the damn lawn mower.

Who would think I would want to go back, just to watch my grandmother watching the day that sits slow and fat like a watermelon, watch the sky watching us, beg for the sun to cover us quietly.