A veranda under a pouf of purple bougainvillea. A wooden table, the surface hidden by dog-eared dictionaries, coverless novels, and loose sheets of paper runed with scribblings. Two chairs from the 1950s, of metal tubing (rusting) and red plastic (decomposing). Propped against the peeling wall, a chalkboard with the days of the […]
The fat, neon-colored beetle of a bus bumped along the narrow highway as I struggled to keep from falling into my neighbor’s lap. The Indonesian guidebook warned there wasn’t a straight stretch of road on the island of Flores, crumpled as it was by its many volcanoes, and I was ready to believe it.
I had […]
I have fooled myself—as I must—that I am safe. But a dog and a sleepy man in a drizzly dawn prove me wrong.
When I come in to breakfast a little before eight, my interpreter looks worried. He scowls as he scrutinizes his cell phone, as if he doesn’t use it often. And he paces up […]