By D.A. Gray “Embrace diversity. Unite — Or be divided, robbed, ruled, killed By those that see you as prey. Embrace diversity or be destroyed.” ― Octavia E. Butler, Parable of the Sower The light works for now. We’re stopped at an intersection beside the Walgreens and its half-full parking lot, safely in our lanes, [...]
By D.A. Gray We’d grown thin during the pandemic. I don’t know when it began. Years ago, I think. When we began to look at neighbors with contempt, to walk head down into the house from the car, looking neither left nor right. Something broken in us and we would enter the house and lock [...]
By D.A. Gray One morning the cats who once Crept up to our doors – stopped. For a time the bird’s voices grew louder Then they, too, disappeared. We prayed on command. We were sure The symbols would save us. Leaving the church we made stops At every store that promised A cure – the [...]
By D.A. Gray The focus on the yellow sign, dwarfing its black letters, allows us to move on – to return to our regularly programmed night of silence. For a day the gold box burns in the mind, the darker letters WAFFLE HOUSE hang like ash. A tragedy happened, someone says, then turns the channel. The [...]
By D.A. Gray The men we knew have long since passed. Their bodies still fill the broadest doorways but something in their eyes, their voice has gone replaced by a rage that crackles over the radio. Their bodies still fill the broadest of doorways and their eyes follow us, from great distances. There’s only the rage [...]
