Translating a World on the Edge

                               EXCERPT

“Coleman tried not to think about dying, though he’d seen it firsthand, soon after he had got to ‘Nam. A boy he’d made an acquaintance with had been in the wrong place at the wrong time–right over a land mine. The mine had blown the boy’s legs off. He’d lived for about an hour, until the reality of what had happened hit him worse than the mine. He’d died in Coleman’s arms, crying out for his mother to help him. Coleman threw up afterwards, went for days without shutting his eyes. The next four deaths happened, all at once, in an ambush. It was then he remembered to pretend that his father was with him, that his father would show him where the enemy hid. His father would help him survive– because Stern was right. Vietnam was a game of survival, of winning the simple gift of another day.”

Bridge-Man Burning

by Kaye Park Hinckley