NEWS: I just received the cover art for MISSING, the anthology where my short story COFFEE will appear in October 2008. Today instead of more SMOKE, I decided to paste in a bit of COFFEE. Hope you like it! Comments, as always, are welcome.
COFFEE EXCERPT:
It was the summer of 1946, barely a year since the Allies had won the war. When Alexander climbed into the Berlin streetcar, the conductor flashed him a frightened smile. Alexander nodded in return. Free rides if he wore his American army uniform. Free food at the mess while children starved. Free to go home at the end of his tour and escape the devastation. Privileges of the occupying army.
Jagged stumps lined the wide street. The trees themselves had been destroyed by bombs or cut down for firewood. Probably a posh neighborhood once, with leafy branches shading women in floppy hats pushing prams. Boys crouching in the dirt playing marbles. Girls pouring tea for well dressed dolls.
Houses and apartments once stood proudly on this street. Now few remained. Most were reduced to piles of rubble. Others mere vacant lots, as if an angry God had reached down and carried buildings away whole.
Wind blew through the broken streetcar window, bringing with it the fetid smell of death. He thought he’d grown used to it, but his throat tightened. He poked his nose into the bag looped over his shoulder, the scent of coffee warring with the smell of corpses buried under rubble.
He remembered his mother bringing a bowl of milk with a dollop of coffee and a dash of cinnamon to their round table in Brooklyn. To act like an adult, he’d swallowed the bitter brew.
Had he brought enough coffee? A few pounds. Bars of chocolate. A carton of cigarettes. Cigarettes were currency in Berlin since the end of the war.
Wind ruffled the blue airmail paper in his other hand. Elegant letters danced across the page. He rubbed his dry eyes with his knuckle. He hadn’t slept more than a few hours a night in months, perhaps years.
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