Perpetual Check

Politically inspired fiction by Stephen Elliot

At night the world is a sandstorm. Like a light brown gauze over your face blocking the black velvet sky. We call it the edge, Anterim, Jordan, the Angor hotel. Here is where boats cross in the desert. Rusted buses bring troops and Shields to the border of Mesopotamia, heading into Iraq two days after the fighting has already started. These square dark hulls with their Argonauts, their windows cracked, their crazed cargo of idealists and warriors. A month ago the buses were clean, British double-deckers, like the kind you tour London in. We watch them now and shake our heads, our feet heavy on the earth, our clothing soaked in dull clay...

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