Demolition Before the Bloom

hand on the edge of the tipped-over chair and pushed himself up. His joints popped, his seventy-eight-year-old knees groaning in protest, but his posture was suddenly rigid and straight.

He turned his head and looked at David Ward.

The polite, detached facade of the charity host was gone. The weeping, nostalgic vulnerability of an old soldier was gone.continue reading …