A Communist Christmas

As I watched my daughter’s tiny face inspect the mysterious box, I was overcome with the memories of Christmases past. How could an intangible recollection hold such a physical presence, wrapping me in a warm glow while simultaneously strangling me in an icy dread, especially on Christmas morning? Christmas morning. It wasn’t like any Christmas…

In God We Trust

I may as well have been standing before them stripped naked. That’s how exposed I felt. The soldiers had announced their arrival with a loud pounding on the front door of our home. A few days prior, my husband and I had begun the official paperwork requesting permission to leave the only country we had…

Laced With Fear

The darkness was all around me. I had been trained to stay in my room and wait for my mom to come to me. It never took my mom long, but to me it always felt like an eternity. The blackouts had begun a few weeks ago, but I still wasn’t used to them. At…

Freedom Of Speech…DENIED

At the age of 30, he was living his dream as a writer and journalist. He had always loved writing. As a child, he had spent countless hours creating stories with the vivid imagination afforded those of a young age. He wrote about adventure, mystery, and romance. His favorite stories were about heroes who saved…