My name is Podrick O'Tumour and a number of years ago I was speaking at a conference for a gay

Catholic so it wasn't in Ireland and during one of the meals at this conference a man sitting next to me

said the thing that Irish people never get is that the British Empire wasn't such a bad thing

and I was aghast and I didn't know what to say to him and I went you know where I'm from don't you

and also what language should we have this conversation in and he said to me is this going to be a

helpful conversation I was like I don't think it is I think there is the imagination that because

we had this common ground both gay Catholics at this conference that somehow we find common ground

about something to do with empire that was centuries old and the answer was no and so we kept a

certain kind of Cartier silence after that

the only cab service of Farmington main by Arya Aiber

he makes me sit next to him so I inquire as if remembering his own smallness would prevent him

from violating another's about his childhood Cape Cod he recalls how lonely he felt among the

blue expanses each winter longed to travel so he joined the Marines and I did travel he fools

all the way to Afghanistan when I tell him that's where I'm from his laugh crumbles and I'm sorry

for trembling in me or in him I can't tell too chagrinne to look at his face I observe

crumbles blurs of frozen buds Afghans are good people though he disarms himself and damn that food

but I loath my Afghan blood especially here I made snowy balsam furs and cookie-corder houses

they saved you know his words butter me my life gave me bread warmth they didn't have to bad

things happened awful things nothing is calmer today cabal still mourns contaminated water

and another suicide bomber I shouldn't tell you this but he coughs I miss it sometimes

the provinces were so hot it was like another planet I will never feel at ease here between

Sobalpine Hills gas stations advertising nescafe and dov but after eight years on the base his voice

...