The silence—a ceaseless chiseling. There’s a child screaming. I run to the window to look outside only to find the relentless tinkling of rain ricocheting off the top of metal cars.  I come back inside. I hear it again. This time I run out the front door not caring that my favorite shoes are getting…

Strokes on canvas come to life. Entangled particles of love explore. Earth orbits a dying sun— mere reflection and mortal strife. A villa with a view not easily ignored.   “For by grace you have been saved through faith.” Soil of Vine rich with trust. Proverb and parable collide— good deeds like talents buried turn…

“All the world’s a stage” where we play different roles and parts, “men and women merely players” (Shakespeare, As You Like It, Act II Scene VII, Lines 1-2). The stages of life (infancy, childhood, lover, soldier, judge, old age, and return to childhood “sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything,” line 28) are indeed…

I believe that one of the most important parts of being human is having personal identity (PI). And part of being human in today’s world means experiencing an unprecedented influx of artificial intelligence (AI). It is the thesis of this article that these two categories will inevitably meld together into a third category—what Andrea M….

It is well known that the Sandinistas were funded and trained in Cuba under Che Guevara and Fidel Castro’s Cuban Revolution as well as being indirectly funded by the Soviet Union under Mikhail Gorbachev. This training commenced in the ’60s and the war officially ended on July 19, 1979, when Somoza’s army surrendered. The Sandinistas—led…

The first masked man provokes the captive: “Any last words before I separate your skull from your body?”

Nathanael grabs the spear. He shuts his left eye to place his prey in his cross-hairs, then releases the javelin with Odyssean accuracy. But the creature parries. The spear gets stuck in the heart of a warrior in a painting that the king had commissioned 15 years prior.

A woman coughs up blood in the ICU at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles where her husband stands next to her bed, rubbing her back, helping her expel pink phlegm into his handkerchief. At a table for two, at nearby diner, a deep voice punctuates the greasy air that smells of Saturday Night’s Special:…

Not your Precious Moments figurines

but sleep-deprived warriors

with holsters for concealer and coffee.

Quick on the draw to conceal lines on their face

and savor the passing whiff of a fresh pot percolate.

The story of Salvador is complete! It’s taken me 20 years to write it, taking time off in-between to attend several prestigious seminaries to educate myself on the seminal topics of the novel, such as psychology, theology, philosophy and ethics, which have all influenced its themes, such as suffering, hope, doubt, despair, courage, paradox, faith,…