Dark at the Crossing

by Elliot Ackerman

I just began to teach with a few other mothers. To my surprise, I found more satisfaction in this modest pursuit than any other I’d taken on. War can be a blessing in this way. If you’re trapped, its destruction can free you. It freed me to become my daughter’s teacher.”

“Educated, idealistic men began our revolution, but every time I looked into this boy soldier’s face and he spoke his clipped Arabic, with his cigarette yellowing his teeth, I knew the uneducated would have the final say in my country’s future.”