Send Down the Rain

by Charles Martin

Mexican doughnuts are not what a diabetic needs to eat, but not wanting to be rude, I ate twelve.

I passed through the quiet military observation installation where they’ve been “observing” for years, but nobody really knows what they’re looking at or why.

Healing comes in both the telling and the hearing.

“Hate is a powerful weapon. But it is powerless when it comes to cutting chains off the human heart.”

“Long time ago, a friend gave me a gift I can never repay. The longer I live out the reality of that gift, the more I come to understand the enormity of what I owe and what is required to wipe the slate.”

“Watch over my boy . . . all the days of his life . . . and let him live to see the rain.”

“I’d seen what evil could do. Evil never gave itself for anyone. It takes what it doesn’t own. Holds your head under the water. Rips your head off your neck and dangles it from the city wall. Evil dominates. Controls. Eradicates. Evil is a sniveling punk, and if you let it inside you then you spew hatred, which is just another name for the poison we drink hoping it’ll hurt someone

“Love walks into hell, where I sit in chains, where the verdict is guilty, grabs you by the heart, and says to the warden, ‘Me for him.’”