taste. Say the word food, in either the locals' tongue or the soldiers' mother language, and they would cradle their stomachs, look to the cloudless sky, mouths gaping, ready to accept anything, even the shit that emaciated birds dumped. Then a short blessed rain, the grass turned green for a triumphant week, and they all scrambled to eat it, chewing and slurping, spread out like crippled snakes. Perched atop the city wall, underneath the shade of his immaculate umbrella, the commander witnessed all this, and with the trembling fingers of an artist, raked a cloth across his brow. This is the way to gain advantage, he decided. And so a week later, the grass gone, the soldiers gathered in a restaurant bombed with ruin, fondling chopsticks and porcelain spoons, reduced to imagining, candlelight spastic on the walls, some of them clasping chafed hands over the flames, as if the fire itself was a great delicacy just out of reach.
 | | The commander said, Food, and the soldiers convulsed in reflexive response. There is not enough of it, the commander continued. Too many people. There is only one way. Kill them all. This the soldiers could understand, and in the dim light their eyes danced, while in the distance the midnight watch sounded the bell.
The noise in my ear simply will not go away. It began a few weeks before, as I was handing in the proofs of the new book. I was thinking, And soon this will be sent to that industry magazine, and it will be up to them, and bang, there it was. Both ears, it would have been fine, but the sound limits itself to my left ear. It is as if someone is very delicately buzzing his lips right next to me. I slap at imagined insects, but nothing is there. I scratch at my face, not even near the offending ear, I simply itch all over. My skin is pockmarked red. Perhaps it is the ear that is blessed, the rest
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