The Lady From Tunisia

I have decided to try my hand at short stories. Here is the first paragraph of the story whose title is the above: In 2005, after Saddam's birthday, the spring came on with botticelli madness. I wanted to resist and pretend it hadn't arrived. It was winter somewhere. Surely in my soul. My cousin Joey had come home from Falluja, in the winter, and he had been bugging me ever since, telling stories of what it had been like in Iraq. By now the stories had become boring to hear. Boredom was welcome, though; it dulled the pain of outraged affection and it intercepted memory. Joey had flown home from Iraq first-class; pine-box-first-class within the maw of a cargo plane that had snugged its snout into a heap of flag-draped pine coffins, dutifully snuffling them aboard. It spit them out for the families to claim at baggage check back in the States. Joey had gone through Vigilant Resolve, but didn't make it through Phantom Fury. I had seen him at his memorial. He was sitting with his feet propped up on a prie-dieu. He said: greetings from the American Empire! I had looked around for someone to break out screaming or laughing, but no one else saw him. And he was right there in front of everyone, like death comedy jam! It had come to pass in Falluja, west of Abu Ghraib, west of Baghdad, where everything strong got sick, everyone spoke Tourette’s, and Joey's mission had become infinite.