Leonidas-of-the-Rock

 The soldier coming up on him was swaying, limping, climbing wearily up the stony street towards the terrace. He walked like an old man, thought Brian Strong, though he was scarcely older than Brian himself. He dragged himself along, tripping over the cracks in the cobblestones, hauling behind him a filthy rucksack all covered in gray trench clay. Pausing by the café, the old boy took off his garrison cap and worried it between his black-tipped fingers. "Well, hey," said Brian Strong. "Sit down and have a drink on me." Regarding him for a moment, the soldier conceded and sat. Brian Strong ran his hands over a perfectly polished u

Last week, you showed up with the thunder on my doorstep. Your voice was so drenched with the rain that I almost didn't recognize the way you said my name. It hung in the air like an incomplete sentence, like something unfamiliar, like you were so lost from trying to find everything we left behind and piece it back together that you couldn't find me in your heart anymore. It was pouring and the power was out and I was so tired of watching the world fall apart from outside my windows that I let you back inside my arms and inside my senses, and your bones were shaking as you clung to me and told me how good it felt to come back home. There wa