Fiction from NER 41.1 (2020)
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On a not-yet-hot morning in revolutionary Managua, as other ex-pats and sandalistas woke in hospedajes around the city and blinked at the new light coming in through the cracks in the walls, smelled the musty mattress smells, the earth and leaves in the courtyards, the faint reek of garbage and uncovered sewer, Laurie Atkins woke, too, listening to the increasing traffic in the street, the muffler-less roars—the bombs? Explosions every minute or so. Had the Contras come by night and nobody told her? No. That was yesterday, Sunday, and the bombs were for the Virgin—Virgin bombs—and today it was a Monday, a workday, and the sounds were the sounds of a truck backfiring. The movie bus? She stretched and rubbed her eyes and put her long thin arm around the young man next to her, who stirred only long enough to say in a voice so sad and thin and dear she could hardly stand it, “Off now, luv?”
