There will be no floating waway. There will be no other reality tonight.

Mostly, though, I dream of good things...I dream that flowers will bloom in the streets..again and music will play in the...houses and kites will fly in the skies.

We will also be funding projects that empower women and children in Afghanistan and now and then give scholarships to Afghan students here in the Bay Area.

At the door , she made him promise to go without goodbyes .She closed the door on him . Laila leaned her back against it , shaking against his pounding fists , one arm gripping her belly and a hand across her mouth , as he spoke throughout the door and promised that he would come back for her . She stood there until he tired , until he gave up , and then she listened to his uneven footsteps until they faded , until all was quiet , save for the gunfire cracking in the hills and her own heart thudding in her belly , her eyes , her bones .

I don't know what this feather means, the story of it, but I know it means he was thinking of me. For all these years. He remembered me.

Though there had been moments of beauty in it, Mariam knew that life for most part has been unkind to her. But as she walked the final twenty paces, she could not help but wish for more of it.

If America taught me anything, it's that quitting is right up there with pissing in the Girl Scouts' lemonade jar.