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I teach fifth grade, nothing controversial: slavery, ratios and proportions, why the good side always prevails in war. Half my students at the Army base are children of Second Cavalry, currently deployed; the other half are First Infantry, now stateside, soon enough to ship out again. These enlisted-kids pull extra duty at home when a glorious soldier-parent goes to war. They grow up practical, raised on a diet of fear, bluster, and discipline. Mostly, though, they act like fifth-graders whose parents love them and who defend the flag for a living. For the few who suffer Pre-Traumatic Stress Syndrome (trademark pending), the nightmares precede the loss. For others, the combat death of a Mom or Dad inflicts every conceivable harm (see appendix). I ride herd on a classroom full of kids who go to war by webcam and who react like soldiers in the field to their parents being shot at every day. I wonder what prayers they overhear during calls from the war zone. When they come to me in panic, I recite some boilerplate about preparedness, ask them if Mom or Dad takes living seriously, and show them on the map how big a wasteland there is to hide in in Wastelandistan. When they ask me why my wife didn’t make it back, I say she did, four times goddamit, that her life was courageous, and that carelessness caught up with her. Is their Daddy careless? Is Mommy? My words do nothing to comfort me. Nevertheless. On stagnant afternoons when you can catch a fly in your hand, when long division has lost its charm, we put away our books and their hands go up. We memorized the dates, they tell me. But why? Stop lying! We’ve know wars keep happening, they say, but why? What for?
Original Copyright © March 25, 2007
Revised Copyright © April 22, 2026
He shows his hands as bidden. Across each palm, and flecking the edges also of his bare soles, doily patterns of lesion and wart: the arsenic array. His hands outstretched toward the inspector, palms up, thumbs east and west, elbows extended from his deflated torso, his fingers cupped to receive whatever is freely given or falls from the sky, he doesn’t beg, he isn’t grateful, doesn’t wish or want, has no questions, gives from his poverty, can’t be helped. His cupped hands are as likely offering as asking. They seem empty, but in their lines they trace the journey of the king’s advisers to this desiccated village with its wells tapped deep into poison. The women are too weak to walk to clean water. The children wither inward from the fingertips and toes. In the land of flood and drought, too much water kills what too little water doesn’t. For the ancestors, pests that mutated in water that pooled when the floods receded took off the weak and weary. Longevity disfavored the thirsty. Then workers, sent by the king to tap the artesia, planted pumps within steps of the huts, so the villagers weaned themselves from the pools, and drank and bathed and boiled their grains with pump water whenever they wished. Now those wells are poison, too, and workers have painted the handles red but not dismantled the old pumps. Healthful water has been tapped a short walk away, to no avail. He denies the old well was better than the pond, and anyway wanting better is striving and striving is shameful. He was content to have no king, have no pump, to drink pond water, drink red water, or do without. If the well outside his door goes dry, he’ll cup his hands and accept the dew.
Original Copyright © 1997
Revised Copyright © February 15, 2026
Very Short Novels 
Thank you so much, anhinga, but I wouldn't want to try it without the other 199. —David
Why, thank you, brother. It's wonderful to see you here. :) —David
All you need is 100 words to make an emotional impact. Touching.
Brilliant, brother. Just simply brilliant.
This Very Short Novel has a strong resemblance to Simple Lessons of War from almost 20 years ago, but is…