"God, just let him get back to me in one piece, please!" I would never ask for anything else. It was the plea, the bargain, the mantra I kept repeating in my head during the nine months my husband, Liam had been deployed in Iraq. He did come back in one p...

Sophia Lyceum, Switzerland Christmas Eve Collin I was mentally prepared that I was going to spend the holidays at school. I was here on a scholarship and my parents just couldn’t afford to fly me back to our small Russian village, especially with the pric...

“This is the last time I let you drag me hiking with you!” I declared to my brother while struggling to assemble the last few parts of the tent I was going to sleep in tonight. “Was this thing designed by IKEA? There are too many extra parts, for God’s sa...

“Where do you want this box? It’s the last one,” my colleague Anton asked, waiting for me to appear; the rest of my stuff scattered all over the small one-room apartment floor. “Just leave it somewhere. I don’t have the energy to deal with any more boxes...