Fog - LOST Magazine

"I used to know," I say.

And beyond the fog, across the Bay, over the Sierras and then the Rockies still awaiting their first snow, on past the Mississippi winding its way to the Gulf, among the corn fields, the limestone buildings of a Midwest college town — at least two flights away — you agree.

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Oil Slick: BP’s Other Containment Issue - 48 Hour Magazine

“Hello. This is another report from the front line,” says BP chief executive Tony Hayward, sounding more like a British war correspondent on assignment. “I’m in Venice, in the heart of the Mississippi Delta.”

Behind him a boat sits docked. Workmen come and go. In another scene they are lined up one after another, tossing sand bags down the line and then into a waiting boat.

Hayward wears no tie, the top of his Oxford is unbuttoned. Sometimes, his sleeves are rolled up as if he’s about to get to work. A hardhat with BP’s green and yellow Helios logo sits atop his head.

He’s a man of action standing in front of the camera. And a wealthy one at that, having made some $6 million in compensation last year, a 41 percent raise despite a 45 percent drop in company revenues. In Mississippi, he looks like a throwback of sorts to the days of the old British Empire, Charles Marlow awaiting his steamship.

Leaving London - LOST Magazine

It's early morning. The glow of artificial light on the wet pavement blurs against the darkness. The city is still but for deliveries being made to small shops and pubs. Men stack fruit and vegetables in piles outside of market windows. Kegs are unloaded from trucks and wheeled into pubs, the smell of last night's stale beer still hanging in the air. Stacks of newspapers pile up on the street, the broadsheets proclaiming economic collapse.

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Fading - LOST Magazine

Still you are fading, falling, drowning out of sight. Photographs collected in boxes and binders. Stories told by mom and dad over lunch. Memories holding on by a sliver.

You are in the basement as I am coming home. You are down there now and I am on the bus. You are there alone and I am surrounded by school children.

It is the last day of classes before winter break. I had a party in homeroom. You had a meeting with mom and the principle. Then you went home. She returned to work. Now you are in the basement.

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Ramadan Dinner - InTheFray Magazine

It’s almost time for dinner on the next-to-last night of Ramadan. Hassan Ahmed sits on a well-used sofa facing a big-screen TV that dominates the front room of his small, two-bedroom apartment in the Kennedy Park neighborhood of Portland, Maine. He’s watching an Egyptian movie playing on an Arabic satellite station.

After a commercial break, Hassan, a Sudanese refugee who came to the United States in 2003 with his family, relaxes his body and leans back into the couch. His dark black skin stands out in contrast to the white jelabia he wears. His short hair is starting to recede from his forehead, where expressive lines form when he’s thinking. The room is illuminated with soft yellow light from a floor lamp in the corner. Outside, the sun hangs low in the sky and the street is empty. A bitter wind blows off the Atlantic several blocks away — another cold Maine winter not far behind.

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To a Home Unknown - InTheFray Magazine

At 7 o’clock on a cool fall morning, Matthew Kongo steps out of the Spencer Press printing plant and into daylight. The air coming off the ocean to the east is moist, the world quiet compared to the printing room inside where Kongo, 65, has been working the night shift. He wears a gray fleece jacket, dark jeans, and heavy leather work boots. Large thin-rimmed glasses balance on his wide nose, magnifying soft, sleepless brown eyes.

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An Orphan Heads to College - High Country News

The Gemstone Cafe at Pima Community College, in Tucson, Ariz., fills up quickly on the first day of the new term. Coolers full of bottled water and Gatorade hum in the background as students in jeans, T-shirts and hooded sweatshirts mill around sleepily.

At a quarter to 9:00, Chan Kuoth, 30, walks into the cafe wearing a tan suit-coat and slacks. Class won't start for a few more minutes, so he sits down and relaxes in a teal-blue plastic chair. Tall and dark-skinned, he smiles as he talks about his life. Six horizontal scars line his forehead -- the marks of his formal initiation into adulthood in a ceremony common back in his native land.

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