The World According to Abufares of Tartous

He closed the apartment door and walked down the corridor. While he waited for the elevator, he put his hat on and buttoned his jacket. Inside the car, a man and a woman smiled sheepishly at him....

http://www.abufares.net/2016/10/the-booth.html

Andrea and Rami led me to the kitchen and asked me to officiate their wedding. That was over a year ago at my sister’s house in Porter Ranch. Just like that! "You are the one we both unhesit...

http://www.abufares.net/2016/07/the-wedding_17.html

Whether a man is a rapacious glutton or a Sufi hermit, he is essentially a slave to his desires. He overindulges in carnal delights on one hand or in abstinence on the other to satiate his ph...

http://www.abufares.net/2016/07/the-art-of-shaving.html

The cellphone Stephanie bought me rang, breaking the silence into tiny shards. It must be her, checking up on me. Had I eaten? Was I warm enough? Had I heard from social services? Anything s...

http://www.abufares.net/2016/06/the-voice.html

They lay down on a stretch of tended lawn in the shade of the largest oak tree. From up here, their merged shape resembled the hands on a watch dial indicating six o’clock. I looked at the d...

http://www.abufares.net/2016/05/what-robin-heard.html

Only recently did I listen to my first book after years of reading. I was fortunate to get a good start. My first novel was The Girl on the Train , a superbly written psychological thriller, by a...

http://www.abufares.net/2016/04/all-light-we-cannot-see-pleasure-of.html

We stand in front of an almost unseeable door, cleverly concealed behind moth-eaten tomes on the last row of bookshelves in the Humanities section. The professor leads the way down a flight of...

http://www.abufares.net/2016/04/neath-albert-pike-library.html

Although I’ve been posting short stories sporadically here on my blog, I haven’t “technically” blogged anything since January of 2015. There are several reasons (excuses is a more app...

http://www.abufares.net/2016/04/10th-anniversary.html

Overnight the gale quit. The breakers retreated from the battered beaches and joined the dying whitecaps offshore. At dawn the swollen sea was still brooding over its latest outbreak, taking d...

http://www.abufares.net/2016/04/sayonara.html

The bus plows through the blizzard until a shapeless whiteout swallows the world. I brace myself against the seat in front of me and grab the arm of the woman sitting by my side. I sense her ...

http://www.abufares.net/2016/02/stranded.html

Illustration "Boy Sitting on Branch" by SchoolSpirit I think that I shall never see A poem lovely as a tree ~Joyce Kilmer Spring 1969 At the far side of the playground, a trail wormed its w...

http://www.abufares.net/2015/10/the-boyhood-trilogy-part-3-up-on-tree.html

"If All Saints' brings out winter, St. Martin's brings out Indian summer." Old Farmer's Almanac All Saints', 1970 The double-door opened to a wide corridor flanked on the left by the showers, a...

http://www.abufares.net/2015/09/the-boyhood-trilogy-part-2-indian-summer.html

… Behold! Your great numbers elated you, but they availed you naught: the land, for all that it is wide, did constrain you, and ye turned back in retreat. The Quran, Al-Taubah 9:25 Al-Mina...

http://www.abufares.net/2015/08/the-boyhood-trilogy-part-1-threshing.html

I stand waiting past midnight in the parking lot of a downtown hotel. An ambulance wails in the distance and from somewhere near, a dog howls in return, as if mourning the already dead. The gr...

http://www.abufares.net/2015/07/lili.html

By Chevsapher (Own work) , via Wikimedia Commons Daren, his sister, Stella, and their cousins, Elsa, Lizbeth, Nathan, and Jonathan were in the office of Trevor Byrd, attorney at law. Their g...

http://www.abufares.net/2015/07/the-will.html

A gust blew from the north carrying a whiff of the lake on its breath. The larches on the other side of the channel rustled, forcing a murder of crows to abandon the branches. The echo of gha...

http://www.abufares.net/2015/06/the-boutique.html

My teeth sunk deep into the soft buns, bursting a medley of juicy flavors. A sliver of lettuce broke free, smearing my chin with mayonnaise, and fell to the floor. I tried reaching down to pi...

http://www.abufares.net/2015/05/stupid-piece-of-lettuce.html

I picked up the receiver after the third or fourth ring, tipping the glass of water on the night table. “Hello!” I cleared my throat, but my voice came out hoarse. The colon in the middle ...

http://www.abufares.net/2015/01/ulcer_24.html

At last, the Levant is under the spell of a conventional Mediterranean winter. Conventional in the sense that it's raining hard and snowing as it should, and that the temperatures are down to ...

http://www.abufares.net/2015/01/beauty-and-beast.html

I'm against the fanaticism of the Kouachi Brothers and the vileness of Charlie Hebdo. No one has the right to take the life of other human beings for a word they wrote or a cartoon they drew,...

http://www.abufares.net/2015/01/je-suis-moi.html

1 diced white onion 3 diced cloves of garlic 1 tablespoon soy sauce 1 teaspoon brown sugar 2 tablespoons olive oil 1 1/2 cup Arzo pasta 1 cup diced celery I cup diced carrots 2 cups roasted di...

http://www.abufares.net/2014/12/orzo-spinach-soup.html

I bought the dough ready. If you'd rather make your own dough, good for you, that'll be awesome. Using my hands and the rolling pin, I spread the dough as thin as possible over a piece of al...

http://www.abufares.net/2014/12/a-simple-pizza-recipe.html

FAMILY SIZE RECIPE INGREDIENTS 1 266g pack of your favorite pasta, I used Bavette no. 13 1 lb ground beef, rolled into eye-sized balls 4-6 peppers (sweet, mild or hot), cut in stripes 1 lb ...

http://www.abufares.net/2014/07/pasta-tartourossa.html

We were born in a village by the sea, squeezed on three sides by the slopes of a mountain and two hills. It was a godforsaken place, save for the summer months, when it brimmed with tourists from...

http://www.abufares.net/2014/04/bisectors.html

Who is more to be pitied, a writer bound and gagged by policemen or one living in perfect freedom who has nothing more to say. -Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., novelist (1922-2007) A light bulb exploded som...

http://www.abufares.net/2013/12/heroic-feats.html