Blood. In slow motion, his entire body careens forward. For a second he is completely horizontal, suspended parallel to the asphalt below. Then gravity wakes up and sucks him to the ground. Eyes close. Hands shoot out instinctively to break the impact. It breaks him instead. Blood. Scarlet like the searing glare of evening sun right before it sinks. The soccer pitch is black and littered with glass fragments. The tar is still viscous after the day’s heat- 40 degrees...

My junior year I applied for and was accepted into a social justice/ English class in which we hosted students from our sister schools in South Africa (black township and white suburb) and Northern Ireland (Catholic and Protestant), as well as random international student groups that came to Seattle including FIYUTS (Boznia and Herzegovina) and Brazilian ambassadors through the state department. During that year our class went to visit those sister schools. I went to South Africa, and my personal...