“I had never heard of an IED until Cleve's injury. He told me that day that they could be made with marbles. When the bomb goes off, the marbles explode, glass shards shooting in every direction toward their victims. As he spoke, I imagined the innocent balls of glass I played with as a child, white with blue cat's-eyes in the center, the same shade as my mother's and my eyes. The toys wait in darkness, forced to play in a war they weren't designed for.”
Book:Alive Day: A Memoir