COLLATERAL ORANGE DAMAGE: flash fiction & art by author Rochelle Wisoff-Fields

COLLATERAL ORANGE DAMAGE

“Farewell, Rob.” I laid my battered dog tags on his grave.

Prostate cancer took him. Doctors say I’m next.

Please try to understand. We were soldiers following orders.

“A little defoliating agent to clear the jungle and expose the enemy.” Our commanding officers assured us. “Nothing that will harm a human.”

I had to go back and see for myself.

Last night I visited a children’s hospital in Ho Chi Minh City where the fruits of our labors languish with twisted or missing limbs and eyes that bulge from enlarged skulls.

We have exposed the enemy, and he is us.

BIO:

Kansas City native Rochelle Wisoff-Fields is married to a veteran of the Viet Nam Era and the Gulf War. A woman of Jewish descent, Rochelle is the granddaughter of Eastern European immigrants whose close personal connection to Jewish history is a recurring theme throughout much of her writing. Growing up, she was heavily influenced by the Sholom Aleichem stories as well as Fiddler on the Roof.

Her novels Please Say Kaddish for Meand From Silt and Ashes were born of her desire to share the darker side of these beloved tales; the history that can be difficult to view, much less embrace.

Before becoming an author, Rochelle attended the Kansas City Art Institute, where she studied painting and lithography. Her preferred media are pen and ink, pencil, and watercolor, which she uses in her book covers, character studies and will be used in her upcoming companion coffee table book for the series, A Stone for the Journey (Argus fall 2016).
Rochelle’s short story “Savant” was published in Voices, Vol. III; “The Swimming Lesson,” in Echoes of the Ozarks, Vol. VI; and “Reap the Whirlwind” in Voices, Volume IV. Two of these are included in her own short story collection, with original artwork, This, That and Sometimes the Other (High Hill Press). She is currently working on the third in the series, As One Must, One Can(Argus, 2016.

She is represented by Loiacono Literary Agency.