L.F. Khouri is a Palestinian writer whose work explores war, memory, and the inheritance of silence. His writing has appeared or is forthcoming in SmokeLong Quarterly, Vestal Review, Chestnut Review, Another Chicago Magazine, and elsewhere.

INSIGHT

Of Mice, Maps, and Memory

By L.F. KHOURI

Cartoons taught me to laugh at violence. To see it as pattern, rhythm, inevitability. But back home, the patterns were bloodier.