At 7 a.m. Sunday morning, a police cruiser settles in front of our house. CIU is painted on the side in large blue letters and black vertical bars rib the back windows. I can make out the silhouette of a portly officer in the driver's seat, his neck swiveled to watch a house across the street.
My husband and I live on a quiet, residential street near the summit of a hill, far from the center of town. Broad and spacious in one direction, our road is cramped in the other, a harrowing drive around elbow turns where a micro moment of inattention could afflict or derange an existence...

An Empty Quarter by Julie Brickman
Published in The Louisville Review, Spring 2005, No.57.

You never know what boundaries love will make you cross.

In the morning, you sneak into the men's quarters, slip into Samir's room. You have not been here in fourteen years, since he entered manhood. You are shocked by the change, the dark grain of the woods, the sleek blacks of the sound and video equipment. You still think of him immersed in celestial blues from pale noon to deep midnight, the colors you selected for his childhood.
You inch the door closed, slide the bolt into place. Now you can take your time...

 The Rainbow Range by Julie Brickman
Published in The Barcelona Review. International Review of Contemporary Fiction. Issue #61. November-December 2007.

Message From Aysha by Julie Brickman
Published in High Horse.

I was never so excited in my life as the day my father told me he was hiring an American woman to run his new business. Well, not run, but co-run. And she was to be on equal footing as a director with my brother, Samir! Samir was not happy, in fact he was furious. He flushed to a bruised purple and stayed that way throughout the evening.

My nervous system electrified like a hot wire fence, sending little zinging feelings crackling through me, until even my liver trembled, my kidney, my heart, though I tried to conceal my elation...