The key was so cold his first instinct was to drop it. He held on, afraid to make a noise. All day, he’d kept to the edges as though watched, as though judgment could be passed. He studied the key. It was heavy, large and ornate as though it might unlock a pirate’s treasure chest. …
It was midnight, and silent. Mannheim had not known a silent midnight in two years. Skulking in the bushes beyond the ruins of the Rathaus, Renata bid her time. The lights inside the American Military government headquarters were out; the moonless sky was black. Seizing the moment, Renata dashed across the grounds and tore up …
The night before the house across the street was demolished, my mother claimed to see the ghost of a small boy up on its roof. He was sitting on the ruins of the chimney, she said, and it looked as though he were reading a book. Then he vanished. But the most important detail about …
Don’t go into the alley, Sara’s mother always said. Don’t drive through the alley either, her father added, citing how people would lay down bits of glass to pierce your tires or metal to damage the undercarriage of your car, and if you don’t make it out, well, then you’ve got real problems, sister. The …
The first time I met Paula was at a launch party for John’s third volume on the Greeks, this one on Aristotle. Since I didn’t know him when he completed the first two, I felt no obligation to read them, thank God, because only Google and thumbing through some of Aristotle’s Poetics got me through …
Ralph looked at Agatha, sitting ramrod straight in her rocking chair on one side of the fireplace. Didn’t she know people were supposed to relax in rocking chairs? Across from her Frank slouched comfortably in his rocker. Now there was a man who knew what a rocker was for. Agatha mumbled something, leaned forward …
Otto shudders to think what will happen to his body after he dies. Having endured decades of people staring, whispering behind his back, and asking intrusive questions, he’s braced himself for the worst. Barring complete disintegration in a spectacular mid-air collision, he expects his corpse to be enveloped in a black bag and whisked to …
The old joke about the four fastest methods of communication — telegraph, telephone, television, and tell a woman — was not only sexist but inaccurate, especially at Doldrum Enterprises, where the head of HR was a gossipy man. A smarmy, mean-spirited, gossipy man, who knew when to kiss up and when to put down. An …
But, Mousie, thou art no thy lane, In proving foresight may be vain; The best-laid schemes o’ mice an’ men Gang aft agley, An’ lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain, For promis’d joy! Still thou art blest, compar’d wi’ me The present only toucheth thee: But, Och! I backward cast my e’e. On prospects …
I arrived in Washington the same day that James Forrestal went out the window. My first visit to the capital would have been otherwise forgettable. Union Station was less crowded on a Sunday morning than I’d ever found a stateside train station. Never a churchgoing man myself, I still felt a nostalgia for the chiming …