Some people are open books, easy to read with their pages displayed for everyone to see; others are closed books, hiding behind thick, heavy covers, protecting them from scrutiny. She was neither. She was a canvas, a cloth filled with a myriad of images and colours, like a Picasso or a Dali. Only the most
It was a slow Sunday in late July in a small northern Italian town. The sun bullied its way through as I stood in the crowds of people at the tiny train station. The afternoon heat reached out, bringing forth the smell of the metal from the train rails. Unwashed hair is what it smelled
Everybody I knew liked Herb Alpert. It is possible to have had an absolutely awful childhood and yet to have been happy. There were influences. All of the girls in my fifth grade wanted to kiss my classmate because he looked like Paul McCartney. I stole Beatles’ cards to give to a girl. Martin Luther
Law implies honor, trustworthiness, obedience to authority, and reliability. On the downside, lawfulness can include closed-mindedness, reactionary adherence to tradition, judgmentalness, and a lack of adaptability. Chaos implies freedom, adaptability, and flexibility. On the downside, chaos can include recklessness, resentment toward legitimate authority, arbitrary actions, and irresponsibility. Someone who is neutral with respect to law and chaos has a
I’m having an affair with an older woman. It’s not an extramarital affair because she’s not married. She’s actually a widow. She’s been a widow for as long as I’ve known her. I went to school with her son. We were in the same class. Sometimes, he would come over to my house after school
Gerald Spokes was Sabrina’s landlord and lived in number three, across the hallway. His father had bought the faded Georgian townhouse after the war and converted the over-large rooms into single-bedroomed flats. Sabrina had never married and couldn’t seem to keep a boyfriend for much longer than a season. They came and went with the
When I was twenty-seven, I bought a flat on monthly instalments in the outskirts of Pune city. I was still living with my parents at the time, but I visited my flat whenever I needed to feel calm. The walkway from the gate to my building was long and lined on both sides with innocent
1. It began one ordinary Sunday. I stood from my desk after several hours with a particularly fizzing case of pins and needles in my right foot. Being a warm day, I’d barely dressed and sat down without shoes, socks or slippers. As I stretched, flexing my tingling foot, I noticed my pinkie toe
Joe and I worked together forty-one years and for the most part we never disagreed. Normally after one of our interviews I would look over at his sheet of paper and see the same boxes checked off, then down at the bottom I would see that he too had circled TERMINATE or that he too
“Shit.” I briefly glance down at my watch as I sprint through the Tube station. I’m late and getting later. I missed the first train by a second. I arrived just as the doors were sliding closed and I could do nothing about it. I knew I was fucked as soon as I saw them
