We think of day and night in symmetry, in endless succession but day was born from the long cold pre-Solar night and in the heat-death of the universe will collapse back into night once more; time will end. And so this, the ticking of a great clock, is an odd instant between two faceless expanses of darkness. The symmetry we feel between light and dark, morning and evening is just a brief chapter in which light almost holds darkness at bay. It has rained too heavily all day to go out and now as the dusk draws in I sit at the small table by the window, at the top of the stair. The maid has brought me a lamp, some quills and ink from my study.…
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Rita reminded Irving of the female leads in the after-school movies he had watched fifteen years before at his babysitter’s house (Rebecca: she was on the high school track team, her mother owned a travel agency, and her father lived in Montana). However, unlike most of those characters, Rita showed no interest in remaking herself—Irving had the satisfied sense that she would not be exchanging her thick glasses for contacts, amplifying her straight, shoulder-length hair into unnatural heights, throwing out her jeans and T-shirts and replacing them with mini-skirts and an inconsistent array of jackets and halter-tops, not in any scenario he could predict, at any rate.
They met in their last semester at college, in a seminar class about autobiography. He was taking the class because it was the last English literature seminar that was available, and he needed one to fulfill his graduation requirements.…
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Major Tom Briggs liked the jungle of the Philippines. He was comfortable in his sweat-soaked uniform. The earthliness of the jungle’s petrichor and the sounds of its exotic creatures enchanted him. Briggs liked the Filipinos who tolerated his high school-level Spanish and taught him local dialects. He felt at home among them and in the jungle of the American-owned archipelago. So, when the Imperial Japanese Army invaded, the tall, blonde-haired lanky army officer and several of his men escaped into the torrid jungle rather than participate in the Bataan Death March.
They met with a small contingent of Filipino soldiers of like mind, and Major Briggs combined the forces into a guerrilla unit. Briggs had read every army manual in his local National Guard office. Believing the navy had nothing to do with him, Tom Briggs ignored the naval manual on the shelf with all the rest.…
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Car, I don’t think we’re Ankara anymore.
These are the very first words I say to my sister, as we walk through airport security, breathing in fresh air, after a five hour flight in a metal bird. Unlike the easygoing, small airport with overenthusiastic staff we’re used to back in Ankara, Istanbul Airport is massive, crowded and strictly professional. No random airport employee coming to help us here. They don’t even want to tell us which bus to take to get to our dormitory near some place called Hirka-i-Serif in Fatih. The one personnel we do manage to stop, glares at us, muttering, yabanci, as he walks off.
We’re not used to the cold shoulder in Turkey. Still, after much effort, and a quick stop at a cafe at the Airport to attend a work meeting, we manage to flag a cab.…
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Wandering the aisles late at night, picking up this or that, turning it over in consideration only to reject it and drift farther along, Greg finally realized it wasn’t candy or salty snacks that he wanted, but meaning. The dollar store didn’t stock that.
Ben Roth…
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They start innocuous, as playful mispronunciations of my surname. I blink and the interactions have escalated to being pinned against a wall and pummelled repeatedly by Jon, Bret, and Joanne while the trio shout at me in unison, collectively demanding the answer to BUT WHERE ARE YOU REALLY FROM as I whimper the “nowhere important” I think they want to hear before realising, too late, that only informational specificity might spare me from a broken nose or bruised ribs.
Does anything good come in three? Really? That’s what we say. It’s a crowd. The Wise Men. The time periods: past, present, future. The fundamental qualities of the universe: time, space, matter.
But just as often, three’s a hindrance. An obstacle, subject to chance. Rock, paper, and scissors.…
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I guess I hadn’t been paying too close attention. One day everything was normal, the next it seemed as if Woody had aged 30 years. His eyes were as bright as ever, but most of his hair had turned grey overnight. His walk was much slower and his taste for any type of food had all but disappeared. Then one night I noticed he completely ignored his favorite meal of steak and baked potato, preferring to just veg out on the couch. It was obvious that things were far from being right. He had stopped communicating in his normal fashion and all of his movements had a slow, almost exaggerated, motion. He didn’t moan or complain, just slept a lot and didn’t move too much. I had seen these signs too many times to ignore them.…
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