Yea, I hated all my labor which I had taken under the sun, for I should leave it unto the man that shall be after me – Ecclesiastes 2:18 On the morning of All Saints Day, Brother Matej rose, as was his custom, an hour or so before sunrise in a small cell of that
CategoryFiction
The Sinkhole
I felt the chilly wind as I stepped out of the taxi. The hotel my boss booked for me was in the northern district of the city. I stood next to the car gazing at the dark red building while the driver took my suitcase out of the trunk. The building was wide rather than
The Cactus Man
He was a cactus. His skin was too thin for the real world; he had begun to grow spikes. He could feel the needles forming—first subconsciously, then on the outer lining of his forearms, up his spine, and on the nape of his neck. They had expanded down his legs, these new additions making him
Watch, Listen, Learn
Prologue The World had seen the days that we fear. The time that is coming to seek us. The days that we are striving towards. Generations upon generations passed. Humanity changed. They had watched from their last safe space, seeing everything their ancestors and their entire race had built crash down, and become recaptured by
Leonardo
There were new points of pain now, the body speaking verses so decisive and dense, Claudia could no longer understand the sensation. It was not a knot in the belly or a blinding headache—no, it was aches occupying the edges of words and images, unrefined and unpronounceable. Some afternoons when the winds were not so
Monsoon
The vast flood Rolls onward But yield yourself, And it floats you upon it – Ikkyū Sōjun, tr. R. H. Blyth The first drops were sweet against his hands. They tapped at him gently, first at his wrist, then his shoulder, then his face, as though to get his attention. He had expected them; the
Even the Clean Ones are Unclean
It’s that time of summer: when everyone’s everywhere doing everything when days are longer, happinesses stronger when the green grass looks like it’s been told I-love-you. Six past six o’clock. Evening. The sun is effulgent, the wind mildly turbulent. At a field, around a neighborhood, in Berlin, on a sunny summer Sunday, three friends meet
Birth of the Blue Heron
Dark, dark my light, and darker my desire. My soul, like some heat-maddened summer fly, Keeps buzzing at the sill. Which I is I? A fallen man, I climb out of my fear. The mind enters itself, and God the mind, And one is One, free in the tearing wind. “In a Dark Time” By