This story contains themes or mentions of physical violence, gore, or abuse. The ruined temple stood tall despite the way time tried to eat away at it. Ancient tapestries reduced to barely hanging discolored rags, and once vibrant murals were dull. The dust was thick, and although she knew it wasn’t sanitary, she couldn’t help … Read more
Beginnings. Every story has a beginning and eventually comes to an end, whether happy or tragic. Today I am a millionaire, happily married and have a lovely family, but as for the beginning of my story, it was far from its end. So, where do I start? Simply, at the beginning. My story began before … Read more
Tommy knew this place like the back of his hand. Better than the back of his hand, because for him, the back of his hand was unremarkable and so he took it for granted. That was how it was and that was how it went. He’d been born with that part of his hand and … Read more
One dollar and eighty-seven cents. That was all. And sixty cents of it was in pennies. Pennies saved one and two at a time by bulldozing the grocer and the vegetable man and the butcher until one’s cheeks burned with the silent imputation of parsimony that such close dealing implied. Three times Della counted it. … Read more
It was said that a new person had appeared on the sea-front: a lady with a little dog. Dmitri Dmitritch Gurov, who had by then been a fortnight at Yalta, and so was fairly at home there, had begun to take an interest in new arrivals. Sitting in Verney’s pavilion, he saw, walking on the … Read more