A WARM MAY NIGHT in Paris, 1903.     A hundred thousand Parisians left their homes in the middle of the night, streaming in crowds toward Saint-Lazare and Montparnasse, the railway stations.    Some hadn’t even gone to sleep,

My career began with two strokes of good luck—fate, you might say, because as instances of good fortune none could have bettered them. After the war, towards the end of which I served as a cook in

The trip was going to be a stronzo. It was reminding her of a Rome traffic jam once near Ponte Vittorio when a man in sun-glasses and an open shirt had gotten out of his blocked Fiat 500 and, from

In the year of our Lord 687, in cause of an early, wet spring, the body of Saint Cuthbert was laid in the ground to rest. On the tomb were figured angels and seraphim of plain but wonderful design. And among these flitted cherubs, like apricots set into the stone. Thus carved, the tomb was set upon a patch of ground a low word’s reach from the road, where wild grass grew and flowering thyme.

On the river, Bianca Marburg leaned toward the water and closed her hand around a yellow bowl that was floating, calmly upright, past her kayak. The bowl was dry inside, empty but for a beetle 

They were in the smaller, formal mess⁠—far enough off the main grid that you could forget for a second that you were living at the end of eight miles of tunnels.

She cut three slashes into a piece of chorizo, started wedging Valiums into it, and worried in a vague way that something unusual would be required of her. She thought she remembered David saying that he gave the dog nine of his Valiums before the groomer.

I once brought a girl home because I liked her shoes. That was the only thing I noticed about her. I live in a really small apartment. A lot of my clothes end up piled on my mattress or draped over the open door of the microwave.

As I was saying, ladies and gentlemen, before that little unpleasantness: I have just been assured, by those in position to know, that this evening’s eminent “mystery guest” has arrived, and should be with us any time now.

twirling around on my piano stool my head begins to swim my head begins to swim twirling around on my piano stool twirling around on my piano stool a dizzy spell eventuates twirling around on my piano stool I begin to feel dizzy twirling around on my piano stool

I want to fornicate with Alice but my wife Regine would be insulted Alice’s husband Buck would be insulted my child Hans would be insulted my answering service would be insulted tingle of insult running through calm loving healthy productive tightly-knit