It was impossible for me to ignore him through no fault of his own. His scent was maddening, a test of my endurance. Sweet sandalwood and earthy turmeric overlaid by the headier aroma of his sex. It seemed, based on his youth and choice of reading material, that he...
There is a room. A square room. There is a bed in the middle of the room. A square table. A chair. There are no windows. No doors. It is neither hot nor cold. The only sound is that of your breath knocking against the silence of the room. There is a single fluorescent...
"Feel the mighty engine's dance," Jerome repeated to himself, strolling along the twin steel rails. A thrush chirped somewhere and drew his eyes to the side of the tracks. Stale sunlight, trapped in the breezeless August trees, made him squint his eyes. The world of...
The blue hour of the afternoon walking from the rehearsal at Symphony Hall to the subway station on the corner of 6th ave and 42nd feels smooth, round and soft, peaked stiffly in the center as I would imagine a woman's breast would feel if I ever dared to touch one. I...
I am not sure why I want to tell this story. I am not positive it's even my story to tell, though I'm the main character. I was just there, the subject. Marcus, he was the conductor, the chemist. He did the experimentation. Maybe it's his story to tell, his hypothesis...
Brad could sense the chill in the air right away. He was still groggy before his first cup of coffee, but he wasn't dead. Of course, Liz wasn't exactly subtle, either, when she was annoyed about something. Everything she did took on a certain crispness, an economy of...
By Riccardo Berra © 2011, Love on the Edge With thanks/apologies to Jean-Luc Godard A girl takes a shower, alone in her apartment. As she sits naked in the dark to dry herself, a familiar ache grows inside her. Lit only by the blue glow of her computer screen, she...
In an obscure Scottish valley, the train spotters were out in the pouring rain, waiting for a long delayed electric locomotive to pass by so they could jot down its number for their collections. One among their numbers, the eldest, was talking of the Golden Age Of...
On nights when the heat won't let her sleep, Mariah is prone to wandering. When the humidity of the city is so oppressive, the walls are closing in on her, she hefts her bag of spray cans, paints, rags, brushes and turpentine onto her shoulder and climbs down the fire...
I make coffee in my kitchen while the wan light of early morning on the lake filters through the louvers of the Venetian blinds in the cottage. It's the last of my Blue Mountain, a gift from the griot, Kayode 'Kayo' Mackenzie of Hilton Head Island. I want it for...