The woman smelled good–very, very good. Ibrahim trailed her scent through the Suq al’Ala, following her fragrance amid the stench of vendors who had been standing in the hot sun since dawn, the stink of rotting vegetables, the pungent odors of coriander and cinnamon hanging above tables of stacked apples and lemons, the fumes of oil and gas from passing cars, the musk of donkeys and camels and fowl destined to be dinner.
Read More50 Fatwas for the Virtuous Vampire
I am copying this out while I can. Leuwin is away, has left me in charge of the library. He has been doing that more and more, lately—errands for the Sisterhood, he says, but I know it’s mostly his own mad research. Now I know why.
Read MoreThe Green BookThe very little town of N. was largely bypassed by the revolution—the red cavalries thundered by, stopping only to appropriate the ill-gotten wealth of Countess Komarova, the lone survivor of N.’s only noble family. The wealth was somewhat less than the appropriators had anticipated—a ruined mansion and no funds to repair it.
Read MoreCitizen Komarova Finds LoveAnd when the girl who had six fingers saw the grizzled fisherman, she knew he was the right one for her. The way his eyes set on the water like pins. How his bent frame showed little strain against the constant pull of the catch. How his hands gripped the pole with defiant might.
Read MoreThe Girl Who Had Six FingersEvery evening was a fin de siècle in the great sprawling castle-city of Nycthemeron. But, of course, to say it was evening meant no more than to say it was morning, or midnight, or yesterday, or six days hence, or nineteen years ago.
Read MoreStill Life (A Sexagesimal Fairy Tale)Somewhere, out beyond the too-often-unmapped intersection of known and forgotten, there’s a hole through which the dead crawl back up to this world: A crack, a crevasse, a deep, dark cave. It splits the earth’s crust like a canker, sore lips thrust wide to divulge some even sorer mouth beneath–tongueless, toothless, depthless.
Read Moreeach thing i show you is a piece of my deathWhen it came time to carry her father’s soul down from the mountain, she had nothing to carry it in. The bowl her mother had carved from heirloom ivory, fitted together like a puzzle mosaic and watertight without needing glue, had been shattered that morning in an argument with her father’s retainer.
Read MorePortage
The French title translation is "mind of the staircase" and refers to the phenomenon of coming up with a rejoinder after the fact. Author Peter M. Ball uses the phrase in a meta sense to describe all the things you miss after a loved one dies.
Read MoreL’esprit de L’escalierA vision of the building from on high: five glittering floors surrounded by a dull concrete parking lot. To the west lay a forest. To the east, the glint of a shopping mall, substantial as a mirage. To the north, highways and fast-food restaurants. To the south, a perpetual gloom through which could be seen only more shadow.
Read MoreSecret Life