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The Tsar of Back in My Day

Lately, he’d been thinking about his ex-father-in-law. Not the ex-wife - calm down. That road had enough potholes already. No, this was about Kolya. They had never been especially close. Between the language barrier, the cultural divide, and the lingering fog of the recently ended Cold War, “warm relationship” was never really on the menu. Still, Kolya had made an impression. Men like that tended to. He was somewhere in his mid-to-late sixties when they met. Picture the farmer from American Gothic if he’d been drafted by the Soviet Union, fed boiled cabbage, and taught to glare professionally. Bald as a cannonball, which somehow made his head seem even larger. Thick square plastic eyeglasses magnified his eyes until they looked like a permanent accusation. He dressed sharply, but in a way that suggested the tailor’s motto had been adequate for the State . Then there were his teeth. No expert on the subject, he could only assume cosmetic dentistry had been dismissed by the Soviets a...
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NO SAVING GRACE (part 3)

For three days, Grace Holloway was herself again.  Or the version she preferred to call herself. No headaches. No lost time. No strange notes. No waking with dirt beneath her nails or blood she could not explain. She slept eight hours each night. She attended a luncheon, chaired a committee meeting, sent flowers to a widow she barely knew, and was told twice she looked radiant. Grace almost laughed. Perhaps it had been stress. Hormones. Some temporary neurological storm. Perhaps Dr. Julian Vale had frightened her with his expensive calm and ominous questions. Perhaps all of it was passing. By the fourth evening, she was nearly certain. --- The package arrived at 6:40. No return address. Inside was a single cream card. Same time next week. The others adore you. Nothing else. Grace stood in her foyer for a long time. Then, despite every rational instinct, she dressed. Not elegantly. Automatically. As if following remembered instructions her conscious mind had never learned. --- The t...

NO SAVING GRACE (part 2)

Three days after the church incident, Grace Holloway lost nearly six hours. She remembered leaving work. Rain on the windshield. A voicemail from her mother. The smell of wet wool. Then - Music. Heavy bass, muffled through walls. Grace opened her eyes while lying on a velvet chaise lounge in a room lit red and gold. Her head throbbed. Bodies moved everywhere around her - half-dressed, masked, laughing too loudly, touching without tenderness. Champagne spilled. Someone cried and kept laughing. A man in a suit was on his knees praying or vomiting, or something else entirely. Grace could not tell which, until she noticed his head bobbing up and down. No one seemed surprised to see her awake. Someone passed and kissed her forehead. “Back from the dead,” he said. Grace sat upright too fast. She was clothed, mostly. Expensively, but incorrectly. One heel missing. Blouse buttoned wrong. Her hands trembled. There were dark stains on one cuff. Wine, she thought instantly. Blood, she the thought...

NO SAVING GRACE (part 1)

Thirty-one-year-old Grace Holloway was, by every public measure, a lovely woman. People used that word often. Lovely . Lovely smile. Lovely manners. Lovely home. Lovely to work with. Lovely to have at dinner. She remembered names, birthdays, dietary restrictions, anniversaries, children’s allergies, preferred wine, and exactly how long to hold eye contact before looking modestly away. She sent sympathy cards on thick cream stationery. She volunteered suggestions where photographs might be taken. She touched forearms when speaking, leaned in at the right moments, laughed without showing too much gum, and could make almost anyone leave a conversation feeling slightly improved. Grace had spent years becoming indispensable. No one noticed that no one really knew her. --- The headaches began in late October. A bright, needling pain behind the left eye. Brief at first. A pulse. A stitch. Then gone. She blamed backlit computer screens. Stress. Weather. Then came the lost minutes. Standing in ...

THE BOOK I'LL NEVER WRITE

He sometimes said his greatest regret was not taking the old Trans-Siberian Railway eastward to Lake Baikal. Not because he cared much for bucket lists. He considered such catalogs as vanity with stationery, for those who had wasted decades suddenly writing down ten expensive ways to continue wasting time. No, what he regretted was more precise than that. He regretted never sitting in a dim canteen somewhere near Irkutsk while some broad-faced stranger lied to him magnificently over soup and vodka. He regretted never hearing the room laugh at a joke he only half understood. He regretted missing stories that would now likely never be told the same way again. His body had long since vetoed such ambitions. These days he was lucky if the month’s arithmetic ended with enough left over for prescriptions. If Melinda French Gates wished to finance a crippled Pennsylvanian’s global adventures, he remained open to discussion, but until then, conversations near Lake Baikal would have to survi...

THOSE WHO HEAR

  Collected Papers of Rev. Andrew Kaczmarek (1857–1903) Editor’s Preface (1903) The following documents were recovered from the personal effects of Rev. Andrew Kaczmarek, formerly of St. Rita of Cascia Church. They were found in a trunk beneath the floorboards of a rented room in Stewartstown, Pennsylvania, following the Reverend’s unexplained disappearance in October of 1857. The materials consist of letters, journal entries, copied fragments, and several loose pages of uncertain origin. Some show signs of water damage inconsistent with their place of storage. Several letters addressed to a Dr. Elias Whitcomb were found among the Reverend’s papers. Though properly dated and prepared for post, none bear evidence of having been mailed. No body was recovered. No formal inquiry was pursued. The Reverend’s last known movements placed him in the Allegheny foothills, traveling alone. Letter I June 3rd, 1857 My Dear Dr. Whitcomb, You once asked whether I had encountered, in...

THE BEST LAID PLANS OF THEOBALD STERLING MANN part 2

As promised! PART 2! If you missed Part 1, you can read it HERE . Once back in his own neighborhood, Sterling kept a vigilant eye out for neighbors, the postman, and any assorted passersby. He could not be seen. He slipped along the side of the house and into the backyard just after noon. It was sunny but not too warm. The bathroom window was still open...just enough. Perfect. He picked up a twig from the slightly unkempt yard, just to be safe, then climbed the maple and made his way quietly onto the garage roof. All he had to do now was wait. Inside, Betty's television blared. She was watching a game show from the sound of it. She was a creature of habit, just as he was. As soon as he could no longer hear the television, he knew it would soon be time. Betty had been watching The Price Is Right . Even though she didn't like the new host, she still enjoyed watching contestants over guess prices and spin the big wheel. She didn't know why she liked it...she just did. She kne...