We hold ourselves with straightjacket proudness, tall and sinewy, effortlessly. Our natures command us to hide our frailties, our crumbling thoughts. We must radiate pride, for debility is a precursor to beatings. Our hearts beat resonantly in our birdlike chests, uncushioned by flesh or emotion. We must stride on – in the narrowest sense of…
Sedentary, listless, swathed in black, they stand. Heads are bowed, some in respect, others in lackadaisical apathy. Is it wrong to ask whether half of the poppy-adorned congregation understand? A trumpet marks the beginning. Thirty veterans stand to attention, tunics emblazoned with medals. The atrocities of war are long forgotten, and so the glorification begins.…
On the day of the funeral the man stood, head bowed against the driving rain, watching water roll off the waxed canvas of his flat cap. A figure unmoving, as though cast in stone, a cigarette held lightly between first and middle finger. Were a passerby to glance casually at the sparse congregation gathered on…
Based on the Boxing Day Tsunami of 2004. He had never been one to concern himself with the follies of worry, rarely straying down the path to calamity, and today was no exception. He was jubilant this morning, basking in the joys of the previous day that he had spent in isolation. Utter perfection. No,…
Based on the true curse of the Palazzo Dario. Dusk is falling on the Grand Canal as they wind their way north. The water is silky to the touch, undisturbed by the customary plethora of bustling adventure-goers and unrequited lovers. They watch the muscled hand of the gondolier steer their craft, and the ripples exude…
Curious Miscellanies 