Morning Train to Paris
The small boy took a bite out of the doughnut he held in one hand and extended the remainder of the half-eaten, chocolate-glazed circle toward Sylvere. The boy, who was seated on a yellow...
Tagged: art
The Big, Brown Car: Paris
Sylvere opened the back door of the small car, placed the saxophone enclosed in its case on the back seat, and closed the door. The air outside El Bulle Petite was fresh. He could...
Ch. 6, Pt. 1: The White Boat – Xi Ming
The seat behind the steering wheel was empty. The driver stood in the sand next to an old man in a white robe. As I walked up the aisle toward the front door of...
Ch. 5, Pt. 4: Road to Podor – Sofi
Everybody was silent, looking out the windows at the unfolding landscape. The bus moved along Route N2 as the road began curving eastward. Now, we decelerated. On the left side of the road, I...
Ch. 5, Pt. 3: Road to Podor – Ricardo
The barren landscape of sand and scrub brush stretching toward the horizon on both sides of the bus was interrupted by a line of steel towers, each connected to the next by three power...
Ch. 5, Pt. 2: Road to Podor – Hercule
“We’re going to head east now,” Raphael announced in French as the driver turned left on a road, called Route N2, directly in front of a large gas station displaying a sign with a...
Ch. 5, Pt. 1: Road to Podor – Raphael
Music drifted through the warm air. At one edge of the dining room on the threshold of an open glass door leading to the courtyard a tall floor fan turned slowly on its axis,...
Love Lost: Moscow
The moment I took the final step up the wide staircase and reached the third floor of the MS Sergei Yesenin, I stopped and looked at my left wrist, before recalling I had lost...
Ch. 4: Guet N’Dar
It was already too hot. Moving south across N’Dar Island, Lomax stopped, removed his cell phone from a pocket of his photographer’s vest, and checked the temperature: 29°C. I stopped next to him and...
Ch. 3: Ismael and Hamimu – St. Louis
It wasn’t too hot. The temperature on that Friday in St. Louis was agreeable, 22 degrees Celsius, while Lomax and I sat at a table under a big umbrella with remnants of our breakfast....