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It was just another lobby. Long, low desk, a bustle of greeters and sorters in professional versions of this world’s street clothes. Banks of sleek, slim laptops, same no-colors as the devices, standing open on two edges. Stamped into the walls behind the smiles and the software, an enormous sign, incorporating the triple wave, restating that Marie was at a Med-Fac-Terr, whatever that was. All this information, telling her nothing. A few details plus or minus, it was the exact vibe of Smith-Westen’s ground floor, dozens of client firms, hundreds of Hyatts. She could be here to buy a home alarm system or rob a bank. She was an alien. This, another world. Welcome to wherever. Clients checked in at the front desk to receive one of the unknown services provided. Their conversation swept over her in word waves she could hardly hear and didn’t understand at all. She was reduced to guessing, which was oddly like begging.
July 9, 2025 at 11:34 AM
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There was a ripple in Marie’s head, light shimmering on lakes. Almost painful, nearly nothing. Artemisia released her, stepped back still smiling. Marie felt shaken, bruised, like somebody beaten half-heartedly with a baseball bat. A vague impression of the chicly pant-suited hostess double-checking Artemisia and Dakkotta’s order. Their names together on the bag in black and white—Dakkotta’s spelled just the way she’d sneered it at Marie. Philip and Dakkotta chatting—a friendly-seeming exchange. Marie caught a gleam of white teeth, so at least half a smile. One L must have won her over. Nothing more natural. Marie shouldn’t be surprised. The sight, sound, smells of people eating, drinking, making merry because of what might happen tomorrow came rushing back. They’d reached the end of every Artemisian encounter; realization that nothing had happened. Contrary feelings were melted snow, evaporating water. Worse, those lines that doubled as skunk stink and heat mirages—never there in the first place. The hostess directed her welcome at Philip and Marie. Philip gave up his coat. She tried for Marie’s; was waved off, not quite politely. ‘No, I’ll hold on to it.’ Marie’s head was crystal clear, beautifully empty. She looked around at things that had never seemed so normal. Before? Just a dream. Unreal. Imagined.
July 6, 2025 at 12:48 PM
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Artemisia stepped toward Marie still smiling her little smile. Small but powerful, it blotted out One L, Dakkotta, the room itself—trapping the two of them in a tight and tiny circle. Darkness, silence all around, except for one last beam, source unknown, turning Artemisia’s red hair to fire. Surely she’d speak, say something significant. ‘You have a button loose.’ ‘What?’ ‘On your coat.’ Prying Marie’s hand away, Artemisia pulled, twisted—a quarter turn left, two sharp rights. Sparklers, in Marie’s chest, doing all the damage; her limbs were lead. ‘That’s better,’ said Artemisia. ‘See for yourself.’ Marie tried to find the button, missed by three inches. Half-laugh cinching the circle closer, Artemisia guided Marie’s finger to the exact spot. ‘There.’ Marie had no idea of the garment’s original condition. And not one of the several hundred sewists she was cursed to grow up with had ever in her sight secured a fastener in any such fashion. But the button was glued on now. She’d need a stick of dynamite to blast it free.
July 5, 2025 at 1:27 PM
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She let him drink first. The wind blew a thousand breaths. Children played under Batya’s loom. The forest fell, flattened by white cities that tumbled like tiles from Marie’s bathroom ceiling. Countless Batyas and Kateyns lifting their hands to ward off disaster, finding them immobilized, made of the same golden threads as goblets and kingdoms. Neatly folded, centuries onto spaces, their universe accordion pleated off Timeweaver. Was threaded through an aperture—a tall, thin slit in reality—into an Un-Place. A Timeless. Two towering walls, tops and bottoms out of sight, with an eternal passage between, lit ghostly green, not bright enough for real revelation. At jump-scare intervals, legs trying to kick free, a hand reaching out. The soundtrack was a high, cold discordance—jagged fingernails scratching at a steel sack. Batya, Kateyn, all of Old Terria, most uninterested in making history.
July 4, 2025 at 1:14 PM
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‘In time,’ said Batya, ‘we’ll make an empire of all these sweaty, silly villages.’ Kateyn’s response is to his everlasting credit. It went down in history. ‘Yes to it all of it, but what will we eat while I’m building and you’re selling everybody everything?’ Batya’s smile was pure, evil love of a bargain—the passion for paying far less than the true price. ‘When you dicker with my Patriman, pretend to love me madly. As a sign of it, ask Ilia only for his worst field, last in his lot, the one too near the sea.’ ‘That’s mostly caves,’ said Kateyn, who’d many times walked Ilia’s land with his eye on gain. Her smile switched to a light going on. ‘And in the biggest, a huge vein of salt. It’s brown, like dirt, until you scrape it with a special tool.’ She showed him hers. ‘Mine is crude. Yours will be better.’ From the depths of her bottomless apron, Batya offered Kateyn a shining vessel. ‘Where did you get so much gold?’ She almost giggled with delight. ‘It’s cloth,’ she said, ‘and guess who dyed and wove it?’ He balanced her gift in his hand. Light, strong, stiff. He had pockets of his own and in one, a flask, fragile by comparison to the cup, which, even filled to the brim, lost him not a drop.
July 3, 2025 at 12:02 PM
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‘In time,’ said Batya, ‘we’ll make an empire of all these sweaty, silly villages.’ Kateyn’s response is to his everlasting credit. It went down in history. ‘Yes to it all of it, but what will we eat while I’m building and you’re selling everybody everything?’ Batya’s smile was pure, evil love of a bargain—the passion for paying far less than the true price. ‘When you dicker with my Patriman, pretend to love me madly. As a sign of it, ask Ilia only for his worst field, last in his lot, the one too near the sea.’ ‘That’s mostly caves,’ said Kateyn, who’d many times walked Ilia’s land, his eye on gain. Her smile switched to a light going on. ‘And in the biggest, a huge vein of salt. It’s brown, like dirt, until you scrape it with a special tool.’ She showed him hers. ‘Mine is crude. Yours will be better.’ From the depths of her bottomless apron, Batya offered Kateyn a shining vessel. ‘Where did you get so much gold?’ She almost giggled with delight. ‘It’s cloth,’ she said, ‘and guess who dyed and wove it?’ He balanced her gift in his hand. Light, strong, stiff. He had pockets of his own and in one, a flask, fragile by comparison to the cup, which, even filled to the brim, lost him nothing.
July 3, 2025 at 11:46 AM
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‘Figure it out later,’ said Agent Ramirez, his urgency increasing. ‘We’ve got to move you now.’ Lucy didn’t move. Abby wrapped a dishcloth around the handle of the skillet, snatched it from the stove, crept out of the kitchen. ‘C’mon,’ said the agent, prowling the room. ‘If your phone’s been hacked, we need to get you out of here, yesterday.’ ‘No,’ said Lucy, looking straight at him. Abby lifted the skillet high above her head. He never knew what hit him. The sudden intensification of delicious poultry smells, a gasp, and down he went down under a rapid rain of chicken, Comté, and fines herbes. Another mere mortal felled by Abby’s killer ravioli.
July 2, 2025 at 11:45 AM
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Joseph could hear Elena’s voice, see the disapproval on her face. ‘This explosion will be small yes, but we need it’ she said, bringing her thumb and forefinger together until there was barely any space between, ‘tiny.’ Closing his eyes, he turned toward her. The crook of her neck, the smell of lime zest. A very lifelike pause, ‘Bring me back and I’ll do it myself.’ He tapped on the tracker and it went grey. Max hit his detonator right on time. What followed was barely a bang. Zero cops killed. No damage to the barrier even. From their separate positions, Max and Joseph exhaled one big breath as la Policia poured into the parking lot to see exactly what the hell.
July 1, 2025 at 11:12 AM
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June 30, 2025 at 1:39 PM
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‘Ms. Stannis, I can assure you there is no truth to your accus…’ Artemisia held up a quelling hand. Better than anyone, she knew Assistant Deputies to be poor, pitiful liars, in constant, sulky rebellion against veracity. She’d come prepared with offshore bank statements, which she fanned like playing cards across his Ethan Allan desk.
June 30, 2025 at 11:36 AM
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June 26, 2025 at 12:00 PM
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It had been fewer than thirty-six sleepless hours since Richard’s disappearance and Marie’s last in-office day. Which was thirty-five too many for Forrest. Without a death certificate, she’d be lucky if he didn’t demand a refund of her bonus. ‘Smiling despot,’ and ‘soulless psychopath’ are terms thrown around by people who have never met the managing partners of a K Street major player, and therefore have absolutely no idea of their real meaning. Forrest’s genial heartlessness versus Phillip’s vicious venom—a thrilling debate for the ages. But not for senior associates with an unalterable work commitment of fifty-five cleanly billable hours per week regardless of the number of parents misplaced. For they toil in the realm of Partner Track, a luxurious land, with borders unfortunately but fully outside of time, space, reason, justice, or mercy.
June 24, 2025 at 12:17 PM
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It had been fewer than thirty-six sleepless hours since Richard’s disappearance and Marie’s last in-office day. Which was thirty-five too many for Forrest. Without a death certificate, she’d be lucky if he didn’t demand a refund of her bonus. ‘Soulless psychopath,’ and ‘smiling despot’ are terms thrown around by people who have never met the managing partners of a K Street major player, and therefore have absolutely no idea what they are talking about. Forrest’s smiling heartlessness versus Phillip’s vicious venom—a thrilling debate for the ages. But not for senior associates with an unalterable work commitment of fifty-five cleanly billable hours per week regardless of the number of parents misplaced. For they toiled in the realm of Partner Track, a luxurious land, with borders unfortunately but fully outside of time, space, reason, justice, or mercy.
June 24, 2025 at 11:40 AM
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The air shimmered for a swift before a tall, thin slit appeared in the wall. Hands appeared, pulling reality’s new edges apart, left from right, right from left; a man stepped into the corridor. ‘Arthur De Messina,’ proclaimed the nametag. Hair a bit too long for cheap but neat sports jacket and khakis. Other than the thing on his wrist—definitely not a watch—he was the dictionary definition of a certain type of middle-class lawyer. One who talked fast and charged 10K a case for mediocre results, and, relatedly, was in perpetual and desperate need of a refresher on why not to rape or rob his clients. But just a few small adjustments to clothes and coif and he could pass with equal ease for the outraged commingled client or the bored officer called in to investigate himself. The Arthur De Messinas of whatever world were chameleons, blending into any background. Their nametags said nothing real about them.
June 23, 2025 at 12:06 PM
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They had been at it a long time, filling up Ilyad’s Greatest’s house with their hunters and their smoke and their smells. Shedding actual matted hairs. Beginning to growl at each other—hunters and men alike. Ilias’ women—his bond Lady Dendra, Dearest Filia, Pallen, and Batya, the other one—listened at the door. Kestle wanted fourteen pounds of salt for six hundred pelts, a ridiculous trade. Astle insisted he’d never been so insulted, no one had. Any brief now a Personal Challenge might be flung. Disaster. ‘Shouldn’t we,’ Pallen began and was immediately hushed by Lady Dendra. ‘We wait for a sign from your Patriman,’ Batya whispered, very kindly. She showed kindness to Pallen always because her half-sister would wither without it.
June 22, 2025 at 10:59 AM
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Synonym today.
Special Agent in Charge Jeff Warrens passed her in the hallway; she was leaving the Ladies’ Room just as he entered the Men’s. Tall, red-headed, lankily efficient in a way that made his fingers think of twitching in the direction of his gun. ‘No, no,’ he told himself, tending un-speedily to business. Her face was unfamiliar; she wore a Visitors’ Pass. This was the Hoover Building, which meant guards with scanners and metal detectors at the entrance. She was therefore unarmed, and, no matter how skillful hand-to-hand, bullets beat Krav Maga. She’d be an idiot to try anything. A woman who walked like that was anything but.
June 21, 2025 at 11:58 AM
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Abby’s hands flew like hummingbirds, placing perfect mounds of filling on Amanda’s dead-square pasta pieces. Lucy sidled over, hoping for a bite of something. ‘Lucy, quit your hovering, there’s food in the pot. ‘Why would you just stick your fingers in there like that, use a spoon. In the drawer. No. The other one. On the right. The ri…’ The sauce was halfway to Lucy’s lips when a knock shook the room. Lucy’s hand jerked and a half drop of red began an endless descent to the stovetop. ‘It’s Ramiro,’ said a familiar loudmouth. ‘There’s been a breach. Open this door.’
June 20, 2025 at 11:45 AM
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‘Now do me,’ he said. ‘Gladly, you sadist.’ Her fingers prodded every bump, bruise, and soft spot. Weakness kept him from slapping each poke separately. ‘Well how the hell am I?’ he said eventually, trying to make it be over. ‘Like a rotting banana,’ she said. ‘But some sleep, food, water will firm you right back up. How am I?’ Joseph said instead of the thousand things he was thinking, ‘We have to find a Lost and Found in one of those buildings. Don’t touch me for a minute, sixty solid seconds, and I’ll get us situated.’
June 19, 2025 at 12:58 PM
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1) Happy Juneteenth!
2) There can always be fewer words.
A female minion, dressed in the building’s drab colors, her bun so tight it put her face in a series of stress positions, walked Elena past a maze of cubicles crammed with employees working away at what could be literally anything. Eventually, they turned a corner that didn’t look like one and there was Michael Black. Lucy’s ex-husband, always a tough read, wore one of his exquisite suits and a smile full of pure, empty charm. ‘Miss Valverre, so good to see you,’ he said, not stopping, not shaking hands, not meaning it at all.
June 19, 2025 at 11:20 AM
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A female minion, dressed in the building’s drab colors, her bun so tight it put her face in a series of stress positions, walked Elena past a maze of cubicles crammed with employees working away at what could be literally anything. Eventually, they turned a corner that didn’t look like one and there was Michael Black. Lucy’s ex-husband, always tough to get a read off of, wore one of his exquisite suits and a smile full of nothing but pure, empty charm. ‘Miss Valverre, so good to see you,’ he said, not stopping, not shaking hands, and not requiring a response.
June 19, 2025 at 9:54 AM
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‘Toilet,’ said Andy, with her made for television grin, ‘Do I need a note?’ ‘There are two bathrooms downstairs,’ said Rachel. Giggle, stare. ‘And a half.’ ‘You’re forcing me to be blunt,’ said Andy, which was false on two fronts. Without a weapon, no person on earth could make Andy anything—that applied infinity to Rachel. ‘I need privacy. Pass me a sheet of that paper, I’ll draw you a picture. And put a number on it.’ Blushing, chagrined, giggles escaping like gas, off scampered Rachel.
June 18, 2025 at 2:25 PM
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‘Toilet,’ said Andy, with her made for television grin, ‘Do I need a note?’ ‘There are two bathrooms downstairs,’ said Rachel. Giggle, stare. ‘And a half.’ ‘You’re forcing me to be blunt,’ said Andy, which was false on two fronts. Without a weapon, no person on earth could make Andy anything—and least of all, Rachel. ‘I need privacy. Pass me a sheet of that paper, I’ll draw you a picture. And put a number on it.’ Blushing, chagrined, giggles escaping like flatulence, off scampered Rachel.
June 18, 2025 at 1:36 PM
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This second (I am lying 3rd) posting is just penance for being such an idiot. As part of my punishment, no one should read it.
The third of the three-man team came crashing through the front door. Joseph rushed into the impromptu hallway between the study and the safe room carved out by Elena’s bomb. He ran, calling for her. ‘Elena. Elena!’ The doors to the study and the closet inside were both gone. Pages of Elena’s first edition Spies in Exile, shredded from their spines, covered the floor like a carpet. What was left of the room heaved and groaned. Joseph pushed a half-listing bookcase back on its feet, automatically reaching through broken glass for the two unbroken shot glasses that still counted as contents. His bloody fingerprints smeared the cobalt blue Miami skyline of the first but blended right into the red triangles boldly proclaiming ‘Cartagena,’ and ‘Colombia’ on the second. ‘Elena, my god, Lee,’ Joseph cried.
June 16, 2025 at 1:39 PM
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The third of the three-man team came crashing through the front door. Joseph rushed into an impromptu hallway between the study and the safe room created by Elena’s bomb. He ran, calling for her. ‘Lee. Lee!’ The doors to the study and the closet inside were both gone. Pages of Lee’s first edition Spies in Exile, shredded from their spines, covered the floor like a carpet. What was left of the room heaved and groaned. Joseph pushed a half-listing bookcase back on its feet, automatically reaching through broken glass for the two unbroken shot glasses that still counted as contents. His bloody fingerprints smeared the cobalt blue Miami skyline of the first but blended right into the red triangles boldly proclaiming ‘Cartagena,’ and ‘Colombia’ on the second. ‘Elena, my god, Elena,’ Joseph cried.
June 16, 2025 at 11:42 AM
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Joseph was right beside Elena now. Her head drooped on his shoulder. Automatically, he felt around in it, finding bobby pins, holding her wet, heavy hair out of the water, squeezing it pointlessly damp. She pinned it up herself and exhaled a sound. It might have been a word. Maybe, ‘Try.’
June 15, 2025 at 10:30 AM