From the category archives:
Mental Affairs Chapter 11 I stared at the shadowed ceiling, trying to guess how much time had passed since Alexi’s breathing had evened out. He had taken forever to fall asleep. Had it been an hour? I found myself counting his breaths. Two, ten, thirty, one hundred. I would miss him. If things had been [...]
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Mental Affairs Chapter 10 I woke before Alexi the next morning and slipped out of the tent, walking down to the water’s edge. The early morning mist was burning off, and the point at which the fog and water became one slipped steadily backward. I needed to pick apart what had happened last night. I [...]
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Mental Affairs Chapter 9 My plan was not going well, I thought, sitting on a wall outside the monastery at Meteora and staring out over the iconic rock formations of the Pindos range. I had tried to seek out time with Alexi over the past few days, and he had been quiet and hesitant. He [...]
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Mental Affairs Chapter 8 Being on the road without the expectation of performing was wonderful. I got the sense we moved faster than April and Kaia might have liked, but compared to the tour our forward progress was leisurely. We stayed off the beaten path, and saw parts of Bulgaria that most travelers missed. When [...]
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Mental Affairs Chapter 7 We managed to leave the next morning without alerting anyone other than the hotel staff to our departure, and I breathed a sigh of relief once we had left Bucharest behind. Our drive south was uneventful. Kaia tried to read through Paul’s attempts at conversation, April spent her time looking out [...]
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Mental Affairs Chapter 6 “Where were you last night, Paul?” Kaia asked, her voice sugared. I fought the urge to roll my eyes as we walked through the hotel lobby and into the attached restaurant for breakfast. “I had some unexpected business to attend to,” Paul replied. “Nothing for you to worry about.” “Does this [...]
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What’s so fascinating about watching a building come down? Why do people record the twisted carnage of brick and steel, watching the demise on YouTube or live from an office window? I lean against the windowsill, my head spinning from hours on the computer. Behind me, two contractors are joking. “I used to work in [...]
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Mental Affairs Chapter 5 We stumbled into the hotel in the early hours of the morning, Kaia and Paul walking under their own power but Jan and I supporting a heavily sedated April. Neither of us had broken bones, but the heel to her hand had snapped some old stitches, and she had sprained her [...]
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Mental Affairs Chapter 4 “That’s the price we pay?” Jan asked. I stared at him. “Whatever, never mind. Let’s go get something to eat.” “Did we really go to a concert last night and find out that Bob is a guy named Alexi, who sings in one of the most popular bands in Romania?” I [...]
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Mental Affairs Chapter 3 I moved through the remaining two weeks of our tour with a sense of excitement and anticipation that belied the dwindling amount of sleep I got each night. She was moving, and coming closer. I recognized the scenery once; a trail in the Bucegi Mountains I had hiked a few years [...]
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