Richard Costa Blanca, 2012 Coffee with Irmy and Hans, the neighbours. Stroopwafels, Dutch television, the particular furniture of people who brought their country with them intact. I was comfortable in that atmosphere the way you’re comfortable in a language you grew up in but no longer speak every day. The doorbell announced a bridge friend…
The Holographer’s Atlas
Daan de Vylder ’98. Eight months back in the country where I was born. Not the coast—no bridges, no coffeehouses, no salt on the windows. A border village instead. Meadows, woods, a low sky that made everything feel provisional. I was in a one bar- town. For men. Jan had redone his backyard in honour…
The Holographer’s Atlas
Jan ’98 The coast I knew turned green. The disco drum turned to doves. I put my bikini in a drawer and borrowed a fur coat. I learned the village map like a religion. My sunny frontline apartment became a big old house from before the war. Empty rooms make loud ghosts. My daughter stopped…
The Holographer’s Atlas
B. Z. Projan Anima ’94 I heard him before I saw him. Not him, exactly—his acceleration, the particular growl of his engine. In a chorus of scooters, with the occasional Harley and Ducati, his Honda cut through differently—lighter, but still roaring as if it carried his spirit inside it. The blue handkerchief at his throat…
The Holographer’s Atlas
Swiebertje ’81 The first time I saw him I was ten, maybe eleven. Wild. Dark eyes. Long white mane. Tall in a way that made you reconsider your options. They said he wasn’t made for riding. I showed up anyway, with a saddle, a bridle, and no particular respect for what other people thought was…
The Holographer’s Atlas
Rob and Elroy, Amsterdam ’79 I am eight years old and I have learned to stay at school during lunch. The guest family my mother pays has three sons, and I prefer not to go back there at midday. I prefer the girls who take the piss out of my exquisite table manners, my Burberry…
The Memory Cartographer – Book X – Order Magic
Another sneak peek The Line That Did Not Move Three men. Maybe four. Poorly disciplined — the kind who expect sleeping villages and easy work. They had good intelligence and bad instincts. They knew about the fund, the women, the maps. They knew a foreign woman with money was somewhere inside the compound. They thought…
The Memory Cartographer – Book X – Order Magic
First pages sneak peek Every Girl Born Knowing Years ago I wrote a column about a Global Birth Right Fund. The idea was simple and radical in equal measure: every girl born anywhere on earth enters the world with an economic right. A fund, seeded by women with money who were tired of reading about…
The Memory Cartographer – Book X – Order Magic
Another peek “Mr… Karimi, is it?” the deputy said, mispronouncing his name in a way that sounded practised. Karim smiled politely. “Close enough.” “We hear you’ve been very… helpful,” the cousin added. His suit fit a little too well not to have come from Budapest. “Showing people how to use our new toy.” “Our president’s…
The Memory Cartographer – Book X – Order Magic
Order Magic lives somewhere around Book 10 in The COMC Files. You’re not supposed to be here yet, but I’m bad at waiting—so here’s a harmless little scene of Karim annoying Hungarian bureaucracy without giving the real spoilers away. Chapter I – Érkezés Order Magic is the power of structure, stability, and cosmic law: the…
The Memory Cartographer 