My spine stiffens; I exhale through a grin I can’t quite suppress. “Dr D”—that’s one of the boys, then. But the voice continues, and I catch the gravel beneath the mischief, the particular cadence that only decades, and heaps of rye, can build into a throat. Not Bartley. Nor any of the siblings. The old…
Tag: London
The COMC Files: Update
London, when the cab spits me out by my townhouse, is grey and humid, the air smelling of diesel, toast, and river. My feet strike the pavement with purpose, but there’s a tremor beneath every step: exhaustion, awe, the shock of clocks resuming. I unlock the door, inhale the familiar scent of home—old books, ground…
The COMC Files: London
Book of Burned Bridges The Heathrow arrivals hall is a fluorescent dawn after so many nights of myth. I stand still just past the immigration gates, letting the static-pated crowd flow around me—families, suits, tourists blinking at arrival boards. I am unaccompanied: Tarmo had cajoled, pleaded for me to board his Zurich-bound jet, but I’d…
