I’m starting yet another short essay with a familiar mix of feelings: some pleasure, and – inevitably – some tension. The pleasure comes from the discussions that sometimes arise here. However incomplete or misshapen they may be, they remain one of the few genuine rewards for…

A strange thing happened — I woke up yesterday and found the world to be… good. I should say straight away: I hadn’t smoked anything. I simply opened my eyes — outside, a grey and grubby morning — rolled out of bed, scratched myself where one usually scratches in the morning……

He was a brave bastard. He knew it – no longer needed to prove it. He’d learned the trick over the years – at first unconsciously, just by instinct, then more and more through experience. Fear is only strong when it’s behind you, when it still has a chance to strike from the…

A Week in Paradise Shame rides on the edge of the familiar The sky above Berlin glows as if polished by careful German hands... Sounds flat, Vladko thinks. Pure kitsch. A sky is a sky—nowhere does it say Made in Germany. He gazes again at the tangle of steel scaffolding,…