Fiction

Paul Kaminski hated his job…not so much the exhausting hours spent at the machines, pulling taut wire across cut corn stalk, but the bastards that ran the joint. Paul had worked at lots of jobs over the years since he … Continue reading →

The December 2004 administration of the Israeli Halakha Standards and Kosher Certification Board Exam, Level III: Advanced took place in a nondescript conference room on the third floor of the Jerusalem Gate Hotel. Twenty-five takers were in attendance, most of … Continue reading →

THE ICEMAN Each of us has two parents, four grandparents, eight great-grandparents, 16 great-great-grandparents and so on.  If the Iceman died 5,100 years ago, and we take a generation to be 30 years, then he died 170 generations ago.  The … Continue reading →

In 1825, two discarded cadavers at the London Royal Academy of Anatomy began to glow. The bodies had once been inhabited by two thieves, ill with pneumonia, who had died in the gaol while awaiting trial.  When no family members … Continue reading →

My mother had a dream about her father, Federico Schiaretta, immolated in the suspect fire, well before my birth, that destroyed his Station Street cobbler’s shop. It was custom, almost liturgical, among Italians in East Liberty to summon a bookie … Continue reading →

Through his good eye, the boy could only just make out the passing trees, boulders, and bushes in the little light they received from the moon, which was veiled by a river of mist coasting a dozen yards above his … Continue reading →