The Most Obvious Place 03-03-2005 Just after we arrived at St. Gregory’s, my mother said that I should see my older brother in his coffin so that I’d know for sure that he was dead. She sat me down in a pew and explained that for years after her own brother’s death her mind had played tricks on her. “The times I saw Alan on the street, at the beach, in Central Park, on the subway… It was terrible. Then, when I’d rush up to him, I’d see it was only a man who looked like him.” In disgust, she added, “Sometimes not even that. All that misery, all those ghosts, because I never saw my brother dead.” [ read more ] The Slow Mirror 21-02-2005 Pedro was from Buenos Aires. Yet it was only after his death that I stopped to consider what that might mean. I was in Argentina for the first time, attending an ornithology conference, and I was walking down the Avenida Santa Fe when it suddenly occurred to me: so this is what he saw and heard while growing up. Did he think of this place often after making love with me? [ read more ] Total of Short Stories: 2