Hilary's Birthday Bus Stop The Interpreters The Garden Mercy Glass Rose

... C O N T E N T S Short Fiction A Beheaded Cart Language of Black and Red On the Bus to Town The Butterflies are Laughing The Con Man Come... ...and, cuddled, two silhouettes carved against the inexorably rising day. Return On the Bus to Town by Sam Vaknin Read the Hebrew origina... ...Bus to Town by Sam Vaknin Read the Hebrew original. I must catch the city-bound bus. I have to change at the Central Station and travel ... ...ched out of the mucky soil around our barracks. But there is still way to go. I mount the bus and sit near a dishevelled, unshaven man. His abrade... ...s crumbling watch. His pinkie sports a rectangular, engraved ring of golden imitation. The bus exudes the steamy vapours of a mobile rain forest. P... ..., call on your driver if in doubt. Pay heed to dubious characters and odd behaviours. Our bus is trapped in a honking row of cars, under a seething... ...ic side (they are big on it in penal institutions): How can I prove my whereabouts (on this bus) throughout the carnage? Think alibi. The inmate alw... ...nfirm by writing in this diary (I point at a grey notepad I am holding) that I was on your bus at this hour? I have no pen" – I add. He casts a sid... ...ed on fleshy lips, ending with a flourishing signature. People are murmuring throughout the bus. My answer is equivocal. It could imply armed robber...

...t with very little effort I could get top marks in most subjects. I rarely studied more than I had to and I blitzed through my homework on the school bus home. While Mum finished work in the front room, I cooked dinner for us both, listening to her scissors snip through her comfortable conversations with clients. I spent the rest of my evenings with one of the seven books ...