First Look
This page offers eight stories I've chosen as an introduction to my writing. The Encore page could be called "last look," offering one more go at a selected miscellany of stories.
In One Small Room, a World of Emptiness
BESLAN, Russia,
Sept. 28, 2004 : Every morning, Vova Tumayev sets the breakfast table for three - husband, wife and adored 10-year-old daughter. Nobody eats. Mr. Tumayev sits alone for a little while, then clears...
A Stooped Icon of Angkor, Forever Sweeping
SIEM REAP, Cambodia,
March 22, 2003: LONELY Planet!” came the shout as a knot of tourists emerged through a narrow
temple passage. “You’re the man on the Lonely Planet! You’re famous! Did you see...
Playing Through the Pain: a Pianist's Struggles
PENRITH, Australia,
Jan. 14, 1997 : Shoes off, head bowed nearly to the keyboard, David Helfgott winds his way back
and forth through the phrases of a Chopin prelude, singing, sighing, making buzzing...
The Day the Men With Guns Came to the Village
GALMETIYAWA, Sri Lanka,
March 18, 1988 : Eleven-year-old Seelawathi Menike and her little brother were shooing birds
away from their family’s vegetable plot when the big men in dark uniforms emerged from the...
Shunned, Women With H.I.V. Join Forces in Vietnam
HAIPHONG, Vietnam,
May 28, 2006 : The neighbors know what is going on when they hear peals of laughter coming from the house of ...
Queen of the Quirky, Imelda Marcos Holds Court
MANILA, the Philippines, Feb. 27, 1996. : A pale blue bird began to chirp loudly high above the table where Imelda Marcos was eating...
Seeking Names for Bali’s Anonymous Dead
KUTA, Indonesia,
Oct. 14, 2002 : “Identity unknown,” reads a hand-written sign posted on a wall of Bali’s largest hospital...
In Skirt and Leggings, the Bad-Boy of Soviet Fashion Prances on
MOSCOW, Russia,
March 13, 2004 : He enters bearing a platter of sweet buns, a man in strange attire, grinning, burbling, thrilled ...