Why dont you come to dinner? Zora phoned one afternoon. Im making spring spaghetti, Brunys favorite, and you can come over and meet him. Unless you have Bekka tonight. No, I dont, Ira said mournfully. What is spring spaghetti? Oh, its the same as reg...
You cant imagine the daily dreariness of routine pediatrics, said Zora, not touching her wine. Ear infection, ear infection, ear infection. Whoa. Heres an exciting one: juvenile onset diabetes. Day after day you just have to look into the parents eye...
Ira had been divorced six months and still couldnt get his wedding ring off. His finger had swelled doughily around ita combination of frustrated desire, unmitigated remorse, and misdirected ambition, he said to friends. Im going to have to have my e...
Swanson, after a single inarticulate sound, walked over to the desk and sat staring at the wall. Burckhardt rocked back and forth beside the shattered puppet on the floor. He had no words. The girl managed to say, I'msorry all this happened. The love...
We're all right for a while here, he wheezed. They don't come here much any more. If they do, we'll hear them and we can hide. Who? demanded Burckhardt. The little man said, Martians! His voice cracked on the word and the life seemed to go out of him...
Burckhardt loosened his tie and ordered another Frosty-Flip from the waiter. If only they wouldn't keep the Crystal Cafe so hot! The new paint jobsearing reds and blinding yellowswas bad enough, but someone seemed to have the delusion that this was J...
n the morning of June 15th, Guy Burckhardt woke up screaming out of a dream. It was more real than any dream he had ever had in his life. He could still hear and feel the sharp, ripping-metal explosion, the violent heave that had tossed him furiously...
II Quentin, where did the lilies come from? I really can't buy expensive flowers. They were sent up from King's Cheviot, madam. It has always been the custom here. The butler withdrew. Mrs. St. Vincent heaved a sigh of relief. What would she do witho...
I Mrs. St. Vincent was adding up figures. Once or twice she sighed, and her hand stole to her aching forehead. She had always disliked arithmetic. It was unfortunate that nowadays her life should seem to be composed entirely of one particular kind of...
SHALL I EXPECT YOU next Wednesday for our game as usual? asked Mr Mellilow. Of course, of course, replied Mr Creech. Very glad theres no ill feeling, Mellilow. Next Wednesday as usual. Unless his heavy face darkened for a moment, as though at some di...
It's interesting that Ms. McCavity should disavow any technical expertise, since that's what we've been saying all along. If she's getting stuck in traffic, it's because there's a lot of traffic. The ant-nets route five thousand percent more traffic...
3. Conflict of Insect Trish gathered her staff in the board room and wrote the following in glowing letters on the wall with her fingertip, leaving the text in her expressive schoolmarm's handwriting rather than converting it to some sterile font: Fi...
She got the boy breathing and ended up with more puke on her face, on Rainer's jacket, in her hair. His pulse was thready but there. She turned to the swimmer and saw that he was a muscular surfer dude in board shorts with a couple of bitchun tatts a...
1. Nice networks don't go down It was unthinkable that the invisible ants that governed all human endeavor should catastrophically fail, but fail they did, catastrophically, on the occasion of Trish's eighth date with Rainer. It took nineteen seconds...
After supper he saw Horn on the veranda and, as though to have a casual word with him, went out. She wants to know if youve seen the governor, the trader whispered. Yes. He wouldnt do anything. Im awfully sorry, I cant do anything more. I knew he wou...
