The Architecture of Loss
The corporate pyramid had finally crushed him. Forty-seven years old and laid off via Zoom, while his dog—Sarah's dog, really—slept oblivious on the rug. Barnaby was a golden retri...
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The corporate pyramid had finally crushed him. Forty-seven years old and laid off via Zoom, while his dog—Sarah's dog, really—slept oblivious on the rug. Barnaby was a golden retri...
Elena stood before her bedroom mirror, adjusting the fascinator that had cost three days' wages. It perched there like a wounded bird, delicate and absurd. Below, in the courtyard,...
The surveillance footage played on three monitors, blue light washing over Mara's exhausted face. She'd been a corporate spy for twelve years, extracting secrets through keystroke ...
Elena checked her phone again. Three missed calls from Mark. She let it go to voicemail, as she had been doing for three days. The initiative required dedication, and dedication re...
The fluorescent lights hummed their eternal song as Mara sat on the edge of the bathtub, dry-swallowing another vitamin D supplement. Her doctor called it the sunshine pill. She ca...
Marcus stood before the bronze sphinx on his patio, gin and tonic sweating in his hand, while his iPhone vibrated against the glass table—another email from corporate, another dema...
Maya adjusted her grip on the padel racket, the rubber handle damp with sweat. Across the court, Julian stretched, his orange shirt pulling against his shoulders. They'd been playi...
The sphinx had been watching Elena for three weeks now. Not the mythical creature—that would have been easier to interpret. This sphinx was a faded water stain on the ceiling of h...
The goldfish had been dead for three days before Marcus noticed. It floated sideways in the bowl on his desk, its orange scales catching the fluorescent lights of the open-plan of...
The corporate pyramid rose forty stories above Chicago, its glass facade catching the last amber light of October. Sarah stood at thirty-eight, watching her reflection superimpose ...
The gray hair had started appearing at thirty-two, right around the time Eleanor accepted the promotion to Regional Director. She stood before the floor-to-ceiling window of her co...
The padel court echoed with the hollow rhythm of ball against racket, each strike punctuating the silence between us. Elena moved across the clay with practiced grace, her ponytail...