Sweet Bay Magnolia_Threats and Regrets_The Moscow Train_The Alter
Catalog Guide:
Sweet Bay Magnolia
It almost seems patronizing to the earth when you pat down the dirt after planting something. As if to say “there there, you’re fine, nothing worth getting yourself spun up about” immediately after violating it with sharp instruments specifically designed to penetrate it, reshape and otherwise change it into something we prefer it to be over what it was in the first place.Sure, we are just planting a tree. It could have generated this as an eventual outcome on its own of course, but our human needs trump that of the earth always and forever. I shake my head and try to claw my way out of this i...
Threats and Regrets
“I’ve got a plan,” Tim told his wife, leaning forward with elbows on the table, “but you’re not gonna like it.”Hell, he himself didn’t like it. But, if they and, more importantly, their baby girl, stayed on the cliff’s edge any longer, the next breeze would blow them over.Anastasia rubbed her upper arms. “I can’t imagine how it could be worse than losing the house.”Fortunately, the layoffs that had imposed this threat—“Unfortunate, but necessary,” their boss had said, though Tim, Anastasia, and everyone else affected knew that they amounted to nothing more than another bureaucrat cho...
The Moscow Train
The Moscow TrainA cold wind howled around the platform as Irina Kuznetsova climbed on board the Moscow train. She was glad of the fine leather gloves that her parents had given her as a going away present. The journey by horse and carriage from her home town of Suzdal to the railway station at Vladimir had been slow and uncomfortable. Her brother, Ivan, had had to steer the carriage cautiously along the rough road. Melting snow meant that the road was muddy and the potholes and sidings were difficult to discern. But the horse was strong and well shod by their father, Igor, who was the most pro...
The Alter
She awoke in a dungeon of her own creation. The physical manifestation of her mind: a semi-circular room offering dust-gray walls, ebony doors, black marble floors, and an ebony table and chairs. This was her first time seeing it—but not her first time trapped here.She had expected no better. Her surroundings represented a life fragmented by memory lapses, blank spots that she struggled to explain to puzzled coworkers and her boss, to whom she couldn’t afford to reveal her affliction. Some days, she woke in the morning, and, next thing she knew, she saw www.onedoor.ccthe moon in the onyx-black sky...