A shift in the paradigm occurred while they took their breakfast. Online influencers saw their stock value skyrocket before lunchtime. Instead of police on their beat, people artlessly began to handle their own affairs, sometimes at the end of a writ, sometimes at the end of a cudgel, sometimes from …

It was a wet January morning when my late wife called. She wanted to meet me for a drink. “It would be good to catch up,” she chuckled through the phone. I agreed to the sentiment, as well as when she wanted to meet. It’s impolite to refuse the dead, …

It was the smell that hit him first. Halfway through a yawn, walking down the hallway and into the kitchen, he’d expected the comforting morning scents of percolating coffee, slightly bronzed toast. What assaulted his nostrils and caught scratching at the back of his throat instead was the fetid stench …