Stories

Margot knew something was wrong when she found last year’s Syrah tasting at least a century old. The wine had aged fifty years in a single night, impossible in her ancient cellar where time had always moved as slow and steady as the underground springs beneath the limestone. She held the glass up to one of the old wall-mounted lamps, studying the liquid’s color—deep garnet with tawny edges, the hue of a wine that had slept through decades. Yet she remembered these grapes on the vine just eighteen months ago, remembered their harvest under a waning moon, remembered their first shy expressions of fruit and earth when she’d tasted the wine at last racking. ...

I hadn’t planned on counting the stairs in Athens. The habit had faded years ago, a childhood compulsion I’d outgrown along with my fear of cracks in sidewalks and the need to organize my bookshelf by spine color. But jetlag has its way of resurrecting old patterns. It was nearly midnight when I gave up on sleep, the unfamiliar ceiling of my rented apartment in Thiseio offering no relief from my restless mind. Athens sprawled beyond my window—a jumble of lights cascading down from the illuminated Acropolis. The late September air carried the lingering warmth of summer, along with the distant sounds of late diners and the occasional motorbike. I dressed and stepped out into narrow streets that felt both ancient and alive. My feet seemed to know where to go better than my conscious mind, drawing me toward the dark mass of Filopappou Hill rising opposite the Acropolis. The neighborhood thinned as I approached, cafés giving way to silent apartments, then to the open parkland surrounding the hill. ...

The evening sun painted Saint-Rémy-de-Provence in shades of honey and amber as we packed our rental car. I checked the booking confirmation one last time—La Maison Provençale, a small bed and breakfast in La Roquebrussanne. The photos online had shown a charming stone building with blue shutters and a review mentioned the “lovely elderly couple” who ran it. What the reviews didn’t capture was the strange quiet that seemed to emanate from that corner of the Provence Vert, even through the digital images. ...

The Western Wall holds secrets that most tourists miss, but on Shabbat, those secrets whisper just a bit louder. I just arrived in time as something drew me here as the sun began its descent and the ancient stones took on the color of honey and memory. The air itself seemed to thicken with prayers—not just from those gathering now, but from all the Fridays that had ever been and all that were yet to come. Each footfall, each whispered word, each gentle sway of bodies in prayer added another layer to the invisible tapestry of energy that hung heavy in the evening air. ...

I hadn’t planned to stray from the main path in Petra. The tourist crowds flowed like a river through the Siq, smartphones raised to capture the Treasury’s familiar facade. But something—perhaps the way the shadows bent around a narrow side passage, or the sudden scent of cardamom and age—pulled me away from the stream of visitors. The passage twisted through rose-colored rock until it opened into a small courtyard I wouldn’t have believed existed. Weathered steps led to what might have once been a temple antechamber, now home to a peculiar collection of artifacts spread across a worn carpet. Behind them sat an elderly woman whose eyes carried the same rose-gold tint as the surrounding stone. ...

The cicadas had fallen silent in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, something that happened only in the deepest hours of night. Pierre walked along the ancient stone walls that lined the road to Domain Milan, his weathered hands trailing against the cool limestone. The scent of lavender still lingered in the air, though the fields had been harvested weeks ago. Three dogs followed him—a gold-coated retriever, a white shepherd, and a small terrier. Nobody in town seemed to notice that the dogs had appeared the same day as the accident on the D99, exactly two years ago. They simply became part of the landscape, like the plane trees lining the village squares or the worn cobblestones of the old town. ...

On the third Thursday of every month, at exactly 7:13 PM, the grey-and-white cat named Evliya would become transparent. Not entirely invisible—more like a living piece of frosted glass moving through the labyrinthine streets of Galata. The locals, long accustomed to the strange occurrences that plagued their quarter of Istanbul, simply adjusted their glasses or blamed the rakı they had with lunch. I first noticed this phenomenon while drinking bad coffee at a worse café near the Galata Tower. The tower itself had recently developed a habit of humming Beatles songs at midnight, but that’s another story entirely. ...

“Oh doggy, where did you come from?”, she said, her voice surprised. I looked up from the car’s navigation screen. As I slowly backed out of our parking spot at the small Taoist temple we had just visited, I caught sight of an old dog standing, waiting, near our car. It was watching us with calm, knowing eyes. Lao-Gou continued on his path after the car that left the temple grounds. His old legs knew every stone by heart. Mist hung in the air, wrapping around the ancient trees and moss-covered statues. The air shimmered with the scent of incense, the smoke curling like ancient whispers. ...

My grandfather left us on March 20th 2020. His name was Beniamin Israel Varon. He lived to become 95 years, surviving the Second World War and the Sowjet Regime as a Jew in Bulgaria. He passed away without many of his family or friends being able to say goodbye to him due to the Corona lockdown. Many in his home country will remember him for his deeds, his thinking and his writing but few know about him outside of Bulgaria. ...