I didn’t see the left hand, the one that landed with a sickening thud against my kidney for what seemed like the millionth time. I just felt the searing pain traveling from my lower back and enveloping my entire body. My body told me to quit, yet my mind was…

“Comrade Kalinov, it’s good to see you,” said the burly man with a walrus mustache. I had heard about Stalin from the leader of the worker council in Kiev though I never thought I would meet him. Now he was acting like he already knew me. Had we met before…

The prosecutor stared down at the defendant, steely eyed, for a long moment. The defendant, Dan Rosinsky, fidgeted in his seat, but never blinked as he stared back at Robert Jackson, the prosecutor in a Marin County courtroom. Finally, he answered in a firm voice, “No, I did not plan…

Ron Stander left his office near midtown at 5 PM on a sunny, pleasant Wednesday afternoon. As an executive in the music industry, his interest in R & B and the delta blues belied his conservative, button down looks. People often assumed he was a WASP, but his ancestry also…

The morning newspaper arrived at the usual time on a bright Tuesday morning on Jul 6, 1937. I had subscribed to Izvestia since I was in exile for almost 20 years in London. It was getting harder and harder to understand what was going on in Russia since I left…

The hall had become a long, winding labyrinth with colorless walls and a fog that made it hard to follow the path. I shuffled along for what seemed an eternity until I saw the light that signaled the beginning of a new corridor. When I reached the end, I saw…

Philo: Have you ever wondered why we are here? Hobbes: You mean why we are here as opposed to somewhere else? Philo: No, I mean why we are anywhere. Hobbes: I know why we are here. By chance and random events. Philo: So there is no meaning to any of…

It was a hazy, hot day in New York. The temperature reached 112 by 1 pm, a new record for the date. The date was January 18, 2108. It was an unusually warm winter people were saying. Usually the winters in NY rarely see the temperature go over 90. 112…

Professor Roger Fleming had taught this course many times before. Philosophy 101 wasn’t his favorite. It was an undergraduate introduction to philosophy class that seem to attract the most arrogant, snot nosed, spoiled rich kids at his sprawling urban institute for the overprivileged. It wasn’t like the advanced graduate classes…