caravans's profile

  The stone walls kept the interior of the ancient church almost cold even as the midday heat softened the pavement outside. Patrick shivered, went out into the churchyard and turned his face up to the sun, then he reached into his shopping bag for the Panama hat he’d just bought. He looked for a bit of shade where he could rest his feet before walking back to his hotel and settled on a bench under the trees behind the church despite a homeless man asleep a few feet away on a stone...

  The evening sunlight broke through the fir trees as if through columns and made the clearing look like the nave of a cathedral. Danny smiled at the thought, dropped his back pack and sunk into the only soft chair in camp, a piece of red canvas slung over a black rusting frame. “God, at last.” He said, his youthful energy worn out for the moment.    Welcome to Sky Camp.” Wills said taking off his pack and setting it on the picnic bench next to Danny. &ld...

“Tito? You’ve never been lonely here before.” “No, not until I met him.” After an hour of chipping stone in silence Tito stood up and stretched. "You can take a break now.” He groaned. "Would you like a beer?" He began pounding at the dust that had settled into his shirt. "Not really. It's a little early." Marina got up and walked over to the studio door. The top half was glass rippled by age and filled with tiny bubbles. It gave the only natural light at that end of the room and was always ...

The alarm clock unwound itself to a stand still unheard on the kitchen table. An hour later stones breaking in the garden on the other side of Marina’s bedroom wall woke her. Her drowsy mind wondered why the landlord was repairing her kitchen chimney so early, and why he hadn’t warned her first. Then she noticed the sun coming through the window and realized she was late for work. She hurried to the closet, slipped into a light dress and found her sandals. In the kitchen she glared at the cl...

"Come," Tito said as they walked through the arched entrance and into the dome that covered the Great Market of Botafago, a hive of stalls and cubicles that sold everything imaginable to eat and drink or use in the kitchen. "You've got to see the whole layout." Tito led Jose up a crowded stairway. On the landing a group of young men in tight jeans and cowboy boots argued over the price of several bags of white powder. At the top of the stairs the spice sellers crowded along a narrow mezzanin...