The Museum of Natural and Human history had a parking lot unusually large for a public building so close to the center of a major city, an official policy of which was to encourage its citizens to favor mass transportation. The cause lay in history: the Museum used to be on private property in the previous century and located more remotely with a large surrounding estate, which hadn’t all been sold off in the first transaction with the building itself, but had kept changing ownership in th

Large buildings have the uncanny habit of appearing larger still when they are empty, as if the accumulating silence could add up to extra space somehow. Then again, walking alone in such a building after the closing can inspire a feeling of the walls closing in ever-so subtly, and thus break the symmetry of abandon by the lightest tread of leatherbound boots on stone. His fellow guards often remarked about similar sensations after their shifts, as a rule hiding their true thoughts in jokes, but

Valeria. She had looked up the name once in a dictionary when they’d been staying overnight in the city library, looking for unlicensed shelter among the steep shelves of old teak. It was a name with roots in health, strength and bravery. Valeria wasn’t a girl in whose world words, especially printed ones, had a whole lot of meaning, but this one had struck a chord within her chest, if only because she now virtually knew more about the origin of her name than she did about her actual