These Dreams of You

~ ~ ~

Zan reeled. The guy hit him again and then again. Later Zan would wonder if it was to his credit or something less admirable that he never had to suppress an instinct to strike back; in any event he was rational enough to know it wasn’t a good option. He felt more humiliation than pain or anger, which was the point, of course. As calmly as possible he leaned over, picked up the oven from the floor and walked from the lobby, back out the front door of the dorm with whatever dignity he could manage, which in this case meant not breaking into an all-out sprint.

He almost reached his car when he heard the footsteps behind him. Years later, the middle-aged L.A. writer in Zan’s new novel will hear in the Berlin street footsteps much like these, preceding his doom. At last Zan was angry enough to turn and find himself confronted by a group larger than the one in Berlin but smaller than the one in the dorm lobby.