The man was walking in the middle of the road. He stumbled, fell to his knees, and then stood up again, swaying slightly as he found his balance.

It was Saturday afternoon, and my wife and I decided to go to the mall to pick up a pair of pants I’d bought there and had altered. We couldn’t find a parking space outside so we drove into one of those

The wall slid up and away. There were at least fifty people having drinks before the conference panel when this entire wall slid up and into the ceiling, doubling the size of the room. 

In brazil we knocked the doors of poor people. They answered in threadbare football jerseys, in stained mesh shorts, in Havaianas thin as reeds. We called them humble. We called them receptive.

I grew up in a weatherboard house in a mill town and like everyone else there I learnt to swim in the river. The sea was miles away but during big autumn swells a salty vapour drifted up the valley

Four of them were on one side of a dim room. —I’m going to try it, said the first. The girl watched herself in the mirror as the young man approached. —I wonder, he said. I thought perhaps . . .

 Coach Gica tended to us goalies specially, he made us show up at every practice an hour early and mainly had us do speed drills, plus we had to jump a lot and dive, jump and dive, jump and dive, and he had 

I’m going to ask the Queen. I’m going to tell her what I know and ask her what is true, and if she winks at me, well, there will be trouble. This is me, Seamus Todd, born in 1955, ordinary soldier of

Toward the end of last summer, when I was combating a bout of loneliness after the death of my wife, a new neighbor moved in next door. He arrived at number 16—I’m number 14—late one night. 

I didn’t think I would ever tell this story. My wife told me not to; she said no one would believe it and I’d only embarrass myself. What she meant, of course, was that it would embarrass her.