I first heard about Birgul, which means One Rose in Turkish, from my best friend. Before I get to what he told me about her though, I need to explain some things. First off, I'm a 53 year old American, living in Turkey, and married to a Turkish woman as my third wife. My best friend is a 37 year old Turk, who was once married to an American, and has been div...
I've leveraged the Hemingway canon for a few of my stories. And A Farewell to Arms is the only one left now. That is the definitive war novel; as iconic as The Red Badge of Courage. I was hesitant to try to cover it because we don't fight wars like that anymore. But my pal Richard Gerald talked me into at least looking at it. And in the end I saw that the...
"But why? I make really good money. Why would you want to try something so risky and jeopardize our future?" he asked in that quasi-patronizing tone of voice she despised. "I know you do. You're very talented. I was just thinking how good it would feel to own my own business," she replied politely not wanting to start another argument. "A food truck isn't...
A short letter to my readers. First, I need to apologize. Real life got in the way of this story. First my wife had a life threatening accident. Then a sibling collapsed and was on a death watch for a while. He's better now, but not out of the woods yet. Then my wife had another accident, not life threatening but very painful. Happily, she's on the road to...
The late spring sun came through the window, illuminating the dust motes drifting in the air currents. Cindy, my wife of three years, and I were recovering from a lazy afternoon lovemaking session. She tousled the thick hair on my chest, then lowered her lips to my nipple and suckled gently. "Are you thirsty, honey?" I joked. She raised her face and grinned...
December 26 I'd just settled down to my morning coffee and an extreme Sudoku when my phone rang. I always do one of the puzzles before work to limber up my mind, and I'd gotten so accustomed to the exercise that I did it even on the days when I wasn't working. I guess you could say that solving puzzles is my profession. The group I'm in gets suspicious com...
Several of you have asked me to write another adventure involving the folks from "The First Deadly Sin." When one of you is Rick at rkv330's (aka Bluedevil) a story gets written. This is his general idea and it's brilliant as usual. I like to put some of my own background into these things. So please keep in mind that none of these exploits are made up. They...
This story plays fast and loose with Ancient History and Linguistics; be warned. Those who declare war are willing to kill as many as it takes to reach their goal. Editing magic performed by KJ24 and Shyqash, plus contributions by the regular gang of brigands and neer-do-wells. Thanks to NM for his help with Magyar terminology and titles. There is a bit...
Copyright © 2006 De Rozario Jesse All rights reserved. Portions of this document may not be reproduced through any means, including, but not limited to, scanning, uploading, reproduction, transmission, and distribution via the Internet or any other means, electronic or mechanical, including printing, photocopying or recording in any form, without express p...
Author's Note: Thanks, again, to snooper, my editor. Those of you that have read African Adventure will notice a significant passage of time between that story and this one. There is another story that comes between these two and deals in detail with events that are alluded to or briefly referenced in this story. I have elected not to publish that particular...