Brian Has a Problem

Coronation

A Good Dog

Prelude to Lisbon
The Czech prime minister watched the news in horror. All twelve nations had ratified the Treaty of Maastricht. A "European Union" had been created and would come into force the following November. He couldn't believe it. They were trading away their national identities! His own country was splitting in half, Slovaks demanding a separate state of their own. And the prime minister was glad to let them go! Let them have their own state! The more diverse a Europe the better! This is one case in which I'm glad we were under the Russian yoke, he thought to himself. I would never ratify such a treaty.Contact the author at marco.kaufman@gmail.com

Tree of Life, 1.6
Generations of his family had lived in the small town where he was born. He was the first one to break out and head to the city. He got himself a small apartment in a less than entirely safe neighborhood and took a job in the financial district. At first, he liked living in the city, until one day, he saw something that disturbed him. He was walking home from work toward his apartment, and he saw a man playing Three-Card Monte. He wasn't naïve; he knew the game was fixed and that there was no way for anyone to win. The dealer always palmed the queen -- it was standard short con. The thing that really bothered him, however, was that one of the men who was trying to "find the lady" was blind

Super Bowl XXV
In the end, it was a close game. Whitney Houston sang the national anthem before kick-off, and then both teams kicked field goals in the first quarter. By halftime, the Bills had pulled ahead with a touchdown and then Smith sacked Hostetler for a two-point safety. Even though the Giants had answered with a touchdown with less than twenty-five seconds left in the half, the Bills were still ahead when the New Kids on the Block took the stage for the halftime show. But then the Giants took the lead with a touchdown in the third quarter, taking the ball seventy-five yards in fourteen plays. The score was 17-12 — Buffalo was still within a touchdown of winning. Thomas delivered that touchdown

Two Plus Four Equals One
The shooting had stopped over forty-five years ago, but finally there would be peace. I wondered whether the signers of the treaty knew the significance of the date. It was the day that Hitler had joined the Nazi Party. It was the day the Führer had spoken out on the need for self-determination for Sudeten Germans. It was the day Mussolini was rescued for Italian partisans by Otto Skorzeny. And it was the day that American troops crossed into Germany for the first time. Now it would be remembered as the day that the war was finally over.Contact the author at marco.kaufman@gmail.com

Tree of Life, 1.5
Sarah's life had been difficult. Born a Jew in Soviet Georgia after anti-Semitism had become commonplace in the "workers' paradise," she suffered badly as a child. When she was able to leave the Soviet Union in 1972, and her husband Soso went to Israel. Unfortunately, less than a year after they arrived in Israel, Egypt and Syria invaded and the country was at war. Soso, who had been turned down by the Red Army because of diabetes, was called up to serve his new country, but he fled instead, leaving behind Sarah, who was now four months pregnant. They were not reunited until they all had arrived in the U.S. when the baby, Talia, was nearly a year old. Talia grew up in an observant household