The Next Thief Of Magadan

"Even the thieves are getting worse and worse, Ninel thought, looking at the boy’s trembling hands. All the good ones have already left town. A third of the population had fled, TV said. Walking down her street, one saw rows and rows of smashed-out windows, cement apartments gone hollow-eyed, crumbling." A short story.

Taxidermy

"I look around the room. This round bed, covered with white satin, like a monstrous wedding-cake. The smiling stuffed cat on the dresser. 'Did you know that when you taxidermy a small animal, you have to pull the brain through its ear?' he says." A short story.