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Aaron Peck
Aaron Peck is the author of The Bewilderments of Bernard Willis and Letters to the Pacific.

Articles Available Online


The Abyss Echoes Back: Judith Schalansky’s ‘An Inventory of Losses’

Book Review

January 2021

Aaron Peck

Book Review

January 2021

Early in Judith Schalansky’s An Inventory of Losses, the narrator describes the way an ancient form of writing survived oblivion. The soft clay tablets...

Book Review

May 2018

Harry Mathews’s ‘The Solitary Twin’

Aaron Peck

Book Review

May 2018

Imagine a small fishing village on the edge of the world. Its inhabitants are progressive and content. The surroundings...

The President of a small European country was dozing on a wave bed when his platinum smartphone, resting upon his ebony nightstand, began to vibrate ever so slightly The bed rocked his sixty-eight-year-old body so softly and delicately that he didn’t want to raise his eyelids He just didn’t want to at all But the smartphone kept gurgling and vibrating, which meant it had a serious reason to do so Reaching out his swarthy hand with its short fingers, he picked up the smartphone and pressed his finger to its screen    ‘She’s been delivered, Mr President’   ‘Ah…’ he remembered ‘Good’   Putting the cold device back into its place, he rubbed his face, soft from a recently taken Turkish bath, exhaled, then, with a single movement of his muscular body, got up easily from the foam-rubber wave The President was short, squat, broad-shouldered, bald, thick-necked and big-headed; the features of his bronzed, black-browed, strong-willed face were very proper except for his small fleshy ears that looked as if they’d been haphazardly stuck onto his head The President was garbed in nothing but a terry towel that matched the colour of his body   Shrugging his damp towel off onto the floor, he walked into a dark-green shower room of sinewy marble Three wide showerheads loomed up on the left, but the President didn’t move toward them, instead going over to three copper buckets hanging from chains on the right Standing under a bucket, he pulled at a lever The bucket began to tilt, pouring icy water over the President Letting it wash over him, he hooted dully, shook his head, then slapped into the changing room on his strong feet A servant was already waiting for him there Having wiped over the President’s body, he delicately anointed it with Eau de Cologne and helped him to get dressed Dressed in loose beige pants, a sleeveless shirt and light boots, the President left the changing room, exited the bathing and sporting complex, got behind the wheel of a one-seater electric car, and headed for the palace A wide electric security vehicle equipped with assault rifles

Contributor

May 2017

Aaron Peck

Contributor

May 2017

Aaron Peck is the author of The Bewilderments of Bernard Willis and Letters to the Pacific.

Gloria

fiction

May 2017

Aaron Peck

fiction

May 2017

Bernard, whenever he thought of Geoffrey, would remember his gait on the afternoon of their first meeting. Geoffrey walked with the confidence of a...

READ NEXT

Interview

February 2011

Interview with David Vann

Marissa Cox

Interview

February 2011

I am a little apprehensive about meeting David Vann for the first time. His father committed suicide when David...

Essay

Issue No. 18

The Disquieting Muses

Leslie Jamison

Essay

Issue No. 18

I.   In Within Heaven and Hell (1996), Ellen Cantor’s voice-over tells the story of a doomed love affair...

fiction

July 2013

univers, univers

Régis Jauffret

TR. Jeffrey Zuckerman

fiction

July 2013

I. You remember your childhood. Your tow-headed, reddish-tinged mother, who yelled after you all day like a Paraguayan peasant...

 

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