Jonathan cracked open the door. The absence of the shrill shrieks and the overpowering physical presence of Victoria Walter had left a powerful silence in the suite. On the far end the laptop, or a laptop, sat on the desk, opened but with a black screen, the Moleskine notebook, the fountain pen it its crease, beside it, the Crumpler bag on the floor. Jonathan crossed the room and plumped down into the chair. He swiveled round and scanned the suite and the adjoining bedroom, turning the key card over and over in his fingers. No backpack. With his thumb Jonathan caressed the laptop, but when his index finger hitched on the spacer the screen flashed to life. A shock sent goosebumps over his skin as he stared at…
Mina Witteman – author | editor | teacher of creative writing
Posts tagged “compression algorithm”
“You must be tired.” Matt Turing startled Jonathan with his question, which sounded more like a statement. “Let’s go to your room.” “I—I don’t have a room. I wanted to—I had to return this…” Jonathan stammered, taken off guard by the sudden twist. They both ignored him and Turing pulled him along without any ceremony. Within three rushed breaths, he found himself in an elevator with Victoria. The elevator shot up to the top floor, smooth and silent. Even Victoria didn’t say a thing. She had stepped away from him, the second the door had closed. Now, she studied her nails, like the guest service’s girl had done, as if he wasn’t in the elevator with her at all. When the door opened, Turing stood waiting…
The woman, or girl, ignored Jonathan’s obvious embarrassment and held the Tee in front of him. Standing on tiptoe, she titled her head backwards. “Oh, Dallas,” she cooed. “You’re so tall!” She thrust the Tee in his hands and chattered on about how she always had wanted to be taller and how she envied Amsterdam girls and their infinite legs. He couldn’t concentrate on the words that left her pink-painted lips like the tiniest hailstones in an unexpected summer storm. Every now and again he caught the name Dallas, but that was all. After she shoved a conference folder and a memory stick in the Crumpler, without showing any embarrassment for poking around in someone else’s bag, she took him by the wrist, a cool and small hand,…
Tagged: Amsterdam, compression algorithm, Dark Fiber, Feuilleton, New York, Silicon Valley, thriller, Turing
Jonathan watched the hall in surprise. There were people inside, lots of people, more than two hundred maybe, but no one seemed interested in one another. The usual buzzing sounds of a party was absent. The only human sounds came from behind him, from a restaurant where employees were talking in loud and quick Dutch. From the hall came nothing but the clicking of keyboards. Most people were male and most of them wore faded Tees or wrinkled shirts. And all of them had a large square badge on a lanyard, dangling on various sizes of potbellies. At every table stood three, four, five men and the occasional women, all hammering away on laptops. He spotted more men, sitting on the floor and leaning…
“Dallas Bard.” Jonathan read the name out loud. He gazed up and watched a canal boat glide by. Smoke, stinking of frying fat, wafted up from it. Tourists snapped pictures of the gables, of him. In a reflex, he hunched up as small as he could, as he was used to ever since the book came out. He straightened up again, when the boat disappeared under the bridge. One day, he would get back at her. One day, he would tell his side of the story and show everyone what a world-class bitch she was. But he needed his notebooks. He’d plotted his revenge in his notebooks. He stared at the container with identical business cards. Nothing came up. He didn’t know a Dallas Bard. The…
“You go ahead to the hotel. I’ll get him to bed,” Matt said. He lugged the man from the black car, bumped the door shut and patted on the roof. Only when the Uber rounded the corner, Matt searched the man’s pockets for keys. The air inside the ground floor apartment was saturated with lingering smells that hit his nose like a bowl of overcooked Brussels sprouts. Matt lodged the man into the couch and quickly searched the place. Furniture was sparse and what was around was worn. Paint peeled off the woodwork, whitewashed walls were smudged. It was no more than two small rooms and an open plan kitchen and it breathed the atmosphere of poverty and neglect. The bedroom held a wardrobe, a mattress on the…
Mina Witteman 