“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 – author | editor | teacher of creative writing
Posts tagged “New York”
It was past midnight when the bartender shouted something and started cleaning the bar. People emptied their glasses, paid their tabs and left. “Closing time,” Matt said. He pushed his chair back and got up, watching the man, who lolled against the window. He’d been asleep for the last hour or so, but no one had seemed to bother. “Thank God,” Victoria said. “This is worse than a fucking red-eye. I so need a drink. A real one.” She pushed her half-empty glass away from her, gathered her things and stuffed them in her handbag. “Go order a cab and wait outside. I’ll pay and see what happens to him.” Matt watched the snoring man from the corner of his eye. A drop of saliva trickled…
Tagged: Amsterdam, Dark Fiber, Internet, Mina Witteman, New York, Silicon Valley, techno thriller, Turing
The bar was small, busy and dark, as if someone had switched off the sun. Guests hung around the wooden counter, obstructing the way for those who wanted to go the higher seating area in the back. The man wormed his way to the counter. Holding the copper railing with one hand, he raised the other to signal the bartender. The bartender acknowledge him with the slightest nod and drew him a beer. “Jonathan,” he said and then something more, in Dutch, with lots of harsh g’s, before he ripped off a sheet from a small notebook and jotted something down. He placed the tab in between a dozen others on the counter. Matt pushed Victoria past the heat and stench of people and beer, and past the man,…
Tagged: Amsterdam, Dark Fiber, Feuilleton, Internet, Mina Witteman, New York, Silicon Valley, techno thriller, Turing
Matt followed her nod with his gaze, to the man who trudged his way through the shoppers. Every now and again he looked up and when he did Matt caught a glance of his eyes. The cold shiver turned into an electrical surge that opened his throat and windpipe. As if he looked in a mirror before he’d put on the gray lenses. He stepped back into a shop’s portico, but pushed Victoria towards the man. “Do your magic,” he said softly. “Make it happen.” Victoria stopped the man. She put her hand on his arm with a possessiveness that made him stop. She asked him for the way to the Anne Frank House. For a moment it looked as if the man wanted to ignore her,…
Tagged: Amsterdam, Internet, Mina Witteman, New York, Silicon Valley, techno thriller, Turing
Matt let his gaze travel up the seventeenth-century gables to the Californian-blue sky hovering over the narrow shopping street that connected two canals. He tried to close his ears to Victoria’s incessant yapping about how she loved Amsterdam and how she loved the hot weather even if it was only May. Her every sentence started with an Oh My God, lined with ear-piercing cries of amazement. Matt hid his balled fists in his pockets. Why had he let her talk him into going after a bloody Dutchman and not an American? They could’ve found someone in Silicon Valley. The Bay area was overpopulated with losers. He shouldn’t have let her persuade him to walk heads in this crowded and cramped city. It imprisoned him,…
Tagged: Amsterdam, Dark Fiber, Feuilleton, Internet, Mina Witteman, New York, Silicon Valley, techno thriller, Turing
It was a first time, as there is a first time for everything: my visit to New York City. I needed to go there to do research for DARK FIBER. I needed to explore Jonathan Kelder’s state of mind when he wanders that city. Jonathan is my protagonist and while he tries to figure a way out, his antagonist weaves a web around him, pulling the net ever tighter. In New York, I put myself in Jonathan’s shoes and hopped on an early ferry to Ellis Island as that seemed the most suitable place to start my journey. It was strangely vacant, Ellis Island, but its emptiness didn’t breathe a single molecule of freedom. My footsteps ricochetted hollowly off the blood-colored floor tiles and…
Mina Witteman 