Dashboard Horus: A Bird's Eye View of the Universe

  Colonel Kurtz Slows to a Stop Dr. Robert Hudson has seen a lot of patients who’ve said he’s the only person that listens to them. Some accuse him of listening just because he gets paid to do it. Technically that’s true, but he knows he’d do it for free. People have good stories. Hudson hasn’t owned a television since 2006. He says there’s no point. The stories told in his office are the best entertainment. And Clay Chalmers’ story, he thought, was pretty entertaining. In their first session Clay told Hudson he didn’t have anyone to listen to his innermost thoughts anymore. His parents had died young, he’d never said how, so Hudson suggested Clay write his thoughts down and send them to himself. “I don’t really believe in the mail system,” Clay said. Hudson rolled his eyes. “Tell the truth, I don’t really believe in listeners anymore either.” Clay wrote the letter anyway, and the following week he brought it to the office. “Open it,” the psychologist said. Clay did and, without he...

  Rhys Hughes was born in Wales but has lived in many different countries. He began writing at an early age and his first book, Worming the Harpy , was published in 1995. His work has been translated into twelve languages. He is currently working on a novel and new collections of prose and verse. Until I visited the country, I assumed that Portugal was a Mediterranean land lapped by a gentle sea. The truth, of course, is that its coastline is wholly Atlantic and bashed rather than caressed. My first trip there changed certain of my perspectives in various ways on sundry matters, including custard tarts, dried cod and the wisdom of paving streets with flat stone fragments in a mosaic pattern (pretty but also more slippery in the rain). Primarily, however, I won a respect for the sea that was quite different to the respect I already had inside me for that seemingly limitless expanse of blue. For the first time in my life I became aware that swimming in the sea on a perfectly fine day...