Maybe he knows where Katja’s gone.

He strolls along the sidewalk with the ease of a priest, but when he nears the St Ignatius rectory and Krendel’s shoe store, God bestows him with paranoia and fear moves his feet. The chase is on. I can’t let this one go.

IN THE MARKET BY TODD E SAVELLE 34THPARALLEL MAGAZINE ISSUE 05

I’ve been walking since dawn and thinking about Katja. I’ve heard only rumors about her; she is traveling, maybe in Greece; she is engaged; she is going to school in the US. Without her, the streets seem not so much empty, but at least lonely, colder than the winter that was, and empty of her full-on laughter. Maybe it’s time to chase a brunette. Maybe an American girl. There are so many of them here now, wearing their blue jeans and not realizing for a moment that such pants had been precious as gold in just our recent past.

I take a seat, thinking that I must stop dwelling on Katja, and living like a melancholy hermit, and observe the weak onset of spring. A breeze thumps against the awnings over the easte…