The Readers (full text)

The academic life aims at a certain kind of dignity. Certainly that's the impression you get if you hang out with academics. They take themselves and their place in society seriously, and are often to reluctant to laugh at a joke that's not sufficiently highbrow. The reluctance to laugh freely is always what made me suspicious of academics. What kind of person, I wondered, would give up one of life's greatest pleasures merely for the sake of some imagined social prestige?

The Readers, part 4

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Mislavsky was different from his roommate in a few important ways. He didn't have the nervous fidgets of a typical maladjusted history student. His hair was styled and his clothes looked expensive and harmonious as if he actually knew how to dress and put effort into it. He was able to make eye contact and grip my hand firmly to shake it.

The Readers, part 3

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"So what's your impression so far?" my partner asked earnestly.

The Readers, part 1

The academic life aims at a certain kind of dignity. Certainly that's the impression you get if you hang out with academics. They take themselves and their place in society seriously, and are often to reluctant to laugh at a joke that's not sufficiently highbrow. The reluctance to laugh freely is always what made me suspicious of academics. What kind of person, I wondered, would give up one of life's greatest pleasures merely for the sake of some imagined social prestige?

The X

I was just trying to clean up, because I thought it would help me feel better. There was a knife out in the kitchen, and I picked it up and tried to put it away in the knife block - one of those wooden blocks meant to hold knives of all different shapes and sizes. As I pushed the knife in, I met more resistance than I had expected. I thought it even made some high-pitched noise as I pushed it in, but maybe that was just my imagination. Maybe I had put the knife in at the wrong angle, or maybe there was some kind of debris stuck in it.

The Killer

Dispatch told us that there was a report of a murder. Since we were the closest officers, we went to the address they told us as quickly as we could to catch whatever evil people were responsible. If you had been in the situation, you would have done the same.

The ride to the site of a murder is always long, even if it only takes a few seconds. You never get used to it: the thrill of the hunt, the flow of adrenaline, the mental preparation for a grisly scene and a confrontation.