All in the Timing

by David Ives

THE STORIES:

 Sure Thing. Two people meet in a cafe and find their way through a conversational minefield as an offstage bell interrupts their false starts, gaffes, and faux pas on the way to falling in love.

Words, Words, Words recalls the philosophical adage that three monkeys typing into infinity will sooner or later produce Hamlet and asks: What would monkeys talk about at their typewriters?

The Universal Language brings together Dawn, a young woman with a stutter, and Don, the creator and teacher of Unamunda, a wild comic language. Their lesson sends them off into a dazzling display of hysterical verbal pyrotechnics—and, of course, true love.

The Philadelphia presents a young man in a restaurant who has fallen into "a Philadelphia," a Twilight Zone-like state in which he cannot get anything he asks for.

Variations on the Death of Trotsky shows us the Russian revolutionary on the day of his demise, desperately trying to cope with the mountain-climber's axe he's discovered in his head.