fiction | Hillel F. Damron @ hillelbridge.com

Tag Archives: fiction

February 6, 2026 · 4:27 pm

The Jaded Detective and his Young Client

The reason for that eluded him. And yet, he was pleased with himself, his breathing getting in tune with hers. For once in his life, so unlike what had happened with Alma last night—and maybe, come to think of it, because of it—he was able to stare down temptation and come out on top. Even if it was only one battle, even if the war, where the odds were clearly in her favor, was yet to be fought and won. Even if this seductive creature, lying here beside him, was holding him hostage still, preventing him from falling asleep. Forcing him to do some hard thinking, too, and to realize that the ease with which he had located her birth mother—a stroke of genius on his part, or maybe just pure luck, a one in a million shot—was not necessarily a good sign for the future. He suspected that some complications, a latent energy—just like the girl asleep in his arms, so innocently and yet so ominously—may still lie ahead for her, and for him, down the road.”

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B005L652QU

When Time Comes

To celebrate my recent inclusion in the ‘Modern Hebrew Literature Lexicon,’
below please find a new story—a poem, dare I say—in verse. (Link at the end.)

When Time Comes

There was an old man who lived in a cave/
the valley was flooded and many were dead.
His loyal dog had survived and so had he/
by the fire he read while the dog hunted free.
The rock-rabbits it brought on fire he cooked/
water was plenty as the rain never stopped.

He watched as the seasons turned their old pages/
snow and wind sweep silently across forgotten roads.
Over the fields of his childhood hush settled soon/
each blade of grass heavy with the passing of time.
Shadows crept on the walls stealthily day and night/
painting memories in delicate strokes of black and white.

Time, he understood, was slow now—a different river/
winding not in days or hours but in the steady pulse of eternity.
The cave was a world pared down to essentials: warmth of fire/
rhythm of rain, cries of joy when the dog returned with food.
His gaze wandered from faded lines to flicker of embers/
words drifting out of his mouth to mingle with raindrops.

Sometimes at the cave’s mouth he faced the swollen valley/
the ache of nostalgia breaking the walls of his solitude.
Sorrow and pain mattered not in the fire’s glow at night/
just the dream of youth and the press of his dog’s body.
And forever—the patient turn of pages when sleep escaped/
long after the flood had covered the world he knew.

But then one day the rain stopped and the sky cleared/
just as a white dove flew in to announce the latest bulletin.
In its beak it carried a handwritten letter for the old man to read/
from the country of his birth where he learned to walk and swim.
He was not forgotten there: he was etched in the book of life/
and could die peacefully, his dog by his side, when time comes.

(My page in the ‘Modern Hebrew Literature Lexicon.’ In Hebrew: הלל דמרון )