That night there would be no truffles.

He had driven down the dark and narrow road that wound its way downward
through the forest to the small village of the dragon. At the very ending
of the road a few houses stood like periods upon a page at the conclusion
of an overly long sentence of Milton’s heroic prose. But those few houses
were not the punctuation that he sought. Rather it was the small inn named
for the guardian – or more properly the majordomo – of the village, Mario.
Had this village been located in the region of his ancestors, he would have been Don Mario.

Except for a solitary villager taking his dinner at the bar, only the matron
of the inn and the chef – how could he be so young – were there to greet him.
The rustic dining room itself, decorated with paintings of questionable taste
by a painter of questionable talent, was empty. Not even a single table was filled
with the several guests who might provide the subjects for his favorite game
to be indulged in when he dined alone. No, tonight the Fates would offer not even
a single, small party so that he might – only silently to himself, of course – speculate
upon the questions: who was matched with whom, what was the common thread
that tied the group together.


The Remembrance is the first story of the book, "Encounters."