“THE LAST BOX” (July 25, 2003)

Thus I to myself as I was walking to the eighth box left for today, the last day of my move from Reading to Motovun. When I pulled the box from its corner by the main door, I saw a black scorpion the size of a large coin. It raised its tail menacingly. “In cauda venenum,” I was tempted to say, but Istrian scorpions are not poisonous.