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Sarah Roff

I am a former assistant professor of German literature at Princeton and now a psychiatrist specializing in PTSD and borderline personality disorder. I have a long-standing interest in the relationship between personal and historical trauma and have a deep knowledge of the period in which the story is set. I am currently also a student in The Book Project at Lighthouse Writers Workshop.

A Compromising Photograph

It was six o’clock on an August morning when an old war hero hobbled up to the front door as Anni was sitting in the kitchen drinking a cup of the bitter chicory that now stood in for coffee. Anni was listening to a bird and trying to decide what kind of warbler it was when its song was drowned out by the sharp trilling of the bell, a signal that traveled from the front door of the big house down a cable in the hall to the kitchen, where a series of clappers mounted on the side wall vibrated with alarm. She stood up from the table. Her mother had come down from upstairs, where she had been putting an inexperienced young housemaid through her paces. There was murmuring in the hallway that passed into the parlor. A few minutes later, the front door opened again, and the old soldier took his leave in low tones, his single boot crunching on the gravel as he retreated down the path.
Long Short Story
Issue 45, January 2021
Issues Archive

Sarah Roff

I am a former assistant professor of German literature at Princeton and now a psychiatrist specializing in PTSD and borderline personality disorder. I have a long-standing interest in the relationship between personal and historical trauma and have a deep knowledge of the period in which the story is set. I am currently also a student in The Book Project at Lighthouse Writers Workshop.

A Compromising Photograph

It was six o’clock on an August morning when an old war hero hobbled up to the front door as Anni was sitting in the kitchen drinking a cup of the bitter chicory that now stood in for coffee. Anni was listening to a bird and trying to decide what kind of warbler it was when its song was drowned out by the sharp trilling of the bell, a signal that traveled from the front door of the big house down a cable in the hall to the kitchen, where a series of clappers mounted on the side wall vibrated with alarm. She stood up from the table. Her mother had come down from upstairs, where she had been putting an inexperienced young housemaid through her paces. There was murmuring in the hallway that passed into the parlor. A few minutes later, the front door opened again, and the old soldier took his leave in low tones, his single boot crunching on the gravel as he retreated down the path.
Long Short Story
Issue 45, January 2021
Issues Archive
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