Harold Gates slowed the snow-topped yellow taxi and edged it along the slushy curb to a stop where she stood, shivering in a tattered wool coat in a January blizzard on the steps of her unlit ... [+]
Of the over 5,000 numbers in the English language, it is the number 14 alone that has come to hold a special place in my heart. I'm not a superstitious woman, or a woman at all for that matter. I am in fact a man, and not a very superstitious one at that. As such, I had never before taken heed of "lucky" or "unlucky" numbers or given into the idea that any particular number has some sort of existential significance. That was until I saw her standing across the road from me, waiting to get on the number 7 bus. My bus, only it was going in the opposite direction. 7 and 7 make 14 and oh how I lon