On "Tales of Carlos" by Paul Vidich (3415 words) ***

Taxis are a great place for stories, yet taxis usually seem to fall within larger stories (I think even of the sitcom Taxi, which only rarely actually involved story lines within the taxi--most occurred in the dispatch office, as I recall). Perhaps it's because taxis are generally the means of a journey from one place to another, and so the story inevitably uses the taxi as a transition. Vidich's story starts in a taxi and almost sticks to it, though in the end, he too takes us someplace else, someplace the taxi ultimately takes us. But it's an interesting ride, that's for sure, and the narrator himself seems to know this. Danger lurks--and a desire for something more, something different, something out of the ordinary. The narrator gets what he wants--almost. Read the story here at Our Stories.