Robert O'Reilly
Robert O'Reilly

Robert O'Reilly

I am educated in the Western Classical Tradition, B.A. from U.C. Berkeley in Latin and Greek, English major, one year at U. of Toronto, studied under Alain Renoir and Northrop Frye, read most classics full time for many years after university in French, English, Latin and Greek to the modern day. I am interested in the near future of technology, what changes it imposes upon our heritage and character as humans. Short stories and Essays are my medium.


Work and play perfected

26 Jan 2023 6 minute read 0 comments Diomedes

  Simple living In late June, 1982, with over two thousand dollars saved up, I made the trip back to Berkeley, once again by bus. Bones had sent me a letter and said he’d arranged a place I could move into, right behind the house where he lived. Thi...

Nature, hideously unfair.

25 Jan 2023 6 minute read 0 comments Diomedes

  John Keats My journals at this time began to fill and became a daily part of my life. I have four of them covering these two years, mostly lists of the great books I was reading and my thoughts on them. As I had no social life that was all I had t...

Back to the shadows

24 Jan 2023 4 minute read 0 comments Diomedes

  The secret life of writing Life without others The next portion of my life (from July 1980 to July 1982) deserves a preface, or perhaps an apology, or better yet, an essay on solitude, because these two years contain almost no action, no social li...

A hasty departure

23 Jan 2023 7 minute read 0 comments Diomedes

  Rene I was on a trip through Southern California with my new girlfriend, Sanita, (soon to be my wife) and introducing her to all my old friends and when we reached San Diego Phil was on my list. He was glad to see us, the past forgotten, a very ch...

The loss of everything

22 Jan 2023 5 minute read 0 comments Diomedes

  My friend Phil, long ago. It was about this time that my job ended. Summer was upon us, the beach in its full glory and I had enough hours worked to apply for unemployment insurance. My boss, Larry K. filled out and signed the form and we parted w...

The petty thieves

22 Jan 2023 4 minute read 0 comments Diomedes

  Telltale signs It was right after this party that a group of more criminal and derelict so-called friends began to frequent our living room. The first was a blond in her late twenties. She was pretty but had been prettier, with the first wrinkles...

Debauchery meets innocence

21 Jan 2023 4 minute read 0 comments Diomedes

  Innocence. One day in May Kim and I decided to throw a large party. We told all our friends and asked them to invite theirs and arranged through our bartender to have a keg on ice. It was to be a Saturday afternoon backyard party, which we’d never...

Mexican justice

21 Jan 2023 3 minute read 0 comments Diomedes

  Mexican jail The first three months at the house were happy, with just Kim, Harry O. and me fixing many things up in our off hours. Kim built himself a little bedroom out of a storeroom behind the kitchen. The front deck, built from scratch, came...

Bad company

20 Jan 2023 5 minute read 0 comments Diomedes

  Angry drummer My first encounter with such a type (as I described in my last post, the uneducated and unfortunate wretch who is most likely prison bound) happened before I left Marin, while staying at Norma’s. Kim knew a drummer named Buddy who wo...

The conclusion to my COVID novel

19 Jan 2023 2 minute read 5 comments Diomedes

  Pandemica A tale of what might come. Hope it doesn't come true. Ninety percent of the World's population succumbs. Conclusion Mankind slowly came to peace with itself after one war, with the vaccine distributed across the globe. The populations we...