Hi, I'm Levar Burton, and this is Levar Burton reads. In every episode I handpick a different piece of short fiction and read it to you.

The only thing these stories have in common is that I love them and I hope you will

too. As we release this episode, the calendar year is drawing to a close, and I think many of us are probably feeling that urge to take stock

to think about whether we've achieved the things we wanted to think about

relationships to figure out what our life will look like in the coming months.

Three Roses follows two close friends, new graduates who are roaming the streets looking for an open pub on Christmas Eve in Yubiana

Slovenia. One of them is thinking about the future and what it does or doesn't hold.

And one of them is hardly thinking about anything beyond the end of the night.

It's by the Slovenian Belgian writer Carmen Spielberg, who has also lived in Germany and Brazil.

Her thriller No Such Thing is Goodbye was shortlisted for the Black Spring Crime Fiction Prize.

And this story is from her short fiction collection entitled

Add Sionide to Taste, a collection of dark tales with culinary twists. And in this case the culinary twist is in the form of a mysterious drink which changes the character's lives,

but not the same way for each one.

Now if you're ready, let's take that deep breath. And begin.

Three roses by Carmen Spiliac.

Around the same time every year I go for a midnight walk. The day before Christmas, Yubiana is like a new toy, dumped on the muddy playground abandoned. The planet-shaped lights seemed

desperate to inflict joy onto the empty streets. Defeats looms over the

cobblestones, like a broom, rushing away the last bits of holiday cheer

and the final whiff of roasted almonds that lingers around the empty market. The stalls are folded against the wall,

waiting to be taken apart. Most people have scattered, gone to visit their families and feast on home-cooked meals.

Those who've stayed behind won't go out at this time of night, not unless there's an emergency. It's the same choice given the weather, but I have my own ghosts to hunt.

Sixteen years ago, on a night exactly like this one, we walked these streets together.

...