He said he’d give me a lift home from school and led me outside to his canary yellow convertible parked in a no parking zone, the top down in defiance of the season. “Don’t you love this crazy weather?” he asked. Tornado season — just after winter’s thaw, before summer’s splintering wind, polar air collided…

The skies were sunny and clear on that spring morning, perfect weather for flying. It was to be a quick, simple flight that Martin Crane had taken a half dozen times. One big city to the next, two states apart. Flying time: eighty-five minutes. Martin’s single carry-on bag contained the daily newspaper, a paperback book,…

When people used to ask her, she would tell them about the egg. It was Philadelphia, 1993. A heat wave scorching through the city like blood rushing to the head. The egg had been left out in an alley on the south side, right under the sun. She tells folks how she peeled her way…

First, as always, truly open your heart; ask. What if the voice answers? Now, open your eyes. See the white church gray in the night. See the empty flowerpot halfway up the back steps. See the backwards stained glass. If headlights bloom like ghosts in the distances, simply be still. No one else will see.…

There is no wilderness to speak of anymore, save for the mountains where the wolves and centaurs live. No humans are allowed up there. A few years ago a child got lost, or was taken there, and the wolves ripped her apart. Now no one goes beyond the barricades. It’s for safety, the city councilors…

People had been talking about it at school — little survival kits that you could carry with you wherever you went, and how they could one day save your life. There had been a report on television of a girl who had used it to escape after she had been kidnapped. She had cut the…

What do you say when your child calls, from over 500 miles away, and says, “I am not happy here.” And you do sincerely want this child to be happy, but you cannot say, “Your life is just beginning; this is only the beginning,” because you cannot run on the same slogans two campaigns in…

People took pictures of me. The first time it happened I liked it. I smiled big. I was driving with the windows down, and I heard someone say, Are you really the Teacher of the Year? I nodded. My car had magnet signs on the doors. The car was a new crossover SUV, one of…

Most of all Krista wanted Thuy Luu’s eyes. There wasn’t much about the young civil engineer that the American didn’t like. Now, the quiet dry restaurant after several sprints in and among downpours at the Tan Son Nhat terminal and the rice wine conspired to sink Krista into a warm and willing place, luxuriating in…

I am a certified Ghost Prostitute for War Vets, on call 24/7 and then some. I love this job. I do it for free. Being a “ghost prostitute” does not entail screwing ghosts. It means I died. You live. I serve as a spectral lover for scores of men, but promise to be exactly who…

Before she left, Tanya’s friends and relatives warned her about pickpockets, skinheads, con artists, mob activity, HIV, regressive gender roles, rude waitstaff, long black nights. They warned her not to carry her valuables around with her, or to dress too extravagantly, or to go out alone after dark. Her aunt, the one who had called…

Our father has buried his heart in the yard. We’ve searched for it every day for weeks now, my sister Janna and Fig and I, and so far we’ve found nothing. When we come inside to eat or sleep, our father stares right through us. His eyes are rusty metal, the blue has leached out…