The road is soft with snow. What comes before does not matter at a beginning. The house is white and quiet. Very cold and new. The house is not unclean, but it is best to begin with cleaning. Open the windows and bring the bright winter to air out what came before. Sweep the corners…

Mr. Tibberly found a meteorite on his hike in the desert. He knew straight off it had once been a meteor, but he hadn’t studied geology in school, so he decided to take it to the university meteorite lab to be sure. His life had become very lonely lately. His failures disappointed him. Possibilities flooded…

We’ll take long walks, me and Eurydice. Along the shore, watching the new souls shuffle into the grounds of the manor. They look like they’re squinting, even though this place is always overcast. The souls bump into things. With their first steps onto the gray shore, they waft like the smoke that streams from Charon’s…

Because it isn’t real, for A. For B, large parts of it take place in chain Mexican restaurants in the Sun Belt. To certain families they don’t feel like chains, of course, because such families have always lived in the Sun Belt, and have been going to Friday Night Mexican at the same place since…

The adults ate then fed the teens, and when through, they fed the children from the pans. Whatever infants were there suckled, mainly from a breast, a bottle, but sometimes the ruby lips found their way to a lock of greasy hair dipped in honey. If there wasn’t a glass, a deep bowl was filled…

I’m sitting at the kitchen table over a bowl of soggy oats, hives crawling up my neck, eyes watery and itching. It’s the cats; I’m deathly allergic. My mom brought home three last night. “Cute, aren’t they?” she says, wrapped in a white bathrobe swiped from a recent staycation with Rick at the Comfort Suites.…

June My, my. Look how much you’ve grown. The last time you spent a summer here with us you must a been a full head shorter. Now look at you. You’re nearly all grown up. I’m wonderin how’d your momma and pop get you to give up a whole summer to spend in this dusty…

“If I’d seen you first…” I tell Jesse and she gives me a little smile that could tear the heart out of you but Roy smirks. “Got one on you there, Alvin old boy,” he said. Roy’s kept score forever. Back in school I’m picked as lead goalie. Next season he’s named the Captain. Me…

MY GREAT, GREAT UNCLE, CHARLEY KEMMICK, IS IMPRISONED ON POSSIBLE MURDER CHARGES AFTER HIS FIRST PROFESSIONAL FIGHT On a stained mattress, sixteen year old Charlie Kemmick sits in his 9’ x 9’ cell. He has not showered and the sweat from last night’s fight is still tacky on his skin. Unable to sleep, he had…

TIME TRAVEL In bed David talked about time travel. His voice was raspy, a staccato rhythm, and maybe ten minutes into his wormhole chatter, I opened my eyes and gazed at the glow-in-the-dark stars on my ceiling, watched, even against darkness, as he traced a line in the air. “Right there,” he said. “We could…

The blast of cold air blew through our office and unmoored the various collected memos, contracts, loosely-held Post-It notes, food menus, and business cards, so it looked like a ticker tape parade, or anyway, it looked like our idea of a ticker tape parade: none of us had ever seen a ticker tape parade. None…

Put one foot directly in front of the other — the way Uncle taught you. Quiet. Don’t snap twigs, don’t clear your throat, don’t even breathe through your mouth. That makes way too much clatter and the animals will hear you coming. Keep the wind blowing in your face so they can’t smell you either.…