Dad looked out past the croquet lawn with its haphazard wickets to another farm some distance away where flames could be seen, and smoke. He shook his head and turned back to the kids. Souls are slippery, he said. If you don’t believe me try grabbing hold of one. You’ll never get it. You’ll lose your mind trying. He lifted a pitchfork and launched it like a javelin over the lawn and it landed sticking straight up in the duck grass. Jenny and Jimmy held their croquet mallets and stared up at Dad. Even with his stoop he was a tall, imposing man.

Just then a car skidded to a stop behind them, gravel crunching under its rubber tires. You see the space-man? Willie said, leaping out of the baby blue convertible. The spaceman, you see it? He pointed over by where the fire burned and there was, in fact, a figure levitating, silhouetted up in the smoke.

Calm down, Willie! Calm down! Dad said. I’m worried about you. You talk too fast. You’re gonna have a heart attack. Now what makes you think you saw a spacema—And now Dad saw it too. It looked like it was spinning in the hot air above the fire. Well, let’s go check it out, Dad said. Continue reading →

Jig sat on a concrete bench between a pair of tall corporate buildings. On the bench beside him was a plastic bag with a box inside it wrapped like a gift. Marjorie would come outside with her lunch any minute and that’s when he would present her with the box. It was all exactly as though he was still working here. Like he’d just come down for lunch after a morning of managing funds. Except that now he couldn’t sit still. He kept getting up and walking from one side of the courtyard to the other. Office workers came and went from the office buildings- some smoking, some eating from paper bags. So far he didn’t recognize anyone but he knew it was only a matter of time. He wiped his hand across his forehead and his brow was slick with sweat. Continue reading →

Gaston walked on the shoulder close to the railing as cars whizzed by. There was no sidewalk on the endless hill, just a gravelly shoulder with scratched CD’s, crushed earbuds, flattened cigarette boxes, plastic sports drink bottles, a hubcap. Gaston had left work early because he’d been so angry. Now the exhaust, late afternoon sun, and engine noise made him more dizzy than angry and he’d lost some of his focus.

The plan had been to get home, get his gun, and go back to the place he washed dishes. However, the wind of the cars zipping by blew the thoughts right out of his head. He’d been walking forever and he still was not down this first hill yet. In his fury leaving work he’d miscalculated exactly how long it would take to walk home. Continue reading →