Imagine this: a skinny eight year old dancer, who doesn’t know she is one, discovering her gift by breaking the embrace of gloved hands and twirling–spinning and spinning and spinning–atop the wet grave of her just-buried grandfather.

The TV has to go, that’s the first step. I unscrew the cable from the wall. Programs haven’t flowed through the cable in a while. I coil the cable and tape it to the back of the TV. My neighbor’s TV is loud enough for both of us. I can hear the channels change through summer-screened windows.

The sounds were unmistakable––a sharp, percussive slap followed by a high-pitched shriek.

Jaeger Brecht believed he could be anybody, and sound like anybody; he could preach what he practiced.

He woke up smiling and that made her nervous because Randal was not a happy man, not by anyone’s stretch of the imagination.

“Birdies!” Sam wriggled his hand from mine, flapped his arms, and chased a flock of gulls swooping down the family hill.
“Whoop! Whoop!”
I latched the gate behind us and flapped after him. He giggled and led me through goldenrods up to his shoulders. On the run, I tamped my brow, beading [...]

Pattie has the TV on when I enter the apartment for what I hope to be the last time. She’s been cooking with garlic and there’s a sense of potato in the air. Water’s boiling in a pot; there might be pasta.

Well, C.S. sometimes you do and sometimes you don’t. Jen Farmer had a learning disability. It wasn’t the kind that one expects when you see that phrase. Jen’s learning disability had more to do with how she lived her life.

Though curious, be you kind to yourself, and leave here now, lest you ….”

Everything seems wrong, especially the music, a-ha on the radio singing, “Take On Me.”