323

The screaming of the engines drowned out the screams of the passengers as they thrust into hard reverse to slow their unplanned descent.  "Unplanned descent" is what the spaceline called it, but to everyone on board, it was a crash.  The six passengers had been required to fully strap in as soon as Oceania 8 had a view of their destination, and only one had ignored the computer's instructions.  The 20-something girl in A-2 thought there would be just enough time to retrieve her Halcion IV Interactive, but there wasn't.  A-2 continued to get smashed around the cabin even after she became just a body.

322

Most people think that when you lose everything, it goes in a blink, but "everything" encompasses so much, it takes a while to finally get to nothing.  You keep redefining "everything" and "nothing" as you lose what you have.  Taking the bus is better for the environment.  Well, my job wasn't everything.  The house was starting to get to be too much anyway and apartments are low maintenance.  We're saving money by not having a pet.  And by not being able to bury him properly.  Hey, this generic food from Save-a-Lot is just like the food we used to buy at Trader Joe's!  Hey, these food pantries get the same food we used to get!  Hey, this shelter serves some good meals.  I could stand to lose a few pounds anyway, so skipping a meal or two won't kill me.  I don't need more clothes than I can wear at one time.  At least we have each other.

321

Everybody knew their Dungeon Master, Brian, had been out of ideas for weeks, but were still too hopeful that he'd get it together and plan the campaign through the end before their next meeting to say anything to him yet.  Brian's campaigns always started out great and he had a solid premise and some fun adventuring ideas, but once the four players had managed to make it through the planned parts, Brian would hem and haw and "Ummm..." after every move.  Brian's ability to "wing it" wasn't nearly as developed as the group's esteemed DM thought it was.  When Mike invited his new upstairs neighbor, Ernie, to the next meeting, everyone in the group, Brian included, was excited when Ernie volunteered to run the next campaign.

It was also a welcome (and, again, silent) relief to have Mike offer his apartment for the new adventure.  Like his campaigns, Brian started great; he had vacuumed and wiped down the table and he had even cleaned his bathroom.  By the third week's meeting, however, his apartment had gone back to its natural state of funk.  Adam and Celia would have offered their house, but they lived outside the city and, of course, it had always been Brian's campaign.  Celia was, perhaps, the most relieved, since the man/cat smell of Brian's apartment, and his rapidly deteriorating bathroom, always affected her the most.  Mike and his girlfriend kept their place spotless, and Lisa was more than willing to go out for the evening with friends.

320

There were some nights that Cara really, really wished she could go to bed without him.  Not for any of the mundane reasons couples usually have, but only because she used to use that time to talk to herself.  Out loud.  Or, at least, in a low mutter.  She wasn't sure how it sounded to anyone else because she only did it for herself, but she was starting to feel that these years of not being able to talk to herself before going to sleep was hurting her.  Cara's talks helped her straighten out the tangles of the day and helped her understand complications in her path.  She not only talked to herself, but she also talked to people she had met, or whom she had known, or who were dead.  These conversations sometimes ran in circles, or got into arguments, or even led to tears, but, she realized, they had been extremely important to her psyche because recently the voices were coming anyway, and they weren't hers.

319

Three sisters, standing one behind the other at an angle to the camera, from youngest in the front to oldest in the back.  Their old fashioned glasses and stiff hairdos make them look older than they are, which is, perhaps, in their early thirties.  The youngest, with a rounder, fuller face, is smiling.  The older two are not.  The oldest, however, has a twinkle in her eyes, which, even in a black and white photo, are clearly blue.  The middle sister's gaze is begrudging, forceful, maybe even angry, though I know the look is hiding an irrational fear of having her picture taken, a fear that will build into a phobia to add to an increasing pile of phobias and obsessions.  It is the oldest sister who is my grandmother.

318

When I want to make myself feel dizzy, I picture myself, feet not just on earth, but on the Earth.  I imagine myself being held to the Earth as it spins.  Then, like one of those videos from Cosmos, I pan out and up from me.  I am tiny on the Earth.  The Earth is tiny.  The solar system is tiny.  The Milky Way is tiny.  I am here, yet I am nothing.

That's when I start to feel dizzy and the pile of dishes and messages to answer seem... tiny.

317

The neighborhood used to be wealthy, and well-to-do families had lived in their grand city houses, sipping iced tea on their wrap-around porches and walking downtown to watch the boats glide down the canal.  Once traveling by boat on the canal was replaced first by trains and then by the thruway, the city had experienced an exodus of wealth.  The grand city houses became rundown apartments, chopped into bits with flimsy walls and crammed-in kitchens and baths.

It was easy to tell which were apartments without even counting the number of electric meters on the side.  The apartments were painted in whatever had been on sale in order to comply with housing codes that didn't want peeling.  The attics were often a different color because the ladders only went so high.  The carved porch balustrades and railings of old had rotted and were not replaced in kind, but rather with two-by-fours.  Porches sagged, chipboard patched, and windows shrunk, surrounded by unpainted, mismatched wood.  You could also tell by the strollers on the lawn, the upholstered furniture and rugs covering holes on the porch, and the small, cheap yard decorations clustered and broken near the cement replacement stairs.  Trash and mud clung to the yard.  Because inside doors leading to different apartments had been installed in what had used to be magnificent foyers, the front doors remained open to the elements.

316

A police siren undulated in the distance, crescendoed, and faded.  Traffic was quiet because it was Christmas Eve and most people already were where they needed to be.  The weatherman said the wind would pick up as a strong low front marched across the land, and though it was later than predicted, on it came.  The trees swayed and the low thrush of sound became steadier and steadier.  The temperature drop would come soon, but most would be in bed when the full force of the front passed overhead, not leaving red and green-wrapped presents, but rather downed branches and a sheen of ice.

315

Her face was hot and her eyes were dry and stung a little.  It was late, but Julia still had so much work to do.  What did it matter, she thought.  None of this matters.  The cleaning crew's vacuum had long since faded away, but here she was, still, pushing papers over her desk.  Copy.  Internal mail.  File.  Repeat.  Collate.  Staple.  File.  Repeat.  Julia's hands were dry and she was sore from sitting, forgetting even her own body as she went through the motions of work, work, work.  In her mind, she shoved all the papers off her desk in one swing of the arm, kicked the file drawer shut so hard the cabinet fell against the next, and yanked the phone from the jack, whipping it across the room.  In reality, she wrote dates, signed papers, filed, repeated.

314

It was firmly set in Jessa's mind that men who behaved badly in cars were not meant to be permanent partners.  The first boyfriend she had when she could drive was clearly a psychopath to everyone but her.  She was with him from high school and into college, standing by him through a series of last straws.  One of the final last straws happened while she was driving, nearing his small house with his mother and stepfather.  Little kids were on a walkway overpass, dropping snowballs on cars.

"When they hit your car, stop and let me out; I'll get them."

"No, it's okay, they're just dumb kids.  I can..."

"Let me out!"

"It's all right, watch..."  Jessa slowed just before the overpass, and after the kid dropped his snowball harmlessly on the road, she sped up and prepared to make the turn to her boyfriend's road.

"I said STOP!"  He grabbed the wheel and jerked it to the side of the road.  She had never felt so mad at him.  She was so mad she yelled, and he punched her in the leg.  She let him out and drove away.  Jessa wished she had never gone back with him after, but she did.  It wasn't quite the last, last straw, but it was the first realization that men who behaved badly in cars were not meant to be permanent.

313

Imagine a city where more than half its population has left within the past forty years.  The people who remain cannot afford the upkeep of their houses, nor do they even wish to keep them at all.  If a family still lingers in the city, they will dump their home at the first chance.  A house, for example, in the middle of what had been a thriving part of the city, was dumped for $12,000--more than $50,000 less than assessed value, which was already tens of thousands less than what it should have been.  The house was snapped up by professional landlords and stuffed with tenants, including a family of ten in an illegal apartment in the attic.  The attic burned.  The house emptied.  Although it was salvageable, who wanted to invest in a partly burned home on a street where anyone could easily purchase crack?  Windows were broken and the house was pillaged of materials.  Eventually, the grand, 3,500 square foot house, built in the 1800s, was torn down.  A weedy lot remains.

Now, put a natural wonder nearby.  So nearby that in the quiet of the night, from that weedy lot, you can hear the thundering waters of nature, cascading over a mighty cataract.  Welcome to Niagara Falls, New York.

312

My name is Benjamin.  Benny, to my friends, which is why nobody calls me Benny.  I hate everyone and everyone hates me, and that's the way I like it.  My bedroom is my castle; my sanctuary, if you will.  You will because this is my journal and I was told to write what I like, so this is what you get.  I may even swear in it, but if I don't it's only because I didn't want to.  I can end sentences with a preposition, and nobody can stop me.  I am a rebel without an out.  Get me out.

Monday.
I've decided to write the days in my journal because I want to.  It helps me stay on track since I have been kicked out of school and I can't see the day on the corner of the board anymore.  Yeah, that's right: I was kicked out of school.  Bad a$$.  I made a fake swear because I wanted to.

311

"Jettison the extra."  The captain's pronouncement froze his crew.  "Now," he added to jump start them breathing again.  It was a testament to their training and their belief in their captain that all three of the crew were jolted back to work.  Ben prepped the magnetic release, and Jo went to double seal the airlocks in reverse from the rear of the main ship.

Although Gia continued rerouting critical systems in preparation for release, she was in doubt, and not afraid to question Captain Halloran.  "Captain, there could be another way.  What if we..."

"I have thought about it plenty, Gia.  This is our last chance.  Ben?"

"Mags ready, sir."

Jo skidded back onto the bridge.  "Airlocks sealed."  Gia swiveled her seat to look at Jo; to see how she felt.  Jo wasn't looking back, but her lips were tight and she seemed pale as she sat back in front of her console.

"Jo..." Gia began, only to be cut off again by the Captain.  "Gia, prepare the thrusters."  Captain Halloran dropped into his chair and buckled in; everyone followed suit.  "Ben."  The Captain ran his hand over his face.  "Release the maglocks."

310

I dream of disaster.

Every night I have dreamed of disaster, global, catastrophic, unavoidable.  Invariably, the military is deployed, but even from my puny vantage point on the ground, I can see that it will be futile.  The people escaping with belongings stuffed into cars is also futile.  Destruction will be complete.

I wake to my alarm's soft chimes, increasing in volume if I ignore the call to the waking world.  It is hard to wake, and I struggle to the surface, still tired.

309

Her hair was lifted by the wind and the strange updrafts that swirled around the building.  She held the edges of the open window, ducking a little as it wasn't quite as tall as she was.  One foot in.  One foot out.  She looked back into the room and smiled a transcendent smile, and took her last step.

308

Have you ever thought to yourself, "This is what could kill me.  Yep.  This right here."  I seem to be thinking that more and more often.  Earlier today, I thought that while I jumped off a short embankment into a lake I knew nothing about.  There are hikes in large expanses of state-owned woods, you know the kind of woods where people get lost and die?  Well, these kinds of woods make you sign in and out, so they know if there will be any lost dead people.  I signed in and followed the trail, like an obedient person.  It was very quiet, excepting all the animal noises, mostly birds and rodents, of course.  It was also hot and after about an hour I came across this lake.  I hadn't seen another human this whole time.  I took off my hiking boots, my socks, my shirt and my pants, and I jumped in wearing only my skivvies.  What the hell was I thinking?  Oh, I know: This is what could kill me.  Yep.  This right here.

307

It was the day after he died that I went for the first time by myself to a live concert.  I had never heard of the bands, nor had I ever gone to a club like this.  I wasn't even sure what kind of music it would be, I just went.  The only assurance I had was that it would be loud and crowded, which was perfect for forgetting.

I didn't remember dressing for it, but I still have the t-shirt, crunchy with sweat and spilled beer and a splash of blood, not mine.  I should have felt out of place, being one of the only females, and the only one not in the band who was over forty.  The guy at the door asked if I was looking for somebody.  It was nice he was willing to let me in to find my kids, but I have no kids.  "No.  Just one admission, please."  I must have had some look on my face because he didn't say any more, but his eyes lingered.  The floor was sticky and it smelled like spilled beer and piss even before people started spilling and pissing.  When the first band took the stage, I fought my way into the middle and jumped with the crowd, letting the driving bass and thumping drums and screaming vocals take me.  That first night, the day after he died, I screamed and cried in the crowd, pushing and shoving against the bodies of the young.

306

How creepy is it to have the heart you were born with thrown out and some dead person's slopping around in its place, waiting to be rejected by your ungrateful body?  Super freaking creepy, is what.  A stranger's heart is hiding in my chest, and I know it doesn't want to be there.  It wants to be back in its owner, a stupid twenty-three year old college kid with a motorcycle and a need for speed, but it can't go back because he smeared himself down a highway.  Luckily for me, they say, the road rash didn't go all the way through his body to damage his heart, which still beats ferociously, wishing to find the adrenaline thrill of a street race again.  Unfortunately, it's in my chest.  My stupid body wants my old heart back.  I want my old heart back.  I wasn't meant to be parted from it.  I was born with it, and I should have died with it, but since I'm only a few years older than that stupid dead motorcyclist hot rod, I'm alive and waiting.  I hate the sound of this heart which beats, traitor...traitor...traitor...  I'm a traitor to myself and I know I will pay when my body finally says, ENOUGH! and rejects this adrenaline-junkie's meat.

305

They say you can never go home again, and I never believed them.  I thought you couldn't go home only when the place had been plowed under, like my place eventually was, but I couldn't go home a long time before that.  Home had changed.  Okay, I suppose I had, too, but not as much as home had.  I wanted the avocado green carpets.  I wanted the harvest gold appliances.  I wanted the nubby black sofa with the square arms and the squashy throw pillows.  I wanted it to smell like dog.  I wanted the rotary phone to ring and ring and ring.  I wanted it to be the home I remembered, but it wasn't.  It changed, but I wanted it to be the same.

304

Meanwhile, in the Seventh Circle of Hell, Drachmach was rolling grit into his fingernails when he felt the sudden and irresistible urge to stand, which he did, and turn in a circle three times, which he also did.  When he was done, Drachmach was no longer in Hell, the Seventh Circle, Molten Quarter, Drachmach's scrape-hole, but rather he stood in a cavernous room, the stone floor smooth, cold, and covered with chalk scratchings.  Torches flickered on the far away walls, and coals burned dimly in a portable fire nearby.  A man, a human, knelt outside the chalk scratchings, making noises and raising and lowering his hands.  It took Drachmach a few moments to work through his disorientation to realize what had happened: a human sorcerer had abducted him.

303

Escobar leaned back, the white leather of the couch creaking with his weight.  Sammy shifted from foot to foot, dabbing a handkerchief on his forehead.  "Jose," Escobar addressed one of his bodyguards without taking his eyes off Sammy, "what do you think we should do with this one?"  Jose smiled behind his mirrored sunglasses.  "What do you think?"  Esocobar and Jose laughed while Sammy's brain swirled for a way out.  Any way out.

302

My upstairs neighbor whispers into his floor vents.  I don't think he knows that anyone can hear him, but he does it every day and when I'm home, I sit and listen to his secrets.

His name is Jerome Stahl, which I got from the mailboxes in the lobby, but the rest of his life I've been getting from him.  When Jerome feels bad, he describes why and wishes for help to feel better.  When Jerome feels guilty, he agonizes over his failure and begs forgiveness.  When Jerome feels overwhelmed, he lists his undone to-dos and pleads for strength.  When Jerome wallows in self-pity, when people are rude to him, when he was embarrassed, I hear it all, whispered into the vent that opens into my living room.  When Jerome has naughty thoughts, I get those, too, but I try not to listen, even though he uses euphemisms a seven year old might use.  Recently, I've been getting worried for him.

301

My grandmother told me they used to laugh at people in Asian countries for wearing surgical masks in public.  I asked why, and she explained about the newness of an ever-changing and ever-more-potent flu season and about the recognition of carbon pollution, but what I meant was why did they laugh?  Later, when I got to think about it, I guess it was because only people in Asian countries wore them.  I never really thought about it much, since only uncivilized people don't wear masks.

I was always Grandma Briella's favorite because I would unplug just for her.  I feel guilty about it now because sometimes I didn't; I only said I unplugged, but I never thought she'd notice.  Thinking back, I'm sure she noticed.  Grandma Briella noticed a lot, even when she didn't always call me by the right name.

300

Chara and Boyd basked in the glory of northern summer as they hiked the nearly hidden paths of the Great North Woods.  They had been traveling together for nearly ten years, though the first two were simply as friends in a Gathering.  That particular Gathering had many problems, and Chara in particular had been feeling increasingly troubled.

Gatherings were meant to keep people safe, and there were many that shifted and morphed and quite often disappeared.  There were some that had been around for so many years that they had come up with rules and titles within their Gatherings and often became exclusive, self-important, and sometimes downright dangerous.  Chara was sensing that from the Rhee Gathering, of which she had been a member for a decade before Boyd joined.

Boyd was in his own, very small Gathering, but it was not affording the kind of protection or quality that he needed, so he left for the much larger Rhee.  Chara and Boyd found each other there and formed a quick bond sensed by the leader of the Rhee who was, unfortunately, Chara's betrothed.

Now, Chara and Boyd travelled alone.  Dangerous, but undeniably their best decision yet.

299

Jesse had a thousand dollars in cash in a small fabric purse tied around her neck and tucked into her camisole under her shirt, under her sweater, under her jacket.  She knew she shouldn't keep touching it, announcing to every thief where she had her valuables, but it was almost all the cash she had in the world and she had to keep reassuring herself it was there.

She walked to the convention center from the parking ramp and recognized that most of the people on the street this early in the morning must be going to or coming from the same housing auction.  Nearly all men and nearly all dressed like contractors.  They talked in groups and laughed and stole looks at Jesse as she hurried by.  Jesse imagined all the cash that these people must be holding.  Every person at the auction, pockets stuffed with cash.  More money than she had ever had, carried in fat leather wallets.

The auction was crowded, and the men gathered at the list on the wall, comparing their notes with the properties still remaining.  Jesse only had one house on her list, and she hoped it was enough.  Of all the thousands of homes and properties up for auction, Jesse had painstakingly narrowed it down to this one.  Not idea, certainly, but so much better than where she was.

298

Though the aisles were wide enough for the forklift, the metal and wood shelves loaded with merchandise still loomed overhead.  Long corridors of high-priced kitchen accessories filled the warehouse.  The cement floors were smooth and cold.

Orders came from fancy catalogs and, of course, from SkyMall.  People who flew on business trips or, perhaps, to exotic places, and just couldn't wait to land before shopping ordered $80 cutting boards and $250 toaster ovens.  Warehouse pickers took list after list of purchases and plucked them from the mighty shelves to pile onto conveyor belts that rolled to the packers who boxed up the hundreds of dollars worth of merchandise for a far away customer who had already forgotten what he ordered the last time he flew back from Tokyo.

297

There was no warning.  The front door exploded inside with the force of the battering ram held by the two police officers on the front stoop.  A stream of black-clad officers flowed into the house, spilling into every room.  Amber had been drawing upstairs when she heard the splintering boom and felt the house shake.  As the men were shouting directions and updates to one another, Amber scrambled into her closet, pushing aside clothes and climbing the shelves like a monkey.  She shimmed up the last bit, bare feet pressing one side of the closet, her back bracing on the other, as she shoved the attic hatch open with her head and fingertips.  Amber climbed inside and slid the wood square back into place.  Wasting no time, she scuttled on her hands and knees across the loose plywood over the floor joists, past the tubs of Christmas decorations, the boxes of old tax documents, and the black plastic bags with baby clothes and forgotten linens.  She could hear the men shouting on the second floor now, and she kept pushing further back to the far corner where she knew there was a hidden door behind more boxes, even older than the rest.

296

Of all the lies movies have taught me over the years, I think the worst is that I believed that I could do anything in a reasonable amount of time.  I didn't think that I could do it within the space of a movie--that's ridiculous--but I did believe the movie time suggestion that within my lifetime I could accomplish goals.  Lies.  Dirty, rotten lies.

My days are spent on a treadmill.  My brain, on the shortest treadmill of them all.  Repetition, repetition, repetition.  Nothing accomplished.  Dishes pile up again and again.  Laundry.  Mail.  Shower.  Eat.  Sleep.  Dentist and doctor and optometrist appointments.  Repeat.  Holidays.  Repeat.  The things I dreamed of doing remained out of my grasp for the daily repetition.  My brain rehashed what it wanted and wondered why the hell wasn't I making progress?  I should have accomplished by now!  Where had the time gone?  Why couldn't I get motivated?  Why couldn't I get out of welding to accomplish my dream of being a professional dancer?  What happened to making the band and winning the hearts of millions?  Shouldn't I be able to save Christmas, or teach the town to dance or preserve the human race?  Goddamn movies.  Lies.

295

After rolling over and flipping her pillow for the fourth time, Sara gave it up as a bad job and got out of bed.  She had the feeling that important life was happening without her.  Spending wakeful hours in bed only made her retread the same worn paths to frustration, so she wrapped herself in her comforter and went to her window.

It was unlikely that there would be any activity out on her street.  Sara lived in a quiet suburb, and the sidewalks were rolled up by 9:00 pm, but she couldn't shake that feeling that there was some spark of life just outside her sphere.  Her dresser sat under the window, and if she pushed it back slightly, she could sit, her feet on the baseboard heat, and lean her elbows on the windowsill to look outside.  Despite the cold November night air, she cranked open one casement window and arranged her comforter over her head.  The baseboard heat rose and filled her cocoon while the night chilled her nose and cheeks.

The street was predictably dark and no lights on in the three houses she could see; it was, after all, after two in the morning.  Sara sat and dreamed with her eyes open of adventure.

294

The city streets were quieter than anyone could ever remember hearing them.  It was impossible to tell how many people were in their homes this evening because the lights were out and all the curtains drawn.  Lights normally powered by the city hadn't been on in more than a year, but when the sun went down, no one else put their lights on, either; it was easier this way.  There had been warnings, first on television, then announced in the streets, then with the short-lived sirens, to turn off lights.  People obeyed once a quarter of their city had been bombed into oblivion.  The sirens stopped working after just a week, but by then everyone knew not to light the dark.  Lights became targets.  Targets became rubble.

293

Their teacher's biggest secret was that she hated people.  She hated having to teach because she had to interact with people.  She hated smiling at people.  She hated thinking of other people.  She hating having to worry about other people.  Miss Declan hated people, but her students never knew it.  Even when she told them, they didn't believe her because she'd smile and help them get their work done, and they improved over the semester.  They would write her good reviews and say how much she cared for them, but secretly: she hated people.

Miss Declan wished for nothing more than to go home and be quiet.  Talking all day made her hate the sound of her own voice.  She worried about her students all the time, and it made her ill.  She hated her own brain for making her think of them.  What Miss Declan wanted was a job where she didn't have to talk to, or plan for, or care about other people.

292

She yearned to go dancing.  Not the kind of dancing most men would think, but the kind of dancing where you mostly get to jump and fling your hair and scream.  The kind of dancing where you shove your fellow dancers and bond by bruising your shoulders.  The kind of dancing where you're sweaty and your clothes come loose and your makeup runs and you need to drink, but you don't notice because you're freaking dancing.

Dee couldn't think of a way to tell him, and her insides did a slow burn that dimmed and dimmed, but never quite went out.

291

Not for the first time and not for the last time, Della looked at the back of Jeral's head, grey curls bobbing as he loped along the forest path ahead of her, and wondered what he was thinking.  It was getting on toward dusk, and the last light was draining the colors away.  The stars would wink on in the sky and the black would spread until she felt blindfolded by the dark.  Della hoped Jeral had a plan, and not asking him about it meant she could at least pretend he did.

290

Working in the cube farm fielding customer service calls made Mark feel like a rat.  Grey, carpeted cube walls looked like a rat maze in some mad laboratory where the experiment was how much boredom the rats could take before killing themselves.  Everyone lived for breaks, official or stolen.  Minutes without a call were precious.  Bathroom breaks were extended as long as was possible without looking suspicious.  Breaks were the call agents' cheese.

Mark shuffled towards his cubicle, inside right, third in, fourth from the end.  There were no decorations allowed and the grey was unrelenting.  The panels were supposed to block sound, but they didn't fully function, quite like the customer service agents.  Mark's work clothes were wrinkled, grey and ill-fitting.  He had ironed them for his first week before realizing the futility of the effort.  Nobody cared, least of all Mark.

If anyone had looked up from their own cubes, they could have seen Mark's head and shoulders bobbing past.  His hair was mostly dark though streaked with grey on the sides.  It was always too long.  Whenever he got it cut, he looked uncomfortable until it grew shaggy again.  The longer it got, the curlier it became and the tips poked his eyes giving him a twitch when he shook it away.  There was only one shirt he owned that wasn't stained, but it was lost in his apartment, and he had forgotten about it.

289

Dry, multi-colored leaves swirled on the wind, like an invisible hand had tossed the entire pile into the air.  Overhead, also in formation, was a cloud of black birds, swooping and turning, its edges swelling and compressing.  The whole world seemed to be in movement, unlike Jon, who stood as still as possible, arms extended, pretending he was the one orchestrating the leaves and the birds and the wind itself.

288

A voice coming from the bottom of a well is not a voice to be ignored.  If it's an actual person trapped, he or she will need help getting out.  Rarely is a person trapped in a well, however.  Voices from wells tend to be more sinister.

287

The house was dark and smelled of mold, but the board over the side door had been loose, so it would do for a night.  Had to be extra careful entering a house at night; not because there might be someone in it, but rather because the floor might be rotted out.  There wasn't anybody in a house on this whole, toothless block.

The floor was solid in what had been the kitchen and still solid into the dining room, living room, and, what, front parlor?  The house was actually rather large and might do with some exploring in the day.  The downstairs would always remain dark, though, because of the boards.  The floor was soft, not because of rot, but rather because of carpeting.  Probably was holding in a lot of the mold smell, too.

286

It was supposed to be  "name your price" sale, but Sam was still embarrassed to offer the church volunteer her measly three dollars for the paper shopping bag she had filled to overflowing.  Sam sat on one of the old upholstered chairs for sale and looked at her finds.  She tried counting the individual items, but kept losing track.  It would cost far more at a thrift store, but she couldn't afford thrift stores anymore.  Sam felt her eyes prickle as a complex wave of nostalgia and pity and helplessness surged through her.  She calmed herself with a resigned sigh.  Three dollars was all she had, so if they said no, so be it.

285

Constantinople was Istanbul.  Constantinople was Istanbul.  Oh, God, what's happening?  Think!  I'm Henry the Eighth, I am, I am, I'm Henry the Eighth I am...

"I can't, Henry.  I can't do it anymore!"  James was crying.  He couldn't wipe the tears away because his hands were tied, but he didn't notice or even care.

"Sing with me!  Sing it out loud, then!  I'm a Yankee doodle dandy!  Yankee doodle do or die!  Sing it for God's sake, dammit!  James!  Sing it!"  Henry was tied, too, but he was trying to stretch his shoulders enough to at least get his hands in front.  "A real, live nephew of my Uncle Sam!  Born on the fourth of July!"

James shook his head side to side and tried to mouth the words, but he wasn't concentrating enough.  "Henry, I..."  Henry fell to his back as his bound hands popped around his buttocks, which was lucky because most of James' skull shot over him when it exploded.

"Yankee doodle went to London just to ride the ponies.  I am a Yankee doodle boy!  Goddammit, James.  I'm a Yankee doodle dandy..."  Henry kept singing as he worked at the knots with his teeth.

284

In an impossible world filled with impossible things, sometimes the most plausible are the least believable.  A cry for help is quite plausible, especially in a bad neighborhood, where, impossibly, people hurt each other for no other reason than they feel they must.  It is plausible someone needs help, but it doesn't sound believable and no one comes.  No one helps.  The hurt continues.

It is also plausible that the choosing of the victim is random, but the victim is more willing to believe that he or she was targeted and, even more impossibly, will always be targeted and will be attacked again and again.

283

The candlelight softened his weather-worn features and deep wrinkles until they were only suggestions.  Shadows still haunted his deep-set eyes.  "I am old enough to be your father," he whispered, his knobby, long-fingered hands curling into fists on the table.

"But you're not, Tam."  Cara moved her own hands, not particularly young, but made so in comparison to his own, towards his.  Tam stiffened and made to pull away, but hesitated.  Cara reached further, and he let her lay her hand upon his.  Tam's fist tightened and she felt him quiver in his seat.  The other patrons of the inn's tavern forgotten, Tam let her unfold his hand.

282

Empathy is the best part of humanity.  It prevents people from hurting each other physically, verbally, emotionally, sexually, or in any way.  If someone is hurt, empathy will soothe the pain.  Empathetic people will jump in and help wherever there is need.

Lack of empathy is the reason there is racism, homophobia, class warfare, man-hating and woman-bashing.  A person without empathy cannot think in terms of "other", so that person is afraid of the "other".  Lack of empathy is a selfish state and one without any imagination.

281

The cave was cool and dry in the front.  In the back, it began to get damp with water trickling down the stone wall and flowing away deeper, under and between to places only water could reach, but it only made the place more perfect as the water was drinkable.

It was a slight climb to get in, over tumbled boulders, but those provided shelter, too, especially since trees had rooted among them, their branches meeting to form a shield.  While in the woods, even a fire wouldn't be seen.  Only from further away might fire smoke be spotted, but the exact location would be difficult to pinpoint, and the tree branches helped dissipate a concentrated plume.

Water, shelter, warmth.  The forest itself could provide food, if you knew where to look, or even cultivate.

280

In a very normal town on a very normal street inside a very normal house was a very abnormal bedroom.  The bedroom was the sanctuary of a normally abnormal girl with a very normal name: Charlotte.

279

The sharp tang of cat urine assaulted them halfway up the stairs to the second floor apartment.  On the landing in front of the door, the urine scent was accented with garbage, sitting in loose bags along the wall.  The tenants treated the apartment the same way the landlord did, with disdain, and as a necessary evil.

278

"You'll want to watch out for Jess," the thin young man offered Marta.  "She's different than us."

Marta watched Jess loping away towards the town, heedless of the dangers of entering uncharted territories.  Frontier people weren't keen on newcomers, even those who were passing through, but there Jess went, straight down the middle of the road, streamers fluttering off her pack.  Marta thought Umberto would tell her Jess was born soft or was touched in the head, but she politely asked anyway.  "How's that?"

"She's dying."  Jess' tiny figure, far down the road, waved her broad-brimmed hat back at them, hurrying them to catch up.

"Aren't we all."  Marta twitched the reins, and thought about what it might mean for their future.

277

The search party's voices were ripped apart by the wind and smothered by the icy snow, but still they kept on for hours after dark.  Groups had already returned to the Inn Malcolm to report and defrost by the common room's enormous hearth.  None had good news.  The last group to return was the one lead on past sense by Fulcrum, Hannah's older brother.  Fulcrum had not wanted to return, but with the snows worsening, it was only a matter of time until search parties would be needed for them, and the group pleaded with the grieving brother's common sense.

276

The phone was getting hot against James' ear and he kept glancing at the clock.  This phone call to his mother was supposed to be short.  A quick question, a clear answer, and off to shopping, but these conversations were never short.  James closed his eyes and forced himself to breathe.

"I'm trying to convince your father to sell this place."

James' eyes flicked open.  "What?  Why?  I..."

"What would happen if one or both of us had to go to a nursing home?'

"Nursing home?  You..."

"They make you spend all your money and then the put you on Medicaid.  It would all disappear.  They'd take it all.  Plus, it's so much work for your father.  Ever since he had The Incident, he hasn't been quite right."

"What do you mean?  Is Dad..."

"He forgets things.  Your grandmother, God bless her, was showing symptoms of dementia for years; symptoms I didn't recognize at the time, but they were there."

James rubbed his forehead.  "Are you saying that Dad has demen..."

"He asked me what temperature to set the thermostat for bed, and he knows that."

"Well, that's not..."

"Whenever I mention selling, all I get is silence, anyway.  I'll keep working on him."

275

The Lewis family had lived on Bindle Place for all of Claire's life, plus some years before.  It had undergone many changes since Claire had been brought home twelve years before, but so had she.  She had even grown to complain when a new house was added to the end, eating away at the fields and trees that had been the neighborhood kids' playground.  Not that the kids were quite kids anymore, nor did they play in the fields as they had, though Claire still did.

274

People flooded in to the estate sale, not in search of deals, but rather to finally get a chance to look in the house.  It was a huge, old, brick mansion that had gone through many unfortunate hands after leaving the original owner's family and had fallen into shameful disrepair.  It had been mutilated into seven apartments and had a smell of old cigarette smoke, mothballs, and wet cat.  It was still, however, huge and old and surrounded by tales of former owners' misdeeds.  Current owner, too, in whose hands the house had been for less than a year.

273

"The House of Blaroch should find it uproariously funny to find me here, wallowing in the muck, should they come riding this way."  The youngest prince of the House of Karnin tried to free his foot from the mud swallowing his leather riding boot without removing only his stockinged foot.  Meanwhile, his squire tried not to cry.

Prince Karn saw the fear gripping his squire.  "Here, Marro, give me a hand, would you?  The horses won't run away, now they've found some nibbles."  It was the high-strung horse Karn shouldn't have ridden so fast in unfamiliar territory that had given him this trouble to start.  Marro dutifully lent Karn his arm, bracing as best as his skinny legs would let him on the driest patch of ground nearby.

272

The wind picked up, blowing with it the scent of snow.  Rolling clouds tumbled across the sky, steel blue and gray and suddenly stuck by sun, reminding the world that it still shone, no matter perspective.  Dried leaves rattled in the trees and the weakest tumbled to join their brethren on the ground.  Dark would come fast this day, but not before a fleeting, blazing show of a sunset.

271

If you ask yourself what you want in life, you probably think in terms of things.  I want a house.  I want a car.  I want a good job.  I want to travel.  But what you should ask yourself are what feelings you want to cultivate.  You may have misplaced desires for certain items, when you really want a feeling you think the item will give you.  My example is that I want (in no particular order): mystery, adventure, comfort, security.  There are physical manifestations that may induce those feelings, but until I understand what feelings I want, I cannot truly direct my life.

Step 1: make a list of the feelings you want to cultivate in your life.

The next question to ask yourself is why?  The answer lies in your childhood.  Ever wonder why people cannot get out of ruts?  Why some people cannot seem to escape the lives in which they were raised?  Why some people live the same, tragic lives as their parents?  It is because they are trying to re-create their feelings from childhood.  What was your life growing up?  What memories keep coming back to you?  Think of both the good and the bad.

Step 2: brainstorm a list of ten memories from your childhood that pop into your mind (even if they seem silly, irrelevant or disturbing.)

Don't believe that you are influenced by what happened first in your life?  Consider what toys you think are awesome.  Do you still get excited when you see one in a thrift store, garage sale, online auction or when they re-release those toys today?  Heck, yeah!  What furniture do you think is awesome?  I want a sofa with low, flat arms and removable cushions because that's what we had when I was growing up.  Eventually, we got a new sofa, but the black, nubby sofa was the first, and that's what I want.  Not in black, and not necessarily nubby, but one that elicits the feelings I had when my family had that sofa.  The first thing I'll do is make a fort with the cushions.

Review your list from Step 2.  Do any of your memories elicit the feelings you listed in Step 1?  If "yes" all the way down, great!  If the feelings you get from your memory list are not on your feelings list, you will have some work to do, but you are already on your way.

270

It was the folded pieces of washed tinfoil in her dead grandmother's kitchen pantry that put Samantha over the edge.  Picturing how her grandmother had used, rinsed and carefully put away the tinfoil for a future time she would never see caused Sam to burst into tears.  Even the word "tinfoil" was her grandmother's; her own mother teased her for using such an old-fashioned word for "aluminum foil".  Sunk to the floor holding the folded pieces, Sam cried and, in an oddly detached way, thought about why it made her so sad.  Missing her grandmother?  Certainly.  There were always loving words and compliments unsaid, questions unasked.  She cried for herself.  No, she thought, she cried for humans.  Humans who lived as if they would continue to live forever.  Humans who set aside for the future.  Humans who had plans in the calendar.  Humans who had saved candles because they were too nice to burn for any "regular" occasion and waited, unburned, perhaps forever.

269

Most of the beach by the city's waterfront was disgusting.  You first notice the human debris, like plastic and broken glass and ripped shopping bags tangled in weeds.  The larger human debris is completely disheartening, like tires and bicycle parts and dumped appliances.  The industrial debris is more disturbing and harder to pinpoint, usually, but in most locations, it has been causing algae blooms, petroleum smells, and even black goo to wash repeatedly up on the shore and muck up the water.  The natural debris, while natural, still assaults the senses, especially the dead fish, rats, and sometimes even larger animals.  You could argue that it is not really natural debris because they were killed by the industrial debris, but, still, they break down eventually.

There is, however, a secret beach, where the currents seem to circulate independently of the polluted water from the city.  No smell, no garbage, no black goo.  Occasionally a dead fish, but not often.  The sand is soft and still safe to walk on with bare feet.  The water is very shallow and warms up faster than most other parts along the lake shore.  It is as perfect as it can get along this particular body of water.

268

Georgina missed the part of her life where she had been good-looking.  Granted, it hadn't been for long, but she didn't realize it until a decade past; that was the way it went with her.  Realizations came suddenly and far too late.  At least, she thought at her reflection, they came eventually.  She patted her graying hair, which was also thinning and thickening at the same time, before another realization: it didn't matter.  Georgina felt that realization release a weight which dropped to the floor with a clunk.  It didn't matter.  She was light-headed with relief.  A narrow tunnel she had been traveling down that ended in darkness now opened up into a rotunda with exits on all sides pointing to sunlight.  It didn't matter.  Hair, face, skin, shape, color, clothes, breakfast, likes, dislikes, opinions: none of it mattered.  Better late than never, she thought, leaving her house and pointedly not taking her phone or brushing her hair.

267

Kell's fingers held her chin, tipped up to see eye to eye.  Lane blinked and her mouth went dry for Kell's eyes seemed to hold the world.  His dark, swooping eyebrows were always so expressive, and now they showed caring beyond that which she had ever experienced.  Eyes, wide open, taking in and showing everything.  The moment stretched and held and Lane would go back to it again and again in her memory, wondering what had become of Kell.

266

Sophie heard them whispering, she just didn't care.

"She's doing it again."

"Shh!  She'll hear you!"

"She never does.  Look!  Watch her!"

Two pairs of eyes popped over the side of Sophie's cubicle.  Sophie knew the two office bitches were watching and listening.  And giggling.  What did Sophie care?  Let 'em.  It wasn't like she wanted to stay in this padded, open-topped cell for one more second, much less for the rest of her life.

265

Dee heard crickets and leaves rustled by the wind.  Traffic, always.  The computer's laboring mechanics, always.  The fluorescent lights, always.  But crickets and leaves and birds, too.

She opened her eyes and tried to really see, but that was more difficult.  All Dee saw was MESS and UNDONE and IF ONLY.  Dee sighed and closed her eyes again.  Crickets, wind blowing softer and harder and softer, a bird.

264

Jarod's hands ached as did his knees, but the need to finish was greater than the pain.  The fat piece of chalk slipped from his fingers again and again and he finally gripped it with both hands, knees digging into the stone floor as he leaned forward to complete the diagram.  Jarod finally sank to his right hip, the last sigil in place, and stretched his legs out carefully, avoiding smudging the drawing.  A greater ache began in his stomach when he thought of the night to come; the night where he would perform the high magic needed to complete the spell.  It made his already tired body and mind sink into an agony of weary dread.  Anticipating pain and knowing there was no way to avoid it and, even more than that, willingly inflicting it upon oneself was worse than the act itself.

263

I dreamt last night that you died.

How horrible!  Was it?

No, because you were already dead.  I was helping set up your estate sale when I realized that it was you.  I was saddened, of course.

How did I die?

I don't know.  You did have some nice collectables for the sale.

Do you think it could be prophesy?

Not unless you have some vintage Christmas cut-outs in storage.

No... No, I don't.  I suppose that's good.

I wouldn't worry.  I usually dream about being lost in a labyrinth or losing teeth, and that's not yet happened.

Perhaps.

262

"It feels like I'm going to jump right out of my skin," Sonja said through clenched teeth.

"Mmm..."  The counselor made a note.  "And then what?"

She perched on the edge of the sofa, "And then my skeleton's going to punch you in the smarmy face."

"Mmm..."  Another note.  "Would that make you feel better?"

"I hate that you never look up at me."

"Mmm..."  A glance over her glasses and back to the notebook.  "You don't think I look up at you enough?"

"At all, you..."  Sonja cut herself off.  The frustration was rising, and it felt like the counselor was baiting her.

261

Lost again, between realities.  It feels so real, but then, it is real, for the moment.  Waking and dream are dream and waking.  He had to keep remembering his training.  It wouldn't do to lose the Captain of the ship only partway through the voyage.  Bad for morale.

260

I have a piece of broken mirror in a wooden box on the back of a bookshelf in my workroom.  I have not taken it out of the box since the day I found it.  I would say I haven't thought about it since that day, but this is not a place for lies; it is a place to find the truth, even if it disturbs me.  Even if I must look into the mirror over my shoulder once again.

259

She had to get indoors and soon.  Even more than that, she needed someone to give her advice, or, at least, take the news she had from her so she wasn't the only person to carry the burden.  Professor J, she thought immediately.  Even if he didn't still live in this old neighborhood, she would still have wanted to go to him.  Her walk turned into a trot and she scanned each dark space between the houses and in the empty lots and near the parked or broken cars.

A light was on somewhere far back in Professor J's house.  The kitchen, she thought, picturing the eccentric man steaming a chai to keep his fingers warm as he worked late.  He wasn't old, but most people thought of him as having been around a long time.  It was difficult to imagine him as young, at least.

She could see though the partially-closed curtains through the living room and back towards the kitchen, and yet she was still a little nervous going to Professor J's house so late at night.  She was sure he'd help.  He'd have to.

She went to the side porch, clutching her bag strap that pulled across her shoulder, and knocked firmly on the wooden screen door.  A moment later, the many locks rattling, the door opened, warm kitchen light framing the professor in his loose work clothes and always disheveled hair.  "Katie?  What is it?"  The screen door's spring creaked as he pushed it open for her.  "Come in, come in.  Are you hurt?"  Professor J peered out into the darkness as Katie entered.  The screen door banged shut twice and the professor closed and relocked the interior door.  Professor J took in Katie, with her bag and flushed cheeks, standing practically on tip toe.  "Sit, and have some tea while you tell me what's up."

258

"Dust is human skin and bugs."

Chambray looked at the finger she had just run through the dust on the bookshelf.  "No," she said, scandalized.

"Yes," continued Fee, relishing Cham's dismay.  "It sloughs off your body and floats around.  You breathe it in, too."  Fee was proud of using the word sloughs.  It was new and she was trying it out.

Cham wiped her finger on the rug then on her pants to make doubly sure it was gone.  She tried not to breathe until they had left the dusty library.

257

10 Steps to Faking a Clean(-ish) House

Recently, probably from Yahoo (king of the useless story), there was an online article that gave 10 ways to get your house presentable "without having to clean".  Every step was included...cleaning!  This article, the one you're reading right now, will give you the real "10 Steps".  These are the steps I take whenever I know someone will definitely be showing up and I need the place to appear as if I was a decent housekeeper all along.  (Warning: a few actual "cleaning" tips included, but those may be skipped with impunity.)

1) Guess where the visitors will be most likely to gather.  If it's the front room, focus on that.  If it's the kitchen, focus there.  If there's a path to a home theater, focus on the path and the theater room.  Consider which bathroom is most likely to be used, too (more on that later.)

2) Clear any clutter.  This step is so awesome that if you can manage it well, you might not have to go any further.  The depth of clutter-clearing is up to you, but try to get everything off the floor and try to make surfaces visible (e.g. the kitchen table or counter tops.)  At least stack boxes, books and papers neatly.

3) Clothes and dishes--put them all away to help with both clutter and smell.  If there are dishes in your sink, yeah, wash them.  If you're lucky enough to have a dishwasher, hide them in it.  Dirty clothes into a hamper and into the laundry room.  No need to do anything to the laundry room because visitors don't go there and, if they do, they deserve what they see and smell.

4) Make the bed (again, only if necessary), straighten wonky curtains, throw-blankets and pillows around the house.

5) Floors.  If you have crumbs on the floor, scatter them a bit.  Maybe wipe edges of hard floors where junk gathers, if you must (like in the kitchen and bathroom) with a damp paper towel.  You can wipe food spots, if you wish, but no need for crazy.

6) Bathroom: hide any clutter (can toss into drawers or into the tub!), squirt cleaning goo into the toilet (for scent and color/telltale bubbles), pull out the shower curtain (if the bottom isn't gross) to hide more around the tub, change the towels.  It's important to change those towels!  Make sure you have at least one clean, folded hand towel--a dirty towel (or a bath towel) will only cause your guests to be grossed out.  If there's one place you might want to actually clean, it's the bathroom, so if you do, this is a good step: wipe down the sink, the soap container/dish, swirl the toilet brush, wipe the seat with a paper towel (and under, for dudes!), and wash the mirror.  Actually, if you wash nothing but the mirror it will totally help--spots on the mirror make the room look doubly dirty because of the reflection.

7) Check around for anything embarrassing and put it away.  Sensitive papers, weird statuary, lube, sex dolls, etc.

8) Scent the house.  Change the garbage, if it smells.  Squirt cleaning spray into the empty can, then replace the bag.  Quick bake something!  Cookies, bread, cinnamon rolls--whatever you like that smells delish.  Don't scent your house too much, like by squirting air freshener all over or lighting a bunch of candles.  It's a dead giveaway that you're hiding something.  Instead, put a few shots of kitchen cleaner into the sink and some dusting spray over carpet--it will smell like you cleaned!

9) If this matters to you, check the outside of your house.  Again, clear the clutter.  Straighten chairs and wonky decorations.

10) Relax.  You want it to look like your house is like this all the time!  Don't blow your cover with panting and sweating when the company arrives.  Remember that everyone's house is a royal stink-hole when nobody else is there.  It's an illusion; one that you now have perfected, too.

256

"Christ Almighty, what are you doing?"  Janny stopped short in the doorway, disbelieving her eyes.  Harrol stood in the middle of his destruction, arms flexing and meaty fists still clenched around the leg of a table.  His eyes darted to Janny, silhouetted in the noonday sun, framed by the door, and her stomach clenched.

255

The end comes too fast, no matter how long it takes.  Life takes far longer than anyone imagines, and days flit by like a calendar in a breeze.  Marjoram was feeling the passage of time and anxiousness bubbled up inside of her.  It was always at the worst moments, Marjie felt, that she decided her life was being wasted.  At this moment, it was being wasted in a conference room on the sixth floor of an office building in a city that needed so much work it made Marjie cry when she thought too hard about it.  The desire to be out of the room, out of the building, out into the street to even just pick up garbage was threatening to overwhelm her.  A polite cough to her right nearly made her yelp, but her fellow worker only pursed her lips in a smile and gave a glance to Marjoram's bouncing leg.  Marjie played the dance, smiled and apologized in a mutter, though in her head she swore at the lady.

254

Calliope music from the merry-go-round was punctuated by screams from The Twister, a spinning ride that also lifted and rotated on a giant axis.  Funnel cakes floated by on clouds of powdered sugar.  Eaters of the funnel cakes stumped by on bloated legs, eating, ogling, and not paying any attention to anyone who might also be walking.  Chessie dodged another family of tubers, Mrs. Tuber rolling her bulk in a rented mobility device, and Child Tuber being dragged in a wagon by Older Child Tuber.  Mr. Tuber inhaled funnel cake, his third of the day.

253

What haunted Miranda at every step was a one-word question: Why?  Her worn hiking boots crunched on the frozen leaves and snapped twigs.  Right foot: Why?  Left foot: Why?  Right foot: Why am I here?  Left foot: Why am I still here?  Right foot: Why am I so stupid?  Left foot: Why did I agree?  Right foot: Why don't I just stop?  Left foot: Why am I still walking?

Miranda hoisted her pack higher and tightened the straps again, all the while taking one step after the other.

252

The neighborhood was a toothless, tired old beast with patchy fur and ruinous bones.  Houses clumped in twos or threes, and every other house still standing was empty.  It wasn't really a "bad" neighborhood anymore because there was hardly anyone still there.  Gangs didn't roam because there was nowhere to roam to.  Burglars didn't bother because there were no more pickings.  Empty houses had quickly lost their copper pipes, water heaters, furnaces, gas meters, radiators and doorknobs.  Inspired 20 and 30-somethings may have once imagined urban farmhouses, turning empty lots into productive land, until they tried.  The houses that once stood had not been removed thoughtfully and empty lots were not really empty.  Basements had been filled with rubble and the dirt that covered them shunted from other projects in better parts of the city; projects that had begun with "remediation".

251

Today is the day that my grandmother died.  She was 97 and was born in 1917.  We all knew it was coming, but, still.

It makes me sad I didn't get to see her one last time.  That the last time I saw her was the one last time, though it was a good visit.  Gram patted my hand and looked at my arm and said, "You are so white."  I said, "Thanks, Gram.  It runs in the family, you know."  I'm not sure she knew who I was, but Gram was always friendly and happy.  Always happy.  Always smiling.  Gram didn't always live a smooth life, but she still came out happy.  I try to remember that when I hear myself whining or getting ready to be snippy.

I love you, Gram.

250

It depresses me that libraries now rent more movies and computer time than books.  The library in my neighborhood used to be decent, in a 1960s sort of way, but now it's rundown and misused.  Shelf space for books has been radically reduced because, of course, you need room for more computers.  Patrons enter and head straight for the DVDs.  The building has become dingy.  The part of town in which I live used to be nice, but now nearly every other house has been torn down and the empty spots are filled with tires and weeds.  There are many empty commercial buildings, one right next to the library, even, and the businesses that have opened seem only to be three options: fashion, cell phone, and hairdresser.  Sad.  No used bookstore.  No comic store.  No toy shop.  No movie theater.  Not even a junk shop--and, no, pawn brokers don't count.

249

It is my secret, and it's what makes me smile as I walk through crowds of people who don't know and can't tell.  Maybe they wonder why I'm so happy.  A person I knew from work called me "serene", which is a good word for it.  My secret is the same secret everyone carries with them, only I understand it better: I am dying.

248

Script pitch: Love story about a shy man who suddenly finds himself reaching old age without a companion.

Lead role: Gene Wilder

Opening: An older man (mid-70s) sits alone in his rather large, neat, beach-front cottage home in Connecticut.  We see him go about his morning, making himself tea, doing the puzzle in the paper, and painting in his home studio.  We finally see him looking in his calendar.  Forthcoming are a few doctor's appointments and one art opening that looks important.  The man looks rather disappointed that he doesn't have a more full social calendar.  He makes a decision and grabs his "little black book".  The entries are old, and many are crossed off with notes like "married", "moved to California", and "deceased".

247

The sheets were blessedly cool and smooth, and the pillow so soft.  Janet eased into bed, making sure she enjoyed every moment of lying down.  Naps, she felt, had been under-appreciated so far in her life, and she didn't want to waste another one by ignoring the beautiful feeling of weariness slipping into rest.  Though her muscles ached, Janet used them to sink inch by inch into a bed that had never, ever felt this good.  Her feet sighed with relief and she stretched her toes.  She released her tied eyes from their increasingly fuzzy work and closed them to better experience the release of her body.  As she drifted away, a space far back in Janet's mind lamented a life ahead with limited opportunities for naps and she reiterated to herself the pledge not to let another nap go without full engagement in the experience.

246

She died from blunt force trauma to the skull.  In greater detail, it was a rock, held in the hand of a man, who repeatedly bashed her on the face and left side of her skull, as he was right-handed.  She lost consciousness, but not as soon as she would have liked.  The whole event was over for her within two minutes, though it carried on for the man another ten.  He struck her with the rock, a piece of cement carried with him for that purpose, for approximately three minutes, one full minute after she was already dead.  He then grabbed her limp shoulders and shook her, occasionally slapping her on the ground, for another minute.  He stood and kicked her body and even jumped on the torso.  The last few minutes were spent shoving the corpse into a plastic garbage can and stuffing bloody garbage from the scene on top.

245

The library was one of the area's oldest and patrons constantly complained about the cramped quarters and librarians constantly complained about the limited technology.  To Shaney, it was an infinite maze of new discovery.  She had favorite spots for quiet reading, secret spots where she found naughty books, and an idea that if she looked in the right place, she would find a hidden room.

Most days in the Henroy Library, patrons could be found on the three computers or browsing the DVD collection.  Only Shaney would be found reading, if you could find her in the stacks.

244

While it wasn't the house they had wanted, it was a house, which seemed a great step up from apartment living.  Despite the lack of running water in the first floor kitchen and the boarded windows across the front, that is.  The pipes had been stolen from the kitchen for the copper, and, like closing the barn door after the cows had left, the city finally secured the windows with plywood shortly after.  Luckily, in this one instance, the robbers had ignored the fact that the house had been converted into a triple.  In all ways, it was bad for the house, excepting that it meant there were two working kitchens.  The home had once been grand, as had the neighborhood, but had been passed from uncaring person to unlucky person to unskilled person through the decades and it was now, like the neighborhood, a shameful wreck.

243

Martie hated when she thought Jon was mad at her.  Intellectually, she knew the fights were usually in her own head and that he had moved on hours ago, or was never really angry in the first place, but the feeling nagged at her and caused her to make mistakes in her work, which she couldn't afford to do.  Martie sighed and cleansed her hands with air, moving them in the intricate patterns ingrained into her bones from years of repetition.  She would just have to find Jon and ask him.

242

The trailer was hot, which made the carpet smell and the trash smell and the bathroom reek.  Sheila stepped inside only long enough to fill a tumbler with iced tea and go back out to the lawn chair overlooking the low rolling desert towards the hills.  The paperback romance she had been reading lay splayed open under the metal and nylon chair, but Sheila didn't reach for it.  She watched the clouds move slowly across the blue sky before she watched the sun lower itself to the hills before disappearing in a brilliant red display of light.  She watched the stars come out and she shivered as the cool night stole away the heat of the day.

241

"You are never happy."  Denise pointed the wooden stir stick at Harry to help make her point.  "Never."

"That's not true!"

"Are you happy today?"

"No, but..."

"Were you happy yesterday?"

"But that's when it all happened, Denise.  Weren't you listening to my story at all..."

"Do you plan on being happy tomorrow?"

Harry sat up straighter.  "Yes."

"Nobody who is happy plans on being happy tomorrow."

Harry was tired of Denise and her Junior Psychologist ways that disguised her love of cruelty and superiority.

"Then I don't need to plan."  Harry stood, bumping the cafe table and making Denise catch her latte.  "I'll go be happy right now, which starts with me getting the hell out of here."

240

As Sam shuffled through his apartment on the way back from the bathroom, even with sleep still in his eyes, he noted the dishes on the counter, the crumbs that stuck to his foot, the swinging door that rubbed on the floor, the laundry piled behind the door, and the sweaty, wrinkled sheets on the bed.  While not thinking about it too hard, Sam vowed when he woke up for real he would make today the day he made progress.  He shoved around the towels he had stuffed into a pillowcase and flopped back into bed, sun streaming in through a gap in the papers covering the window, and fell fast asleep.

239

Clara knew it was stress and tried purposefully to loosen her jaw, relax her shoulders and stop her mind from its desperate circling.  She took deep breaths as she tapped the papers on her desk into a neat pile and forced herself to set it down rather than throw it against the wall.  Clara put away her pen and closed her monthly calendar while she concentrated on this moment, then the next, and the next.

She desperately wanted to be productive, but all her to-dos seemed pointless.  Despite using the women's magazine techniques she had read about, the overwhelming weakness flooded into Clara's arms and her posture collapsed.  She hated crying, and public crying was even worse, but here she was, in her cubicle, trying not to sob out loud.

238

The house smelled bad.  You didn't have to see the "A Home without Cats is Not a Home" pillow to understand why.  The first floor's catty stench reached out onto the front stoop and knocked you back one step before you even hit the second cement stair, but the first floor wasn't the worst.  The worst was the basement, where the litter boxes were kept.  For a while, litter boxes were not cleaned out, but new boxes were added.  The basement reeked.  No one could stay in it for long and some even turned around on the stairs to flee.  If you made it out and traveled to the second floor with the bedrooms, you might actually think it didn't smell up there at all.  But it did.  The house and all its contents smelled like cat: cat fur, cat urine, cat poop, cat vomit and, yes, even dead cat.

237

"The wind's blowing hot from the south."

"Seal up."  Dr. James Stevens called to the rest in the laboratories, "Seal up, everybody!  Hot wind from the south!"

There was a collective groan, but the other five members of their team hustled to comply, closing down outside vents and taping down all the usual cracks.  They purged the air system and reset it for circulation.  Nobody questioned the order, though they were all disappointed, Dr. Stevens, perhaps, most of all.  The hot wind frightened him, though he didn't ever let it show.  Radiation in general frightened him because it was invisible and insidious.  He knew better than anyone how it lurked in the cells and waited, sometimes for years, decades, to make tangible changes.

236

The impossible is possible.  Famous people are more boring than you'd think.  Every living thing with a brain has doubts.  Shay curled, shivering, under her blanket and thought about all she'd learned the past few months.  Death is always near.  Most people are just going through the motions.  The impossible is possible.  She kept going back to the most uplifting and frightening revelation.  The grate began to vibrate.  Shay held her blanket down on all corners to keep in the warm gust that always followed when a train was coming into the station below.  The impossible is possible.  The impossible is possible.

235

The moon rose over the canyon wall, big and white and clear.  The rocks were still warm, but the air had been gathering a chill.  It was still, cloudless, the stars stretching out to forever and the start of the universe.  Cabe lay dying in his sleeping bag.  He had maneuvered himself so the fire was behind him and his head propped up on one of the low, warm rocks.  The additional heat from the fire warmed the top of his wispy-haired head.  Cabe shivered and stared at the moon, trying to gain perspective on his place in the world before he was gone from it.

234

Nobody should have to witness 6:00 in the morning.  I despised 6:00 in the morning.  It was dark.  It was cold.  I was always tired.  While nobody has ever given me a good enough reason for me to be up, I'd get up anyway like a good little boy.  "But Neil," my mother would say, "school is important."  If it was so important, they'd start it later when we were all more well-rested.