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.

233

The street performer saw it first since he was the only one facing the right way.  Everyone else was looking at the guitarist and they witnessed the explosion only as reflection in his frightened, disbelieving eyes.

232

Harrod was a town of dogs that lunged and people who flicked cigarettes.  It was not terribly large, but it thought itself a small city and behaved like a large one.  Gangs shot at each other.  Poor people lined up at food pantries and at government buildings.  Rich people had workers refill stone planters and mow their massive lawns.  Trash stuck in long weeds and collected at the curbs.  Gravel from potholes mingled with dead leaves to clog storm drain grates.  There never seemed to be a quiet day in the summer.  People were bit by dogs and burned by flying cigarettes.

231

The night that Clara was hit by a white SUV was the same night Jack lost his virginity and the two became indelibly linked in his mind.  Two divorces, five therapists and countless hours of self-loathing could be traced directly back to that night.  Of the five therapists, three suggested there was a link, one was a lousy therapist, and the last had only met Jack yesterday.

230

My dentist is some sort of sorcerer.  I know he is and I'm one cavity away from proving it.  Let's take the obvious clues: his office has no windows.  Anywhere.  Even the front door is a solid door.  He always wears dark clothes.  His name is Igor Viktor Zaplanski.  He's from Transylvania.  Nobody has ever seen him away from his office.  If you seem about to ask a personal question, he crams his fingers in your mouth and pretends to poke around.  He says he's checking for gum disease, but seriously.  He hums strange old tunes and sometimes speaks under his breath--I'm sure they're spells.  He wears weird leather shoes with laces.

My mother doesn't believe me and refuses to engage me in my "wild speculation".  I intend to prove that Dr. Zaplanski is a sorcerer, and my next dental cleaning will be my chance.

(**Side note: the topic was inspired by the post number being "dentist time".  Two-thirty.  Twoooo-thhh-hirty.  Get it?  Har!**)

229

While you love vacation and hating having to leave, it is a relieved return to your heart when you come home again.  As you get closer and closer to home, you note all the small changes that happened while you were away.  The doughnut shop got their new sign.  There's a new convenience store that opened.  The grass in the fields is so long.  It is late in June, getting on towards evening with the sun still setting, red and orange painting the western sky, the air still warm and the crickets and peepers playing out the day when the thrum of the engine finally cuts once you're safely parked in your garage again.  The hard part is unloading the packed-to-the-gills van after being so tired from the trip, but emptying is faster than packing.  The wood floors creak and pop, not having been stepped on in so long.  It smells warm and dusty and like home.  Finally home.

228

A warm evening wind rustled the tall grasses of the empty lots in the city.  The streets on the East Side were as quiet as the country, crickets chirping to herald the dark.  The crumbling sidewalks were absorbed into the scrubby weeds long ago as had any foundation and driveway remnants.  Only one in twenty houses still stood for blocks in any direction.  The city had become the country by neglect.

A few homesteaders had been able to take advantage of the urban blight.  Initially mocked by friends and family, they now owned huge swaths of land and often very nice houses.  Once such homesteader had a quirky, rather than "green", streak, and bought up three separate houses, two next door and one on the street behind, as well as acres of empty lots.

227

The back of Harry's fist connected with the side of her head and she reeled, giving him enough time to shift to a more stable stance.  The litter-filled hallway was cramped and dangerous.  Harry had already had a pile of old furniture bounce off his shoulder as it fell and he knew it would hurt later.  Unfortunately, his reverse punch didn't knock her out and she came at him hard from the shadows.  Harry blocked and gave room as he could, knowing the end of the hall was somewhere close behind him giving no escape.

226

Janey idly scratched nits from her scalp as she angled the newspaper scrap into the light from the window.  The paper had torn in two when she tried to wrest it away from Bald Bill.  He had only wanted it for warmth, but she wanted it to read.  Janey knew she had to stay in practice if she wanted to keep the skill.  She hadn't thought she missed reading, but once she found the old paperback last year, she couldn't stop herself from wanting more and more.

225

It would have been a fine evening with anyone other than Greg.  Sharon had never been to an underground nightclub before and she thought the sweaty, sticky atmosphere and thumping music was great.  She leaned in and cupped her hand to Greg's ear, "Would you like to dance?"  Greg rolled his eyes and went back to looking at the other patrons, having far more fun than Sharon.  She kept watching Greg.  He scratched his ear with his left index finger, drawing his hand casually in front of his face, sniffing it on the way by.  She wondered why she was there, or anywhere, with him.