They ran in winter, swam in summer and watched in spring and autumn. Always there was the ball. It wasn’t the rain that kept people inside, he thought, it was the white. On white days he stayed home, shifting lamps and testing new bulbs. Zingo was the companion who pulled him out and away for [...]
Damp sand speckled blank parchment as the horse galloped past her silent retreat. She had never been one of those girls to request a pony for Christmas. Well, she did ask for one when she was nine, the year all her friends did the same, but she never really wanted one. That was around [...]
¶ Baptism
A chair gouged the stone floor and a man dashed after the fisherman. Someone silenced the music and the barista stood frozen, stirring. A tide of voices floated to the back of the cafe as gossip turned to speculation. The man in dripping waders had gulped a single word and disappeared. Now a woman in [...]
¶ Auspice
She clutched the paper-wrapped package and splashed across the street. Others viewed her life as disorganized, chaotic. But beneath the frayed surface there was rhythm and structure. This meeting was not planned. He left a message while she was at the gym. The coffee shop was across from the printer and she was able to [...]
The report was due in three hours. It was the same each time. For six years he had neglected it until the final hours, possibly with hope he would be gone before it was due again. He crammed his gear into a bag and left the office, driving in search of an anonymous coffee shop [...]
Metal scraped stone, sweeping back rays of autumn afternoon. Customers posed on chairs and couches, faces bathed in blue light and restrained emotion. He shuffled forward in the line, squinting at the neon hieroglyphics on the menu board. The young woman in front of him recited her order, and though he recognized the words, they [...]