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She set her alarm an hour early each morning, purposefully to wake her in the midst of the dream. She lay there prolonging her senses within the surreal landscape, making wakeful memories that would last the day. The memories felt as real as any memory she would make by living that day. Her aptitude for living no longer lay with the waking world, but with the world she created in her dreams. The day could not follow her there.

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They came to him throughout the day. They had one name to remember, most failed to do even that. He remembered everyone, every name, every order, every time they walked through the door. They were flattered and would make small talk, sometimes offering more detail of their lives outside the cafe. He listened, often asking questions. Then they would go on their way, never once returning the flattery.

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When the aura developed, she closed the curtains and drew down the comforter. Once safe between the sheets, she willed her mind to another place before it was no longer her choice to make. The memory of the place flooded the pathways of her brain, sweeping the pain to the banks before it could wash her away. The pain was a spectator now, not the main attraction. It took all her energy to keep it that way.

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The air was still and thick the day she decided to leave. She abandoned her home, her car, all her belongings except for the clothes on her back and the cash in her pockets. She sought an address hundreds of miles away. Whether that address was still occupied remained to be seen, but at this point, she had no choice but to go. She had to walk there and she had to go now.

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He never anticipated it would alter every ounce of his life. From the sharp morning air to the feel of his sheets as he climbed into bed for the night. Everything had changed. He tried his best to shake it, ignore it, or the opposite and delve into complex analysis. Nothing seemed to work. It was still there. She was still there, haunting his every step. Her voice, whispering in his ear. Escape was not an option.

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He sat quietly at his desk, an obedient employee following orders. "Keep your head down and mouth shut, but your ears open." The office was broken into high-walled cubicles with desks facing away from the building's windowed perimeter. Workers got lost in a sea of loud music streaming through their ear buds. This detachment misled many to think they could host private conversations, which were exactly what he intended to overhear.

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"I know you. I don't know how or from where, but I do." She thought he was out of his mind, but if he cared, he did a precise job of hiding it. He spoke with certainty, charm, and abandon. He had mastered his art, an enviable trait that drew her to him more than anything else. In seconds, she trusted him and would do anything for him. In the end, it was her fault.

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She sat on the dunes staring north at the water's edge. The coastline disappeared into a dense wall of fog that blended seamlessly with the white foam atop the waves. Within minutes, the haze released a figure, indiscriminate at first, but by the way it walked, she was certain it was him. A moment later, a crowd emerged behind him, in step with the man. He was leading them to her.

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His sea-soaked clothing seemed to be carrying twice his weight in salt and sand. The extra pounds made his feet drag and his torso list slowly from side to side. It had been his first time beside the ocean. Its grandeur had rendered him speechless. Now he saw it as an ugly body of water that had taken from him an innocence he never knew he had to lose. The waves and the tide of which he had dreamed had taken everything.

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She heard the car on the gravel outside. Her gloved hands froze, clinging to the soapy glass. She waited, her eyes transfixed on the stream of water from the faucet splashing onto the porcelain before vanishing down the drain. When the car door closed, her heart skipped. Then there were footsteps on the front porch and the doorbell rang. The glass slipped from her fingers and shattered in the sink.

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He told them not to make a sound, not even to smile. What better way to make children smile than to tell them not to. They simply could not help it. They tried to cover their mouths with their hands but it was no use. The burst of laughter was inevitable. Their father would clear his throat in disapproval, buying a few seconds of silence. Then their faces would scrunch, air would spurt from their noses, and it would start all over again.

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Thrift stores, antique stores, yard sales; he frequented them all looking for her face. The search had transformed him into a collector. Little space was left, the walls of his home were covered in frames of every size, stained in every color, some carved, some gilded, all containing portraits of people without names, all deserving a prominent place to hang, just as her portrait once did, just as it would again someday.

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Living out of their car was easy at first, amusing even, like an adventure. After a year, it no longer felt so exciting. Her paycheck covered daycare for her daughter while she was at work, with just enough left over for two meals a day each, nothing more. The girl had stopped asking when they would go home, a loss of hope that broke her mother's heart. It was the knock on her window one rainy morning that changed everything.

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The trees bordered the small cabin. She had retreated to the valley three years ago, the last two of which she had spent building the cabin. She had carefully chosen which trunk to fell, making sure not to disrupt the natural shade in the valley. Beside each stump, she planted a sapling. She had to maintain the thickness of the forest. It was the only way to keep their home secure.

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Her business had grown immensely by word of mouth. People had less and less time to tend to such things; she, on the other hand, had all the time in the world. The words came easily. She could write them as if she were writing a greeting card, a one-size-fits-all type of operation. Of course, she would change the names and add in a few personal details for humor. All of which her customers received with the utmost gratitude.

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She deeply enjoyed the thought of a new book. The cover confidently displaying the author's name and surely poignant title. The front matter with scattered acclaim from novelists and critics alike, reassuring the read would be time well spent. Slowly, she would drink from her optimistic glass. Some days the glass remained full until the very last line. Most days, it spontaneously shattered before she could turn the first page.

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The headache had slowly made its presence known, occupying one synapse at a time until it was impossible to ignore. She swallowed 600 milligrams of ibuprofen with a full glass of water, and then chased it with a cup of coffee. By the afternoon, she had repeated this routine four times. When her vision blurred, she called her doctor, who requested that she come into his office. By the time she grabbed her purse to leave, she had gone blind.

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She left him sleeping soundly upstairs and crept down to the kitchen. They had talked through every detail until the early morning hours. She had managed to drift off for two restless hours before her alarm rang at 6 a.m. From the sunny windowsill, the cat greeted her with a tall stretch of its back, a deep bow, and a sleepy-eyed nuzzle of her hand. It was unfathomable how they could leave, but leave it precisely what they planned to do.

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Everyone wanted an explanation. Everyone wanted answers. Everyone wanted to help, and no one wanted to leave her alone. She no longer wanted to explain what happened, or why it happened, or how it happened. All she knew was that it happened and there was nothing any of them could do to change it. When she refused help, they worried. When she insisted on being alone, they worried. But when she disappeared, they called the police.

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Every September, the scent wafted through the air and sent her mind tumbling back to a time that she no longer owned. To a time when she could shake out her hair from its ponytail, reach behind her back, and grab the long thick strands with her fingers. To a time when her shy demeanor made her endearing and innocent, instead of reticent and harmed. To a time when she knew nothing of the outside world, and the world knew nothing of her.

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No amount of water or scrubbing could dislodge the grime from his pores, which had penetrated the fibers of his clothes and provided him insulation from the night air. For this he was thankful, despite the mildew and pungent body odor that he could no longer smell but knew was there just by the reality of his situation. He could not say as much for the threadbare blanket that he dragged along with him, but it was all he had.

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She watched his face, looking for some clue that he was telling a joke, a crude and insensitive joke, but a joke all the same. He had left, and she stood in the doorway, waiting for him to reappear and shout, "Just kidding!" He never reappeared. She stared at the empty driveway, the miserable words still hanging in the air. Now it was her responsibility to tell her husband. It was this thought, not the initial news, that made her sick.

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She was skimming the pages for his name, and simultaneously kicking herself for making the mistake. Paragraph after paragraph, she searched for the error. Her job on the line, his job on the line, the magazine's future in jeopardy because of one Freudian slip. Although it was another finger who keyed it, she was responsible for that finger, she had read the copy as it skidded across her desk, signing it off without a second thought.

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They stood hand in hand by the newsstand, each a clear contradiction to those on the covers in front of them. They would probably never grace one of those covers. Yet there they stood, fingers interlaced, connected for life, accepted for life. She sat on the bench studying them, and becoming increasingly distraught over their presence. She was on the cover of one of those magazines, and accepted was something she had never felt.

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She enjoyed it, seeing it as an opportunity to visit with old friends confined between the covers she counted. She watched the clock, patiently waiting for close. Then she locked the door behind the last customer and began. She retrieved each book from its perch and rifled through its pages, giving each air before bidding farewell. The task was always predictable. But that night, she found out how fragile the word "always" is.

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She spent each day searching the crowds for his face. The patrons in line at the grocery store, the drivers filling their cars with gas at the corner station. She used to take her morning coffee to go. Now she sat quietly at the corner table, sipping the hot drink and surveying the cafe. In a town of 20,000 people, she was bound to run into him sooner or later. She wished for sooner, but she got later.

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He was walking through the crowded courtyard to the main library. Although he preferred otherwise, the path took him right past the anthropology building. And again, his peripheral vision failed to warn him. He tried a last-minute swerve to avoid the distracted walker, but she crashed into him, sending papers flying from their arms and into the wind. It was the third time this week. He was beginning to think she was doing it on purpose.

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It was later than normal when he shut down his computer and left the building without locking the doors. He was relieved to see his car alone in the lot. He turned the key in the ignition and listened as the car's engine rolled over with ease. He waited patiently for the clock on his dashboard to read 8 p.m. and then pulled out of his spot, making sure to avoid eye contact with the other driver pulling in as he left.

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She left her apartment and walked to the bar down the street. She needed the comfort of this bar, some place quiet, some place familiar. It was still early, the evening influx of high heels and oxfords had yet to arrive. She would make sure to leave before it did. She sat on her usual stool and ordered her usual drink. The bartender delivered her glass with a lime and a napkin, and then he left her alone.

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Our bellies had never felt so full during so many consecutive days. Each night, we cleaned our plates in record speed. Then our mother would retrieve another basket of rolls or bowl of vegetables from the kitchen and fill our plates again. The idea of eating another bite was unfathomable. We would refuse the extra food but my mother would insist and say, "We may never get another chance to feast like this." She was right.

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He drove past abandoned rows of corn, stalks leaning in the wind, draping over the shoulder of the road. He sped by, the blur of green and gold turning the view through his side windows into abstract watercolor paintings. Then the stalks abruptly disappeared. Fields of once tilled dirt left behind for the sun to burn and the weeds to inhabit. He turned off the highway onto a dirt road lined with agricultural machinery he could not name.

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She thought she could avoid the inevitable if she moved across town. But that failed, so she moved to another town, and then another after that. In the span of five years, she had moved twelve different times, lived in nine different towns, and attended eight different schools, one town being so remote that it was without a school of its own. She had learned to stop investing in people. She would offer her name if asked, but little more.

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His assignment was to inspect each room. The view was always the same, rows of empty desks, each equipped with a flat computer monitor. The scene reminded him of his high school computer science class, although this certainly was not a high school. Each room was windowless and lit by a single fluorescent bulb hanging on the far wall. Below each bulb was a numbered keypad of which he had lacked clearance to use until now.

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They had their pick of lettuces to bed their homegrown zucchini and tomatoes. They had tended the garden all summer and felt proud to devour their hard work. Although the carrots, which never grew, were still a sore subject. Her brother blamed it on the rabbits that lived beneath the overgrown lavender bush near the back fence. She, however, blamed it on her brother who had flooded the soil the day they had sowed the seeds.

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She could see it nibbling on the cheese, testing its validity before committing to the meal. Sitting atop the rock, her feet braced against a fallen tree, she watched patiently as the fish made its final decision. At the first tug, she pulled up on the pole, the end of the line rising aggressively out of the water, the ball of cheese now in the mouth of her first catch, a beautiful and appetizing rainbow trout.

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His skin was moist. His hands clutched his sides in a desperate attempt to stop his body from convulsing. His eyes darted in confusion from one person to the next, he tried to speak but his words coagulated and fell out of his mouth like rocks. Someone was yelling for help. He knew the voice, a woman's voice, but he could not remember her name. His mind was failing, his body was collapsing from the inside out, and he could do nothing to stop it.

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Her mother disappeared often for work, absent for weeks at a time. She would return exhausted, her body deformed, her skin red and tough from exposure, yet she would silently slip back into her family's life as if she had never left. The girl had just turned twelve when she discovered what her mother did to earn a living. On an early spring morning, her mother roused the girl from her sleep and explained that it was time to go.

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Every once in awhile, she would catch glimpses of the moon through the trees, but the canopy was so thick, she relied heavily on her flashlight to see the road. She had been walking at night to spare her body from the summer heat. It was safer that way anyhow, a fact she had to experience to believe. Her pace was quick out of necessity. By her calculations, she would reach them in three days, but it may be three days too late.

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He would be gone for two months and no more, he had promised. The first couple of weeks, he emailed regularly. He would relay stories from the road, difficulties he had with the language, the constant demand depleting the supplies. Soon his email became less frequent until they stopped altogether. When the two month marked came and went without his return, she packed her bag and bought a ticket on the first flight out to find him.

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She tried to use the paddle to dislodge the canoe, its bow stuck in the sludge that lined the shore. She should have pushed the boat out into the water before getting in, but the idea of wading through the dark water was simply unacceptable. The current took hold of the boat and she lost her grip on the paddle, it still stuck in the mud, sticking straight up toward the stars, a pinnacle of mockery illuminated by the moonlight.

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The truck's engine was loud, the dash was covered with a layer of dirt that had been there since his father had purchased it a year ago. Together, they had walked across town to finalize the deal. The old man had been sitting on his front porch, waiting for them. His father had given the man two hundred dollars and a large sack of potatoes they had dug up that same day. The man was more excited about the potatoes than the cash.

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She withdrew a notebook and pen from her red canvas tote and opened to a blank page. With nothing to write, she abandoned the book and pulled out a collection of short stories instead. The book went with her everywhere. Its pages curled with use and its binding could use a bit of reinforcement, but it still read well and that is what mattered. On most days, it gave her inspiration. Today was not most days.

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He had heard the secret from a friend of a friend. How that friend had known was a secret in itself. It took a full week, seven aggravating days, to get confirmation, but when the truth that supported the gossip arrived, he was shocked by his reaction. He should have been devastated. He should have felt confused and blindsided, but in fact, all he felt was relief.

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She was a survivor by trade. She had escaped unscathed from a hurricane, a tornado, and an earthquake. She had negotiated her way out of being a hostage in a bank robbery. She had swam to land after a rogue wave capsized her yacht. She had walked away from a plane crash, and even a head-on collision with a semi truck on the interstate. That is why it was such a shock that she could not survive him.

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At 7 a.m., she drank her coffee black when the barista forgot to leave room for cream. At noon, she ate her saturated salad when the waiter forgot to serve the vinaigrette on the side. At 5 p.m., she listened respectfully to her boss as he berated her for not mailing the contract though it was her coworker that had forgot to do so. She worked relentlessly to avoid conflict every day of her life, until one day when her well of patience ran dry.

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He was used to losing his balance, the rush of air from each passing car nearly knocking him off his feet. The work was menial, yet his body and mind ached at the end of each day. His mind ached with worry, too. His job was dangerous, a distracted driver could easily end up with him as a hood ornament. His best friend was proof. He still felt uncomfortable speaking of him in the past tense. So much so that he stopped speaking of him altogether.

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He came to a break in the road, a literal crack in the asphalt that ran from embankment to embankment and was the width of a stride and a half. He had to dismantle the cart from the back of the bike and empty it completely to get all his belongings across the divide. All but one item he tossed to the other side. Undoubtedly, throwing the bike would damage it. With the frame hanging awkwardly from his shoulder, he hoped for the best and leaped.

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He knew among the missing were mothers and daughters, aunts and sisters, grandmothers and granddaughters. He was not related by blood to any of the missing, but he knew one name. It was a name he never wished to see on such a list. Because of that name, he flew across the country to join the search. For every second of the five-hour flight, he prayed it would remain an effort of rescue, not recovery.

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She sat glued to her seat, her knuckles turning white as she gripped the armrests. Her heart was pounding harder than her chest could contain. It happened right in front of her. She felt as if it were a dream, she opened her mouth but no sound came out, her legs were dead weight and refused to move. She remembered her phone in her purse on the floor. She could call for help if only she could manage to retrieve it.

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The girl lay on her back on the upper deck of the sailboat. Arms wrapped across her waist, she stared through her sunglasses at the passing clouds. She was alone and recently bored. She had been alone for fifteen days. One day more than years she was old, one day less than the days of experience she had sailing such a craft. She was stranded by choice, but it was a choice not her own.

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He used to scour the newspapers, cutting out and saving the articles that mentioned it. He would meticulously fold each article, place it in a manila envelope, and file it by printed date in his desk drawer. He never revisited the articles he saved, though he knew every one by heart. This went on for weeks. Then suddenly, as sudden as the original event, it stopped. It was done. He was done. For good.

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Behind her house was a modest backyard, complete with a swing set she had long ago outgrown. Bordering her yard was a rotten fence with a single missing slat. She would climb through this gap to reach the forest, walk through the tall pines to the riverbank, leap from stone to stone to reach the field on the other side. It was in this field, surrounded by lupine and native grasses, that she met him for the first time.

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She sat in the corner booth at the far end of the diner to survey the room without conspicuously turning her head. An older gentleman had sat near the door, three newspapers laid out side by side on the table in front of him. He inspected and shook his head in disapproval at the sight of each. For the third time, the waitress stopped to refill his coffee, and for the third time, she returned to the counter without acknowledgement from him.

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He lived the life of a minimalist, yet cooped up in his small one bedroom apartment, he found himself in a state of constant suffocation. He no longer felt satisfied by the thin empty walls and longed to join the squander outside his front door. He wanted to be apart of the chaos, contribute to the excess that littered the streets. His time served, his due diligence fulfilled, he forfeited his post and left behind the job for someone else.

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They still laughed together as they did forty years ago as young girls. They would cover their mouths with their hands, trying to control the burst. They would lock eyes and knowingly nod in confirmation of the day's shared secret. There was one secret, however, they never dared to share. They never had to. They were both there that night. Both saw what happened. Speaking of it again was unthinkable, on this they agreed completely.

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Walking down the main street left him feeling uneasy. How many eyes were on him? How many whispers were about him? He heard them all in a single roaring moment when the light turned green and he was forced to cross the street into view of the community park where the town had gathered in memoriam for their mayor. Heads turned toward him and he saw it in their eyes. They were remembering his mother and he was not welcome.

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The house had lost its local prestige as it fell into disrepair. The offshore winds had weathered its memory and erased its value for most. But most was not all, and for her, its value was priceless. She was careful not to trip over the uprooted cobblestones buried under the unkempt landscape. She barely recognized the hydrangea that once lined the front porch. Pushing aside the overgrown bush, she finally spied the front door.

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The woman ground the kernels on the flat stone and sprinkled the resulting flour into the bowl. Its contents thickened into a rancid brown paste, which the woman motioned for him to eat. He had dredged his soul for a miracle, and that miracle had brought him here. He had every reason to trust her. With his fingers, he shoveled the dreary slop into his mouth and swallowed. He was unconscious in less than a minute. Then the woman began.

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The room smelled of disinfectant, and the man of old books and Mentholatum. Together, the mixture infused the air with an unbearable stench. But he could not escape himself, and therefore, could not escape the odor. He figured this smell was why she had stopped coming to visit, why they all had stopped coming to visit. This month would mark a full year that he had sat alone in his room without a visitor.

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Leaning against the glass was a hand-painted sign as old as the building itself. The six letters on the sign had faded and begun to flake off, a condition which spoke volumes. They had driven by the building every weekday for the length of the summer, and each day, the sign had read "Closed." That is, until their last day on the island. Relieved by their air-conditioned car, a stark contrast to the hot August sun, they nearly forgot to look.

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The man had been reprimanding her for the last ten minutes. She sat at her desk, twirling the cord to the headset, a complacent expression permanently affixed to her face. The man could do nothing to change the situation. It was a fact he knew well but he still chose to take his anger out on her, his lack of control seemingly increasing his rage. She had no means to change the situation either, which was a lack of authority that delighted her.

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He knocked twice and then waited. His patience was wearing thin. His hand spun the door knob but the deadbolt kept him out. Only silence answered his demands to open the door. He walked around to the back of the house, peeking through the side windows on his way. The curtains had been pulled back. There was a steaming cup of something on the table beside the sofa. He found the backdoor locked as well. Only one option remained.

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Adrenaline burst from every pore as the ambulance sped down the street. He silently willed an increase in speed, whether for the thrill or simply to get it all over with. The seat cushion became his anchor as his body fell victim to centrifugal force. Then the tires slowed and came to a stop with the accident in full view through the windshield. He froze, paralyzed by fear at the sight of the driver in the mangled car paralyzed by death.

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For the past year, she had searched the streets in the early morning, an envelope of five dollar bills in her pocket. Today she was following a tip that a man matching her father's description had been sleeping in the brush near the overpass. She approached cautiously. The campsite was crude, a threadbare blanket spread on the dirt, a pile of clothes encrusted with dried mud shoved up against the concrete wall. Then the pile breathed.

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He followed the planks as they wove through the tall grass. The edges of the boardwalk had curled with time, guiding his feet to the middle as a sagging mattress would do to one's tired body. He had walked this path frequently, always alone by choice. It startled him to see the figure waiting for him in the sand. As he drew near, the recognition hit him square in the chest, knocking the air from his lungs and the words from his tongue.

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She had been entrusted with this heirloom and set out to take great care of it, but the truth remained, no amount of dusting or polishing could hide the unavoidable wounds of time. When she found it buried, her efforts felt futile. It was barely discernible amid the debris. Though with its sturdy frame surviving the day, the wounds now shone with pride. They were no longer wounds of a wasted effort, but those of life and pure love.

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He had walked the beach for upwards of an hour before happening upon the small cabin, though shack was a more appropriate title. It was in a dilapidated condition with a sinking roof, a front porch detached from the foundation, and a brick chimney in pieces on the ground. But nestled up against the ragged cliff, it was the only manmade structure as far as he could see north or south along the coast, and that was the epitome of perfection.

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The room was silent. Her listeners were furrowing their brows, wrinkling their noses, preparing their disparate remarks. In that silent void, she heard a small sound resonating from the far back corner. It was applause. She saw heads turn and heard curious whispers. They had all missed the man's entrance and his approving nods during the lecture, but no one missed the ovation.

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The beach was littered with folding chairs, unrolled towels, plastic shovels, sun shades, careless trash, and most of all, people. Too many people with too many things, all competing for the same few acres of space. They sat hip to hip, stood shoulder to shoulder, stepped on toes, and got possessive over their temporary plots of land, though the land belonged no more to them than it did to the town itself.

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He could still see them sitting in the living room, his father on the couch, clean-shaven with his coffee cup in hand and his eyes glued to the morning news; his mother wrapped in a bathrobe sitting nearby in the armchair, devouring the paper, a stack of books on the side table, eager to take the newspaper's place. He heard the reporter speak of it first, and then his father's commentary. Yet his mother sat quietly contemplating them both.

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From the earth, she learned forgiveness. The fire had swept the valley, stripped it of its dressing and simultaneously erased the childhood from the child. She existed because she had watched it unfold from high on the hill. The valley existed but in bare form, primed to grow anew. It will forgive its undoing as will she. She will rise with the trees and time will cover her wounds as clovers cover those of the earth that lay before her.

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His car, with its belly exposed to the moonlight, was the first to disappear, though the brief moment it floated on its roof gave him hope he could save her. Then it sank as abruptly as what caused it to surge off the cliff in the first place. His possessions littered the rocks a hundred feet below, ejected from the car during its descent. Items he once needed to survive now fought for their own lives against the pounding surf.

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The road wove through a canopy of aspens and led to the front stoop of a small white cottage. It was modest in appearance but boastful in its accomplishments. The moment he opened the door, he became part of its history. He would wash in the same basin, cook in the same kitchen, sleep in the same bed, and most importantly work at the same desk. His presence under that roof for the two weeks he had reserved would eventually define his career.

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She was envious. He spoke of the countries he had visited, the hidden nooks of locality, the openness of the people. She wanted that life. He possessed little, few possessions, few dollars. When he felt the need, he simply packed his bag and was on his way, eager to stumble upon the next traveler's treasure. "I'm leaving again tomorrow," he said. "You should come with me."

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She captured three red-tailed hawks in a single frame. Each atop a pole, linked by the power line, facing east toward the early morning sun, wings spread to dry the evening moisture from their feathers. She had seized the shot, thankful for having her camera slung over her shoulder at the time. But it was the sign she neglected, it was a failure that would infiltrate the next few days, a failure only hindsight would explain.

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Following behind in a second car, she had seen the whole thing: a blind curve stealing the lives of her mother and three siblings. Her father, having been behind the wheel and the lone survivor of the crash, struggled with the guilt and subsequently disappeared from the world. She had grown up wanting to follow in his footsteps, eventually taking over the family business. Now all she wanted was to follow him off the face of the earth.

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The day he stopped speaking was the day his life changed. Looking back, whether it was the silence that altered his life or simply the decision to be silent that made the difference, he did not know. It was a tiresome chicken versus egg scenario. Regardless of the origin, the evolution of his silent life had a profound effect on him and those that remained, sometimes unwillingly, by his side.

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It began with an unprecedented anxiety. Then her temper slowly began to grow. An unrestrained irritability changed her from the inside out. She lost her sense of calm and her aptitude for kindness. And then came the anger, a very profound anger. One doctor offered psychotherapy. It was "just stress." Another suggested medication. "Your prefrontal cortex is misfiring." She tried both interventions, neither worked.

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The glass sugar jar sat empty on the sill, placed there by her grandmother nearly fifty years ago. Now the sill and the jar were hers, an unsophisticated inheritance she gladly accepted. The first night alone after the funeral, she stood in the doorway to the cold kitchen, her eyes locked on the jar in the window. An hour passed, perhaps two. Then she opened a cupboard, retrieved a bag of sugar, and refilled the jar.

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The rain had been torrential and constant for the past three days. By the end of the first day, it had saturated the front yard. On the second day, the water rose, flooding the grounds and threatening the cottage. On the third day, it pushed past the sandbags at the front door and ravaged the first floor. The truck was useless, its engine under water with most everything else. The only way out now was by boat.

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He still needed a chair. He had a mattress on the floor and a table in the corner, but he needed something to sit on. He searched the dumpster behind his building but came up empty. He moved on to the next building, and the next as well. Before he knew it, he had walked across the city. This he was used to, walking that is, and he could sleep on a bench or the step of an old tenement if needed. He had done so before and he would do so again without issue.

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He sat patiently in his seat, his tires hugging the curb, his bumper kissing the next cab in line. He watched the mob shuffle toward the baggage carousels, pause to retrieve their belongings, and then emerge in a daze. His rear door swung open. A woman in a neatly-tucked blouse and pencil skirt slipped into his back seat and announced her destination. She had failed to recognize him, the first of many thankful failures for the day.

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The man motioned to the clerk and then pressed his index finger to the glass. The clerk retrieved the necklace directly below the man's finger and held it up for examination. The simple chain was of great contrast to the pendant: a large roughly-cut indigo stone encased in a carved silver perimeter. No money was exchanged. The clerk willingly relinquished the necklace to the man who placed it in his pocket and happily left the store.

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The closet was full of shoe boxes, each stuffed with handwritten slips of paper, sticky notes, paper napkins, and postcards. She had found these forgotten treasures in the pages of returned books before scanning them back into the library's inventory. She would trace the printed letters with her finger, and images of strangers would flood her mind. These images gave her a secret purpose by which she lived her life.

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Today was her first day as a grown up. The change was abrupt and unsolicited. Yesterday, she was a child. She felt innocent and secure. She was prone to daydreams and unrealistic optimism. Today, she was responsible for everything. Doubtful and scared, her knees began to buckle, the sockets of her eyes burning with the threat of tears. At twelve years old, she was unprepared. No one her age would be prepared for this.

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They had been given an address of 395, but overgrown landscapes hid the few remaining house numbers. They were told the house had old timbers against the front fence, but in this neighborhood, every house was lined with piles of recycled construction materials. No residence was discernible from another. Without a doubt, they were lost. They had been told not to get out of the car, but there was no other solution.

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He kissed her on both cheeks and then climbed into the taxi. She needed him to look at her one more time, but the car pulled away, his eyes locked on the driver and the road ahead, never once shifting to glance back at her. She should have just said it, before he had closed the door, before he had kissed her, before he had invited her out that evening. She thought she would get another chance.

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Her mother had tried to conceal it, turning her head away, soaking up her tears with her sleeve before they spilled down her cheeks. She stared at her mother, waiting for her to turn back around, to face her, to console her, but she never did. With her eyes on the floor, she reached out for her daughter to take her hand, and they walked together, side by side in silence, back down the hallway and out the door.

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He remembered Christmas at the beginning, the waking up early, long before the sun rose, and running to the living room where the tree stood in grandeur. He would lay beneath the branches, staring up at the lights, the trimmings festive and alive. He enjoyed this private moment, before anyone else in the house awoke, it fueled him for the day. Things were different now. This Christmas, the tree was missing, as was everyone else.

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She sat in the cool shade of the pier, her toes sifting through the sand. The ocean rushed toward her. It crashed against the pilings and flooded the beach. She shifted nervously as the water came closer, her hands braced against the ground, her legs ready to run. The wave stopped just short of her toes, smoothing away the footprints she had left. She had come to face her fear, to face her past, and in doing so, she faced her future.

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The boy watched the town disappear before his eyes. He did not want to leave, but his father had decided otherwise. The boy sat near the back of the bus without a choice, the finality of his father's voice still ringing in his ears. He had kicked and screamed, but it was useless. He was a child, forced to oblige the whim of his parent, picked up by the armpits and sent away without even the slightest consideration.

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She felt hunger in the deepest corners of her stomach. It overpowered her will and made her fixate on the need. She peeled thick splinters from the wall and cradled them between her teeth like toothpicks. When that failed, she chewed on her fingernails and gnawed at the base of her palm, not enough to break the skin, just enough to ease the craving.

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The pain had returned, but he kept this fact to himself. He didn't want to cause alarm, and the presence of pain would cause a full-fledged panic. Four years ago, it would have been different. Something this life threatening could be brought to the attention of his personal physician and promptly treated. But that was no longer a possibility.

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She noticed it teetering inside the truck bed as the highway curved around the hill. The tailgate was down and it was only a matter of time. She paced herself, making sure she was a safe distance behind so as not to run it over. When it toppled onto the road, it bounced twice and came to rest conveniently on the shoulder. She slowed, eyes on the truck ahead, watching for brake lights. The truck disappeared. This was good news.

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He stood on stage, shaking his head at the man in a poorly chosen orange suit. Despite his skepticism, he obeyed when the man asked him to close his eyes and listen as he counted down from ten to one. He heard these numbers, nine, eight, seven, and felt himself relax. Four, three, two, one...and then nothing. He had no memory after this. Nothing until he was back in his seat, dressed in the man's orange suit.

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She sat down on the bench in front of her office, nursing her coffee to avoid burning her tongue, and watched the morning rush of business suits pass by. The women in sneakers with high heels stuffed in purses. The men with briefcases and cell phones surgically affixed to their ears. They pushed and bumped into each other, rarely offering apologies, all with a destination that took precedence.

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He opened the drawer and moved his fingers through the alphabetical tabs. At the back of the drawer was a red folder with a photograph paperclipped to the top right corner. The round brown eyes and high cheekbones were unmistakable. On the back of the photograph was the date that confirmed it. He slipped the photograph into his coat pocket, replaced the folder in the drawer, and snuck back out of the office.

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She stared primarily at the podium, her hatred of public speaking growing by the second. The pounding in her chest had a dizzying effect, and all the layers she had worn to conceal the inevitable sweat marks were making her sweat more. She had often recounted the many reasons against this recent career change, but on that day, when she glanced up to take stock of her audience, she was grateful to be doing what she did.

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She and her brother found themselves often alone. They were separated by four years of age, but never took much notice of the difference. They lived an hour from town, a trip their parents made daily and did not return from until after bedtime. And with no nearby neighbors, they were left to provide for themselves. They had six years together like this, all of which neither one would trade for a seventh.

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The door shut. He lay back down on the couch and let the ceiling fan dry the sweat from his forehead. He tried to let his mind wander but it refused to go very far. He was getting a clean slate, a fresh start, a chance to do everything over again. He was getting what he had always wanted, but there was one problem. He had no clue what it was he wanted, nor where to start looking for it.