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Her mother made the rules, set the limits, told her what to do and when to do it. She had accepted this was how it was to be, for now but for good. Her mind wandered, dreamed, longed for adventure, for chance meetings of characters larger than herself. One afternoon, she found a blank journal left by her mother on her bed inscribed with words that, in that single moment, settled her wanderings and gave them a home.

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She took the record to the corner music store. The space was cramped with boxes of LPs stacked waist high lining the narrow aisles. She had pulled a King Oliver album and was reading the track list when the man behind the counter asked if he could help. In seconds, he was lowering the needle onto the first groove of her record. Then, as if he had walked through the door, the store filled with the scratchy recorded voice of her grandfather.

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The space was once a bustling diner. The waitress was a gum chewer and called everyone "darling." She served orders for burgers, fries, and root beer floats across the laminate counter to flirtatious patrons sitting on red leather stools, feet planted firmly on the metal footrests so as not to spin dizzily while they ate. Now the only food that crossed that counter was what that same waitress could scavenge from the dumpster outside.

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All who heard the story considered him the luckiest man alive. He had come to rest upright. The snow covering his face glowed, which meant he was near the surface. And lastly, one of his hands remained free. Flake by flake, he had cleared the snow from his face, took a much needed breath, and yelled for help. It was then he realized he was the furthest thing from lucky anyone who had survived an avalanche could get.

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She picked blackberries by the hat-full until her fingertips were stained purple. Back home, she offered the lot to her brother, laying curled away from her on the cot. When he ignored her, she placed four berries near his chest and sat alone at the table. She was grateful; the meal put to shame their usual salted toast and potatoes. Then she sang herself the birthday song, and devoured the fruit. For that moment, she was happy.

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Her tattered stuffed bear sat on the seat beside her, but otherwise, she was alone. She had packed her suitcase in a panic, but was forced to leave it behind anyway. The bear was all she had. The train car rocked side to side as it sped down the tracks, leaving the only home she had known in her short eight years of life. The man had mentioned Kansas City. Whether this would be her new home, or just the first stop, she did not know.

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She put on her jacket and strolled through her humble garden, her curls absorbing the early morning drizzle as readily as the soil beneath her feet. She lingered near her bloomless lily, speaking sweet sentiments, apologizing for the yellow leaves and the weeds crowding its growth. The days passed, the fog cleared, and the sun scorched the soil. She tended its thirst and waited. She remained patient and true, and was rewarded.

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He passed storefront after storefront with windows covered in plywood. The sidewalks were empty, nothing of the bustling rush hour that would have been present a year ago. When he approached the corner, he began to hear signs of life. Voices bartering over food, carts with squeaky wheels on the uneven pavement. He was in need of a new bearing and the outdoor market was the place to find it. Now if he could just make the trade.

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When she lost her smile, he turned on the Rascal Flatts tune Banjo and followed its advice. You gotta go deep...cross a few creeks. His fingers tapped the steering wheel, her foot tapped the floorboards. And you go, and you go... The lyrics were their anthem, the pluck of the strings was a melody for the truck's suspension over the unpaved road. They got lost, as the song suggested, and found her smile hiding in a little piece of heaven.

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She woke up late after sleeping through her alarm, and was treated to a cold shower, the hot water heater apparently broken. She hit every red light on her way to work, then promptly spilled coffee down the front of her new dress as she got out of her car. Locking her keys inside was her undoing. He spotted her crying from across the lot. He approached and offered to help. They would never have met if her morning had gone as planned.

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She was an observer, an anonymous witness. She noticed bliss and despair, pride and greed, admiration and envy. All things to which she was privy simply by keeping her eyes open. The man on his cell phone processing terminal news. The family in the park celebrating new life on the way. The woman in her car crying over the loss of love. She felt empowered by these insights, yet disabled all the same.

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She was a keeper of lists. Lists for chores and grocery necessities, lists of expenditures and bills to pay, lists of errands to run in the order she would run them, and of projects with detailed steps for how to complete them. She maintained ever-evolving lists of books to read and stories to write, lists of inspirational quotes and forgotten vocabulary. These lists gave her a sense of control at a time when she was spiraling out of it.

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She wanted not to be remembered for what she accomplished but for what she inspired others to accomplish. She wanted to be the catalyst, not the result. And so, she teaches. Not because she can no longer meet the demands of her field, but rather to learn, to grow, to improve upon what she knows, with hope of passing on this infectious desire. She will infect others and that will be her legacy.

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She needed three things: her notebook, a pen, and a place to sit. It was the lines she observed, the bones of structures, the movement of limbs, the light and the shadows. She would sketch in the morning, preferring the city as it woke, pedestrians strolling with delightful affirmations, birds singing to the new dawn, air thick with lusciously sweet baked goods. All welcoming her, begging her to capture the impossible.

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He listened, he paid attention, he caught the nuances others missed. When he focused, everything else fell away, whether his subject was willing or not, and all he saw was truth. Spoken or silent, he could differentiate intent from accident, love from lust, fear from ignorance. He had a gift. He used this gift for good, until the good was stolen from him, and he no longer saw the point.

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The hole was large enough that she needed a patch. She was meticulous, taking her time, piercing the fabric with the needle, threading it securely. She held up the garment to examine her handiwork. The patch was among four she had sewn in the past week. He hadn't told her why he kept coming home in shredded clothes. She didn't expect him to confide in her, she didn't need him to. She already knew and that was enough.

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The man sat on the guardrail reading a paperback. He splayed his fingers across the pages to keep them in place as the cars sped past. A couple yards away on the narrow shoulder lay his pack, stuffed to capacity, sleeping bag rolled and attached by bungee cord. For the last hour, he had sat calmly, engrossed in his novel despite the traffic on the steep grade, a mountainous view to his back. Then he stood and attempted to cross to the median.

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She fought and she questioned, then desperation gave way to submission, and there was nothing left in her but anger. That was his doing. He nurtured a hatred in her that made him leaving practically her idea. It would be better for her this way. In her eyes now, he was the enemy. Maybe one day, she would forgive, With hope, she would forget. He wished he would be so lucky.

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His face shaded by his poor-boy cap was caked with dirt, his fingernails blackened, his suspenders frayed, his trousers wrinkled and cuffs rolled. Aside from his sneakers, at one time an unspoiled white with fluorescent orange Nike swooshes above the laces, now with soles held on by duct tape, he was a transport. He sought this way of life, one that was fitting despite the era. He lived below radar, unkempt and free.

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They passed around the can of lentil soup, rough-edged lid still attached, a single spoon shared among the group. This was the most fulfilling meal they had acquired in three days. Add four more days to that total and that's how long they had gone without proper beds to sleep on. Assimilation was the most difficult part, but most of them were still riding high on thrills alone, so steel-topped mattresses were the least of their worries.

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He said it two centuries ago, yet she lived by his words now. "If you want something you've never had, you must be willing to do something you've never done." Mr. Jefferson had been speaking to her, for her, for this very moment. She grabbed her keys from the hall table and drove into the city. It was her only option, her last ditch effort, it had to work. She was one to follow the signs, and all the signs directed her here.

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He was told to look behind the vines. He pulled his sleeve down around his hand to avoid the thorns. Tugging slightly, tearing a few of the plant's limbs from their grasp, he exposed it. There in the dirt lay a small rusted box no bigger than his fist. He carried it in one hand over to a ray of light that shone through the barn wall. With great anticipation, he lifted the metal latch and found what was promised.

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She received her degree years after her peers. By that time, formally walking to receive her diploma seemed futile. Only at the insistence of her father did she attend the ceremony. Announcements were mailed, cap and gown were ordered. And in the early morning sun, as family filled the bleachers, she walked on stage, shook the hand of the dean, and saw her life flash before her eyes.

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She passed by his booth every Saturday when the market opened. She would glance at his table, on occasion picking up a glass jar to read the label. One day, she asked if he was the artisan. Her voice hung questioningly in the air as his mind danced between syllables. A nod was all he could muster. He could see she was waiting for something more but words failed him. Words always failed him when he needed them the most. He had to find another way.

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Sand with the grain, walk in the direction of the wind, swim with the current. It was supposed to be easier. She staged an epic battle with that current, struggling with every stroke. Her body colliding with boulders submerged in the rapids, her lungs filling with water, bursting from the inside out. It was supposed to be easier, swimming with and not against the current. Then she realized, she was swimming in the wrong river.

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He was her first breath after too long of not breathing. Too long of not feeling. Too long of not seeing. She felt things she didn't know she could feel anymore, didn't know if she would feel again. He saved her from drowning, lifted her above the surface and kept her afloat. He saved her and all he said was hello. He was her first breath and if it weren't for him, she would not be breathing today.

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She had left her campsite at first light to follow the clear and maintained trail that wove alongside the river. The waters parted the trunks of massive redwoods that donned the scars of wildfire. She had walked this trail many times, but today was different. She was looking for a marker, one that signaled her to ignore the warnings and veer off the trail. Then she saw the flattened clovers and the outcropping of boulders.

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The girl grew up in a small town. Her parents raised her in a brusque manner, fearful of her weaknesses, minds set on building strength to survive the cruel world. The boy who lived across the street was her best friend. His parents were a stark contrast to her own. His life, his childhood, at the insistence of his parents was strictly sheltered. He was naive and innocent and happy, or so they thought.

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The water crushed her chest. Its chill extracted every molecule of air from her lungs, her eyes widened, the colors of the surrounding chaparral grew vibrant. Despite her skills as a swimmer, she was overcome with a sense of urgency and suddenly feared the unknown bottom. She clambered up onto the dusty rock to thaw. Minutes passed, and the colors faded. Her body calmed. Then she gave him a knowing nod, and jumped in again.

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She strived to write a fortune that would be saved in a wallet, displayed on a dashboard, or adhered to a scrapbook. Yet hours of perusing quotes and proverbs left her uninspired. Then on a serendipitous day, her bare foot collided with a muse. At first, she reprimanded the rock, but that course of action was useless. Only when she sat down, compressed her foot between her palms and stared at the cause of her agony, did it come to her.

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They were walking the trail in the late afternoon. The wind had settled, the light had softened. The hike to the peak was a short one, although he wished it were longer. More switchbacks meant more time. He would walk for days if he could do so with her. He spent most of the trek as a follower. He could see her this way, admire her, smile at her without her knowing. When they reached the top, he knew.

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The guard grabbed the man forcibly by the collar and led him outside. The boy in tears followed at their heels until he reached the porch. The house was safe, or so he had been told. With the man secure in the truck, the guard returned to drag away the boy as well. His piercing screams coerced the mother out of hiding. She pled desperately. The guard smirked, then dropped the child in the dirt in exchange for the mother.

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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.