By the third time the thought arrives, I’ve learned its manners. It doesn’t kick the door in. It doesn’t announce itself with a villain’s laugh. It comes the way a smell comes when someone two apartments down starts frying onions at midnight. A faint, unmistakable curl in the air. A suggestion. A maybe.

Rose had always been a profoundly uncurious person. Which is not the same thing as being stupid. Conventional you would say. To be frank, she went into medicine for the money. Yet, the allure of convention also prompted her to become a doctor. Medicine is prescriptive, not only in terms of the prescriptions doled out to the patient, but also in the actions dictated by the medical canon for the physician.

I think we all agreed that Mr Fallow was the best and most interesting teacher in the school. That much was clear after only a few months. It wasn’t until Cerys Davies expressed curiosity in his sexuality, however, that he really became a figure of fascination for us all and perhaps for me especially. He wasn’t from around here, you see.

Old Francisco Gutierrez lay in his bed, his stomach heavy and bloated. A white porcelain soup bowl crusted with the remnants of lunch cluttered his nightstand, joined by numerous orange plastic prescription vials, some tipped on their sides with a few crumbled pills inside, as if defeated by the weight of their responsibilities.

Ang Tuin’s temple was large and airy and now painted white, which he hated. All through his second life, there had been wood panelling which had filled the space with a rich scent of beeswax and nutmeg, but the tall men had come to make another one of their changes.

I am an emergency. My name is Bernie Smith, my colleagues at HR Block used to call me St. Bernard, like the hospital on the South Side, because I was always trying to save someone a few bucks. I still live a couple blocks from the hospital, near where the Dan Ryan Expressway split the old neighborhood in half, in a post-war cottage. It’s nice, white brick, with a long narrow backyard like a bowling alley.

The bright, green grass was covered in early morning dew drops. They slide down its blades and leave wet spots on my pumps. Rocking my weight on to the heel, and then back to my toes, I focus on how each shift digs the shoes further into the soft ground. I wish I could just take them off, stand even, and feel the earth with my toes.

All it took was one presentation to boost the B to an A plus. If it wasn’t for the awkward pauses, Macson would be enjoying the rest of the day. Students walked along the sidewalk under the awning of the film building. Macson sat on the edge of the sidewalk, staring at the drenched parking lot with rain splashing onto the pavement. His eyes were sunk. He ignored the tight knot that beat inside his throat.