Short Story

At first, the black lines cast by the window bars of the drunk tank were a mystery, and the pain in his body a specter. Then the shadows became the field plots of the Llano Estacado he had crossed on his run from Louisiana.

No one was quite sure what to make of Mary Whemple’s behavior. For the past two weeks, she had spent all of her lunch breaks standing at the entrance of her office building, arms spread, eyes closed, and her wrinkled face tilted to the sky.

Gwen and I looked up at the crystal doors we approached. They must have been twenty feet high and twelve wide, and emblazoned across them, the letters IT in that famous logo. Without a whisper, the doors opened. That’s not the right word. They simply vanished.

One winter afternoon, Nick Miracle walked out of Perk Up Coffee with a caramel ribbon crunch latte, his drink of choice on special occasions. For the past five years, he had been a junior loan officer at Wabash River Bank. Beginning tomorrow, he would manage its Honey Creek branch.