Stela Dujakovic meets men and draws them as characters in fictional realms, sometimes several into one in “Half As Good.” The story explores the tension between reality and imagination.

“A Boy Who Was an Orca” is one of those stories that come along every once in a while to upend one’s notion of perception and intuition. By rainteller, it is mystical, spiritual, and transcendent.

Michael Chapey’s uplifting story is about a dad who ruined his iPhone in the pool and is generously helped by an Apple “genius.” The name of the Apple genius? Carlos.

The push and pull in Samuel Cole’s “2 Regular & 26 Long” reaches deep between the married Mitch and Victoria, who play an alphabet computer game which Victoria has compiled and which Mitch can hardly bear.

“In The Past,” Maria Savva takes us into in the lives of Roger Bainsford and Paul Squires who have “issues” from the past. One wants a job; the other gives it. It is a synchronous moment in the lives of both.

The family palazzo I inherited only after it had passed through many hands. You will not suppose, however, that I wasn’t pleased to own it. The lot of minor nobility is to be begrudged for wealth one doesn’t have, because some ancestors held it and passed it along through other tributaries of the family line.