If you head downstream, there’s a waterfall that empties into a natural pool so deep that no one has found the bottom yet, which means it’s perfect for practicing the fanciest of dives and biggest of cannonballs. But it was also a great place to lazily float in large, gentle circles.

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.

Charlotte’s dad is gone. If it weren’t for king-size candy bars, she would have realized sooner. But he disappeared while she’s eying the grocery store candy. It’s so much better here, which is why they always stop when they visit him on the god-damned island.
That’s what her mom calls it. Then Charlotte makes her put a dollar in the swear jar.

There were too many places to sit. That’s what Dorothy thought when they’d moved into the house in 1964, trading in what Lester had called their “starter home” for something bigger and grander. What had they thought they were starting? A family, a full life ahead of them.

The light was creeping in around the edges of the curtains, so she knew it was time to get up. Grandma wouldn’t mind now. The sun was up so she could be up too. This was a sleepover, and now that the sleeping part was over, the fun could begin.

B E A B I G K I D A N D O N O TC R Y
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i squeeze ma’s hands tighter as we walk out of the funeral home sunshine hits my face with heat i lift my face up to the sun and squint the sunlight and tears on my face are hot and cold at the same time it feels funny i look at ma the strings from her glasses sway as we walk tears hang on the bottom of her chin

Going to art therapy puts my anxiety into overdrive. I don’t have the patience for painting, not even for the five-minute figure studies, and I’m not here at these sessions because I respond so well to criticism. The coffee dispenser is practically bottomless, though. It’s never good coffee, obviously; it’s free and unlimited; by my eighth cup I start to feel like I’m someone else, which, to my understanding, is the point of being here.

If Mina stared long and hard enough at the harsh fluorescent lighting, she could disappear into the abyss of all the other times she burned under its harsh whiteness–she could forget where she was, how old she was, who she was. Mina wondered if these self-proclaimed staring contests with the lights were the cause of her headaches, or if there was something actually wrong with her.

My name is Saghani, which means Raven in our tongue. Some say with a name like that, I’ve been cursed since the day I was born. Perhaps they are right.
At eighteen years of age, I was already a widow, gathering fish from the nets alongside the other members of the widows’ colony, knee-deep in the frigid water of the Nilak River.

Wade saw the roofline of the house while he hiked along the edge of the forest. He walked past it initially, but the tall spires and darkened stained glass windows’ Gothic look weren’t to be ignored. He’d never seen a real Gothic mansion before—only what he’d seen in movies and knew about from what he read in books.

In 1925, the seven hundred forty-two citizens of Mañana celebrated the town’s third anniversary as an incorporated city in the San Joaquin Valley. A dream of Alexander Jason “A.J.” Ryan—an emigrant from Ohio—he purchased the North Madera Ranch in 1912, then worked with the Secretary of State’s office in Sacramento to establish a town…

At Union Square the commuter amoeba oozed into the 4 train and she made herself as liquid as possible so that she wouldn’t be left behind.
“Stand clear of the closing doors, please.”
Ding-dong. Ding-dong. Ding-dong.
Get out of the door so we can leave!
Wow, she was cranky.

Kodey picked up speed going down the driveway. He could feel the training wheels touch the concrete as he hit the street. He was allowed to go around three blocks on his own. His mom seemed to be more lenient while dad was away.

The temperature had dropped since the nighttime, when I’d almost burned my dress with the iron and my hair curlers had fallen in the toilet. Now in the cold morning, my stomach was aching, but I brewed coffee anyway. The steam billowed into the brittle air like wisps of cotton.

Siyanda is alone. It’s a Wednesday night. He is behind his desk. His mother bought it for him. She also bought the swivel chair, the one he is sitting on, and that old, dial black telephone next to his laptop. The telephone doesn’t work.

“Step aside, rubberneckers!” Four pushed passed a throng of sweaty tourists gawking and taking pictures outside the Bradbury building in the golden mid-morning downtown Los Angele’s sunlight.
A long-haired-blond-Norwegian-sunburned-surfer-looking-guy and a punk-rock-Japanese-lady-with-pigtails-in-her hair…

My brother and I are twins. My brother, Ben, and I don’t look alike, and our demeanors can’t be more different. But we are brothers, joined from that sparkling moment of conception, used to sharing common quarters, food supply, and our mother’s attention…

Rainy had left the backdoor open to the cold sweat of the world, its swinging clanks her remains, as if she were now the wind itself – whipping around the loose, lilting porch and flying off the faded shingles of the roof…

Dear Paul,
When your hospice nurse called, I was drumming my fingers in a parking space at a Bixby’s drive-thru, aching for the large, 550-calorie caramel cappuccino I ordered online. Anything to get me through Mom’s 4:00 cocktail hour.

Osuke felt a twinge of unease as he strode across the scarlet carpet toward the host in the velvet robe with glimmers of silver. Megumi looked glad to see the young man and pleased that he had picked out an elegant dark suit for this occasion.

I’m not allowed to go to Grandma’s hospital room because I’m only twelve years old, and the hospital regulations say I need to be at least thirteen or accompanied by an adult.