"Honey?" She approached the man at the window as silently as she could; her trembling fingers reached out to touch him, but didn't quite dare—he might shatter.

He didn't look at her; he just kept staring at the sidewalk below. People rushing in and out with cards and balloons, smiles and tears.

They hadn't even begun to shed their tears yet. This nothingness was too new to register as pain.

"Honey," she said again, her hand falling to the rail beside the bandages that wrapped what was left of his forearm. "Talk to me; I can't lose you both."

She sits in the window of her upstairs apartment every night, watching people walk by. The outside is scary. She's ventured down the street and been met with catcalls and suggestive questions that make her speed up. Watching is preferable right now. What she's learned:

The people here are loud; they have no regard for the people in the houses they pass (even at four in the morning).

This is neighborhood is more multi-cultural than any she's previously lived in.

People here never look up. She sits in a lit window at night, not hiding, and waits. No one looks.

Pulling her bag closed around her Brit lit anthology and four notebooks, Kerry said, "I think we should take a stroll over to Hartley—the computer building—and introduce ourselves to a few of the professors."

"Because…" Tracy waited, bag already shouldered.

"Because it's nice to know computer guys. When you don't know how to do something—you know, like when you need to reinstall all the software after a fateful encounter with the blue screen of death. Or get a personal tutorial. Or emergency service on Saturday nights…. For your computer, I mean."

"Sure—that's precisely what you meant."

Tom doesn't get into politics. He thinks it's pointless—they're POLITICIANS for god's sake. They tell the public what it wants to hear and then do whatever the hell they want when/if they win.

He does feel obligated to vote; maybe he can counteract the votes of the people who are too stupid to be allowed to vote (he admits an elitist streak; he has no patience for morons). So he becomes what he thinks is reasonably informed—watches the eleven o' clock news, reads articles, makes a conscious effort to remember to watch the debates of the major players.

In third grade she was a munchkin in the high school musical, where she developed a small but real crush on one of the high school cast. Years later, she finds herself again in his company—and this time with his attention.

Not unexpectedly, he effortlessly (and unknowingly) resurrects her inner 9-year-old's crush. It's not just a muddled ball of admiration and wonder and secret smiles that her inner 9-year-old hands over to her 26-year-old self. It's no longer that at all. Now it's infatuation and delight and internal shivers.

And she has no idea what to do with it.

She never was the kind of person who went out of her way to get in your way. She tried not to step on toes. She was quick with an apology or cursory greeting.

Her most complimented quality: she's reliable.

The janitor found the broken window, discovering the body only consequently in the alley below. Two jokers were found face-up on her torso; the rest of the deck was scattered about.

They questioned a semi-lucid man on the street. Know what happened?

She finally realized all the stairs and ladders she's been climbing–it's all been a house of cards.

When she was thirteen, she was just discovering how natural writing felt, and she soon couldn't stop. She wrote through algebra, a class she couldn't afford to not pay attention in. Four spiral notebooks, consecutively bigger and filled with an admittedly awful first novel, had to be stitched together with embroidery floss to keep them from falling apart after being rotated through half the junior high population. That was the only time in her whole state-mandated education that she considered a career other than nursing.

Still, she writes; partially, she's just trying to capture that passionate affair from 8th grade.

Tyler peeked into her room as she refilled the water pitcher in the kitchen. The bed was unmade, the table next to it adorned with candles, lotions, a glasses case, a small stack of books (which foreshadows the stack, almost hip-high, next to the desk). No clock, though. He thought She must keep an alarm elsewhere so that she can't reach the snooze button.

He considered his own bedroom—impeccable. Not so much as a pair of jeans haphazardly flung somewhere. Boring.

Her room issued an invitation to explore, to touch. He wanted to accept. Secrets and poems waited here.

Gray skies, clouds, a splatter of raindrops every now and then. Fenton loves these days. The sun (garish) forced behind a curtain, smothered with fluffy ash-colored pillows. On days like this, he doesn't have to force smiles to his face; no one else notices. People don't smile much on days like this.

Fenton doesn't put much stock in the pursuit of happiness. It's a fool's dream. Even should happiness be momentarily attained, the memory of the experience of it would just make its absence that much worse. In pursuing happiness, you are setting yourself up for a potentially debilitating fall.

Sunlight pierced the slits between the blinds. The whole room seemed to resist the invading ribbons of luminescence . Despite defensive maneuvers, however, it was clear that soon a retreat would be necessary.

Jenn blinked, dazed and unconcerned. What day was it? She had gone to bed in late afternoon, with the sun prodding nosily into her room, a hopeful voyeur. Was it the same day? Or had she slept through another whole day?

Panic occurred to her. Instead of a burst of adrenaline though, all she felt was empty apathy. She pulled the quilt over her head.

Who cared?

Sitting in the tent only intensified the muggy heat, roasting art and artists beneath. Suzie had excused herself for a bathroom break. She'd promised to come back with cold water.

They'd sold a few small pieces of Suzie's glasswork, but none of Adele's oil paitings. Many admirers, no buyers. A most frustrating day. The money from Suzie's glass wasn't even enough to cover the month's meager grocery tab.

Irritated by the day's non-profit, Adele rubbed at her sweat-stung eyes.

"Excuse me. I'd like to buy…"

Adele's eyes flash-focused.

"Suzie!" Adele half-crowed, half-shrieked upon her roommate's return. "I have our rent!"

And that's why I didn't marry him. The bastard.

I'm sure I've told you about it a thousand times. You're very patient, to listen to the same story so much.

No, I don't change the way I tell it. By now, it's verse. I should have made it rhyme. Iambic pentameter. I could have picked up where Shakespeare left off.

Well, now that you mention it, it is a terrific story. Do you really think someone would publish it?

Of course I'd change the names. Last thing I'd need is a lawsuit for libel. Libel is the written one, right?

Denial is better than dealing with it. Curling up in a ball and hiding under something—the covers, the desk, whatever—that's the way to deal until you simply can't NOT face it anymore. Procrastination is a polite misnomer for this level of denial.

Their rationale for not paying their bills the day or weekend after they get them in the mail isn't that they want to make sure the money's there; it's not that they don't have the money right then and there. It's that they want to pretend that the bill doesn't exist. It's mental hide and seek.

It's the kind of thing that's supposed to happen in New York. It's what happens to everyone else.

A bookstore in Greenwich Village—I can't help myself; there's a sidewalk sale. I'm buying four books. The clerk asks me if I've read Three Junes.

No, I've never even heard of it.

My wife loved it.

Not until I'm walking out—I've opened the door, but not crossed the threshold—do I realize he was trying to tell me in his accented whisper that Julia Glass is in the store.



You should read it. But no, you can't borrow my copy.

It's a non-day. I know it's technically passed on the calendar—it's not like a day can pass but be unaccounted for—but it doesn't feel like any particular day, which is ever so much worse than days masquerading as other days (mean, nasty Tuesday pretending to be Friday).

Wednesday has been in a funk for the last month or two. Perhaps it should seek some professional counseling. Get some prescription anti-depressants. I mean, "hump day" doesn't sound like a bad thing. (Wednesday doesn't get people dreading it like Monday.) Wednesday's nickname just sounds dirty. Oh. Maybe that's the problem.

I used to live next door to a sexual predator. At least, that's what the website said. He seemed nice enough to me, and I lived next door to him for three years before someone told me I needed to look up the offenders in my neighborhood. Imagine my shock.

I avoided him for a few days, but I felt silly about it. I'd been having random neighborly conversations with the guy for over 900 days and I couldn't talk to him now? So I worked up my courage, made some cookies (don't know why) and knocked on his door.

Silently, I climb from the warm lap I've been curled in, only slightly regretting giving up this prime napping spot.

It's progress is slow but steady. I pretend to be interested in cleaning my leg—extending and stretching, then switching legs. I could almost get lost in the rhythm of the short, sure strokes of my tongue. My purpose, though, is only to make sure that my limbs aren't asleep.

It's closer now. I shift positions, feeling the liquidity of my muscles as I crouch and gather my legs underneath me. My legs release, spring.

This is my favorite part.

She stared at the closet across the room. Sylvia (named for Sylvia Plath, though she had yet to work up the courage to ask her mom why… it seemed such an awful portent) had never believed in the monster under the bed. Her friends had all been terrified of their basements, but she'd had an unflinching grasp on reality since she was four months old (if her father was to be believed).

Now, twenty-one, she's away for spring break in a motel room in Fort Lauderdale, and she can't take her eyes off the closet door.

There, it had moved.

Caws of alarm fill the early Sunday morning air, echoing off the cloudless atmosphere—the furious rip of air being parted overhead. A golden-tan bird surrounded by three black birds flies determinedly, confidently in his own direction, feigning innocence. The black birds are not fooled; they swoop and dive and drive him away from their homes. Soon, it seems impossible that the vocals still hanging in the air can be coming from such tiny flecks; I almost can't tell which is the pursued bird anymore. At some point, all the loops and dives look more like showy play than threats.

I can hear the trucks on the highway. The tunnel-esque sound of the interstate bullies moving from point A to point B fills my apartment. These long-distance drivers, given a rough reputation by someone long forgotten, drive through the night, trying to make their destination on time, as dictated by supervisors or themselves. They deprive themselves of sleep, family, decent food. But they get to see the country's hidden beauty marks; they know minor geography like their own reflection. This kind of knowing is comforting. Let other people keep track of the countries; the drivers keep track of our backyards.

Visitation, the fourth hour:

I never knew so many of my grandma's friends were still around. I'm tired of delineating: Gayle's girls/Carl's girls.

I'm tired of being appraised, compared to cousins and sisters. Admirably, I manage to keep an edge from my voice as people introduce themselves, their powdery-soft, breakable hands grasping my youthful ones as though I need their encouragement.

A little old woman shuffles up to me and asks, "Are you the runner?" I politely introduce her to my sister. Then she turns back to me

You must be the runner's sister.

And suddenly, that's ALL i am.

Poetry
Creeps through my fingernails
Avoiding all contact with the keyboard


The words taunt me
Giggling along my nerves
Like a tin can telephone


I can feel them
Sluggishly traversing my body
Just beneath the skin


I want to slough off the dermis
Get rid of them!
Abrasive, profane, unreachable


Were I to peel back the skin,
The poems would flee
Perhaps delving deeper


Would I survive such an invasion?
Worse than an infection
These are my own making


No remedy, save the figurative pen
Paper, ink
Pixels now


Since the poems won't come out
This will have to suffice

Remember the frogs, she'd written next to two snake stickers.

Inside: a letter, four pages in total, front and back; two pennies, their minting insignificant, wrapped in notebook paper scraps, on which was written, This is so you remember the frogs.

Sylvia, a giggle-prone teenager, chuckled at first. Her friend Cecily always had been strange. But the more she glanced at the pennies and the back of the envelope (while she opened her other mail—she wasn't sure she could handle the accompanying letter at that moment) the more intense her amusement.

She couldn't wait; the other letters seemed unappealing now.

Goth-Chic: Divas in Training

S--- is watching the two daughters of C--- while C--- and her husband celebrate their tenth anniversary. In an effort to plan something extraordinary for the girls, S--- gives the night a theme, and upon learning that I have no plans for the evening, invites me along. Dress up and prepare for a night on the town—we plan to be noticed.

We have dinner, and decide to call each other Miss [first name]. We expect proper lady-like etiquette. We teach them to play pool.

We are noticed. Potential flirtations were probably quashed by the kids.

"Come on, Tiff. Let's get you home."

Tiffany tried to focus her eyes. "One more beer," she slurred, swaying dangerously.

"Oh no. I'm not dealing with you tomorrow if you stay for one more beer." God, high testosterone levels did not mix well with high blood-alcohol levels. She didn't understand why Tiffany wanted to come to the party, except that she'd mentioned something vague about a guy…

"You're no fun when you don't drink," Tiffany complained.

"You'll like me a lot better when I get us home alive, sweetie." Sweetie? God, one party and I sound like a sorority girl.

Suzi's phone rang out the ominous tones of Beethoven's fifth. Denying that anyone she knew would dare call before nine on a Sunday morning—no, scratch that; no one she knew would call before ten—she pulled herself from under the blanket and followed the sound to her phone. Who…?

Her aunt Mona's cheerful voice filled her ear. What was she doing? Oh, had she woken her up? Oh well; they were in town for a reunion the previous night and before heading back they wanted to see her place and treat her to breakfast. Now that she was awake…

The people at the UPS office were slow. Granted, it's a big place and who knows where, in that vast space of conveyer belts and "This is NOT a ride" picture-signs, they keep the packages they tried to deliver three times. Who knows how many packages await pick-up back in that cavernous, carnivorous room of noise and smileless faces in weird stripey uniforms that you never see on drivers.

On the wall over the scales behind the counter there is a big red button (just the kind every kid wants to push) surrounded by a yellow plastic frame labeled "Evacuate."

Even though she never looked at it, Angela still kept the picture on her desk. Whenever her gaze slid over it—she refused to let her eyes linger on it—she wondered why she didn't replace the picture. She had more meaningful relationships in her life now. And it's not like the picture was her favorite picture of them, either—her hair was kind of flat, and eyes half closed. Ashley had shaved her head the night before and looked ghastly. Sylvia's lips were half-puckered in an unattractive pout.

Odd, she thought, how she never missed them after high school.

Spell check: a function in most word processing programs which identifies those words in your document which do not match those in its dictionary. This is not to say that the indicated words are not correct; the software's dictionary is far from complete. This is also not to say that spell check will identify words as incorrect that you typed but didn't mean to type--those words that your fingers assume you want to type without receiving verification from your brain (with instead of wit).

For god's sake, take five minutes to read your draft before you turn it in.

An active imagination, that's what the teacher told her mom, but Fern knew herself to be the only sensible six-year-old in a classroom full of gullible twits. She didn't waste her time staying in the lines when she colored, and when she drew, her sketches were detailed far beyond wavy yellow hair on waxy stick figures. You could see every red-purple scale, tooth, and claw on her pictures.

That's why they talked to her. They knew that if she could see them and talk to them, then they must be real. She wouldn't waste her time talking to imaginary creatures.