Samson had a way with metal, just like his father before him. For two generations, Samson’s family auto shop had kept cars purring. Like every other small town repair shop, the place hit the nose with a wave of sweat and oil. Tools hung on the wall in all the proper places, collecting coats of…
When a dream dies, it burns into ashes that then scatter through the atmosphere. Particles might settle alongside river shores, brush across waving treetops, alight on a deer’s fur. Maybe some will land in a human’s eye, drawing a tear that becomes a salty elegy for a future that will never be. Then even those…
For my first four years, I never heard a lie. From the day I was born, Mom and Grams swaddled me in a fuzzy blanket, then wrapped my life in cold, hard truth. “Lies can be warm,” Grams said, deep in her corduroy rocking chair. “You’ll want to nestle into them. Some lies are meant…
The planet couldn’t suppress the shiver of excitement rippling over its surface when a transport landed in a ring of fire and smoke. Its first visitors! How air-light their steps, so miniscule and fragile. It tried to stay stone-still as they ambled about. Look! the planet thought. See my ravines? Like rivers of stone. That…
