Soon the air conditioner would whir to life. Once it did, Claire’d have about five minutes to sneak out her window. Claire was already dressed, in pastel blue terrycloth shorts and a matching tank top with satin trim. She and Dwayne had plans.

Marvin had an inkling of an idea why Doris wouldn’t want him to see the inside of the notebook, but he decided not to push the subject. Marvin continued unloading the items in the gardening wagon with Doris and putting them on the sidewalk. Although he didn’t have a clue what Doris’ intentions were, he found himself trusting her motives.

The Rat looks around assessing the danger. She is alone. Cautiously she moves toward the trap. The alley is littered with rats who have failed in their quest to get the cheese. Their bodies now one with a trap they could not outwit; some are dead, others still gasping for air, slowly dying. All Rats know that if a trap catches you there is no escape.

“Slow down.” He said. She did. Instead of reaching for the net, he was close enough to grab the toy with his hands. Arrella stopped the motor, letting the boat and the bay sail them on their own, climbing over the seats to him and the sight he held in his green flanneled arms.

She was certain something had happened to Melodie. She felt it in her chest, the feeling you get when you drive through a dip too fast. Falling, alight. It made her sick but it also made her feel energized, rushed with adrenaline and ready to face it, the terrible thing, whatever it might be. It was coming. It had already happened.

Staring through heavy glasses that made his faded hazel eyes seem oversized, Norman spilled coffee on the paper. “Damnation!” Norman leaned back, balancing on one skinny, pale leg—a leg all the whiter for the black bedroom slipper—as the other leg swung in an arc to prop open the door. “Damnation all to hell,” Norman proclaimed, straightening up and spilling more coffee as the slipper fell off.

There were a few incidents that semester. Olivia was asked to pose for a painter who posted his need for a model on the community board online. He worked from photos for his surreal realistic paintings. She came home with a picture on her phone of her sitting topless with her right hand over her left breast.

She picked up the carnation-pink phone next to the bed and dialed her husbands office. He’d be working late, he said, and that gave her joy. He was nice enough, but boring and safe. Adventure was what she wanted, but really she just needed more time to herself. With him at work, she wouldn’t need to be home to start dinner for a few hours. Time enough to get lost in this incredible feeling of abandon.

A scream pierced the air: all the chips were gone. Horror rippled through the crowd like a disease. The moon quickly assembled a search party. They were instructed to leave no planet unrotated. Some would even go as far as the corners of the universe. Luckily, Pollux had an emergency stash of chips in his safe, melting the screams into hysterical tears.

The middle C note replied, “Because I’m forced to work too much because I’m so damn popular. I should be paid more than any other key because of all the extra work I do. You all should revere me. I’m on strike for fair pay.”

But now it appeared that Bill had nothing left to share. He hadn’t wanted to hear any protestations after he ordered her a last salted caramel muffin and cappuccino at this very coffee shop just the day before and insisted on paying. He’d left when his mug was only half empty, after he mentioned again that she was likely to have a lovely future.

The poor thing is already dead, she reminds herself, it can’t feel a thing. It’s like cutting off hair, or fingernails, completely painless and guilt free. Once she is satisfied with the presentation of the bait, Alma retreats to the safety of the lawn to wait.

Mama had put the box of tree paints on my bed. It was marked by my green fingerprints from years before. I put my hand over them and remembered being so small, and Grandmama teaching me to paint the Christmas tree on the wall, her hand placing mine on the brush, her smell of onions cooked to caramel. She was so old, that I thought she’d lived when the trees were.

His left behind footprints fill with snow faster than she can keep up, and her heart races. She wishes he would hear the sound and slow down, but it is not possible. It’s never possible, even in the quietest of spaces, for him to hear her heartbeat.

His attention had found solace in the revelatory multiverses of science fiction novels and detective noir pulp paperbacks. When the headaches came, he'd need breaks, but after a couple of years, the neat little collection of tomes had been digested. Since then, he'd preferred the silence. Without a television, the windows from his home became ersatz network primetime viewing, morning shows, reality programming and everything else.

We passed all the run-of-the-mill carnival rides and trailer games: bumper cars, carpet slides, swings, and a fun house mixed among the baseball pins, rings and bottles, spinning wheel, and rubber duckies. A crowd gathered at the air rifle targets with the steady rat-tat-tat of bbs piercing paper.

I tracked it backwards to see her again. She looked like she was posing, but pretending not to. An actress. Maybe a hooker. Maybe all hookers were actresses, because they kind of had to be. I went forwards, watched her disappear, and then, a few frames later, saw her again, at the top of the screen, just as perfect and tan and naked and awkward as she’d been before. I ran a finger down her flat stomach.