And so together we think about the future like it’s already there. Thing is she’s at the other side of the universe next to ours and we twiddle our thumbs aching for the next run. I’ve come to grow familiar with the pain. You’d know it, like an automatic reflex. Like breathing, only this one…

Damien stared long and hard at the gate to her house. He wanted to douse the place with gas and set it on fire. Fire, how all-consuming it was. He wondered why this was necessary, why pain was necessary, what pain was supposed to teach us except to never ever let anybody hurt you ever…

There must be some sort of balance in this world, he thought. Half of his belongings was about her. Or because of her. The giant whiteboard that took up too much room, the row of little Russian dolls that disappeared into one another, even the orthopedic foam mattress he got because she said sleeping on…

This is why I need a place of my own, Stella thought. She sat paralyzed on the sofa while Burney screamed obscenities at the screen. Left 4 Dead. Stella would leave Burney for dead if it came to that. In the kitchen the mother is talking about something or another—the fact that she’s thirty, time’s…

He’s dead, he’s dead, he’s dead. Dumas could feel the earth shake underneath him. He looked around at Spectral, everyone else was walking fine. So, he was imagining this. What he wasn’t entirely imagining were the faint trickles of blood escaping with his sweat and tears, the rashes erupting like tiny poisonous flowers along his…

Addiction of the century, if you like. I looked around the top of IBM Plaza–it took some certified ninja moves to get here undetected. I’m not sure if they allowed civilians to hang out here otherwise why isn’t anybody else here? The winds are strong and a welcome respite from the deadly heat. Found it.…

In time, his father said, he’ll get it. He developed last among the boys, meaning last among his entire class, no, his entire grade. He didn’t understand numbers, didn’t care for words, didn’t really have any interest in particular. He was just that, a boy. Only he wasn’t an angry little  boy, not at all.…