sway

Kevin was a light sleeper – lightning flashing through the window woke him up. When he fell asleep in front of the tv the flickering of the screen kept him in a twilight, drowsy, dozing state. He woke up to a broadcast of a gymnastics competition. One of the gymnasts didn’t seem to fit – she didn’t have the slight figure of the other competitors. He blinked, turned it off, pulled himself off the couch and went to bed. Brushing his teeth the next morning he vaguely remembered it as possibly a dream. The next day during work at the store he saw a customer come in who snapped the memory into place, because she was the woman he had seen the night before. Was he imagining it? Could he possibly start a conversation with her by referencing something that might have been a dream? The way she swayed her wide hips was not like a gymnast.

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dance

I started to have the same taxi driver every time for my weekly trip to the airport, so I got to know him pretty well. He told me he initially had trouble getting a visa into this country because he was a test tube baby. He’s had two heart attacks, one of which resulted in a near-death experience. He said that during those moments, he danced with the trinity. He explained to me the concept of perichoresis: the reason that the three persons of the Trinity could be one is through dance. He had a dry but luxurious laugh.

poultice

B developed a new art form. Using the DNA printer, he would program organisms that would consume certain materials and secrete others. He would then print them into a paste which he would smear onto a block of material, which they would consume in different ways, creating interesting patterns. He worked on making sure he could predetermine the resulting pattern. One day his two year old got a hold of this paste and smeared it all over his face.

grand federation

A couple years ago kids from all the school in the district formed a grand federation that met in a field on the edge of town to make mudpies. I was only in second grade when it happened, and my sister was in sixth grade. I didn’t really get it, because I was too young I thought. But my sister didn’t get it either. Maybe she was too old. Now that I’m in the fourth grade, and I can see that the teachers are still talking about it, I’m starting to understand.

graphs

He always referred to himself in his thoughts in the second person. “You’ll manage to get by,” he used to tell himself. He didn’t like going into the back room of the second hand store where he worked, because that’s where the mirrors were, and furniture with mirrors – chiffoniers, vanities and whatnot. When a new piece of furniture came in, he absolutely refused to take anything with a mirror. He would tell the customer to come back when someone else was on shift. He would take in other furniture, dressers even, though they had to be put in that same back room. As part of the intake process he would go through the drawers. One day he found in one of the drawers a notebook filled with graphs of polynomial equations. He started studying it at the counter.

job

During a museum heist to steal valuable art, one of the theives turns out to be a religious fanatic and tries to turn the job into stealing a relic.

stepmother

A ten-year olf girl is brought to the city to be sacrificed, but before the ceremony a change in regimes also changes the state-sponsored religion, and the ceremony is cancelled. The girl cannot be returned to her family since they were all killed along with the rest of her village. She is given to a childless widow to raise.

heirloom

Your great grandmother put the recipe for the perfect cup of hot cocoa into a book she bound herself, with a calfskin cover so delicate that she inscribed the dedication with the vein of a leaf. What i give to you now is what’s left of it after the fire.

left out

A group of officemates on a team-building spelunking excursion. Rescuers find one man, weeping. He is weeping still over his ostracism. He was hated by the rest of the office, who are never found.

play by play

He never missed a public execution, except this one time. His friend, who usually avoids them, wound up being there for this one, which was a draw and quartering. He treats his friend at a coffee shop and presses him for details.