It was the whole universe vibrating, some great secret of matter, proof of string theory if only string theory had been a constant dull thud of twelve year old boys; the solution to a riddle—take this city and fill it for a dollar.

...when time would crawl like an attercop in the old barn.

My brother and I always set to wander the fields and wet our heads in the irrigation ditch to cool off. Sometimes we would skip stones where the shade hovered thick and the water drew wide on Willow Creek.

Later that night, he lay his shivering children in his own bed, the bed that betrayed and abandoned him just a few years ago. It will protect them now.

...and he would stumble from bed in a panic and fling the toothbrush at the mirror cursing all the while "fuck fuck why can't I forget her".

“Why do you cut yourself?” Remy asked her, it wasn’t an opening line he would try out there but it was a perfect in here, a place where the windows didn’t open and everyone but them had keys for their comings and goings.

She once asked me to keep her young. “There’s not much I can do about aging,” I said. So she asked me to keep her youthful. “That, I can try.”

In a line behind her were a series of naked and muscular men, dressed only in white paper bakery hats.