John M. Anderson That world was the ivory v, flush with the basketball floor of the pinball machine—I could open a door. The landscape was painted in that Bad Day at Black Rock matinee poster style with counters ringing tens of thousands of points with the same springing bell sound the Esso gas pumps made all the way to L.A. My father would have found a percentage in the way half of the quark’s globe spins backward in time,...

John M. Anderson The hayloft doors were wide as they’d go and the shining snow on the ground outside crowded the barn ceiling with projected light that rose into those inhabited rafters warm against the slotted wind pouring frost like a hard mist through chinks between the back wall’s warped planks. Shining I entered—ladder, trapdoor—to bow and scrape among my old shivering shadows: myself against the wall, self thrown careless...

Dan Forward The fading fall made the city came into a more vivid focus. The cold breath of oncoming winter lent outlines to the environment, a sharpness indiscernible in warm months. Every brick in every façade could be counted with ease, every branch of every tree–now bereft of the motley foliage indicative of the onset of the season–stood out against a sky of indifferent gray. A flock of pigeons spilled off a rooftop, displaced by...

Gabriel Duran When I was eighteen I began to carry a condom in my wallet. I can’t recall where I got it, because I had a paralyzing fear of buying them. This anxiety extended to bringing it around with me. I imagined someone going through my wallet, pulling it out and giving me a skeptical look. “What’s this?” they’d ask. “Optimism,” I’d cleverly reply. They would chuckle and give me a you old rogue...