As Art was nodding off in the living room with his bugle on his belly, the doorbell rang. Can you answer the door, Art? said Helen, working at the thread spinning between her needles. Art set down his bugle, rubbed his eyes, and watched his wife’s long, graceful fingers. He couldn’t tell what she was crafting or thinking. Her fingers tugged, poked and plucked as though each was machinating with its own brain. Art dashed a few notes down on his music sheet, then opened the front door. Hello, he said. What is the meaning of this? ‘sup. Yup. Yo. (Nods) Hey! Art knew immediately that the Monosyllabists had come to visit. They nudged flaccidly through the door. Helen? Art called. Hel! Give them something to drink, Art! she called. The Monosyllabists were young and slouchy and sported threatening hair. Yet they smiled sometimes and made curious gestures, too. Were they merely skulking loafers? Low-brow flaneurs? They meandered into the kitchen in a loose swarm. Art asked if they would like anything to drink. Sure. …

Jenny I love my job. I love the endless shelves of multi-coloured books, the range of subjects. I love the smell of the pages when I walk into the library each morning. And I especially love helping our customers. The thought that the Council could include us in the cuts horrifies me. June, the librarian, now the only librarian, said we have to fight to keep the regulars. I’ve no idea how we are supposed to get the footfall up, though. As her junior, I have followed her advice. I give extra help and friendly support to everyone that enters. Most days, it is only the old men sitting in the newspaper section. But even those I try to befriend, by encouraging them to scour the bookshelves. I’m giving my closest attention to everyone. There is no problem being attentive to the elderly, young girls and older women, but it’s not so easy with the younger men. Yet for my job’s sake, I have made a great effort to overcome my discomfort. I know I …

The first time I met Adina Milford I thought all witches were old and all ghosts were dead people. I was wrong on both accounts. Adina appeared in homeroom halfway through eighth grade. A velvety snow had fallen that morning, making the town look as gentle as a postcard. Bundled children stuck their tongues out and hurled snowballs at each other on the way to school. They crammed their boots and coats inside slim lockers before the first bell. Adina hovered in the classroom doorway. She was squatty and wore her hair in a long braid swung over her right shoulder. Hal noticed her first. “DayDay, is that your Mom?” Hal asked me. Cody sneered and high-fived Hal who never let me forget my old stutter. When I told Hal to shove it, Mrs. Watkins overheard. “Darren Ross, would you like detention?” “No, ma’am,” I answered. She’d already made up her mind. That afternoon I spent forty minutes organizing cabinets until Watkins released me. Hal and Cody were waiting in the lot behind the school. …

JoJo and her mother Justine have a party every Thanksgiving Eve, so JoJo’s old high school softball friends can drop by. The entire party takes place in JoJo’s wheelchair-accessible bedroom. She sits by the huge flat-screen TV mounted on the wall by the bathroom door. Her long blonde ponytail hangs over the back of the wheelchair. Every few minutes, she reaches both hands under a thigh and lifts it from the seat, readjusting the leg. Then she lifts the other. In her junior year of high school, JoJo dove off the rocks at low tide, six blocks from her home, and broke her spine. She’s fifty-three. She’s lived at home with her mother, 91, all this time, on Cordova Street, while her siblings, all older, got married, had kids, bought houses—some nearby. Five years after JoJo’s accident, her mother’s house burned to the ground. A wiring problem. JoJo and Justine had been a few blocks away at JoJo’s sister’s house for a barbecue. They heard the sirens. No one we know, I hope, Justine said. …

When my father died, I cleared his house. My mother was long dead; my sister lives half a world away. It was me or nobody. I took a few days off work, stayed in his empty home. In the silent evenings, alone, I missed my wife and kids, freshly aware of our mortality, the inexorable progression; child, parent, grandparent, finale. He never used a computer; he used a typewriter or wrote longhand. In old age, he bruised his feet kicking the world forward by writing letters to the local Council’s minor functionaries. A dustbin needed here, a bike path required there. He kept copies of his letters; he kept the replies; a mountain of paper. The papers went into 25 numbered boxes. I packed up his tools and some ornaments and shipped it all back home. Everything else was trashed. I cleared out his wardrobe and chest of drawers, stuffing his clothes into black plastic garbage bags. Under socks and underpants, I found a green leather journal held shut by elastic bands, a piece of …