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*

People With Problems is a collection of stories I wrote, one a week, like scooping strange fish from the sea. All different sizes, textures, colors…

Then I asked talented artist friends to each choose a story to illustrate, and it was as if I had released my fish back into the ocean and saw them return with mates.

I put a lot of care into exploring the subjects of the stories, which range from absurd, to darkly comic, to heartbreaking. Kirkus Reviews was complimentary with regard to their breadth and depth:

A collection of 29 character-driven works of flash fiction … shows that a lot can be done with a very limited word count.

– Kirkus Reviews

I hope you enjoy meeting the book’s various People With Problems as much as I have.

It’s available as a paperback or ebook—both of which include the full-color illustrations—from these retailers.

If you sign up for my newsletter in the field below, you’ll immediately receive a copy of the ebook for free.

Thanks for reading, and thanks for your support!

My foot was asleep, buzzed and stung like TV static, so I fell into my bookshelf, got the corner of it in my eye. I assumed my right arm was asleep too, which explained why I hadn’t caught myself, so I turned on the light and saw the problem: my right arm was missing. The shoulder was round and smooth except the patch of pit hair sticking out.

By the time I got to the living room, my arm was folding and scratching in the corner like a long, hinged mouse trying to escape.

I watched it, waiting to wake up. The sharp throb in the bony edge of my eye socket was too real to be dreamt.

*

Mother called my arm a blessing. It had stopped growing when I was a baby. She and her friends, who blew hazy smoke and pored over large, beautiful cards in the basement of our house, touched it with icy hands, drew patterns down its flesh with their fingernails, and whispered into its palm cupped over their large creased mouths.

I was suspicious of them, because all their effort made my arm feel weaker.

Then suddenly, overnight, it grew.

My mother kissed it and promised to keep me strong.

I was afraid but relieved. I questioned nothing.

She disappeared after that, and my father refused to speak of her.

*

The bell startled me, and my arm stopped scratching. It turned and used the grip of its fingers to pull across the wood floor.

In the entryway it tapped on the door.

I picked it up by the bicep and pressed it to my shoulder. The arm jerked and punched, hit the fresh bruise on my eye. I dropped it, and it writhed to flip itself palm-down.

Tapping came from the other side of the door. A light, clustered sound like gentle rain.

I ran cold water in the bathroom sink, splashed my face, smeared it on my neck, splashed my shoulder and concentrated on flexing the arm that was no longer there.

I slapped myself very hard, four times.

Finally, convinced I was awake, I went back to the door where my arm waited. I unlocked and opened, and it dragged past the doorjamb, across the porch, and fell into the bushes.

On the doormat lay a small, puffy thing, like a doll’s arm. Its hand lay on its back, flexing its wrist reaching up to me.

I picked it up, feeling its cool flesh wrapped in my large hand. I held its end to my shoulder, and it joined. It stung and tingled all over, its muscles responsive to my will. I held it against me to warm it, and its fingers touched my ribs. The patch of pit hair itched and tickled it.

The water chilled on my face and neck.

The bushes at the side of the house rustled, and I watched a dark shape run across the yard and down the street.

Wherever she was, my mother was dead.

Also, a child rides a tricycle over bright green grass behind a brown-shingled single-story house. He hunches forward to pedal across the chop.

The boat wake softens, the horizon sways, the sun flashes in and out of frame.

A bigger kid runs up to the tricycle and grabs the handlebars. The small kid steers away from him, into the sun. The horizon evens out as the big kid tips the trike and pushes the small kid into the rippling grass.

A large white bucket. A screwdriver pries the lid off to reveal a sludge of purple-red fish parts. The two children wrestle in the sludge, and a woman in a yellow sun dress rushes to separate them. A man with a blond crew cut and swim trunks says something and points out at the water. The woman guides the big kid out of frame, which pivots away from the man to look where he’s pointing, where the small kid rights the trike on the water. Another man dumps the bucket, and purple-red blooms into the lawn.

The blond man laughs and says something, while another him wearing old jeans carries a ladder and big pruning shears to a tall hedge on the boat deck, where he and other men assemble large fishing rods. The man opens the ladder and beckons to someone out of frame. The men cast off the back of the boat as the big kid runs up to hold the ladder. The man climbs and raises the shears.

Another man’s face is large in the frame, looking out to sea. He scratches his head, and the man on the ladder uses the shears to trim his curly hair.

The small kid sitting on the water blows dandelion fuzz and laughs at the way it spreads. The surface of the lawn shivers to life with snapping fish.

A man pulls a flexing rod, reels, and his line is suddenly connected to a TV in a living room, where the two children dance and hop around, and the small child climbs onto the couch clear of the biting fish. A gray fin cuts through the carpet and lowers again. The big kid joins the small kid on the floating couch, laughing. They both bounce.

The man pulls, relaxes, pulls, relaxes. The blond man steps through the couch to help hold the rod. He shouts and points at the TV. The carpet churns, and a smooth gray shape with rows of hooked teeth bursts from it.

A dark dining room with a doorway to a lit kitchen. Oven and microwave combo stacked over the horizon as a man enters with a knife and cuts the fishing line. He points at one of the party-hatted kids seated at the table in the dark and shouts, beckons others with an arm.

The yellow dress woman enters from the kitchen carrying a cake with five lit candles that drift down from the flare of the sun onto the deck of the boat.

The table boils and the shark’s gray face appears and grimaces among the children.

The small kid leans over the shark’s open maw and blows, and flames on the shark’s teeth flicker out.

The lights come on in the dining room. The blond man stands in slacks and party hat by the lightswitch, and he and the woman and children clap as the other him rushes in swim trunks to the edge of the table and points a gun at the small kid.

The shark reappears in the cake, and sparks and tufts of smoke blast into frame as the woman plucks the candles from its gills, where “Happy Birthday, Felix” is written in cursive red piping, leaving holes that bloom purple clouds.

A man points at the birthday cake, gets on his knees on the table and wipes his forehead. Another man appears with a long hooked baton. They jab at the cake as the big kid scoops his hand into the jerking, twisting shark and smears red and white across the small kid’s face.

Two men guide the hook into the small kid’s eye, and he cries, shows rows of curved teeth, grabs more icing from the chop and throws it at the big kid.

A few men stand around the dinner table with beers. One raises his can and takes a swig. Two of the men hold up a wooden handle with a metal hook from which hangs the shark, scooped and smeared.

The boat deck is a churn of children throwing fistfuls of sea foam.

He hopes she won’t go in the back yard, because he doesn’t want her to find out that way. Slipped and fell on a garden fork stirring compost in the rain. He feels like a dumb old man.

He was scared until now, but now she’s back from her trip, and he’s calm. He can’t see her yet, because he’s still hidden away, waiting to burst out.

It’s dark where he is.

He has trouble remembering.

There’s still some of him out back, staring up at the dim gray cords of falling rain, which push more of him into darkness with each slapping drop.

Over the last few days, most of him filtered down through layers of grass roots, muddy topsoil, clay, sand. Ants drank drops of him. Worms used him to remoisten themselves. The marbling veins of mold absorbed what they needed as he sank through them.

He finally met a hard surface, then found pores to push into and passed through it almost like a ghost, regathered himself and slid into a large, dripping chamber.

There were others with him, so many others. Parts of others. Sent bobbing and spinning by more falling drops. Drifting. Some muttered clipped phrases in other languages, some in ancient tongues, some roared or growled, or they chittered, squawked, or grunted. But most were silent. He passed them, passed through some, felt their anger or sadness or confusion, felt some of it come with him, felt himself shrink a little.

The others frightened him, so he used the pulse of drips in the chamber to move along the walls, and found a way out. A long black tunnel full of others sitting, muttering, idle. It was harder to push through them, and they pulled more from him as he went.

The tunnel shrank and split.

He thought to split himself with it, to see where both paths led, but stretching apart made him feel weak, blurry at the edges.

So he chose only one and followed it.

Now he waits at the mouth of the tunnel, seeing light for the first time in days, staring down at the kitchen sink drain.

He hears her take the kettle from the stove, smells her vanilla hand cream—and he rushes forth into the kettle. He’s dizzy, blurred with others and bubbles in a new dark place. Loud metallic whooshing rises in pitch as it fills.

This churning is almost too much, but the rhythmic click of the stove lighting reminds him of who and where he is, and that he may see her.

Others relax into the heat and stretch themselves into division. Their mutterings go monosyllabic, then silent.

He focuses himself.

The water bucks and roars. Fragments of others split further, expand, and blow out the spout in a scream.

The kettle lifts and he feels the water calm.

Porcelain tinkles, and he’s poured into a mug where he mingles with sweet, pungent chamomile leaves.

She looks distracted—he’s almost forgotten why—and she disappears.

The stairs creak. Thumps above as she walks down the hall and says his name again. Then again.

Stairs creak, and she reappears, curls her hands around him, a single concerned eye visible past the lip of the mug.

She has her phone. He recognizes his own voice quiet and tinny. Then she speaks, but from all of it, he only understands the sound of his own name.

She puts the phone down and still looks concerned.

Everything shifts as the mug rises and tips, her face grows in the sky like a planet, the water lifts to touch her lip, air gusts from her nose above him, stirring the steam, and he relaxes and splits, and half of him disappears into her mouth.

That part sees more darkness. Another descent. He feels warm and thick, and the walls are soft and more porous than the chamber in the yard. He pushes through membrane and pulls in all directions, divides, and blurs to nothing.

The rest of him sloshes and drifts and watches from the mug. He has trouble staying together, is too relaxed now, and divides, and divides again, and expands and rises from the surface to float before her face, her eyes staring through him, before he forgets himself and joins the air completely.

Sisters, I have an idea for a trick I’d like us to play.

What is the trick you have in mind, sister?

We find a mark and follow him, learn his comings and goings. Then on the day of the trick, we all wear the same dress—the powder-blue one.

Oh, that’s a very pretty dress.

I prefer the avocado-green. But if it helps us play the trick, sisters, I’ll wear the blue.

Wonderful, yes, it will help enormously. Then I’ll follow the mark onto the subway and make sure he sees me. I can bring along a book or a handkerchief to drop on the ground to get his attention.

You could make eyes at him. That’s my favorite way to hook a mark.

We have such deep, dark eyes, they can never look away.

Maybe you can strike up a conversation.

Perhaps, but only pleasantries. We must keep a certain distance from the mark, or the rest of the trick won’t work.

So then you follow him to his destination?

Yes, but I don’t leave the train. I let him go, and wave good-bye as the doors close.

Then he sees you whisked away into the tunnel. Gone.

Yes, which is why he’ll never suspect to see you on the street, exiting a coffee shop, in powder-blue with your dark eyes just like mine!

Delicious! He’ll think I’m you!

Oh, what a surprise!

Do I speak to him?

You mustn’t speak to him; you mustn’t imply that you know him. But you must pretend to be surprised too, so much so that you spill your coffee on him. And you must scream!

Scream?

Scream bloody murder! Claw at yourself, tumble over a fire hydrant as you back away from him in terror!

He’ll be so overwhelmed!

And then you run away, sister, as fast as you can!

What a marvelous trick that will be.

That is only the beginning. For you, sister, must be lying in wait at his place of work.

Which we’ll have learned from observing him before.

Yes, and you’ll conceal yourself in the women’s restroom.

But if there are multiple such restrooms?

You will put yourself in the one nearest to the entrance, for he will seek out the first available men’s room to clean the coffee from his suit.

And I’ll leave the women’s room just as he approaches, and scream bloody murder at him!

No, you mustn’t scream.

Oh, but I’d like to be a sister who screams.

No, you must remain silent and treat him as a perfect stranger. He may start with fright, or he may scream, or he may attempt to engage you in conversation, sister, but you must resist, pretend you’ve never seen him before. Should he speak to you or reach out to you, you must pull away and react unfavorably to the encroachment.

This is a complex part to play, I’ll relish it!

Yes, it is subtle but no less important. And then you leave, and we allow him to settle, confused, into his workday.

Aha! Then as soon as he leaves for lunch, there I’ll be to greet him!

No, sister, the final trick will be much tastier if we wait. He will have seen the same woman three times already, in impossible places relative to each other. Left to his own devices, this will puzzle him for the rest of the day.

But we must strike at maximum confusion!

Patience, sister. If we allow him to rejoin his routine, his confusion will multiply with our next intervention. You, sister, will frame yourself in a window visible from his office, across the street. At some point during the afternoon, he will pause to ponder and stare out his own window. That is when you wave to him.

With a frozen smile on my face? Slow and creepy?

No, sister, with a look of genuine joy. You should be pleased to see him.

Oh, I will be, anticipating the rest of this trick.

Yes, I suspect it will be good.

So do I.

He will not believe you’re real, and he may leave his office to fetch a coworker back to see you.

But I’ll hide from view!

Right. You mustn’t be seen by anyone but the mark.

So when the coworker leaves and he settles back into work—

With increased confusion…

Indeed, I reappear and wave again?

Yes, and beckon to him. He will think himself insane, but with a bit of luck, he’ll slip away and come to your building.

Do I wait for him there?

Yes, but it must be a building with a glass entrance, so he’ll see you and know which door to enter. You must wait far back enough that you can slip into the stairwell before he catches up to you.

A chase! Do I take the stairs up or down?

You’ll take them up, sister, but only one flight, and then crouch low. That’s when a sister on a lower level will start running downward.

I’d like to be that sister! I can run very fast.

Brilliant! So he’ll follow her!

Just a glimpse of my powder-blue will suffice to lure him down after me!

Indeed, and you’ll be far enough in advance of him to reach the bottom and pass through a door into a dark room. Most likely a storage space of some kind.

He’ll follow me through the door, naturally.

And you’ll wait for him to do so, positioned behind the door so that as soon as he’s entered, you’ll close it definitively behind him.

And turn the lights on?

Yes. And there he will see all of us, sisters. Some of us perched atop shelves, others standing on boxes stacked at various heights, collected in groups here and there, but most gathered in a crowd around him at the door, all two hundred of us, sisters, all in our powder-blue dresses, staring with our dark eyes.

Oh, the look on his face!

Zombie apocalypse time baby! So what’s the issue? Well you are a zombie and even sometimes you are kind of aware of that fact.

If I ignore the blood that had sprayed up the face when his head was cut from his body, and just look at his eyes, I’d guess this person is at the end of a long day.

But your long days are over, friend. Just a head now, you might not even reawaken as a zombie. Deep, eternal sleep for you.

I was not so lucky.

A void churns in me, compelling me to crack this grotesque nut on the tile and eat its contents. I hear a gurgling groan and think it’s coming from another zombie, but they’ve all moved further into the mall. I’m alone, sitting on the edge of the fountain surrounded by corpses in various degrees of wholeness. My stomach clenches. My grip on the head tightens.

Is there a word for simultaneous revulsion and hunger? I’m careful not to touch the slippery neck wound, and the ears and hair are sticky on my hands. Becoming a zombie doesn’t, as is commonly assumed, deaden sensory awareness.

But my attackers made such a mess of my nose and its inner workings that I can no longer smell nor taste anything. Does this make my innate desire to eat brains more palatable? Of course not. Who wants to eat something with the texture of a human brain?

Well, the answer is apparently: many of my cohorts. Some of them relish it. They scoop the stuff into their mouths with their broken hands, or pick at bits with exposed finger bones like chopsticks.

I assume their sense of taste is intact. Maybe it’s delicious.

Our “zombie groupthink,” as I term it, lets me hear the thoughts of others nearby, and I’ve noticed that when it comes to children’s brains there seems to be a universal initial disgust at the idea, followed by a line of reasoning that decides the child in question was probably the type to break things in stores or scream in airplanes, and therefore deserving of its fate.

Following this logic, police, politicians, and military personnel—corruptible authority figures of any kind, really—would make for Dionysian feasts.

None of my own interpersonal conflicts would drive me to do such a thing, not even the provost who denied my tenure and flippantly urged me to “try again next year.” Neither of us knew that in the meantime I would be granted a more macabre sort of tenure.

But I won’t seek her out to eat her brain.

Was this humankind’s destiny from the beginning? What was the point of striving, recording our triumphs, and filling our minds with knowledge only to have them gobbled up?

The edge of my vision glitters.

If the food court is empty, I could try to scavenge a slice of pizza or some chow mein—though chow mein might feel too “brainy”—or maybe some cookies or a pretzel.

I don’t know to which body this head belonged, so I find one without and carefully set the head down next to it. As if offended by my decision, the body jerks to life, struggles to its feet, and runs away.

I leave the head there bodiless.

Alas, poor Yorick, I knew him not at all.

*

I search the map for the food court.

I’d never visited this mall until today. I was first attacked by mechanics in the auto shop—they used a tool to remove my nose before I got away—and I ran across the street to the vast expanse of the mall parking lot, hoping to lose them in the rows of parked cars. But they were very fast. That is one thing movies eventually got right: as long as the necessary muscles are intact, zombies are strong and fast. The pain of their wounds only spurs them on.

Fingers clutched at my shirt all the way to the mall entrance, where the automatic door didn’t open in time and the thing behind me grabbed my wounded face and took a bite from my shoulder. I wrestled it off and entered the doors, dodged through awestruck shoppers and found refuge through an exit door into a dead-end concrete hallway.

Later, I emerged frightened, confused, and still in great pain. The mall was a chaos of shrieks, growls, and anatomy. I stepped carefully and hid when I could, but any zombies who saw me were uninterested, and then I realized why.

*

The food court is a mess, and deathly quiet.

I sit at a table of abandoned food, the first I see that’s still mostly clean. Before I get the burger into my mouth, my stomach pushes back.

But this is meat! Does it not qualify?

My children, zombies or not, would have no problem with this burger and fries. Oh, the children… And Cassandra. So far away, all visiting her mother for the weekend. I hope they are safe.

Perhaps after I’ve eaten I can try to call them, to warn them. I can explain my state and convince Cassandra that she needn’t worry, that I’m not a threat to them. Things don’t have to change. And we’ve no need for money now; the problem of my tenure is solved.

With fresh optimism I bite into the burger, and immediately push forth a spray of bright green bile.

I toss the burger to the floor. The fries are ruined as well.

A body in the seat next to me has its cranium cracked open, but somehow the brain is untouched. It sits in the skull like a Jell-O mold. I take a spoon from a cup of soupy ice cream on the next table, and I scoop. Pretend it’s ice cream. Or Jell-O. Or Cassandra’s favorite, panna cotta with raspberry coulis.

With my eyes closed, I can almost taste it. My stomach groans with satisfaction.

Nothing has to change. If my family accepts, I can ensure their safety. A little nibble here, a little nibble there, and we can stay together.

Panna cotta for everyone.

But there was your bracelet still looped around your wrist, so I knew it was you.

Your hair was full of ants and mites. Two abandoned bird nests. The gardener cleaned and clipped you into a pleasantly unobtrusive sphere, and I wept while staring at a photograph taken when your locks were last springy, golden, and smooth.

The gold is starting to show again, but in places it’s orange and red. Most likely layers of dye you used to keep us from finding you.

It’s been so long, now you are old enough to be called Susan. I use this grown-up name often to familiarize you with it. You took your backpack and disappeared one night, then spent six years in the wild without a name, and now you’re so far removed from the memory of even having a name that you only sometimes respond to Suzy—with a subtle rustle of your hair—and still never to Susan. You will learn with time.

You’ve grown too big to enter the house and sleep in your own bed, and you still refuse to dine with your father and myself. You prefer to sit silent in the yard and take only water and sunlight. I’m having the cook make your favorite Baked Alaska for your birthday this weekend, which I suspect will bring an end to this rebellious teenage hunger strike nonsense.

I’m pleased you conceded to wear the mauve dress tonight, after I made the proper adjustments, and the maid and your father helped me wrap and sew it onto your body—with no help from you. Despite constant washing up, your sap stuck and crusted through the dress in places. Your hardened skin ripped it at the collar as well as down the left side. But tonight I observe proudly that the extra seams are hardly noticeable from anywhere beyond the fifth row.

Despite your atrocious posture, you didn’t fit into the auditorium. All the money your father and I donated to have it built for the academy when you were little—if we’d only known the dimensions wouldn’t allow for our own daughter to stand onstage! It took much arm-twisting to get them to cut the ceiling and lower you through the roof, but money solves all problems, and it is our auditorium, after all. It even bears our name.

The rafters block the hole from view. The room is colder, but everyone has solved that problem for themselves by keeping their coats on.

The orchestra’s playing would help us forget the cold entirely, if it weren’t for the booming dissonance of your notes.

You refused to play your clarinet. I’m unsure whether it’s out of rebelliousness, or the fact that your current state makes holding the clarinet very difficult for you. The handyman drilled down through your trunk, split into several interconnected tunnels, and with the addition of some strategically-placed holes and a gust of wind, you can play again.

But there is an overdramatic, morose quality to your playing, Susan, that I hope will disappear over time. The rest of your classmates are currently attempting a sunny rendition of Tchaikovsky’s Russian Dance, muddied by your petulant bassooning in the background.

That ceaseless howling keeps the audience from knowing when one piece has ended and another begins.

And it’s much too loud. You still haven’t learned to blend, balance, and order yourself with everyone else. I see that six years in the woods only encouraged this ugly showboat behavior. Beyond the reach of civilization, everything is competition and chaos.

Your father and I have seen to it that you never have to compete, but you must learn to conduct yourself respectably if you are to go on to university and make something of yourself.

Your falling leaves litter the stage and distract the other players. Hold them from chattering, Susan, so desperate for applause that you have to provide it yourself throughout the performance.

Now swaying and creaking, such a restless child! I told your father not to unfasten you, but administration complained that the crane took too much space in the parking lot. Let people park in the street! Don’t they see how your unbridled fidgeting is ruining the performance? Keep her restrained, I told them, she’s still too wild, I told them.

Cracking and a boom, and the whole auditorium goes black.

Thumping of seats, shoving. No more music except for yours, Susan—ugly notes, groans, and that self-serving applause.

I put my hands on your father’s back and follow him out of our row and down the aisle, other feet stepping on my toes, screams in the dark.

In the whipping wind of the parking lot we see that the blackout covers the entire street, possibly beyond.

The top of your head sways against the moon, and you’re fingering a power line.

Headlights flash and swerve, horns honk, the whole parking lot is a jam of cars and milling, panicked people. Scrape of metal and crunch of plastic. Shouts.

Congratulations, Susan. You’ve thrown your biggest tantrum yet and ruined another evening. I hope you’re pleased with yourself.

The vineyards stretched healthy green stripes across the faces of the hills, but among them was a scab where the grapes had shriveled on their bunches like little lungs squeezed shut.

From atop a hill, the boy stared down at the blighted vines. His father would be unable to contribute to the royal wine barrels, and the vineyard would be razed.

Crows circled and dove at a shape that walked the withered rows. From afar, the boy heard it speak: “The vines can live again.”

“The grapes are to be offered at the harvest fair tomorrow,” said the boy. “My father is ruined.”

The shape stepped from the rows—a scarecrow in clothes fatigued by years of wind, rain, sun, and snow. Under the rippled hat brim its eyes shone like polished garnets.

“You may have the wealth of a hundred harvests,” it said.

Hope fluttered in the boy’s chest.

“But something must be given before something is received.”

“Anything,” said the boy.

The scarecrow took hold of the boy’s head, and with a small sickle carved a line around his crown, lifted the lid and scooped his brain and his eyes. His vision went black. Cool air blew into the cavity and whistled through his ears.

The scarecrow removed its hat and lifted a fat bunch of red grapes from its cranium, its eyes emptied of their garnets. The sockets were paneless windows, into which nestled the boy’s blue eyes as they lowered with his brain into their new container.

In turn, the boy’s head received the grapes; two bulbous members of the bunch filled his sockets and shone with dark juice in the yellow evening light.

“Touch every leaf,” said the scarecrow.

The boy set to work, blindly anointing each leaf with a sweet tear from his new eyes.

In the morning the father awoke to a field of luxuriant vines, but still not a single grape hung from them. He found his cart was missing. To save his son the shame of arriving cart-less and empty-handed, he walked to the fair alone.

When he arrived, he found his cart and his son surrounded by mountains of luscious grapes that reached even above the colored flags strung across the beams of the stalls. The boy sat among the piles, staring into the distance and wearing on his face the only smile in sight.

Villagers glowered from nearby stalls of gourds, fresh bread, corn of all colors, woven baskets and furniture, handcrafted tools, jars of jam and honey, and barrels of dried beans and herbs. Children approached to marvel at the grapes, but their parents quickly snatched them away as if from piles of moldering corpses.

“My boy,” said the father, stepping over grape-full crates near bursting on the ground. “It is a miracle.”

“Miracle, my eye!” said the butcher, tossing aside the bunches of grapes tumbling onto his table of salted meats. “The child is touched by the devil!”

The woodcarver worried over a toy horse stained with juice from grapes fallen into his chests. He spat into a kerchief and wiped the figurine. “Indeed, from what sulfur-smelling hole have you dug this ‘miracle’?”

The father put a hand upon his son’s shoulder and said quietly, “My son, what terrible magic was summoned for this?”

The boy smiled up at the father and a drop of juice ran down his cheek.

The father trembled. “I have gained prosperity, and lost my son!”

Fanfare chopped his voice away, and a mass of members of the court came down the alley. The King himself stepped to the front. All bowed, including the father and still-grinning son.

The King eyed them suspiciously. Even the jewels in his crown paled next to the light and color of the grapes. “Only yesterday your farm was a spot of blight,” said he. “Now you must answer for this… diabolical reversal of fortune.”

“Your Highness,” said the boy, “before you declare us heretics, please taste of our grapes.”

The King paused. Then he snapped his fingers. A set of bells jingled through the members of the court until a jester emerged.

The King pointed. “Jester, taste a grape.”

The jester approached with caution. He plucked a grape, examined it at length, put it into his mouth, and slowly bit down. “Sire…” He chewed. “My mind can invent neither quip nor jape, so awestruck am I by this delectable grape!”

The King hesitated, then chose and ate a grape. Misgiving melted from his face. He demanded that all of the court’s wine barrels be filled with only the juice of those grapes.

Having won the King’s favor, the father and son spent the fair selling their surplus to the decreasingly suspicious villagers. The boy stared at nothing and felt his way among the bunches, packing more crates while his father counted coins with quivering hands.

When the day dimmed, the last of the customers approached—a man in weather-worn clothes, with a strange old face but familiar blue eyes.

At the sight of those eyes, the father fell to his knees.

The man said, “Your son made a great sacrifice for this fortune.”

“Please, replace his sacrifice with my own,” said the father. “He must not suffer my failings.”

“Very well.” The man removed his hat.

In the following years, the vineyard flourished under the boy’s care. He often stopped atop the hill to admire the healthy green stripes stretched across the land. His blue eyes drank with sadness the plentiful view that his father could no longer see.

The father kept watch among the vines below, night and day, through all weather. Crows gathered like never before, but they left the vines untouched, favoring the juicier grapes of the father’s eyes.

Paradox Manifestation Department, what’s your emergency?

“Paradox Manifestation Department, what’s your emergency?”

“What? Hello? No, I need to call 911!”

“Technically, ma’am, you need to call the PMD, so here we are.”

“No, I took my phone specifically to call 911, and you started talking before I could even dial! I have an emergency! Who is this?”

“Ma’am, please remain calm. This is an emergency number. If you had dialed 911, you would have explained your situation, and they would have connected you with us. We are the service you need.”

“How could you know that before it even happened?”

“I didn’t. But since we are speaking now, you clearly need our services, so what is your emergency?”

“A crocodile has stolen my baby! My little Hailey! Can you help me?”

“That depends, ma’am.”

“It depends?! If you say you’re the person I need, why are you unsure whether you can help?”

“Did the crocodile say anything when it stole your child?”

“How did you know it said something? Crocodiles can’t talk!”

“Ma’am, if the crocodile spoke to you, then it must be true that crocodiles can speak.”

“But I’ve seen crocodiles at the zoo and on TV, and none of them said a word!”

“Yes, but if any one of those crocodiles ever spoke, then it would validate the idea that crocodiles do indeed speak.”

“My god, I must be going crazy. I hope I’m going crazy.”

“You would prefer going crazy to getting your child back from the crocodile?”

“No, if I were going crazy, there would be no crocodile and Hailey would still be safe at home!”

“Well, since neither of those are the case, then you must not be going crazy, which is a good thing. Now, tell me what the crocodile said.”

“I can’t belie— The crocodile said that in order to get Hailey back, I must guess what the crocodile will do next.”

“Ma’am, the crocodile will not return your child.”

“What?!”

“That is to say, you must tell the crocodile that its next act will be to keep your child.”

“Why on earth would I do that? What kind of emergency service is this?!”

“Ma’am, please remain calm. If you tell the crocodile it won’t return your child, then according to its own terms it cannot, in good conscience, keep the child, since that would result in your guess being correct, and it would therefore have to return the child to you.”

“But… if I say the crocodile won’t give her back, then I’m only correct if it actually doesn’t give her back!”

“Yes, but any other guess will be incorrect and the crocodile will keep your child.”

“This is absurd! Get me Animal Control!”

“I’m afraid they won’t be able to help you. Now please, ma’am, I am a trained professional. Tell the crocodile it will not return your child to you.”

“I can’t— My breathi—”

“Ma’am, please remain calm.”

“My chest is— tight… Every breath feels— like it’s only… half as much air as the… previous breath…”

“I’m glad to hear that, ma’am, rest assured it means you’ll never completely run out of air. Now, please, tell the—”

“Okay, okay… Cro—crocodile… your next act will be—oh, god… to not return my poor little Hailey to me…”

[silence]

“Ma’am? Ma’am, are you there?”

“Yes, I… The crocodile is clawing at its head. Its eyes are bleeding.”

“This is good, stay on the line. Keep talking.”

“There’s a box here, near the crocodile.”

“What does the box look like?”

“Just a wooden box. Oh, god, do you think Hailey is inside?”

“She very well could be.”

“But she might not be… Because if I guessed correctly that I wouldn’t get her back…”

“No, you guessed correctly that the crocodile wouldn’t return her to you. That box could quite possibly contain your child.”

“I don’t see how to open it. Oh, but lifting it, it weighs the same as Hailey. My poor little girl, oh, Hailey! Hailey, it’s mommy! Hailey, can you hear me? Oh, god, what if she’s dead? I’ve got to get this box open!”

“Ma’am, I strongly recommend against opening that box.”

“Don’t open it? But what if she’s alive and needs help?”

“It’s just as likely that she’s dead.”

“But why on earth wouldn’t I open the box to find out?!”

“Because as long as the box remains closed, your daughter is simultaneously dead and alive. Technically speaking, if left as-is, she’s guaranteed to outlive you.”

“She… she is?”

“Yes. And if you see to it that no one ever opens the box, your daughter will live until the Sun explodes and swallows the Earth. But if you find a way for her to escape even that fate, she will live quite literally forever.”

“Alive forever… in a box.”

“In a box, alive forever.”

“I don’t know what to think… I suppose I’ll have to buy her a whole new wardrobe; none of her clothes will fit around this thing!”

The garage was already closed for the night, but Toby was still in the convenience store and I buzzed him.

He’s got a lazy eye, so while he plugged his nose and the rest of his face opened up all surprised, his right eye pointed over at the workbench like it was still too scared to look. “Shit… That’s not a… person, is it?”

“Smells like it was alive. Looks like a person. Does it qualify, being that size?” I said. “It’s like a toy.”

“Could be a toy.”

It was about the size of a G.I. Joe. It had green slippers, baggy red-and-yellow-stripe pants, a frilly rainbow polka-dot shirt, curly red hair, and a shiny blue cone hat with a green pompom. But it wasn’t a doll—its puffy half-open eyes were too real. Its makeup was smudged on its shirt and in the glove box.

I took a flathead screwdriver and lifted the thing’s limp arms and legs. They made tiny patting sounds when they fell back down. I pried its lips, and they flapped like a real person’s would. Its jaw hinged open. The screwdriver tip clicked on its tiny teeth.

*

Before Stacy and I split up, we used to take the kids to Flat Beach where there was a gas station curiosity shop with a real taxidermy mermaid. It wasn’t a real mermaid, of course, but it was real taxidermy—the front half of a monkey sewn onto the back half of a fish. They kept it behind a purple curtain in a back room. Cost a dollar each to see it, and we saw it twice each trip. The kids loved that thing.

I told this to Toby while we had a smoke and waited for the garage to air out.

“Move the map racks and the gas cans to the far wall,” I said. “It could go in that nook by the soda fountain. Put a curtain up. Perfect spot.”

“Just lyin’ dead on a table?”

“Nah, we’d use wire to put it in a pose. Maybe like it’s juggling.”

“You think this is something people know about, but just you and I never saw?”

“Well, how many new things do we hear about these days? Everything’s been seen.” I watched a car turn left at the light. “I get the impression if it was common knowledge, we’d know too.”

The car pulled into the lot and parked at a pump. The driver got out and walked toward us.

Toby stepped on his cigarette and said, “Just a moment, sir, I’ll meet you at the window,” then went back through the garage. The guy went to the night window.

The stink was still in the car, so I put some bleach on a rag and wiped out the glove box.

In the passenger side mirror I saw the guy standing at the garage door.

Toby came back. “First customer,” he said as he took the garbage bag from the workbench.

“You told him?”

“Is it a secret?”

I got out the car and followed him.

He untied the bag, staring at the guy with his left eye while his right eye made sure no one else was watching. He held the bag open. “Look at that.”

The guy leaned and looked. “I don’t see anything.”

I took out my penlight and shined it in the bag. The clown’s legs were straight together, but its arms were bent funny.

“A doll,” the guy said.

“That is not a doll,” Toby said.

“Smells like shit.” The guy put his hand over his nose and frowned at me. “What is it?”

I shrugged. “We don’t know. We found it.”

The guy leaned again, and I obliged with my light.

Toby asked him, “How much would you pay to see this?”

“I still don’t know what I’m looking at.”

*

I tacked our first dollar, which the guy had given us, to the wall above the workbench. I’d explained to him about the Flat Beach mermaid, and how this was probably worth more, but he said the dollar was all he had on him.

But he gave us that dollar after he’d already seen it. Which meant something.

*

The car belonged to an old man, who brought it in because the fans weren’t blowing strong enough.

We figured if he ever knew about this thing, he’d forgotten about it. That might be how it died. Forgot to feed it or give it water or air or something. Just let it die in its makeup. It had tiny makeup stuff? Did it put on its own makeup, or did the old man help? And who made the clothes? Were they doll clothes?

I opened the hood to look at the ventilation, and saw the second clown wedged between the exhaust manifold and the cylinder head. Its nylon clothes were scorched on the metal so I had to scrape a bit. It didn’t smell as bad as the first, a bit cooked.

We couldn’t put that one on display, it’d scare the shit out of kids.

I laid it out on a rag on the workbench to surprise Toby.

And it turned out the old man’s fans weren’t blowing strong because a third little clown had chewed a hole through the heater casing and wedged itself inside. I started to think the stupid things had all killed themselves trying to find warm spots to hide.

That third one was in perfect condition, just suffocated or something from the heat. So now we had two good ones—we could set them up like they were juggling together, or like one was spraying seltzer water in the other’s face. We could rig a button for the kids to push and make the seltzer water spray.

That would mean waterproofing the skin with some kind of lacquer after whatever taxidermy we’d have to do. I’d call my buddy Sal to get his help. He’s good with squirrels, which are about that size, and he’d probably know something about waterproofing the skins.

Then I realized we could use the burnt one, too. If the bones were still good, Sal could set up a skeleton display. It’d be better than that ridiculous fake “mermaid,” because it’d be scientific, too, since it’s real.

I felt all shaky installing the new casing because I was thinking how word of mouth would explode about this. Families lining up through the parking lot. And museum types too, when they caught wind of it. They’d beg us to sell these things to them. We’d say no until the price was right. And even then we might still say no, just because. How often do new things like this come out? Not very often, and it’s never something like this.

Stacy would drop off the kids for one of my weekends, and I’d escort the kids in right away and let them look as long as they wanted for free. But Stacy would have to pay her admission and stand in line like everyone else. She’d spend all that time seeing the excitement on everyone else’s face, so impatient to see.

I fantasized about her coming at the same time as the museum people, and I laughed. That’d be too perfect.

*

I took my penlight under the car to look around. Sure enough, I saw some bright colors between the pipes—another one. Then tangled in some cable—another! I hooted loud.

Toby came in and shouted when he saw them lined up on the workbench. “Holy shit, we got five of ’em?!”

“Shut up and help me with this.”

We raised the car on the lift and found three more in the wheel wells. Two of those three were useless, but we got more rags and lined them up on the bench anyway. All their shiny clothes were different colors like jewels.

I could imagine them rigged with mechanisms to balance on balls, swing from trapezes, somersault over each other. For fun we could throw in some of Sal’s squirrels and make the clowns hold whips and chairs like lion tamers.

Toby stayed the rest of his shift and helped me take the car apart. By morning he was asleep sitting against the wall, the car was just a shell on the lift, and there almost wasn’t room on the workbench to put any more of them.

I lowered it and lastly popped open the trunk. There was an old jack and a set of jumper cables. A hole was chewed through into the foam of the back seat. I lifted the trunk’s false floor, where instead of the spare tire there was another one with long blue hair, eyes closed. Its limp body was wrapped like a cat around a handful of tiny squealing clowns, each about the size of my thumb, blind in the light and struggling to suckle at the pom-poms on their mama’s jumpsuit.