Deborah F. was the first one to hear it, and since she was crazy we ignored her. The previous week she had accused us of stealing from her dog.
“Machine?” we said, looking at each other sidelong. “We didn’t hear anything.”
Then it woke Terry up in the middle of the night.
“Like a bear eating aluminum […]

He was the father of a childhood friend of mine, or more accurately a girl my age who lived on my street and played with me by default, as I did with her. He wasn’t around all the time; he and the girl’s mother were involved in a circuitous and seemingly endless journey toward divorce. […]

We keep our dead in caves, and visit them on Tuesdays, carrying rocks. The rocks are not offerings. They are to remind us how heavy it is to be dead, so that we will speak respectfully and not ask for too much. Things it is acceptable to ask for include rain, a good harvest, a […]