After approaching her, he mustered a polite smile and blinked twice.

  “Excuse me,” she said by way of introduction, gently fanning behind herself.

  19

  Reverence

  Because Jeremiah’s great-great-great-grandfather was not executed for treason after the Great War, his family spoke of the man as a hero for the next few generations to the point Jeremiah had hung a huge replica of the flag for this lost cause above his own mahogany mantle in deep reverence.

  20

  The Defaults of Our Imagination

  When Dorian gave his acceptance speech, he casually revealed the characters of his novel were African-American. He went on to point out the symbolism and signifyin’ the judges had failed to notice.

  Handing him his award, they struggled to mask their embarrassment that they had never truly understood his book.

  21

  A Party of One

  Sabrina spent her twenty-fifth birthday scrolling through her social media feeds, checking for birthday wishes from her friends and followers. Once she had responded to all of their messages, she posted a picture of her designer birthday cake, before tossing it in the trash and crying, alone, in her apartment.

  22

  Pliers and Fairies

  Unemployed and strapped for cash, Jake remained vigilant about getting the money for his daughter’s prom dress.

  When he woke the following morning to find several crisp one hundred-dollar bills beneath his pillow, he forced a smile and tried to ignore the throbbing in the clotted sockets of his gums.

  23

  Hunting Monsters

  Two unexpected things happened after Timmy killed the monster under his bed: (1) he ate it (and rather enjoyed it), and (2) he took to hunting the monsters under the beds of other neighborhood kids. After all, someone had to do it—and he’d already developed a rather insatiable appetite.

  24

  A Metamorphosis in Harlem

  On the morning after Kendrick read Kafka for the first time, he woke to find he had in fact turned into a giant cockroach. Shortly afterwards, his girlfriend, Patricia, unloaded an entire can of Raid on him, before proceeding to beat him to death with every shoe in her closet.

  25

  Nessie

  There is a large serpent that lies 700 feet down in the belly of the loch, tucked away in some dark crevice, its belly swollen, full with the many rumors of its existence. When it belches, the bubbles of our hopes rise through the darkness to rest at the surface.

  26

  A Fish Tale

  The observer told Jonah the thing that had swallowed him was a wels catfish.

  “Surely it was a whale,” Jonah said.

  “You were swallowed by a great fish, and a whale isn’t a fish.”

  Jonah considered this. “But they’ll still call it a whale.”

  “Perhaps. But it was a catfish.”

  27

  How to Train a Beast

  The first time the beast came to the village was by accident. He had simply lost his way. However, once he learned the townspeople were willing to feed him one of their own each year, gradually incorporating more festivities and rituals into his visits, the beast vowed to keep returning.

  28

  The Unpaid Debt

  The townspeople of Hamelin spent the afternoon fishing the bodies of 130 children from the Weser River. One by one, their bodies were pulled ashore, the mayor’s own son among the lot.

  “If only I had paid the pied piper,” he muttered—but that would have been a different tale.

  29

  A Necklace

  (After Guy de Maupassant)

  The diamond necklace Mrs. Taylor borrowed was either real or it wasn’t, but she wore it to the party, lost it, then lied about losing it, before purchasing a new necklace, which may or may not have been real, depending upon which author you ask, to return to her friend.

  30

  An Unexpected Gift

  The family had been starving all winter, so they were relieved when the siblings returned with a large hunk of smoked meat. Standing around the table, they blessed the food, then asked the two to come forward and carve the first pieces.

  “Hansel and Gretel, would you do the honors?”

  31

  Plan B

  The little girl used the last of her magic to cast a fog over the village, in hopes the soldiers would not discover them. As the undeterred men moved closer, though, she reluctantly turned loose the wild boars that tore through the mist, ravenously gnawing at ankles and drawing fire.

  32

  The Motive

  The North Pole Police found Jolly the Elf hiding underneath a snow-covered tarp behind the old toy factory.

  At the precinct they asked him repeatedly, “Why did you do it?”

  Looking down at his blood-stained crakows, Jolly finally said, “Why should he get to have all the milk and cookies?”

  33

  The Domesticated Getaway

  Gary leaped up through the brush, going as fast as his little legs could take him. If he were as wild as his cousins, he would’ve flown.

  The President only pardoned one turkey. For the rest of them, it was open season, and Gary had no plans of getting caught.

  34

  A New Year Without Grandma

  “Don’t forget,” Mom warned me.

  “I won’t.”

  Grandma Jo had been cremated and didn’t want a funeral. She’d only asked for us to toast her at midnight.

  Glass in hand, I accidentally dozed off, but the cacophony of fireworks woke me just in time to raise my glass in remembrance.

  35

  A Christmas Song

  Every time Will performed one of his Christmas concerts at the old club, he wondered about what had brought each audience member in that particular evening. Was it the music? Was it him? Or maybe it was just that they, too, longed to be connected to someone during the season.

  36

  The Magical Book

  Zora discovered that the book her grandmother had given her was a multiverse key. She went back and forth in time, altering history, trying to right wrongs, until she could no longer tell which reality was her own.

  In every version someone lost or won, but peace was always elusive.

  37

  And the Wheels of Time Keep Turning

  The old man continued to pedal on weary legs, his motion the only thing keeping the hands of the Great Clock moving. Slowly the tower door opened.

  A girl of no more than eight walked in.

  “You’re the Angel of Death?” he asked.

  “No. I have come to replace you.”

  38

  The Thing I Had to Do

  “I can’t believe you just did that.”

  “But you deserved it. You had to have seen it coming.”

  “That’s not the point. It was just so unnecessary.”

  “You pushed me into a corner. What would you have done?”

  “The same thing, I guess. Still you didn’t have to do it.”

  39

  Wraith

  On Halloween she revealed she was leaving him for another man.

  “I’ll stop eating,” he warned, hoping to stop her.

  She left anyway, so he stopped eating.

  Days later when she returned for the last of her things, he’d already wasted away, a wraith without the strength to haunt anyone.

  40

  You Can Never Leave

  The disheveled man sat on the corner, his worn guitar resting on his lap while he sang “Hotel California,” the raspiness of his voice pushing through the thick beard on his face. For a moment people stopped, mesmerized. When he finished, though, people continued on as if he’d never played.

  41

  Love Has No Limits

  Ben purchased the mathematics textbook at a yard sale. A high school dropout, he was amazed at how the numbers spoke to him. Geometry, Algebra, and Calculus—all in a year. Although he vowed to never remarry after his wife died, he hoped she would allow him this one love.

  42

  Stay

  He struggled to ignore the yelling outside his window, as he cradled the phone against his ear. Some of his constituents would hate him, he knew, but he now had doubts and didn’t want to have to explain himself to St. Peter.

  “Governor?” asked the correctional officer on the line.

  43

  The Mourner

  She’d been hired for that first funeral, just someone to mourn a poor soul who’d died without family or friends. After her own family began passing away, she started doing the funerals for free. Maybe if she did enough, she figured, someone might do the same for her one day.

  44

  Super Expectations

  Yvette had known she could fly weeks before she flew up to rescue the boy. It was like MJ and the Moonwalk. He had worked on the step for three years before he unveiled it at Motown 25.

  While her feat wowed everyone, Yvette was underwhelmed by her superhero debut.

  45

  Stone Wings

  Cynthia hadn’t noticed the striking similarity between herself and the statue of the angel in Dewald’s Cemetery. Her friends, though, made much of it, the way teenagers sometimes do, posting collages of Cynthia and the angel online.

  That night Cynthia dreamed she could flap her stone wings and fly away.

  46

  Hitchhikers

  Mother warned her about picking up hitchhikers on a full moon, but it was only when the man sat down that Amy understood why.

  Amy struggled to steer, as her claws grew. The man screamed, and Amy, now starving, snapped at the man as the car leaped into the darkness.

  47

  The Scarecrow

  Jerry fought the peer pressure from his friends to pelt the old scarecrow with miniature pumpkins they had stolen from Old Man Granger’s farmer’s market. That was why when Halloween night finally arrived and the battered scarecrow stepped down from its perch, Jerry was the only one who was spared.

  48

  Dancing in the Light

  Frank hated the idea, but a mother in his support group said it had been helpful.

  So he set it up in Jessica’s old room and attempted to steel himself.

  When they discovered Frank’s emaciated body, his frozen smile was still fixed on the flickering hologram of his daughter dancing.

  49

  Behind His Back

  Shortly after Greg woke to discover his vertebrae had permanently fused with his wife’s while they’d slept, he became curious if she had been complaining to her friends about him behind his back.

  When she awoke screaming, desperate to pull away from him, he smiled, realizing it didn’t matter anymore.

  50

  People Are Strange

  Shortly before the museum opened, the humans came out of their rooms and assumed their places behind each exhibit sign. The Venusians filed in one at a time to gawk at them. It wasn’t exactly a treaty, but this arrangement had, up till this point, managed to prevent interplanetary war.

  EXHIBITS CONTINUE THIS WAY

  51

  Fifty Words

  When Nia learned that her grandmother’s grandmother had been an enslaved woman who had made it her goal to learn to write fifty words—during a time when slaves could be put to death for reading or writing—she vowed to spend the rest of her life writing fifty-word stories.

  52

  Purple

  On their first date, she told him her favorite color was purple.

  He responded, “Mine, too!”

  Surely this meant something, they thought, staring at each other.

  Neither had dated in over a year, so, silently, they agreed to let their love of purple be suitable grounds for a second date.

  53

  The Midnight Dance

  In the pitch-black darkness of the woods, long, slender trees danced, their branches interlocking like fingers, as they moved the earth with their roots, pushing and pulling the land like a DJ scratching a record.

  The townspeople claimed the woods were haunted, but they were wrong. The woods were happy.

  54

  The Monster Inside

  When the zombie apocalypse arrived, Jack was trapped inside a bookstore, staring at the manager, even though she’d once told him she would only date him if he were the last man on earth. As the undead clawed at the windows from outside, a dark smile formed upon Jack’s lips.

  55

  Witness

  Titus wanted his father to be proud of him, so he tagged along. He’d heard of lynchings before, but had never seen one.

  When he returned home later that night, he could still hear the man’s screams, and he knew those screams would haunt him until the day he died.

  56

  PDA (Public Display of Anger)

  The woman stood outside the cell phone store screaming obscenities and shaking her ponytail back and forth, as if she were fighting with herself, but then I caught glimpse of her AirPods. I thought that would have made me feel more comfortable about her public display—but somehow it didn’t.

  57

  Limited Edition

  It didn’t matter that I’d waited in line all night and saved for months to buy them.

  “Run those kicks!” the kid repeated, waving his gun.

  I could hear Mom’s voice in my head: “No shoe is worth your life.”

  So I stepped out of them onto the cool pavement.

  58

  Break-Up/Break-Down

  The crude handlebar mustache appeared on Evan’s face after Lane drew on the old funhouse photo with a marker. He begged her to stop, even apologized for cheating, but his apologies couldn’t mend her broken heart.

  She crumpled the picture and tossed Evan into the trash on the way out.

  59

  Beware

  Word had spread to all the mischievous kids in the subdivision that Mr. Hanks had a sign on his back fence that read “Beware of Cassowary.” Although none of them had seen one, beyond Google images, they decided right then to stick with houses that only had dogs guarding them.

  60

  The End

  The alien discovery divided the town: they wanted to eat it or screw it or deify it or kill it just to see what would happen. What they didn’t know was that it was a scout sent to determine if humans should be annihilated, and that they’d failed the test.

  61

  Our Children Are Geniuses

  The Morrises took pictures of Little Josh’s popsicle splatterings on the summer pavement and placed them on the refrigerator. When visitors came over, the Morrisons would say, “Looks like a Jackson Pollock, right?”

 

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