Every autumn, the billions of maple trees turned the entire surface of the 27^th moon a vibrant red. It had happened every year since the settlers of New Earth had landed 362 years ago. Except, this year, Tiradel’s trees had no leaves.

It's the loudest on windy days. In the spring, when the temperatures swing in Nebraska from 34 to 80 in a day, the wind gusts roar up 50 mph. On those days, the fan squeals like a newborn tyrannosaurus rex. 

Every day, Niska climbed the rope ladder into the harbor of the sky to watch the cloud boats sail.

Luce wiped sweat from her eyes. Her knees hurt from kneeling on the skyroof, nailing shingles where the clouds had fallen through.

Nimia pulled her body along the underground tunnel with her muscled arms, one grip at a time. She passed the pods where other Pullers, like herself, worked, their hands plugged into the company interface.

She could see the ones that had come before her, and after, that had perched in the chair in the waiting room of the auto dealer shop. They superimposed over her body like layers of frosting on a cake, a finger here, a curly bit of hair there.

What if all the stars worked a 9-5 with-
out healthcare or matching 401(k)s?
Would they shine so bright or
their long light arms reach Earth?

The purring rumbles throughout the cathedral room. It is loud, but not the horrible, bright kind of loud that bars or doctor’s offices have. This is a cozy loud.

Katie had always known the time, down to the second.

“Can you believe it?” Est-L’s wife, Nen-L, twirled and pointed at her microscope. “There’s even smaller things called planets! They orbit those tiny stars!”

“I was a Russian code breaker in ’73,” Merina said. “You think dog is hard to figure out? You’ve been barking for 45 minutes.”

When Lissa drove the long stretch to work from Omaha to Lincoln the past few days, her iMind just fuzzed out, like a TV station gone staticky.

Kodi had always known the distance between himself and the nearest pie.

Why do people ask, “When will you bloom?” 

The chainsaws do not stop.

Perhaps they can’t. Maybe hell contracted them to torture me, otherwise I might enjoy an average purgatory week working from home with just the yappy dogs next door to superimpose irritation.

The number creatures—the Ints—wiggled on her screen, wringing their serifs, and shuffling in the small spaces between themselves. Deana knew how they felt.

Catherine didn’t much care for her job. It wasn’t that the squirrels gave her any lip. They had dental plans, 401Ks, and the whole caboodle after all. The Sound, though, that gave her the shudders.