Leira owned the Edge of the Universe. The café glimmered in the pocket of downtown between the clothing boutiques and the bowling alleys and none of the customers knew the accuracy of the name, or how close they meandered to the brink. 

The rose unfolded another petal across the Atlantic. Another wave of heat, killing all in its path. But she felt nothing from so far away. The space station elevator room ran a little chilly.

“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.”

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

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

We are made with laughter and bones.

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.

Evelyn was on the way to her big meeting with the department heads, but the box of kittens on the side of the road read ‘take what you can’ and what was a middle-aged woman to do? Leave them? 

​Of course the freaking not.