Beached in the middle of the desert, like a tremendous pink whale, was a convertible 1955 Cadillac. Steam billowed from under the hood. The thick white vapour was fading when Eddie pulled the stolen F250 to a stop on the roadside.

Eddie slapped a beat up Stetson on his head and jumped out of the truck, the desert heat like a blast furnace. George squeezed his bulk out the passenger door. His shirt was clinging to his back and ample stomach. Joining Eddie at the back of the Cadillac, he asked, “What do you think?”

Afterwards, Cat and Owl sat on a limb of the large cedar tree and shared a cigarette.

The air was still and smelled of small animals, damp grass and, of course, burning tobacco. Cat watched as Owl took a long puff and blew out a thick cloud of smoke.

"Warm night," Owl said.

"Yeah," Cat replied. He hated small talk. He'd never been very good at it. Tonight, he had more important things he wanted to say. "Owl?"

We hunted angels every summer for as long as I can remember, the last weekend of July filled with boastful talk of kills and wingspans. My brother and I camped down at the lake each year at a spot our father favored before he passed away. The angels migrated south toward the Gulf Coast in the late summer, and, without fail, we'd see several choirs wing by in formation overhead.

My brother insisted we take his son along on our last trip. I told him I didn't think it was a good idea, that maybe he should wait a few more years. Kids are different these days, more sensitive.

"The air is filled with people," said Heaven Rains.

"I'm sorry?" answered Mangala Norbu.

"People," she continued. "Bits of them. It's what makes your skin sizzle, your hair stand on end. Whizzing through space, filling your lungs, you're surrounded."

Mangala gazed out the microglass windows of the Svarga Pos monastary. It was snowing again. She pulled her soft cerulean robes tightly around herself, even though climate control was functioning perfectly, producing a flickering series of fire illusions. "Yes," she answered. "Everything is all part of the same. Water and earth. Wind. Humanity."

It was a Tuesday when Mr George Barraclough noticed a Nereid sitting on the banister of the Wool Exchange. He knew it was one because he had studied Ovid at Bingley Grammar School. He supposed it was rather pretty, but not in a way that was condusive to a morning’s trading in Swaledale and Romney Marsh.

“Do you mind not doing that?” he said, trying to keep his eyes on the Golden Jubilee window. The Nereid’s dress looked distinctly like underwear and he didn’t think Mrs Baraclough would approve.

It had been a good show despite everything that could have gone wrong. Farmer Bob and the rest of the Golden Sun Farm cast had taught a valuable lesson about sharing and Penelope the Dun Cow had managed to learn Peep’s song in time without dropping too many notes. He doubted that their young demographic noticed the nervous cow puppet fall out of tune. But there was no way they hadn’t missed Peep. The precocious chicken had been his partner on Golden Sun Farm ever since the beginning. Her absence was missed by every member of the cast, from the foam and felt puppets of the farm animals, to the wooden, hinged-jaw Mailman Pete. The stick-puppet mice and chicks in the barn missed her most of all, sometimes breaking down in tears during rehearsals.

They said in the corridors of the galaxy, if the galaxy had corridors, that no one could throw a birthday party as fine as Hermon Feyst.

Certainly no one did it as often. A thousand guests, magnificent food, outrageous ornaments, and the orchestra - such heavenly talent, especially that trumpet player who jumped on his chair in a magnifique solo at the end of ‘Happy Birthday’. One could of course argue that they got quite a lot of practice playing ‘Happy Birthday’. But then again, one could be accused of sour grapes. If you were the richest man in the universe, wouldn’t you want to celebrate your birthday every day?

“I don’t think you love me enough.”

Sure, it sounded innocent enough. But if Tag had known how much trouble that little phrase would start, how it would eventually twist not only his life, but his mind, into something unrecognizably mutilated, he would have laughed and shown the girl, cute as she might have been, to the door the second the words had left her mouth.

If he’d had just a little more backbone, things might have turned out differently. But then, before long it was Caira who was in charge of the stoutness of his backbone, anyway--along with almost everything else about him. It began with that one night together.

Skye turned the metal lock on the glass door even though there were five minutes left to closing time. Outside, the last red and orange streaked clouds faded to purplish-blue. He watched the coming storm through One Hour Photo’s big front window. Funny how something so beautiful could be so terrible, Skye thought. The weather said the storm would be the worst in years.

One Hour Photo occupied a concrete island in the parking lot of the Cherry Wood Shopping Center, a small strip mall in the outskirts of Albany, New York. Its window looked out on the road and the wooded undeveloped lots beyond. A Cineplex was to be built in the vacant lot, but until then One Hour Photo was an excellent place to watch the sun go down.

He had only wanted to prove himself, Chun-Jin thought. He had just wanted people to believe that he was a man, Knei-Gong especially. When he thought of his brother’s words, his ears still stung with them.

"You, little worm? You will never be a man. You are worse than a girl, just as pretty and twice as useless. You had better run for cover if the barbarians do attack. They will probably take you as a concubine for the khan. Or perhaps that is what you are hoping?"