Nasty Storms & Sacred Animals

Putting the table of contents on the cover of the magazine instead of an airbrushed model does not increase sales, the report said. It took Tracy all of twelve minutes to make it a first amendment issue. He also suddenly began to remember all the people who had eagerly "friended" him on Facebook when he first logged on who have now, roughly six months later, apparently "unfriended" him. Instead of thinking of it as some sort of negative review of his life, Tracy just got mad.

When his alarm didn't go off, Mr. Unlucky woke up anyway. It hadn't stopped raining since the early evening, when he had watched lightning moving slowly across the horizon, not coming anywhere near him. He could tell, he counted the elapsed time between the bright bolt & the approaching rumble. Then he couldn't get to sleep for a while, wondering what happened to the birds when the sky was full of water.

Kirk was missing a riot grrl-friend he had had in the early nineties. She convinced him to get his first & only tattoo, of which he was still a little embarrassed. If it weren't below his right shoulder, on his back, where he might be able to see it most of the time, he might think of it as something by which he could remember her. Now he couldn't really place her face. He wondered if she still had her record collection, or if she still bleached her hair, the better to dye it purple or red or green.

Why would I be so uncomfortable with my brother's children - neither of which were older than three - running around the backyard naked? Gene had to look away, even when the youngest raised her arms & said something that could have been "Uncle Gene" or "gum machine." This culture sucks, he thought to himself, I am more afraid of being a suspected pedophile than I am willing to be a good uncle. Is there something I can tell my brother? What about my sister-in-law? They both seem so tired & they're letting themselves go. The kids may as well be insane or lost.