His was a higher calling, the unrelenting drive to solve the crossword puzzle of reality. He was characterized by disillusionment, a clear-eyed inspection and dismissal of the aspects of life that ultimately didn’t matter. A smelting of excess dross down to a heart of the purest precious metal. He had an uncompromising prioritization of himself … Continue reading On Martin Jacobsen →

His heart was made for the open road, a testament to a time when brave folks crossed vast wildernesses with no promise of refuge on the other side. I often passed him on some forgotten highway or other, the black tarmac stretching toward the horizon in either direction. Empty countryside all around. He'd be cruising … Continue reading On Justin “Chunk” Lake →

You could say she was the glue that held things together, because she had a way of seeing which folks belonged where and setting them in their rightful places. Which was to say, connecting them to each other and keeping them that way. But glue can dissolve and hers was a more permanent effect than … Continue reading On Rose Phillips →

Just as a skeleton supports the human frame, she was the scaffolding upon which her life was built. All steel and all bone. If she could believe in nothing else, she could put faith in herself, for she was made with the strength to withstand the northern sea. An island, upon which she grew a … Continue reading On Natasha Hanson →

She was a song I had heard long ago, one to which I remembered the tune, but not the words. A hazy recollection of sharp afternoon sunlight slanting across the stage where she sat cross-legged, body wrapped around an acoustic guitar. Fingers strumming the strings, gaze directed inward. We the audience might have been watching … Continue reading On Rebekah Cannon →

She forever had her arms stretched upward toward the clouds overhead, eyes on the sky and questions on her lips. It was clear she was meant to be born with wings, because were it not for gravity, she would have taken flight and never landed again, soaring through storm and sunshine. An outline surrounded her … Continue reading On Jennifer Archer →

A mysterious figure walked a wild forest path ahead of me; she had for as long as I could remember. Sedate patience was in her step, quiet, so quiet upon soft dirt. She did not forge her way forward so much as request safe passage; before her feet, the foliage shifted aside to let her … Continue reading On Micah Baker →

This is a true story of an almost-assassination: mine. When I was just setting out on my journey, I apprenticed myself to a professional king-killer. For someone purported to move unseen in the shadows, she had a glamorous air about her. But since she used the same black ink for a weapon that I did, … Continue reading On Deborah Elliott-Upton →

Before I met her, she was something of a ghost. I would sometimes get mail to my department at work addressed to her, but I, in my position as the center of the company’s neural network, knew that no one by her name worked there. So I shrugged and disposed of it. But then one … Continue reading On Nydia Brandstatt →