Spring 2002  
Enrique Bakemeyer: Isabella at War Her ears were especially vigilant this day. Every distant rustling tree, every shift of the air made her shiver. So when Isabella thought she heard a hum in the air, she froze and inhaled deeply. If only she could quiet the rushing blood in her ears. The day's silence had only been broken by her tools in the dirt and the breath that left her. That silence was distinct; she listened for it. She exhaled slowly, and the hum rose above the hiss of her own measured gasp. It lingered like a wind she could hear but not feel.

Then it was louder. Isabella looked up and there it was. Just a speck with two wings, nothing else in the sky. She looked to her house, only forty feet away at best, but she was so fatigued it might have been a mile. Another few seconds and she could see the cockpit, the engines, the nose. So close already. If it saw her and realized this small mountain village was indeed inhabited, they were done for. They were the enemy.

Julie Benesh: The Metrics of Spirit I wondered, what was the point of a Higher Power who is so stubbornly literal minded? Because I wanted a guy too, even though I technically had a boyfriend already. Gordon was solid and substantial, a stabilizing influence after my divorce. I'd made a prudent investment, but our partnership was limited - spirit could not be measured like net worth. There were 400 male colleagues registered for this conference, and maybe one was better suited to me. Even if not, I could wait; I'd given myself a six-month time frame to tone up in body, mind and spirit.
Michael Fessler: The Flow of Information Hashimoto cracked his chop-sticks, and it sounded like my career bifurcating. He picked his way ominously through the vegetables, fish, and other selections in his box. Smeltz chattered on, waving his chopsticks in the air. A small pellet of rice had attached itself to his nether lip. Up and down it went. "It appears that the pickles in my bento box are changing color," he said, peering at one of the compartments. "Better eat fast," I advised. "Trying to hasten my departure, are we, Mr. Stark? I take it you don't enjoy my lunch-time serenades." "Pluck on."
Karen Gilbert: Firebird "Here in the shelter were those who treated everything as priceless - coat, cup, even old newspapers were folded, hung up and cared for as if made of silk. There were others for whom material goods would never again hold value - a comb was a comb was a comb - an object with some use value, and if no comb was available a fork would do. "Thus did people respond to the loss of everything that they held dear, and the women could see, by the way Irina let her coat drop onto the chair, sliding down so that one arm lay on the floor, cleanly swept and washed though it was, that she was one of the latter. They knew she was not one whom the pain of loss propelled into the love of objects, but one sent in another direction not yet revealed to them; the love of people, or of food, or of God; or not love but hatred, hatred of people, or a place, a God. Irina herself did not yet know."
Jack Granath: Letters to Celeste Dear Celeste - the night! The slaughter of it, stars like blood from the throats of desperate lovers in half public places, clenched fist of the young man willing to trade his life for a guarantee on the next minute and a half, the night! Gaunt streetlights and their shadows, like pegs where we hang our awful jackets when we drop down for the match that will determine our survival. And what of it if, in the course of battle, your hand slips and I cry out your name and my ribs go clattering down an empty staircase to land in a once busy street? What if, naked and enraged, I turn on you then, with all the strength of that wonderful loss? The night! Who survives it? Who cares! Or rather: I pray to the axe-bearing god it not be me!
Karen J. Greenberg: Voodoo Girl For several elongated minutes, Susan held her breath. The bushes were still as well. Quietly, she removed the brown bag from the back seat, closed the door with a gentle push and walked towards the door. Something was not right. She looked to the right of the front door where the potted geraniums hid the spare key. Nothing had moved. She looked to the left where the picket gate to the back yard lay securely fastened. As she turned her glance back to the front door, she saw it. Lying there, on the other side of the white fence, a limb. She could see it clearly if she squinted against the late afternoon sun. If she had called Sam earlier this week, and not let the grass grow so long, she would have seen it sooner. Peeking out from under the foundation of the side porch, it was a young woman's slender arm. The forearm, mostly. There was no blood to be seen from this distance, but she could smell it. The raunchy but vital odor of old blood. This limb and the body attached to it had not just appeared during her outing. It must have been there before. She must have missed it. She must have let her guard down for a moment.
Jim Nisbet: Skylark Spring came early to the Rockies that year. And so, the viable slopes at higher elevations being crowded, I accelerated the conversion from arctic to temperate, wandering west and south from Leadville. I skied frosty mornings on obscure mountains until the snow turned to slush, then traveled on. Nearly every afternoon I was able to discover an isolated campsite sufficiently hospitable for a brilliant hour in the lawn chair with a cup of green tea, brewed on the tailgate, and a tranquil foray into a long-gone Japan. Though emerged from its winter hibernation less than a week, Zion National Park, too, teemed with a variation of the species cluttering the ski resorts. If the Chinese poets of a thousand years ago had a word for the "noise of civilization beyond the hedge," what would they have made of the racket beyond the tin wall of a camper shell? Even the prescribed ratio of a well known agorafuge - one can of beer to one shot of tequila, repeat as necessary - failed to ameliorate the reality that, by their--our-presence, people had imposed a new order of desolation upon what should have been a desolate wonderland. Forced to spend a night shoulder to shoulder with my fellow bipeds, and to pay for the privilege into the bargain, I forsook the fat novel for an hour of tactics and determined that, save its road, the isolated eastern access to Zion appeared bereft of any hint of civilization: which then as now, in southwestern Utah, proffered solace.
Harriet Rohmer: The Last of the Refuge Cities Originally there were six refuge cities, but I only remember the last one. That's where my Auntie Tillie, the seamstress, met her husband Solomon, who worked in gold.

They were both recent inmates of the city when they were introduced to each other by the Jewish chaplain. Each had murdered their previous spouse unintentionally, in the midst of a minor domestic quibble. In the case of Auntie Tillie, a tiny, well organized person who kept her work space neat as a pin, she felt it necessary to puncture her previous husband with her seam ripper after he had deliberately mislaid an underarm insert for a customer's plum velour jacket. He had only wanted her attention, poor man. She hadn't really meant to do it. But now that the gory part was over and the law was on her tail, she fled to the last refuge city and was admitted on the spot.

Edward Wahl: Invictus We had walked to the ball field, so we went along in their ancient car. He apologized for its condition: "Dora drives with her eyes sealed," he said, "so there's no economic sense in buying a new car. In two weeks it would look like this." He was matter of fact, undisturbed. The house was perched on the edge of a deep gully. To reach the front door required a substantial climb ... ten steps to a landing and at least twenty more to the top. I wondered they managed their groceries or the morning newspaper, but the Wilpons seemed oblivious to the steep ascent. Dora led us to a long veranda overlooking the ravine, yards above tree height. Mei Ping drew in her breath. I stood, my eyes moving slowly, as you track a soaring hawk, letting them travel from south to north, taking it all in. We had an uninterrupted western vista, the top of a eucalyptus forest. We were dazzled into silence.
Laura Weddle: Abner and Eva "Little hussy bitch," Thelma hissed and started back up the aisle toward her piano. She hadn't meant to say it out loud and didn't know she had until she heard a gasp from the back of the church. Ben Taylor and Dr. George stared at her, their faces red with shocked embarrassment. "What did you say, Sister Kirby?" Spencer Grimes gasped. Thelma's heart gave a lurch and her hand flew to her chest. She stared back at the deacons. Her mouth opened and closed repeatedly like an old turkey hen with a kernel of dry corn stuck in its craw. "Why I didn't say nothing," she said. Tears of panic and rage made tiny rivulets down her powdered cheeks. She swiped at them and rubbed her hand on her collar, leaving a long brown smear.