Once upon a time there lived a tiny crab. Peeking from his modest hole, he found himself inside a majestic sandcastle, complete with moat and turrets. “Behold!” he proclaimed. “The sand gods finally giveth me the riches I deserve and crowned me King Clawdius!” He ruled over the seashells with an iron claw—for thirteen glorious minutes. Then, as the sun hid its face below the horizon, the enemy launched its attack. The tid...

I seethed with repressed anger, waiting with my parents at the gate for Lufthansa flight FL401 to board. Scowling, thinking, I hate you, Mom, for agreeing to this. I hate you, Dad, for telling Mom, “It will be a good experience for her.” I hate you, Uncle Jack and Aunt Betty, for offering to host me for the summer. Thanks for f@#king my summer! I hate you all. Uncle Jack was Dad’s brother. A career U.S. Air Force officer,...

She rented the house for six weeks. It was small, just one bedroom and a screen porch, with ceiling fans that wobbled when they turned. There was a beach a few minutes’ walk away, but she rarely went. She preferred the quiet of the mornings — the hum of insects, the slow warming of the air, the way the early light filtered softly through the house’s porch screens, pale and golden, casting a mesh of shadow across the floor...

Twelve minutes. Why am I so nervous? Of course, I was nervous then, too… I joined the line at the Dickson Dining Hall with the other high school students taking special summer courses at Cornell, and stood behind a cute blonde girl. Deciding that I wouldn’t be the shy nobody I was in high school, I said “Hi!” She turned and broke into a smile. “Hi yourself! So, what are you in for?” “Special relativity and quantum mechani...

He showed up on a Monday, carrying a skateboard, a chipped thermos and a camera with no strap. Then, very seriously – as though we weren’t already standing on a sandpit of seagulls – he asked, “Where’s the beach?” I pointed over my shoulder at the waves shuffling up and down the shore like an indecisive waiter. “Just past the seaweed. If you reach your childhood memories, you’ve gone too far.” He blinked. “That’s oddly po...

At first glance, Edenmere appears to have leapt off the pages of one of Millie’s childhood storybooks. Adorable pastel-painted shoppes with quaint coffee cafes and bakeries nestled between them line the streets. Scents of cinnamon, spice, and even chocolate delight her nostrils as she strolls along the speckled cobblestoned walkway. Golden lampposts stand watch on every corner, twisted into whimsical shapes, no two alike....

Heron, as I’d grown used to calling him, folded eight paper cranes as a eulogy to his former self, every day before he did anything else. He’d been doing this for months, preparing for the first of a series of surgeries that would make him more himself. We lived in Cove Town, in those early years, back when I still liked to be called Reeds, just my natal surname but it was better than the given name that I had long since...

“Good morning, Lil. Big day for you today, isn't it?” Lillian Jackson smiled up from her bed at the young man in the white coat, who was holding a cup of tea. For five years, she had lived at the Castle View Rest Home, ever since she had fallen and broken her elbow and shoulder. Crippled with arthritis, she was no longer able to look after herself, and so, after much soul-searching, she and her son agreed that it was for...

Mia pressed her forehead to the car window, watching the city’s grey dissolve into the open sky. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d laughed, really laughed. Life had become a series of muted days: work, sleep, repeat. Even her friends’ voices had grown distant, muffled by exhaustion. She hoped the sea might remember who she used to be. Her phone buzzed with work emails and missed calls as she pulled up the sandy la...

As I sit here in the twilight of my life, I think back to the first love of my life. I was a kid and knew nothing of love or what it meant. Then it happened. Standing in the middle of a field of freshly mowed grass. The smell was intoxicating to me. I watched as the man emptied his bag full of grass and went on to the next field. I walked through the grass, and it stained my white shoes green. Then I stepped onto the dirt...

I took a hesitant step forward. “Are you Mama Poppina?” “Well, don’t yuh be shy; come closer!” Upon seeing me vacationing alone on the island, the cab driver, bellhop, and two fishermen insisted I find Mama Poppina. Who better than the locals to direct me, so I located her, running a cart of rotten fruit by the ocean. “Ya! I can tell yuh need some love in yuh life. Yuh insides are hollow. And mi fruits are magic!” Oh no....

They had forgotten how arduous this hiking trail could be, but for seasoned walkers Joan and Kevin, they somehow couldn’t help themselves. This wasn’t the most popular of routes, being as it was, one that segwayed off the more popular Pennine Way, and was quite rough in parts. It was also raining heavily, but there was no wind to push at them, and it wasn’t cold. Hills sloped upwards on either side, dotted with coarse shr...

The first bus into town filled up after three stops. The one nearest our house was the second, and it usually meant that the queue was large and messily scattered across the footpath. People chatted in groups, dotted incrementally in random patterns. They stood together in twos, not all of them couples, not all of them of mixed sex. Some, like me, preferred their own company and suffered the sympathetic nods of recognitio...

The town of Hazzard was a quiet place, the kind where everyone knew everyone. Or thought they did. The kind of place where the wind whispered secrets through the endless cornfields and the river carried the weight of unspoken truths. A place surrounded by beauty that belied the darkness that seeped from its soil. For me, growing up in Hazard was like living under a microscope, every glance a silent judgement, every whispe...

Every night at 3:33 a.m., she heard the familiar voice and laughter. “Come play.” She thought it was a recurring dream about her childhood memories filled with fireflies and sidewalk chalk. She sat up in bed and saw the loose floorboard jiggling to break free again. “Are you finally ready?” She pried open the board. She reached down into the darkness. A warm hand grasped hers. The world flipped. She was six again, barefoo...