We pressed our hands against the curtain, feeling for thick brushstrokes. We felt what we thought might’ve been bumps or streaks of paint, b

There’s dried blood on that branch

I slept at the counter with my head on the till. Each night, having failed to fill it, it filled my dreams instead

and the creaking creepy tree chiroo chiroo the night noise makes chiroo chiroo chiree

... a grotesque half-woman, half-coyote head, fixed onto the wax body of a woman.

bathe in the light of the absent moon

Otherwise they could have been just about anybody.

... an automated voice sternly shouts, “You have a new customer! You have a new customer!”

Can you see images of flames? Of a fiery horizon burning scarlet against a star-scattered void?

Everyone cried, I am sure, except for the boy, who stared, transfixed, into the box