They were in the bedroom that was his when he was young. “I used to smoke cigarettes in here.” He told her. She had not met him until much later in his life, but she had seen pictures of him as a child: his brown bowl cut and gap-toothed smile and bony knees making him…

She walked onto the train in heeled boots and a trench coat, belted up. Her eyes covered by sunglasses, her mouth and nose covered by a mask, her ears covered by headphones, her head covered by a beret. She reached out a gloved hand and gripped the pole. He was sitting next to the pole…

Sometimes she walked alone on streets and night and got nervous she was being followed. Maybe it was a sound or the way someone on the train looked at her. And when she started to fear for her life she started to think about how they would find her, splayed out on the sidewalk with…

She was not happy so she walked out of her house and kept walking until she realized she was hungry. There was a Korean restaurant across the street from where she stood and she remembered she had liked Korean when they had eaten it together. So she went in and ordered the steaming stone pot.…

The man has a knot in the drawstring of his pants. He does not notice it right away. As he walks, his pants start to sag. He pulls them up when he gets to the street corner, thinking he will use the time it takes for the light to change to tighten his pants. This…

They are putting up a new building right next to where the train I take to work exits the elevated station. At first, unaccustomed to there being anything there, I find myself frightened that we are about to hit the foreign structure when it suddenly appears. But we never do. Now though, I am prepared…

I struggle with being helpful during natural disasters. I could give money. and sometimes I do, but I know what I am able to give is scant compared to what is needed. What I like to do instead, and what I think is more helpful, is to study the pictures in the news. (If I…