Quiver full of bullet tipped arrows. The bow of aluminum my dad made in high school. I step into the sunlight on the south side of the house. I'm 12. I don't know why I pull the bowstring back to my eye, aim upward, and loose. Straight above my head. And the voice said,    "You are a most common creature, though of a peculiar people." The Sun glints off the arrow's shaft. I shade my eyes and wonder how long before the arrow hits me. How long before I step aside. How long to decipher a riddle from a lipless voice. Now I'm 16. These days, I fire two arrows above my head. Wondering. Hoping. Bring back that voice. One arrow. Two seconds la

HOW TO CREATE A HAUNTED TREE 1.  Marry someone you don't love. If you are already in a loveless marriage, you can skip this step. 2. Bring up the subject of moving with your spouse. Prepare a list or reasons you want to move. Pick someplace very far away, ideally in another country. Be firm but not impatient, do not seem over eager. Tie up any loose ends, ship possessions ahead and be ready to leave at a moment's notice. Expect this step to take some time. 3. Create a garden in the backyard. Mention to your spouse how relaxing gardening is, and point out that it will raise the value of your home. If you do not have a yard, locate a s

Janice didn't rush towards the dome wall. She limped as fast as she could, shifting weight to her good foot, painfully moving forward. She splayed her hands on the transparent wall and gazed at the growing crack. I realized I was holding my breath - everyone was - but I relaxed when the crack stopped growing. Janice sighed, lowered her head and just stood there, hands still on the wall, her silhouette framed by the red sand outside. I wanted to get up from the gray grass, to tell Janice it was all going to be okay. I wanted to tell her it was just a surface crack and that I would fix it in the morning, before I did my rounds checking the ai

If you can't rush, run. Spill out of yourself and down the street for spring has come. It's a riot, a full helter-skelter of blossoms and hope, a firework out in the quiet. The long lope of winter slows for it. Autumn trembles below it. A great green goddess is pushing up the horizon and they have to run to keep up or fall. Spring is tossing us between her two hands like a ball. Up and catch and never stop us, never drop us. She knows her game. It's to get every one of us chanting her name. And I'm the same. I want to be your Spring, the queer wild thing that startles you out of your bed with flowers. I want to turn your minutes into hours in