Category: STORY

The concrete corridor beneath the grandstand smelled of damp straw, fryer grease, and seventy years of tractor exhaust.

Emma had saved the red fruit snack for last.

The parents near the cedar mulch had already gathered their strollers, speaking in hushed cadences that signaled an adult’s discomfort.

Emma slipped from my hand before I could catch the back of her pink jacket.

I called her name the second her sneakers hit the wood chips, but five-year-old Emma was already gone, drawn by something only a child’s radar could catch.

The other mothers had already gathered their strollers and steered their toddlers toward the parking lot, unsettled by the sheer physical mass of the man crying on the bench.

The storm ferry pitched across the dark swell of Penobscot Bay, shuddering every time green water smashed the forward vehicle deck.

The sub-zero gale screamed against the reinforced plate glass of High Pass Transit Station, but inside the locked VIP lounge, the only sound that mattered was the frantic wail of four-month-old Clara.

The diesel heater in the Point Judith ferry terminal sputtered against the gale, rattling the corrugated walls with a bone-deep tremor.