Lilija's hair was so fine that breezes blew it out and whisked a few strands into a kind of gold-in-the-sun halo. Graphic by Daina Klimanis.

A girl shoving in the opposite direction knocked Lilija's things out of her hands, and as they flew, the book hit the leg of the dark-haired guy who sat across the aisle from Lilija in chemistry. He bent down, picked up the things – the laptop and then the book with tissue-thin pages. He looked up and caught her gaze. His eyes were hazel.

"Why do you have this?" he asked.

Lilija caught her breath. She blushed quickly, surprised at herself.

"Not for a class, right?" His voice was mild. "You believe in this, right?"

She used her nod to look at the ground. Her voice had been lost somewhere in her surprise.

"Just wondering." He put the book, thick covers and gilt cross and tradition itself, into her hands. "You know," he said, "most people don't even carry them in print anymore."

Ecclesiastes (I) 3 pages

She wore a green coat and stood on the corner, her toes over the edge of the street.

"What?" I asked her, because traffic was heavy. Rocking back on her feet, she smiled fireflies. She wore a building's shadow like a shoulder sash and ice framed her hood.

"Springtime soon." She fluttered her hands. "Doesn't it feel good?"

Ecclesiastes (II) 2 pages

 Forgotten the silk scarves, the old fluttering steps – the young ones dance to sounds of cars crashing, their eyes wide from their highs and their hips twisting in the colors of the slicks on the ponds.

Nathia's Story 1 page

 From the end of a fishing pier she threw her soggy cone to the ducks, who ate it saying Mak Mak contentedly. Nathia and the ducks were good friends.

A Delicate Palate 1 page

In a suburb of London there lived an old woman with a most sensitive tongue. She never ate pepper – it made her eyes water. Salt and herbs were seasoning enough for her. But the woman could not purchase a saltshaker without a peppershaker, nor could she give away a peppershaker without its matching pair.

Gray Days 1 page

Those were the days when the gray of the pavement met the gray of the sky. Spring came but the birds didn't bother coming back, so the environmentalists frowned and told doom on cable news, and the old woman in the park wept like a child.

Bleached 15 pages

They had been elementary school friends, grown close after the teacher moved the quiet girls next to the troublemakers. Then it was years again before Dere saw her. She was standing by a locker in their high school, plaiting her hair. She no longer giggled – she laughed loud, her face shining and a new group of girls around her as she wove her same brown braids. She had been away at the parochial school, learning to pray and smile into mirrors and throw sleepover parties.

Meanwhile he had learned to drive and found he had very little to say.

Wastecan 2 pages

"Everything's been torn down..." The girl stepped into the bare-walled room with solemn temple-steps. "How could she have taken it all?"

Living-Room Dawn 2 pages  

She woke up It's morning? he had his palm to the window I fell asleep? his forehead to the glass Where did he sleep? The floor? his gaze fixed and faraway.