Fiction

And the Word became flesh: coarse hair, crooked smile, the taste of salt on his clavicle. I am the disciple whom he loved.

I asked about the children we were to study: who were they, why were they to undergo the test, what was the purpose of our program? Though I also knew it wasn't any of my business.

I can't imagine where I'd be if they knew my version of what happened.

At first, it was just this hazy glow on the horizon, but then it got brighter and took on more of a definite shape. It was almost as if—it’s weird to say it, even now—it was looking for us.

It couldn’t happen without effort. Nothing happened without effort, except catastrophe.

You know what you want.

When her father died, her second thought was that now, she could build her stairs.

This is the first time in all eighteen years of her life that Grace has ever snuck out of her mother’s house.

Now that strangers have seen me naked, I can move on to worrying about getting into college or my inevitable death.