11: Time Travel

Elliot says he will never love you.
“Then I’ll build a time machine,” you reply.
He looks confused.
“I’ll go back to the day we met, and demand, at gunpoint, that you leave me alone.”
“I’ll call the police,” Elliot says.
“Then I’ll travel to the future and fix the trial.”
He frowns. “Time travel is impossible.”
“Then how can you know the future?”
“I don’t. But what if I’m right?”
“Then I’ll build a time machine,” you say.
“Impossible,” he says again.
“Like loving me.”
“I don’t want to hurt you,” Elliot says.
You smile. “Then build me a time machine.”

10: The Woman Who Overheard Her Upstairs Neighbors Making Love

She should speak to them. She knows they are young and in love and not aware that she overhears their most intimate moments. And she knows how it might look, coming from her, old and alone. But she needs sleep. She knows, when you are young and in love, it's easy to forget that there is a world that includes old women who no man has ever loved. She believes that people are good at their cores, but she knows, too, that people are selfish. She is selfish. She knows she would embarrass them, out of bitterness. She shouldn’t speak to them.

9: Torpor

It came from up North, moved slower than the sun, and hung like a canopy over supermarkets, schools, churches and billboards. Descending on tiny Gahanna, Ohio, it engulfed housing developments named for things torn down: Old Orchard or Emerald Hills. At Easton Town Centre, shoppers outside Pottery Barn leaned against the storefront and sighed until their breath misted circles on the glass. Even the fountain wilted to a trickle. When it reached Commerce Parkway and slid through the shimmering windows of my office building, Cindy dropped her phone mid-sentence. Mark lolled in his chair. And I couldn’t tell you where I was.