The clock maker finished his final piece, an hourglass that ran backward. As sand rose, so did memories of laughter, lost love, childhood sunrises. When the last grain lifted, there stood a boy with wonder in his eyes and sawdust on his palms. Time, it turned out, had missed him, too.
He touched her hand while reaching for the salt. The moment bloomed. Sweat behind knees, breath like static. Not love, not even want. Just hunger disguised as recognition. She thought of myth, of moths drawn to flame, of consequences uninvited. The salt stay between them, granular and innocent. Neither spoke.
Laughter filled the courtroom when a colorful sock puppet appeared in place of the judge. Attorneys were gobsmacked. The jury was, too. The defendant, a pedophile dressed in a clown suit, looked confident when the puppet’s bias toward funny costumes emerged in his instructions to the jury. An acquittal followed.
Billy, a scruffy terrier, embarked on an epic quest to find a mystical, enchanted bone rumored to grant eternal joy. Through muddy fields and dark alleys he roamed, overcoming obstacles and adversaries. At last, beneath a weathered bench, he found a dirty, slightly chewed, ordinary bone—definitely anticlimactic, yet curiously satisfying.