[Estimated reading time: 4 minutes]

The elevator came to a stop and the doors opened into a dark-paneled lobby. There were two swinging doors on the other side. We walked through the doors and were faced with the Border Control. The guards smiled. Their semi-automatic rifles smiled, too.

There were three guards on duty so each of us walked toward one, chatted a bit, proved that we were ourselves to a minion of a government that knew where we were every moment of the day, and walked on through into the surface world.

The lobby past the guards contained half a dozen elevators. We piled into the first that showed up. All the buttons were lit up. Clarice pushed the button for the garage, then pushed the lobby button and the elevator lurched upwards.

We first stopped in the parking garage, a tinted car already waiting for Clarice, who slid into it and swung the door closed with a practiced motion, all done while the elevator was still irised open. Her handbag had a picture of Mickey on it and Clarice carried a Disney towel over her arm.

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[Estimated reading time: 3 minutes]

I met a cute boy on the train.

Taking the train back home from work, I was talking with my sister on Skype. She was in Chicago, an hour ahead, and had already started cooking dinner. She told me about her day as I watched her move around her kitchen, knives moving up and down, water boiling on the stove.

Christa had to go and we said our I love yous, when I looked down the train car and saw a cute boy I’d never seen before. He was reading an old paperback, black background and a familiar crest on top of it. I remembered the book and felt excitement at seeing this, the re-birth of the novel, happening right in front of me.

The boy looked to be in his late twenties, early thirties. He had on a plain gray jacket over a green sweater. A book in one hand, a small backpack behind his legs, he sat there and read for a while.

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