TransPlant
* * * "So she never got to finish it," Fran's best friend had told her. "Halfway through," the jackal had shaken her head. "They wrote the rest based on her notes," her best friend had gone on. "I hate that." "You do?" Fran had tilted her...
Crosswinds
'Housewives should make $115,000 a year.' \*\*\* "'But there are no pixies!' the housewife protested. 'There's no such thing as pixies!'" Fran's mom had told her this story more times than she could remember when she'd been a child. "'It was...
Spaced Out
When Fran had been a kid, she'd often stare out the window aimlessly while her mom would drive. "Come in, Huston." Every new building and landscape would become a new playground in which to let her mind wander. "Houston, we lost you." She probably...
Spare Parts
"Waste not, want not." [FLICK!] "[-'told me to be careful so the people who take the recycling out of the bags don't cut their hands on them,' the actress on the talk show had said, 'and it just hit me right then - how many of us even think of the...
Set In Stone
* * * * * * "What does she do, exactly?" Fran's best friend's story had been about a serial killer. "She never even touches them," the jackal's best friend had started. "She just talks to them. She learns everything about their lives, their...
Autopilot
'If work is so good for you, why don't the rich do more of it?' "Who said that?" "Some famous wolf writer I think," Fran's best friend had replied. "The same one who wrote AWOO." "I think that's AROO in fact," the jackal's roommate had chimed...
The Hand You're Dealt
"Forgetting someone is killing them twice." Fran had kept having a harder and harder time dealing with her best friend's coma alone, while her roommate had kept having a harder and harder time dealing with living in a graveyard full of dead...
The Hand That Feeds You
"Darling when the morning comes And I see the morning sun I wanna be the one with you..." (Grover Washington Jr, Just The Two Of Us) "Do you think..." It'd been hard for them to talk about, but they hadn't had anyone else to talk to. "Do you...
Dead To Me
"Got a little soul The world is a cold, cold place to be Want a little warmth But who's going to save a little warmth for me...?" (Vampire Weekend, Unbelievers) "Hey, Fran...?" Fran's best friend's voice had sounded shaky on the other end of the...
Scorched Earth
"À la claire fontaine m'en allai promener (I went for a walk to the clear blue fountain today) J'ai trouvé l'eau si belle que je m'y suis baignée (The water was so pretty I had to take a dip) Tu as le coeur à rire, moi, je l'ai à pleurer (Your heart...
Out Of Mind
"Where is my mind? Way out in the water See it swimmin'..." (The Pixies, Where Is My Mind?) It'd been one of those mornings on which Fran just hadn't felt like getting up at all. What good could come from it? She hadn't been able to picture...
The Master's Tools
"Evil begins when you begin to treat people as things." (Terry Pratchett) "So these robot masters," Fran's roommate had asked her as she'd been playing Mega Man, "they're supposed to have been built to do just this one job, right?" The jackal had...