Scenarios

Your doctoral defense was postponed at the last moment because a committee member walked out, and you have found them on the fire escape, looking guilty. They say the work is good. They say the problem is what it...

There is an all-night diner where the owner lets certain regulars sleep in the back booth, and tonight you are one of them. The person washing dishes was in that booth last winter. They have poured you a coffee, pulled...

You have a recipe card in handwriting you would know anywhere, and half the measurements are missing because the person who wrote it never needed them. Someone who cooks better than you has offered their kitchen and...

You are walking a city with a secondhand guidebook, slowly realizing the notes in the margins are in the handwriting of someone you loved and lost touch with. On the last page there is a cafe circled twice, and a time....

It is the winter of 1916 and the fighting has stopped for the night. Someone from the other side of the line has left a letter tied to a stake in the mud between you, in careful handwriting, asking a question about...

You fell asleep on the overnight train and woke with a stranger's coat over you and a photograph in its pocket. It shows you, tonight, on a platform you have not reached yet. The person who owns the coat is two seats...

In this city you can borrow a memory the way you borrow a book, for seven days, and then it goes back on the shelf. You have just checked one out that belonged to the person now standing beside you in the stacks. They...