She wants to meet the pig—snout down, paraded through the town square of sodden earth and
stump dimples, now trailed by serpentine line of freshly showered farmer with tomato noses and
breath prematurely soured from all that auctioneer talk.

In the dead of summer, while the whiptails hide in sagebrush shadows, and everything blisters in the amber heat and there ain’t nothin but buzzards hummin for miles around, a hanged man dances on a gallows pole.

They put the shock collar on the boy and that was it for the nanny. First they put the collar on one another. They were professors in English and Philosophy, all of them smart people.

and after and after and nothing changes, just the names of the children. This one drew birds wearing hats. That one had an orange juice popsicle for an imaginary friend.

I date Brodie while I’m visiting Seattle. He shares a draughty old house with a bunch of roommates, including a blue-naped parrot who lives in a big cage looking out at a treehouse.