Overseas flights like these were always on the big, two-aisle planes - and usually at waiting-list capacity - so the flight attendants worked in two crews to get to all ten seats in each row, back to front through the aircraft. Except for the few out of order, every seatback display showed the same recorded video of a smiling-but-stern, middle-aged woman in a stewardess’ skirt suit (a uniform none of the flight attendants had matched for decades), while her voice played out through the ove

The Director sat pitched forward on his worn-leather office chair, elbows on his knees. Unconsciously he tugged at his beard with the pad of his thumb and the edge of his finger; it wasn’t long enough to really pull or stroke. His leg jiggled beneath him. When his glasses slid past the bridge of his nose, his finger poked up to prop them back in place again.




Someone had seen to installing a second computer at his desk, de

The Director’s phone flashes on his desk

; it’s the main line

.

He keeps the

ringer permanently off, so

all he has to do is look to the windows or step away from his desk to keep it from distracting him.

In this case, though, if he doesn’t answer it, it will keep flashing

I like to walk in the middle of the day. Almost everyone else walks in the morning or the evening, so I have the big pathway that loops around the common area in the middle of the neighborhood to myself. The sidewalks around the big grassy area where kids play in the summer are wide, but the trails through the woody part get kind of narrow, and I’m the kind of guy who likes to exercise at my own pace without worrying about slowing down joggers if I don’t hear their, ‘On your le

The video opens by fading in from black, at first disorienting with glossy anti-shadows that turn out to be ambient reflections on a glass pane completely covering the field of view, and an oddly angled surface beyond that is an acoustic ceiling. The shadows of a slowly turning ceiling fan waver in the top corner.






Most importantly, though, off-center and mostly just an out-of-focus silhouette,

Laura yawned, covering her mouth before it
would seem rude. Too
rude, anyway; she didn't mind a little bit of impatience showing
through. The old lady at the counter in front of her went through her
change again, insistent on paying to the exact cent though she had
already put a big enough bill back in her wallet. It was the third
time she'd gone through her change. Her son, or grandson, or
whatever, was being annoying beside her.
It wasn't late at night - in fact it was
only 10 in the morning -

Sweat slithered through Maribelle's eyebrow, creeping close to her
eye where it would sting something terrible. She knew it from plenty
of experience. But her shoulder was already soaked through with
sweat, and her sleeve was dirty besides, and around those parts
they'd started using rags to patch their skirts where they wore
through, so there was nothing much to do but grimace, wink against
it, and keep working.
Sweat accumulated at the brim of her wide straw hat, a drop that
swung back and for

O-oh,
here she comes.Watch out boy, she’ll chew you
up!O-oh, here she comes.She’s
a maaaan-eater!
With confidently
clopping heels, she walked straight from the jukebox to my table and
sat herself down in the chair opposite me. I didn’t know her, but
I’d seen her sitting alone at the bar a few minutes earlier and
thought she was attractive enough, in a ‘milfy’ sort of way. No –
‘cougar’ was definitely the better word for her; there was
nothing motherly about her, and she had a h