Hell is the absence of God. That spark of light and hope and decency dies. Summer camp tries to survive. Mused by Phil. See full story notes in "Ideas-At Bat" file.

They gathered in the ruin of the old temple, pulling along folding seats and card tables, carting coolers of food and beverages, hauling blankets and wind-up radios. They didn't know why. They didn't know how it would help. But they believed that choice they'd heard in their heads, the quiet one that just said, "Go to the old holy sites and you ( Read more... )

The pruning was overdue and the garden was thick and wild, tangles of thorns and vines wrapping around the fruit trees, weeds crowding out the tulips, peonies rotting over the delicate violets planted at their base. It had been three years since she'd stepped outside her house, and she had not minded the decaying, wild overgrowth. She had rather ( Read more... )

The panic began when people woke up and looked out their windows and saw that there was no sun. At first, maybe they thought that they'd just set their alarm wrong, so they stumbled downstairs and squinted at the other clocks in their house. Then they started feeling nervous. Maybe they turned on the TV, or the radio. When they couldn't get any ( Read more... )

It was the end of the world and we were fighting over whose sweater it had been originally. Of course, we didn't know it was the end of the world. Nobody did. We all thought it was just another storm, and they'd gotten worse and worse from our childhood, so even when the power blinked out, we didn't think much of it. We had our hand-crank radio and ( Read more... )

( Read more... )