Refracted Neurons

Behind each set of glassy eyes is a darkness so complete that broken bottles glint like stars and you button your shirt to the top button, as if to beg, for the embrace of an atmosphere you cannot breathe outside of, and hold in terror those who float free from the tethers gasping as they rise into nothing. Adjust your tie and swat away the hands that tug at you, dazed eyes that search yours, a constellation of shattered glass, your own gravity is in peril.

Miss Viola Brolly surveyed the office with dismay.  The desk was nearly invisible under a mound of unsorted correspondence, a typewriter waved a single sheet of bond like a plea for mercy, and books were stacked everywhere.  Everywhere that is, except the bookshelves, and Brolly didn’t even want to know what was on those shelves.  Removing her coat, she hung it on one of the two coat racks.  Why such a small operation required two, was beyond her.  She pulled the advertisement from her smart patent bag, smoothing the edges of the newsprint. SECRETAR NEEDED TYPE STENO $3 JOHNS CO 1100 4TH FL STE D Brolly squinted at the frosted glass window. Had it really said “D?”  Perhaps she had gone into the wrong suite by mistake.  Perhaps there was a tidier and altogether less musty workplace that needed her skills. “Oh, hello.  I didn’t hear you come in,” the man wore a suit that ran short in the arms. “No doubt they’ve been turned a time or ...

I think you already know how this goes: I'm on vacation, driving down the road when suddenly I see it. "I wanna go there," I point at a cemetery. My husband laughs.  Here we are in Hawaii and this is what I want to do.  But come on, check out this cemetery: Don't blink. Whenever I visit a new cemetery, I always try to find some history on the grounds themselves.  With the exception of Comet Lodge, this is usually a fruitless task.  I even tried the County Assessor Office this time, but it doesn't seem to go far back enough in time. For some reason, I couldn't even find a sign, so I had to drop a pin on my location and do a web search.  The cemetery name is Saint Catherine's, and it's a little over a century old.  It was consecrated in 1887, and some of the stones are from that time frame.  It is still an active cemetery and there seems to be plenty of room for new stones.  As you may have guessed by the name, it is a Catholic cemeter...