LITTLE RED VESTKathy Sullivan groaned in tune with her car’s engine.Come on. Oh, come onnnn . . .Her hands tightened around the wheel while she pushed the Lexus to the nearest space on the side of the road. The vehicle barely squeezed in before sputtering its death rattle. Karen’s head banged against the wheel.A year and a half since my last vacation and the car dies on day one. Of course. Why not?She got out and slammed the door behind her. The ivory paint reminded her of the dealer’s bleached teeth.Like brand-new, ma’am. Full package. Very reliable. She banged a fist on the roof. Asshole!Kathy fished for the cell phone in her purse, praying AAA had someone close by.Just stay calm. You can get a cab to get you to the hotel. Big as this city is, there’s got to be a mechanic around who can get that piece of junk running again by the time this little trip is over.Realizing she would need to give the person who answered her call a location, she looked around, but nothing

JUMP CUTSEllen Harris sleepwalked through town. Reflex lifted her feet with the February drifts, the whiteout in her mind even more complete. Her slow pace through the snow on the ground offered up no sound to wake her from the daily trance while her subconscious gorged on winter scenery, storing the skeleton fingers of white trees for future dreams and nightmares.A truck sped by her, the spraying of snow under its tires breaking the spell chanted by the wind. Ellen wiped the moisture from her face.Was that ten minutes I’ve been walking? She squinted in search of a landmark. Twenty?Ellen hid her face deeper inside the collar of her coat and picked up her pace, desperately trying to return to the dead zone in her head. She strained to find the emptiness, but it was too late. The past coughed the dust from its lungs and whispered to her instead. A different void began to creep inside her, and this one didn’t offer the comfort of oblivion. She glared at the taillights disappearing

THE DECONSTRUCTIONISTAndy Harper drank in the world he’d wrought. The spires of massive skyscrapers pierced the clouds and gouged the ionosphere. Far below, the tangle of glass and steel stretched across the landscape. The streets that had once connected the buildings were no longer necessary. The roads had simply been swallowed up as the structures grew, the bulk of each tower melting into the next until all were united. Vacant, the rows of buildings stood sentry over what few patches of bare space remained below. All was silent until Andy’s mutter of disgust.It’s gone stale? Already?He waved his hand and let it all dissolve. As the structures had been built, they vanished, their outlines shimmering while the molecules composing them lost their solidity and came apart. Dozens of miles of metropolis were reduced to a vacant lot in a matter of seconds. Only a few places that held the essentials of life were allowed to remain behind. Andy sat and rested his narrow chin on his knuck