“I don’t believe in ghosts. I don’t believe in ghosts.” Evers laughs at himself. In part because of how absurd it is to say that out loud. To feel compelled to remind himself he’s a rational person. Mostly though, he laughs because it calls to mind the Cowardly Lion’s timorous refrain: I do believe in spooks. I do believe in spooks. I do, I do, I do, I do, I do believe in spooks. “I don’t believe in spooks,” he says, trying on the impression. Then—as if to convince himself—he

Mona steps out the back door of the Hotdish Diner absolutely swimming in Carl the Line Cook’s coat and digs out his pack of smokes. She pats around the pockets and digs in her apron and looks up. Sticks her tongue out. It’s supposed to snow tonight. It was all anyone could talk about. All day long. Every trucker on every stool at the counter, every gaggle of bluehairs in every booth: Did you hear it’s supposed to snow tonight? Gonna get some snow, can you believe it? Oh, it’s

The Storyteller Strikes Back: The Return of the Great Storyteller to Polk County Local Author, Dwight L. Macpherson It all started with a Show and Tell session gone spectacularly off script. Five-year-old Dwight L. MacPherson marched to the front of his elementary school classroom ready to share his latest outdoor adventure—and share he did. But when his tale took a sudden left turn involving “a gorilla coming over to talk to his sisters and tell them how to get back home,” h

The widow swan had followed him. Tinker was sure of it. Forget the fact that birds didn’t do that. Stalk people. Hold grudges. Seek vengeance. They couldn’t do that. Birds had little gumball brains. It was an absurd idea to even consider, and yet, there it was. Waiting for him at the end of the little dock that swayed in the chop of the lake like a huge loose tooth. Three hundred miles from where he’d left it, honking and flapping around the lifeless pile of its partner. Tink

A Short Story by Jeremy Gardner For a hundred and eight years the Norman Hotel stood sentinel over the town of Barlow, like the gnomon at the center of an enormous, ominous sundial. Old-timers called it “The Bank” or “The Norm,” but to their children (most of them now in their forties and fifties) it had a number of more dismissive nicknames, “The Blight,” “The Thumb,” “The Tomb,” “The Eyesore,” and most derisively: “That Big Pile of Shit on Central.” Their grandparents would