The universe was born in our absence. Once a baseball-sized cluster of concentrated energy, it grew into a sprawling neighborhood inhabited by mass and the four great forces. In an endless battle, matter and antimatter collided like mortal enemies to create presence, annihilating each other on contact. Matter won for no clear reason. We still don’t […]
When she walked into the restaurant a few months ago, she looked like she had just stepped out of a Rolling Stone ad. She was wearing skinny jeans, jump boots laced only half way up, a loose white T-shirt with some vague black logo, and dark-rimmed glasses. She wore a gray fedora tilted on her
Lorna woke up at noon, took a Lamictal for the first time in several days, and dragged herself into the bathroom, nervously wondering what she was about to see. She stared into the mirror and slowly ran her hand over her bald head. She had shaved it the night before in a manic fit because
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I walked into a Korean grocery store in Aptos to buy a beach towel. A leathery skinned man, probably in his 50s, was asking the woman behind the counter something about the sandwiches in the cooler. He wore a tight yellow bathing suit nestled between his spindly legs and bloated stomach, and he had a
Anatomically modern humans have been fighting nature for around 200,000 years. The idea of ending hunger might seem especially implausible given the challenges. For instance, one influential fraternity of theorists argues that life will always be an ugly struggle due to economic Darwinism. In this model, a few fortunates get a whole lot while the rest
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Steve Weber hadn’t stayed in touch with anyone from the little farm town he left as a teenager. The place was a static reminder of high school glory or failure, early marriage, divorce and custody battles, dead-end jobs, and not much else–the face of endurance masking a vortex of interior desperation. Forty-one years later, he