Jasmine imagined herself as the director of Star Glance, a female icon among all the male Silicon Valley male billionaires. She saw herself on Forbes lists of powerful people. She saw herself moving out of her condo and into an Atherton mansion. She imagined beating the other space programs to go to the Moon, or Mars, or establish regular and commercial rides into space. Jasmine wanted the celebrity that Mr. Ramos had, and she believed she deserved it, too.

Jerry was a car salesman in Cleveland, Tennessee. His wife LouAnn had left him over a year ago. Though she had been fairly conservative when they got married, she didn’t like Donald Trump very much while Jerry had fully hopped aboard the Trump Train. As Jerry fell in love with the MAGA movement, and later the QAnon movement as well, LouAnn didn’t really approve.

Even though he’d seen this thousands and thousands of times, it was still fun to watch sometimes, so he didn’t skip through it. The login window popped up after about 30 seconds while a banner displayed across the whole screen with the question, “Are you ready to join us?” His heart raced from the excitement, the nicotine, and the Monster as he typed in his login info. This is where he truly felt at home.

In front of the video camera and the microphone, was a veritable smorgasbord of food set across a dark black table, meant to contrast with the colors of the food against the white background of the room. The afternoon light was pouring through a giant window, and a floor lamp sat in the other corner. No overhead lighting anywhere: the ideal scenario for recording.

The darkness of the mountain above her was still, a kind of stillness that felt like it was following you until you looked. The same way as ghosts move. As Susanna crept towards the tiny cabin from the tree-line, she thought how had never so much as been in a fistfight before. The worst it’d ever come to was a scuffle with her cousin or brother, but momma never let it escalate. So it came as quite a shock to her how easy it was for her to sneak through the open window.

He led me down the hallway, passing by half-open doors leading to his baby girl’s room, empty and darkened from the lack of her presence. If I had not been there, emptiness would have consumed the entire house. On Joey’s bed, unmade on one side only, lay a pile of gorgeous lingerie. Lace, silk, harnessed, dresses, bras, specialty underwear. More than I owned, certainly. Most of it was black. In a chair in the corner were her other clothes, set up more neatly, all still attached to their hangers. My eyes were drawn primarily in the direction of the normal, business-casual attire fit for a mom and a professional. He saw me staring at them, and said, “Ah, those ones are getting donated tomorrow. She wouldn’t have wanted me to keep stuff that we can’t use.

Benjamin was miserable. He lay on the couch trying to will himself to stand back up and go to bed and spend one last night with his girlfriend who would be gone for months. The past months with her had been the happiest of his life, and now that was slipping away. He tried to stand back up, but felt too woozy and fell backwards onto the cushions. Oralee eventually came out of the bathroom and slept beside him on the couch. In the morning, she left.