The rain came down like daggers and Mulley cowered with Jen and the little guy Trent in the shadows under the overpass. Trent got the strange wooden box running, cranking the iron handle with his stubby arms. He watched for the electric charges to start bouncing around. “Maybe they already came down,” said Jen. “Hope not,” said Trent, cranking away, the box creating a racket with its squeaking gears and its buzzing. Mulley stared up at the raindrops as they showered down, sparkling from the streetlight. Jen and Trent watched the box. They heard a distant dog barking furiously.

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Billy shaved with a kitchen knife which he had made so sharp it was effortless. The TV blasted from the other room- men with authoritative voices hawking everything and women singing about it. The picture was black and white and hard to make out on account of the broken antennae but he kept it on just for the white noise. Next door his ex-girlfriend and the manager of the hardware store were getting it on and he didn’t want to be forced to listen.

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Shelves and shelves of ceramic pots and vases and clay mugs with fat handles lined the walls of the pottery class. Brokenhearted, Beth stayed long after everyone else had left, spinning the clay at the wheel, pulling the loose clay as it spun to form the bottom of a teapot. Her hair was in a pony-tail and her apron was covered with dry powdery clay from where it had splattered. She cried and cried, tears falling into the teapot as it spun, mixing with the wet clay.

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