A Mantis Death

    In winter we forget about bugs, which is why I was doubly surprised to see such an exotic insect clinging to the window screen of the living room.
     Pale green and purple, the praying mantis was a larger than I had ever seen before. I thought he was dead until I blew on him and his antennae twitched.

An Absence

Grandma Lillian sat in the peeling white wicker chair. She had not wanted one that rocked.
"Every day," she repeated. "Everyday."
"What's everyday?" I asked her. I stopped laying the long pieces of grass in floor plans on the porch steps. I hoped to eventually build a house.
"Light is in every day, Kareem."
"Yeah, I guess Grandma. They call it daylight."
She chuckled at my youth. "Do you know what darkness is, dear?"
"You're going to tell me." In one motion I swept the grass off the step.
"Darkness is nothing. Darkness is an absence."
"Of day."
"Of light," she said.
"Oh," I said. I went back to my picking.
She sat for a while. I was too busy making improvements to see when she left.

Then It Rained

     There was a man. He planted a tree in his yard.
     The man watered the tree every day there was no rain. There had been no rain for four hundred years.