I KNOW WHAT YOU'RE THINKING Bob's got a magic cup. When he drinks his green tea from it in the morning, for the rest of the day, he can hear people's thoughts. If he doesn't drink from it, then he gets splitting headaches that feel as if somebody's driving a sledgehammer into his head. Seriously incapacitating. It's a good thing he doesn't own a gun, because he might just use it to end this pain. It's as if the cup is demanding of him, "Drink from me, drink from me." And then when Bob does drink from the cup: Ahh, sweet peace. Sweet Peace. What does it want, this magic cup? Maybe it's the...

What's Important? You're an old man and your days are numbered, so how do you live them? What's important? He's a young man, drunk, unlucky in love and heartbroken, breaking windows on Main Street when the limousine pulls to a stop and an old man gets out. "What are you doing?" The old man asks, and so begins the unexpected friendship between this young man, Boomer, and a group of old guys who live in a house together on Brewster Avenue. A big beautiful house. "We're like a fraternity, or a brotherhood, or a club," Kenneth, one of the old men, explains. "Each of us have been left behind by...

HOW FAR WOULD YOU GO, TO SAVE SOMEONE YOU LOVE? She died in his arms, and there was nothing he could do about it. Her blood all over his clothes, her body across his lap, he held her while sitting in the middle of the road. It had been a morning like any other. Who would have thought this would be the last day of her life? Looking into her eyes, staring dead and empty, specks of blood on her face, her mouth slightly agape, Marcus wondered, What had been her dreams? What had been her hopes? Where had she been coming from, and where had she been going? This was what he did, being a homicide...