I was born with a tree branch on one side instead of an arm. The doctor diagnosed it as a kind of parasitic infection previously known only in plants; I was the first ever human carrier of a plant-par...

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Jie, are you listening? I want to tell you this story the way you would want to hear it.

My knees trembled under the weight of my jamun plant. I hefted it up my hip, wincing when the sapling twisted through my heart.

Wooden teeth, a painted snarl, fur around the crown. A mask meant to terrify winter itself into retreat. Meant to keep the things that lurk in the shadows at bay.

Fingers twisted from arthritis. A wet bandage over his right hand seeping a wound the local healer had inflicted. Trying, failing, to fix a hand only decade shy of a century.

4:14:02 p.m. — it’s me again. I know you won’t text me back, but I had to tell you I’m finally doing it. I’m leaving him. for good. forever.

My love is a three-masted ship, proud and defiant against the very cheek of the fathomless deep, and I am her sailor spidered to the rigging; she is equally a lighthouse to my plover.

Wooden teeth, a painted snarl, fur around the crown. A mask meant to terrify winter itself into retreat. Meant to keep the things that lurk in the shadows at bay.

Night presses low across the rewilded floodplain when she steps from the truck and closes the door with a muted click.

There is a griffin on my ceiling. As I lie in bed I can see it—wings spread wide, just springing into the air from a jutting rock.

4:14:02 p.m. — it’s me again. I know you won’t text me back, but I had to tell you I’m finally doing it. I’m leaving him. for good. forever.

The essays come in waves with an electric hiss. Orderly waves… time-stamped, neatly sorted by applicant number and neural-link code.

My knees trembled under the weight of my jamun plant. I hefted it up my hip, wincing when the sapling twisted through my heart.