J. Michael Williams

“She asks me to kill the spider.
Instead, I get the most
peaceful weapons I can find.

I take a cup and a napkin.
I catch the spider, put it outside
and allow it to walk away.

If I am ever caught in the wrong place
at the wrong time, just being alive
and not bothering anyone,

I hope I am greeted
with the same kind
of mercy.”
― Rudy Francisco, Helium

“I’d buzz the runway at ten feet and see Jasper rooted on his haunches following me with his eyes, and even at that speed I knew he was worried, and grieving that I might leave him like everything else had done, so I stopped.”
― Peter Heller, The Dog Stars

“Why were they fighting?” “We could always find a reason,” she replies. “We had different gods or different skin, or the fight had been going on so long we’d forgotten how to stop it. Somebody had something we needed, or we thought they were planning to hurt us.”
― Stuart Turton, The Last Murder at the End of the World

“I lift my head from the pillow I see the frost the moon. Lowering my head I think of home. Li Po’s most famous poem. Even then: long before before the end, the bottomless yearning. Almost never home, any of us.”
― Peter Heller, The Dog Stars