“I... I’m impressed you made it. Really. But you’re freakin dreaming if you think some dude is gonna buy it.”

“Bro, you don’t get it. This is just the first one. There’s, like, ten thousand Melt Kid Kings, each one a unique NFT. Two-fifty each. Do the math.”

“Fuck math. I’ll stick to skating.”

I suppose 31 is a fairly young age to lose one’s mother. And 54 is a fairly young age to lose one’s life. But run-of-the-mill statistics don’t interest me. If I’d wanted to be an actuary I would have become one, like Fanny, my sister. I only spent twenty-one of those years with mom. My life drew me away from Burlington; her death is bringing me back. Did I visit last July 4th? Don’t remember. I really don’t. I’m just too busy and my mind too frenetic to pay attention to such details. No, I’m just not in the same sphere of reference as the rest of my family any more.

Sixteen rainy seasons. Sixteen dry seasons. The Lord’s bitterness has made him a stooped curse, a gnarled, chopped root. A new Lady, Dolorosa, stalks the hacienda’s hallways like a queen. Bianca mucks with the servants. No tears. Things must be done. No cries. Things give the days their rhythm. The deeper the dirt and the stronger the stench, the more Bianca whistles. And the more this new Lady clenches fists and teeth.

It’s a cliché to say that a handsome man has chiseled features. Allardyce’s face was assembled using a melon scoop. And there was nothing he could do about it.

For many men this would have been a problem with dating, but not for Allardyce. Because he had a bigger problem. He wouldn’t shut up.

Now the feet. She lit the blow-torch and adjusted the flame. Her grandmother had long ago stopped complaining about the smell drifting upstairs through the floorboards, and Nickie paid no attention to the carcinogenic air entering her lungs. The flame brushed the plastic and the tiny toes melted away from the doll’s left foot. A drip fell to the concrete below, joining the stalagmitic accumulation. She sculpted the softened plastic with a knife, lengthening the foot. Then the other foot.