I.

The corner outside the Bottega is a scatter of trifold hats and pirate vests, french maids and false pimps, plumes of vaporized breath and laughter from the crowd waiting for the door to open.

Shirlane approaches a college student in a caveman costume. Her jeans are stained with piss. Her face has pulled in on itself like a sour pumpkin. She is shoeless.

“Fuck, what is this?” She asks the caveman, swaying into his space.

“Halloween,” he says.

“Do something for me?” She asks.

“Sure.”

“Yell ‘Shirley Farham, you are a superstar.’”

And so he yells it, yells so everyone looks, and Shirley smiles.

II.

Minako sits in her closet and gets stoned. He smudges purple shade from the corners of her eyes to her temples and drives to the mall. She walks down thick corridors full of jewelry kiosks.

She stops by the clothing store and picks outfits at random. She leaves them in the trying room. She sits on the benches where the air smells like cinnamon and watches the middle school kids flirt with one another.

III.

Randall arrives and doesn’t need to tell anyone that he has arrived. He walks out of his van and begins to rake the leaves off the parking lot. He sings the Lord’s Prayer as he works.

It is November and all of the world is soggy and cold. He is where the river curves to the east and geese hide in leafy pockets. He stops, briefly, to watch the rain drop steadily into the water.