"For as long as she could remember, Nina Malory had scoured archives and pored over the yellowed manuscripts penned in a madhouse..."

This wasn't merely a long-ago newlyweds' picnic gone awry. Does a weird ancient magic haunt the Catskills?

"The blind man picks a five-dollar bill out of his sax case and hands it to her. What does this tell her? He has the radar, she has the presence."

A 16-year old runaway in Manhattan... friends and enemies... a warrior queen. This episode challenges reality in more ways than one.

"When Dewey Bustle found the shriveled monkey finger, he just didn’t know what to think. He asked his buddy Fern...."   Can love persist in the face of harsh circumstance? Maybe we are all like these, the small and the lost.

"Hob died at Naseby aged 16, his breast pierced by a Roundhead pike. As he fell he cried three times 'Beard, Beard, Beard,' but such was the din of battle that no one heard him."

Is this story about the unfathomable bond between boys and dogs? Or about the mysterious spiral of time? Let's just say it's our favorite kind of history lesson.

"We took the shuttle to the entrance of the theme park. My father said, Remember our car is in Squiggly section C. The day was thrilling...."

Family life in the suburbs... it can get very, very weird. Would the real "me" please stand up?

"The dream was unwelcome when it came. The bottom of a stone spiral staircase. Air filled with stone dust and settled incense..."

Cathedral, boneyard, locked box... is this a nightmare or something else? And why does it end with an 11-word haiku?

"It was shocking to see Thundrel toss up the ball and drive it over the net with unimaginable force. Unkempt greasy hair flew back from both of his massive heads which towered above the trees behind him."

From convoluted speculations about hidden realities arises a valiant hero who saves humanity from evil giants by wielding a... racket!

"I brought my father’s Belgian-made Browning semi-automatic .22 caliber rifle with me to junior high school...."

If you think you know the line between life and death, think again. A bullet can never point the way to wisdom... or can it?

"Every night for months, ever since Emma’s death, I’d taken the same walk through the park, but this time, I went another way."

Is this how you bring back love? Or is it something much more twisted? By the way, what is coulrophobia?

 

 

"Albert slumped forward on his chair in the waiting room at the doctor's office. The floor had just stopped melting."

What do you do if you meet a king? And how do you get to the Land of Perpetual Afternoon?