Snowy Day Reading

We're pretty well snowed in here in Pittsburgh--close to two feet fell on my birthday, and we're expecting another foot in the next day or so. Schools closed, kids and wife home, plenty of shoveling and movie-watching and game-playing. When I have a couple minutes I work my way through Katherine Dunn's Geek Love (deeply disturbing but oddly gripping novel) or draft a sci-fi story that's in the hopper. I'm also tinkering with a piece about climate skepticism in relation to the cold, wintry weather we've had these past few months. If anything comes of it, I'll post it here.

For the moment, though, I thought some of you who might be similarly snowed-in would appreciate some fiction. Since my most recently accepted stories and essays haven't come out yet, here's an old story, titled "String," which appeared about a year ago in Word Catalyst Magazine. This one started after I read a short story that contained a single, abrupt point-of-view change; I said to myself, "That would be worth trying!" As it ended up, there's more than one change in my story, and none is as abrupt as in its inspiration, but I still think it's an interesting experiment. If you can hold out till the end, there's a surprise waiting there!