The day I met Jesus I finished my apricot and walked outside and there was my daughter on the swings.

Daddy, Lucy called, come here.

I walked out, off the cement walkway and onto the grass. I had some bit of apricot stuck in between my molars and was trying to poke it out with my tongue and the day was hot, the hottest Sunday in weeks.

At first step the grass, the tips of the blades, was warm on my feet, but then I could feel the earth underneath, cool and dark, and still a touch damp from being sprinklered late last night.

She sat on one of the swings, her feet tapping the ground. I walked over to her, enjoying the sun and the grass. Meet my friend, she said, and she pointed to the swing next to her, to the space where someone would be if there was someone actually there.

She had imaginary friends before, though she was getting to the age where she was too old to have these sorts of friends anymore without being ridiculed at school or diagnosed with some sort of psychotic disorder.

But I guess she still had a year or two left before that. She met her first imaginary friend, Darla, when she was five. Darla was heavily, if not entirely, based on Darla Hood from The Little Rascals, whose The Little Rascals: IN COLOR! Box Set my mother gave her for her birthday that year. After the first few episodes we watched together, my daughter would spend hours talking to Darla about this and that - most of the time about direct storylines from the show. Why did Waldo do this or that and why is she, Darla, putting up with it?

Darla died, though, not long after we finished the three discs. She got a cold after visiting Alfalfa in the hospital and within a day of my daughter bringing all the blankets she could find in the house to Darla's hospital room and administering the best bedside care a five year old could, that was it. Lucy cried and insisted we bury Darla as soon as possible. I dug a hole near the edge of the yard and nailed a couple 2x4s together for a cross, wrote "RIP Darla" with a Sharpie on the cross plank, and my daughter and I stood there for a while, looking at the hole, before she said bye Darla, my friend.

She had other imaginary friends. A few more died on her, as evidenced by the now four crosses marking imaginary graves near the edge of the yard. None of her imaginary friends lasted longer then a couple months. After Darla, I don't think she ever got as attached to her imaginary friends and grew tired of them more quickly. Lucy realized that the quickest, and most permanent, way to get rid of someone was to kill them, or, in her case, draft scenarios for them where death came upon them in some "natural" way, though I don't think she was fully conscious of this.

In any event, I hardly thought I should have intervened, to have a talk with her about the cruelty towards people, imaginary or not, in any of the deaths she was conjuring, or how, in the real world, you just can't get rid of people if you get in an argument or get bored with them. That is not how things work, and if they did work that way, everyone would get rid of everyone else and you and I would not be here. But that's not the role of a parent, to intervene with imaginary friends. If she were going around smashing frogs and lizards and squirrels then yes, sure, I would have talked with her about mortality and how definite and valuable life is.

But she wasn't. Imaginary is imaginary.

Hello, I said, nice to meet you. And I knelt down, with one knee on the grass, first hot then cool, next to my daughter.

And then that was when she told me.

Jesus, this is my dad. He says it's nice to finally meet you.

Jesus. Her new imaginary friend's name was Jesus. I swayed hard and almost fell over, catching myself with my hand, my fingers dug into the moist dirt. I tried not to look shocked; I tried not to look concerned.

I wasn't a religious man, and I even tried my best to shelter her from religions, which was getting harder with my mother coming around so much, always offering to take us to church so my daughter could go to Sunday school and meet other kids, and I could meet other single parents. But nothing put me off like someone trying to intervene, someone trying to tell me how to raise my daughter.

It's nice to meet him, Jesus, too, I said. I wanted to ask her who was talking with her about Jesus, bringing up the name so much around her, for her to appropriate the name for an imaginary friend. I looked over at the crosses marking the graves of her other imaginary friends: there they were, written in fading black marker, RIP Darla, then RIP Arthur, RIP Strenga Nona, RIP Amelia Bedilia, all other books and things I read to her, and she read alone, countless times.

How did you meet Jesus? I asked, trying to sound as flat and usual as possible. But I couldn't help but squint, though perhaps more from the sun than anything else, and I could feel myself losing control of my tongue, aggressively picking at the little wedged-in bits of apricot.

Grandma brought him over and he just wanted to stay so I told him he could. She pushed herself back on the swing and leaned.

Oh, when was Grandma over? I hadn't seen her in over two weeks, though she had called a couple days prior and I had neglected to listen to the voicemail.

Earlier today.

And I don't remember what I exactly said, or yelled, it might have just been a grunt or some sort of guttural groan, but my daughter jerked her feet to the grass and stood up, still gripping the swing chains. Her eyes were wide and upset.

But you were inside and she said not to bother you and that Jesus would keep me company, she said.

It's ok, it's ok, I'm not mad at you, sweety.

Don't be mad at Grandma she brought Jesus over and I like him.

Ok, I won't be mad at Grandma, I told her, I just like to visit with her. I like her to come in and visit when she comes over. That's all, sweety.

She knew I was lying. She tweaked her head to the side and sort of smiled. You're mad at Grandma, Daddy, I know. Then she kicked herself back in the swing and leaned.

It made me uncomfortable that she could recognize my anger and the conflict I was in with my mother. But she could, though she didn't ever appear that phased by it. Ever since my wife had left, my mother felt it her obligation to help raise Lucy. She needs a mother's touch, she would say, you can't raise a little girl all by yourself.

But I didn't want her help. As a mother, she was nice enough to me, teaching me life lessons and always providing for me when I was a child. I had no complaints. My childhood was fine and, I guess, normal.

And for the first couple years of Lucy's life she was a nice enough lady, and did help baby-sit in the early years, which I was thankful for. But by the time Lucy was able to talk and understand and think, my mother would only talk to me about how church was needed in our lives and I became more and more defensive. As she's gotten older she'd become more interested in mortality and more invested in religion, as I'm sure many people do, as they age.

She would invite us every week to her church's Sunday service, but I would decline. I didn't have a problem with Lucy being a Christian or a Muslim or a Buddhist or an Atheist or whatever, but I wanted her to be old enough to truly decide her own philosophy without any sort of childhood fear or guilt. I knew that at my mother's church, just from driving by and looking in the windows, there were a lot of crucifixes and paintings of gory things inside.

Jesus says you shouldn't be mad, Lucy said, and I couldn't help but smile.

Honor thy father and mother, right? I asked.

She laughed. Jesus says that's right, most the time.

I cocked my head.

How did you know that, Lucy? That's in the Old Testament somewhere, did you know that?

No, but Jesus told me.

Ok, I said, and I stood up and stretched in the sun, my toes digging into the dirt, and finally picked out the last of the apricot. I'll be right back; do you want any fruit from inside?

Jesus says he wants an orange and I'll have a plum.

I walked inside the house and went to the phone and dialed my mother. It was mid-afternoon so she was probably home from church, or just getting home. She picked up.

It's me, I said.

Yes?

What's this stopping by without calling or coming in?

I tried calling earlier but you didn't answer or call back.

But you just stopped by and didn't say hi. I paused and looked out the window and there was Lucy, on the swings, talking to Jesus. And you gave Lucy Jesus?

Yeah, I gave her Jesus. I couldn't take it any longer. You let him stay there.

But you know how I feel - just wait until she is older.

Jesus loves children, and children need Jesus.

No, no. And why are you giving her Sunday school lessons? Honor thy father and mother?

I don't know what you're talking about. All I did was show up, because I saw her out there, alone, and she asked me who I had with me, I said Jesus, and she wanted to play with him and that was it and I had to run to church. I just drove by and saw her out here. You realize she was alone out there? Do you realize I just walked right up and talked with your daughter? Now what is that?

It was true that Lucy was left out in the yard, sometimes for a couple of hours, with my indirect supervision. My office faced the yard, and there was a waist-high fence around the property. So when I would pick her up from preschool, she'd spend the rest of the day in the yard, playing. Or on weekend, when I would try to catch up on work, she'd go out and play from time to time, and I'd be in my office working, and watching her periodically.

There wasn't enough money for daycare, and it was hard coordinating between other parents. Besides, Lucy enjoyed herself outside, coming up with adventures and friends, and usually I kept a decent eye on her. But I had been distracted by my apricots and hadn't watched her as closely as usual.

In part, though, she was right.

I couldn't do it myself - Lucy needed more - but not more in the sense of Sunday school or Bible school or whatever, rather more children her age to play with and be with. She shouldn't be in the yard alone, as long, I knew. Perhaps that was why she had so many imaginary friends. That it wasn't just being too familiar with certain make-believe characters, but my own failing as a parent, to socially adjust her, and I hadn't taken the time to notice.

Yes, I know, it's my business, ok?

You need a mother for your girl, is what you need.

Ok, ok, I have to go, and hung up the phone.

I went over to the fridge, where I liked to keep my fruit as they kept there longer and, especially during the summer months, could really refresh if cold enough. One plum for Lucy and one orange for Jesus and closed the fridge, and the coolness hit my face, and I went back out to Lucy on the swings and the sun immediately hit me.

I handed Lucy the plum, and I could feel its coldness even after I handed it to her. She took a quick bite.

Where does Jesus want his orange?

He says to just set it on the ground right there, and she pointed. I knelt down and sat, cross-legged, and set the cold orange down where she pointed.

I thought back to what my mother had said on the phone. When I asked her about honor thy father and mother, she didn't know what I was talking about. It seemed weird for her to deny something like that, after admitting to secretly driving to my house and giving my daughter an imaginary Jesus to play with. My mother, if anything, was not a liar. She would tell you if she did something. Sometimes she was sneaky, but not a liar outright.

So Grandma didn't tell you to honor thy father and mother? Lucy looked at me and chewed the bit of plum she bit off. It's Ok if she did, I said.

She really didn't tell me. It was Jesus. She took another bite of plum and a bit of juice ran down, off her lips. Then she looked over at the swing next to her and smiled, looking in to the air, where Jesus would be if he were there, and she nodded and said, ok, I'll tell him, and then turned to me and said, he says it's Ephesians 6:2. Old Testament.

And then, perhaps from the relief of biting into something so cold after being in the sun for a while, Lucy jumped off the swing and ran to the opposite side of the yard and started twirling in circles, giggling, holding the plum high in the air with one hand and I knew that there was no way, if my mother did tell her about honor thy father and mother that Lucy could remember Ephesians 6:2, specifically, and I turned my head to look at where Jesus would be, seated on the swing, if he were there.

I didn't even know what book that was in, or what context even. I knew it was Old Testament because that law seemed more direct than any of the parables attributed to Jesus in the New Testament. But who said it and why? Was it the voice of God or a prophet? I didn't know.

I tried to focus on the space between the swing chains, where Jesus' face would be. I was sitting within a couple of feet of his swing, and with the heat from the sun and the cool from the soil I was beginning to feel through my shorts, there was something off. Like I knew Jesus wasn't with my daughter, twirling around in circles, and giggling, but still there, in front of me, looking right at me.

I looked down at his orange and there were beads of perspiration growing out of each dimple and I could hear Lucy laughing.

Please feed me my orange. It looks so cold and I've been so thirsty, it's been so long.

And I quickly shot up and there he was, sitting on the swing: Jesus.

I will do my best to describe what Jesus looked like, knowing that I'll either miss something or give the wrong impression:

He was very dark skinned, like the color and texture of a charred pine tree after a forest fire, flakey and dry, and almost scaly. His hair was long, down past his waist, and knotted, with what looked like bits of dried leaves sprinkled about. His face was blistered and his lips so dry that they looked deep fried. His eyes were a remarkable gray that cut through everything, and he was looking right at my eyes.

His clothes: he was wearing nothing but tan Bermuda shorts, the kind with cargo pockets on the side, and Teva sandals, with black Velcro, and both, the shorts and sandals, looked new.

And he was there, but he wasn't there at the same time. Sort of like I always imagined a ghost being, except more there, in reality, than I expected. I could see through him, but only a little bit. He was seated on the swing, holding onto the chains, and I could just barely make out the chain through the tops of his hands. Where he sat, on the swing seat, I could make out the blue of the seat through his shorts, but it was hard to tell. But I could definitely make out the grass, dark and green, under his feet. Through his feet.

Please, he said again, feed me the orange there.

I couldn't feel anything. I couldn't feel the grass, the heat from the sun. I must have stood there for a couple minutes, blank, just staring at him, trying to understand, and trying to gather my senses. I first thought I was seeing things, maybe from the sun being so hot and coming out so quickly from the house and the cold fridge, I could have scrambled my mind somehow. So I took some deep breaths, all the while looking right at Jesus, at his eyes, him looking straight back, he was absolutely still and emotionless.

I thought back to the drugs I took in college and how those experiences where much different, the hallucinations were clearly hallucinations, foggy and intangible and never so real. And I hadn't done drugs in years, and there would be little to no chance at my age of a sudden psychotic break; this wasn't a psychotic break. Someone can't just go in and get some fruit and talk to their mother and go to the fridge and come out into the heat and develop psychosis.

Jesus was there. He was.

I could feel the sun again and the grass and I could hear Lucy singing. I glanced over towards her. She was now sitting on the ground, at the far corner of the yard, under the jacaranda tree, singing a song I couldn't recognize. And I looked back and Jesus was there, sitting still.

I couldn't decide what to say, should I introduce myself? But I didn't want Lucy looking over and seeing me talking to Jesus, just in case he was fake, even though I didn't think he was. He couldn't be.

I can't move, otherwise you won't be able to see me, and I won't get that orange. Don't be scared. Please feed me some orange. He had a curled accent, and his lips hardly moved when he spoke. Please, I don't do this very often, please.

Can Lucy see you?

The orange, please, just grab it and peel it and take off a wedge for me and I'll be able to eat it, I will.

Ok.

I knelt down and grabbed the orange. It was wet from the perspiration and still cold. I dug my fingernails into the peel and it squirted. I peeled off chunks of the thick skin and dropped them to the ground. When I got to the inner peel I separated a couple of wedges into a bite and Jesus wasn't looking at my eyes anymore but the wedges.

Just put them in my mouth and I can eat them. I can't really touch them, but come close and put it in my mouth.

I took a step towards him, and held the wedge out, put them closer to his mouth and then he opened his lips a bit and I put the wedge inside. He closed his lips around the wedge, but I could still see the color of the orange. He started chewing very slowly and he closed his eyes and the orange faded away from within his mouth.

Another bite, please.

I did the same thing, placing an orange wedge between his lips. I tried to see the exact point that it faded away and became part of him, but I couldn't. The wedge would just go away.

How does it work? I asked.

I don't know, he said, chewing the fruit. I can eat it, though, so I do.

He was on the swing, I thought to myself: on the swing. He could be touched with things and touch things – be held by things in the physical world. The sun burned and chapped his skin and lips. He could eat fruit, absorb it. He could appropriate clothes. It made me wonder if I could touch him, feel him, hold on to him. I reached out my hand to his, which was gripping the chain, and covered it, holding my hand over his. He looked up at me. He couldn't move his hand. But I could not feel his hand, his brittle skin. I let go.

Are you really Jesus?

Yes, he said, and he motioned his eyes towards the remaining orange.

Are you dead?

Yes.

I heard the phone ring inside.

Are there more people, dead people like you?

Yes, but not many, Jesus said. You should answer that.

I ran inside the house to catch the phone on the last ring, before going to voicemail. I held the phone in my hand a second and looked out the window. I could see Jesus sitting on the swings. Just sitting, almost like he was relaxing, like he was finally safe.

It was my mother on the phone.

Hello, she said, is Lucy still playing with Jesus?

I couldn't help but choke.

No mother, I'm playing with Jesus, I just fed him a fucking orange, what the fuck?

Oh he stayed still for you? I'll be right over, and she hung up the phone.

I hung up and looked back out the window. Lucy had made her way back to Jesus and was feeding him the rest of the orange. He did look a bit scary, and he looked worn, and abused, and weak. He didn't look like a messiah. I was surprised Lucy was so adjusted to him.

But I suppose it was how he was there, but not, that brought a sense of security. As well as his temperament. From what I saw he was slow, and deliberate.

I went back outside, into the day, and joined Jesus and Lucy.

I don't want to answer religious questions, he said as I sat on the grass in front of him. When you sit on the grass like that it makes me think you want a parable. But I don't do parables anymore. I don't do spirituality. He looked over to Lucy. There's one more bit there, right? Can I get it?

Lucy had been looking at the last piece of orange like she was going to eat it but she said, sure, and plopped the last piece into his mouth.

I do cold things and fruit, he laughed, spitting a spray of orange that landed on my forehead. When you've been walking and seeing things as long as I have you just want to sit and eat something cold, and see the only thing that is pure in the world, and he nodded to Lucy, who sat down next to me. The children.

I wiped the orange from my forehead and remembered my mother.

Were you with my mother? I asked.

Yes, he was, Lucy said, and rocked into me. He was, but I didn't see him at first.

Jesus smiled.

Yes, I was with her. I was at her church. I visit the churches, sometimes, to stand still and whisper things to them. And hopefully some see me and hear me because they're the ones who most need it. He closed his eyes and slowly leaned back on the swing. His head started to fade into the sky and there was nothing there, only his body, and his mangled hair from below his shoulder line.

See but he's still there daddy.

I wanted to ask him what sorts of things he would whisper into the ears of the churches, but I didn't want to push him. I waited for him.

Lucy stood up and leaned in to peer into where his face had gone.

And your mother saw me, and other people in the congregation saw me, and created a stir, like it usually does.

I couldn't see his face, but could see his chest move in and out as he talked.

They gathered around me and got hold of me and took me to the roof and tied me up. For a long time. His face started reappearing, dark and singed, coming out from nowhere and Lucy took a step back and giggled. Your mother helped me escape. She brought me here.

Now my mother's constant invitations to church made more sense. It wasn't that she wanted to convert us. She wanted to literally give us Jesus, to keep him safe. Or to give to Lucy, for her to keep him safe, thinking I would refuse or neglectfully wouldn't notice her playing with a new imaginary friend, and that made me feel slighted and irritated at my mother.

But I noticed all her imaginary friends. I looked over at all the graves, in the far corner of the yard. I was there for Lucy for all of her imaginary friends. Digging holes and holding Lucy's hand and taking her sadness seriously.

Jesus saw me looking, my head turned toward the graves. He looked.

Whose graves are those?

Lucy pointed. That one is Darla's, she said, and then there is Arthur then Strenga then Amelia.

They were imaginary, I blurted, and quickly looked over to Lucy. I didn't mean to strip her of her emotions for her imaginary friends; I didn't want to mock her. It just came out. I think more for Jesus. As if to qualify the graves: they weren't graves of people like you, but of imaginary people.

Lucy's face didn't change.

I don't really miss them anymore, she said.

Jesus sighed. He was tired. His face had completely returned but his eyes weren't as crystalline as before. Now they were dull and gray.

How did they die?

Lucy described each situation. Jesus sat quietly, listening. She told of Darla's sickness, of Arthur's accident in the garden, of Strenga's old age catching up with her, and of Amelia who accidentally drank poison.

Some of those are bad ways to go, Jesus said.

He paused and I could feel the sun starting to cool, the dusk starting to fall.

Why did you pick poison for Amelia?

Lucy sat down, next to me, and rested her head on her hand. She was thinking.

I never asked Lucy that type of question and I didn't know if it was best to question a little girl about. To accuse a child of premeditated, imaginary, murder.

Jesus had definitely had a rough time over years. He was burned and damaged, and surely had witnessed horrible things. Wars and murder, plagues and diseases, religious institutions and governments violating human rights and dignity, most of the time in his name.

Amelia made me feel sad and I didn't want that.

I began to wonder if that question was sincere, or a result of delirium and defeat. This was Jesus, and he was not the same Jesus in the Bible. This Jesus didn't have the power of miracles, and I doubted he ever did. This Jesus didn't speak in red-lettering, in only important, profound, teachings. This Jesus was not a healer. This Jesus didn't do parables anymore, or spirituality. I wondered what his real teachings were. This Jesus wanted to be fed oranges, and rest, and sit still.

Why did she make you sad?

Lucy dropped her head down.

She made me feel alone.

I looked over to try to see Lucy's face, but just as I did, my mother came into the yard, past the gate, and Lucy turned her head towards her. She was running and she started to scream for Jesus to get up and move, to disappear, that the church was following her.

They'll tie you up again, she yelled. You don't have much time.

My mother had a frantic seriousness in her voice that I couldn't remember ever hearing from her, but I was still focused on Lucy, and how rude it was of Jesus to ask her such a question. Rude and aggressive. Not his place.

But Jesus was unmoved and said, Lucy, what makes you feel alone?

When I know I'm by myself.

I wondered if this Jesus was now out to create more chaos in the world, by throwing congregations into fits and scaring them into doing who knows what. Was it that he was taking all of his disappointment of the world out on those congregations, out on me, and out on my daughter, and then demanding, somewhat politely, that I feed him an orange and then he would slowly try to parent, and skew, my daughter?

I jumped up, startling Lucy and my mother. I couldn't take Jesus meddling with Lucy. I didn't want Lucy to cry, and I knew she was about to.

Ok, that's enough, ok, Jesus? And just then, I heard a crowd, loud and angry, coming up through the gate at the end of the yard. They began to point towards my mother, and then they saw Jesus, on the swing.

But, Lucy, you are alone. You'll always be alone.

Get up, go, my mother shouted and she ran and pushed Jesus off the swing. He disappeared.

Jesus, don't go, Lucy cried.

The crowd came into the yard. There were men, and women, and children, all in fine dress. They yelled at my mother that they found out about her going up to the roof and untying Jesus, and sneaking him out. They yelled that Jesus, if he was the real Jesus, was cast out down from God and that they knew, from God, that they had to keep him away, away from the world. That for years, they yelled, he had been whispering in their ears asking them rude and direct things about how they lived and telling them to stop worshipping, to stop tithing, to stop counting sins, to stop being a church, to stop paying taxes, to stop collecting property, to stop owning, stop buying, and that what he was saying was evil and satanic and he probably was Satan and not Jesus. The Jesus they knew had an individual relationship with every Christian, and believed in worshipping God, and all the things that made this Christian nation great.

The crowd surrounded us and Lucy fumbled in the grass looking for Jesus, and the crowd kept yelling, but I could hear Jesus, low to the ground, talking with Lucy.

They'll try to kill me too, Lucy, just like you killed your imaginary friends. But they can't kill me again.

I'm sorry, Jesus, I'm sorry, and Lucy reached left and right, brushing away the orange peels on the grass, trying to find him. I won't get rid of any more of my friends and I won't have any more that are imaginary, I promise Jesus, I promise.

And I don't know why, perhaps from my frustration over Jesus asking my daughter blunt and adult questions, and the anger I felt from someone meddling with how I chose to raise my child, or from the sun beginning to set, and the heat leaving my body, and the grass getting cooler, but I knew I could see Jesus, lying down, outstretched to Lucy, just beyond the swing. He was barely visible, but I knew I could make him out, and I motioned, just a bit, almost by accident, with my head to where he was, and the crowd saw me and knew. They knocked us aside, my mother fell on the ground and grabbed Lucy, and they trapped him.

We know you're here, they called out. Make this easy and stay still so we can see you.

Lucy, you're not bad for killing. There's too much killing in this world to make it bad anymore.

Stop talking, the crowd yelled. And he began to appear. His black, coarse skin and his Bermuda shorts. His sad eyes and his long knotted hair. He started to curl up, and he looked around, throwing his head about until he saw me and then he stopped and looked in my eyes, and at first I thought he was disappointed or hated me, but then there was a flash, a glow, a sparkle, in his eyes and I knew he didn't care anymore what happened. It was like he was happy, or excited that he didn't care anymore: He knew that no matter what they did to him it just convinced him more: that both living and dying were imaginary, and that in a world where children killed off their own imaginary friends because they were too lonely and too little to say so, and where fathers weren't there, and where the people who were supposed to love him and his teachings most weren't there, he'd rather be locked away, tied up somewhere, stuffed in a box and stored forever, in darkness, and in blankness Because that would be heaven.

Grab him, the crowd yelled and Lucy and my mother screamed.

I stood up, and tried to look over the backs of the people in the crowd. I saw rope and someone yelled to tied his hands, and wrap the rope around his body, tie knots around his legs and feet. The people closest to him knelt down and I heard them talking, figuring out which end to tie where, and two older men, probably ushers or deacons, in front of me were talking about how they should put him underground somewhere, that tying him up on the roof didn't work last time and if they could only bury him deep, deep so it would be too hard to dig him out without one of them noticing and that they would keep an eye on it.

And then one of them yelled, Bury him!

Someone get some shovels, the other older man yelled. And a few younger boys ran out, through the gate.

I looked to Lucy and my mother. I wanted to tell them that Jesus would want to be buried. That this world was too much for him and that the best place for him would be with himself. But when they looked back at me I knew they wouldn't understand.

The sun was all the way set, and the air and grass was starting to get cold, and the boys came back with shovels.

Over there, the older men yelled, by far side of the yard.

So we dug, for hours we dug, and the soil was very cold, colder than my apricot earlier in the day, and colder than Lucy's plum and Jesus' orange. I thought of how cold the fridge was and how nice it felt to be outside, in the heat, feeling the cool soil from the underneath the hot grass. I thought that he might like it, that it would probably be pleasant, to be surrounded by such coolness and soil after being in the sun for so long.

Rich Anderson received his M.A. in English from Cal State University, Northridge, and has had five stories published in The Northridge Review, one of which earned The Northridge Review Fiction Award. Currently, Rich is working as President of the union for all the academic student employees at the Cal State Universities. He can be reached at r.w.anderson@hotmail.com.