“At your age I cherished the Magic Hour—the rotund warmth of widening day, kneeling before the advance, ah! of night, caravan clouds towing it aloft in a shush of cool air the trees exhaled in unison.”

He paused, teary.

“I’m sorry you will never know that swell of sweetness.”

John Joseph Ryan’s work has appeared in River Styx, McSweeney’s, Mystery Weekly, Suspense Magazine, and in several international anthologies. John’s collaborative short, “Hothouse by the River,” was published by the University of Iowa Center for the Book. He is also the author of a crime novel, A Bullet Apiece, and a contributor to the textbook, Teaching Lincoln: Legacies and Classroom Strategies.