Fred always asks dozens of inane questions, but whenever one of us tries to answer, he interrupts or walks away.

“Fred’s an educated man,” Kennedy, the county judge, explains. “But he’s a poet, not a scientist or accountant. Only questions fascinate him. He believes that answers are abhorrent, even destructive.”

J.S. O’Keefe is a trilingual translator and writer. He has published over 500 short stories, creative essays and poems in print and online literary journals.