Breakfast should be one of the least complicated parts of the day. You crack a couple of eggs, put some bread in the toaster, make a cup of coffee, and spend a few peaceful minutes pretending the world isn’t already…
I’m sitting in the living room watching Mr. Whiskers attempt the impossible. John bought him an expensive cat bed last month, yet he’s completely ignored it in favor of trying to squeeze himself into a cardboard box that’s barely larger…
The coffee was almost ready when I happened to glance out the kitchen window and noticed Mrs. Jenkins standing in hers. Now, that wasn’t unusual. Mrs. Jenkins has always treated the front window as though it were a front-row seat…
I was sitting in the living room when something felt…off. At first I couldn’t put my finger on it. The apartment looked exactly the same as it had yesterday. John Mercer was reading a book in his chair, Mr. Whiskers…
I was making toast that morning when something immediately felt wrong. The loaf of bread we’d bought the day before was already stale. Not completely stale, mind you. It wasn’t the sort of bread you could use as a doorstop,…
I was sitting in the living room one afternoon when I noticed Pandora’s purse beside the coffee table. That wasn’t unusual by itself. Pandora visited often enough that finding one of her belongings in the apartment wasn’t exactly rare. What…
I was making tea in the kitchen when I noticed Pandora’s favorite mug sitting on the counter. At first, I didn’t think much of it. Then I remembered it had been sitting in exactly the same spot the night before.…
I was halfway through making a sandwich when I noticed Pandora’s phone sitting on the kitchen counter. Under normal circumstances, that wouldn’t have meant much. People forget their phones all the time. The problem was that Pandora wasn’t one of…
I was standing in the kitchen trying to make breakfast and a halfway decent cup of coffee when I first started paying attention to John Mercer’s snoring. Normally I can tune it out. After living with someone for years, certain…
I was standing in the kitchen making toast this morning when I first noticed something was wrong. Not with the toast itself—that part was going surprisingly well for once—but with everyone around me. Pandora had stayed over the night before…
Pandora left her hair tie on my desk this morning, and I didn’t think much of it at first. It’s one of those plain black elastic hair ties that seems to spend more time on her wrist than in her…
I was halfway through making breakfast when my phone buzzed. Karen had canceled our plans. The message itself was perfectly normal. Sorry, Hal. Family emergency. Rain check? That should have been the end of it. People cancel plans all the…
I’m standing in the kitchen staring at the coffee maker, and I’m almost certain it’s making a different noise than it did yesterday. Not a huge difference. Nothing dramatic. Just enough to make me pause in the middle of pouring…
I was halfway through making my second cup of coffee when I noticed that John Mercer hadn’t moved in at least twenty minutes. He was sitting on the couch staring at his phone with the kind of concentration usually reserved…
I was sitting in the living room trying to get some work done when I noticed something deeply unsettling. Pandora hadn’t moved in nearly half an hour. At first, I didn’t think much of it. People sit on couches all…
I was trying to get some work done, which would have been considerably easier if Mr Whiskers had not decided that my laptop represented a threat to national security. The orange menace had spent the better part of ten minutes…
I was sitting on the couch staring at the coffee table when I noticed three things that absolutely should not have been there. The first was an empty energy drink can. The second was a crumpled piece of paper covered…
I first noticed something was wrong with Mr. Whiskers on a Saturday morning while I was drinking coffee in the living room. The apartment was quiet except for the occasional hum of the refrigerator and the distant sound of traffic…
Pandora had been acting strangely ever since I got home from work, though it took me a while to realize exactly what was bothering me about it. Nothing she was doing would have seemed suspicious to a normal person. She…
I’ve been trying to brush it off, but Pandora’s behavior has me on edge. She’s been distant lately, and I’ve noticed she’s been checking her phone an awful lot—usually when we’re in the middle of a conversation or watching television…
