(SHORT STORY) I'd gotten into the habit of using a voice recorder on my long commutes one season. Somehow or other, the premise of the story came to me. I dictated the synopsis into the recorder and nearly brought myself to tears, especially at the very end. The writing didn't take too long, because really I was captioning a mental picture book. In that sense, it's really not a short story at all, but a rough draft for a future children's book project. It therefore breaks from my usual format, as my second "short children's book without pictures." I would really love to find an illustrator to bring some of these ideas to life.