Ten words, one tale. Ten tales, a hundred words.

“It’s always the same to begin with,” I said. “I’m on the beach. The sand is hot, the sun is bearing down. It makes the sand look white, like snow.”

His mother once told him a story about how his granddaddy nearly gave her away.

There was always news, Antonio thought, as the announcer’s name started to boom out, and he was glad for that.

It was eerie sometimes, how a room filled with talking people would quiet up when he spoke. I felt like I was that room full of people then.