A thief, languishing in prison for stealing moments, escapes and becomes a chronometric fugitive. Women wait in a long, endless line, night and day, without knowing what is at the beginning of the line. An otherworldly marble called the Ustek Cloudy passes through the hands of Ambrose Bierce, Amelia Earhart, and D. B. Cooper just before they each disappear off the face of the earth. Whether they are called fantasy, magical realism, science fiction, or parodies, the stories in this collection -- the first from Gay Terry -- blend the real and the fantastic in an imaginative and mischievous way. Written in the tradition of Ray Bradbury, Angela Carter, and Edgar Allan Poe, these contemporary fables present remarkable characters trapped in unusual situations.