
When Columbia broke into a burning rain over Louisiana, fell in pieces into a thousand pastures and backyards, my uncle joined the search party. It was not a rescue mission. It couldn’t be.

An excerpt from Pat Rushin’s new story collection, Quantum Physics & My Dog Bob.

The bucket was half full of papery spit globs. Soon she’d be able to take it outside and add onto her project: an enormous wasp nest big enough to house a human body.

There’s something haunting about the chair. It commands the back room of the small cottage on Clouser Avenue in Orlando like some sort of derelict general…