He’s growing a nightmare garden. When he’s startled awake in the middle of the night, he runs to the plot in his backyard and screams into a fresh hole, covering it up. He has planted many seeds, but no fruit has emerged from the soil. Maybe that’s for the best.

Ran Walker is the award-winning author of 26 books, the most recent of which is Black Marker: A Novel in 100-Word Stories.