“Don’t you see my bishop?” I asked before she touched the horse’s mane that was now green, pink, brown.

“What bishop? I don’t see a bishop.” She stared at me. Her eyes became fixed but not on me, through me.

“Sarah. Sarah. Sarah.”

She would not respond. She could not respond.

“Do you see the bishop?” I asked.

But I was not there in her eyes. And in that dream I wondered if she was seeing me, if she was seeing, realizing, at least contemplating the limitations of vision, how we, she and I, could see light waves that were only a fraction of the total spectrum. I thought of my eye’s blind spot, that all-too-human blind spot where the optic nerve connects to the retina, the spot the other eye tries to make up for, that hole, a hole where things can disappear or retreat or simply sit. Was I in the holes of both of my daughter’s eyes? Her eyes were open, her vision was engaged, but she was not seeing me.

“Sarah. Sarah.”

I awoke with a start. I did that so that I would not die.

Falco mexicanos. Four bones of this species indicate at least three individuals: an adult, a male-sized immature, and a female-sized immature. It should be noted that, of the larger falcons, this species, which nests on cliffs, is most frequently encountered in southwestern archaeological sites. Some consider the prairie falcon a statewide resident that was formerly more common.

Meg was asleep in bed beside me. I put my hand on the small of her back. She was warm. It was difficult to know if I was comforted by her presence or her warmth. The truth was that I was not comforted at all. I recalled when my daughter had come into our room every night and climbed into my side of the bed. I never encouraged it, but I never discouraged it either. I knew that it would stop, and it did, abruptly. She was a preteen. It bothered me that it would feel creepy if she had come in now. Yet I wanted her always coming to me; I wanted that child again.

the gene CLN3 is located on the p12.1 region of chromosome 16 and contains at least 15 exons spanning 15 kilobases

I was standing outside my classroom. It being early in the semester, I was about to give for the fiftieth time my lecture on how Eratosthenes calculated Earth’s circumference. I was preparing for the glazing over of eyes as math entered the subject.

“Professor Wells?”

I turned to find the young woman who always sat right in front of me in class. She wanted an A, that was clear. I would no doubt give it to her because she sat in the front row and wanted it; it mattered to her. “Miss …” I searched for her name.

“Charles. Rachel Charles.”

“Miss Charles. Do you have a question?”

“Do you believe Eratosthenes actually used the obelisk at Alexandria, or did he use a scape?”