Notes on my short story "Glass Gazing" and (in case you missed it) a link to Scott Thrower's 2017 Holiday Episode Fairy Tales for Unwanted Children...

I once lived and worked in an enormous steel labyrinth—daily traversing dark corridors cut through man-made canyons. In a city like that, you would never notice the absence of the sun. I was shielded from it by the blasphemous towers that stretched skyward. There were so many huddled peoples there. A continuous babbling in many dialects and tongues surrounds you. I was too busy to notice any of it. I was occupied. By the sweat of my receding hairline, I earned my keep. My right to call myself a New Yorker. I seemed happy there. I really did. At the Firm. 

A husband and wife sit at a table in a coffeeshop. The husband on the right. The wife on the left—closer to the coffee counter. 

There was a scent that led me to you. I asked if I could study in your room. You let me in.

On a cool, yet windless night, a little red cape and the one who bore it bobbed along down a winding dirt path. Around the handle of a wicker basket were five thin white fingers that belonged to a girl. She was afraid of no thing.