Asteroid City -

Stanley was a celebrated actor in another life—or perhaps in this very life, it was hard to tell. He had a habit of stepping out of the frame of a conversation, as if searching for his mark. He stood now at the rim of the crater, a man in a rumpled seersucker suit, and stared down into the geological punchbowl. The impact, millions of years ago, had fused the sandstone into a glassy, malformed obsidian that reflected the sky in distorted, funhouse fragments.

A woman beside him laughed. She was a magnetic, weary-looking creature with ink-stained fingers and a notebook perpetually open. Her name was Midge, and she was the mother of one of the other Stargazers, a quiet boy named Clifford who had built a replica of the Sputnik core out of chicken wire and baked beans tins. Asteroid City

"It looks like God dropped a contact lens," Stanley said to no one in particular. Stanley was a celebrated actor in another life—or

Then, just as quickly, the sky smoothed over. The creature was gone. The cube lay in the dust, inert. The impact, millions of years ago, had fused