LITMIR.BIZ

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you still love him?’

      ‘I think so.’

      ‘Kids?’

      ‘Just one.’

      The thief nodded. He waved his gun, and Stacey joined the others lying face down on the floor.

      The thief worked through the rest of the line. Daniel James gave him his wife’s parents’ wedding photo, which he’d been taking to get restored. Jennifer Layone gave him a dog-eared copy of The Stranger by Albert Camus. Sam Livingstone, the assistant manager, who’d stood last in line, handed over the paystub from his recent promotion.

      When he’d collected an item from everyone in the room, the thief backed toward the door. At the exit, he paused.

      ‘Ladies and gentlemen, your attention please,’ he said. No one got up, but everyone raised his or her head. ‘It has come to my attention that the vast majority of you, if you even believe you have a soul, believe it sits inside you like a brick of gold.

      ‘But I’m here to tell you that nothing could be further from the truth. Your soul is a living, breathing, organic thing. No different than your heart or your legs. And just like your heart keeps your blood oxygenated and your legs keep you moving around, your soul gives you the ability to do amazing, beautiful things.

      ‘But it’s a strange machine, constantly needing to be rejuvenated. Normally, this happens simply by the doing of these things, like a car battery recharging by driving.’

      The thief stopped, put his arm into his sleeve, and sneezed. ‘Excuse me,’ he said. He looked at his watch. ‘I’m really using a lot of metaphors today. Listen, I’m in a bit of a rush, so let me conclude. When I leave here, I will be taking 51 percent of your souls with me. This will have strange and bizarre consequences in your lives. But more importantly, and I mean this quite literally, learn how to grow them back, or you will die.’

      The bank was quiet. The thief threw his hat into the air and was through the doors before it landed on the floor.

      Chapter 2

      he first manifestation began six hours later for Timothy Blaker, who’d stood seventh in line, four behind my wife. He was twenty-seven years old and worked as a bus driver. The object he had given the thief was an engagement ring, one he happened to have been eager to get rid of. He’d been carrying the ring for seventeen months, since the night Nancy Templeman, his girlfriend of two and a half years, had refused to accept it.

      Timothy had not seen her or talked with her since the night of his failed proposal, so when he opened the doors two stops east of Shaw on College and she stepped inside, he was surprised to see her. Nancy extended her hand but did not deposit change – instead, she reached into his chest and pulled out his heart. She held it in front of him. He watched it beat. The bus continued to idle as he watched her run back down the steps and into a waiting yellow Ford Mustang.

      Nancy stepped on the gas, the back tires producing much sound and smoke. Timothy Blaker gave chase.

      The bus did not corner as well as the muscle car, but, having no heart, Timothy drove fearlessly and managed to stay on her tail. The passengers stayed in their seats, watching with fear as all their stops went by. They were underneath the Gardner Expressway, heading east on Lakeshore, when he pulled up beside her. They raced neck and neck. They ran many red lights, but at Lawrence Street cement trucks gridlocked the intersection and they were forced to stop. Many of the passengers stood, alarmed, but their fear remained too great for any of them to venture toward the front of the bus.

      Timothy opened the doors. The cement trucks cleared the intersection. The light turned green and he jumped, landing with a metallic thud on the hood of the Mustang.

      Timothy looked through the windshield. He could see his heart on the passenger seat. He watched it beat. He saw her jerk the steering wheel to the left and the right. He felt himself get thrown violently around. The tips of his fingers ached, but he held tighter and tighter, and then she slammed on the brakes.

      Timothy was thrown from the hood of the car and landed on the asphalt. Three backward somersaults later he came to a stop.

      He was bleeding from his elbow. There was a large cut just below his eye. He jumped up and a sickening pain went through his right leg. The Mustang was three hundred feet away and pointed toward him. He looked at Nancy. She looked at him. He heard the engine rev. The back tires squealed.

      Timothy did not move. The yellow 1964 Mustang sped forward. It was a hundred meters away, and then it was fifty, and then it was twenty. He did not move or shut his eyes. He stood there, watching it approach. This standing, this not flinching, made him feel strong. The closer the car came, the greater danger he was in, the stronger not flinching made him feel. It came closer and closer. Timothy continued to stand his ground and, with less than ten feet between him and the front bumper of the Mustang, she again hit the brakes. The car stopped with sudden force. His heart was thrown from the passenger seat. It burst through the windshield, leaving a heart-shaped hole in the glass, and flew directly into his chest.

      Chapter 3

      hree days after the robbery, and merely minutes after we’d finally gotten Jasper to sleep, our phone rang. It was our home line, which we usually let go to voicemail, but Stacey raced to answer it. Later she would explain that it had sounded urgent – an alarm, not just a ring.

      The caller was Detective William Phillips, who had stood ninth in line and had given the robber a large antique key. Detective Phillips asked if anything peculiar was happening in her life, anything new and, perhaps, inexplicable. She asked him to elaborate. The detective told her that in the last twenty-four hours he had received confessions from two different husbands, claiming to have murdered their wives. He went on to explain that both of these cases involved someone who’d been inside Branch #117 at the time of its robbery.

      Stacey asked for still more detail. Detective Phillips related the following stories.

      Two mornings after the robbery, Daniel James, who had stood fifth in line and had given the thief a photograph of his wife’s parents’ wedding was tying his shoes when the lace in his right shoe broke. He put on his other pair of dark shoes and the lace in the left shoe broke. He changed into his light suit but, when tightening the lace on his right brown shoe, it, too, broke. He looked at the lace in his hand. He looked at the laces on the floor. ‘I have to leave you,’ he said to his wife, but she was already gone.

      That same day Jenna Jacob woke to discover that she was made of candy, an event she remained unaware of until she was in the shower and looked down and saw a white film swirling to the drain.

      Shocked and disbelieving, Jenna turned off the tap and wiped the steam from the mirror. Her skin was made of white sugar with mint speckles. Her hair was licorice. Her eyes were caramels. The longer she stared at her reflection, the less strange this candied version of herself became. She wrapped a scarf around her licorice hair, put sunglasses over her caramel eyes, and went downstairs. Her sons, aged ten and thirteen, barely noticed.

      When her kids wouldn’t eat their breakfast, she rubbed her hands together over their cereal bowls, dusting their Shreddies with sugar. When they wouldn’t get dressed and into the car, she broke off her pinkie fingers and used them as bribes. When she dropped them off at school, they were unusually eager to kiss her goodbye.

      Jenna returned home, called in sick, and spent the day watching television. Just after nine, her husband came home.

      ‘Sorry I’m so late,’ he said. ‘It’s the Meyer’s account again. Why’s it so dark in here? Is there anything to eat?’

      Jenna patted the cushion beside her. Her husband sat down. He kissed her candied lips. He kissed her neck and her arms and her face. They went upstairs. He kissed

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