Five Christmases ago an alderman is strolling through his hope-filled district when he is pulled into a bank of Brewer trees and then into the clearing. In the clearing he is taught a miracle.



Four guys start a website that two guys run; this is how you remember it.



Three state-sponsored evacuations take place for people that don’t like to leave; three friends die in hallways; three wasp nests get broken by a football; three cherubs are cut down to save the grove; three fire trucks show up when you don’t answer your birthday text; three surgeries happen and then don’t; three daughters make you cilantro soup before showing you their dance; three times you try the word “rapacious” in conversation; three times you bail; three more things occur to you now—right now, in the cornfield, as the scarecrow is finally gifted a brain.



Two beers in and you’re lowering yourself down the ladder again, growing calmer with each rung you leave above, growing softer and also kinder as you move towards the uptick of earth.



One famous actress goes into labor on a chairlift. You ski the crying newborn down the slopes, slowly, pizza style. You hold the newborn with three hands, and two gloves, for four-hundred-and-some seconds. You hold the child tight against the clean carpet of your heart. •





Sam Berman is a writer living in Boise, Idaho. His work has been featured in X R-A-Y, Forever Magazine and Maudlin House.

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