Grateful acknowledgment is made to Dave Alvin, Jeff Bridges, and Ian McShane for their recordings of the following stories: "Rust," "Mumford," "Path," "Cigarette," "Reno," "Postcard," "Blood," "Idea," "Finch," "Ikea," "Kitty," "Hen," "Surprise," "Dusting," and "Grounded."

For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book,
write to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company,
215 Park Avenue South, New York, New York 10003.

www.hmhbooks.com

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Beach, Lou.
420 characters : stories / Lou Beach.
p. cm.
Summary: "The debut fiction project of an acclaimed artist and illus-
trator, 420 CHARACTERS is a collection of sharp and evocative min-
iature stories first presented as Facebook status updates"—Provided by
publisher.
ISBN
978-0-547-61793-0
I. Title. II. Title: Four hundred twenty characters.
PS
3602.
E
226
A
15 2011
813'.6—dc22 2011009143

Book design by Melissa Lotfy

Printed in China

SCP
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Author's Note

The stories you are about to encounter were written as status updates on a large social networking site. These updates were limited to 420 characters, including letters, spaces, and punctuation. The author hopes you enjoy them.

THE STORM came over the ridge, a rocket, dropped rain like bees, filled the corral with water and noise. I watched lightning hit the apple tree and thought: "Fritters!" as we packed sandbags against the flood. There was nowhere to go that wasn't wet, the squall had punched a hole in the cabin roof and the barn was knee-high in mud. We'll bury Jess later, when the river recedes, before the ground turns hard again.

THE TRAIN pulled into the station. I hesitated before stepping down to the platform, then made my way to the shoeshine stand. I sat, put my foot up on the metal rest. The old man looked up before tending to my shoe. "You new in town?" I told him that indeed I was. "OK then," he said and began cleaning my loafer. There was a local paper on the chair next to mine. The headline read:
FIRE IN HOSPITAL MELTS IRON LUNG.

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