Wreck

From high in an Eastern white pine, a great horned owl watches over a quiet town at night. The owl is aware of everything from a vole under a lawn to a mother's worried heartbeat and a body's rogue cells. It observes a car and a train moving on a collision course toward the same crossing. Though the owl cannot calculate the exact moment of impact, it anticipates the impending horror, and the scene ends with the sound of a great screeching.

At 3:38 am, in late August, Rocky lies awake with insomnia, reading by headlamp. She discovers a series of red bumps on her arm just below her elbow. She considers asking her husband, Nick, about them but decides against it, knowing he would be unhelpful or dismissive. Instead, she lies in the dark listening to crickets, trying to fall back asleep before morning.

Unable to resist the urge to know what the bumps are, Rocky goes to the kitchen to retrieve her phone, followed by her two cats, Chicken and Angie. Back in bed, she photographs the bumps and researches them online. She finds a Reddit thread where one user comments that just because someone is a hypochondriac does not mean a condition is not malignant.