A young boy confronts a terrifying family secret. A recent college graduate is surprised by her fairy godmother in the powder room of a fancy nightclub in Manhattan. An exhausted midwife and her talking horse stumble into the gunfight at the O.K. Corral. A crack real estate agent confronts monstrously annoying thrill seekers at her open house. Two scheming ex-lovers meet at a diner; only one will leave. A small child gleefully bends reality to her will.

This cross-genre collection of flash explores the far realms of our most basic instinct. Russell's stories astonish, delight, and repulse, unleashing a multiverse of possibility as her unforgettable characters respond to uncertainty in bedeviling ways.