by Allegra Hyde

“She helped her friend Timo gut his house, ripping pipes and wires out of the walls, like popping the bones out of a corpse. They’d pried out windows like scooping eyeballs, leaving the house staring blindly across the street at equally eyeless homes, and she’d written up the experience — a family home of three generations made valueless because the suburb’s water had gone dry and Phoenix wouldn’t allow a hookup.”

-Paolo Bacigalupi