I’ve found a portal to another dimension in my apartment building: the missing 13th floor.

You scoff. Lots of buildings don’t have 13th floors, you say. Otis Elevator has explained that it’s not a plot, just a preference. “Due to the superstition associated with the number 13, the unlucky number is often omitted from elevator panels and stairwells.”

I say that’s what they want you to think. Or maybe Otis really believes this because the corporation operates exclusively in our quotidian dimension and doesn’t have all the facts.

True, though, it’s not just this building. The “13th” dimension exists as a horizontal layer across the landscape from building to building. It’s vertical, too. Like many buildings, mine has no 13th apartment units. The numbering goes …1410, 1411, 1412, 1414, 1415…

So, what’s in the 13th dimension? It could be a fantasyland with fairies, elves, unicorns, and the like, living and working in apartments, offices, and hotel rooms, possibly rent-free. The dimension could function as time travel, taking us to the year each building was built. It could be the hub for a physical shortcut, letting us jump from a building in Chicago to a building in New York by opening the right door. Or perhaps something nefarious is operating on the 13th floor…

Think about that when you get on an elevator. Better yet, think about that when you get off. Be sure it’s the floor you want. If you’re looking for the 13th floor, come prepared.

Where will it take you?

“How much of a tree is alive? Certainly not the outer bark. That falls off in dry scales, or can be scraped off down to the white layers within, and the tree be none the worse. Certainly not the wood. One often comes across old trees that have lost limbs or been carelessly pruned, which are entirely decayed out on the inside, so that nothing is left but a thin shell next the bark. Yet these trees grow as vigorously as ever, and bear leaves and fruit like a solid tree. The bark is dead; and the wood is dead. Between the two is a thin layer, perhaps a quarter inch through, which is alive. On one side, it is changing into dead wood. On the other side, it is changing into dead bark. The new wood is alive, and the new bark. Between them is something neither wood nor bark, but just living tree-stuff. The green leaves also are alive, and the green twigs, and the blossoms, and the growing buds. But at least half of every living tree is already dead; while the larger and longer lived a tree is, the smaller proportion of it is alive at one time.”

— from Natural Wonders Every Child Should Know by Edwin Tenney Brewster, physicist and popular science writer (October 11, 1866 – March 14, 1960). More information and links to download the book are here.

Roadside Picnic by Arkady Strugatsky
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Space aliens suddenly appear at six different places on Earth, stay a little while, then go away, paying no attention at all to humanity. They leave behind apparent trash, the way careless picnickers might stop alongside the road, eat lunch, and then depart, leaving behind trash that would mystify the squirrels and ants, and some of it might be toxic.

Thirteen years later, in one of those places, a city called Harmont, scientists are trying to understand what was left behind, and “stalkers” are trying to smuggle out everything they can because there’s a profitable market for the trash. Organized crime slowly edges out science, even though some of the trash is terrifyingly toxic.

As a first contact novel, Roadside Picnic takes an uncommon approach. We humans can’t understand the aliens, and they might not be interested in us anyway. We can only react — and we react in the way we always have to any novel situation. In this case, in the city of Harmont, a corrupt society grows more corrupt, but not without sufficient self-awareness to understand and debate why it is heading down that violent, destructive road.

My only quibble is that the novel focuses relentlessly on Harmont with no clue about what is happening at the other sites. Were there other kinds of responses? I think the addition might have added depth, but the novel is plenty visceral and fascinating as it is, a deserved classic in science fiction.


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Decluttering may be good for you, but I have something useless, stored away in a box and half-forgotten, and I will never throw it away: the key to my late parents’ old home. They left that house twenty-five years ago.

That house … They loved living there, a small ranch home at the end of a cul-de-sac. They enjoyed its wide windows, airy sun porch, and large back yard. My mother planted a flower garden in front and a vegetable garden in back, and together they worked hard to create a charming, comfortable interior. On weekends they would visit nearby parks, go to sporting events, or simply relax at home. They were happy there.

I lived in a nearby city, and I had the key because I could come anytime — always welcome, just walk right in — and I came when I could for holidays and visits.

My parents have died, someone else lives in that house, and I’ll never go back. Someone else might think that an old key is useless, but they never used it to walk into that happy home.

Once, that key opened a door. Now it opens memories.

If you’re in Chicago, come to the preview reading Tuesday, June 14, 7 p.m., at Fado Irish Pub and Restaurant, 100 W. Grand Ave., near the Magnificent Mile downtown! More information here: Ludlow Charlington @ GFS 6/14/22 | Facebook

Each year, the City of Chicago Animal Care and Control gets thousands of unwanted animals. Some are pets whose owners can no longer keep them, some are strays, and a few are evidence animals in court cases. Most of these pets are looking for homes, and all of them need care.

That’s what Friends of Chicago Animal Care and Control does: its members help Chicago’s neediest animals.

At Ludlow Charlingtons Coffee Shop in Chicago, eleven ornate portraits of contemporary dogs dressed in historical costumes hang on the walls. As a fundraiser for FCACC, nineteen writers, mostly from Chicago, have donated work to an anthology based on those portraits.

In all, thirty-four stories, poems, and plays tell about guarding kids, dealing with queens and kings, captaining a pirate ship, and creating a fashion trend. They span the globe and historical eras. I wrote a sonnet about Dog Six.

You can buy the Ludlow Charlington’s Doghouse starting June 14 for only $5.99: