This piece called “Age of the Dinosaurs” in HAD is my favorite because it’s the first collaboration with my son Theo, who’s not quite five years old. He was playing LEGOs in my office while I was working when a HAD submission notice appeared in my inbox soliciting weird, short work. I had a few hundred words I’d written at three in the morning after the Dobbs supreme court verdict but no title for it. I sighed.

Theo: What’s wrong Dad?

Me: I have this story I kind of like but it doesn’t have a title. What do you think I should title it?

Theo: I don’t know.

Me: It’s about soil and bones.

Theo: AGE OF THE DINOSAURS

I probably shouldn’t admit my son titled it but it seemed perfect for this insane time we’re living in and I fear for his future to an almost unbearable degree. But we have this collaboration, our first.

Theo’s depiction of the Cretaceous-Tertiary event. The meteor is telling the T-Rex “I WILL SLAM YOU.”