Lucius Shepard explores the after-effects of injury with this haunting story.

Bobby is a Columbia grad college student studying philosophy that has taken a calendar year off from school to help with the meticulous clean-up at ground zero after 9/11. Each day, he enters a nightmarish otherworld of smoke cigarettes and ash, where bits of damaged lives emerge through the rubble like dropped soul fragments. Haunted by what he provides seen, he discovers himself collecting pieces in the wreckage. Yet he’s unable to discuss his experience-until he discovers himself attracted to an enigmatic old woman at the pub he frequents after function. Every evening she rests there alone, fending off men who approach, looking for some type of solace or resolution. Inexplicably, Bobby feels compelled to share stories with her. Inside a transformed world where no-one is quite whole, they may present one another a lacking piece.