Uncommon Type: Some Stories

by Tom Hanks

A week later Johnny Boy disappeared and the other Johnny Boy cracked, and one by one, others in the outfit were lost in ways soldiers are lost.

French telephones do not ring. They go bleat-bleat, bleat-bleat, bleat-bleat. At 6:22 a.m., the sound is like having a barn animal in your hotel room. Rory had to stop that sound.

did you know a reading of the column and the timing of a soft-boiled egg are a perfect match?

As a paddleboarder, Frank sought the larger waves off of Mars, those well outside, beyond the lineup, where along with the other stand-up surfers he’d wait for the larger sets of heavy water, the waves generated by storms in the South Pacific that grew muscular with mileage.

The big event of translunar space is crossing the equigravisphere, a boundary as invisible as the International Date Line but, for the Alan Bean, the Rubicon. On this side of the EQS, Earth’s gravity was tugging us back, slowing our progress, bidding us to return home to the life-affirming benefits of water, atmosphere, and a magnetic field. Once we crossed, the moon grabbed hold, wrapping us in her ancient silvery embrace, whispering to us to hurry hurry hurry to wink in wonder at her magnificent desolation.

A hot wind blew as the ship moved slowly up the wide river, the city passing like a brilliant jeweled curtain; a solid mass of a million lighted windows,