“What’s your name?” asked the girl behind the diner counter.

“My parents started it,” he said, sliding onto a vinyl stool. “I finished it. Added the ‘mc’ for luck and the ‘io’ for music.”

Say it slow. Say it fast. Either way, you’re already smiling. Would you like this adapted into a poem, a song lyric, or a different tone (e.g., sci-fi, melancholy, humorous)?

mcpelandio left before sunrise, as he always did. But he left something behind—not a souvenir, but a feeling. A crack in the ordinary. A permission slip for strangeness.