“Coot Song: A Tragic Love Story” by Madeleine Angevine

Green Lake in the hour before dawn: Seattle’s beautiful, teeming dark heart, its still surface broken only by the skittering of hundreds of phosphorescent coot feet, its quiet violated only by the self-conscious chatter of female walkers seeking fitness in cautious herds, or the indigestive squawk of a disturbed heron. A headlamped solitary jogger, disappearing into pools of darkness along the intermittently lit trail, then reappearing triumphant, steeled herself for the prolonged period of darkness that awaited her at the lake’s poorly illuminated southern end . . .