Dad grabbed the sugar bowl and turned on the stove. It was electric and fired up immediately. “See this here?” He took a pinch of sugar and held it high above the heat. A flurry fell from his fingers onto the coil, orange now and scalding.

The crystals popped into tight little fireballs.

Henry’s eyes popped as well.

“Do it again,” he said.

Dad did it again. The room filled with a yummy redolence, sweet like cotton candy or toasted marshmallows. Henry reached for the bowl but Dad said, “Uh-uh.” Then he took down the cinnamon, kept in a jar that Mum made – one of the last of her plain-sight relics.

He took a pinch, held it high, and sprinkled. Very different, the cinnamon. Laid out on the coil, the grains glowed soft like spectral dust, then faded slow, the smell more aromatic, spicier than before….

-A snippet from The Every Boy by Dana Adam Shapiro.