I'm Meg Wallitzer. I am a writer and not a magician, but I swear in the next hour, you will witness three very, very different disappearing acts.

That's right, do not adjust your headphones or speakers. Get ready for selected shorts as some very fictional human beings vanish into thin air.

I'd say you won't believe your eyes, but in truth, you won't really need them. Stay right where you are.

You're listening to Selected Shorts where our greatest actors transport us through the magic of fiction, one short story at a time.

When someone vanishes, it can be a shock. Whether it's sudden and unexpected, or it feels like someone slowly tiptoed out of their former life,

it can be hard for those of us who are left behind, you know, wondering why their stool

remains unoccupied at the dive bar we assumed would always be a mutual favorite.

I mean, Deb, the bartender, stocked fresh mint year-round because you two drank

juleps even in winter. But there's also a quality

of mystery to this kind of disappearing act. We might find ourselves asking all kinds of questions,

where did this person go? When did they go? Are they coming back? Underlying the simple queries,

there are deeper ones about why they felt they had to go,

what we may have done wrong, if there will always be aspects of our friends and loved ones

that remain hidden from us. And of course, will this person buy the first round of juleps

when they reappear. These head scratchers and others are part of the reason that disappearances

make great fodder

for fiction.

So this week on selected shorts, stories about people who vanish.

But we want to stress as scary as disappearances in the real world can be, these stories

are more playful and a bit stranger.

In one piece, a kidnapping goes kerflui. In a second, a lodger haunts his new hosts,

and in a third, the child of Waldo from Where's Waldo, speaks out. First, a darkly funny piece

...