Author: Alyssa Ford

  • Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep

    Sally Strle was showering in her house in Virginia, Minnesota, when the vision appeared in her mind: an open Bible with the words Rest On His Word scrolled on the pages and a pillow adorned with Catholic art and scripture. “I could see the beautiful pictures, even the phrase ‘Rest On His Word’ there, and…

  • Do You Really Believe?

    One morning last summer, leaving my apartment on Grand Avenue in St. Paul, I noticed there weren’t many people outside. It was a fine June day, but there wasn’t the usual line of cars in front of Starbucks. No commuters schlepping insulated mochas, no dog walkers, no window washers at Cafe Latté, and no one…

  • The Doom Boom

    Echo Bodine, a south Minneapolis psychic, sees it in people’s auras. She sees it in the number of angels and spiritual guides hovering around the living (“So many!”). She sees it in the number of calamities and catastrophes, and the number of people laid off, divorced, and dying. According to Bodine these signs all point…

  • Dispensing with Formalities

    A white-haired man in a finely tailored suit is breezing through the lobby of the Chambers Hotel with three black-garbed hotel employees, including the general manager, at his heels. He glides past Subodh Gupta’s stainless steel sculpture that evokes Animal, the wild-man drummer Muppet. He cruises by the bull’s head suspended in a formaldehyde-filled tank,…