Blaise Zerega

Since arriving at the high school where he teaches aerospace and military leadership, Greg can’t stop checking the clock. Throughout homeroom and morning classes, he can’t focus. By lunch, he has little appetite. The butterflies in his stomach beat their wings furiously. By the afternoon, he wonders if any of his students might sense that he has something important on his mind. At 2:45, he dismisses his last class and double-times it down the hall and out to his pickup truck.

The one-night-only exhibition was located down a narrow alley across the street from San Francisco’s courthouse and county jail and one block past the cluster of bail bond services. Once inside, behind a velvet rope, there awaited the infamous Theranos centrifuge that promised to scan for more than a thousand diseases from a single blood drop.

Alta Journal is a writer’s magazine. Our commitment to understanding life in California and the West extends to publishing short fiction distinguished by spirited writing, a strong sense of place, and creative storytelling in every issue. In 2025, we were pleased to present wholly original fiction—combined with artwork from award-winning illustrator Victor Juhasz—that reflects and honors the diversity of the West.