"Crescent" is a contemplative, existential short story about a young heart surgeon, Dr. George Ash, who is surrounded by death, struggling to find balance in his mostly solitary life. His irregular sleeping patterns lend a dreamlike atmosphere to his daily life, as he shifts from providing emotional support for his patients at the hospital to volunteering for a suicide hotline to seeking catharsis through literature, through his nascent endeavors as a writer, and through the solitude of what little nature he can find outside Los Angeles. This story finds its heart in the down-to-earth advice Dr. Ash gives to a young man struggling with suicide: "We live, we die, and we do some shit in between. Just do things you like to do." —Scott Alexander Jones, author of elsewhere and Carpe Demons