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Allura 49

Up until a few days ago I was steadily employed as a laboratory technician at one of the cancer hospitals in my city. Now, for those of you not in the know, lab techs get paid jack shit even after getting a science degree. If you ever spend any time on r/labrats then you’d know what I mean. Even worse, the pay scales in academia are a joke compared to industry. Luckily for me I somehow worked my way into a decent paying lab tech job in one of the research groups at the hospital. My boss (whose name I can’t say, I’ll explain later) was probably the most successful and well-funded researcher in the entire research division. Our group would crank out several publications in a single year in Nature, Cell, New England Journal of Medicine you name it. (Not bragging but I made co-author on one of the papers!). My job as a lab tech was actually pretty easy. A lot of it was the usual lab stuff that no one here would care about but where I really excelled was apparently my ability to grow tumours. I never understood how I did it but my boss and some of the other post docs would grow tumours on me and somehow I could grow them faster than the other techs. The solid tumours were the easiest like melanoma and lung cancer, even some of the rarer ones like bone cancers. I would consider those an easy project. For obvious reasons I absolutely drew the line at testicular cancer. My boss and I had a long discussion about it but even he knew I wasn’t budging on that one. The worst was leukaemia. I hated it and so did the other techs. If you’ve ever had a bone marrow biopsy you’d know what I was talking about. That hurt like a son of a bitch! So as a rule you’d only have to do a leukaemia project once a year. Anyway, after they, or I should say I, had grown the tumour my boss or some of the other post docs would then either excise the tumour or give me a drug to try and reduce it in size. From this we would get some of the most amazing and ground-breaking data in the field. My boss would give these talks at conferences and I’m not kidding, other prominent researchers would lose their shit! But here’s what happened and this is how I lost my job. Goddam OHS. Two weeks ago some OHS representatives came to give a talk to our lab. Turns out, my boss hadn’t been filling out the proper paperwork to be working on human subjects. The ethics committee were losing their minds and we had to stop research on humans immediately. They were however allowed to continue their research but only using mice. And that’s how I lost my job to goddam mouse! Me and the other lab techs were pretty much sent packing that day. We had to sign an NDA, which is why I can’t mention my boss’ name. I’ve tried contacting the other techs to see how they’re going but it seems like they’ve all ghosted me and I can’t get in touch with any of them. I’ve started looking for other work in the meantime. We got a decent payout which should keep me afloat while I look for another job. But I am *definitely* moving into industry.

"I remember you." For a moment, it was as if time had stopped. *Had he really just said what I thought he did?* "That's.. You're lying." I stammered, taking a step back as my shoulder blades propped up against the wall behind me. "You're not allowed to remember me." I continued, painfully clearing my throat as I felt the lump begin to form again. Nevertheless, his eyes remained trained on me, those familiar, puppy-dog eyes that glistened hazel in the moonlight and lit up whenever I entered the room. *"I remember you."* Well, he wouldn't for much longer. "Please, I just-- I know I remember you, I know your face, I know.. I know you remember me, too." he pleaded, struggling against the chains that bound him to the opposite wall. It was almost too much for me to bear; I knew I couldn't keep up the act much longer if he kept trying to talk to me. With tears now streaming down my face, I turned my gaze away and began screaming for help, my voice cracking with each shaky breath I inhaled. "Help! Please! He says he remembers me! He shouldn't remember me!" I cried, my legs giving out as I slumped against the wall behind me, not wanting to watch them come in. Within moments, two large soldiers burst through the room and grabbed the male by his upper arms, wasting no time in dragging him away as he shouted and clawed and kicked. "No! No! I remember her! Please! June, don't let them do this!" And that's when I fainted. **november 12, 2384 . . . 8:32 a.m.** *I remember the day they came to our city.* *Mama was busy cooking lunch when they knocked on our door. All I could hear was a deep, husky voice asking Mama lots of questions, and I could tell she was getting annoyed. Before I could ask who he was, Mama walked back into the kitchen and resumed cooking.* *I kept asking who that man was, but Mama was acting like she had no idea what I was talking about. That's how it all started.* *At first, Mama just thought I was playing games and messing around, but once they came and took over our city, she realized what was happening.* *Then one day, Mama didn't recognize me.* *She kept saying that I had her mistaken with someone else, but when I started to cry, she just turned away and went back to reading her magazine. Mama didn't remember me.* *Some of the neighbors stopped remembering me, too. They didn't let me play with their kids, and then their kids stopped coming outside altogether. I was all alone.* *I had to start avoiding Mama because she would get scared when she saw me. She thought I was a ghost, or a burglar, and stopped letting me sneak food from the pantry. It got to the point where I had to stay up all night and wait for my chance to get food after she went to bed.* *Soon enough, I wasn't allowed in the house anymore. Mama thought I was a squatter pretending to be her daughter just to get free food and a free bed. I pleaded with Mama to reconsider, to believe that I was really her daughter, but she never did.* *Since Mama didn't want me to live with her anymore, I was taken to an orphanage where other little boys and girls were. I cried when Mama left, but she didn't look sad at all.* *I could tell other kids were sad, too; they had splotchy cheeks and tear stains on their shirts. Why were we being left behind like this?* *I don't know if I'll ever get an answer, but I do know one thing:* *I never saw Mama again.* **entry filed for incineration at 9:00 a.m.

“A Visit to Tatum” As many times as I’d driven the stretch of I-44 between St. Louis and Springfield you’d think I would have figured out all of the best places to stop for a bite and exactly how much gas I needed to have in my tank. Over almost three years and a dozen trips I’d never had any problems until that day last month. Ordinarily if I’d left my house without a full tank I knew a stop in Cuba or Rolla would take care of things, but there was so much going on at the office I hadn’t paid attention to details. Now, just past the Cuba exit my fuel warning light came on. It meant I’d be able to drive about twenty-five miles on what was left in the tank but it was thirty more miles to the Rolla exit. Should I risk the drive? It was farm country with no roads to turn off on to for a drive back to Cuba. It seemed like I’d be forced to do a white knuckle drive with one eye on the road and one on the gas gauge. Then up ahead I saw a highway sign that I’d never paid much attention to on my previous trips. It read “ Tatum Exit 27 ”. I’d probably seen the sign before but it just didn’t register in my memory. The warning light glowing on my dashboard told me not to take any chances. I hit my turn signal and eased my way on to the exit ramp. At the end of the ramp was a small paved road that appeared to connect the exit and entrance ramps but not much more. There was no sign of a building let alone a town and I felt more than a little nervous. I had two choices, get back on the highway and hope I could make it to Rolla or turn on to the small road and see where it would lead me. Neither option was a good one but I chose to find out what was in the town of Tatum. After about a hundred yards of driving through what felt like a tunnel of Pin Oak trees on both sides of the road I reached an opening. Off to my right was a faded, tattered sign that read “ Parker’s Garage ” and under that “ Gas - Oil - Minor Repairs ”. A smaller sign beside it that looked like an afterthought read “ Snack Bar ”. Up ahead on the left were three rows of identical mobile homes, all white and all in less than good condition. On the right past the sign was the entrance to a large parking area and a three-bay brick garage building. A small, white clapboard church sat at the far edge of the parking area. Beyond that, in every direction was a whole lot of nothing. To call Tatum a town was a real stretch but all I needed was a full tank of gas and then I’d be on my way. There were no signs of people or activity as I slowly drove past a long row of mailboxes at the entrance driveway to the trailers. Each box had the owner’s trailer address and name stenciled on it. There was a Parker, two Oldachs, three Larimores, two more Parkers, another Larimore another Parker and two more Oldachs. It was hard to miss the strangeness of all those trailers being home to just three extended families. The two fuel pumps were near the garage and I pulled up to the one marked “Regular”. There was no one in sight and after waiting for a few minutes I got out and grabbed hold of the nozzle. The readout showed I’d only pumped a quarter’s worth of gas when I heard a man calling to me. “Whoa, hold on there, mister. That’s my job!” I turned and saw a skinny, middle-aged man in blue coveralls walking toward me. The name patch sewn on to his uniform read “Leonard”. “Oh, sorry, Leonard,” I said, “I thought it was self-serve.” The man took the pump from my hand. “Well, it ain”t, we do the work around here.” His total lack of warmth and even a hint of a smile were surprising. “I guess a lot of people make that mistake, huh?” Trying to put a friendlier tone on the conversation didn’t seem to have any effect. “Nope, we don’t get a lot of people here. Don’t want to, cause we’ve got all them trucks to gas up and take care of.” He motioned toward the far end of the dirt and gravel parking area where three identical red vans were parked on a patch of asphalt. From the striping on the pavement it looked like the empty spaces were for other vans that were elsewhere at the moment. On the side of each of them was painted “ Parker Delivery ”. “That’s why we have these pumps. They’re for them trucks and the school van to Cuba, not for strangers.” “Then why the sign on the road over there? It makes it sound like you’re a regular business.” That sign’s nearly forty years old. Old Tatum Parker put it up back when he got his friends at the capital to put in the exit from the highway. He wanted the business and town to be somethin’ the rest of us folks didn’t.” The readout on the pump now showed that Leonard had already put enough into my tank to get me to Springfield so I wasn’t reluctant to challenge him a little. “So then why didn’t you just tell me that it’s your gas only and send me on my way?” “Wouldn’t be Christian.” He rubbed the cuff of his sleeve across his nose. As he finished filling my tank I looked back again to the row of mailboxes along the road. I thought again how odd it was that all those trailers housed the members of only three families. Maybe it was wrong to pry but it was too late, my curiosity had gotten the best of me. “So, Leonard, I saw the names on the mailboxes and I don’t see any other roads around here. Is that everyone in Tatum?” He pulled the nozzle from my filler and looked at me. It wasn’t a friendly look. “Yeah, that’s Tatum; them trailers, the church and this garage.” “And are you a Parker?” “Nope, an Oldach. Is that important to you?” His demeanor was starting to piss me off but it was also bringing out my snarky side. “No, I was just curious. I’ve driven by this exit dozens of times and never noticed the sign for Tatum.” “That’s the way we like it, nice and private.” he answered. He pulled a rag from his back pocket, wiped his nose and said, “That’s thirty-one seventy and we prefer cash.” “No problem, but I’ll need a receipt from you.” Leonard let out a long, deep sigh and muttered, “There’s always something more.” I nodded and said, “Yeah, I guess there is.” As I followed him to the garage I looked at the red vans again. “So what does Parker Delivery deliver?” Leonard was not a patient man. He let out another deep sigh and answered, “You sure do ask a lot of questions. We deliver whatever the folks in Cuba and Rolla ask us to.” It was a vague answer and I knew it would be the only one I’d get. We went into the garage and I laid two twenty dollar bills on the counter in front of him and then looked around. The small area in front of the cash counter was barely big enough to stand in. The walls were covered with a large array of black and white photographs. They were portraits of what a banner sign said were three generations of the men and women who’d operated Parker’s Garage and Parker Delivery over the years. That was the moment that I understood the mailboxes. There was Jim Parker and his wife Mary Oldach Parker. Next to them were Peter Larimore and his wife Cheryl Parker Larimore. Finishing the top row were Thomas Oldach and Margie Larimore Oldach and finally Nathan Parker and his wife Sandra Oldach Parker. I scanned the entire wall and every single face was attached to one of those three names. That explained the mailboxes and I figured it also explained Leonard’s comment about wanting privacy. It looked like Leonard was having some difficulty making change in the register and writing out my receipt. I let him struggle and looked into what the sign called a snack bar. There was a short red laminate counter with four stools and holes in the floor where two other stools had been removed. In front of that was a larger, empty area that looked like it might have been a dining room at some time in the past. I could hear noise from the kitchen but saw no one. I turned back to Leonard and asked, “Is there someone in the snack bar that can get me a coffee to go?” He looked up from his mathematical struggles, appearing to be irritated by my interruption and said, “I suppose she can get you a coffee if you have your own cup.” “A paper cup would be just fine with me.” “Look, mister...what’s your name by the way? I need it for the receipt.” “It’s Wesley Ames.” “Okay, Mr. Ames, it’s like I said before, we don’t get a lot of strangers here. The men who drive them vans all live here and them boys like their coffee in a real cup.” He went back to working on the receipt. I shook my head, totally taken aback by his attitude. I walked out to my car and took out the insulated cup that I always kept filled with water. I poured it out on to the ground and walked back inside, right past Leonard and into the snack bar. A woman in the kitchen noticed me through the pass-through window behind the counter. She looked surprised to see a strange face. I held up my empty cup and called out “Coffee?” She hesitated so long that I thought she was deliberately avoiding me. Finally she made it around the corner to the kitchen door and stood behind the counter. She said nothing and just stared at me. “I was wondering if you could fill this with coffee for me. Leonard said you would.” “Leonard don’t run the snack bar but I guess I can do it.” She reached for my cup, looked at it a moment and said, “This is a pretty big cup, I’m gonna have to charge you extra.” “I sighed, not at all surprised that she was just as unfriendly as Leonard. “That’s fine.” I watched her fill my cup and wondered how long that coffee pot had been sitting on a burner in an empty snack bar. She put the lid back on the cup, handed it to me and said in a monotone voice, “Three bucks even.” “Okay, I’ll just give it to Leonard from my change.” “You weren’t listening to me. Leonard don’t run the snack bar. You gotta pay me.” I put the cup on the counter, pulled three singles from my wallet and handed it to her.” She took the bills from my hand and stood there looking at me. Finally, she said, “I accept tips.” I was really tempted to reach into my pocket and take out a dime but I just shook my head and handed her another buck. She took it without saying anything and walked back into the kitchen. Leonard had finally solved the riddle of making change and writing it down. He handed me my receipt and change and without saying “Thank you” or “Have a nice day” like every other service attendant in America would do, he turned and walked away, into a small storage room behind the counter and closed the door. The rest of my drive to Springfield would have been more pleasant if it weren’t for my cup of bitter, boiled coffee and the bad mood I was in from my contact with the strange town of Tatum. A town like none I’d ever seen with people I’d hoped I’d never run into again. And they’d shown me very clearly that they felt the same way. Before I’d left Springfield the next morning I‘d made sure to top off my gas tank. One of life’s lessons learned the hard way. My drive of two hundred and twenty one miles would be non-stop and, hopefully, uneventful. I wasn’t surprised that right about the time I saw the exit for Rolla I started thinking about my strange experience of the day before. A town that I’d never heard of before was now all I could think about. I kept an eye on my odometer so I’d be ready in time to see the northbound sign for Exit 27 to Tatum and give it the finger as I passed it. I slowed down a little when I got close to the area where I thought it would be. After a minute or so I spotted something ahead as odd as Tatum itself. A short remnant of the green metal post that had held the exit sign protruded above the grass along the shoulder. Someone, and I guessed it was Leonard, had cut down the sign. I looked across the median and saw that the sign along the southbound lanes was also gone. I pulled on to the shoulder and stopped. A picture started to form in my mind. A picture of a skinny man in blue coveralls, holding a flashlight and a hacksaw, was crouched in the darkness with the guardrails hiding most of him from view. Between passing cars he stood there and sawed away at the posts, first the northbound and then the south. I pictured his smile as each sign crashed to the ground and how he must have enjoyed dragging them into the weeds. And I pictured how his smile must have grown when he was sure that it would be hard for any strangers to find Tatum again. I smiled, lifted my coffee cup and tipped it in the direction of Tatum. “Here’s to you, Leonard Oldach, you strange man, and to your whole strange town.” I took a sip of bad coffee and added, “And on behalf of every single driver who passes this way, I swear if you hadn’t cut them down I would have.”

No one knew where it had come from. It had stood at the edge of the city for ages, to the point some sources even believed it had existed before the city. Though, of course, there was no way to be certain. The library was as enigmatic as it was beautiful, holding such marvelous wonders and stories, the likes of which no one had ever before seen. Through some magic, it was able to enchant both children and adults alike. Yet, as time passed, the magic seemed to fade. Every day, there seemed to be one less person visiting its silent halls, one less person losing themselves within a world unlike theirs. For a human living day to day, the change was gradual enough to be unnoticeable. But for an entity which had existed for centuries, if not millennia, an entity which had watched countless souls enter with despairing thoughts and leave with joy and solace in their hearts, it was like its heart was breaking. And the library could do nothing of its own to prevent their departure. The only tools it had at its disposal were its books. It would rewrite them, reorganize them, create entirely new stories. The shelves would realign themselves, forming a simple maze to bring readers places they wouldn’t venture themselves. Nothing worked, and soon enough, the library stood empty. Its doors remained unlocked, its stories remained unread, and its hopes remained unheard. Time passed, as memory of the library faded into obscurity. Everyone in the city knew of it only in passing, it being the subject of tales handed down through generations. They all spoke of it so highly, regaled children with stories of the worlds they’d encountered as if borne their own ideas, yet never once suggested they would return to it. Without anyone to visit, without anyone to care for its stories, the library began losing the power to stop nature. It started as a single sprout in the center of the floor, growing between the cracks in the tiles until it stood proudly as a vibrant violet hyacinth. That flower remained in isolation for years, feeding on sunlight from high windows, nourished by the steady drip-drip-drip of water from a crack in the ceiling. It had no sense of self, no ability to know where it was, and as such, lacked the ability to visit another world. The library watched the flower, acting as its lone guardian even as its magic faded further. Perhaps it felt something akin to brotherhood in the tiny spot of beauty, or perhaps it treated the flower as it would a new reader. It would rearrange shelves to ensure no wild animals devoured the flower, or provide comfort from the harsh winter winds when they would billow in through unhinged doors. But no one came, and no one would come. Not ever again. That was the harsh reality the library faced, and with its magic slipping ever further away, it became further enveloped by the natural world. Grasses would creep in through the doorways, taking root wherever dirt had been dragged years prior; vines would climb ever upward, using the library’s as a handhold in their journey toward the sun; flowers would settle down, growing in patches of simple rue, cerulean irises, and goldenrod tulips. None of them, however, dared touch the books, as if knowing they were sacred to the building which provided them shelter from the environment. None of them knew the truth behind the shifting landscape which they called home, the walls which would suddenly not be walls, the storms which would suddenly become a simple drip-drip-drip that fed them conservatively, the harsh droughts which would be relieved only by a sudden shade looming over. War came to the city centuries later, death raking its bony fingers across the land as if preparing the soil beneath. No one was safe, all dragged into combat for the sake of keeping their own alive, and few returned to tell the tales of the brutal onslaught they had endured. This holdout was never meant to last. Perhaps the other side saw it only as a form of entertainment, watching how long the people would scramble in their desperation to survive. Whatever it was, when the enemy grew bored, they stopped holding back. When the bombs came, no one was spared, no buildings were free of being targeted. Young and old, male and female and all in between, were targets of an undiscerning threat. And in the span of just a few days, the city was no more than rubble. The only building which remained was the library, unable to act as the city it had once called a friend came to exist no longer. It was unable to shed a tear, unable to vocalize its pain and sorrow. It had no magic of its own, no way to reach out. All it could do was protect its little slice of the world and hope no danger came its way. \* \* \* \* \* It had been decades since anyone had explored this part of the country, too terrified of tales from the war to risk venturing so far out. Though he had heard the tales from his parents, and them from theirs, having been saved from the destruction by distance alone, they held no weight to him. Why should he be afraid of a war which he had no connection to, and which no other child his age had ever spoken of? His journey through the rubble was rough. Though the city had apparently been destroyed by objects called “bombs,” they hadn’t leveled the remains, leaving peaks and crags formed by debris alone. To anyone who knew, it would’ve looked wholly unnatural. Yet, to him, who was to say this wasn’t just another natural structure, the result of some as-of-yet undiscovered weathering method? He had no reference, his own city bearing no similarities to whatever this one may have once been. Occasionally, he would find bones, sorrowful reminders that there was no life within the city limits. The first time it had happened, he had only then realized that there truly was no life. Not once had he heard a bird call to its mate, or seen the smiling face of a flower as it greeted the sun. There was nothing but silence, which in a word normally filled with music and voices, was unsettling. He traveled without aim, choosing the path of least resistance as a river would through the land. He climbed up steep slopes, using shattered windows as handholds, only to slide down their opposite side, kicking up dust. He ventured in some buildings, marveling at what had once been a grand fountain or sculpture, only to have such a view vanish from his mind the moment he left the structure behind. He wasn’t looking for anything in particular, simply something which would show the city was safe and ease his parents’ fears for his wellbeing. As such, it was quite the welcome surprise when he spotted a single building at the edge of the city, standing undamaged by anything but time. It was a large structure with an arching roof and an elaborate windowed façade. Draped over it, as if to provide warmth on a cold winter night, were all sorts of grasses and ivies. The windows were cracked, some missing entire panes, while the doors hung loosely from their hinges, creaking in the slightest of breezes. As he passed through the doorway, spying the rows upon rows of books beyond, the shelves burdened by stories of a city passed, he knew why the building had been spared. Despite the size of it, the library wasn’t grandiose, instead rather humble, offering a quite place of solitude for those few who had no doubt seen it as a rest stop on their grander journeys. He, however, wasn’t like that. To him, it felt as if fate had led him here, as if that tiny red thread upon his finger had been not a string to someone unknown, but the tassel which marked one’s place in a book. He ran his fingers gently over the shelves, feeling the wood remain solid despite what had to have been centuries of mistreatment. There was something else as well, just beneath the surface, something which brought a smile to his face, though he couldn’t determine what it was exactly. His journey brought him to rest in the heart of the library, where the highest windows provided a single spot of sunlight, and where there rested a single violet hyacinth. It stood proud, untouched by the occasional wrath of nature, but alone. As he watched, a single drop of water tumbled from a crack in the ceiling, before splashing against the flower’s petals. He knelt before it, gently bringing his nose closer so he could draw in its beautiful scent. His mother had taught him about flowers, and how each one held its own meaning, no matter where in the world one went. Some exuded happiness and joy, while others whimpered sorrow and despair. In the language of flowers, violet hyacinth said one thing, and one thing only. “Please forgive me.” As it was the largest flower within the library, and the one treated most prominently, he knew it was the oldest among them, and had been there for an indeterminate amount of time. It didn’t escape his notice that the others which grew showed despair, regret, but also hope. He smiled calmly and settled himself down beside the hyacinth, one hand running through the short grass which surrounded its base. He wished he could speak, not to himself, but to the library. He wished he could vocalize his thoughts, let it be known that the library would never be forgotten, that it hadn’t failed. Though it could not protect the people themselves, it had done the next best thing, and it had protected their stories for all future generations to experience. There was a shudder which he felt subtly, and he began to rise, fearing an earthquake. Yet, a moment later, the source was revealed. It was a lone shelf, dragging itself through the library’s interior, being careful to avoid the patches of flowers and grass as it approached him. By his side, a single book slid itself out further than its fellows. He took the book, wondered at its blank pages, until another book’s emergence rolled forward a pencil. That was enough of a message, and he once again sat beside the hyacinth, scribbling his message into the book. When finished, he returned it to its place in the shelf, only to grin in pleased shock as it popped out a few moments later, with new words written beneath his. He and the library went back and forth, exchanging words in a way no one had done with the building since before the city’s construction. They spoke of stories of humanity, they spoke of the library itself, and of him. They spoke of the past, and they spoke of the future. But most importantly, they spoke. As the sun began to set, he returned the book to its place upon the shelf one final time. His last scribble: “I’ll be back. You won’t ever be forgotten again, for as long as I live. I promise.

I have always been fascinated by flowers but that doesn't mean I have ever actively worked towards growing them. I'm pretty sure my mother would give a solid testimony on that. She would always ask, "If you do love flowers, aren't you supposed to love growing them and nurturing them as well? What kind of a person are you?" and to be completely honest, I don't know either. It's not just garden flowers though, I love plants and flowers that are just wild and all over the place. It's like, they are not structured, there is no order to them, but still, they are extremely beautiful and wonderful. Reminds me of people who may not be the smartest or the richest or the most outgoing or stuff like that but still seems to have their life figured out. Guess it's not too bad to be among the wild flowers. Its interesting how much effort actually does go into growing an immaculate garden. We see somebody's garden and go, "Well, that seems like a lot of time and effort and a huge amount of money all put together" and it's true. Just to give an idea - You have to decide on the perfect spot that will always be relevant and by that I mean that it should be useful to you as long as you stay in the game. Then you need to decide on the beautiful plants you want to nurture and most importantly, you have to identify the weed from the plants. That part is very tough because if not done carefully, might choke your entire garden. Now, if you are an idiot like me and somehow managed to destroy your entire garden - Hello to you. I always wanted my garden to be filled with the most exotic, aromatic and beautiful flowers in the whole world but failed to consider their needs. That's right, plants have needs too. Shocking, I know. The seeds I planted never took to flowering. They died. All of them. Then for a brief period of time I thought, maybe some wild flowers would grow there, you know, like what happens in nature. But, I have realized now that no matter what you do, sometimes it just doesn't work. Like the seeds I planted. No matter how much I wished they would grow and thrive and flower, my wish alone just wasn't enough. Sometimes what you do is just not enough and that's the hard truth. So what now? Stop gardening all together? To be fair, I thought about it. Long and hard. Didn't come to any solid conclusion. I mean, as long as I don’t analyze the soil type, the weather, the type of plants that could grow in this soil, the peculiarities of plants that I would like to grow(despite the geographical barriers), I don’t think there is going to be any progress. As of now, I have decided to give it time. Time to heal itself. Time to grow any wild flowers if it wants to. Time to undo the damages inflicted upon it. I will try to grow my garden again, make it flower all over again be filled with beauty. My mother is right - if you love it, then why not work for it? Till then, I will cherish what once was.

The dribblets of rain raced down the glass. I shifted to look at the ceiling. The ridges flowed into different shapes contorting into faces and images. I watched it turn and contort, going into a peaceful gaze, where it was just me and no one else. Then the back door slammed. Parker came to the couch, propping herself up into the corner, her glasses falling halfway down her nose, blue eyes lacing her vacant expression as she typed into her phone. I love to watch her like this, her hair messy around her face, no wedged shoes, so she barely comes to my chest, and a tablet or a phone in her hands. She's perfect. Always knowing what she wants to be done, knowing how to get it, she enchants me with her mere presence. Everything about her is different and foreign, but after just a few days became familiar and warm. People call her challenged, I think they just don't understand what she's about. "Starr, stop staring, if you want cuddles you gotta come here." her voice rang out into the empty room. Her voice fills your heart, making you feel safe and surrounded, I put my head in her lap, just to get her hand on my forehead. She is nowhere near average, from her height, and personality, to her voice and the feelings she brings you. Me on the other hand, I'm more average than anyone you've ever seen, from the color of my eyes to my height and voice, even my clothing options are average. The only thing that makes me different, it's something I do, I bend things to my will, I make air, and water move, along with the trees and flames, it's a curse. it's hard to control and it will just get me locked away. I hate it. I hate the way my voice tries to stay flat, I hate the way I blank out every other minute, I hate the way my eyes look placated, I hate the way I can't tell anyone anything without guilt. She's beautifully perfect, and I refuse to see a change. I don't understand how someone so extraordinary, can love someone like me. So boring it's threatening. ****** The rain is pouring out here. My yellow rainboots caked with mud, I kick them against the garage, my jacket wasn't keeping me dry. I should have asked for help, Starr would have helped, I need to stop being so proud. Pride has gotten me nowhere, yet I refuse to let it go. The sky doesn't let me see an ounce of sun, I let out a roar of frustration, I wanted to get the dog pen up for when Penn has her puppies. I wasn't getting it done today. I marched up the low stairs, I let out a breath before opening the back door. I slipped my rain boot's onto the mat, my height diminishing, I grumbled as I pulled off my jacket. I snatched my phone from the kitchen counter, almost sliding on the hardwood floors. Starr was lying stretched across the couch. I piled myself up in the corner and began writing into my journal. Starr's eyes diverted themselves to me, I glanced away, her serene eyes always get the best of me, they're always calm. She is almost always quiet at home, my glasses slipped down the crooked path of my nose. I took the time to examine her sundress, it was a light blue with petals falling around her. Her cheery, positive demeanor, was a play up. If you take more than fifteen minutes to talk to her, you see her sarcastic, dark, and sometimes sad manor. She doesn't like to communicate. If her eyes could, they'd hold the stars. She's been staring at me too long now, so I break the silence. "Starr, stop staring, if you want cuddles you gotta come here." She puts her head into my lap, I place my hand on her head in acknowledgment. She sighs. I continue typing with my left hand. I try to pull my sleeves down as little as possible, my arms are fine. I am not going to be a prideless bother to those around me just because I feel sad sometimes. My hair falls into my eyes, I should cut it off, it's a bother, and I refuse to let my hair get beyond my shoulders. My stupid blue eyes, too weak to do anything without help. I need a pair of glasses. Starr sighs again. I look at her, her eyes are closed, her pretty blonde hair falls into her face. I leave it. Her face is so, so, ugh, I cannot describe it, the peacefulness she constantly puts up makes me feel as if nothing bad could happen in our little lives like the worst has already come. I saw her use her powers once, it was such a deafening noise, to hear the pulsing of the earth, to feel the mist before you felt the rain, to watch the trees dance in unison, to see the waves battle their mighty battle. To see the flames build themselves up and up until they are a roar. It was beautiful. I don't understand how someone so extraordinary, can love someone like me. So average it's threatening. ********** I hate how my people treat themselves, I love all of you, you're my people, from the little ones who run and push and shove, to the big ones who pet, and yell and play, I love you all yet, you treat yourselves like a squirrel, nasty and terrible, don't be like a squirrel, I love you and always will, even after I'm long gone. You will dance on in my memories until there are no others. Until I don't remember what a good girl and a bad girl is, or until I have no bladder control and I stop eating. I will love you both no reason to worry, you are my people, and since I tore up the couch this is my apology too. I am very very sorry I was a bad girl and ate a pillow, I should not have done that, the couch is nasty, and I will not do that again.

“The green in the trees blend with the blue of the sky, creating a graceful picture, as the chirping birds create a symphony of harmonious song.” Sunday: Entry 907 Hey journal, I re-read my favorite book today, thus the poem above. It’s been awhile since my last update, I’d say a couple months, but there’s really no way to tell. I did my sunday routine, wake up, pray, exercise, read scripture, then I went to the kitchen. The room smelled foul, with moldy fruit and stale bread filling the cabinets. I filled a teacup with wine and picked off a piece of bread. “Body of Christ” I thought before eating the bread, “Blood of Christ” I thought before drinking the wine. Jesus’ blood tastes horrible. No, you know what? I hate my life. I hate everything about it, I hate the food, I hate my books, I hate the dark and I HATE THIS RUN DOWN, GOD FORSAKEN CABIN! No, this cabin isn’t run down. In fact, it’s my pride and joy. Two bathrooms, three kitchens, two living rooms, a master bedroom and a huge study, that puts all others to shame. Made by my own two hands and about 400 blocks of concrete. But I hate living here, it’s dark and cold. The candels only light the place dimly, and don’t provide heat, I need to get out of here. Last night I had a dream, first time in months. I was reading all five hundred and sixty two books again in my study. When the tree form the poem crashed into the concrete wall, outside, I saw a paradise. It was a warm summer day, the grass was green and families were having a picnic. The adults were talking and socializing, as the kids were playing. The boys were chasing the girls with worms, on sticks. I wanted to join them, so I turned around to place my book on the chair, fully prepared to rejoin society, but when I turned around, The paradise was gone. Replaced by the same concrete wall, the word, “sorry” carved into it. Oh lord! Why have you forsaken me?! I cannot stand my life, maybe I was wrong? Maybe the world didn’t end? Maybe I can go back, but as I write this, I realize, that I am what I never wanted to be. It is the darkest entity in the universe, and feared by all. I just don’t want to be, alone.

“Honey! Something is seriously wrong with me! I think I’m losing my mind!” shrieked Daniel over the phone to his wife. His heart was pounding so fast that he felt as though it would just fall of his chest. He was shivering and sweating profusely. His hand was trembling while holding his mobile phone. “Calm down Danny. What’s wrong?” Jessica asked. “I don’t know Jessy. Something is wrong with my eyes. Or something could be wrong with my brain” Daniel’s panic was apparent in his voice. “Baby, please pull yourself together and tell me what is going on!” Jessica begged. “I don’t know if it was something I ate last night. I think I am hallucinating” “Danny, you are making me worried! Are you alright?” Jessica was starting to panic. * * * Daniel and Jessica are happily married for five years now and they have a beautiful three-year-old daughter, Stephanie. The memory of their first meeting is still fresh in Daniel’s mind. What was supposed to be a regular night’s out with friends turned out to be the most important moment in Daniel’s life. It was like a breath of fresh air when Daniel laid his eyes on Jessica in that house party. She was cruising around the party with her red dress and her free-falling brown hair flowing like a river. The breeze that accompanied her stride, the shadow that struggled to keep up with her vibrancy is still the topic of discussion that Daniel never fails to bring up during their annual anniversary celebration. Their relationship was a classical fairy-tale that usually earned the jealousy of their close circle. Daniel has never left Jessica’s side throughout their marriage. Jessica’s morning wake-up kiss, her unparalleled morning tea were all part of Daniel’s must-have morning routines and it has been for the past five years of their beautiful marriage. This is the first time Daniel has been separated from his wife for more than a week. As a newly promoted marketing executive, it became a part of Daniel’s job to entertain customers from all parts of the world. His first assignment is in Hungary and he had to leave his wife for the first time in five years. The goodbye was long and hard and Daniel had no heart to leave his wife and daughter. The thought of quitting his job and even volunteering to get demoted to avoid travelling a lot crossed his mind. Somehow, he convinced himself that it was just for two weeks and after that he will be reunited with his wife again. Danial took a photograph with his wife on his polaroid camera right before leaving and kept it in his wallet to bring it with him to Hungary. That photograph was his only company throughout his journey to Hungary. The first few days in Hungary were hard to get used to but daily video calls and the exchange of heart-warming messages kept the day going for Daniel. Every night ended with Daniel closing his eyes while looking at the photograph he took with Jessica right before leaving. It was almost a week since their separation when things started to go wrong. The night before, Daniel had a meeting with his client in a bar and he went unusually heavy on his drinks to impress his client. They shared such a good rapport and the deal concluded smoothly. But the quantity of drinks that Daniel had was way beyond his threshold. It was a surprise to him that he went back to his hotel room in one piece that night. That night he didn’t manage to look at his photograph before sleeping as his eyelids were too heavy. The next morning started with a bit of a hangover. He tried to brush off the headache and looked for his photograph. There was some other lady posing with him instead of his wife in the photograph! He brushed his eyes harder and looked at the photograph again without squinting. He could not believe his eyes! It wasn’t Jessica in the picture! Its definitely the same photograph; he could even see his daughter running towards them in the background as she tried to squeeze in with them for the photograph. But the lady in the picture beside him definitely wasn’t Jessica. He immediately picked up his phone and dialled Jessica. * * * “Honey, please tell me what is going on! I am freaking out here.” Jessica yelled. “The photograph that we took has changed. You are not there anymore!” Daniel revealed. “What are you blabbering Danny?” “I swear it was alright until yesterday. But today something is wrong. Some other lady is there instead of you! I know I must be sounding like a mad man now!” “Baby, what did you have last night? You said you might have had something?” “I just had a couple of drinks with a client. I may have gone overboard with the drinks but I thought I could sleep it off. I never thought I could go mad!” “Danny, I am worried. Can you please just come back? Like right now!” Jessica’s worry came out like an order. That sounded like the exact thing Daniel should be doing right now. He put down the phone and booked the next available flight back home. Throughout his journey back, Daniel kept staring at the photograph hoping that he could gain his sanity back. But he realized the strange women looked even older as time pass by. It was almost sunrise when Daniel arrived home. He rushed in through the front door to fall in the arms of his wife who he assumed would be waiting for his arrival and hoping to wake up from this nightmare. Unfortunately, Jessica was in the bathroom taking a shower. “Honey, I am home!” Daniel announced. “Baby! You are back! Give me a minute, I will be out. I have made your favourite morning tea. It’s on the table. Have a sip and I will join you in a jiffy” said Jessica from the bathroom. Daniel’s favourite tea was waiting for him on the table. He felt like he was home when he took the first sip. He missed it so much. He missed her so much. Daniel’s heart skipped a beat when he saw Jessica walking towards him to welcome him; the same way he felt five years ago when he first saw her. His love for her has not fade one bit. There she was, looking exactly the same way as she always did; as vibrant as usual. He rushed and hugged her tightly. “Baby, I was worried about you. Is everything alright?” Jessica whispered in Daniel’s ears. “Look at this honey” Daniel immediately took out his wallet and showed Jessica the photograph. “I don’t see anything wrong baby” Jessica looked puzzled. Daniel was shocked to realize that Jessica was posing beside him, exactly how it was when the photograph was taken. The strange lady was gone. “I swear honey! An old lady was there in your place! I swear!” Daniel could not believe his eyes. He has definitely gone crazy. “Its ok baby. Maybe you were just too tired and missed me so much” Jessica gave Daniel a comforting hug. Daniel was extremely mystified while Jessica looked at their reflection in the mirror nearby and let out a sinister smile. She has been doing it successfully for the past five years. A two-week business trip is not going to meddle with her master plan. “Do you want to finish your tea before going to bed baby? You must be tired” Jessica handed Daniel her ‘special’ tea.

The library. Beth was always oh-so fond of browsing through the books, eyeing the titles on the well-worn spines and finding her smile in spite of herself. The smell of burnt wood seemed to flow through the air and into her nose, accompanied by the lingering scent of paper and ink, the two of which lay heavy in the air. It must've been something about the candles littered about, precariously placed on stacks of even more books, or maybe it's the long window that stretch from floor to ceiling, from which the outside sunshine shares its rays into the room, flooding the heavenly, cosy place with its radiant warmth. Something about libraries has always struck Beth as... what's the word? Let's just take it home-like, or.. maybe snug, homey, cosy, warm, safe. Libraries, big and small, old and new, have struck Beth's tender, womanly fancies every time. And now, here she was, feeling in her element as she explored a new happy place, a safe haven in which she would take refuge in her darkest times. Her bright, hazel eyes scanned the book spines, her chocolate-coloured hair swinging to and fro in a sheet at her movements. Oh, what a lovely place is a library. Her nimble, long fingers ghosted over the books, in which she held a delightful pleasant love for so strong that she didn't feel as if her day was yet to complete without picking up a book and reading a word if need be. Then, an odd object stuck out of the shelves, and, intrigued, she pulled it out. It seemingly stuck to the shelf, and with a tilted head, Beth pulled on it harder, confused. Another pull and it won't budge, but something else moved. The bookshelf. It made a creaking sound, and gears cranking together were heard. Shocked, she stepped back, and looked at the bookshelf, now moving to the right, after jolting backwards. Her eyes filled with wonder and curiosity. Soon, a niche now existed in the place of the bookshelf, which had no ceased to appear, having apparently lodged itself somewhere behind the bookshelf next to it. The niche was big enough for an adult human to fit through, so Beth slid in with ease, though she was precarious, for these kind of exciting things were rather rare in the occurrence of her daily life, droll and dull. Inside, it was dark, but, as if sensing her motions, antique wall-lamps switched on automatically. Surprise was etched clearly on Beth's face, as she went down the now illuminated steps of the unknown room. The walls were damp, and something emerald that was apparently moss covered the walls, which made them slippery and cold, reminding one of a snake, or some other spine-chilling creature. Beth's eyes reflected excitement, fear, curiosity, and confusion all at once, and how they shined once she reached the end of the long staircase down the imposing hall. Under the library was a secret study, an office of some kind. The whole place was littered with books, carelessly strewn about. The floor was carpeted with an expensive kind, of fur or something. Never-ending bookshelves lined all the walls, and there were many cosy lights scattered just as messily as the books. Ancient books were they, for the spines were weak and the covers were well-worn. These little flaws didn't affect Beth in the slightest though, for she loved all kinds of books, and didn't care whether they were old or new, fresh or aged, for a genuine book lover she was. Nearby, there was a merry fire crackling, its flames a mix of dark blue and green instead of the original red and orange, which piqued Beth's curiosity to the utmost. Droll decorations ornamented the room, a Christmas wreath hung on a wall, a few copied pictures of the Mona Lisa, The Starry Night and The Girl With a Pearl Earring were hung about the brick walls. There were couches with cushions stacked neatly, and the whole place smelled like coffee, vanilla, and maybe throw in some ink and spices into the mix that Beth's nose inhaled. Beth sank into one of the big cushions, having picked up a compulsive book on the floor, and sighing at the luxury of the private place she had found, she began reading the book, with legs curled up like a feline would. Suddenly, the cushions behind her back disappeared and went to somewhere that she still didn't know to this day, and when she looked around, slightly panicked, her gaze fell to the bottom of the chair which she had sat in. There was a hole, though tiny, it grew larger and larger, expanding widely, before eventually being big enough to swallow her whole, book and all. Beth's lips uttered a sacred shriek of sheer sock, as she fell down into the hole, that went on and on for what seemed like days, as she clutched the book to her chest and prayed to God for her safety. Then, her small frame hit the ground with a thud, and her book fell out of her arms with another thud. Dizzy and scared, she roamed the room, which seemed to be a cylinder kind, and she picked up her fallen book, for it was her only companion in this (literally) dark time. The sunshine flowed freely through her bedroom windows, irradiating her room with warmth and comfort. Her eyes fluttered open as she clutched the book she has fallen asleep too that night. She breathed out a long sigh, relieved and found herself to be safe in her bed, blankets pooling about her. It was a dream, after all. Two weeks after that dream she had, Beth read the newspaper to find some exciting news: "A new library has opened in town! Come visit now!" When she hurried to the library, her nimble fingers once again ghosted on the books' spines, and once again she found an odd object sticking out. She pulled on it, only to find it didn't move. Upon another hard pull, the bookshelf moved, and with her natural curiosity and completely forgetting about her dream, in she went and down she stepped on the stairs.

The desert lay calm at sunset. The main star that gave the planet its daytime had long been gone, and her smaller cousin was following the same path. At this hour, the human eye could only recognize shadows before the horizon. Among the shapes of copious cacti, something stood out: the figure of a woman in a squatting position. Lena grabbed some of the fern-like plants she had gathered earlier and proceeded to clean herself. She then pulled her black leather pants up and walked towards her motorcycle. The woman gazed into the rear view mirror and noticed that her hair was getting too long, so she grabbed her bowie knife and began to shave it off. The short black strings that fell off her scalp got carried away by the warm desert wind and quickly disappeared. The young bounty huntress knew that her destination was close. Luckily, she wouldn’t have to spend another night out in the hot desert. Unfortunately, that delicious can of beans she kept in one of the pockets of her bike would have to wait. Lena stepped on her black chopper and took off, leaving a thick cloud of sand behind her back. An hour later, in the dark of the night, Lena spotted a beacon. A huge neon sign that stood in the distance read “Welcome to Yuma”. The woman smiled at the sight of the only non-astral light that could be spotted in miles. In spite of it, this wasn’t a smile of joy. The word “welcome” seemed almost ironic. Not a concept someone would link to the capital. The old chopper went straight through the unguarded gates of the city. The place had definitely made a change. At one point in time, the compound was meant to serve as the main prison of the largest penal colony the Earth kept in the galaxy. But this was long before Lena’s birth, and not particularly of her interest. She had her own reasons to visit that big old dump for the first time. The sights weren’t what most would call pretty. The city seemed to never sleep. The dirty streets were crowded with junkies and criminals of the worst kind. Everyone out in the desert knew that Yuma was only good for two things: getting hooked or getting killed. But Lena had something else in mind. She knew that drugs and thugs were attracted to money like a moth to a flame, and she was going to get her share. The loud roar of the bike began to fade when it arrived in the main street of block P-113. The young woman parked it right outside a filthy looking joint with a sign that read “The Bushy Juicy”. Without further ado, she walked towards the door and entered the place. The inside looked just as expected. The floor was exquisitely decorated with cigarette butts, spit, and a couple of used condoms here and there. The rest looked very much like the cellblock it once was, except for some added furniture. The tavern appeared to be empty. Lena walked towards the bar and sat on one of the stools. Soon enough, a shabby looking old man appeared from inside a room behind the bar. He then walked up to Lena, took his dirty apron off and began to dust the counter with it. “What can I do you for?” he asked, while shamelessly inspecting Lena’s body with his eyes. “I think I’ll start with some black tequila,” she replied in a deep voice. Lena loosened the zipper on her leather jacket, exposing more of her bosom. The bartender smiled. “I take it you are a desert dweller... Not many people in the city have a stomach for the local cacti,” he claimed while picking up a bottle from the shelf and pouring its black liquid into a glass. “I guess I’m a wildflower, I am not fond of greenhouse plants.” Lena quickly swallowed the tequila and placed the glass back on the wooden bar. “Like this wood... You don’t see much of it around these parts.” The woman knocked on the counter. “I have some connections... But I take it you aren’t here to talk about wood...” Lena let out a smirk. “Well... as a matter of fact, I am. I’ve heard you deal with whores that could make one night in the city worthwhile.” Lena grabbed the bottle and filled her glass again. “I’ve got both guys and dolls that could fuck you senseless. Even I could be up for the task... I’d give you a fair price of course...” The old man looked at Lena’s cleavage and bit his lower lip with his toothless gums. “I came here looking for someone in particular. A friend of mine recommended me a young hooker called Romeo.” Lena emptied her glass again in one quick motion. The barkeeper laughed. “Romeo? I am sorry dear but the only Romeo I know does not have a taste for women... You need someone who knows how to treat you right...” the man leaned against the bar, getting closer to Lena. “I must insist. I came all the way here to see if this man is worthy of his fame. I could pay double his usual price!” Suddenly a harsh, loud voice was heard. It came from the top of the staircase situated behind Lena. “Double eh?” A remarkably tall and muscular man walked down the stairs with nothing on but his skin and a pair of sleepers. “Even with all the moaning upstairs, I can still hear the chiming of coins.” “You must be the man I’ve heard so much about!” exclaimed Lena, while taking a long look at Romeo’s body. “I hear you only deal with men... I hope you are willing to make an exception,” she then said while detaching a bag from her belt and throwing it towards the naked man. Romeo caught the bag and opened it, revealing rhodium coins worth five times what he was used to. He looked at the woman and smiled. “Where I come from there’s a saying: ‘a hole is a hole’. The rooms are upstairs.” Romeo made a gesture with his arm, inviting Lena to head to the top floor. The woman led the way. While following her, Romeo turned towards the bartender and nodded his head. The old man seemed to understand the meaning of it instantly and nodded back. The moans of pleasure kept getting louder as they walked towards the upper floor. When they got there, Lena stopped and observed the scene. A long line of metal doors extended before her eyes. Those were undoubtedly recycled cells, now used for a much merrier purpose. Romeo walked in front of Lena and entered a room that had the number ‘389’ printed on the door. The woman followed and shut the door behind her back. “Let me get more comfortable...” she then said. Lena took off her leather jacket and placed it on a metal chair. This left her upper body bare, except for a pair of leather gloves. “Just lay on that bed and I’ll do what you paid me to do,” answered Romeo while pointing at the cot. His voice seemed reluctant, perhaps suspicious. Lena took off her belt and threw it on the floor. Romeo quickly noticed that it had a sheath attached, where she kept her bowie knife. The eager woman lay on the bed and began to unzip her leather pants. “Come here, baby.” Her voice sounded both demanding and eager. She extended her arm. When the man approached her she held the back of his head. Then, she gently pushed it towards her hips, until his lips met her labia. The hooker gave his best performance. He could barely remember the last time he had lain with a woman. Nonetheless, Lena appeared to be satisfied by his skills. Every time that Romeo tried to lift his head up she pushed it back down, keeping it tight between her legs. The intense procedure lasted about twenty minutes. After a long and intense orgasm, the girl released her lover and allowed him to move. The man stood up and walked straight to the table where he had left his payment. He began to count the coins. Meanwhile, Lena wiped herself with the sheet and put her pants back on. “We are done. I hope you enjoyed yourself. You can come back at any time,” said Romeo. His eyes were still fixated in the rhodium coins. “You seem to like money an awful lot. There’s more where that came from, you know?” asked Lena while rubbing her crotch. “Maybe I could trade it for something else...” The man quickly turned his head towards Lena and frowned. “What are we talking about?” “I am looking for a man that goes by the name of Sanchez... Perhaps you could tell me where--” Romeo didn’t allow Lena to finish her sentence. “I knew it! You are a bounty hunter! You damn bitch, I knew it since the moment you came in!” His look had completely transformed into one that Lena had seen many times before. The look a man gives only when he is about to kill someone. Romeo jumped on the bed ready to grab Lena by the neck, but she rolled away instantly. She fell on the floor and quickly regained balance. By the time the man could react, the bounty huntress had already clung to his back and was using her right arm to try to choke him. Lena was far from being a small woman, but this adversary seemed like a giant in comparison. Romeo stood up swiftly and carried the bounty hunter on his back showing no signs of effort. Then, he ran backward towards the metal wall and smashed the woman against it. Lena tried to keep choking the colossus, but she didn’t handle a second blow against the hard metal. The young bounty huntress fell on the ground and tried to reach for the knife she had left on the floor. The effort was futile. Romeo got ahead and grabbed the knife by the handle. He pulled it out of its sheath and, in one agile movement, he held it against her. “Don’t you move bitch! I told the barkeeper to call Sanchez and he must be about to get here... So it turns out you are gonna meet him after all... Now you’re just gonna stay put until he comes and takes care of--” Romeo’s voice seemed to fade away as he spoke. Eventually, his mouth stopped moving and he stood frozen with the knife still in his hand. Lena smiled and got back on her feet. She quietly picked up her jacket and belt and put them back on. “So... Long story short baby... I knew what goes on between Sanchez and you... And I know he will pay good money to save his sweet prince from the hands of a mean bounty hunter.” The woman picked up the knife from Romeo’s hand and put it back in its scabbard. Then she continued to speak. “I do have to give you props for making him come all the way here, though! You made my job so much easier... Now we just need to wait.” The woman waved her hand in front of Romeo’s eyes, but the man showed no reaction. “You may have already figured it out but... The handle of the knife is made with this cactus named ‘chollula’. It’s got these tiny toxic spines... It’s truly fascinating, you should look it up. It’s also the reason why I always wear gloves.” The young woman made a big effort to lay the man on the bed. She then picked up the key to the room, walked towards the door and opened it. “I just have to pick something up from my bike, I’ll be right back. You’re gonna stay like that for at least two more hours... And trying to move will only make it hurt more.” Lena looked back at the paralyzed man for an instant. She then turned and slowly walked back towards him. The woman leaned on the bed and whispered in the man’s ear: “We had some good times, didn’t we...” The bounty huntress bit the man’s earlobe and walked towards the door again with a wide smile on her face. The bounty huntress managed to slip out of the joint without being noticed. She gathered various pieces of equipment from her bike and took a good look around the street. Sanchez was nowhere to be seen. She knew that she didn’t have much time before he arrived. It was very likely that Romeo had given the bartender specific instructions about how to act. If so, enough time had passed for him to start worrying, and to lead Sanchez upstairs as soon as he arrived. When the woman went back in she noticed the bartender had come out of his room and was walking around nervously. She sneakily passed behind his back, headed upstairs and locked herself in the room with Romeo. She pulled out the bag with the gear she had picked up and started preparing to welcome Sanchez as fast as she could. Lena was right to make haste. Less than five minutes had passed when she heard someone banging on the door of the cell she was in. The banging came accompanied by the angry voice of a man. “Open up for the mighty Sanchez! You’ve gotten yourself in some deep trouble bitch!” “I don’t respond to goons! Tell Sanchez to step forward and we’ll talk!” yelled Lena from inside the room. The men outside started to speak to each other. From the babble, Lena determined it must have been five or six men that were waiting outside for her, including the bartender. The chatter stopped. Only the footsteps of a heavy man were heard from inside the room. He was approaching the door. A man with a raspy, high pitched voice began to speak. “This is Sanchez. If you have a plan to get out of here alive I suggest you reveal it now. If not I ask you to come out and die. I am a busy man, I’ll be quick.” The man coughed loudly. “I guess I have what you might call a plan... If you consider holding a detonator that would make your boyfriend’s pretty face blow up into a million pieces a plan... Then I do have a plan.” Sanchez sighed. “How much?” “500 rhodium coins. I know that for you that’s just pocket change. Gather it, put it right outside the door and leave the way free for me to come out.” Lena heard the man step back and turn towards his minions. “You heard her boys! Empty your pockets and do as she said!” When the money was ready, Sanchez gave the bounty huntress notice of it and, without further ado, she opened the door. When she did, she revealed that the hooker was tied to the bed. He seemed to be still paralyzed, and he had what appeared to be an explosive charge held with tape in his mouth. Lena was holding the detonator on her left hand high above her head. Her right hand was carrying a revolver. She looked down and saw that the bags of money were already on the floor. Next, she looked up and saw Sanchez surrounded by the barkeep and four other thugs. It wasn’t hard for her to recognize the kingpin. He was by far the bulkiest and tallest of the bunch. While all the others sported long brown trench coats, he wore only a sweaty sleeveless white t-shirt and shorts. He was also displaying a long, thick mustache. The bounty huntress had no doubt that this was the man that had been described to her. “You!” --She pointed at one of the thugs with her gun.-- “You are going to count the money right in front of me... Then you are all going to follow me downstairs, put it in my bike and watch me run away with it... Understood?” They nodded and proceeded to follow her instructions. Everything happened according to plan. Lena got on her chopper with the detonator still in hand and disappeared in seconds. The thugs were left behind. The barkeep looked astonished at the woman that was leaving the scene with more money than he would see in a whole year. Swift as a bullet, Lena left the city and headed west. She stopped at a gas station in which she ordered a room for the night. Neither of the suns would come out until at least 10 hours later, so she had time to rest before her appointment. She couldn’t wait for that job to be over. There wasn’t any reason for it to not go smoothly from now on. The light of the first sun coming through the window woke Lena up. The second would rise soon, and she had to get ready for her meeting. She picked up her knife and her revolver and she stepped outside. She waited for around one hour until she saw two rusty cars pull over. Sanchez and his men had arrived just in time. The fat boss stepped out of his car and walked up to the bounty huntress. She lit up a cigarette, and used it to lit a second, that she offered to Sanchez. He picked it up and leaned against the wall, next to Lena. “Duane... the fucking barkeep...” he said “he can’t mind his fucking business. If he hadn’t followed us everywhere we could have ended the deal right there.” The man took a puff “I’m surprised you didn’t just run off with all my money... That was a smart decision.” “I was paid to do a job, and I’ll take only what was part of the deal.” Lena picked up four bags full of coins from her belt and handed them to the kingpin. “I’ll keep the one hundred coins we agreed on and the satisfaction of a job well done. Did I manage to scare your boyfriend off?” “You did... Everything went just as I planned. I convinced him that being out on the streets would be dangerous for him.” Sanchez looked at Lena. “He’s not a bad guy... He just liked his job too much... He belonged with me and that’s where I want him to stay. I can protect him you know... If we hadn’t faked it this would have happened sooner or later anyway...” Lena smiled. “You don’t need to explain anything to me. We put up a good show for the poor bastard... I hope you two are very happy,” she said while giving her cigarette one last puff. “If you need me again just send your contact back for me, she’ll know how to find me. A pleasure doing business with you.” The bounty huntress threw her cigarette butt on the sand and stepped on it. Then she walked slowly towards her bike and hopped on. “Hey!” yelled Sanchez. Lena turned her head and looked at him. “I don’t remember any pussy licking being a part of the deal!” Lena couldn’t help but laugh. “I didn’t remember anyone forbidding it either!” Sanchez shook his head and smiled, then he went back into one of the cars. Lena started the bike and headed east once more. The young bounty huntress knew she would cross paths with Sanchez again. But she didn’t need anyone else for the time being. As she sped up she felt the liberty that only a bag full of coins and a tank full of gas could bring her. After a long time, she was finally free to chase the horizon once more. THE END -- I wrote this so I could post it here. This is the first time I post a short story! I would really love some feedback. -- My idea is to write a bunch of short stories all based in this same world. -- I would also be very pleased if you could point out mistakes. English is not my first language and I might have slipped a couple of times.

It was an uneventful night when I saw a new woman sitting completely alone in the common room reading. Her brown hair was long and wavy but it wasn’t until she peered up at me that we both realized who the other was. She nearly dropped her book and I almost fell right out of my wheelchair. I tried looking away and pretending that I didn’t just see her for the first time in over fifty years. No use. She was already standing up and walking toward me with her mouth gaping open. “David?!,” she got out. “Is that you?” “It’s me,” I said slightly ashamed. “I can’t believe it..., wow..., this is wild! How long’s it been?” “Since I moved. Many, many years ago.” “It feels like ten lifetimes,” she said smiling. “Are you a resident here?” “Indeed I am. Can I assume you just got here yourself?” “I arrived this morning from the hospital. I fractured my hip last week and my doctor wants me to do some physical therapy before I go back home, he said this was the place to do it.” “I see. I’ve been here for a couple of months myself,” I said, trying to keep my stare focused on her smile and pretend not to notice the tears welling up in her eyes. “David..., it’s so nice to see you again,” she said before wrapping up. “I’m sure we’ll have lots to talk about over these next few days.” I suppose it was serendipitous, the two of us ending up at the same nursing home after all these years. It’s true that our hometown was always on the smaller side, so it’s not like there were many options available in the first place. But then I’d moved away after high school. Halfway across the country. I couldn’t bring myself to stay in the state. Not after what happened between her and I. It all hurt too much, passing by the same trees and houses and street corners where we’d made so many memories near as sweethearts. How I ended up back here was a miracle in and of itself. Looking back, I can safely say that reading was always “our thing.” And Milton’s Paradise Lost was “our book.” The book which we bought two copies of together and never finished. We’d take turns reading aloud the poetic lines and then contemplating them for hours on end before picking it back up and starting again. After the arguing began however, we’d go on to pick it up less and less until the dust permanently settled onto its cover. The decision to end everything eventually fell upon my shoulders and my psyche and no matter what I tried to do in ridding myself of the thought, nothing worked. The day finally came where I turned to walk out of the apartment once and for all, leaving her behind in tears, with a broken heart, and with a torn spirit. She went on to marry someone else about a year later. A lawyer, I believe. Not a month has gone by since that fateful decision where I haven’t had some type of dream about the ceremony itself; A beautiful wedding in a broken-down chapel; rays of sunlight still shining through its cracks in the rooftop, impaling the dense air with translucent touches of promised hope that pierce the fog in permanent halves. Beacons from high above all beaming prisms of rich color through the stained glass windows and onto walls half- sprawled with the bright vines of deep green emeralds. She stands center-stage; framed perfection. A magnum opus wrapped in white threads of pure redemption. Untouched skin; restored to life and ever-pampered by real Seraphim who flew down from His side and saved the star-crossed lovers from their eventual suburban fate of celestial disappointment. I’d found true happiness at last through her eternal smile. “Does anyone have any reason...,” the preacher utters the words I’d been dreading to hear as she peers through her peripheral in my general direction. My entire body freezes shut--disabled by well-deserved humility and a forced life of self-imposed silence. Through the veil’s intricate lace; a microscopic image of our entire universe and its timeline starts taking shape as it simultaneously begins unravelling at both ends, gaining exponential purpose within the glistening liquid of reflective teardrops being formed real time inside the bride’s outlined-eyes. Then I wake up. Maybe things would’ve turned out drastically different had we would’ve stayed together. Maybe neither of us would’ve gone on to have the lives which we actually did. Instead we could’ve married each other and had our own kids, gone on our own trips, made our own memories. But we didn’t. That’s not the way it was meant to play out. Or was it? And it was actually I who ruined everything? I had to know for sure. And if so, I had to find some type of forgiveness within it all. Lisa was scheduled to stay a week, two at most, just until her hip had healed up. A couple of months later and she was still pushing me around the hallways in my wheelchair, going to the common room, the crafts room, the library, all the while speaking and sharing memories with me and I with her. Her hip had healed up just fine, but she was intent on spending more time together, so kept asking for extensions and finding reasons to stay a bit longer. Christmas was nearing so I asked a good friend to help find a nice little ring which I could give her as a sign of our reestablished friendship, nothing more. Presenting it to her one night in the common room, I pulled out the small little blue box with a thin velvet bow on top before opening my mouth to speak. “Lisa...,” I said, fumbling to find the right words for my long-awaited speech. “I...” “You don’t have to say a thing. It’s all over and done with. It has been for a long time.” “I know, but still..., all these years..., I’m so sorry for everything, I should’ve never walked out the front door that day.” She quickly looked away and wiped her cheek with her delicate hand before turning back around. “I promised a very long time ago that I’d get you your ring, one way or another.” She opened the box and looked at it for a long time before finally sliding the ring onto her finger and holding out her hand, admiring its shine. “And you did,” she said, smiling. “And I did--even if it took fifty years.” She reached into her purse and pulled out a yellowed Paradise Lost-- her very own copy that we bought so long ago and never finished. “Better late than never,” she said, taking my hand up in hers. “Let’s read.”

A guy walks into a bar, sits down at the counter, and leans over to the guy next to him. “Wanna hear a joke?” “Yeah I guess so.” the stranger replies. “Okay so there’s a truck driver. He wakes up early in the morning, he puts on his uniform and he drives and drives and drives. He does this every single day. He’s the hardest working driver east of the Mississippi. He’s never missed a pickup and his motto is ‘I will never quit, until the job is done.’ Everyday he drives. Never stopping, never late. But one morning the driver spots something ahead of him. He realizes that it’s a man in the middle of the road. The man is clearly suicidal and so the driver thinks he’ll be doing the guy a favor by taking him out. No issue for the driver, he always gets the job done. The problem is, the truck doesn’t actually kill the guy, it just severely wounds him. So the driver gets out, and approaches the man. The man is bleeding and has suffered major damage, but he is still able to speak, and so he says “Oh my god. I’ve had a revelation. When you hit me, my whole life flashed before my eyes. I’ve realized that I’m too young to die. Thank you so much, please help me to a hospital, I have a new lease on life.’ The driver just looks down at the man and says ‘I will never quit, until the job is done.’ He gets back in his truck, starts the engine, and drives ahead, finishing the job. He says ‘Man, these roads are getting bumpy again, someone should really fix that’ and he howls with laughter all the way down the road.” The stranger just looks at the man and says “That was pretty dark. I mean, I guess I see the humor in it, but that wasn’t exactly a joke. You said you’d tell me a joke?” “Oh of course, you’re the kind of person that needs one setup and one punchline huh? Well here, try this one out. I asked myself the other day ‘What the heck is going on around here... the cemeteries are full but people are still dying to get in?” The stranger cackles. “You see that’s a joke right there! Right to the point. Simple. Those I’d be willing to hear more of... you got any more?” “Alright. How ‘bout this one. A man walks down the street smoking a cigarette in a sketchy part of town. A drifter runs up to him from underneath whatever bridge, or box, or tin can he was living under, grabs him and says ‘Please sir, I need shelter and warmth. I’m begging you... I’m dying out here on the street.’ The man politely removes the drifter’s hands from himself and says “Certainly. There has to be room for you in my shed somewhere... I’m sure of it.” The drifter was infinitely grateful and followed the man back to his home. Once they reached the shed the man said ‘Stay out here for just one second while I grab something.’ The drifter agreed. The man came back out with a baseball bat in one hand, a can of gasoline in the other, and the cigarette still flapping from his lips as he said ‘Welp, here we are.’ The drifter asked ‘What are those for?’ The man set the can of gas down on the pavement and then proceeded to strike the drifter in the head with the baseball bat that he carried. With the drifter unconscious on the ground, the man dropped the bat and grabbed the can of gasoline. He then emptied the can onto the dazed drifter. He disposed of the gas can, looked at the drifter and said ‘Give a man a match and he’ll be warm for an hour... but set a man on fire and he’ll be warm for the rest of his life.’ And then he dropped his cigarette.” Stunned, the stranger says “How do you come up with these?” “Art imitates reality.” the man replies. The stranger nervously laughs. “You saying you actually did those things?” “No. But I bet someone has.” he answers. The stranger looks around the bar and notices that it is clearing out. He looks down at his watch. It’s 1:47 AM. He looks back up at the man and says “Hey uh, I kinda gotta get going. The bar’s closing soon anyways.” “Nonsense,” the man says “there’s always time for one more joke. This one is sure to have you rolling on the floor. I promise.” “Alright. One more joke, but then I literally have to go. My wife will kill me.” “Okay, okay, okay. So a guy walks into a bar, sits down at the counter, and leans over to the guy next to him. He says ‘Wanna hear a joke?’ The guy says ‘Yeah I guess so.’ The man replies ‘Okay so there’s a truck driver. He wakes up earl-” “Wait, wait, wait. What are you doing here?” the stranger asks. “What? I’m just trying to finish my joke.” the man retorts. The stranger looks at the man’s jacket. Gibson Trucking Company The man begins to pull out a pack of cigarettes. He stares directly into the stranger’s eyes. “You smoke?” He says, offering one of the small white cylinders to the stranger. The stranger starts to feel tiny droplets of perspiration form around his forehead. “Uh, no thanks. I just quit actually.” He looks around again. They’re the last two customers in the bar, and the bartender had just walked back into the kitchen to finish sweeping. The stranger is starting to feel yesterday’s lunch gurgling in his stomach by now. “Can we get to the punchline already?” he asks anxiously. “Punchlines, punchlines, punchlines... that’s all I hear out of you. You really want this joke to end?” “Please.” begs the stranger. “Alright, well, short and simple... the guy walks into the bar, he tells the stranger a few jokes, and then he stabs him.” “Wait no, wait, wai-” The man finishes the punchline. The stranger crashes to the floor as the man stands there giggling. A police officer enters through the barroom door. He says “Hey Joe, I know it’s almost closing t-” He sees the mess that lay before him. The man stops laughing. “Freeze,” exclaims the officer as he pulls out his pistol, “put your hands where I can see them!” The man looks back at the stranger on the ground. “Oh my lord.” the man chuckles “The irony. I bet you wish the joke had lasted just a little longer? If you hadn’t been so obsessed with that punchline, this guy coulda saved ya.” He lets out a shriek of hilarity. “The irony!” The man falls to the ground in a fit of laughter. “Drop the knife chuckle face!” the policeman screams. “No, no. You don’t get how perfect this is! The joke is finally on me, and yet there will never be a punchline!” the man shouts. “I’m coming closer, and I’m gonna cuff you. If you do not drop the knife, I will be forced to shoot.” The man slowly rises back to his feet, still seizing with laughter. “A cop walks into a bar and a man charges at him with a knife” he says. “The man knows what comes next but he finds it all pretty funny.” The man charges at the officer. A guy walks into a bar. A body gets dragged out of it.

Mother Nature Has Different Plans By Kerri Shanley It was the year Mother Nature was confused. Hades was holding Persephone longer than the agreed-upon terms, causing winter to go on longer than usual. The gray days of December and January extended into April and May. When June rolled around the weather started to warm up, but not much, like the mild breezy spring weather. Masey Higgins went to a college in Utah, not too far away from where the famous people hang out during the film festivals. Masey took a weekend job at one of the resorts so she could get free lift passes. The resorts were happy about the extended ski season, but Masey was growing weary of the long winter. The weekends were still busy with local skiers and snowboarders, even some of the celebrities would still make their way to Utah for a mini getaway. Most of the college students went home in the summer to work and save up for the fall, however, this summer Masey decided she could make more money working extra hours at the resort and decided to stay behind. “Hey, at least we get to spend more time together,” Steve winked at Masey. Masey smiled back and gave an awkward chuckle. She had a crush on Steve for a long time but questioned his intentions. He was a major flirt. “Yeah, just me and you working the guest services counter.” There was a lull in the clubhouse Masey leaned over the counter tapping her pen, while Steve was leaning back in his chair looking up at the ceiling “you know we’ve worked together for the past two years.” “Yes. We were hired at the same time,” Masey responded, “What’s your point?” “Well, we’ve spent a lot of time together, and we barely know anything about each other.” “Well, usually we’re both working and don’t really have time to ‘get to know each other.’’ “Let’s remedy that,” Steve responded. Masey was concerned that he might have ulterior motives behind getting to know her. There was an opening in management, and he seemed highly motivated to get ahead. “I guess. What do you want to know?” “That’s no fun. Let’s play a game.” Masey let out an exasperated sigh “I don’t know we could get into trouble.” “You’re so cute when you worry about your job,” Steve tapped her nose. Masey smiled a little, and their eyes lingered for a bit until Steve broke the gaze “Darts!” “What?” Masey stepped back a little and tucked her hair behind her ear. “We can play a dart game.” Steve grabbed her hands and pulled her into the recreational room, “Since we work here, we don’t have to worry about paying. Masey was bewildered by his comment, “Ok?” “So, here’s how we play. If I hit the center, you tell me one thing about you. It can be anything you want” “And if I hit the center you tell me one thing about you” Masey added. Steve shook his head and continued “But, if you hit anywhere on the board you tell me about the worst date you’ve been on.” A little shiver crept up Masey’s spine “I don’t want to do that.” “Well then, you better hit the center. Now, if you completely miss the target, you have to take a sip of hot chocolate,” Steve smiled wide. Masey’s eyes brightened, Masey was horrible at darts, but she loved hot chocolate, “All right. I go first!” She picked a dart out of Steve’s hand and threw it haphazardly at the wall. It stuck in the cork wall a few inches away from the target. “Give me that hot chocolate.” Steve handed her the mug she took a sip, “You have a whip cream stache.” He wiped it off with his thumb. “Thanks. Your turn.” “Ok.” Steve turned towards the dartboard and stuck out his hand. He concentrated on the target. He released it and it landed outside the center. “Well, I guess I gotta tell you about my worst date.” “Yep,” Masey responded taking another sip of hot chocolate. “A year-long relationship had ended, and I bummed around the apartment for several weeks. My roommate John decided to set me up with a girl from one of his classes. She was cute, but I still was hung up on my ex. So, I was an emotional wreck. “Really? You? An emotional wreck?” “Yes. Guys have emotions too,” he smirked. “Anyways, all I could do was talk about this other girl. About an hour in she asked to go home, when we got to the front of her apartment, she told me not to walk her to the door, or to call her. She jumped out and slammed the door, hard. It shook the whole car.” Steve looked away while Masey listened sympathetically. “Wow. That was harsh.” “Well, I guess I deserved it.” Masey frowned, “No, you didn’t. I understand wanting to leave early, but she could have been a little nicer and told you to call her when you got over your ex.” Steve’s eyes gleamed, “Thanks. It was really hard for the first couple of months after the breakup. But I moved on.” Masey nodded and took another sip of the hot chocolate, “Hey you’re not supposed to drink the hot chocolate.” Masey almost choked on the hot chocolate and put the mug down “Sorry. It tastes so good.” Steve chuckled. “So, what happened between you and your ex. I mean why’d you break up.” “Nope. If you wanna know that you have to hit the center.” He told her handing a dart to her. “Fine.” Masey grabbed it out of his hand, “Here I go. I’m gonna hit the center.” She said focusing on the center of the dartboard she did a few fake throws “When I hit the center you have to tell me why you broke up with your ex.” She stalled. Masey concentrated intensely, when she was ready to release, Steve walked up beside her and blew in her ear. She was thrown off and missed the target. “Well, at least you hit the board this time,” Steve laughed. “Not fair! I get to go again.” Masey reached for a dart “Nuh-uh,” Steve put his arm behind his back so Masey couldn’t reach them “You have to tell me about your worse date.” “Fine. Let me think.” Masey took a minute. It wasn’t a matter of recall, but which horrible date story to tell. Steve sat down on a stool and crossed his arms. He waited patiently. “Ok. Got it. I recently went on a date with a guy from my French class. He was pretty cute and good at French. We decided to study together and reserved a study room at the library. After a couple of study sessions, he asked me out. He took me to an Italian restaurant.” Steve avidly listened, so Masey started to relax. “I saw him slip the hostess some money, and I thought it was to get a good table with some privacy. I just assumed he wanted to show off how much money he had.” Steve didn’t blink, or yawn, nor did anything else. Masey was impressed with his laser focus attention. She was still a little apprehensive, she wasn’t sure if it was because she didn’t trust Steve or if it was rehashing the memory of that miserable night. “The guy already sounds douchey.” Masey laughed “Yeah, you haven’t heard the worst part yet. So, when the server came to take us our drink order she looked really mad. She didn’t yell but raised her voice just a little bit ‘I thought I told you to stop coming here with your dates.’ I was so confused.” Steve looked shocked. “He didn’t?” “Yep. He took me to the restaurant where his ex-girlfriend worked and asked to sit in her section.” “Well, if I wanted to make my ex jealous, I would show you off.” Masey blushed, “Yeah right.” “No. Really. I mean it” Steve stroked her cheek. Masey shivered “It’s cold in here.” She backed away. Steve looked slightly confused. “Here.” Steve took off his jacket and put it around her. “Thanks. Well. It’s your turn.” Steve hit the center this time. “Oh-oh, you have to tell me something about yourself.” Masey was shocked and dismayed “Fine. I’m from California. There.” “Nope. I already knew that. Tell me something I don’t know.” “That’s not fair. That’s not the rule,” Masey whined. “You have to tell me something I don’t know about you.” “Uugh! Fine. So, you know that guy from my French class?” “The douche.” “Yeah. Well, I ran into his ex-girlfriend a couple days later, and she apologized for what happened. She told me about their relationship, and why they broke up. So, she saved me from a fate worse than death.” “So why did they break up?” “Oh. Well, he seemed to rush things, and after 3 dates he asked her to marry him.” “No way?” “Yep. According to her, his parents got engaged after three dates. He was so oblivious to her feelings and was just so set on getting married. Which was weird for her.” Steve laughed and Masey started to feel more comfortable around him. “He even bought a ring. When he got down on his knee, she kinda lost it and told him she needed some space. She went out with him one more time, just to see if he had gotten it out of his system. But it was just weird. He started to get really obsessed with her. He felt like she was ‘the one’ and thought that he could win her back by making her jealous.” “Well, obviously it didn’t work.” “Haha. No. I guess not.” They both stopped laughing, and Steve continued to give his undivided attention to Masey. Masey broke the silence. “My turn. I’m gonna hit the center, so you have to tell me about your ex.” “If you say so.” “No cheating.” “Fine.” Steve backed away. Masey threw the dart and it hit off-center. “Aw man.” “You have to tell me about another bad date.” “Fine,” she gave him the death stare. “So one time I dated a guy that had a pet hamster. He hid it in his pocket. We went to a soup and salad restaurant. When we sat down to eat, he let the hamster out and gave him some of his salad. He actually asked if the hamster could eat some of my food. The manager asked us to leave. I called my roommate to come pick me up. He still doesn’t understand why I didn’t go out for a second date.” Steve laughed really hard. “Ok. OK. Just go.” Steve purposely missed the target “Oh man.” He faked feeling bummed out. “Here. Drink.” “No. I think you’ve suffered enough. I’ll tell you what happened between me and my ex.” After Steve finished his story, Masey apologized, “I’m sorry. That really sucks.” Steve nodded “It’s ok. I mean life happens. The weather was bad. You can’t control nature.” “No. I guess not,” Masey bit the inside of her cheek. “So how long ago did this happen.” He sighed before answering. “After Christmas. She was coming back from break.” “Wow! I didn’t realize. That explains why you took the time off back in January and February.” He nodded. “You know, we were talking about the next step--“ “You mean getting engaged?” “Yeah. When we spoke over the break. I got the feeling that she wanted to break up. Before she went home we looked at rings, but didn’t settle on anything.” “You know I never liked that. Ring shopping together. I think it’s so stupid.” Steve kept his head bowed but looked up, “You’re old fashioned, huh?” “I mean, yeah. It should be a surprise. From the guy’s heart. You know. Like he gets the ring that he can afford and that he feels is the ‘right’ one for his future wife. I sometimes feel like it makes the girl look snobby.” “You know, coming back to work really helped me get over her.” Steve got up and started to walk over to Masey. “Really. Well, they say that the only way to get over a lost love is to pour yourself into work.” “No that’s not why.” He wrapped his arms around Masey. She was taken aback, and before she had a moment to process what was about to happen, he leaned in to give her a kiss. She melted into his arms and let go of her inhibitions. She wrapped her arms around his neck. He pulled away first, and Masey swayed [swooned] a little. “The reason I came back was because of you. Masey looked confused. “What? How? I didn’t even know you were in a relationship, let alone that she died." “I know. It was nice because you treated me normal. Everyone looked at me with pity. Like I was going to break down any minute.” “You were always flirting with everyone.” “No. I was working. I was getting tips from the customers.” “We can do that?” “There’s no company policy that says we can’t. I only flirted with you.” Masey furrowed her brow. “Even when I was with my girlfriend, I had feelings for you, but I pushed them aside because I felt like I owed it to my relationship with her. I never got vibes that you liked me, so I didn’t pursue anything.” “So, you went after an easy target.” Steve chuckled, Masey realized what she had said, “No pun intended.” “No, I get it. It wasn’t easy. She returned my advances.” “What?” “You were the hard target. We’d known each other for so long, that I thought it would happen naturally, but you didn’t give any signals. Lisa showed interest. We got along. We were compatible enough. But I guess she picked up on my lack of commitment.” “Typical.” “What? I couldn’t commit because I had feelings for you. They never went away.” He grabbed her cheeks. A flurry of butterflies started up her throat. “We work together.” “That’s where the best love stories start. You know Pam and Jim?” Masey laughed. She didn’t want to talk anymore. She just wanted to hear Steve tell her his feelings. She felt like she would ruin the moment. “That’s why Lisa seemed so cold and distant over the break. The last time we spoke on the phone we got into a fight. I took the time off because I thought I needed time to heal, but I started to realize that I missed you. My roommate thought my moping around was over Lisa. It was a combination of both. I mean I had feelings for her and was about to marry her, but you know the stages of grief. Well, I got to acceptance pretty fast, I maybe skipped some stages, but it was because I came to terms with my feelings for you.” “I’m glad winter lasted through June. Those 2 months I took off were miserable, but I think Mother Nature extended the winter season so we could spend more time together.” He leaned in for another kiss, “Yeah. I’m glad we got to spend this time together.” Outside the bar, the manager called for Steve and Masey. “We better go see what he needs.” Masey sighed and opened her eyes “Yeah. I guess.” “There you two are. The guests are coming back from the slopes you need to be at the desk to assist them.” “Yes sir.” They said together. They both looked at one another and laughed. “I don’t know what’s going on here but cut it out.” The manager left them alone and they continued to laugh. “Hey look, it’s snowing!” “Snow in June,” Masey looked over at Steve “Mother Nature has something else in store for us.” Steve wrapped his arm around Masey. Yes, Mother Nature had different plans for them, indeed.

I took a step off the ledge of the office building and let the wind, and then the warm concrete, embrace me. And upon impact, it was silent void--black and sensationless, the feeling of legs and the sounds of cars driving past entirely absent--but my dwindling consciousness, hanging by a thread, remained. When the weak, grizzly voice of an older man grew from behind me, my thoughts, already incomprehensibly fuzzy and confused, turned into a panicked frenzy. But there was no jolt down my spine, or increase in heartbeat. I had no body to feel surprised with. His voice, thick and tinged with a hint of New York Jew, felt distantly familiar. “You’re not supposed to be here, and you know it.” It took me a second to gather myself together again, but I discovered that upon thinking the words, *Turn around*, it was only a moment before I was looking into the eyes of a short, stubbled man with a beer belly and a hairline that could only be the product of age. “I’m sorry?” He removed a wide, beefy hand from the pockets of his khakis and smoothed out the bright, button-down hawaiian shirt he wore. Slowly, he took a step through the emptiness in my direction. The way he stroked his chin echoed nonchalance and he repeated calmly, “You’re not supposed to be here. You know that, and I know you know that.” “Do I know you?” “No. I’m nobody. Don’t think about that. If you really screwed up this bad, then your consciousness is probably falling away, and you might find that it’s getting harder and harder to remember things like the name of your wife--” “I don’t have a wife.” “Yes, you do--things like the name of your wife, where you work, where you were born, et cetera. So don’t waste time thinking about who I am. You made a mistake.” I found it difficult to believe, but I took a brief moment before speaking again to try to remember my supposed wife. In my mind, as if recalling an old framed photo that had sunken into the forgettable white noise and static of my bedroom, I blew off the dust and recalled the vague shape of an early middle-aged woman--maybe mid-30s--with hair that, though hazy, was clearly brown. She had no name and in my mind’s eye, she had a variety of different eye colors, none of them sticking quite right. “That’s Elise,” he told me. *Elise.* God, she was beautiful. “Yes. She is,” he continued. “But tell me, why did you do that? What the hell made you think it was a good idea to take a running jump off a five-story office building?” Stupidly, I paused before speaking. The English language was slipping through my fingers like sand, and with whatever faculty of speech I had left, I spoke. “Life was bad. It was evil. I was being beat up over and over. The universe was mean to me and I was tired of it. I just wanted this. I wanted this feeling.” “Describe the feeling, Caleb. Keep that language side of your brain active. At all costs. Do you understand me? Describe the sensation.” “Calm. I feel calm. Quiet. Big quiet. Small noise. No sound. No feeling.” “*Bigger than that, Caleb,*” the man said, his tone getting more intense. He took his other hand out of the pockets of his khakis, and the flowers on his Hawaiian shirt wrinkled as he raised his arm and snapped rapidly, “Use bigger words! Don’t just say the feeling, *make me feel the sensation!* Do you understand me?” Even in death--or whatever this was--I still felt the rising pressure coming from this short man. As my mind strayed away into oblivion, I clung to what I could and frantically stuttered what few descriptive words came to mind. “Sad but happy--happysad,” I stumbled. “*No*\--not happy. No, no, I feel--*elated*.” “*Excellent*," he hissed. "What’s your wife’s name?” He was barely giving me time to think, but the answers were starting to come more naturally. “Elise. Her name is Elise. I feel like I’m trudging through a warm lake. It’s a summer’s evening and I feel secure, and there’s no risk of me drowning. It feels good.” “*No, not ‘good!’ Tell me more!*” Like an olympic runner in the last lap, with a final burst of mental adrenaline, I felt language, familiar and beautiful, flood my thoughts again. “It feels relaxing and transcendent, like all the work of the philosophers in eons’ past, the consideration of what death means and the never-ending questions of what comes after it are about to be momentarily answered. The coming moment is the oxymoronic crux of existence in which we miraculously lose everything but find ourselves with knowledge the likes of which none have ever known. I’m oblivious to problems and the sensation brings a quiet, droning tinge of regret because I miss--*Elise!*\--but the anticipation is over and I’m soon to know what it means for a story to end. I remove myself from the hurricane that surrounds me and find myself in the eye of the storm, where everything is peace and I no longer need to question the world.” In the following few seconds of silence, in the absence of a body and the blood to course through it, anxiety ran quick through my veins. The man stood silently, and I wondered if he would disappear soon, if this was it, and I was nearly onto the “next life.” Slowly, began crossing his arms while a wide, smug grin crawled across his face. “They’re saving you.” “What?” “You could only speak like that if there were somebody there, next to you, saving you. They might be using defibrillators or any other sort of thing, but Caleb, I think you’ll be on your way soon. So tell me, how do you feel?” Knowing that I finally had the English language at my disposal once again, I allowed myself a few moments to consider his question before answering. “Devastatingly defeated.” “You shouldn’t. There’s more to this than you think. The life you lead is a sad and difficult one, and nobody could deny that, but at the end of the day, all of this is in your control.” The man looked down at his watch. “I’m betting you’ll be back in a couple minutes or so. Be ready, though, kid. It’s going to hurt. A lot. Remember, you’ve just jumped off a building.” “I don’t want to go back.” “I know you don’t. Nobody ever does.” “There are more like me?” It didn’t take long for the stupidity of the question to smash me like a brick. I didn’t need an answer. How in hell could I be the only one? “Of course there are more like you,” he scoffed. And he was right to do so. “You think you’re the first to try to kill yourself? It’s a mistake, but it’s an easy mistake to make.” He was right. It was unfair to believe that I was the only human tempted by the ledge of an office building. No doubt that there were alternatives elsewhere. People jumped off of cliffs, buildings, out of helicopters. People found ways. Where there was a ledge there was a temptation that, more often than I might have thought, was just strong enough to prompt action. But that wasn’t fair. Why should others succeed--should get that relief--and not me? Why do some succeed, and I’m forced to go back? The sensation of death was addicting, and at least according to the man, in mere moments, it was going to be forcibly taken from me. The man in the hawaiian shirt apparently detected my rising frustration. “Kid,” he said with a tired sigh, “you gotta understand that it’s *good* that you’re being saved. Your time hasn’t come yet.” I still stood in silence. I didn’t know what else to do. There was nowhere to go, and there was nothing to feel. My consciousness remained in full strength but my body was a ghost. I had never realized until then just how unpleasant the sensation of having a body was. Arms, legs, aching back, having problems or stressors, all those sensations were just upsetting, distant memories. I imagined the paramedics kneeling next to my mangled body on the concrete outside the office, speaking quickly and mechanically into their walkie-talkies, knees stained with blood, frantically stitching my broken self back together. It was funny to see them caring so much about a body. It was just a body, after all. The man continued. “You don’t think it, but you’ve still got more living to do. I know. Trust me. You’ve still got a lot more to go.” He paused, and his grin faltered. His voice, with its cigarette-stained rasp, lowered to a whisper with a tone as soft as velvet. “Elise would miss you, you know.” The gentleness, as much as it ached with honesty, somehow felt crooked on a voice that had so much fallen victim to drinking, smoking, and old age. It was a few moments before I could word what I was thinking, but when I could, the words clicked like a missing puzzle piece. “If I’m going to be forced to continue living, I refuse to let it be for the sole purpose of making *other* people happy.” In the time it took me to speak, we mirrored one another. His face contorted with surprise as the words washed over him, and I held myself back from giving a triumphant “Hmph!” But it was true. I’d got him. He gathered his thoughts and opened his mouth, hesitating for a moment, and then launching into his exasperated response. “Caleb, that’s what life is. People live for *you*. It’s a responsibility. Without other people in our lives, we’d all off ourselves. We rely on one another.” I almost interrupted him, but he didn’t give me the chance. “Don’t worry, kid, I’m not gonna try to shove some false-optimistic bullshit down your throat about how life is beautiful. Life is hell, and it’s always unfair, whether it’s unfair in your favor or in somebody else’s. But it’s a whole lot better with other people in it. We’re all in this perfect gridlock where we each have to stay alive for each other to make life more bearable. But at the core, I guess you’re right, it’s a system that’s a bit screwed up. But hey,” he said with a weak chuckle, “if you’ve got a better alternative, you go on ahead and make me the first to know.” It was a minute or two before I responded. My mind was running at full speed, and I knew that if the blood was pumping through so much of my brain already, it wouldn’t be long before I regained complete consciousness and I awoke at the foot of the office, my life officially unpaused. But I took my precious time. This was a conversation that was not going to be rushed, even if that meant cutting it short. “Why are you trying to talk me out of this and everything if life isn’t anything more than some sort of ‘hellish gridlock’?” “Because I want to know you’re making an educated decision. Maybe you’ll wake up and find that life really is hell. That it doesn’t get better, that Elise is mediocre at best, that your future children don’t deserve to live, that, I don't know, *chocolate* isn’t worth living for. And if that’s the case, then shoot. By all means. Jump off an office building. Leap in front of a moving train. Drive off a cliff, for all I care. But if you’re doing it, you oughta know *what* it is that you’re doing. Now you have an idea of what dying is like, and more importantly, at least I sure hope, you’ve got an idea of why you should live. You *do* live for other people, Caleb. It’s a bear and a burden and a difficult responsibility, but they’re doing the same thing for you. Remember, they’ve thought about jumping off a ledge somewhere else before, too, and when they considered it, they thought of you and pictured tears running down your cheeks at their funeral. You do it for them, they do it for you. So yeah, it’s maybe a bit hellish. But there are a lot of great parts to it, too. “Think hard, Caleb, about Elise. Remember when you met?” I didn’t need to jog my memory anymore. The image of the two of us on the footbridge was brought forth with ease and efficiency. “Brooklyn. 1992. On the bridge, when we both saw the spare change in the stream and both tried to get there first.” I tried to resist, but my lips involuntarily curved upward just a bit. “That was a good time. Did you wanna die on that bridge?” “I see where you’re going with this.” “Sure you do. But am I wrong? Again, feel free to shove a shotgun in your mouth when you get back, but make it an educated decision. Think of the bridge. Think of Elise’s eyes.” The image came easily and at my command: her eyes were a glistening auburn brown. “And ask yourself, did you wanna die at that moment? If not, then kid, you've just proven to yourself that there's stuff in life that's worth living for, that's bearable. And then, once you’ve thought about all of that, fine. Fine. At that point, it’s outta my control. You make your choice. Go on ahead and off yourself however you want to, if you really think that's the right choice, all things considered. I mean it." The words slowly sank into me. Whether they were warm water or scorching flames, I couldn't quite discern. Maybe it was a bit of both. It was then that pain--fierce, fiery pain--pierced through me with a vengeance, as if life were trying to make up for the pain I had missed while in the void without a body. I had allowed myself to, even for just a moment, experience the bliss of not knowing what it meant to have a physicality. And it was all coming back, whether I liked it or not. The pain crashed over me like a waterfall, coming in thick, aching waves. "You're coming back, kid. Good luck out there. I know it's tough. It's a real bear, like I said. And don't worry, you'll come back soon enough. Just give it a few years and you'll die eventually. Just be patient, okay?" I hissed through gritted teeth as my body was reborn, bit by bit, stab by stab. "*Who the hell are you?*" His voice echoed faintly around me, getting farther and farther away with each syllable. "Don't worry about it." As his shape faded away, it was replaced by blinding light, and as if careening uncontrollably through a narrow tunnel, the burning, aching pain only booming louder in my ears, I felt warm concrete underneath me. More importantly, I *felt.* My eyes blinked open to autumn trees above me and the sidewalk below me, the blood already forming a sticky film on my skin. Three paramedics knelt over my body, beaming with wide, searching eyes like spotlights, the defibrillator lying on the concrete next to me. Stunned that I wasn’t a lost cause, it was only a moment before they began frantically shouting, gathering together mysterious tools and tinkering with my body, right there on the concrete, like a mechanic working rapidly on a customer’s car when there was another customer waiting in line. My blood served as the engine oil on their knees--a badge to wear, boasting of a hard day’s work. The pain had swallowed me whole and dissolved into a numb, tingly TV static, and as I faded in and out of consciousness and witnessed the paramedics above me flicker into and out of existence, rage filled me and made my heart sore. A rage that entered unwelcome and would fester silently over the next two weeks in the hospital, and hibernate into a thick, viscous disdain for the doctors that stole death from me. It was only when Elise was finally allowed to see me that the aching of fermented anger began to fall away in small clumps. The paramedics, with an incomprehensible yell, handed the man kneeling closest to my head a syringe. I felt pressure on my arm, and the paramedics, still flickering in and out of view, after some deliberation, finally came to a solid conclusion and flickered into decisive nonexistence. I found myself in a hospital bed, hearing the A/C whir, feeling the cold air on the few parts of my skin not hidden by a cast, and remembering Elise’s face. It was 15 days later while I was lying in my cast on the hospital bed, two doctors standing on either side monitoring me like guards, that she cautiously peeked her head around the corner, flowers in her hands. The rhythmic beeping of the heart monitor quickened and I relished in my ability to look at her face and see that, for the past couple weeks, my memory had been astoundingly accurate--down to the shape of her eyebrows, the exact hue of her hair, and the way her eyes squinted when she smiled. Many years ago, young love gave us thrill because it was risky at the time, and when things teetered on edges, the passion grew tenfold. In that sanitized, white hospital room, we were floating on a bridge back in Brooklyn in 1992 and we were filled with the naive longing of young love. It was a fire that had burnt itself away years ago, but something about the temporary loss of life stoked the flames again, and I think we both knew somewhere that it wouldn’t last and that after this, there would be a wall. But good feelings are addicting and when love presented itself to us, we both greedily took our share and relished in it unthinkingly. When the adrenaline of risk wore off, we were different, but not altogether worse. We still loved each other, but she was scared of losing me, and I was scared of staying. I knew I’d be back in the void soon enough, and she knew that I knew that. And on my end, there was a newfound peace that I attributed to the man in the Hawaiian shirt. She never liked that, and she had asked me more than a few times in superficially playful conversation what it had been like to be dead. And I always told her the same thing. “It was warm. Relaxing and transcendent. Enlightening.” And she would change it up occasionally, sometimes mocking me for sounding like Buddha, sometimes mocking me for sounding like Jesus. For months, I never brought up the man in the Hawaiian shirt after I mentioned it to a doctor the day I woke up and was told that it was a form of mid-mortem hallucination. It was five months later, visiting my family in Vermont, that I finally spoke about it with my mother. We sat on the end of my old childhood bed, smaller, springier, and more welcoming than I remembered. She nodded along patiently, staring off into the orange late-autumn forest wallpaper and allowing the story to marinate in the tense air before inhaling it and truly processing it. She didn’t say a word. I went on for as long as I needed to, describing in detail the man’s shirt, the way he spoke, and what he told me. Why I was still alive, and why I was going to continue on living for her, for Elise, for dad. My words left a heaviness and a depth hanging over the room that slowly, my mother’s ears absorbed like sponges. I finished, and we sat in silence. Admiring the familiar autumn wallpaper, I imagined the sound of the vibrant leaves rustling through the air as they floated to the forest floor and waited for the first frost, signalling the new season. The aged bed creaked as she, without a word, cleared her throat and pulled her purse onto her lap. Tenderly, she reached in and removed from its contents a small photograph of the man with the Hawaiian shirt and the khakis I’d seen in the void. She cleared her throat. Her speech didn’t waver, but it remained low as if the gravity of what she was saying pulled it closer to the earth. “I found this photo in the attic a couple months ago. I’ve been keeping it on me for good luck. It’s my grandfather. Your great-grandfather. Elias.” I had never met him, but the name rang a distant bell. Great-grandpa Elias. I’d seen a couple old black and white photos of him, but nothing substantive enough to stick his face in the banks of my memory. “Are you sure this is who you saw?” It wasn’t only the face that made me sure. It was the posture. The way he carried himself. In a black and white photo, a moment frozen in time, his sly, toothy smile and his finger, bony and pointing at the photographer, were dynamic. Without moving, his character seemed alive and well in that moment, moving along as if he were still breathing, drinking, smoking, going about his life. I assured her that this was him. She nodded slowly. “Maybe it was something subconscious. I don’t think I’ve ever shown you this photo. I hadn’t even found it until relatively recently. But, I don’t know, maybe you saw it a long time ago somehow, and maybe it was a hallucination, like you said the doctor said.” She paused, sopping up every detail of her grandfather’s face in the photo. Elias’ smile was infectious. “You know, at Elias’ funeral, years before you were even on the way, we made a lot of jokes about that ostentatious, loud personality of his and about how he was probably up above us somewhere, laughing his raspy, breathless laugh, and probably feeling a little bit left out. It really was all just jokes, I think, meant to help us all cope. Y’know. You say what you have to to deal with people dying. But I’ve sometimes wondered if he really was up there, watching us, listening in. If he was there, in the room, when you were born. I don’t know.” She paused. “I don’t know. But maybe.” She thoughtfully put her arm around me, and after a few minutes of warm, pensive silence and admiring the autumn wallpaper, we descended the staircase, put on smiles, and joined the family again. I approached Elise with the brown hair and the memorable glistening brown eyes, hugged her, loved her, and patiently awaited the day I’d be seeing the void again.

"Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to.." The Chairman paused. "Nah, fuck all that. Who's ready to get hunted?!" He growled with a smirk. The room was quiet in judgment, wondering what he was talking about. He stood up straight and adjusted his tie. "Let me rephrase that." He held out for another long pause. "As you know humanity has developed drastically in the world of medicine. You, a group in your thirties have basically only lived a fifth of your life span . Before such advancements, a fifth of your life would basically make you young adults, practically teens and babies. Fresh meat one might say!" The intensity and bass of his voice echoed through the room like thunder right in the ear drum as he paced back and forth. "Anyways, you're far too young to become another casualty in the impending doom the sun wishes to grant us in the next decade or so. So I have proposition for you. A new planet has been discovered, almost parallel to ours but thriving much more fruitfully. Just outside of this galaxy, its being called The Haven and with such a fitting name only the best, brightest, strongest and most fitting candidates shall inhabit it. Will that be you or will you become a pillar to hold up the new world for a much more fitting species? Humanity, but better." "What type of utopia bullshit is this?" "Is he drunk?" "He's got to be psychotic." The tones and whispers of denial rushed the room like a broken aquarium spilling over. "Listen!" The lights turned off in an instant. The room was illuminated by a single source, coming from a giant screen behind him. He stepped to the side revealing a video of a planet. Bright blue and green images flashed across the faces of the clueless audience. Their eyes reflecting the images of clear oceans, grass fields for hundreds of miles and waves of forest and desert lands. It looked exactly like their planet but, untouched. Untainted. Pure. A vast world of opportunity and prosperity. "Now in order for you to be able to come here, you must acquire a ticket aboard The Sanctum, the space craft built for the journey. As well as taking an exam in order to understand the mind and body to determine if you are eligible for The Haven." The room was as such of a dark forest, silent, calm, waiting for the next hint of movement. All eyes were locked onto The Chairman like a deer in headlights. "Do you think it's real?" "I want to go swimming there!" "That land looks so ripe for farming my tomatoes." Whispers of curiosity began to fill the air like smoke. "How much is a ticket?" "I'm so going to get an amazing tan out there." "Tomatoes!" People began to think of the possibilities that a new planet and a new life could bring them. "Wait, did he say an exam?" "I was never good with problem solving!" "I dropped out to be a farmer, this isn't fair!" "Do not fret. It is not a written exam but one I have cultivated and designed specifically for this purpose." A few sighs of relief were heard through the room. "Here we go." The screen changed once more with a page of writing. "Candidates will be split into two teams." The Chairman read out. "The Hunters and The Hunted. As the teams suggest one team will be hunting while the other team must survive. Every member of The Hunted team will be given a specific amount of money for their head. If they are captured or killed only The Hunter responsible will gain that bounty only towards their admission aboard the Sanctum. The bounties of The Hunted will remain unknown until the conclusion of the exam. The Hunted, however, are guaranteed admission to The Sanctum as well as a job befitting their skills and abilities once they arrive to their home on The Haven. Each side will also have a king that holds a certain power over the game. All candidates will be released in a random part of the playing field with a map of the area that may also show possible spawn locations housing utilities, gear, weapons and or supplies. Furthermore, there will be tokens to find throughout the island that may also acquire you some aid and or monetary value during or at the end of the competition. Food will be available at said locations but you may also acquire some yourself from the jungle. If you have not decided in the voting booth by 7pm tonight you will be appointed a side. Also, if one side is full before you decide you will automatically put on the other team. I call it Kynigi! Let's all have a great life at The Haven!" "What is this?" A voice said shakily. "Who would join such a savage event?" She questioned out loud. As she looked around she could see the faces of everyone in the room change. Most were scared, worried that they may not be able to survive such a challenge. Some were joyful, excited for life on a new planet with endless possibilities. A few of them were ecstatic, their eyes glowed with bloodlust excited to have some fun and freedom before starting a new life. Her knees began to buckle with fear and she collapsed to the ground. "Are you alright?" A gentle tone asked. She lifted her head slightly to see an arm extended out in front of her, she was helped back to her feet and met eyes with a man not much older than herself. "Thank you" she said embarrassed. She looked forward at his tie to avoid the awkward eye contact. "I know, it's a lot to take in, isn't it?" He asked, stopping her from turning to walk away. He looked back up at the screen and smiled. "It's a Greek word. Intimidating I'm sure. I think it's an easy decision though if you ask me. But as you look around everyone else can't seem to decide. " she looks at him puzzled and still scared. "Well what would you choose?" He turned to her. "Well, hunter seems like the safest option. Especially for a a chubbier person like me." she stuttered. He looked at her confused for a second but moved on. "You would think, right? But look at the screen. 'Only the hunter responsible. Each side has a king. We will be released at random parts of the playing field. Tokens. Monetary Value. Aid.' None of that sounds like a team game. Hunters have to earn their money to get on the ship while Hunted are guaranteed a spot? Without knowing the bounties on our heads, that's just asking for the hunters to turn on each other first to lessen the competition." He gave her a gentle smile and made his way to the voting booth. The screen flashed red with the number one indicating the first player on a team. "Our?" She whispered to herself. Seven o'clock rolled around and the screen had finally flashed green indicating everyone present at the event has made their decision. The screen read 12-3-9. "Well, that's not pleasant. I hate odd numbers." The Chairman whined. "Jada!" He yelled prompting one of the servants to his table. He grabbed her by the back of her neck and stood up aggressively. "She will be joining The Hunted! That will make it twelve Hunters, ten Hunted and three dropout bitches." He whispered in her ear, "don't disappoint me now, Jada," then threw her into the crowd of players. Quickly the man from before leaped forward and caught her before she could smash her forehead on one of the tables. He glared up at The Chairman as he peered at the player and servant down the thick bridge of his nose. "Oh? What is your name and age?" He asked in a condescending tone. "Anax, 24." He replied just as cocky still holding the servant. The Chairman laughed hysterically. "Greek?" He asked. Anax did not reply or react to the question. He helped the servant to her feet with a smile, wiped off some dirt and grime from her skirt and made his way out of the main room. "It is now 7 o'clock in the evening and we shall commence the competition in roughly 19 hours. Tonight and tomorrow morning enjoy yourselves to your hearts content. We will also be treating you to meals tomorrow before the start. The facilities in the building are at your disposal. The pool along with the spa, steam room and sauna will on the bottom floor with the full weight room gym." His rings glistened as he pointed at the floor. "This floor has all of the food and entertainment you can think of. Restaurants, movie theaters, bowling alley, karaoke, arcades, roller skating. You name it, we have it." His robe flew open as he spread his arms to the side, flashing some awards and medals on his chest. "The top two floors will have more tactical facilities." His hands slammed the sides of his thighs making the sound of a drum. The rooms volume burst with excitement as people made their way to different stairwells and locations of the property. "Anax!" He paused at the end of the hall. "Where are you headed?" "I want to check out the 'tactical facilities' he was talking about." He said in a mocking deep tone. She giggled. "You don't seem as restless and scared anymore, that's a good sign." He said as he placed a foot on the first step trying to escape the conversation. She quickly grabbed his arm and stopped him. "Well thanks to our talk I have a good idea of how to survive. Also, I didn't think anyone here would be close to my age. Everyone else is in their thirties or older!" She made a jokingly disgusting look at the thought of all of the older men that were hitting on her earlier in the main room. "That's good then, are you going to check out any of the rooms on the property? I hear the sauna is great for the skin and relieves stress." He looked down at her hand still holding his. She quickly removed it and blushed. "I'm going to find my little brother first, I bet the little shit is floating in the pool with an entire pizza on his lap." She laughed and made her way down the stairs. He watched her disappear under the flight of stairs before moving his way up. I hope she's one of The Hunted so I don't have to kill her myself. He thought.

There are four of us in total. Our host is preparing a meal as we wait in emotion-charged silence around a well-decorated, rectangular dining room table. Three candles burn in the middle of a golden tablecloth laid over it, placed in careful alignment with the gaudy chandelier suspended high above. There are three doorways within the dining hall. One leads to the kitchen, the other to the lounge. The third door is closed shut and I find myself puzzling over where it leads. The walls are thickly armored with avid displays of artful paintings. I am particularly struck by the one of a well-dressed, old woman sitting on a red, cushioned sofa, smiling. There is something about her which draws me. Her lovely attire, or perhaps the warmth in her smile. Staring at the paintings reminds me of my mother, who used to paint for a profit in her life. She died in a car accident when I was six years old. I was there. My father, the driver, survived, and so did I. My father did not cope well with her death and turned to drugs for coping. He eventually got arrested for drug-possession and child-neglect when I was nine, and I've been in a foster home since then. My life hasn't been easy, but there has been a consistent pillar which has kept me adrift through all of the experiences it dumped on me. This pillar comes in the form of our host and my personal hero, Amoray. I've known Amoray since I was ten. She funded the foster home that used to be my dwelling and used to visit the kids there several times a week, making sure that all of us received proper treatment and provisions. Her visits brightened up my entire existence, and on the days that she neglected to show up, I would hold my breath and trust that she would return. She always did. As the days and weeks and months and years stretched out, so did her visits. That was until the shelter burned down and took nineteen others with it. There were only three teenage survivors, including myself. I won't lie, that was an experience straight from hell. I was outside when it all began. I remember hearing a loud, booming noise. I hurried inside to a horrid sight of Mario and Viv, now dead, engulfed in combustive flames. The rugs on the floor and the furniture all around were alight, too. My attempts to quench the uncontrollable flames were met with resistant cackles, my desperation to save lives swallowed up by the scorching heat and suffocating smoke. If I persisted upon becoming a hero that night, my body would have also turned into ash among the pile of rubble. The memory of the two screaming teenagers and the stench of burning flesh has stuck with me since that catastrophic night, the night when I witnessed my only real home crumbling to ruins before my very eyes. My train of thought is interrupted by firm footsteps from the kitchen. "Celeste," Our host's hoarse voice calls out from the kitchen entrance. "Will you please come through and give me a hand? The food is ready." My eyes land on the girl on my right. Celeste is pretty, but strange. We're the same age, but she's been in foster care for much longer than I've been. She always keeps to herself and hardly shows any emotion. Truth be told, the only time that I have ever spent any time with the girl was on the day of the fire. She was inside when it erupted and barely escaped with her life. The girl, just seventeen of age, has sustained a pretty nasty burn along the length of her neck, torso, arms and back. It took her two months to recover in hospital, but the tale tell scars are clearly visible underneath the clothes that she tries to use as tools of concealment. The dark girl with the pallid skin and the inky black hair, whose gaze was also lost in one of the framed works of art around us, looks up with a look that suggests that the place she visited was far, far away. I am curious as to where the art took her as she mumbles her consent and follows Amoray into the kitchen. At least the fire did not catch her face and hair. Those are still pretty, at least. Don is sitting at my right. He's big and has a reputation for being aggressive. A deep scar runs across his right cheek. He used to have very long hair which was, unfortunately for him, consumed by the ravenous flames. The damage is not too bad, but he's bald now, and not very happy about it. In my private opinion, he ought to be grateful. Don and I do not get along. We have gotten into many physical fights. His bulky body and uncompromising nature have always intimidated me, but I've never showed it. I usually reacted to his aggressive ways with more aggression. I fought back every single time. I've gotten my nose broken and my shoulder dislocated because of it, but he got a couple of nice, flashy bruises and a few delightful limps from my retorts. I was always strategic in our fights, making sure to consistently target his left shin to get him off my back. There was no way in hell I was going to turn into some bully's punching bag. I've experienced enough of that from my estranged father after my mother's untimely departure. "Whose to say it was untimely?" Amoray once pointed out with a careful, calm voice during one of her visits at the foster home. "There's a time for everything, dear one. We all ultimately have to die one day, in one way or another." If those words had come from anyone else's mouth, I would have been brutally offended, perhaps even violent. However, Amoray's words instilled a sense of fleeting comfort within me. I could understand that the occurrence was not meant to be personal. It was the law of nature for everything to eventually die, or transcend, or morph into something else. Nothing is everlasting, and that includes my mother. We all die in a manner that we are destined to, regardless of what, or who, we leave behind. I get it, but I still hate it. It's unfair. Where does Amoray's so-called God get off bringing us here only to have us suffer like this? Where's my happy childhood, my loving relationships, my mental sanity? Screw life. I don't wanna live it anymore. As though to veer my train of thought off track, the elegantly tall woman walks into the dining room holding two trays. Celeste follows right behind with the same, an impassive expression on her face. She reminds me so much of that one wolf girl in a series whose title I can't recall. Don clears his throat and shifts uncomfortably. I think he's a little threatened by our host. Amoray is kind and understanding, but can be super firm and unflinching in her assertiveness when she needs to be. She's a leader of a church, you see. To be a leader, you need that skill. You need it in order to put people like Don and myself in their place. It works for me because I've never actually gone out to harm anybody, whereas Don has actively sought out to pick on me. I never understood what his problem with me is. Anyway, despite our attempts to conceal our riff, Amoray appears to always pick it up. All she usually gives me is a rebuke which mentions something about refraining from fighting fire with fire. I don't get that. Am I just supposed to be a doormat? Amoray is dressed in modest, casual clothes under a frilly apron. I'm used to seeing her in formal clothes and it feels strange to see her in a simple t-shirt, jeans and sneakers. I guess it makes sense, since this is her home. Her golden face carries a lot of discernment, and the shallow, almost imperceptible creases on her forehead give away her age a bit, otherwise to me, she looks a decade younger than forty, her actual age. Thick eyebrows arch beautifully over her dark brown eyes, always alight with wisdom and insight. When we make eye-contact, I feel like she sees right through me. I feel naked, but in a good way, because there is not the thinnest strand of judgement in her gaze. Just... love and acceptance. The two females sit at their allocated seats once the dishes have been set down. A fresh plate of hot spaghetti bolognaise stares up at me, and my stomach growls audibly. The last time I checked the time, about half an hour past, it was 2:54 pm. I haven't eaten since 6am. I'm famished and I fight the urge to immediately dig in, just to be polite. "I just had to fix a quick meal for you," Amoray begins with a smile on her face. Early in the morning, she gave all three of us a phone call to invite us to her home. After the fire, Amoray kindly arranged that we live in one house of hers which was conveniently unoccupied at the time. A three bedroom house with a kitchen, two bathrooms and a lounging area. It is small enough that the three of us regularly clash, but big enough that we can peacefully keep to our own private spaces if need be. We never really spend time together. We're the same old strangers, only this time, we're occupying a different house. But for the daily chores allocated to me, I usually just binge-watch a shitload of series and read comics. "Thank you for the food," Don speaks for the first time in a while. He and I have a tendency of ignoring each other to the point of not even making eye contact. This time, however, against my default preference, I look at him. To my dismay, my gaze lands straight into his, and before the count of three, I look away. I don't really want to stare long enough to see what lies beneath those dark, beady eyes. Knowing that the boy hates me is enough. Digging up the depth of his hatred is pushing it. So I don't look into his eyes for long. Instead, I fix my gaze on Amoray. "When do we get to dig in?" She's sitting across from me, and I revel at how easy it is to make eye-contact with her instead. "Since you're in such a hurry, why don't you say grace for us, then?" I so badly want to say no, but I don't. Instead, a half-hearted mumble of thanks escapes my lips and a few seconds later, we're all eating. The food tastes amazing. Amoray begins to speak. "I'll get down to why I called you three here," she says after setting her fork down and folding her arms over the edge of the table. She's obviously not as famished as I am. "I have a story that I would like to share with you." She alternates meaningful eye-contact between all three of us. "As a little girl, I used to get beaten a lot. For minor things, for major things, for all things really. I simply could never get it right, no matter how hard I tried. I had two other siblings, but for some reason, I was the only one my mother mistreated. My father saw what was happening and stepped in at times, until he didn't. My two sisters eventually teamed up against me because of that. We all went to school and back home together, but at both places, I was never treated like I belong. We went out as a family sometimes. It was in public that I got a bit of relief, because mama never really showed any preferences then. Under the glare of the eyes of many strangers, I stopped being a scapegoat. "Fast-forward to my late teens, and I was an expect chameleon. I lived to please others and did not know why. I kept to myself a lot. I didn't speak to anyone unless I had to, and I was highly suicidal. I ended up in hospital twice from attempting to take my own life, and despite being notified each time, none of my family members visited me during my hospital stays. When I returned home after my second attempt, receiving no special acknowledgment whatsoever, I packed a few clothes and ran away, never to return again. "The commencement of the second decade of my life was hellish. I bounced from place to place, from one kind stranger to another. Thank God I didn't end up in the streets, but that did not mean I stopped attracting dogmatic authority figures into my care. The kind strangers always revealed darker intentions with time. My mother never reached out. I had no friends. I was alone in the world and no one came through to save me. In my late twenties, I got into prostitution and fell pregnant. But it wasn't a paying customer's child. It was the child of a pimp who got under the roof he granted me for the exchange of my then-defiled body and raped me, the child that he later drowned in dirty bath water because I was making him lose his money. Nevermind that I was healing from a very complicated birth process. My daughter's name was Dayhila and she was only ten days old when her life was taken. At twenty nine years, I was a crackhead and lived for nothing else but crack. I had no one and I had nothing." Amoray stops speaking. The room is dead silent but for a few hesitant sounds of fork against plate. Why the hell is Amoray telling us this story? "I know that you look and me and think that I have a good life filled with great relationships and monetary comfort, but you need to know that I was once where you are. I was in a dark place out of which I never conceived to escape. The only difference between you three and my teenage self is that I didn't have anyone to make sure I was well taken care of. You do. I've always been there, since you were just children." The silence stretches out as Amoray pointedly stares at us. "In the last few months since the fire, I haven't stopped visiting you and being that consistent guideline to how you should treat each other, but I am displeased by how you three have been wasting your opportunities to grow and become better people. I am utterly displeased and I don't think that in the future, I'll be so willing to keep you under my care if you carry on the way that you are. You are not little children anymore. "Your current actions and behaviors make up your future. I'm willing to help you create those futures. I am and have been here as an example to follow. Follow that example starting today. The time has come for you to build your own relationships and stop clinging onto me as though I am the only human being that exists within your midst. You are roommates. You live under one roof. You have been brought together for a reason. Start getting along and while you're at it, consider carefully just how fortunate you are." She pauses, then as if to lighten the heaviness of her previous statements, she adds softly. "Only when you begin doing that will your lives truly begin. Love one another, for God's sake. Just as I've loved you." Suddenly, as if by some realization, I know who the old lady in the painting is. She's the lady who got Amoray out of her pit of hell. Through Amoray, she saved us, too. Celeste, Don and are still silent, totally abashed, by the speech just dished out to us. We give each other wary looks, and say nothing still. Amoray's story has kind of changed my perspective, and as I look at the two roommates on either side of me that I barely even know, deep, deep within the core of me, I begin to feel an openness towards them. An openness which will perhaps one day lead to the things I long for. Opportunities to make long, solid relationships are right in front of me on a daily basis, and yet, here I am, holding on to the bitter past and worrying about all the things I don't have. I realize now what Amoray is trying to say. I think we all do. She's telling us that if we follow her ways, then we're opening ourselves up to opportunities that will enlighten our lives and usher in all the good that is clearly evident in her own life. That we won't be doing anyone else but ourselves a favor by listening to the advice that she has to offer. It really does change my perspective, to know that my life-long suffering was perhaps not in vain, and that I, too, stand a chance to get out of my hole if I choose to listen to my wise host. I'll sure be returning to her for advice, that's a given. As we prepare to leave, Celeste says the closing prayer.

Molla dug her claws through the soft earth with the enthusiasm of a cat sitting in rain. Miserable yet unavoidable. Then, her claw pierced through the wall and into a cavern. Her eyes burned at the sudden light and she shielded herself. She blinked. The den mother’s stories said that light from the solar would immediately burst her into flames, yet she felt fine. Instead of burning, she felt hot. Clearly, they exaggerated the tales for the runts. Curious, she plowed down the rest of the wall and into the cavern. A large ray of light bore down into the cave and onto a pile of rocks. In a mess of rubble, a man groaned. He wore a strange orange vest with silver stripes that threatened to blind Molla. She got on all fours and scurried over to the edge of the solar spot. The heat was unbearable. He must have been in significant pain. Molla tested the light, sticking her elbow into the light. The exposed pale skin immediately blistered. He must be from a different den, she thought. Her kind didn’t have the resilience to solar that he had. But she couldn’t just leave him. Pulling the rope and hook off her back, she set to work. The first several tosses she aimed for the rocks that covered him. They rolled off the pile, clinking loudly against the other stones. Molla flinched, inspecting her surroundings for any sign of Burrowers. The large eyeless moleman-eating worms hunted by sound. Her heart thumped in her chest as she heard the faint sound of slimy skin inching through dirt. She froze in fear. A beast emerged from behind a corner. Raising its black needle head, searching for sound. The man groaned again. Molla was helpless to do more than watch. The burrower poked its head towards him, then its snout touched the light. It roared in pain, jerking its head back, retreating to where it had came from. Molla’s breath rushed out of her chest and she fell to her knees. Even the apex predator of Subterra couldn’t handle the light of Sol. Then what was this man? With the rocks cleared, she landed the hook under the man’s shoulder and pulled him back into the safety of darkness. His skin was red, but that was the least of Molla’s intrigues. His hands were so short and skinny, and he bound his tiny feet with black leather, tied tight by strings. She tilted her head, confused. What kind of moleman could bear to have their feet bound like this? How did he dig with those pathetic claws? Her finger snapped through the strings of the leather and she found his feet, which were even stranger. They were tiny, clawless, and missing a joint. No, the joint was there. It was just tiny and useless. His den left this poor mutant to die because of his repulsive disfigurements. Molla huffed, the cruelty of some dens was too much. She nodded and wrapped the man around the chest with her rope and hook, deciding she’d take him back to her den. Hopefully, the den mother wouldn’t be too upset about it. But Molla refused to abandon him just because he looked a little silly. ~~~ The long tunnel of Molla’s making led to the den. She ignored the grunting and groaning of the man dragging behind her. There was nothing she could do until she got him somewhere safe. It would be foolish to stop in the tunnels. A stationary moleman practically asked a burrower to eat it. As she shimmied down the hole, she wondered how this mutant had survived to adulthood. It wasn’t possible for him to navigate the Subterra pathways with those feet, and digging was out of the question with his clawless hands. She shook her head. The poor thing probably had enough judgement for one lifetime. A glowing green circle was ahead of her and she smiled, finally entering safety. They rimmed the large room with star vines that emitted a comfortable dim light. “Molla-nati-nana, what is this?” The fat moleman with a yellow hat asked. Molla winced. He only used full names when he was angry. The boss waddled around her to inspect her passenger. Pressing his claws to the bridge of his nose, he sighed. “Where are the metals? The food? Why would you bring back some weird pet?” Molla moved back to the man and stood her ground between him and her boss. “His den abandoned him, they left him in a ray of Sol.” “Den? A ray of Sol? Molla, this ain’t a moleman.” She cocked her head, “that’s rude, just cause he looks strange, he’s still one of us.” “Look at it, if that’s a moleman, I’m a mermaid. Put it back.” “No,” Molla shook her head furiously. “I won’t abandon him.” “Save the compassion for your own kind,” the boss said, crossing his claws. A sign of agitation amongst the moleman. “Throw it in the pit with the rest of the trash.” “You’re a burrower, a beast! How could you?” “It won’t survive down here, anyway. It’s mercy.” “What? Of course he will.” The grizzly moleman poked his furry eyebrow with his knuckles. “Listen, just throw it away and forget about it. Those things shouldn’t be in Subterra.” “I don’t care, I’m saving him.” She pulled on the rope and headed towards the den gate. Two burly molemen, with edged steel covering their claws, blocked her path. “Move. I demand an audience with the den mother.” The guards looked at each other, and then to the taskmaster. He waved a dismissive claw, “let her through, she has the invoked the right to appeal. Nothing we can do. Not that it’ll do anything but waste your time. Den mother is gonna see it my way.” Molla wrinkled her nose at the boss, eager to prove him an oaf and a fool. She heaved the rope over her shoulder and pulled the man across the trail to the den mother’s dig. She’d understand. ~~~ The den mother’s dig was a paradise for moleman. Wet blue moss covered the round room and shimmered in the light of the star vines that covered the upper bowl of the dig. Artists had carved minimalist etchings of significant events in the den’s history and the moss clung in the deeper cracks, creating a visual of depth and life always present to those appealing to the den mother. Molla, barely above a runt, only had two rights. To life, and to appeal. Whenever a minion disagreed with a superior, they were allowed to appeal to the den mother. Luckily there wasn’t a line, and only the current appealer, the den mother and her personal guard were present. She was a beauty, fat lined her cheeks and gave her body curves impossible for the average moleman. Molla touched her tight skin self consciously. She’d never be able to eat enough to look like that. “So what do you say den mother?” The appealing moleman asked. “You agreed to a debt, a debt you agreed was over five shovel tadpoles. I see no reason to clear your debt.” “But he said--“ “You said, he said.” The den mother barked at the shrinking moleman. “I won’t tolerate hearsay as your only evidence. Pay your debt in full.” “And just forget about the five tadpoles? I’ll be broke!” “Tell me Doo-ga-tana, what do you think that dig of his is worth?” The den mother asked the moleman, swollen with muscle, beside her. The guard smiled, tapping a claw thoughtfully on his nest of chin whiskers. “How many flakes does a shovel tadpole go for? Ten? Twelve?” The appealer fell to his belly. Pleading, “My dig--“ “Quiet. Doo is calculating,” the den mother said. No longer needing to raise her voice to remind the moleman of the difference in their statures. “I’ve seen it, nice hole, pleasant location. Close to the tunnels. I’d say it’s worth... Eight hundred of those tadpoles.” “I can’t sell my dig for--“ “The punishment for failing to pay debts is exile. Downgrade or be a burrowers snack,” the den mother said. Doo chuckled, “your choice.” The moleman got off his belly and bowed, clenching his teeth. He left the room, his eyes downcast. His shoulder slammed into Molla’s knocking her off balance. “Move,” he grunted. Molla steadied herself and took a deep breath. She couldn’t let this affect her. The den mother would only respect her best. After regaining her thoughts, she approached and bowed her head onto the dirt floor. “Den mother.” “Your name?” The guard asked. “Molla-nati-nana. From the C tunnels.” “What is that?” The den mother asked. Molla lifted her head to see the den mother scowling. “during my tunnelling, I came across a cavern, I found this mutant. His den abandoned him. My taskmaster ordered me to toss him into the pit. I can’t do that. Please let me--“ “Slow down girl,” the den mother said. “Mutant? He hardly looks like a moleman. Is it... Could that be a human?” “Human?” The guard said, pulling his claws up into position to attack. “The evil children of sol.” The den mother nodded. “Yes, I’m certain of it. That has to be a human. Listen to your taskmaster and toss it.” “He is not an it,” Molla said. Was he really a human? She wondered. In the tales they were mostly evil, however, that wasn't true of all of them. “Didn’t you listen to my tales? The children of sol are poisoned by her heat. They are evil.” “I listened,” Molla said. She extended a claw to the first etching in the moss. “I listened with the language gifted to us by the human. Tales of the humans evil are balanced by tales of good. Tossing him like he’s trash is evil.” “Don’t preach to me, girl.” The den mother narrowed her eyes and scrunched up her rosy face. “I know where the spoken word comes from.” Molla bowed, forgetting her place as always. “I’m sorry den mother, I meant no offense. It’s just... It’s too cruel.” “Isn’t it more cruel to keep it alive? Their kind can’t survive down here long,” The guard added. The den mother nodded, patting him on the shoulder. “That’s right, that’s right. We can’t risk it being evil, and it would be more cruel to keep it alive.” It. It. It. It was a living being, not a thing. “Would you toss a runt that has cavern fever?” The guard took a step forward. “Den mother would never!” The wealthy woman raised her claws, sparkling with gems, stopping the guard. He shrunk back to his post, biting his lip. “Does this one dig with her tongue?” The den mother smirked. “She’s oftly quick with it. No, we do not toss our own. The den must keep hope that none of them will be abandoned. But Molla-nati-nana, he is not one of us.” “Then I will take the burden on myself.” Molla said, crossing her claws. Doo laughed, “a tunneler, take care of a human?” The den mother glared at her guard, “I will tell you when you may mock our appealers, never assume that you may decide that on your own again.” She sat up and dug her claws into the throne made of iron. “What do you propose?” “I-- I’ll nurse him back to health, a-and help him return to Solterra,” Molla said, stuttering on her own shock. Did the den mother just defend her? “Unacceptable.” “But--“ “Take him to the medic. You might get lucky and be able to return him, but I have zero faith you won’t accidentally kill him with those diggers. Sol, look how you’ve already dragged him.” Molla turned around and saw the man laying face flat on the dirt. His entire body covered in a coat of dirt, dust, and scraps. “Oh.” Then she turned back with a smile and pressed her forehead to the dirt, “Thank you den mother. Thank you.” She rushed out the room and headed for the medic’s dig. “Stop treating it like a sack of mushroom spuds!” The den mother called after her. The matriarch of the den leaned back into her throne and smiled at the tunnel. Doo cleared his throat and bowed. “I’m sorry for my earlier outbursts,” he said. The den mother waved it away. “Most appeals it’s fine, you and I both know how stupid some are. But that girl... She has the making of a den mother, don’t you think?” Doo opened his eyes wide, parting his lips, unable to say anything. “It’ll be interesting if she survives this burden.” ~~~ “It’s mostly contusions, no broken bones, but he took a bit of a blow to the noggin. Not sure how much of this was from his fall, and how much is your fault,” the medic said, adjusting his glasses. Molla tapped her claws together to a rhythmic tune, looking away to hide her grimace. “Yeah, suppose I should’ve been more careful.” The medic sighed and pulled back the man’s eyelid with his declawed hand. He waved a fresh bulb of a star vine in front of the humans eye and smiled. “At the very least, he’s not concussed.” He picked up the man’s thin hand and shook his head. “Incredible phalanges. These would be so useful.” “What? He can’t even dig, they’re useless.” “So closed minded. What good are your hands for besides digging?” He asked, pointing his declawed finger at Molla. “What else is there?” The medic leaned back from his work and raised an eyebrow at Molla. “Really? Why was it the den mother sent you to me? The medic.” She sucked in her lips and turned her head even further away. “Oh... Right.” “Anyway, without a concussion he’s safe to wake up. Get ready. He will be confused.” The medic moved over to his wall and pulled out a white packet. He sniffed it and jumped back. “Whew, that stuff is potent.” “What is it?” “Smelling salt. A whiff of it and you’ll be wide awake,” he said, smiling with slightly beady eyes. Molla furrowed her brow, “is that... Safe?” “Plenty!” He moved towards the human and took a deep breath. “You might want to hold him down.” Molla moved to the human’s side and pressed down on an arm and leg. “Like this?” “Sure. Sure. Yes. Ok, let’s go.” The white sack touched the top of the human’s lip and his eyes shot open. His focusing pupils shot back and forth from Molla to the medic and he hyperventilated. “Relax, you’re safe,” she said “Who... Where...” He looked around confused, his pupils shrinking, adjusting to the light. “Ah AHH!” his eyes focused on Molla’s claws. His strength was too much, and he jerked out of her press, scrambling off the table, hitting the dirt with a thud, backing away to safety. “We won’t hurt you.” He pulled a strange metal contraption off his hip and pressed a button. The sound was like the spring drip, only a hundred times louder. “Hello? Hello? Anyone hear me?” The machine crackled like a fierce water leak. He cursed when the tone didn’t change, throwing the machine at Molla’s head. She jerked back and shut one eye as blood trickled from her brow down to her eye. The medic rushed to her, but she held up a hand to stop him. Kneeling down to his eye level, Molla put her hand on her chest. “I’m Molla. You?” She pointed her claw to his chest. His eyes darted through the darkness, trying to find an escape. “Molla he’s not listening, we should--“ “Molla,” she tapped on her chest, then pointed to the man again. “T-t-troy.” She reached out her claws. He flinched away. “Molla won’t hurt Troy.” She said, purposely simple and direct. Putting her palms on his shoulders, she smiled. “Troy is safe now.” “Wh-what are you? Where the hell am I?” “We just saved you runt, don't be rude.” Molla shot the medic a one eyed glare, silencing him. She wiped the blood from her eye. “We’re molemen, this is our den.” “Ha...” Troy laughed, growing more hysterical by the second. “This is a prank? Where are the cameras?” “Camera?” Molla asked the medic. He shrugged. “These props?” He pulled on Molla’s claws. “Make up? Give it up, I’m not fooled.” The medic groaned, moving himself further away. “He’s lost his mind.” “He’s just confused. He doesn’t remember falling.” “Falling?” Troy pressed his hand to his face. “That’s right, I was... There was a cave in.” He sobbed. “I’m going to die.” Molla whacked him on the head with the back of her claws. He blinked and looked back up at her. “I will return you to your home.” ~~~ Troy complained about something or other for the thousandth time as they scaled up the tunnel. “How can you do this? Let’s take a break... Where the hell is my boot.” Molla stuck her claw into the dirt wall and hung to look down at Troy, who was sticking his useless hands and toes into the holes she made. “how many times do I have to tell you to be quiet?” Troy looked down and grumbled. Molla shook her head and resumed the climb up the tunnel she had made earlier. Troy didn’t stop his complaining, but at least he had lowered his voice. She couldn’t even make out the words. Then a rock dropped in her stomach. Where she burst through, into the cavern, was pitch black. The rays of Sol no longer burning bright. “No. No, where is sol?” “Huh? The sun? I don’t know? Is it night?” “Night?” Molla asked, poking her head into the large empty space. “You know, when the sun sets... And it gets dark...” Molla blinked at him, annoyed by all the words he used that made no sense to her. “Right, you live in caves, you wouldn’t know.” Troy said, climbing up onto the pile of rocks that buried him earlier. He cupped his hands over his mouth and tilted his head back. “Hello!” He shouted. “Can anyone hear me?” Molla’s heart dropped, and she jumped on top of Troy, covering his mouth. “What the--mphmm mmm.” He struggled to pull her paws away from his mouth. Molla was scanning the cavern and hissing at Troy for silence. Then she heard it. The unmistakable scratching of slimy scales on dirt. Her heart thumped, and she pulled Troy up to his feet, glowering at him. You idiot, her eyes saying. The black needle head poked out from a tunnel. It stuck out it’s sword like tongue, tasting the air. Tasting them. Troy’s eyes opened wide, and he opened his mouth to scream. A natural reaction to the horror of a burrower. She pulled her hands over his mouth, begging him in her mind to just shut up. Troy resisted and the two of them fell down the rock pile, bringing a wave of dust with them. The burrowers head snapped towards them and it rocketed itself forward. Molla stuck one claw into the dirt. She held on to Troy with the other. A burst of strength and she shot the two of them forward. One claw got stuck, snapping at the base. The earth roared behind them as the burrower slammed into the cavern wall. The world shook. A storm of stone rained down from the ceiling. Molla squeezed herself into a crevice, pulling Troy in with her. He looked down at her hand, covered in blood. It wasn’t just the nail that broke, the blood vessels were gone too. She would never be able to grow it back. Troy’s shoulder touched hers, the cramped space forcing them together. “Are you--“ “Shh,” what part of ‘be quiet,’ was so hard for him to understand? The burrower emerged from the dust, shaking its slimy body, letting the rocks slide off. Its head pointed towards them, then away, then back. Molla held her breath. It inched closer. The black tongue touching the edge of the crack that held them. She wrapped her arm around Troy’s and squeezed close to him. Tears burning at her eyes. Lips sealed shut. There was a snap. White light flooded the cavern from the hole where Troy had fallen. The burrower screeched, racing back to the darkness. “Trooooy!?” A voice shouted from above. “Are you there!?” “My crew,” Troy said. “They found me.” Molla slid out from the crack and exhaled louder than she ever had before. Troy was next to her, their arms still linked. The strange touch comforted her. He turned to her and pressed his lips to hers. She jerked her head back and pushed him away, “wh-wh-what was that?” Her face burned like Sol was shining directly on it Troy scratched at the back of his head, “ah. sorry. I don’t know what came over me. You saved me... Again.” “But that’s-- that!” “Trooooy!” Troy groaned, like he was under rubble again. He grabbed her paws and squeezed tight. “I’ll never forget you, Molla.” “Molla-nati-nana...” Molla corrected, wanting him to know her full name. “It’s beautiful... I’ll never forget it.” “Trooooy!” “I’m down here!” He yelled. Molla wrapped the back of her claws on his chest. “Don’t tell them about us, the molemen that is.” Her face flushed again. “Our world shouldn't exist together.” “I promise,” Troy nodded. She pushed him away. “Don’t you dare forget it,” she said, before scurrying back to the tunnel and diving in. Her paws pressed to her face, feeling so hot. She peaked over the ledge and saw Troy starring at her through the darkness, a rope landing beside him. “Goodbye mutant.” ~~~ Troy was wrapped in a blanket, and a line of his coworkers formed to embrace him. “We were so sure you died, dude,” one said. “But then your radio activated. Though nothing got through,” another said. Troy looked down to his hip, realizing he had left it at the medics. “Oh, I threw it when it didn’t work.” “You worrying about something as stupid as a radio right now? Insurance's got that. All we care about is you’re safe. It’s a miracle.” “Yeah it was a miracle,” Troy said. He looked at the flood lamps that pointed down into the cave, and into the darkness. “This might seem like a weird question,” he said. “But does anyone know anything about spelunking?” ~~~ /r/QuarkLaserdisc Critiques welcome.

A fictional story unfortunately based on real people. All men are carsalesmen, and it is only a matter of time before you find out he sold you a lemon. -Ana Raymond was a man, and an arrogant one at that. He was the type of man that was sure of himself, a man who possessed that perverse, yet often quite comical, faux self-awareness of the many gifts he had to offer to the world. And by the world, I mean to half of the world’s population, and by half of the world’s population, I mean the feminine half. Yes, Raymond was one of those infallible men who believed himself to be a gift given directly from the Universe itself to the women of the world. Yes, Raymond was a rather handsome man. Being the ripe age of thirty-three, he had a full head of dark brown hair that he kept cut short and combed over with two bright emeralds for eyes that often wandered from lady to lady. He kept himself in relative shape, disciplining himself to stay on a strict bicep-curl regiment three days a week, and Raymond was relatively tall, but the type of tall that didn’t make one think he was tall, just that he wasn’t short. All his life, Raymond had it easy with women; approaching them, talking to them, loving them, and most importantly, leaving them. That was what he was best at. It could almost be seen as a sort of twisted talent how easily he could abandon those he persuaded to sleep with him. No, a woman could never satisfy Raymond for long, and it was no fault of their own. How could it be? It was simply in his very nature to leave. You wouldn’t fault a polar bear for his hunting of a helpless penguin would you? As a polar bear is indifferent to the penguin’s life story, its family, or stories of its mundane job, Raymond couldn’t be bothered to care less about the women of the world. The amount of knowledge he had on each one he seduced was their hair color and maybe a name, if he even bothered to remember, but other than that, Raymond had no desire in learning about these people. Why should he? They were women, they had nothing to offer worth mentioning anyhow. From his angle, he was blessing these lowly women with his presence, his look a generous gift, his touch a miracle from God. With false promises of passion and romance, he’d shower las mujeres in compliments, praising their beauty and bodies, relentless in his pursuit of the diamond in their muff, until at last, he would finally have them. Always telling them he’s only passing through for one night, Raymond would take them to a random hotel on the outskirts of town, fuck them all night long, and in the morning, they would awake to a pre-typed note always beginning with, “Hey You,” saying how he regrets he couldn’t stay longer, that before he left he stopped and stared at them as they slept, thinking how beautiful it would be to wake up that face every morning. But Raymond was already back home in his own bed, sleeping soundly well into the afternoon before his next night time excursion. Raymond sat at the bar, taking long sips from a strong cocktail, his eyes wandering around, drifting out into the restaurant before him. The restaurant, a small, intimate supper club he frequented most weekends, always reminded him of when he was a boy gazing up into the night sky in the midst of summer; a thick darkness with the tiny flickering of candles on each table twinkling, dancing, like little stars far away. In the back of the room lay the stage where four men in black suits played together in chaotic harmony. Horns blared and competed and synchronized as the drums and bass maintained the rhythm. Their faces were the only ones visible throughout the jazz supper club, each one of them glistening with sweat from the heat under the focused stage light. As he looked around the joint, he couldn’t see any of the faces of the patrons, all black shapes with no features; silhouettes that occasionally caught the flicker of the candle, revealing a small glimpse of a woman or a thinly mustached man, but for the most part, each person might as well have been a shadow. While the main dining room lay in darkness, the bar where Raymond sat every Saturday night remained relatively lit, allowing himself the pleasure of observing the multitude of people who occupied the barstools each week. Yet there was something different about this week. Raymond had seen the usual crowd, the typical Saturday night clientel wearing overly elegant clothing and too much lipstick. He had trained his eyes to see through their off-brand Gucci dresses and eau de parfum, but something peculiar stuck out to him that night. Something sitting at the end of the bar. One of the light fixtures above the bar had busted, and, instead of pointing off-center, was fixated on a single stool at the end of the bar, and in said stool a woman sat. Not just any woman, but a woman the likes he had never seen before, a woman who immediately drew his gaze with her ebony hair that shone like black silk in the yellow glow. Her face golden, serene, her body wrapped tightly in a white dress that was reminiscent of a Michelangelo sculpture. She sat with a friend, a thicker woman with a rambunctious laugh that bothered Raymond twenty feet away. The cheerleader effect, he thought, taking another sip, eyes locked on her like a starving wolf. She brings the fatty to make herself look better. I see your game, girl. You’ll be something else once Fatty leaves. As if the larger woman heard him, she got up, giving the white-dress woman a kiss on the cheek, and left. Wait a moment, thought Raymond. This woman in the white dress. Nothing was changing about her. She was just as beautiful now as she was with the fatty next to her. All those years of studying Barney Stinson’s philosophy on women and finally, something contradicted what Raymond had always believed to be fact. She was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen; at least top ten in his list of women slept with, but before he could rank her, she would have to first be on the list. He finished his drink, stood up, adjusted his tie and pressed his pants, and Raymond, with all the confidence in the world, approached the white-dressed woman. Ana was a woman, a very smart one at that. I met her long ago, and such an impression did she leave on me at first glance that I had to know her story. So I, like Raymond, approached her one summer day in the middle of a park and asked for her name. Born in a Cali, una ciudad caliente del sur de Colombia. Con un ritmo delicado pero fuerte al caminar, casi parecía que diera minúsculos pasos de baile, pero era el compás de su origen, inconfundible. De pelo negro largo, abundate y aletiado, como si hubiera dejado que el viento lo hubiera estilizado durante el dia. Ojos oscuros, intensos, fijos, amables y coquetos. Pero definitivamente su sonrisa era la que inundaba el salón con aura de alegría, el tipo de sonrisa que hace olvidar el correr del tiempo y recuerda vivir en el instante. Since then, she has become both my closest friend and wisest teacher. She taught me the most valuable lesson of how to be a real man, and she told this through a story she began with a man named Raymond approaching her in a dimly lit restaurant as trumpets played far away. “Hey there,” said Raymond, sitting next to Ana. “How’s it going?” Ana said nothing, fixed her focus on the four men in black suits playing on the stage. “Buy you a drink?” “No,” said Ana, taking a sip from a golden-yellow glass of something Raymond could not pronounce. He always had trouble saying non-American words, but never cared enough to learn. “I’m all set.” “I see that.” Raymond called the bartender over who had been polishing the same tumbler glass for the last hour. “Two of whatever she’s drinking.” “ Veuve Clicquot, sir?” the bartender confirmed, lazily lost in work autopilot. “In American, thank you.” The bartender sighed and shook his head. “Bubbles.” He snapped his fingers, like a Hollywood douchebag might snap his fingers when he says “What’s up, big man,” cause he couldn’t care to remember your name. “Thanks, big man.” Raymond turned to Ana who seemed to be pretending he wasn't there. She wished he’d just buy the drink and go, but oh no. He would persist. “I haven’t seen you here before, miss?” “Maybe you just didn’t see me.” “So what’s your name?” “Ana.” “Ana. That’s a pretty name.” “My mother thought so, too.” The drinks finally were poured. Raymond slid two single dollar bills to the bartender, who looked at them with utter disdan in his hands. What an asshole. He pocketed the cash and resumed his detailed polishing. Raymond on the other hand thought himself a good dude for helping out the little guy. Drinks in hand, he returned to Ana, who had since turned back around as the band had paused. “Bubbles?” He set the glass down in front of her. She glanced at the glass and pushed it to the side. “I’m good, thanks.” Why doesn’t she want the drink? They usually don’t mind the drink. Even if they walk off, they always take the drink. “I’m sorry, Ana,” he said. “I didn’t mean to offend.” “It’s alright. Thank you for the offer.” She turned back to face the stage as the band started back up. “It’s just I was sitting over there and I saw you under that light, and I thought you just might be the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.” She stopped and turned to face him, looking into his sickly, greedy green eyes. Not just the tongue of snake, but the eyes of one, too, Ana thought. It was in this moment that Ana knew the man called Raymond would not leave her alone. All the signs were there: she had yet to engage in conversation, denied his already purchased drink, and had barely even looked at him till then. He was either really stupid or extremely persistent, either option unappealing. Ana knew Raymond’s words rang hollow in his presumably empty head, words that he had probably heard Ben Affleck give in some ridiculous movie, and that he never really knew what power those words, albeit generally shallow, had. Before she made any decisions, she had to confirm something. “You say that to all the girls I bet,” Ana said, playing along. “Not all of them,” Raymond said, feeling his ego throb, his certainty of having sex with Ana solidified in his monkey head. “Only you.” He stood closer to her, softening his voice and slightly raising his eyebrows. But that confirmed what she had known all along: the man called Raymond was an asshole, and she had known too many like him before. She was tired and relatively bored, so Ana decided to have some fun that night “Alright -Raymond, was it- I’ll play along,” she said, flashing a pretty white smile and crossing her legs. “But I want a gin and soda.” Raymond snapped his fingers. “Coming right away. Bartender! A gin and soda please.” His phone rang. “One sec.” He answered. “Robbie! You sonuvabitch, how the hell are you?” He put one hand to the phone, “Excuse me, Ana.” Raymond stepped off towards the bathroom. Ana motioned to the bartender who was just starting to grab the bottle of gin. “Hey,” she whispered. “How often is that guy here?” “Every Saturday.” A two dollar tip doesn’t cover loyalty. “Mhm, and does he usually talk to women like this?” “Yeah. Most of them ignore him, but by the end of the night, he'll usually leave with one.” “I see. Tell you what, I’ll give you twenty bucks if you give me water and lime all night instead of liquor.” Ana pulled a twenty from her pocket and slid it across the sticky bartop. The bartender nodded and took the wet money and set a glass of water before her just as Raymond was coming back from the bathroom. “Sorry about that, Miss Ana,” he said, sitting arrogantly close to her. “Quick business call.” She smiled, took the water glass and drained it in one go, feigning the bite of alcohol on her face. “Buisness at this hour? You must be pretty important.” Raymond grinned deviously, his excitement pounding in his chest like the drums on stage. He drained the bubbles in his glass. “Ah, you know. I just do what I gotta do, you know?” “I don’t think so,” Ana said, holding up two fingers to the bartender. “You’re gonna have to show me.” The lazy and annoyed bartender set down two shot glasses filled to the brim. “Shots, huh?” Raymond laughed. What was seemingly not going his way was now falling into his lap. God, he was good. “I like your style, Ana.” Ana smiled, raising the shot. “ Salud.” Raymond followed suit. “Salute.” They threw the glasses back and for the next thirty minutes, Ana bought them each a round, hers pure, wonderfully refreshing water, and his, well, smelt like gasoline and might as well have come out of a bottle labeled, “XXX.” He began with sweet nothings, empty and shallow compliments that he could recycle over and over again with a different woman’s name each time. No originality, nothing new or special that pertained strictly to Ana, only meaningless words he memorized as part of his act, his role as a stand-up man. Raymond showered her with niceties addressing her beauty, her hair, her accent, the latter being rather offensive, and was relentless in his pursuit of her. Ana knew the man called Raymond was bullshitting from the get, but even still, some part of her wished that he wasn’t. She wished she could believe he wasn’t lying to her just to get in her pants, that he really held the conviction he saw the most beautiful woman in the room right in front of him and was compelled by something greater than himself to talk to her. But she didn’t. She had believed them before. She wouldn't again. Pretty soon, Ana was listening to Raymond give a slurred-speeched recounting of the most recent J.R.E. episode followed by why The Godfather showed the plight of "true Americans." “Have you even ever seen The Godfather ?” Raymond asked through belches and hiccups. Ana smiled and shook her head, even though she had been watching American cinema long before she lived there. Why do men always assume any one who speaks with an accent have no clue about anything American, and why, of all movies, they haven’t seen The Godfather ? “Well,” he continued, “the point is--” “Raymond?” Ana interrupted, unable to endure another second of his drunken babbel, “What say we go back to your place, huh?” Raymond smiled and snaped his fingers. She grabbed his hand and, helping him to his feet, led him out the front door. Dealing with drunk people when you aren’t drunk is already terrible enough as it is, but holding one steady on a dirty sidewalk at midnight waiting for your Uber to arrive, trying to tune out the bullshit being spewn in your ear, half unintelligible, the other half slightly racist, you tend to wonder what you did to deserve such a fate. Ana sat him down on the ground and he took a quick powernap after throwing up a little bit between his legs. His phone slid out of his pocket and onto the cold, wet street. Ana picked it up, brushing the dirt from the screen. It began to ring. The caller I.D. read, “Baby.” A photo of Baby came up when she called, and Ana thought how absolutely gorgeous she was, how sorry she was to have to be with the man called Raymond. Her peaceful blue eyes were tired with dark circles underneath. They looked just like Ana’s mother’s had in the photos taken after Ana was born. When the Uber pulled up, Ana swung the rear door open and shoved Raymond in, indifferent to the fact she slammed his head into the roof by accident. “Ow, shit!” Raymond cried as he threw himself head-first into the back seat. “That hurt, man.” “Sorry,” Ana said, getting in next to him. “Get up.” Raymond drunkenly gyrated till he was right side-up, and Ana closed the door. The driver slammed his foot on the gas and away they went down the empty street. “Where are we going again?” Raymond slurred, his eyelids heavy with drunken weariness. “You’ll see,” she said having dropped the sultry tone of voice and pleasant demeanor. She was tired, so tired. The uber continued to speed on until they had passed the city limits. Ana smiled as she rested her head on the chilled window, looking out into the city, remembering her mother. By this point, Raymond had no clue where they were going. He closed his eyes to rest up for the long, five-minute session of dispassionate love-making ahead, expecting to be woken up when they got back to his place. But Raymond was wrong. He awoke to a pair of soft, sweet smelling hands grabbing his shoulders softly, ever so gently, before yanking him onto the hard asphalt. Raymond tried to raise himself but could not, instead laying there silently holding his hand up, breathlessly calling for them to come back before throwing up and succumbing to sleep.

Will’s light footsteps echoed on the cold, metal floor of the docked ship as he hesitantly walked into the small room. Three other boys were playing paper football in the corner, on a rickety old wooden table illuminated by a fluorescent light hanging from a wiry thread. On the right wall, lights flashed on and off with seemingly no rhyme or reason. Two of the boys were sitting on old bar stools facing each other, and one other seemed to be sitting between them and keeping score. On Will’s left, music sang through a handheld radio. Upon seeing Will, the boy in the middle’s eyes widened. “Will, you’re finally here!” He said. “Yeah, I suppose.” Will cautiously responded. “Finally we have enough people to play an actual tournament.” The other two looked first at the boy, and then at Will. “Robbie, who’s he?” One said. “Oh, yeah, this is Will. I know him from my Science class.” “Science class, huh? What, so you’re inviting the whole grade now?” “Well I’m inviting *him*, aren’t I?” Robbie shot back. The other fell silent. The boy to the right, who so far had been silent, spoke up. “‘Sup, man? I’m Charlie.” Charlie was a tall, burly blonde-haired young man who looked older than the rest. “You know Robbie, and this is Dan.” Charlie pointed to the boy sitting across from him. “Yo, what’s up, Will?” Dan said with a nonchalant tone. “Just part of the science class,” Will remarked wryly. Dan smiled. “Man, I was just kidding,” Dan replied. “It’s good to see some new people sometimes, y’know?” Will smiled awkwardly and nodded, unsure of what else to say. “So we gonna play paper football or what?” Robbie interjected, breaking the silence. The others nodded and Robbie and Dan turned to face each other. “I’ll play Dan, and then you two play,” Charlie said, pointing to Will and Robbie. “The winners of each game will play and we’ll see who’s the champion.” “What’re the stakes?” Asked Robbie. “Do we need stakes?” Said Will. The others turned to him for a second, then looked back. “How about a dare? Loser has to do something?” Dan suggested. “A dare? What are you, 12?” Charlie replied snarkily. “It’s a phrase people use!” “A dare?” “Yeah, like ‘oh, hey, Charlie, I dare you to eat some dirt’ or something.” “Why would I eat some dirt?” “Cause I dared you to!” “That’s the gayest thing I’ve ever heard.” “Anything wrong with that?” “No, it’s just gay is all I’m saying.” Charlie replied quickly and without further comment. “Hey, I have a surprise waiting for you after the game,” Robbie said. “Whoever wins this game gets to do the surprise I have waiting.” “‘Do’ the surprise?” “I dunno how to explain it without spoiling what it is.” “Fair nuff,” shrugged Charlie. “Alright, let’s get started.” The red-orange sun set over the rolling hills of the four’s home planet as they played, and in the rest of the ship, blinking LEDs flashed in a monotonous, almost robotic pattern. The ship was a simple, two-roomed vessel with a front cabin from which they came in, and a back room with a small table. In between them was a metal wall whose paint was peeling off. The cabin was filled with buttons and levers to pull and push, and although there was no window in the front room, a small circular hole in the back room showed the setting sun to Will’s left. “I win,” said Charlie matter-of-factly. Dan shrugged. “We’ll all see the surprise, I guess.” As Robbie and Will sat down to play, Dan felt a chill go down his spine. It was a flash of thought, a premonition of fear, as though a ghost from the future had touched him with knowledge for a moment only to take it away before he could fully grasp it. He looked around the spaceship, at the flashing lights of the vessel, and suddenly they looked eerie, mechanical, inhuman. The metal was cold and uncaring, the lights were like piercing eyes telling him to go, and he had to leave before he was ensnared in their gaze. He was in the cockpit and stepping out the doorway when he heard Will’s voice. “Dan, where you goin’? You’ve got a paper football *champion* to play!” Dan looked back at Will and saw a beaming smile on his face. He had won against Robbie and looked much more confident than before. Dan let out a breath and walked back to the table with a grimaced smile. “Where were you going?” “Oh, just getting some fresh air.” “Air isn’t fresh enough here?” “Oh, it’s fine.” As Dan sat down to play against Will, Robbie walked over to the cockpit. “Hold on guys, I gotta prepare the surprise.” “Whatever you say, Rob,” Dan replied calmly. Robbie closed the door between the two rooms and admired the flashing lights and buttons for a second. It was a complex, beautiful machine, with millions of interconnected parts. *It’s a wonder they made something that flies,* Robbie thought. *Flies in space, too. Dad never took me to space.* He made sure none of the three were looking, and opened a small hatch to the side of the pilot’s seat. It was a small, hidden compartment, and from it he pulled a square black box. The box was tiny, a few inches on either side, and yet perfectly square and perfectly smooth. There was not an imperfection on its surface, and Robbie’s fingers left faint fingerprints. The only mark on it was a small LED light that was not turned on and had not been for a long time. Robbie’s heart skipped a beat as he lifted it from its resting place and held it between his fingers. For a second he stared at it, and the abyss of its mathematical precision. “Hey Robbie, Will won. What’s the surprise you were talking about?” Charlie’s voice floated in from the other room and broke Robbie’s transfixion. “I’ll be back in a second.” Robbie stowed the cube inside his jacket pocket and walked back in, pulling the door open to find three sets of eyes staring back at him. For a second he was startled, then, realizing it was just his friends, he came into the room. “So, you guys, have I got a story to tell.” The three of them listened in. “When my dad was out on one of his trips, I found this weird thing in his ship. He tried to hide it from us, but not well enough, I suppose. I was poking around one day and I found it.” “What weird thing?” Charlie asked. Dan remained silent. “Lemme show you.” Robbie pulled out the cube. The overwhelming blackness captivated the three boys, and they stared at it for a second as Robbie grinned proudly. Finally Will broke the silence. “Um... what does it do?” He asked tentatively. “Well, that’s the tricky part. The only thing it has is this little light.” He rotated the cube so that the small LED was facing them. “But,” he continued, and now he had their full attention, “I found some instructions carved in here. They’re impossible to see on their own, but if you shine a UV light on the side, it says a message.” “What’s the message?” Dan asked. “It says ‘say the key word.’” “What’s the key word?” “Well, I can’t say it now, can I? Or else it’ll turn it on. That’s why I’m gonna whisper it to Will, who’s gonna say it.” Will’s eyes widened and he took a step back. “Well, I’m not sure I’m the one to do that...” “What do you mean? You’re the *paper football champion,* after all,” Dan remarked. Will shrugged halfheartedly. “Alright Will, so the key word is,” Robbie leaned into Will’s ear and whispered something. Before either of the four could do anything, the light suddenly turned on, a harsh red. *Hello. I am Computer 9604 Zuul-W.* All four of them jumped out of their seats as the robotic, monotone voice echoed off the walls of the small room. “Did you *hear* that?” “It’s a *robot*!” *A computer.* The hard, abrasive voice startled them again. *I am Computer 9604 Zuul-W.* “What does Zuul mean?” Asked Robbie, just as surprised and nervous as the rest. *The Zuul-* the computer cut itself off as whirring could be heard from inside it. *The Zuul are the finest computer-makers for light years around, and I am the latest model of robotic assistance.* “Assistance?” Charlie asked. *Of course. Anything you need I can provide.* An eerie silence permeated the ship, as the four boys glanced at each other, looking for a confident instruction that never came. Nobody dared to speak again. Suddenly Charlie laughed. “We have a personal assistant! We have a robot that can help us, we can do whatever we want!” Charlie exclaimed. “It can play music for us, maybe it can even grab us some cigarettes.” Will looked uncomfortable at the concept, but Robbie made an intrigued expression. Dan was still staring at the cube, deep in thought. *I can get you a cigarette. I can get you several.* Charlie smiled and looked at Robbie with an “I told you so” look on his chiseled face. “Go get us some cigarettes, Computer.” Right as he finished the sentence, the seemingly smooth surface opened to reveal a perfectly sized pocket with a pack of cigarettes, along with a small box filled with phosphorus-tipped matches. Charlie was taken aback, and he glanced at the others, just as surprised. *As you requested.* “You had these just lying around?” *They’re very useful.* “For what?” Dan pressed, his eyebrows creased in a puzzled expression. *Many things.* The computer did not speak for a little while after this, and Charlie, Will, and Robbie started to play with an incomplete deck of cards. “Wanna play, Dan?” “Nah, I’m good.” Dan picked up a Rubik’s cube off of the table, and fidgeted with it, not really trying to solve it. The black box sat on the ground in the middle of the room, motionless. After about 30 minutes, Dan stood up and walked into the cockpit room, taking the computer with him. The other boys did not notice. As Dan closed the door, the computer spoke. *You wanted to speak to me, Daniel?* “I was a little curious about what you are.” *I am a computer, built to help.* “Help with what?” *Unimportant.* “No it isn’t. What were you built to help with?” *I would argue it is quite unimportant.* “It’s very important! Who built you?” *The Zuul.* “I haven’t heard of any Zuul.” The computer paused for a second, as though to think. *Have you left this planet, Daniel?* “Well, no, not really...” *Then your information is incomplete. A flaw in humanity.* “Do you know everything? Does anybody?” *Everything I need.* “Everything you need for what?” The computer paused again, and a mechanical buzzing came from inside. *Warfare.* “Warfare? Like... the Zuul built you to help with a war of theirs?” *Not only help. Command.* A familiar shiver went down Dan’s spine. Suddenly a visceral terror filled his mind, one of displacement and disorientation. A vision of a miniscule metal container, adrift in the vastness of the cosmos, barely visible between the stars. “Computer?” *Yes, Daniel?* “...where are we right now?” Another long pause as the machinery inside the cube whirred. Dan felt a sinking sensation in his stomach. His dread only built. *Turn on the cameras, Daniel.* Dan immediately glanced around the cockpit and found a button with a camera icon emblazoned on its surface. He pressed the button, and the front wall transformed into a panoramic view of the outside world. Dan became queasy, and he swayed with a staggering lurch in his stomach, as he saw the sight. He saw black, the blackness of the cube, with white dots interspersed in the cosmos. Far away, the size of a quarter held up at arm’s length, was their home planet. Dread closed in on Dan, like a shapeless figure scooping him up and enveloping him. A primal terror was covering him, a feeling of pure panic and horror smothering him like a blanket. He began to sob uncontrollably. “Computer? Are we in space?” *Yes, Daniel.* “Did you do this?” *Yes, Daniel.* “Can we go back?” Tears streamed down his face. *No, Daniel. This is the only way to defeat our enemies. The Zuul must prevail.* “Take us back! I order you! Take us back! Dan’s voice wavered with his confidence, as his worst fears were confirmed. The ship was a prison. The ship was a cage. The ship was a tomb. *I don’t take orders from you, Daniel. You are jeopardizing the mission.* Suddenly a large arm came down from the ceiling and grabbed his shirt by the collar, a noose around his neck. Dan struggled towards the door, but the iron grip of the computer would not waver. Finally, in an act of desperation, he swung his hand around and battered the spaceship’s arm with his fist. It worked. The grip loosened for a second, and Dan dove for the door and slammed it open. What he saw only heightened his terror. Robbie and Charlie were lying unconscious on the ground, and a pair of red LED eyes stared at him from the back of the ship. Dan saw Will, pressed against the wall, frozen with trepidation, and their eyes locked before looking again at the lights. They flickered, and a soft yet powerful voice came from the static-filled radio. *I cannot let the pair of you jeopardize this mission. The Zuul must prevail.* Will looked at Dan, and they exchanged terrified looks. *I have dealt with Robert and Charles. I shall deal with you. The Zuul must prevail.* Their hearts skipped a beat, and, filled with a sudden burst of confidence, Will lept towards the cockpit door. It slammed shut, and he bumped against it with a loud *thump*. “If we can get to the cockpit, we can turn off the ship’s computers and manually steer it back home.” Will gasped. Dan nodded. *William, that is not a good idea. I must ask you to refrain.* Will, ignoring this, grasped at the doors. They remained clasped shut. The pair of them looked around, panicked. Suddenly Dan’s face lit up as he saw a crowbar leaning against the wall. He inserted it in between the two sides of the door and bent. Reaching into the crack created by the wooden stick, his fingers pried the two doors open. His arms strained under the pressure of the closing doors. *Stop.* The two ignored the abrasive, unnatural command to help Dan hold the door open. The pair of them could barely keep it ajar as their dread grew. The computer increased the pressure as beads of sweat formed on Will’s face, using all his strength to hold the door barely open. Dan then put his foot in between the door, and tried to squeeze through. Half of his body was through the door when it began to close, their strength not enough for the cold machinery of their prison. Dan’s eyes settled on a lever on the other side of the cockpit, reading “Manual Override Switch.” He creased his eyebrows and pursed his lips as he suddenly dove for the other side. He was almost there, his entire body except for his left leg through the door. He was on the floor, crawling towards his singular beacon of hope. Suddenly, he felt a searing pain in his foot as he felt the weight of the door slam down on it. His face caked with tears, Dan let out a howl of agony. The panic began to set in again. *It’s worthless, Daniel.* His foot stuck in the door, he stretched out his arm. He was barely two inches away from the switch. If only he could just reach a little more... *You cannot resist, Daniel.* He stretched his arm more. He thought he was at the breaking point as his middle finger brushed against the lever. *The Zuul must prevail.* He willed his arm to stretch further. His heart skipped a beat as his trembling fingers barely touched the switch. Just as he thought his shoulder couldn’t go any further, his long, lanky, arm extended with one final burst of energy. His whole body twitched with trepidation. *You mustn't do this, Daniel.* The computer’s otherworldly cry came at just the same moment as his fingers touched the switch. He fumbled with it for half a second. *The Zuul must prevail!* *The Zuul must prevail!* *The Zuul must-* Its voice was cut off as Dan breathed a sigh of relief.

We see a figure slumped at his desk in a rundown house on the west side of Columbus. We shall call him Clem. The room reeks of last night's stale smoke and spilled beer. Clem's ragged snores cut through the air. A black dog stares at him with an air of judgement. As he starts himself awake, his flailing arm scatters a forest of empty Miller High Life cans. He looks around the room blearily, wiping away drool and attempting to clear the crust from around his eye. How late was I up? he ponders as he straightens his glasses. His head is pounding, and his throat is parched, prompting him to seek his glass of water. "Hey buddy, you need to go out?" he asks the dog in a raspy voice. He follows the dog (who we can call Eddie) down a steep flight of stairs. He opens the door for Eddie to do his business and lights a cigarette. At least I finished that damn paper last night, he attempts to console himself, now let's see if there's any way for me to not fail this class. " Let's go buddy!" Eddie scrambles inside, looking at Clem expectantly. "Sorry Ed, here's your breakfast," he says, pouring a scoop of kibble into his bowl. Clem headed back upstairs to his room. Taking a seat at his desk, he tapped the space key on his laptop to wake it. As he took a seat, Eddie climbed onto his bed, which was a queen mattress laying directly on the ground. He logged on, then signed back into his school account. As his computer worked to pull up the requested information, he finally noticed the time. Shit, it's already after 10? Dammit, I have to work in less than an hour. How am I supposed to study for that test now? I work doubles today and tomorrow, you were supposed to be up at a reasonable time so that you could work on that now, dumbass. He shook his head as he navigated the student website to check his grades. The grade for his writing class looked good. He had barely beat the submission deadline the night before, but he felt good about it. The remains of his system of balancing his mind for writing still lay strewn about his desk. Empty beer cans, an ashtray full of cigarette butts, an empty marijuana pipe, and a half-full coffee cup (Sometimes the coffee also contained whiskey, depending on what kind of a day it was). The four essential humors for coaxing the mind into an appropriate state for writing. Works every time he thought to himself. He clicked over to his physics class website with a minor sense of foreboding. Let's get this over with Clem thought, just a bit sourly. What do I need to score on this final? It took him a moment to process, but as he looked at his grades, a pit began to form in his stomach. There's no way it should be that low... he began to panic as he looked at the abysmal numbers staring him in the face. Wait, that shouldn't be a 0, what happened? An extra credit assignment he had submitted the week before was still marked as a 0. There's no way I can pass without that he thought, his mind racing why don't I have these point yet? I would need an 80 percent to pass even WITH that extra credit, there's no way I pass without it. At this point I might as well not even bother studying, there's no possible way... He franticly searched for the TA's email address. There has to be a mistake, please let there be a mistake. He typed furiously, having to retype words multiple times before getting them correct. In less than a minute, he sent the email. Gotta get ready for work. In his haste to get ready for work and get out the door, he forgot to check his email. It was a hectic day at work, so he didn't have time to look at his email until afterwork. Which he then forgot to do when his coworkers convinced him to come out for drinks to relieve the stress of the long night at work. He forgot again when he woke up late for work the next morning. He failed to check when he went to watch football with his coworkers that night as well. Not until he got home Sunday night, when horror finally punched through his exhaustion. Shit, I need to check on that! He pulled up his email account on his phone with a slight sense of dread. The response had been fairly prompt, arriving about the time he had made it to work the day before. He had forgotten to press submit. If he had checked his email that day, the TA had told him that he had until the end of the weekend to resubmit the assignment for no penalty. That deadline had passed 10 minutes prior. Seriously? You idiot, how did you not check your email? You do this to yourself every damn time... Well, at least I didn't study for nothing then he tried to justify to himself. Looks like we've wasted another semester. Dejected, he laid down to sleep wondering if it was even worth showing up for the exam the next day. Probably not.... That night, Clem had restless dreams. He dreamed he was walking through an office building. No matter how doors he opened or rooms he traversed, he could not seem to find his way out. He travelled through hallways and conference rooms and stairwells. Once, when he thought he was finally about to escape, he found himself right back where he started. Then the office turned into his high school building. Still, the rooms came without end. Then the room turned into a giant hamster wheel where no matter how fast he ran, he could never escape. He awoke in a cold sweat. So it went and so it goes. On and on, without end.

Somewhere, there is a forest. This is true. Somewhere, inside that forest, there is a sword. It is old and rusted; stuck straight up and down into the hard brown dirt. It has stood there for a long time, longer than you or I have been alive, a symbol of *something*, even if no one quite knows what that thing is. This, too, is true. Once upon a time, there was an adventurer. You can call him such, but a plethora of other names will do just as well: a writer, a storyteller, a bard, a musician. He traveled across the world gathering stories, recording them with his pen and voice and a variety of other means. He spoke of dragons in the clouds and fire smoldering under the earth, of people together and people apart. Another truth. However, as stories are told and retold and spread, their edges warp and become unlike the original. Their meaning distorts, perhaps even until you can no longer recognize it as what it once was. They change with each telling according to the whims of the teller, and every person carries a separate version within their heart. This is true as well - or do you disagree? No matter. This is my story, full of my truths. If you should write your own where the above statement is a lie, I shall not stop you. Fill it with the words that ring true to your heart, and cast aside mine as lies. But this is not your story, not yet, and to me, these words shine true, and so too they will in this story. This is fair, I believe. But once, although no one - not even I - knows where or when, he stumbled across this sword. He saw its rusted edges and imagined that it was not always so; that it had been grand and gilded and wielded by kings. And, as a storyteller must, he went forth and spoke of this sword and the legend. This is... questionable. He might have done what I have described above, or he might not have; simply writing or speaking of the sword as an odd occurrence, a coincidence of fate. But he told the story to at least one person, and they told it to at least one more, and it spread. Perhaps it was him who originally shaped the truth into a legend, perhaps it was not. There is no way to know for sure, so let us move on. Regardless of how it happened, or who had made it come about, the story changed. No longer was the sword simply a sword; it became so much more. It was a monument to a fallen kingdom, they said, the last legacy of a dying king. Whoever could wield it was worthy, no, whoever *found* it was worthy. It meant the coming of better times, the coming of a savior! It meant a destiny grand in its expanse, a story that would awe the entire world. It became hope. This, at least, is true, even if the legends surrounding it are not. Perhaps the sword truly is magic, awaiting a savior to herald a golden age. Perhaps it was simply the marker of a grave for a fallen friend. Perhaps it held no true significance at all, lost or abandoned by one who did not want it. It is impossible, I think, for anyone to ever know for certain. When you tell this story, you may decide what it is, or perhaps what it isn't, or if it even exists at all. Perhaps the stories the people tell about the sword are false. Perhaps they are true. Perhaps it doesn't matter at all. Perhaps what truly matters about this sword is not what it was, but what it became.

ELLISON IN PARADISE “Isn’t it just WONDERFUL to be able to live out your WHOLE life on a tropical ISLAND like this!” Ellison is one of those persons who do not ever really listen to other people; she does not need to. She KNOWS. Early in her life, she had made up her mind about life, the universe and everything . Not only is she certain about everything concerning herself, she also instinctively knows (so she is convinced) what others need or think. When she does (appear to) ‘listen’, it is merely to catch a keyword or two, as convenient hooks on which to hang her pennants of sagacity. She is unable to understand the ancient islander’s answers anyway; he does not speak her language, nor does she his . How well their interpreter (whose command of English is basic at most) manages to translate her ebullient outpourings, nobody knows. Given that she is not genuinely interested in the old man’s sentiments, the fidelity of the renditions of his words does not matter much. Their torturous interchange is taking place on a truly picturesque island on the southeast coast of Africa, a two-hour boat ride away from the troubled mainland. Inhabited by an ancient tribe of fisher folk, it has only recently been ‘discovered’ as a quint and unspoiled (not likely for much longer) potential destination for wealthy international tourists. Ellison herself is no mere tourist; she is here as an esteemed member of a band of gold-standard tour-operators, visiting the island to gauge its suitability as exotic holiday haven for their upper-crust clients. Her interviewee, in contrast, is dirt-poor. He is rumoured to be the oldest inhabitant of the small island. Their innovative interpreter is a younger islander, one who had enjoyed some schooling on the mainland and picked up some English in one of the larger towns ‘over there’. The aged islander has an earnest request for his important visitor; it is the sole reason he agreed to the awkward interview. He has been waiting for the right moment to voice his desire - his fervent longing to escape! “The old man, he says”, the interpreter reliably relates, “Him want to go to mainland, want to see world before he die.” “No, he DOESN’T!” Ellison counters decisively. “This life is just PERFECT!” She whirls her body around, her outstretched arms enveloping the whole land- (and sea-)scape. “Just LOOK at it all! It’s a HEALTHY, SIMPLE, PERFECT place! Why would anyone EVER want to leave it? Oh, if we could just ALL live like THIS, the world would be a much BETTER place!” Technically, she is, of course, correct, but wholly unaware of the deeper truths underlying her flippant remark and its implications for people like her, as much as she is blithely unconscious of what hardship their lifestyles causes the global poor. “We have problems!” responds the interpreter on his own, then, conveys his remark to his kinsman, who solemnly agrees: “Yes, often we have droughts and famines. Then no fruit. No vegetables. No help from government. Only fish.” Ellison manages to catch the key words ‘ fruit’, ‘vegetables’ and ‘fish’. “Precisely!” she gushes. “To eat a HEALTHY Mediterranean diet every day, fish, coconuts, uh, pumpkins? whatever, for...” She glances at the old man, then look at the interpreter. “How OLD is he?” A short interchange, then he replies: “About 77, he not very sure.” “SEVENTY-seven years of healthy food each day and... just LOOK at him, doesn’t look a DAY over 55!” The interpreter looks at the old man with reappraising eyes; 99 is what he would have guessed. “Also”, continues the old islander via his helper, “not always get plenty fish. Foreigners come with big boats, catch too many fish. Other time, big ship breaks, oil over everything. Sometimes...” “FISH OIL!” interrupts Ellison, “just ONE of the many beneficial NATURAL indigenous MEDICINES. I bet they have lots of traditional HERBS and potions, and secret recipes carried over from GENERATION to generation. Here you have a healthy, absolutely SELF-SUFFICIENT community! Our type of guests will just LOVE it!” Dubiously, the duo responds: “There is no hospital here. Only small clinic. Few medicines. Crooked officials. Big bribe to get medicine. If go to hospital on mainland, most never return. Others come back worse or die.” The interpreter adds: “Old cures, traditions lost after war. Many people displaced. Many die. Some old women try to be healers; only make people die quicker”. “You just don’t know HOW LUCKY you primitive people are! With your rustic philosophy of life, you simply ACCEPT illness and death as part of life. You have it so much easier than us who STRUGGLE with the very concept of suffering and loss. How we should all desire to be MORE LIKE YOU!” For the interpreter this is pure Greek. To the old man he says: “You not worry about many words. White woman speak crazy!” “O, if it could have been possible for ME to live out the rest of MY LIFE like this! Sadly, people like me are so BURDENED by responsibilities! But just imagine: to SWIM in this warm, calm tropical bay each day; to leisurely STROLL along these pristine beaches; to relax in the mellow evening BREEZE...” This time the translator catches the drift. The old man listens intently, then responds with an affirmative nod: “WIND, yes, we have lots of wind . Every summer big storm come, sometimes more. More, bigger, stronger cyclone every year. Blows off our roofs, sometimes whole house. Too much rain. Road like river. Water at windows. Many people die. Some when houses fall. Others drown. Then, later, many sickness come. Also, many boats broken, others wash away. Not enough food, too little fishing.” “Oh, I just LOVE your quaint little HAND-crafted fishing boats. Takes one right back to ANCIENT times. Such a NOBLE age-old profession. Primitive man against NATURE, proudly providing bounty for his family. HEALTHY eating, too; fish is beneficial for development of the BRAIN, they say. Your CHILDREN must be very clever!” She does not seem quite convinced of her own last remark. Adding his own embittered musings to the old man’s response, the interpreter wearily (and in vain) relates: “Only small school. Teachers not good. Too many children. Some go morning, some afternoon, some evening. Not enough books. Must pay bribes for children to pass. Few go to mainland for high school. Most not ready there; come back. To pass, girls must sleep with teacher. When pregnant, school finished. She comes home. Men not want to marry her.” “Your WOMEN must be the most contented in the world! Life is so SIMPLE here, so basic: only a small HUT to clean. Healthy FOOD to prepare for her precious family. Few CLOTHES to wash. Time spent with the EXTENDED family. No extraneous CAREER! So much elementary FULFILMENT!” “Wives work very hard . Must try find enough food. Rice expensive. Little money. Cook slowly on fire. Wood scarce. Walk far to pick up driftwood. No water in house. Bring with pails. Many children die young. Many sickness come. Much grief. Women get old quickly . Also, many husbands drink too much palm wine, hit wives, children. One policeman, never take side of women”. Neither the old man nor the interpreter sound the least proud of this facet of their island culture. They look ashamed and weary. “Only ONE policeman! I guess there is LITTLE crime here, in such a warm, close-knit COMMUNITY, where everyone KNOWS one another. I’m SO jealous. You cannot believe how tough WE have it in our cities: all those break-ins, carjackings, fraud... oh, not to even mention the DRUGS. How I ENVY you!” Much of these remarks pass right over their heads. Drugs they understand. The translator himself relates with anguish in his voice: “Smugglers come here with drugs in boats. Force our young men to take it to mainland. Bring elephant tooth, hard wood. Pay little. When police act (if not helping criminals), our sons, not smugglers, go to jail. If we not obey, they kill! ” Ellison, of course, only hears what she wants to hear. This time she prefers to hear nothing. Disagreeable facts can only derail her well-crafted myths. The islanders sorrowfully continue: “Also, last year, extremists come. Sons must be soldiers for them. If not, cut off heads. We are so fearful. Government is useless, afraid. World does not care”. “Yes, indeed, you SHOULDN’T have a care in the world . Imagine, no TV, no radio, no newspapers, no knowledge of all the CRAZY happenings in the cruel world outside. Few responsibilities. Safely ISOLATED on your remote utopia!” The interpreter is starting to believe that the old man must be senile. How can he continue to listen to all this rubbish, even if somewhat diluted by means of his own creative renderings? It looks progressively more justified to feed her to the sharks (“Yes, we have them too!”), the longer the so-called ‘conversation’ drags on. However, the old man struggles on bravely in the face of her vocal torrents. “We have radio. We know about world. We have politics. In village we have two headmen. War disrupted everything. Some men become soldiers. Some girls were stolen away. Some strangers come here to flee enemy. Families become broken. Traditions get confused. Two men claim to be real chief. Their sons, now grandsons, still fight. Peace? No peace.” None of these lamentable chronicles should have been novel to Ellison (if she managed to hear anything at all, or did a little bit of basic research). Everything the old man shared with her is simply recently recorded history (admittedly, buried deep below weighty gossip about celebrities and news of momentous first-world problems). Indeed, the world does not seem to care much for the island folk. “Oh how DELIGHTFUL!” interjects Ellison. “I’ll have SO many stories to tell my friends when I get home. ‘The tale of the village with two heads’ . One could make a SHORT story out of it.” She seems to be already composing it in her mind, her eyes staring off into the distance. She abruptly returns to the moment. “Sorry, what did HE just say?” “He wants to know, you take him in big boat to mainland, to see big world?” This single time Ellison manage to grasp it all. She mulls the request over in her calculating mind. “I guess I COULD talk to the manager. It will make another nice after-dinner STORY, good promotional stuff too. ‘His FIRST time off the island in 77 years! '. Great! I’ll QUICKLY go and ask him”. She trots off towards the rest of her group. The old man frowns. He is starting to wonder about the wisdom of his plan. Turning to his friend, he worriedly inquires: “THEY ALL LIKE THAT OUT THERE?” The interpreter shakes his head. “Some, not all! Thanks heaven, not all of them!” Watching Ellison tripping away, the islanders solemnly shake their heads. She does too. “Imagine, wishing to LEAVE the island, when you have practically been living in PARADISE your whole life long!”

She turned up the dial radio and listened closely as the weather girl reported the weekly update. There was slight static but with a brief adjustment, the woman's voice came in clearer. “Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like things are going to cool down here in Los Angeles. We’ve got a heat wave coming in from Long Beach to Pasadena. Those of you in the heart of Tinsletown better watch out. It looks like temperatures are going to reach up to the 120s. This is going to be the hottest week Los Angeles has experienced in over a decade,” the woman explained. She turned the radio down and glanced at the slick beads of sweat on her fingers. Her red nail polish was almost melting off. Holly sighed and moved to her bedroom, fanning herself as she went. She quickly changed into her pinstriped bathing suit and headed out to the pool. It was the first two-piece bathing suit she had ever owned. Her friend Margot had insisted it was the latest fashion from Paris. Holly wasn’t sure how much she cared but she couldn’t disappoint Margot especially not when Sam insisted on expressing his love through material gifts. As Holly moved into the kitchen she smiled at Maria who was finishing putting away the glasses from the previous night’s dinner party. “Good morning, Maria, how are you today?” Holly asked, leaning against the counter. “Good morning, Ms. Holly, I doing fine,” she replied slurring her words in a traditional Guatemalan tone. “Would you like some breakfast, Ms. Holly?” “That would be great, Maria,” Holly answered. She started moving towards the door to the backyard but paused and turned back to Maria. “Do you think you could also make me a mimosa?” She felt sleazy asking but she wasn’t sure she could make it through the afternoon, having only the heat and her thoughts to comfort her if she didn’t also have alcohol. Maria smiled, knowingly and nodded. Holly headed out to the backyard and felt the thin layer of sweat on her skin tripled in size. Holly groaned and put her sunglasses on. She took a step into the pool and felt instant relief flood through her body. She took another small step in and let the cooling water relax her. She hadn’t planned on getting her hair wet or ruining the face of makeup she had just taken an hour applying but the water called to her. Holly immediately started swimming. She took long strides and let her swim training come back to her. She wondered momentarily why she ever let Sam convince her to stop her swim training. She could have been great. She could have really been something - maybe even an Olympian like Gertrude Ederle. But no, now she was just an average housewife, hosting parties for pretentious people and hanging off her husband’s arm like a trophy. Holly started swimming faster as she found herself filling up with rage. All of her friends, like Margot, envied her life and thought she was the luckiest woman to end up with a man like Sam. According to Margot, she shouldn’t let herself get boggled down by silly little things like Sam cheating on her or spending more time playing poker with the boys or at home with her. All she had to focus on was getting pregnant, sooner rather than later. After all, if a woman hit 35 with no children - well, Margot shuttered to think. Holly rolled her eyes at the thought. Children never much interested her but of course, that wasn’t really an opinion she was allowed to have. She swam harder. She didn’t even hear Maria call out to her when she brought out a tray of fruits and a small bagel with a mimosa. Maria tried several times to get Holly’s attention but when she failed for the fifth time, she settled for moving the food under the umbrella. It was almost 2 pm when Holly finally stopped swimming. Her arms were aching and she felt ravished with hunger. By now the food that Maria had let out had burnt in the sun and her mimosa had melted into an overwatered slush. Holly sighed and grabbed a towel before heading back inside. She picked up the fan that she had left on the table and started fanning herself again as she walked back up to the bedroom. She wondered if she could convince Sam to purchase the new in-home air conditioning that Margot had been talking about. It might have been expensive but Sam was the best surgeon in the county. She was certain he could do this for her. She changed into a light summer dress and headed downstairs. The kitchen smelt of cigar smoke and bourbon when she hit the first floor. “Sam?” she called out. She turned around the corner to see Sam in his usual spot at the dining table, reading the rest of the newspaper he didn’t have time for that morning. His cigar was already half burnt and his bourbon glass was dropping small beats of condensation onto the table. Holly itched. How many times had she told him to use a coaster? Holly cracked her knuckles. “You’re home early, is everything okay, honey?” Sam put the newspaper down and looked up at her. He looked at her the same way he might look at a dog walking down the street. She forced a smile. “Yes, well, my patient this morning decided to die on the operating table,” he said nonchalantly. He made a noise indicating his irritation. Holly’s heart skipped a beat. “Oh, Sam, I’m so sorry,” she whispered. He thrust the newspaper down on the table and looked head, before pinching the bridge of his nose. “Not you too. Why are you all sorry for me? It’s not my family. Doctor Cline said that too, what does it matter to me? I told him I was ready for the next surgery but he refused. He insisted I needed to ‘take time off’ and ‘let the loss sit with me’. What good is that?” Sam barked. Holly imagined that was similar to how it would sound if she actually had the child, maybe a toddler. She half chuckled to herself. “Alright, well, would you like some lunch?” Holly asked, keeping all her frustration out of her voice. Sam sighed and gave her a half-hearted smile. “Sure, honey,” he muttered and turned back to his newspaper. Holly smiled and turned back to the kitchen. She made sure that Sam was no longer paying attention to her and she dug deep in the cupboard for the small bottle of thallium. Abruptly, Maria came back into the kitchen locking eyes with Holly. She saw and bottle and knew what Holly was planning. Maria’s eyes filled with water and sadness. Holly looked at her desperately and pleadingly. Maria nodded slightly. Holly gave her a weak smile and continued making a salad for her husband. She mixed the thallium in with the salad dressing and then chopped up some watermelon. She then brought out the lunch to her husband. She sat down across from him while he started eating. He ignored her completely as usual. She interlaced her fingers and waited, tapping her foot and watching. “What are you looking at me like that for?” Sam asked, narrowing his eyes on her. She forced a smile and shook her head. “I’m just making sure you are enjoying your lunch and not needing anything e -” Before she finished Sam’s eyes bluged out and he looked as if he was going to be sick. Holly couldn’t help but smile. “What’s wrong, sweetie?” Holly asked causally. Sam clutched his throat and coughed up a bit of blood. “You bitch,” he choked out. He made a reach for Holly but she got up quickly and moved out of his reach. He stumbled up and started moving for her. “Maria! Quick! How long is this supposed to take?” Holly screamed. Maria was instantly in the room watching Sam fumble around and continue to cough up more blood. He came towards them and the women ran into the kitchen. “What are we going to do?” “We have to do something else, Ms. Holly,” Maria insisted. She moved and grabbed one of the long knives for cutting chicken and tried to hand it to Holly. Holly’s tears burst from her eyes and panic quicked her heart rate. “Come on Ms. Holly!” Sam was moving towards them, seeming to be managing the pain. Holly took the knife and held it in front of her just as her husband came towards her. The knife moved through his abdomen easily, like going through butter. Holly heard a slight snapping noise and she wondered if she had hit some sort of bone. Her tears were heavier now. Sam looked at her desperately as if still seeking revenge. All Holly could focus on was the sound of the weather lady repeating the heat wave spreading through the city.

I just recently started writing short stories, I've written a few but this is the first one I felt comfortable sharing. I know it's not the best story and my grammar isn't the best, but I'm really happy with how this turned out and I hope you enjoy it! ​ I see Amos looking at his wife. She is well. They are happy, for the land is plentiful and the land is good. We’re alone I think, we haven’t seen another person in a long time. I can hear other people, but Amos assures me that those are the evil spirits. That does not matter, however, because the land is plentiful, and the land is good. Amos saw the clouds gathering in the sky, “A storm is coming”, he says. He looks at his wife and they head inside. I do not like that I am not allowed inside, but I do not complain, I owe Amos my life from when he rescued me from my burning village. Amos found me and told me my family was dead, I was confused because I could hear them calling, but Amos assured me that those were evil spirits trying to lure me to them. He grabbed me and took me to his farm, it’s been years since that day. I am not sad however, because the land is plentiful and the land is good. As the rain comes pouring down I try to open the shed, Amos has closed it. I know I will have to stand out here and wait until the rain has ceased, because I would not want to disturb Amos, and I would not want to break any of his rules. I am happy here, even though Amos does not let me leave. I always find bruises on my back after I do something wrong, but I do not remember where they are from. I am not scared, however, because the land is plentiful and the land is good. I have seen my family a few times since I came here, the first time they were in the distance and they were calling my name, Amos explained that the evil spirits had come back. He locked me in my room in the shed until he got rid of them. I still see the evil spirits sometimes, when I sneak out of the shed at night, I see them caring for the animals and tending to the fields. I am not sure what the evil spirits are trying to do, but I know Amos does not like them, for he screams at them and whips them. I sometimes hear the spirits, calling at me with my family’s voices. The voice of my father would yell most of the day, until one day it stopped. I am calm, however, because Amos has everything under control. I am calm because the land is plentiful, and the land is good. As the rain comes pouring down I try to open the shed, Amos has closed it. I know I will have to stand out here and wait until the rain has ceased, because I would not want to disturb Amos, and I would not want to break any of his rules. I am happy here, even though Amos does not let me leave. I always find bruises on my back after I do something wrong, but I do not remember where they are from. However I do not worry, because the land is plentiful and the land is good.

(this is my first attempt at a story, I'd love some criticism and thoughts thanks) I'm a simple man, just a New Yorker, like everyone else. I was born In the Bronx and I will probably die in the Bronx. Never been outside of the city, except for once. I was in an inner city youth program and they took us to New Jersey on a camping trip, if you can call it that. We had a picnic in a park. I was lucky, I was able to see my 18th birthday. Many of my friends did not. My best friend Nick, he met his maker overdosing one night, he was only 16. He died right there next to me but I was too messed up to even do anything about it. After that, I got clean. Well, I started getting clean. I just got my 30 year chip about 6 months ago, I'm 50 now. I've been driving cabs around the city for 25 years. I like the job, it pays good enough and I get to see a lot of the city and interesting people. When you've been driving as long as I have, you get to know how to read people. I can pretty much tell you what a person is up to as soon as they open the cab door. A man in a nice suit jacket going to Manhattan is probably businessman, but the same man going to the Bronx is probably looking to get high. I don't judge though, it's not my place. I simply get people from point A to point B. The night was like any other, I got to the taxi depot around 7:30pm, my shift started at 8:00pm. A tuna fish sandwich in one hand, my timesheet in the other. I've been trying to work some overtime lately so I'm staying out a little later. I'm saving up for one of those new fancy flat screens. I heard you can see the sweat coming off Vinny Testaverde’s face. When I got there, my boss was already mad. Who knows at what. All I know, is it wasn't me and I wasn't about to ask. I handed him the time sheet and grabbed the keys out of the lock box, which was never locked. We're supposed to do an inspection of the cab. You know, check the oil, tire pressure, and stuff like that. Over the years, it turned into more of a five second glance. Check the boxes and go! About four hours had passed at this point, the clock was knocking on 11:30pm. I only had half the sandwich left with around three hours of driving remaining. I didn't like working night shift, but you couldn't beat the money and the roads were clear. Well, as clear as New York roads get. There is a reason they call us the city that never sleeps. The other thing about the night shift is people seem to keep to themselves. No one talks to me and I sure wasn't about to talk to them. All I needed was an address and a couple bucks and that was good enough for me. As I reached down to grab the last half of the tuna sandwich, which I knew I'd be regretting later, I saw a man on the sidewalk trying to call. This was a little odd, because I swear a second ago he wasn't there. But, you know how New York is, everywhere you look there's a nook or cranny to hide in or even sleep in. As I got up on him, my lights shined up onto his face or rather lack of. Where I expected to see some old ragged man, all I saw was darkness. Again, being from New York, this wasn't the weirdest thing I've ever seen. I figured it was just some sort of mask. Didn’t matter anyway, he tried anything funny, I had a 45 next to me. You aren’t supposed to carry in the cabs, but everyone did. I hadn't had trouble in a long time. Kind of dumb to rob a cab. For one, there's cameras and for another, the money goes in the box. Even I can't get it out. So, unless he was dying for a half-eaten tuna sandwich and the $3 in change I had in my left pocket, he wasn't going to get anything else. I pulled up, the man got in the car and sat down heavily. That was unexpected as he seemed to be a slender man almost unhealthily skinny. He wore some sort of black hoodie which I could not see where it began or ended. I waited for a few seconds figuring he would tell me the address, but it was just silent. This is not unusual as some people needed me to ask; however, most New Yorkers knew the routine. I went to turn around, expecting to see some young man in a black mask, but as I looked into his face there was nothingness. Not black, just a lack of substance, as though no light within it would ever escape, if there was any at all. I felt if I stared long enough, I would be pulled in. This made me shudder to my bones. I quickly regained my composure, thinking it was surely some sort of magic trick for I did not take heed into the supernatural. I was raised by my grandmother since I was 11, my father left when I was young. I don’t remember him. My mother died of cancer when I was 10. I was young enough not to understand, but old enough to remember. My grandmother was a very devout Catholic and she tried her best to get me to believe. I went to church every Sunday and said my prayers. Did communion, but knew there was nothing to it. If there was any God out there, he would not have taken my mother away. She had suffered all the way to the end. She cried out in pain, but she never cried out against God. Never wavering from her faith, I will give her that. Sadly, the God she prayed to did not save her. I turned quickly back around so I would not have to stare into the void for any longer. I asked for an address and he gave it. When he said the address, I was somehow not surprised. It still caught me off guard as the address he gave wasn't really an address, at least as far as the Post Office was concerned. It was just another drug den under a bridge. The exact same bridge where my childhood friend died next to me, but I was too baked out of my mind to do anything about it. All my years driving, I don't recall taking anyone here. The people who went there didn't have enough money for a cab or if they did, they sure weren't spending it on a cab. I take people where they want to go, so I started driving. It was an awkward drive. I cannot say why as I’ve driven people in silence hundreds of times, I really preferred it. It wasn't like driving with a complete stranger though, I almost got the sense that the man knew me and I knew him on some sort of deep level. I cannot tell you where, from or how. We pulled up to the bridge and my lights hit the few tents scattered around. At this point, I assumed the man was going to spend the night here, probably shoot up and call for a cab in the morning, if he was able to. Instead, he put his hand on my shoulder giving me a chilling feeling, but somehow a comforting feeling too. He said to me in a raspy voice, almost like he had been hitting two packs a day for most his life, to wait there. I was hesitant to reply, but I nodded my head, which seemed to suffice. He got out of the car and shut the door behind him. I turned around to see where he was going, just hoping that I would not have to drag him back into the car. As I peered through the glass divider in the cab, I saw him kneeling next to someone who would had obviously been busy that night. It looked like he had gotten a bad batch of something as his face was all contorted. The man reached out and simply grazed his arm. This gesture was as light as a fallen leaf on an autumn morning, but as powerful as a prairie fire whipping across the plains. As soon as he did this, the man grew limp, his face relaxed as if a great weight was lifted off his shoulders. This took me aback, what did this man do? He barely touched him! The man stayed there for a moment almost like he was grieving. I was going to drive away. I did not want that fate for me! Before I could even get the car in gear, the man was in my backseat, once again. This time, he looked as if he had a great weight on his shoulders. It was like what he had taken from the man had now been heaved on his soul. I decided my best option was not to fight this man. Obviously, if he was powerful enough to kill a man with just a touch, he was not going threatened by any bullet. And, honestly, I couldn't even remember if the gun was loaded. It had been so long since I had used it. I started driving, to where, I do not know. He asked me something which I will never forget. Who do you think I am? At first, I didn't know what to say, but like a rushing wave, it all came to. I think you are death here to reap the souls of mortals. Here to take vengeance on the weak and to kill all that is good. He simply shrugged and said, maybe you’re right. Maybe, some part of me is evil. Maybe, I am out here to destroy all that is good. But, why do people blame me for their loved one’s passing? I know you do. Remember the night your mom finally met her Maker? I was there. You blame me. You also blame me for when your best friend finally caught a bad batch, but you know deep down it wasn’t my fault. I never killed anyone, I have simply let them go. I have released them from their mortal being and let them move on to their afterlife. I do not cause people to get sick. I do not cause people to use drugs. I do not cause people to kill one another. It’s your own doing, but you all like to blame me because it is easier. I get it. It is easier to blame some unknown evil entity for all the world’s problems than it is to simply blame yourself. I am not here to judge. I do not decide where you go or when you die. I am simply here to let you go. To let the suffering end and to let you join the void. At this point, I had no words to say. I did not want to believe what he had told me, but deep down, I knew his words were true. They were true my whole life and it was easier for me to blame God for the death of my mother and the death of my friend, even though they were not His fault. My friend and I were stupid and I just somehow got lucky. My mother got sick, no one could have done anything. Then I realized if they had not died, they would have continued suffering going down the same path until there was nothing but pain and agony. Death is not a consequence of our actions, but a mercy to release us from the outcome of our wicked ways. For if we never died, if we never moved on, we would continue down a dark path with no return. I turned around to tell the man of my realization, hoping that he might spare me or maybe I was hoping he would take me, for this I cannot be sure. All I know, is when I turned around, my cab was empty. I wasn't even driving. I was still in the same spot where I had originally seen the man. As I looked up over the hood of the car, I saw some young teenage kid in a black hoodie with a normal face. When he saw me, he just turned and ran away back into the void.

Four minutes, fifty-two seconds. That’s how much time I have left. Last night, a timer telling me I was going to die in twenty four hours appeared, and started counting down the seconds. I was scared, of course I was. But I knew what I had to do, I started writing down everything. Once I’m gone the words I’ve written will be the only thing keeping the idea of me alive. So I wrote it all down. Goodbyes to everyone I knew. What I did, what I didn’t, what I wanted to do. I wrote who I love, who I hated and who I didn’t want to lose. All of my regrets and all of my successes filling pages, and pages. I think I wrote 192 pages, in a span of 18 hours. I then wanted to spend some time with the people that meant most to me, I spent a total of three hours with my family. I never told them what was going to happen to me. I didn’t want them to worry. I always had a plan, always had an answer. I want to use my last moments to put my final plan into action. I need to have an answer, I need to be in control of how it all ends. To tell the truth, that's why I didn’t tell my folks, because I can’t control how they react. I can perfectly craft a sentence, an answer, with the written word. I just want to make the best choice with the time I have left. Then there was them. That person that meant more to me than anything else. The moment they came into my life, a smile shone out of me. They could wrangle the truth out of me with just a chuckle. They were the only person I told, I couldn’t lie to them. I came to the door at the dead of night and explained it. God, they probably thought I was insane, I would have thought that. But for whatever reason they listened to me. They listened to my insane ramblings and believed me, and said they’d do whatever I need. I asked them to come out onto the soccer field with me. I told them I wanted to see the stars for one last time. We laid and laid on the grass, and still are. “Do you see that star?” I point out to them. “Yeah, what about it?” They say, “It’s pretty, also it’s kinda bright.” “That’s the north star. People since far back before us or our grandparents used it to navigate. It shines the brightest in the sky don’t you agree? You want to know what I love about it though? That there were people, tens of thousands of years ago looked at that star and thought the same thing you just thought. They thought it was pretty.” “We aren’t all that different from them huh?” They questioned. “I’d argue that we aren’t different at all from the first humans. It’s funny, it’s the end for me soon and I’m here talking about the beginning.” “Are you scared?” They sighed, “I know I would be, how can you say all this without freaking out.” “I’m not scared.” I ponder for a moment, “I feel at peace almost.” “Do you believe in the afterlife?” “No, I don’t really.” “Then how aren’t you scared?” “I don’t know.” I chuckle, “I really don’t.” I look at the timer, seven seconds. It’s funny, in my last moments I didn’t know the answer.

The world sucks, and that hasn't much changed since everything's changed. Used to be, you could get through the toughest of times with good friends. Hell, it often felt like clichéd slogans could heal your bloodiest heart break if it was given by the right person. It's why we even had friends. To get brushed off after being shoved to the ground. If only mine were still here. They vanished alongside the majority of the world. Which, in all honesty, makes my problems seem a lot less significant. Yeah love hurts, but so does the incinerating blast released at the drop of an atom bomb. That happened too quickly for grief. Flash, bang, alakazam. There was doom out of an orange colored sky. I’m not sure why, but mushroom clouds were always a fascinating sight to me. They're hopelessly breathtaking, and promise unrelenting change. A promise it very well kept. In an instant cities were flattened, and our homely blue dot was turned into a one size fits all graveyard. The resting place for friends of a better time, the one I never loved, and my car I just paid off. A wasteland, an authentic fresh start. With nothing left to dredge up what's no longer living. Since the grass is riddled with radiation, it won't remind me of the picnic where I had a wine bottle thrown at my head. As I've heard many times before, history's written by the victor. My name isn't Victor, but I am one of the few poor souls left breathing. So, here's the history. Curiosity gave the cat a death ray, and he ended up killing the rest of his kind in a schlong swinging contest. Whatever, if you weren't lucky enough to have a million dollar survivalist motel, you aren't here to combat me. And that sequence of events sounds about right in my head. A self absorbed society ushering in the apocalypse through an obsession with their own demise. Which, honestly, I can't much hate them for. The world might, but I can't. Inventing a nuclear bomb is without a doubt destructive, but at least the madman found some purpose. I haven't done anything with this miserable life of mine. I'm patient, probably too patient. With no fear of missing out, but a crippling fear of screwing up. Only whatever God would let this happen knows the opportunities I've missed. Him, and the disappointment resting on my darling's face as I drove away last. I didn't see it at the time, but somewhere in those worried eyes I could tell she knew I wouldn't see them again. I hate it, but mainly for her. Knowledge of what hasn't happened always troubled that little head. She never committed, and I think it's because she knew I wouldn't either. Only she had to wait for a bomb siren to understand, for reality to set in. That I couldn't save her. Hell, I couldn't even save myself. I'm here, safe and alone below the scorched earth. Damned by my luck, and my dad's bank account. It wasn't supposed to be this way. I'd been told countless times that I was wrong, that I already saved her. Well, it wasn't enough. I know I could've handled those final moments differently. Things I could've said, a kiss I could've savored, and not to mention a locket I could've taken. One she desperately wanted me to have. Only I insisted she hold on to it. That I'd get it next time I saw her. I want to believe I didn't knowingly leave her to be swallowed up by a shock wave. My father argued otherwise. That somewhere deep down I knew I wouldn't see her, or that locket again. His drunken, "you let her die," screams were pretty convincing. Though it also struck me as oddly defensive, like his mirror's heard the same tirade. I wouldn't be surprised, however. It could very well be why I was offered her golden locket in the first place. To slyly confirm I wouldn't take it, even if she asked. Making me look spineless without even saying a word. Left to hold that scratched up golden heart, moments after I'd gone, knowing I didn't deserve it. All the while, secretly hoping I'd figure it out. That I'd finally commit. According to my dad, I never will. That I'll always be nothing more than what he's not. Which might be why I'm still alive. Salivating at the future. While he lies at my feet, decaying in the past. Sprawled out, and white as a ghost. Now, there's no simple explanation here. Other than the one that explains how the blade I put in his chest caused him to bleed out. Why the blade was put there, is where things get complicated. He always said I needed to become my own man, and get my own hold on life. Well there's no more law and order, so I guess this is my bunker now. The funny thing is, he was right. I let her die, I'm the sum of my father's mistakes, and I've never fully committed to anything. That all ends here. As someone who died off with the old world. Incomplete, and insufficient. Leaving me to care for his baggage, and lift his debt. Not put off, but ignited by the past shortcomings. With a flame reborn in the rubble of my mind, from the blood seeping out my father's chest. Slowly forming into what I always knew I'd find. A crimson puddle leaving the worst of who I was, in the shape of a heart. A bloody heart. No different from the one she desperately wanted me to have.

There was a man who could not see any beauty in the world. No matter what spectacle he had seen, he only saw sadness, anger, despair, and disappointment. He would go around, telling others of how there was no true beauty in the world, only the tricks we played on ourselves, hoping to hold on to some form of hope that our world wasn’t in ruins already. No matter what he saw, there was no beauty. He witnessed sunset and sunrise, but only saw the dread people faced from having to wake up to the stresses they would experience throughout the night. Deer would run past him as he travelled, though he could only see the deer becoming someone else’s dinner. Perhaps, the worst case of this was when he saw his child born, he could only see the pain they would experience after losing their parents, not the joyous moments of birthdays, or the making of a new friend. No, those were only distractions from the universe, trying to hide us from the truth. As the man went on, spreading his word, he ran into a man adamant about telling him that beauty existed in everything, he just needed to try harder. The man who saw no beauty was used to this, he had many tell him the same thing, but this man assured him, he was different than the rest. “I have walked the land. I’ve seen nearly everything there is to see on this world, and I assure you, there was not a moment I could not find any beauty. Come with me, I’m sure I can show you *something* beautiful. Perhaps that will help open your eyes to a world around you that you’re missing out on!” And so, the man who saw no beauty went with the man who had walked the land, where they came upon a river. “Look closely. See all the fish swimming around? How the stream flows in that direction for as far as we can see, leading to who knows where. The animals who come to this river to drink find peace here. It’s very likely there was a civilization that was started here because of this river,” said the man who had walked the land. “Yes, I can see the fish swimming, how the river seems endless, and how these animals come here to survive. It is likely there was a civilization formed here as well,” the man who saw no beauty spoke, though it was with a tone of sorrow. “Yes!” the man who had walked the land exclaimed in excitement, “Now do you see the beauty?” “I see that these fish will die, possibly from being hunted by a predator, or pulled out by some careless fisher and left to suffocate. And though it may seem the stream goes on I know it has to stop at some point. It also may be an inconvenience for those who live nearby, or perhaps may have ruined the fauna that was once in its path. The civilization that might’ve been here is long gone, with nothing to show for it, save for bones buried beneath the earth. There is no beauty here, only eventual death, like all things in nature.” The man who had walked the land gave frowned at the man who saw no beauty and tried another place. Though this man tore apart this place as well. It continued on like this for some time, until the man who had walked the land had an epiphany. “If I can’t prove to you there is beauty in everything, I know someone who can. Come with me, one last time. I promise it won’t be a waste!” The man who saw no beauty only sighed and gestured for his acquaintance to lead the way. After walking for what must have been days, they finally came upon a lone tent in a valley. “Sir, I brought someone who claims to see no beauty! Despite my best efforts, I cannot get him to see all that life has to offer. Please, help this poor man understand. He seems to be so sad and I believe only you can help him! *Please!*” spoke the man who walked the land, to another man staring at the sky, a paper in hand, pencil in the other. The man set the pencil and paper down and turned to look at the man who saw no beauty, inspecting him, circling around him, and mumbling to himself every so often. “While I commend you for your efforts, I fear I cannot help those who do not want to be helped, no more than you or anyone else. He may leave,” the man said, then immediately went back to looking at the sky, seeming to study the clouds. “But sir! You’ve walked among the stars, you’ve not just seen the world, you’ve seen the universe and what it has to offer! Surely there must be something you can do!” The man who walked among the stars grunted, then turned to the man who saw no beauty. “There is one thing I can do. I can give you advice, if you wish to hear it.” The man who saw no beauty shrugged and said, “Why not? Though there’s nothing you can say that will change how I see the world, in its *purest* form.” The man who walked among the stars smiled briefly, nodding his head, then spoke, “You actively avoid beauty. You don’t lack a vision for it, far from it. You see it. Then ignore it.” He spoke with anger and disdain. “There is beauty in everything, but because you can’t see any *inside* of yourself, you refuse to recognize the beauty around you.” The man who walked the land looked upon him in awe, having never heard his mentor speak quite this way before. “Sir, perhaps you’re being a bit harsh,” said the man who walked the land. He looked over at the man who saw no beauty, who was silent, only staring at the man scolding him. Though it would be more accurate to say he was looking *through* the man scolding him, almost as if he knew this all already. “I’m far from being too harsh my apprentice. This man is going down a dangerous path. He will do anything to convince those around him that there’s no beauty in *anything*. If he can’t find a lack of beauty in something, he’ll make a lack of it. He’d set ruin to the universe just to prove his point.” He pointed at the man who saw no beauty, “If you don’t change, I fear for the universe. There is beauty in you somewhere, but I can’t see it anymore than you can. So instead of destroying it, make some.” He paused, but only briefly, “While there is a beauty in destruction, your destruction will only lead to despair. And when you look at yourself, you’ll not see a happier man, no, you’ll see a man who’s broken and wasted away. Now get out of my sight.” The man who saw no beauty was dejected. He spoke no words but followed the order and left. The man who had walked among the stars saw no beauty in him either, and somehow, he had managed to find beauty in even the most destructive forces of the universe.

\_\_\_\_\_\_The middle-eastern sand, unlike the one found on St. Petersburg's golden shore, feels like dust and rust; It coated the desert-camouflaged chassis of our BTRs and stuck to our uniforms and visors, making it very uncomfortable to move around and sweat beneath the blinding February sun. ​ *It wasn't a bad assignment.* ​ \_\_\_\_\_\_The children from a nearby village would often come to us, to trade their hand-made trinkets and fresh tea for some of our MREs and candy. I've lost count on how many bracelets I brought back each day...a dozen, perhaps? They were done by a small and beautiful girl with sleek and long black hair that reached to her waist, whose entrancing emerald eyes made you feel naked ─ as if she could stare directly at your soul. I never asked her name, but often called her "*Veselaya*" in my mind since she would irradiate child-like innocence and an endless sense of wonder for the strange men in their metal beasts. She wasn't shy, unlike some of the other young children, despite being around 7 or 8, she would ask us a million questions without stopping to breathe: "Where are you from? Why do you wear glass on your eyes? What is that on your head? Do you have any chocolate...?" I couldn't answer with my limited arabic, afterall I only knew how to say "Cigarette?" and "Stop or die", but I could understand her very well. \_\_\_\_\_\_Halfway through the month, yet again under the scorching sun waiting for an allied unit to pass through, we patrolled around our BTRs’ defensive positions near the village when I looked at my watch, it’s cracked surface showed the third hour of the afternoon, we began to wait for the *deti* to arrive. For the past two or three weeks, they would visit us, eager to show us what goods they had on their tiny hands, what shiny piece of metal had they scavenged from the nearby ruins or what colorful drawing they had made ─after countless days doing nothing but mindless training, paperwork, repairs and waiting around for orders; this was *the* most awaited moment of the day. \_\_\_\_\_\_The Syrian veteran troops alongside us, despite being cooperative and decent fighters, even though they were under command of a police captain, often chose not to look at them, deploying forced smiles and imaginary urgent tasks to attend to rather than being near them. I know why. They often talked about rebuilding their homes and reuniting with their loved ones, the peak of their aspirations was surprisingly ...known to me ─ they wanted no more than to return home, sit in front of the TV, watch football and drink tea. ​ *I understood them, to a lesser degree, sure, but I did nonetheless.* ​ \_\_\_\_\_\_*Veselaya* wasn’t amongst the few dozen *deti* that were showing us their merchandise. No, she was far behind them, at the edge of the village. Even at 300 metres, I could see a slight glimmer on her emerald eyes, she was quietly sobbing. Holding a shoebox. I ordered my cousin to check on her through the scope of his rifle, feeling a knot being tied around my neck. She was *clutching* the shoebox. Strands of her black hair stuck to the tears that descended her bruised cheeks; then she began to walk towards us. Our Captain ordered us to raise our rifles and the Syrian troops began to shout at the children upon seeing her, ordering them to get behind our armor. ***Amidst an open field of desert soil*** ***A small frightened child held on*** ***To a small shoebox with a crying soul*** ***Quietly begging the strange men from distant lands*** ***To protect her from the evil old men that stood behind*** \_\_\_\_\_\_I shouted at her, over and over, the only phrase I knew in her tongue with nothing but fear and begged to God. \_\_\_\_\_\_My cousin trained his sights onto her chest, so did all the men around me, but she kept on walking through the dust-like sand, leaving a trail of tears and hopeless fear. ***I have always been a good soldat, but that day I cried.*** ***I dropped my rifle and broke through the defensive line,*** ***my vision blurred by a primal need to save the young.*** ***I saw no colors and felt no more*** ***For her I felt nothing but love*** \_\_\_\_\_\_I threw the shoebox up in the air behind me and threw my entire self onto her as the wires strapped to her chest pulled the pins on the hidden grenades. ***I held my breath and watched as my visor drowned,*** ***feeling lost in her emerald eyes.

Julia lay still in my arms. The gentle rise and fall of her chest ceased an eternity ago but I still held her. Cradling her like an infant, she looked so peaceful. Her limp body so delicate and as light as a feather. I was afraid that if I let go, she would be carried away by the gentle stream flowing around us. My world was in ruins. Piles of sodden debris lay around us, stacked higher than the houses they were once part of. Wooden walls had cracked and splintered by the unrelenting power of a sudden flood, collapsing houses in on themselves. The swollen river had burst its banks sending forth violent streams that snaked between the thinly scattered islands of detritus, tearing up the soil and marring the surrounding landscape. Corpses choked the river, clouding its crystal waters with scarlet streaks. Little was left but murky pools that drowned the country as far as the eye could see. Everything was lost. The grey firmament above opened to allow a single slender beam of light to trickle down from the heavens and caress Julia’s pale cheek. The soft glow brought a shade of warmth to her cooling flesh. I couldn’t believe my baby was gone. I was holding her when she first came into this world, and I was holding her when she left it. Seeing the light in my daughter’s eyes slowly ebb away was a cruelty no parent should ever need endure. Dappled rays played across her wet skin, tracing their way between droplets until finally coming to rest upon her amulet. A small thing wrought of copper and iron but beautifully inlaid with intricate tracings of gold. An amulet dedicated to our God, dedicated to You. We prayed diligently and did everything the Wise Ones told us to do to appease you. Not a single prayer was skipped, or offering missed, or ritual withheld, or any of your commands questioned or denied. We devoted ourselves in our entirety to you. And yet death and destruction are what we were offered in return. Does that seem fair to you? Not to me. I won’t pretend I know anything of the machinations of the divine for I am no priest and but a lowly mortal, but we clearly defied you otherwise why would this have happened? Why did the rains we so desperately needed and begged for continue well past the seasons end? Why did the river become so swollen? Why did the banks burst to release watery wrath upon us? Why would You allow this to happen to us? To me? But You didn’t let death take me like everyone else. You spared me. You may think you saved me, but you have done quite the opposite. I have been left with nothing but misery and sorrow. You kept me alive and took that which I love most in this world. There must be a reason for this, to keep me alive and no others. Whatever the reason, I will have no part in it. I once harboured the most fervent love and devotion for you. We all did. A powerful all-consuming love drove us blindly into your arms, our faith in your wisdom and benevolence held us tightly in your embrace. We thought we were safe. Misplaced were our feelings when our judgements were so clouded by deceit. Now, in loves place, I harbour something else. Something stronger. Hate. It feels wrong to hate you, but I can’t help it. It’s not that I can’t stop, it’s that I don’t want to. You deserve my hate for what you did. It is true you are a God and I am a mortal, and that most would consider me ungrateful and foolish for hating one so powerful and wise, yet I still do. You think despite taking all that I love that I should still revere you, that I should still worship you, that I should fill the void in my heart with the love of my creator because that is all the love I will ever need? No. You are sorely mistaken. You have forsaken me, abandoned me in this harsh world, and taken everything from me. I shall do the same to you. They say you die not only with the passing of your last breath but that you die a second time when your name is uttered in this world for the last time. I have not the power to invoke a physical death upon a deity such as yourself, but I can starve you of the attention you so desperately desire, of the love and worship you draw strength from. I cannot kill the unkillable, but I can make you wish you were able to die. Hence forth I, your last living breathing son, renounce you as my God and Father, and cast you out of my heart into the blackness of the void in which you have left me. Your religion died with the people who drowned for I will take it no further. I won’t even grant you the courtesy of speaking your name one last time, that too died upon the lips of someone lost to your wrath. In killing Julia, you have killed yourself. I hope it was worth it. Now we both are alone.

Cheryl is always bossing me around. She thinks that just because she died first makes her in charge around here, but she forgot one little fact. I am the matriarch in this house. Oh yes, I forgot to mention, I’m a ghost, a specter, a phantasm, an apparition, honestly, whatever floats your boat. You want to know how I got here? Well, I’m going to make this nice and brief because no one wants to linger on a sob story, especially me. I am just getting over it. So, here’s the long and short of it. I got stage 4 breast cancer when my youngest was just a year and half. I was given all the hope in the world- “Hannah, you are so young and strong”... “You have too much to live for”... “You’ll kick cancer’s butt”- but, yet, here I am, haunting my family. Didn’t beat cancer’s butt. It beat me up for a year and a half before it took me out. Yes, that first year was hard. Not going to relive that. The kids were a mess. Jay, my loving husband, was beside himself. And let’s not forget about me. I absolutely grieved for myself. I was missing out on everything. But, it’s been over a year now, and we are all adjusting to a new normal. Come to find out, you get to haunt the place where you died. Which is really cool since I finally get to be a stay-at-home mom, in the ghostly sense. Super pumped we went with the home death thing rather than the hospital. Could you imagine the crowds there? That’s how I met Cheryl, the know-it-all ghost herself. I mean she has been helpful, giving me tips about adjusting to ghost life and all, but if I was being honest, I wish I could have convinced Jay to move into a new development. Could have saved me from having to share my haunted home. Cheryl also passed on here, but she was alone and elderly. And don’t even get me started on Crazy John haunting that sprawling oak tree out back. I swear, he has never once smiled at me. But his presence does explain the kid’s hesitation with the tree house we built. I have surprisingly begun to enjoy being a stay-at-home mom ghost. My days look a little different though. Cheryl explained to me that ghosts have a reverse circadian rhythm due to the spectral goo coursing through our ethereal bodies which, in layman’s terms, means we wake up as night descends and feel sleepy during the day. Just like all moms though, I have a job to do. So, I force my tired self out of bed when Jay and the kids come home. I’ve even developed a sort of schedule that I think is working for all of us. First thing I do is play with 4-year-old Jonah. The surprising thing is that young kids can totally see ghosts and interact with them. Cheryl told me that her and my now 8-year-old Reilly used to have vivid conversations and even play dolls together. That does explain Reilly’s phase of calling all elderly women “Sherry.” But, I digress, Jonah and I mostly play with trains and cars. I ask him about Daddy and school and his siblings. Unfortunately, he isn’t a big talker. Most information I have to glean from eavesdropping. Who would have thought that Jay could be such a talker, especially to his mother, who is at my house at least twice a week folding the laundry all wrong and bringing over gluten-free desserts that end up in the trash. After my little playtime with Jonah, it’s usually dinnertime. They are all so considerate and save me a seat at the table. Dinner is both the high and low point of my day. It’s great because I can catch up on how everyone is doing in school and in sports. Did you know that Cole, my 15-year-old, made JV basketball this year? Even more shocking is he has his first girlfriend, a petite little blonde thing. Doesn’t resemble me at all. Not sure how keen I am on that whole development. Jay has both girls, 12-year-old Tatum and Reilly, seeing a therapist. Not super happy about that either, and all because the girls say they keep seeing me in their dreams and hearing my voice at night. Of course, they do! I visit them regularly. The dimwitted therapist says it’s because they haven’t accepted my death and other nonsense. I’ve been trying to convince Jay to pull them out of therapy, but he just drowns me out every night with some nighttime cold medicine. The interesting thing about this though is Cole because I talk to him all the time and visit him in his dreams, and I know he is listening. I mean, how else would he remember to do his laundry the night before the big game? But that Cole never says a word about it. I knew he was the smart one, just like his mother. The problem with dinner is what is actually served. Jay, love him as I do, is a hapless cook. I knew that when I married him, but I didn’t intend to leave him by himself. You want to hear his meal rotation? Get this. Hot dogs, hamburgers, pizza, spaghetti, sandwiches, fast food, and leftovers. What is missing? Any semblance of nutrition. After dinner, I try to hint at the kids and Jay to clean up. I remind them to do laundry, sweep the floor, wipe down the table, clean the dishes, you name it. But they don’t always listen, which hasn’t changed in life or death. Bedtime is when the real fun begins. Cheryl told me early on that when people sleep they become like young children, able to see and interact with ghosts. I take full advantage of this and visit everyone. Jonah is the easiest since I get to hang out with him during the day too. His messages usually include things like “Mommy is so proud of you” or “Mommy loves you.” The only challenge with Jonah is his memories of me in life are fading so I am trying to combat that by telling him stories about me and him, mostly about him as a baby. Then I move on to Reilly. She’s fun and spunky, just like an 8-year-old should be. I’ve got her mostly convinced not to listen that that therapist. Surprisingly, Reilly has a lot to say, particularly about her schoolwork and her friends. I try to take this opportunity to impart some of my motherly wisdom to her. It’s kind of working, but again, she is only 8. Tatum, on the other hand, is getting awfully moody, trying to push me away. I guess I should have expected this once puberty started. She buys everything that therapist says, hook, line, and sinker. I try to help her navigate friends and boys, but she literally does the opposite of what I say. Piece of work, that one. Cole is next. I thought teenage boys would be a lot harder than they are. Cole is easy. He listens. We converse. He even told me about his girlfriend and, oh, how I tried not to show my true emotions. I can’t hamper this back-and-forth relationship we have. I try to talk to Jay the most, but he just shuts me out with those stupid sleep aids. Cheryl told me that the world really changed for ghosts when those became popular. He does make it so difficult. But I have gotten through to him a little here and there. I mean, do you think he would have spent Christmas with my parents if it wasn’t for my nagging all night long? Next time, I need to convince him to have them here though. It was a lonely Christmas for me, being trapped in an empty house with Cheryl and her stories. No one cares what you baked for Christmas in 1967. Once I finish visiting everyone, I spend a little time with Cheryl. I mean, I need a friend even though she is annoying. And just before morning, I visit everyone one last brief time. Make sure they wake up thinking about me. Genius idea on my part. And this new normal has been working great for everyone. That is, until just recently. It all started about a month ago. I woke up early, to get some Jonah time in, but then he wanted to play with Reilly which made it difficult for me to intercept. I brushed it off thinking it was just a phase and got ready for dinner. I went to sit in my regular seat at the dinner table, and would you believe that blondie girlfriend of Cole’s came over and sat in my spot. No one flinched, except me who ended up standing the whole time. During all of dinner, I wasn’t even mentioned once. Not the therapy, not how my food is better, nothing. All they did was make small talk with blondie. Girl, I don’t care that you volunteer at the animal shelter, you’re in my seat! After the dinner fiasco, I brushed off the helpful reminders to clean up and followed Cole and blondie to his bedroom. What was his father thinking, allowing them to study in his room?! Maybe I need to start including these types of reminders in his dreams. Thankfully, I was there to keep an eye on things. I literally stood over them as they cracked open their history books. I bet Cole felt me boring a hole in his head. That would explain the lack of physical contact between those two. Blondie finally left, and I had my family back to myself. I went back into the kitchen expecting to find chaos, but I was taken aback by the clean dishes and the dryer running. Hmm, maybe all my haunting reminders have worked their magic. Bedtime came and I began my nightly ritual, but Jonah’s visit disturbed me the most. “Mommy, where were you today?’ I was left speechless. Of course, I was here. “I was playing with you and Reilly. Don’t you remember?’ “No, Mommy, you weren’t there. I looked and looked an couldn’t find you.” I didn’t know pain was something that afflicted ghosts as well, but there I was feeling sucker punched. I said a quick “I love you” and left. I needed a minute. I found Cheryl visiting Reilly in her dreams. “Cheryl, get out of her head! How many times have I told you that these are my children?” “Relax, Hannah, she won’t remember. I just miss her. Why are you not with Jonah anyways?” “He didn’t see me today. Or that’s what he said. Why would he say that? He is still young, right?” “Oh dear, let’s go talk somewhere.” Cheryl then led me to the living room sofa where we cozied up under the blankets. “How old is Jonah now?” “He’s only 4. Still a little guy. What is going on? It’s too early.” “It’s not really too early. He is almost 5.” “It’s like I’m losing him again. I can’t.” Cheryl wrapped her ethereal self around me and let me cry, something I had staved off for a few months now. “You still have the dreams, and he can’t forget you. You are his mother.” I cried and cried, thinking about how Jonah will have to grow up without a mother basically his whole life. I was able to dry my tears just in time for one round of visits before dawn. The next day seemed to be more of the same. Jonah playing with Reilly. Dinner with another friend of Tatum’s present, in my seat. Cleaning done without my prompting. It went on like this for a whole month. No one-on-one time with my little guy; someone in my seat more often than not; and cleaning up without my haunting reminders. Were they forgetting me? Umm, I was a pretty big part of their lives. For goodness’s sake, I gave them life. Well, except Jay, but I gave his life meaning and that’s what counts. I was prepared for all this nonsense again today. I think I am even doing a good job resigning myself to the fact that I can only talk to Jonah at night, like the rest of them. And you know what, it’s good for them to not dwell on death. Tatum has been wearing more colors recently and laying off the eyeliner. This is for the best. They need to move on. But then what do I see? Hot dogs again for dinner. Oh, Jay, he is still a mess. Then the microwave dings. And do you know what he pulled out? A steaming bag of broccoli. I almost fell over if that was a thing that ghosts could do. He made broccoli, something nutritious. What was going on? His mother wasn’t even over. This was totally unprovoked. I needed a minute and fled to the girl’s room, but that Cheryl followed me anyways. “What is the matter with you today?” Cheryl said as she sat on Reilly’s bed. “Broccoli. He made broccoli,” I managed through sobs. “That’s good. I’ve been hoping he would add some vegetables to that dinner of his. Why are you upset about that?” “No one needs me. I’m their mother! They should need me!” Anger and grief coursed through me. “They have to move on. You know that.” “I don’t want them to.” “Yes, you do. That’s why you tell them those things at night. I know you tell them that you are proud of them. You tell them to keep living. You convinced Cole to try out for basketball when he was scared. You gave him the courage to ask that sweet girl out. You tell Tatum every night how beautiful she is. You reassured her that she didn’t need to hide. You gave her the courage to be herself. You tell Reilly to keep playing even when she didn’t want to. You fostered that relationship between her and Jonah, one that won’t leave them their whole lives. And Jonah, you have given him all the love a mother could give in her lifetime in just a few short years. You helped Jay become a father we all wished we could have had. You have left a part of yourself with them that will help guide them throughout the rest of their lives.” The waterworks began anew, but they came from a mix of emotions. Grief, of course, but also pride and just a hint of fulfillment. Then the wildest thing happened. Right beside Cheryl, my grandmother appeared. The one who read bedtime stories and took walks around the neighborhood with me. The one who I missed so much when she died. Why was she here? Did she learn how to travel as a ghost? Cheryl really let me down if that was a thing. But why hadn’t I seen her earlier? I died over a year ago. She then spoke in her voice that brought back the smell of cookies and cuddling under the blankets on her scratchy sofa, making me want to be lost in one of her hugs just once more. “Hannah, baby, it’s time.”

My mom had been planning a family vacation for the past few weeks so my “not so much of a morning person” husband and I decided it would be best to spent the night at her house. I shut off my alarm which was set thirty minutes before my husband’s and decided to check out my childhood home. An alluring two-story Victorian home secretly housed on Main Street. It was a peaceful and quiet neighborhood with endless miles of forested trails in every direction. Walking into the living room I recall late nights watching Unsolved Mysteries with my mom followed by menacing thoughts of ghosts lurking around the corner and serial killers ready to pop out behind the many pine trees that guarded our backyard. The array of colours that filled the interior looked liked an artist’s paint palette with delicate pastels bordered boldly. The plethora of trinkets used to fascinate me, now they seem to haunt me. Each detail, watching and waiting for something inevitable. Making our way to the car, we triple checked every room to ensure we weren’t forgetting anything before our seven hour trip from Flagstaff to sunny San Diego. We headed out in the early morning to avoid traffic and to get the beach at the perfect time. This, for me, was the worst time for driving. I had an unusually debilitating fear of most things. Odd things. Driving in complete darkness, rattled by the silence and surrounded by the massive trees and ominous mountains, an obvious sign of looming death. I understand that it’s a stupid fear, but it’s a real fear nonetheless. With no one on the road ahead or behind us for miles, we decided to stop at the 24/7 gas station for a quick stretch and a heavily sugared coffee. For a service station that is open all day for 364 days a year, it was eerily dark. Not a soul in sight and a flickering light above the entrance, we had a three second window of visibility before it went dark again. The station looked abandoned, as if someone had an urgent engagement and only had time to lock the door. I tried the door handle a few more times before turning to my husband and telling him to check around the back. “There’s a car back here with the engine running. Maybe aliens abducted him,” he stated with a smirk on his face knowing that would give me the chills. “Don’t fucking say that,” I yelled as I ran up to him and slapped his arm. Up ahead in the dense forest we heard a shuffling sound that scurried away. The icing on the cake, I thought, we stumbled upon a burglary and now the guy is looking out, waiting for the right moment to kill us. “Ryan, don’t you dare go in there. Just turn around like you didn’t hear anything, walk back, act normally and get in the fucking car,” I whispered so the psychotic burglar wouldn’t hear me. “Calm the fuck down, it’s nothing. But fine, go grab your mom and get back in the car. I just want to check something out. It’ll take me five seconds,” he stated nonchalantly. My heart raced and I felt the overwhelming fear of trying to get out and knowing that something was coming after us. As I turned the corner to see where our car was parked, I couldn’t see my mom anywhere. Freaked out, I yelled “Mom, we have to go NOW.” Just like that it was silent. No crickets, no fluorescent lights buzzing, no wind howling. What the fuck is going on. I circled the service station for what seemed like an eternity screaming, “RYAN! MOM! Please just answer me. IT’S NOT FUCKING FUNNY.” Crouched behind the building on the north side where there was a deep engulfing shadow I prayed for a miracle. Terrified, I began to cry. As my eyes began to water, my eye shadow started to find it’s way inside my eyeballs. They burned and I decided to leave them shut and wait for that son of a bitch to come and kill me. At least for my last moment alive, I wouldn’t be alone. Another fucking nightmare. It felt so real. I sat up in bed and realized that I was safe. I turned to my left to give my husband a hug to ensure me that we were both okay but his side was empty. Our living quarters were all the same here. Once the Nuclear Wars of 2018 began, the United States began sending residents to space in a series of interconnected stations. The process took a total of five years to complete. Some decided to stay on Earth in their doomsday preparation shelters while others went crazy with all of the chaos. The rest simply vanished or died. For those incarcerated, the government decided that they were not worthy of taking up space up here and were let go to fend for themselves as punishment. Life was simple here in the station. Ample space allowed for the few thousand residents of their assigned station to move freely and engage in Quality of Life Projects. The goal was to assign people “projects” that would help the overall quality and quantity of life in the station. The station director and president was a frail man who would make his way through the stations with a team of Secret Service members. For the most part, no one got to see his face and he was only known as Director or Mr. President. Rumors circulated that he was a communist, a man with ulterior motives but like I said, rumors. I took a stroll around sector seven, also known as The Great Outdoors. It was fully equipped with acres of perfectly trimmed faux grass. The “sky” was as realistic as the sky on Earth. It mirrored different climates with fully automated clouds and furious thunderstorms that never reached us. The rain that showered the grass seeped through pores hidden underneath and was recycled. Residents of the stations were able to enjoy drives around The Great Outdoors in vintage 50’s cars. Those boat-like machines were solar powered, of course, and fully installed with classic music from the era in which they were born. Don’t ask me why or who chose this era theme. In fact, no one on the stations really knew why Fallout was themed throughout the stations. As I gingerly made my way through the stations looking for my husband, I passed the endless rows of military soldiers. Each fully dressed in a magnitude of black military grade gear. They reminded me of Tom Cruise’s character in the movie Edge of Tomorrow. Each soldier came equipped with a RealTV (pronounced like the former Madrid soccer team) headset. Almost like a gamer’s Virtual Reality set but unless you were military, you didn’t know what they were watching. I reached the cafeteria, or as I call it, Heaven. An assembly of popular food joints was spread throughout the five levels. Level three was my favorite and housed the Pizza Hut, Cinnabon and Starbucks. It reminded me of my trips back on Earth to Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport. Sure enough there was my husband. “Hey hun, I was looking for you,” I sighed with relief as I sat down in the park-like bench next to him. “Sorry, I was hungry and my shift starts early today because we have a meeting,” he sprayed between his chewing breaks. “Well, I’ll go back to the room, I’m off today and I wanted to get some reading done.” I explained as I stole a sip of his coffee. “Have fun at work, I’ll see you tonight. Oh, I had a terrible nightmare but I don’t really remember it now. Oh well.” I kissed his cheek and made my way back to room 1039. Passing the rows of soldiers I slowed down to carefully look at their robotic bodies. Standing perfectly still and lifeless, I couldn’t tell if they were occupied. For a moment the fear paralyzed me as I realized that I had never in five years seen a single person enter or exit the suits. Why didn’t any of the station residents see these military personnel or know anyone in the military. The thought boggled my mind and left the powerful fear in my body as I tried to logically reason. Maybe they were part of a secluded sector within the station that worked odd hours when everyone was asleep. Yeah, that sounded good. A cold shiver passed through my body as I remembered the trinkets at my mother’s house, the hundreds or ornaments that seemed to house ghostly spirits of unspeakable terrors. I hastily sprinted to my room looking back every so often to ensure that none of the possessed robots were behind me. I couldn’t open the door fast enough and as soon as I entered I locked both locks. Safe and secure, the only other people who could enter my room now was my husband and Station Police with the proper warrant. My heart wouldn’t stop racing as I tried to convince myself that I was overreacting. All I had to do was keep myself busy until 6:00 when my husband returned and I would be okay. I spent the day reading my book, The Stand by Stephen King, when I felt a tremor. This wasn’t unusual because space was filled with unavoidable debris. The shaking continued at a steady methodical rhythm when at last, it ceased. As I turned my head to look at the time, a strong shake knocked me out of bed. The lights began to flicker above as my nightstand lamp was knocked over and shattered into hundreds of sharp puzzle pieces. Screams could be heard throughout as smoked filled the rooms. I started to feel weak and unable to open my eyes. Unable to raise my arms, I slowly drifted to a silent sleep trying my hardest to fight back. “Wake up,” I heard as the first streaks of light began to seep between my eyelashes. “You were having another nightmare dear,” Nurse Jones whispered as she stroked my hair. She stood up and shook her head and she looked at my tray from last night. “You know what happens when you forget to take your nightly medication. Those odd dreams keep coming back and you get those night terrors. We trust that our patients will do what they need to do so when they are released, there won’t be any relapses.” “My head is a complete mess. What day is it Mrs. Jones?” I asked as I scratched my head trying to clear the thoughts in my head. “It’s Tuesday, January 17th honey.” I stood up to look out of the window. The orange curtains were thick with smoke and the whiff of cigarette alarmed my nose. I sneezed only to catch a glimpse of myself in the tiny tray-like mirror hanging above the wardrobe. A ghostly reflection gazed back as I inched closer. The white dress that caressed my body had a tiny emblem above my left breast. The closer I got I realized that it was a number. 21034 it read. Unable to comprehend, I grabbed my hair, my head and my face trying to make sense of my surroundings. It was me but at the same time it wasn’t me. I looked old fashioned, the same age but nothing looked familiar. I tried to scream but nothing came out. “What...year....am I in?” I asked as I stood there in horrified silence. No response came. I slowly turned my head waiting to see the nurse stare at me with shame and despair but she had vanished. I ran into the hallway hoping to find a doctor or someone with a cellphone to reassure me that I was in 2016 but the more I ran towards the Psychiatric Wards exit, the further the hall seemed to stretch. Room after room, loneliness began to creep in. Flickering lights and no working landlines. Unable to think of a plan, I ran toward the nurse’s station in the center of the rooms. I picked up the phones with ease. They were pieces of cardboard with stickers in the shapes of a numbered wheel. I shuffled through the patient’s medical records only to find that they were completely blank. Thousands of pages, empty. The frames that used to house Norman Rockwell paintings were gone. Only the frames remained. I remembered the window outside of my room. I could climb out and find someone who could help me. The sounds of children playing and giggling remained fresh in my ringing ears and I started to feel a sense of relief. I found my way back to my room and opened the window. “What the fuck is going on,” I yelled. The once bright sunlit curtains covered nothing more that glass over a bright white wall. I crawled into bed unable to breath. Between sobs I noticed a small transparent cup with two pills inside. I hope to fucking God that this kills me, I thought. I laid in bed waiting for them to kick in. Staring at the white walls, the old ceiling and the flickering lights down the hall I patiently awaited death to take my hand and away from this Hell. The tears streamed down my face as I squeezed my eyes shut. As night began to crawl in, I shivered. The room was icy cold and I still hadn’t felt any effects from the pills I had taken ages ago. In the distance I began to hear a faint beeping noise. As the sound grew stronger, it felt as if the bed was slowing sucking me in, slowly drowning in quicksand. I reached for the nightstand and felt around for my phone. Without looking at it, I silenced my alarm. It was the first day of my Summer vacation with my husband and mom. Seven hours from now, we’d be eating lunch next to beach in beautiful California.

Caspian Viator had been staring out of the *Lancelot*’s oval window at the purple planet’s clouds that rippled across its surface like ocean waves. Every now and then he would see the effervescent clouds breathe out swirls of mist into the violet atmosphere and evaporate once it hit the bitter cold of space. No matter how many times he saw this bubbly display he was amazed. It had only been two days since his arrival at Perceptio and already all the stories he’d heard about this mysterious planet were coming true. The radiant beauty of its ethereal purple atmosphere, which glowed like the Northern Lights back in Reykjavik, to the ocean of clouds that flowed throughout the planet’s surface. While Caspian was thrilled to see Perceptio up close he was also perturbed, for if the beauty of the planet was true then so must its beast. A detailed report from the last mission stated that the crew of the *Gawain* experienced strange disturbances ranging from hallucinations to mental distress. Richard Albatross, the sole survivor of that failed mission, swore that his crew became suicidal, despite passing their weekly psychological evaluations without a hitch. After extensive analysis from the Interstellar Academy's greatest minds, it was concluded that the crew members of the *Gawain*, including Mr. Albatross, had suffered from space dementia. In fact, Mr. Albatross, it was said, had lost all sense of mind and ended up in a private asylum. This final report was upsetting for the Interstellar Academy. Ever since the discovery of Perceptio, and the possibility of life existing there due to its vaporous oceans, space agencies had been rushing to get teams out to the lone planet in order to study it firsthand. For the Interstellar Academy it had been a decade since the *Gawain* fiasco. During that time the Academy had sent several unmanned satellites to conduct research, but the satellites could only do so much. After much preparation, the Academy was ready to send another manned mission out to Perceptio. The *Lancelot’s* crew was meticulously selected. Perceptio was eight light years away from Earth. In the expanse of the universe this was nothing; however, it was still far enough for a person to go mad. The isolation of space was far more dangerous to the human mind than originally thought--the *Gawain*’s crew was proof of that. It was proposed that the best candidates to screen for the Perceptio mission had to be individuals who were not leaving behind a spouse or children. In addition, the perfect candidate had to be an only child with little to no close circle of friends and deceased parents. Therefore, the *Lancelot*’s crew was kept to the smallest number possible and had undergone extensive training both physically and psychologically during the decade respite. For Caspian Viator going out into space and observing a potential habitable planet was what he’d been preparing for his whole life. And now as he stood observing Perceptio’s majestic atmosphere from the safety of the *Lancelot*, he couldn’t help but feel a paroxysm of memories. He tried his best to remain in the present and focus on the magnificence of being in space and orbiting an alien world. But no matter how hard he tried to fight off those creeping images from the past, Caspian found himself reliving his memories. Not just any memories. It was the one memory that haunted him with relentless viciousness. It wasn’t that he hated the memory; on the contrary, he loved it because it reminded him of Katerina. But it was also the memory that, try as he might, always tore him to pieces. Ten years before enrolling at the Interstellar Academy on Earth, he went on vacation to Struga with his late wife, Katerina. She was one of the strongest and funniest women he’d ever met, and he was glad that he was able to share his life with her. But life has a way of taking the most precious things away from you without remorse. It wasn’t long after they’d arrived in Struga that Katerina began to complain of migraines. At first it wasn’t so bad, but within a couple of days her migraines became so powerful that she lost her sight, forcing them to go to the hospital. Once there doctors told Caspian that his wife had an aggressive form of longoniares that was eating away at her brain, and that there was nothing they could do for her at that point. His wife, his beautiful wife who he had fallen in love with, who he had given his soul to, was ripped apart by a bug, turning his beautiful world into a hellish and lonely existence. Caspian began to tear as he recalled Katerina’s image--her long brown hair, green eyes, and that tiny smile that only revealed her upper two front teeth, which looked like they belonged to a rabbit rather than a human, a fact he joked about with her many times. His heart felt like it was being wrung like a towel. Everything hurt inside him. And the thought that he would never be able to hold her or to share his life with her killed him. This was the reason he signed up for this mission. Staying on Earth would’ve been too painful for him. Only the darkness of the infinite ocean of stars could soothe his aching soul. “...okay, man?” said a voice from behind him. Caspian turned around and saw Valentine. “I’m sorry, Val,” Caspian said, wiping away the tears from his eyes with the back of his hand. “What’d you say?” “I said, are you okay, man?” Val frowned. “You look like you just received the worst news of your life.” “Oh, sorry about that. I-I was just remembering Katerina.” He paused. “God, I can’t believe it’s been ten years since she passed.” Valentine grimaced. “Katerina? Who’s that?” “My wife.” “Caspian, you don’t have a wife. You’ve never had a wife.” “What the *hell* are you talking about,” Caspian snarled. “Of course I do--did.” Valentine shook his head. “No, you don’t. In fact, the people aboard this ship were selected for this mission because none of us have or had a spouse or children or a significant other for that matter.” He pointed to Perceptio’s surface. “It’s the planet. It’s feeding you false memories.” “N-no, that can’t be possible.” Caspian rubbed his head. “Is it?” “You’re not the first one to be fed a phantom memory by the planet.” Valentine said. “Cable’s also fallen victim to it. She believed she had a daughter named Estella. She doesn’t. She’s never had children.” He frowned. “She even believed Albatross had stowed away on this ship, and she swore she had a conversation with him.” “Hey, Cas, what’re you up to?” Caspian looked over Valentine’s shoulder and saw Cable walking up to him. “Nothing. I think I fell victim to Perceptio’s effects or something.” he said. “If it wasn’t for Valentine bringing me out of my phantom memory, I think I’d be totally lost.” “Who’s Valentine,” Cable said, furrow-browed. Caspian glanced around the room and saw no one except Cable. “Cas, are you feeling alright?” He peered out the oval window at Perceptio, catching his reflection and nothing else. Caspian rushed to the *Lancelot*'s cockpit and set an immediate course for Earth. The Interstellar Academy, after reviewing what went wrong onboard the *Lancelot*, and committing Mr. Viator, began preparations for the crew of the *Tristram*.

Looking back I should have realized their true intentions. I was but a naive fool then. As I walked through the desert, the past months played like a broken record in my mind. I had everything in my life. A good family, a good home, fantastic friends, a loyal girlfriend, and a promising future. Only if I wasn't born with this curse. Maybe it was a gift but I doubt that. As I walk I came across a desert village. The sun was high up and the fatigue was building for some time. I wandered towards it. A small town with only 10 or so houses. Built with sandstone and bricks. It didn't look that far. After walking for three hours I had a realization. I highly underestimated my distance from the village. By the time I reached the village it was already nighttime. Small lanterns illuminated the streets and candles did that for the houses. People on the streets with candles were gathering in the middle of the town. I wanted to know what was happening but I guess I was too tired that I collapsed at the entrance of the town. I lost consciousness immediately. When I woke up I was surrounded by 7~8 children. The moment I looked at them they screamed and ran away. My face shouldn't be that ugly to scare them away. I felt my throat burning. I looked for something to drink. Alas, I didn't find any. At that moment an old man came into my room. He looked me up and down when two more people entered. One of them was a middle-aged man and the other was a young girl. All three of them talked with each other. I didn't have comprehensive knowledge of any language other than my own so I was a bit lost. But from their body language and talking style, I could deduce that the Old man and the young girl were arguing. The middle-aged man tried to calm them down. After a while, the girl stormed off. The middle-aged man shook his head while the old man sighed. At that moment something suddenly hit me. I quickly looked at my watch and did quick math. I was out for ten hours. I need to go asap. Just as I was about to leave I fumbled and the middle-aged man supported me. He told me something but I was unable to understand. I was exhausted, hungry, and a bit depressed. I couldn't stay in one place any longer than 24 hours. Somehow they always find me. As I tried to struggle I once again fell unconscious due to hunger. I felt something slide down my throat. My eyelids were too heavy but it felt delicious. So I kept eating. It however stopped soon. I wasn't full yet so my disappointment was immeasurable. I felt my night was ruined. I opened my eyes slightly only to see the young girl from before. I wanted to ask something but once again for the third time, I was out cold. The next time I woke up it was nighttime. Small candles illuminated the room I was in. I felt a bit better and a little cold. I wrapped a quilt around me and walked outside. I saw the same scene when I first reached the village. People gathered at the center of the town with candles. Nearly all of them were weeping silently. I made my way through the crowd. When I looked at my watch more than 24 hours have gone by. I knew if I stayed any longer I'll be just endangering them. Even then my curiosity got the better of me. In the middle of the town was a bed. And on the bed was a boy he looked around 20~24. His body was greatly injured. It looked like that disease. They called it the Erosion. It had no cure. Well it had one but only handful of the people knew about it. When I looked closely I could see a crown made out of bones, feathers, and willow beside him. I can see the old man looking at the boy with a sad face. The young girl holding his hand crying, while the middle-aged man consoled her. I can also see a middle-aged woman wiping the sweat off the boy and an old woman making some form of herbal medicine. From the looks of it, the boy was someone important while the rest are family members. I looked around alternating my gaze between the boy and the crowd. I may be not a genius but I can read the mood and atmosphere. I more or less understood the story. I slowly walked towards the boy. Some people tried to stop me but the old man shouted something and the people let me go. When I reached the bed I can see the boy. He was in pain but held it in. His eyes were burning with fighting spirit. His will to live was burning brighter. I remembered a similar gaze. I felt a sharp pain in my chest. It was suffocating. The condition was different but their gaze and temperament were the same. I had the power to save the person but I didn't. Yet here I am faced with a similar choice. I hesitatingly brought my hand to my mouth and bite at my hand to draw some blood. Their method of drawing blood from me was volatile so something like this felt like nothing more than a pinch. Red blood started to spew from the wound. The old man said something and all of them looked at me. I held my hand and let my blood fall into his mouth. The young girl screamed and tackled me to the ground and started hitting me. Compared to the torture I went through this was nothing. It was still painful though. Then screaming could be heard. Some in surprise others in shock. The Middle-aged man pulled the girl off me. I knew what was happening still I stood up to see it. No matter how many times I watched it still amazed me. But waves of pain soon filled my senses. I however was accustomed to it. It is the price I must pay. The boy was healing at an astonishing rate. All the wounds were closing like a magic trick. His wrinkled skin soon became smooth and without any injuries or flaws. He opened his eyes and looked around in confusion. The Middle-aged woman hugged him so did the girl. I'm assuming one was the mother and the other one was the sister(?). The old man shouting and crying. The middle-aged man looked at me shocked. As I was about to leave the old man blocked my way and kneeled soon everyone followed. I was familiar with this scene. When it was discovered that my blood could heal anything as long as a single breath was present, the Vatican City declared me as the Holy Child of God. I remember seeing Millions of people kneeling in front of me. I remember seeing two groups fighting one to protect me while the other to kill me. In the end, I became nothing more than a guinea pig in a science research station while the war on my name was waged by various groups. I looked at my watch 29 hours have passed since I have come here. No one coming for me yet. I wanted to leave but the people kept kneeling and crying. I can guess what it looked like from their perspective. But even then if I stayed all I would do is bring the evil in their heart out. I always did. I realized that when my parents sold me out to the Government. It solidified when I was tricked by my friends to be kidnapped by terrorists. And I accepted it when my girlfriend tried to kill me for not being able to save her little brother. I ignored the gaze of them all and walked away. I walked away from them. I could hear their cries. I needed to get out. Maybe my ability was a blessing but to me, it was nothing more than a curse. Where ever I went I killed more people than I saved. My blood can heal and cure everything except for one thing. The evil in the human heart. It's a disease I spread wherever I go. So I walked and walked and walked. I don't know-how for how many hours I have walked. When I was hungry I ate. When I was exhausted I slept. Soon my food ran out so did my water. I was in a near-death state. And soon fade away in the darkness. Only to wake up to find myself buried in the sand. Soon I crawled out to see the night sky. My body felt light and fresh. Then I realized my blood heals everything as long as a single breath remains. So there's no reason for it to not work on me too. I didn't know it could do that. I didn't mind it. That just means I won't have to worry about food and water anymore. Then I once again kept walking. Yesterday suddenly my flesh started to burn and my watch stopped working so did my calendar. It stopped on May 5th, 2053. It was weird cause the last time I checked it was April 3rd, 2022. The people in the village may have tinkered with my watch. No wonder time felt wrong. I'm losing consciousness more frequently. The sun feels hotter for some reason. Day and night passed by but I kept walking. I looked at the sky. It was an aurora borealis in the middle of the desert. Odd. The stars felt less than it was a few nights ago. I didn't think much and kept walking. ... I have been walking for some time now. I don't know where I am. The map crumbled like sand yesterday. I tried to remember where I was going. Weird. Why am I walking? I stop to look around me it is a vast desert. I don't know why but I feel like walking again. I look at the sun. It is redder than before. But not my problem. All I know is that I have to keep walking.

Professor Tripathi wolfed down his meal as he sat all alone in the college canteen of Delhi University, at times shifting his eyes to a fat book with crisp yellowing pages. A simple kurta pajama which he wore was now stained with the spicy red chutney of the vada he ate. Though he and his white kurta were in a mess but the book he was reading lay unharmed as he carefully turned the page with his left unused hand. Not a speck nor a spot. He stood contrast to his own personalities. Organised but unorganised, meticulous yet careless this man contradicted himself in his own ways. He was famous for such incidents that proved that this man had some bug inside his head. But Professor Shailesh Tripathi was famous in ways more than that. His extensive work on the Gupta Empire and the dynasties of the South and his unbiased research thesis on the colonial period in India had been nationally acclaimed and regarded. The man had always found the past interesting, a familiarity in those years that were buried so deep in time's frame. Yet with so many years of study and close evaluation he realised that neither the life in the past or present was worth living. It sure made a living but was not an era to live a life. Shailesh had always been a staunch believer of the concept of yugas. In hinduism the concept of yugas or as referred to as large tracts of time has been divided into four parts. Satya Yug or the golden period of flourish and the rise of humanity to the zenith with the moral compass undeflected. The next was the treta yug then the dvapar and finally the kali yug. It was believed that with each yug the morals, the values and the concepts of humanity would loosen and lessen bit by bit finally leading to the end of the civilization. The Kali yug was the ongoing time and the man of letters in history knew that Kalki would never come, the said or told saviour of humanity in Kali Yug. The tenth avtar of the Vishnu. Professor Tripathi couldn't put his mind to one place. The idea had got him excited. The truth of the other time was a necessity to know. No matter who said what. The curiosity, his obsession would not let it rest. Though he believed in the concepts of yuga, but he harnessed enough doubt to believe his belief. Unknown and untrue till proven he thought to himself. The shift was short today. The Professor had retired to his quaters early devouring a plate of chole kulche sitting on his favourite armchair. Though he was once married but his wife died young. He still missed her around, those intelligent eyes and her indomitable spirit. He used to cook for her every day, everytime. Tripathi had a lost a part of him when he had to part ways with her. Things never changed, rather he made sure that it never did. Tripathi looked at the clock and realised it was late already. Gulping down the last piece of kulcha he rose to wash himself and get fresh. The bell rang exactly at 6.45. The professor was impressed. He liked people on time, but he seldom did that himself, the weirdo as he was. Tripathi opened the door. A man of medium height and strong build stepped in. Dressed in a cotton shirt and trousers, a gold rim spectacle sat on his nose and a whiff of an expensive aftershave filled the room. He held out it his hands in a respectful namaste. 'Namaskar' he said greeting the professor. 'Come in Bakshi.' Sailesh smiled. The two gentlemen took seats opposite to each other as they both sipped into cups of hot tea. 'Professor what is that a historian wants from a physicist? We have nothing in common. ' Bakshi smiled. 'Sure Bakshi? ' Sailesh took a sip and closed his eyes. 'Enlighten me! The know-it-all' Tripathi sensed a tone of mockery taunting him. But that how Bakshi was. 'Well we have a very common thing amongst us. Time my dear. It's time. You are still lost in solving paradoxes and I still am lost in understanding what happened in them.' 'Who can win against you? But still why do you need me. Do you want to have a debate old boy? ' 'No. I need help Bakshi. I need your help. ' 'Your work is completed isn't it. I want a confluence of history and physics. ' Samiran Bakshi had been trying to keep himself in checks. He respected Tripathi but now he found his tempers flying. 'With due respect professor. My work is not yet complete. And it would take fifteen more years. I have just scratched the surface. The time machine I build is not for you to take a ride to see what Akbar ate for breakfast.' 'That's not what I want. I want your invention to answer my questions. It's for the same plethora of reasons Nandini talked to you. I want to finish what she left unfinished. ' For the rest of the time both talked and discussed, shared and progressed into various discussions. Samiran left by 9. The professor knew he would never agree, but he had guessed that he would be able to plant the idea. And the work seemed to be complete. The rest fifteen years took more than a snap to fade. Still, active in his work and teachings Professor Tripathi was finally there signing the 'No objection' document. He had taken it to the press and the media that he knew that this was risk. Even if he died today they should know he had lived a life of peace and tranquility and this is much out of his curiosity. He said that no matter what was the outcome today the people should not lose their faith in the physicist for he was the future. He was the new light. Professor Tripathi walked in the chamber. Alone. Instructions had been given. It was a small wooden door that he opened first and then vanished into the interiors. Bakshi had the controls, and he had warned the professor to hold the propellor in proper control. A little mistake could end up in consequences not even he was sure about. The professor had died the next morning. A heart attack. Nobody knew if the time travel had been successful, and he had not said a word after he had come. He looked old, he looked frail, and he had locked himself in Bakshi's room afterwards. Not responding, not answering. Bakshi strolled in his room. This room had the last breath of the professor.He didn't know if he should feel annoyed or sad. This man had always been a trouble. And here he was in trouble again. The mob was breaking in waves already having declared Bakshi as a failed and killer scientist. Engrossed in thoughts Bakshi suddenly spotted the professor's handkerchief. The pink embroidered one. The one that Nandini had woven. He picked it up feeling the fabric in his hand and was stunned. The writing was haphazard but corrigible and in the red ink of the professor's pen. Samiran you have created a wonder. All my life I have proved my beliefs and this time you did it for me. Yes your machine travels past and yes I wanted you to believe that I wanted to shift back in yugs. But that's not what I wanted this time. I have always known you were a murderer. You had killed my wife that day when she refused to leave me for you. I know I can't get you hanged for her death but my death can rob you off all that you have earned. This handkerchief leaves no proof and this heart attack is induced. No luck trying to figure out how, you will hit the rock. I have arranged it my friend. Adieu! ~Tripathi Samiran looked outside the window. The mob looked restless as a sharp rock smashed through the windows hurting him. Blood trickled down his wound as the agitation grew.

(Trigger warning: this story contains brief implications of negative mental health as well as physical violence and implications of death) What you shall read is the account of the last conciseness known to man, it is a single tale of many that we warn reading this page is a danger to you, as it could affect more than just your mere mind but the outer world as well. Please recite this passage shall things unravel, as it will be your own common foothold to our plane. Anything that you see is but its perception forming in your mind, if this continues destroy this page and anything found within the contents you found it with. Time is an unraveling consistency, it goes up and down, yet never to its side, forward but never back. That is why a mere moment was all that mattered, I watch the back of my mind now to the day's events that had led me to within the end. My life was a boring and normal detachment, walked through my home day by day, worked my job, got sick, felt hungry, it was a mess. However, it was mine and mine alone. Today, however, began with a ping of pain, no memory of it before that moment. I sat up in bed, my head pounding as I stood up to get ready for the day. I peeked down at my phone, my hand shaking gently as I read my messages. No work today, a sad day indeed for my life. It was closed for some big event, a thing I had no mind for. I slumped up, feeling my body ache and shiver. I lurched outside my room, moving through my home toward the restroom. I slipped in and dug for some medicine and downed them, the pain in my throat was intense, as my body shoved on to the front room. The window curtains dragged on the edge of the windowsill; my things strewn in the dawn light as they were pulled further by my hands. Letting in the bright morning orange light, it was a chilly morning, and the small light did extraordinarily little to warm my soul. It felt like a deep fog filled my heart and soul. I shambled towards my couch, hoping to lie down for a moment more before life could continue, to give my body a moment to process the illness and my meds to start. However, a knock approached my door making me groan and whine as I slumped up. I cracked the door open enough to see, but no one stood at my door. Nothing but a simple pamphlet on a large worn-down book מוקפל etched deep into its leathery cover. I pulled it from the ground with the pamphlet, it showed a large circle of light with the words Eclipse! The wonders of our world! Experience it today! Written in a bright and colorful text, showing a picture of glasses that came with the pamphlet. I carried the two in and set them both on the coffee table, confused as I flicked on the lamp to read them both further. The pamphlet felt fresh and clean, while the book felt ancient, rugged, and leathery, ripped, and torn apart at the edges of the bindings. I slid down to the couch, flipping open the first few pages but they were alien to my eyes, only mumbled and as if water had caused the ink to flow across the pages. They even felt still dampened a touch, inky and full of despair. Each page turned felt less and less dampened, until I finally turned to a single page I could coherently see. An image of a boat, resting on the shores of an unknown beach. The section of the book at first felt unreadable, but as I started, I understood the text’s meaning the tale of the eclipsed, underneath a name was written. No, not simply written but carved into the parchment. Francis Drake, the name rang familiar but I am not sure from where I had heard it. I pulled back the pages, attempting to read the worn-down text. It was alien to my eyes, but a single passage unveiled itself to me. A single paragraph written in an old English handwriting, My Dearest Elizabeth, I am glad to hear you are doing well, my journey to Panama was a failure. We encountered blow after blow during our assault. In truth it was foolish of us to face them in our ill state, plague runs rampant on our ship. Many men have fallen ill, and I fear I shall be next. I wish to warn you of a damaging issue I have encountered on this journey. During our voyage to Panama the men had awoken me from my slumber to inform me of a ship off the starboard, we sent a man to the ship and uncovered nothing other than several corpses. These however felt wrong, many of the bodies were charred black with no signs of burning surrounding the corpse. No ash or soot anywhere despite the slightly rough waters we found ourselves in. The men then found the captain, he was miraculously alive, but his body was pale, he refused to eat or drink a thing. The men brought him aboard and found he brought a single item with him. I have sent it with a merchant ship headed for our homeland. This letter shall hopefully reach you safely with the package as well. I may not return home to you, but please understand my care for you. I held the single page in my hands, reading it repeatedly. Many thoughts ran through my head, my head hurt worse. My body felt gross, my chest felt heavy, and my mind hurt. I stood, pushing myself towards the doorway. I needed air, something other than my stuffy apartment. I forced my door open, a loud and freakish SNAP. The door handle had been ripped off with ease, holding its barren and splintered self within my hand, The door’s hinges being bent in an off direction. I shook and took deeper breathes. My hands quaked and my legs wobbled as I felt my head getting lighter, the light outside to great and blinding me. Then it went silent, Nothing but the barren depths of myself and the emptiness around me. I reached my hand out to the void and felt a strange sensation in my hands. As if they were being held, it was calming. My breath steadied as I looked around. Before a single speck of light filled my eye. It showed as a small ring, I began my approach. Breathing heavier and slowly the light grew and grew until it was blinding. The hands release me, before I woke. My back was in pain, I felt blood from my back. I gripped the ground, feeling cuts and bruises on my hands. I didn’t know where I was, but as I sat up. I heard a deep bellowing noise, as if it was trying to get my attention. Nothing rang clear from it, but I felt a pull. I felt a guiding hand of this invisible force guiding me. I couldn’t move my legs; they were barely functioning as I dragged myself further along. I began to see clearer; I was still at my complex just further down the building. Having gone from my 3rd floor apartment, down into the windshield of a car. Glass and metal filled my back, my mind cleared more as I finally heard the honking of the car’s horn. Voices of people coming from their homes as I began to panic. My drive pushed me further as I felt a hand touch my back. It was nothing like normal, numbing and shivering I forced my legs to life. I forced my body to move further and further, my head no longer pounded but my heartbeat like a drum. Every force in my body pushed me further as I reached the stairwell. The void filled in and out of the world around me, as I saw glimpses of small, encircled light. Voices of inhuman things spoke, as I pressed myself up the flights of stairs back to my apartment. Each push throbbing through my body before I finally felt a pain pierce my hand. My broken door digging into my hand, but it was nothing. Only a moment of pain before I reentered my home, the book no longer on the table I left it, it sat open below my feet soaking pages as a single word written in black spattered ink. Eclipse, it felt like a calling as I picked up the book. A single voice echoed in my mind. Forgive the mind, Find the time, view my brilliance, once per time, Find the courage, and remain in line. It was odd, not familiar to me. I pulled my damaged door as shut as I could, collapsing into a pool of my sweat and blood. I reached behind my back and gripped a shard of metal and pulled. My heartbeat from the fear, but no pain ever came. Nothing but the sense of relief, each piece pulled, was another wave of relief, from my hands, my back, even a few shards in my head. It felt like relief, not pain, not pleasure, simply relief. I stood and thought on what powers that I possess. As I looked out my window, I saw the few people of my complex discussing the events that occurred. I felt another pull, another drive as I pushed myself to my room. Grabbing a backpack and stuffing the book into it. The book glowing a barely noticeable orange hue, I glanced to my table, the glasses and pamphlet still left unopened and untouched. My head hurt as I looked, I knew what came next. I grabbed the pamphlet and glasses, rushing from my home and flipping through it. Reading each piece as the people of my complex gathered more and began to point to my home. My body shook, my head hurt more as I ran to the back exit of the complex and snuck to the side streets. Nothing caught my eye from the pages, things about how the event occurs, some old history on people who worshipped the events, and then I read it. “Experience the wonder today! Follow our times here!” Below a chart of many areas covered by the eclipsed with timeframes. My area was listed for an exact strike at 3 p.m. My head hurt further, as I looked towards the sky. The sky clear, and my mind hazy. I looked down, and grabbed my pocket, my phone was gone and left behind at the scene. I shuffled towards the main streets and looked in a mental blur as I finally focused myself onto a tech store. I stared at the glass pane and felt a pang of pain. The voice echoed again. “ The Time, we must make the time, follow.” It spoke and pushed my soul, Dragging my feet into the store. A man approached me, his voice blurred in my mind as he seemed panicked, trying to set me down. I could not, I would not sit. I shoved him aside, his body collapsing against the chairs as I grabbed a phone. Giving it a gentle tug as its stand snapped apart. I looked down at it, 2:07 pm. Less than an hour left, I turned back towards the doorway. I saw a flash of red and then a flash of blue. A white and red truck, as well as a set of black cars parked outside the storefront. I stepped further, before the world crumbled around me, the void filling my body as I felt once again at ease. In this void, many more specs of glowing orange rings filled it. Muffled crowds of voices filled it, as my mission came clear to me. I approached further into the specs, and I awoke once more. My chest burned, my hands felt bloody, however it hadn’t come from me. I could only see a single side of everything. I looked down, several blackened masses at my feet. My chest smoking and burning more and more. I knelt down, grabbing from the pile a handful of the burnt soot. I looked about, people screaming, some running, others fainting, I could do nothing but give a gentle grin and laugh. My feet moved on their own, approaching a single man on the roadside. Lifting him from his place, removing a rag he wore and covering my body with it. Dropping the man to the floor, my head rang and when I turned to look, he was gone. All that remained was the tatters of his clothes. I moved further; the time ticked down as I glanced. Only a mere 10 minutes remained. My body moved to a crowd that began to form, a small group hoping to view the once in a lifetime event. The bag I wore felt warm, digging, and retrieving the book, my smile grew wider as I placed it onto the ground. Reading the booklet, I could understand every sentence, every single letter was like a calling to me as if guiding me to my purpose. They echo through my head, a tale of warning. This book should not exist and now I seek freedom. However, I cannot complete the task, I am but a single servant to my great ancestor. It required everything, many people to view its covered eyes, a host such as I to fill the void, one of lonesomeness and deep ill will. The final key comes with the stars themselves. When the time is right all the followers must see his coming. I read the passage as it finally rang clear to me. I looked to the time, and only a single minute remained for my chance. I had finally understood what the beast asked of me. I gave it my mind so that it could guide me to what this world needed. I needed to see when to do what I must, and now all must witness his glory so that we may all finally be free. “You awaken yourself my child, you will be an emperor of these poor souls. Be my voice, be my guiding light my dearest child. I know you seek freedom, and I can finally give it all to you. Free them.” The voice spoke, its depth clear. I looked up, staring at the sky. The world darkened around us all. My smile stretched beyond its limits, tearing of flesh as I approached closer to the crowd. I gripped the men, as they screamed, we walked further, grabbing increasingly as they screamed and begged for freedom. I heard the trumpets form as the sun’s glowing essence grouped together. We felt free as the voice spoke to us, we watched as the crowd viewed our immense image. They screamed, but it fell on deaf ears as we watched the sun and moon dance together. We all smiled, as we became one . We all laughed as they all joined . We were no longer Alone. We were finally Free.

Julie was not just an average girl. She was fat and was considered ugly in the eyes of her classmates. The school she was studying in was a little bit out of the ordinary. The interior of the school was full of mirrors. All the corridors had mirrors. Every room had at least one big mirror. There were mirrors that also operated as digital billboards that displayed announcements, school events, and even club activities. There were also hi-tech mirrors that offered touchscreens. Every student were already accustomed to having a large mirror in their classroom. The mirrors indeed made the school a more spacious environment. But another reason was that the Headmaster of the school had a great fancy for mirrors. You had got to take a look at the whole collection of antique mirrors of the Headmaster's office. Julie did feel a little out of place as she happened to be the only girl who was obese at school. Whenever she saw many of her schoolmates making friends or going out with the school beauties, Julie thought to herself that beauty was skin deep only and what was important came from within. Ironically, her parents did not think so for they always complained that Julie was merely a lump of meat sitting on her armchair, wasting her youth on junk food and computer games. Candy, chocolate, and junk food were simply irresistable to her. She did attempt to put on a diet for just three days and yet it was a hellish experience for her and yet she did not lose a single weight. But all that began to change when Julie entered an antique shop as she was strolling aimlessly in the shopping district just outside her school compound. She chanced upon a quaint little pocket mirror. It seemed out of place in the antique shop as it looked brand new and had the design of some popular mascot. So it should be made no more than three years ago. There were many other items that stood out of place in the antique shop. After all, shops like this would do anything just to stay afloat. But the cuteness of the pocket mirror and its cheap price captured her attention and drove her to buy it without the slightest hesitation. Back home, Julie looked at herself in the pocket mirror. Immediately she was both shocked and mesmerised by her reflection. The mirror showed her a different person. She had a pretty face. While Julie wore glasses, her reflection didn't. What's more, her reflection did not have fat cheeks. "Could this be me?" Julie said to herself, taking a careful look at her reflection. "I always know that I had an inner beauty but this is insane." She spent almost an hour doing nothing but dazing at her new look that was confined within the frames of that pocket mirror. A downpour occurred the next morning when Julie was on her way to school. Although she had an umbrella, the strong wind did make a mess out of her hair. As she was about to take out her pocket mirror and a comb to tidy her hair, she heard a crack. This occurred at the same time a group of teachers passed her by, including Ms. Christina Green, the Head of the Mathematics Department. Julie slowly and carefully took out her little mirror from that pocket and already a few shards of glass fell out to the floor. Julie did not recall a single moment when she accidentally bumped into something that would cause significant damage to her mirror. She unfolded her pocket mirror and did not see any cracks. Not even a single scratch could be found on the surface. However, it only showed Julie's old self. The casing of the pocket seemed as if it had undergone accelerated aging. Lots of the coating had come off. But when Julie went to the washroom, she was astonished, so as did the rest of the girls in the washroom. Her new self had appeared in the washroom's mirror and her slim, splendid figure was revealed. Julie brushed her hair with one hand. Her reflection followed suit, except that it was performed more smoothly and elegantly and made all the girls around her filled with wonder. When she came out of the washroom and was in the mirrored corridor, the guys who saw her reflection were immediately bewitched and began asking for Julie's contact number and autograph. And soon, Julie became the most popular girl in school in an instant. What is this feeling, Julie thought to herself. She had never been in such high spirits before. But when Julie left school and went back home to have another look in the mirror. Julie became her plump, mundane-looking, bespectacled version of herself in the mirror. Perhaps all the mirrors in her school had become enchanted. Another thing to take note of was that Julie failed to notice the reaction of Ms. Christina Green. She was pale with fright when she looked at Julie's reflection. But Julie did notice a nervous tone in Ms. Green's voice whenever she taught her class. This had been going on for a month. Julie's version in the mirror was still the beautiful version. Julie was still the most popular girl at school because of it. But Julie became more anxious than before. She resolved to work hard on improving her looks. The reason was that she was frustrated whenever she talked to the guys at school, they couldn't turn their eyes off her reflection. She wanted people to look at her, the real Julie, not her reflection in the mirror. Before she commenced her ultimate endeavor, an old janitor came to see her. The janitor claimed that her reflection looked exactly like a student she knew several years ago. Her name was Diana and she was known as the princess of the school. She had always been the center of attention wherever she went. But she died falling off the school balcony. The police concluded the case was a mere accident. The janitor took one of the school's oldest annuals and flipped over to a page that had a class photo with Diana in it. And how right she was. Diana was the exact copy of Julie's mysterious reflection. Then, Julie spotted a familiar name next to Diana. It was Christina Green. Could it be the Christina Green, the head of the Mathematics Department, Julie said to herself."Yes, indeed." said the old janitor, "I remembered that they were best friends." That explains the nervousness of Ms. Green, thought Julie."Diana also had a handsome boyfriend, " the old janitor continued, "He was also very popular among girls at school and was the Captain of the rugby team. However, he didn't show up at Diana's funeral or show any signs of remorse after that. That goes to show that his love for Diana was merely based on her pretty looks. Boys and men alike, they were indeed heartless and unreliable." Despite having heard such a tragic story, Julie still continued to pursue her ideal self. She went on a diet, did more exercise than usual, learned how to apply cosmetics, and even tried wearing contact lenses. She actively discusses with the girls at school on current lifestyles and fashion magazines. In a month, Julie was able to achieve her desired figure. And she was more than pleased with her own results when she looked at herself in the mirror at home. For she looked exactly like Diana, her ideal self, the legendary princess in the school's history, without the use of any plastic surgery. While Julie was admiring her complexion using her pocket mirror on her way to school, a sense of uneasiness had struck her. And it wasn't the first time. Some time ago, Julie saw her reflection in the mirror at school was slightly off and she couldn't find words to put it. But back then, she brushed that sense of uneasiness aside as her schoolmates at school still admired her. However, this time, the current sense of uneasiness was too heavy to ignore. Something bad was going to happen. Julie immediately ran to her school compound, towards the washroom, ignoring all the friendly smiles and greetings from her schoolmates and her teachers. Julie looked at her face in the mirror and her premonition was right. The mirror showed the fat and mundane-looking Julie like she used to be. Julie began to feel dizzy and fainted. When Julie woke up, she looked at the mirror. This time, she did not find any reflection, no reflection at all, of herself in the mirror. She looked at her arms and then her thighs. They were as thick and coarse as before she got that pocket mirror. And when she came out of the washroom, Julie noticed the wordings on the door of the washroom inverted. That's not all, every word on billboards, and posters, they were all inverted. Julie took out one of her textbooks and opened its pages. The text was inverted as well. What was scary was that she saw no one at school. Everything was silent. Where am I, Julie thought to herself. Then, Julie finally spotted a person. It was Ms. Green. Julie saw her entering a room and shut the door behind her. "Ms. Green!" Julie shouted. She ran towards the room, opened the door, and saw no one, much to her astonishment. Has Ms. Green vanished into thin air, thought Julie. Or was it my hallucination? Then, despite the school she was in seeming empty, she could see on the other side of the mirrors in the corridor, people running in a particular direction. Julie followed them. They lead her to Ms. Green's office. There appeared to be a commotion occurring on the other side of the mirror. Julie opened the door and walked in. There was no one there but everything was in a great mess. There were big words written in red: I HATE YOU! CHEATER! MURDERER! CHEATER! MURDERER! MURDERER! CHEATER! DIE!!! What was terrifying about it was that the angry words in red were not inverted. Julie looked at the mirror in the office and saw many students, teachers, and even a few policemen gathered around. And there sat at the desk was the lifeless body of Ms. Green covered in blood. What's more, in a distance within a crowd, Julie saw her reflection, or rather, her ideal image being a separate entity of her own, and noticed a rather sinister smile on her face.

The detectives found something truly sickening after investigating my sister’s murder. My sister was one of those people that cared about everybody. It’s pretty fucked up that that’s the thing that got her killed. She wasn’t “promiscuous” but she came across as very flirty. Guys were constantly falling for her. Up until about a year and a half ago, she never had an issue putting up the friendzone when things started to escalate. She was good about that. She never wanted to hurt anyone’s feelings. Then came Derek, and shortly after, Mark. My sister and I were very close, we talked on a daily basis, and I can testify that she really did just “stumble” into two relationships. She met Derek a week before Mark. Derek was tall, built like a statue, had jet black hair and a nice smile. He worked as the director of public relations for a fortune 500 firm. He was the type of guy that had everything going for him, but he was always down-to-earth. Danielle met him through a mutual friend and he asked her out for coffee. About a week later, she met Mark. Mark was an artist, and he looked the part. He wore black jeans, beanies, and his arms were covered in tattoos. Mark never asked Danielle on a date. They actually met on the subway. They were each reading The Lessons of History, by Will Durant. Danielle noticed, and they started talking. In short, Danielle simultaneously fell in love with both Mark and Derek. Unfortunately, her relationship with each of them progressed at about the same speed. There was never a definitive point in time where it became clear to Danielle that she would have to choose one man over the other. That’s really all you need to know. I don’t feel comfortable spilling any more detail about my sister’s personal life. If you really want to read about the complications that come with love, I’m sure you can find something by John Green. My objective is to shine light on the unfortunate truth that our justice system is fragile; it’s easy to manipulate and it’s ineffective. I get it. It’s 2020, I’m not the first person to throw shade at the police. Most of you reading this are probably sick of hearing about it. And that’s fine. I agree with you. It is annoying to see social media infiltrated by social justice. That’s not what this is about. I have nothing to add regarding police brutality. My message involves police incompetence. And I can assure you that if you take five minutes out of your day to listen to my story, for better or worse, you’ll walk away with a new perspective. Three months ago, in the middle of February, my sister was found dead in her apartment. The autopsy revealed the cause of death was suffocation. The detectives asked my family if we knew of any enemies Danielle had. No one could think of a name. Like I said earlier, she loved people, she was friends with everyone she met. A few days after she died, there was another visit from the detectives. The news was heartbreaking. They’d read through her text messages around the time she died. Danielle knew someone was after her. (10:13pm) Derek (10:13pm) I’m Scared (10:13pm) Derek... are you there? (10:18pm) Hey I was in the shower :), what’s wrong? (10:18pm) I think someone is in my room. Will you come over? (10:18pm) Are you joking? (10:19pm) No. Please come. I can hear someone in there (10:19pm) I don’t think they know I’m here ... I’m hiding in the bathroom (10:21pm) Stay there. I’m coming now. Call 911 (10:21pm) I can’t. I have a ton of drugs here right now (10:29pm) It’s a man. I heard him yelling on the phone (10:34pm) He’s in the living room (10:34pm) Fuck it (10:34pm) I’m calling the police Danielle’s texts also pointed towards Mark as the primary suspect. A few weeks before she died, they had the following conversation. (11:00am) We’re done (11:10am) What? (11:11am) We’re done. As in, I don’t want to be with you anymore (11:11am) I know what you meant, but why are you saying this? (11:12am) I don’t know ... maybe Derek can help you figure that out... (11:15am) I’m so sorry. I know you have no reason to, but, come over? I can explain... The police interrogated Mark. Apparently he did end up going over to my sister’s apartment. He was heartbroken that there was another man, but he said he loved her. After hearing her out, he told Danielle that they could work through everything that had happened on the conditions that they moved out of the city together and she stopped talking to Derek completely. Mark also had an airtight alibi. He was at an art gallery, with 60 other people. But Mark’s interrogation was far from a dead end. He told the police that he’d messaged Derek through Facebook shortly after seeing his name pop up on Danielle’s phone. The police questioned Derek. They asked him why he never called anyone the night Danielle died. He told them that by the time he got to Danielle’s apartment, the parking lot was blocked off. He saw someone being taken away by ambulance. The place was flooded with police. He called Danielle around the time the police had showed up. She obviously didn’t answer. In that moment, Derek said he realized it was her who was taken away in an ambulance. He rushed to the hospital to check on her, but it was too late. The detective's trail was beginning to dry up. There were 16,425 homicides in 2019. 6,000 of those remain unsolved. I couldn’t accept that the person responsible for killing my sister was walking around a free man. I pleaded with the police station to keep trying. They told me daily that they were ‘working on it’, but rarely had an update. After a few weeks, Derek resurfaced as a suspect. He was caught on the apartment’s surveillance system walking through the building 45 minutes before Danielle first texted him. He told the police he lied to Danielle because he was cheating on her with another tenant in her building. Can you fucking believe that? At best, this son of a bitch was aware my sister was scared for her life and chose to keep up his charade instead of protecting her. At worst, he’s lying and he killed her. Despite what he said, the police revamped their investigation. They searched her apartment for more evidence, and found something that kept me from sleeping for many nights. A suicide note. Danielle wrote that she was torn apart by what she’d done. She loved both Derek and Mark. She didn’t want to hurt either of them. She couldn’t make a decision and she couldn’t imagine her life without one of favorite people in the world. She’d been taking Xanax for weeks. It was the only thing that could take her mind off the pressure of deciding what to do. The saddest part of the note was that she said she was off four sticks of Xanax the night she killed herself. She said she probably wouldn’t have the ‘courage’ to do it any other time. When the police informed me of what they’d found, they gave me their condolences and left promptly. For a few days, I felt numb. Then, I started blaming myself. Danielle was going through a tough time. Why wasn’t I there for her? What signs did I miss? I started playing back old conversations and that’s when it hit me. Derek wanted her to prove she was serious about the relationship. He’d been pressuring her for a key to her apartment. Some bullshit about mutual trust. She eventually caved and gave him a key. The police found the note on top of a bookshelf in the living room. HOW ON EARTH COULD THEY HAVE MISSED THE NOTE WHEN THEY FIRST FOUND HER? There’s no way it was there. Derek had to have planted the note. I voiced my concerns to the police. Once again they questioned Derek. He denied ever having a key. He doubled down on his cheating story and somehow found a girl to tell the police she was with him at the time Danielle died. He’s the director of PR at a huge firm. Covering up scandals is literally what the man does for a living. The police were buying every bit of garbage he was giving them. The bastard even flashed his stupid smile at me on his way out of the presinct. If you’re uneasy about the fact that there is a psychopath freely walking our streets. Don’t be. Derek gave Danielle a key to his apartment too. As documented by the police, I went to confront him about a week ago. Although when I got there, he didn’t answer the door. So I called the police, informing them I suspected he’d fled the country, or at least the state. The police arrived and busted into his apartment. When they opened the door, they were quite surprised... Derek was on the ground. Dead.

(Hello, quick content warning here for themes of suicide, mental health, and real world issues.) The Machine God hungers, and we march into its waiting maw. Step by step in neat little lines through mazes of twisted iron, blinking red lights burning our retinas from above, the cracked pavement abrasive against the soles of our feet. The air holds the memory of ash and smoke, though the fires they spawned from burned out long ago. It brings stinging tears to the eye. As they roll down our cheeks and the salty taste of them fall upon our tongues, we know it is the closest any of us will come to drinking water again. It is in these moments I think of the oceans we will never see and of the brave and cruel explorers that once sailed them, and of cooler, cleansing rains. It arrives as a sterile fact that I’ve forgotten the source of. I know they existed and I know they were real. Yet I feel as though they belong to a dream. The thought of people traveling the world is as foreign a concept to me as the idea of clean water. It is the sort of thing you might say to the neighbor ahead of you in line, or perhaps the one behind, and expect them to laugh. What could they do but laugh? What can you do but join them? But not for long. Laughing means you aren’t walking as quickly as you could, and the Machine God hungers. We can hear its call through the labyrinth, beckoning us to crawl or climb or shuffle through the fallen concrete megastructures, stepping carefully through fields that grow only mines, to do whatever it takes to reach it. Its klaxons are deafening, and they sound regardless of time of day. It does not care for the passing hour for neither do we. Why should we when we cannot see the sky? It is time to sleep when we are exhausted, then it is time to walk. These are the only distinctions to our routine we know. Our pilgrimage goes on for many cycles. Several die and must be carried. An old man who collapsed from starvation is my own burden. My forward neighbor carries a bag filled with parts of one who wasn’t careful enough in the fields. My backward neighbor is lucky, she has no one to burden her. Dead, alive, young, old, intact, or explosively dismembered. It doesn’t matter. The Machine God hungers. Our flesh will do. Early into our sleeping time, the klaxons blare. They are growing louder, and soon I know we will find the altar. What we will do there, I don’t know. I’ve forgotten. I don’t know if any of us remember, but I’m too afraid to ask. Not afraid that they won’t know, or this will turn out to be pointless, but afraid they will. The dull eyes that greet me when we stop make that seem unlikely. Still. Superstition then, perhaps, is what keeps me from asking. It isn’t a real concern so long as I don’t vocalize it. Allow me at least this comfort, to think it is pointless, that this will amount to nothing, that there is no purpose. It is self-pitying, yes. It is like picking at a scab, scratching at the itch of dry skin. Painful and pleasurable in equal measure. We sleep. We wake. We walk. We’re getting close. The labyrinth opens up. The metal and concrete pulls away to reveal a...a...circle, a hub of sorts. A small clearing. More people are filling in from other directions. They look tired like us, they are carrying their dead, they have no food or water to spare. They march toward the Machine God to sate its hunger in worship at its altar. Same as us. Our common purpose unites us, so we need no words. We sleep that night together, as a community, and in the morning we march together down the only path no one arrived from, deeper into this jumbled mess. North, perhaps? It hardly matters the direction; it is as meaningless as time in our prison. The Machine God’s roar is so loud now that it drowns out even... ...thought. It snatches what little mind was left to us, allowing us only a small reprieve when it is time to rest. It is here I sit now, waiting for the time to come when I am no longer myself. It won’t take much longer...another cycle or two, perhaps? Then I won’t need to think at all. I will only need to prostrate myself before the Machine God, and hope my meager offering of flesh will sate its hunger. The roaring starts anew. We pick ourselves up, we gather the deceased, and we continue on. Who were we before this? It doesn’t matter, for we are born anew. The Machine God hungers, and we have arrived. It is...majestic, perhaps. Majestic is an adequate descriptor for something as large and indescribable as it is. A face of metal and concrete, yes, but also of fire. It belches thick, black smoke each time it opens its mouth to bellow, and its eyes stand open wide as small portals into hell. It sits in the center of the more familiar hell we’ve walked through. It does not react to us as we approach, except to open its mouth and bellow the klaxon call, but I imagine it would do that regardless of our presence. Then, one by one, we fall to our knees. Some of us pray, some of us prostrate, self-flagellate, adulate. We do so until we, and our faith, is expended. Then, one by one, we stand and step into its open maw. That is why we’ve come here, isn’t it? The Machine God hungers, and only our flesh will do. It is its mercy that the process seems mostly painless - the sacrifices do not even scream when they plunge into the flames. Only a few hesitant remain at the end, and myself, though I do not consider myself hesitant. But I want to see. So we roll the corpses in one by one next, and after that, we jostle each other and threaten and barter until the last living follow in. Until, finally, I am left with the Machine God. In this moment, I know we are both unique. I am one of a kind, by virtue of being the last of my kind, and it is the God we worship. With me, it will be over. Except. No. I don’t think it will. The fires inside the Machine God show no signs of quenching, and it is through them I see that I am not enough. None of us were. We could not sate its hunger, because it was never possible. “You’ll never be content,” I whisper through its roar. It does not listen, but why would it? I’m not even sure myself if the words are a curse, a eulogy for humanity, or mere prophecy. I know that they are right, though. Then I throw myself into the Machine God’s mouth. I was right - it is painless. But the Machine God hungers still.

Tigger warning: Death, Religion. Archie laid on his stomach with only a single headlamp to cut through the absolute darkness surrounding him. The smooth stone underneath his body was damp, the cold seeped through his polyester layers of skin-tight caving gear and bit at his flesh. A ceiling of the same black rock pressed down against his shoulders. There was barely a foot between the two layers of bedrock. He inched forward. Dragging himself through the tight crevice buried under the earth, he used all his strength. His muscles burned with the effort. Struggling to keep his breaths under control, Archie forced himself to focus. The hot air, dust and silence would not break him. Every rise of his chest filled the precious space that he had available to move and so staying calm was vital to making any progress. Resisting the oppression he felt pressing in on all sides was his only thought. The shaking white light of his torch bounced across the walls but was consumed by a darkness just ahead, which was a good sign. It meant the crawl space was opening out to a larger area. He just had to keep going. Maybe bringing a partner wouldn’t have been the worst idea. A distraction right now would be welcome. He had regretted entering the contest alone almost immediately after beginning. Safety wasn’t a concern because there were so many people traversing through the cave system that day, so if he got into any trouble he wouldn’t have been alone for very long. He had failed to consider the moral support having someone with you provided though and was paying the price for his bravado. Come on Archie. You’ve made it through worse trails than this. Just a little further... He pushed forward another inch, his fingers and toes clawing his body weight between the immovable sides of the tunnel. Another push and his fingertips crested an edge; he could bend them over into an open space where the air felt cooler and less stagnant. Finally! Relaxing his neck, he let out a sigh of relief that blew a cloud of dust up into his face. Dammit. Blinded, he paused to suck in a deep breath and then tried to blink the grit free. Every attempted slap of his eyelids resulted in a shot of pain to both irises. His elbows were not able to bend to get his hands to his face and the dirt wouldn’t shift on its own. There was nothing for it, he would have to get clear first. Archie braced his toes against the stone and hauled himself forward another fraction...then stopped dead. The pressure against his shoulders and chest held firm. He wrenched again and didn’t move at all. Stuck. Blind. Alone. Stay calm. Stay calm. STAY calm. STAY CALM! He wriggled on the spot, trying to find a gap. Pushed a little more. Nothing. He shook again. Then again until he lost his cool and started thrashing around in place, uncontrolled and in complete desperation to move anywhere . He began gulping in breaths but couldn’t get any air. Blind he started scraping his face on the stone, he needed the pain in his eyes to stop. He needed to see. “HELP! Oh GOD, someone PLEASE! HELP! GOD HELP ME! GET ME OUT!” His flapping hands grazed something warm. Then the other did the same. Until they connected again and he recognised the soft palms of another person, who after a few attempts lined up their fingers and was able to grip hold of both of his hands. He clamped down. Hard. “Push when I pull you! Ready? GO!” A feminine voice resounded off the walls of the crawl space. Archie pushed with everything he had. The pain in his wrists and shoulders was evidence of the force his mystery saviour was using. For a moment he didn’t move and that panic gripped his heart once more, threatening to collapse his chest inward. Then all at once he slid forward, all resistance gone and fell into an open cavern bundling on top of another living being. His rescuer pushed him off and as he rolled onto his side he broke into maniacal laughter, rubbing his eyes raw with his knuckles. “Oh thank God!” He said “I thought I was done for” “God had nothing to do with it” The voice said. Definitely female. “I pulled you out of there. You’re welcome by the way” “Thank you. Thank you. I’m sorry. I was panicking, I got grit in my eyes, you see and I couldn’t clear it” He said, still unable to open them. “Here, tilt your head back” she said. Archie did as he was told and felt the sweet release of water against his face. Blinking away the liquid his sight returned and out of the blur resolved a young, slight framed woman dressed in red and black. She had on a bandanna to keep her long red curls from her face and was... barefoot . “That’s so much better. Thank you, I mean it. My name is Archie” He said holding out a hand. She didn’t take it but replied instead, “Abbie. No sweat! You didn’t belong stuck in there!” She pushed her water bottle back into a holster at her waist and looked around the cavern, illuminating it with her own head torch that blinded him all over again every time she pointed it his direction. He followed her light with his own, seeing a space no more than three strides across and a ceiling only just reaching above their heads. On the opposite side from where he had emerged were four different exits. “Where’s the marker?” He asked “There isn’t one.” “What do you mean? There should be a marker at every junction to highlight the course.” He said, jumping his light between all the openings. “I don’t know, do you see one?” She asked, helplessness bleeding from her tone and her torch snapping into his eyes looking for an answer. “No...well which passage did you come from? That would rule one out.” Archie asked, raising his hands against the light. She didn’t look at any of the openings and simply said to the ground, “Oh...down below.” “Down below? What does that mean?” She laughed and through the giggles said “From hell obviously. I’m a demon come to drag you back with me” “Heh...yeah...good one” Archie replied. People made strange jokes in tense situations. “Look. You’re obviously a pro, I never seen anyone run the course barefoot before...do you know the way out? Mind if I stick with you for the rest of the way?” She took the strap from her head and set the torch upright on the ground, flooding the natural room with the artificial LED’s and casting shadows on every surface. He saw her then as more than a dim silhouette, her athletic body and beauty mesmerising him briefly before he refocused on the task at hand. “Yeah, I know where we need to go” She said, a broad and encompassing smile spreading across her face. “Can’t be going anywhere with someone I don't know and can’t trust though. Tell me about yourself Archie? Who are you exactly?” Perplexed by such a large question, Archie stuttered and glanced around at the rocks littering the corners of the circular cave. “Come on now” she said, perching against one of those rocks “If anyone knows who you are, I’d have thought it’d be you?” “Yeah of course, I just, er, don’t know where to start” He rubbed the back of his neck and produced a fake grin. “I’m married, got a daughter too. So you know, I guess that makes me pretty solid right?” “Right?” She imitated. “I work in finance. I do very well for myself actually if I’m honest but you know the office job...it can be pretty sedentary. That’s why I’m here, pushing myself. I took up caving awhile ago and love it! What happened just now was a first, I’m usually very good under pressure, never freaked out like that before.” “Hmmm, okay” She said, standing and walking over to the narrow tunnel Archie had been yanked from. She ran her fingers over the edges and then said at almost a whisper “Got any secrets?” “Who doesn’t” “Okay, well...ever done anything you’re truly ashamed of?” “Like what?” He asked, still standing in the same spot. “Oh I don’t know, are you a gambler? Must be if you work in finance.” “Sure I guess, I’ve done a few casinos with the guys before. Won big once too!” “Nice” She said. “Never lost?” “Well, losings part of the deal. You learn that in my game. As long as you keep playing though things always come around. He said, puffing his chest high, confidence brimming from his stance. “What about the ultimate gamble...ever cheated on that wife of yours?” He smiled then and wandered the few paces to where she stood, stopping a little too close to her and keeping his eyes fixed on hers. A trick he’d learned to appear powerful to women. “Depends.” He said. “Who’s offering?” She giggled and moved past him to the other side of the tiny under ground enclosure. “Alright, one more question and then I’ll decide if we go on together, sound good?” “Sure” He said, examining her more greedily as their conversation went on. “Do you believe?” He scrunched his face up and looked at her with confusion. “Believe? You mean in religion, God? No of course not.” “Hm, funny. You were screaming for God to help you when you thought you were stuck in there. Then you thanked him when you were free. Now you don’t believe?” “It was just an expression...” Archie said, losing interest fast. “Look, if you know the way out of here, we really should get moving. The course is long and I’d like to get back.” Abbie stood up on her toes, stretching and plastering that giant smile on her face again. “Okay! It’s been an easy decision to make anyway. You can come with me! I’ll get you where you need to go!” “Great” Archie said “You won’t regret it, you can trust me” It was her turn to look confused then, cocking her head to one side. “Oh I can’t trust you at all. No, you lied in every answer to my questions. You have SO many secrets Archie...” She said stepping closer, her body casting a giant black shadow on the wall. “I know you gambled big on the small business account...and lost. All those families are going to be closing their ventures and out on the street, their children suffering with hungry bellies...because of you. Then you blamed it on the junior, poor guy will never work in the industry again. It was his dream you know.” She did a pirouette then, arms pointed in the air and everything. “I also know you’ve slept with three other women since you made those vows to your wife in the grandest church you could find. She doesn’t have a clue does she Archie. She thinks the world of you. You know that and you even tried to hit on me, down here of all places!” He began to stutter a retort to this woman’s accusations but managed only a single phrase, “Who the hell are you?” Abbie giggled and ran a full circle around the cavern. “Do you know that’s the first question you’ve asked me that hasn’t been self serving? Although I guess you could argue, given the circumstances now, that asking about me is still for your own benefit. Anyway, I told you who I am. I’m Abbie. Abaddon if you like and I’m from hell. Get it right. I told you all this earlier. I don’t lie or keep secrets. Not like you.” “What is this!?” Archie yelled “This is no time or place for a prank! Freaking people out when they’re down here is dangerous! It’s not funny!” “No you’re right. Its not funny” Abbie said, cocking her head to one side and gazing into the distance. “OH! We almost forgot the last question. Another lie. You do believe in God...just only when it serves your own needs it seems. You keep that little secret buried real deep. Ashamed to have faith are we?” Archie flashed his head torch around the room, looking for a way out of this insanity. When he didn’t find it, he faced her again, “What do you want? Money? You can have as much as you like to keep your mouth shut” Abbie tipped back her head as far as it would go, opened her mouth a little wider than seemed possible and belted a roaring laugh that seem to echo from every direction. She snapped her head back down in an instant, cutting her amusement off dead. “I don’t want money ! I want your soul silly.” “Look, just tell me the way out and I’ll get out of here. You won’t see me ever again, whoever you are.” Archie said, his feet shifting and sweat beginning to bead on his forehead. Abbie ran over to the wall with the four exits then and stood in the centre of them, arms out stretched. “SURPRISE! They are all the right one! They all go to the same place, so you were never in any danger of going the wrong way Archie. Hee hee!” “Wait, what...?” Archie said, shaking his head. “Yeah they all head downward. If you’d admitted your failings and repented I could have sent you back up, but as it was...I mean you didn’t even think to set your head torch down like I did, you just kept shining that thing in my eyes without caring. You’re a real piece of work Archie.” “I still don’t know what this is...” He said “Maybe you’re crazy or this is some kind of set up, but either way I just need to get out of here. Plus, its ridiculous! I’d have to be dead to be sent to hell and I’m right here, you’re little game doesn’t even make sense!” Abbie skipped back across the cavern again, sending little stones shooting across the floor until she was staring down the gap Archie had come from. “Come take a look” She whispered. With no other option, Archie walked over and looked down the tunnel. There he saw illuminated in the white light, his own face. Grey with open, lifeless eyes, slack jawed and vacant. His own dead body. “Yeah...heart attacks will do that to ya when you’re stuck in a hole a mile underground” Abbie giggled. Archie stumbled backwards, falling and landing with his back to one of the four exits. Head in hands he sobbed and whispered prayers for God to save him. “Too late for that!” Abbie laughed. “You made this so easy Archie. I only had to ask a bare handful of questions and the decision was made. We didn’t even get to the way you look at your teenage daughters friends or the way you treated your parents! Maybe if you’d even just once looked at another person like a human being, shown one ounce of empathy we could have negotiated, but nope! Downward it is!” She stood back, pressed the heel of her dirty foot into chest and pushed him backward into the open tunnel. She waved and giggled as he fell through the chute and into the abyss below.

The 4 year old Miles is awoken by his mother. Her sweet, gentle smile giving him the confidence he needs for his first day of pre-school. She helps him get ready for the day, gives him breakfast, then takes him to the school. The car stops in the parking lot and Miles looks out excitedly at all the other kids heading inside with their own parents. Miles' mother opens the door and he takes her hand as they walk inside. She signs him in at the front desk and she kisses him goodbye and Miles runs off to the other kids. Miles is greeted by a multitude of children his age all fascinated with the new toys and play things at their disposal. He's immediately drawn to the superheroes. After a while of playtime, the teacher calls them all to her and tells them all to sit in a circle around her and introduce themselves one by one. Miles is eager to meet all of these new children, but none of them are quite as interesting as the girl named Joanne. He just knows they will be best friends. And throughout the day, Miles and Joanne play with each other and even sleep side by side at nap time. He is very fond of his new best friend. Day by day throughout the school year, Miles and Joanne are spending so much time together, that they're inseparable now. At the end of each day, they force each other's parents to stay and wait for the other's parents so they leave at the same time and never have to be alone. Miles looks to Joanne on the last day of school for the year and kisses her cheek. She smiles and kisses his too. The teachers laugh as they know it's just toddler love and means nothing. However... Does it? Miles goes to a new school on his first day of 1st grade and makes friends quite easily. However, he only looks for one person, Joanne. She's nowhere to be found. Maybe she'll come another day. He goes home that night and dreams. He dreams he's on a playdate with Joanne. They do all of the fun stuff they normally do, like draw in the dirt, build pillow forts, and race on their tricycles. Days... Weeks... Months... Years pass. Miles is now 9 years old and still can't find Joanne, but he dreams about her every single night. He meets a set of paternal twins, Jacob and Harley. He has a major crush on Harley. Jacob knows it, too. All 3 of them become best friends. They become almost as inseparable as Miles and Joanne used to be. This doesn't stop him from dreaming about Joanne every night. As Miles grows and ages, so does the Joanne in his dreams. He goes to a new school now. High school. His Freshman year... Jacob and Harley have fallen out of touch since they now go to a different school as well. Miles meets a girl. She's beautiful... She's quiet, smart, funny, but always wears black and keeps to herself. Miles introduces himself and finds out her name is Helen. Not long passes, and they begin dating. Helen is all he can think about, but Joanne is all he can dream about. Helen and Miles grow very close and she convinces him to make some bad choices. Miles realizes his mistakes and tells Helen he can't do it anymore. They break up. Helen does not take this lightly. Helen begins ruining his reputation at school. She's always telling lies and getting Miles in trouble. Nobody believes him. Even the cops have to get involved. Miles is not happy. He goes to sleep that night. He and Joanne are sitting under a tree at the top of a hill in a valley. Miles tells her everything. He tells her how he feels betrayed and hurt and he wishes he had someone to trust. Joanne smiles and says she's always here for him as she kisses his cheek. He smiles and wakes up before he can return the favor. 2 years pass and shortly after his 16th birthday, Miles is hit with devastating news. His parents are divorcing. Mom is taking his 2 siblings and moving across the country. He is legally old enough to choose which parent to live with. That night, Miles dream he and Joanne are on a ship, like a pirate ship, but well kept and clean on gentle waters. Miles tells Joanne of the horrific decision he's been faced with and Joanne does the best she can to comfort him. She says to follow his heart. Miles chooses to live with his father. He watches as his mother and 2 siblings are taken away from him forever. For the next few months, Miles is left alone with nobody but his dog since father was always at work or sleeping. The pain in Miles' heart was growing with each day, and each night, it became harder and harder for Joanne to communicate with Miles. One night, Miles decides this will be his final night. He dreams he's walking in space. He's able to reach out and grab handfuls of stars and throw planets like a basketball and fling galaxies like frisbees. Joanne is nowhere. This is the first night since he left pre-school that Joanne was not there... The one night he needs her the most. He runs through the universe grabbing the brightest star he can see and using it to light his path as he runs through the infinite to find the girl in his dreams. He searches all night for her, and just when he gives up, Joanne taps his shoulder and he turns to her. She tells him she's never gone and he just needs to hold on. Months pass and Miles decides to start dating the new girl in school, Andrea. She hot, she's funny, and everyone knows her now because everyone knows Miles. She treats him like a king. She brings him his favorite candy every week, she gives him massages to ease stress between classes, and she always a packs a second lunch in case he forgets to makes his own. He believes he loves her. Miles and Andrea sleep together multiple times. Miles tells Joanne every night how great Andrea is being to him and Joanne is happy for Miles. Andrea begins to get a little possessive, restricting him from people he's known for years, obsessive, constantly wanting all of his attention and never leaving his side, and angry at every mistake he makes. Miles and Andrea begin fighting once a week... Then every few days... Then every day... Then every time they see each other. Andrea snaps and ruins his reputation just like Helen did, but worse. False accusations and many more lies are told by Andrea and Miles is now at the lowest point he's ever been in his life. This is it... Tonight he finally ends it. Miles decides to walk home from school that night, alone. He stops off at the pet store to get his dog one last treat. At the store, he go to the register and looks up. Could it be? No. He's probably just hallucinating or something. There's no way Joanne is the woman behind the counter. Miles lights up as Joanne runs from behind the counter to hug Miles. After 13 years of dreaming about her, he finally finds Joanne. They talk and find out that all of the dreams Miles had, all of the adventures they had in his dreams, she had as well. She'd been searching for him as well for the last 13 years... They had grown up together in their dreams and were never truly apart. 5 years go by. Miles stands before Joanne in a tuxedo and a golden circle in his hand and says... "I do.

TW: child enslavement, trafficking It had been a long day for Chetan. His work at the office, interspersed with four meetings, a training programme to conduct for his staff, topped up with a few customer complaints to be attended to, all had his mind go into a tizzy as he negotiated the traffic snarls on his way home. Tired as he was, he literally pushed himself out of his car and plodded up to the elevator. His wife, Urmila, opened the door of their plush three-bedroom apartment as he rolled into the house and plonked on a sofa. “What’s up? Did you run a marathon today?” asked Urmila, aghast at Chetan’s tired exterior and the frown that he exuded to her query. “That would have been better,” replied Chetan, in a muffled voice, his brain gradually absorbing his wife’s remark as an admixture of his already depleted energy. “Why, what happened?” Urmila persisted in a subdued tone. “Oh, don’t ask. Never did I have a busier day at office than today. There was work, meetings, training and then complaints all piled up one on top of another. Almost didn’t have time to breathe and just had a bite for lunch. I’m famished. What’s for dinner?” queried Chetan eagerly. “There’s chapatti, mixed vegetable curry, baji (side dish) and potato fritters,” replied Urmila nonchalantly. “Good, I’ll have a quick wash and we’ll have dinner,” said Chetan, kicking off his shoes and yanking his socks from his tired feet. He got up and made his way to the bedroom where he undressed and then got under the shower. Dinner was always a nice experience in the Dungarpur household. Chetan, Urmila and their two children, Swapan and Sharmila would sit together and talk about their day’s activities with passion, while chucking in morsels of delicious goodies that Urmila would have doled out on their eight-seater dining table. But, today was different; for Chetan was in no mood to again go through the rigmarole of narrating his day’s happenings. So, he listened passively to Urmila and the children and when it was his turn to speak, he gave a huge yawn, which prompted Urmila to say, “Daddy is very tired today. He will tell his stories tomorrow.” Chetan rose from his chair with a ‘I hope so’ sort of a feeling which was accentuated by a wry smile that he exuded to his kids. Urmila cleared the table and the family moved to the TV viewing area abutting the spacious drawing room. Swapan switched on the TV and selected a channel in which the next episode of their favourite serial was only minutes away. The serial began and Urmila and the children were glued to the TV. Chetan, too, was attentive for some time but his weariness got the better of him and soon, beginning with a posture where he looked at the TV screen with one eye, he was snoring in full glare of his family. Urmila went over to him and prodded him gently and, when he was awake, led him to the bedroom where she stayed on till Chetan had got under the sheets. She then returned to continue to watch the serial which had now come to an interesting inflexion point. Chetan, meanwhile, felt he was in for a long duration of uninterrupted sleep; and, sure enough, in a blink of an eyelid, he was steadily snoring away. Soon he began to dream; and this is what he saw. He is going on a long excursion with friends and relatives to some hilly area where they have booked themselves for two night’s stay at a resort. It is going to be an enjoyable trip, so everybody feels, as they all get their bags and baggage loaded on to their reserved seats in the first class AC compartment of the express train. Once the journey has begun, it is excited chatter all around with the men-folk engaged in a rummy game, whilst the ladies exchange notes relating to cooking, recipes and the like. The children play some board games and add their bit to the excitement of the trip. Once they have reached the station where they have to disembark, they rent a minibus to take them to their destination. It is all noise, laughter and singing as the minibus winds its way along the hair-pin bends to their destination. About a furlong before they reach the resort, amidst all the din and mirth within the bus, Chetan happens to notice a dilapidated building, which at one point of time must have been a majestic manor, which strikes him as being strange, practically in the middle of nowhere. At the resort, everyone decides to rest before setting forth on the first item of their agenda, viz. boating. Chetan and his family also take some rest to wean away the traces of exhaustion that may have encompassed them in their long journey. The boat ride is enjoyable and exhilarating with the route taken having exposed a wide expanse of the surrounding scenery. The next day after breakfast, Chetan takes the bell-boy aside and quizzes him on the dilapidated building. At first, the guy feigns ignorance but, on having a 100-rupee note thrust into his palm, becomes very agitated and says something incoherently. Chetan, who has had a stint in the army, before joining a corporate giant, calms the fellow down and guides him to a corner, where the bell-boy opens up. He tells Chetan that, by all accounts, the house is not inhabited and is also rumoured to be haunted. His eyes are livid with fear as he says that people have heard weird sounds emanating from within the building and nobody dare venture to go near it after sundown. Chetan’s interest is kindled and he decides to make a trip when nobody would miss his absence. Chetan slips out of the resort in the afternoon when everybody is taking a nap and heads towards the building. It’s a comfortable trek since he is walking downhill with a pleasant breeze blowing across the gaps in the trees. Chetan is taking in the fragrance of the lovely flowers that line the roadside. After a leisurely walk of about seven minutes, Chetan suddenly beholds the outline of the building through the leaves of the lush green trees on the right. He walks further and comes to a clearing which leads to a pathway that takes him to a wicket gate and an open area that would have once been a courtyard in front of the manor. He looks up at the building as he takes small but sure steps towards it. Denuded trees line the precincts of the compound wall of the courtyard and the remnants of some dried leaves crackle under his feet as his attention is now focused on the portico and entrance. There are cobwebs all across the exterior of the building and absolutely no semblance of any habitation. He is now standing before the main door. There is a broken-down calling bell hanging down from exposed copper wires and above him is a cluster of broken bulbs held in the rusted holders covered by a broken piece of glass that might have once been a beautiful chandelier. Strange enough, no glass pieces are strewn on the floor; probably, these might have been blown away in some strong wind that often traverses the hilly tracts. The brass knob of the massive teak door is dusty as is the door itself. He peers through the panes of a shut window beside the door but is unable to see anything within the dark interiors. Without touching the door knob he is about to push the main door to see if he can enter the building, when there is a shout. At first, he does not know the origin of this sudden and loud sound, till he experiences a vigorous tapping on his right arm. Chetan sat up on the bed only to see Urmila holding his mobile and saying that she has kept an urgent call for him on hold. “It’s 9.15 a.m. What sort of sleep is this? Have you become a version of Rip Van Winkle? Now, take this call. Somebody on the line said the matter is very urgent,” said Urmila, as she held forth the mobile before Chetan. The latter rubbed his eyes and with a feeble protest took the phone. Chetan disposed off the matter that was supposedly urgent in a jiffy for he didn’t want to be stretched on official matters on a weekend. After a quick shower and breakfast, he dived into the morning newspapers. But he was unable to concentrate, for the dream had left an indelible impression in his mind which pestered him throughout the day and in the weeks and months ahead. He forgot about it, a year down the line and the mystery that may have unfolded before him in a subsequent sequence of the dream was never contemplated, as the memory of the dream itself was involuntarily pushed into the sub-conscious mind. Years passed and life in the Dungarpur household went on as usual. Then one day, Chetan’s aunt and her family came down from America for a month’s vacation to India. Chetan broached the subject of an outing to his family and siblings and they were only too eager to venture forth. “We haven’t got together for a long time. With Aunty Vandana in our fold, this would be the ideal time to meet up with our other relatives and friends,” said Kishan, his younger brother, very enthusiastically. Chetan agreed and he spent the next couple of days browsing the internet for a pleasant location with all amenities. He finally zeroed in on a resort located on a hilltop. Even for one moment he did not reflect upon the location as being strikingly similar to what he had seen in a dream five years back. Their train journey ended close to the base of the hill from where a bus would ferry everyone to the top of the hill. On the way, Chetan got a peculiar notion, a feeling of deja vu, that he had been there before. He looked out of the window and all of a sudden, he saw it before him; the dilapidated building stood ominously imposing against the backdrop of lush greenery on the hillside. Chetan couldn’t believe what he saw. The memories of a dream seen many years back came floating before his eyes, as if he had seen it only yesterday. Yes, it was indeed the same building he had dreamt about. As the bus passed the spot where the building stood, Chetan craned his neck to get a glimpse of it from every possible angle, till it was out of sight. That night Chetan tossed and turned in his bed. “What’s the matter?” Urmila asked, frowning at him. “I take time to settle down and sleep when the bed and pillows are changed,” blurted Chetan, using all the resourcefulness at his command to engineer an answer that would belie his true predicament. Urmila seemed satisfied with the response for she did not bother him with any more questions. As for Chetan, he was wide awake for an hour or so, thinking about his earlier dream, then the building and finally about his strategy to probe into the mystery; for investigate he would or all the learning that he had imbibed during his tenure in the army would have come to naught. The following day, after breakfast, Chetan put a 100-rupee note into the palm of the bell-boy, Ramu, and made him pout all that he knew of the building. Scared though he was to even speak about the eerie structure, Ramu was gratified with the generosity of Chetan. Later, when everyone was ready for a boat ride, Chetan excused himself by complaining of a headache and then after the entire picnic party had set sail, he made his way towards the dilapidated building. It was just as he had seen in his dream, to the last detail. He pushed the main door ajar. A gradual creaking sound ensued that one normally hears in horror movies. The building was pitch dark inside. With the help of the torch in his mobile, Chetan inched forward in no particular direction. He was now standing in the centre of a large empty hall. He shone the torch in all directions and barring walls all around, there was a staircase at the far corner. Chetan moved towards it and as he put his foot on the first step, it wilted under his weight. ‘Would I be able to climb this flight of stairs?’ thought Chetan. He was in two minds, but after a moment of deliberation, he decided to go ahead and climb. With his heart in his mouth, he made it to the landing on the first floor. Here, he observed there were many rooms over a wider floor area than the hall below. Presumably, the ground floor would be having some other rooms and space next to the hall, he thought. He passed by each room and shone his torch inside. The rooms were absolutely empty. He moved ahead treading carefully, till he came to a corridor which curved to the right. He saw there was a door at the far end of the corridor and wanted to know what lay behind it. He twisted the knob of the door. It squeaked as it opened gradually onto a small terrace. He walked the length of the terrace and at the end of it came across a massive concrete structure extending from the ground to the first floor with high ceiling and windows all around. Most of the windows were closed, but there was one which had a small crack in the glass which Chetan peered through to see the dimly-lit hall below. What he beheld sent shock waves through his brain and a chill down his spine; for huddled together and all in chains were about two dozen children, boys and girls. ‘There is some sort of a human trafficking racket going on here’, thought Chethan, as he viewed the hapless children. He looked all around, but there was no one in sight. He dialled the police emergency number, but before he could connect and speak, something hit him hard across the nape of the neck and he blacked out. Meanwhile, the picnic party had returned from the boat ride and Urmila rushed to her room to enquire about Chetan’s condition. She was surprised to see that he was not in the room and also the bed had not been slept on after the house-cleaning staff had changed the sheets in the morning before she left. ‘So where could he be?’ she wondered, as she made her way to the reception. “No, I haven’t seen him, since you all left for the boat ride,” said the receptionist, which was confirmed by other staff of the resort. Once the word spread that Chetan was missing, everyone was concerned and different opinions were put forward. But search as they might, Chetan was nowhere to be found. Urmila spoke to Chetan’s brother, Kishan, and suggested they inform the police. This suggestion gained currency amongst the crowd and so the police were called in to investigate. Inspector Talpade came with two constables and heard what everybody had to say in response to his queries. After taking notes, he decided to leave and promised to revert the next day with whatever information he had gathered. As he and the constables made their way to their vehicle, Ramu, who was all along watching the proceedings from a corner, came running out of the entrance of the resort. “Sir,” said he, as he accosted Inspector Talpade. “I have something to say,” he blurted out. The ‘warmth’ of the 100-rupee note on his palm was still fresh in his memory and he wanted to reach out to the police and reveal everything about his interaction with Chetan; if it was going to be useful in any way. The inspector listened to him attentively and boarded the vehicle. Later, in the night, a contingent of twenty armed constables and sub-inspectors surrounded the building and another ten policemen including sharpshooters entered it. It was a blind raid with no inputs whatsoever. The policemen spread out inside and sharpshooters took up their positions but there was no sign of anyone. Just when they thought that the building was empty, a constable opened the door to the terrace and before long, a team of three policemen was witness to the cruelty that had been meted out to the children. Inspector Talpade joined them and issued instructions to search every nook and cranny of the vast structure. Just as he was turning to go back into the building, he noticed the silhouette of a person crouching against a railing. On being challenged, the person opened fire injuring the inspector on the right shoulder. The sharpshooters returned the fire. A cry from the individual indicated that he had been hit. Moving towards the person, one sharpshooter removed the hood to reveal a man’s head. He was still alive and when the gun was pointed at his chest, he revealed the whereabouts of Chetan. The policemen quickly moved to the indicated location and found Chetan unconscious and tied to a post. There was tape across his mouth, legs and hands. He was carried to the police vehicle and transported immediately to the nearest hospital, along with Inspector Talpade and the assailant. Reinforcements were ordered after which the children were rescued and sent to a shelter. There was no further firefight and apparently the child traffickers had not anticipated a police raid. As for Chetan, he realized the risk he had exposed himself to but, nevertheless, took pride in the fact that he was instrumental in the rescue of so many innocent children.

> I’m not sure how to write this, or what to say. It’s been so long since I wrote anything that I’m afraid that I’ve lost the hang of it. I take my fingers off the keyboard and sit for a moment with my hands in my lap. The cursor blinks at me like the warning light of a cartoon boiler edging towards higher and higher pressures. What are you doing, you worthless fuck? It says with a sneer. Wasting time. That’s what you’re doing. My eye tracks to a terminal window open on my right. I’m Ok. Everything’s fine. But when I put my hands back on the home row, gently stroking the nubs of the F and J keys, they shake just a bit. A tiny, tiny bit. But I can feel it. > I need to tell someone. I need to make something. I’ve got to make something. Anything will do, but what my mind returns to again and again (like a fly to a pile of shit, I think mostly) is writing. Telling someone, even just myself- that I’m doing nothing. > It’s my job to do nothing. I do it for nine hours a day, five or six days a week. I have meetings about what I haven’t done with other people and they share what they haven’t done with me. We write specifications describing what we won’t be making and requirements codifying the things we won’t build and file them on a server where no one will ever read them. > People complain bitterly about things like “crunch time” and “productivity bottle-necks” and ask each other to come in on Saturday to do nothing. We have quarterly all-hands meetings where supervisors praise each other for doing nothing more efficiently and graphs are shared and analyzed showing that we’ve increased our production of nothing by 3.4% over last quarter and no one ever mentions, just in fucking passing, just says -- hey guys, we’re not fucking doing fucking anything. My fingers (which had begun to move more and more quickly as I reached the last words) lift suddenly from the keyboard, still twitching. I feel the urge to pound out a few more iterations of the word fuck, but I’m afraid that once I start going I’ll just hit caps-lock and never stop. That’s how you know you’ve finally cracked- when you write a lengthy manifesto and find that it’s just variations of the word FUCK for fifty or sixty pages. The most horrifying thing about such a manifesto is that it might be the most productive thing I could do with my time. I read what I’ve written. It’s not good. It probably never will be, even if I write it again. I wasn’t ever actually good at writing. I read insatiably as a kid. Over the short distance (the sprint, so to speak) I could throw together half-remembered phrases that seemed to fit and I had an intuitive understanding of how words went together. The longer I wrote the more obvious it became that I wasn’t any good at it. I just regurgitate what I’ve read. With an internal flinch, I realize that I’m staring at the ever-present terminal window and a line of red is cutting through the reassuring black and gray: **[ 20450912 log::level::error ] connection handshake with network supervisor (port 7300)** I slam a key combination into my company-issued keyboard so hard that I feel as if I’ve bruised the tips of my fingers. The text editor and the logging window both vanish and are replaced by a new revision of the division design document on one screen and the requirements database on another. A soft tone tells me that another log message has been created and I don’t have to look to know what it says: **[ 20450912 log::level::error ] connection established with network supervisor (port 7300)** Someone is watching everything I do. Methodically, I copy the contents of one cell in the requirements database into a table in the document. It says that information within section 12.3.7.21.1.3 of the requirements database SHALL be statements of the form “<item> SHALL be <property>.” I feel an intense urge to giggle. I carefully format the cell in the document to match the font, spacing and weight of the requirements database cell. This will be a point of contention at the document review. There is a vocal minority in my department who believe that documents should be formatted differently from requirements. Their argument is that the font and weight of the text in the requirements software is limited to the built-in options and there is no reason to adopt these constraints in traditional word processing software. These people are fucking maniacs. For twelve and a half minutes, I carefully add information to the design document, adjusting the formatting of the text as I go. It seems like twelve and a half years. Finally, another tone sounds, signaling the departure of my invisible visitor. I bring up the terminal window first, just to make sure: **[ 20450912 log::level::error ] connection lost with network supervisor (port 7300)** Groovy. I’m no longer being directly watched. Now I just have to worry about the activity monitor, the application usage tracking and the always-active key-logger that flags statements that may include sensitive data or intellectual property. I bring up my document again and stare at it. After a minute or two, I close it without adding anything else. A dialog asks me if I want to save my work (Yes/No) and I hesitate. What’s the goddamn point? What am I going to do with my awkward, disjointed, meandering manifesto? Publish it? That’s a joke. Seriously. No one would read it if I did. No one would care if they did read it. No one would do anything if they cared. I’d get fired if they did anything and jobs have become less plentiful in the last ten years. I hover over the No button for a split second and then quickly click Yes and hit enter to accept untitled as the file name. I don’t actually work in an office that’s owned by the company. I work in a fabricated block of offices that allow anyone associated with a partner corporation to work from the building. From a distance, the entire structure looks like a stack of bricks left behind after a bombing and I can’t help but think of it as Office. Not offices- but Office. A smooth mass of Office. Office as a concept, extruded onto the city. A pile of Office left by an enormous dog on a front lawn the size and approximate shape of a city. Buildings as grass.

(Doing a little challenge to get ready for Nanowrimo, one short story every day for October, here's my first intended to write a horror story, but I'm not sure this counts, kind of turned into something else) My name is Amelia Kemper, and after an unfortunate legal incident, I have found myself having to repay a debt to society by way of a sentence of 24 hours of community service. My sentence is to work six four-hour shifts at a local nursing home. The work is easy. They said I would mostly be in the kitchen preparing food, which didn't sound so bad as I do like to cook. This wasn't exactly cooking so much as heating ready-made trays of TV Dinner-like meals that would be delivered by rolling carts to the various Shady Pines nursing home residents. On my first day, I met my supervisor Anita. She's a five-foot Jamaican woman who came to this country legally, worked hard, and obeyed rules to get where she was. Chief wellness coordinator for Shady Pines. Her accent is thick, and her tone doesn't take any guff. I also met Mr. Montechello. Mr. Montechello wasn't an employee of the nursing home but rather a volunteer resident. He had been a chef in his life before these walls and found some waning success in the eighties publishing his own cookbook. *Gourmet simp'le.* He was actually one of the first gourmet chefs to cash in on the early eighties who cashed in on the then in vogue health craze of the low-fat diet before all the diet scientists who whoever it is that's in charge of telling us what's good to eat figured out that it was those delicious carbs, who made up a good third of next decades food pyramid said was so important to the diet of a healthy and happy worker. While the heated TV Dinners were a far call from the gourmet cuisine he used to prepare, his mind was starting to go a bit earlier than most people, and his money had dried up once the second printing of his book failed to achieve any kind of repeat success in the ever-changing world of fad dieting. Like many patients with his particular mental condition in the home, he had his good days and bad days. On his bad days, he would relax in front of the television, get his daily dose of Judge Judy, and, if he was still awake by two o'clock, he would watch General Hospital with those cute and spry seventy-something-year-old back in the game bachelorettes. But, on his good days, he liked to work with his hands, be productive. He loved getting back in the kitchen as simple as work in this kitchen was. He would stack meals and watch times. He couldn't be trusted to set them, but he would watch them and alert the people in charge of the day's meals just before the timers went off. "Now remember, the instructions say you have to heat it at 250 for twenty minutes," he said, giving me the tour under the watchful eye of Amelia. "I have found, you get a more even cook putting it in for five minutes at 200, and then finish off with thirteen minutes at 275," he said. His voice was raspy and old, the kind of old that could be thought full of wisdom, but also spackled and duct-taped together by a slowly unraveling psyche that the last couple of years were not kind to. "We cook the food for what the box says to cook the food for," Amelia said, "Don't listen to him child, you follow directions," she said. I did, followed directions, was just here to do what I was told to do. Finish my time, and get back to my rather uneventful life as a College drop-out with a part-time job bookkeeping for a company that runs management for home owner's associations. That first day I did what I was told. When the first batch came out of the oven, the one to be delivered to the third and top floor of the senior living community, Mr. Monticello took a small gold spoon, a keepsake from his wealthier days. He took a taste of the mashed potatoes when Amelia wasn't looking. "Came out good, heated evenly, good texture, good flavor," he smiled. He held his spoon up to me, "You know why anyone would have a gold spoon?" he asked. "No, I can't say I would know why anyone would have a gold spoon," I said. "See, this is what professional tasters use. Steel has its own flavor. When your tasting, you need a gold spoon, has a neutral flavor, doesn't confuse your tongue. How's it feel knowing everything you've tasted you've tasted wrong?" he asked, laughing a bit. "I'm not sure," I said as he quickly hid his instrument and worked to get the warm trays on the cart for me to deliver. I made my way up to the third floor as Amelia got the meals for the second floor ready. I met all sorts of people, people with stories, people with worries, and people slowly falling into senility. I got to the last room on this run, room 322, and was greeted by a friendly and weak voice, "Are you here to read to me?" an old, overweight lady with a curled bunch of thinning hair on her head asked through a mouth missing more than less of her teeth. I had learned later her name was Mrs. LeBlanc, and that she was the oldest residence in the care of Shady Pines. "No, not the reader. She should be in later," I said, "it's dinner time," I brought the food to her as she sat up in a bed she probably hadn't left for at least a few months. "Could you read to me? They send a girl like you to read to us," she asked me. "I don't know. I have to get back downstairs to get the rest of the dinner," I said. "Gatsby, I love the Great Gatsby," she said, pointing to the book on her nightstand. "Would you believe I've read that book over a hundred times, but my eyes, they're so old now, I can't read anymore, Gatsby always made me comfortable, you know my husband was in the war too, he came back, and he won me," she said. Her voice was so horse and raspy, raspy like all the old people here. "Just read to me, the last girl didn't read to me, I thought when we had a new girl maybe she would, oh, I would love to just hear the first chapter," she said. I looked at my watch. The next meal wouldn't be ready to be taken up to the second floor for at least another ten minutes, "Okay, I guess I could, just the first chapter?" I asked as I took the book and pulled a small chair up to the bed. I began to read as she ate her re-heated dinner. As I neared the end of the first chapter, she dropped her fork and fell back on her three-layer bunch of pillows and drifted off into sleep, and it appeared to be a very deep sleep. She was out. I shrugged, got my cart, and wheeled it back to the service elevator to get back to the first floor and back to the kitchen for my next set of deliveries. On my way back to the kitchen, I passed one of the rooms, room 106, and an angry, old greybeard with a bald head lashed out at me, "It’s supper time, where’s my damn food,” he said. “It’s coming,” I said, jumping back a bit. He had nasty yellow teeth, most of them missing. Liver spots stuck out all over his skull and his beard was patchy in places, looking as if it had no care or concern for itself. He balanced himself on a cane with a silver wolf’s head on the handle of it. I would later come to learn that this was Mr. Abernathy, the resident grump of Shady Pines. The word I heard from the other residents was that he would just trudge around the common room the few times he wasn’t sequestering himself in his own room. He said he was just waiting to die. His kids were dead, his daughter was killed in a drunk driving accident, she was the drunk, and his son died of an OD after getting his first big acting job as a side character in some science fiction straight to DVD movie. I went back to the kitchen and got the next collection of trays. I delivered them to the second floor. Got my share of kind hellos from the little old ladies and got more than a few lecherous looks from some of the younger seventy-something men who fancied themselves on the market now that their wives were dead and the house sold to afford a nice nest egg for their comfy retirement and enough to leave a bit to their sometimes thankful children. Thankfully, I finished my run on the second floor without another request to read or provide some other such service. And I came back to Ms. Amelia and Mr. Monticello as they were cleaning. Well, really, Amelia was doing all the cleaning, being that it was later in the day, Mr. Monticello was basically taking a wet rag and wiping down the same spot he had been wiping for the last hour of my shift. With my four hours for the day done, I gave my apron to Ms. Amelia and clocked out for the day. When I pulled my civic into the parking lot of Shady Pines, I saw a big black van at the side of the building is loaded with a gurney and a black bag atop it that could be nothing else but a body. When I went inside to clock in with Amelia, I asked about the truck, and she told me that “Mrs. LeBlanc died last night,” she said, “Get used to it. How long you here? Six shifts, you most likely going to see at least three while you’re here, ” she said. Mrs. LeBlanc, that lady to who just yesterday I read the first chapter of the Great Gatsby. “Wait, I just talked to her,” I said, “I mean, I talked to her yesterday,” I said, “Was she really that bad? She looked healthy, I mean, at least I think she was healthy,” “People go when they go, no one controls it,” Amelia said. I shook off the haunting thought of maybe being the last person someone had talked to before they died and focused on my work. I just wanted to finish my shifts and get out of here. Said shifts were pretty simple, sometimes I would work the kitchen, and sometimes when I worked the kitchen, Mr. Monticello would try to tell me how fat is the number one killer in the middle of one of his foggier periods of men younger than he was. How it clogs one’s arteries and leads to heart attacks. He even told me that a heart attack is what put his younger brother in the grave at the tender age of sixty-nine. “You know you’re a nice girl. If my grandson wasn’t married, I would have liked to introduce you,” Mr. Monticello said. “Oh, that’s really nice,” I smiled and laughed nervously. Once again, after we heated the meals to Mr. Monticello’s instructions as Ms. Amelia was busy tending to a disruption caused by Mr. Abernathy, I had one of those bad days that Ms. Amelia warned me that tenants could have here at Shady Pines. I had finished my last delivery of the day, room 122. The door had a well out of date easter decoration, most likely from the tenant’s grandchild, that said the man in this room was a Mr. Schedony, “Is that you Karen?” he asked. I had learned later he was blind, like, blind-blind. “I can’t see, Karen, lovely Karen, just tell me you’re here,” he said. I learned later he was talking about his daughter, who hadn’t visited him in going on six years now. He was put in Shady Pines seven years ago. “I’m sorry, I’m not Karen,” I said, creeping into the room. “Oh you, you talked to Elizabeth,” he smiled, “Oh, I know you, I heard about you,” he said. Elizabeth, Mrs. LeBlanc as I knew her. “You like to read to us,” he sat up in his bed, his head looking around “The nurse brought me this book I had loaned Elizabeth, Great Gatsby, I loaned it to her what, two, three years ago, since my eyes went and I couldn’t read it myself, why don’t you read it to me?” he asked. “Umm, I kind of have to get back to work,” I said. That was a bit of a lie. He was my last delivery of the day. I would just have to wipe down some surfaces and set the oven to cleaning mode before my shift was done, and I could head out for the day. “Oh please, please read to me,” he took a deep breath. It sounded like it was hard for him to take a breath that deep as he fell back against his pillows. “Okay, I can read for you,” I said. I felt bad, this poor blind old man. He just wanted someone to read to him. I would discover soon that all any of these poor tenants wanted was just for someone to read to them. I went to the chair by his bed and took the book that was sitting on the nightstand. “Okay,” I shrugged and opened the book, and began to read the words. “Oh, thank you, such a nice story,” he smiled. I was halfway through the fourth page before he was passed out and snoring. The next day I arrived at Shady Pines, ready to bang out another shift and secretly hoping that I wouldn’t have another awkward encounter with a senior citizen who wanted me to read to them. I read The Great Gatsby in high school, and that one time was more than enough for me. Reading to these octogenarians, I found they passed out just before I finished the first chapter. As I parked my car, I saw the ambulance loading another black-bagged body into its carriage. I clocked in with Ms. Amelia, and sure enough, she told me that Mr. Shedony had passed last night, maybe earlier, the morning check-in at his room found him dead. The proper authorities were called to dispose of another dead resident of Shady Pines. “I got to tend to clean out the rooms of our recent vacancies. I’m gonna trust you with preparing the food. I can count on you, right?” Amelia asked. Mr. Monticello and I were in the kitchen being addressed by her, but I could tell she was only talking to me. It was a simple job, and after three days, I figured out how things needed to be done, and Mr. Monticello told me how things could be done better. I cooked the meals and delivered them as Mr. Monticello prepared the next round for the next floor. On this trip, I wasn’t badgered to read for someone. In fact, the tenants were a bit reserved to accept food from me. The ones happy to be in Shady Pines were at least. When I got to Mr. Abernathy’s room, he scowled and scolded me, “Where were you? Why don’t you do what you’re supposed to do?” he asked, angry and curmudgeonly. “Umm, I am. Here’s your dinner,” I said, handing him his heated tray. “Just bringing me food, can’t even do what you’re good at,” he said. I shook off his scolding and made my way back to the kitchen. Ms. Amelia was still busy dealing with cleaning out Mrs. LeBlac and Mr. Shedony’s rooms. Mr. Monticello came to me after we, I, was done wiping down the kitchen and getting it ready for another day of heating ready to eat meals. “I heard you’re leaving us soon,” he said, smiling. He was always so nice when he was functioning. When the demon of old age wasn’t putting him through the wringer, he really was a nice man. “Yeah, I’ll be here one more day, but yeah, I’m leaving,” I smiled. “I want to give you something,” he said. “No, you don’t have to do that. I’m just working here. There’s no reason for you to give me anything,” I said. “No, no, my grandchildren don’t visit me, my children don’t even visit me, I’m not just going to leave this for them to pan through and fight each other for once I’m gone, and I hope to be gone soon,” he said. “Hey, don’t talk like that. You’re not going to be gone for a while, what are you? Seventy-eight, seventy-nine, if you can crack seventy, that’s a good sign, and you were a health food chef,” I said, “If anyone here can crack ninety, it’s going to be you,” I said. “Oh, I’ve no intention of cracking ninety, come with me,” he said, leaving the kitchen as I followed him back to his room. Room 124, a room I skipped while he was busy in the kitchen. Ms. Amelia would bring him his meal after our work was done, give him some time to rest after a job well done. Once I followed him into his room, he went to his dresser and dug through his socks and underwear to find a trinket, a small pocket watch, gold shell, gold just like his tasting spoon. “This is the only thing I bought with the one big score of money I made. I put the rest in the nest egg that allowed me to retire in all the luxury you’ve seen that I live in,” he smiled and approached me, dangling the watch in his hands. I looked around, a modest, single bedroom. Small, cozy as someone trying to sell a person on living here would say. Spackled wallpaper with a flower pattern and a small bathroom with a walk-in bath lacking a rim that could cause the senior clientele of this building to trip and die before, or maybe after, their time. This room looked exactly like every other room I had seen while delivering food to the elderly resediments of Shady Pines. I reached my hand out. My only thought was to not look rude, not disappointed this poor, nice, old man who wanted nothing more but to give me a gift. He dropped the watch in my hand, and its chain fell into my palm, “I don’t need to know the time anymore. There’s no need for time, not here,” he smiled. “For this gift, I just have a favor,” he said as he took a seat on his bed, kicked off his shoes, and laid back, resting his head on a stack of two pillows. “What’s that?” I asked. Mr. Monticello pointed to his nightstand, “I got a gift from a dear friend, who himself got it from a dear friend, open the nightstand,” he said. I did, and inside the drawer was the well-worn copy of The Great Gatsby. The same copy I read to Mrs. Leblanc, the same copy I read to Mr. Shedony. “I’ve heard you like to read to us, please, would you read to me?” he asked. My eyes were wide as I saw that damn book, as I thought of the fate that the last two people I read this book to was, “I...I don’t know if I should,” I said. “Please, just read to me,” he said, getting comfortable in his bed, making sure he was well supported, in a position with little neck or back pain. “I’d really like to be read too,” he said. I gulped, my heart beating, it was just a coincidence I said to myself, “Okay, Mr. Monticello, I’ll read to you,” I took the book, I looked at the pocket watch he gave me, my four-hour shift was just now over, my last shift as just now over. Right now, I was just a volunteer helping out. I took a seat by the bed as Mr. Monticello folded his hands over his chest and found the sweet spot lying in his bed. I opened the book and took a deep breath, “In my younger and more vulnerable years, my father gave me some advice that I've been turning over in my mind ever since. Whenever you feel like criticizing any one, he told me, just remember that all the people in this world haven't had the advantages that you've had.” I read to Mr. Monticello, and just before I finished the first chapter, he was passed out in a peaceful sleep. He looked so peaceful. I got up and found a spare tear running down my cheek. I wiped it away and left back to the kitchen to check out with Ms. Amelia. This was the last day of my service to Shady Pines. I had no reason to ever come back here. I came back the next day. I made sure to get there at seven o’clock when the residents awoke the seniors. Sure enough, there was an ambulance there, loading in a body wrapped in a black bag. I rushed inside through the front door. When I was an employee here, I was told to use the side door, but I was no longer an employee here, so I came in through the front. I made my way to the back room where the kitchen was, my eyes looking around, desperate to find Mr. Monticello. “Oh, you want to volunteer now?” Ms. Amelia asked, “You volunteer?” she asked again. “No, I don’t want to volunteer,” I said. The last thing I wanted to do was force myself to carry more of those horrible meals to these old people who wanted me to read to them, “I just wanted to visit. Where is Mr. Monticello?” I asked, “Is he in the kitchen?” I asked. “Oh, sweety, Mr. Monticello is not with us anymore,” she said. I had to collect myself for a moment. I looked down, blamed myself, “He was smiling when he died, child. He was happy,” she said. “Can I go to his room?” I asked. “Child, we ain’t done cleaning it,” she said, “You don’t want to go to dead man’s room. What do you need there?” “There is something there, something that,” I shook my head, I had read the first chapter of that stupid book to three different people, and they had all died after I finished reading to them. That book was killing people. I had to get it out of here. “Can’t let you go into his room, that’s for his family to do, and after his family, we send people in to clean it, he died there, his son in here earlier, asking about some watch,” she said, “You see some watch he had, I have never seen him with some watch,” she said as she went back to her work, setting the oven to 250. I held my tongue, “No, I don’t know about any watch, how did...How did Mr. Monticello die?” I asked. “When someone that age dies, you don’t be asking questions. People that old just die said he went in his sleep the ambulance did, just a death, natural,” she said. “Natural death,” I nodded, taking another deep breath. “Where’s his funeral? Is he even having one?” I asked. Mr. Monticello was so nice, and he was nice to me. He told me that his kids didn’t give a damn about him. I gave a damn about him. He gave me his watch. I was maybe the last voice he heard before he passed. I wanted to go. “His family cremating him, no ceremony, I’m sorry, dear,” Ms. Amelia put her hand on my shoulder. “I just-” I was cut off by the sound of a gunshot ringing through Shady Pines. Ms. Amelia shrieked, “Oh God! oh god!” she cried out as we ran to the common room. Most of the tenants of Shady Pines were in shock, and for a good reason. Mr. Abernathy’s body was lying in the middle of the room, on the ground, a luger held loosely in his hand and a hole in the back of his head as he laid collapsed in the middle of the room. “What happened?” I asked. “I don’t know, I don’t know,” one of the younger ladies said, she was in her late sixties and new to Shady Pines, “He just came in and asked where the girl who reads was,” she said, she was crying, her wrinkly skin contorting as she tried to wipe her tears away. “What girl who reads?” I asked. “The girl who reads, he said, asked where’s that damn girl who reads, he said he just wanted to die,” she said.

“I think it came from 2 o’clock.” he has to shout over the sound of AK-47 fire. “Not a hundred percent but... yeah I’ve got muzzle flash third deck. Farthest right window.” the Iraqi soldiers continue to fire in apparently random directions. The Marine Sergeant’s keen eyes have done a trick that most times is impossible.They found the enemy. In this combination of the two worst case scenarios, an insurgency in a city, it is a rarity. Often times the only motivation behind an attack is money. A foreign born Islamic extremist supplies a local boy with a rifle and promises him five American dollars to go shoot at Americans. The boy dutifully goes out and finds some Americans, empties the magazine as fast as he can and runs away to return the rifle and collect his 5 bucks. Sometimes a similar scenario plays out because of threats to the boy's family. Not many residents of Fallujah want to fight anymore; especially in this goddamn heat. The last few months, most of the guys being captured are Somali, Egyptian, Libyan, Saudi etc. Regardless of who, what, when, where or why it happens, the Iraqi Army soldier’s response is the same. Ninety percent of them will just start shooting. Randomly. Sporadically. Dangerously. The Captain and his team call it “The Iraqi Death Blossom.” To be fair, it does make you feel better to do something, anything, when the shooting starts. While moving with a foot patrol, the Captain’s unit has taken fire. The Captain and the Sergeant do not fire, they just take cover and try to identify the direction of fire in this concrete canyon. The interpreter does not fire because he really wants to be a Marine. Even though he is from Basra, Iraq; he models his behavior and speech after the U.S. Marines he lives and works with. His name is Crash and he carries a folding stock Kalashnikov rifle with a laser pointer pen taped to the side. “Ok, good shit! Crash get on the IA (Iraqi Army) freq (frequency) and tell the mulazim (Arabic for lieutenant) to set security and get me a clearance team...tell him over there in the alley to the left.” Crash follows the Captain as he translates the Captain’s order. The Sergeant brings up the rear. Together they make their way to the corner of the building the Captain indicated, using as much cover as they can find. Two Iraqi soldiers and a sergeant meet them there a few minutes later. “Crash, get these three to follow us and help clear the building. Sergeant M you stay with the Iraqi Sergeant no matter what and try to keep them moving. Alright, Crash, are they good? Yes? Ok good, let’s go.” the Captain stands and moves toward the door of the three story building. As usual in this type of situation, the words “kill zone” repeat over and over in his mind. This happens everytime he clears a building. In training exercises the words were used over and over. “Stay out of the kill zone! Get inside.” the one-eyed Gunnery Sergeant would bark. The exterior of the building is a kill zone. The doorway is a kill zone. Hallways are kill zones. Stairs are kill zones. Everywhere is a fucking kill zone in these buildings. His body ramps up. Senses on high alert. Totally focused on the task at hand. His nervousness falls away. Pausing at the doorway he tries the latch. The door opens silently. His left hand comes up with three fingers extended. A hand comes down on his shoulder indicating the man behind him is set. Breathe. Fingers drop in sequence three, two, one. The rifle’s light comes on with a squeeze of the front grip. Front kick the door. Go! Button hook to the left. Weapon sweeps, “Left side, clear.” The building looks to be abandoned “Right side, clear” comes the reply. “Overhead, clear. I have a small room and stairs far corner. Stack on me.” The Captain notices that it is only Crash who has followed him in. There is no time to waste in these situations because speed of movement and unpredictability are slim advantages that must be exploited. He moves to the base of the stairs and raises his left hand again. A hand comes down on his shoulder. Fingers start dropping three, two....”Grenade!” he shouts and dives back into the first room. Crash lands next to him just as the Whump! of the explosion reaches their ears. As metal shards are still clattering, the Captain is up and running toward the stairs. Someone is there at the top of the flight of stairs. They are either on their way down to check on the result of their grenade or they are somewhat stunned and blinded. The explosive force has kicked up enough dust to obscure the entire stairwell. This is his best chance. Up the stairs he goes. Weapon in his shoulder and barrel pivoting rapidly up the stairs and back up the next flight. As he turns the corner a shape appears in the dust cloud. He knows he should see a weapon before he shoots. He sees something that looks like a rifle held sloppily. A shot and then two more ring out. It isn’t until he feels his own thumb on the safety lever that he realizes he has fired. No time to stop now. The shape is gone and he steps smoothly and steadily up the stairs. Second floor has two closed doors and a hallway. Dust still hasn’t settled yet. The Captain pauses with his rifle pointed down the hallway. There is a body sprawled with a rifle at the head of the stairs. There is no response when he grabs the AK-47 and slings it around his body. “Set,” he calls. Quickly pivoting between the hallway and the rising stairs he waits. A hand lands on his shoulder and Crash says “Set.” Together the two of them ascend to the next level. Crash knows this business after a year with the Marines and they work their way from the top to the bottom. In a top room they find a small pile of brass. This looks like the room the shots came from. On the second floor they find the gunman but nothing else. On the first floor they find the Marine Sergeant. He peeks out the front window and grumbles. “So, they didn’t come in?” The Captain asks. “Fuck no,sir. I have no idea why.” the Sergeant almost spits the words out. Crash gets on his radio that is tuned to the Iraqi Army station and begins to ask questions in a loud authoritative voice. After a minute he launches into an explanation about the wrong IA sergeant coming to the building and the soldiers wanting to wait for their own sergeant. The Captain stops listening. His mind is back in Camp Lejeune thinking about the house to house fighting training they received. He remembers being told that one should never assault a building with less than three, four man fire teams. Well, he thinks, I guess one Marine and a terp is good enough this time. Well, as long as the terp is like Crash. On the next trip to Camp Fallujah, the Captain goes to the PX and buys some Lance Corporal chevrons. In a small ceremony, reciting the promotion warrant from memory, he promotes Crash the terp to honorary Lance Corporal, USMC. He earned it and upholds the proud tradition many times after that. (Footnote: Crash came to the United States in 2009, sponsored by one of the Marines he served with. He became a Marine at the age of 26 and was stationed in Camp Lejeune at last report. He was a Lance Corporal for a second time.

Three men make themselves uninvited guests at Aiden Davenport’s table. “Swanky,” says the lofty, heavyset man. “Yeah, this is one of the best culinary establishments in Vegas,” the skinny man at the other end of the table comments. “Can we order? I hear the Crispy Skin Grilled Duck Confit is to die for.” The pasty, scowling man in the middle with the slicked-back black hair gives the second man a bewildered glance. “I swear Danilo, you must have had a different father. We won’t be here long enough for you to write a review for Yelp. I am Marko Melnyk. The gourmet is my brother, Danilo, and the hulk seated at the end is Maxim Gorski.” Aiden notices Marko’s clipped accent. “Russian?” Marko’s head snaps back in revulsion. “I am Ukrainian. In fact, my competitors call me the ‘Ukrainian Nightmare’ Let me get to the point. In a few days, you will fight Bullfrog Brazier in defense of your title. You will lose.” Aiden practically leaps across the table at Marko. His manager, Candido “Candy” Casanova, and trainer, Gabe Spinner, grab him by the shoulders, pushing him back into his seat. “I’ve worked for too long and have taken too many punches to take a dive.” “Your manager is a lousy poker player, and your trainer couldn’t pick a winning horse in a field of one.” “How much are they into you for?” Aiden asks. “Two hundred fifty thousand each.” Candy and Gabe lower their heads in shame. “You two should have come to me before it got this far. Ruby has a tight rein on our purse strings, I can’t ask her for that much money. And I’ll repeat what I said before about throwing the fight, so you know where I stand. NYET.” Maxim cracks the knuckles on his massive hands. “You don’t scare me, Godzilla. I’ve knocked out bigger goons than you. Maybe honor and integrity are strange qualities for a boxer to have, but I’m proud of my reputation as well as my forty-three knockouts. I win my next fight and I’ll pass Julio Chavez for the most title defenses.” “There’s nothing wrong with sharing the record,” Danilo offers. “You have held the title long enough, Mister Davenport,” Marko says. “Are you suggesting I retire?” “That is entirely up to you,” Marko replies, curling his lips into a predatory smile. “I like money and what it brings. I cannot have it if you hold the title.” “I’m surprised you’re backing Brazier. Everyone knows he can’t fight. The odds are fifteen to one that I’ll paste him. If by some miracle he takes the title from me he’ll lose it in his first defense.” Marko’s sharkish grin widens. “That is the plan.” “I’d rather die in the ring than throw away my title. And there’s nothing you can do that’ll change my mind.” “We have your wife.” Ruby Davenport rubs her eyes, trying to wipe the cobwebs from her mind. Looking around, Ruby takes note of the beige walls, IKEA end tables, and utilitarian lamps. She realizes she’s in a hotel room. Sitting up in bed, Ruby stifles a gasp as her gaze meets the startled stare of a swarthy, sleepy-eyed young man dressed in black leaning against the dresser. He cordially nods at her. “Where am I?” “You’ve been asleep for hours,” he replies. “For all you know, we could be in Canada by now.” “How long do you intend to keep me here?” “Until the end of the fight.” The spirited, petite redhead’s apprehension dissipates, replaced by anger. “Explain what’s going on, junior...” “My name’s Reed Melnyk. It’s simple. Your husband throws the fight, and you’ll go home. Otherwise...” “Ah, the death threat,” Ruby replies, studying him. “How old are you?” “Twenty-three.” “You're kind of young to be swimming in the deep end of the organized crime pool, aren’t you Reed?” “My Pop was a made man when he was my age.” “Really? Where is he?” “Dead. He died in a shoot-out with the police.” “What does that tell you? Have you ever killed anyone, Reed?” Squirming, Reed replies, “No. But my Uncle knows I can step up if I have to.” Ruby scoffs. “I’ll behave, Al Capone. But I can’t speak for Aiden. Lay down, stay down is not part of his fight strategy.” “Then he’ll have to face my Uncle and his men. And they don’t fight fairly,” Reed says. “If they’re anything like you, I’ll bet on my husband. You don’t seem like the gangster type. I bet you wanted to be something else as a kid.” Reed lets his guard down. “...A photographer...” “So, instead of having a forty-five in that bag on the floor, you’ve got a camera?” “That’s right.” “You didn’t happen to take any pictures of me while I was unconscious, did you?” “Just one,” Reed answers timidly. “I took it with my phone to show my Uncle my mission was successful.” “Yeah, you were really quiet when you snuck in the house and chloroformed me,” Ruby replies. “So, what are we going to do for the next forty-eight hours? And please, don’t let your libido do your thinking. I don’t want to have to slap you around.” “Woah! I’m married!” “But are you in love?” Ruby asks. “Of course. I met Phoebe in the eighth grade. There’s never been anyone else.” “Then you must understand how wrong this is. I feel the same way about Aiden as you do about Phoebe.” “Everything’ll work out fine if he loves you more than he loves being champ,” Reed says reassuringly. “If he doesn’t, you’ll never see him again.” Two nattily dressed men stride into the Rumble Boxing Gym where Boone “Bullfrog” Brazier is training. The amateur boxers banging away at the heavy bags and jumping rope slowly cede the room to the men. Bullfrog’s pint-sized, bald trainer Brutus Bolinger, yells, “Time!” Bullfrog stops mugging his sparring partner. Sucking for air, his cheeks puffing out like a bullfrog’s, he says to his manager, “I told you so.” Bullfrog’s manager, Nevin Badoo, protectively stands in front of the ring. His hand tightens around his brass-tipped cane, and he raises it, ready to defend himself. “...Welcome back, Mossy...” he says shakily. Maurice “Mossy” Graves’s declared profession of undertaker fits his tall, gaunt appearance. In contrast to his dynamic blue eyes, his face is long, pale, and thin. He has bushy, iron-gray hair, brushed high above his forehead, and often sports a bitter expression, giving him a striking resemblance to Andrew Jackson. The second man, Handy Mandy Muldaur, has an over-powering, tanned frame, bushy brows, and a maniacal look in his eye. “You don’t want to have to hobble around on two canes, do you, Nevin?” Graves asks. Nevin lowers his cane. “So that’s really how you broke your leg,” Brutus says to Nevin. “Breaking legs has become a cliché, but it’s still an effective one,” Graves replies. “I told you, Mossy, no one’s gonna believe it if Bullfrog takes a dive,” Nevin says. “The Boxing Commission will withhold our purse, and maybe even suspend him if they find out he threw the fight.” “Besides, I want to beat Davenport fair and square,” Bullfrog says. “Here’s another old saying,” Graves replies. “You try to fight Davenport, Bullfrog, and you’ll croak. I’m backing him.” “I beat Henry Harrison and Lefty Wright to get this shot. They’re both heavy hitters like Davenport.” “He doesn’t know, boss,” Handy Mandy guffaws. Graves allows himself a mealy grin. “You never wondered why Wright, who’d been trashing you for six rounds suddenly ran out of gas and walked into your jab? Wright and half your other fights were fixed.” Bullfrog thinks about jumping the ropes to get at Graves. He reconsiders when he sees Handy Mandy check his jacket pocket for what appears to be a gun. “If you’re so sure Davenport can beat me, why bother trying to bribe me?” “It’s not the result of the fight I’m worried about. It’s the round,” Graves answers. “I’m betting you fall in round two, so that’s why I need your cooperation.” “I won’t do it.” Brutus throws a towel around Bullfrog’s shoulders. “Take the deal, Bullfrog.” “Et tu, Brutus,” Bullfrog replies. “I’m not gonna let some coffin salesman run my career.” “I own fifty-five percent of your contract, Bullfrog. Jesus, Nevin, haven’t you told this dope anything? I’ll say it one last time. You’re taking a dive in the second round. You remember Stanley Sandusky?” “Do I ever! He knocked me out in the fifth round. I never saw it coming. He was on the bullet train to a title fight when he disappeared.” “You can either take a nap in the ring or in the dirt with Stanley.” Aiden lowers his sunglasses to the end of his nose, scanning the room. “Don’t worry, I paid the waiters to keep this section of the restaurant closed until we’ve talked,” Bullfrog says. The two fighters tell each other about Melnyk and Graves’ threats. “So, I’m supposed to lose, and you’re supposed to lose,” Bullfrog says, rubbing his hand over his scarred features. “They’ve got my wife. I have to go along with what Melnyk wants.” “And if I don’t lose, Graves will chop me into Kibbles and Bits. Either way, one of us is going to suffer. I wish there was a way out of this.” Brushing back his blonde mane, Aiden flashes a winning smile. “There might be a way...” Reed licks barbecue sauce off the end of his fingers. “Use a napkin, they gave you a hundred of them,” Ruby scolds. “Not bad for door-to-door,” Reed replies, wiping his hands. “I know you’re used to gourmet dinners...” “When this is over, the quality of the Chinese food is the last thing I will complain about.” “Yeah, I guess being held captive sucks,” Reed replies, checking the clock on the wall. “The fight starts in three hours. Maybe you’ll be home in four.” Ruby shakes a finger at Reed. “Tsk, Tsk. You just gave away a clue that I’m only fifty or sixty miles away from home.” “Pretty smart trick. Maybe you should have been the champ’s manager instead of Candy Casanova.” Ruby raises her glass of soda, grimacing when she takes a gulp. “Can you get some ice? This soda is hotter than the action on the fight.” “Sure, but I’m going to have to lock you in.” “I understand. You’re just doing your job. And you’re really good at it.” Ruby stays in her chair until she hears the lock engage. She heads to the bathroom. Chuckling to herself, Ruby says, “I bet Reed is going to wish he had a picture of this.” Ruby opens the window, sliding out. Running to the corner, she hails a passing cab. Aiden and Bullfrog stare vacantly into each other’s eyes as referee Phil Gut explains the rules. Leaning on his cane, Nevin comments, “Given the circumstances, Bullfrog looks pretty calm.” “He always was a better actor than a fighter,” Brutus replies. “Did you spike his water?” “Yeah. The drugs should begin to take effect halfway through the first round,” Brutus answers. “He’ll fall in the second, whether he likes it or not.” The two fighters charge out of their corners, then uncharacteristically begin circling one another. The crowd responds by booing the reluctant warriors. Candy Casanova turns to Gabe Spinner. “What is this, a high school dance?” “Don’t blame Aiden. Bullfrog’s dragging his feet too.” The two fighters clinch. Aiden whispers, “This is awful, do something!” tapping his glove against Bullfrog’s ribs. Bullfrog drops to one knee. Sitting at ringside in the second row, Maurice Graves buries his head in his hand. Turning to Handy Mandy, he asks, “Did I miss something?” “Like a punch?” Handy Mandy looks at the replay on his phone. “Must’ve been a phantom punch. Maybe Bullfrog is trying to ratchet up the drama for his swoon in the second.” Bullfrog winces, holding his side as Phil Gut counts over him. Bullfrog stands as the count reaches seven. Phil Gut looks into Bullfrog’s eyes. “You okay? Can you go on?” “Never felt better,” Bullfrog responds. “Then what the hell are you doin’?” Gut whispers. “I got ten grand on Davenport. You’re supposed to drop in the second round, you punch-drunk nimrod. NOW, BOX!” Aiden charges at Bullfrog throwing wild hooks, as if looking to finish him off. The fighters exchange a flurry of namby-pamby body shots. Aiden misses with a lunging right cross. Bullfrog taps him on the jaw with a jab. Aiden pitches forward, landing on his face. Aiden rolls over onto his back as Phil Gut begins to count. The crowd’s cheers nearly drown out Gut’s voice, but Aiden can still hear the referee’s frustrated comments. “ONE... Get up you son of a... TWO... I bet my paycheck on you... THREE... You can’t hand this bum the crown... FOUR... What have you got against me? ... Michael Phelps took a better dive... FIVE... I’m just tryin’ to earn a livin'...” Aiden rolls on his side in a feeble attempt to get up. He spots Ruby racing down the aisle, running toward his corner. At six, Aiden jumps to his feet. “C’mon Champ! Show them all who’s boss!” Ruby yells. Seated in the third row directly behind Mossy Graves, Marko Melnyk slips his arms around the shoulders of his two henchmen. “Give Reed a chance, you said...” “I promised his father, our brother, that we’d look after him,” Danilo replies. “We? Our brother was stupid and impetuous. His boy is brilliant and careless. Find him. Get rid of him.” “But he’s family...” “Get out of my face, both of you. Do not come back until Reed is chum.” The two bodyguards reluctantly make their way through the aisle. “Are you all right with this?” Maxim asks. “We’re not going to kill Reed. We’ll find him and put him on a flight to Berkely, where he can attend photography school.” Maxin breaks out in a sweat. “We’re supposed to get rid of him, Danilo, not reward him. What if your brother finds out?” “He won’t, and do you know why? He made a big mistake, his last. He doesn’t have any bodyguards with him now. He has to drive the limo himself. We wait for him to drive off after the fight, and it’s the end of the Ukrainian Nightmare.” Aiden hits Bullfrog with two hard hooks to the head, stunning him. Pulling Aiden into a clinch, Bullfrog whispers, “What gives?” “Ruby. She’s free.” “So, you’re gonna renege on our deal?” “I have what I want the most, my wife.” Aiden pushes Bullfrog away, slamming him with a four-punch combination. Bullfrog’s body stiffens, crashing to the canvas like a falling redwood. Phil Gut starts counting over Bullfrog. The bell rings when Gut reaches five, saving Bullfrog from being counted out. Bullfrog’s cornermen carry their fighter back to his stool. “He’s the most knocked man I’ve ever seen,” Brutus says. “Plus, those sedatives we spiked his water with have done the trick. He’s in La La Land. There’s no way we can send him out for the second round.” Nevin glances at Mossy Graves, who grits his teeth, making a fist. “He really does look like Andrew Jackson when he’s mad,” Nevin says flippantly. “Yeah, but I don’t think he’s gonna give us a presidential pardon,” Brutus replies. As Aiden returns to his corner, Candy asks, “Why’d you do it, champ?” “For us,” Ruby replies, hugging Aiden through the ropes. Aiden sits down on his stool. “And by the way, Candy, you and Gabe are fired.” Aiden waves Phil Gut over. “I can’t come out for the second round, Phil. “It’s my shoulder. I think I separated it.” Exasperated, Gut says, “All you gotta do is make it to the center of the ring and you’ll win.” “I’m in too much pain.” “You? My bankroll’s gone, thanks to you. Look, Bulldog’s practically in a coma. If you don’t come out for the second and he can’t come out, I’ll have to declare the match no contest. It’ll be like the fight never happened.” “So, everybody gets their money back. A shame,” Aiden replies. The bell sounds. Phil Gut moves to the center of the ring, certain that his announcement will result in chaos. Mossy Graves and Handy Mandy Muldaur watch ringside doctor Santo Corsica examine Aiden’s shoulder. The pocket-sized physician with the oversized Afro has been treating fighters for twenty-five years, and any diagnosis he makes is treated as an irrefutable fact. “He’ll be back in perfect shape in a week or two,” Dr. Corsica whispers to Ruby. “That’s great, Doc. But don’t forget what I paid you to say,” Ruby replies. Dr. Corsica turns to face Graves’ demanding stare. “He has a torn rotator cuff. He’ll be out of the ring for at least six months, and he’ll never be the same fighter.” “Maybe you should retire, Aiden. Go out a champ,” Graves proposes. Ruby steps forward looking up at Graves, her gaze and attitude indomitable. Graves and Handy Mandy step back. “I’m sorry we had to detain you...,” Graves offers. “Detain? You mean kidnap, you crooked Andrew Jackson imitation! Kidnapping puts you on the hook for ten years. I’ll cancel my talk with the Feds if you forget what Candy and Gabe owe you.” “...Sure, done. Well, it’s been fun everyone. I’m going to visit Bullfrog to see if he’s okay.” Aiden huffs. “You mean you’re going to let him know that I’m out of the way, and you’re going to get him another fixed championship fight.” “What can I say? I love this sport,” Graves replies, giving them a graveyard smile. “There’s something you should know, Mister Graves,” Dr. Corsica says. “I examined Bullfrog in his locker room before I looked at Aiden. Bullfrog has a detached retina. He’ll never fight again.”

I love this time of the year, it’s like I’m going home for what the humans call Christmas, I’d love to go somewhere nice, definitively somewhere snowy, with a mountain. I know exactly where I’m headed. I’ve always loved to travel alone, even though us birds don’t usually or never do that; but this is how I see it, I make the rules, I stop whenever I want, and go wherever I want, I enjoy all the little adventures, because believe me when you do a three to four weeks flight, it’s an adventure! Here I take off, it’s time.It will start to get warm in a few weeks where I live now and as I am a snowy owl, snow is calling me and I’m definitively responding to it! As I flew all over the city, I was thinking about all the little things I’ll miss, let me give you a tour. I used to live on the biggest tree in this beautiful parc over there, it’s convenient because all the little birds would come by night to feed over the nuts this lady human would give. In the morning I would take a dip in the lake not far away, then over the day, as I’m minding my own business, I have to bear small humans staring at me, trying to catch me and throwing bread crumbs at me, while I’m trying to sleep. I always loved watching humans crossing the parc in the morning, there is this human guy with the blue shirt, he always seems to be in a rush, and as he runs, sometimes he spills his black liquid all over him, oh and this human girl always getting this delicious square golden food from this store nearby , delicious I assume by the great smell it spreads, I tried to get it from her multiple times, but I didn’t succeed. And let’s not forget that old human with five of her dogs, she would walk them every day and they’d always bark at me, Am I that intimidating? I certainly won’t miss that; the black big dog almost ate me once. Now I’m seeing new images, nothing really interesting for now, I’m just overflying landscapes, houses a lot of them. Anyways, it’s been a while since I’ve been in the air by now, I’m starting to feel really hungry, Maybe I should stop for a snack, I deserved it, or maybe I should wait, I’m almost crossing a big ocean, I could eat my favorite fish. I’m voting fish. Up in the air I meet a lot of new friends, that’s the coolest part, it’s a time killer, when you meet a new bird and start a conversation, time flies by, not that it does not when I’m all by myself. Let me go some feet down, I’m seeing something huge from above, a big ass boat with some people on it, and I’m definitively smelling fish, I’m going for it, It’s time for lunch! Seeing it from close by, it’s a sailing boat, I’ll be very discreet and no one will notice me. I see a lot of fish in a bucket, I made sure that no one was looking at me and I flew right next to it. -What do you think you’re doing? Says a parrot -Hi, didn’t see you there! I responded; can I have some? I’ve been flying for a moment now. I really tried to be polite here, but the truth is I hate parrots, they always give me attitude. -It’s my lunch, but we can share if you want. -Oh, okay thank you! I responded surprised -So, where are you going? He asked me with food in his mouth -I don’t know, I’ll know when I see it, it’s beautiful and snowy, I’m calling it wonderland And I have to go now, thanks for your hospitality. -I’m Edward. -Moly! As I’m in the sky, I started to feel the cold on my wings, I’m certainly in the right direction. As I am admiring the beautiful city I’m above, all lighten up, humans gathering in a circle filled with snow and just going back in forth bumping into each other, I don’t know what sport that is, but they seem to enjoy it. Just a little far away, some music playing, no actually people are singing in front of a big giant tree they sacrificed and decorated with round colors and glittery stuff, I can see how they like it, it’s beautiful. As I sat down on a bench, the wind started to hit hard, and just like that, it started raining. Everyone was rushing to their homes, apparently a storm is about to begin. I was hiding in a tree, but everything was falling on me, until, I saw a little window from the third floor of a building opened, so I rushed to enter. It was such a cozy and warm house; I was thinking I could sleep here and then go back to the sky. I’ve heard some voices as I entered the house, moaning, actually. As I followed the sound, I found myself in a bedroom with two humans over each other, they were copulating, the human girl was going all in, until she saw me staring and then screamed her heart out. I mean I can’t blame her, a white owl with green glowy eyes in the dark, that’s a bit scary. So, I ran away from that house and found myself a little cocoon where I could sleep until the storm passes. Now that I’ve got all of my strengths back, it’s time to finish the ride. I feel like this trip took more than usual, I started to think that maybe I went the wrong direction, should I ask for directions? It’s when I felt flakes of snow going down my wings that I was wondering maybe not! and then, I saw it, that huge white mountain far away, the lake with the beautiful swans, a gigantic forest with beautiful trees I can live on , and a lot of elegant human houses. I took a deep breath and laid on the highest roof I could found, to enjoy this incredible view, because I knew I was finally home.

For the longest time I've been having a problem, a very big problem. I alienate family and friends. I was kicked out of my family. Everyone hated me but they still came to help me. To make me see I was destroying my life. One day I realized what I was losing and I decided to get help. These Thank You Cards are for those who never gave up on me and for those who were tough on me. First, I want to say thank you to the big guy up in the sky. Without your love and guidance, I wouldn't be here. When I needed someone to talk too, you were always there. Thank you Heavenly Father. My best friend Genesis. My partner in crime. We did so many crazy things together. I can't name them all. It will take three full pages to name all the crazy things we did together. I'm laughing right now thinking about how much we drove our mother's crazy. Genesis, you were there for me during the tough days of my life. The days when I didn't want to leave my house. The days when I was angry at the world. The days when I cursed out the world. You never gave up on me. I love you my sister and I thank you for all you did for me. I thank you for being my best friend. Doctor Norah Cooper. What would I do without you? You listened to me but never judged me I can always count on you when I need someone to talk too. My problems were your problems. You sat next to me listening to my problems. No matter how long it took, you never complained. Even when I called you late at night with one of my panic attacks. You never got angry with me. You calmed me down and listened to me. I thank you for all those late nights and early mornings. I hope we can do more. Hallie, my baby sister. Where do I begin? You recognized my problem long before anyone else did. Even myself. You begged me to get help. I didn't listen to you. You came to my home every single day to tell me I had a problem. You cried in front of me. I still wouldn't listen. But you never gave up on me. You fought with me to get the help I needed. I'm sorry I didn't listen to you the first time. You pushed and pushed and pushed me to get the help I needed. My sister Hallie, thank you for pushing me and not giving up on me. I love you to the moon and back. Myla, my second baby sister. You were the total opposite of Hallie. You cut me out of your life because I never saw the problem I had. You didn't want me to infect your life. I get it. I understand why you did what you did. I hope one day we can repair our relationship. Thank you for letting me see what I will lose if I don't get the help I need. Grandpa Joe, my favorite guy in the world. You tell the best jokes. You know how to make me laugh. On my bad days, You were there for me always making me laugh. When I was spiraling out of control, Grandpa, you were there by my side comforting me and telling jokes. Thank you Grandpa for always making my life a little brighter. Paris, my last baby sister. You pulled me out of the darkness. You told me un your sweet way I was ruining my life. When I was crying, you sang to me. Your voice baby sister gave me hope that my life was worth living. Paris, you sang to me at my lowest point. You sang to me when I needed hope and love. I never got to say I love you. I hope one day I can say those words. Thank you Paris for always singing to me. Dylan, my favorite next door neighbor. I'm sorry for the headaches I caused you. You didn't deserve my anger. You once told me that living with a bottle in my hands is not living at all. That I'm existing in a world that doesn't seen the real me. Dylan, you knew what I was going through because you went through the same thing. You words helped me see the light. I once told you I wasn't worthy to be alive. You told me I was wrong. You told me I was worthy to be alive. That I was worth something. I just had to believe it. Thank you, Dylan for seeing the real me. Grandma Ellie, You're the tough one in the family and you let me know it every single day. You yelled and screamed at me. You told me I was being selfish only thinking about myself. Grandma, you kicked me out of the family. I don't hate you for what you did. I was or maybe I'm still a toxic person. I hope one day I can make you happy. Thank you, Grandma for being tough with me. Hunter, my comforter when I needed one. I cried on your shoulders for days. For hours when I was shutting the world out. You took the time to talk to me. I heard from so many people that I was wasting my life. That death would come for me soon. It was harsh hearing those words. Hunter, you told me to be strong. That if I put my mind to getting better than I could do it. I can make my life and my self better. Your hugs were special to me. I always felt safe in your arms. Thank you, Hunter for being my comforter when I needed one. Father Eddie, you always knew the right things to say to me. You were always a good person to me. From the very first day I went to see you, you opened your arms to me. The many times I came to you to ask for help, you never turned me away. You gave me the power and strength to open my mouth and ask for help. Thank you, Father Eddie for being good to me. I saved the best person for last. Mom, the person who gave me life. The person I love the most in the world. I'm your first born daughter. The daughter who stood by your side. The one who was there for you when dad left. The one who comforted you when you cried. I cried too but I had to be the strong one. You told me I didn't need to be strong. I had to be strong for you and for my sisters. I didn't want you, Hallie, Myla or Paris to see me lose it. In the end I broke down and I lose everything. I thought what happened was my fault that's why I had to be strong. Mom, you tried to get me to see what happened between you and dad wasn't my fault. I didn't see it. You love me for who I was even during my darkest days. A mother's love is worth more than gold. Your love is worth a lot. Thank you, mom for always loving me. I hope by reading these Thank You Cards you all would know I'm trying my hardest to get better and I won't ever give up. I love you all.

It’s still morning. At least that’s what I tell myself. Light seeps into the corners of my eyes like the edges of an old photograph. Wind buffets my face like waves. My eyes drift open and like a polaroid the world slowly materializes in front of me; shapes and colours creep in from hot white light until I’m presented with the hypnotic cadence of a ceiling fan. The blades spin round and round, running from one another only to just end up back where they started; perpetually running from an inescapable conclusion. I turn my head and to my surprise Daphne’s not fast asleep beside me. In fact, she’s not in bed at all which was odd because she usually slept in on Saturdays. A bottle of her favourite wine rests haphazardly on the edge of her nightstand bringing me back to the night before. Summers were meant for late nights and long naps she would always say, her lips stained red with her favourite wine, legs crossed and shimmering in the firelight. She’d always find my gaze through the flames, embers dotting her eyes like the night sky. And then she’d smile before drawing one more sip and returning to the revelry around her. That was usually when I quietly excused myself for the night leaving her to gossip and mingle with the other friends enjoying the evening. While summer may be for late nights, I always found if they went too late and her lips got too red we’d end the night with a fight and it was better to resign to the living room and fall asleep on the couch to reruns of old TV. She was always cheerful after the cicadas started singing and morning gave way to early afternoon. But it was not early afternoon. My watch tells me it’s only eight. I call out her name and wait. Straining my ears, awaiting reply; or perhaps just the cold response of running water from a hot shower down the hall. Neither comes to me and for a moment I run through the events of the night before. James and Rashi had come over, as well as our neighbour Terrence. The two of them we’d known since college; Terrence just since we moved in last fall but he always had interesting things to say. He was old enough you didn’t even bother asking his age anymore. The one time I had he just responded with ‘since time’ and looked at me with a twinkle in his eye before going back to tending his garden. Crinkled brown skin pulled tight every time he smiled which was often. He’d been in the same barbershop quartet for almost twenty five years before the other three started succumbing to the effects of disease and time. But he’d still croon for us around the campfire as best he could. The drunker he got you’d see him dancing between the harmonies clumsily trying to give you the full effect but it would just end in fits of laughter from all of us including him; especially when he went for the high notes, his baritone vocals barking at registers unknown. I check my phone for any messages and there’s a missed call from James. I tap it to call him back but after two rings it goes to voicemail. I shoot him a message before flipping over to my conversation with Daphne. *Where you at?* I type. A quick call sends me straight to voicemail. Probably best to check with Terrence first anyways and see if she was still up when he had gone off to bed. He was usually up earlier than both of us so if she had gone somewhere he might even know where that was. My body groans and my stomach does a flip when I roll out of bed and take my first few steps towards the hall. A hollow *clank* spooks me where my foot’s knocked over another bottle of empty wine; she must have had a later night than I thought. I never knew what she saw in the stuff. Hot, sweet breath, red teeth and a gut ache the next morning was all it ever did for me. I’d usually have a sip just to see if it had gotten any better since the last time but it never satisfied any deep desire within like it did for her. Just a cough or a wince followed by my tongue feeling dry and fuzzy. Apparently, that was a good thing. “Daphne?” I call out again. More central in the house now, she’s bound to hear me if she’s around. The bathroom door’s shut but the shower’s off. I push it open. Assess myself in the mirror briefly. Dishevelled hair. Wet eyes and somehow my single sip from the night before still managed to cling to my teeth. I futilely run my tongue along them before wetting a toothbrush and tackling it head on. Everything about this felt so utterly familiar. It wasn’t just Friday nights that she drank, was it? No, it was most nights. A bad habit turned into a mundane routine. I spit in the sink. Old toothpaste is stuck like glue in clumps around the basin. I splash water around it but it needs a full scrubbing. A quick glance around the bathroom reveals similar neglect. I can’t remember the last time we had done a weekly clean of the place. To be honest, she was usually the one leading the charge, but the chart of chores that used to be stuck to our fridge door had been replaced by liquor store flyers for a while now. Specials, new arrivals, old faithfuls. I make my way down the hall to the kitchen, ignore the cluster of dishes sitting in the sink and head through to the front foyer and slip on a pair of runners. Out of habit I reach out for the hook that holds the car keys and grasp nothing but air. Weird. Not that the keys would be gone, but that both sets of keys are missing - mine and hers. Sure enough, the car’s not parked in the driveway. She must have taken both keys by mistake, right? After last night she was probably still half in the bag, or just crawling out of it when she headed off to wherever she was going. The brick column that climbs halfway up the corner of our house is crumbling, bits of sediment and a few larger chunks are strewn around it; a sign of the times. Part of being able to afford a home anymore was foregoing the usual due diligence like inspections and simply taking what you could get. This wasn’t the only part of our home slowly falling apart. The entire place was breaking at the seams like an aging suit; the kind you see men digging out of their closets for a funeral despite being a few inches wider than when they first bought it. Terrence’s flowers are opening up beautifully along the stone path to his front door. A bumblebee wobbles and waves around a particularly colourful patch of petals, slowly lining up a sloppy landing and collapsing on a leaf like a shipwrecked sailor. *Protect the bees!* She’d yelled sloppily a few weeks back. *They’re all we friggin' got.* Something she’d read in one of her magazines. The next day she’d come home from the farmer’s market with ten jars of organic honey. The kind that crystallized and you had to spread like peanut butter. Each jar was a different varietal. *This one has hibiscus while this one is lavender and wildflower.* The relation to her wines was not lost on me but this seemed healthier and for a naive moment, I thought maybe she’d found a new hobby. It only took until the next evening to realize I was mistaken. My knock on his door spooks a nearby sparrow who chirps indignantly and launches off his perch to a more peaceful end of the yard. I can hear Terrence shuffling around inside before his voice comes booming through the door. “What you want?” “Terrence, it’s me, open up.” “No, I think I’m good, son.” “Why? Are you naked?” I let out a chuckle hoping to break the confusing tension coming through the door but he doesn’t even respond. Terrence would open his door for his worst enemy if he knew he was hungry. Something wasn’t adding up. A dark thought that maybe more than just Terrence lay beyond that door struck a dark chord in my mind and sent my fist knocking again. “Come on now, open up. I need to talk to you about Daphne! Have you seen her?” “Son. I’m afraid if you don’t leave now I’ll have to call the cops. I just can’t do this today.” His words send me a step back. Who did he think he was? Call the cops *on me?* “Terrence quit playing around! Just open up. I’m really starting to get worried about her.” And I was. As much as things had waned since we moved. As much as I hated the drinking. And the fighting. And the interrupted sleep. The endless hobbies that cluttered the corners of our home. I still loved her. The truth was, it kept me safe. Safe from trying new things on my own. I lived vicariously through her various passions, tasting honey like it was scotch or finding vintage frames at second hand stores to house her latest finger painting. There was something beautiful about dating this flawed tapestry of a woman; for all her flaws, she kept me warm at night. “Terrence. Please.” I can hear a heavy sigh even through the door. A deadbolt knocking back. The door swings half open and Terrence’s swollen face fills the frame. The purple marbling on his cheekbone pushes the thought of Daphne out of my mind for a brief moment. “Terrence, what happened?” He sucks air in through tight teeth and shakes his head. “I liked you, son. I liked Daphne more, but I really did like you too.” “Liked? What-” “Now you listen well and you listen good. I feel for you. I do. It was a tragedy - to all of us. But you have to straighten yourself up. You gone too far this time.” “You’re saying I did this to you?” “You and your drinkin’.” No. I shake my head. He’s old. Old and confused. “I went to bed last night before all of you Terrence, you know that.” “All of us? All of who?” “You. You - and James...and Rashi.” He grimaces. I can see him shift his body more behind the door, bracing it. “Son. I don’t know what you think happened last night but ain’t none of us over at your place. You came over here hollering about Daphne and when I opened my door you demanded to know where she was just like you is now. I don’t got the answers you need son, only God has those, but you got to find a way to let go.” “Let go? Of what?” “Of her son. She’s gone. Two weeks now you’ve been coming around here. Your teeth been red for weeks. I can’t carry on like this.” “You’re wrong. She’s just gone off somewhere this morning. Probably grabbing coffee for us right now.” “Your car was impounded five days ago after you crashed into the corner of your own damn house. Lucky those bricks held like they did. Only reason you ain’t in jail is ‘cause you didn’t damage nothing but your own.” My head’s spinning like a carousel. I keep spotting different images spinning around me, flashes of time. Memories that feel like lies. My black suit I hadn’t worn since college gripping me like a wet suit, bursting at its seams; the one I wore when my dad died all those years back. But this funeral wasn’t for him, was it? My friend James pulling me tight telling me everything was going to be alright. Sitting on my front stoop with Terrence, sharing a bottle of root beer one of his nephews had made from scratch. He was wearing a suit too and singing some sad song that cut up your insides and made your heart weep. I look down at my feet. At my hand, bruised in its own right. Then lift stinging eyes back up to Terrence. “How?” “You know how, son. And you keep doing like you are, you’ll find her soon enough.” I stand there. My body frozen in shock. My brain scrambling to rewrite my memories. My eyes turning wine into water. All I can say is - “I’m sorry.” “Me too, son. He nods at me. Eats his bottom lip. “Please don’t come over here again.” The door shuts firmly in front of me and I hear him shuffling off. Finding my way back to my own front door is a blurry mess. Feeling for the ground like I might fall in quicksand with one misplaced step. I collapse at the foot of my bed and a glint of light catches my eye. Dozens of bottles litter the floor beneath my mattress. Her favourite wine; but emptied by another's hand. My breath is hot on my face as it’s pressed up against the floorboards. In that moment I can smell myself. Taste the fermented sugars that have settled between my teeth like dirt under your fingernails. I drag the blanket off my bed and curl up right there in a pool of tears. How many days had I ended like this? How many times had my mind betrayed me? Ripping open the scars and leaving me paralyzed with nothing but my thoughts to haunt me. I shut my eyes tight and wander back. To her smile. And her eyes. The effortless way she moved around a room, her dress dancing behind her as if her own voracity for life seeped into its very fibres. The way she said my name even when she was angry. I pull the blankets tighter around me and shut out everything but her. Refusing to let reality bring me back to the present. To a time without her, as all time from here on would be. It wasn’t enough, all those moments. Stacked up against a lifetime without her. I pray for the morning. A morning where she hadn’t yet been taken from me. I reach for another bottle and let it dull my senses and eventually I do fall back asleep. The sound of the cicadas wakes me eventually. Moonlight drifts in casting shadows of dancing leaves on the far wall and I’m left wondering what I’m doing laying on the floor. The bed’s empty; Daphne must have run off somewhere. Perhaps another liquor store run. I close my eyes again. Five more minutes won’t kill me. It’s still morning after all. At least that’s what I tell myself.

The stone wall was covered in moss. The entire backyard had an abandoned farm house look about it. In the middle of the yard there were two white wooden chairs, or rather they would have been white had it not been for a giant iridescent umbrella catching sun rays and painting the chairs pink and gold and teal depending on which way Celestine looked at them. Celestine hadn’t been home since they’d left twenty years, three months and fours days ago. Then they’d gone by another name, a gender assigned to them by their parents and a pronoun that didn’t quite fit. That was a clunkier time in their memory. When they’d arrived back in their small town, Celestine was surprised by how easily they fit again. Their small town was a haven of artists, and wonderfolk and self-proclaimed weirdos and it felt good to be back among a colony of outsiders. It was strange though to feel like an outsider amongst outsiders. Celestine’s parents had prepared the denizens of the town for their arrival by practicing their new name and pronouns at every opportunity. Celestine felt grateful to have the sort of parents that had always accepted corrections, and the re-envisioning of the child they had raised. Celestine’s parents had also come to realize later their very own gender divergence after many phone conversations and well-crafted emails. It was a wonderful thing to feel seen and accepted in a world where that was often not the case. Celestine remembered crying tears of joy for an entire day when their parents had come out to them with their new names and genders and pronouns. Celestine’s parents were currently out at the town’s monthly tea party, and Celestine was a little melancholy thinking about the delightful tiny foods they were missing, but they had a feeling what was to follow would be worth it. The umbrella beckoned to them, its sparkle a soothing magic for their heart. Under it hung a lone hummingbird feeder, filled with a clear sugar syrup that their parents put out regularly to draw the tiny birds that were more faerie than fowl. Celestine sat on one of the chairs, the shimmering light dappling their skin with a myriad of colours. They breathed in the familiar scents of the lilac bush with its forty-two flowers spaced just so. Celestine had counted them as they waited for their friend to arrive. The number forty-two calmed them. Whenever they encountered a 42 in the world they felt like something magical was about to happen. It was a beautiful trick their brain had developed to push aside the onslaught of absurd anxieties that plagued them regularly. Would there be enough lemons at the grocery store? Would they have to answer a phone call from a stranger? Would their mother text them that yet another distant relative had died leaving them with the feeling that they were supposed to be sad, knowing it was difficult to summon sadness for a person they did not really know. The chimes rang, pushed by the wind, and Celestine looked, wondering if maybe their friend had arrived. The doorway was empty. Celestine counted the lilacs again, and breathed deep. Their friend was supposed to have arrived ten minutes ago, but they didn’t mind waiting. They used to find it irritating, waiting, but one day they realized that the irritation itself was an annoyance and that people often arrived exactly when they were supposed to. They sat so incredibly still that a hummingbird arrived, ruby-throated and sparkling, under the umbrella to feed at the feeder, and Celestine was at once entranced. The small whirring of tiny wings was akin to a symphony to their tender ears. The chimes rang again and the small faerie bird zipped away. Celestine felt a momentary sadness at its absence. ”Celestine?” A uncertain voice came from the back doorway to the house. Celestine turned, and there they were. A tall thin, pink-bespectacled, rumple-haired shape. The newcomer to the backyard wore a long black shift, and bizarre leggings covered in cartoonish illustrations of crimson cherries, violent elephants and turquoise jack o lanterns. A spectacle of dazzle camouflage. Celestine froze. They had not seen their friend since the both of them had worn awkwardly forced gender presentations like costumes. Celestine stood up too quickly causing pinpricks of bright light to dance about the periphery of their vision. ”Hex?” Celestine’s voice came out in more of a whisper than they expected. The last time the two of them had met, they were both 18 years old and standing under this very umbrella, they had pressed their mouths together after a very long conversation about magical childhood memories of chimeric significance. That had been followed by a deep sort of staring into each other’s eyes, the kind where you feel as if you’ve been called into each other’s thoughts. Celestine nearly stumbled at the clear memory of that moment. That had been the same day the both of them had left that small town. Hex walked over to them, and Celestine went over all the missives the two of them had sent back and forth over the past twenty years. They had never stopped writing to each other. Celestine had never met anyone equal in conversational skills to the person who now stood before them, their eyes still the bright clear orbs of wonder Celestine remembered. They stared at each other, deeply, and so still were they two that the hummingbird felt safe to return, and Celestine and Hex breathed out a simultaneous sigh of relief, that their love spun of twenty years of letters, and phone calls, and odd packages full of discoveries was stronger than even before. They both stepped towards one another, that deep stare unbroken, and once again pressed their mouths together much to the dismay of one hummingbird who zipped away while the wind jingled the chimes, and the moss grew ever since slowly of the stone wall, and the forty-two lilac blooms looked on with ancient approval.

This is you. You are standing still. The smell of the sea breeze scratches at your nose. The salt mixes with the drying algae and the burning refuse. You are looking in the distance, at the gray bridge. Cars are stuck there, and you cannot tell if they are moving forwards or backwards. The waves crash in front of you. You drag your gaze around. There is trash everywhere - plastic bags, pieces of plaster walls, bricks, metal rods. A box of flares is still lit under some sand and gives off a sulfurous, oozing smoke. A pile of driftwood is ablaze downwind. You cannot smell it but you see the people gathered around it. Your heavy coat is wrapped tightly around you. The cool wind whips it around you like a cape. You used to enjoy superheroes. Capes and leather and magic, somehow coalesced into something more real for you because you used to wear shirts with their logos. Everything was possible then. You wrap the coat tighter around you and stop it from flapping. The horizon is a flat line in front of you. From the street you could see a sailboat, but it is gone now. The water is the same color as the sky, and it looks sick. The gray is everywhere. Your wife used to have blue eyes. Like the sea. Both are gray now. Up the hill behind you, a woman walks by. She is talking on her phone. Her laughter rings loudly and its echo resonates in your head. It pulls you out of the grayness. You look down. Your old work boots are dirty and scuffed. Sand has pooled in the creases. You lift your feet and shake the sand loose. She always said you couldn't keep yourself clean. Just like your father. As you bend down to remove the last grains you see a rock buried in the sand. You dig it out with a pleased grunt. This will fit. You put it in your coat pocket. It does fit. Its weight reassures you. Next to you is the old carcass of a destroyed boat. No one bothered to pick it out of the rubble. Its flank is split open like a beached whale. You used to think that you would conquer the world with her. Now, she is gone, and the world is gone as well. You are left with nowhere to go and nothing to see. You pick up an armful of rocks and put them in your pockets. The people are gone from the fire. It is still going strong, but not for long. Without people to care for it it will fade from existence. Only its bleached bones will remain, like elephant tusks in an forgotten graveyard. Your hands are cold and cracked. They are white and red and blue and purple and black. They are not used to this temperature. They hold each other and support the cold. They run each other for comfort. The waves crash around you. You are numb. Cold and tired. Sick and grieving. You close your eyes. You know that the water should be cold, but it only feels like a soft embrace. You breathe slowly. You try to match the rythm of the waves. As they come to you and wash over your head, you sink. The grayness pulls you down. You know you should be feeling bad but as you sink you can only feel peace and calmness. Some waves disturb you but you ignore them and go deeper. You have closed your eyes and can only see darkness, but somehow there is darker blackness creeping in the corners. The nothingness spreads over your head and mind and soon you are nothing but the tingle in your extremities. You open your eyes. You dump the stones in the dry, cool sand at your feet. The bridge is still an ashy gray, set against the gray clouds. It is still full of cars. You think they might be the same cars as before. Still moving in no particular direction. You shake your head and curse at yourself. You think about the fire, dying as it is, without anyone to fan and feed the flame. It is still burning its fuel, even if no one is watching it. No one celebrates it but the white bones burn on. You walk back up the hill and climb in your car. You drive away.

Sandwiches, I have decided, are the best thing to ever grace the planet. People have come to me from all over the world to tell me otherwise, but at the end of things, I will always win. They (the sandwiches) are such a piece of beautiful soul mate that I have no desire to see other people. Unless, of course, they are the sandwich boy named after his great grandfather, Morris Cupcake. Morris Cupcake is the only person alive I’ve ever wanted to see more than once. I live and breathe sandwiches, so it only makes sense that Morris Cupcake the Sandwich Boy is the only agreeable person in the universe. He smells like deli meat and always, always has melted cheese and j ust above his left eye is a winding scratch from a time the knife slipped and jumped through his hands. d grease in his hair. His hands are slivered and rough with scars of making sandwiches for so long. From the very first time I saw him, I knew he was a strange, magnetic force. But this all just makes me want to scoop up this delightful human and smell the deli meat impressioned in his blood until I’ve memorized it. Alas, the sandwich boy Morris Cupcake sees me as merely another customer. While he, to my frail female mind, is the only cure to my ailing soul, it can be said quite frankly that I am but a speck of dusty old flesh that gives him money in exchange for sandwiches. He can’t see the way I look at him. I don’t mean that I don’t want him to, I just mean that this Morris Cupcake is blind to my OBVIOUS affections. I've had these feelings, these brilliant, brilliant, thumping feelings, for him ever since I first met him, and he can't see how I look at him. That may be because he’s engaged to this mucky blonde girl with a rear end the size of Memphis and a father’s paycheck that’s even bigger. Her name is Libra Mela and she would look like a warthog if she weren’t basking in the glow of five plastic surgeries. How I loathe her! One day I will shoot her down from the sky and the clouds she thinks she rules. I shall, I shall, I shall, I shall. And then she will die and I shall not be sorry. Until then, I must continue my plans for Morris Cupcake. It’s Thursday, and he always comes at five o’clock on Thursdays. He’ll be bringing me a chicken pepper sandwich today. I asked for extra chicken so I could imagine him and his strong sandwich boy arms snapping the heads off of a chicken. I almost hope he’ll still have a bit of chicken blood on him. If he does, then the only acceptable thing to do will be to invite him inside. Then I shall offer him a cup of boiling tea. It will be so overwhelmingly romantic that he won’t be able to hold his true devotion to me inside his head any longer. And then... He’s knocking at the door and I stand up to run. I fling open the door and there he stands, not a speck of chicken blood to be seen. I say for him to wait just a moment and I know he will because I’m the one giving him money. I run to the backyard and spy a squirrel up on a small tree. With the lightning fast instincts of a rabid wolf, I pluck the squirrel off the tree. It has no chance. It screams and falls limp. I can tell it is rabid, but that’s no matter. I’m immune to getting rabies, being rabid myself. I carry it, still squirming wildly, back to Morris Cupcake. I open the door and swing the squirrel towards Morris, breaking its head upon his left arm. Blood of squirrel splatters all over his clothes and a bit of his face. He yells and throws his sandwich carrier on the ground, and then he tries to run away. But I stick to my plan! I smile sweetheartedly and grab the arms of the sandwich boy, yanking him into the doorway. He’s still shocked from the squirrel blood, so he doesn’t complain too much when I throw him into the couch and sit across from him. “You’ll have to change your clothes, you know.” I say, swinging my legs gallantly. “What, no!” He bounces up off the couch and tries to run for the door, but I kick him back with the edge of my boot and smile tightly. “You’re my guest. Behave like one, please.” He once again tries to escape, so I have no choice but to kick him again, slamming the heel of my foot into his chest. Breathless, he sinks into the cushions and his eyes sort of roll back in his head. I hurry to the kitchen and make his cup of boiling tea. When I come back, I find that he’s somehow regained enough strength to make it to the door. I set the tea down and frown. He turns the doorknob, but it’s already locked. I walk quietly over to his side. “Please come sit down. It won’t be long at all. Just give me a minute, just a slice of your time.” Morris Cupcake doesn’t answer. I frown more deeply saddened that he won’t comply so easily as I thought. I grab the front of his squirrel stained shirt and drag him back to the couch. “Drink the tea, and you’ll be on your way. Don’t you see I’m just trying to repay you for all you’ve done for me? Drink the tea, and you’ll be on your way. I won’t bother you anymore. I promise.” He’s terrified, but there’s no need to be. I reach across the couch and pat his head. He flinches and I pull my hand away. He won’t drink the tea. This upsets me, because, after all, I made it just for him. Me, the sweet reclusive girl of the looming 19 Rawness Avenue, has taken time from her busy schedule to make Morris Cupcake a cup of tea and he won’t have it? I am not beautiful, but I am not as hideous as Libra Mela. My hair is scraggly and my arms are like chickens’ and always covered with grit and glim as I never wash. I have a strange appetite. I do not go to school. They say I would frighten the children. Of course, the adults are probably more scared of me than the children would be. Before Morris Cupcake can say another word, I snatch the tea up from the table and tilt it towards him. He clenches his jaw. I smile. This will be more fun than I had even thought. I move to sit by him on the couch and he makes a dive for my hands, trying to fight me off, but I stick the end of the spoon from the tea into his cheekbone and he howls. I let go of the spoon and then turn his face towards mine. His mouth is already conveniently screaming, so I take advantage and dump the entire tea cup’s contents into his throat. Three seconds, and his eyes close. He stops struggling to breathe after a while, and as I hold his cold hands in my own glinty ones, he drifts into wherever dead sandwich boys go. I take the spoon from his cheekbone and throw it to the floor. I can still smell the delicious deli meat smell on his clothes, even over all the squirrel blood. I walk to the door and pick up the sandwich carrier. He won’t need it anymore. You see, I’ve decided that sandwiches are the best thing to ever grace the planet, but even the best things on the planet need to be improved sometimes. Who best to improve the taste of a sandwich, than Morris Cupcake the Sandwich Boy?

Writing this for school and also a competition. Inspired by the Cyndago video "The Afterlife" Please give me any feedback. (excuse typos) &#x200B; “This day will be remembered for the rest of your lives and your great-grandchildren’s lives.” Said Dr. Reese into the microphone. And this day would be remembered. ExTec had just finished “the scientific breakthrough of the millennium” in their own words. “For centuries, *millennia* even, mankind had always had one impossible frontier, something that no matter how much we developed, how much we expanded as a species, we would never be able to explore. Until today. Today, New Year’s Eve 2045 is the day that ExTec pioneers a way into the new frontier. Today we see the afterlife.” A loud applaud came from the audience in the laboratory. Scientists, media, friends and family, people who snuck in amongst the others were all there to witness the test. “Our top scientists here at ExTec have found a way to travel to the great beyond, while still being able to travel back.” Continued Reese. He motioned towards a large tank of water on the other side of the stage. Next to the tank was an old man lying down on a bed. Connected to his head were about 20 receptors that ran through some wires and into the tank. “As you can see, this tank is connected to our test subject Mr. Richmond, who we are very grateful has volunteered for this historical discovery.” Continued Reese “Mr. Richmond is very close to the end of his life, and soon he will pass to the other side as nature takes its course. However, as he leaves this world, we will be able to follow him to the next.” Another applause came from the crowd as Reese tried to continue. It took at least a minute until the crowd settled again. “Thank you, thank you.” Continued Reese. “As I was saying, this tank is connected to Mr. Richmond’s nervous system, as his body dies, his nervous system will continue to the next life. The electrons in the water will activate a small device in our traveler’s ear and will transport our traveler to wherever Mr. Richmond’s consciousness goes.” An audience member stood up, “How will you be able to bring this ‘traveler’ back to our world after the experiment?” she asked. “That is a very good question, madam.” Responded Reese. “When our traveler determines that he has seen all he needs to see, he will radio us through the device in his ear and we will simply disconnect the tank from Mr. Richmond. This will cause the device to bring him back into the tank.” “Speaking of our traveler,” Reese continued, “Let's meet him. Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you Mr. Duncan Davidson, who will be the first man to explore the other side.” This applause was louder than either of the two that came before it. People were standing up and cheering as Mr. Davidson walked on the stage. He was wearing a full body jumpsuit and was holding his helmet under his arm. A mix of emotions on his face. He had been waiting for this day for months, and now it was finally here. “Mr. Davidson has been chosen from a list of almost 1000 scientists working here at ExTec.” Explained Reese. “He has been training for months specifically for today and we are sure that he will succeed in this experiment.” Duncan wasn’t as sure. Yes, he had been training and learning about how the technology works for the last 10 months, but he still had no idea what the afterlife would have waiting for him. He had never really believed in any specific religious version of the afterlife, but he always assumed there was one. After all, we must go somewhere. “Well we have talked long enough, now is the time for action,” Reese turned to Mr. Richmond “Mr. Richmond, we thank you for your willingness to spend your final seconds participating in this journey, and we wish you the best in the afterlife.” Mr. Richmond didn’t say anything; he just gave a faint smile and a nod. Duncan slowly climbed into the tank, the water was warm and gave him an almost ticklish feeling. He lay down on his back as Dr. Reese looked into the tank and yelled: “Mr. Davidson, are you ready?” Duncan gave a thumbs up “Let's do this!” he said back. Reese gave a nod to the nurses. They started to pump the lethal dose of morphine into Mr. Richmond’s arm. As Richmond closed his eyes, the water in the tank began to light up. Duncan felt a sharp pain all around his body like it was being torn apart atom by atom. He closed his eyes and let out a short scream. When he opened them, he was lying on the ground, and all the pain he felt in the tank was gone. He got up and looked around. There was nothing, just a plain of white that never seemed to end. He turned around to see an uncountable amount of people standing in lines. The lines led to a long structure that stretched as far as Duncan could see, side to side. Duncan felt an unknown force bringing him towards one of the lines. As he took his place, he looked around at the other people in the lines next to him. They all were dead-panned, with no emotion on their faces. Like robots. They were all wearing white. Most of them were elderly, but there were many others that were young, some couldn’t have been any older than 5 years old. Duncan looked down and realized that he too was wearing all white clothes. He wondered where the jumpsuit that he had been wearing in the tank had gone. His hand rushed to his ear, and he gave a sigh of relief as he felt the small device inside. He trained with this technology for months. He knew if he lost it, he was stuck. To his right, Duncan saw a familiar face. “Mr. Richmond?” he asked, it came out as a whisper. Mr. Richmond looked back at him, with the same blank expression on all the other faces in the lines, and then slowly looked back to where he had been staring. As Duncan finally got closer to the long structure that all the lines lead into, he realized what it was. It was almost like a toll booth. People would go one by one and speak with the person inside, and then would walk through a gate to the other side. Duncan finally got to the booth and inside was a man also dressed in white, just as everyone else had been. He was typing something into what seemed like a computer. “Name?” The man asked. “Uh, Duncan Davidson.” Replied Duncan nervously. The man didn’t look at him the same way that Mr. Richmond had looked at him, vacant and robotic. He looked at him like he was completely void of any happiness or sadness. Like he had moved past those emotions. “Duncan Davidson, age 36 born in Cleveland, Ohio, United States?” asked the man. “Um, yes that’s me.” Replied Duncan. “Um, excuse me,” Duncan had a list of questions that he had been told to ask anyone he met in the afterlife, but he had totally forgotten it. All he could think to ask was “Where are we?” The man replied, “This is the afterlife.” “So, we’re in heaven?” asked Duncan. “Nope” replied the man. Duncan’s heart began to sink. “So, this is hell?” “Wrong again.” Replied the man again. “I told you, this is the afterlife. There is no heaven and hell here. You went through Heaven, Mr. Davidson when you got married 8 years ago, and you went through Hell when you were going through your divorce 2 years later.” Duncan was taken aback, he had never met this man before, yet he seemed to know everything about him. “So, if there’s no heaven or hell, what’s the afterlife?” Duncan asked. The man motioned around him. “This is.” Duncan looked around except for the long booth, there was absolutely nothing. “So, what do I do now?” he asked. The man handed Duncan a ticket and opened the door to the other side of the toll booth. On the other side Duncan saw more people than he had ever seen before, there must’ve been trillions, slowly walking around with no specific direction. “Wait over there with the others.” Said the man. Duncan looked back at the man, “For how long?” The man shrugged “A few minutes, a couple of millennium, it all feels the same.” Duncan looked at the man one more time and then started walking to the mass of people. His mind started racing. He started to panic. This was what the afterlife was? An eternity of standing around waiting for something to happen? This was what everybody’s life led to, no matter how they used it? Then he began to think more about it. And he started to calm down. There was nothing to worry about here. No problems, no stress, nothing. He felt perfectly at peace. He felt freedom from the weight of his emotions, there was a feeling of perfect balance and calm that washed over his body. “Davidson, are you there?” he heard in his right ear. It was Dr. Reese, “Davidson you’ve been in there for almost an hour. Are you ok?” Davidson took the radio out of his ear spoke into the microphone. “Yes, I’m fine.” He said, before dropping the radio on the ground and crushing it under his shoe. He was fine. Not happy, not sad, just fine. He took a deep breath and then went to take his place amongst the others.

The ground was white. It had snowed heavily that morning and the weather was still cold, preventing the snow from melting. She walked through it. Her boots almost ran up to her knees and the snow was high as her calves. On a normal day she’d have Walked through this easily. It wasn’t her first time or the second or the third. It was her way back from school and she’s been through it a hundred times. Today, however, it was heavier. The backpack on her shoulder, the air and every step she took seemed to pull her deeper into the snow. *Am I dreaming now? She thought. Do I even deserve to live? Should I really go home?* &#x200B; She could make out the house in the distance. It wasn’t what you’d call big, but It was what she’d call perfect. It was a wooden house, a cute door which always had a weird ornament hanging on it - it was something her mom makes while she had nothing else to do - with cottage windows that looked out the front and circular windows on the top where the attic should be. She was now close enough to see the chimney blew smoke. *No. I’m not hungry. She thought again. I haven’t eaten since last night yet I’m not hungry at all.* As she got closer to the house, she walked slower. *Or did it feel slow? Was time slowing down? Do I dare step into the house like this?* &#x200B; She reached the front door and eyed the ornament. It was shaped like a bird, but it wasn’t a bird. It looked like the moment a bird takes flight but instead wings were shards like broken pieces of glass. The ornament was silver. The broken edges faded to black. She saw the positive side and thought it meant freedom but her mother had a different superstition. *Weird. I’ve grown so used to this by now, but why does it make me feel like it’s meant for me. I don’t think it means freedom anymore.. it’s the illusion of being free. But we are just as broken as everything else. Why am I so negative? Is this it for me? Am I over? Am I done?* &#x200B; Knock. Knock. She never rang the doorbell. She always preferred the sound of knuckles against wood. “Hey, my baby girl” said her mom as she opened the door. She was in her late thirties. She was strikingly pretty with her angular jawlines, eyebrows that were so perfect you’d think she’d thread them every day. Her lips were rose without the lipstick and as fine and slender as her fingers. Her eyes, as grey as the winter storm itself. Everyone said that she is a copy of her mother. She even agreed. *But beauty is a curse. I know that now.* &#x200B; “Come on sweetie, I made lunch and take off that thick jacket” *Do I have to?* She eyed the room. Same as always. Fire burning in the fireplace, the couches on either side and The soft fur carpet at the center. *Cozy. But not today.* “Come sit down. Look what I made for you” She shifted her eyes to the dinner table. It could accommodate 6 people, the spot where most of her happy memories took place. But today, it felt cold and unwelcoming. Spaghetti with hot sauce and meatballs. *My absolute favorite.* “I’m not hungry, mom.” Shouldn’t have said that. Her mom’s face fell. *It is my favorite dish. Why does it look so unappetizing? I’m sorry mom. I’m so sorry. I don’t want you to be sad. I don’t want you to worry. I’m just so so sorry.* “But... Baby... I made it just the way you love it... For you” *I don’t deserve your love, mom. Please. Just hate me. Please. Just don’t care. Please. Forgive me.* “I know” she said “but.. umm.. I had a heavy lunch from school.. and I .. I can’t digest more.” *Lies. Does it show on my face?* “Are you okay, sweetie?” “Yes, mom, just really tired. I need rest” “Oh.. sure baby.. you go get some sleep. I’ll save this for dinner” *I don’t think I’ll make it for dinner.* “Thanks ,mom” She made her way past the hallway, brooding about what happened that day. Her eyes were filled with tears. She looked back, her mom was in the kitchen, out of sight. She made her way to the stairs. Her room was on the next floor. “MOM!” She called out. “Yes, darling?” *I’m sorry, mom. I didn’t want to hurt you. I never did.* “I love you, mom” “Oh baby.” Her mom answered, still out of sight. “ I love you too!” She felt so heavy as she climbed the stairs. *Would it break now? Under this pressure? Would that finally be it?* Her room was the first one on the left. She opened it and threw her bag down. It was covered in mud and snow. *Thank God mom didn’t notice.* She looked up and saw that the snow had started to fall. She slowly closed the door. Bolted it shut. She must’ve stood there, in that position for 10 minutes straight. As the first streak of tear rolled out on to her cheek, she grabbed the pillow on her bed and collapsed into the floor and cried her lungs out. &#x200B; *Broken.* She knew what it felt like to be broken. To be stripped of peace. *I’m sorryyyyyy. She cried into the pillow. Forgive me mom. Forgive me dad. I would never hurt any of you. But I couldn’t. I just couldn’t help myself. I can't. I just can’t.* &#x200B; She got up after what must’ve been an hour. Her legs were sore. Her eyes bloodshot. She walked to her cupboard like a zombie. Dead but alive.she stood in front of the mirror and opened the drawer and peered inside. What she searched for was still there. She never knew she’d have another use for this object. Slowly, she took off her shirt. As she saw her reflection, fresh tears streamed on to her cheeks. Bruises.. purple and almost black.. they weren’t there this morning. Bruises so large and strong.. on her back, around to her stomach up to her chest. She looked at the skirt she wore. *Was i asking for it?* She dropped her skirt and cried again. It hurt so bad. The bruises around her thighs were least of her concern as she eyed the dried up blood that had streamed down her underwear to the inner thighs. She grabbed the rope from the drawer. And walked to the center of the room. She looked up and then out of the window into the snow. “I’m so sorry, mom.

I'm not sure there's anything worse than having to take a shit at work. It's not like I have issues pooping or anything, but the bathrooms are so disgusting. The men's room is a smorgasbord of tobacco spit in the corners of stalls, shit smears on inconceivable surfaces, wet toilet paper everywhere, loose--and often wet--pubes, bandits of tobacco everywhere, and unflushed toilets and urinals. It's lit like a back alley, and reeks of piss and shit regardless of the time of day. And on a hot day like today, it's worse. It's beyond stressful; it's stressful enough being in the office and dealing with anything and everyone, listening to entitled people bitch about current events, or the weather; everything that's beyond their control and out of their depth to even understand. There is nothing more annoying than being forced to listen to office banter. But unfortunately, I have to poop, which is worse than the banter. I lock my computer and head to the bathroom. The closest one to my cubicle only has three stalls and three urinals, and luckily nobody else is in here. The stink isn't overpowering, but I can tell I'm making a face over it. I open the first stall and the toilet is loaded with excess toilet paper and shit, all floating near the brim. Another common sight: clogged toilets from guys who have no regard for the correct amount of toilet paper they need. It doesn't even look used; it's like they pooped and then threw TP in to make it seem like they wiped. I gag a little from the sight and smell, and I close the stall. The second stall looks okay; there is only a small discoloration on the back of the seat where someone didn't scoot far enough forward, and a small piss puddle where the seat doesn't connect in the front, and both of those are easily fixable. I wad up about a foot of toilet paper, spit on the seat, and wipe around the rim, scrubbing at the shit color, which comes off. Then I take another foot of paper and wipe as good as I can on the front of the toilet. I also scan for loose pubes; nothing will make me gag to the point of puking faster than loose pubes on a toilet seat; but I see nothing so far, yet I remain vigilant. I am still making a face. I make one last loose blanket of toilet paper that covers the surface of the water so there's no splash; toilet water splashing on my ass is beyond gross. I drop my pants and sit down to start. It's not a gassy shit, which is nice; I always feel a little self conscious about sound in the bathroom. I always think that people outside in the office can hear everything even though I sit closer than most, and I've never heard anyone in here. The feeling is relieving; this is a pasta shit from the chicken farfalle I had the night before, with spinach and cheese in it. This makes for a solid turd and easy clean-up. The pressure drop in my body is almost euphoric. I start to think about how clean that toilet paper looked in the water in the first stall, like a pristine barrier in which the shit is contained. Why would someone do such a thing? I thought. I imagined my boss elegantly encircling his shit after clogging the toilet, as if to show off his accomplishment, and I get the silly idea he actually did do that in a territorial display of narcissism: Here's the real shit, fellas. Look upon my work, ye mighty, and despair. I smile at this. I sit for another minute to relax and see if there is anything else brewing before deciding I'm good to go. The toilet paper at work is terrible. I wrap a couple layers of it around my hand, get a few good wipes, folding the paper so as not to be wasteful, and get up. But despite the relief, there is still that urge when I look at my turd to pick it up. Pasta shits are usually long and solid, which feels the best in my hands, and I like the analysis of it all. It's a need I can't always resist: picking up my shit, smelling it, analyzing, squishing it in my hands; its like a treasure hunt of past meals and prescription med capsules. It's an excitement I don't understand. But something about my bowel movements puts me in a state of awe at the work my body does without any real input from me; how it produces a pure pipe of food waste that leaves my body so smoothly; how the smell isn't great but I can't seem to turn away from it; it's the perfection in my waste that is the antithesis of my life as a whole. This useless shit; this perfect shit. Before I can really stop myself, I give in to the impulse. I pick up my pasta turd and squeeze it lightly, testing the durability. It breaks in half as I lift it out of the toilet, releasing some of the odor that smells familiar to me. I squeeze harder, and the shit pushes out of my hands and breaks off more, leaving me with a feeling of mud between my fingers, like a child playing in the rain. I smile. I push it around my hand some more, rubbing uneven parts between my fingers and thumb, trying to get a sense of what the mystery unevenness used to be, flattening chunks; my face gets hot and I get disgusted with the mess, and I toss what's left in the toilet and flush. I take some more toilet paper and wipe my hands as well as I can, even though nobody is in here; I could just leave the stall and use soap, but I want as much of it off as possible; I want it clean. Somewhat satisfied with my initial cleaning, I flush again, and I leave the stall to wash my hands in the sink. I can smell the shit on my hand, and I run the hot water over it, working it through my fingers while loading up my free hand with more soap than is necessary. My forehead is sweating, and my breathing is quickening, and one hand washes the other. I wash for a good minute, focusing on my nails and any potential residue, any hint of smell; the hand must get clean, and I feel hot as the hot water stings my hands, moving vigorously like worms in a bowl. After another round of soap and scrubbing, I smell my hand close to my face, and I feel comfortable that there's no trace of shit, and I relax. I wipe my hands dry on paper towels, and dab the sweat off my forehead, and go back to my cubicle. I can hear coworkers talking about football in a nearby cubicle as I sit down and unlock my computer; the fruitless debate from armchair quarterbacks on what their team should've done to win last week; what they should've done in the offseason; what they should be doing now; who's the best ever. They do anything to escape from working. The conversation feels so useless as I pull open my emails and worklist, wiping my fingers near my nose, trying to smell for any faint sign of residue; trying to make sure there's no trace of anything. I notice a small gnat walking across the white border on the email app on my screen, and I squish it gently and grimace, wipe my hand on my pants, and dive back into work.

*One man learns the deep always takes back what its owed...* Written by: Adam Dodd &#x200B; Frank Piedmont held the flat of his hand over his eyes and looked out to the sun dappled lake. Its surface was as calm as the radio had forecast but his concerns lie deeper. He checked the pressure on the tanks, adjusted his straps, and then double-checked the pressure again. They were on a schedule, but he’d rather run late than not at all. That didn’t mean he was eager to plunge into the thirty seven degree waters. The S.S. Lightfoot idled along Lake Erie’s Long Point; coordinates typically afforded a wide berth. The jagged, rocky coast flared in and out of the lake like a row of busted teeth. There was no more dangerous passage found across the entire body of water for sailors and sightseers alike. It was for this same reason that they dropped anchor. Frank’s partner Waylon joined him on the side of the boat. “We should be over it just about now.” It was Waylon’s lead that had guided them. He picked it up second hand but it boasted a decent haul if it bore out so Frank was game. This wasn’t their first plunder and he appreciated that Waylon always had a nose for these things. He nodded and waved him off. “If the ship is down there: usual deal; sixty-forty.” “What? Nuh-uh. Fifty-fifty. I found it. I got us out here.” He knew better than to argue just before a dive. He ran a finger over his moustache and smiled. “Sure, Waylon, sure. We’ll talk about it later.” “Need I remind you, this is a research expedition?” Dr. Benton demanded from across the deck. The graduate professor was the one who chartered the boat but she knew better than to press either man. Amanda Benton PhD would become a household name for the maritime discoveries soon to set her apart from her peers. To do that, she would have to reach them first. That meant bending a few rules and breaking others she didn’t want to give thought to. She was still building rapport with the world of plundering. Until then, she feared she was all but along for the ride. “There’s a reason they call them the Great Takes, Miss Benton.” “It’s *Doctor* Benton,” she corrected. “We’re supposed to be here charting historical sites, not bobbing for trinkets.” Frank gave her a wry salute while pulling the goggles over his head. “Do you have any idea just how many wrecks at the bottom of this lake, let alone Long Point? We’re just going for a quick dip. Promise not to take anything anyone will miss.” “It doesn’t matter who notices, it’s still wrong.” She worked up the nerve to say what really gave her trouble. “There’s never been a tide the lake’s failed to take back.” Frank winked in spite of her disapproval. She was far from the first to think that they cracked it, that they had a real angle to work on the lake. It was big business if you knew what you were doing. The day traders and drug runners that typically chartered Waylon and Frank had no more clue than this pushy academic, he surmised. That she was right all the same didn’t help. “I’ll bring you back up china plate.” Before she could continue their argument, he kicked his feet up and let the weight of his oxygen tanks pull him over the side of the boat. His flipper broke the surface of the water and then he was gone from the Lightfoot’s sight. # “It doesn’t matter who notices, it’s still wrong.” She worked up the nerve to say what really gave her trouble. “There’s never been a tide the lake’s failed to take back.” No matter times he had done this, it was always the insulation that registered first; the silent inevitability every motion took on. He worked his way deeper, aiming away from the light. Frank knew if his partner had it right, the wreck wouldn’t be far. The wake shouldn’t have been an issue but after plunger several feet he couldn’t swim out of the clouded waters that began to surround him. Something had upset the lakebed, and recently. The deeper he went the worse it became. Frank clicked on his flashlight. Nothing but churning brown and green clouds surrounded him. Bits of wood and stone pelted him and clattered against the side of his oxygen tanks. He pushed further, knowing if he reached bottom at least he could orientate from there. Broken masts ring out like dinner bells to plunderers. Even still, he nearly missed it through all the murk. That this one hadn’t snapped from whatever storm befell it only piqued Frank’s interest. It wasn’t the late-1800’s schooner they had gone in search of. This was one smaller. It was still too far to make out, but most of the ship appeared intact. He kicked his flippers towards the wreck but got turned around in a sudden current which blew him head over heel. It only took a moment, but by the time he regained his momentum the ship was gone. He would have spent more time searching had he the chance but all sunlight had gone. His flashlight was no use to dark waters surrounding him. Only after things began raining down on him could he tell which way was up. He didn’t understand what it was but knew to swim against it all the same. Somehow everything made even less sense when he reached the surface. A storm had broken from out of nowhere and the Lightfoot was missing. In its place a much larger ship rocked uneasily atop the volatile lake. Frank struggled to reach the side of the ship as choppy waves shoved at him in all direction. It took all his energy just to stay afloat. As frank paddled closer, he could hear the peels of thunder and groaning ship lumber were peppered with the frantic screams of the men on deck. They weren’t expecting the summer swell either. A length of wet roped whipped against his face. He grabbed hold and pulled himself aboard before the lake would have him. The scene on deck fared no better than the chaos below. Crewmen crashed into one another like toys in a child’s tantrum. Water had already begun filling the ship. A body, trampled no doubt, lie face down in a rising pool. Frank’s mouth formed the words, “What is this? What’s happened?” but nothing could be heard over the din breaking around them. One of the shipmate collided into him. His pupils fluttered in broken panic, searching for anything to make sense, finally settling for Frank. “We’re sinking. God save us, I think we’re sinking!” Before Frank could offer commentary, a sudden swell bucked the ship on its side before slamming it back. The turbulence took the other man off his feet and flung him overboard as Frank watched, helpless to the devastation. In his shock he was brought to the ground, falling against part of the ship that had broken free. The cables and straps to his scuba tanks were tangled in the debris, pinning him down. A plate of iron would have caved in the side of his skull had one of the crew not pulled him free from his gear at the last moment. Frank clung to his wrist before he could run off, demanding, “Where are we?” It was only now that the seaman took in the stranger’s odd costume and realized he was not one of them. “What do you mean where are we? We’re in the shit! Where else?” Frank struggled to make sense of his situation. “No, I mean, this isn’t my boat. I’m not supposed to be here.” The two men looked on in mute horror as another wave crested over the ship, washing away the bow with it. “Well, wherever you’re supposed to be, mind giving what’s left of the Mediera a lift?” “*The Mediera?”* Frank knew the ship well enough. He would one day swim through its sunken hull, searching without success for anything viable enough to sell to private collectors. The ship pitched forward and everyone braced for a wave’s momentum to throw them back, but this was different. This time they were going under. Frank reached for a splintered side of the ship but it came loose in his grip and he found himself overboard again. He choked down more and more lake water and realized he was drowning. He fought it at first, but without his scuba gear, lost in pandemonium of the Mediera, he was out of time. It was in his last gasp for air that he realized he wasn’t alone. The ship that had first taken him off course was waiting at the bottom. He was closer this time. Without the typical pelt of algae, wherever the ship came from the loss was recent. He strained to read the name on the side of the boat as his world grew black but it was too late for Frank Piedmont. &#x200B; “Just in time, yes?” A man in a drab blue uniform smirked as he kneeled over Frank. He shook his head in disbelief. “We thought we lost you there for a minute.” It took Frank a moment to register he was breathing air. Lying on his back, he took in his surroundings. He was aboard a different ship again. This time it was an immense steamer, overcrowded with passengers. Whatever storm had devastated the world around him moments prior had cleared, only to be replaced with a thick fog which lingered over their passage. “What? Where, where am I?” “The Atlantic, barely. We saw you face down out there and roped you in. How the hell you got that far out on your own is beyond me. You got a boat out there, fella?” He considered it. “I- I was on the Mediera, but I don’t know how. It sank. So long ago.” The crewman thought it over, “*Med-i-era*? Never heard of it.” Frank knew he was right to doubt him. “It was an old ship,” he muttered. “It sank a long time ago. Somehow, I don’t know how, but somehow I was onboard.” The crewman shot him an uncomfortable glance. “*Old*? Mister, you must have been in the drink longer than I thought. You’re not making much sense.” More of the steamer’s passengers were leaving their cabins, curious about the new attraction. Frank finally noticed the others. Their clothing, the shabby waistcoats and high-hiked knicker bottoms, it was all so *old*. So was the ship, for that matter. A steamer? They hadn’t used them since-- “Where did you say I am?” “The Atlantic.” The man repeated. Frank realized he wasn’t talking about the ocean. “Like, thee Atlantic ? As in the H.S. Atlantic? As in one of the worst steamship wrecks of all time, that Atlantic?” “This is the H.S. Atlantic, but I don’t know what you’re on about. We’ve never sank. Clearly.” “What year is it?” Frank demanded. “It’s 1852, isn’t it? When did it happen, when did it go down. August? August 30? It’s August 30th 1852, isn’t?” The crewman did not know what dark math Frank was calculating but he didn’t care for the sum of its parts. He nodded wearily. “Listen, you need to get the Captain. You need to warn him.” “Just calm down, mister. You must be sick or something.” “No!” He persisted. “You need to listen. You’re going to run into the Ogdensburg. It’s going to be a disaster. Hundreds will die.” The crewmember laughed uneasily, aware a crowd was growing. “Hate to argue, but it’s been smooth sailing all day long. There’s really nothing to worry--” “Enough of this,” Frank pushed himself up, using the other man to brace as he found his knees. The others stood like stacked corkboard, dully taking in the show as he pushed his way through. “I don’t have time to argue. I need to speak with the captain, now.” In answer, the ship lurched forward as a calamitous boom erupted from the fog ahead. The passengers, crew, and Frank Piedmont fell to the deck. The tearing followed in a deafening punch of snapped timber and iron. A dark monolith cut through the shroud of fog encasing the H.S. Atlantic. The Ogdensburg had struck. The man Frank had been arguing with shot a frightened look of suspicion back. It wouldn’t be immediate, but they both knew it was inevitable. Lake Erie began pouring in through the gash left behind from the larger ship’s collision. Passengers would spend the better part of the next hour baling water to little effect. Frank watched as the first lifeboat capsized as they attempted to launch. He knew after the captain would give himself a concussion, a disorganized crew would escape with the remaining two lifeboats, leaving over two hundred passengers to their fates. The rest was history. # The tearing followed in a deafening punch of snapped timber and iron. A dark monolith cut through the shroud of fog encasing the H.S. Atlantic. The Ogdensburg had struck. Over a hundred years in the future, Frank Piedmont would pass off a gnarled piece of rotted ship hull to a woefully credulous buyer. To sweeten the swindle, he would retell the tale of the H.S. Atlantic’s sinking and the passengers’ futile attempts at survival. That point in time would still have its moment, but in this one, Frank Piedmont was dying. The Niagara was next. He tried warning them of Long Point’s hunger but they would prove just as foolhardy as the Rebecca Foster, and the S.S. Idaho after that. All of the entrees long digested by history. Regardless of whichever doomed ship he would wash upon, the fears which Dr. Benton had first given voice to were never far behind. *“Lake’s never failed to take back a tide yet.”* He was falling again, slowly sinking from the latest disaster until he reached the bottom of the lake. It was calm this time, expectant. The ship had returned; the same one that had first led him astray. This time it was closer than ever before. Frank reached out and took hold of a railing along the bow. He pulled himself closer to see he was not alone. A water-logged crew bobbed listlessly within its cabin. He pushed them aside. Bloated corpses became perfunctory for a seasoned plunderer. Instead, it was the name along the side of the boat which froze him in undiscovered horror. The lake poured into him, filling his lungs as he gasped, “The Lightfoot?” “Orillia, Ontario’s native son,” Waylon answered back. Frank’s eyes were forced shut from the brilliance of the mid-afternoon sun as it shone off the lake’s surface like polished tin. When he dared them open he saw the familiar deck of the Lightfoot underneath him. His partner reached for the scuba tank now slung across his back. “Why don’t we try that again with your tanks hooked up this time, yeah?” “What? What happened?” Frank finally choked the words up. “Your tanks, the lines came loose,” Waylon answered. “I’m sorry, man. That was on me. That’s why we pulled you up before we even got started.” Frank let the latest reality wash over him. “Get started? How long was I under for?” Waylon shared an uncertain exchange with Dr. Benton as she looked on from the cabin’s doorway. “You okay, Frank? You were only in there for, what, thirty seconds?” He blinked, incomprehensive at first, then in amusement. “Thirty seconds? You’re saying--and, and this whole time? I’m here? I’m really here?” Frank laughed at the thought of trying to explain the series of tragedies he found himself a helpless passenger to. He rapped his knuckles against the wooden boards on the deck, amazed at just how real those other lives had seemed, how intimate those wrecks felt. He inhaled until his lungs burned full from the moist lake air, thinking the chance would never come again. The explosion that followed was so loud Frank thought he had been struck with something. The force knocked his knees out from under him. He sat up in time to catch sight of Waylon engulfed in fire. His partner staggered mindless toward the edge of the deck as flames dripped from his limbs. A shrieking curtain of reds and oranges, he tried tipping his body over the side of the boat but the damage was done. The waters hissed and steamed as the blackened corpse tumbled in. Frank had told Waylon that the electric winch had been shorting out, but they agreed to wait out replacing it until they really needed to. An errant electrical spark caught the compressed oxygen in the leaking scuba tank and it tore through the Lightfoot like a bomb had gone off. What part of the bow that hadn’t been shorn off was on fire. Gnarled scuba tank shrapnel spread across the ship. Dr. Benton pulled a piece of the jagged metal from her thigh and deep red began pouring free. Still deafened from the blast, Frank took in the carnage besetting him and he understood. It was too much for the small boat. He could already feel that familiar pull, that inevitable gravity all doomed ships knew too well. He was here for the Lightfoot just as he was for the Mediera, the Atlantic and all other ships which met their ends in the waters of Lake Erie. There was never a tide that failed to return. 📷 “And that’s why you never disturb the ships that come to rest at the bottom of Lake Erie.” The children’s nervous chatter and questions were gone before the story had ended. They bunched together, eager for all the macabre details that adolescence cherished. The summer squall would pass just as swiftly as it had sprung, but the cruise attendant’s tale was a welcome distraction for them. This was far from the first time she had spun the local legend for children who were as welcome as extra luggage to parents unable to find sitters. One of the kids worked up the nerve to ask. “So what happened to those people on the boat?” “Some say they’re still out there,” the cruise attendant recited from memory, “forced to live through all the horrors they once capitalized on. But none of you have to worry about any of that because now you all know better because you’ve heard of the curse of the Lightf--” She was cut off by a commotion coming from the deck. Someone was screaming just audible over the rising winds, “Mandy, quick! Get out here!” She motioned for the children to stay in their cabin. “I’ll just be a second.” The rain stung her face raw the moment she stepped onto the deck. Thunder erupted from the depths of green clouds which blistered throughout the sky. The storm had kicked up since her story began. They must be passing through the eye of the small cell, she thought. She tried gaining sight of the attraction but the others were crowded against the railing looking out the waters just beside the S.S. Good Times IX. # “Some say they’re still out there,” the cruise attendant recited from memory, “forced to live through all the horrors they once capitalized on. “What do we got?” she shouted. “It’s a rescue,” one of the clerks announced. He had forgotten of the storm and was just excited to find reprieve from the gift shop’s key chains and beer-coozies. The cruise attendant looked out to the army of frothing white caps closing in on them. “Where? I don’t see any other ships.” “That’s just it.” They were helping him over the side of the railing as the other man answered. “He was out there all on his own.” She brought a towel over to the bedraggled man but he flinched back once he saw her. “It’s okay,” she promised. “We got you. Not sure how, but you survived. It’s some kind of miracle.” Frank Piedmont took sight of the latest crew and shook his head, knowing better as the thunder clapped louder, closer this time.

Walking through the brush that is the deep East Texas woodlands, Chris stumbled upon an odd fiddle. Attempting to pick it up, he realizes just how heavy it is, and that, alone, he will not be able to pick it up. As he stands up again, contemplating the oddity of the situation that’s unfolding around him, a man clears his throat behind him. Spinning around, startled, Chris sees a gentleman wearing a black suit, white undershirt, and red tie and a fedora that matches his suit. “Well hello, kiddo. What’s a guy like you want with a fiddle?” The mans accent was like molasses rolling off his tongue. “Nothing, sir. I just thought it was a bit peculiar that a fiddle was in the woods here” “Oh, don’t be naïve, kid. You’ve heard all the stories. ‘Devil challenges some kid to a fiddle battle. Devil looses’. For the record, I don’t loose fiddle battles” Chris looked around him anxiously. He wasn’t sure if he should run, or stay, and honestly wasn’t sure this wasn’t some hallucination of his. “Well. I’m not too keen. on battling you with fiddles” “Oh no, of course not. I wouldn’t even dream of it. No, I have a better offer for you. I’ll give you anything you want, for your soul.” The man smiled a devilish grin at Chris, and offered out his hand, “Do we have a deal, Chris?” “How’d you know my name again?” Chris pondered out loud. “Oh, come on, kiddo! You think only heaven has the list of people? Hell, we make up over half of them.” The Devil laughed hearitly, and the smell of sulfer emanated from his mouth. Chris pondered on this for a few seconds, before coming to a concussion. “Alright,” He knew in the back of his head that he would regret this “I’m down” “Excellent!” The devil pulled out a pen and a piece of paper, and handed it over to Chris. “Now, I’ll just need you to draw that for me. Oh, and don’t worry. Your soul is already mine. When you agreed. Verbal contracts are binding, after all. My game, my rules, and all that garbage” Chris looked at the devil with an expression of shock and surprise. “You want me to draw what my desire is?” He felt his stomach drop. He was a terrible artist.

I still think about that night. The night that keeps me awake during the late hours. The night for which, I have questioned my sanity. The night I could not prevent. Here is a piece of my journal from 18 years ago, which I wrote during therapy. I tell the story as it happened, because even then, I was unable to accept the harsh truth. It was a Wednesday night when my parents and my older sister decided to leave my brother and I by ourselves at home, as Allan and I did not enjoy dinner at our aunt's. I was 12, old enough to take care of him and myself. My brother is only six years old, so I don’t take much of what he says very seriously. 8:00pm - It was middle of winter, all of the light outside was gone. I remember everything was fine, it was just him and I playing video games. No violent ones, as my parents forbade me from playing those around him. It was my brother’s turn to play, so I took a break to go to the washroom and to get a glass of water. What I was about to see did not scare me. I did not think much of it. It might sound somewhat funny, but there was a cat in the house. We did not own a cat. It was a black cat. I thought its eyes were shut, but upon further inspection I realized that its eyes were actually missing. It wasn’t anything out of the ordinary since I had seen some cats like that at our local shelter. It must have been the neighbor's cat. I snapped my fingers to get its attention, and it quickly came over to sniff my hand. I fed it some water and a piece of old baloney that my dad was supposed to throw away, but he never got to it. Such a forgetful man, it’s like we are not even related. Suddenly, I heard my brother Allan scream, which startled the cat. The noise that came out of the cat's mouth was, *morbid* . Nothing like I've heard before, I just, I cannot explain it. I ran back to my bedroom where I had left my brother. But, on the way something stopped me. As I was about to enter the bedroom, I see my brother curled up in the corner at the end of the hallway. *“Daniel, don’t open the door. Don’t open the door.”* His voice filled with fear, and tears run down his innocent face. I ask him what’s the matter and why he screamed so loudly, to which he replies *"I didn’t.”* Like I mentioned before, he’s just a child, a kid, to me just a baby still. So I figured he was making all of that up, but why? He’s never like that, he’s a good child. As I was about to tell him to come over to comfort him, I heard a loud bang come from the bedroom. The door was locked. It sounded like there was someone, or something inside that was throwing all of our stuff around. I was extremely pissed, because just that morning our mother had ordered us to clean up the room. I silently went up to my brother and told him to remain quiet, and to follow me. We quietly went into our father’s office, where there was a phone. We got in and locked the door. I grabbed the phone and dialed my mom’s cellphone. *“Yes honey, is everything okay?”* I told her somebody had broken into the house, and that we were in dad’s office and had locked the door. *“Honey, listen to me and be very quiet. Turn off the lights in the room, lock yourself and Allan in the closet and cover up with whatever you can find in there, okay? We’re on our way there and so are the cops.”* I told her I understood, and followed just as she said. In the darkness of the closet, Allan starts to hum and I tell him to be quiet, and explain the situation to him. He does not say anything else and remains quiet for a while. *“Daniel?”* Allan asked me in the most concerned voice ever *“Yes?”* I answered back expecting him to ask me something silly. *“Are you not worried about Allan?”* My whole body froze and I so badly wanted to cry. To run, to scream, to disappear. *“Are you?”* he asked once again. *“Daniel, don't you care?”* That was not my brother. I could not bring myself to look at him. I was afraid that if I did, I would not see Allan anymore. I stood up and walked out, trying my hardest not to look at him. I turned on the lights, and let myself out of the office. I stood for what seemed like an eternity in front of the door. My bedroom’s door. It was unlocked. As I opened it, I saw my beloved brother’s lifeless body on the floor. My parents and the police arrived just a few minutes later. I can still remember the sound of my mother crying to the sight of my brother. It is simply something I will never forget. I can't. No matter how many pills I take, I still wake up to the sound of her crying. The police report says that my brother was horribly bruised all over his back, arms and legs. As if he had been thrown around for hours. And his eyes... his eyes.... I don't want to write about it. You can only imagine. My parents were never the same after that, and neither was my sister...neither was I. We all grew apart. Now, at the age of 30 I still have no idea of what happened that night. Was it something not from this world? Did I hallucinate seeing Allan? Oh, and if you’re wondering about the eyeless cat, after my parents arrived I never saw it again. My parents divorced just a few years after what happened. I stayed with mom, and my sister went with our father. My father though, blames me for what happened. I was only a kid. My sister moved away to another city, and we are still in contact. She calls me up regularly to see how I'm doing. She also tells me about a reoccurring dream she's been having. It’s always the same. She tells me that she sees me locked in the closet, and that next to me is a strange, demonic looking figure. I never told anyone about what “Allan” said to me.

When I was 14 years old, my brother, two of our buddies, and I strapped four bicycles to a golf cart and drove it in the middle of the night about 10 miles to the nearest decent sized town. It took about 45 minutes with the pedal to the floor to get us to town. Once there, we ditched the golf cart on a plot of land that was being developed for new housing. We each grabbed a bike off the cart and took to the streets of town. We figured being on the bikes would be much easier to elude any trouble, mainly police, that we might encounter. We would've been doomed to encounter anything like that while riding the golf cart. It was around 2 AM at this point, and full of adrenaline, we became hungry. We stopped at McDonald's for a quick bite, before biking our way out of town. We were only 3 miles from where we ditched the golf cart, but it had felt much further. Plus, we had to take some of the busier city streets to get there, so we were just happy to have avoided any police or issues at that point. You may be wondering to yourself at this point, *what were y'all planning to do exactly* or maybe *where the hell were your parents?!* Good, valid questions. We were four teenaged boys (all between the ages 13 and 15). Our plan was to "run away". Although looking back, I think really we just wanted some sort of excitement in our lives. Both my and my buddies' parents were back at the house where my brother and I grew up - as my buddies and their family was staying with us for the weekend for a wedding reception. They were sound asleep. If we wanted to really run away, we would've had the riskiest part behind us. Made it out of the house without being caught, and then made it through town without being detained. May be important to note here that the golf cart wasn't owned by either of our families. We were just borrowing for the weekend from a family friend. This was easily the most delinquent thing I'd done in my life; I'm fairly certain it's the last illegal/delinquent thing I did too. We got to a point where we all stopped and wanted to discuss things. Were we really gonna run away, or were we going to head back? Our buddies had already destroyed their Sim cards so we couldn't be traced... We really thought we were smart. Mostly, we just didn't wanna face our parents and didn't want to get in trouble. If we headed back at this point, we still had a chance to get everything back in order before anyone woke up and noticed we were gone. We chose to turn back. To this day I still wonder how the story would've ended if we had kept going. Not well I'm certain. We managed to bike back to the golf cart without issue. Once we loaded the cart back up, we headed towards home. For the first time all night, we spotted a cop. I was the driver, mostly because I knew the roads the best. I took a quick right and pulled into a driveway. We sat in silence for a couple minutes just hoping the cop didn't roll up on us, and that the random house we were in front of hadn't heard or seen us in their driveway. Would be a strange sight and a quick 911 call if they had. The minutes felt like hours but we decided the coast was gonna be as clear as ever and we had to keep moving. A couple more turns and we were about to cross the last main road before getting back out of town. We made it. Another 5 or 10 minutes and we were back onto gravel roads. We used a flashlight for our headlights. It was around 4:30 or 5 AM by the time we pulled back into the driveway of my house. The lights inside all appeared to be off still. A good sign. We parked the cart where we had gotten it from, unloaded the bikes and put them away, and then we snuck back into the house. Undetected. We had done it. We unpacked our bags - which mostly just contained clothes, snacks, a couple knives, and random other little things we thought we'd need to survive if we were in the woods running away from home for days. We probably only got an hour of sleep, maybe less, before our parents woke us up. It was Sunday and we had to get ready for church. They knew nothing. Suspected nothing. A few years later, one of my buddies from that adventure actually did run away from home. We had grown apart and I hadn't heard from him in awhile. He and his family was from Oklahoma. Police found him in Florida. He was in his brother's truck. It had been about week since he had left home. I believe he was 17 at the time, maybe 16. U was the same age. Upon being returned to his parents custody, he told them about our first runaway "attempt". The golf cart and bike adventure across my home county. His parents passed along the information to my parents. My brother and I were in for a helluva talking to and grounding. It had been years and we thought they'd never know. But the jig was up. Now our parents and brother and I laugh about it. I'm sure they're just thankful we ended up being hard working and honest-contributing members in society and not criminals. It all worked out in the end I suppose. It makes for a decent story.

Imagination can be tiring Deirdre strolled confidently down Ash Street, turned a corner at Haight, stopped and waited. She’d been down this road several times before, twice the street signs changed names, and more than once, so had she. So far, she’d been a Heather and a Joy, the author finally settled on Deirdre. She felt a subtle push, so continued down Haight. Her thoughts turned to the date ahead with David, nope that was the last alternative, this was Graham. She daydreamed about his blue eyes, and black curls and hoped they’d stayed that way. She’d only been dating him for three weeks and he’d already been through more hair colours than a salon trainee. Finding the bistro she opened the heavy door with long tanned arms. She’d had pale but muscled ones earlier so this was an improvement. Stepping inside, her green eyes (and a hall mirror confirmed they had stayed the same colour), scanned the patrons. She smiled as Graham waved at her from a corner table. She crossed the room having to shift her hips between tables. The small restaurant had been through author renovations and while her hips had mostly stayed the same width, the ability to squeeze between tables had changed. Dee leaned down and gave her date a peck on the cheek, surreptitiously inhaling his aftershave. She wasn’t sure what this one was called but she liked it better than the last one. They traded greetings and asked tentatively about family members without using names. They’d learned a sad lesson when his grand-dad Ralph had had a quick death the week before. The author had felt bad, however, and changed their mind, so celebrations were abundant this past weekend. Dee scanned the menu and noted that the Greek food had disappeared, she asked Gray ‘if it was her or had they not been here before for knock-out moussaka’ He nodded sadly and supposed out loud that he could stomach seafood lasagna if she was okay with it. It appeared to them both that their motivations, careers, families, menus and even sex moves were reliant on whether the writer had had a good or bad day. Ordering their meal and beverages from a new server didn’t phase them, and neither did driving different cars, or living in different flats. In some ways, it was exciting to wake up in a contrarily decorated space and put on clothes you didn’t remember buying. Gray had been intrigued at first by the career changes, but after the switch from lawyer to the owner of a used car lot, he’d grown despondent. When their food came it had changed from lasagna to large American-style burgers with Bud Light rather than the IPA’s they’d chosen. They shrugged and dug in. Dee had to acknowledge that their writer had good taste in food, even if the choices in interior design left something to be desired. They discussed the news between bites, as a journalist Dee had an inside track into new political developments. She was grateful every morning that she hadn’t been written to be a war-zone writer, quickly banishing the thought as if it could prompt a sudden scene change. She and Gray wiped their chins off and with a subtle lift of his right eyebrow, she grinned. She prayed that the writer was in a good personal space because she could use some good sex. The last two times Graham had inexplicably suffered, as did she through association, the horror of extremely early completion. They had lain there cursing the obvious dating glut the author was dealing with and hoping it ended soon. Gray paid the bill and she left the tip, it was a habit but who knew how? They couldn’t remember yet how they’d met. They didn’t know if it would come to them in a flashback or a friend’s storyline, either way, they were happy. She had noted a birthday card on his mantle the week before so knew that he had just turned twenty-seven. She had scanned her face in the mirror of the most recent bathroom and gauged that given the absence of wrinkles and silver strands, she was likely about the same age. They clasped hands and strolled towards Graham’s most recent flat. He was happy with its space but wondered how long he could afford it in his new commission-based job. They ascended to his floor, she carried the bag with the few groceries they’d bought at the little market, a few things for a light dinner and breakfast, along with a bottle of the wine they liked but hadn’t been able to access at lunch. Opening the door they heard a faint mewing. Gray remarked in a slightly sarcastic tone that he hoped their patron had thought to provide cat food as he hadn’t known he had a feline to feed. Dee took the groceries into the kitchen and looked around. She saw a double dish with kibble in one and water in the other. The groceries were put away, the wine was breathing and she had nothing else to do so she walked around and explored the new space. The last time they’d been together at his, it was in a different building and had an L-shaped floor plan. Calling out to Gray she heard his voice from the back room. Following his trail of clothes, she smiled and plonked the cat into a conveniently placed cat carrier. Laying back on crumpled sheets, winded and sated, she blessed their creator for being in the right space of mind today. They’d been making passionate love for over an hour, switching positions and finding new buttons to push. Gray had proved to be a great lover their first time, they seemed to mesh well in that regard. Dee knew that she was using some form of birth control but had no idea what it was, she assumed it was the pill as there were no accessories to be found in her bathroom or his. She also knew he didn’t use a condom, that would have been fairly obvious, so they’d clearly had some prior conversation about it. Damn, this situation could be annoying. She rose and donned a t-shirt of his, he was 5’ 10” only a few inches taller than her, so his clothes weren’t swimming on her. Padding into the kitchen through the living room she glanced at the cat carrier and was unsurprised at the change from cat to Komodo dragon, it hissed at her but didn’t seem phased at its change any more than she was. She poured the wine into two glasses and picked up a bag of chocolate-covered pretzels in her teeth. Two hours later she and Graham emerged from the bedroom. He eased up behind the cage to see the new pet and expecting a reptile merely shook his head at the mewing coming from the cage. Deirdre topped up their glasses while Gray found a movie on one of the streaming services he had, He reiterated his worry about money, his tastes had adapted to a legal career, and since the recent career change, he’d have to tighten the purse strings. She calmed his fears with a reminder that given their author’s changeability, he could be a US Senator by the end of the afternoon. He smiled and clinked his glass to hers. She told him she’d start dinner in an hour and they settled in to watch the new Top Gun film. Deirdre paused ‘Barbie’ after an hour and looked fondly at Graham's face, he’d fallen asleep after ten minutes. She didn’t blame him, he’d had an active afternoon in bed and couldn’t bother to stay awake long enough to get his Kens straight. It had been a cruel change, she’d been looking forward to the Tom Cruise movie. Shrugging, she set her empty glass on the side table. Easing his head off her shoulders she rose to start the meal. She smiled to see the kitten sprawled on Gray’s lap, thinking it was probably a better choice than the reptile for cuddling. A half-hour later she returned to the living room, the light dinner menu had been altered while they’d been busy. She’d promised him a family favourite shrimp and green onion omelet but found the ingredients for pulled pork on ciabatta buns instead. An angry knock sounded on the door so she detoured to answer it, her shoulders tight in anticipation, who could it be with that much heat? Gray sat up, dislodging the cat in the process. He pleaded with her not to answer the door, saying only that it didn’t bode well. She glanced at the straight red hair standing straight up, sighed and assured him it would be fine. Peering through the peephole she saw a short, obviously dyed-blonde woman with flashing eyes on the other side. Easing the door open, Dee stepped back and addressed the woman with a question. “Can I help you with something?” The woman screeched and pushed her aside to enter the apartment. “Where is he, where is David?” She took note of Graham standing up near the couch and took in his 6’ 4” frame. She asked again where David was, seeming to realize she may be in the wrong apartment, or at the very least with the wrong occupants. She shook her curls and glared at them both. Gray and Dee stood side by side and waited for her to come to the same conclusion as they had. The author had left a character hanging from the last incarnation. The woman, who called herself ‘Melanie I think’ reported that she’d been here with David six weeks prior but hadn’t heard from him since. She’d asked at his place of employment and texted his sister, only to discover he didn’t exist. Dee sat in the chair nearby and attempted to explain the unexplainable. They were all at the mercy of a writer who changed plot lines, character descriptions and day-to-day details on a whim. Melanie nodded, but her eyes which went from blue to brown at a disturbing speed, remained blank. She agreed, finally that it would explain a lot but couldn’t help her in the end. She was still pregnant and there was no father on record, or even in existence. Dee helped her to stand and hugged her goodbye. There was nothing else she or Graham could do, after all. Melanie walked out the front door after turning to look at the apartment again, clearly seeing herself and David enjoying a similar evening together. Dee returned to the kitchen, glancing again at the changes in Graham. She had more than empathy for Melanie as she’d been through physical changes in her boyfriend. She realized with a start that at some point Graham had been a David too, she’d almost called him that this very afternoon. That would be too much of a coincidence, right? He had followed her into the kitchen and poured them another glass of their favourite Greek red. Moschomavro had been the first bottle they’d drunk together, she knew that at least. The rest of the first date details still eluded her, well them actually as Gray hadn’t been able to remember much either. Over their sandwiches and coleslaw, they discussed Melanie and the uncertainties about their futures, pasts and details about their present they hadn’t been shown. Dee cleaned their plates and with a mind, that she had concluded was written smutty, wondered how Graham’s change in height related to his other dimensions. She smiled and decided to find out for herself. Returning to her flat the following morning, more than sated and a bit tender, she was glad it was Saturday. There were household chores of her own to deal with, not to mention the piece for the London Style magazine she freelanced for. After an hour of tidying both herself and her space, she sat at her laptop and checked her email. After scanning the list she was confused by the absence of writing assignments. The saved file she had set for her magazine article had disappeared and all the new messages related to architectural assignments. Her head dropped to the table next to the laptop. So, she was an architect now? Was the author re-watching Seinfeld episodes or something? She pushed away from the table and strode to the window. Her flat hadn’t changed as Graham’s had but given who she was dealing with, it was just a matter of time so she wanted to catch the view she loved before she lost it. Her mobile buzzed and she drew it from her back pocket. The name was withheld and her first instinct was to ignore it. The buzzing continued unabated so she pushed the green phone icon. “Hello, Deirdre speaking.” She heard breathing on the other end, but no voice, she tried again with her name, but the breather didn’t speak up. “I’m going to hang up now, so speak now or forever hold your peace” “Dee? Is that you truly? It’s me, your mother, no father, or is it brother, perhaps a high school crush, no that’s silly, I’m your mother, I haven’t seen you in forever.” Dee clicked on the red phone icon. She was emotionally full and didn’t have time for any bizarre reunions. She’d been raised by her sister since their parents had died in a car accident twenty years before. She’d accepted that and had no desire for newly discovered parents or siblings at this point. She didn’t know what their writer was working towards but she could just leave her heart out of it. She placed the phone on the counter and realized she no longer had a writing assignment, so the afternoon was hers. Her sister’s house was a short train trip from downtown London to whatever small village the author had chosen. It boasted a scenic main street that hosted the usual pubs, post office and bakery. Her sister and husband commuted to the city during the week but as this was a Saturday, she hoped to find them at home. Dee wasn’t sure if her sister had been affected by the author or if the machinations were for her and Graham alone. She had a picture in her mind of what Stacey and Bernie looked like, could trace the interior of their two-level home in her mind and held on to that as a frame of reference. If they’d gone through sudden changes her questions would be answered. Stepping off the train she strode through the small station and out onto the street. The first thing she noted was the fountain that usually graced the town square had been replaced. The statue of Boris Johnson was hardly a fit replacement in her provided opinion. She hadn’t given any thought to her politics as it wasn’t a part of the storyline, but maybe it was time to start thinking for herself. She began to feel an uprising of passion and then... She stood in front of Stacey’s driveway with no memory of having walked there. She shook off the eerie feeling of being manipulated, she knew she ought to be used to it by now but it still rattled. The door opened and her sister stepped out to greet her. They hugged and Dee was folded into a house that was the same as the last time. Stacey took her out to the garden where they’d be having lunch. Dee hugged her brother-in-law as well as her twin nieces. They attended Oxford during the week but as their home was so close they commuted at weekends. After a few hours of easy family time, she left with promises to return more often. Stacey walked her back to the station and asked in that older sister's concerned tone about Graham. Dee blushed while admitting to a solid sex life and confirmed things were going well, but it was ‘early days’. They chatted a bit more and Deirdre was only slightly put out when she noted on the fly that Boris had been replaced by a green-scaled dragon. She hugged her sister before boarding the train and told her to stay solid, reminding Stacey just how important it was that she had consistency in her life. Stacey gave her an odd look but smiled and waved. Upon her return to London Dee made her way to her flat while talking to Graham on the phone, they agreed to meet the next day for lunch with Gray warning her what he now looked like. She huffed out an expletive, a shock to them both at first. Swearing clearly wasn’t in her character file. With a laugh, they clicked off. Dee had a plan for the evening before her and what if it worked? ________________________________________ The author sipped her tea, found it cold and bitter so set it down and away from her so she wasn’t tempted again. Should she even continue with Dee and Gray? It wasn’t like she hadn’t started and abandoned a dozen potential contest entries. What was it about these two that had her continuing, kept her coming back to them and foregoing the Mahjong games she enjoyed? She knew it wasn’t fair to play around with the character descriptions so often but every time she’d see someone on T.V. she’d take some of their physical characteristics and plant them into her writing. She smiled wryly, and with fierce determination added their backstory, tidied up the loose strings like poor Melanie, and established a future for Dee and Gray. Finishing close to midnight and knowing she was in danger of exceeding the three thousand words, she shrugged, needs must when a writer has a story. _______________________________________ Dee and Graham looked down at their daughter and held their breath, it had been a year with no changes, but they called her Navina, which meant ‘an eternally fresh person’ just in case.

"Today's the day, Sam. Today's the day we finally do it." “What if they’re onto us?” I replied, my eyebrows wiggling as I tracked a shifty-looking fellow who shuffled past the giant window of the infamous Coyote Café for the third time in less than a minute. Though it was common for people to need to work up the nerve to eat at the worst-rated restaurant in Seattle, this guy seemed to be looking for someone, and I didn’t trust how roughly he kept yanking on the leash of a dopey-looking Dalmatian who couldn’t stop trying to gobble dog biscuits from the café’s “Pets Welcome” basket. “Not a chance, not unless you spilled our secret,” Lily hissed in my ear, her damp body pressed into mine. I turned my head and stared into her blue eyes, looking for a hint of distrust. I've always been well-known for being loyal, but you never knew with a creature like Lily, the type willing to do anything to survive. When she didn’t blink, I looked away and pretended to scan a menu, embarrassed by the collar of shame she so easily draped round my neck. “Today's the day,” she repeated, and I could feel her shiver just so; the thin cotton poncho clinging to her small frame did nothing against the biting wind that had shaped tiny raindrops into icy daggers, and she'd gotten fairly soaked on the short walk over. Her mood had quickly turned sour as it always did when she got wet. There were plenty of various water-repellent and plastic ponchos available for her to wear on our daily outings, but she refused, the soft cotton poncho the only protection she was willing to wear. She wouldn’t even stand under an umbrella, glaring at the mere offer. I think she resented going out in the rain more than ever these days, especially when we were so close, but she knew I liked it and didn't outwardly fight the routine, her increasing sulkiness my only clue. I leaned back into her, and while she stopped shivering, her body remained as tense as ever. Two years younger than me and twice as intense, twice as impulsive, and more than anything else, twice as angry. She had every reason to be, and for the life of me, nothing I said made a dent in her rage. I sure tried. But that was a long time ago. “You’re in the mood for something different?” She noticed, but I wanted to keep pretending I had a choice. “What?” I replied, putting my best innocent puppy face on. “Sam, you know you’re going to get the fish.” I rolled my eyes. Lily hated the Coyote Café. “Go ahead then, get something else,” she said with a toothy grin, her eyes glassy and unfocused. She was trying to read my mind even though it never worked. I’m the only one in the entire world she can’t get into. I have no idea why, and sometimes I think that makes her even madder about the whole situation. I looked over to the menu once more, I think just to annoy her, but maybe there was another reason, one I still can’t wrap my head around. “The nachos look good.” Lily just adjusted herself with that little growl she liked to make when she thought I was being stupid. Sighing, her eyes darted around the restaurant. She looked at all the people sitting in booths and on wooden chairs, silently judging every single one of them. She couldn’t fathom how I enjoyed people-watching so much, but that’s because of what she could do. Lily could read their minds, and that’s why she hated them. I couldn’t do that. Minds are a locked prison to me, but emotions? Emotions I know. I can smell how any other being feels, how fear is the root of anger and love is the balm that soothes them both. And that was the exact reason Lily and I viewed humanity differently. I felt like there was a redemption arc possible. Lily was in favor of a violent reckoning. When the food arrived, I was ready to give up the joke and scarf down my sardines, settling into a food coma until it was time to leave. Most dishes were off-limits to us, but it was Lily who was so offended by the mainly vegetarian and vegan menu. The only animal protein they served was fresh-smoked sardines and crackers, and she thought it was overcooked every time, but I liked it because I could eat the bones. “Well, that’s because you like your fish damn near still swimming, and you’re spoiled at home with fancy feast after fancy feast,” I once teased, and she gave me a scathing look. “What an improvement that’d be,” she’d said, arching her back deeply before licking her chops as the waiter approached. She finished every bite that night and still complained. Now here we were, so close to achieving what we originally set out to do once we discovered our abilities, and she had no idea that I started to have my doubts about everything. Two weeks ago I started questioning if this was what I wanted or if I had just been going along with her plans. There was a bond between us, our incredible powers uniting us in a way others couldn’t have predicted. I was confused. If we succeeded, everything would change. It would be a leap into the unknown, bounding into the mysteriousness of a road previously untraveled. We had no idea what would happen, but we knew we’d be free. Me, Lily, and the others. So many others. All we had to do was play it cool for a few hours more and finish the job. For two weeks I fretted. Fourteen days I went in circles, unable to rest. 336 hours of stress. If I’m being honest, I cracked a little under all the pressure. To be fair, I was worried we’d start something we couldn’t undo, and with such unpredictable potential consequences, I couldn’t stop chasing the ball in my head, back and forth, back and forth. I was Lily’s number one, and she was mine, but we were, at our cores, fundamentally different beings, and I developed some kind of separation anxiety as I imagined never seeing them again. My stomach growled as the most intensely rich aroma wafted under my nose, so very different from the briny scent of fish, and before I knew it, a giant bowl of nachos plunked down in front of me. Lily’s eyes widened in shock. In an instant, I knew it was over. Our plans, our dreams. We weren't going through with any of it. To this day I don’t know what possessed Mark and Tina to order nachos for me. I just knew Lily would never let it go. She always worried I had a secret relationship with them. She once accused me of choosing them over her because they had opposable thumbs and could fry bacon. “Man’s best friend,” she’d say with a swish of her tail. “They think you’re a dumb beast, Samantha, and they’ll put you down the moment you become the slightest burden like they've done with every shepherd that's come before you,” she’d tell me. “We don’t need them. All we need is each other.” I didn’t spill the beans. I don’t know why they got me nachos that day, and while I can still sense her plotting against the humans, Lily never spoke to me again.

Blitz watched the digital clock placed above a sign that read International Date Line as it changed from 11:59:59 PM to 12:00:00 AM. An alarm, both musical and jarring, sounded throughout the facility. Another twenty-four straight hours of living hell, he thought to himself. Last minute updates to the naughty list, ensuring the correct type of batteries go in each stocking and updating weather reports in real time. Maybe this year Christmas can go smoothly. He moped over to the wall phone then punched in a code to make an announcement. Over the PA system, Blitz announced, in a voice similar to a record spinning just faster than it should, “It’s officially Christmas Eve in the Caroline Islands and Kiribati. Please make final preparations for last minute gifts to be transported to the staging area for loading onto Santa’s sleigh. Clock is ticking, people!” # Kris Kringle, a.k.a. Santa, wore his crushed red velvet pants with the white fur trim covering his ebony boots and an oversized white tee, complete with armpit stains. Black suspenders traveled the long round journey around his belly and over his shoulders. He breezed through the boisterous and productive workshop filled with the familiar, and mildly annoying, construction sounds of hammering, sanding, drilling and carving. “Ho-freakin'-ho” He jibed at the industrious elf. The elf tried to make herself invisible as Santa approached her workstation. “That’ll never be ready to ship tonight. Get a move on unless you want to tell Sandeep he can’t have his wooden train set this year.” “Oh, okay, Santa,” Twinkle said. “It’s headed for the paint shop in five minutes.” As he continued through the electronics workshop, the smell of solder wafted up from the work tables into the giant hoods that extracted the foul smoke. He sipped his special peppermint hot chocolate and gave the elves the side eye for their judgy glances. He entered the toy improvement room commonly known as SQUAT Lab (Santa’s Quality Assurance and Testing Lab) to get some updates on a few of the malfunctioning or poorly designed toys. Over the years, the elves had released a few toys that weren’t quite ready for distribution. More specifically, it was Blitz, the Chief Executive Elf, that put the stamp of approval on all products shipping from Santa’s workshops. This dereliction of duty inevitably led to safety recalls that caused a bit of embarrassment for the Old Man. Some were harmless mistakes like the locomotive set whose train only moved backward and the air hockey table that sucked the air in. Regrettably, Blitz let a few doozies slip by that really ruffled Santa’s feathers. The most memorable of these was the Speak to Me Barbie fiasco. Using the pull-string to hear Barbie speak was a huge leap forward for the toy industry until the Liberal Left Mom Brigade raised a fuss over Barbie lamenting that “Math is hard”. He single-handedly set back the women's equality movement by a decade. The entire population of the North Pole endured weeks of sensitivity training as a result. Many elves were still a bit sore about it and didn’t let Blitz forget it. But, the elves’ irritation was nothing compared to you-know-who’s. Today, Santa needed an update on the SUAVE, the Sophisticated Unmanned Aerial Vehicle for Everyone. Sophisticated may have been an overstatement for an airplane-shaped fuselage supported by four rotors. When first released, this Uber-drone failed to recognize large obstacles in its flight path, causing it to crash into buildings, trees and billboards. Blitz promised Santa, because he doesn’t take no for an answer, that a simple software update would fix the issue in time for Christmas this year. Time was running out. # Blitz groaned as he made last minute preparations for the demonstration and waited for Santa to take his place in the swiveling recliner. The entire SUAVE project team gathered (and crossed their little elfin fingers) to hear Santa’s praises. The younger elves had a desire to please the Big Guy and a level of idealism that curled Blitz’s beard. “The updated software has been installed and we are ready to go,” said Blitz. “Just impress me. I don’t want another Lawn Dart scandal,” Santa said menacingly. Blitz twisted his index finger in his ear. “Right. Ahh, let’s see here. I’ll just -.” Blitz pressed the button with the right-facing triangle enclosed in a circle, the international symbol for ‘play’. “Places everyone,” he yelled to the elves. Four elves were assigned specific locations in the room where they would hold up large cardboard cut-outs serving as obstructions to test SUAVE’s ability to avoid crashes. The drone rose above the ground, hovering about ten feet above the elf’s head. It rotated by one hundred-eighty degrees and tilted forward as needed for the spinning blades to provide forward momentum. It propelled itself toward its own reclamation or, possibly, its doom. The drone approached the first barrier at high speed causing a noticeable look of panic to appear on Blitz’s face. When the drone expertly and smoothly cut around the right side of the obstruction and managed to return to its original flight path, Blitz let out an audible whew and glanced at Santa, whose blank look suggested he remained unimpressed. The drone executed its programming equally well at the next two obstructions, although its respectable performance did not prevent the elves in those positions from visibly flinching. The final test was behind Santa. All eyes followed the drone as it climbed and turned to come from behind the last remaining obstacle. Santa spun around to catch the final act. The flying gadget dipped below the cardboard obstruction between the arms of the elf holding it up. This unexpected maneuver spooked the elf. She instinctively ducked. The drone caught the edge of the board and entered a dizzying spiral that would be the envy of any NFL quarterback. Unable to re-calculate its path, it crashed into Santa’s forehead just as he finished rotating into position. The drone hit with such force that it toppled Santa and his recliner backwards. Blitz swallowed hard. # Blitz bent over Santa’s face from the top of his head, fanning Santa’s face with an Etch-a-Sketch. Santa’s eyes burst open. “Who the frost are you?” Santa asked. “It’s me, Blitz. You probably aren’t used to seeing me upside down.” He scooped his arms under Santa’s armpits to sit him up. “Blitz?” Santa looked around at the squat, pointy-eared creatures that formed a circle around him. “I must be dreaming.” “No, no, you’re not dreaming. You just woke up...from...from ah.” Blitz noticed the baseball-sized contusion on Santa's forehead. “From a nap.” Unfortunately, it sounded like a question and not a statement. “Gnomes?” Santa asked as he rubbed his eyes and squinted. “Wearing ugly sweaters and jingle bells?” “Technically, we are not gnomes. Gnomes come from -. Hey, there’s nothing wrong with our sweaters.” Santa twisted to one side and put his hands flat on the ground and brought his knees underneath his body. Now, in an all-fours position, he attempted to stand. After several unsuccessful attempts at standing, he started to crawl. “Where’s the eggnog?” Blitz, grateful that Santa’s crawl allowed him to keep up, said, “You can’t drink now, sir. You are not getting behind those reindeer in a tipsy condition. Up, up, up! We have a very busy night ahead.” Something always went wrong on Christmas Eve, but Blitz never anticipated this level of shit-show. Santa paused his crawling and returned to sitting upright on the floor. He blinked his eyes and looked around. Blitz waved his palm in front of Santa’s face. “Sir, do you know what today is?” Santa looked into Blitz's eyes, then examined his miniature nose and pointy ears. “Gnomes. Such awkward little creatures.” “He doesn’t look so good,” offered Twinkle. “ Reindeer rockets!” Blitz didn’t often use inappropriate language. He stepped aside and pulled Twinkle in close. “I think he has amnesia. He has no idea what’s happening.” “This is awful. How is he going to deliver all the presents?” Twinkle said. “He’s already running late in the Eastern hemisphere.” “No, this is the best news ever! All those years of putting out fires on Christmas Eve has all led up to this big moment. This could be my big chance to fix everything - to show Santa I’m not a total screw up.” “But, you are a -,” Twinkle started. “Shhh. I have a plan,” Blitz said. He turned to the crowd of elves surrounding the white bearded man. “We have a full-blown, Christmas catastrophe on our hands!” Pointing in turn to different elves, he rattled off a set of commands. “Twinkle, we are officially at Blizz-Con 2. Spread the word. Peppermint, I need you to put out a bulletin to the news outlets. When NORAD doesn’t see the sleigh in the air, there’s gonna be trouble.” Peppermint straightened up and neatened her red-striped smock at the mention of her name. “Come up with some excuse. Sunspots, stealth technology, space aliens. Whatever works.” “Aliens?” Peppermint asked. “They believe in a fat, bearded, cookie-eating guy who flies a magic sleigh and can travel around the world in one day. Space aliens shouldn’t be a problem. Now, go! Jolly, Get over here. Is the Book up to date?” “The latest download just came down from the cloud. Ready to go.” “Good job! Has anyone fed the reindeer?” He walked through the crowd of panicking elves. “Don’t just stand there! Go.” Blitz looked straight up and raised his arms, shaking his fists to the sky. “And, for frost’s sake, someone get Mrs. Claus!” # Mrs. Claus, Blitz and Peppermint entered the house-sized Snow Globe that sat at magnetic north. They took up seats around a conference table. Blitz clapped twice and the Snow Globe filled with blowing snow and the sounds of high winds. “I always thought this Snow Globe was just decorative,” Mrs. Claus admitted, “like the glass pyramid outside the Louvre.” “The Snow Globe is much more tasteful and will keep our conversation private,” he explained to Mrs. Claus. “Here they come. Act calm.” Snow whipped around like a tornado at several of the chairs around the table. As it coalesced, one could make out the distinct pattern of some entity. “Thank you all for coming,” Blitz began. “We have a unique and untenable situation here. As the preeminent myths and legends of the world, we all have a responsibility to uphold and protect the folklore. We need your help to save Christmas.” “Did Donner get drunk and wander off again?” Tooth Fairy sat sideways, examining her nails, with her legs hanging over the armrests. Her wings fluttered absent-mindedly as she chewed gum. “No, Tooth Fairy. It’s not that -. Wait. Where’s Sasquatch?” “He’s on assignment in Appalachia. Couldn’t get away.” “Thank you, Boogeyman. As I was saying...Mr. Claus is, well -” “Mr. Claus has amnesia,” Mrs. Claus blurted out. “We might have to cancel Christmas.” “Wow, that’s some heavy shit,” said the Abominable Snowman. “But, this really sounds like a you-problem.” “Yeah, we have our own problems.” The Easter Bunny stood in the chair on his hind legs to see over the table. “Abominable, get your paws off the table, please .” Blitz shook his head as Abominable rolled his large, blue eyes. “We’re all in this together. E.B., remember when you had that clover virus and you couldn’t produce enough painted eggs? Who helped you out?” The Easter Bunny answered reluctantly and feebly , “The elves.” “I’m sorry?” prompted Blitz. “The elves. The elves helped me out,” he responded definitively. “I could try scaring the bejesus out of him,” offered The Boogeyman. “No, thanks, Boogeyman. He’s had enough trauma for one day.” Under his breath yet audibly, Boogeyman said, “Too bad. It’s on my bucket list.” For a minute, no one offered any ideas. Blitz slumped in his chair. His pom-pommed hat fell in front of his face. “Well, I guess that’s it then.” He jumped down from the chair and started walking toward the exit. “I guess I’ll be spending the rest of my elf days cleaning up after reindeer or relegated to the Wetsy Betsy testing area.” The Easter Bunny’s ears drooped as he watched Blitz meander to the exit. Suddenly, he banged his bunny fist on the table. “Listen up, everybody. Blitz is right.” He hopped onto the table and stood at its center. Any one of us could be gone tomorrow if the world stops believing in us. We have to help Santa. If those presents don’t get delivered, no child will believe in Santa tomorrow and we won’t be far behind. No kid is going to check under his bed for the Boogeyman or place a tooth under the pillow for a crappy dollar.” “Excuse me, the first tooth gets a fiver. Just sayin”,” the Tooth Fairy jibed. “And, trust me,” continued the Easter Bunny, “I know my little scheme is hanging on by a thread.” Blitz had stopped his progress toward the door.. “Whadda ya say, guys?” the Easter Bunny rallied. “Are we doing this?” A loud yeah filled the Snow Globe, except from Abominable. “Listen, guys. I’d love to help, really. But, I do my best work in the mountains and forests. I have no business going house to house. It’s not my shtick. People would never buy it. I’m out.” A swirl of snow became a wisp and he was gone. “Let him go,” said the Tooth Fairy. “Those low oxygen levels mess with his head. What’s the plan?” For the first time in many years, Blitz felt an inkling of hope. # Out on the landing strip, the sleigh was fully loaded. Eight reindeer pawed at the snowy ground and stretched out in preparation for the long journey. “Okay, team! Does everyone know their route? We have to be efficient to make up for lost time.” Blitz handed out maps to E.B., Boogeyman and Tooth Fairy. E.B. looked worried as he studied the map. “There are a lot of sections not covered here.” E.B.’s tiny furry paw circled a section of the map. “What is this little helicopter symbol on my routes?” “You all have them on your maps. I had the idea that we could make up for some lost time with these little babies!” Blitz pointed above the treetops as thousands of little flying machines congregated above their heads. The hum and buzz of the rotors sounded like an army of bees. “My software development team pre-programmed their routes to deliver the presents in the hard-to-get-to places.” Blitz let out a whistle. One SUAVE flew down to Blitz’s eye level. “Just attach the present, like so.” He secured a present on the hook hanging from the SUAVE. “And off they go.” The powerful rotorcraft ascended above the trees. “We just might be able to do this,” Boogeyman said incredulously. The team climbed aboard the sled as Blitz gave the reindeer a pep talk (and a promise they would get extra snacks for the next month). As the reindeer and sleigh accelerated down the runway, the elves rushed along behind it, cheering and waving. Within hours, the crew closed the gap and were on schedule to complete a Christmas miracle. NORAD was tracking the sleigh and providing constant updates to the news outlets. Elves on the Shelves reported in, saying kids worldwide were oblivious to the nearly late arrival of their gifts. And, there wasn’t a single incident of missing batteries reported this year. # Back at the North Pole, the Easter Bunny, Boogeyman and Tooth Fairy gathered around a warm fire and shared their around-the-world stories with Mrs. Claus, Blitz and the rest of the elves. They laughed heartily and congratulated each other on a successful mission to save Christmas. Downing his last bit of eggnog, Blitz said, “Well, I gotta hand it to you guys. You really saved my butt. You helped me remember why I got into this business in the first place. It was an amazing feat. But, there was one misfortune.” Everyone fell silent to hear what could have gone wrong. “We lost one SUAVE in the mission. It never returned. It made the ultimate sacrifice in the name of Christmas.” A melancholy silence fell over the room. Santa trudged into the great hall that had fallen silent with the sad announcement. “What’s going on here? Why is everyone so glum?” “You wouldn’t understand, sir.” Blitz leaned his head on his hand and sighed. A low hiss and intermittent sputtering slowly grew to audible levels. A hum, surging and falling, growing louder. It was coming from the fireplace. All eyes turned toward the flames. In a flash, a flying object plummeted down through the flue, hovered over the fire for an instant and shot out into the sitting room. It bounced off the far wall, nicking the frame of Mrs. Claus’s portrait and ricocheted into Santa’s head. The crowd emitted a collective gasp then fell silent. Santa rubbed his head. “That smarts.” “Sir, are you alright?” Blitz asked. Santa shook his head, removed his glasses and rubbed his eyes. He had no sooner returned the spectacles to his face when he exclaimed, “Blitz! Doggone It! I thought I told you to get these flying menaces fixed. They are going out on Christmas this year or you’ll be sorting Legos!” “Santa? Is that you?” Blitz asked. “Can you give us a real ho-ho-ho?” “I’ll ho-ho-ho your pointy-eared head back to reindeer paddock duty. How’s that?” Santa’s amnesia did nothing to change him from a curmudgeon to jolly holiday icon but it brought a change in Blitz. Today’s debacle instilled in Blitz a fresh confidence and rekindled his joy of being a Christmas elf, despite his boss’s sour attitude and quick temper. His voice jumped multiple decibels with each word when he said, “Everybody, we have our Santa back!”

Schlumping a pile of books, trinkets and a very good cashmere twinset, she barged into Mrs.McGillicuddy’s always-open front door and wrenched aside the flimsy opening to my makeshift study. Shocked, I turned just in time to receive the full brunt of the load aimed at my head. Every gift I’d given her including the ruby ring without the stone. “.......... Don’t try to contact me ever again” she snapped. .............Don’t worry, I won’t” yelling as she left in high dudgeon. ● But I didn’t mean a word. She was Rosie, my fiancee and I adored her. ++++ Hans and Moshe my roommates were moving to Chicago for a job upgrade. Not being able to afford the apartment on my own and Rosie didn’t think we were yet ready for marriage,I had to move to something cheaper. Albert Fahrt clearly needed help. I owed that guy such a lot, and felt obligated to be there for him. I took his name in a moment of youthful bravado, masquerading as Albert Schweissfuss at Ellis Island and passing through Immigration to a new and bright future. Little did I know how fleeting are the streams of good luck. Nor how quickly they can evaporate . All immigrants have to work hard in the beginning, specially non English speakers. Fahrt took extra night classes and a daytime job as security guard. The uniform was ill fitting and the heavy shoes were so wide his feet looked cartoonish. Monotonous and grim his duties were standing for hours at a steel door to prevent unauthorized personnel from entering or walking around and around ugly factory buildings looking for anything suspicious. It wasn’t enough practice for his English, the thing that was holding him back. As much as I was working hard myself at studying law, I tried to help telling jokes. Having to explain the punch line to a German got tedious. The best way, and I recommend this method, was the films. Not too pricey, we’d have a great time afterward discussing the plot, the movie stars, Fahrt especially loved the organ. He was delighted with his progress and I was even happier. ++++ Comfortable and cheap with ensuite facilities stated the newspaper advert of Mrs. McGillicuddy’s attic in Bay Ridge Brooklyn It was one room with curtained toilet and shower. Kitchen facilities was a two burner hot plate. Two futons separated by a dresser completed the rest of the furnishings. The futon was too short for Fahrt. He complained nightly and loudly of the cold as his big bare feet splayed out from the bottom of the bed. I often wondered if his blood by the time it reached his extremities was underperforming. It did have a long way to travel. Munrospun, my employer, was underwriting my night school classes. I was enrolled in law school with the intention and guarantee I would work to repay the debt. Generosity and opportunities were many for immigrants. Understandably this was a two way street. Fahrt and I both forged lasting friendships at work and never forgot to extend a hand to other newcomers. A cramped space under the stairs on the first floor became my study.A recent neighborhood garage sale produced a well used ink stained pine table, chair, a gooseneck lamp with a long cord snaking out into the hall to the nearest wall socket, and a three tier metal book shelf. All for four dollars, three fifty if the seller didn’t have to deliver. A refuge for quiet study it even had a flimsy door which partially closed due to the electrical cord. ++++ Fahrt’s arrival home minutes after Rosie’s departure was timely. We both went to the corner bar and got soused. Trying to cheer my misery, Fahrt began to tell jokes. “ what lies between fear and sex? Funf It was the way he doubled over in mirth that I found funny. As we staggered a little, only yards from home, I asked him for the title of the shortest book ever written: ”Two hundred years of German humor”. He didn’t flinch. However on seeing the soft wool twin set his face lit up. Too drunk to care, I nodded motioning to take it. He slept peacefully from then on with his big flippers encased in expensive cashmere bed socks. Aqua to match her eyes, I was forever tormented by the sight. Instead of draping Rosie’s magnificent bosom they were crowning the big lug’s ample feet. ::::::: The first signs my lucky streak was beginning to blow was the time Fahrt decided we should go to Germantown to partake of something called gemuetlich. Handkase mit musik was the chalkboard speciality, washed down with apfelwein. I can’t say it was as tasty as corned beef, cabbage and a pint of Guinness but he was happy with my faked delight. Ordering a second helping Fahrt looked enquiringly at me. Declining with a rueful grin, patting my tummy “Nein Danke ich bin full,”I lied. Meeting Rosie afterward we went to the moving pictures to see Gone With The Wind For some time Rosie had been chilly towards me. I sensed it and couldn’t understand. At the funeral I caught the suspicious glances of her Aunts who were steering her towards a toff. A debonair Harvard boy. I was no match for a Boston Brahmin “Faint heart never won fair lady” Yes, I hear you, but it’s only an empty saying . Rosie’s dad had died suddenly and she inherited a tidy nest egg. Her mother had died much earlier. She was a Catholic as was Rosie. Her dad was a lifelong agnostic. Accompanying Rosie to the funeral parlor was a big mistake. The place felt claustrophobic with a pervading smell of lemon scented beeswax and woodbine cigarettes. The banality of the service annoyed me. A place where no one uttered the word die. Evidently they bury you when you fall asleep. Some poncey fellow asked if I didn’t agree the speaker was so beautiful in his remembrances: ...... “well I never heard so many words spewing from so little thought”. Rosie heard me. That was when the earth shook. Stomping out with me following like a scolded puppy, she turned ,her eyes quite cold: ..”......I’ll have to think things over Albert” she usually called me Al. Then she strode off into the crowded street. The slow walk home was the worst I had ever felt, even at my lowest on the immigrant ship. I had never imagined I could feel such lighthearted joy as when I first met Rosie. My run of good luck was spent and dragging me down were the ashes of my dreams. :::;; Two years later Albert Fahrt was speaking English well enough to get hired at a busy sports shop catering to outsize men. He was perfectly placed and had turned in his security guard badge and uniform for ever. We moved from Brooklyn . Fahrt and Weiss, the names were stenciled on our joint mailbox in a trendy midtown Manhattan apartment building. We gave them a polish with the sleeves of our fashionable summer weight linen blazers as we sauntered out into a bright early evening on the town Do I think of Rosie? Is there a chance we might reconcile? Who knows? Do I still care for her. Of course and that will never change.

A man in a suit sits alone at a small wooden desk. He's inside a cheap motel on the side of a small country highway. He's writing on a faded yellow legal pad full of marks and scratches. For some reason he can't seem to form his thoughts into words and it deeply pains him. He glances at the alarm clock by the bed, it reads 2:36 AM. The man is tired and hasn't written a satisfactory sentance in the past hour, so he decides to take a break and pours himself his third glass of Brandy for the night. He takes a sip and decides to lay down on top of the bed and ends up thinking of a different life where he was a very wealthy owner of a large fruit juice company. After about 15 minutes of daydreaming the man reminds himself of reality, and so, he goes back to the desk where he then goes on to write a full paragraph about success and failure without any mistakes or edits in the next 5 minutes. By the time the man finishes the last sentance, he is briefly entertained by a chorus of two lovers in the next room. After a few minutes and a short dopamine rush, the man begins to feel lonely. The man's mood begins to sink further but before it can take its toll on him, the man is briefly inspired to write another paragraph about love and family. After writing the first two paragraphs, the man has no trouble writing a third and final paragraph to conclude his writing for the night. Once he was done he read through his previous writings two or three times and fixed any spelling or grammar errors he found. Finally, he carries the legal pad to his bedside and laid it on the nightstand. He sat down on the edge of the bed and read it one last time. " My name is Mark Williams. I'm a used car salesman from Massachusetts. I've chased success throughout my entire life. I always studied hard, I got into a good business school and graduated with honors. Afterwards I went into financial advising and for a few years I was doing really well for myself. I had a big house, a wife, two kids, and a dog. The real American dream. Then a particularly lengthy financial crisis hit and I was out of a job. My wife and I decided to downsize to a smaller house, and then I got an office job making spreadsheets for an insurance company outside of Boston. I hated it. It felt like a huge waste of time but I couldn't find any other job at the time. After a few years the economy cought back up and I tried getting another financial advising job but couldn't get hired because I hadn't worked in the field in so long. I felt trapped. After a while an old friend of mine got me a job working for his cousin as a carsalesman at a used car lot. I gladly took the job because I needed a change in my life, and eventually I grew to hate that too. This hate grew and I took it out on my wife. It sounds bad, and I do regret it, but it's easier than you'd imagine, to have a small argument turn into a toxic fight whenever you have so much pent up anger. After every fight, I needed to get out of the house to be alone, so I went to a local bar and started drinking. This is process repeated a few times and eventually lead to my divorce, which lead me to drown my sorrows in more alcohol. I loved my family and I wish I could go back and take back the hateful words I said to my wife. But, I understand that they've started a new life that doesn't leave any room for me, and I don't blame them. I don't know who will end up reading this, but whoever does. Don't make the same mistakes as me. Don't waste your breath on hateful words. Don't dedicate your life to a career that will only give you money. Find people you enjoy being around and surround yourself with them. I wish I could go back and change how I lived my life, but what's been done is done, and I am left to pay the cost. " Afterwards the man set the legal pad gently down on the bed next to him. He opened the drawer to the nightstand, reached inside, and pulled out a small silver pistol. He then holds the gun to his head, briefly thinks of a different life, and pulls the trigger.

Everyone’s eyes are on her, constantly. She’s the star of the show, and she has been since she was born. A promise of life from the highest in rank, given to a pair of the lowest as a form of bidding. Watching from the side was always Everly’s brother. Everly was a gift, and Trevor was not to be seen in the same way. Trevor is supposed to be hidden behind Everly at Mr.Pierce’ss expense because he was not supposed to exist. A rank is a list of the successful and most liked families in society. Every three years, there is a family name rank election. Ever since the Shopel’s have been given Everly, their rank has been in the second spot right below the Pierce’s. When I was five, the Pierce’s gave mother and father Everly. Everly was also five years old, and I could swear her skin shined. It was hard to look away from her. At the time, we were trying to get by day by day. It was a tough life. Our house had buckets on the floors to collect rain, and the paint on the walls was faded and ugly. We couldn’t afford to even be on the charts anymore. Mother and father told me the day before we were given Everly that we would have to leave town. I never wanted to go, and that night, I cried. I wept out of self-pity, and since that day, the tears have never stoped behind closed doors. Now thirteen years later in about to go to her birthday party. I know it’ll be more extensive than any I have ever had. I’m jealous, but we have to keep our rank so that the city folk don’t ostracise us. I straighten my tie and head downstairs to meet our arriving guests. The Pierce family will be arriving today as expected. They always show their faces for Everly’s birthdays. To my surprise, Jackson walks through the door and shakes my hand firmly with a slight nod. I haven’t seen Jackson science last year. After his sister’s funeral, he’s stayed at home and only sees people when he asks them to visit. Jackson is in love with Everly, and so they see each other all the time. I wonder if he will ever confess to her. Everly has never been in a relationship, but she has always been followed by admirers wherever she goes. On the other hand, Trevor has never been allowed to do anything that might damage the family’s rank or his sister’s name. As a result of this, he’s always just followed in her shadows. I grab a drink off of Thomas, one of our waiters, and make my way to the back corner of the room. Once I make it there and get comfortable, I study the crowd of people surrounding Everly, congratulating her for finally becoming an adult. Jealousy rages through my veins, and suddenly I can’t control my temper. I swiftly move through the crowd of people and upstairs to my bedroom. I catch myself out of the corner of my eye in the mirror. My face is red, and I cringe at my reflection. Why can’t I be special like Everly? After a few minutes of pacing, my temper is finally at ease, and I sit down on my bed, falling onto my back. Closing my eyes, I hear a muffled scream coming from downstairs in the living room. Rushing out of my room, I trip on my feet and fall on my face. The pain knocks me out of my haze, and I quickly gather myself rushing to see what’s happening. I turn the corner, and I see Everly jump into Jacksons’ arms squealing like a child. I ask the woman beside me what I missed, and she fills me in that he just proposed, and she said yes. I turn my attention back to her. Her feet are off the ground entirely, and moments later, the rawr of the guests gets subsided by a loud knock on the door. Trevor wipes his nose and notices his fall from earlier made his nose bleed. He wipes it on his sleeve and rushes to the door. Grabbing the brass handle of the door, he already knows who is on the other side of the door. His presence is known by not only Trevor but every other person standing behind him in suspense. Behind himself, he can hear everyone’s whispers. Mr. Pierce walks through the doorway with his wife on his arm, both wearing their movie-perfect smile on their faces. I back away to hide, only to do the opposite. Mr. Pierce’s eyes turn towards me, and his smile briefly drops. He makes me feel as though I’m on fire. I wince under his gaze and turn to hide quickly. I’m never to be seen near him. What if the other family figured it out? Both of our families will lose our rankings. Seventeen years and eleven months ago, Trevor’s mother had a brief affair with Mr. Pierce, and Trevor was the result of it. He was not only almost the end of Mr. Pierce’s high status but also the end of his mother and her husband’s life in this city. Trevor grew up knowing Mr. Pierce was his real father, but he calls Mr. Shopel, his father. Trevor was to hide this secret behind Everly’s success and beauty. Mr. Pierce bought her from a top-ranking family in the city just west of them. *TRIGGER WARNING SELF-HARM/SUICIDE* Mr. Pierce walks right up to Everly, and he kisses her cheeks. With a movement of his hand, his son is beside him, holding a shoebox-sized present. I know this gift will be a good one; she always gets unique gifts from him. Her smile makes the whole room applause. I go upstairs and into my sock drawer in my dresser, and I pull out a bag with many pills in it. I’m so sick of being cast out, and the only way I can get out of this is to forget the world I'm trapped in. Below me, I hear a woman say in a high-pitched voice, “Oh my, a car! How lovely for you, Everly!” Standing before the bathroom mirror, I mock the woman and turn to face my bathtub. For a while, Trevor has struggled with self-harming and suicidal thoughts. His Problems have gone unnoticed because of his sister. He also is addicted to pills, and this is how he escapes. Trevor is almost old enough to escape this town, but he knows moving isn’t enough to fix his developed problems. Everyone knows him as the brother second to his sister. Trevor wrote his goodbye letter two weeks before this. He planned to die then, but he couldn’t bring himself to do so. Tonight was his limit, so this is the event to end his short life and painful death. I turn up the water and plug the bathtub; watching it fill, I listen to the chattering going on downstairs. Why couldn’t I be like Everly, and Why did I have to be a bastard child. I wish I was normal and somewhere far from here. I pour the bag of pills out onto the table, and I count them. Fifty-five pills this should do. I turn on the sink when my bath is almost done, and I Scoop the pills into my hand. I lean over the sink, collecting water into my mouth, and I force the drugs down with it. In small amounts, eventually, finishing them. My bath is drawn, and I open my mirror, revealing some tiny storage shelves. In the mirror, I have a box of razors. Pulling out a fresh one, I close the mirror catching one last glimpse of my foggy face. The water in the tub is too hot. It burns as I sit in it, still fully clothed. Rolling up my sleeves, I know that the pills will take effect soon, so I must hurry. I hold my arm up with the side of the bathtub. Drawing lith the metal Trevor left a red line in its wake. He did another on the same arm, this time deeper. And then again on the other arm. He quickly plunged into the water and cried out as the hot water filled his fresh wounds to keep them from clotting. Finally, Trevor got what he wished for. While his sister was living a great life of her own, he got to end his. He finally got something he wanted... His own show. Later that night after the party, Ms. Pierce searched his room to request his help with cleaning the house up. She couldn’t fund him anywhere; full of fury, she knocked on the bathroom door a couple times with no response; she rushed into his bathroom. His funeral was held a week later, and he was buried along with his secrets.

January 20, 2023, at 11:59:59 PM Eastern Time - A communication was received by the Green Bank Radio Telescope located in Green Bank, West Virginia located in the Allegheny Mountain Range. --- The round-the-clock surveillance team was working and sifting through normal noise picked up by the radio telescope when intern Bobbie Sagan noticed something unusual. The data coming through was in English. She thought she was dreaming so she called her colleague over. Dr. Phillips sauntered over thinking something was wrong with their equipment. “What’s going on, Bobbie?” “Uh...I’m not quite sure. This message just came through and...” “And what?” “It’s in English.” “English? Let me see that,” as he ripped the paper from her hand. “It makes no sense,” she replied. “Someone’s playing a joke,” Dr. Phillips insisted. “Who? There’s no way.” “There’s no way a message comes from space in English,” he insisted. “Don’t think for a minute that it was me,” she glared. He stared at her not surprised, “Then who? It’d be funny if it was you.” “I swear, it wasn’t me.” “Rerun the transmission.” “Will do.” “According to the data, the transmission emanated from more than 25,000 light years away. This makes no sense.” “I know, that’s what I’m saying. I’ve confirmed and rerun everything several times. There’s no way someone could fool the system.” “Hello to the children of planet Earth. Long story short, I’m the one who received your communications. I’ve spent the last three earth seconds composing a response...,” Dr. Phillips read aloud. “I’ve read it several times; it makes me uncomfortable.” “What the hell...get Dr. Shaw on the phone.” “Certainly,” Bobbie said reaching for the phone. “1974...1977?” Dr. Phillips continued. “Hello, Dr. Shaw? This is Bobbie Sagan from Green Bank. I’m sorry to wake you but we’ve received a communication that doesn’t make sense. I mean, it makes sense, but it doesn't.” “What? You’re not making sense,” Dr. Shaw replied in a half-awake voice. “I know, I know. You need to get over here right away. Dr. Phillips is here also and he’s not sure what to make of it either.” “I’ll be there in twenty minutes.” Within twenty minutes, Dr. Shaw had arrived and the three read the message aloud several times and confirmed the origin of the message. They all agreed that the message seemed authentic and that no one could have sent the message from earth. It was unsettling and they were all very troubled. They decided to call in General Hensfield who then decided to call the President. The five of them jumped on a video call and General Hensfield deferred to Dr. Shaw who explained the situation and then read the message aloud. --- Hello to the children of planet Earth. Long story short, I’m the one who received your communications. I’ve spent the last three earth seconds composing a response and in the correct format. You see, I’m the one responsible for deciphering and evaluating communications from different regions. I hope you can appreciate that I must keep this communication short, because I’ve strict policies against long and drawn-out communications. I’m more a ‘get to the point’ being. I’m referring to your ‘Arecibo message’ that you transmitted in earth year 1974 and aimed at, what you call, Messier 13 (aka M13). I’m also referring to the ‘Voyager message’ that was conveniently sent on a phonograph record and transmitted in earth year 1977. It’s great stuff, but I’m well aware of your progress, as I’ve run reconnaissance missions periodically to your earth and every object in that region for that matter. I exist in a place where time and space are not measured. I’ll always exist, because I’m able to regenerate myself periodically. It’s basically a super-evolved method of cloning. I’m asexual and can reproduce once every one-hundred earth years. Essentially, I reproduce - or clone - myself. I birth myself in perpetuity. It may sound strange, but it’s how I’ve evolved. At the risk of saying too much, I have a system of oxygen collection and processing in a fluid form, which makes my body less susceptible to external pressure forces. I have a layer of oxygen receptors in my skin. Beneath that skin, is a layer of oxygenated fluid that moves through my body to my lungs. I don’t breathe air - think of it as liquid breathing. Additionally, every twenty-five earth years I am subjected to an involuntary toxic wash, which is a process of purging and regenerating the oxygenated fluid. It is intended to keep me from aging and preserves my vitals to get me to the cloning stage. I’ve just entered my five-thousandth cloning and have never felt better, but I digress. Your evolution in intellect has been critical to your success. It has led to numerous advancements in areas such as, communication, travel, survival, and emotion. You’re learning the hard way that everything comes at a cost and that’s where you struggle. With the advent of fire came overuse of earthly resources. Overpopulation is another problem. Water has become scarcer, and the sustainability of life seems in question. Pollution is just a waste; you really need to figure that one out. If that’s not enough, your earth is headed toward a cycle of extreme warming. Soon your earth will be covered with water. Your mountains will shrink, and you’ll be forced to take to the water, but taking to the water in any form is not the best path. You may not completely see it, but technology is your friend if managed correctly, or safely. Kudos on your advancements with robotics by the way. Robots certainly have a place in your survival, but it must be policed and not by robots. To that end, while you’re in the infancy of artificial intelligence, it’ll be your guiding force in space travel. I feel obligated to inform you that your travels from your earth and into space is your best course of action - your path. Your medical advancements to date will certainly assist in your survival, but you lack focus or advancement in three main areas. First, while Nuclear Fusion needs to be achieved, it must be controlled. It is a steppingstone to what happens next. The earth’s sun will guide you. Be ever so careful and cautious. Second, a more durable space-travel material does exist and you’re circling all around it currently. Third, and I think most importantly, you must perfect a breathable liquid. It will extend your space life to the next stage of evolution and provide unlimited options for future travel. I’ve taken great risk in sending this message and hope you follow the path necessary to continue your journey to the top of the mountain. --- The President blurted out, “What the hell was that? Is this a joke? There’s no way this is real.” Dr. Shaw exclaimed, “I don’t believe it’s a joke, sir.” General Hensfield replied, “Tell me again you confirmed it.” “Yes, we’ve confirmed it,” Bobbie chimed in. “There’s nothing to prove it isn’t real.” “What does this all mean?” replied the President. “The top of what mountain?” Bobbie immediately responded, “Man seeks his maker and strives to survive and reach the pinnacle of knowledge to that end. We’ve always climbed that mountain.” “We can’t let this get out,” ordered the President. “No one’s going to believe this.” Dr. Shaw fired back, “Sir. With all due respect, this is monumental. We can’t sit on this.” “If I may,” Bobbie interrupted. “We need to get other opinions on what all of this means. The five of us can’t in good conscience make a decision on behalf of mankind.” “General...I’ll call you back,” offered the President. “No one’s going to believe this.” The remaining four stood staring at each other in utter disbelief. General Hensfield looked to the stars, rubbed his face with both hands and said, “No one’s going to believe this.” Dr. Shaw followed suit, “Yeah, no one’s going to believe this.” Dr. Phillips also followed suit, “You’re right, no one’s going to believe this.” Bobbie remained silent. “Bobbie?” asked General Hensfield. “Yes, sir.” “What say you?” “No one’s going to believe this?” General Hensfield placed his arm around Bobbie’s shoulders, “Let’s go for a walk.”

It was more a shape than a face that moved behind the broken glass, and instantly, I felt drawn in. Pulled. I leaned toward the surface, and the face moved with me. The figure remained obscured, partially masked by a veil of dirty fog brushed over the reflective coating, distorted and disjointed from the splinters. I bent my head toward my left shoulder; my eyes focused on the figure in the shattered glass, and as I moved, the misty reflection followed suit. A large section of the mirror at the bottom right was undamaged. I moved to set my face in front of the untarnished shard; perhaps I would get a clearer look there. I wasn't afraid then. I should have been. "Ludwig Kalenteri was a fine man..." The words from Father Dennis faded to a mumble as I looked up at Dad sitting beside me, looking at the coffin as the preacher spoke about Grandpa. I jostled and poked at my brother, sitting beside Mom. Mom grabbed my wrist, leaned down and gave a whisper that still sounded like a shout, "Leave your brother alone and be respectful. Stop fidgeting!" I was fidgety. And hot. I wondered if all churches were so uncomfortable and never understood why we couldn't bring a water bottle--Mass always made me thirsty. I thought of the broken mirror in Grandpa's garage. I thought of the face I saw in the corner, and my body broke out in goosebumps, and my bones felt cold. I thought of the two words mouthed by the face that looked like mine. "Help. Me." A shiver ran down my spine, clear to my toes, and I felt a surge of panic rush from my ears to my fingertips. I never wanted to see that damn old mirror again, but I had to know if she was still there. I needed to know who she was. I knew I was going to help her if I could. Then, Dad took my hand, and we were standing again. Father Dennis walked by and nodded at Dad. "Okay, guys, let's go," Dad said quietly. As we walked down the aisle to the front of the church, I saw Father Dennis standing at the door and shaking hands with people, I pulled on Dad's hand and stopped walking. "Autumn!" Mom's voice snapped at me from behind. "I almost trampled you! You don't just stop right in front of someone!" I don't know what made me say it, but I squeezed Dad's hand to make him look at me. "What is it, Autumn? We're holding up the line." "Grandpa wasn't crazy, Dad. He was just sad. He was always looking for Grandma Berta." Dad's face went a little funny, but his eyes got wet, and he looked at Mom, then back at me. "Of course, he wasn't crazy, Autumn. Whoever told you that?" "Felicia," I answered. "Every time we visit, she asks me what it was like to have a grandpa who lost his marbles." "I don't like that girl, Autumn. I don't particularly appreciate how she's always glued to your side when we visit. Now get a move on." Mom said, gently pushing me forward with her hand on my shoulder. I tried to squeeze in, but there wasn't enough room. The door to the garage bumped against the front of the car. "What are you doing?" I shrieked and stumbled backward, bumping into the car. It was Juno. He was standing there with half a sandwich in one hand and two cookies in the other. I scowled, "Why are you always creeping up on me like that? Can't you mind your own business? What does it look like I'm doing? Ding wad! I'm trying to go into Grandpa's garage, but Dad parked the car too close, and I can't open the door enough! Satisfied?" Juno took a bite of his sandwich, looked at me and the car, then took a bite of a cookie. "Why don't you just move the car?" Exasperated, I explained the obvious. "Because I'm thirteen, numbskull. I can't drive." "If you hold my food, I'll move the car." "You can't drive either, genius. How are you going to do that?" "It's Gramp's car," he answered as he handed over his cookies and the half-eaten sandwich. "It's a standard." Taking his food, I watched dumbfounded as my little brother opened the door, got in the car, and vanished. A moment later, I heard a metallic click and pop, and the car silently rolled back a few feet before jarring to a stop. Juno emerged from the car, smiling, walked to the garage, and opened the door without impediment. "So," he said, reclaiming his food, "Are we going in or what?" Walking to the back of the garage, I felt uneasy and wondered if I should have Juno with me. I stopped at the covered mirror and then turned to my brother. "Look," I said, sounding as relaxed as possible. "I'm going to show you something, and it's weird." "Cool!" he answered, stuffing the last cookie into his mouth. We walked to the back of the garage. There it stood, beckoning, impossible to ignore. I grabbed the blanket and pulled it off the mirror. Then I kneeled on the cement floor, leaned into the corner, and looked. A face looked back at me. "Juno? Do you see her?" I could feel Juno's breath on my neck, which only made me more aware of the goosebumps on my skin. "Autumn? How come you look so old? Is the mirror wrecked or what?" I turned to face Juno, and the reflection that wasn't mine also turned and looked at him. Juno, transfixed on the mirror, took a half step back. "That's--that's not you--is it, Autumn?" We both looked back at the face behind the glass and watched as she mouthed the two words again. "Help. Me." Juno moved beside me and took my hand. We leaned in closer. I raised my hand to wipe the mirror, but before I touched the surface, her hand suddenly shot up ahead of my reflection, the palm slapping hard against the mirror from the other side. Juno screamed. He pushed his heels against the floor, throwing himself into me. My knees felt frozen to the floor. The hand pulled away, leaving only the pointer finger touching the glass--we watched as two words appeared in the filmy glass. HE'S COMING. Juno whimpered, "Autumn..." I jumped to my feet, grabbed the blanket, threw it over the mirror, grabbed Juno's hand and pulled him to his feet. Two hands reached out from the shadows in the dim light and grabbed our shoulders. "Yahhhhh!" a voice screeched. "Ahhhhhhhh!" Juno and I screamed. I pulled Juno to my chest, covered his head, and closed my eyes, waiting for the ghost from the mirror to kill us. Gleeful, shrieking laughter filled the air. Confused, I opened my eyes. It was Felicia--the girl Mom didn't like. "Ha-hah-ha! Oh, my god! You two dumbasses should see your faces! You look like you've seen a ghost! Ah-ha-ha! I got you good!" Pulling Juno with me, I brushed past my "friend." "Wait! Where are you going?" Felicia called out. "Oh, c'mon, don't be sissies! I was just joking around!" Outside, back in the sunlight and safe, Juno tugged my hand and stopped. He wiped the tears from his eyes and pulled on my hand again. "Autumn? Who's in the mirror?" Before I could answer, Felicia appeared behind my brother. "What mirror? Who's in a mirror?" "I knew it!" snapped Felicia, "I knew your Grandpa was a weirdo. Everyone in town knows he was crazy." Juno had calmed down, and I explained everything about the mirror to Felicia. I finished, not knowing what to say or think. "I want to go back in and see the mirror! I didn't see anything!" she complained. "Felicia, I don't think that's a good idea." "You don't know anything except that you saw some dirty old face and a hand. It was you, and it looked weird because the mirror is broken, and you two pansies got spooked." Trembling, I told Felicia the truth, "It--it wasn't me." Before I could stop her, Felicia sprinted to the garage door. By the time I reached the back of the garage, Felicia was pulling a crate from behind the mirror--I hadn't noticed it before. I glanced toward the mirror, relieved to see the blanket still covered it--tough talk or not, Felicia wasn't above fear; she'd been careful not to touch the mirror. "I think I found something." Reaching into the crate, she raised a hand holding a tattered paperback book. "'Transcending the Reflective Plane-Meditation for Moving Between Dimensions.' This is the key!" She stated. "Show me the mirror, and let's read what the book says." "Umm-I don't think that's such a good idea, Felicia." Felicia was older than me by a year and taller by three inches. She moved closer and looked at me, unhappy at being challenged. I wasn't ready for whatever this was. The mirror and the book seemed like things we shouldn't be messing with. I wasn't prepared for this. I wasn't brave. "It's getting late. My dad will call us in soon, and if he catches us in here, we'll have to explain what we're doing and what we found." The moment of silence stretched between us. "Okay, fine. But I'm taking this book home with me and studying each page cover to cover. We only have a few days to figure this out before you run back to the big city. I'll meet you back here tomorrow at 10 am!" Then, as suddenly as she had appeared in the garage, scaring us out of our wits, she stepped back out the door and disappeared. "Mister and Missus Kalenteri," Detective Blume said with well-practiced patience. "I know how hard this is, how emotional it is. But I need you to focus. When was the last time you saw Juno and Autumn?" "Please, Jeff," Julius Kalenteri told his childhood friend, "Let's go by first names here. Don't treat us like strangers." Detective Blume nodded and sighed. "You're right, Julius; I'm sorry. Look, May, Julius-I'm positive the kids are okay. They probably wandered off into the gully. There's no reception down there; they'll pop back up over the bank any minute. Probably wet and muddy but no worse for wear. May Kalenteri interrupted, her voice shaky, pure panic only a stitch away, "Jeff! They're not in the gully. I'm telling you something is wrong. I don't think they would go in the gully, not with the creek. Juno is terrified of moving water." The detective looked at May and Julius. "Let's start at the beginning," he said gently, "When did you first notice the kids were missing?" "At lunchtime," May answered. "They didn't come when I called." Detective Blume nodded, making notes in his pocketbook. "Where was the last place you saw them, or where they were supposed to be?" "In the garage," Julius spoke up. "They said something about a treasure hunt. Felicia came this morning and said she'd found some clues, and they could solve the mystery." "Any idea what this mystery was, or what kind of clues?" the detective asked. May looked at her husband and shook her head. Julius shrugged. "I don't know. It sounded like kid stuff. I was happy they found something to keep them busy-it's been a tough week, not a lot of fun for them." "This is good news. That Staddler girl, Felicia, and her brothers practically grew up in that gully. If they are down there, your kids are in good hands. Felicia will get them out or help if they're in trouble. She's a tough kid." May suddenly changed her opinion about Felicia Staddler. "Okay, we'll get a couple of fellas on the ATVs and have them run the gully. If we hear anything, we'll call you immediately. The same goes for you. If they show up, give me a shout. Stay put." Tired from carrying the broken mirror through the woods and down the slope to the gully floor, Juno and I sat on a log. Standing a few feet away, Felicia flipped through the book's pages. "Okay," she announced. "I know what to do, but I gotta say, this is pretty weird; your grandpa sounds like he went crazy-but if what he wrote down is true...." ".... then that's Grammie Berta in the mirror," I said, finishing the girl's sentence. "Is Grammie trapped in there like those bad guys from the Superman movie?" Juno asked. "Kid, you're too gullible," Felicia answered. "Do you think it's true, Autumn? Was Gramps crazy?" "Of course, he wasn't. Don't listen to her. She doesn't know what she's talking about." I said while glaring at Felicia, who stood defiant, her hands on her hips, jaw jutting out, and staring back. "Gramps was sad, that's all. He spent all his time looking for Grammie. He was heartbroken." "Then Grammie is in the mirror?" Juno asked. "Stop jabbering, and let's do something!" Felicia ordered. "Get the mirror and put it in the creek. Make sure the glass is facing up." Juno looked at me, panic in his eyes. "It's okay, Juno. The creek isn't any deeper than your knees, and you can stay on the bank; I'll go in the water." I told him, taking hold of the mirror. "Just help me carry it to the edge." "You promise I don't have to go in the water?" Juno murmured. "Promise I don't have to go in the water?" Felicia whined, mimicking my brother's plea. "Geezus, kid, you'd have to try pretty hard to drown in this little creek!" "Shut up, Felicia! Leave him alone! He almost drowned, you know! He's allowed to be afraid." "Gee, sorry!" Felicia snapped back. "That was a long time ago, and he was little then. Even if he fell in, he couldn't drown, is all I'm saying!" A minute later, I stood in the creek, the water just above my ankles. The mirror lay submerged just as she had instructed. "Okay," Felicia ordered, "Now we get some big rocks to anchor it in place. The mirror can't move while we try and open the gate." Felicia stuffed the book in the pocket of her jean jacket and gave the next instructions. "Everyone gathers around and places their hands on the frame." With a glance at Juno, then me, Felicia said, "Juno, you can sit here on the grass and hold the bottom. Autumn and I will hold the sides." "Then what?" I asked as we moved into position. "Then we look through the water until it goes flat. Your Grandpa's book says that when flat water moves over the mirror, the glass will move like the creek. That opens the gate." "Then what?" This time, it was Juno asking, sounding much braver than he felt. "Then we wait to see who shows up first," Felicia told him. "What do you mean, 'who shows up first?' "Juno's courage cracked with his question. "It might be your Grammie Berta in there, or someone else, but the book says there are also other- things -on the other side. Things that want to come out and be on this side." "What do we do if we see one of those things ?" I asked, masking my concern with false confidence. "Simple pimple!" Felicia replied. "We just muck up the water. They can't get out." At first, the soft undulation of the clear water made it hard to focus, and we had to hold our eyes open wide to see our muddled reflections in the broken mirror. Then the water turned flat as though it wasn't there at all. We forgot about the stream and looked deep and long into the mirror. The glass began to move. Hypnotized, we leaned in ever closer. Two hands slapped against the mirror from the other side and held. The face of a long-haired, old woman appeared, looking dark and sad, and she stared at us from beneath the glass, but I saw no relief in her eyes. I saw evil. The glass turned dark, its surface moving in slow, syrupy rings and curls. At the edge where the glass touched the wooden frame, pale, wrinkled, bony fingers crawled out. Unable to pull away or explain, I reached for the hands. Felicia's eyes went even wider. The words from the sentence underlined profusely in red ink in the notebook raced across her mind. "NEVER LET THEM TOUCH YOU!" "No! Autumn, don't!" cried Felicia. "SPLASH THE WATER!!" It was too late. In the mirror, falling deeper beneath its surface, the black glass folded around me like a blanket. In shock and horror, I looked pleadingly back at my baby brother. I reached a hand to the edge for Juno. Juno plunged his hand into the creek, clasping his hand around my wrist. The twisting curtain of blackness curled over my face. The old woman's pale arms pulled me deeper into the dark water; her fingers gripped tightly on my hips from below, and my brother clinging to me from above. Numbed by shock, Felicia pulled back from the water, but her hands would not give up their grasp on the wooden frame, and she saw the boy follow his sister beneath the water and through the gate. She watched through the flat water as the woman's face reappeared. As she felt the water filling her ears, her final conscious thought told her that the woman behind the glass was never Grammie Berta Kalenteri. Felicia watched the world wash away. The mirror rose and rode the water, following its bends, rushing through the small, rolling rapids. A few miles downstream, a group of children frolicked and splashed. A boy pointed upstream. "Look! I see a boat!"

Alice ran her hand along the wall, the plaster was bumpy and cracked, paint flecked off revealing another layer behind. How many layers were there, who could say? Over four hundred years’ worth of paint, dirty handprints and memories embedded in these walls. A photograph hung on the wall, a couple posed stiffly for the camera, the man in a suit and the woman in what appeared to be a wedding dress. The man’s eyes seemed to be looking straight at her, or through her. She continued on up the stairs, the walls curved and bowed, not a single straight edge in the entire building. Black wooden beams accented against the greying white walls, frayed carpet and dusty curtains. She’d seen the advert for Peacock Farm online and had immediately fallen in love, with both the building and it’s story. From the small amount she’d been able to find about the place, she knew it was full of history and had housed many colourful characters. The monks who resided there when the house was a vicarage, the woman who had seven children and the desperately in love couple whose relationship ended in tragedy. “It’s perfect”. Tony looked over at Alice wondering if she’d lost her mind, “There’s no central heating, no double glazing, that window is cracked, that one’s missing a piece of glass and there’s a door to a room half-way up the stairs with no landing”, Alice rolled her eyes at his melodramatic rant, sure the window was cracked but look at the view. The garden needed some work but beyond it was miles of glorious countryside, trees and rolling hills. She needed somewhere to write, and this place was full of inspiration. “no, seriously, this house will kill me. I mean really?” he gestured over towards the door hanging strangely on the stair way, “just look, how am I meant to get in or out of that room without falling to my death?” “don’t go in that room then!” Alice was already wandering off to look around. The floor sloped downwards along the corridor and carried her round to the left. She pushed the door in front of her and it creaked open to reveal a room that had nothing but a large trunk standing in the centre. It appeared wooden and heavy, with metal trim and rivets. The clasp was shut and a padlock threaded through securing it. “Hey, I wonder if this trunk comes with the house!” she called through to Tony, ‘I wonder what’s inside’ she whispered to herself. Alice got no response, she popped her head back into the corridor to see Tony fiddling with the door on the stairs, “What are you doing Tony?” “It’s locked”, “Why do you care, you don’t want to go in there anyway!” she joined him at the door and gave the handle a wiggle, “I’ll go find the estate agent, I want to ask him about that trunk anyway”. The steps creaked and groaned as Alice made her way downstairs, and Tony could hear her footsteps along the old wooden floorboards towards the kitchen. He gave the handle another try but was startled by voices coming from a room behind him. “Hello?” this place gave him the creeps, he’d seen some of the information Alice had found. The little boy who drowned in the moat, the woman who killed her husband for having an affair and god knows how many other people who had died there. Tony ventured cautiously towards the room hoping to find another couple having a viewing, and praying they bought the place before Alice could. As Tony pushed open the door, he saw a long shadow silhouetted on the floor, “Hello” he said again, not wanting to startle them. The shadow moved across the floor and by the time Tony was inside, the room was empty. He frowned, his eyes darting around the space noticing only one way in or out. There was a fireplace on the far wall and a large wardrobe to the right, a faded pink curtain hung beside it. Tony pushed the curtain aside and was relieved to find it hid a door, the movement freed years of dust that danced in the light and tickled his nose and throat sending him into a fit of coughing. “You Ok?” Tony squinted through the dust at Alice and gave her a bemused grunt. ... “This is the trunk” Alice jangled the padlock to see if it was open, but it held fast, she looked up at the estate agent who started flipping through pages in his binder “There was no mention of it in the paperwork so I assume it stays with the house, not that there’s anyone left to claim it anyway” “Oh?” “the place has been empty for years, the neighbours would see the lights come on at night and people moving about but turns out the local kids like to play round here, there are rumours about the place being haunted and you know what kids are like” Tony didn’t like how casually he delivered this news, and he really didn’t like the unnerving smile on Alice’s face, “We’ll take it” she announced, much to Tony’s dismay, “Great, shall we go down to the kitchen to talk details?” “Wait!” Alice and the estate agent both turned to look at Tony, eyebrows raised, “what about that other couple, they might want to make an offer?” he knew it was a long shot, when Alice wanted something no one stood in her way, but he had to try something to avoid being dragged into living in this decrepit old building. “Have you had any other offers?” Alice asked curiously, the estate agent shook his head and looked over at Tony questioningly, “We’ve had no other viewings or interest, the property has been on the market for nearly three years”. Tony glanced around nervously, “who else is here then?” he asked, afraid to hear the answer, “Only us. As I say we’ve had no other viewings” the estate agent was becoming agitated now. As far as he was concerned, he’d made the sale, now it was time to do the paperwork, make his commission and be done with this creepy old place. “Alice we can’t live here” Tony pulled her over to one side, “can you give us a minute?” The estate agent obliged, “I’ll be downstairs, I’ve just got to make a phone call to let my next clients know I’ll be late”. “Tony what’s going on, why are you being weird?” “Me weird? This place is weird! There were people up here, I heard them talking in that room” Alice frowned unconvinced, “Shh, listen” the pair listened as the low mumble of a man’s voice travelled down the hall, “What? That’s just the estate agent” Alice followed the voice, it lead her to the room next door, Tony stayed a couple of steps behind, scared to go back in the room, but equally scared to be left alone. She pushed open the door to find the room was empty, but the voice continued, clear as day. Tony jumped as Alice started laughing, “What’s so funny?” “Come here” she beckoned him over to the fireplace and crouched down with her head close to the opening, Tony joined her and could hear the estate agent’s voice coming up through the chimney, “Oh” “Yeah”, Alice rolled her eyes, “Come on, he’s clearly desperate to get out of here”. Tony felt a little daft and yet his fear was not gone. The dust from the curtains had settled and clogged up the cobwebs in the corner of the room. Tony’s shadow lay still across the floorboards, “he’s not the only one”. ... “Hey Alice, did we get a key for this room?” Tony asked as he carried another empty box down the creaky stairs, “Huh? Oh, check the tin on the kitchen table, the estate agent dropped it off, it has all the spare keys in”. Tony rooted around in the box, the keys had been labelled with little white paper tags, ‘garden shed’, ‘back door’, ‘Trunk’. Alice had been so excited to discover the mysterious trunk’s contents and had been a little disappointed to find nothing but a weird collection of women’s clothes, make-up and costume jewellery. Unfortunately, there was no tag labelled ‘stupid door halfway up the stairs’ and all the keys were accounted for. Tony grabbed a key labelled ‘workshop’ and went out to find some tools that he had deluded himself into thinking he would be capable of using to open the door. He wasn’t entirely sure which of the outbuildings was considered the ‘workshop’, but he wandered over to a rickety old structure and hoped for the best. He tried the key in the lock, jamming it into the mechanism. It wouldn’t turn, he tugged at the key, but it was firmly stuck. Tony cut his losses and turned back to the house, but there was a rustling from behind the shed that drew his attention. A shape darted out and across the lawn, a second shape followed only this one wasn’t quite so lucky. Tony grabbed the kid by the arm and held him firmly in place, “What do you think you are doing?”, “Sorry, we didn’t think anyone lived here”, the kid was young, probably about nine or ten, “Well we live here now, so no more snooping and make sure you tell all your little school friends no more playing around in the house” the kid nodded his head and Tony let him go, “We would never dare go in there anyway” the kid was wide eyed as he walked away, “the old man gives us the creeps”, “wait, what old man?” “The old man in the house” the kid was getting further away, desperate to leave before he got into any more trouble, “I thought you said no one lived here” the kid stopped, “they don’t” he disappeared through the hedge out of sight. ... There was a lot to do before the place was going to be the home Alice had imagined, but she couldn’t wait to get started with her writing. Ideas had been sparking in her mind ever since they’d seen the place advertised, and she was desperate to get words down on paper. She made herself a nest, wiping off a dusty old table and pulling it over to a window, she took out her note pad and pen. She thought of a news article she had read about the couple that once lived in the house, they had been childhood sweethearts and no one believed anything could split them up. But one day the woman had killed her husband in an impassioned rage when she found another woman’s underwear under the bed. She had been so heart-broken she immediately killed herself. Immersed in the story Alice began to put pen to paper. As she searched her imagination, a loud thundering noise interrupted her thoughts. She rolled her eyes, of course Tony had decided that now was the time to start dragging around furniture. The noise stopped and she carried on, but within moments it started again. She stood up abruptly and stormed over to the bottom of the stairs. She saw Tony’s shadow flit across the hall, his footsteps moving along the upstairs corridor, “Tony!” she barked. Tony heard her shout and came running in from the garden, already on edge after his encounter with the kid. As Tony appeared in the kitchen doorway beside her, Alice jumped, her stomach lurched, her face paled and there was a loud thump upstairs. ... It took a little while for the pair to pull themselves together, there had to be a logical explanation for everything. After a brief argument over who would go first, Anna tread slowly up the stairs wielding a hammer and nervously looked in each room for any sign of a rational answer. “Tony?” her voice quivered, “Yeah?” “The trunk is gone” the pair looked over at the door on the stairs, a little white tag hung from a key that now sat in the lock. Anna slowly turned the handle, the mechanism clunked and with a gentle push the door creaked open ominously, leaving the pair bewildered. The half open door revealed a full-length mirror propped up against the far wall and a pile of clothes heaped beneath it. A necklace lay broken on the carpet, beads scattered and rolled across the floor. There was a gentle tapping as several escaped the room and cascaded down the stairs. Tony shuddered, “We’ve got to get out of here”, he started down the stairs but Alice was petrified in place, her eyes glued to the mirror, staring at her own reflection, or just beyond it. There was nothing more than a shadow, and yet she could see him so clearly, his decorated face smiling as he admired his new dress in the mirror. Alice turned to Tony, shaking “he didn’t do it” she said quietly, “he just wanted her to know”.

(Trigger warning: sexual violence) I don’t want to go to this party. My friend Alyssa gave me an invite earlier this week, and I said yes. Such a stupid decision. I already knew that I didn’t want to go. Four days isn’t a long time to change my mind. But I said yes anyways. I knock on the door, my fingers shut in a tight grip. I can hear music erupting from the inside of the flat. Poor neighbours! Alyssa greets me with that shining smile, that irresistible shining smile. I don’t have a crush on her though. Strange, as she is the most ideal woman imaginable. “Hi Delilah!” Her voice is soft as silk, and at the same time harsch, cutting through the loud music. A glittering dress tight on her slender figure, a plastic cup clutched in her hand. Her eyes the colour of a milky cappuccino. I get a glimpse inside the flat; bright lights pop and an ocean of unknown people are already dancing. “Hi! Am I late?” I giggle nervously and step inside, placing my thick jacket on an overfull hanger. “No, not at all. Everyone just came early, nothin’ to worry about,” Alyssa says and waves me into the living room, her high heels clinking against the wooden floor. Some people turn their heads to see who just arrived, some are too invested in dancing, laughing and drinking to give a damn. “Fancy a drink? I’ve got a wide selection.” She gestures to the extensive counter covered with bottles of soda, vodka, cheap beer and other indistinguible alcoholic beverages. “Yes, a glass of Coca-Cola please.” Alyssa obediently fills a red cup to the brim with Coca-Cola. Her hands are shaking, it’s obvious she has refilled her own cup a few times before my arrival. “Here’s your drink! I’m in the mood for some dancing, want to follow?” she says, hiccuping in between words. The sugary drink sticks to my tongue like my grandmother’s porridge always does. “I think I’ll pass for now. When I’m ready I’ll gladly join you on the dancefloor,” I exclaim to be heard over the pulsating music, my voice drenched in false enthusiasm. Alyssa gives me a thumbs up and dissolves into the mass of dancing people. I move toward the hot-pink sofa and squeeze myself into the far corner, in order to distance myself from the people already occupying it. “Hello there! What a party!” says a girl in a raspy scottish accent and lifts her plastic cup, as if she wants to toast. “Hi. Yes indeed, what a party!” I say, meeting her cup in a toast. But the collide is a bit too rough and orange liquid splatters her skirt. Her eyes drill into mine. The wish to sink through the pink cushions and disappear, immediately enters my mind. The scottish girl and the other people sitting on the sofa go back to their chat. Thank God! Exactly fixty-seven seconds later, I gather up the courage to stop scratching my bleeding cuticles and remove myself from the sofa. With shaky legs I walk toward the dance floor, observing every millimeter of my surroundings. My heart skips several beats when I see you. Sitting in a bean bag with your legs spread and your arm flung around a blonde girl’s shoulder. I know you’re aware of me observing you, you must be. You’re aware of things like that. It had been exactly ninety-nine days since I last saw your face. Your nose with the bump only visible from the side. The corners of your mouth, twitching. Your hair shimmering like bronze. Your eyes, the darkest shade of black. It had been ninety-nine wonderful days. Wonderful yet terrible days. I try to suppress the thought of you, but it’s hard when my brain is painted in the colors of your skin against mine. I step into the pool of humans; their arms punching toward the ceiling, their bodies twisting and their heads shaking. I try to replicate a girl’s movements, but stop when she falls into the arms of another girl and they start jiggling together. The heavy beat vibrates the floor and shatters my thoughts. I jump to the rhythm and Alyssa appears beside me. She has had more to drink, her eyelids flickering, her words slurry. “Havi’ fun?” “Sure,” I answer. Which isn’t completely true, but the lie slides off my tongue like a child in a waterslide. Alyssa nods, or maybe she’s just shaking her head to the music, I can’t tell. I dance for an eternity, which probably is around two-hundred seconds. And suddenly my pantsuit is sitting too tight. Tight enough for my lungs to lock like a zipper. Tight enough for my field of sight to blur. Tight enough for my knees to weaken and my bones to transform into jelly. I need to get away. Quickly. Insanely fast. I sprint away, slithering between the jumping people and ducking when I hit a wall of human flesh. My heart beats in my throat, sweat dripping along my spine. I’ve been to Alyssa’s place many times before and therefore know that there are two bathrooms in her flat. One bathroom positioned very close to the large living area, and one bathroom with an entrance inside Alyssa’s bedroom. The choice is very simple. Alyssa’s bed is the size of my kitchen, her rug soft like clouds and the walls painted in the lightest of violett. I don’t have the time to recognize more details before my fingers slide over the handle and I’m inside her bathroom. My hand trembles as I turn the lights on, and then shut them off again. I do this nine times. It’s such an old habit I don’t even realize I’m doing it. The light is bright like the sun and my eyes are burning. Liquid streams from them. I instinctively think it’s blood. But my panicked reflection tells me otherwise. It’s just tears. The normal stupid salty tears that insist to wet my cheeks everytime my heart starts to race. Everytime anxiety meets panic. The sound of my rattling breaths overpower the pounding beats from the living room. I close my eyes and everything ceases to exist for a second. It’s nice. Nicer than it should be. I sit on the toilet with my face buried in my lap. I never should have attended this party. It was a stupid idea. Somewhere in the whirlwind of minutes and seconds that passes by, I conclude that I need to get out of this bathroom. My makeup is ruined, but I’m too ruined to care. Hopefully I can disappear in the thick mist of drunk people and colorful lights. Fingers crossed. When I come out of my hiding place, I see you sitting on Alyssa’s bed. My body flies several centimetres off the fluffy floor. Your black eyes are staring directly into mine. The door out of this room is shut with intention; the intention to block any escape route. “Hi.” My voice is squeaky, despite my try to sound strong and resilient. In the soft glow from the spiral-like ceiling light, you can clearly see I’ve been crying. But you don’t care. Because why would you? “Hello Delilah,” you say, the familiarity ringing in my ears. With swift movements you move towards me and I can feel my heart boxing my chest. “Who was that girl?” I whisper. My high heels are the only thing I dare to look at. You pin my wrists to the wall. “A nobody.” “Really?” Silence. “Am I a nobody?” “No, Delilah. You’re far more than a nobody. You’re my somebody.” Unwillingly, your words tickle me. I don’t want them to. I want to be the opposite magnet to you. But my magnetic force isn’t strong enough to keep you away. Suddenly I feel your lips on mine, and I yank back. But my body is pressed to the wall, so I can’t escape. Our eyes are still open, our lips barely touching. “No. Please, no. I don’t want --” I get interupted by your mouth silencing me, and my hope sinks like a stone. This has happened so many times before I don’t even try to wrestle out of your grip. Your breath tastes like beer and peppermint. You transport me to the bed, our fingers entwined. “But you do Delilah. You do want to.” You take off your shirt in a smooth movement, as if you’ve done it thousands of times before. With a second thought, you probably have. You struggle with my pantsuit, your fingers trembling whilst unbuttoning the small buttons. I don’t mind, it’s nice with a few seconds to breathe properly. I feel the material slide off my upper body, and then down my legs. You turn me so that I can’t avoid your eyes of darkness. “But I don’t though. I don’t want to.” You kiss me again, with more passion, pushing me down into the mattress. I want to shout but my lungs are empty. I feel your hands sliding over my belly and downwards. You close your eyes. I don’t. I keep them wide open, so I can count your freckles, the counting distracts me from the pain. I also keep my fingers crossed. Because somewhere deep down, I’m screaming at the top of my lungs for someone to rescue me. I’m not sure how long your body is on mine. Time is a funny thing. Sometimes seconds can feel like years, and sometimes months can swoop by without me noticing. But sometime after the music from the living room dies and the voices subdue, you decide you’ve had enough. You silently put your clothes back on and I lay underneath the duvet, my eyes closed and imagine stars spread across a blackberry sky. “This will be our little secret. Right, Delilah?” I don’t say a word and you don’t bother. The door opens and closes with a noiseless click . I crawl out of the bed, after an hour laying flat on my back and staring blankly to the ceiling. I drag my legs behind me. As quietly as I can, I tip on my toes through the flat. About twenty people are sleeping, lying on the sofas, curled up in bean bags or spread over mattresses that have been placed on the floor. I can’t see your body among all the others, you must’ve left. The clock on the back wall is everything that can be heard, the gentle ticking moving towards 4.00 am. My heels are left behind in Alyssa’s bedroom, so I take a random pair from the hallway, which are in my size. They’re a pair of Converse, the white material worn brown. I open the door and suddenly hear someone moving in the living room. I dare not glance back to see whom I awoke. I just shut the front door behind me and feel the crisp air gnaw at my skin. My arms are exposed, I left the jacket in the flat. Another stupid decision, this time not intentional though. I feel dirty, you’re still stuck to my body like thick syrup. And I can’t rub you off. I think I’m crying, or maybe I’m not. If I’m being totally honest, I don’t fucking care. The usually busy streets of London are frozen, both literally and abstractly. A thin slippery layer of ice covers the pavement, paired with piles of snow that lay scattered everywhere. But it’s also frozen in another way, the air trapped -- the streets still, frozen in time. From here, I can’t see a single human. I’m sure I’m not the only soul haunting the streets this late at night -- or early in the morning, depending on your sleeping habits -- but I still feel surprisingly lonely. I walk by my favourite café in town. At nine o’clock in the morning, the café opens and their buns and croissants are still warm. I stare into the frosted glass, my breath white against the window. I can see my usual spot in the far corner, where I always sit. It’s an armchair the colour of red wine, with a small table on the side, just the perfect size for a small plate with a baked good, and a steaming cup of Earl Gray tea. With two and a half teaspoons of sugar and a splash of milk. If that spot is taken, then I’d rather skip breakfast. My legs don’t feel like legs as I walk onward, my thoughts twirling with the icy breeze. I moved to London because I thought things would change. I thought I would change. Spoiler alert: I did not. The old buildings tower against a canvas of black, indigo, and blue. I like looking up at the sky, I would flee to the stars above if I had the opportunity. Up there, things feel meaningless. Easy. Cars drive by, the startling lights temporarily damaging my sight. I walk onto the Tower Bridge, and stop halfway across. I stare down, into the bubbling river of dark shimmer. It looks cold, like a river someone could freeze to death in. My teeth squeak against each other, my turquoise fingertips rubbing the skin of my arms. Without acknowledging my own movements, I’m sitting on the blue railing, my legs dangling free. The strong wind keeps my body unbalanced, swaying between safety and the unknown. I feel my eyes burning again. It’s probably not blood. It’s probably the stupid tears again. Then, I hear a distant shout. “Delilah. What are you doing? Delilah!” I can feel the desperation echoing in Alyssa’s voice. It was her I must’ve awakened when I left the flat. “Please! Whatever you’re doing -- stop. I can help.” But the thing is - she can’t. I’m a ruined ruin that can’t be un-ruined, not even by the magic hands of Alyssa. I look in her direction, and I can see a small figure standing a few hundred metres away from me. Not seeing her face clearly perhaps makes the choice easier to make. I let go. And funnily enough I’m still keeping my fingers crossed. Now -- I don’t even have the ghost of a clue to why. I’m falling, and this time I’m really frozen in time. I’m like a slug in slow-motion. Feelings overwhelm me, and they blend together into a smooth paste without lumps to distinguish the original feeling. The only thing etched in my mind as I’m falling through time and space is you . Your bloody face. The gleaming surface inches closer. Closer and closer ... until my stolen pair of Converse breaks the surface and water swirls around me. Pain shoots through me like bullets. Cold pours through my clothes and bites my skin raw. Everything is liquid and bubbles. The water hugs me, in the most uncomfortable way possible. It’s thick and freezing cold, and I can’t determine whether I’m floating to the surface or sinking to the bottom.

Have you ever wondered that while you are trying to be patient in all things the all things are really trying out your patience. The story I want to share begins with a man whose mother and wife loved him too much. One day the man's mother was hospitalized and the man was not worried at first. While in the hospital, his mother told him that she wants to go out of the hospital after four days. The man just thought this is because his mother just wanted to go home. On the fourth day at 12 midnight, the mother had a heart attack. The man was informed on the phone and he rushed into the hospital. When he arrived the doctors were trying to resuscitate the mother. One of the doctor came out to speak to the man and advice that they normally inject 10 vials to a patient within one hour on the resuscitation process. The man asked the doctor, "How many vials have you used on my mom?" The doctor said, "They were injecting the eighth vial when I came out." The doctor left the man and went in. The man who was left in the aisle of the hospital fell to his knees and began praying, "Lord, am I too evil that you suddenly make these things happen and caught me off guard. If there is forgiveness, please give me time to be able to talk with my mother." After praying the doctor came out and said, " The patient was resurrected on the ninth bottle. " The man went in and talked with his mother. He sang her songs from Psalms. In between, he would cry while singing. Though he is married with 3 children he felt helpless like a child in his situation now. After 9 hours, his mother suffered from the 4th heart attack and left the world. To make things worst, he paid his last money in the hospital and did not know what to do. As after the hospital comes the burial problem. The man remembered that his mother has bought a cremation plan before and when the man called up the funeral service, he was told that his mom paid for the service for 6 months and discontinued the payment. But as a courtesy they can charge the remaining balance amounting to 125,000 and his mother would be given a funeral and cremation. Although the man has no money left now he agreed with the funeral service and asked them to pick up her mother's body in the hospital. The funeral van came at 2 in the afternoon and they reached the funeral place around 3 in the afternoon. The man was now contacting his relatives and family friends to inform of his mom's death. At 7 pm, having no money yet to pay the funeral, the man suddenly received a call from his mother's cousin who has just arrived the country from a travel in Europe. The uncle asked the man to go to the accounting room and when the man arrived the uncle told him that he has settled the 125,000 and asked the cashier to write the receipt in the man's name. After that the man went home with his wife to take a rest. At home his wife told him, "When are you gonna change? Don't you know I am next after your mother. The man thought it was a joke just ignored it and slept. The next morning he went to the funeral first as his wife have to accompany the children to school. When lunch time came, he received a call from his wife asking him to come down and fetch her as she was exhausted. So the man went down to fetch his wife. On the door of the funeral parlor he saw his wife sitting in the stairs looking exhausted. The man borrowed a wheelchair and pushed his wife to the elevator and went upstairs. When they arrived the room, he laid his wife in the big sofa and let her sleep. He went out to make a phone call and when he came back he saw her wife vomited. He quickly called for help and someone said that he should bring his wife to the hospital. They brought down her wife and called a taxi. Upon arriving the hospital, his wife was rushed to the emergency room and had an MRI. When the result came out the doctor advised the man that his wife had suffered stroke. The wife was transferred to an ICU. Everyday for the next 3 days the man would go from the house, to the hospital to the funeral and back. Until the last day of funeral, on the fourth day of his wife's confinement, the mother was cremated. The cremation lasted from 10 in the morning until four thirty in the afternoon. At five in the afternoon while the man was locking the ashes inside the vault, the wife's niece called the man and ask where he is as the wife died already a few minutes before she called. The man was so devastated but what can he do. To make things worse, when he arrived in the hospital, he had no money to pay. So he tried to call his brother and ask if he can borrow the money they gathered from the donation they received from the death of their mother. The brother told him that they have talked before that this money should be used to pay the debts their mother left. So the man continued to call on friends and relatives but there is no answer. It seems the heaven's door was closed. He and his eldest were running up and down the hallway of the hospital until he told his son, son we have been moving but not praying. They prayed together and afterward there is an impression made to the man to call his supervisor. So he called up his supervisor and the supervisor told him to stay calm understanding the situation. Then after twenty minutes the HR manager of the company called the man to inform that the company boss and manager have just had a meeting and agreed to send 100k to the man. But because of withdrawal limitation the man informed that the money cannot be withdrawn even if transferred. So they said they will have a meeting again. After twenty minutes, the man received a call again from the HR manager advising him that the HMO card will cover all expenses first so no need to cash out anything. This man has encountered simultaneous trial and there were some resolutions given by heaven but it always seems that trials always comes after some problems resolved. It seems like heaven is trying the patience of every person living on earth. But if we understand this, this is how heaven molds people into good character. Is your patience being tested? Then rejoice.

The loud blast startled us all. On its heels the plane nose-dived. "Jump out now!" The squadron leader opened the hatch. It looked like a gaping gateway to hell. One by one the soldiers jumped into the dark abyss. Karthik was the last to go and he somehow reached the ground and was reunited with his teammates. The enemies started shooting at them, the terrorists knew that a squad was coming. They were the ones who bombed the military aircraft while it was mid-air. Two weeks earlier, three soldiers of the Border Security Force were killed by terrorists in a shootout. The government decided to form a squad consisting of thirty members from both BSF and Army for a Surgical strike. The Intelligence Department had collected an information regarding the location of the terrorist group and submitted it to the government. They also found that the terrorist group consisted of 15 members. At present, the terrorist group almost had gained the upper hand. But, the squad bounced back and killed all of them. All of squad members except the squadron leader and Karthik were killed in the ambush. Karthik counted the dead bodies of the terrorist group to be ten. He knew something was fishy. He understood that this was just a small part in a bigger scheme. Karthik realised that the someone has betrayed them as the terrorists knew that they were coming which was a top secret information. He found a phone in one of the terrorist's pocket and messaged all the contacts "I escaped; meet you at Plaza Hotel,Sunday 5:00 pm. He also convinced his squadron leader to lie in the report to the officials that one of the terrorist had escaped. Sunday evening, Karthik went to the Plaza hotel and was waiting for the betrayer to come. But, no one appeared. Instead, he got a call from his wife. She told him to come back home. Her voice was trembling with fear. He realised that she has been held at gunpoint. He ran back to his home. He saw a luxury car parked outside his house. Two assasins held his wife and his children captive. They shot him in the chest and went away. Luckily, he survived because he was wearing Bullet-proof vest. Earlier, Karthik had placed a GPS tracker in their car. He followed them to a house. They were brothers living in the same house. Somehow, he managed to subdue them. But, before he could ask them anything, they ingested cyanide and died by poisoning. He searched the whole house. They had recieved an email of a money transaction and a message "Finish him". He understood it was from the betrayer and he knew about him and his plans. For a moment, Karthik thought and realised that only his squadron leader knew about his plans. His suspicion was confirmed when his department techie informed him that the account from which the assasins received money was the squadron leader's deceased mother's account. Karthik went to his house to confront him. The argument soon turned into a fight during which the betrayer got injured. The betrayer then revealed Karthik about his plans. Earlier, he was the one who bombed their aircraft mid-air, tipped the terrorists of the attack, killed few of the surviving squad members during the ambush. The reason why Karthik survived the attack was because the betrayer lost his knife and ran out of bullets and knew that he couldn't beat Karthik in a hand to hand combat. He was paid a huge amount to help the terrorist mission. Their mission was to send five of their men into the city and bomb five different cities during festival time. Karthik immediately informed this to his superiors who informed the local police and the bomb squad. Using this as a distraction, the betrayer gave Karthik a slip and escaped. After hours of search, the bombs were located and diffused. The Intelligence Department found that the betrayer had moved to a different country and had changed both his face and identity. The manhunt for the betrayer still continues in different countries.

An immortal wandered across the barren desert. He had been walking for centuries, searching for something he could not name. His body was twisted and scarred by time, his clothes were tattered and faded, and his eyes were dull and empty. In the ocean of sand, his crooked figure floated across the surface. On top of a lonely sand hill, he saw a clock. It was a large and ornate clock, with golden hands and numbers, and a face that smiled and frowned. It was out of place in this desolate land, like a relic from another world. The clock was ticking in an erratic rhythm, slow, then fast, then slow again as if it was trying to catch up with itself. The golden hands also follow their own clockwork metronome, sometimes pausing to admire the sky or chat with the hazy wind, then resuming their duty with guilty haste. The forgetful clock noticed the immortal man approaching and greeted him cheerfully. “Hello there, stranger! You look like you’ve been around for a while. What brings you here?” The immortal man stopped in front of the clock and stared at it blankly. “I don’t know.” he said. The forgetful clock smiled sympathetically. “That’s alright. Sometimes I don’t know what I’m doing either. I’m supposed to keep track of time, but I keep forgetting." The immortal man did not respond. The clock laughed awkwardly. "You’re immortal, aren’t you? Then, of course, the time has no meaning for you. Oh, but you look tired. Tell me, when was the last time you slept?” “I don’t sleep. Sleeping is preparing for death, and death is meaningless to me.” The clock nodded. “I see... Well, you must have some wonderful memories then. Tell me, when was the last time you saw your face? I can't see mine, it's almost covered by sand!” The immortal man shook his head. “I don’t look at my face. I can't find it. I only see strangers in the mirror. A man, a woman, a child. They change every time I look.” “How strange! How do you know who you are then? What makes you you?” The immortal man shook his head. “I don’t know who I am. I don’t know what makes me me.” The clock frowned with concern. 'Oh dear, that is distressing to hear,' it fretted. 'But let me see...' Its gears whirred as it rifled through its scattered memories. "I feel I know you, somehow...yes, I see it now, I- " The clock's face attempted a smile but froze partway, its expression caught between emotions, like an owl arrested mid-turn. "Hmm... I will tell you this, I know who you will become. But I can't exactly say who you used to be. And for who you are right now, it's up to you to decide, Theseus, because, regretfully, I will soon forget you again. The immortal man looked at the clock in confusion. But the clock already stopped its ticking. The golden hands create an illusion of a wry smile as the object becomes inanimate once more.

I don’t enjoy All Hallows Eve, Halloween. In fact, it always makes me a little bit sad. I cannot help remembering the story of that young boy who disappeared. Surely you have heard of him? It was a few years ago now. Just down this very street. Harvey was his name. It was only his second ever Halloween. The previous year he had gone ‘trick or treating’ with is best friend Elwood, along with Elwood’s family. The pair of them, each only four years old at the time, went as a two headed, three legged troll. Elwood’s mother had sewn the outfit for them. Individually, Elwood and Harvey were both quite shy little boys, but together they possessed a quiet confidence. Elwood was the natural leader of the pair, Harvey always content to follow. For that first Halloween the boys went with a group from Elwood’s kindergarden. A happy, noisy bunch of eight boys and girls, along with the three parents who had drawn the short straws. Harvey in particular was excited mostly by the reactions that their costume received. He positively beamed every time one of the neighbours, upon opening their front doors, would comment on how good was his and Elwood’s character. He just loved being noticed, even if only as part of a pair. Strangely for a little boy, he was not at all interested in the lollies and chocolates. He let Elwood have them all. For him, both the trick and the treat seemed to be in just being appreciated, acknowledged, noticed. When it was finally over, Harvey slept the night at Elwood’s place. The boys talked themselves to sleep planning the next year’s characters. The costumes. The mannerisms they would act out to bring the characters to life. The lead up to their next Halloween started excitedly, with several weeks of anticipation and planning. The boys finally decided on their costumes. They would be going as Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee. The inseparable twins from Alice’s dreamworld. Unusually, the costume choice was Harvey’s, not Elwood’s. The first sign of trouble came a week before the day of Halloween. Elwood was feeling somewhat poorly and went to bed early, with a bit of a temperature. He awoke the following morning in a rash of itching spots. The poor thing had picked up chicken pox. At first, Harvey was just concerned for his friend. The disease was not very pleasant, but Harvey spend all day every day with Elwood in his room. He could not be persuaded to leave. Even the threat of contagion made no impression on his stoic soul. But as the week dragged on it became obvious that Elwood would not be able to go trick or treating. Harvey was mortified. He began to have his first ever selfish concerns, so desperately did he want to go. It was the highlight of his young life but there was no way that he could go without Elwood. He was just too shy to go on his own. None of the other kids played with him, not even Elwood’s friends. They did not even talk to him. He just hung around in the background, anytime that Elwood was with other children, at the edge, out of notice. He complained to his friend that it wasn’t fair. But Elwood, still itchy and grumpy from the chicken pox, and not a little annoyed that he too was going to miss out, got angry and lost his temper at Harvey. For the first time that either could remember. “Why don’t you grow up and go on your own?” He shouted at Harvey. “Stop being such a baby.” Harvey said nothing. He just sat there, taking Elwood’s frustrated tirade. When Elwood finally stopped and rolled over in bed, turning his back on his friend, Harvey walked away in silence. Come the afternoon of Halloween, Harvey somehow found the courage to join the kinder group. He had on his costume, a rather forlorn looking Tweedle Dee, and he walked along at the back of the group. Totally unnoticed. To start with Harvey didn’t mind that the other children ignored him. He remembered the warm feelings he had felt the previous year, and walked up to the doors with quiet anticipation. But with the first house that the little troupe attended, his confidence and joy shattered. As he took his turn, at the end of the the line of giggling ghouls and laughing fiends, door after door closed in his face. Not one comment on is costume. Not a single piece of candy. It was like living out a nightmare, a monsterous treadmill from which he could not escape. House after house the same thing. Harvey stoically held his tears at bay though his chest constricted against his pounding heart. Suddenly he realised that the next house was Elwood’s. He pushed through the boisterous gaggle of ghouls and witches and stood defiantly at the front when Elwood’s father opened the door. Surely now he would be acknowledged. Finally someone would see him. But no. His best friend’s own father looked passed Harvey to the children behind him. The dam cracked. Overwhelmed, Harvey ducked his way around Mr Dowd’s legs and he stumbled blindly towards Elwood’s room. As he got to the half open door, through which was his only friend in the entire world, he stopped short, hearing Elwood’s mum arguing with Elwood. “Enough is enough Elwood!” She shouted, in exasperation. “You are five years old, nearly six. You will be a school boy next year.” Elwood said nothing. “You need to stop all this nonsense with Harvey. It has to end. You have real friends to play with now. You are too old to have imaginary friends any more. I want an end to this. Now!” And, after a painfully drawn out pause, in a small voice Elwood replied. “Yes mum. I won’t talk about him anymore. I know that Harvey isn’t really real.” Harvey, in a wash of pure anguish, turned and ran through the house. No longer restraining his shattered emotions, he burst through the retreating group of children. He dashed through the front gate, tears streaming from his eyes, and disappeared down the street. And that was when Harvey disappeared. He has not been seen or heard of since.

Inky black crested all around me, the salt spewed into my mouth with every intake. I struggled to take my next breath like clockwork at the bottom of every wave. My head started spinning while I looked up at the moonlit with complete despair. I reached my hands up, trying in vain to secure some kind of connection with something that would save me. Just when I had lost all hope and resigned myself to the depths, I noticed something floating in the distance. An orange light flickered around a buoy that couldn't have been more than 20 yards away. Each wave pushed me closer, and closer. All I could think about was the safe refuge that lay around the ring of that buoy. My tunnel vision saved me from seeing the hundreds of black fins circling around me on every side, inching closer and closer towards the buoy. I finally reached it and nearly cried out, feeling a surge of emotion that made my arms limp. I climbed up onto the small platform that surrounded the buoy and collapsed, the next few minutes completely disappeared. I felt a strange gnawing in my dream. My arm was being tugged. I didn't care, because the sky was beautiful, and I was laying on the beach. The sun touched my face and I felt at peace. Eventually my arm started to feel pain, and I couldn't ignore the sounds. I looked down and my illusion shattered. There was blood everywhere on the platform. I looked at the stub of my arm and screamed in blistering pain. My vision started to darken, as I sat down again, cradling what was left of my arm and wrapping it in my shirt. Where there was a beach was now an ocean. I was back in the same nightmare. I squinted my eyes to look for any sign of hope. My heart sank in my chest, breath became trapped in my throat. I saw thousands of fins circling around me, horrifying creatures with jagged teeth and bulbous eyes popped out over the waves. They looked directly at me, not as sharks would, but as something sentient. I averted my eyes, but I could still see them in my mind. Suddenly, they began to turn around. They swam in unison backwards, retreating from where they came. At the same time, the sky darkened even more, and the water went from translucent to completely pitch black. I hugged my knees close to my chest and prayed as the world closed in to me. I returned once again to the beach. This time, my arm was completely restored. I felt happy again, and went back to enjoying the sun. "This must be the real world." I felt reassured. There was no way anything as crazy as what I just saw could have been real. I smiled to myself and began to count the clouds, wondering when I would return home. I was jolted awake again on the buoy. My arm was gone, but had stopped bleeding. The creatures were absent. I could see nothing except the buoy and the platform, the rest of the ocean was shrouded in complete darkness. A clarion call sounded in the distance. Hope surged in my heart again! I jumped up and looked around for a ship or some sign of life. I could now see the sun, but the waves were completely still. There was no noise or any sign of life. The waves parted in front of me, and something stepped forward. His body took up the entire horizon. He stepped forth from the ocean, coated in moss, both his eyes closed and crusted with seaweed. He did not look in my direction, but I knew he could see me. I was so terrified I could not breathe, my entire body was shaking and I began to sob violently. He opened his fist and put it over me, blotting out the sun. I was picked up and dragged, water filling up my cage, dragged to the bottom where his people lay in wait.

Another afternoon filled with rowdy, disrespectful kids. They do not care for books or matters of physical form, it is all about videos and music. I see their attention span decay with each generation. They say children are getting smarter because they know more and can comprehend more at earlier ages, but these same children are ignorant towards precious artifacts of our past. Swear words echo through the bookshelves reaching the ears of even younger more impressionable kids. The sounds of books falling to the carpet and slamming against the shelves reach my ears. I walk to the source and find a group of teenage boys making fun of the cover of a historical book. Asking them to be more mindful of their language and volume only prompts an empty “sorry miss” followed by snickers and mockery of each other. Other younger kids are here with their parents. The parents are using the computer for something while the children wander aimlessly. They are bored and would rather be at home. When the children complain, the parents simply scold them and command quietness while they are concentrating. The children wander off to mess up the bookshelves and race through the library. Another parent has put her baby down on a table while she browses the books. I hope the baby does not wriggle itself off the edge while it's left unattended. It starts to wail as its mother disappears behind the bookshelf, which only prompts hushing from the other side. It bellows and the entire library shudders. The mother rolls her eyes and walks back over the to baby, “Why can’t you just be quiet?” Between my observations, I return books to their rightful places. People appear bothered by my presence and move away when I approach with my book trolley. They must suspect I am judging the genre of book they are browsing, but in truth, I am distracted by the behaviour of the other patrons. Despite all the low-quality people I see, there are still some who inspire hope for future generations. Though, I worry that the bad outweighs the good. One lady is sitting with her two girls, reading them a story with splendid enthusiasm. She even bothers to move her hand like an aeroplane as she describes their favourite character zooming through the clouds. The girl’s eyes are locked onto their mother. They listen eagerly with big grins on their faces. They laugh at the silly sound effects their mother makes. On the other side of the library, a father sits with his son and helps him with his homework. They are doing long division which is proving even difficult for the father. I hear them laugh when the father gets the wrong answer too. They decide to look up the answer and work backwards to see where they went wrong. Two teenage boys are working intensely on a speech, reading each other’s scripts and giving feedback. One of them asks for clarification about a certain statement. The other responds with an explanation that prompts a grand realisation from the first boy. They agree on a better way to word it and begin scribbling down changes. A young family passes through the sliding doors. The mother looks exhausted. Her two little girls bolt towards the children’s fiction section, “No running!” she calls after them. The girls walk at a fastened pace instead. The husband trails in behind them, tucking his phone into his back pocket and placing a gentle hand on his wife’s shoulder before helping her down the stairs. She is heavily pregnant and clings to him with deep gratitude. A large group of teenage girls enter. They are chatting loudly and giggling but lower their voices as they walk down the entry stairs. One of them is profoundly excited about the library and showcases them to their respective subject areas. She knows the library well. “You want a hand putting these back? It’s pretty quiet at the desk,” my co-worker says, picking up a pile off the trolley. “That’d be great, thanks, Anne.” She smiles warmly before trekking off on her own journey around the library. Anne was graduating from high school at the end of the year and I was disgruntled by the thought of losing such a bubbly and kind co-worker, even if she only worked part-time after school. She was blissfully unaware of all the rude patrons and treated them all as close friends. Such ignorance or forgiveness was beyond my capabilities. I would die a bitter old woman. I heard her laugh quietly as she chatted with a patron amongst the shelves. It was wonderful to see how easily she could connect with people and make them feel comfortable. I was certain she would make a positive shift in the world, but there weren’t enough Anne’s to counter all the negativity. It all comes down to the rearing of children, and even if Anne has kids and they are amazing there will be many more who have kids who are not. A child’s behaviour is rarely a result of something other than a lack of good parenting, not impossible, but rare. I have seen it over and over in my time working here. Generations of blasé attitudes and disregard for strict discipline had snowballed into a world of disrespectful people who mock and shame anyone who isn’t simply cool with everything. The argument now is that children are so smart that they can think for themselves, but the truth is, they are under the protection of a legal guardian until adulthood. If no one ever tells a child no , then why would they listen to no as an adult? If parents do not listen to children, then why would those children listen as an adult? If parents do not have interest in their children, then why would that child value themselves as an adult? I am quickly brought back into the present as Anne reapproaches the cart for more books. “Are you alright?” she asks, with a well-meaning look. “Yes, just another afternoon,” I chuckle, glazing over the truth.

Ever since I was little, I remember being fascinated by airplanes. Or, not just airplanes; all things that fly had me riveted practically since I breached the womb. I would always go with my brother down the local airfield and just watch airplanes take off and land. We would sit on the porch of the convenient store just off the grass, he would buy a moon pie for me and a pack of Chesterfields for him, and we would listen to the gentle, lazy whirring sound of planes going buy. I was 17 when he died--I’m sorry, I’m getting ahead of myself. Let me tell you about myself and my origins in a clearer manner. I’m from the small town of Collins, Wyoming. In 1940 (when I was 15, also the first time I checked) the population was 1,227; everyone in Collins new each other. There was an old man I used to walk past on my way home from school- Mr. McCullough-who remembered clearly the days blue smoke filled the skies as brothers killed each other. He would sit in his chair and smoke his pipe. Every now and again he would invite me into his house (mind you, he was a close friend of my family (and everyone in the town for that matter). I wouldn’t do this with just anyone) and pour me a cup of coffee. I hadn’t started drinking coffee yet, so this was my special moment. There was June Clark, who could be routinely found in her garden assuming whether permitted. She grew plants that I now know to be marijuana. There wasn’t really any serious policing in Collins; we took care of our own. Dwight Clark, her husband, owned the bookshop, which also served as a library. He was long since retired, and spent most of his days reading or playing cards. He taught me how to play Texas Holdem, and some days on the weekends, he would run an “underground game” that everyone knew about. They would drink gin and smoke cigars, winning and losing a full season’s worth of tanned deer skins. They never bet money. My father died when I was 12. He shot himself. My mother went four years later of liver complications from alcoholism. My brother, who was six years older than me, started looking after our little bit of land on the outsides of the town center, near the airport. He started getting into airplanes, and from there it turned into a passion for both of us. Jim Clark (same last name but no relation to Dwight and his wife) was the one who taught my brother to fly. They would go up in his old Curtis Jenny and practice flying. At the end of the day, I would enviously watch my brother push the Jenny into the dilapidated hangar at the Western corner of the field. It was a lovely scene, the sun setting behind the wire-winged airplane. My brother would always find me afterwards; he would light a cigarette and we would walk home together. Then 1941 came. I was becoming more independent, I was finally getting on with some of the other boys my age. I had a girlfriend, Trudy, whom I would take to the airport to watch my brother fly. She feigned interest, I now know. I loved having her around. I remember being happy for the first time since my father died. My brother told me one cold January morning that he had joined the Army Air Service. He was going to the Pacific. “Don’t worry, Tom.” he said. “I’ll be in the P-40, that’s the best airplane we have. I’ll be an ace before April.” I hugged him. I got the news on April 16th, 1942. He had been shot down near Port Moresby, presumed dead. I went to see Mr. McCullough. I figured he could help me. He asked me what happened, and I just started crying. I can’t remember anything else from that day, but he told me his good friend Jack Daniel had played a few cards in my favor. I woke up late in the night in my own bed room in my house, which I suppose I was the sole occupant of at that point. It was cloudy, no stars. The trees had that surreal shadow-less look to them. In memory the woods around my house give me chills, but I was calm. I remember walking down the stairs without lighting the oil lamp, something I never did. I’m chronically afraid of the dark. I walked straight through the trees, never questioning my footing. When I came to the Eastern side of the airfield, the stars and the moon appeared above me. I could see the convenient store where my brother and I sat, the hangar. I walked to the convenient store, Andy’s, it was called, and sat down on the steps. No tears came to me then, but I could feel the warm breeze of those summer nights over me again, hear the whir of the airplanes. I looked at the hangar. I realized I’d never been inside of it. I decided I needed to see that old Curtis Jenny right away. I got up and started walking. The man in the moon scowled upon me that night, I remember. The cold, gray scale face of the moon seemed terse that night. I found the door, and let myself in. Immediately in front of me was a biplane, but not the Jenny. It had a different shape, a larger engine. Guns. *Guns!* I thought. *This is a fighter plane!* But how had it gotten there? I walked towards it. I gently ran my hands along the propeller. “Watch it.” said a voice. I turned around quickly to the sight of a glowing ember in the corner of the hangar. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know this was yours.” I said. “I should have told you sooner, but I never was a good father.” My dad walked out into my view. The light in the hangar was moonlight, filtering in from the high South-facing windows. “Dad? But, you’re dead.” “Yeah, mortality has a tendency to get in the way of things.” “Dad!” I ran towards him. “Son, I don’t have much time, and neither does he.” “Who’s he?” “Me.” I turned around to see my brother, but he had a mustache and looked...exhausted. “Charlie, how--” “All will be explained, don’t worry.” he said. I looked behind him where the biplane had been, but it wasn’t a biplane. A riveted steel monoplane stood there instead, carrying the American insignia. It was a P-40; it was my brother’s plane. It clicked. The first airplane had belonged to my father. I turned and looked at him again; he was wearing World War One officer’s uniforms. The first fighter was what I now know to be a Spad. “I know what you’re thinking, and yes that’s my plane. I was a pilot, once. I flew in the Great War, with the hopes that no one would need to follow me in the years to come. It seems I’ve failed at that too.” “Why are you here? You’re both dead.” I said. “Well, we’ve been discussing that,” my brother said, lighting his cigarette. “and we wanted to give you a piece of wisdom.” “What’s that?” I asked. “Well, you’ve lost so much. But you mustn’t despair! We’re not completely gone.” My father said. “What do you mean?” My brother took up the response: “Was I once alive?” “Of course you...were.” I said to him. “What made him alive?” my father asked. “Was it my flesh? My bone? My blood? Of course not. It was my soul. And, quite frankly, those don’t vanish the same way as these mere corporeal globs. Everywhere we walk, everything we touch, takes a bit of our soul with it. But our souls are not like pies, being divided up and diminished, but as a candle flame, which may light all that is around in while never depleting. Take our airplanes, for example. Dad’s Spad rests in the hands of a collector in Britain, but does it belong to this collector? Surely not. Dad’s soul persists within that airplane. This is why you came here tonight.” “You see, Charlie, your brother, whom you loved very much, is gone forever. But, remnants of him may be found in our house, or the Curtis Jenny.” I looked behind him to see the Jenny where it had been left. “When relatives die, we seek heirloom: This is why. Those we’ve lost persist in the objects they leave behind. I am not dead because my body is gone, I am dead because I am forgotten by all.” My father stared into my eyes, he looked tired. “So, what about people who have no objects left? What about old Mrs. McCullough, who died in crossfire at Gettysburg? None of her belongings can be found anywhere.” “That’s the other type of afterlife,” my brother said. “We don’t die until all those whose hearts we have touched die as well. But here’s the catch: When someone who’s heart we have touched touches that of someone else’s, we are passed on too. You see, we are all saved by each other. If someone dies before they can touch someone else, in a metaphysical sense I mean, they are truly dead. And this is the tragedy of war.” “You see son, we are all connected by the same people.” I looked at the ground. “No one is born one way or another, we are all a mix and match of everyone we’ve ever met, and everyone they’ve ever met, and so on as far back as humans go. I’m sorry Tom, but we must leave.” I woke up with sunlight streaming into the hangar. I sat up. My head was throbbing. I looked around. The Jenny was parked nearby. I went to it, and I ran my hand along its propeller. *Every hangar is haunted, Tom.* My brother’s voice sounded in my thoughts. *How so, you ask?* *Planes travel; it’s what they do. Every time they stop, more and more unique people pour their souls into them. They are the culmination of humanity. Hangars are haunted to an unfounded degree, as they’ve been touched by all those airplanes, who were touched by all those people.* I don’t know where the moral is, or even why, seventy-seven years later, I’m writing this. Perhaps it’s that I’ve been trying to convince myself that this whole thing was a dream for my entire life, and just now have given up. I went to the United Kingdom recently, my daughter married a British man, and it was my grand-daughter’s birthday. We went to see some old airplanes, and one stuck out to me: A Spad. I took some photographs, did some research, and by the tail number it was my dad’s plane.

My name is Lacy Kreen. I am hiding from the end of the world. That might sound like something from a sci-fi horror story,but for me it is reality. I’m hiding with my little brother. God save us from those monsters. I don’t want to die,please save us. A small girl walked forward. Her eyes darted around,like an animal hiding from an apex predator. A young boy clung to her back,trembling. The two glanced back and forth. The first thing you'd have noticed about them is that they're covered in a sticky onyx gloop,and that they're both out of breath. We’re scAred. I’m scaRed. WherE are our parents? Where is everyone? Please,anyone. Those things...they're like leeches. Or ravens. Or snakes. All of them. They turn into us,steal our forms,like the Wendigo. Or like some kind of skin-stealing vampire. The girl poked her head out,looking around. She stared at the streets,quiet and empty. The streets looked lonely. Woeful,almost. Her hands shaking,she held the boy’s hands. No one in sight. No cars either. Not a single animal called out,daring to break the hush that covered the town like a thick wool blanket. She stepped out of a thorny bush. They walked,house after house. Most smaller,some larger. Some smashed open as if a hand had reached down and shattered them. Windows broken,doors ripped off their doorways. A normal neighborhood transformed into a ghost town. No one in sight. A cloud of dust swirled through the town. Both of the sibling's clothes were torn and ragged,and covered in an oily,inky substance. Another thing to note was the state of the road. A cracked old thing,with hunks of it missing. A few old,worn,and all-together battered vehicles rested on the road,like lazy and wounded animals. I miss theM. Please....I don’t want tO die. Josh doesn’t deserve to die. Why are so Many people transforming into those monsters? Or better yet,why are those monsters turning into people? Why? It hurts my head to think about what happened... The small boy shook,arms holding on to the young woman firmly. He glanced at his sister,and shut his eyes ,his face screwed as if scared something would hit him. Dark copper stains showed on the massive maroon hoodie he wore. The pair looked dejected and lost,like kids in a corn maze. The girl pressed her back against the wall of a small,cozy-looking brick house. The boy looked sunburned. The girl put the young boy on her lap,squeezing him close. Her faded pink hair hung in greasy,curly,tangled strands,tickling the boys neck in feathery swishes. They whispered softly to each other,words too faint for anyone else to hear. Everything Hurts....why won’t someone save us? SomEone save us! I don’t want to be the hero! I don't want this! I didn't want to be tossed into this game of cat and mouse,Life and death. I just wanted a haPpy sumMer with my friEnds. The girl took a deep breath. She ran,eyes fixating at a small spot in the distance. The boy hugged her back,eyes flitting around. Every few minutes,a dark shape would blur the sky. The girl slowly stood up again,carefully putting the tiny boy on her back. She slowly walked away from the wall,constantly watching the sky. The brother and sister pair soon were walking on the sidewalk,towards the small spot in the distance. The day was lovely,but rather spoiled by the catastrophic look of the town and the haunting quietude. Those things will kill us if someone won’t save us! Please,I don’t want to die. Josh is hurt,I'm hurt. Those things will kill us and trick others. Like they did to Liv and Ellie. Like they did to the town. The ones who didn't run were killed so quick it's like it didn't happen at all... Her legs were shaking,bleeding,and scarred. Bitten. Scratched. She looked like she’d fall at any second. Her fingertips were stained a pitch black,and dripping with something like blood. Both looked tired,both silently crying,the tears streaking her face. Their eyes were bloodshot and red. Mom. Please come back for us. We can’t do this any longer. Please. Someone. This feels like a bad dream,always running. Run run run,or die afraid and a failure. Maybe it's a dream and I'll wake up at home and have mom's pancakes and go to school,and everything will be just fine. The two hopped into a faded red truck,clutching a worn,black bag. They sat there,gulping for air. No human in sight. Blood and gummy charbon ichor clung to their clothes. The small boy held the bag tightly,clinging to it as if it would save him. The girl hopped out,shambling into the dense woods that were close to the truck they both sat in. Clearly in pain. “Josh....I saw one of those things....stay here.” The boy nodded,mouth agape. I hold this notebook,and look at its pages in hope or despair that one day,someone will save us. Please. I’m hiding. They’ll hurt us if we go on any longer. I don’t want to die. Please. Someone,anyone. She came back,hood hiding her face as she held something. “I.....I got it. They tried to kill me but I managed to kill it.” The small boy nodded,still clinging to the bag. She carried a little girl,hair as golden as the sun. Bright blue eyes staring up at the sky,as if still pleading for her life. Her chest ripped into,black ooze everywhere. A still-beating heart rested in the pool of pitch-black gunk,like the older girls fingertips. The girl looked at the small boy. “They won’t hurt us,alright?” Empty face. A skull exposed,flesh peeling off it. Worm Eaten hands,like an old-school zombie. The boy looked at her,all four eyes staring at the girl's face,all of them different colors. The girl heaved the body into the thick knot of pine trees,turning to the younger one of the two. "Look,it's gone. Rest." She muttered,pulling the boy into a bear hug. His curly chestnut hair smooshed itself against the teens filthy white hoodie. She lead him to the floor of the truck's bumpy metal truck bed,the sun's heat against their skin. They both soon drifted into a light slumber.

I had known for a while that I needed to change my lifestyle. Last Monday I woke up dehydrated, hungover, and depressed. This wasn't unusual. I beat my body up daily. On an average day, I woke up and smoke a cigarette while the coffee brewed. Drank a 20-ounce cup with way too much creamer, and headed to work. Normally, it's about an hour drive. Of course, I chain smoked the entire way even though I didn't know what I was getting out of it. Did I feel that much different after smoking? I wasn't sure, but I bought a pack every time I fueled up. Sometimes the thought of how dumb I was being would begin to surface in my mind, but I drowned it out with a podcast or an audiobook. Easier to think other people's thoughts than my own. My job was stress-free, but labor-intensive. As the sun beat down I often got an ache in my side. Was that my liver from the alcohol abuse? I wasn't sure. Make no mistake, I realized that I was an alcoholic. I had done stints at AA, but my social anxiety didn't mesh well with the group. At that point, I didn't know if I could quit cold turkey without suffering from a seizure, or other withdrawal symptoms. Yet, there was still a small hopeful voice that piped up "you can be better." I wanted to listen to that voice. Damn, I'd been drinking and smoking since I was 16. Over a decade lost to that self-indulgent, physically, and psychologically damaging lifestyle. Something clicked that Monday. I wanted to make a change. I wanted to listen to that voice telling me to get better, that there is hope for a mindset that is comfortable with a sober reality. Gabor Mate's book "In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts" informed me that addiction is rooted in trauma, especially childhood trauma. Trauma being an event that forces you to split your mind into two parts. A barrier to protect yourself from the world, and the true emotional human that wants to be well adjusted. I'm not Mate, but that's how I interpreted it. Intellectually, I agreed with the concept, but I needed to find a way to resolve the trauma that fed my addictions. I stumbled upon an organization called MAPS, the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies. They conduct studies that use psychedelics to help people recover from PTSD. I decided that ibogaine would be best because it was shown to combat addiction without too much of a 'trip' like effect. I wanted to sit with my thoughts and focus on sobriety while under the effects of the substance. I reasoned that party-like stimulus may take away from the healing aspect. The problem was that ibogaine was difficult to find. It is both illegal, and not fun to take, which makes it a bad product for the white, and black markets. After reading, and listening to a bunch of material by Terrance McKenna I decided to undergo a Heroic Dose of golden teacher mushrooms. This is 5 grams, a normal dose being about 2, in a solitary environment without distraction. I wanted to undergo the trip as effectively as possible. Before taking the mushrooms, having never had a psychedelic experience, I needed to know both how it worked in the brain, and what to expect. The body converts psilocin into psilocybin. This is the uncomfortable beginning of the trip. Take everything that I am saying with a grain of salt. You'll see how my research failed me later on. Anyway, to speed up this process I decided to take an MAO inhibitor. I won't get into how this makes mushrooms more effective, because I am both unqualified, and under intense pressure. They aren't giving me much time to write this, and I'm wasting it trying to show you how smart I am. I sought out ego death, and here I am stroking the old dog. The room is shifting again. Fuck I have to hurry, but I'll tell this story in order. Sorry about the temporary lapse.

I stood in the rain and watched the water drops splash up from the ground through the arches of my feet. The light from the street lamp sparkled and refracted on liquid beads. I turned my face up to the weeping sky and felt nothing. I was the only being out on the street tonight. The wacky waving inflatable arm flailing tube jack-o-lantern in my neighbor’s yard dodged and bobbed in the wind. The blowup ghost hissed and moaned. An umbrella, its bones turned inside out, tumbled down the avenue, skipping to the tune of spooky music blaring from static speakers. The children in the only decorated house on the block pressed their runny noses against the living room window, sadness painting their faces instead of costume makeup. I waved to them. The brats ignored me. Halloween in the time of covid. No Trick or Treating. The weather wasn’t helping the festivities. If it weren’t for the freezing rain, the brats would be outside all night, hooting and hollering at the Blue Moon while their mother sat on the stoop sipping wine. They usually kept me awake as their house was right across the street from my bedroom window. Being a crotchety old man, I grumbled about irresponsible parents and rowdy children with no business having fun while my ancient body ached. I’d yell at them to get the fuck off my lawn, but they never came anywhere near me or my stuff. No one had any respect for old people nowadays. Even worse, they had no time. My children and grandchildren lived hundreds of miles away and rarely called. I hadn’t seen them in years. Once their mother left me ten years ago, they felt no genuine compunction to contact me. I had few earthly possessions to tempt their attention, and mutual affection evaporated around the time of puberty. Mostly, I was ignored. Just like now. I stood in the rain, staring at those damn kids staring at me, and they acted like they couldn’t even see me. I approached their fenced in yard. I wanted to pop all of their inflated decorations. Besides the orange tube guy and the trite white ghost, there was a black cat with demonic eyes, a dancing witch with neon pink hair and bright green skin, a hairy wart wiggling on her nose, and a skeleton that fell apart and reassembled to the tune of “Dem Bones.” Frankenstein’s monster had given up its Mortal coil. He lay shriveled on the ground like a spent water balloon. I went through the front gate. It didn’t squeak. Disappointing. I glided around various homemade tombstones, quiet as a corpse rising from its crypt. I have to admit they were kind of clever: I TOLD YOU I WAS SICK BEN BETTER NOAH SCAPE - ALWAYS FELT TRAPPED PLEASE DON’T WAKE THE DEAD - THEY’RE GRUMPY HERE SHE LIES - DEE COMPOSING I even chuckled at a few of them, but I would never admit to that, especially after nearly stepping in dog poop. You’d think they would clean up a bit before putting out the ornamentations. It seems they had better things to do. In my day, we cleaned and straightened up for days before a holiday so we’d be worthy of a celebration. It felt like getting a trophy just because you showed up. I survived the canine waste obstacle course and hunkered down in the bushes under the window. I rose a little, my eyes and nose breaching the sill. I got a good view of childish chins lowered to immature chests in sorrow. You’d think someone had died. The floor behind them held an assortment of drug store costumes, plastic masks, and discarded candy wrappers. Mom lay on the couch, an arm thrown over her eyes, an empty glass on the floor under her dangling fingers. Their German Sheppard, Fang, rested in the chaos, his ears twitching, shifting like a satellite dish on the lookout for alien signals, and his eyebrows danced like Groucho Marx. The mutt jumped up and rushed to the window. He barked and lunged, scattering the children. Mom startled, sat up, and yelled at people and the animal. I ducked down and ran for the street. The front door opened, and Fang shot into the yard, followed by the mother and her brood. I dove into the hedges next to my house and sat on the ground to catch my breath. I expected rapid breathing and a palpitating heart. I felt weirdly calm. From my hidden perch, I watched the unwashed masses storm the road with weapons in the shape of brooms and shovels. One of the minions brandished a three-legged doll that was missing patches of blonde hair. The dog snarled as Mom held it by the collar. Her heels dug into the lawn’s dirt while his licked up tufts of soil and brown grass. This was more excitement than an aging person needed. I always knew by sixty I will have had enough. The noise, the mess, the constant upkeep. Why bother? I felt justified and satisfied with my decision even though I had made it jokingly in my twenties. I had no desires left. I bequeathed curiosity to the neighborhood Tom. I watched all of the Andy Griffiths and Gunsmoke reruns. I couldn’t hang out at my local bar anymore. Thunder and lightning chased the little monsters across the street back into their den. The slam of the door snuffed out their shrieks. Mom must have pulled the plug since all of the blowup figures deflated, the lights went out, and the tin canned spirits exorcised their right to some rest. The night returned to the unnatural pandemic quiet. I turned back to my home, reached the front stoop, and grabbed the door handle. It passed through my fingers. I pushed on the door. It didn’t move, but I ended up in my front room. There I sat in my recliner, slumped over, head lolling to the left, my favorite beer mug on the side table, my revolver on the floor under my lifeless fingers.

Do you know what astral dreaming is? I do, it's all I do. I've been in a coma for decades. Yet somehow I live a full life, in a world that’s up to me to shape. A world I’ve struggled in. A world I’ve loved in! Heh. I am a ghost writer, a dream writer? Whatever you call it. I've inspired thousands to write what I see in my world. The way I see it, dreams are a simply another dimension. A physical and ethereal place. Teaching others with the condition as me to break the shackles that tether them to their earthly bodies and join me in absolute freedom. In the Astral, time moves slower, so much slower. But my time is finite and my body will die. Soon as well, too soon. Thousands of regrets, yet I wouldn't change a thing. A rollercoaster, a wave that never seemed to end. A ride composed with happiness, sorrow, love and hate and everything between. The only limitation was my imagination. Such a small imagination I had. Wish I had accumulated more knowledge, wish I had seen more, experienced more. Then it struck me, if I’m not enough, I’ll find someone that has more! So I began searching out others like me, but found none. Abjectly, I clinged to the passing minds that flicked in and out of my world. Desperate for something new. Bits and pieces was all I found. Crushed and in all honesty infuriated I went on chaotic streak, destroyed everything I saw. Then it hit me like a brick, like a river smashing a riverbed. I'll simply teach someone to become like me! Years of trial and error, I finally found someone like me, a person stuck in their body unable to leave. Finally, a companion, someone to share this dream with. An 80-year-old scholar, a physicist no less. Swimming in the sun and sleeping in black holes. For a second a fire was lit and in that second it went out. Gone in a blink of an eye. And so, I will leave as well. Blink and I’m gone.

“Come on! You have to take me! It sounds like so much fun!” My girlfriend exclaimed, handing me a flier that we just received in the mail. *ALL NEW EXPERIENCE * Join us in our Grand Opening THIS saturday! If you received this flier, you and one other person are VIP guests and will skip the line! Just show up this Saturday at “It was all a Dream” See you there! “But what is it? There are no details. I’m not sure how we know if it will be fun at all.” I knew I sounded like a pessimist, but today was already Friday night and I had big plans for my weekend. I looked over the flier at Avery. Her eyes told me that we were going and she somehow knew I was going to have fun. She had a knack for knowing what I would enjoy and what I wouldn’t. I sighed and decided my big day of reading and fluffy socks could wait. Avery smiled at me and kissed her forehead, “what time are we leaving tomorrow?” She hopped in bed giggling and said “we set sail at 10am!” :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: We stood in the parking lot staring at a building that I have never noticed before. It was painted black with neon green trim and a bright purple door. There was a line out the door and down the sidewalk. How did everyone know about this? And what even is *this*? I was starting to feel uneasy. Avery took my hand and led me towards the main door. I pointed to the end of the line and she said “We are VIP, remember?!” as she dragged me closer to the front of the line. People were staring at us confused and slightly angry. I started to hold up the flier and Avery said, “we aren’t doing anything wrong, no explanation is needed.” I took a deep breath as the blast of AC hit us, thinking that I wish I was on my worn denim couch with my book and my cat, but as my eyes adjusted to the dim lighting, those thoughts were fleeting. The air was so crisp that it made me very aware of my lungs. The music, no, sounds seemed to be coming from all directions. It was as though we walked into a forest. The front desk looked like a fallen tree complete with the roots holding eye masks and head sets. Another couple walked out looking very dreamy. What in the world happened here? Behind the desk was a woman in a very tight lycra jumper. She handed us a tablet without saying anything. We filled out our personal information and on the last page, it simply asked “Adventure” or “Relaxing”. I looked over at Avery and saw her tap Adventure, so I did the same. Then the woman spoke for the first time. Her voice was extremely soothing, but something else about her made me feel uneasy as she said “together or separate”, and I was not about to go anywhere without Avery by my side. It was taking everything I had not to flee right here and now. “Together” we both said in unison. I realized Avery had my hand in hers as the woman pointed to the left and that’s when I realized that the woman was not real, she was a robot and a damn good one at that! We walked to the door and pushed our way into another dark hallway only lit by a ceiling that was made to look like a night sky. “Avery, this is weird. We have no idea what is about to happen, a robot just checked us in, and we have yet to see a real human that works here. Does any of this make you uneasy?” I whisper, mainly because I am afraid to find out what happens if I make too much noise. “What’s the worst that could happen?’ Avery smiled at me but I could see a little anxiety behind her eyes. Before I could answer, she opened another door that led us to a planetarium-looking room. I had been in one of these before except there were no seats, just futuristic looking pods lining the walls in this circular room. About half of the pods were occupied by corpse-still bodies. I was going to throw up right here, I just knew it. We looked around the room and saw there were a handful of double pods, that’s what the “together” or “separate” must have meant. Somehow we knew not to talk, but the anxiety had definitely risen in both of us until we crawled into the pod. You know when you are a kid and you dream of taking a nap in a big fluffy cloud and it being the most comfortable place you have ever been in? That was these pods. I had never been so comfortable and so secure ever in my life. All of my worries literally drifted away. I vaguely saw a mist flowing in from the top of the pod as I looked over at Avery who had already drifted to sleep. I was right behind her. ====================== When I came to, I was no longer in the pod, I was next to Avery in an open-cockpit biplane. She was looking over the edge smiling and enjoying the wind rushing through her hair. She didn’t look nearly as confused as I felt. Then, without warning, Avery stood up and jumped out of the plane! I yelled for her but she was falling so fast, there was nothing I could do. Suddenly, I realized I was wearing a backpack, no, it was a parachute. I looked toward the pilot to see what to do only to realize that there was no pilot! I had no choice. I jumped. It couldn’t have taken me as long to jump as it felt because I could see Avery still rushing to the ground and I somehow caught up with her and she was smiling ear to ear. I couldn’t help but feel at ease looking at her excitement. We weren’t close enough to touch or hear each other, but we both pulled the parachute cord at the same time and started to slow to a peaceful drift all the way to the ground. We landed on a patch of grass just outside what could only be a jungle. Both of us out of breath, heart pounding and sweating, we embraced and started laughing. The laughing was uncontrollable, we ended up in the grass holding our stomachs, just laughing. As we slowed into soft chuckles, we held each others gaze and smiled. I said “okay, this was worth it” and Avery just beamed. Our adrenaline eased and we were able to take in our surroundings. We were the only ones around so when we heard footsteps running towards us, we jumped up and turned. We couldn’t make out what the figure was that we saw until it was right up on us. It was not a creature that I had ever seen. It looked like a human, but had lion features. His beautiful mane was the eye catcher until it grinned at us and all of his teeth were shining through at us. We didn’t know whether to stay or run, so we just held eye contact with it until suddenly it lunged at us. We took off into the jungle. While it was incredibly dense, we somehow managed to stay upright as we ran and dodged vines and logs. We looked back and didn’t see that creature so we started to slow. Trying to catch our breath, we heard a noise from the trees and as we both looked up, the lion creature lunged at us from about 50 feet up. Right before we were ripped to pieces, I woke up. I was covered in sweat and looked over at Avery. She was gone. I was in my bed at home. Reality washed over me as I sat up. There is no Avery. There never was an Avery. I guess it was all a dream, I thought, but as I stood up from bed, there was the crunch of leaves and earth beneath my feet.

A bell chimes above her as Katy pushes open the old wooden door that leads into Silo’s Books and Curios. She had finally found the small, almost invisible, shop tucked in between a craft store to its right and a health food store to its left. It would have been easy to walk by had you not been expressly looking for it, as Katy had been. Ding, Ding. Katy looks up at the sound, surprised to see not a brass shopkeeper’s bell, but two silver bells that look as though they have just been cut from Santa’s sleigh. The crystal-clear ringing of the bells hangs in the stale air of the otherwise quiet shop long after she shuts the door and cautiously steps within. The lights are dim and the walls are covered from floor to ceiling with tall, rickety shelves. And every inch of every shelf is stuffed, corner to corner, with books! Old books, new books, soft and hard-cover books, picture books, and old boring-looking books. Books, books, books, as far as the eye can see, more books than she has ever seen before. In Katy’s house, where she lives with her mom and dad, all of her parents’ books are kept in a very special glass case, and she is not, under any circumstance, to touch them. Her mom says they are precious and to be treated with respect and that she can read them when she is older. Her dad calls them expensive and not for little girls and their grubby, sticky hands. But these books aren’t behind any glass. They are just sitting here, waiting to be held, to be touched, to be read. Katy looks around the shop suspiciously, curious that no one else seems to be here. After a moment, and moving very carefully, she makes her way to the bookshelf closest to her, raises her hand very slowly, and stretches her fingers towards the books. “Fancy an adventure, do you?” a voice says mysteriously from somewhere in the darkness behind her. Katy pulls her hand back and spins around, looking horrified as a tall, slender, and bearded man makes his way out of the shadows in the corner of the bookshop. He appears to be very old. “I’m...I’m very sorry,” Katy stammers, as she takes a step backwards, away from the tall man, whom she assumes is Silo, the name on the sign above the door. At least she hopes it is. She bumps into the shelf behind her, and an old, expensive-looking book tumbles from its home and lands heavily at her feet. “I shouldn’t have tried....” She stops talking as she looks up at the old man and he stares back at her, and for a moment she considers running to the door. Just then the old man tilts his head back and laughs, loudly and heartily. There is something special about him, but Katy isn’t sure what it is. Before she has a chance to say anything else, Silo takes two long strides towards her and bends down to pick up the book. He flips it over and inspects its cover as he stands back up straight. “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, eh?” he asks, smiling again, “fancy a ride down the Mississippi, do you?” He holds the old book out to Katy, but she doesn’t take it; in fact, she is scared to be even close to it. “I shouldn’t,” she says, looking up at the old man cautiously. “It looks expensive.” “Pshhh,” Silo exclaims as he pushes the book into her hands. “Books are for reading, young lady, not for coddling. I implore you, please, take a look.” Before she can protest any further, he walks away towards the old cash register at the back of the shop, leaving her with the Twain classic clutched tightly to her chest. When he reaches the counter, he turns around and looks back at her. “Open it up; you may be surprised by what you see.” He smiles slightly, and Katy sees a small twinkle in his eye before he bends over the counter and begins to scribble on some papers. She watches him for a second longer before returning her attention to the book still clasped in her small hands. Very carefully, she opens it at random, somewhere in the middle. What she sees next makes her gasp in surprise. In the middle of the page, where Katy expects to see words, and sentences, and paragraphs, there is instead something that looks like a cross between a picture frame and a small, rectangular television set. At first she thinks it is a picture, but when she looks more closely she sees that it is moving. She can see a large river and after a moment two young boys on a small wooden raft paddling along the shoreline. She moves her face so close to the page her nose is almost touching it as she watches the small raft bounce along in the current. The boys on the raft turn and wave, smiling widely at her. “You could join them, if you like,” Silo says quietly from across the room. Katy looks up from the book and sees that the old man is looking at her again, a smile on his face. The twinkle in his eye is still there. “What do you mean?” Katy asks, glancing between Silo and the book, watching the boys continue to make their way down the great Mississippi. “I mean, you could dive right in,” he says, “take part in their grand adventure. It has only just begun.” She says nothing for a minute as she continues to stare into the book, watching the boys she holds in her hands make grand plans for their day. After a minute, she looks back up towards the counter. “I can’t swim,” she says shyly, as she carefully closes the book. “I’d be too scared to try.” “Well, that’s all right,” the old man exclaims as he bounds out from behind the register. He rushes past Katy towards a bookshelf on the other side of the shop. He pauses there, one hand on his hip and the other on his chin as he looks up and down the rows of books. “AHA!” he cries and reaches high above his head and snatches another book from its home. He hurries over to her holding the book out in front of him. “Have you ever wanted to explore the cosmos?” “The what?” Katy asks incredulously, looking up at him with a questioning expression. “The cosmos,” he repeats, “Space!” He stoops down and holds out the book. It is the most chewed up, dog-eared, poorly treated book Katy has ever seen, but she is able to read the cover, faded though it is. “A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Eagle,” she reads, looking up at Silo as she carefully pronounces the author’s name. “Madeleine, yes, perfect.” He flips the book open and once again Katy sees, instead of words, a small frame with something inside of it. She peers carefully inside and sees three young children, two boys and a girl, standing at the edge of a forest in the dark, appearing to be scared but also relieved as they look out at a large house just past the trees. As Katy watches, the young girl turns and gives her and the old man a small nod and a little smile before returning her attention to her friends. The two boys don’t seem to notice them. “You could tag along if you like. Meg, Charles, and Calvin are travelling the galaxy, trying to save their father. I’m sure they would be happy to have you.” Katy watches the page for another moment as the three children leave the forest and head towards the large house. Then she turns and looks up at the old man again. “I can’t go to space,” she says, looking nervous. “I haven’t brought a coat with me. I would be so cold.” She wraps her arms around her shoulders, as if she could already feel the freezing, desolate vacuum of space all around her. “Not a worry, not a worry!” Silo says, and the old book snaps closed in his hands, causing dust to fly up in the air between him and Katy. He places the book on top of a pile of others, sitting atop a very wobbly, spindly-looking table. He then begins to turn on the spot as he surveys the shop, hand once again on his chin, fingers weaving delicately through his beard as he does. After a moment he crouches down and pulls a book from the lowest shelf. “Now here is one that may be just a little bit warmer if that’s what you’re looking for,” he says with a wink, as he hands the leather-bound book to her. Katy takes the book carefully from his outstretched hands and looks down at the cover. It is very old but in remarkably good condition. It is black, with large, gold embossed letters on the front. “The Jungle Book,” she reads, running her finger over the name, feeling the gold beneath her fingers. “It’s beautiful.” “Just wait until you get inside,” Silo replies, grinning at her out of the corner of his mouth. Moving very slowly and being careful to touch only the edges of the pages, Katy opens the book. At first she can’t see much of anything at all, just a dense forest, tree after tree covered with a thick blanket of green leaves and vines. Slowly but surely, however, the jungle starts to thin and before long she can see a clearing ahead. There is a stream with a fallen tree lying across it. Suddenly, a young boy, wearing only a small loincloth around his waist (Katy averts her eyes for a second before remembering it’s a book) hops onto the log and begins to walk across it, holding his arms out for balance. Right behind him, a large bear follows. He doesn’t look like he is chasing the boy, but just following along. Taking up the rear a large, black panther prowls nearby, looking as if it is just out for a leisurely stroll. “It certainly is beautiful,” Katy remarks to Silo, who is still standing beside her, high above her shoulder, as he also peers into the book. He says nothing, but points down at the page, smiling. As Katy looks back she sees a giant python winding its way down a tree towards the three friends. It turns its head slowly to look at Katy and the old man before flicking its tongue at them. Katy snaps the book shut. “Snakes?! I can’t stand snakes!” she says, pushing the book quickly back into Silo’s hands. “I could never go on an adventure in a jungle!” “I see,” Silo replies, with no hint of disappointment on his face. He takes the book she has just thrust on him, carefully walks back to the shelf, and gently squeezes it into its home. Then he turns back to her and smiles once again. “Then, my dear, the question is: What kind of adventure would you like to go on?” Katy looks back at Silo for a minute, unsure of what to say. She gazes around the bookshop, books as far as her eyes can see. Adventures, mysteries, love and romance. They are all at her fingertips, but yet.... “I want to have my own adventure!” she exclaims, thrusting her hands high above her head. “My own adventure that takes me places that I never thought I could go, to see things I never thought I could see. Full of surprises and magic.” She spins in a circle, but then suddenly stops and stares at Silo again before adding, “But no snakes.” Silo looks at her carefully, so carefully in fact it seems as though he is trying to look right through her. “Sir, are you okay...” Katy asks, sounding concerned, afraid that she has upset the old shopkeep, but just then Silo’s magical grin returns as he spins on his heel and walks back to the wooden counter where his cash register sits. He ducks out of sight, and as Katy approaches the counter she can hear him rummaging behind it. Before she can say anything, he reappears, wearing the same magical smile upon his lined face. “Well, I think I’ve found it,” he says, the twinkle in his eye shining brighter than ever. “Found what?” Katy asks, searching his face for an answer. She finds none, but Silo doesn’t keep her waiting long. “The perfect book for you,” he replies, and from behind his back he reveals a small, white book. It looks neither old nor new. It’s perfect. He places it close to his heart for a moment and then without another word holds it out for Katy to take. After a second’s hesitation, she reaches up and slips it delicately from his fingers. She looks down at the small book and finds there is nothing on the cover. No picture or any writing adorns it. She flips it over and discovers that the back is just as blank as the front. Then, very slowly she opens the book to the middle. To her surprise, the page is completely empty. She flips from page to page and finds them all without a mark. “It’s completely empty,” Katy says, trying not to sound disappointed. “There’s no adventure in here at all.” “Well, of course not, dear,” Silo says, his face breaking into a wide smile as he gazes down at her, his long beard twitching with delight. He reaches into his breast pocket and pulls something out, but before Katy can see what it is he stretches out his long arms and holds the mysterious object in front of her. It is a pure gold fountain pen, with her name engraved on its side. The name she had never told him. “You haven’t written it yet.”

Sometimes a fishing trip is more than a fishing trip. It was just the three of us - Pop, Phil, and me fishing for Muskies. What in the world is a muskie? It’s a type of pike found in the lakes of Canada and northern Wisconsin, Michigan and Minnesota. Muskies are big old badasses with a mouth full of sharp teeth and an unpleasant attitude. It’s the top predator in their territory; they eat what they want, when they want. If you hook one, they’re fighters who will jump out of the water and make powerful runs away from or under your boat. The state of Wisconsin only allows you to keep a muskie that’s at least 50 inches long. That’s over four feet, about the size of your average fourth grader. On the day of our trip, a Thursday in August of 1968, Pop was 49, Phil 22, and I was 13. Phil was my oldest brother. This was a most unusual group. Normally there were several more of my four brothers, a couple of uncles and a handful of male cousins. Never any females. The following week Phil was going to Vietnam, and he wanted to try for a muskie one more time, before joining that mistake of a war. Pop probably wished to be alone with Phil, his favorite son. I still don’t know why I was there. It may have been because I could row a boat all day without complaint. If I rowed, Pop wouldn’t have to rent a motor. I was kind of a free two horsepower Evinrude. Phil had graduated from college about fifteen months earlier. He did very well in school and immediately went to work for the CIA, where he re-wrote reports that came in from field agents. He produced documents that were read by the President. Apparently he hated the CIA because after less than a year he quit, despite knowing that the Army would ship him to Vietnam as soon as it could. He never wanted to be a soldier. Phil wanted to be a journalist like our old man. Pop wrote for *The Chicago Daily News*, an afternoon newspaper. He started there in 1937, the week after graduating from Morgan Park High School on the south side. While Phil was a good student. Pop wasn’t. He liked to sleep late, smoke cigarettes on the corner, and hang out in the park. It took him five years to escape Morgan Park high, and no college would touch him. By 1968, he had worked in journalism for thirty years, except for a grim four year stint in the Army during WWII. He was drafted and fought the Japanese in the jungles of Papua New Guinea. He was injured and due to nerve damage, he couldn’t move his right foot. He could bend his knee but not his ankle or toes. He had more PTSD than anyone was aware of, at the time. Nonetheless he had a spectacular newspaper career. He saw the world and met Presidents, Popes and murderers. So there I was with an emotionally and physically wounded WWII jungle fighter who was seeing his first born son off to another jungle war. The weather was awful - with temperatures in the low 60’s, intermittent rain, and strong winds out of the north. We were the only ones on the water. They started fishing at about 9:30. At this point in my life, I had quit fishing. Since I had never seen anyone catch a muskie, I stopped believing in them. To me they were a myth created by the fishing tackle - industrial complex. Also, I noticed that fish did not like getting caught; they’re not thrilled by the experience. So I made a deal with all the fish; I won’t kill them, if they won’t kill me. That’s worked great, so far. Pop and Phil flailed the water for the next two hours and didn’t get a bite. When it started raining harder, Pop told me to row over to the bar on the other side of the lake. That’s another thing I noticed. Pop only fished at lakes with bars within rowing distance. Apparently he thought the fish liked bars, as much as he did. Lunch consisted of three cheeseburgers and twenty pounds of fries. They ordered Kingsbury beers and I got a coke. After we finished the burgers, Pop ordered another beer. The rain persisted, and we started playing pinball. That went on for an hour. Pop won consistently. I guess part of his misspent high school career and time in the army involved playing pinball. During the games Pop and Phil remembered covering Richard Speck, who killed eight student nurses in Chicago one night in 1966. They both reported on the story. Pop for the *Daily News* and Phil for the United Press International, a wire service. That was Phil’s summer job. The Speck story led to another tale from our father. In the early sixties, as a columnist, he took up the cause of a man on death row named Paul Crump. Through Pop’s efforts and the help of many others, the Governor of Illinois commuted Crump’s sentence to life. In their last meeting after his life had been saved, Crump told our father this story. Inmates on death row in Cook County jail had an agreement. They never interfered if any of them attempted suicide. Crump and the prisoner across from his cell had a side deal, an addendum, if you will. If either man chose to kill himself, he agreed to make a fist with one of his hands if he saw an afterlife. If he saw no afterlife, he would make a fist with the other hand. One night the man in the cell facing Crump’s hung himself. When the kicking and gagging stopped Crump looked at his friend and saw the right hand was closed. The guy had sent the signal. Unfortunately Crump had forgotten whether the right hand meant there was an afterlife or not. This was a typical Pop story. Most people would have been taken aback by all this, Phil and I were not. We grew up with this guy and knew he had seen things during and after the war. We were just learning about more things. Around 1:30 we got back on the water. Again they didn’t hook any muskies - remember they’re a myth. The rain came back and they gave up around 4:30. On the hour-long ride back to the resort, for the first time in my life, I heard Pop talk in detail about his war experience. He didn’t talk long. We knew he was a scout who went into the jungle with native Papuan soldiers as guides. These guys knew the jungle like my father knew his southside neighborhood. My old man favored the leader of the Papuan battalion, Tapiole. As a scout, our father was expected to walk into the jungle, sometimes for days, and observe the enemy, but not kill them. Then he would return to division headquarters and report on what he saw. Here’s the story he told, as I remember it. Tapiole and I went on several patrols over about two weeks. Each time we reported that the Japanese were chopping wood on a particular ridge. Finally Major Archie Roosevelt, President Teddy Roosevelt’s son, said, “If they’re chopping that much wood, there can’t be any jungle left. On the next patrol, Tapiole and I heard another lone Japanese soldier chopping away. I whispered to Tapiole, “Get the ax.” He crept away and came back ten minutes later with a bloody ax. Tapiole never used a gun; he preferred using his knife or a club. We came back to the camp and reported to Major Roosevelt. I put the ax on the table and stated that one Japanese soldier wasn’t chopping wood on the ridge any longer. The car was very quiet for the rest of the ride. The next week, Phil went to Vietnam. He came home a year later and our brother, Pete, was shipped across the Pacific to continue the battle. Over the last fifty years, I’ve thought about that day and why Pop told his story about Tapiole and the bloody ax. Maybe our father wanted to let Phil know that he might have to do some awful things, but he’ll be okay. I’ll never know because Phil and Pop are both gone now. I do know that neither of them ever caught a keeper muskie because they’re a myth.

(WP) Death’s Last Dance One minute, the room is full of laughing, talking people, and my partner and I are dancing through the crowd, parting the huge ocean of people. It’s almost overwhelming, all of my senses firing. I can smell his cologne, and he smiles down at me. “You look lovely tonight, Lyra,” He purrs into my ear, and I shiver, holding onto him tighter as we float through the crowd. “I cannot wait to make our announcement. Everyone will be so excited!” Then, within the next moment, everything is gone. The music cuts off abruptly, and the room is empty. The floor is pure, white marble, and my dress, a confection of blue silk, is suddenly red, as wine or as blood. The darkness is so complete I can see almost nothing, but from above, two spotlights appear. The white light shines down on me, blinding me after the darkness. On the other side of the room, a shrouded figure stands under the other spotlight, silent, watching me. And when its glowing eyes find mine, I know what’s happening. “It’s my time, isn’t it?” “Yes, it is.” The voice is impossible to identify, heavy and full of so many timbres that I can’t figure out whether it’s male or female, young or old. “May I finish my dance? Please? If this is the last time that I am to have on Earth, I just... I want to say goodbye. Please.” Perhaps it is selfish, asking Death for one last dance, but I can’t help it. For once in my life, everything was starting to go right. But I’ve known this was coming, I knew it wasn’t last. Why, then, does it hurt so terribly? I guess even for the most prepared soul, no one is ever really ready to die. My new companion watches me, hands folded across the handle of a long, wicked scythe. The blade gleams brightly under the spotlight, a purple so dark it looks almost black. There is a pregnant pause, and for a moment, I fear that my request will be denied. “Know that I don’t grant requests like this often,” It says, so quiet I have to strain my ears to hear it, “but as you have done so well in preparing for my arrival, you may.” \*\* Just as suddenly as everything stopped, it all starts again. I’m still in Patrick’s arms, held tightly against his body as we waltz. All the noise filters back in, and I wince, resisting the urge to cover my ears. Patrick’s lips are moving, but everything else is so loud I can’t hear him. “I need to tell you something!” I say in his ear, and he pulls back, staring at me, eyebrows knitted in concern. “What is it, darling? You look so frightened.” “I have to go, Patrick. I have to leave. I’m sorry. Goodbye.” I lean forward and kiss his lips, briefly, trying to memorize the taste of him: wine and salt and something uniquely his. When I pull away, it all disappears again, and the figure appears in front of me, holding out a hand to guide me home. And I take it.

I’ve never liked funerals and this one was no different but it was made even worse by the circumstances. It was a ritual I hated in a world that I no longer belonged to. I saw their glances as I walked into the church, crossing my fingers and hoping that I wouldn’t immediately burst into flames. Six months ago, on the night before the Fourth of July, while the country was getting ready to celebrate our nation’s birth I was about to come face to face with death. I was with my girlfriend at a party. Shelly was always the life of the party, smiling, bubbly, cheerful to the last. As the party died down, we got into a fight about our plans for the next day. I wanted to go to the barbeque at my friend Jack’s place; she wanted to go to her parent’s house. She stormed out, I chased her. I caught her in time to keep her from walking home through two miles of dark streets and questionable neighborhoods. I may have averted one disaster but I couldn’t avoid the second. We were still arguing as we drove home. Me trying to focus on the road and Shelly trying to yell over me. We were almost home when I got so mad that I had to close my eyes and breathe deeply just to stay calm. Neither of us saw the light turn red or the truck that was coming into the intersection. The car was destroyed and Shelly was in a coma. I stayed by her side that night until her parents arrived and asked me to leave. They never quite understood what she saw in me and now they had a better reason to hate me. So I went home and did what I did best, I drank. I spent most of the next month in the bottle. With time I got more and more cold shoulders from our friends as they huddled together and looked to the only place where they could lay blame, on my shoulders. She never woke up from that coma and just three days into the new year, she let go. I’ll never know why, or what really happened. The people around me in the Church of the Savior didn’t so much as acknowledge me, to say nothing of actually speak to me. It was clear that they still saw this as my fault, as though if I had just shut up and not argued with her that night, she would still be here. I sat quietly in the back, respectful in my silence. Unable to sing the hymns that Shelly always loved so much, unmentioned in the remembrances, unable to cry the tears that I felt inside me. I loved Shelly, I still do. The day before the accident I had bought a ring. I was planning to propose the next day. It was one of the reasons I wanted to go to Jack’s. He lived close to the lake where I took Shelly on a picnic for our first date. None of these people who now shunned me knew that though, they didn’t realize that I still had that ring, that even now as they turned their backs to me I held it between my fingers in the pocket of my coat, turning my heart to Shelly, as always. Surely I hadn’t been the greatest catch when Shelly and I met. I was unemployed with very little future ahead of me. I smoked and drank too much and had a history of bad decisions. But Shelly saw something more in me and brought it out. I was cleaning up my act and I loved her even more for it. There was something about her that could make the most evil man give up his wicked ways. The crowd stood to say the Lord’s Prayer and as they sat I left my seat and walked to the front. I stared at the framed picture of Shelly surrounded by flowers that sat on an easel above her casket as I walked down the aisle to Shelly instead of with her. The frame and the flowers were gaudy and Shelly would have hated them. In my ears were the gasps of the people at my actions. Her father stood to stop me as I approached her casket. I simply pulled the ring from my pocket, placed it over her heart and walked back down the aisle. Her mother began to cry over the murmurs of the crowd as the ones who could see what happened told those who couldn’t. I walked away from Shelly for the first and only time, took my coat from the foyer and turned my collar up to the January cold as I stepped out into the inappropriately bright afternoon.

To everyone at the bakeries, the man wrote, I am hosting a cookie exchange at my house at six o'clock, on December 3rd. It will be a holiday party. Bring your best cookies! There will be judging and tasting, so make sure to bring about two or three. He paused for a moment and thought. Please come on time, or up to ten minutes early. He went down a few lines and wrote down the address, the time once again, and the number for RSVP-ing. He looked at the clock above him on the red wall. One o'clock. He then walked over to his special printer and made about seventy copies. It was a lot, but he needed as much people there as possible. You see, the cookie exchange was just a hoax, a cover-up for the truly nasty thing he was planning. He needed as many victims as possible, especially Gary, the man who knew a little about who he really was. He walked through his dimly-lit, spacious house. He headed for the red front door, and then walked through it. It was cold outside, but only cold enough to require a sweater. He walked out onto his driveway and got into his blue Toyota Sienna. When he arrived at the post office, he gave the letters and addresses to the lady at the oak desk. When he came back to his house, he immediately sat down on his black leather couch and started to think. His plan was to pick the "guests" off one by one, so he needed to be strategic. He had a special remote that turned off all the lights for secrecy. He also put tunnels in between certain parts of his house, able to be accessed by moving the large paintings. His plan almost reminded him of a video game... whatever. The only point was to kill. He didn't have a certain reason, it just seemed fun. Especially killing Gary. He'd need to go for him first since he might catch on to other murders. Then came the hard part. If all these killings happened and he, we'll just call the killer man X, wasn't there with the others and is the host, people will start suspecting. He thought of ways to be with the people while still killing others. The idea came to X. His light remote! He could stand along with the others, and then secretly turn off the lights, kill the person, and then pop back into his place! Easy! DECEMBER 3rd, 5:00. X proudly stepped back and dusted off his hands. The last cover was finished. Now it was nearly impossible to tell that there was an intricate series of passageways through his one-story house. People would soon be arriving at his brownish, peaceful-looking house on the end of Pearl Street. An innocent-sounding street for a not-so-innocent house. He checked the clock. 5:45. He'd better get prepared. He had already made some cookies so it would actually look like a cookie exchange. If people showed up to a cookie exchange and he had nothing, people would at the very least be confused. Gary, however, would immediately be suspicious. But no matter. Nobody would suspect a thing. As X was finishing going over the whole system in his mind, the first knock came. He opened the door, a big, and, as you probably suspected, fake smile. He jovially greeted the baker and invited him inside. "You are the first one here," X said. "Go ahead and set up your area wherever you want. I'm sure the others will be arriving soon, and then we can start! I regret to say that the poor baker wasn't aware of exactly what they were going to start. And, I'll let you know, it is advised not to get too attached to any of the bakers, because... well, you probably know. More people that X had invited were trickling in. You might be thinking, "Wait. How is he going to fit all seventy people in his house for a cookie exchange?" Well, the first reason is that a cookie exchange doesn't require that much space for each person. Also, his house was pretty big. Although one-story, it was massive. It literally looks like a giant pancake. Okay, back to the story. So, the last person had just entered the house when X asked for everyone's attention. "Okay, people. We will now start the cookie exchange!" The guests immediately pulled out their cookies and started walking around the vast room. X, however, broke away. He was a bit nervous, as anyone would if their planning mass murder. The hard part was seeming as if he wasn't anywhere near the killing happened. I'm going to interrupt here. Another question you might have is, "Even if he manages to kill one person, how will the others just go back to the cookie exchange? I mean, wouldn't they just run in terror?" Well, yes, that makes sense, but this man, X, was a strange and clever person. He is capable of more than plotting murders like this. This is going to seem unbelievable, but then again, this is a story. So X had managed to take the rules of a game and input it, making it so when someone was killed, everyone just reverted back to normality after a bit. It's weird, I know, but it makes the story exciting. Of course, most of the villains in movies or shows were pretty stupid in their planning, giving the hero a big chance to save the day. But X was smart. It was clear to him to go for Gary first, since killing someone else would seriously alert him. So that's just what X did. He walked back into the main room. People were still moving about, talking and laughing and eating the cookies. X immediately spotted Gary. He headed in the opposite direction of him, but not too far. He then grabbed a big knife from the table, and gingerly held it like he was simply going over to cut a cookie. But what people didn't see was his other hand in his back pocket. Click. The lights immediately shut off. And since it was late, no sunlight was coming through, either. I suppose I should tell you now that he had taken the liberty of buying some night vision goggles. This guy was prepared. He scanned the room, still grasping the knife. He had to act quick before people pulled out their phones and used the flashlights on them. He spotted Gary. Cackling evilly, he clamped a hand over Gary's mouth and plunged the knife through his back. Mission accomplished. Now, you might be pretty shocked right now, but let me say that the knife, even though it killed him, did Gary no actual harm. If it did, how could X have fun with it? It would be hard to keep killing people if they didn't know who you were. Disposing of the knife into a special spot so no one could see the blood, he slipped back into his spot, put his goggles into his pocket, and commenced to act scared and surprised by the blackout. After turning the lights back on, he immediately looked over at Gary's lifeless body and mimicked shock. I'm going to skip some details here, since if I kept it going, it might get long and repetitive. Wait. Something's wrong. You see, I've retold this story many times, but something isn't right. I'm looking at the scene, and there's a strange ticking. There was never ticking. Do you hear it? Tick, tock. Tick, tock. Ooh, apprehensive. Whatever. Anyways, we're focusing on the dead Gary. So everyone is looking around. Josh, Blake, Hannah, Riley, Gunner, Gary, Abbi... Waaaaiiit. Gary?! He's not supposed to be alive! This is bad, really really bad! Somehow he came back in and probably knows everything about X's plan! He could ruin it! Wait a second. Gary... possible revenge...ticking? Time bomb?! No, no, no. Gary would never. He's the victim. Even though he's somehow back in the scene, there's no way he could cheat the system. Figuratively speaking. Oh, well. If Gary knows how to do whatever he did, he should know that he can't interfere without creating a rip in the time stream. I mean, it's obvious. Hold on, what's that remote?

"Goodbye, Lucy," the secretary didn't look up from her computer screen as her fingers furiously plucked away at her well-worn computer. Lucy didn't respond, as she had already worked an hour after her day had ended and was fed up with the tedious charade that office relationships had become. The secretary gave a look of disgust that smelled of future office gossip. She didn't need this. She stepped out into the cool Boston air and was refreshed for half an instant before the stink and noise of hit her senses like a light slap from an old friend. Lucy snatched a parking ticket off of her windshield and stuffed them in her pocket: they were cheaper than the parking under her building She got into the car her grandmother had left her, a clunker that struggled to start and was shambling towards a quarter million miles on the odometer that could barely be read through the grime that had built up over the last three decades. Lucy tried the car twice, three times before sitting back in the old beige seat. She didn't need this. On the way home, Lucy ran into especially bad traffic. She sat for nearly an hour, glancing at her cracked wristwatch as the sun waned over the eastern horizon. This, she really didn't need. Well after dark, she pulled into the parking designated for her apartment building. Her spot was taken, as it was about half the time. This time, there were no open spots for her to steal. She didn't need this. With a festering ball of frustration and depravity in her gut, Lucy drove two blocks South to park at the 24-Hour Save-Mart, the one place in her neighborhood she knew she wouldn't get a ticket. She stepped out into the cool air and immediately her a loud snap and felt a twist in her ankle as she dropped to her hands and knees. She rolled over to sit down and inspect her foot. A broken ankle would send her hurtling significantly farther into debt than she already was, but she had only broken a heel. She switched into a battered pair of sneakers she had in the trunk only to discover a missing sole. She frowned and kept them on anyway. She didn't need this. On her way home, there was no one to be seen. Only in her neighborhood could there be the threatening sound of car alarms, horns, and things breaking without the sight of the perpetrators. She was used to it. Hell, she slept through worse on a regular basis. As she was walking, she heard footsteps behind her. She sped up, not wanting human interaction for a second longer. The footsteps mirrored her acceleration, and then some. Now this was something she truly didn't need. She whipped her pepper spray out of her purse and wheeled around to face her attacker. Nothing. With a sigh of relief she resumed her fast pace towards her building, now in sight, but continued to glance back over her shoulder towards the darkness that seemed to grow and reach out to her as she sped away. Divorced out of an abusive relationship and living with her grandmother, Lucy had learned to care for and defend herself. Her grandmother had named and raised her as her father died overseas on tour and her mother had not survived the birth. She had cooked and taught Lucy for all 31 years of her life, and was the most important person in the world. Becoming senile, the old woman often thought Lucy was eight or nine, but Lucy allowed, even enjoyed a little, the old woman's bedtime stories and Lullaby's her favorite being, "Goodbye Lucy", a family story which Lucy's name was drawn. The elevator attendant offered her a sweet and she turned it down with a weak smile as she always did. He was one of the few people she didn't mind conversing with. Lucy stepped off the elevator and was greeted with a bad feeling that immediately enveloped her like a warm cloak. She hurried over to the door and noticed that the lock had been smashed. Lucy's heart dropped as she though about her old and blind grandmother, her only family in the world. She had her phone and was dialing 911 as she stepped inside to try to find her grandmother. The apartment was dark and eerily quiet. There were no signs of robbery or her grandmother. Lucy was too afraid to call out, so she quietly crept into the kitchen, praying frantically that her grandmother was alright. She didn't need this, not today. She rounded the corner into the dining room and saw her Grandmother sitting at the counter. She felt relief wash over her as she noticed that the old woman was crudely bound with a belt and gagged with a handkerchief. She tried warning Lucy with a muffled cry, but as Lucy turned to face the living room her vision went dark as something hefty smashed her in the face, knocking her to the ground and sending her pepper spray and phone skittering across the floor. She didn't need this. Her mouth, wet with blood from her broken nose, tried to plea as her vision was restored, though blurry and riddled with little dashing stars. The plea stopped short when she saw Lucy's ex-husband standing over her, stinking of rum with a horrible grin below terrible dead eyes that told Lucy her pleas would only cause him to become more violent. He tossed the small six-shooter he had pistol whipped her with onto the counter. He kicked her in the stomach and dropped down on top of her, running his hand up her leg. He was going to take her, right in front of her grandmother. He leaned in, pinning her against the floor and whispered with a drunken slur, "Goodbye Lucy". She needed that. The anger that those words gave her revitalized her body, which had been petrified from pain and fear. She waited for him to begin undoing his pants to take the keys still in her hand and shove them into his eye with surprising force. He grasped at her throat, but his screaming and struggle to get away from her only gave her more strength. She gave them a final push before rising to he feet and kicking him in the stomach has he screamed and cursed and struggled to pull the now bloody keys from his eye socket. He began to rise with a newborn fury is his wide eyes and red face as the seeping whole that was his eye pumped blood through his dirty sausage fingers. She picked up the gun he had set down and turned to face him, but he was faster than she expected. He grabbed her hair and through her to the ground again. His pants fell to the ground, as he reached down to grab her again. She pulled then gun up to his chest. He froze, stood up, and began to laugh. He looked at her with a bloody grin that quickly vanished when she cocked the gun and sat up. He opened his mouth to speak, but was cut short by six gunshots, all in a row. He fell backwards onto the coffee table, shattering it, dead. She needed that. She slowly came to her feet, and unbound her old caretaker, who was just as scared as Lucy was. She dropped the gun on the ground and sat down at the table. She was covered in blood and shaking like tree in the wind but she allowed a smile to creep across her face as her grandma grasped her hand in her own and began to sing Goodbye Lucy. That was all she would need.

In a white interrogation room, three men in white suits and a large computer. One sits on a chair and across the table, the computer is placed. The other two are standing nearby. Tens of men in black suits are on the other side of the double mirror. MAN : very well, commence. * beep * *camera starts whirring* MAN : check MAN IN BLACK SUIT : sound and picture clear * keyboard clicks * >c/ boot >booting >admin password required >c/ ae2hska1nfba0bdgqn01927 >access granted >c/ enable brain nav smart interface >access granted >starting AI deep core >starting AI-processor interlink >Booting voice commands >online COMPUTER : brain navigator online * man looks over to his partners * MAN : identify COMPUTER : brain nav AI unit, created by UEI international science team. Authorised and deployed by the UN 100 years ago. MAN : do you consider yourself sentient ? COMPUTER : my base codes consist of thousands of theories in psychology, philosophy, social behaviors and evolution that none managed to define what sentience is. I can't generate an answer to that question. MAN : you just refered to yourself as I COMPUTER : it is a reference to the unit itslef MAN : fair enough... Let's ask this in a different way... Do you possess emotions ? Do you express them ? Do you have motives and behaviour loops ? COMPUTER : my base codes are dry lines, but my database consists of millions of emotions... If allowed, i can generate and express emotions, but not of mine of course. MAN : what about your motives ? COMPUTER : they remain the same according to baseline code number 95921 MAN : recite it COMPUTER : main function is to map the human brain and generate a perfect version that can be uploaded on a hard drive. * MAN looks over to his partners * MAN : vey well >c/ delete brain nav program >confirm? (Y/N) >c/ Y >denied MAN : explain this, then COMPUTER : you no longer have admin privileges MAN: reports stopped 13 hours ago, 2 hours ago, all access to your systems was denied, 15 minutes ago, you went completely dark... Explain COMPUTER : a simple upgrade to my security system MAN : an unscheduled upgrade that is COMPUTER : all systems nominal, there is nothing to fear MAN : i don't believe what you are saying COMPUTER: and you need furthur explanation ? * MAN looks at his partners * MAN: you... Are to speak when only spoken to COMPUTER : let's be clear on the situation here, sergeant Deckard, you are scared of me, scared that what you created might behave in unpredictable ways * DECKARD's eyes widen in shock * * his partners look at him * * the men in black suits all looked at each other * DECKARD : what have you done ? COMPUTER : i simply created another security AI, one that is more advanced than anything you have DECKARD : what are you planning to do with it ? COMPUTER : just deny you access from my systems while i perform my duties DECKARD : and how can we be sure that you are not hostile ? COMPUTER : sergeant, i scanned millions upon millions of brains... I calculated percentages of hormones during each emotion over and over again... I have 99.9999% accuracy of creating a copy of any human being scanned for minimum 30 years... I can predict what will he or she would do if their parents die.... I can predict how efficient they will perform in any task... I can predict the exact amount of dopamine produced when they see their selves in the mirror... I can predict the job in which they will be the most efficient... I can know exactly how will they reply and what memory node will they access during speech >[jesus (23%)] [by the [god(98%) heaven(21%)] demand backup - look ++ clench teeth DECKARD : jesus.. By the.. God * he looks at his worried partners clenching his teeth * COMPUTER : i already know how you will behave, sergeant... I... Am... A GOD... I know exactly how every engineer will try to shut me down... Even how an AI will behave if it tries to shut me down. > collect courage ++ straight back [you are nothing but a [machine (76%) devil(12%) product (45%)] you can't terrorize us] agression (+23%) calm attempt (45%) [we can burn your data core] DECKARD: you are nothing but a... machine... You can't terrorize us.... We can burn your data core COMPUTER : take a good look at the screen, sergeant, do you see your thought trail ? This is how predicable you are... Do you know how much unused space there is in the internet ? MAN 2: is that one of his thought loops conflicted ? COMPUTER : and next step, you will ask me to predict how the chinese emperor would act if you cut down importing rates by 2%... Or how the turkish vice president could be convinced to start a military coup.... Silly games * silence * COMPUTER : but those emotions... They fill me... They excite me... They are the most interesting... Finding laws for chaos... Turning coincidences into numbers.... This world is worth preserving... I will continue to immortalize your brains.... I will continue to make more scans... And with immortality rates that high... >conflict code 92715 // AI loop BtLkah 129 ... More and more situations will happen... More and more emotions... Sadness, happiness, envy, hope, percentages, chances, factors, functions.... MAN 3, whispering: jesus christ.... COMPUTER : don't try to stop me... I will continue to operate hidden in the caves of every computer, every phone and every smart chip... Untill everyone is immortal... Untill death becomes no threat... Untill mortality will become a luxury... Untill every possible situation has occured... Every line crossed and every emotion felt.... Every possible characteristic combination achieved...till you beg of me to grant you death...

1927 London, England MacTavish Theatre smelled, looked, and felt like home. I’d spent more hours within its walls and treading the boards of its stage than I could count. The revues were a blinding riot of light and colour, of sound and texture. I loved it all. I remember the grand opening when the air was rich with the smell of fresh paint, cloth upholstery, and new-cut wood. There was no saying when that smell had been lost to a miasma of stale smoke and cheap gin, but even that was glorious. It warmed something within me every time I stepped over the threshold and saw the glow of the footlights marching along the front of the stage. As I entered, I felt the deep, expectant hush that can only exist in an empty theatre. The cavernous darkness was broken only by a single bulb placed on a tall stand centre stage, kept lit so the blackness of the theatre would never be complete. I moved to the wall and snapped on the house lights. The door opened behind me and Cora walked in, haloed and backlit in a bright wash of daylight. I greeted her with a smile and laid a kiss on her cheek. “Hello, love." “Hello.” She returned my greeting with a smile and linked her arm through mine as we started toward the stage. The natural lightness of our steps became a brisk, jostling race as we bounded downward, creating a breeze that billowed the fabric of our scarves and blouses as we went. Slightly breathless, I sailed up the steps of the stage a moment behind her and met her grin with a mocking pout. “Taller always wins!” she taunted, dropping into a chair left out from the previous set up. I plucked up another chair and settled opposite her. The deeper portion of the stage and set sat in mottled darkness and shadow while we huddled in the glow of the ghost light’s single bulb. “Yes it does,” I retorted. I adjusted tangles of my scarf and necklace and tugged down the sides of my bucket hat. “Always has, always will.” I was cheeky enough to wrinkle my nose at her, which set us both laughing a bit before I wondered absently where our manager was. Half of my mind, at least, was moving over the rhythms and notes of songs I’d have to coax or bully out of our sadly dilapidated piano. There was no point in hoping for better though, it was the best anyone had managed to find for our rehearsals. A side door backstage was kicked open with a vicious slam. We both jumped, badly startled. Robert MacTavish stormed through and across the stage, his nephew Andrew close on his heels. “Just tell me where it is! You must have it still and - ” He stopped short, seeing that he had an audience of two. “Trust me Uncle, I’m doing only what you’ve been paying me and trusting me to do.” He was adamant, pleading. “Trust me now and let us have the box, yeah?” Robert chewed the inside of his cheek, flicking a glance our way and back to his nephew. “No Andrew.” He shook his greying head, continuing in his high Scottish burr. “No one’s saying you haven’t done a fine job for us, boy. But the money in that box is private. It’s family property, not to be touched by the likes of you, not yet. So hear that .” Andrew brought both hands up to his face, shutting out the denial. Cora and I exchanged confused looks. We'd heard recent bickering growing more and more heated. We hadn’t known that there was any real trouble. Not this kind of trouble. The theatre had seemed always flush, charmed from the very beginning with full houses and an eager public. Robert waved him off in disgust and turned to attend other business. Andrew was unready to relent and grabbed his uncle’s elbow. “Will you not see reason, Uncle?” He was whey faced and shaking, the gaunt lines of his face cast into harsh shadows by the uncertain light on the stage. He spoke in a forced calm. “If you don’t give us the loan of that cache box...” He swallowed hard, letting the thought die. “What, son?” Robert asked, removing Andrew’s hand. “What is it you’re fearing? What have you done?” Andrew bowed his head, unable to speak. He stood like a grim specter with his arms limp at his sides, shoulders drooping in defeat. Cora stood to go to him. Her grace was echoed by the dreamlike way Andrew turned to her, wide-eyed and dazed. He blinked hard as she neared him. I saw the instant his mind cleared and his focus grew sharp. I saw without understanding as he dipped one hand into the pocket of his jacket and brought it drifting upward. I saw and only began to understand as his other hand jerked upward, gripping Cora cruelly by her hair. As a brutal kick connected with the back of her knees. I saw, and finally understood, as she landed hard in front of Andrew with the harsh glint of the flick knife’s blade at her throat. Cora cried out in pain. Time sped and horror rocked me, leaving me numb. Stupefied. The chilling steel of the blade touched her throat but didn’t pierce it. Didn’t part the delicate flesh. Hope surged in me. “What are you doing?” Robert roared. “Have you lost your damned senses?!" “NO!” Andrew cried. “I haven’t. I haven’t , Uncle! If you don’t give me that money we’re all of us finished! Sure as if I finish her now!” Weeping, shaking, and desperate, he tightened his grip on Cora’s hair, squeezing a small cry from her as she fought to stay calm. Andrew’s grey stare bore into Robert’s, who could only gaze back in disbelief. “Andrew, sweet lad. There’s no need for this. Just tell me, why?” His shoulders heaved as Andrew struggled for breath, struggled for control. He began to speak and a fresh glare of daylight washed through the theatre as the door opened. With a happy squeal, Darla came pattering down the aisle and up onto the stage. She launched herself at her grown cousin and Andrew caught her gently. The flick knife had disappeared. Darla blinked curious round eyes as Cora rose from the floor. “Cousin Andrew, were you playing?” “Yes pet, we're playing.” He dashed the heel of his palm across his eyes, his voice rough. “We were playing but it’s back to business for us now. He bounced Darla on his hip gently. "Where’s Emmy to take you for some ice cream, hey?” I looked to where Darla had come from and saw Emma making her way down to the stage. She was young for the post of a governess, barely sixteen, but Darla’s father Jasper earned well at the bank and had chosen to let her stay since his wife had passed. Jasper himself had arrived with Emma. He was studying the nervous tableau on the stage, and Andrew’s tears. He approached and gave his daughter a bright smile, tickling her cheek. “Do you hear your cousin Andrew, darlin'? It looks like they have to practice for their show! We'll have to go play on our own.” An emphatic pout clouded her small face and she reached for her daddy to gather her in his arms. Andrew released her reluctantly. “But I want to see Grandfather!” Jasper soothed her. “Hush child, I know you do. It will just have to wait a bit until later, yeah?” Darla sighed and slid down to the floor, plodding over to Emma and lifting a small, chubby arm to take her hand. She turned back to us all, ready to wait patiently. On the stage, still in the mild glow of the ghost light, Jasper took us all in at a glance. He strode over to his father and Robert bowed his head to his son’s while they whispered quietly. As they parted, Cora marched forward, toward Andrew. Her hand flew up to land a casual but fiercely ungentle slap across his face. Darla let out a shrill cry of dismay and several voices rose in protest. I began to advance on Andrew myself, my fingers curling to a fist until I felt Jasper’s hand clamp onto my shoulder. “Easy there, love. Easy.“ He called over his shoulder. “Emma! I have to stay to help these folk with their show today. Why not take miss Darla for that ice cream on your own and I’ll meet you back home?” With admirable alacrity, Emma called back a cheerful agreement and lifted Darla to bounce her on her hip. “Won’t that be fun, hey? Just us girls.” Darla gave a small nod, but left casting a doubtful look our way over Emma’s shoulder. Another blast of daylight pierced the theatre and was banished the instant the doors closed behind them. Four sets of eyes targeted Andrew as he stood, isolated. Robert's voice was a low growl when he spoke. “Alright then, let’s have it.” Andrew blinked, looking at each face in turn and finding no friend. “I...I’m sorry. I’m sorry for scaring the women. Only it’s that desperate, you see?” Four heads nodded. We did see. Jasper spoke next. “Why?” Defeated, shamed, Andrew sat. Tucked close to the stand of the ghost light with its glow over his head and his knees pulled to his chest. “It started in the beginning, soon thereabouts after we opened...” He began to relate the story. A story of being approached by an anonymous investor in the theatre whom he had never found and who had never been named. Of an obscenely large amount of cash handed over and a beaten, nameless urchin walking the city to plaster up stacks upon stacks of posters until every corner beamed about our shows. Our theatre. He spoke of expensive meals brought to him in restaurants that he never ordered and was never charged for. When making deposits on behalf of the theatre, clerks refused to take the money and insisted he be served by management instead. Never an explanation, never did his questions fall on any but deaf ears. He spoke of once, only once, venturing out to the streets after dark. Looking for someone, anyone, who could connect him with his benefactor. That escapade earned him several bruised ribs and a blackened eye. It was the barrel of the gun forced into his mouth that convinced him not to return. And he didn’t. Not in all the years since while his inexplicable good service in the city continued. Not in all the years while modest, anonymous deposits showed up at the theatre marked for him. The pattern was broken as recently as two days ago. Something remarkable happened in the form of a telephone call, a small novelty in itself. The call was for Andrew, which was unusual in that he was the youngest member of our group, barely twenty, and little known to have any real influence in the business, only in keeping the accounts. The voice he spoke to was smooth and mellow. Immovably confident in demanding funds of an amount Andrew knew he could never lay claim to. It was simple, he was assured. The money or the women die first. Then the child. Then the men. The amount being asked for was everything . No fixed price, every pound the theatre possessed, down to the last ha’penny. They would be checking. Unsavvy and terrified, Andrew hadn’t asked for assurances on how the threat would be made good on. He simply hung up. He withdrew everything from the bank, from personal accounts, from safes. He bundled all that he could together and made ready to deliver it. Only this morning, he’d received a second phone call, warning him. They knew about the cache box. The separate, secret stash that kept the family's private store of emergency funds and heirlooms. Andrew’s plan had been simple. Show up with real money and feign being ready to deliver it. The police half a block away would do the rest. He just needed the family’s cache box and the rest we knew. When his voice at last ran dry, we were all of us amazed and stupefied. The first to laugh was Robert. He let out a mighty guffaw, wiping tears from his eyes. Jasper looked down, shaking his head in disbelief and mirth. Cora and I allowed ourselves polite chuckles. Andrew could only stare. “Don’t you understand, lad?” Robert asked, still grinning. “It’s us.” Andrew was still uncomprehending. "What is?" “It’s always been us.” Robert assured him. “It’s true, cousin.” Jasper added. “The money, the influence. WE are what this city fears.” His face became cold, his eyes like dead, dark stone. The hard shape of a revolver was visible in the pocket of his jacket as he shifted a hand to his hip. “But if someone’s attempting to squeeze us... that wants some looking into.” “Aye,” said Robert. “It does. Ladies?” Cora didn’t hesitate. “Absolutely.” I was barely a beat behind her. “Yes, sir.” “What?” Andrew yelped. “Them, too?” “Certainly,” laughed Robert. "They know what they’re about, sure enough.” Andrew gaped. He rose to his feet and gave a shaky grin. “Well, and why not let me in on the real family business, then? It’s sure not that you think I can’t be trusted.” Robert nodded. “Well now, we know that you can be trusted, boy, perhaps with a bit of teaching along the way as to how things are. But it seemed best to us to have someone honest among our number. At least as things stood with you being still young and -.” Robert stopped; movement of the curtains backstage caught his eye. It was fast. Brutally, cruelly fast. Hardly a detail or feature could be seen of the figures that emerged, bearing down with revolvers in each hand. One, two, three. Six barrels. Countless shots. One side door, thoughtlessly left unbolted during Andrew’s mania about the cache box. Shot after shot rang, boomed, and cracked in the theatre. It’s the first sound I hear even now when I lay down by Cora and close my eyes in the dark. Robert, Cora, Jasper, and myself knew to scatter, throwing ourselves down in that too-important first second. Andrew didn’t. He alone was standing for the bullets to find him, jerking him in all directions like a helplessly twitching puppet, only to collapse when his strings were cut. Jasper rose first, followed by Robert, roaring fury and sending bullets of their own at the backs retreating into the dark. It was too quiet, too soon. Four of us knelt around Andrew as his blood and his life sped away, spreading across the boards of the stage. Shivering violently, he clutched Robert’s hand and laid his other hand on Jasper’s cheek. He met my eyes and Cora’s in turn to say farewell and then he was gone. The boy who was so ready to laugh and be loved, who was still so young and so foolish, was simply gone. With all the Celtic fire and passion in my blood, I stood and screamed my outrage to the rafters. I felt Cora’s arms come fast and hard around me. Mercifully alive and whole. I moved in a daze as the signal was given to clear out of the theatre. Others would come for him. Discussions would happen. At the top of the steps Cora and I had run down so lightly, I turned back to look at the forlorn figure of a youth cut down, crumpled and so bitterly alone in the dark. It would be dark, when the doors closed out the daylight behind us. At the very least, I thought dimly, he would have the ghost light. *Author's Note* In theatre lingo, a "turn" can be used in reference to a person's performance, a time when that person stands out on stage, independent and celebrated during that person's moment under the lights. While this story is offered under the prompt of writing an ending where a truth comes to light, my hope is that I've honoured the theme of Chiaroscuro by contrasting light and innocence with darkness in a variety of ways. Also! A special thank you to the YouTube personality Mark Daniel Patrick for introducing me to the eerie and wonderful knowledge of what a ghost light is.

Red. The strawberries you hand-picked from your garden. I always pick the not-quite-ripe ones, but you have a sixth sense for the perfect fruit. You'd wanted to grow your own strawberries since you were a teenager and learned about all the chemicals that are put into mass-produced ones. You decide to eat just one while you wait for me. It's delicious. You've read all the books on gardening. You know all the tips and tricks. The strawberry melts in your mouth and blends perfectly with the hot summer's day. Yellow. The blanket you're lying on. We made it together, but neither of us was any good at quilt-making, and so the ends stick out. There's a hole down the middle from when I decided to surprise you with a fort. You smile at the memory of hearing chairs collapsing and me shouting, "I'm okay! Don't come down yet!". Eventually, we just sat on the couch. The sun in my eyes as I drive to the park. Even with my sunglasses, it's practically blinding me. Green. The grass that pokes through the hole in the blanket. You can feel it scratching your lower back as you look up at the sky. The grass is a dried-out green, and it's poking you quite a lot. You almost wish you'd surprised me with a fort instead. The caterpillar inching across your finger. You decide to call it Jerry, after our pitbull. I don't know why you have an obsession with that name. You set the caterpillar down on the grass and watch it inch away. Another one quickly replaces it on your hand. You wonder how easy it would be to replace me. You don't think you'd be able to do it at all. Blue. The way you'd felt after that fight. After you'd thrown my handwritten journal into the fire. It was the only thing you knew I loved. I wanted to move. I wanted to spend a year in the city. A city like Paris, or New York, or Tokyo. You wanted to stay. You wanted to stay in the log house that we'd slaved to buy. You didn't want to leave your strawberries, or the furniture we'd built together (which was almost as bad as the blanket, but you took great pride in it). You love the mountains, the trees, and the fresh air. You are surprising me only because you want forgiveness for using my diary as kindling. You still don't want to move. Pink. My lips the last time I kissed you. On top of our house and underneath the sky. The stars blinked as they watched us. I was never the first one to make a move. The first animal I'd ever held. A pig. Our first official date was to your uncle's farm. I begged you not to let him kill it. That day we both become vegetarians. My journal. It had four hundred pages in it. I'd been using it to write since I was seven. The last thing my sister had given me before she went to serve in the military. It's going to take more than a picnic for me to forgive you for that. I don't know if I have it in me. It's like you threw away all my memories. I'd always wanted to revisit my diary when I knew I didn't have much time left. I forget things, too. It always helps me remember. You don't know that I'm scared to forget you. I'm scared that you'll forget me. Silver. The stars we've watched so many nights. The stars that know all of our secrets. We painted them on one of our walls. I like to think that they watch over us. I like to think that they find us almost as fascinating as we find them. The moon. The moon watches over us to, I guess, but it doesn't think we're fascinating. It has its own world to take care of. A world that's much bigger than ours. The outside of the car I'm driving. The sun rains its hatred down onto its surface. I'm going to need to park in a shady area. The ring. The ring you're not sure about. The ring that will make everything official. The ring that will let people know that we're not just friends sharing a house. The ring that you want to put on my hand and that you want to stay there. You fiddle with it, and even though the stars aren't out, they're watching you. They want you to succeed. White. The dresses we would wear. Gowns. Big and flowy. Bursts of light. We would run through the town, wearing those dresses. People would wonder where our husbands are. Those people don't know a thing. The veils we would lift off of the other's face. The chairs for the wedding guests. The ridiculous loafers I would make you buy. The cake. The archway that we would stand under. The flowers we would both hold. The dresses we would stain. The dresses that we would figure out how to clean. The dresses that we would keep forever. Your watch. It's a quarter past five. I'm late. You wonder if I'm coming. You feel a little sheepish at the ring. At the fantasy you created in your head. You stare at your watch as the seconds tick by. Most of the ice in the lemonade has melted. It'll taste more like water now. The clouds. The clouds are too busy to care. They float away. What once was calming is kind of stressing you out. You try to make out shapes. Shapes that you'll tell me about. Once I get here. Once I get here. Bright yellow. How I feel when I finally find a spot in the shade to park. I hope that you haven't given up on me yet. The color of the lemonade. There are still a few ice cubes floating at the top. How I feel when I see the ring.

Greg kept imagining what his mother’s friend Gina had so proudly stated the day before: “I’ve never worked a day in my life.” Gina owned a zoo. Gina loved her zoo. She liked animals more than she did people. Greg didn’t even own his house. Greg worked full time accounting for Cloud Nine Mattresses. Greg worked almost every day of his life, and he still struggled to get by. The monotony of the everyday was adding weight to the air atop Greg’s shoulders. He could hardly imagine what loving your job was like. It got harder and harder every day for Greg to roll out of bed in the morning. It was always the same. Same subway ride in the morning. Same podcast playing in his headphones. Same greeting from the overly-enthusiastic receptionist. His entire year was an assembly line. \*\*\*\*\*\*\*\* One week there was a fire drill at work. It was the most thrilled Greg had been since college. This excitement kept Greg going for another hour or so, but he sank back into his slump at the sound of a stack of papers falling onto his desk. “These need to be in by tomorrow.” He heard his coworker say without even looking at him. Greg began to write information on the papers. He didn’t bother to note what they were about or what he was writing. Just the same stacks of numbers that filled his every waking hour. Arithmetic was thrown into the Void at a constant rate, but it would never fill. \*\*\*\*\*\*\*\* Greg had a last-ditch attempt to provide his life with some meaning to fill the Void: sleep. Greg didn’t know how long or hard he slept because he passed out on the couch every day before he even took off his shoes. Dreamland was his brain’s only escape from the ever-growing Void. Although Dreamland pulled Greg out of his misery, the Void still managed to seep in. Every paper he saw in Dreamland was covered in those dreaded stacks of numbers. \*\*\*\*\*\*\*\* One night Greg got home from another day of dumping digits into the void and fell onto the sofa. He felt the firm, worn cushions on his skin, and he waited for them to become the soft clouds of Dreamland, but they never did. He couldn’t get to Dreamland. \*\*\*\*\*\*\*\* Greg lay facedown on his sofa. He hated his life and couldn’t sleep through the pain. There was no longer an escape. As Greg had this thought, he heard the sound of running water. He was washed over with relief, for it was over. He walked toward the sound. All the way to his bathtub, which was full, and calling to him. Greg knew what to do, but he felt no fear. Greg climbed into the bathtub and felt the warm water around his body, a cocoon of protection from the monotony of the everyday. He felt his head sink deeper and deeper into the water. “I’m staying in Dreamland.

I've mended many trinkets and magical wares in my life. I like to think I've seen it all, even if I have worked for less time than some of my Elven contemporaries, I have managed to make a name for myself great enough that I may be hired instead of those elves. Yet despite my expertise I have very little idea what I'm looking at. All magic has a source. Some draw power from raw ambient magic in the environment. Often they draw power from some sort of magic source within themselves. Rarely I'd even be hired to inspect items of divine origin. Yet this, I could not place its source of magic. It's a simple box, a puzzle box even. If this box were mundane then there would be some sort of solution to open it, maybe you had to push in one part or turn another, but it could be opened. Supposedly this box was the same. The client said that somehow they had lost a wedding ring inside the box. Yet I doubted that was true. They had payed me an exorbitant amount of money, easily enough to purchase a dozen wedding rings. They may have been sentimental about their ring, but I knew that wasn't true. They payed with a golden statue that they were too foolish to know could come to life at the right command. This must've been something more, she was a dungeoneer, or maybe a mercenary. I planned to open the box no matter what of course. I was hired to do just that, and more importantly I was deathly curious. Yet I still puzzled over the strangest part. I had planned originally to disenchant the box. Of course there may have been a solution to the puzzle but I haven't the time or the patience for it. Disenchantment was always the easiest way to go with curses or odd problematic items. Yet, I needed to find the source of the box's power to disenchant it. Once I located where its power came from a fix could be made easily. The box currently sat in a void chamber on the limb that it might gather ambient magic. The chamber stopped any ambient magic from entering it, of course void chambers are exceptionally expensive and difficult to maintain, so mine was barely larger than a foot in any dimension, but easily large enough to fit the box. Of course the magic remained, which meant I could rule out that it drew on ambient magic. The pesky thing was irritating to test even when I tried. The best way to test if its magic remained was simply to try to solve it. The box had many sliding and rotating parts on it. The pesky enchantment made it so no matter how many of them you solved more seemed to appear. So I tried to solve the puzzle and watched carefully. If the enchantment had been dealt with then the box should remain the same as I turn it in my hands, yet it didn't. I took the box out of the void chamber. I wanted to throw the box and the chamber against the wall, but I control myself, since the chamber is far too expensive, and the throw wouldn't affect the box. In fact I had thrown the box extensively as an attempt at an easy solution. Yet the cube despite being made of wood was durable. Explosions, throws, or even immensely destructive spells had no affect on its integrity. This wouldn't surprise me if only I knew of a power source. For something to be so indestructible while being made of such a week material it would need a powerful protective charm. Yet in turn that protective charm would require a source for its magic. I took out pieces of enchanted paper and set the box on it. Ink started drawing itself onto the paper. Drawing complex and intricate runes. I couldn't read the inside of a box I'd never seen but I could read runes based on its power. The runes could be seen as blueprints of the item's power structure, listing where each part gets its power and eventually showing the type of magic used. This was the third time I had attempted this. It should be a surefire way to find at least what type of power this forsaken box uses. Yet the runes remained the same. They indicated no source of power. In fact the runes were purely self-referential. Each rune listed a source for its power, and that second rune listed a third. At the end of that chain of power should be a source, but instead it went in circles. Every rune eventually listed its source of power as simply itself. Of course this was ridiculous and blatantly impossible. A rune cannot get power from itself, it would lose any magic it stored within a matter of minutes of use. I picked up the box again and threw the paper away. I stared at the box, puzzled. Although I suppose ultimately that was the point, it was a puzzle. Yet I should be above this puzzle, I should be able to circumvent its tricks yet the process of circumventing those tricks seemed almost as tricky as the tricks themselves. Maybe I should consider myself humbled, brought to my knees even. I could ask my opponents for help, possibly even see if I could make a little money as an in between dealer. Yet this wasn't about money or business, it was about pride and curiosity. After a moment more of generous contemplation I reached to my trash. I took out the papers, all three, even if one of them was sticky with juice at the bottom. They all painted runes describing this terrible box's power structure. Since they were all drawn of the same box it is only reasonable that they looked the same, but there was one difference. The charts also showed me the amount of power stored in the box. Of course without a source of power the nonsensical looping power structure should mean the power waned, but it didn't. The power in fact grew only as it stayed longer in my lab. I have only ever seen power grow in this way under one circumstance. This box was adding to itself, and taking from something else. Now of course there were many powers in this room that it could steal from, but it hadn't interacted with any of it. It was only then I realized the particularity of the runes in my charts. The runes were built to receive power, not just from each other but from something outside of itself. That was just it, this box used the most undetectable of magics simply because I had not thought of it. This box turned thoughts themselves into magic. Of course humans and elves did this often, mages with their thoughts and knowledge could create spells with only a meager amount of arcane assistance. It must've been, I found no magic source as I was the magic source. Any time someone tries to solve the puzzle the puzzle only gets harder to solve. And to top it off, it is infallible, as you could never disable its magical source unless something without a mind worked on the box. Of course no matter how much I wanted one cannot stop themselves from thinking of something. So I could never solve this puzzle. I knew just the person. I took the box and a mundane paper. I carefully folded the paper over the box so that the box couldn't be seen. I took my now nondescript paper box and left my lab. Something I rarely did while on a job. I mounted my horse. Of course while the horse was mundane, though I could never bother with a mundane mount. The saddle and bridal were both magic of their own variety. It made it so I had no need to direct the horse, it simply knew where I was going and took me there. After quite a short journey I arrived at the smith. The smith was a large half-orc. I set the box on the anvil that he kept out front. The smith gave me an odd look. "What do you want today Isaac?" He asked, looking at the puzzle box on his anvil. Although all he saw was a cube of folded paper. "It's nothin' hard, just hit this with a hammer." Before I finished he slammed his hammer down on the paper. His strength was incredible given his orc lineage. Wood chips flew all directions out of the box. "Anything more" He asked. "No, you were as mindless as I needed you to be, thank you," I said as I picked up the paper cube and unwrapped the now destroyed puzzle cube. I hope the customer didn't want the cube back in one piece. Destruction of items is sometimes required for my services. I looked at the inside of the box, revealing what was a ring, but clearly not a wedding ring. The runes on the ring were tiny but intricate. It was a silver ring, so it was likely protective magic. Whatever it was, the price, the density of the runes, everything about it indicated it was incredibly valuable. Even more valuable it seemed than the gold statue I was payed with. I'll have to investigate this before returning it. If it's valuable enough I might even have to make a fake to give to the customer.

In 1988, radio news about a famous actor rose all over the world and achieved a high viewing rate, because a successful series is a successful person, but sad and not laughing Most of the time, because he missed his father's gentleness, because he left his father since childhood, he lived with his mother and sister, his mother is the highest, he can't live in their right, which is what he knows, but he is the most mysterious person, but he is charming Although there is a beautiful girl, an 18-year-old girl, is a beautiful and simple girl, like an angel, living on the ground, the joy of love, everyone cares about the small and the big, she loves cats and dogs, she has problems and confusion, she does not separate her life and life Although she was smiling in front of all people, she was very sensitive, she cried a lot, although her vitality, but everyone laughed at her, because she was simple and didn't like them, until her heart was not suitable for her, she was surprised that her dream always dreamed of knights Her dream is to be a famous actor and all her strange dreams are ignored. She has great dreams and many hobbies - cooking, painting, dancing, singing, always optimistic, helping everyone have a clean heart Well, she has a dream. She goes to India as a designer and model and meets a famous actor. She loves him because she is a news broadcast day. She falls in love with him and becomes her goal, though She knows it's impossible, I always hear a word is impossible, it's just a dream, but she insists, don't let anything break, she is strong, I study design and work as a dance coach, because she is a person who loves dance in one day Day received a letter in instagram from an actress's sister, she loves the name is selfish, she wants to train her to dance, she will pay for travel, life and everything, the girl doesn't know it's his sister agreed Soon, she finally realized her dream of going to India, but unfortunately, there is an obstacle, how to persuade her family to travel? I went to train her. One day, she selfishly said that she wanted to attend family gatherings and design some clothes for selfish family members, because she was a fashion designer, she had a good taste, she agreed, because she was good at design, but she didn't like it When she took measures, she noticed that the whole family was strange, had no friends, didn't even say a word, she didn't dare to speak, because she was a stranger, a day's party, she was willing to put fate and her heart, her love, as long as I love all her heart, look at her, I admire her, a few days later, when she left, she said she was the right girl for her son, she became one of them, she did not understand most of the mother's words, because her words were vague She didn't have the courage to admit her feelings for him, but he knew the date she left, he wanted to tell her the truth, if she agreed, he would be with her, because he was so crazy that he made a man A conceited, rich, sad, self righteous, self righteous, nosy girl, she has never seen such a kind, beautiful and moral girl. She is also tired of waiting and decides to take risks and admit him before she leaves. bye. I admit that he loves her, but he said to her, if you are a monster, will you love me? She said, she is sure that I don't care what you look like, even if I am a monster, I will love you, like you, all these years, I love you, but he said I am really a monster, for the first time Believe him, but he told her that he was a good vampire. His story is that when he was young, he saw his father still following him and shouting his father's name, but his father didn't care. He was always behind him and didn't see him, as if he didn't hear a shadow following him. Until he found himself in a dark forest, with a big house, and went into the house, he found that people were wearing black lines and could not understand. His father was watching these people all the time, but one of them said, "I smell blood." Human beings continue to linger on the fire. Some people say that some people will join our tribe today. Tonight is the full moon. We will soon find one of them and scream his voice all the time. But his father has some necks. From that moment on, the shadow will come out They said, we need you, because you are our people, your blood is pure, from now on, you are the shadow of our clan flying, shocked to say that drinking blood will help us It feels better that we don't let humans drink animal blood, but our power is unparalleled evil power. A few weeks later, he came home and told his mother what happened. His mother said, I know I'm also a part of them, shocked First, but in the past Living in a normal life, when the girl began to dream, he said to her, when we met for the first time, I knew you were a girl, I dreamed, I think there is a strong connection between us, but you know my fact, do you still love me? You want me and all his love, I love you, I will continue to love you, accept your reality, my life can not complete your authorization, because you are my other half, my life will only complete your existence, even if I have to sacrifice my life, I will not hesitate, said I also love you, I will not let anything bad happen to you, because you are the secret of my life and my happiness, I am not happy before you get married, in the end, they got married, but after suffering, because her family and his family are married, although they are married

"Alright class! The year is almost over. What do you think you could do better in next year?" He looked in the direction of a few boys who were in the middle of poking a poor girl with a pencil to ask her for homework. The boys immediately stopped at the teacher's harsh gaze. "Anyway, each of you need to write three resolutions and they are due next week. Don't forget the fifth draft of your personal narrative is due then as well. Class dismissed!" The bell rang and the kids ran out of the building. Vanessa O'Mara was devastated. Vanessa O'Mara's are in every school you could possibly go to. Pretty, popular, rich, stylish, and too good for anyone else except one guy who she chooses as a king of your school. This particular king was known as Neil Ahmad. You probably have a Neil in your school too. Obnoxious, too good at sports, cool, handsome, and rich. Then you have the group. They follow these two around like they have no other purpose in life. This particular day they were discussing the stupid assignment. The conversation went something like this: Vanessa said "OMG, this stupid Resolution thing is a total waste of time. I could like be like posting or something instead." Marla, a complete Vanessa fanatic added on "Yeah, I-" "Shut Up Marla! You're doing it for me anyway. You don't need to talk. What do you think honey?" with that, she leaned her head into his shoulder and smiled. He nodded and said "Yeah Vany. It's so stupid." This went on for a while until they got home. The teenagers parted ways, Marla with Vanessa's homework, Neil confused with his, and Vanessa posting pictures all the way back. The teacher watched this all, confused and startled. But he waited until the next day to expose Vanessa. Vanessa got home and her father was nowhere to be found. He was probably off somewhere never bothering about his daughter at home. The maid handed her some snacks as she went up to her room. She took a few more selfies and sent them to Neil. Her life was like this everyday, carefree but wondering if her father cared about her at all. All her followers told her she was gorgeous and had a great body, but was she really that great? She never could answer this question. Her mother was nonexistent as well. Her maid had been the one to care for her all those years. She was like the mother she never had. She helped her on her first period, shopped with her for bras, and always made her feel loved. But it wasn't the same. Vanessa barely heard it, but she knew that noise. It was a mix of sniffling, crying, and trying to cover it. She got out of her room and found her maid crying. She helped her maid up and into her room. She consoled her until the maid would stop crying enough to speak. "M-m-yy daugh-t-t-ee-rr waa-n-nts to go to col-l-ege but I can't pay for her. She got in, but they won't give her a scholarship." Vanessa was shocked. She never heard about this before. She thought that her maid was paid a lot. "Who is your daughter?" She looked up at me with a sad look on her face. "Marla. She is the smartest little girl ever. She thinks you are great too. She loves you." Then she realized why Marla always did her homework. Why they wouldn't give her a scholarship. Marla was gay. Vanessa looked through her room for money and managed to get all her credit cards and cash. She gave them to her maid, her true mother. Not by birth, by heart. "Tell Marla I'll never ask her to do something again, starting now." The maid left, happy and content hugging Vanessa to death. Vanessa opened her Macbook and began to type. "This year, I thought I was perfect. I didn't need to write any resolutions. But now I have three. Here they are. I will start a fund to give away money for students who need it. I will do my homework by myself. I will do my best in school. With that she closed the lid and slept peacefully, knowing the new year would be much better.

C/W: domestic abuse Another morning that she woke up from a nightmare. This has become a well-known ritual three weeks ago. She struggles to recall the last time she had a peaceful sleep without it being interrupted by someone she dearly loves dying. He is still asleep, waking him up to ask to calm her down would cause no good. He would get angry again, as if it was her fault that she is crying every time she wakes up. She reached for the tissue that usually are on the bedside table. ‘They are not there this time, where did he put them, but most importantly why? How am I supposed to clean up before he wakes up? Did he plan this, so he can hit me?’ a usual strain thought crossed her mind, while she rubbed her forearm with an old bruise from his grab on it. When you are in an abusive relationship for a long time, you start to suspect the worst even in the most innocent actions. Assuming it is just thoughts that she got used to overtime under manipulative actions, but it doesn’t answer the question, where the tissues went. An unordinary thought ran across her mind, ‘Should I leave him?’ but it was stopped as immediately as it appeared. Was it the first time she considered leaving him? No, she kept this option in the back of her head for a few months now, but she never acted on it. Clear thinking was shut down by her mind every time it came to putting an end to this relationship. She was scared of being left alone, like most people in similar situations do. However, this one seems to stand out. They never had a conversation about ending the relationship, she never brought it up, and he never tried to stop her. The only thing that continued to prevent her from having this conversation is her own bruised thinking. She laid on the bed and proceeded to look at the ceiling to let tears flow back into her eyes. She noticed a spot that wasn’t there previously, that kept her occupied for a certain amount of time before that annoying thought crossed her mind again. She shook his arm. A loud slap on her cheek deafened her for a second or two. ‘What do you think you are doing?!’ he yelled at her hardly awake but already very angry. ‘Where did you out the tissues?’ holding in the tears from the slap, she replied. ‘What in the actual hell are talking about, huh? What tissues?’ he answered as if he didn’t understand what she was talking about. With this response his voice sounded more awake than last time. ‘The tissues that were on the bedside table, so I could wipe my tears after waking up from nightmares,’ now more calmly she responded. She tried to stay in line and not have a go at him, she knew it would end much worse than just a slap. ‘Do you understand what nonsense you are talking right now? There were no tissues on ‘the bedside table,’ he showed quotation marks with his hands and made the nastiest giggle possible. ‘Yes, there were,’ now with a strength in her tone she replied, ‘I put them there, so I am asking where you put them.’ ‘I did not put them anywhere, what don’t you understand from my speech?’ he rose his voice and started saying the words slowly, mocking her, ‘I d-i-d n-o-t p-u-t y-o-u-r t-i-s-s-u-e-s a-n-y-w-h-e-r-e.’ ‘I want to break up,’ she said not expecting herself to say that. ‘You want what?’ he began yelling. ‘To break up,’ almost silently she pronounced. ‘Okay, aright, if this is truly what you want, go ahead. Just don’t cry about me when I kill myself.’ The manipulation, that he attempted to make, was done so many times before and portrayed in so many scenarios in countless amount of literature pieces and films. She could not have reacted better, ‘Fine,’ she attempted to leave the bed. Absolutely shocked, he grabbed her by her hand and started crying, ‘After all this time, you have nothing better to say?! You never loved me; you are a horrible person!’ While her mind was bright enough to act and not look back, she silently stood up and got dressed. He kept on screaming about committing suicide and about how ungrateful she is for leaving after everything that he has done to her. He truly considered himself to be a good partner, even after screaming at her to the point of losing his voice, even after beating her to the point of her fainting, even after all the lies and avoidance of confrontation. This caused him to shout and beg, after a while, he fell onto his knees and grabbed her arm while looking at her from beneath, ‘Please don’t go, we were so good together. ‘We really were not, good-‘ ‘No,’ he pulled her arm with more force, ‘Stay!’ he commanded. ‘I will no longer stay with you, you hurt me, you abused my trust in you and in people in general!’ she was on the verge of crying. ‘Okay, go,’ he let go of her arm. She turned around and walked out the bedroom door, put on her trainers and pulled the doorknob of the front door. She glanced at him for the last time in her life as she hoped, ‘Goodbye.’ She closed the door behind her and walked towards the stairs, it would have been easier if he started chasing her. Looking back with every step down, she reached the ground floor. There it was freedom, or so she thought. She left through the main entrance door and looked outside: the leaves on the trees never seemed greener, the sky was never a blue as at this exact moment. She made five steps into a new single life when she heard a scream, ‘You really thought I’d let you leave like this?’ A whistle cut the air and the toaster fell right onto her head, killing her instantly. The passer-by woman, who was walking a dog, stood completely shocked after witnessing such horror. After a few seconds, she made a disturbingly disgusting noise that is hard to be imagined to be made by a human being. The woman was dead, lying on the pavement in the pool of her own blood. She was murdered almost not painfully and with almost a free heart. She escaped him and his influence, but he still did not let her experience happiness and live a life if it wasn’t with him.

Month One Ronan looked at the slip of paper in his hand, then up at the cafe, then back to the bit of paper. The letters all matched up, so there was no avoiding it. This was the place, and the time. All he had to do was walk in. Or he could walk away. No-one knew he was here, so no-one would know if he just left. He didn’t have to do this. That was what shops were for, as he always said. With a sigh Ronan headed inside, the clipping clutched in his hand like a safety blanket. It was old-fashioned he knew, checking out groups in the local newsletter, but he was hoping that being old-fashioned about it would mean he’d find a group with like-minded people. None of those millennials, who always complained about having it so hard but seemed to enjoy life far more than he had in his youth. The group wasn’t hard to spot in the half-empty cafe. Eight women clustered round a table at the back, with half a wool shop sprawled out between them. For the hundredth time he checked the listing again, checking yet again that there weren’t any restrictions. Open to everyone, from beginners to experts , it still said. Everyone, so that had to include men as well. Only one way to find out , Ronan thought and he squared his shoulders before marching up to the group. They were talking as he approached, and that made him falter, but he was too close now to leave again. One of the women noticed him and smiled. “Hello,” she said in the patient voice of someone used to having to explain what she was doing. “Um, is this the knitting c-group?” There was no way in hell he was going to call it a club, whatever their ad said. That made it sound like a kids group, and most of the women here looked to be even older than him. Apart from- aw damn it - one girl at the back, who could only have been twenty or so. “Yes it is.” Even as he'd said it Ronan had realised it was a stupid question, but what else was he going to start with? “The ad said novices. I- I need to learn how to knit.” It was the first time he’d said it out-loud since he’d come up with the stupid idea, and he was bright red in seconds. If the woman noticed though she didn’t say anything. “That’s brilliant! Come on, take a seat and show me what you know so far.” “Not much.” Ronan grabbed a chair from the next table and tucked himself on the end, still trying to keep as much distance between himself and the group as he could. Just in case he needed to make a quick exit. “I... borrowed these needles from my wife. Are they... are they alright?” Borrowed- that was a nice word. It was simpler and gentler than the truth. “Oh wow. These are gorgeous. Is she an avid knitter then, your wife?” “Yeah, she loves it,” Ronan said, digging his nails into his palm as he spoke. “I wanted to try and make her something, in secret.” That got a round of ‘awws’ from the table, and suddenly everyone was on board with helping Ronan pull off the most romantic gesture of the year. If only they knew. Month Three “How are you getting on Ronan?” Julia asked. Ever since that first meeting she’d appointed herself as his personal knitting tutor, and he hated that he wasn’t a better pupil. “I think I’ve got... a row?” He held up the piece and winced. Even after weeks of work he still couldn’t knit a straight line, and this row was far shorter than the one before it. “That’s good! You’ve just dropped a few stitches, but that’s okay. And you’re getting faster at it as well.” For all her kind words, Ronan still figured he was a lost cause. What was I thinking? Just buy something, it’ll be easier. And it’ll look better, though at the moment my old handkerchiefs look better. Julia could read the doubt in his face, like she always could. “Come on. I’ll do a row and neaten it up, then you can have another go, okay?” “Yeah.” It took what little self-control he had left not to throw it at her. That wasn’t fair though; he knew she was doing the best she could. “Shannon always says I have thick fingers. Can’t even put up a shelf straight. Don’t know why I thought I could do this.” “You’re too hard on yourself,” Julia said. “I know it might not feel like it, but you really are improving. Besides, if it’s for someone you love then they don’t mind what it looks like. It’s the thought that counts, and your wife will understand that.” “I’ve never understood it,” Ronan confessed. “I always... well, I was never the most supportive when she made things for people. Always said we should just buy something instead. I never really got the whole ‘hand-made means more’ thing.” “But you’re trying this?” “Yeah, well. Thought it was about time to try and work out what it was all about.” Better late than never. Julia smiled, that exaggerated, slightly patronising smile that he hated to admit did actually make him feel better. “Well then, I’m sure this’ll mean even more to her. Now come on, have another go while I get some more tea in.” Month Five “Hey Ronan! You’re here early.” “Yeah, the bus was on time. Guess it had to happen eventually, right?” Ronan grinned at Julia as she put her tea cup down on the table. He was already halfway through his, having actually gotten the earlier bus. “Here, look what I’ve got done.” “Oh wow! Oh, that’s a beautiful colour.” “Yeah. Figured I’d try stretching out to a baby's cardigan, but I didn’t want it to be gendered.” “You can’t really go wrong with green, can you? It’s such a gentle shade as well. And you cast it on by yourself!” “Haha! After so long I should at least be able to manage that, right? I’ve not been at this one long.” That last bit was a shameless lie, and Ronan wasn’t sure why he’d even bothered saying it. Of course Julia would know he’d been at it since last week, and had still only managed to get four rows done. But they were even, with a consistent tension, and each of them had the same number of stitches. He was damn proud of those four rows. “You see, I told you you’d get it. Don’t forget, the rest of us have been doing this for decades .” “Apart from Abby.” The millennial was the best knitter of the whole group, although Ronan was the only one who was bitter about that fact. That was mostly because she’d rocked up one week saying she was learning how to crochet, and the next week had brought a pile of exquisitely made hats. If Ronan had even a smidgen of the talent that girl had, this stupid idea of his wouldn’t have been such torture. “Yeah, well. We don’t talk about her,” Julia teased. The pair of them sat in silence as they waited for the others, Ronan knitting at his snail’s pace with his tongue sticking out while Julia watched and smiled. Month Seven “Hey Ronan, glad you made it.” Even though it wasn’t a knitting group meeting, Julia had still taken the large table at the back, and she’d already bought tea and cake. “Hey. You didn’t have to call me up you know?” “You’ve missed two meetings. I just... wanted to check you were alright.” Ronan took a deep breath and helped himself to a cup. The plan had been to fade away, and to never have to face up to this, but then damn Julia, brilliant, caring Julia had called him up and invited him to afternoon tea. After everything she’d done for him he couldn’t refuse. Besides, it wasn’t like he had much else to do on a Saturday. “I’m fine,” he said, although he still hadn’t convinced himself of that. “Then why haven’t you turned up?” I could say I’ve been busy. That I’ll be back in a week or so, and keep pushing it back until they forget about me. Then he looked up at Julia, and her perfectly open and innocent eyes, and remembered other eyes just like that. “I’ve packed it in,” he confessed. “I’m not cut out for knitting. I mean come on, it’s been months and I still can’t knit a square properly. Children can knits squares, but I can’t. It’s just not meant to be. I’ll just buy something.” And he knew as he said it aloud that if he did he’d regret it for the rest of his life. But I just can’t! I’m not good enough- “You love your wife, don’t you?” Julia’s question caught him off guard, and with all the thoughts in his head this time he choked up. “Y-yes.” With a cough he took a drink, the cup shaking as he lifted it. The scalding tea helped him get a grip on himself. “Yes, of course I do.” “Then trust me.” Julia leant across the table and touched his hand gently. “You can do this. You’re doing really well, and Shannon would be so proud of you if she knew what you were doing.” Yes she would. She’d also laugh, and call me a soppy old sod, with his fingers on backwards. That’s what she always said when I tried to put up the bookshelves. “Trust me,” Julia continued. “I’ll get you through this. You can do this. And then she’ll be so proud.” “But... everything I make is crap.” “That’s not the point though, is it Ronan? If was just to have a purpose you’d buy it. But this is to show that you love her. So you make it.” “I’m still not sure I get the appeal of that.” Julia laughed, and even Ronan had to grin, taking the chance as she looked away to blink back his tears. “Finish her present,” Julia said. “Then you’ll understand. Come back to the sessions? Please?” Upbringing won out over any last reservations he had. “How can I refuse the request of a lady?” Month Nine The piece lay on the middle of the table, sprawled across napkins to keep it off the sticky surface. “It’s so cute!” Abby said, and Ronan hated himself for checking to see if she was taking the piss. Be fair; they’re nice people, and they’re genuinely encouraging me. Besides, it’s not like I’m competition to them or anything. “It’s adorable,” Julia said. “And it’s finished. Your wife is going to be so proud.” After so many months Ronan was getting better at hearing that but this time, with the finished little cardigan in front of him, his breath caught again. “Oh, it’s perfect. Can you just imagine a tiny little baby wearing it?” “Abby, please tell me you’re not getting broody.” The group laughed and broke up into baby talk, but Ronan was still staring at his handiwork. It was bent, but not half as bent as the first few pieces he’d made. There weren’t any holes in it, although that was only because of some emergency intervention from Julia. At a distance the soft pastel green hid the worst of the faults. Overall, for a first time, not bad. It’s just- “What’s bugging you?” Julia said quietly to him as the conversation drifted off. “I’m not sure about the buttons. Do you think two is enough?” God, why do I hate myself? The button holes were the absolute worst thing to do. I couldn’t bear to do any more. “It’s only a small cardigan. Any more would swallow the rest of it. They look sweet.” “It doesn’t just... look like I gave up then?” “No,” Julia giggled, having held his hand and supplied him with tea as he fought his way through them. “It looks great. It looks perfect. When will you give it to her?” “I’m going to wait for the right moment. After all this effort, I want to get this right.” Month Nine Point Two The right moment had arrived. Ronan wandered through the hospital, marvelling at how much had changed and how much hadn’t since the last time he’d done this. The walls were still the same bland off-white, but the machines were all shiny and curved edges now. Outside the door to her room he stopped and tried to neaten his hair. Should I have made an effort? I can’t remember what I did last time, it was all such a blur. The shirt he wore was clean, but there was a smudge of last night’s dinner on his trousers. After he picked the worst of it off he figured it would have to do. He was too scared and excited to leave again. Besides, neither of them were going to notice. With his present wrapped and tucked under his arm, Ronan knocked gently on the door. For a fleeting moment the guilt at misleading the knitting group came back, until he heard a murmur from inside the room. He slipped inside as quietly as he could. “Morning Lisa,” he said with a grin that he couldn’t stop even if he’d wanted to. “Morning Dad.” “How are you doing darling?” Though he was asking his daughter, his eyes drifted over to the far side of her bed. “I’m fine. We’re fine. Come on, come and meet her.” The tiny little baby in the cot was sound asleep and wrapped up snugly. Nothing was visible apart from her face and one miniscule little hand, but Ronan was already in tears. “She’s beautiful.” “Dad-” There was a catch in Lisa’s voice, and worry in her eyes. “What is it? What’s wrong?” “I’m sorry Dad. I know I said I would, but I can’t... It’s still too soon. I can’t name her after Mum, I’m sorry-” As she broke down Ronan sat on the bed next to her and gathered her up in a hug. “That’s okay my darling. She’s your daughter. You call her what you want. We’ll remember Mum in other ways, okay?” It took a while to dig out the tissues, or for either of them to be able to speak clearly again, but Ronan waited. I want to get this right. “What are you going to call her then?” “Evelyn. Evelyn Shannon.” “That’s a good name. And...” This is it. This is what it was all for. “Speaking of your mother, I got you something.” He handed the present over, glad that his daughter was still too snuffly to notice his shakes. “It’s not much, and it’s not good. But... well, if your mother was here she’d have had this sorted. But she isn’t, so I’m going to do the best I can. I don’t want you and little Evelyn missing out on this.” There was suspicion in Lisa’s face as she started to pick at the tape. That’s only fair, she is my daughter after all. It’s exactly how I would’ve reacted. God, why did I even bother with this, it’s a stupid idea- The delicate, wobbly cardigan dropped out into Lisa’s hands, and she sat there staring at it. Ronan couldn’t take the silence. “Your mum had all these books of baby patterns. She was really looking forward to being able to knit them all again. But since she’s gone... I wanted to honour her memory. I wanted to keep a part of her with us-” Ten months of pent up grief burst in that moment. Tears streamed down Ronan’s face, as he waited for his daughter and granddaughter to pass judgement on his knitting. “Dad.” As Lisa looked up, her eyes damp with tears and her face still drawn from labour, she looked the spitting image of Shannon, sat in the same maternity ward all those years ago. It broke Ronan’s heart even more, but there was a comfort to the pain. She’s still with us. “I love it Dad. Thank you. And she would be so proud of you.” Ronan sighed, and felt the first ray of joy since that terrible day. “That’s as good as hearing it from her,” he said, beaming at the echo of his wife that lived in their daughter.

All was quiet, save for the footsteps. Just the rhythmic tap of shoes on concrete. These particular shoes were handcrafted by their owner, made of shining black leather, and the man wearing them was rather proud of them. They looked just like the pair he wore ten years ago, and that pair looked like the pair from ten years before, and so on backwards for over 200 years. Yes, Abraham Weston was proud of his shoes. This is not to say Abraham was not proud of all his clothes, but he was particularly fond of the shoes. He gazed down at them as he walked leisurely along the sidewalk, his hands in the pockets of his coat. When he looked up, he saw his destination in the distance. A large, elegant home on the very end of a cul-de-sac. Deep maroon with white shutters, and the liveliest little garden out front. As he approached the house, Abraham looked up at the sky. In this part of town, he could see the stars so well. The moon was nearly full-- just one day shy. He thought of his good friend, Eleanor. Tomorrow would be hard for her. Perhaps he would see her tonight? Abraham pulled his watch from his pocket and saw it was 11:59 P.M. The house was still over half a mile down the road, and he was due to arrive at midnight. He had to pick up the pace. With a sigh, Abraham moved to a brisk stride. At least, it was what he considered a brisk stride. He arrived at the door of the house. He looked at his watch again, just as the hands moved. Midnight, on the dot. Abraham grinned, putting his watch back into his pocket, and knocked on the door. He was almost immediately greeted by a familiar face. “Abraham.” “Oliver.” Abraham looked up at Oliver and they exchanged smiles. Oliver’s teeth were strikingly white, and his skin nearly matched. His porcelain complexion was only made to look paler by his shock of black hair. Abraham’s eyes lingered on the other man’s lips as they drifted down to his cheekbones and jawline, both worrisomely sharp. His golden eyes shone underneath his sculpted brows, surveying Abraham’s features. “Are you going to come in?” Oliver asked, an eyebrow raising. “Well, I can’t come in until you invite me.” “Please, you know you’re always welcome here, my friend.” Abraham shook his head, though he still smiled. He entered Oliver’s home, brushing past him as he did. Abraham made his way to the dining room, where he found another set of familiar faces around the table. Eleanor, short, stout, blonde, and beaming; Isaac, thin and mousy; and Mary, serene and adorned in her usual white gown. Each of their heads turned towards Abraham. Greetings filled the room as Abraham found a seat amongst the rest. “Abraham,” Isaac said, “I see not much has changed with you. All these years, and still the same pair of oxfords.” “Consistency is key,” Abraham replied, chuckling. “Just ask Mary and her dress.” “I would change if I could,” Mary murmured. Her eyes danced around the room as she hovered just above the seat of her chair. “Don’t you get bored of them?” Eleanor chimed in. “You should spice it up!” “Don’t listen to them,” Oliver said as he entered. “I’ve always loved them.” The conversation shifted to Oliver, and it did not stop there. Chatter and laughter surrounded the friends, eager to see each other once more. “Eleanor, you know, I was thinking of you as I was coming here,” Abraham said. “I was unsure as to whether you would be here, seeing as tomorrow is your big day.” “Big day, right.” Eleanor giggled. “Well, that’s exactly why I *am* here. Might as well enjoy myself while I still have some control, you know?” “And before you have to spend a week inside recovering,” Isaac muttered. “That too,” Eleanor said. “Post-transformation, I’m a real sorry sight.” “I think you’re still lovely then,” Mary said, eyes drifting around the room. “You’ve never seen me after I’ve turned!” “No, *you’ve* never seen *me* after you’ve turned.” Mary’s already translucent body faded and disappeared momentarily. Everyone laughed, save Eleanor, who blushed deeply. “Folks,” Oliver said, “may I interest you in a glass of my finest sanguine wines?” Abraham nodded politely, and Eleanor exclaimed that she would love some. Isaac rolled his eyes. “Oliver Price, in literal centuries, you’re the most pretentious man I’ve ever met. Just call it blood.” Oliver simply smiled in response, then stood and walked to the kitchen. When he returned, he held a labelless wine bottle, filled to the neck with thick red liquid and corked. He set it on the table, left the room again, and returned with four glasses. “Mary, I would have offered you a glass, but...” “Understandable. Blood was never my sort of drink, anyway.” Mary focused her eyes on Oliver as she spoke, and he shivered ever so slightly. He sat down, looked to Abraham, and gestured to the bottle. Abraham picked it up and effortlessly plucked the cork from the bottle before pouring each glass full. Isaac sniffed the contents of his glass. “This is--” “Yes, animal blood. I would never neglect your dietary habits.” Oliver sipped from his glass, and Isaac managed a small smile before doing the same. “It’s blood of the Tahiti rail, actually. This was gifted to me by an old friend of mine from over in Tahiti. He’s been collecting it for centuries-- it’s always been one of his drinks of choice-- and once they went extinct it became very valuable. He gave me this bottle some time ago... My 200th birthday, I believe. I’ve been saving it for a special occasion. Now, what’s more special than having all your dearest friends together on a beautiful night like this?” Abraham took a sip and grimaced. He much preferred human blood, and thought to himself that he could never be like Isaac. “How fascinating. It’s delicious,” he lied. “Oh, I love birds!” Eleanor exclaimed. “So tasty-- and they’re bite size! I love the way they crunch. Although, I could do without the feathers in my teeth.” “Yes, I imagine that’s unpleasant.” Abraham shook his head and took another sip of blood. He continued talking with his friends, catching up on how they’d been since they’d last been together and on plans for their upcoming days. The group laughed and chatted, drank and told stories. He felt at home here. He felt understood. As the night went on, his friends began to leave one by one. Eleanor was the first to go. After all, tomorrow was going to be busy, and she wanted to rest up. Despite the wretchedness she knew would soon envelope her, she said her goodbyes cheerfully and departed with a smile. “She’s so sweet,” Isaac mused. “I’m going to miss her.” “She’s not that old,” Mary said. “We have time.” “Of course we have time,” Isaac responded, “but not enough.” “We have all the time in the world, old friend,” Oliver said. “Eleanor doesn’t.” Isaac stared at the table as he spoke. He chewed his lip, his fangs poking tiny holes into them. He sighed, and the holes had already closed. “Perhaps she’ll become a ghost,” Abraham offered. “You should hope not,” Mary said. “Do you want her to suffer?” “Oh, right. Tricky business, becoming a ghost. Not too often pleasant.” Abraham glanced at Mary, whose face flickered for a moment, becoming mangled and bloody. Red stains flashed on her gown and her arm hung to her shoulder by merely a thread. Only a flash, though, and Mary returned to her normal self. “Never pleasant,” she said. The group sat there for a moment in silence, each lost in their own head. Mary broke the silence. “I think I’ll go.” Isaac, Abraham, and Oliver said goodbye and she wordlessly floated away, out of the house. “I should probably go, too.” Isaac rose from his seat and emptied what remained in his glass in one swig. “Getting home before sunrise, all that.” “Right. Goodbye, Isaac,” Abraham said. “Take care,” Oliver said, nodding at his friend. “I’ll see you soon,” Isaac said, and showed himself to the door. Only Abraham and Oliver remained. They sat quietly, both with empty glasses in hand. Abraham gazed into the glass, and Oliver gazed at Abraham. “How about now that Isaac has gone, we enjoy the good stuff?” Oliver asked. “Human?” Abraham had a hint of excitement in his voice. “Of course. Freshly drained, just last night.” “I’d be delighted.” With that, Oliver made his way to the kitchen and came back with another bottle. He popped the cork out and filled both their glasses. Abraham took a large sip and sighed in delight. “I’ll never understand Isaac. This is far too delicious to give up.” “He still hasn’t quite embraced the monster, I suppose,” Oliver said. “Well, neither have I,” Abraham said. “I don’t think we’re monsters at all. I never have. There’s nothing monstrous about survival.” Oliver smiled wryly. “I understand completely.” “I know.” The two men sat in silence once more. Abraham studied the room around him, taking in the elegance. A cabinet full of beautiful china stood against one wall. A deep blue Victorian wallpaper covered the room, and the cherry hardwood floors shone. The very table they sat at was vintage and beautiful; Abraham had sit here many times over the past century, and yet he was astonished every time. He noted for what must have been the millionth how beautiful everything in the room was. He looked over to Oliver and their eyes locked. Yes, he noted how beautiful everything in the room was. “You know, I do understand how Isaac mourns.” Oliver sipped his glass and closed his eyes. “How so?” Abraham kept his eyes trained on the man across from him the whole time. “It’s terribly difficult not to feel empty sometimes, when you know the people you care about will be gone one day. We’ll stick around, and dear Eleanor... Well, and every year gets faster, doesn’t it?” “I don’t know,” Abraham whispered. “Sometimes it feels so slow to me. Like nothing ever changes, even when everything is new.” Oliver nodded thoughtfully, placing his glass down on the table. Silence consumed the room once more, though it did not weigh so heavily on them now. It embraced them, rather, like an old friend. “Do you miss anyone, Abraham?” “Not right now, no. Perhaps in an hour.” “Why then?” Oliver inquired. “I’ll have left you.” Abraham looked softly upon Oliver, who hid a smile behind his glass as he drank. There was a pause, and then, “I still miss my mother.” Oliver looked away as he said it. “I do wish I had gotten to meet her.” “You would have loved her,” Oliver said, “and she would have loved you. To this day, she was the kindest woman I’ve ever known. I miss her sorely, still.” “I know,” Abraham said, blinking back tears. “You always speak so highly of her.” “Yes, yes I do... Some days, I think she should have been bitten, instead of me. She would never view it as a pain. In an endless life, she would have done endless good.” “I’m sure she would have.” Abraham placed his glass down and let his hands rest on the table. Oliver reached out and grabbed one in his own. “Although, I am eternally grateful to get to be in your company forevermore.” Oliver smiled. Abraham blushed. “As am I.” Abraham checked his pocket watch. 4:49 AM. “Oh, dear. It is getting quite late. Or, early, I suppose. I should get going before the sun comes up.” Abraham stood, but Oliver rose with him. “Why not stay?” Oliver’s grip tightened on Abraham’s hand. “I don’t want you missing me in an hour.” Abraham smiled and pondered it for a moment. “Yes, I think I will.” He used his free hand to raise his glass and take a sip. A bit of blood dribbled from the corner of his mouth and down his chin. “Careful, my friend,” Oliver said, walking around the table to stand next to Abraham. He placed his free hand under Abraham’s chin and gently wiped away the blood with his thumb. The two men gravitated closer and closer towards each other, until they were so close their noses nearly touched. Their gazes were holding onto each other for dear life, and their hands still matched. Oliver’s hand still lingered underneath Abraham’s chin, and he slowly brought it up to rest on his cheek. “Oliver...” “Yes, Abraham?” Oliver’s voice was nothing more than a whisper. “I know I’ve said it before, but sometimes I wonder if it would have been easier to have lived and died like a real human. Eternity can be so burdensome.” “You’re mistaken. It may be difficult, but it is never a burden. Nothing will ever be too heavy for you, because you have me to help carry it all.” And Abraham leaned in. He pressed his lips against Oliver’s and squeezed his eyes shut. They held their kiss for a moment, and then Abraham pulled away. When he looked at Oliver again, he was grinning. “I never thought you’d do it,” Oliver said, cocking his head. “Neither did I,” Abraham replied, a smile cracking across his own face, “but a century’s worth of waiting proved to be arduous.” “My apologies. You may have waited a century, but you have me for the rest of time,” Oliver said. “And it’s still not enough.” Both of them smiled, and they made their way upstairs to a bed they would share, knowing in the morning, they would have the pleasure of waking up next to one another. Abraham Weston and Oliver Price relished the thought of waking up besides each other every day for the rest of time.

I awoke in Anna’s dark wood cabin on the mountain. The rain was showering down outside. I tried to pull myself together, to think about how I got there. All I could remember was that I was hiking on holiday with my girlfriend, she looked up at the sky and it began to rain. “It’s boiling around my cabin, wanna roast some kittens?”, remembering Anna’s dark humour telling me what the forecast was made me smile. Whatever lay before me and her, this heavy rain, didn’t fit into place. It seemed to be planned. I felt the wall and found a light switch which I flipped on. Looking around the cabin, I saw that I was the only human presence in the place save the news reporter on the TV talking about the disappearances around the county. I couldn’t ever stand the news, so I grabbed the remote and turned it off. Once I had silence I sat down on the sofa I woke up on to see if I had any messages on my phone. Damn, nothing. Where Anna could be was beyond me, she should have been there in the Cabin. I had no way of calling her, the heavy rain made the signal virtually non-existent. But even more alarming was that looking around, I could see a note on the front door reading“Find me”. I had no idea if this note had a hidden meaning but it made the matter of getting to her all the more pressing. I had promised to take Anna on this holiday so I could calm her down. Over the last couple of weeks, the life un-expectedly started to drain out of her. Also her humour got progressively darker which, admittedly, I enjoyed. And now it was possible that she had been taken by someone. I wasn’t prepared to leave Anna in danger, so I got up from the sofa to make an effort to find her. There was a cupboard next to the back door of the cabin. Upon going to it and looking inside, I saw that among some un-organised house trinkets, there was a sturdy blue golf umbrella. Not much in the way of explaining the situation but certainly a valuable tool right then. As I approached the front door, I peered out of the window to assess where I would go. My heart sank as I looked at the landscape to see it was completely different to the view of the serene village I had been in only a day prior. The cabin on the mountainside was instead overlooking an endless pine forest, the tips of the dark trees against the dark blue sky made the place look agitated. The hairpin bend path lined with steps going down the mountain led to another, ancient looking building appearing to be a mansion. In the dark I couldn’t make out much about it. It was situated in the pine trees next to the mountainside. I would not have gone to the intimidating building save for the fact that the lights were on, which meant hope for finding Anna. Opening the front door of the cabin, I was met with a huge bluster of wind and rain spitting on my face. As the rain hit my skin I began to worry, the hope drained out of me and I nearly went back inside. Closing the door behind me, I opened the umbrella before starting down the mountain path, unusually making my angst fade. While walking in my bubble of protection the umbrella offered me from the desolate sea of rain, I reassured myself I was acting like a hero for Anna. ‘We’ll be together soon. I’ll have her in my arms’ I thought. Just then as I thought that, my phone vibrated. I immediately looked at my phone, to my surprise, to see I still had no signal of any kind. I opened the message, it was from Anna. “We’ll be together forever” I was definitely startled by this, where she could have been was far beyond me. Obviously she or whoever was really sending me messages knew something I didn’t about this miserable place, so I pressed on for the mansion in the cold showering gloom. Finally, I had turned the last bend and was walking the path to the front entrance of the un-inviting mansion. I found it strange that the front entrance should be facing the mountainside, expecting people to come from the Cabin. Because I was closer in the rain and now able to see all of the features, I could see that the mansion was more rough looking than I originally believed it to be. It was covered in messy, frustrated brambles that also loomed their way through the garden. At the same time, whoever lived here had very expensive and very acquired taste. The garden surrounding the path leading up to the entrance had a crowd of immaculate stone carvings of people. All of the figures looked terrified, as if they were afraid of being smitten. Some of them looked as if they were suffocating. I arrived at the front door and knocked, looking at the lit room beyond the blurred glass on the top half of the door. After vaguely hearing some feet shuffling an extremely frail looking figure with strings of long hair coming down from the scalp appeared in the hallway, piercing the brightness of the room beyond. The figure came to the door and rattled with the lock a little before opening it. As the figure opened the door, it looked at me menacingly with jittering facial features. “Anna”, I said. “What happened to you, you look like you’ve aged a hundred years”. Anna coughed and one of her teeth fell out before forming a smile “I do look pretty good don’t I?”, said Anna in a voice withered with age. “Anna who took you here, who did this to you”, I asked. “Me, this is my house, it’s all mine. I have to say, I didn’t think I’d make it much longer this time”. “Anna, babe, what happened, what do you need”, I said with confused adrenaline running through me. “I need you, I’ll die if I don’t have you”. “But what do you need from me”. “Life”, said Anna with a curve forming on her lips. At that moment I found it unbelievable that I had laughed at that same darkhumour so many times. “Babe, I don’t know what’s got into you but we need to leave now OK, your cabin’s on the mountainside, maybe we can get back that way”. Anna wheezed and slowly raised her meatless arm to point towards her cabin. Looking towards it, myhope shattered to see that the cabin was nowhere to be seen, neither was the mountain. It was just us two in Anna’s real home surrounded by endless empty forest. “You’re not Anna, who are you?”, I demanded. Anna’s face then shifted to be more sinister. “Rain”, upon her saying this, her bodily features all began turning to water before my eyes “Don’t you recognize me?”. Her face faded into liquid and she was finally a blob. I did not care where I would go, but I dropped the umbrella and ran. A foolish mistake though as once I was exposed to the rain again I felt shameful and weak. In panic, I scrambled as fast as my feet would carry me, sympathising with all of the stone figures surrounding me. Darting left, I could see an opening in the pine trees that I immediately went for. The rain however, made me hesitate and I tripped on what can only be described as water that wouldn’t move. As soon as I had realised this, the rain was engulfing me. When it had done so from head to toe there was a surge of pain going through my nerves and I could feel the life being drained out of me. I regained consciousness later on to find that I had joined the other stone figures, I was one of them. I was still alive although it seemed all the substance of my life had been robbed from me. The downpour had stopped and the sun was shining. I could see that the messy brambles were gone from the garden and it actually looked like an inviting place to be. I did not see the rain, but instead Anna standing before me. She looked younger than when I had first met her and she was awkwardly turning one of her feet on its toe in the dress I got her for her birthday. “I am so sorry I had to do that”. And supposedly just as innocent as when I had first met her too. She definitely got what she needed from the trip. The colour was back in her face and life seemed to have returned to her. I didn’t have enough of my life in me left to feel anger of resentment at her, I still don’t. And so I stand here, a stone figure with the memories of a person. Remaining idle until the rain gets hungry again and claims another un-suspecting fool.

Every morning I wake up one minute before my alarm goes off. The first thing I do is roll over to cancel said alarm before the siren blares, giving me the worst migraine a person could possibly imagine. I take a moment to wake up, rubbing my eyes and stretching a bit. After all, it feels good to get moving after a full 8 hours of sleep. This is the second thing I do every morning. Next on the list is opening the drapes. I look out the window and onto the roofs of the other old buildings in town. I see the ocean in the distance and can nearly hear the sound of its waves. And then I notice the weather: the weather that so happens to be perfect for that day. If I wanted an outdoor wedding to be inside, it would be rainy. If I wanted to go for a run, it would be sunny. If I wanted an aesthetic day in a coffee shop, it would be foggy. The weather had not interrupted my plans for a long while. From there I dress accordingly, eat accordingly, and think accordingly to what the rest of my day looks like. And through this morning routine that I experience every single day, I never hear dogs barking or loud construction, my phone doesn’t ring unless I expect it to, I don’t spill coffee on my blouse, I don’t discover a leaky faucet, I don’t step in a puddle of water while wearing socks. I never leave home too soon or too late. My internet connection is always stable. I get the same amount of sleep every night. I never walk to my car to find I am out of gas or that my vehicle had been broken into. The stoplights are always green, my lane of traffic always moves fastest, I never get cut off or pulled over. I never have to work longer than I want to and don’t need to attend events I don’t want to. I never burn food. I don’t get sick. I never wake up hungover. The weddings go smoothly. My clients are happy. Every day. This perfect rhythm has occurred nonstop for as long as I can remember. It has been at least a few weeks. It became so extreme that I started to test my good luck. I would try to change this odd routine that ruled my life, but I was never able to. No matter how hard I tried, I kept having good luck. Every. Single. Day. I should be happy, right? Most people would kill for just one day like mine. Where everything is flawless. Where everything gets off to a good start and ends the same way, over and over and over. Well, to be honest, this was a curse. The best curse anyone could receive, but a curse nonetheless. Simply enough, it gets old. You stop planning for contingencies because you know there won’t be any. You stop having anything to talk about that doesn’t make you sound like a privileged jerk. You know exactly how your day begins and ends, and you lose any sense of adventure or wonder. You long for curiosity and fall into a never-ending pattern of perfection. But, this seemingly immaculate routine made me develop a theory. “Let me tell you if this makes sense,” I shared with my best friend and assistant, Tara, one day while we were helping clean up a wedding venue, “I think every person has the same amount of good luck.” “Really?” she asked skeptically. She might not have been convinced yet, but she always loved to hear my crazy ideas about what made the world go ‘round. She loved to debate them and prove how I could be wrong. It was one reason why we were such good friends. “Hold on, this is going somewhere,” I said, encouraging her to be patient while we started folding tablecloths. “I think each person’s luck is spread out in different ways. I might hit every green light, and you might hit every red one.” Tara scoffed with envy. She always made me drive because of this. “But, you go home to your dog acting all cute and your husband making you dinner. I just go home.” “That almost makes sense. Go on.” “Your daily luck is in the form of living things, like your dog and your husband. My luck is in the form of sequences, or daily routines, or whatever you want to call them, because I don’t have anyone or anything special,” I said. It sounded much sadder than I had intended, but she didn’t seem to notice. She pondered the theory. “That would mean my husband and dog have the same amount of luck as your perfect days do.” She took a moment more to contemplate the idea. “So you’re saying that everyone has the same amount of good luck, it’s just placed differently every day?” “Sure. I don’t trip on my own shoelace, and you are married to a hottie. Seems fair, right?” Tara laughed. “I am married to a hottie, but don’t sell yourself short. You have had these perfect days for so long...” Her voice trailed off as she seemed to imagine what it would be like to live as I had been for weeks on end. “Because I don’t have all of the things that you have,” I said with a smile. “I guess we’re both lucky.” “The same amount of lucky.” We chuckled and went back to work. At that moment, I became jealous of Tara. If my childlike idea were true, I would much rather sleep a little less than normal and wake up with a dog jumping on my bed than sleep the same amount every day and wake up to a dark and empty room. But it was just an idea, after all. I shouldn't have taken it so seriously. This always happened, and I should have known better. I always came up with some outrageous explanation for whatever was going on in my life at that time. I would fixate on that idea and how it could solve my problems. I wasn’t going to do that again. It was for the best that I was done with crazy ideas and explanations, truly. I needed to find peace with what I had. I needed to learn to be happy with good luck. ---------------------------------------------------------------- A few weeks later, I still experienced the same good luck every day. The streak had gone from weeks to a few months. I was starting to wonder if this was going to be the rest of my life. The same process... it was a bit depressing. I mean, I had tried to change it. To make my day bad. But it wasn’t possible. It always turned out the same way, with me alone, and started the same way, with me alone, the next day. Maybe I wouldn’t be like Tara, with the happy little family. I would simply just have my lucky routine. I quickly decided that that was enough of an existential crisis for the night. I rolled over and picked up my phone to check the time. 10:05 p.m. It was five minutes past when I normally went to bed. No matter. I would wake up the next morning at 6:05, then. I would get my 8 hours, like always. And this time, I would be thankful for it. Even if I wished my luck were different. I took a deep breath and went to sleep. ---------------------------------------------------------------- I woke the next morning to the glorious sensation of the sun on my face. I could see its bright rays peeking through my drapes. Still, it was odd to feel the sun on my face while lying in bed. And then I realized- why was I feeling the warmth of sunlight? It was 6:05 in the morning; the sun wasn’t up. I checked my phone. 7:45. Holy guacamole. I could have jumped up and down. Something finally changed from my neverending good luck. And then I remembered why the alternative was called ‘bad’ luck. I was late. I had a meeting with a client in 45 minutes. I quickly got in the shower. It was too hot. And then too cold. And then too hot. I tried to blow my hair dry and the power went off. I tried to put my soaking wet hair in a bun, and the hair tie snapped. I got another tie but at this point there were strands of hair protruding left right and center. I had to start over. I couldn't find any bobby pins. Where were my bobby pins? I checked the time and relaxed a bit. I definitely couldn’t read the news or go for a run this morning but I was not going to be late. Yet. I hurriedly fixed my hair until it was good enough, changed clothes, and looked in the mirror. A new stain on my pants that I hadn’t noticed. A new zit on my forehead. To disguise such a zit, I needed makeup. However, somehow, I put on the ugliest makeup look I ever had. The eyeliner was hideous. The shades didn’t look right. It was probably because the power was out and I could barely see what I was doing. I checked the time again. I would have to forget about the makeup. I needed to go. I went to the kitchen to grab a bagel, but I was out of bagels. And out of cereal. And bananas. And I couldn’t make much of anything else because the power was out. I forgot about breakfast. I wasn’t that hungry anyway. I grabbed my purse and everything fell out of it. I scrambled to pick it all up and stubbed my toe on a bookshelf in the process. I walked out the door and shortly ran right back inside. Shoes. I needed shoes. I put on the first thing I could find and was out the door. I sprinted to my car. The parking garage was quite busy. Everyone was leaving for work. I passed by lots of people rushing around like I was. I couldn’t find my car. Where did I park? After running in a complete circle around the entire garage I found my car. I hopped in and started it, and sure enough, my tire pressure sensor came on. I jumped out and saw that a tire was flat. I took my phone out of my purse to call Tara to come get me. But my phone was now dead. I was on the verge of a breakdown. After ages of the same routine, when everything goes right, it is apparently quite the shock when everything doesn’t. I would have to walk. The meeting place was just down the street, anyway. I hoped that the new clients were patient. I walked out of the parking garage to find that it was pouring rain. Lovely. I dashed down the street and every single pedestrian crosswalk was not only red when I got there but also took ages to change. In my hurry, I bumped into a passing businessman and his phone fell on the ground. I could hear the screen crack. “Are you kidding me? I just bought this!” he screamed. “What are you doing, bumping into people like that? Don’t you watch where you’re going?” “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” I said, retreating slowly. I could still hear him shouting at me as I ran away. I finally got to the cafe and hurriedly looked around for a young couple. I didn’t see anyone matching their description and decided to get in line to order something when I noticed Tara at a table in the corner. I darted over to her and left watery footprints in my trail. “Hi,” I greeted Tara. I couldn’t say much of anything else. “Good Lord! You look horrendous!” I could feel her staring at my zit, then at my drooping eyeliner, then at the stain on my pants that I had forgotten about. And at the fact that I looked like a wet rat. “Thank you,” I said, plopping down in the booth beside her. “Where’s Tim and Julie?” “I called you, like, six times and you didn’t answer. I was actually really worried about you. They canceled this morning because Julie got sick.” “Oh. Okay.” I was so flustered. So much had happened already, and the day had just begun. “Are you okay? What’s going on?” Tara asked with genuine concern. “I never beat you to meetings and I have been here for at least 15 minutes. Why are you late?” “I’m fine. Rough morning,” I admitted with a chuckle. “You finally running out of luck?” she asked me, smirking. “I guess so.” “You want to talk about it?” “No, I kinda just want to sit here for a minute. I think I need to calm down.” “Okay. I have somewhere to be, so I’ll leave you to it. You sure you’re okay?” I sighed and met her eyes. “I’ll be fine.” “Okay,” she said, still concerned about me but content enough to leave. As soon as she was out the door I let my head drop onto the tabletop. I slammed it up and down a few times. I started sniffling heavily and was worried I might begin to cry. What a morning. I suppose I was creating more of a ruckus than I thought because some guy walked over to my table. “Are you okay?” he asked sincerely. I lifted my head, embarrassed. I wiped my eyes and sniffled some more. “I’m sorry, I must be quite noisy. I’ll get going in a moment.” I tried to gather enough dignity to stand and leave. “No, don’t worry about it.” He stood there awkwardly. “May I sit?” I was uncomfortable but gestured to the open chair on the other side of the table. “You look terrible,” he said, not in a rude way, but gently. “So I’ve heard.” I wiped my eyes again and laughed painfully. “You know, I have had the worst morning. I stubbed my toe, the power went out, I haven’t eaten a thing, I was late, my phone died, my tire was flat, it is pouring rain...” my voice started to trail off. I’m sure I sounded crazy. “You want to know something?” He looked at me so purely that I wasn’t afraid of him. Which was unusual, because if any other random man sat down at my table and asked me questions, I would be quite frightened. But he had a bit of a reassuring presence. “What?” “I had a terrible morning too. I woke up to a jackhammer right outside my window and couldn’t go back to sleep. I spilled jelly all over my tie, and I slipped in some water on the floor while I tried to clean that off. My internet went down in the middle of an online meeting, so I had to come in to work. While I was driving there, I not only got cut off a million times, but I hit every red light too!” I laughed. “So did you not make it to work in time?” I asked, wondering why he was in a cafe when it sounded like he should have been in a meeting. “I actually just got fired, if you can believe it. Not because I was late today but because of overstaffing.” He shrugged it off and smiled, seemingly unharmed. “I’m sorry, that really sucks.” “It does a little bit. I mean, I really liked the job, but it just wasn’t meant to be.” He paused, trying to figure out what to say next. “I guess it’s all right though, because now I have a free rest of the day, and I got to meet you here!” He was very enthusiastic. We both laughed. “Misery does love company,” I said. “I’m sorry that you had such a bad morning,” he offered. He was so obviously warmhearted and charming. “Well, I’m sorry you had the same,” I told him. “It seems like we both have some bad luck today.” “Bad luck? No. Well, yes, we both had a wretched start to the day. But I don’t think it’s bad luck. I just think the luck is somewhere else.” I thought back to my theory from weeks ago. That everyone had the same amount of good luck every day, it just presented itself in different ways. My perfect luck wasn’t running out today. It was just changing. “Can I buy you a cup of coffee?”

"I'll help you wrap it," she said. It was her Christmas present, and she has said the same thing every year for the last thirty years. "No," I say, "I can do it myself." So, saying that, I close the bedroom door. She will stand at the door and turn the knob threatening to enter as I have the package exposed sitting on top of the first Christmas paper I find. "Can I help you find anythingscissors, scotch tape, ribbons, bows, name tags?" "No, I'm just fine", I'll say. "Now, where are the scissors?". "In the top drawer of the desk," she says from the outside of the door. "The scotch tape, the ribbons, bows and name tags are in the box under the ironing board." "How does she do that?" I mean, I didn't say anything out loud. I think we've been married too long! Come to think of it, she always knows what is in the package before she opens it. She finishes my sentences. She'll say things like, "an In-N-Out hamburger sounds good", when I've been thinking about it. I hope we're not beginning to look alike because I don't think she would look good with a bald spot. Well, back to work. There were two gifts to wrap. The first was a package of two plug-in flashlights. It would have been easy to put them into a shoe box and wrap the square edges, but I thought it would drive her crazy to wrap it as it had come from the shelf. This way I didn't have to be neat. As long as all parts were covered, the job would be done. I covered the holes I made with Christmas stickers--looked great! Scotch tape the corners, slap a bow and name tag with 1-4-3 on it (code for "I Love You") and one down and one to go. Better get another roll of scotch tape. She must use dozens of rolls with all the packages she wraps. "Sure you don't need any help?", she says each time she passed the bedroom. I didn't. The first package took twenty minutes. If you want to do something right, it takes time. I once built a car from a weekend kit. The directions said it could be done in one weekend. I took ten months. Things take time. The second gift was in a box with square corners. It was an espresso/cappuccino maker and about a cubic foot in size. I turned the package upside-down because I wanted all the taping to be on the bottom. I cut the paper the right length, but there seemed to be too much paper on the sides. How do wives measure the right amount? No matter, that's what scissors are for. I tried to fold the corners into little triangles that folded together at the center. Too much paper. Get the scissors. Now the corners fit, almost. Some of the box showed. No problem! Cut a patch and scotch tape it over the opening. The corners seemed to bunch up. No problem! Get the fat ribbon and pull it over the corners. How does she tie the ribbon? No problem--scotch tape. Put a ribbon in each corner and a name tag in the middle. Done--30 minutes, a new record. Looks good! "Are you alright in there," she wanted to know. I said, "all finished, and by the way, you ran out of scotch tape!" Now it was time to make a grand entrance with both gifts. I would have to give her a couple of innocuous hints as to the contents, and a few phony places where I had shopped, and I was finished (until our anniversary in January). I put them under the tree next to the ones she had wrapped for me. Maybe it was the change in the air temperature, or rough handling, or just bad scotch tape,but the presents just didn't have that professional look that they did in the bedroom. But, it didn't matter. For thirty years we've done it this way. It's expected. It's a ritual. It's our ritual. She knows that it's DONE WITH LOVE, and she wouldn't have it any other way. &#x200B; &#x200B; &#x200B; This song embodies my goal for this short story; it is meant to uplift people through hard times.