Tag: 15-16

A Pop Star’s Thoughts on the Universe

A Pop Star’s Thoughts on the Universe 

What is the universe made of?

A cab without much of a brain. It’s so unbelievably stupid. 

How did life begin?

The teen movie thing wanted this project for an easy paycheck.

Are we alone in the universe?

I worry there is a body. It is super thin. It happens all the time and it’s frightening.

What makes us human?

Sleep, a lot of days. 

What is consciousness?

Wake up screaming at 7 in the morning and become an energetic California preppy.

Why do we dream?

The commercial validates that choice of sly silliness. It’s a satire. 

Why is there stuff?

Absolutely, the prospect of becoming is interesting, a really cool one. Amazing, like a crash course. 

Are there other universes?

I’ve always believed that. I felt from the beginning there are a lot of strange pressures. But you can’t live your lives in fear, a huge challenge for us. 

Sources: 

University of the People, “20 Big Science Questions to Get You Thinking” https://www.uopeople.edu/blog/the-big-scientific-questions/
Cinema.com, “Legally Blonde: Interview with Reese Witherspoon” https://cinema.com/articles/584/legally-blonde-interview-with-reese-witherspoon.phtml

9 Hours: Worth Much More

Every single one of the two million people who fly every day passes through the airport. Those people are there with purpose, whether to attend a funeral, go to a camp, or to return home. They all have their goals, and the airport is a stepping stone on their way to achieve things. For me, Dallas Fort Worth is the place where I missed my connecting flight to San Luis Obispo for a journalism workshop. It is the place where I was stranded for nine hours. But by the time I left Dallas, I had seen and learned so much. Because Dallas is also the place where I met Linda, a 72-year old woman with cancer who wanted to finish her bucket list before she died. 

Linda’s yearning to experience new things as an older woman was respectable, especially as our generation has much trouble trying something different. In class, on the ice, or on the field, teachers and coaches offered, “Do you want to try a new play?” or “Would you like to join the coup club?” My classmates had tendencies to shy away from opportunities, as they have never done it before. However, Linda did not. 

I first saw her at the American Airlines help desk, where tens of people formed a snaking line in the cramped space. Sweating, I shrugged my jacket off, hitting the woman behind me: Linda. When I first looked back, I saw an old lady I can only describe as “coastal grandmother.” She had a light blue headband on with a white dress and blue heels. She was under five feet tall. 

She asked, 

“Why are you here, honey?” 

I shared my story about missing my flight. Linda shared, 

“Oh, I just attended the most beautiful wedding reception for my nephew. It was so special, and nothing like I’d ever seen before. I had a splendid time.” She said she chose to attend their Muslim wedding instead of their Christian wedding the weekend before, because “I wanted to experience something new, something else.” 

I was awed by how she was 72, and she still pursued uniqueness. For me, whenever I was placed into a situation I was not familiar with, I hesitated. For example, on my first day of field hockey camp, I judged it for being different from ice hockey and approached it with a preconceived opinion; seeing Linda with an open mind at her older age genuinely surprised me. 

We decided to eat lunch together — two strangers in a busy airport who had no one else but each other. The one thing we did have in common was a lot of unexpected time. Linda embodied perseverance through problems that were significantly worse than those of young teens. For example, after our conversation, my broken nails and lost earrings felt like miniscule issues. I looked at Linda over my heap of buffalo wings to see her potato salad and corn. 

“Would you like some, Linda?” 

She declined, saying, “Too spicy for me, dear. I only eat soft foods. I have a feeding tube, you know. I’m missing large chunks of my spine.”

I’m sure my head popped up, surprised. My mother had badly injured her spine skiing, so to hear about Linda’s spine worried me. It also put her in a new light, one of a survivor and a fighter. As if that was not enough, Linda pointed to her stomach area. 

“You see here, dear, it’s hollow. There’s nothing there, no stomach.” 

At this moment, my emotional state was flabbergasted. In my mind, she barely had anything holding up her torso! There was little that could make this predicament worse, until Linda said, 

“Don’t worry, angel. I’m still spiffy, though the cancer’s been slowing that down a bit.”

“Cancer?” I asked, stupidly. I could not believe the bad luck this grandma had. As an athlete, the prospect of losing parts of my body scared me a lot. I’d never met anyone missing an organ as important as the stomach, and her willingness to travel alone and be responsible for herself can only be called sheer force. She looked so frail in front of me, the spoon looking heavy in her hands as she scooped up some potato salad. Yet, she was a force, because who could pull off this sort of vacation in the condition she was in? I clearly remembered when my friend sprained her pinky and she acted as if the world was ending. I vowed to myself I would be like Linda, who, even with her unfortunate situation, kept a positive attitude and did what she wanted. 

I admired Linda’s tenacity and sense of adventure. I listened as she recounted how she had sixteen countries she wanted to visit, out of a list she made in 2022. These were all the hometowns of her extended grandparents and great grandparents. Now, barely a year and a half later, she told me that she had three left to visit: Scotland, Croatia, and the Netherlands. I’d been to these places before, as I told Linda, and I thought it would truly be special when Linda saw the charming town of Split, Croatia, or Fife, Scotland. Croatia’s amiable culture and food would appeal to her a lot. For example, Peka, which is food “cooked under a lid,” is very soft and delicious, which Linda can enjoy. I told her it would be amazing to finish her bucket list in these towns where her ancestors were raised.  The determination to do this as a dedication to her family was driven by love for the people she was surrounded by. During the time I spent with her, I felt that love and care too. She always made sure I was right behind her, that I was eating enough, that I was not cold, and not hot. I wanted to be able to support someone I care about, just like Linda.

My relationship with Linda was accidental, formed because of unfortunate circumstances, however, we turned it into something beautiful. We strolled around the airport, as she protected me, a 15-year-old girl, from “the vast airport full of crazy people,” according to Linda herself. I returned this favor by helping Linda find her flight. Linda’s gate and terminal changed four times over the course of a couple of hours. I was able to cross-reference many sources and deduce the right one at the end. On the AirTrain, for the third time that day, Linda said, 

“Thank you so much, baby, you really saved me.” 

I told her, “Bye,” because I could not think of how to condense everything I wanted to say to her, how I admired her, into a few seconds. She later texted me saying, 

“I’m on the plane. Got at the gate four minutes to boarding.  Thank you, Angel. You picked up the pieces when I started getting tired. You’re one heck of a 15 year old.” She told me she considered me one of her grandchildren now. 

The impact a couple of hours could have on a bond between two people is very interesting, especially because we were raised in different time periods. My friendship with Linda in the end taught me to make the most of my life, to ask questions and to try something new. It also put into a new light how age does not hinder one’s attitude, so you should always keep a smile on your face.

Poetry by Emily Rose

it’s not christmas anymore

her bruised lips are stained with sickly sweet pomegranate wine
her hollow eyes drunk with power (and with pain)
the moonlight beams into the darkness through wooden blinds
casting shadows on long-forgotten coffee cups and takeout boxes
and half-full glass bottles (but those are not forgotten)
stacks of books are crammed in every corner and scribbled notes litter the floor
the faded colored lights draped on the walls have been there for months
serving as a reminder of what once was (and what will one day be)
not a word (and barely a breath) passes her chapped red lips
after all if she doesn’t say it, it cannot be true
repeat it together now: it cannot be true, it cannot be true, it cannot be true
but she knows you cannot erase what has already been done
the truth is written in the cracks of her broken heart and in the lines on her face
(even in in the gap between her teeth)
the bitter cold of late february seeps through the cracks in the windows and doors
hollowing her bones, leaving endless space for memories to fill
as her brittle breath fogs the air, tasting of fruit and regret (with a hint of hopelessness)

make it until morning

i swore off of praying when You left.
never again i promised.
why would i pray to Him him
when He he doesn’t even listen to me anyways?
after all, why would i pray
to a God god who would take You away?

back when You were in the hospital,
i prayed every day,
like You always used to.
by the big window
in Your empty room,
in our empty house,
in this empty apartment building.

in the morning, when i woke up,
i prayed for the heat to stay on;
when You left i could no longer afford it.
before dinner,
i prayed for the flowers You grew
outside on our patio
to survive the cold,
to survive the winter,
to survive Your absence;
when You left they began to wilt.
and before i went to sleep,
i prayed for You to
make it until morning.

but now
i wear two pairs of socks each day
and my tattered coat inside the house,
yet somehow i am still cold.
now all of Your flowers have died;
whatever scraps of You
which were planted on that patio
have been buried under a bed of snow.

Hello, what is your wish?

Come inside,
it is getting cold.
Take off your shoes,
I don’t like a mess.
Please stay.
was the wait long?
It was to me.
But I am lonely.
are you?

breath on a dandelion Exhaled.
wishes in the wind Whispered.
coins in a fountain Tossed.

my wishes Drowned in 1994
have you made yours?
regret is unnecessary
as is hope

the best time to do things? why would i know?

all i know is pink sand stuck between toes
and sticky, blackberry-stained fingers
and ‘get in, the water’s warm’

    the most important one? who am i to tell you?

all i know is the tide’s pull, back and forth
and salty film on cool skin
and the sound of crickets chirping

the right thing to do? what do you think?

all i know is floating under a warm Virginia sky
with the clouds above me
and nothing below

Anxiety 

Tendrils of my gray fingers twist and crawl 

Infiltrate the chinks in your armor 

Coil and squeeze around your mind

I will exploit you from within 

I afflict cold chills, sweaty palms upon you: eerie instruments of my success 

Vivid scenarios of doom; One wrong move will spiral into ruin

Bypass coherent thought with omnipresent hysteria

I tip the fragile scale of your sanity 

Replace confidence with bleak doubt 

My whisperings of panic have unbraided you

The despair leads to surrender of the treasure like no other

The hidden door to your subconscious 

Leaving me alone at the control panel; I’ve changed the password, your entry is denied 

The Brief But Extraordinary Life of Stevie Dreger

Trigger warning: suicide

Stevie Dreger was the first friend I ever lost. He was also the last person in the world I would have expected to kill himself. But regardless of any previous premonitions anyone held to him, on that beautiful August day he still walked himself and his beat-up red chucks onto the bridge that connects Shelburne and Buckland and returned himself to the earth.  Stevie used to tell me that he didn’t belong to anyone. He told me that one day 16 years ago, the various elements of the earth came together to form one imperfect being: himself. He never explained why; he just knew. 

Stevie left notes before he died. He left notes to everyone in his life that he loved, or rather, everyone in his life that would want an explanation. He left notes for everyone he knew would be unsatisfied with simplicity. The simple fact that he was done with living. Not because he was depressed or angry at what the world had or had not handed to him, but because he had done everything he had wanted to do. For years after the fact, I was angry at him for that, but I knew the real reason I was mad at him. The most selfless person I had ever known had gone and done the most selfish thing anyone can do: deprive you of their presence. If the dead can be selfish, maybe they are more alive than we think they are. My anger made him real; more than a pile of dust secure in an ugly vase.

For me, Stevie left a checklist. A wrinkled piece of a legal pad, with five items listed on it. I spent night after night trying to decipher what it meant until I came to a conclusion. They were the five things Stevie wanted to do with his life. By each item was a check mark, written in thick black ink. 

There were bystanders on the bridge the day Stevie died. A couple in a blue sedan pulled over as he swung a leg over the railing of the bridge. They said later that as he saw them sprinting in his direction he flashed his crooked smile and waved as he dove into the water, releasing a breath. 

Along with the notes, Stevie left a very detailed description of exactly what his funeral would look like. He wrote that under no circumstances whatsoever was anyone to wear black. He also described how he would like his coffin to be brought down the aisle, with a rendition of Prince’s “Purple Rain” playing in the background. We used to listen to “Purple Rain” on repeat after school sometimes. We would be in Stevie’s room, surrounded by posters of Bowie and Mick Jagger, reading or procrastinating on our homework. After a while of listening to it over and over again, Stevie declared it his favorite song of all time. He had determined that no matter how many times he listened to it, his ears were never bored.

And so there I sat, in my mid-length yellow frock and white sandals, in the chapel of the Immaculate Conception Church, watching the pallbearers in their sky blue suits carry half of my heart in a box down the aisle, tears soaking my handkerchief. I half expected him to open the casket, jump out, and have a laugh. 

Stevie was a Catholic, and a devoted one.  He didn’t believe in the religious aspect of it, the “God crap” as he so eloquently put it, but still, every Sunday there he was, his blonde curls pushed back, his tie loose on his neck, staring ever so intensely at the priest as he gave his sermon. I asked him once why he went if he didn’t believe any of it. We were lying in a field of dandelions, lying in the opposite directions of each other so our faces were side by side. He didn’t respond to the question at first. Instead, he picked a dandelion, uprooted it from the earth, and pushed my hair behind my ear. He wrapped the stem of the flower around the back of my ear so the pretty part would stick out from my hair. He turned his head and grinned as he told me he went because he loved to observe. Watching hundreds of people give up their time to worship something that he didn’t even believe existed was fascinating to him. He liked all of the old ladies sitting in the pews who always turned around to shake his hand. He liked that they always asked how he was doing, how his mother was and if he had a girlfriend. 

I remember after the memorial service my family piled into our beat up white station wagon and drove over to the Dregers. Their brownstone stood at the end of Aster Street, three down from ours. The house looked like it had lost color; the already dull brown bricks looked sadder somehow. I remember their entire living room was crowded, not with family or loved ones, but with lillies. I remember the smell and how it smacked me in the face when I entered the foyer. I had to squeeze onto the couch between Stevie’s little sister and an assortment of colored lilies, each with their own crinkly plastic wrapping and obnoxious ribbon. They were ugly. Plain and ugly. And Stevie was none of those things. 

A few months after Stevie died, I went to visit him at the Delphinium St. Cemetery. His headstone had just been finished, a pile of fresh soil surrounded it. Engraved on the stone was his full name: Steven George Dreger, beloved son, brother, and friend. Words that did not hold a candle to all that he was. It was December, and in classic New England fashion, snow piled up everywhere. Stevie’s mother had made sure that his headstone was untouched by anything that could damage it; I had heard from Ms. Richards down the street that his mother had visited the cemetery every evening since the day of his funeral. I brushed the freshly fallen snow off the top of the stone and sat. The snow soaked through my corduroys but I didn’t care. 

Surrounding his stone were the putrid lilies that had been at his funeral. I turned my head to avoid the smell. Blended with the lillies was baby’s breath, a somewhat mediocre flower. The arrangement was less than beautiful, so I unwrapped the plastic and rearranged the flowers in a more suitable manner. Still, the bouquet was not perfect. I tried again. And again. At last, I gave up and left the flowers in a pile, the plastic wrapping crinkling in the wind. I stomped out of the cemetery in a fury, unsatisfied with the flowers, unsatisfied with their state of ugliness. Disgruntled, I stormed over to the florist, Mr. Beau, to demand that he make something better. Although Mr. Beau had nothing to do with my dislike of lilies and their putridity, off I went.

Freshman year of high school, Stevie and I went out for a while – only for about a month or so, and it didn’t work out the way we thought it would. Stevie’s stubbornness to reveal anything about his emotions led to our eventual breakup. Or maybe it had been my lack of, well, desire to be in a relationship with anyone. The true cause of our romantic downfall was never found, because two weeks later, his father was in the ICU for a heart attack. Every hole we had stabbed in the very fabric of our relationship was patched. I had been sitting in the lobby of the ICU, Stevie asleep on my shoulder, for three hours before the doctor came out to give us the news. His father was stable, or as stable as can be after a heart attack. Stevie collapsed on the floor in sobs of relief. That was the first time I ever saw him cry. 

Mr. Beau called me on New Year’s Eve.  I was watching Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve 1985 regardless of how much pain it caused me; Stevie used to love to watch the ball drop. Mr. Beau had called to offer me a job at the flower shop after I had given him a lecture on the importance of flower fragrance. He figured that he would rather have a motivated employee than a disgruntled customer. I started work there in the New Year, after winter break. The store was always humid because we had to keep the flowers warm in the winter. Nobody wants a dead flower. 

After Stevie’s father’s heart attack, our relationship went almost back to normal. We still hung out after school every day, had dinner at each other’s houses and whatnot, but I don’t think Stevie ever looked at me the same way. Sometimes I would catch him staring in my direction, his head tilted to the side, his blonde curls falling across his face. “What?” I would say. “Is there something on my face?”. He would look at me in a way words cannot describe and shake his head. 

By March, the flower shop had doubled its profits. Mr. Beau was so satisfied with my work that he gave me a 20% pay raise. I could anticipate the needs of every single person that entered the shop just with one look. A young woman in her mid-twenties with freshly manicured nails: a bride in need of a bulk order of roses. A small boy with a collared shirt and blue jeans, hair parted to the side: flowers for his grandmother. A middle aged fat man with a receding hairline: a late present for an anniversary forgotten. I would obsess over the orders, picturing the event in my head and letting my hands do the rest of the work. I watched each of the people walk out of the store, taking in the bouquet I had presented them with, feeling like I had done good work. But I also felt unfulfilled, like there was something missing. Like those people walked out with a bit of me. The bouquets were good, but not good enough – for me, or maybe for Stevie. 

I started working overtime in the shop when school ended in May. I had the summer off before college, no internships or extra work that had to be done. I found myself on the stool for hours at a time, forming bouquets for nobody in particular. Customers were rare in the summer, as most people were off at the Cape for the season. While Mr. Beau was on vacation, I moved the lily stand to the back of the store. I couldn’t bear the smell. The days stretched into nights as I put together a million combinations of flowers together. I hadn’t brought any of my flowers to Stevie, it never seemed right. 

The obsession grew into something bigger as the summer drew on. I placed orders for more varieties of flowers we could buy for the shop, more combinations that were beautiful, but not Stevie’s beautiful. It reached a point at which I was using so many flowers and wasting them on unsellable bouquets, that Mr. Beau had no choice but to fire me. I was completely devastated, I couldn’t sleep for days, images of multicolored daisies and violets floated in front of me. I felt incomplete.

The day before Stevie died, he called me. He wanted to know if I liked Italian Wedding Soup. I told him I had never tried it before, so three minutes later, there he was, outside my door holding a container of his mother’s homemade Italian Wedding Soup. I poured myself a serving and sat down with him in the breakfast nook. The sun reflecting off of his golden locks was almost blinding. He squinted his eyes intensely as I took a sip. It was delicious. I smiled at him and told him that it was the best soup I had ever had the pleasure of tasting. He nodded in satisfaction and told me that this was the last piece of information that he would ever need to know about me. I never understood the gravity of those words until he was gone. 

Stevie never got his perfect bouquet. It was never going to be right. Everything beautiful about Stevie had died with him. But I forgave myself for what I had done. Maybe if I had been a little uglier, or if my hair had been shorter, or if my nose scrunched up at an odd angle when I was thinking, maybe then he wouldn’t have fallen in love with me and maybe then I wouldn’t have been the last task on his list. Because stuffed in the back drawer of my bedroom on Aster Street are the words that completed the short but vivacious life of Stevie Dreger. Stevie used to say that he didn’t belong to anyone, and maybe he didn’t, but as sure as the blue of the sky and the swiftness of the wind moving through the trees, I belonged to him. 

Dear Little Ladybug

Editor’s Note: Content warning — Suicide

***

Dear little ladybug, 

By the time you read this, I will be gone. I didn’t mean to leave you. I love you, but I won’t be coming back.

Sincerely,

Friend 

Laura

Friend was always going to go this way. I mean, if she was going to go at all. At least she had left a note. She probably wasn’t going to leave one, but then maybe she thought of me, and maybe that tempted her to write one more thing.

But not suicide? When I found this note taped to my window as I woke up this morning, I thought the worst had happened. I mean, as soon as I had read it, I ran the ten blocks down to her house as fast as my legs would carry me. My short curls flew behind me, and I nearly fell on my face running up the four crooked steps to her door. I had run up those steps my whole life, and I’m sure I have tripped over those rotting boards countless times. But this time, it felt like it wasn’t me. Like I was out of my own body. Almost like I was watching a stranger run up the steps to her friend’s house, just to find that she had killed herself.

Robson came to the door, as usual. He appeared in his normal disheveled state. His hair was in its state of permanent messiness and his tank top was untucked from his dirty jeans. He probably had just woken up. I knew I hadn’t woken him up, because if I had by knocking on the door, he sure as hell wouldn’t have gotten out of bed for that. But he would have recognized by now how I knocked on the door, and he usually didn’t answer the door for anyone else other than me and Friend.

He took a drag on his cigarette and blew the smoke in my face. Ugh. I didn’t check the time before I ran out of the house, but I knew it was too early in the morning to be smoking that shit. 

“What are you wearing?” he asked, as he looked me up and down with an expression of amusement on his face. 

I must have been a sight. I wanted to get over to Friend’s house as soon as I could, so I didn’t even change. I was still wearing my feathery nightdress, and I had squashed my feet into my rain boots that were lying next to my bed on the floor. I was wearing an old jacket that had actually been Robson’s at one point, but eventually wound up with me when Friend didn’t want it anymore. 

“Is Tuesday awake?” I asked impatiently. 

“You know she wakes up at the crack of dawn. That little shit made such a racket going out the back I’m surprised it didn’t wake you up.” 

That’s when I realized how she had left. She didn’t want anyone to know, so she didn’t do anything out of the ordinary. It was probably just our secret. Friend and I had a lot of secrets that were just for us, and I knew when Friend wanted to have a secret kept. Didn’t mean I ever knew why, though. 

“Sorry, umm,” I fumbled, trying to come up with a lie. The thoughts and questions swirling around in my head weren’t letting any coherent sentences come out of my mouth. “I just wanted to give this back to her.” I took off my jacket and handed it to him. 

“I haven’t seen this thing in a while,” he said almost wistfully. “Why are you giving it back?” 

“I just thought she might want it.” My little lie was coming apart. 

“What’s actually happening, bug?” he tilted his head and looked at me. Not too many people called me “bug.” He was one of the few. As far as he was concerned, that was my actual name. I mean, he knew my given name. But he never used it. 

“Just take the jacket.”

He rolled his eyes, took a drag from his cigarette, and closed the door. I shakily sat down on the steps, even though they were still wet from last night’s rain. Where did she go? My mind continued spinning. She didn’t tell anyone, she just left. We had both gone through our fair share in life, but what in her finally snapped? What made her go? But I knew one thing. Tuesday Adelson didn’t kill herself. She couldn’t have.  

***

I walked back up the street to my house, slowly. Stepping in all the puddles I saw. It had started to rain lightly, wetting my face and hair. The early morning sunshine cast its light onto my bare, freckled arms. It was raining, but it wasn’t overcast. That was my favorite weather. Sun showers. No one was outside yet except for one or two cars driving down the street.

I tried to clear my mind, but how could I? How could I calm my thoughts when every spot on those streets had times spent with Friend? Times spent with Tuesday. Now that she was gone, all the memories of her were flooding my head all at once. I mean, it would have been one thing for me to have just found out that she had left. Robson probably would have come to tell me or asked me if I knew where she was. But it was just that she left a note. She confirmed it herself that she wouldn’t come back. And I was the only one who knew. It hurt a little more this way. A lot of things had hurt both of us, and it was all good and well for her to run away from it. But then she left me with it. Damn her.

I stopped walking and looked down at the small handprints on the sidewalk. This was where I first met Friend. I walked by these handprints every day, but I never stopped to think about the past. To go back in time. It was raining harder now, but I still sat down on the wet sidewalk in front of the hollow hand prints. My hands were so much bigger than those prints were. I couldn’t remember life before Tuesday, but I remembered the day I met her so vividly. 

I think I must have been four or five. It was raining just like it was now. The sun was out, but it was pouring. I remember running out the back door of my house. This part is a bit more hazy, almost like a dream. I mean, you would probably think you were dreaming if you found your older sister hanging in the basement. I didn’t know what was happening — I was only four, after all. I just remember being scared. And running out into the crying sun. I hid behind a big tree where I sat for hours in the rain. I didn’t cry. I just watched the little ladybugs march along in the wet grass. They didn’t care about the rain. They were just enjoying the golden glow before the sun was going to set. I was sitting there for so long. They must have thought I was a part of the grass and the trees and the flowers littered around my feet. If I had stayed there forever, flowers might start to grow and blossom up through my skin. And the grass would grow up, entangling with my arms and legs, rooting me to the ground. And I would have remained a little girl, frozen in time and in the earth. I may have stayed there forever.

If it weren’t for Tuesday. I remember hearing yelling coming from a block or two down. And then I saw her. She was spinning around in the middle of the road with flowers and grass tangled in her hair. But she kept looking back over her shoulder at where the yelling was coming from. Almost like she was trying to ignore it or hide from it somehow. She kept getting closer and closer to me, when all of a sudden, she tripped and fell on the grass. I watched as she slowly picked herself up and looked at her hands. I finally decided to pipe up. 

“Are you okay?” I asked in my timid voice. 

She jumped at the sound of my voice. I think I had startled her. But she took a moment to carefully look at me. 

“Why are you hiding?” 

I didn’t really fully realize I was hiding until she asked me that. I didn’t know how to answer that question, so I just shrugged my shoulders. She looked at me a little longer, so I looked at her. I remember first noticing her golden hair glowing in the light and her hazel green eyes that have not aged with time, even today. You can still see a child’s soul in those green eyes now. Then I remember she reached out her hand, the hand that was scraped and bloody from her fall. I took it, and she pulled me out of the shadow of the tree. I still had ladybugs crawling on my arms, and by now the rain had stopped, but I was still soaked to the skin. 

“Little, little ladybugs,” Tuesday started singing lightly to herself. “Little lady…” 

She sort of trailed off there. She was in a daze. Being four, I didn’t really think there was anything unusual about her behavior. Kids were supposed to play and act like they’re in a dream. I couldn’t believe I even remembered this much about meeting Tuesday, but the whole memory still felt like a hazy dream anyway. We sat there for a little while in silence, just being in each other’s company. Watching her golden hair, watching the ladybugs on my hands, seeing the scrapes on hers, watching the sun sink further into the sky. The day my sister killed herself was beautiful. Maybe that’s why it felt like a dream. Eventually Tuesday broke the silence. 

“Come with me.” 

She stood up and walked over to the sidewalk and sat down on the edge of the grass. I stood up, feeling the ladybugs fly off me when I stood. I sat down next to her and looked at her, waiting for her to say something, which she eventually did. 

“If you put your hands on the sidewalk, they’ll stay there forever.” 

The sidewalk in front of us had just been filled in. The cement was still wet. I remember putting our small, little hands out on the sun-kissed sidewalk. The wet cement felt weird, but we just sat there together. Sitting in silence as we made our mark on our block. The blood on her little hands mixed with the wet cement. We would never stop to look at those handprints. But they were always there. I don’t remember much of anything else about that day or the days after. I don’t remember the funeral; I don’t remember my mom’s endless tears; I don’t remember meeting my dad at that funeral; I don’t remember when my grandmother sank into her own grief. I know it all happened. I just simply don’t remember. All I remember is walking back into the house, shaking from the cold of the rain. I remember my mom wrapping her arms around my little body and crying into me, as if she were a child. I just remember saying in my little baby voice, “I found a friend.” 

And now where is she? How will I find her again? 

Tender

Editor’s note: This is a wonderfully creepy horror story that may be disturbing to younger readers.

As Jac swung open the heavy front door, an aroma of blood and flesh seized his unprepared nostrils. He slightly winced but he knew the smell was promising. The more rural the town, the better the meat, he decided. Fresh meat from the outskirts of Wales.

Jac examined the place. Before him, there was a counter display case with bright lights shining on glistening meat behind glass. The shelves weren’t full, but the slabs were large, damp like morning dew and appetizing even in its raw state. A small radio sat atop the glass counter that played Christmas Welsh opera from barley caught radio signals. The place looked to be aging with uneven and beaten tiled flooring but it “had character” like the barber shop your father has been to for the past four decades. Jac’s eyes met a hunk of a man that stood behind the counter. He had broad shoulders and a wide torso with rolls of fat you could see through his apron that was stained from the aftermath of which needs no explanation. He had a roughly shaved beard with slits from his razor littered across his neck and cheeks. He had droopy ears that had heard decades worth of squeals and wide eyes that had seen a lifetime’s worth of struggles and intestines. However, he wore a small smile when his eyes meant Jac’s. 

“Dine in or take out?” he said. 

“Dine in,” replied Jac. 

The butcher laid out his hand pointing to a high stool in front of the glass case. Jac awkwardly walked over and sat on the stool. His weight slightly pushed down the seat, making the already giant butcher tower over him even more. Next to the glass case, the smell of flesh and blood was stronger. Jac shuddered as he wondered what smelling the intense smell of fresh meat all day would do to someone.

“We only have pork today,” said the Butcher with a voice as cold as a pond in December.

“Fine by me,” said Jac. 

“Five and a half pound sterling for a cut.”

“Alright.”

Jac reached into his winter coat pocket, took out the money, and placed it onto the awaiting leathery hands that laid before him. The butcher then placed it into his apron pocket, looked down, and took out a butcher knife, and a large slab of meat from the glass case. He put it onto a cutting board and cut. The knife slid through the slab so effortlessly like a scissor slicing tissue paper or a needle piercing skin. Jac began to grin. Welsh pork was a must-have, of course, every Welsh man or woman knew that. Oh, so flavorful and covered in fat too, not too little and not too much. 

The butcher laid the large slice of meat onto the grill behind the counter. It sizzled loudly even without oil and overpowered the opera playing from the radio. Jac felt his tongue roll around his wet mouth, his twitching eyes fixed upon the browning meat.

A minute or two went by which, to Jac, felt like thirty seconds. The butcher took out an old porcelain plate and placed the meat onto it, pulling the plate across the counter toward the eagerly awaiting customer.

“Thank you,” said Jac as he immediately dug into the meat.  

He stuffed a big portion into his mouth and began to chew. It wasn’t tender but it didn’t matter. Each time Jac took a bite, a flood of juices filled his mouth. It tasted as fresh as it gets, a little under done if anything.

“Do you like it?” asked the butcher.

“I — It’s great. Really great,” said Jac through a mouth as stuffed as a goose inflated with apple stuffing.

“Fresh is the key really.”

“I’m sure.”

The butcher turned off the radio. An uncomfortable silence filled the shop interrupted only by Jac’s loud and childish chewing noises.

“Fine pork is best in silence,” said the butcher.

“Agreed,” said Jac as he swallowed.

“Say, do you know about vegans?”

“Sure.”

“Few in the Welsh countryside but still existent. No harm in it. I just think it’s wrong.”

“Yep,”  said Jac, a bit confused about the sudden change in conversation.

“It really is quite silly. I’m telling you from life experience that cows and pigs are stupid. Incompetent organisms really. Can’t tell night from day, and even if the animals were a bit smarter, they’re providing me a business right?”

“Right.”

“Of course. We’ve been eating animals for as long as we’ve existed. Some people just don’t see the greater good in things. Sure, it’s the death of an organism, but hell, it’s keeping me alive. What’s a few lives if it keeps business aflowing?”

“Right.”

“The only animal I can second guess about killing is monkeys. Chimps. Some attributes of the chimp are smarter than some attributes of the human.”

“Like what?”

“Well, I think it’s the ability to lose empathy when needed for survival. Many humans lack that and it makes the chimp in some ways better at surviving than the human.”

“Hmm.”

“How bout this, a chimp’s diet is mostly based on fruit and insects. Chimps go out of their way to get the fruit and the insects,” said the butcher as his voice started to grow playful. “But, let’s say that there’s a sudden decrease in insects. Let’s say that the fruit that their diet is based on starts growing elsewhere. The chimp realizes the only source of food that could keep himself alive is his fellow chimp. What do you think he should do?”

“E-eat the… chimp?” said Jac with an empty mouth.

“Exactly. Eat the chimp. The chimpanzee does not think twice about eating one of his kind when needed. He knows that one in the end will survive and that one will be him. With empathy, the chimp will die, but without it, the chimp will thrive. How about another example?”

“I — I… I don’t… ” said Jac as he laid down his fork.

The butcher leaned towards him.

“Let’s say there’s a man in the meat business. He’s known around the neighborhood but the winter months come and business comes to a sudden halt. He’s not making enough money to afford the number of cows and pigs that he needs.” 

 Jac wanted to get up and dash out of the shop, but his muscles couldn’t move, like he was tightly stitched to his seat.

“Then the man realizes,” said the butcher as his eyes widened and a twisted smile grew across his face, “that the perfect solution has been sitting right across from him all along.”

In a swift motion his arms reached out to Jac’s neck and squeezed. He grabbed the rusted butcher knife and Jac realized why the meat wasn’t tender. 

My Deep, Dark Secret

RANDY

Stella, I have a secret. Now don’t freak out, but you need to listen to me. I…
(Beat; sighs.) 

I’m not exactly human. I know, I know it’s a shock, but I’m a penguin. 

He turns around 180. When he faces the audience, he’s wearing a beak.

RANDY (CONT’D)

Yeah, wenk, this is my true form. Please don’t be mad, Stella, this took a lot of courage to tell you, wenk.

RANDY waddles to a stool on the stage.

RANDY (CONT’D)

I don’t have a limp, Stella, I just am a penguin, I have little penguin toes. I have to get special shoes made, wenk wenk. Why do you think I exclusively eat fish? Why do you think I cry every time we go to the penguin exhibit at the zoo? Why do you think I refuse to see the seals? Stella, baby, I’m the same man! I’m just not exactly the same species, wenk. Why? Why? Stella, the reason anyone does crazy things, for love, wenk! For love. I still love you, Stella. 

(Lowers his voice; breath shaking.)

 I still love you.

(He lets out a little penguin cry.)

RANDY (CONT’D)

(At a whisper.)

Wenk.

BLACKOUT

Thank You, 1844!

I’ve been swimming competitively for eight years, but I’m not here to tell you about a whole eight years worth of swimming. I am here to tell you that swimming and other sports have an enormous impact on athletes who struggle with mental health. I want to spread awareness about this by sharing my story.

At the age of eight, I began to consider myself a swimmer, but I had been swimming since a day in 2008 when I was two and a half years old. On that day, I remember the sky was cloudy, and the water was cold. My uncle had taken me to the local pool in Hopkinton, Massachusetts. Filled with so much excitement, I quickly ran to the bench, threw down my towel, and jumped into the pool. I didn’t officially know how to swim yet, but I kept trying to stay afloat, kicking my legs as hard as possible. I slowly tried to get from one end of the pool to the other. Watching from the deck, my uncle had a slight look of glee in his eyes as his toddler niece tried to swim across a 25-yard pool. 

Three years later, my mother put me in swim lessons at my local YMCA. I was already able to swim across the pool. The instructors placed me in the group level called the Minnows. But surprisingly, swimming twice a week for one hour was not the highlight of my week. I dreaded going, and I was more enthusiastic about gymnastics and basketball practice than swimming. I was more interested in playing in the pool than working on my technique. Also, I was not challenged in my group — some of the children still needed floaties or the instructor’s help. As a result, I did not want to be there, and I felt restricted rather than free in the water. 

I graduated from the Minnows group as a five-year-old and tried out for the YMCA swim team. Though I did well, my age got me an automatic rejection. I moved up to the Flying Fish group and swam in the meantime, waiting for the next tryout date. I was six years old and ready to be a part of something bigger. I was still doing gymnastics too, but it did not feel the same as swimming. Trying out was pretty easy, as all we had to do was swim 25 yards and do a couple of starts on the diving board. Making the swim team felt so great, and I started to reminisce about the joy of being in the water. 

Swimming had become my outlet. Although I was just eight years old, I was expected to be more independent than most kids my age. I had to take car service to practice because my parents were not very involved as they worked very stressful jobs and had to commute. I would be home alone from when I got back from school until 9:00 at night and would often have to eat dinner by myself. Though my dad would work from home when he was not traveling, he also suffered from mental health issues and went into dark moments. That was a lot to handle, but the feeling of being with my teammates and going to practice was my way to clear my head. Even today, I use swimming to clear my head when I am going through something. Thank you, 1844! 

To clarify, I thank the year since, according to the Washington Post, this is the year that  Europeans started taking swimming seriously as a sport instead of just relying on breaststroke. Swimming has made such significant improvements as a sport. Before 1844, swimming was considered an “un-European sport.” But fast forward to 2012, and six-year-old me was playing a sport in which the British have 71 medals. 

Many advancements have been made over the years, and now the four main strokes are Butterfly, Backstroke, Breaststroke, and Freestyle. Backstroke, with its perpetual movement of the arms, always reminds me of how fast-paced my life is, and I enjoy being fast. Swimming has done so much for me as a sport, providing a mental and physical release, like a starting beep. The aerodynamics of gliding and moving in the water provided an adrenaline rush. 

My first swim team practice gave me chills; I felt like it was destined from birth. My parents named me Le’har, which means waves, so it felt like they knew from the beginning too. Press the fast-forward button once more to the present day — the 2021 summer Olympics, where athletes have conversations about sports and mental health like they never have before. And it’s only the start.

The starter has always been one of my favorite parts of swimming. It is one of the most critical jobs in a swim meet. An official standing on the side of the pool near the flags, holding a little microphone walkie-talkie, says, “Swimmers, step up!” and then presses the button. The starter is a part of swimming that represents the two-way street of anxiety and freedom. There is so much tension until you are on the “block.” But once you hear the buzzer sound, it gives you a sense of release. Hitting the water, doing your breakout, taking the first breath is all a part of the thrill and excitement of swimming. Kaplow! The race begins.

He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Excused

Many Harry Potter readers don’t question Lord Voldemort’s actions. They just accept the fact that he is evil and kills at least 20 people, if not hundreds more, and move on. However, I believe that there is always an excuse, or at least a reason, behind everything — even the actions of an evil wizard. That’s why I want to delve into Lord Voldemort’s crimes and why he commits them. Although Lord Voldemort’s actions are wrong, he has reasons for them. Some of them could be valid, others might just be interesting to explore.

The first reason is that Lord Voldemort is traumatized and twisted by his parents and circumstances in his early life. Even in the orphanage he grows up in, he already expresses some odd behavior, as you can see from observations he makes in the sixth book of the series, saying, “I can make things move without touching them. I can make animals do what I want them to do, without training them. I can make bad things happen to people who annoy me. I can make them hurt if I want to.” (The last two sentences are especially alarming.) Secondly, his lack of a conscience makes it easier for Voldemort to consider killing in service of his goal of immortality. The extent of his crimes and murders demonstrates a profound lack of compassion. This is worth considering, since insane people are also not held accountable for their decisions, and I posit that his lack of compassion is evidence of insanity. And third, he galvanizes the wizarding world to fight for everyone’s safety, including muggles and half-bloods. Although this is a reason that can be explored, I would not say it justifies Voldemort’s actions. Sure, those communities get their acts together, but it isn’t worth all the deaths that Voldemort causes. So let’s get exploring.

Lord Voldemort starts off life in an orphanage after his mother dies in childbirth. This is because his father has abandoned him and his mother, even after realizing that she has been pregnant. This may have been his mother’s fault as well, however, because she has used a love potion to make Voldemort’s father love her. Eventually, she can’t deceive him anymore and lets it wear off, and when he comes to his senses, he leaves. She can’t live on without Tom Riddle and dies. Virginia Zimmerman, a scholar at Bucknell University, writes in her article “Harry Potter and the Gift of Time” that “[both] Harry and Voldemort suffered from the loss of parents at a very young age. For Harry, though, his mother died to save his life; for Voldemort, his mother died because she could not live without Tom Riddle” (qtd. in Emily Anderson). Although Harry and Voldemort have similar situations at the beginning of their lives, Harry’s mother cares for her family, as opposed to Voldemort’s mother, who only seems to care about her husband. This small difference may have led to Lord Voldemort becoming evil instead of good as well as leading him to resent his parents. Once Lord Voldemort is old enough to understand what has happened, his hatred towards muggles (non-magical humans) and half-bloods (half-wizard, half-non-magical humans) grows. In the second book of the series, Voldemort says, “Surely you didn’t think I was going to keep my filthy Muggle father’s name? No. I fashioned myself a new name, a name I knew wizards everywhere would one day fear to speak, when I became the greatest sorcerer in the world!”

 After learning about his past, Voldemort later goes on to kill his father and his father’s family. This sounds brutal, but as I said, Voldemort doesn’t have that much of a conscience. He kills easily, which shows just how messed up he truly is. He goes on to kill more people in order to obtain Horcruxes, which allows him to split his soul and store it safely in objects in order to become immortal. In order to further understand Voldemort, I tried to recreate the story of how Voldemort’s first Horcrux is created. His first Horcrux is a plain, dark diary. It looks old, but it feels smooth and worn. It smells musty and dusty. Lord Voldemort, who is still Tom Riddle at the time, buys it from a Muggle store. I doubt there is much that is significant about Lord Voldemort obtaining the diary at the time — its importance comes later. In Lord Voldemort’s fifth year at Hogwarts, he manages to open the Chamber of Secrets, which is a secret chamber created by Salazar Slytherin, one of the founders of Hogwarts. A basilisk lives inside of it, a deadly monster that can turn people to stone with its gaze. He uses it to attack several students, including a girl who is always crying in the bathroom. After using it to kill her, he embeds part of his soul in the diary, making it into a Horcrux. Voldemort’s personality is expressed through the cruelty in which he kills in order to get his first Horcrux. However, if there had been another way for him to achieve immortality, he would have chased it that way instead. He wants immortality, and he is going to do anything he has to in order to achieve it. In the first book of the series, Voldemort says, “There is no good and evil, there is only power and those too weak to seek it.” In the very first book, Voldemort already shows that he believes that he is not evil, but the most powerful person alive and deserving of immortality. He is blinded by his goal and does not care for anyone. He uses anyone he could to get what he wants. Something else that could contribute to this worldview is the fact that killing in the wizarding world is so easy. All you have to do is mutter two words and a person would instantly die. Because of this, it is a lot easier to be detached when killing someone. It wouldn’t feel as personal as stabbing someone or something. Honestly, I don’t know if it makes a difference (I myself have never killed someone) but it’s a thought. Of course, killing is wrong, but Lord Voldemort doesn’t see it that way. In sum, Lord Voldemort isn’t killing these people because he wants to — he is killing them because they are in his way. He views people as obstacles rather than individuals.

The resurgence of Lord Voldemort may have been unfortunate, but one way it is actually advantageous is because it allows the wizarding world to come together in order to fight him. The incumbent Minister of Magic, Cornelius Fudge, is extremely incompetent. He is driven out of office because he fails to recognize that Voldemort has come back. He thinks that the announcement that Voldemort is back would hurt his career. As the fourth book says, “‘You are blinded,’ said Dumbledore, his voice rising now, the aura of power around him palpable, his eyes blazing once more, ‘by the love of the office you hold, Cornelius! You place too much importance, and you always have done, on the so-called purity of blood! You fail to recognize that it matters not what someone is born, but what they grow up to be!’” From this, we can gather that Dumbledore recognizes that Fudge is not making the right preparations and tries to tell him as much, but still Fudge refuses to do anything. Eventually, it is too late, and Cornelius is forced to resign after it is revealed that Lord Voldemort has returned. In the long run, I think this led to a better wizarding world because the next Minister of Magic is more competent. However, without Voldemort, the wizards will likely grow complacent and will not be ready if another threat appears. Lord Voldemort is the main threat for a while. Without him, the wizards would not realize smaller crimes are being committed. Eventually, the criminals behind these small crimes may grow bolder and commit larger transgressions, and there would be another large crisis. An example is the unscrupulous case of Rita Skeeter, a journalist who abuses her powers as an unregistered Animagus (an animal shape-shifter who abuses her ability to spy on private conversations). A whole industry of Rita Skeeters would indeed cause a large crisis.

Although Voldemort should not be forgiven for his actions, I think they can be understood. Voldemort is twisted even as a child, changed by his trauma, which is why he commits all these horrible crimes. He feels no remorse and thinks of every terrible crime he commits as a stepping stone towards immortality. In the end, he helps the wizarding world get their act together and makes them step up to stop him. Although his actions cannot be forgiven, we can at least understand the reasons behind them and the effects they have. I hope this essay was able to show Lord Voldemort’s actions and crimes from a different lens. Will you be able to forgive him? Nah. But maybe you can at least understand him.

Works Cited

Rowling, J.K. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Arthur A. Levine Books, 2005.

Zimmerman, Virginia. “Harry Potter and the Gift of Time.” Children’s Literature, vol. 37, 2009, p. 194-215. Project MUSE, doi:10.1353/chl.0.0814.

My Bright Blue Dreams

Editor’s Note: This story references self-harm and contains homophobic characters who use offensive slurs. 

Chapter One

Hello. I hate the word “hello.” I hate the word “shower.” I hate the word “cheese-stick.” I hate the word “hate” most of all. It puts a bitter taste in my mouth, and that’s why I hate it so much. Jeez, here I go again, thinking of a word that makes the sides of my mouth droop down even more. The teacher turns around to the class to see my scathing expression. 

He laughs. “Rain, does the scientific advancement of the printing press really make you want to burn the world down? I happen to think it is a very important part of history, and I would appreciate it if you give it some attention so you won’t have to go to summer school, despite the printing press’s pure and utter boringness.”

The nerds in the class laugh. I fake a little smile, but when he turns around again, I give such a goddamn dramatic eye roll at his goddamn obnoxious comment that my goddamn eyes hurt. I put my head down on the desk and wrap my arms around them like a little comforting burrito. Due to ordering a small instead of a large coffee this morning, I pass out until the bell rings, and I have to force myself up. 

I try not to meet the stares of people in the hallway because keeping eye contact is an extremely laborious process. Only when I get my life saving energy drink in 3rd period can I have the mental and physical motivation to cover myself with a plastic bag and suffocate the true person I am. To be the Rain that everyone loves to see. No one wants to be friends with a broken, sassy, gay boy. 

Chapter Two

Lunch comes around, and I am forced to sit with my friends and laugh and smile and wink at girls and act like a complete and utter jerk. You see, everyone wants to be me, everyone wants to have my friends, everyone wants to have my sense of humor, everyone wants to have my girlfriend, everyone wants to have my popularity. I wish I could give all of those things — except for the humor, of course — away. I wish it was as easy as giving someone a birthday present. But alas, I am known for not being a generous person, so maybe, just maybe, I keep these dreaded parts of myself because I like being able to taunt people about the things they don’t have. 

My friend, Brandon, snaps his fingers in front of my face. “Get out of your dumbass head, bro. Is it stormy in there, Rain?” he says, very amused by the extraordinarily idiotic pun that he made with my name.

Everyone at the table cracks up, and Brandon lightly shoves my head. They all go back to talking about who has the hottest girlfriend. You see, I never space out, I always listen — I can be in deep thought, but I will always hear what everyone else has to say. That’s the only way that I have been able to withstand these stupid conversations for so long. 

After my friends finish talking about girls, they move the conversation to one of my most dreaded topics: who can list the most reasons why Gregory is a f*g. The thing that perplexes me most is how I contribute the most to this conversation topic whenever it is brought up. With each fiery, disgusting word that comes out of my mouth, my throat burns more. And that burning of my throat travels down my body to my heart, my stomach, my legs, arms, feet, and everything else. When it travels everywhere, that’s when I act like the stupid jerk I am expected to be.

Chapter Three

Eventually, the school day ends, but I have to stay back in detention with Ms. Peder’s class because apparently drawing dicks on the whiteboard is “inappropriate.” I personally think it’s just gay. Either way, I drag myself to the classroom, but upon looking into the room, I stop dead in my tracks. In the back row of the seats are these blue, magnificently bright eyes shining though shiny, windswept hair that is dark as night, but an inviting kind of dark, a dark you want to explore. 

Ms. Peder clears her throat. “Rain, come in already, we don’t bite.” 

I reply with something smart and bitchy that I say purely out of instinct, but I don’t really realize what I say because all of my brain power is focused on not blushing and not staring at this boy. I hobble into the room and almost trip over a few desks until I find my favorite seat. This seat is right next to the window, and through that window you can look out into the pile of rubbish, overly enthusiastic lights, and broken but loyal people that come together to form what we like to call New York City in the 1980s. 

Looking out of this window distracts me from blushing and thinking about the guy right behind me. It’s kind of mesmerizing — the crowded landscape feels so small from the 5th floor, it makes me feel powerful. So I just sit there staring and craving to feel this power more intensely and craving to feel control at least over myself until the hour is over and I am free.

Chapter Four

As we get let out of the classroom, I feel a hand on my shoulder and turn around. I jump with surprise as I see those bright eyes again. He gives me a gentle smile.

“You never thought that you’d talk to one of us nobodys before, did you, Mr. Popular?” He says this in a very sly, unashamed but extremely cute and somehow flirtatious way.

No no no no. He’s got this all wrong, I don’t want this popularity, I don’t want any of this. I just want to escape. I really hope he can see that. I really hope he is joking. 

I mumble, “I — ”

“Save it.” And he smiles through one half of his mouth, winks, and walks away.

I stand there and stare as he leaves until I realize how dumb I look and how if anyone saw me gaping at this boy, my reputation would be ruined. But isn’t killing this reputation that I have what I want? Why am I so afraid of getting what I want? Maybe it’s because you can’t take back what you let out. The words of your truth will be permanently branded on your forehead for all to see.

Sometimes I wonder why I fear permanence when I practice the art of it, when all I want everlasting change, when I try all I can to secure something for the eternity of my existence. Hypocrites, aren’t we? Like writing on the bathroom wall, “Don’t write on the walls.” We fear becoming total hypocrites. But when we are what we fear, that’s when something even greater than permanence overtakes us. And that thing, that feared thing that we become, that dreaded thing is called being human.

It’s unavoidable.

Chapter Five

I head out of school, longing for something to clear my mind, not to erase it or change it, but just to clear enough space for happiness and satisfaction. So instead of doing what most people my age do, which is drugs, I lug my cans of spray paint with me in my backpack to the place that I always go to when I have this longing. You see, I bring spray paint with me most days at school because I never know when I am going to need to use them to distract me from my overflowing thoughts.

Chapter Six

I walk to the subway, past the guys sniffing cocaine on the stairs, past the turnstile, onto the platform. I press my back against the pillar on the platform based on habit so that no one can push me into the tracks in front of the train and smile as they watch my body get crushed. I don’t want to offer anyone that amusement.  

I get out of the train and drag myself up the steps. I walk and walk and walk and eventually stand below my destination, gazing up at it. I check behind me as I walk into the alleyway. Once I reach the end, I climb onto the dumpster and jump to reach the bottom rung of the fire escape. Upon hoisting myself up onto the fire escape, I start my exactly 284 step journey to the top. I climb up hearing the familiar and calming clank of my footsteps on the iron rungs. 

Eventually, at step 107, I get to the roof, but I don’t stop there like I used to when I was younger and afraid. So I run and leap from this roof onto the next. I live for the thrill of that jump, knowing that there is nothing under you but trusting that you will be safe. 

I use this momentum to jump onto the wall on a higher part of the building. From there I walk along the wall until I reach a ladder and from the top of that ladder, I carefully step onto the brick oasis I love more than my home. 

Underneath me is a pretty large brick floor and roof for whatever rats are living in the building. In front of me is a brightly lit, but not too obnoxiously bright, sign. The word “Pepsi” is spelled by these white cursive lights. Behind the sign is a brick wall about 12 feet high. On this wall is a mural that I have been creating for the past 3 years. Every week I come up here once to add patterns or images depicting what I wish myself to be, or what I wish the world to be. In my head I call it the dream mural — it’s what I dream to see if I were to kick that wall down and look out at the world. It is my own world, it is under my control, I can create anything I want and I can destroy anything.

If I turn around away from the sign, away from my dreams, I will see the city and its vastness. I will see the lights of buildings, cars, and the moon. It feels like standing at the edge of the world.

Chapter Seven

I decide to plug and unplug the Pepsi sign, making the light flicker. After a minute of flickering it to the beat of the song that is stuck in my head, I look across the street and see the sign spelling out “Cola” flickering to the same beat. I close my eyes in disbelief, but when I open them again, I see that sign flicker in the same way. Yes, that sign always flickers, but I swear, this time it is different. I smile at the thought of someone across the alleyway doing the same thing, and I suddenly don’t feel so alone. 

I look to the side of the sign and my heart skips a beat at what I see. I rub my eyes but when I look again, I see the same thing. To the left of that sign, I see the same two bright fluorescent eyes gazing back at me. I see a smile light up on his face. Not caring if I am imagining this or not, I smile back. 

I lift up my hand and begin to wave, but as my hand goes up, the light from the sign across the street flickers to black, and I am left waving at this big city. Little insignificant me, waving to this expanse of so much that is so much greater than me. But this time I am satisfied because I know somewhere in that city are those blue eyes, and at that moment, those blue eyes are mine.

Chapter Eight

I will never forget that moment, seeing or not seeing those eyes, because that was the last time I ever saw them. The next day at school I searched the halls, but I couldn’t find him. The principal said that he wasn’t coming back to school. No one really knew where he went, but there were rumors that he had to run away from home that night because he was gay or that his neighbors chased him away or that his father beat him to death or that he left without motive. No one will ever know what happened to him, and I will never know if I actually saw my bright blue dreams that night and his smile that illuminated the city stronger than all of those overly enthusiastic lights. 

The End

Flesh

Editor’s Note: Content warning for subject matter related to eating disorders

Script: This script is meant to be read in podcast format

Archivist:

Statement of Ichika Payne, regarding her time as an employee of Kenley Design Company.

Original statement given 10th of January, 2006. Audio recording done in 2020 by Katherine Adamos, head archivist of the Lampert Institute, London. Statement begins.

Statement:

My eating disorder developed as most do. I don’t really want to dwell on that, because I do not feel like explaining my life story to someone who is not my therapist, as that’s not what I’m here to talk about. But I will say that from a young age, I’ve experienced… real hunger. The deep, deep ache in your stomach when it’s truly empty, and it feels like a black hole inside you. It’s almost like a high, a weird feeling of purity.

I work as a designer. It’s ironic, as the fashion industry is known for being problematic in terms of body image. I’ve always loved fashion though, dressing up, going shopping. But it was never so much about how I felt in the clothes. It was more like… how I felt when people noticed me in them. My parents always told me that I was a sucker for praise, but I don’t think they knew just how right they were. As a child, I was constantly craving attention. Not in an obnoxious or over the top way… just, doing what I could to make people notice me. For example, being the prettiest, being the smartest. Things like that.

I suppose I do have a weird sort of fear surrounding… bodies. Meat, in general. My mother received liposuction when I was six. I had asked her where what they took out would go, and she told me she didn’t know. Even now, I can remember my six-year-old self picturing that bloody fat and flesh, still warm from my mother’s body, swirling down a hospital drain, smeared on white tile.

I apologize for the tangent. In the summer of 2005, I was fresh out of college, and looking for somewhere to start my career, preferably a smaller company, as I wanted to work where there was a good chance of my clothes being made and put on sale. I lived in Bristol at the time, and it wasn’t too hard to find a recent startup brand. Kenley, they were called.

I had submitted some of my winter designs online, and went in for an interview only a week later. According to their website, I was looking for a woman named Patricia. No last name or anything. Just Patricia.

She was a strikingly tall Turkish woman, gaunt, and had the bluest eyes I’d ever seen. The same opaque sky blue a colored pencil might be. She was so thin, so angular. Her bones looked like they could cut. She must have been in her mid-forties, but it was… hard to tell. Upon meeting her, I automatically felt a sense of respect for her. She exuded the confidence of a leader, even though she was only the supervisor of the fifteen people who worked in the studio.

The interview went well enough, I suppose. The building I would be working in was a nondescript two story brick building somewhere downtown. She asked me a few questions about previous work I’d done, what my goals were, that sort of thing, all the while twirling her thick, bleach white hair around a long, thin finger. Looking back on that moment, I feel as if I should’ve known something was wrong when I observed how… sharp her nails looked. Long and pointed, as an acrylic nail would be. But those nails weren’t fake.

I got the job fairly easily. I take pride in my work, and I’d like to say that I got in based on skill alone. But… now I’m not so sure.

The environment there was fairly quiet, only the sounds of graphite moving against paper and the whir of a slightly dented space heater in the corner. The floors were a grey tile, and always sparkling clean. The smell of bleach was quite pervasive.

I didn’t talk to my colleagues very often, aside from idle chat at break times. Any conversations we had were… stilted, as well. Like it was difficult for them to remember the right words to say. Like they hadn’t used their voices in a while. I ignored this well enough. I had barely any friends outside of work, so I took what interactions I could.

Lunch was an interesting matter. The first day I got there, I expected my colleagues to leave their desks and head for the break room at noon, the scheduled time for lunch. However, no one moved. They just all kept their heads bent over their desks and… continued working. I never saw a single person there eat.

At first, I thought I was just among hard workers. It was almost a relief, to be honest. I didn’t have to go through the trouble of excusing why I wasn’t eating lunch, or carrying around an empty lunch bag for the appearance. No one would bat an eye if the only thing I consumed was tea with metamucil stirred in, they were so focused on their work.

But, as time progressed, I started to feel a bit… suspicious? Of my colleagues. They were diverse enough, mostly Malay women, a white lady with red hair whose name I could never remember, and a few men. Whenever I chatted with them, they clearly didn’t keep up with any of the news or popular culture. And of course I can relate to that, I’m not the most updated person but. At least I vaguely knew what was going on in the world. At least it seemed like I checked my phone once in a while.

And the way they were so focused on their work. Constantly at their desks, sketching and sketching and sketching. (pause) I never once saw any of their designs, as they never got published or created. I’m not sure if what they were designing was clothes at all.

Patricia was much different from them. Comparing her to my colleagues was like… comparing a child’s picture book to a novel. She always wore sleek black pantsuits, white coils down to her shoulders, and those nails. Always painted a bright neon pink, and sharp enough to cut. I was more than a little enamored with her, in the way a student might crush on her professor.

She was everything I wanted to be. Often, during the lunch breaks, I would go to her office, she would pull out two Diet Cokes from her mini fridge, and we would talk. About nothing in particular. Fashion, I suppose. I can’t really remember. Her presence was a bit blinding, and I always felt oddly nervous, or giddy, going to talk to her. I suppose maybe that’s what muddied my memory. I’m usually very collected, but I couldn’t help but just… want her praise. I wanted her to like me. She was… ethereal.

We never discussed… eating issues or the like. But there is one thing I distinctly recall her saying to me. I hesitate to call it a memory. It felt almost unreal, like an echo of a conversation.

That day Patricia had seemed more… aggressive. Her usual elegant demeanor replaced by something more (pause) ravenous, though I could see her quite obviously trying to suppress herself. During our usual time together she seemed almost… impatient with me, as if she were talking to a child.

For me, one of the worst feelings in the world is being unwanted, especially from this woman, this role model of mine. I made up some excuse and stood to leave, saying I needed to finish one of my winter designs.

As I reached the door, I felt one of her hands close around my wrist. She had been all the way across the room, and it startled me at how fast she’d closed the gap between us. Her sharp nails were digging into my skin, and for how thin she was, her grip was strong, unnaturally strong. I don’t doubt she could have crushed my hand.

Fear pulsed through me.

“There is not enough meat on your bones.”

Now, people have said that to me plenty of times. A casual joke or a knowing look from a professor. 

But she growled it at me. The black hole where my stomach used to be sobbed in hunger, and all I could do was stare into her shallow, sky blue eyes.

She released her nails, and I ran.

When I left her office, every single one of my coworkers had their eyes trained on me. At the time I thought it was just because I’d made some sort of commotion. 

Looking back, I’m fairly certain I was the only one in that room breathing.

I knew I had made a mistake. I left work five hours early, and all my papers and supplies were still on my desk. The deadline for submitting a line of dresses I designed was next week, and I desperately needed to work on them. 

My heart pounded with anxiety and panic, and I paced around my practically empty apartment, feeling cold with horror and a bit of embarrassment. I decided I would go in once the work day ended, grab my things and go. Then, come into work the next day, pretend nothing happened, and keep living my life.

So, at 8 pm, I took the bus back downtown, plugged in the code to unlock the front door, the smell of bleach and floor cleaner not quite as potent as it usually was, and carefully walked up the stairs to the second floor. I’d never been in the building this late in the evening, and the pools of darkness where the setting sun didn’t reach gave me terrible unease.

It felt oddly warm in the building. I was wearing my fall clothes, and sweat was slowly dampening my turtleneck. I was too scared to turn on any lights, and I didn’t know if anyone was still in, so I walked with light footsteps. I noticed a sticky substance on the floor, causing my boots to create an ugly suction sound. I kept walking, the steps getting stickier the more stairs I climbed, and the usual clean smell fading.

I will try my best to describe what I saw when I pushed my way through the door.

My colleagues were there. Still sitting at their desks. Not scribbling on paper, but just… sitting there, eyes wide open, facing forward.

However, there was a yellow-ish oily substance slowly dripping from their legs. As if the bottoms of their feet were removed, and they were left to drain. The murky white completely flooded the white tile of the room, and it smelled awful. It smelled of fat and of rot and infection.

And Patricia. I could see her standing casually at my desk, leaning on it, nothing covering her upper body, and covered in large stripes of red. Heat was radiating from the spot she stood in, and I could see the steam hovering around her. 

She extended one arm, bicep facing up, and used one of those bright, pink nails to slowly saw through her flesh, the same way one might carve a piece of meat. She peeled it off with a sickening rip, and flung it to the tile.

I watched as that same substance seeped from her, trickled down her forearm and legs, her trousers soaked to her thin, boney calves.

I vomited.

And funnily enough, my first thought was that I ruined a pair of £70 corduroy pants.

Sixteen pairs of eyes turned to leer at me, but none of them were human. Not anymore.

I made a brief moment of eye contact with what used to be Patricia. Her smile revealed a set of sharp canines dripping with what I can only assume was blood. 

I saw her mouth form a word, a question.

“Hungry?”

I tripped while sprinting out of the building, even though there was no one chasing me.

I never went back to work. I simply… packed up and left the city. I’m currently staying with my parents in Leeds, and have started receiving clinical help for my disorder. I’m not sure if I’ll ever receive any answers for what happened at Kenley, and I’ve decided that’s for the best. I just… needed to tell someone. Do what you will with this information. Thank you for your time.

Archivist:

(sigh) Statement ends. As this Patricia was not described to have any last name, I can assume that Ms. Payne encountered the entity formerly known as Patricia Yilmaz. We believe it is now working for either the Corruption or Viscera. There are no details concerning the address or location of Kenley Design Studio, other than sparse descriptions of downtown Bristol. When research was done online for the company, a website did pop up, but had been deactivated two months ago. Figures. When I sent in Tom to do a bit of reconnaissance, he found a multitude of two story brick buildings, none of which had any signage to distinguish between them. 

When we contacted Ms. Payne, she refused to disclose the location of the studio, and had no new information for us, other than the fact that, about a month ago, a bill with no forwarding address was sent to her new home in Munich, charging her 87.56 pounds, the exact price of 44 cans of diet coke.

Recording ends.

End audio

Cold

Cool and empty breaths

Leave and return

From my once vibrant colored body.

The warmth that once existed

In the transparent liquid that

Flowed through my veins 

Has now come to a halt.

It oozes and drips

From the rigid and deep wounds

That now decorate my lifeless body.

Though not inflicted these unrelenting lashes

Were obtained and accepted.

Inflicted by the creator of all,

Life.

Year after year

The sharper the simmering blade

She used Became.

It’s slick, but yet finely sharpened body

Was inserted deeper and deeper as 

Time moved forward.

Tearing deeper into my flesh.

The more the scars grew 

The more my wounds bled.

The more something within

Began to fade away.


Bad American Food

There was once a diner on the highway. It was small and dinky, but charming in that old time sense. It invoked a 50’s style aesthetic, with a shiny metallic roof and dim neon signs announcing to the world that it is, in fact, open. The food was bad, no doubt about it. But the people were nice, and the music wasn’t too intrusive, and anyway no one would stay here for very long. After all, it was on the highway. The owner, Johnny Smith, would always say he was gonna start up a new place, up on the 88. He never did though. Barely had enough to scrap this place together, he’d always reasoned.

There once was a Chinese restaurant, in a city far away from the highway. It was never successful, but it made enough to stay afloat. With a red awning covered with yellow Chinese characters, and English ones underneath, it did little to separate itself from anyone else in Chinatown. The food wasn’t particularly special here either, but no one could really tell. After all, did Americans really understand Chinese food? It was named Wang’s, but the owner was named Luo Jinping. He’d always say that a Chinese restaurant needed to be pronounceable by Americans to be successful. Some days, he would look across the street from his home above the restaurant and gaze out at the masses of people crowding the sidewalk, and he’d pray that at least one of them would find him.

There was once a pizza place, deep in suburbia. It was called “Empire Pizza,” and its gimmick was that it was vaguely modeled after the Empire State Building. Inside were all sorts of New York inspired props and scenery. The kids loved it. Day after day they poured in, ordering pizza, ice cream, pasta, meatballs, and Empire’s signature “Deluxe 5th Avenue Sundae Supreme.” The food itself was, of course, nothing to write home about. Parents only came here because how else would they get their kids to shut up about it? The owner, Jim Evans, liked to greet customers on weekends. Every time he saw a parent and their children walk in, he felt a little pang of regret in his heart.

There once was a wildly successful fast food chain, which sold overcooked burgers and obscenely salty French fries. They were called Sally’s Fries, and their mascot was a little blond girl holding a spatula. Sally was the founder’s daughter. Allegedly, she had made those very first fries all on her own, and her daddy made a business out of selling them. Of course, Sally never did make those fries, and she always resented her father for making her into a marketing tool. Though she objected countless times, her face eventually became a very lucrative one. Her father always regretted estranging her, but hey, at least he made some money off of it.

I was once very hungry, so I searched for restaurants on Google Maps. On the highway was a small diner, in the city was a Chinese place, in the suburbs was a pizzeria, and in two places near me was a fast food outlet.

But they all were below four stars, so I passed and opened Seamless instead.


The Bower

        

She assumes for all she’s gladdened,

her mouth sugared and her frock patched with clementine stain

That her world is ripe joy.

 

We do not talk,

for the joy is hers alone.

 

Indulged by untimely dusk, she clutches JACK KEROUAC by the spine,

pages snapping into the silence.

 

The bridal moon turns a natural eye to the wild pools of sunflowers,

the bloodshot summerhouses and discarded Cola cans

and the air strokes like heaviest satin.

 

Ambling three slim fingers through her hair, champagne and tangled,

She does not discern me any more than the low cicada hum,

 

and I must consider if she is at all

 

A Teacher’s Aid

 

Cast:

TEACHER: Jacqueline

ANGIE: Sara

FRIEND 1 and STUDENT 1: Lane

FRIEND 2: Storm

PARENT 1 and STUDENT 2: Annabel

PARENT 2: Arlen

MOM: Anushka

ADAM: Belinda

 

SCENE 1

Lights up on students leaving room and TEACHER. Blackboard in the back with a teacher’s desk. Bell rings.

TEACHER: Angie, can you meet me at my desk before you leave?

ANGIE: Ugh, Ms. Smith is calling me again. Gimme a second, guys. I’ll meet you at lunch.

FRIEND 1: Okay, Ang.

ANGIE walks up to TEACHER’s desk reluctantly.

TEACHER: Angie, I’d like to talk to you about your essay grade.

ANGIE: I know, I know already. It sucked. I’ll work harder next time…

TEACHER: No no, that’s not it. Your essay was actually amazing. The passion you put in it made it brilliant. You got an A+.

ANGIE’s face lights up.

ANGIE: Really? It was good?

TEACHER: Yes! The way you analyzed the relationship between Anne and Helen was amazing, perfectly showing the importance of Anne’s aid.

ANGIE: Thanks! Are you messing with me though? Because that wouldn’t be funny.

TEACHER: No, I’m not messing with you, but there has been something bothering me recently, and I believe this problem can be fixed.

ANGIE: Oh god, you’re not gonna mention my studying habits are you?

TEACHER: Listen, Angie. You have so much potential. Seeing how well you wrote your essay… I can’t let your talent go to waste like that. You should choose a career path that involves writing.

ANGIE: Go to waste? You think how I’m choosing to live my life is a waste? You have no place to tell me something like that. You don’t even know me.

TEACHER: I may not know you, but I can tell what kind of person you are when you don’t have a strong mindset regarding your future.

ANGIE: No you can’t! My future is my future, not yours to worry about. I’m sick of teachers telling me what to do and what will make me happy. Living for the future is such a sham. In the present, I’m much happier, and I know things will turn out good. Adam makes me happy, I don’t need any after school assignment to mess that up.

ANGIE realizes what she’s said and runs out of the room embarrassed.

 

SCENE 2

TEACHER: Come in, come in, students. I hope you all turned in your The Miracle Worker analysis homework last night!

Students fill in, empty chair where ANGIE sits — TEACHER doesn’t notice.

TEACHER: Alright, let’s do attendance, shall we?

TEACHER grabs paper and points at each student as she reads the list.

TEACHER: Mark, Julien, Kelly, Angi — Does anyone know where Angie is today? No? No one has seen her?

FRIEND 1 whispers to FRIEND 2.

FRIEND 1: I would skip Ms. Smith’s class if she was on my tail everyday, too.

FRIEND 2: Obviously. I heard that she tried to talk to Ang about Adam yesterday!

TEACHER overhears and walks to the other side, avoiding the friends.

FRIEND 1: Are you kidding me? Next thing we know, she’ll ask her about her dad!

FRIEND 1 and 2 laughs as TEACHER continues teaching without noticing.

 

SCENE 3

Room is dimly lighted at night.

TEACHER: Thank you so much for your time. Julien is a great kid, and I’d love to see more participation in my class.

TEACHER shakes parents’ hands.

PARENT 1: Yes of course, we’ll get right on it. Thanks for the feedback!

Parents leave the room as TEACHER greets the next person outside.

TEACHER: I’d like to see Angie’s parents, please?

Young man in late 20’s gets up and walks into room.

TEACHER: Hello, and you are?

ADAM: Oh, my name’s Adam, I’m filling in for Angie’s parents today.

TEACHER: Oh, I’m sorry that they couldn’t make it. Do… you know what happened to them?

ADAM: Nah, she doesn’t really like talking about it, sorry.

TEACHER: I’m sorry, then what is your relationship to Angie? Are you a trusted adult?

ADAM: Yeah, yeah, I’m just here ‘cause someone had to be.

TEACHER is visibly thrown off and at a loss for words.

TEACHER: Alright then… well… I’d like to talk about her grades.

ADAM: Alright, can you make it quick though? I got something after this.

TEACHER: Well, I’d really prefer to see where her mother and father are, because this will take a while.

ADAM: I already told you, that won’t be happening. We don’t talk to her mom anymore, understand?

TEACHER: But surely her father could come, so we can have actual discussions about Angie’s future, and not a quick meeting before you go off back to your own world.

ADAM: No, I already told you. Her parents couldn’t come, I’m an adult, so I’m here tonight because she’s forced to send someone to listen to whatever thing you are required to “help” her with, okay?

TEACHER is silent.

ADAM: So? Is she doing well? Do you have anything to tell me, or can we go now?

TEACHER: We? Is she here? May you please just bring her in, I have serious things to discuss with her.

ADAM: You know what, whatever it takes for you to leave me alone. Angie! Can you come in, and we can get this over with?

ANGIE walks in confused.

TEACHER: Is this person your parental guardian? Where is your father? I believe he would be better suited for me to talk to today.

ADAM: Babe, don’t bother with her. We did what we were supposed to, and now the school will stop emailing us. So let’s go, already.

ANGIE doesn’t acknowledge ADAM and focuses her attention on the TEACHER.

ANGIE: My father? You think you’d have a better discussion with my father? Well, he’s not here right now. He hasn’t been since I was nine. So please, for the love of God, stop bothering me about my life and leave us alone.

TEACHER gasps.

TEACHER: My goodness, I really am so sorry.

ADAM: Alright, let’s go Ang.

ADAM grabs ahold of ANGIE and walks her out the room as the TEACHER turns to her desk with a puzzled look on her face.

TEACHER walks back and sits while showing the audience a picture of her dad on her desk.

TEACHER grabs phone and dials.

TEACHER: … Mom?

Voiceover/offstage.

MOM: Honey, what’s the issue? Why do you sound so distraught?

TEACHER: I need to talk about Dad… Something’s been on my mind lately.

MOM: I thought you and I promised we’d push him out of our thoughts… Alice, it’s been ten years. Why are you thinking about him again?

TEACHER: I’m not thinking about him. I’m thinking about me right now.

MOM: What about you? I know you did some bad things to him, but you know he deserved it. You shouldn’t feel sorry for what you did, after all the damage he left on you. Why is this on your mind so much?

TEACHER: No, I’m not talking about that either! I’m talking about my future, Mom! What I could’ve become.

MOM: Oh, you sound crazy right now. Calm down, you and I both know what you did was the best for you. Now look at you, a happy teacher who teaches a beautiful group of kids. What more did you want?

TEACHER: I wanted to write. I wanted to write whatever I wanted, when I wanted, and how I wanted. I wanted people to read my books and be inspired, I wanted to change people’s lives! Now, I can’t even help someone one-on-one. Dad leaving made my outlook on life completely change… I didn’t even graduate college.

MOM: Please, honey, don’t ever put yourself down like this. Your life right now is nothing to complain about, and I know you can touch the heart of anyone you wish to. You have me, someone to watch over you. You’re lucky to have my support.

TEACHER: You’re right. I am blessed to have you, and not everyone is lucky enough to say that. Thanks, Mom. Love you. I know what I have to do now.

TEACHER hangs up.

Knock on door.

PARENT 2: I don’t mean to interrupt, but am I in the right room? I’ve been waiting a while, but I didn’t want to bother you…

TEACHER: Oh yes! Yes! I am so sorry, come sit, come sit.

 

SCENE 4

Lights up on classroom. ANGIE walks in with friends.

TEACHER: Angie, I’m glad to see you again! Hey, can I talk to you for a second?

ANGIE: Oh my God.

ANGIE turns to friends.

ANGIE: I swear, this better be the last time she talks to me. If not, I’ll make it the last time.

TEACHER: So I’m starting a support group for people who… have some family issues. Surely you would like to join? Maybe it can help you steer in the right direction away from negative people.

ANGIE: For the last time! I don’t need your help! I’m not joining your stupid support group, and I’m not developing a stupid little “friendship” with you. I’m here to take your stupid class so my Mom doesn’t get emailed. Other than that, I’m just a regular student to you. Understand?

TEACHER’s face flushes.

TEACHER: Alright. Alright. I apologize. Please, go to your seat.

ANGIE hides her frown and heads to seat.

 

SCENE 5

Lights up on hallway with lockers.

ANGIE: Did you guys hear about Ms. Smith’s support group? Apparently she’s starting one… Weird, huh?

FRIEND 1: It’s probably because she has her own issues with her dad. My mom overheard a conversation with her and her mom… something about her dad leaving and messing up her education or something? I don’t really know.

FRIEND 2: Ew, why can’t she just let it go? She was in school like, a century ago.

Friends laugh.

ANGIE: I’m sorry, what? Her dad left her?

FRIEND 1: I don’t know, probably. She went on this sob story about how she wanted to be a writer. Kinda like you a couple years ago, Ang.

ANGIE: Yeah… well you guys go. I’m gonna head to my locker, I need to get my books.

FRIEND 2: Alright, see you.

ANGIE walks by TEACHER’s room and observes it, then walks away with a frown.

 

SCENE 6

(Time skip) Lights up on classroom with desks organized in a circle and students walking in.

TEACHER: Hello, hello, don’t be shy. This is a support group, this is your safe space.

Students get in the chairs,

TEACHER: So, third time around, are we all getting the hang of this?

Students nod in agreement.

TEACHER: Okay, who wants to start off first, today?

STUDENT 1: Well, I’m glad to say that I’m developing a way better relationship with my mom! We finally talked about the problems with my sister, and she’s also talking more with my mom about her anger issues. She’s really going on the right path right now.

TEACHER: That’s amazing, Evan! I know how much stress your sister put you through. Now you can take this time to heal together.

STUDENT 1: Yeah, I guess so!

TEACHER: Who’d like to speak next?

ANGIE shows up on side of stage and observes the classroom, but turns around doubtingly.

STUDENT 2 whispers to STUDENT 1.

STUDENT 2: Angie’s here… probably to talk about her boyfriend. Poor thing just got broken up with.

STUDENT 1: Oh, Adam? But they were so cute together.

TEACHER: Are you guys talking about Angie? Have any of you spoken to her recently? It’s been months since we’ve spoken…

STUDENT 1: Yeah, sorry to disrupt, though. We’ll be quiet now.

TEACHER looks at door and sees ANGIE walking away.

TEACHER: Would you give me a second, guys? So sorry, just one second.

TEACHER walks out of class.

TEACHER: Angie? Did you want to join our group? It’s really a safe space, trust me.

ANGIE: No, no… I don’t feel comfortable sharing…

TEACHER: Then just come and sit. You don’t have to share. Just come, and you’ll be welcomed. I want to help you, don’t you realize that?

ANGIE: Just because your dad left as well doesn’t mean you have this obligation to help me. Don’t think you’re the miracle worker or something.

TEACHER: How did you know that? And now that you do, can’t you see that I understand what you’re going through as well?

ANGIE: Yeah… but I’m not in the right place to join right now. There’s too much on my plate

TEACHER: Look, I heard about Adam. I know how much stress has been put on you. Having someone break up with you is hard. Your parents or another person in your family is your best bet to go and stay with. Trust me.

ANGIE: What? Adam didn’t breakup with me, I broke up with him. I’m done with all his crap, I’m heading in my own direction now. But… I just don’t know exactly what direction that is.

TEACHER: Did you try going back to your mother’s house? I don’t know exactly what happened, but she must be some form of help to you.

ANGIE: Not yet. To be honest, I’m scared. I don’t know if she’ll welcome me back in. I’ve been staying at my friends’ houses, and it’s been good, but I’m starting to get on their parents nerves… soon I might not have a place to stay. I really don’t know what to do.

TEACHER: Hey. Don’t speak like that. You and I, with the help of this support group, will get you on a better track with your mom. Trust me, I’ve been there. You’ll know what to do.

ANGIE: You think so? But there’s so many people. I don’t know how you could have time to help me with all of this.

TEACHER: It’s not going to be just me. It’s all of us. This support group is the best thing I’ve created, and it will be the best thing for you, too. These people are just like you. They are your peers, and they went through the same things you did. Now, they are all on a path to recovery while also helping each other on their journeys. This group would be perfect for you. Just join us. We’ll help, trust me.

ANGIE: Okay. I’ll join.

TEACHER: Hooray! Don’t be shy, just walk on in. These people are going to be your family now.

ANGIE smiles, and they walk in together.

Off stage you hear her introducing ANGIE to everyone.

 

He Doesn’t Even Have a Name

There was a cool spring breeze brushing up against the park trees. The branches danced with their forest-green leaves. Upon a single great oak, there was a boy. He decided that one of the tree’s limbs would be the best spot to enjoy his novel. After thirty pages, the boy looked up from Moby Dick and saw the sun was close to setting. It was time to leave. The boy stood up, and with a slip of his foot, he fell off the oak. The drop must have been at least fifteen feet. As soon as his back hit the ground, ominous darkness aroused.

The boy woke up in a hospital bed. Two doctors and a nurse were staring right at him. The child said nothing. He searched the eerie room for his foster parents, and they were nowhere to be found. His back hurt, and his head throbbed with pain. The nurse opened her mouth to speak, but was cut off by one of the doctors.

“Do you remember anything that has happened in the past twenty-four hours? What was the last thing you remember?” asked the doctor. The boy tried to remember. He tried to think of the latest events that occurred but could not. He shook his head.

“The last thing I remember is going to the park to read my book,” said the boy. The doctors frowned.

“Do you know your name?” the nurse questioned. The boy nodded.

“Dick,” he answered.

“What about a last name?” asked the second doctor. “We need to file a report for everyone that comes into the ER.” Dick scanned the area again. It didn’t seem like an emergency room at all.

“I have never had a last name. Being completely truthful, I don’t think Dick is my real name either,” Dick confessed. They all seemed shocked, except for Dick.

He doesn’t even have a name, poor boy, thought the nurse.

***

The streets of New York City were cold during September. All Dick owned were sweatshirts and jeans. The school bus pulled up to his town house. Dick’s new foster parents weren’t even awake to see him go off on his first day of high school. Dick didn’t mind, he never expected much from the Torris. They were just like every family the Foster Care system put him in, no matter if they lived in Texas, Arkansas, Virginia, or New York. They never cared for Dick, so he never cared for any them. Dick didn’t know it, but deep down inside him, he felt a longing for family. It was stronger in Texas, where he first lived. But this desire for a family connection died down after he —

“Sorry, this seat is taken.”

“Oh. Alright, sorry to bother you,” Dick replied. He must have said that five more times, before he found an empty seat. Dick gazed out the bus window. He watched as townhouses passed by, but then they turned into buildings, then into skyscrapers. The massive towers hovered over the puny school bus. Dick could feel their cool shadows brushing against his window. Screech! The bus jerked into a full stop. Everyone started to unload and enter Amsterdam High School. Dick pulled out a piece of paper from his back pocket. He checked his schedule.

First period is math with Mrs. Hether. It’s in room 2037. I have four minutes and 29 seconds until the late bell rings. I should be able to get to class on time, thought Dick. He looked up to find two boys staring across the hallway at a girl. One of them seemed to be drooling. Beauty is an abstract thing that I just don’t understand, Dick thought. He grabbed the railing as he walked up a stairwell. It was cold and rusty. Dick calculated in his head it was made of mostly copper, with a small percentage of zinc and iron. As he was walking, he passed a big clump of people. Everyone in the group seemed to be centered around one person.

“Are you excited for this season, Johnny?”

“Hey, Johnny, are you in any of my classes?”

“Yo, Johnny, do you got a date to HOCO?”

While thinking about Johnny, Dick entered room 2037. Judging by his varsity football jacket, Johnny must be on the football team. He seemed like a popular kid with lots of friends.

“I would like that many friends,” Dick whispered to himself.

“Did you say something?” Mrs. Hether questioned. Dick looked up to meet her gaze and quickly shook his head. “I am Mrs. Hether, and who might you be?”

“My name is Dick,” he answered.

“Oh yes! You are the freshman in my class. I am very impressed with you. This is an honors class for juniors, and you’re taking it as a freshman. You must be a very smart, young man.” Dick forced a smile, but truth be told, he didn’t feel much happiness. Emotion wasn’t very strong in Dick. “Take a seat, class will start soon.” Dick immediately thought she wanted him to take ownership of one of her chairs. After a second of recognition, he normally sat down in the front of the room.

The school day went on, and it didn’t occur to Dick that he was excelling in all his classes. Then, the lunch bell rang, and in the hallway Dick noticed a commotion behind him. He looked back to see Johnny helping a girl pick up her books. At that moment, Dick wanted to be friends with Johnny. Johnny appeared to be a great guy. Dick thought Johnny would be nice enough to not reject him as a friend (like everyone else has). During lunch, Dick found Johnny and all his friends sitting at a table.

Dick approached them and asked, “May I sit here?” The girls looked at each other with disgusted faces. The guys were rolling their eyes and ignoring Dick. Johnny finally broke the silence.

“Get lost, freshman,” Johnny demanded. Dick turned around and walked the other way. He kept his head down and accepted the truth. Nobody wanted to be his friend. Splat! His blue hoodie was ruined by a mash potato cannon ball. Dick kept walking while Johnny and his friends laughed at him. Dick didn’t understand humor or how that was funny. He believed the correct emotion, at the time, was misery. Dick found a quiet corner near room 2037. He ate his lunch there, without any company. He sat in that corner alone during lunch, for the rest of his school year. He never cried though, most likely because he was incapable of such actions.

***

Dick didn’t realize he was excelling in his classes with ease. He has never experienced academic difficulty before. Dick would answer questions the teacher asked and get his papers back with 100 percents. He never tried to show off his intellect. He didn’t think it was a big deal. But in the third week of school, other kids really started to notice.

Mrs. Hether asked the class, “What is the answer to question three?” Naturally, a few kids raised their hands, including Dick. Dick didn’t want to give the answer, but he felt obligated to raise his hand because he had the answer. He already gave Ms. Hether the correct answer to question two. Yet, Ms. Hether chose Dick.

“The answer is 4.39 over pi,” said Dick. Ms. Hether was pleased with his answer. She smiled and wrote 4.39 over pi on the chalkboard. Johnny, on the other hand, was not pleased. After class, Johnny stopped Dick in the hallway. Neither one of them moved. They locked eyes, their toes were a foot apart from each other. Some students stopped walking to see what would happen.

“You’re a freshman taking AP Calculus. We get it, you’re smart. You don’t have to show it off to everybody though!” Johnny growled.

Dick responded, “I only answered three questions.”

“Liar! I’m sick of your $%@&, don’t you ever talk back to me!” Johnny snarled. He pushed Dick onto the floor and walked off. Dick was startled and confused. He didn’t understand what happened. Ms. Hether saw Dick getting up from the floor. She didn’t bother to go near him.

When going home that day, Dick tried to reflect. He knew he was intelligent, but he also knew he still didn’t fully comprehend the world he lived in. He grasped the railing along a staircase. He understood its purpose but didn’t know why some people slide down the railing. It seemed impractical and dangerous. The only reasoning Dick could think of was that it’s “fun.” Dick didn’t know how to define “fun.” He didn’t have much fun in his life either.

“I want to have fun,” Dick said to himself. Hesitantly, he sat on the railing. He scooched along the railing, then began to slide. Bam! Dick fell off the railing and onto the stairs. While he tried to stand up, he tripped and fell down the rest of the stairs.

Dick returned to his foster home that day, with more bruises than intended. His foster parents didn’t pay him much attention. The Torris couldn’t care less if Dick was hurt. They only cared if he needed them to pay for a hospital bill. Dick went into his room and quickly shut the door. He went under his covers and tried to fall asleep. He failed to do so.

***

The bell rang after fourth period. Dick began to make his way to his lunch corner. He scanned the hallway for any potential threats. He saw one. Dick turned and walked in the opposite direction. All of a sudden, Dick was slammed into the wall. He didn’t see Gavin coming. Johnny and Henry walked over to Gavin. They looked down on Dick, as if he were a dead mouse soon to be preyed on by vultures. Johnny cracked his knuckles. Dick looked around, the hallway was empty except for them. This was the last thing Dick wanted.

“Take this smart@$#.” Johnny sent a right jab into Dick’s nose.

“Nerd!” Gavin kicked Dick into the wall.

“Loser!” Henry pushed Dick onto the floor. The three juniors started to kick at Dick’s half-dead body. All Dick could do was lay there. His arms covered his face and his body curled up, in order to protect himself. But it was no good.

“Please stop!” Dick cried. “Leave me alone! I’ve done nothing wrong! PLEASE!” he shouted.

“Shut up, Dick-head!” Johnny ordered. He kicked Dick with enough force to push his back into the wall. Suddenly, Dick’s arms felt immense pain, as if they were sore from over usage.

“C’mon, let’s get out of here. I’m hungry,” Henry said. The boys left Dick alone in the hallway. Then, Dick’s arms felt normal again. He struggled but managed to stand up. Dick went to the nurse’s office for some ice. Dick told the nurse he fell down the stairs. Nobody in Amsterdam High School would believe their beloved quarterback was a school bully. So Dick didn’t bother telling the truth.

Dick was regularly getting bullied now. It seemed almost weekly. Johnny, and maybe a friend or two, would find Dick and verbally and physically harass him. Originally, it was because Johnny was upset about Dick being so smart. Except, after a few times, bullying Dick was just a fun thing for Johnny and his friends. Dick never understood why being smarter was why he was bullied. Dick didn’t want to believe Johnny did it for enjoyment.

The worst part about Dick’s bullies, was that he couldn’t do anything about it. He had no friends to talk to. He didn’t have any trusted adults or anyone that cared about Dick. And it was never a fair fight. He was helpless and, in a way, internally dying.

***

Gym class was also a problem for Dick. He wasn’t very athletic or good at sports. Dick got embarrassed every time he tried to play a sport in PE. The jocks would laugh at him and the other kids would smirk. Dick was always the last pick in team sports. Nobody ever passed him the ball. Dick still tried his best, but he still never played well.

One time after Physical Education, Dick was the last one to leave the locker room. He didn’t mind because it was the last period of the day. When Dick tried to leave, the exit door swung open. Johnny and Gavin barged into the boy’s locker room. Dick tried to run. He just suffered a beating two days ago, so he couldn’t take another. Dick ran into the bathroom. They followed him in and jumped into his stall. Johnny grabbed Dick by his oak-brown hair and thrashed his head into the stall wall. Dick could only see blue for a few seconds, then his vision returned. Gavin slapped Dick across the face, leaving Dick’s cheek bright red. Johnny plunged Dick’s head into the toilet. Dick closed his eyes to avoid (what he thought was) blue liquid, in the toilet. After a few seconds, Johnny yanked Dick out of the toilet water. Dick gasped for air.

“This is why you don’t make me look stupid in class!” Johnny grunted. Dick thought for a second. He recalled correcting Johnny’s answer during science class. The teacher asked for the correct answer, and after Johnny gave his, the teacher asked again. Then, Dick provided the right one.

Gavin dragged Dick back out into the locker room. He held Dick’s arms back in an uncomfortable position, twisting his weak muscles. Johnny sucker-punched Dick in the gut. Dick coughed up a little blood. He was mortified. Johnny hit him with an uppercut, straight up the jaw. An image of a syringe flashed in Dick’s mind. Johnny grabbed Dick’s shoulders. Gavin loosened his grip on Dick. Johnny pulled down Dick’s torso in order to knee Dick in the stomach. More blood. Gavin and Johnny both let go of Dick. He fell to the ground. Dick couldn’t get up. Johnny grinned while Gavin handed him Dick’s backpack. Johnny hurled the book bag at Dick’s motionless body. The impact was painful. He hit Dick in the face, pushing his head back into a locker. This woke Dick up.

“I broke my spine from the fall!” Dick exclaimed. He finally remembered what happened when he fell out of that tree. Johnny looked puzzled. He walked over to Dick and began to swing his foot backwards. Before Johnny could kick Dick, Dick was already off the ground. Pow! Dick landed a punch right in Johnny’s chest. Johnny went flying. He flew all the way into the back wall of the locker room. That wall was ten yards away from Dick. Gavin’s jaw virtually dropped to the floor. Gavin bolted out of the locker room, and so did Johnny. Dick was amazed with this new found strength of his. “Where did this come from?” Dick asked himself. He turned to the wall of lockers behind him. Dick stepped forward with his left foot. He then pushed off his right foot, pivoted on his left foot, and punched a locker. His fist went through the locker door. When Dick pulled back his hand, the door came with it. Dick almost screamed with excitement.

***

The next day, Dick didn’t run into Johnny or any of his friends. In PE, the class had to play basketball. The teacher picked team captains, and customarily Dick was drafted last. Dick’s team was playing Henry’s team. Henry knew about what Dick did to Johnny and didn’t believe it. Johnny did look hurt, and that was what drove Henry in the game. Henry would purposefully dribble near Dick and try to embarrass Dick by exposing his awful defense skills. Eventually, Dick was given the ball. Henry ran across the court to personally guard Dick. That was a mistake. Dick dribbled up to the basket, and using all the strength in his legs, he sprung up five feet to slam dunk the basketball. Dick hung onto the rim for a few seconds then dropped back down. The entire gym was silent. Everyone was in shock. Dick didn’t know what to do, so he too stood there motionless and speechless. Suddenly, the bell rang, and everyone went into the locker rooms. Nobody could speak, but their mouths were still wide open.

The next morning, Dick couldn’t get into room 2037. Johnny, Gavin, Henry, and two other upperclassmen blocked Dick’s way. As usual, there weren’t any people in the hallway. Johnny appeared madder than ever.

“Don’t you dare think you’re better than any of us, you freshman %&#@!” Johnny threatened. The two unknown students stepped forward. Dick knew there was going to be a fight, and he was ready for it. Before they could even swing their arms, Dick sent two right hooks their way. The boys flew back, unconscious. Gavin couldn’t move. He was in shock. He just stared at the unconscious bodies. Henry charged at Dick and tried to tackle him. Dick parried with a body throw. Henry was then also unconscious, but thirty feet down the hallway.

It was just Johnny left. Johnny cracked his knuckles. Dick wasn’t afraid. Dick took a step forward. Johnny threw a punch at Dick, but Dick dodged it. Dick performed a roundhouse kick, but Johnny ducked. While Johnny bounced back up, Dick kicked him in the side. Johnny fell, crying in pain. Dick most likely broke one of Johnny’s ribs.

The hallway quickly became quiet and ominous. Dick felt as if the fight wasn’t over. Except, he didn’t know of any other enemies. He looked around the hallway and found it odd that he didn’t see anyone.

Maybe everyone is in class. I should probably go to first period then, thought Dick. Dick walked by the unconscious bodies of his bullies, his conquered fears. He opened the door to Mrs. Hether’s room. A bright light turned on, blinding Dick. He heard SWAT soldiers surrounding him, yelling formation orders. Three red dots appeared on Dick’s chest. “What’s going on?” Dick yelled. He began to regain his vision.

“GOV test subject 02SHS-A is active! Confirmed bodies outside the room. Causation from 02SHS-A!” shouted a SWAT soldier. Dick was very confused and started to get scared. Then, a radio signal came in.

“Go green, neutralize target over!” The red dots on Dick’s chest turned green. Before he could flinch, Dick was shot dead.

 

The Warehouse (Excerpt)

          

Chapter One

 

The water was red. That wasn’t good… at all.

 

I tried to crawl faster, my limbs sinking into the muck on the side of the now strawberry-colored creek and coming up with loud sucking sounds that would definitely alert any guards to my presence. Lucky for me, there probably weren’t any guards in the area. In fact, there was probably no one at all.

 

The bog, a wide, flat plain full of deep mud pits and criss crossing creeks, was the last place anyone would consider using to get into the Warehouse. It was so open that it was assumed that anyone who approached would be spotted from a mile away, and it was considered suicidal to set foot anywhere near where I was now crawling.

 

And that was where they had been wrong. Or at least I hoped so, since my life depended on it. Covered in mud and crouched low against the marshy ground, I looked just like any other bump on the large, flat expanse. The sun beat down on the bog, drying and cracking the mud on my limbs and face as I scanned the landscape yet again. I couldn’t see or hear anyone around me, and the behemoth Warehouse was slowly coming into detail before my eyes. There was nowhere to run, nowhere I could hide if they spotted me. I certainly hoped they were wrong.

 

Aptly nicknamed “the Warehouse” by the citizens of Hilliche, the structure in front of me was a massive, flat-roofed building with a broad, brick chimney rising sky-high from its center. The Warehouse was an infamous prison dedicated to holding rebels and thieves prior to execution. And while it had never been mentioned directly by the King or any of his advisors, it was commonly assumed that it was also used for the executions themselves.

 

I knew this to be true of course; this was far from my first time coming this way to rescue someone or another. This time, my mission was to walk in and then walk back out a few hours later with a certain Master Matthew Dowell, for whose return I was being paid more than I normally made in a year.

 

Was that fishy? Sure. But for an orphaned 17-year-old girl living alone in the slums of Hilliche, the capital city of this god-forsaken country, money is money, no matter how it comes about.

 

Of course, that wasn’t why I started risking my life like this. In the beginning, it was more about a personal vendetta, about how my father was brought to the Warehouse and killed for a crime I knew he didn’t commit. That time, at age 14, I had been too late to save him. I had never disappointed since.

 

Although, I might lose my streak if I didn’t hurry. Darkness fell across my face as I entered the shadow of the factory, and I glanced worriedly at the creek on my left, the one that passed under the Warehouse. The light strawberry pink of the water had already turned to a brighter red. Executions were well under way.

 

I crawled a few meters further into shadow and then glanced at the creek again. It was here that it turned muddy — and bloody — enough that it was impossible to see all the way to the bottom. And it was here that I had found my way in. I edged towards the creek, my arms sinking ever further into the mud as I got closer until I could move no more. Then, I threw as much of my body as wasn’t stuck in the ground towards the rushing water.

 

The mud slowly gave way, tilting me closer to the creek. I tilted faster and faster until it let go entirely with a grotesque squelching noise, and I landed with a splash. A hidden current quickly dragged me under the surface of the murky water, pushing me back the way I had come as it ripped at my hair and clothing with icy fingers. I didn’t try to fight it like I did the first time this happened to me, when on the way to rescue my father I had fallen in by accident and panicked as I was dragged down into the murky depths.

 

It all happened much faster if I didn’t move. Tumbling head over heel, the current dropped me into the mouth of an underground passageway which was a little ways back from where I had jumped into the creek. While it did mean that I had to make some ground back up, I knew of no other place where I could find the same current and really wasn’t all that keen on experimenting, with my life at stake.

 

Looking around for a second, I regained my bearings. Lit by faint blue light from curiously mushroomy fungi which crowded the walls, this was an abandoned and partially collapsed tunnel which remained from the building of the Warehouse. It was so remote that I very rarely found a guard down here. If I did, the wet mud and blood from the water which coated me would make me look like a rock if I dropped to the ground in the shadows and no one looked too hard.

 

Muscle memory led me into familiar passages and around piles of rubble until I reached the neat X that I had scraped into the wall years ago. Reaching for the narrow, mud covered opening between two large rocks, I began to slide my way across.

 

I was a thin girl, but I still had trouble making it through that tight space, and little scars on my legs and arms showed the evidence of what usually happened when I squeezed through. The inhabitants of the Warehouse were usually starving by the time they were rescued, having been kept here for weeks. That’s how they fit through the gap on the way back and the only reason that I could get anyone out at all.

 

“ — disappearing. They don’t know how… investigate… ” Voices drifted down the rocky corridor on the other side with me halfway through the gap. I froze and went limp, muddy hair tumbling over my head and away from the nape of my neck.

 

Footsteps approached as the voices got clearer. “Well, I dunno. There ain’t any way in here, not from so deep underground.”

 

“We should check the upper levels, don’t know why anyone would think there was a way in so far down.”

 

“Busy work, that’s all this is. I don’t know why they… ” The voices trailed off down the corridor, and I waited a minute before lifting my head. It seemed from their conversation that the absences of the people I rescued hadn’t gone unnoticed.

 

In the beginning, I had come after less important prisoners who had been taken from families around the slums where I lived and had charged only small, affordable fees. Stuff that could be paid for by the poor such as myself. About a year ago, my services came to the attention of some more… wealthy figures. For the higher rates, I rescued more important prisoners.

 

My problem was this: if a minor prisoner disappears in a large prison, it causes a little ripple, soon forgotten. A major prisoner though, one who is kept under careful lock and key… that usually causes a bit more of a splash. And splashes are noisy enough to attract unwanted attention. After this, maybe I should lay low for a while, let things settle.

 

Goodness knew, I was certainly being paid enough money from this job to afford it. Hell, I could buy a new house on the edge of the slums, maybe try to find a respectable job as a store clerk or something. Whatever worked; it was best not to think too much about the future. First things first, I had to get out of here alive with my human package.

 

By now I had managed to extricate myself from the crack in the wall and was crouched in one of the shadows left by the torchlight. This hallway was part of the actual Warehouse complex itself, with walls of stone brick and a sandy floor. The sputtering flame from the torches created leaping shadows across the walls, such as the one which I was now crouched in.

 

I straightened up and winced. Tiny cuts from squeezing through the rock twanged their protest all over my body. For the hundredth time, I wondered if it wouldn’t be such a bad idea to take a battering ram to that crack and knock a hole straight through. It would certainly be the end of these annoying cuts and scars. It would also certainly be the end of my life.

 

I smiled to myself and began working my way down the hallway, drifting from flickering shadow to flickering shadow. The metallic scent of blood and a nauseating smell of burning that permeated the air as I got closer reminded me to hurry. The guards had certainly taken their own sweet time passing by.

 

Luckily, I passed the rest of the way unhindered and emerged on one of many large, unoccupied ledges which overlooked the cavernous room which held the executions. Rough stone walls bounced echoes and a large fire burned in a pit in one corner of the room, making the place a chaos of light and sound. Screaming, pleading, shouted orders, the cracking of whips… all these sounds drifted around me as I stood in the shadows of the ledge. The ledges were originally built for observers, but the Warehouse had long been closed to any of the sick people who enjoyed watching mass murder, and the ledges remained untouched.

 

I glanced at the line of prisoners who shuffled towards the execution blocks below. I was looking for a man in his 20s with brown hair and slumped shoulders. Reaching into my shoe, I pulled out a small, sealed leather case. I opened it and pulled out a scrap of paper which depicted a black and white illustration of his face. I glanced at it one last time, making sure I had his features memorized, then stowed it back in my shoe.

 

He apparently used to be quite overweight, but a month in prison should have fixed that problem nicely. I would probably have to wait for a while; the most important prisoners usually came at the end of the line. I stepped back into a shadowy corner, leaning against the rough stone. I had long realized it was was better to be safe than sorry, so I always arrived with plenty of time to spare.

 

I wondered what Master Dowell had done to end up like this. It wasn’t my job to ask, just to rescue, get paid, and move on. I had been clearly reminded of that by the wealthily clothed man who had met me by a dead-end alleyway to give me this assignment. I was instructed to get Master Dowell out, leave him in the alley, and never breathe a word about it. If I did that, I would get paid. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t. It was that simple. But again, this man who I was rescuing was most certainly someone of importance if he was worth so much money. So I couldn’t help but wonder…

 

My eyes drifted to the three execution blocks, to the methodical chopping of the axe as it swung up and down, each starving prisoner being forced to their knees by armed guards. I watched as the next prisoner was pushed from the line, sulking silently. She ascended the block and was pushed to her knees so hard that she cried out. Her head was locked into place by a lone guard, and the axe reached a shining apex. Then, her head rolled forward across the platform with a nearly inaudible thud, dead eyes still staring defiantly at the ceiling up above.

 

Blood spilled across a sandy floor which was already red and sticky with it. The creek which I had followed on the way in ran somewhere under this room, and I knew that the blood would eventually soak through the sand on the floor to mix with the water, emerging under the late afternoon sky.

 

Three guards came forward, hefting the severed head and body into the fire in the corner and releasing another wave of the nauseating scent of burnt skin. I heard a whip crack as the next prisoner in line was forced forward.

 

I had witnessed this same process at least once a month for the last two years, so I knew all of the different reactions that people expressed before death. Some kept their heads held high like the last woman, some gave speeches that would never be heard, others just cried for mercy such as the old man currently on the block.

 

My father hadn’t cried, hadn’t spoken, hadn’t acted defiant before he died as I stood watching, helpless, from this same ledge. He had smiled. Smiled with some sort of private victory of which I would never know, as if he had won somehow, even in death.

 

Tears sprung to my eyes, and I blinked them back angrily, forcing my mind away from him and back toward the situation below me. The next round of prisoners was entering, and it was nearing the end of executions for the day. I recalled the precise descriptions given to me by the wealthy man in the alley and looked over the prisoners below. There were only about thirty of them, none matching the description I had been given. How important was this man? Had I somehow missed him?

 

The next round was the second to last, then the last, then the final execution. If he was the final execution, there was no way I could get him out. It would be hard enough already with this few prisoners. I really should have asked for more money. Sighing, I re-tied my matted hair and hoped for the best, glancing back at the ground below.

 

My heart nearly stopped, and I mouthed every curse word I knew — which was quite a few of them — in violent succession as I spied the prisoner who was being forced up to the middle block. What. The. Hell. Why the hell was there a child here?

 

A small, brown-haired boy was being escorted up the steps with the help of a metal rod shoved into his back. He was very young, seemingly under ten years old and thin-faced with hunger and sadness. He stared at the scene around him with wide, terrified eyes. The guard poked him harder as he stalled on his way up. He took another step and tripped on the stair, scraping his knee with a wail loud enough that I could hear it clearly from up on the ledge.

 

I stood there, feeling vaguely sick as I realized that no matter what I cursed, he was going to die, and I was going to have to stand here watching. I knew that as soon as I spotted him, knew it as I watched his head be forced onto the block, and knew it as I watched the last spark of life leave his eyes.

 

Feeling something run down my chin, I realized that I was biting my lip hard enough to draw blood. I wiped my hand absentmindedly across my face, still watching the scene below until the boy’s body vanished into the fire and the next person stepped up to the platform, babbling something I couldn’t hear. I took a step back towards the shadows, trying to shake off the shock. I would wonder what a boy was doing here later. Right now I would just have to wait.

 

As the last of the prisoners in this round were walked up to the blocks, I focused on my plan. When I saw Master Dowell, I would climb down from the ledge onto the ground fifteen feet below, keeping to the shadows. Hiding in the small crevasse at the base of the ledge, I would catch his eye and beckon him silently.

 

Upon him coming close enough, I could knock him out with a rock which I kept in my pocket, and we would look like no more than an outcropping in the shadows until executions finished and all that remained were night guards. By that time, he should be awake, and we could climb back the way I had come, dodging guards until we reached the surface of the creek where we had a three kilometer trek back to civilization. However painfully slow it could be to return with a starving prisoner, it was worth the feeling of counting bills when I got back. The plan was flawless. I had it down to a science.

 

The next batch of prisoners was being herded out, only about fifteen of them this time. Fourteen heads of greasy blond hair and one of greasy brown. Hidden somewhat behind the rest. I could only see the top of his head, but as he glanced towards the execution blocks for a second, I got a quick glimpse of his face, enough for me to be sure it was him.

 

I pulled off my thin leather shoes and hopped over the rusty railing, climbing down the shadowy face of the rock. I moved with a practiced ease, fingers and toes automatically reaching for the same bumps and cracks in the rock until I was close enough to jump down into the shadowy dip at the bottom of the wall.

 

Matthew Dowell was still behind the others as the guards had not yet succeeded at herding them into a line, so I couldn’t see him clearly. His face swung in my direction nonetheless, and I shifted slightly, catching his attention. Beckoning, I smiled at him sweetly. While not necessary, I found that the smile sped things up, made the person more likely to trust and come towards me.

 

The will to survive always came out in the end, and not one person who I had beckoned before hadn’t taken the chance. I had watched starving prisoners go to incredible lengths with strength they shouldn’t have even had, just to save their own skins. Dowell was no exception. He came forward slightly as the prisoners were finally whipped into line, and my heart skipped a beat as I noticed a small detail that was revealed as the rest of him emerged into my line of sight. He was fat.

 

How… ? That first word shaped itself in my brain, and the thought stalled there. He should’ve been starved before he came out here, they all were. And he wasn’t just fat, he was massive, sporting rolls of blubber that stuck out from under his clothing and rippled when he moved. There were a lot of problems with that. He wouldn’t be able to climb up the wall, dodge guards, fit through the stone crack, or swim up the creek. Even a will to survive didn’t go quite that far. The entire rescue operation depended on being thin, and he, as an understatement, was not.

 

I realized that I had been staring absently at the bloody sand by the side of the execution blocks. I looked back up, wondering how to get out of this, but it seemed that Dowell had already lost interest. His blubbery face was turned in the other direction, watching something that I couldn’t make out. That was odd, but good: I was getting out of here. If I tried to rescue him, I was good as dead and wouldn’t get paid, and if I left now, I still wouldn’t get paid. Best to at least escape with my life.

 

I was about to turn and climb back up the wall when a movement caught my eye. A guard was cautiously advancing toward me from the left, a knife that dripped with something black — probably poison — held in his hand. And another one came from the right bearing the same weapon. I froze, still crouched enough to look like a rock. It was then that I noticed Dowell’s hand, a fat finger pointed towards me.

 

Damn. For two reasons. Damn because it was a trap, and a good one too. And more importantly, damn because I was dead. Running was useless, and I couldn’t climb fast enough. My head shot to the right just in time to see the guard throw his knife. I watched it flash as it arched through the air for just a second and swayed left in a futile attempt to avoid it. I felt a sting as it cut a shallow line on my upper arm, black poison dripping down the cut. That was the last thing I felt before I blacked out.

 

Mercy

It was dark outside. Her blood and bones ceaselessly begged her to go back to sleep, but that’s about the only thing they seemed willing to do. She felt as though she needed a cup of coffee to give herself the will to get up and make coffee.

Iris Adley woke up.

 

“It is our collective goal to send our students into the world on a foundation of knowledge and character.”

 

She took a pod of coffee out of the box. Her grandmother taught her how to make a pot of coffee when she was five years old. Her grandmother had a bright pink drip coffee maker, and her coffee was strong and highly caffeinated and never watered down.

Iris started drinking coffee on her seventh birthday.

She had a coffee maker that produced a single cup of coffee, because she lived alone, and she made a single cup of coffee roughly twenty times a day. Her coffee was black and strong and forced her to stay awake.

 

“For it is my belief that the most important gift provided by this institution is not the education you are given, but the strength of character that you earn through your diligence.”

 

She slammed down the top of the coffee maker. The last time Iris saw her grandmother, neither could remember the other’s name, and they smoked cigarettes together and talked about God.

The next day, one of them died and the other disappeared.

 

Iris Adley was exceptionally good at disappearing. On the night of her high school graduation, she vanished, leaving her cap and gown in a pile in the parking lot. It seemed as though she had turned to dust and floated away. On the night her grandmother died, she disappeared again. She ran out of a hospital, grasping onto a glass vial and thinking about ghosts.

Both disappearances felt like escape acts.

 

She went back to bed and finished her coffee while staring at the single streetlight at the end of the road. Her house was at the end of a long winding road. There were two windows in Iris’ house, and you could see the streetlight from both of them.

It was much too early to be awake. Iris’s mug was emptied, and she continued to stare out the window.

 

“We are proud to send out students who do not run to keep up with the world, but instead inspire the world to follow them.”

 

Iris Adley never managed to eat breakfast. There was always the intention, often the desire, but never the will. She drank her coffee and watched her streetlight turn off and awaited the sun.

 

Back before Iris’ first disappearance, when they were apt to remember each other’s names, Iris Adley and her grandmother would sit on the back porch of an old house and talk about the sunrise.

They could never see the sunrise, but they talked about it as if it were there.

 

“Our students will not be passive in their view of the world.”

 

Iris was seventeen years old on the night of her graduation. Her birthday determined that she was always nearly a year younger than her peers. She was good at math and science and following rules. Her teachers liked to talk of potential. Iris held all of her potential in her hands, like it was tangible before disappearing.

She chose to disappear.

 

Another cup of coffee was filled and emptied in an inevitable way, and the sun began to rise. Iris closed the curtains over her two windows.

 

After her first disappearance, Iris became well-versed in the art of being forgotten. Her siblings and parents grew too far apart and away to be expected to remember anything. Her friends had become convinced of her turning to dust before becoming different people all together.

Her grandmother was the last to forget her; she was forgetting everything by then.

Iris was also trying to forget everything, but that was never one of her skills.

 

“It is our goal not to provide you a list of things you once learned, but to leave you with the education that you will carry throughout your life.”

 

Iris opened her heavy wooden door and walked outside. The air was crisp and light and cool, and it felt like the morning. The long winding road was painted with the golden glow of the sunrise. Iris could not see the sunrise from her house, but she thought about it as though it was there. The morning was bitterly cold and pleasantly warm at the same time, like the day hadn’t yet decided what it wanted to make of itself.

 

She was well-acquainted with cold days. She could remember the night of her grandmother’s death, running from a hospital. She remembered the sound of her feet on the frozen pavement, like ghosts tapping on window panes, and her labored breaths showing white in the frigid air like wraiths and cigarette smoke before they dispersed and vanished. She grasped onto her empty vial and thought that if she crushed it to dust, it would be inclined to disperse and disappear as well.

The vial, like most things, was never as good at disappearing as Iris Adley was.

 

“Because leading is not a matter of being the easiest and loudest voice to hear but instead being the truest and sometimes most difficult voice to listen to.”

 

Iris walked away from her house, mindlessly and deliberately wandering. Her destination was as clear as it was ambiguous. It was as real as running away from hospitals and as real as turning to dust, but really she wasn’t going anywhere.

 

On the night of her graduation, Iris Adley ran away because she wanted to be anyone. She wanted to be pulled away to dance and disperse like dust in streetlights. She wanted to be ambiguous and enigmatic, both real and pretend. She ran away because she loved escape acts. She ran away because she was young, and she was careless, and it seemed exciting. She was called a free spirit. She was called full of potential. She drank coffee. She got a job. She didn’t know what she was going to be. She wasn’t going anywhere.

 

Iris Adley walked toward a lone streetlight at the end of the road.

The last time Iris saw her grandmother, they sat outside of a hospital smoking cigarettes and talking about God. Iris did not smoke cigarettes. There were long summer days of sitting on her grandmother’s back porch while packs of Marlboros appeared and disappeared in inevitable ways scattered throughout her childhood. She remembered her grandmother warning through lungfuls of smoke that her habit would kill her.

Iris did not smoke.

The last time Iris saw her grandmother, she smoked a cigarette because her grandmother didn’t know who she was, so it was like she could be anyone.

They were talking about God, but really they were talking about mercy.

 

It was the first time she had seen a family member since vanishing from high school, and she didn’t know how to act around people who once knew her but didn’t anymore. All she had done in her life was disappear, and that’s what she knew how to do.

The last time Iris saw her grandmother, she held a vial of something clear and deadly. Iris was good at disappearing, and it felt like mercy, like making the tough choice for someone who was weak.

The last time Iris saw her grandmother, she was thinking it was better to be gone than to be a ghost. The last time Iris saw her grandmother, she was smoking a cigarette even though it might have killed her.

 

She was thinking of a mercy kill, but really she wasn’t thinking.

 

“And a leader must take actions, even when they seem difficult, and a leader must make choices, even when choosing seems impossible. And a leader must be strong, even when they are weak.”

 

She ran down the street holding a glass vial. She had disappeared and reappeared, and she was a ghost. She was guilty, but she was a ghost. It was a terrible act of mercy, and there was no mercy left.

So, she disappeared.

 

Iris Adley walked toward a lone streetlight at the end of the road. She was thinking about making the unchoosable choices in life, and she was thinking about being a leader. She was thinking about running and forcing the world to catch up with her.

 

When she was young, she would sit on her grandmother’s porch for endless summer days. Potential was squandered. Desires were abandoned. Peace was not sought out, it was inevitable. Cigarettes were burned. Coffee was made. Months would pass. There was nothing to do, but there was nothing that needed doing. It was perfect.

Summers would end, and Iris would go home to her parents.

 

Her parents liked to talk of the future: caps and gowns and colleges. They always seemed to know what was happening and what to do.

Iris was never interested in such things.

But still, the summers would end.

 

She walked toward a streetlight.

 

When she graduated high school, she was walking away from everything. She was convinced that she could outrun death and despair and graduation speeches by performing escape acts in the parking lot. She was convinced that she could outrun the ending of summer by never acknowledging that it had started.

She didn’t want to make a choice. She chose to run away.

She chose to make a ghost.

She chose to walk toward a streetlight as the sun rose around her.

 

It felt as thought the world was catching up.

She was thinking. She was thinking about ghosts and cigarette smoke and light and dust. Dispersing, becoming nothing, running away. She was thinking about light.

 

The streetlight wasn’t on, but it felt like it was. She was drawn toward it. It pulled her toward the end of the long winding road. She was thinking about dust swirling around in the halo of the streetlight like it was being pulled to a single source.

 

She was thinking about mercy. The light drew her further from her house. She was thinking of endless summer days, but summers have to end.

It was impossible to outrun.

 

On the night of her grandmother’s death, Iris Adley became a ghost, but she was not the one who died. It was a terrible act of mercy, but it was a choice that she made.

She chose mercy, and she was forgiven.

 

“So march fearlessly into the word, today is the beginning of your future.”

 

The sun had fully risen, and the air became warm.

Iris Adley woke up.

 

The End of a World

For the most part, they are silent and still. Only Hussein paces back and forth across the cramped white room. Not even the heavy thuds his boots make seem to distract anyone. The quietness that drapes the rest of outer space in a smothering quilt now covers the tiny space cruiser.

Sofia’s eyes are still red. She can’t see it, but she can tell by the way Tarah observes her and how everything stings when she blinks. Her sight isn’t blurred over from crying, so she can tell that they have about fifteen minutes left before… everything.

Fifteen minutes until they’re the only ones left. Fifteen minutes until they have to drift further away, farther than they’ve already gone. Fifteen minutes before all the contact will be cut off.

Tarah clears her throat. “We’re going to have to talk to them, you know. We have fifteen minutes and twenty-two seconds, counting.”

Hussein stops pacing. He draws up a chair and seats himself. His voice cracks as he speaks. “… We’ve already talked to the government, they’ve already accepted it. Now it’s just your families left.”

“Who’s going first?” Tarah doesn’t look up from the control panel, choosing instead to tap quietly away at the buttons in front of her. She sits with her back facing them both. “Between Sofia and I, I mean.”

“… I’ll go first. Hussein, are you alright with taking over the control panels?” Sofia undoes her hair from the band holding it in place. She thinks about how she was always the one who wanted to go first in the past: She wanted to be the first one to get ice cream from the ice cream truck, wanted to be the first of the three of them to go into space, wanted to be the first to set foot on Mars. Back then, she always was the one who went first, but that was because she wanted to be first.

Now she is only doing it because she knows she has to be first. No one else will go before her. Tarah has made it clear enough, and Hussein doesn’t have anyone back on Earth — he has only had the crew, and he will only have the crew after this.

Sofia dials the buttons, staring down at the spotless white floor of the shuttle. When she looks back up at the hologram, there is only static. A lump begins to form in her throat. Are they already gone? Is this it?

The static disappears, and she sees them. Mami. Papi. Leo. They’re all staring back from behind their hologram at home. If it weren’t for the occasional flickering, she’d almost reach out and touch them.

“Mi hija?” her mother asks.

She waves a gloved hand through them. “Si, Mami. Es tu hija.”

How long has it been since she’s last spoken in Spanish? Has it really been three years since they’ve been sent up here?

Her mother’s smile is outlined in red lipstick. The dimples form on her cheeks. “I’m so proud of you,” she continues in Spanish. “To think — our daughter is the youngest girl to be sent up into space! You’re my daughter.”

“Mami.” She groans a little, remembering all the times before when she’d sit in her cramped kitchen and her mother would be waving around the 99% she got on her test or her scanned certificate from the math teacher.

“You’ve learned so much.” Papi is speaking now, and she can see the tears behind his glasses. “Querida, you are very strong. We are proud to be your parents. You have learned so much, and you have taught us so much.” She thinks back to the hours spent teaching him how to make macaroni y queso as he called (she insisted that he just call it “macaroni and cheese”) and how he’d seat her at the piano and teach her how to play and that she should keep her fingers curved when she played.

“I’m sorry.” She shakes her head. I’m not going to cry again. I’m not going to cry again. “I’m sorry you’re stuck back there. We’ve tried. I’ve tried. Ecuador has tried. The UN has tried. And I hate how there isn’t anything else I can do so far away.”
 “Sofia — ” Leo is speaking now.

“People keep telling me it’s not my fault, and I’ve tried to help you get off before it all. But it was never enough. I’m too late.”

Sofia doesn’t realize she’s given in to crying again until she finds herself drying her tears.

“I’m sorry for crying in front of you.” She speaks to Leo now. “I’m sorry you have to see your older sister like this.”

Three minutes left. It’s only felt like a few seconds.

“You did what you could. And it’s okay. I’m not a child anymore — I’m fourteen years old,” Leo says. “It’s okay. I’m just glad to see you before we go.”

And for a moment, like she has thought before, she wants to be back on Earth with them. She knows that she did all she could from so far away on the edge of the galaxy. She just wishes she could do more.

“Te amo,” she says. She reaches through the hologram for a moment. Two more minutes.

“Te amamos,” Mami says to her. She reaches back, and just for a moment, Sofia thinks she can feel the warm of her mother’s hand holding hers.

She reaches for Papi’s hand, and then Leo’s. She tries holding his hand the longest, pretending that he isn’t a hologram her fingers slip through. She’d taken him to look at the planetarium down in New York, helped him balance on a stool so he could look through a telescope, and hung models of the planets and posters of the constellations up in his room.

They’ve always lived vicariously through the cosmos. Nothing has changed since then.

“I just have one more minute,” she says. One minute before she has to turn her back from their cramped living room all the way down on Ecuador. One minute before she has to turn her back on Earth for good.

“Gracias para todo. You taught me a lot,” Leo says.

Forty-five seconds.

“You’ve made it this far. It’ll be hard not to give up, but you have help from your teammates.”

“Be safe. We care about you.”

Thirty seconds.

“I’m going to miss you. I’m going to name some of the planets we find after you like I’ve told you before.”
 “So there’ll be a planet named Leo.” He laughs a little. “That sounds awesome.”

Twenty seconds.

“I love you. You’ve taught me a lot, and I’m glad I know everything I do know.”

Fifteen, fourteen, thirteen.

“Thank you for everything.”

Ten, nine, eight. Eight more seconds.

They don’t have to say much more. They’ve already said what needs to be said.

Five, four, three —

“Adios,” she says.

“Adios.”

“Adios.”

“Adios.”

She stares at them for a few more seconds before the hologram flickers off. Her time is up.

“Tarah?” It’s jarring when she switches back to English. “It’s your turn now. You have five minutes.”

“Thank you, Sofia.” She turns away and begins to dial the buttons. Sofia realizes she’s only really seen the pale blonde hair and sleek black eyeliner, and not the dark circles under her eyes and her shaking hands.

The hologram begins to flicker again. Sofia sits down at the table and turns away. She’ll just look away during this.

“Is that you, Tarah?” The voice on the other end shakes, muffled and crackling through the static.

“It’s me, Lauren. Hello.” Sofia doesn’t have to look — she’s seen Lauren before with her short red hair and squarish black glasses.

“I’m scared. I knew this would happen when they talked about it a few days ago, but I never thought it’d be like this. I never thought it would actually happen. I’m scared because I know you and the crew and the USA and the government have tried everything you could for this, and I hate how even though I know it’s all going to be over — ” Lauren cuts off her sentence to breathe through her tears. “ — I’m still scared.”

“I’m scared too,” Tarah says. “I don’t want this to happen, I feel like there was something more I should have done even though we’ve tried everything. I don’t want to leave you behind, but we’re too far away. I feel like I’m hiding away in the shuttle. I feel like I’m a coward.”

Sofia looks at the timer. Four minutes left.

“You aren’t a coward, Tarah. You’ve never been one. You’re brave because you came out to your parents even when you weren’t sure how they’d feel about you. You were the one to talk face-to-face with Mom when she found out about you and found out I was dating ‘another girl.’ You’re brave for asking the government for our marriage papers even when you told me you were scared. You found life on Mars even when NASA told you how dangerous the atmosphere was.”

“Then if I’m not a coward, it’s alright for you to be scared.”

Three minutes and thirty seconds.

“You said I was brave for asking about the marriage papers even if I was scared, right? You told me you were scared, and you’re still here. You’re still holding out till the end even after you told me you’re scared. Even though we got this news from the government a few weeks ago and no one saw it comings, you’re still holding out.”

For a moment, Sofia just hears Lauren breathing.

“I love you. We’ve had obstacles, but I’m glad you’ve made it this far, Lauren. You’re brave for making it this far.”

“I love you too, Tarah. I’m still scared, and I know I can’t help it, but I’m glad to be talking with you before… before I have to go.”

One minute and forty-five seconds, counting.

“I’m glad too. I’m glad I fell in love with you. I’m glad I’ve married you.”

She can still hear quiet crying, but she thinks she can hear Tarah crying too.

Fifty-nine seconds.

“Thank you for everything, Lauren. Thank you for moving in with me at college. Thank you for supporting me when I decided I wanted to do this.”

“Thank you, Tarah.”
 Seven, six, five —

“I have to go. Thank you for everything again. Remember you’re full of courage for everything you’ve done for me.”

“I’ll remember. I love you, Tarah.”

Three, two —

One.

The hologram flickers off, and Tarah turns around. She pulls out one of the chairs and stares through the paneled window of the shuttle, away from Earth and the Milky Way and toward the sea of unnamed stars swimming in black.

Hussein doesn’t look up from the control panel, but Sofia asks to make sure.

“Hussein, is there anything you want to do? We have five minutes.”

She expects silence or a brief “no,” but —

“Yes. I want to make a broadcast to Earth.”

“What? Are you sure?” Abrupt, Tarah stands up from her seat.

“I’m sure. I just wanted to say one last goodbye to everyone there. Tarah, could you take over the control panel for me?”

“Yes. I’ll do that.”

The buttons are pressed for the third time in a row. A hologram of Earth starts to flicker to life and spin, and just above that, the faces of everyone on Earth flicker with it.

“Hello.” Hussein waves at the blinking faces.

“My name is Hussein Aamer, I am from Saudi Arabia. Some of you have heard of me, some of you have not, but I am one of the three astronauts sent by NASA into space to look for life on other planets. By then, I was a U.S. citizen and had already completed my science credits for high school and college.”

“My family was killed in the nuclear war when I was a child, and I was sent to America through the refugee program. I’ve lived with foster families for most of my life, and when I turned eighteen, I started my first year at college.”

“I have no one else to say goodbye to but you. You and the crew are my family.”

Four minutes. The engines are shifting into position now, judging by the rumbling.

“I know that Earth can be a cruel place filled with hateful people — I’ve experienced it firsthand. But I also know that my fellow humans can be kind, too. The refugee camp showed me kindness when they rounded us up and tried to teach us English and read us stories. The foster families I have met have been kind, even though they knew I would have to move on to the next family they still wanted me to go to school and get a job and go to college. My crew is my family and have shown me kindness — Sofia Zambrano and Tarah Coleman are two of the most accepting, wonderful people I have ever known.”

“So why am I telling you about this?”

Hussein doesn’t cry, but they hear it in his voice.

“Because until now, Earth is my home, and its people have been my family. We are far from a perfect family, but from the good I know we are capable of being a good family. We have achieved so much in the past few decades, and I am happy to be a part of these achievements.”

Two minutes. Two minutes before everything is over.

“We have discovered life on other worlds together. We have developed temporary cures to slow depletions of natural resources and climate change — think about all the time we have lived. It isn’t luck, it’s because we tried.”

“By now we have done all we could, and I — no, we, the crew of of the Extraterrestrial Life Search shuttle, could not have achieved it by ourselves. We have worked together to make ends meet, we have made compromises, and we have accomplished so much by now.”

Thirty seconds, counting.

“You were my family. Thank you for that. I’m sorry to see you go, but I’m grateful for all that we’ve done together.”

The hologram has begun to flicker. Twenty seconds.

“You have done so much for me as a family I haven’t known for as long, and I will try to repay you as best as I can as we go further. Thank you, NASA. Thank you, Saudi Arabia. Thank you all.”

Nine seconds. Eight, seven, six —

“I don’t have much else to say. So… thank you and goodbye.”

Zero seconds.

The hologram finally flickers out. The faces before Hussein disappear.

Sofia stands up from her seat, wrapping her arms around him. “I don’t believe it’s over. I can’t believe everyone’s… gone now.”

She tries to remember the faces of her parents and Leo, tries to keep them imprinted in her mind just in case the photographs she has from before don’t take. She tries to remember all the words she’s ever learned in Spanish. By now it’s a language she may never use again, but it’s certainly not a language she wants to ever forget.

Tarah stares down at the control panel, looking up to the stars and debris scattered across the edge of the Milky Way. For the first time within these fifteen minutes, she looks back towards the near-blinding light of the Milky Way that they drift further and further away from with each second.

She takes a deep breath. “We don’t know what’s out there.”

“We’ve found life on Mars and Neptune and even Pluto, so there must be something,” Sofia says.

“It won’t replace home,” Hussein says. “But we know there’s something out there to find.”

Exploring new horizons. That’s the motto they picked. That’s what they’re going to adhere to.

Sofia turns her chair away from the window, to face Tarah and Hussein. “Vamonos.”

They turn away from the Milky Way, not looking back as they press the control buttons and the engines speed up.

And then the Extraterrestrial Life Search floats away from the Milky Way, towards whatever new horizons they may chance to find.

No new horizon can replace the planet they used to call home.

 

Train Ticket

I woke up with the sun. I never used to wake up with the sun, sleeping well into ten o’clock, but very recently, my body began to shake me awake in time to watch the sunrise. I didn’t know what change had caused that, but it wasn’t entirely unpleasant. Sure, it required an extra cup of coffee at work, but I didn’t mind watching the yellow and orange hues of the sky.

That’s not true, I lied, I know what caused the change. What had begun the trend of waking up with the sun. It was him. It was the move.

I yawned, sitting up in my bed. Stretching my arms out, eyes closed and still full of sleep. It felt strange, waking up in a bare room. Not entirely bare, though, filled to the brim with brown boxes. Taped up so that it locked my stuff, my memories, away. It didn’t feel like my room anymore. All its charm was lost, charm that I had worked so hard to build.

But whatever, I thought, no use complaining now. It was all said and done, and now I had a train ticket on the dresser and an apartment full of boxed up memories. Joshua was expecting me soon, anyway.

I had coached myself into the same speech every time I watched the sunrise at an ungodly hour. You love him. He loves you. This is the natural progression of your relationship. It usually worked, providing at least a little bit of comfort.

That was months ago, though, and now it seemed too real. Too soon. And that same speech couldn’t take the edge off the anxiousness I felt.

It also didn’t help that today was my last day of work and the day the movers were coming, and the first thing I saw was the train ticket, sitting quietly on my bedside dresser. Not quietly enough for my taste.

Joshua booked me a train ticket himself… he thought I would like the view better than a plane.

I staggered out of bed, head still clouded with missed sleep. The boxes continued out of the bedroom and into the kitchen and living room. Piled boxes that taunted me. Saddened me. I ignored them as I also trained myself to do ever since they’d been packed up.

My phone was charging on the kitchen counter, and it was the first thing I picked up. I turned it on and found a message from Joshua and Tabitha. Unsurprising but not unpleasant though, not entirely.

 

Josh: one more day! miss you so much!

 

Reading his messages made me feel guilty for all the time I’d spent regretting my decisions and worrying about the future. It was clear what we were supposed to do and what was supposed to happen, so… why did it feel so wrong to me? I couldn’t tell you, still can’t, but all I do is feel wrong. Then, I feel guilty. It’s a pretty shitty cycle, so I moved on to Tabitha’s text.

 

Tab: last day 🙁

 

I frowned, lightly. Last day of a lot of things, I guess. Last day of work, something that I should celebrate, but it also felt like yet another part of my life that I was abandoning.

I glanced behind my shoulder and out the large living room window. The sun was beginning to peak out from the tops of the buildings. I had a lot of time before my last day of work. I wasn’t exactly looking forward to spending quality time with my thoughts.

 

The rest of the day was a little bit of a blur. Perhaps my body had been doing everything to prevent the wave of emotions from flooding into my system, so it reverted to blocking it all out. I wasn’t sad about it, though. I didn’t mind not feeling much.

There were a lot of tearful goodbyes from my coworkers. Cards and hugs. Tabitha was there too. She usually was off on Thursdays but had promised to be there for my last day.

“The magazine won’t be the same without our star journalist,” she joked. I laughed, but it felt a little too real. A little too close to home.

She had offered to take me to the train station tomorrow too, but I had declined. It was my own battle to fight, that train.

After work, the movers came and took all my boxes and furniture that I didn’t need anymore. Couches, lamps, kitchen supplies, all sold and leaving me. Posters, video game controllers, and my 80’s movies DVD collection were packed inside big suitcases.

I felt empty when they left. An empty person to match their empty house. It was like every bit of my life was taken from me and loaded onto a truck, and I didn’t understand it. Shouldn’t I be happy? Josh and I were moving in together. I get to see my boyfriend everyday and not just through nighttime Skype calls. Shouldn’t I be over the moon, jumping for joy? Shouldn’t I feel something… anything? No, I felt something.

Sadness. I felt a lot of sadness.

Finally, I gave up. I couldn’t stand being in this apartment anymore. So, I left for the deli. I walked past yellow taxis that honked too much, and I wondered how long I had to be annoyed at them.

 

“Leaving today, huh?” Mike asked, arms crossed over the counter. I smiled.

“Uh-huh. Train bound for Chicago leaves tomorrow… ”

“You excited?” he asked.

“Of course.” That was always my response. I thought maybe if I said I was excited enough, I’d grow to believe it.

“Well… I’ll miss you, Jen. The usual?”

My usual was a turkey on a roll. Little bit of mayo and three tomatoes. No lettuce. Mike knew. I’d been coming here as long as I’d lived in the city. My little slice of home. It never hit me that in Chicago there’d be no Mike. No Sal either, and I wouldn’t get to say goodbye to Sal because he worked the first half of the week and Mike worked the second half. In Chicago, there’d be no Mike or Sal, and I’d have to say my order out loud because the deli owners there wouldn’t know my usual.

The emptiness was coming back to me.

“Here you go,” Mike said, sliding the wax wrapped sandwich across the counter. I handed him my crumpled five dollar bill. He refused with a sad smile.

“Tonight is on me, Jen,” he told me. My heart bubbled with warmth. “Consider it a going away present.”

“Mike… I’m gonna miss you so much.”

I’d miss Mike and Sal. I’d miss Tabitha. I’d miss the city and the Hudson River and Central Park. I’d miss the West End Magazine, and I’d miss my apartment. Not the one now, but the one where all my boxes were unpacked and all my memories were preserved.

God, I’d miss my home.

 

The last thing the movers took was my bed, and I only had my suitcase filled with essential items I used last night and will use on the… train ride. Chargers, toothbrush and toothpaste, and other stuff I absolutely needed. Everything was finally gone. It hurt… it was all gone.

My train ticket was still there, though. Burning a hole into my kitchen counter. I was stalling all morning. Took an extra ten minutes in the bathroom. Ate an exceptionally long breakfast of pasta leftovers that I took a little bit too much care into stirring before putting in the microwave. I stared out the window, blank-faced, for longer than normal. I called the cab twenty minutes later than I should have.

I lingered inside my apartment, my home, and wished it would all go away. The texts Josh was sending me, full of smileys and hearts and warm messages about seeing me. The movers, the empty living room. I wanted it all to just… stop.

It wouldn’t though, and I had a train to catch.

 

The cab ride was smelly. Cabs were always smelly, though, so I wasn’t particularly surprised. Something was different about this cab ride, though, because I found myself feeling nostalgic at the bad smell rather than lightheaded and annoyed. A small smile twitched at the corner of my lips, my heartstrings tugging.

I peered out of the taxi window to see the New York City skyline becoming smaller and smaller. I closed my eyes, leaning back against the car seat. It’s really happening, huh? was my only thought. I’m really leaving the city.

I wasn’t sure the nausea pooling in my stomach was entirely from the lurching taxi ride.

 

I arrived at the platform just in time to see the loud train, screeching and clunking and roaring down the tracks. I ran towards the edge, breathless from the running across the train station to make the train I was watching pull away. I had missed it.

For a few seconds, I was silent as I watched my ride towards Josh and towards my new life disappear down the endless tracks.

Then, slowly, a thought dawned in my hazy mind and fast, rising chest. My face crumpled up in both guilt and joy. How am I going to explain this to Joshua? was my first question. It didn’t matter. None of all of this mattered because, even from the moment Josh asked me to move in with him, I always wanted to miss the train.

 

The Cooling Rack (Excerpt)

Death is not something people take lightly. People die, others mourn them, and then we eventually forget about them.

***

“Hey, Ian! How’s it going? It’s such a nice day outside, right?” A woman’s voice screams through the phone. “Look, man. We’re understaffed today and could use your help in the kitchen. Sorry not sorry, this is mandatory!” The phone beeps, signaling the end of the call.

I look up at the overcast sky, then down at the phone. BOSS LADY reads the caller ID. This woman, Paige, is the owner of the only bakery in town, The Cooling Rack. I happen to be her favorite employee, as I don’t complain when tasked with cleaning or any kitchen-related tasks, even when the orders are given everyday. Paige was never close to her employees, but even though I’ve been one of the longest lasting employees, she’s still so cold. Yet, I have the vague sense that she’s developing some sort of motherly affection for me. Paige is only four years older than me, yet she treats me like a young child, and “children shouldn’t be late to work!” as she is known to say. I sigh, letting my feet mechanically drag me towards the bakery, tripping over the uneven sidewalk and tree roots. The walk is not long, but by the time I arrive at The Cooling Rack, rain has started to fall. The little bells on the glass door announce my entrance into the bakery, and that’s where Paige, a short woman with dyed bright blue hair, bounces up to me and shoves a dark blue apron into my hands.

The Cooling Rack is not big and roomy, but it has a feeling of home. The walls are wooden, and the light is tinted a soft orange, which blends with the fiery hues of fake fireplaces. Black and white photos, ranging in content from leaves blowing in the wind to a woman walking her dog, add a small but noticeable contrast that evens out the excessive warm tones. People of all shapes and sizes pass by, picking up coffee, a snack, or a loaf of bread to bring home to their family. Children sip mugs of hot chocolate while their guardians type on silver laptops, buried in work. It’s a refuge for all, and it would be a shame if it were to close.

“Hey, man! Haven’t seen you since yesterday! Anything fun happen?” A tall man pulls me into a constricting hug against my will. The strong arms belong to my friend, Eli.

I shrug my way out of his grasp. “No, just the usual. Nothing exciting.” I speak quietly, hoping not to get in the way of any of my coworkers. “What’s my job for today?”

“If I remember correctly,” he bends down to my height, “cleaning. Good luck, man!”

With a slap on my shoulder, I make my way to the closet, tying my apron on the way. I pick up a broom and dustpan, find an empty and quiet corner of the kitchen, and start the monotonous task of sweeping burnt bread crumbs off the floor. I hum a tune, in sync with my sweeping, but not in sync with the music already playing softly throughout The Cooling Rack. The sound of an oven beeping joins me in song, but I barely acknowledge it. The quiet jazz playing throughout the store masks the continuous noise from the machine by my waist. The people crammed into the kitchen workspace are all immersed in their work, whether the task was spreading jelly on toast or shaping dough into little bunnies. The quiet beeping remains unnoticed, even when small streams of smoke sneak their way into the air.

“Is something burning?” The woman stirring soup looks over her shoulder and locks eyes with me. “Could you check it out?”

I nod and take a look around the kitchen. Something in the oven I was just standing near is indeed burning, even though there is not enough to set the smoke detectors off. Crouching down, I open the door, and my glasses do little to stop the sudden cloud of smoke that encases my face. The smoke detectors rip through the forgotten music and panicked voices of the employees and customers.

“Get everybody out of here!” Fire seems to be the death for today. Yesterday it was drowning. I wonder what tomorrow will bring. The burst of heat pulls me from my thoughts, and I’m thrown backwards and against the wall as my glasses shatter on the floor. My apron gets caught on a stovetop dial, which turns on the stove at max heat. Fire erupts from the grate beneath my right hand, burning the thin flesh. I yank my hand upwards and out of the fire, only to hit the cupboard above my head with a loud thud, and the metal pots and pans tumble down from the shelves. Each time a pan smacks my body, a painful blood-curdling scream follows. I fall to my knees and land on my the remains of my glasses with a broken cry. The shards tear through the exposed skin, which would only be possible when a person is wearing ripped jeans, as I am. I hold my hand to my mouth, as an instinctive attempt to block out the smoke, but I already knew it was pointless. Looking up into the smoke, the biggest metal pot, the one we never use, glints in the firelight, as if smiling at my inevitable death.

“Oh, dear lord,” I whisper before the impact and everything goes black.

 

The Haunted House

                 

Chapter One

Once there was a spooky haunted house, and a vampire lived in it. It had a lot of spooky things in it like ghosts. Everybody was scared of it. They stayed away from it. The haunted house was in the woods. The woods were dark, gloomy, and misty. The trees were really short. The woods also had a lot of vines, grass, and animals. There were snakes, wolves, and monkeys.

The house was wrecked. The windows and door were broken. It was rusty and had clearly been there for a long time. An old man named Jake used to live there, but he died, and it was really sad. Nobody lived there after that. The villagers did not know about Jake. Nobody liked the house because it was so dirty and nasty now, so the people lived on the other side of the forest. The village had a lot of people. No one had ever seen it except for one man, and he told everybody.

But one day, there were two boys named Alex and Max. They loved to explore in the woods, but one day they were exploring and found a house, so they ran back to the village. They asked somebody who knew about the haunted house.

The guy said, “That house is super dangerous. Do not ever go in there again.”

And then they went to bed, and in the morning, they went back to explore in the woods, but they didn’t go to the house because they knew it was really dangerous. After they explored, they went to the village and geared up because they were going back to the haunted house. But then they realized it was too dangerous and went back. Then, they went home together and watched a TV show about people exploring. And then they geared up in the morning to go to the haunted house. They went to the haunted house, and they saw a ghost, so they hid behind a bush. The ghost started chasing them, so they ran away. Then, they saw two feet and thought, Who was that guy? And then when they went to bed, they couldn’t sleep, so they hid under the covers, and they talked about who that guy could be. And then that morning when their parents were sleeping, they went to the haunted house again, and nobody was there. And then they went back and told everybody. Nobody believed that they saw a ghost.

And then an old man walked by, and Alex and Max asked, “Have you seen a ghost?”

 

Chapter Two

One day, Alex and Max went into the woods and explored the woods.

They wanted to see the haunted house. They ducked under a bush to see a ghost. There were two ghosts on guard. They saw Alex and Max.

“Run!” said Max.

They ran so fast, they ran out of breath. When they got to village, they ran home as fast as they could.

They told their dad, “We saw a ghost!”

The dad did not believe the kids.

And they said, “We really did see one, Dad!”

The dad said, “Did you really see one?”

The kids said, “Yes, we did really see a ghost.”

And then Dad said, “It’s time for bed.”

In the morning, they went into the woods to see the haunted house. This time, there was no ghost on guard, so they went in the house and saw one ghost. It was not scary. The ghost had scared the kids because the ghost had turned his head, so they thought he was scary. So they ran as fast as they could, but the ghost tried to tell them he was nice. The kids heard the ghost’s voice.

 

Chapter Three

The kids ran back to the house and realized that the ghost was nice. They wondered why.

They ran back home. They ran into their room and hid under the covers. The ghost tried to tell them he was nice, but they did not listen to the ghost. They went back to the haunted house, and they hid behind a bush and went in the house and saw the ghost was in the house. They hid behind the chair. The ghost was on the other chair with a book in his lap. He was sad because Max and Alex ran away because they thought he was mean. The ghost saw Alex and Max.

The ghost said, “Stay. I am nice.”

Alex and Max said, “We saw you when you screamed?”

“I know. I tried to tell you that I am nice.”

“But why?”

“My whole family is mean, but I am not. They do not know that I am mean. I try to keep it a secret, because my family always tells me to be bad. But I want to be good. Oh, my dad is coming. Quick, hide. Hey, Dad.”

“Son, who was that? That was other ghost?”

“Oh okay. Was that Aunt Marry?”

“No, did you sneak people in the house?”

“No, I didn’t!”

“Quick, quick, Alex and Max, get outside, quick!”

Max and Alex ran as fast as they could and went to the village. They told their dad that they went to the haunted house, but their dad did not believe them. They went back to their own house. Their brother Jake was getting married to Elizabeth. Alex and Max walked in as the ceremony was happening, and then Jake and Elizabeth kissed.

Alex and Max said, “Let’s go. This is boring.”

They went to the haunted house to see the ghost. The ghost was upstairs in his room. The dad was in the ghost’s room with him because the dad got mad at the ghost because the ghost let in humans. The ghost tried to tell him that he didn’t let in humans, but he actually did and was just lying so he wouldn’t get in trouble.

The dad went downstairs, and Alex said, “Hide quick! The dad is coming.”

The ghost’s dad was the vampire. The kids were so surprised that the dad was the vampire. They ran out of the house. They hid under their covers because they were so surprised that the dad was the vampire. They went back to the house to see the ghost. The vampire was not there, but the ghost was. The ghost was upset because his dad got mad at him because he took his favorite toy away. The dad was coming down stairs.

They ran to their house. They said they were not going to that house tomorrow. So, they thought of a plan. They said, “Alex, you will go upstairs to see if the vampire is there.” They said, “Max, you will stay downstairs to see if the ghost was downstairs. If the ghost is not downstairs, come up and help me. If the vampire is not there, then come down and help me.” Then, they snuck around the house to see if anyone was there. But then, they saw a loose board, and they pushed on it! They saw every ghost downstairs, but the nice ghost was not there because he was in a timeout because the dad thought he let humans in. He actually didn’t, but he was kind of lying, so he wouldn’t get in trouble. They saw every other ghost downstairs, and the vampire was there too. They saw the ghost in his room, and he was really mad because he was in timeout.

They said, “Are you okay?”

And he replied, “Don’t talk to me.”

After a few hours, his dad said he could go to the ghost party. When the vampire came up, they hid under the bed.

The ghost said, “Shhh! Hide under the bed!”

They went to the ghost party and hid right behind the door so that nobody saw them. Then after the ghost party was over, every ghost went to bed. After a couple hours, Alex and Max went to bed. The next day, they woke up and ran to the haunted house. They checked under the broken tunnel, and nobody was there. They checked upstairs — lots of ghosts were there. They were sleeping, but they did not care. They just went into another room. After they went into the ghost’s bedroom, they checked on the vampire to see if he was sleeping. They went back downstairs to watch TV until the ghost friend woke up. They switched channels because all of them were so scary.

 

Ham and Cheese

 

I had just taken BART home from work, the day I met it. Correction: met him. It was hot out, the walk from the station to my house was miserable, and I recall being relieved it was only five minutes. The cars sped by on the road next to me, engines humming loudly. I walked up my driveway, opened the front door, turned off the alarm, and took my shoes off, the usual routine. Then, I grabbed my laundry hamper and hustled down the rickety staircase to the the washing machine in my basement. I opened the machine, dumping my laundry in. As I turned to get my laundry detergent, a flash of color caught my eye. I looked back at my laundry machine and found myself staring right into the eyes of a fish. It was red with tinges of blue on its head and fins. In all, it was about as big as my two fists placed side by side, pretty large for a fish. I didn’t scream, or run away. I just stared open-mouthed. I probably looked like a fish myself. The fish wiggled his way above the surface of my dirty socks, until I could see his entire upper body, as he used his pectoral fins to balance on the rim of the laundry machine. At the time, it didn’t occur to me that fish need water to survive. This fish apparently swam in dirty laundry.

“Ham and cheese,” he said. I stared. “A guy gets mighty hungry when he’s trapped in a laundry machine all day,” he huffed. “Would you please get me some ham and cheese?”

“Ham and cheese,” I repeated idiotically.

“Yes,” he said, “not in a sandwich though, I can’t stand ham and cheese sandwiches. I eat them separately.”

I’m not the questioning type; I do what I’m told. I found shredded mozzarella in my refrigerator and a slice of ham and brought them to the basement. I dropped them into my laundry machine, watching in shocked silence as the fish devoured them both.

“Much better. Thank you,” he said. He leaned over the edge of my machine, peering into my laundry hamper. “Let’s see now, two pairs of jeans, three T-shirts, and a pair of socks. You sure have a lot of socks, you know. There were fifteen pairs in your last load!”

 

The Room on the Fifth Floor (Part 1)

.    

I flopped onto my bed and screamed into my pillow, “UGHHH!! This is going to be the absolutely worst spring break ever!”

“Caitlyn Allen, do not use that tone in this house.” Mom followed me into my room, raising her voice.

“Can you please, please just leave me alone?” I said quietly. She walked out, taking a deep breath. Mom was a busy lady, being the CEO for the Allen Corporation, and all, so she rarely had the time to go on vacation. I knew I was being difficult, but how could I help it? After all, I was staying at Aunt Mildred’s, the most miserable, uptight lady I’ve ever met. She was my father’s sister and had become more evil when he died two years ago from the deadly car crash — when I was in seventh grade.

Dad was an intelligent chemist, so when he passed, everyone was devastated, especially me.  Seriously, I have had many, many memories with Aunt Mildred — all of which have been unpleasant. For example, there was this time where she made me clip her toenails and rub her feet, and even the time where she made me give her angry, clawing cat,  Kiki, a bath. I lay in bed contemplating my life and how I was going to one day run away from my home, Shelby, Alabama, to maybe somewhere like Hawaii, no, maybe Bora Bora?

Don’t worry, Caitlyn, I mean at least you’ll be able to see Ethan. No, no, no. I haven’t seen him since I was ten years old! It’s been 5 years, he is definitely not going to remember me. Oh well, I have to go anyway.

Mom hollered, “Come on, Caitlyn, we are leaving in half an hour. There will be some traffic, so get packing!” Mom had to catch a flight to Shanghai for a conference and did not trust me to stay home for two weeks by myself after the last time. Let’s just say, last time I may have made the house a mess from the pure joy of freedom I had felt. I threw some shirts, shorts, toothbrush, phone, and other stuff into my purple, plaid backpack and jogged out to the driveway. Mom was waiting in the car, speaking on the phone, as always.

She spoke loudly into her earbuds, “Mildred, hello. Yes, yes. Do not worry. We are on our way…. No, no… Yes. She will be on the best behavior… Okay, bye, bye. ”

She hung up and pointedly looked at me, “Be on your best behavior, Caitlyn. Aunt Mildred is our only family left, so you are going to be — ”

“Mom, I know, I know. Like you always say, ‘be the best, most courteous person that way you’ll go through life without getting hurt.’ You’ve said just about five billion times.” I spoke annoyed at her insensitivity. Mom backed out of the driveway, the car ride to the dreaded Aunt Mildred’s was filled with a grudgeful silence. Aunt Mildred lived in the countryside of Alabama — in the spooky town of Beatrice. Tall, branchy oak trees were abundant there, so much so that very little light could reach the town. Aunt Mildred had the largest house there, from what and for what I do not know.

I was lost in my thoughts until Mom interrupted, me, “Ahem, time to stop dreaming. We are here.” It was now seven o’clock at night, and it was almost pitch black. Caw, caw, caw! The crows here freaked me out, but definitely not as much as the mansion itself. Looking up, I saw the towering, once-white mansion. It was tall, with five floors, and large, with 52 rooms. The paint was peeling and graying, and the yellow, flickering lights did not help with its appearance. It looked unkempt with the ivy vines slowly wounding its weigh up the columns.  Honestly, it looked like no one lived there. That is, until you saw the hot pink Lamborghini and heard the creaking of the stairs only to see a tall, haughty lady walk towards us. Click! Clack! Click! Clack! I lowered my eyes only to see two hot pink stilettos, which had to be at least seven inches tall, approaching me.

Then, they stopped, and I heard her snobby voice, “Now, now, Caitlyn Clarisse Allen. That is no way to greet your auntie, is it now?”

I forced myself to look up and mumbled clenching my fists, “Hello, Aunt Mildred.” She smiled fakely revealing her perfect white teeth, while her jet black hair was pulled back neatly in a bun. She was really, truly an image to be feared. Seriously, how could you not fear a lady in a tight pink pantsuit?

Walking past me, she hollered in a high pitched manner, “Oh, Marilyn! Come give me a hug, deary!”

Mom, who was trying to hide in the car because she was on a “conference call” rolled her eyes and faked a smile. “Mildred! How are you? We’ve missed you,” Mom hollered back.

Aunt Mildred exhaled in an irritated manner, “Come out of your darn BMW!” Mom stepped out, her face heating up. Suddenly, through the bushes, I felt someone or something tap my arm.  I turned around, looking through the leaves and spiderwebs (ew) of the bush, and saw a tan arm coming for me. I gasped, Seriously… I’ve literally been here for two minutes and a zombie is already out to get me. Greeeaaat. I pulled my gaze away from the bush, but curiosity overcame me, and I tiptoed to the other side of the bush. In the distance I could hear Mom and Aunt Mildred faking a polite conversation even though everyone knows that they’ve hated each other ever since Mom got married.

“Hey, is that you Catie? It’s me Ethan!” I heard a deep voice whisper in front of me. I looked up to see him. Is that really him? He looks so much taller and so… different. His skin was olive tan (how it became this tan I’m not sure, I mean come on, there’s like no sun in this town), his brown hair was tousled but somehow looking put together. “Hello? Are you going to respond, or are we just gonna have a staring contest?” he asked with a smirk on his face. I felt my face grow hot and my hands clammed up. I forgot I was staring at him.

“Hey, sorry. I go by Cate now. I remember you,” I said rushedly.

Then, a screeching voice broke up the silence, “Caaaiiitttllllyyyn, young lady! Come into the house now. I know you’re in that Evan boy’s lawn!”

Ethan rolled his eyes, but started to laugh. “Hahaha, I just love that cranky lady — don’t you?”

I responded in absolute disbelief, “Um, nope, not at all. Not one bit.” Ethan laughed and I giggled sprinting back to the mansion before Aunt Mildred could yell at me again.

“Oh, good. You’re back. Let me introduce you to the maid,” Aunt Mildred said as she waved me into the mansion. I stepped into the mansion, and it looked exactly like it was five years ago — same black marble floor with a giant marble staircase leading to the East and West Wing. An extremely freaky statue of what looked like a gargoyle greeted me upon my arrival. On my right was the sitting room. I mean it’s sole purpose was for sitting, but no one actually sat there. Big, plump, velvet chairs surrounded one antique looking wooden table carved with beautiful detail. On my left there was Aunt Mildred’s office. I’ve never been in there, but I’ve seen through the door crack. It was actually nice and bright in there. Very pink, also. A wonderful smell wafted to my nose — mmmm… was that pork chops with mashed potatoes? Yum! I tried walking to the kitchen which was in the back, but Aunt Mildred’s bony hand held onto my shoulder.

“Not so fast, young lady. You must meet Caroline first! Ah, here she comes,” she said in her usual omniscient tone.

A stout elderly lady rushed over in an apron with a feather duster and says in a British accent, “Come, Miss Caitlyn, let me show you to your room. I have put your bag in there already.” She turns around, and her curly gray hair bounces up and down. Hmmm… I definitely do not remember this lady when I was here five years ago. She must be at least a hundred. Wow… just ancient. I climbed the staircase with her, and once we neared the top, we encountered three long hallways. Two of them were brightly lit with magnificent chandeliers, but the other one … well, let’s just say it was creepy as heck! The westernmost hallway was so dark that all you could see was one door, that had a crack of light streaming through the bottom. I peered in further and saw two green orbs of light blinking at me. I gasped in fear and tried to look away.

Caroline must have seen my agape mouth and wide eyes, for she quickly turned me around facing the center hallway and whispered in my ear, “Miss Caitlyn, you are strongly forbidden to go into the West wing. Specifically the fifth floor. Mistress Mildred’s orders.” Her cold voice evoked shivers and made me more drawn to the West wing. Then, she forcefully grabbed my hand, and she dragged me briskly into the center hallway. It took my breath away, and I felt my eyes widen, devouring all that was around me. The walls studded with sparkling gems of all sorts. The color and the sparkle weren’t all though. There were paintings too. Some of flowers, others of trees. I felt a pulling at my chest. Dad loved nature so very much. Suddenly I was no longer in this creepy mansion. I was in Muir Forest with Dad, hiking and having a jubilant time. This day, three years ago, was one of the best days I have ever had. This is what flashbacks have been like for me. I should probably take the meds my therapist prescribed.

“Ahem, Miss Caitlyn, shall we get going?” Caroline said, waking me up from the pleasant day dream.  Turning around, I faced another wall. I felt intrigued. There was a huge black and white photograph that covered the whole wall. I squinted, wait a second… that must be Aunt Mildred when she was just a young girl. One would be ignorant to not recognize the jet black hair and sharp nose of hers. She was smiling, something I have never seen her do. Furthermore, she was holding the hand of a boy shorter than her. It had to be Dad. He looked quite different from when I knew him. Curly brown hair sprouted from his round head, his jovial face smiling, revealing his missing front teeth. I missed him.

Tears threatened to escape, but taking a deep breath, I entered the open door which had always been my room here and was elated to see more beautiful decor. Anyone could have guessed that this had been Aunt Mildred’s childhood room, for it was very pink… but beautiful nonetheless. A delicate, little chandelier hung in the center of the circular room. The light reached out to every wall of the room and filled the room with a magical, golden glow. There was an ornate, white dresser next to a dainty pink closet, filled with small, pink clothing. Facing the entrance there was a white, frilly bed — decorated with lace pillows and a pink, faux fur comforter. My favorite part of this room was the balcony, for its French doors opened out to a porch facing Ethan’s window. His baby blue curtains were closed, but a bright light permeated through. His nicely groomed yard and smaller brick home were neat and homely looking. Definitely the opposite of this creepy mansion.

“I’ll leave you here to get ready for dinner. See you later, Miss Caitlyn.” Caroline waved goodbye without a look back.

“Bye, Caroline. Thank you,” I said, but she was already out the door. Sheesh, all the people that work here are so hostile. Reminds me of the kids back at home at Westwood High. Starting to settle in, I suddenly felt a sense of loneliness. I had no one here, except for Aunt Mildred, but she can’t count. I mean come on, have you even seen that lady? I guess I have Ethan. He could be a good choice for a friend. My thoughts were then interrupted by none else, but the one and only, Aunt Mildred.

“Caitlyn!! Come down already. It’s been an hour! Your food is getting cold and eaten by flies.” Aunt Mildred’s high-pitched voice rang throughout the house. Sure enough, I checked my phone and it was already 7:29. It literally felt like five minutes. Ughhh. I dragged myself out of bed and rushed down the stairs. When I exited, I once again encountered the West Wing. Don’t look. Don’t look, Cate. I couldn’t help it. Peering in, I saw the two green orbs again. I got so close to them that I felt everything slow down, and suddenly I felt nauseous.  My eyes widened in fear and my legs felt stuck in place — I couldn’t move. What was that? This mansion is definitely haunted.

“Miss Caitlyn, are you alright? You have been standing there for quite a while now,” Caroline said in a worried tone as her small hand came to rest on my shoulder.

Ummm… I was only standing there for like 30 seconds!

“Caroline, is th-th-there something in that hallway?” I asked quietly.

Caroline replied, “No, sweetie. Nothing. No one uses it, that’s all.”

I looked at her straight in the eyes, “Honest?”

“Honest.”

“Also, Caroline?”

“Yes?”

“Could you please call me Cate. It makes me feel less creeped out by everything and everyone here.”

Caroline hesitated at first, not sure what to say.

“Oh, not you! You are probably one of the more normal people here.”

“Why thank you, Cate,” Caroline replied with the first warm smile I’ve seen all day.

Caroline led me to the dining room. Again, I must have forgotten just how truly beautiful the mansion was. The largest, most luminescent chandelier hung from the decorated ceiling. Yes, I know right. How extra! Who even looks at the ceiling? Little pieces of clear jewels hung from the chandelier like beautiful water droplets. In the middle, there was a long, sandalwood dining table, the legs carved with beautiful images of flowers and herbs. There was one lone plate in the middle of the huge table. Nothing else filled the table. I mean, sure. I usually eat my dinner alone anyway, but this was a whole new level of loneliness. There was an irksome silence, for even Caroline had disappeared. Well, I guess it’s just me and the ghost now. The thought still filled me with shivers, but the delicious smell of pork chops made my mouth water. I couldn’t stop wondering where Aunt Mildred was though. Whatever, it doesn’t matter. She’s probably plotting her next evil conquest. Sinking into the deep red velvet chair, I began to dig into the pork chops and mashed potatoes. Just when I was on my last bite of food, there was a rapping on the front door. I rushed to peer through the door hole to see who this mysterious stranger was. It was Ethan! Unlocking the chains to the door, I opened the door and he rushed in, his eyes wild. He was breathing heavily and scrambled to sit on a loveseat.

“Cate… you gotta believe me. I’ve been seeing crazy… things,” Ethan said between breaths.

“What?! I’ve seen enough crazy for one day!” I said exacerbated. “Also, let’s go into the dining room, I’m just finishing up dinner.”

We rushed quietly into the dining room where Ethan sat on the dining chair next to me.

“Mmmmm… that looks good.”

“Yep, it’s pretty amazing.” I replied through bites. “Do you want any?”

Suddenly, Ethan sucked in air, and I tried to see where he was looking. He continued to stare at my plate with his mouth agape. I looked down predicting the worst. Oh. My. God.

I tried to scream, but Ethan covered my mouth with his hand and said, “Shhh… at least it’s not a bad surprise?” On my plate, sitting there, like the pork chops and mashed potatoes had never been there, was a single slice of red velvet cake. It’s cream cheese frosting and moist looking cake beckoned me to eat it, but I couldn’t. After all, it did just appear from thin air.

“Well, what are you waiting for? That is just about the tastiest red velvet cake I’ve ever seen… so if you’re not gonna eat, I am!” Ethan said, clearly not understanding my point of view.

“Um, not to burst your bubble or anything, but it literally came from nowhere. Like magic, poof! Who knows where it has been? Maybe it’s been poisoned,” I said, flabbergasted.

This whole house was strange and there were always new surprises. I didn’t know how to feel about it. I mean, I was a girl who hated surprises. I was a girl who planned by days out meticulously. I was a girl who turned my homework in early. I was a girl that liked to stay in the comfort of her room. I was anything, but spontaneous. The whole situation really freaked me out.

“Where do you think it came from?” I asked, my voice shaking a little.

“Erm… ” Ethan looked around, “I-I don’t know. There’s no one here.”

Ethan paced around the dining table, looking ready to fight at anytime, “This house is freaking me out. Let’s get outta here.”

 

I nodded, completely overwhelmed, so he pulled on my hand, and we got up. We ran outside. Across the cobbly path with many deadly looking potholes we went, and I was quite surprised that I didn’t die. He stopped once we got to his perfect white, wooden porch lined with succulents. We both collapsed onto the comfy porch swing, our breathing still ragid from sprinting away from that creepy mansion.

“Look! Do you see that? What in the world is that?!” Ethan said with a hint of fear.

He pointed up at the mansion’s roof, and its chimney was truly doing something out of this world. It was spouting out red smoke, that in turn, sprinkled onto the roof in the form of powder.

“I have no idea. I have been in this town for less than a day and suddenly, all these crazy things are happening. And I don’t know why, but this place reminds me of my dad… ” I said on the verge of bursting into tears.

Ethan replied, unsure what to say, “Oh… I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to — never mind, let me just fill you in on what’s been happening these few days.”

Sitting on the steps of his porch, he told me that crazy signs have been coming up starting the last two days. Everyday at 8pm, green, yellow, and sometimes red smoke is emitted from the chimney leaving the roof a powdered mess.

“But listen, Cate. It’s not just the fumes that are abnormal. You see, through my parents’ bedroom, I have the perfect view of a dark hallway,” Ethan said on a roll.

“Woah there, Ethan, slow down. The West wing? The dark hallway is the one Aunt Mildred told me not to go in,” I said disbelievingly.

“Yeah, yeah. The West wing. But get this — the hallway has these tiny green light things that fly all the way to the fifth floor. I can’t really see what’s on the fifth floor exactly. All I know is that Ms. Mildred goes in there every so often,” Ethan said, excited to be part of an adventure.

Feeling faint, I whispered, “I saw those while I was walking past the West Wing hallway. It’s near my room. C’mon, we’ve got to go.”

I grabbed Ethan’s hand, pulling him up from the porch, and we started to run back to the mansion. It was getting, cold and my hands and feet felt numb. We pushed through the cold, running along the windy cobbly path. I couldn’t help but shiver, not from just the cold, but also the creepiness of the dark looming trees. Were the cackling crows up there perhaps making fun of us? Running up the cobblestone driveway careful not to twist an ankle, we finally reached the doorway. The only light shining was that of an old lantern emitting an orange light. There was an eerie silence as we stood at the doorway. But suddenly, there was a, boom! Boom! Looking up, we gasped. It was the largest poof of glowing orbs coming out of the chimney I had ever seen. They looked like a colony of fireflies. However, they weren’t the green orbs I saw in the hallway of the West Wing. They were red, orange, and white, looking like some sort of weird fire.

“Oh my god. What in the freaking world,” Ethan whispered, his face white.

“Oh. My — ” I started to say.

Ethan said, “C’mon Cate, we are going to the fifth floor of the West wing,” pulling on my hand.

I held back shivering in fear, “I can’t, I’m sorry.”

He replied surprised, “I thought you wanted to see what was up there!”

I said, in a sorry manner, “We don’t know what’s up there! It could hurt us.”

Then, hearing how crazy I was being, I changed my mind and said, “Actually you know what, let’s do it. It’s just some powder and weird looking fireflies. It can’t do anything to us.”

We tested the front door, crossing our fingers that it was unlocked. Shoot, it’s locked. I knocked on the door. Knock! Knock! A green eye peered down at us through the door’s peephole. Chain dropping, the door creaked open and I dreaded the sight — Aunt Mildred wearing a cucumber face mask with her fuzzy pink robe and slippers.

“Just what do you think you are doing, young lady?” Aunt Mildred spoke sternly almost exploding with disbelief.

“Nothing, nothing at all. We were just taking a walk, Aunt Mildred,” I spoke quietly, not making eye contact. I nudged Ethan who was trying to stifle his laughter at the view of Aunt Mildred.

“No one can hear you, speak up. Whatever, come on in, now,” she said just noticing Ethan.

“Hey there! Ms. M, it’s me Evan!” Ethan spoke jokingly.

A shadow passed on Aunt Mildred’s face, and she forgot about us. She looked at her watch, then back at us squinting her eyes, as if trying to read our minds. She mumbled to herself looking worried — something about cake. She rushed to the dining room, leaving us in a confused state.

“Was it something I said?” Ethan asked just as perplexed as me.

“Oh no, oh no, oh NOOOOO! The cake. The cake. Why is it still here??” Aunt Mildred cried in distress.

She sprinted out, her green face resembling that of a wild ghoul.

“You come here now, Cate. You eat this cake,” she said, chasing us through gritted teeth.

In complete petrification, my feet were glued to the marble floor next to the front door, the wind outside howling at me.

Ethan unlocked me from the trance and shook my shoulders saying, “C’mon. Your Aunt Mildred is going crazy. We gotta escape from here.”

I nodded at him, and together we fled up the stairs, escaping the green ghoul that was Aunt Mildred.

“No! Come back, children. Look, look at this delicious piece of cake. Don’t you just want to eat it?” Aunt Mildred yelled, gaining on us after kicking off the slippers and throwing the plate of cake onto the ground, the plate shattering in a million pieces.

I heard someone shriek. Wait, was it me?

“Shhhhh!! Just keep running,” Ethan said, covering my mouth with his hand.

After what seemed like a hundred steps of stairs, we finally reached the top. My calves were burning in agony, and my muscles begged me to stop running, but instead, out of pure fear, we zoomed into the West wing.

Aunt Mildred was still climbing the stairs, but must have seen us go into the pitch-black hallway and hollered, “Come out of there right this second, Caitlyn Clarisse Allen. You’ll get hurt in there, trust me.”

I didn’t dare look behind me, I shut my eyes tightly and ran side by side with Ethan.

Ethan whispered, “Stop running Caitlyn, open your eyes.”

I cautiously opened my eyes, scared that there might be a monster or worse — Aunt Mildred standing there. Alas, it wasn’t. Thank god. It’s just the stairs up to the ominous on the fifth floor. That was when I noticed more green orbs circling around us, doing all sorts of things. Most of them were busy fluttering around us, curious at the new visitors. Some other ones were creating a long line and were glowing brightly, like they were trying to aid us in getting up the stairs. Almost like we could read each other’s minds, Ethan and I climbed the stairs together simultaneously, but everything felt slower.

We pushed ourselves to go faster, but everything felt slower up here, except Aunt Mildred’s pitter patter of bare feet on marble and the impossible to miss loud panting. How was she so fast while also being extremely out of shape? Thank goodness we were both wearing sneakers and um, normal clothing. Every floor we passed through brought new surprises and clues to the mystery that was the fifth floor — the second floor of the West Wing had cardboard boxes of all sizes, all filled with flasks and powders. The third floor was a huge library, filled to its cavernous ceilings with largely binded textbooks. The fourth floor, however, was the most shocking with a huge family crest resembling a crow with a sash that said ALLEN on it. It was lit with candles with one twin sized bed right next to it — sheets all tossed off the mattress. Well, I mean, it would have been the most weird floor until we reached the fifth floor.

“Wowzers. How amazing.” Ethan breathed out, clearly tired from all the running.

“Wowzers, indeed,” I whispered back.

Suddenly, the most infuriated screech was emitted, “ARGHHHH!! Those little dweebs, they found it — ”

Aunt Mildred was on the last step leading towards the magnificent fifth floor. Ethan and I quickly scurried behind a tall stack of cardboard boxes, not daring to even let out a breath. Thump!

What happened? Ethan peered out from behind the boxes and started to giggle.

I nudged him, warning him, “Shhh… she can hear you. What’s so funny??”

Ethan replied still laughing, “Hahaha, Ms. M has collapsed!”

“What??” I said in complete disbelief.

I, too then cautiously peered from behind the boxes and yep, there she was. Aunt Mildred, completely out of breath, lay there on the steps, not moving, but still alive.  Oh, poor old woman. Is she okay?? No, Cate, don’t think that way. After all, she was the one chasing you!

We were free from her chasing us, finally. We could now take the time to fully absorb our surroundings. The tall, tall ceilings, that made every motion echo. First, the floor led to a long hallway, but then, Ethan and I made it to a pathway leading to a glass room. We observed into the glass room — somehow, there was sunlight in there. Long rows of all sorts of flowers were lined up in neat, colorful rows as bees and even a few hummingbirds zoomed around happily. The room was completely glass, and it emitted some sort of happy glow that the rest of the mansion failed to do. I moved my eyes to the right side and saw — Was that, was that some sort of mad scientist? It was indeed. There was a tall man, wearing a rumpled white lab coat. Underneath his lab coat, he seemed to be wearing a neon orange shirt with words on it that I could not make out. His hair was turning gray, with only wisps of brown hair peeking through.

“Who is that?” Ethan whispered to me in complete awe.

“No idea, must be Aunt Mildred’s scientist servant.”

We could not make out the scientist’s face because it was completely concealed by lab goggles and even a mouth mask to most likely protect him from the dangerous chemicals it looked like he was producing. The stranger stood behind a tall wooden table that was completely filled with flasks of all sorts of colors and plants. They kept letting out powders every so often which the scientist tried to catch with clear plastic hoods.  The scientist himself worked on what looked like some sort of complex machinery that pumped the flowers from the gardens into those flasks.

Suddenly, we almost jumped at the sound of this strange man’s voice, “Mildred? Is that you?”

She moaned, “Yes… the test subjects just escaped from my grasp and escaped.”

Um, test subjects? What! Me? Everything suddenly made sense, but I didn’t dare to make a sound.

He answered in disbelief, “Come on, Mildreddd. You promised that it would work! How could — ”

“Sorry, sorry. I’ll try again in a few minutes,” Mildred replied weakly.

The scientist mumbled to himself in the glass room — undecipherable to all of us. He took off his thick goggles and then, it almost seemed like he could see Ethan and I in the corner of the hallway.

His honey-colored eyes glowed in the bright light and for a second… wait. Was it really him?

 

Lavender

He wakes up early that morning. The room is dark, and the sofa is lumpy. He flips the pancakes and chops the strawberries and leaves them on a chipped plate on the wooden table. The shards of porcelain dishes turn the floor into a dangerous mosaic he tiptoes over. He sets a note next to the plate, a plea for forgiveness scribbled on it with a ballpoint pen. She will scan it once and throw in the trash. At least, he thinks to himself, she’ll know he cares.

The BART station is near empty at this time when the sun itself is waking up. It’s a pleasant ride. He passes the minutes by humming to himself in time to the rattling of the train car. From the window, he can see the whole world go by, towns, cities, farms. He exits at the final stop of the line, pushing past the bustle of the everyday working American. Life itself is happening around him. He savors the thought, turning to wave as the BART car rattles away. A few people inside wave back.

He takes the steps two at a time, hopping down them in the way a child would. A few people stop and stare, but he doesn’t mind. The stares are in themselves little compliments. He doesn’t trip on the loose fifth stair. He skips over it, then stops to explain to an amazed little girl how to jump just like him.

The brisk September air fills his lungs as he strolls down the street, dropping quarters into the parking meters as he goes by.

At the bus stop, he sits next to a woman wearing an oversized jacket. They talk for a bit, exchanging puzzle pieces of their lives. She tells him about her son and daughter in college who are on scholarships and don’t know that she was evicted three weeks ago. He tells the woman about his love, what he’s done, and where he’s going. The woman laughs and clamps him on the shoulder. He offers her one hundred dollars in the form of a thick wad of bills, but she declines, pushing the money into his pocket. He is sad to leave when his bus arrives.

He takes the bus up to wine country, where the land is covered in its livelihood in the form of grapes. Up here, the taste of wine is a part of every meal. He doesn’t think he could stand all of the finery that comes with it. He wasn’t born for a life of frills and neither, he thinks, was she. He remembers she had said something about that last night after he had shattered the dishes on the floor.

He wonders if she got the pancakes and the little note she probably refused to read. The bus comes to a creaking stop. He pushes the thoughts out of his head and exits in a hurry, handing the driver a plastic rose he found abandoned on the seat.

The world smells of lavender and dirt and mist. A sagging house waits a a mile down from the bus stop. He skips towards it, singing a radio hit from years ago. A couple he knows through their voices on the phone stands in front of the house. Years of happiness are visible in their every move. Behind the house is a world of violet.

The couple smiles when he gasps. They tell him that this lavender is their life’s work. Every flower holds a memory. Two hundred dollars is payment for five bags. He tells the couple that their love story will be perfect to tell her. Maybe then she’ll be able to remember they have a story of their own. The couple gives him a grateful smile and hands him the bags full of lavender sprigs.

He waits almost an hour for the bus to return. The man next to him doesn’t like to talk much. So, he tells the man about her, painting pictures with his words. The man nearly cries. He gives him a sprig of lavender and holds him until the man’s bus arrives.

Joining him now is a teenage girl, absorbed in her phone who chuckles at seemingly random moments. He watches for a while, until she glances up to see his stare. Flashing him a look of disgust, she returns to the tiny world in her screen. Anger bubbles up within him, a monster he has never learned to control. He takes her phone in his hand and throws it as far as possible. The reflective surface glints in the sunlight before it strikes the ground. The girl looks at him in shock, before dashing away to save her device.

The screen is shattered beyond repair. She screams at him and cradles the lifeless phone as if it was her baby. He listens to her for a few moments before telling the girl about her.

Throughout their years together, she never needed the tiny devices. She never needed a wall dividing her from everything else. She flourished in a world of screens by simply opening her eyes beyond that. He hands the girl two hundred dollar bills when his bus is in sight. He then tosses her a sprig of lavender. She catches it in both hands, studying the flower as if it was the first time she had ever seen such a thing. He picks up his bags and steps onto the bus.

The ride back is bumpier with people packed shoulder to shoulder. He takes a seat next to a snoring man. Across from him, a couple shares a bottle of wine. She might’ve liked that once but not after everything that’s happened. He pushes the thought out of his mind and glances around the bus. A little boy watches him. His five-year-old hands cling to a metal pole. He ducks forward, towards the boy, and offers him a sprig. Lavender is passed from big hands to little ones. He smiles and retreats back to his seat.

By the time it reaches his stop, the bus is teeming with the scent of purple flowers. He hands one to every passenger as he makes his way off. He pauses at the driver’s seat and offers her a sprig with two flowers dangling off of it. She smiles and places it next to the plastic rose. The driver’s eyes remind him of hers. He can’t help but grin.

Walking down the sidewalk, he digs out his last few quarters to save a car about to be ticketed. Several moments later, an anxious driver emerges from the station, perplexed to see she has twenty minutes to spare. The station is near full again, despite it being the quiet time of the day. He hands every person he sees a lavender sprig.

He sits across from a woman wearing a gold studded coat and has one side of her head shaved. He learns about her boyfriend who stole her life savings and how she is going to court now. He gives the woman a much needed hug and tucks one of the remaining lavender sprigs behind her ear. She walks out with her head held high, the purple flowers perfectly complimenting her eyes. The first bag is empty now, but still carries a pleasant scent. He ties it around a pole, hoping everyone can share in a little piece of his adventure. A pleasant voice announces his station, and the train comes to a screeching halt. He makes his way out and watches as it travels downs the tunnels.

The remaining four lavender bags seem to become heavier and heavier as he walks down the long winding road towards his home. The smell of an apologetic guilt is in the air.

He arrives to a depressing barren yard. For the first time today, he feels almost lonely. Then, through the window, he sees her shadow. A pianistic melody flows into his ears.

He plunges his hand into the bag and grabs a handful of flowers. He stoops and goes about planting them into the dirt. Slowly, a tapestry of purple begins to form on the rocky soil. He is soon covered in mud with a distinctive earthy scent. Perhaps, if lavender can grow without any roots, maybe so can their love.

He works for hours into the evening. She never does emerge. The tinkling sound of the piano continues to radiate from the window.

The once barren yard is a field of purple. In his hands, he takes the remaining lavender sprigs and ties them in a bouquet. Ignoring his racing heart, he marches up to the front porch and knocks four times, no more, no less. He waits for a moment, rocking back and forth on his heels. She opens the door and stares at him, as if waiting for him to make the first move in a game of chess. Studying her face for forgiveness, he holds out the bouquet. “I’m sorry.”

She looks at him blankly.

“Did you read my note?”

“It’s in the same place you left my heart.” For a moment, she catches a glimpse of the sea of flowers that has sprouted in her yard. Her eyes fill with wonder and hate, but nothing nearing love.

He turns towards his long day’s work. “I did this all for you.” He stares at her with pleading eyes. “You always loved lavender.”

Her laugh slices through his heart. “And how many flowers did you give away while you were on your little adventure?” She takes a step forward. Sunlight splashes onto her face. Inside, he can see the floor has been cleared of porcelain shards. A familiar lump of guilt forms in his throat. Her feet are bandaged with white cloth. “How much time did you spend running away from me by doing your so-called good deeds?”

She snatches the lavender from his hands, crumpling the flowers he had traveled so many miles to obtain. “You are so perfect.” A bit of saliva lands on his cheek. “All you care about is looking perfect and caring to everyone.” Tears run down her cheeks, forging tiny rivers on the landscape of her skin. “Why do I only matter to you when you feel your heart beginning to break?” The lavender bouquet falls to the ground. “You never noticed that my heart was already in pieces.”

 

Me, the Woman and the Man

In the corner of an illuminating empty, dull, gray room, I stand with pale hands that shiver like a shower in mid-December, shaking like the earth I am on. All over this neighborhood are factories, left to right. There is not a single park here. The smoke stacks develop into the sky like an evil crop of corn, and they give off these fumes which cover many of our homes with dust. It almost looks as if I had put black paint on my hands and rubbed it all over miniature, lego-like houses.

Who am I? I ask myself. The idea of not having anyone with me, by my side, is destroying me.

And yet, to this day, I still get these dreams — very vague and foggy — of when I was eleven years old and on a planet similar to Earth, but one that was rust and sepia-colored, and dusty.

The dream started with a woman talking to me…

“Bellumy, we’re finally here — we can start a new life,” this woman told me with a relieving voice and brown eyes which were oddly familiar.

“Where are we… ?” I stated with that sweet wonderful voice. “Are we going home now?”

“This is our home now,” she cried.

As soon as I hear the word ‘‘home,’’ I always wake up from my foggy day dream and find myself on a piece of rock I would call Earth. I feel as if I haven’t had a drink of water in years, and my mouth is drier than the Sahara Desert. The sweat from my armpits and forehead reach my feet like an appalling waterfall.

“Oh my God, Bellum! You are sweating like crazy,” a nurse worryingly states. “Here. Drink some water… you’re dehydrated for god’s sake.”

“I am so sorry, Adjútor, I had those nightmares again.”

“I don’t have the time for it. I have to clean your mess,” she yells.

I want to tell her my weird dreams of this woman calling me honey or little sunshine, but I can not bring myself to it.

“Why don’t you care?” I question.

“You can always tell me but not right now. I need to clean your room while you’re eating lunch,” she explains.

“Aren’t you going to have food with me Adjútor?” I ask.

“What did I just say? I will talk to you about your dreams later, after I am done with cleaning your room. So just get your butt up and eat your lunch,” Adjútor commands me to do.

One day I will leave this wretched, scummy place, and I will leave and go somewhere better… somewhere where I belong. There is this program, a program that fixes damaged brain tissue and replaces a broken micro chip with a new one. Well you see, I have had a broken chip since I was ten years old. These microchips are implanted in every baby that was born after 2025. The MCO’s, or MicroChip Organizations, are made in various versions. For example, some improve the brain for those who are mentally challenged or have other physical disabilities. Still, others were implanted in the brains of those who’ve migrated to other planets as a backup plan to ensure the safety for every person adapting to a new environment.

When I was born, I had these tremors. Theses tremor are an involuntary, rhythmic muscle movement. These movements are often back-and-forth actions of one or more body parts.
 Most tremors can affect the hands. However, tremors can occur in the arms, head, face, vocal cords, trunk and legs. Other children like me with tremors often have back-and-forth or oscillating body movements. Kids also like me have a shaky voice. Tremors can affect fine motor coordination, such as writing and gripping objects. Tremors become more severe and may be triggered when I am stressed or feeling strong emotion.

Ever since my chip was broken, a point at which I did not remember, there was a sudden increase in my tremors. I needed a nurse to take care of me. She was annoying at first. She never listened to me and never wanted to talk to me. Now, she’s both annoying but empathetic, too. Some days she seems to care, and yet on others she does not because she is busy with some kind of work.

My tremors don’t prevent me from doing work, like delivering pizzas or even taking customers’ orders down. You see, I am currently enrolled in physical rehabilitation program, which simulates real world jobs for people who lost motor skills who want to get a job in the real world. I cannot work in a stressful environment or my hands shake like they do when I get those dreams. Each day I work, I get more exhaustion and more rest. That sounds like a contradiction, but my over-tiredness helps me enjoy my time sleeping in bed much more.

A few nights later, the same old dream initiated in the peace of my subconscious with the woman droning on and on…

“Bellumy, we’re finally here — we can start a new life,” the woman had told me with a relieving voice.

“Where are we… ?” I stated with that sweet, wonderful voice. “Are we going home now?”

“This is our home now,” she cried as I could see the reflection of hills in her brown eyes.

Who was this woman? Why is she haunting my dreams? What home is she talking about? I need to get my chip fixed; I need these nightmarish dreams to go away.

I immediately need to ask a doctor to fix my chip so I can get this dream off of my mind for good. I alight off my hospital bed and go on a mission to find the doctor that can help me.

Running faster than the Flash, I collide with my nurse.

“Bellumy are you okay?” Adjutor worriedly asks. “You can’t leave your… ”

“I am leaving this place… I need to look for the doctor who can fix the chip,” I yell at her, pointing to my brain.

I do not want to even talk to her — I just need to find the doctor.

“Calm down, Bellumy,”Adjutor whispers right in front her boss.

“Who is he? Can he fix my chip?” I shout.

“Bellumy, I’m Dr. Medicus, I need you to come with me,” a man with broad shoulders and chin politely asks.

“Bellumy, the chip you’re talking about is causing a decline in muscular movement. This prevents you from doing certain day to day chores,” Medicus informs.

“Sir, is it possible to change the chip?” I curiously ask.

Giving me a contract, he states, “Well, yes, but there is a long waiting list — you would have to wait a couple of weeks.”

“These chips are meant for babies and can only be repaired for babies; it will be dangerous,” Adjutor worriedly states.

I had a lot to consider about this issue.

As the weeks passed, I kept getting those nightmarish and dank dreams. Every day I have to hear ‘this is our home now.’ However, the thought of having my brain chip repaired helped me leave my room with a smile on my face, slowly realizing that I can have a better life without these nightmares. Goodbye brown-eyed woman, I shout in my head.

And then it happened.

One unusually sunny day, the doctor came with the news I was waiting for.

He stood in the doorway like a smiling scarecrow and simply asked, “Are you ready?”

I didn’t have to answer, but he knew what I was going to say.

I slowly entered the surgery room. It was so silent, but the machines were humming, and the oddly shaped tools were shining like the sun on the horizon of some new wonderful land while the nurses were looking at me.

“Sit here,” Medicus commands.

I couldn’t say anything. I was shocked that something this thrilling would ever happen to me. So they gave me anesthesia, which is the injection of drugs before surgical operations which puts people to sleep.

After the surgery, I had to rest and couldn’t do anything physical. I had to sleep and eat through an IV tube.

My mind felt very calm as if this was a sign from God that I am disconnected from my pain. But that feeling of being released from the pain was soon to be crushed by the same repetitive dream and the same brown-eyed woman. However, this was not a dream — it was longer, a man appears to be next to the same brown eyed woman…

“Bellum, do you know where we are?” the man asked me. “We are on Mars.”

“Bellum, let’s go to our new rooms,” the brown-eyed woman ordered politely.

With a happy, relieving voice, the man exclaimed, “This is our home now, I hope you love it.”

“Are you ready to go to school today?” the man asked.

“Yes, I am going to school,” I firmly replied.

I got ready and rushed to the door and leapt towards this floating car that had been given to us by the government.

Hours had passed since I was dropped at this building — so bright, white, and hovering over the entire colony of Mars. This building is like a 6-foot tall man compared to a toddler.

At the end of the day, I saw the same people who had dropped me here, and then I heard an explosion, so loud it shattered my ear drums and broke every bone in my body.

I heard a loud scream echoing through my head saying “Bellum” over and over again.
 Even while asleep in this dream like state, this new influx of “dreams” felt real… not like dreams at all.

I woke up, but felt more sweaty and felt more dehydrated than ever before. Suddenly, I remember the rooms filled pictures of me — the woman and the man. We are hugging near these reddish hills; these were not like the ones on Earth which are grassy and green. Slowly trying to sit up, I immediately dropped down to the center of the bed.

I woke up the next morning, relieved that it was all over, and I desperately need to talk to a psychologist or someone like that. My dreams are getting more intense.

As soon as I saw Dr. Medicus, I tried to ask him if he could give me someone I can talk to about my feelings. Medicus gave me a number to this psychologist — her name was Sandra Hollingworth.

Later this week, I met with her, discussing my dreams and describing them with great detail. I notice something strange. She has these tiny tears slowly running down her face. She hands me this newspaper with the headline, Tragedy On Mars 2055.

“Read this article. Take your time,” she offers. Clearly she had lost someone and is still mourning because of this incident on “Mars.”

 

I grab the newspaper and skim it. There was nothing until I come to a picture of a kid, a brown eyed woman and a man. The woman was laying down with all torn clothes and bruised; the man is all bloodied up, eyes closed and grasping for life. Then, the kid is on his knees, tears down his face and fist clenched.

“Do you recognize the lady and man in the picture?” she asks. “Are these the people that were in your dreams?”

“Yes, she is the one that says, ‘This is our home,’ and the man is just a man!” I exclaim.

“These aren’t dreams, these are memories. You had experienced a very traumatizing event, and your brain had cancelled these memories,” she explains to me.

Wait a minute? I thought to myself. The woman in this picture looks like the woman in my dreams, and the man looks like the man in my dreams that had occured not too long ago. The kid looks just like me but only tiny and skinny. The woman has the same color eyes as me, same jawline, same nose shape… same everything.

“Uh — can I go back?” I had wondered.

“Well, yes. Things have changed; those who were injured or survived the 2055 accident can have a free pass back,” she continues to explain. “All the necessary changes have been made to the Colony I, so it is safer to live there.”

I completely ignored what she said, and I packed my bags and rushed out the hospital.

There had to be something more than a hospital bed, solitude, and empty terrestrial life. My destiny lay in another place… one that was red, familiar, and the resting place of the “brown-eyed” people I love.

 

How Kombucha Ruined My Life

I wake up Saturday morning and check my phone from my bed. Looks like it will be another sunny day that I spend inside. I have been rehearsing the musical Legally Blonde all week, and tonight is the performance. I play Brooke Wyndham, an exercise queen accused of murder. Some of my friends and family are coming, so the show has to be really good. While I’m sad it’s almost over, a sense of relief washes over me. It has been a lot of work.

My phone buzzes, and it’s my very energetic best friend Hazel.

GUESS WHAT??!! she writes.

WHAT????? I jokingly reply. We love goofing off together and have been doing it for years. Since fourth grade to be exact. It’s crazy to think that now eleventh grade is just around the corner.

ASHER IS COMING!!!!

My heart leaps into my throat. Asher, my crush since, well since forever, is coming to my show?

WAIT WHAT?! I reply, hoping that what she says next isn’t true. I haven’t talked to him, like really talked to him, since sixth grade when we shared snacks once. I am one of those people who observe and admire from afar.

He asked me about show dates and times and said that there was someone special in the shows that he wants to see. I think that means you!!

O-M-G. My heart pounds. Why would he be coming to see me? He doesn’t even know me now. Sure, our families are friends, and we used to be friends. Before popularity became a thing, we used to ride our bikes together down to the little cafe and get milkshakes. Him, chocolate. Me, vanilla.

I can’t think about this now. I have to focus on tonight. On giving a fabulous last performance. I get dressed and start my hair and makeup; I will finish it when I get to the theater. I grab a frozen waffle and pop it into the toaster oven as I get my things together. My mom comes in from an early morning grocery store trip and pulls out some chocolate cookies, strawberries, and grapes for me to take out of the grocery bag. I stuff them into my already overflowing backpack and run to the car.

“You forgot your waffle,” my mom says, getting into the driver’s seat. She hands me the warm, crunchy waffle wrapped in a napkin.

“Thanks, Mom,” I say, my mouth already full of the sweet breakfast.

“I got you something,” my mom says. She reaches into the back seat and grabs a cold glass bottle filled with some pink liquid and hands it to me.

“What is it?” I asked, a little skeptical of what it was.

“It’s called kombucha. It’s a fermented tea that is really good for your digestion. I want you to try it. It’s grapefruit jasmine flavored and it’s fizzy.” She glances over to me and gestures for me to open it.

I do. Only to please her; my mom always goes on health food cleanses, so it is easiest for everyone to get this over with ASAP. It reeks of vinegar and raw fish — without a doubt, the grossest thing I have ever smelled. I take a small sip, try to hide my gag, and give it back to my mom.

“Here. You try this and tell me if it is something you would drink.”

My mom takes a big sip of the kombucha and chokes.

“That was horrible! I am so sorry I bought that.”

My mom hands the drink back to me, and I put the top back on. We open the windows to air out the car.

“Take it with you, maybe one of your friends will want it.” My mom laughs as I stick the glass bottle as low into my bag as it will go.

As we pull up at the theater, I run in and throw my bag in a corner near where I see my friends Jake and Sami sitting.

“Are you guys pretty nervous too?” Jake continues to run his hands through his nicely gelled hair.

“Stop! I just did your hair. Don’t you dare mess it up again,” Sami responds. She stretches her long, tan legs to get ready for all the dancing we have to do.

We talk for a little bit longer and run a few lines before the stage manager comes in and says, “Time to go into the theatre for notes.”

A few minutes later, we go onto the theater to listen to notes, and I try not to think about that gross kombucha smell at the bottom of my backpack.

Once we finish notes, I grab the kombucha thinking I’ll throw it out, but the stage manager says we can’t leave the dressing room until we are ready for places. Looks like I’m stuck with this gross drink until after the show. I put the it down in the corner and finish getting ready for the run. I take off my clothes and throw them in a pile near the kombucha and get put my costume on.

“PLACES!” yells the stage manager as she rushes through the room.

After two solid hours of intense dancing, singing, and acting, the entire cast is super excited for final bows. I am overjoyed because I nailed the super hard dance break in the middle of my song right after intermission. While we are bowing, I try to look over the blinding stage lights, but I can only see as far as the third row. In the first row, my parents stand, smiling and cheering. I still have no idea whether Asher even came or not.

After bows, I go back into the dressing room with Jake and Sami. We change out of our costumes.

“Great show, guys! I’m so happy I didn’t forget my lines,” Jake gushes. I am going to be sad not seeing them every day anymore.

“I’m so happy you didn’t mess up your hair,” Sami jokes.

I smile and pull on my T-shirt, vaguely aware of a weird smell. Everyone smells bad; it’s the last day of shows, that’s how it works. I don’t really think anything of it because we are all sweaty and tired of being in bulky costumes for two hours. Also, the chemical smell of hairspray and hair gel fills the air. Once I am dressed, I wave goodbye to my cast and friends and go out to meet my family.

As I walk out of the dressing room, I see him. Asher. His dirty blonde hair brushed to the side. His shy smile that only reaches the left side of his mouth. His blue eyes that look like the sky on a bright, sunny day. He’s wearing a nice button down shirt and jeans that fit perfectly. He’s looking right at me, and I freeze. As I start to walk toward him, I take a sharp right into the girls bathroom.

I take out my phone and call Hazel.

“Oh. My. God. He’s here. What do I do? What do I say? Oh my god ohmygod ohmygod oh — ”

“AHHH you’ll be fine! You were absolutely stunning out there. You look like a queen! I am on my way to your house, so you can fill me in on all the juicy details!”

Hazel is way too excited for this. I wonder what she knows, but I don’t have time to ask because Asher is here. In the girls bathroom.

“Asher?! What are you doing in here?”

“I was about to ask you the same thing, Zoe. I saw you ran in here, and I thought you should know it’s the boys bathroom.”

“Asher?” Hazel screams before I have time to hang up.

OH MY GOD.

“Oh yeah. Um yeah.” Crap. There’s no way out of this.

I rush out of the bathroom as fast I as I can. Asher follows me.

“Hey, I got you these.” Asher grabs a small bouquet of roses from a chair in a corner.

“Thank you, Asher. Thank you for coming too, you didn’t have to do that.” My face must be the color of an overripe tomato. I can’t believe this is actually happening.

“I did. I wanted to see you.” He takes a step closer. What was he doing? His face changes as he gets closer. His nose crinkles, and he steps back.

I look down and see a light pink stain on my white T-shirt. A stain so big, so smelly, you can practically see the waves of horrid scent coming off it. The kombucha. It must have spilled on my shirt, but I hadn’t noticed because I was in such a rush to see if Asher had come. I cover it with the roses, stutter, “Uh gotta go. Bye,” at Asher and run out of the hallway.

When I get to the dressing room, the smell of vinegar and dead fish hits me like a freight train. I go to where I had put the bottle, and there is a big crack in the glass and juice is leaking out of it. Right into a puddle where my T-shirt had been. Great.

I grab my stuff, throw away the bottle, and go find my parents so we can leave before anyone else knows that the kombucha smell is me.

Asher is still standing outside the bathroom looking confused. He is texting someone on his phone, so he doesn’t see me rush by. That’s probably a good thing.

“Good job, sweetie!” my mom says as she tries to give me a big hug.

“Trust me, Mom, you don’t want to. Let’s just go home.” I need to go home and shower!

“Hey, Zoe! Did you see who came?” My dad loves teasing me about my crushes. He just thinks it’s so funny how little they like me back.

“Yeah I know. He gave me flowers,” I shoot back. I feel some heat come to my face when I see Asher walking towards us.

“Hey, Zoe. Hey, Mr. and Mrs. Brown. Thanks for the ride home.” He’s riding home with us? Oh no.

It is a very quiet car ride home. I just try to suck all the smell off of me onto my side of the car. I open up the window and think very hard about jumping out of the car. Unfortunately my fear of death holds me back. When we drop Asher off at his house down the street from ours, he tries to say something to me, but I push him out and close the door before he can tell me how bad I smell.

“Get me home.” I lean into my parents so they can smell the emergency.

My mom hits the gas.

I jump out of the car once we get home and run into my room. Hazel is sitting on the bed.

“So??? What happened? What did he say to you? C’mon, Zoe! Say something!”

So, I tell her. Everything. From the boys bathroom, to the roses, to the shared car ride. Then I let her smell me as I was still standing in the doorway. Of course she gags and pushes me into the shower, yelling at me for not bringing any body spray or perfume.

“It’s not my fault!!! I didn’t realize kombucha would ruin my life!” I shower and make sure to scrub extra hard.

Once I get out of the shower and into cleaner, comfier clothes, Hazel and I put on Mean Girls and settle into my bed.

Right before we start the movie, the doorbell rings. Hazel goes to the window and squeals.

“You have to get the door, Zoe! MR AND MRS BROWN, ZOE’S GOT THE DOOR!”

I walk to the window, look down, and there is Asher. He’s rocking back on his heels, and he’s holding something. Hazel squirts me with some perfume and pushes me down the stairs.

I take a deep breath and open the door.

There he is, a look of relief on his face as he holds up a piece of paper.

“I was going to leave this for you if you didn’t answer the door,” he says and he holds out the note.

“Um thanks.” I take it but don’t open it yet. I hesitantly step outside and shut the door behind me.

Asher take a step towards me. “Zoe, I don’t know how to say it, but Hazel said — ”

“Hazel? Why were you talking to her?” Yes. I am a little jealous and very confused. Why wouldn’t she have told me?

“Because Zoe, she’s your best friend. I needed advice.”

“Advice on me?” I cross my arms in front of my chest.

“Advice whether to do this.” He steps in, grabs my elbows, and pulls me into a long kiss.

I step back, shocked. Why would Asher like me? What did Hazel do???

“Well I guess she gave me good advice. I’ve liked you for a while, Zoe, I just didn’t know how to tell you. I went to Hazel for help and to see if you would ever say yes,” Asher says, our faces just inches apart.

“Say yes to what?” My heart is trying to fly out of my chest.

“Open the note.” I look down at the note and slowly unfold it.

Written on the paper are the words Please go out with me? Circle YES or NO. I smile at the funny gesture and look at Asher. He has a nervous look on his face as he looks into my eyes.

I laugh. “Yes of course. Yes, Asher!” I lean in and kiss him again. I hear squealing coming from the window, and we look up to see Hazel screaming and jumping around. Asher and I look at each other and laugh.

“I better go, but I’ll see you tomorrow?” I smile and hug him one last time.

“Tomorrow.”

The next morning, I open my eyes and turn to see Hazel still sound asleep next to me in my big bed. She spent the night at my house, so I could fill her in on all the details. The light creeps out from behind the window shades onto my purple walls. The pictures of my family and friends that are hung on my wall glint and sparkle.

I roll out of bed onto my fuzzy carpet that keeps my feet warm in the winter and go to the bathroom to brush my teeth. I see that my hair is a big tangled mess and not all the makeup has come off of my face. I grab a makeup wipe and try my best to rub off the mascara. I can’t stop thinking about last night; I wonder if it was all a dream.

As I go back into my room, the light has fallen on a small bouquet of roses on my bedside dresser with a note tucked into one of the flowers, and I know I wasn’t dreaming.

 

“don’t know when i’ll be back again”

It wasn’t supposed to end like this. The coral-colored suitcase open on the bed, the clothes hanging ready to be packed, the car come to take her away. The sun streams through the window, illuminating the pictures on the wall, reminders of a happier time. Outside, birds are chirping and children are playing in the park across the street. By all rights, it should be a beautiful day.

Marina sits cross-legged on the floor, halfheartedly sorting her possessions into heaps. In front of her is the pile for keeping, to the left a pile for charity. To the right, trash — all the things that are too worn out, too painful, too personal to give away. It’s a numbing process, most things easily separated. Near the end of her things, she picks up a picture of two girls, laughing and holding hands. They don’t have a care in the world, firmly convinced that everything will work in their favor. The hand holding the snapshot shakes a little and wavers over to the right, before Marina places it carefully in front of her.

When she’s finished, the items to keep go in the bottom of her suitcase. Zoe’s promised to take the charity pile to Goodwill — Marina doesn’t intend to stay around long enough to do it herself. She shoves the trash items into a bag and tugs it down the polished stairs. Marina’s just put the bag in the kitchen trash when she’s accosted by a very energetic ten-year-old, with Zoe right behind him.

“Marina!” her brother says, coming to a halt in front of her. His bright smile usually lights up whatever room he’s in, but today it doesn’t provide any comfort.

“Hey, Peter,” she says, absentmindedly reaching out to ruffle his hair. He looks up at her with big brown eyes, the very picture of innocence, and she finds herself wishing for that simpler time.

“Why are you leaving me?” he whines.

She sighs. “You wouldn’t understand.” Sometimes, she’s not even sure she understands why. Sometimes she thinks it would be easier to stay here, stay where she’s lived all her life.

“But I do understand.” He crosses his arms. “It’s because of her, because of… ” Whatever he was going to say is cut off.

“Peter,” Zoe warns. Marina’s stepmother has one hand covering Peter’s mouth, with the other on his shoulder. “What did I say about manners? It is Marina’s choice, and she doesn’t have to tell people why.”

Marina fingers her necklace as she watches them. People always expect the fairytale stereotype of stepmothers, but she’s never resented Zoe, even when she first came to live with them over a decade ago. Marina was five and couldn’t understand why this strange woman lived with them instead of Marina’s mother, but Zoe never forced Marina to accept her. Instead, she was lovely and kind and caring, until Marina couldn’t help but love her. Zoe taught her all the things about being a woman that Marina’s mother, far away in a little apartment, couldn’t. They celebrated the highs of life together, and Zoe held her when she came home sobbing that horrible night.

“Sorry, Marina.” Peter’s sheepish voice brings Marina back to reality.

“It’s okay, Peter. I just… it’s hard to explain,” she says. Her words hang in the stillness of the kitchen for a moment.

“Why don’t you run along?” Zoe says, mercifully breaking the tension. “Go outside and play with your dad or something.”

“Okay,” he chirps, running off to find their dad.

With Peter gone, Zoe turns the full force of her attention to Marina. “How are you holding up, honey?”

“I’m… fine,” Marina says, though they both know she’s lying. She hasn’t been fine since that Saturday in May. “I’m holding up,” she corrects herself.

“Do you need any help packing?” Zoe asks. “I’ve got nothing better to do than chase Peter around.”

“I think I’m good, thanks,” replies Marina. She’s not sure she’s ready to let another person handle all the memories contained in her things.

“I’ll be ready to help you if you decide you want it. Just shout,” says Zoe. They both know that this isn’t just about packing. It’s about Marina starting a new life where she knows nobody but her mother instead of ‘working through her problems in a familiar setting’ like her therapist says she should.

“Will do,” Marina says curtly, turning to go upstairs. She still has a few more things to pack.

The suitcase is almost full and the afternoon sun beginning to set when Marina senses someone enter the room. She turns around to face the door, and sure enough, Lise is leaning against the doorway. Marina forgot how pretty she is, how everything seemed to revolve around her the minute she entered a room.

“Hi, Lise,” Marina says, aware of how pathetic she sounds.

“Hey,” Lise says, coming over to sit next to Marina on the bed. “You’re really leaving, huh?”

“Yeah. I couldn’t stand it any longer. I needed to get away from you.” If Lise is upset by Marina’s candidness, she doesn’t show it.

“We had a good run though, didn’t we?” It’s a rhetorical question, one they both know the answer to, but Marina still replies.

“We’re still best friends forever,” she says, reaching out to touch Lise’s necklace. Marina is wearing her matching one, with the inscription xoxo Lise still visible but slightly tarnished. When they got them for Lise’s 14th birthday, they both promised to wear them forever, and Marina supposes they both will.

“Are you sad to leave?” asks Lise.

Marina mulls the question over. “I’ll miss Zoe and Peter and Dad, but I think staying here would make me even sadder,” she finally replies. “People here are too concerned about me. I want a fresh start.”

“Come back to visit, will you?” Lise asks, and Marina entertains a brief fantasy where she leaves and never comes back, but she knows that could never happen. She’s tied to this place, like it or not.

“Of course,” Marina says instead, because what else can she say? How can she leave this girl she’s known for almost her entire life?

“Alright then, goodbye,” Lise says, and Marina wants to tell her not to go, but her throat goes dry and she can’t force the words out. She closes her eyes.

“And Marina,” she hears distantly, as if Lise is suddenly very far away. “Don’t be sorry for living.”

Marina opens her eyes just in time to see Lise standing in the doorway again. She watches as Lise becomes less and less real, until Marina is left alone again. She stands up, needing to clear her head, and feels something crinkle under her foot. It’s a balled up newspaper, wrinkled and ripped but with the headline still intact.

Local Girl Killed in Car Accident, it reads. Marina must have crumpled the article up and thrown it across the room when she read the headline. It was too painful to even think about Lise at that point.

She tenderly smoothes the article out and places it at the top of her suitcase, then closes the bag and zips it up. She touches her necklace once for good luck, then pulls her suitcase to where her father is waiting. She’s ready to go.

 

For Them All

 

1

 

Kind

He was just kind

Everyone knew it

But I liked it the most

 

He wasn’t good in school

Everyone knew it

I can’t tell you how many times

I defended his intelligence

 

He had red hair

I loved that red hair

I guess I perceived him as innocent
Even though he never was

 

He talked to me

I was crazy

But he talked to me

 

By the time I found out he

Had fallen for me

It was too late

 

2

 

So this guy was kind of a jerk

Everyone thought he was green

I saw blue

I saw blue in that jerk!

I thought he liked me back

And just hid it really well

But he hated me

I was a bother

A massive bother

To that blue, blue jerk

 

3

 

I loved him more than I’ve ever loved anyone

Wished I could just talk to him

Hated that I could never be the one to help him

I wanted him to rely on me

I loved him, I really really did

So much that no one could doubt it

But despite all my hopes

He never knew me

 

I’ve already written countless poems about him

About how he’s the ultimate hero

 

I just kinda wanted to thank him

For saving me

 

4

 

Um… I still like this one

He’s the best of the light and the dark

He’s like me and then he’s a little bit not

Ideal, is what he is

Not that I could resist him if he wasn’t

 

5

 

I’m putting him on the list, aren’t I?

Hasn’t been around for more than a week

and yet here I am, giving him a spot

with the ones who have changed me

because he changed me

he made me fall

god, he’s the most captivating of them all

 

Central Park

There was a sound, like gobs of blinking eyes. It was merely an echo-y whisper, yet it was disconcerting because there was nothing that could make that blinking sound around you, and though you had felt ocean waves hitting your feet then receding, they made no sound. You had been surrounded by a magenta foggy haze that had prevented you from seeing little more than dark purple shadows. Approximately six of these shadows were standing, stationary, people each in their own inhuman positions, in a circle silently around you, on the ground that felt like turf, but looked like concrete and in the distance, upon the horizon, a small circle shined a light lavender hue. Other than this there was nothing. You were taking out your notepad and beginning to write what you saw (you used to always write down your observations) when you were greeted to an echo of garbled speech in a language far from your own. The fog had begun to fade, and you had seen the faces of the people (no, not people, statues), around you. Their faces were wrinkled, raisin-y, gloomy faces, and their broken positions looked as if several bones in their bodies had been broken beyond repair. Despite their traumatizing appearance, they had seemed to compliment the “nothingness” that you had previously thought surrounded you. The “nothingness” had revealed itself to be something you hadn’t expected: the ground under your feet was neither turf nor concrete but wet sand (like the beaches up north — less grainy more compact), and the emptiness that had been covered by the haze was not at all empty, in fact the only thing that was what you thought was the bright (now white) sun looking down at your from its place on the horizon. Behind you had been eyes — what seemed like millions of them of all different sizes and shapes (hooded, almond, monolid, deep set, prominent, round, downturned, upturned, large, and small) — blocking your view of anything but the ocean, and they were blinking. Not all at the same time but all at different times and lengths of times. The eyes were staring nowhere in particular all of them moved in different directions and never seemed to be looking at the same spot. You can’t remember, right now, whether you stayed and watched for a while or just went straight to writing but you do remember that after you had finished writing you clicked your pen. All the eyes had stared at you. Some of them eyeing your scribbles, others your face and various parts of your body. The statues had began to move. They had started to twist and turn in impossible ways. They had not moved anywhere, just stayed in their place on the circle when the world had began to quake (as such worlds often do) and fade into a new one.

 

You were now in a basement. You did not look like yourself. Staring into a puddle formed by leaking pipes you saw your face. Your skin had a sickly yellow pallor, your eyes were sunken and a weird color blue (translucent like fog, but also dark like the deepest parts of the ocean), the bones in your face were pronounced, the bags under your eyes seemed to be the only place where your skin wasn’t tight to your skull. You were beginning to turn away and close your eyes (you were horrified by the face in the water) when the ceiling had disappeared, and whatever the basement was under just left. You were greeted by burning sunlight even though the sun only slightly bigger than the one in your last world, people from the street had looked down at you and your raggy, colorful, too big clothes as tears poured from your eyes. You had been happy to see them, and you attempted to reach them but the house reappeared. Your heart had sank, and you wanted to do nothing more than sleep and cry, but you remembered your book. This time you clicked your pen quietly, and no eyes had stared (there were no staring eyes in this world, silly). Soon you were scribbling words, and drawings that felt strange (but familiar) when a shout had sounded above you. It was a high-pitched squeal that you had never heard before, and wished you hadn’t heard at all. At the sound of it you were filled with dread, and you had longed to see the sun again. You had felt terrified for the person who squealed. Footsteps had been approaching the door that you hadn’t noticed before, the door that seemed to be the only way out. This time, the world simply faded.

 

The next time you were awakened you were close to the ground, you were in a much happier setting, the sun shone delightedly through the trees, and it had been much closer than you remember it being before. This time there was someone with you. They were silently skipping along their short legs, working hard to keep up with your pace, as they danced over foliage and avoided all the visible bugs that lurked beneath the upturned fallen brown leaves. You had slowed down your pace out of consideration for your silent partner, and she had smiled and nodded a thank you. Then, for a minute or two, you guys walked like that under the towering trees with auburn and burgundy and golden leaves, and branches that shook with every soft blow of the wind and movement of a bird. The only sounds that could have been heard were the birds and the cicadas and the trees swaying. Around you were only trees and bushes and flowers and birds one minute and the next you were in a meadow. Now you can’t remember whether you just weren’t paying attention as you walked or if the setting just changed, but it didn’t matter then. Back then you knew where you needed to be. On the picnic blanket with the girl and Apples (the posh anthropomorphic pony who often made declarations for the town of Ridinia). Upon making it there you had been greeted by a feast carried in by ants, and the girl spoke for the first time. “You’ve been awfully silent Madison.” She spoke with a midwest accent, but seemed to be going for a posh English one.

“I am sorry. I am just a bit tired, you must forgive me,” you had said in an equally horrible attempt to be posh.

“You are forgiven, but you must get some sleep or you’ll get sick,” the girl said, her warm brown eyes had seemed very concerned, before she happily turned to Apples. “Any city news Apples it is most boring here in one of my many country homes.”

“Oui, oui, mon amiem,” the pony had whinnied in a failed attempt to speak French. You had sighed and took out your book and silently began to write. (Something in you was telling you how rude it was to do so, but you only had two pages left to write after this one. Surely it would be forgiven.) “Ahem. Madison.”
 “Please excuse me, I do not wish to offend you, I simply do not wish to forget this magical day,” you told them. They had looked unimpressed. “Besides I’m preparing for a job as a secretary.” The girl nodded forgivingly, and Apples had simply rolled his eyes.

“Nevertheless, I shall continue,” Apples sighed, “now, Rina is the biggest talk of the town at the moment because… ” Apples was cut off by an alarm echoing for someone to wake up. The girl sighed, and the sun disappeared.

 

You had woken up groggily to an alarm that rang an hour late. A dog had looked up at you as you rushed out of bed, and followed your normal morning routine instinctively. Two minute shower, one minute to dry off and put on clothes, three minutes to eat, five minutes to catch your favorite cartoon. Except something was wrong. You had noticed this around the third minute of your cartoon as Captain Pickles began dueling his rival Captain Coleslaw. Usually, it was around this time your mother would wake up in a tizzy upon hearing the clash of swords, but this time there was no body. Not a sound. Although you had been enthralled in the show, you had been more creeped out by the silence. A quick run around the house you found no one. Twice around, the dog following you this time, you had again found nothing. Panicked, you had sighed, sometimes she was at work at this time you remembered. It was time for you to leave anyway, so you walked outside. At first you had noticed nothing but the fact that the sun was much bigger and much closer than normal (it looked like it was in the town center, and it felt like it was baking you alive). Then you had realized no one was on the street, and your dog was right beside you. The same dog you had just left inside your house. Your hands had begun to shake, not wildly, but enough that you dropped your water bottle and it had echoed sinisterly in the empty streets. Your dog had barked, adding to the echoing and it had created a terrifying din. “Shut up, Sparky,” you had said. Sparky had not shut up. Your fear had turned to anger at this point, and you had stomped away angrily thinking about how when you find these people you’ll… you’ll… if only that dog would shut up. You had turned the corner unto what is usually the biggest street, but all there was were neatly parked cars, and neat little closed shops with clean sparkling windows showcasing neat shoes or clothes or toys in a dark room. You saw the local coffee shop had its door open and other than the sun-lit streets it had been the only well lit place. With the howls of your dog, who was still stuck on your block, ringing in your ears you had marched into the shop in attempts to demand an answer. You were greeted to an interior that was not that of the coffee shop of your childhood, but that of a room with a tiki bar with tie-dye blankets on the walls, and comfortable bean bags speckled with people lazing around a bit drunkenly.

“Sit, stay a while,” a voice, belonging to a man who had tried to lead you to a chair, had slurred. “Don’t you have something to write?” You had nodded, confused on how he knew about your book, but somehow unable to voice that confusion. You had followed him into a room connected to the bar, it was white and brightly lit with a table in the middle that looked like an interrogation table from cop movies.

“Write,” he had said as he pulled out a chair and you sat. You had complied as if hypnotized, immediately scribbling your story. You had been so focused on writing (no, documenting) you had noticed nothing else. Now you try to remember how the floor fell from beneath you, but then all you could do was fall. Still focused on your writing you hadn’t realized you were falling until you had finished the page and you had snapped out of your writing haze. The ground had been close, too close, and you were about to hit it when all had turned black.

 

You were looking up at the hill in front of you, it was green and had a few flowers, and looked like a hill from a fairy tale. You did not have the same majestic look. Your skin had had folds and flopped and stretched out the the spandex you were wearing. For some reason you had convinced yourself that this hill would give you the look you wanted. You just had to run. You had taken a step, and then another (but you had wanted to go faster), and then another one. You had started sweating at this point. Your skin flabs had collided as you used all of your energy to move up the hill, you accelerated and created new bends and warps in time and space. Your breath was short and shallow, and you had wanted to double over, but you had pushed on. The sun seemed as though you could reach it if you ran up this hill, and it beamed as though it was too. You had no book, but you hadn’t really remembered why you thought about a book but you had shrugged it off. The top of the hill had been so far, too far, no book was worth thinking about when the hill was far more important Your earbuds played a song that you can no longer remember. What you do remember are the shimmering notes, the tones that had seeped into your ears and then had circulated throughout your nervous system forcing your feet to move faster than you wanted them to. You fell, and out of nowhere a book had tumbled and landed at the bottom of the hill next to you, a pen rolled neatly on top of it. You had instinctively took the book, popped the pen and wrote furiously. The last page was soon filled with a drawing of the hill, and lovely soliloquies about your first trip up the hill, you had wanted to write more, but you ran out of space. So you had started up the hill again, this time you had felt lighter, skin still twisted and slapped and jiggled but it didn’t hold you down the same way. This time you started and continued, book in hand towards the burning sun. Sweat had dripped off you like rain off a car going way too fast on the freeway, it flew behind you, and had clouded your eyes, and drenched your short dark locks of hair, and discolored the brown spandex that attempted to stretch around you but ended up bunched in your crotch or under your armpits. The sun had seemed to be calling you, it called you Michael, you had been sure that wasn’t your name, but you had no idea what your name was so you accepted Michael. As you edged closer you could see nothing but bright, hot light reflecting off sweat, and possibly tears. Your skin had felt as though it was burning off, the fat melting and unveiling a new person. It was painful at first, but the pain had faded by the time you had made it to the top, and climbed into the sun.

 

You had been (are being?) faced with a totally new setting, you could (can?) not feel yourself or see yourself, you could (can?) only see white. Blinding white, and a frog on a white marble pedestal. You were (are?) staring at it and it was (is?) staring at you for what seemed (seems?) like hours, when it talks. “Michael here is your entrance to reality.” It blinked (blinks?).

 

And you are waking up, cloudy eyed, groggy, and a bit damp. Around you is a garden filled with beautiful marigolds, hydrangeas and roses, and trees with, green leaves, all wet with rain and a little stream with a cute wooden bridge, which is made a splotchy brown from the previous rain. Next to you is an old man who is sleeping, and his head is resting on your shoulder. You are gently placing his head on the back of the damp bench, and standing up. You are looking both ways, trying to decide whether you should follow the trail left or right, or go over the bridge. A fish is swimming close to the surface of the water, it is a goldfish that is larger than usual, and its red and gold scales are twinkling beneath the rippling surface drawing your eyes towards it as it is passing beneath the bridge. You are sighing, and then beginning to walk. Something is jingling with the motion of your feet, you are looking down as you cross the bridge, you are noticing that your shoes are red loafers with hints of gold and a scale like pattern that have little bells attached to the tops of them, and beneath your shoes the fish is swimming. Your bells have stopped tinkling, but something continues blending melodically the sound of the water and the fish has stopped swimming now. It is below you just stationary. There is no wind, but the bells tingle a high pitched, long note, and the fish moves. Everything around and within you is tingling, it feels as if tiny strings are trying to vibrate as one, like an orchestra that helps create the world around you. It has stopped now, and you are continuing to walk, taking soft, quiet steps, and looking only ahead knowing that your journey has commenced.

 

You are walking over a puddle, and you look down (first time since the bridge), your shoes are soaking through, giving them a darker color, which you can see in the puddle along with your black slacks which look newly washed and hang between the puddle and the beginning of your shoes as if unsure whether it wants to get wet or not, but knowing that it does not want to reveal the skin beneath it. Your feet are beginning to get a little cold, so you are hopping out of the puddle and down the asphalt path. The dirt of the garden path had been gone since a while back, it had turned to mud, and then to asphalt. It is still a park, and there are many trees hanging around you, pouring remnants of rain on you whenever the wind blows to hard, and rats scurry beneath the leaf covered grass and dirt on either side of you. You are continuing to walk past that, and towards a playground filled with screaming little kids running wild and tired parents. You are stopping in front of it, leaning on the fence surrounding it, and looking at the kids chase after each other. Their feet are slapping the black rubber tiles, the tiles are the same black as your pants, a deep dark black that almost looks like what nothing would look like. Like the opening to a void, you are staring at it for a minute. For that minute you are focusing only on the foam, the worn, scratched, torn foam, for a moment you are hearing nothing but the sound of slapping feet against foam, it starts out loud and reverberates with the sound of many feet, and then it slows and organizes itself eventually stopping. You are confused and looking up at the children who have started grouping themselves and talking. You are listening to the conversations, and they are typical work conversations filled with surface level scratches at how they’re doing, and what’s up with them. The kids faces are in states of weariness, over enthusiasm and calm expressionless stares. “I haven’t had my morning coffee yet, David, don’t talk to me about this.” One is mumbling in the southwest corner. You are looking towards their parents and you see nothing. You’re staring at the empty benches for a moment. Taking in the absence, and then you are blinking. You are realizing you haven’t blinked in a while, your eyes are dry and your eyelids feel somewhat scratchy as they move to meet each other. You’re find that you are experiencing the same feeling of billions of vibrating strings around you, and inside of you, this time it is more organized, but it is still too messy to make sense of the music, the reason. The kids are playing again. Their shouts and joyful expressions are back, and you are walking away, brushing off the vibrations.

 

You are thinking of nothing as you walk, and right now you can’t remember ever thinking of something. Is remembering thinking? You are stepping into a puddle, and though you can feel the dirt and water seeping into your shoes, you can’t feel anything else. No sense of disappointment at having your shoes ruined or dismay at having soaking feet. The park gates are looming ahead of you, and you are walking towards them staring blankly ahead. Your bells seem to be tinkling a lot quieter now creating a soft din that keeps you marching like a soldier. The gates are even closer, and you can see the black paint peeling and the hardly noticeable warp that causes the gates to curve away from the park at the slightest angle. As you are walking past the gates the smell of damp leaves and trees and urine, are exchanged for the smell of gasoline, sidewalk cart food, garbage, and a tiny bit of sewage surrounding you with every whiff of the slightly suffocating air. You are walking to your left over garbage and past people and tiny plots of dirt harboring garbage and trees. A store door opens and the smell of chemicals with a bit of a flowery scent wafts out with the air conditioned air. You are walking in and are greeted to rows and rows of makeup and perfume. You are walking towards the perfume section, and one bottle is catching your eye. It has a silvery glass, with bejeweled butterflies flying around it, and was topped with a shimmering blue diamond. You are picking it up and holding it, and in the mirror behind it you see your hands (which look huge compared to the tiny bottle, but somehow delicate) and your shirt, a white polo with an unbuttoned top button and an orange suit jacket.

“Are you thinking about buying that for your wife?” a woman is asking you as you are staring at yourself holding the bottle. You give her a confused look at first, and then nod. She is smiling. “Ask me if you need anything.” And then she is walking away.

You spray the perfume in front of your face and take a deep inhale. The smell is oddly bilgy, and you are beginning to cough. In the mirror in front of you, you can see a ship, a hulking beast with it’s hull turned toward you, and the water seems to dampen your face as you cough. No one in the store around you seems to notice, they are continuing to shop as you are watching the ship pass you by, the stench still lingering. You are closing your eyes, but the smell and sea spray continues. The smell is malodorous, and now you are holding your nose. It is stopping and you are standing up straight and turning the perfume bottle away from your face, pulling your finger off the top, and placing the bottle back. There is no longer a foul smell, instead an all to flowery stench is replacing it. You are staring at your shirt, and now your empty hands in the mirror as the same orchestra of tiny strings vibrates everywhere, and this time it is almost as if you can hear a melody. It is stopping, and you are turning away.

 

You are on a train, and it is night time. As the rest of the train sleeps, rocked by the motion of the train and calmed by the gentle hum of the train’s wheels on the tracks, you are staring out the window, dark brown bags attempting to pull your lids down. You are not so much resisting the urge to sleep as you are giving into your curiosity. Outside the window is not the city you had walked around in during the day, nor is it the false forest you woke up in. For a while the scenery consisted of shops in the middle of nowhere, and then suburban backyards, and now it is the forest. Trees that rock with the harsh blowing of the wind (a storm is coming) as their branches reach out for the train, and bushes that are half of your size line the tracks that weeds grow in between. The flowery stench of the perfume is almost gone, and now the only other smell is the dinner you had, the coffee and ham sandwich on rye.

“May we join you?” a woman is asking, standing over you in the doorway of your compartment. She was wearing a black coat trimmed with fur that is hanging to her black shiny boots, and behind her legs stands a small boy with deep brown eyes who is peeking shyly behind her.

“No problem,” you are saying, and she is sitting on the other side of the compartment, her son resting on her lap.

“You look tired,” she is observing in attempts to make quiet conversation.

Her fiery red nails (sharpened at the end like claws) tapped gently on the windowsill. You aren’t particularly sure what to reply, so you let the observation hang in the air between you. It seems just as well, as she is shrugging and now she is leaning back and closing her eyes. Her son was staring up at you curiously, and tugging his jacket closer around him. You are ignoring him and looking out the window, you’re seeing the reflection of the boy and his mother whose finger curls stay stationary despite the bobbing of her head. The boy is touching you, his tiny, skinny hand reaching out and patting your arm. His hands are a sticky, rubbery wet, and suddenly they are grasping your hands, and he is staring up at you. Your hands are feeling as though they are being grabbed by something fluffy and warm, and you are seeing them covered by soft winter gloves whose leathery covering were wet with snow around you a cabin with a warm fire glowing and softly crackling across the room. The torn, and tattered train cushions turn into a warm couch, and the woman is standing in front of you absent mindedly chattering, and then she is turning and staring at you neither of you blinking or talking just staring. Your hands are no longer warm now they are cold and the warm couch is simply the train cushion, the boy is sitting curled up in his mother’s lap and the soft swaying of the train car resumes. You are gripping the arm rests, and the strings are vibrating softly, almost visibly, but definitely audibly. They’re playing an interesting melody, slightly out of tune and out of order, and now they are stopping and you are resuming your ride.

You are walking down a quiet Pennsylvania street towards some house (you can’t remember if it’s yours or not). The sidewalks are small, and plants occasionally spill over from the gardens or form a sort of barrier between you the street making the sidewalks too small to walk on, so you are walking in the street lined with cars neatly parked and stationary (you’ve seen no motion anywhere around you and the air is stale and windless.) There is no noise, and you are facing the ground as you climb up the steep hill, the hot sun shining too bright for you to be able to look up, but you begin to look up now. You are seeing a girl on a bike, her face in shadows and her backlit with the glowing sun, she is not moving, her right hand holds a lollipop in her mouth, while her left is resting on the bike handle. Her left shoulder is sagging lower than her right, and her left foot stands on the ground her while her right lays on the pedal. Her bike, pink with rainbow streamers coming from dark black handles is slanted to the side and unmoving. It looks as if she is preparing to ride down the hill you are attempting to climb and she is fixing you with a harsh, hard stare. Her mouth is fixed and concentrated, her eyebrows are furrowed, her blues eyes doll-like and glassy, and her strawberry blonde hair hangs in a limp ponytail at the top of her head. You are staring at her with equal intensity, and you have stopped moving for what seems like hours but is probably just a minute, then you are walking up a hill towards the house and she is saying, “I could’ve sworn I saw you in my dream” while speeding past you on her bicycle. Now you are turning to look at her, the strings vibrating and playing a sinister song, each one looks like a small dot that makes up the world around you, a dot almost to small to see. She is leaving your line of sight and you are turning around, and continuing your way up the hill slowly but surely, and the sun keeps beating down on you.

 

You are in a house, laying on a bed the strings have not stopped playing and you are tired. They have simmered down, their sinister trills turning into a lullaby. You still see them. You can’t stop seeing them unless you close your eyes. So you are closing your eyes, you are trying to stay awake for some reason but can’t. Something is dragging you down. Something is making everything go dark. Everything is dark, and silent and your snores are filling the room.

 

And you will wake up, cloudy eyed, and groggy. Around you will be a garden filled with beautiful marigolds, hydrangeas and roses, and trees with fresh, green leaves, all wet with rain and a little stream with a cute wooden bridge, which is splotchy from the rain. Next to you will be an old man who is sleeping with his head resting on your shoulder. You will wake him and ask him where you are. He will turn and face you, his face wrinkled and serious and say nothing.

 

Controlling Fate

My heart beats extra hard as I step onto my bike. The ride to school isn’t that long, but if I take the main road instead of my usual back alleyways, I might be able to stretch the ten minute ride into fifteen. That’s five extra minutes I don’t have to spend taking my math test. Five extra minutes I don’t have to spend watching numbers dance uncontrollably across the page, twirling just out of my grasp. The adrenaline rushes through my legs as I pedal, feeling each bump in the sidewalk, each crack in the cement. I pass the park to my left. It’s hard to see, hidden behind large oak trees on the side of the road, nestled away in this residential area. My head buzzes a little. I’m finding it hard to think. The stress creeps onto the edges of my thoughts, like ivy climbing a stone tower. I try to force it back. Breathe, breathe. I put as much energy as I can into pedaling, harder, faster, stronger. My bike surges forward. For a few seconds, I coast along, flying. The moment ends too soon. I hit the breaks as I approach the stoplight, and once again feel myself sink miserably into thoughts of first period Algebra. As the road to school shrinks, my confidence fades with it. My hands tighten on the handle bars. I observe each groove, feeling their texture against my palm. In another attempt at distraction, I wiggle my toes in my shoes. I like knowing I have control over them. I can make them do what I want. I force them to pedal a bike to my fate at the hands of an Algebra test.

 

Bakery Blues

Being hardcore is well, hard. I have to party all night and sleep all day and never study to keep up my image. Do you think I want to be doing shots on the weekends? Please, I’d rather be watching the Barbie TV show with my four-year-old sister. But we all have images to keep up. Some more than others. And we all have a breaking point. Mine was earlier today.

It just smelled so good. As if they had baked happiness into those little cakes. I was coming back from my fifth party of the week, starving. Cheap beer in red solo cups doesn’t really count as food. That’s how they got me. The Cupcakery that is. One minute I was cruising down the road in my beat-up convertible, the next I was standing in front of the glass window eyeing a particularly gruesome pink cupcake.

It was perfect: red paper, vanilla cake, creamy pink frosting, and lemon curd guaranteed on the inside. I wanted it more than anything else, but we all have images to keep up. So, I did what any reasonable person would. I bought myself a friggin awesome disguise. Normally, I’d never be caught dead in that hideous, green sweater. It itched worse than the ones my mom knits. Even worse, it clashed with my new hair which was dyed blue with some cheap wash out stuff from the drugstore. It was a lot for a cupcake. But this was the cupcake. You kind of had to be there to get it.

I strolled into the Cupcakery looking like a loser who was way too obsessed with people like me. I flashed the cashier, a middle-aged woman with greasy brown hair and the face of a kindly grandmother twenty years younger, my usual charming smile. “Could I have the gourmet valentine cupcake.” I winked at her and casually leaned against the cash register. “It’s for someone special.”

The cashier stared at me for a moment before pointing to a little sign hanging in front of the display of cupcakes. “We have the right to refuse service to anyone.”

My jaw dropped. The cashier grinned and did a terrible imitation of my casual lean. “Sorry,” she said with a mockingly deep voice. “That special someone’s going to have to wait.”

“How dare you?” I jabbed my finger in her face for emphasis. “Do you know how many girls I’ve made out with because of that casual lean? Eight!” She burst into laughter. “That’s a lot for someone my age!” I sputtered. “You didn’t even do it right, you know? That is my lean!”

The cashier laughed even harder. Her face looked almost pretty if she hadn’t been laughing at me. She grabbed her sides and looked like she was about to pass out from the hilariousness of the situation. When she came to, she had tears rolling down her cheeks. “L-look, kid.” She gasped and wiped at her eyes. “I’m doing you a favor by denying you that cupcake. I mean, you’re practically bulging out of those skinny jeans.”

I glanced down at my ripped black designer skinny jeans. Had I put on weight? I glanced at the cashier and then back down at my jeans. Well, if anyone knew about weighing too much for your outfit, it was her. But I couldn’t have. I was in my prime. I once ate three family sized bags of Doritos and didn’t gain a thing. I looked back up at the cashier, who undoubtedly could see my whole train of thought. She shrugged at me. “Don’t worry, kid. It happens to the best of us. I used to be a size zero but come my seventeenth birthday, my metabolism just couldn’t keep up.”

A choking sound emitted from my throat. “Bu-but I turned seventeen a month ago.” I was beginning to feel faint. Images of myself, fat and alone, flashed through my mind. I was too popular to be lonely. I was too cool to be fat. I had an image to keep up!

The cashier nodded at me in mock sadness. “Looks like you already need to get some bigger jeans to fit your thighs.”

I couldn’t withhold a gasp. Who did this woman think she was? “No!” I yelled, slamming my hand down on the counter. “Give me the cupcake!”

The cashier sighed. “Well, I tried to warn you.” She pressed a few buttons on her register. “That’ll be $10.66.”

There was that choking sound again. I desperately emptied the pockets of my ripped black designer skinny jeans. They could only hold a tiny bit of cash. I dumped the bills on the counter. “I only have five dollars.”

The cashier sighed. And pushed the money back at me. “Well, I guess after all of that, you don’t have enough for that gourmet cupcake. Now move aside, I have other customers to attend to.”

I glanced behind me to see a huge line of people that in my hunger-induced daze, I hadn’t noticed. I was losing it. I was losing my cupcake. But I was hardcore. I don’t lose things.

Am I proud that I stole the cupcake from the Cupcakery? Yes. I think I did a pretty good job for it being my first major crime. Am I proud that the cashier managed to tackle me and sit on me long enough for the police to show up? Perhaps not. But look at me now, in the jail cell, casually leaning against the wall. I’m hardcore like that.

 

Three Minutes

Three minutes before school ended, the only noises to be heard were the ticking of the clock (that ran two hours too late), the tapping of pencils (like that Britney Spears music video), and the sporadic, panicked scratching of pens on paper (pop quizzes are never fun). If you were to do a pan of the room, expressions would range from concentration to boredom, to faces of pure confusion. In one corner of the room, the class hamster slept, stress-free and content (unbeknownst to it, a respiratory infection was starting to take its life). In another corner, a student’s A+ essay was threatening to fall off the not-so sticky tack, and next to it a fly buzzed lazily in circles. In the janitor’s closet next to this particular classroom, a rat squeaked and scurried in its trap (it was one of those cage ones you see in Disney’s Cinderella and nowhere else), while the janitor whistled an out of tune hymn. The smell of mold and ammonia was somewhat toxic, but the janitor never wore a mask since masks were for pansies and liberals. A mistreated, rotting newspaper in the center of the floor was crawled over by a roach. A roach that, if followed, would lead you to a hole in the wall smaller than you’d expect a roach of its ungodly size to be able to crawl through. A whole that leads to a tunnel which leads to the boys bathroom. In the boys bathroom, there are several inappropriate drawings on the wall, and people who are supposed to be in class, and now, the roach slinks past them into a crevice where it lives as the school bell rings, and the boys exit to go hang out at the local McDonald’s.

 

Benevolence of Change

        

The Child With Emerald Eyes (SONNET)

Summer smiles in sun-kissed bliss with her cloudless days,

Watching over a child with emerald eyes,

Who rocks back and forth in his chair in a joyful haze

And laughs in glee under bright and clear skies.

 

Winter smiles with her frigid cool and heavy mist,

Drifting down frail snowflakes that float in the air

And melt on the skin of an emerald-eyed man who wished

To be able to forever rock back and forth in his chair.

 

Summer returns in her sweltering heat,

Watching over a wrinkled old man with a cane,

Whose emerald eyes shine in defeat

At the passing of time that had stolen his youth with no refrain.

 

The wrinkled, old emerald-eyed man rocks back and forth in his chair with an accepting gaze,

Underneath the watchful eye of Winter and Summer and in his wrinkled eyes: a youthful, fiery blaze.

 

With Calm Sways (SESTINA)

She calmly floats, swaying

As waves softly lap and swirl

Against her body under a calm

Sky that appeared not stormy

But painted in a soft pink haze

Above water clear as crystal.

 

Overcome with a sense of rest, her crystal

Blue eyes gazing in swaying

Calm, floating atop water in a peaceful haze

And an unconscious swirl

Of serene lack of a stormy

Sea, washed over with a sense of calm.

 

Amidst her floating in the calm

Sea, she suddenly jolts with crystal

Clear clarity of times stormy

And gray, and with a more intense swaying,

She remembers and recalls in a swirl

Of sharp understanding in a sudden dark and blurry haze.

 

She recalled sitting in silence in a foggy haze

Listening to a doctor with steady calm

Who told of an illness in no swirl

Of emotions, but with crystal

Clear clarity, and under a sympathetic gaze, observed her swaying

At the prospect of times stormy.

 

From then on, there was no end to days stormy

With pain, until one day, a sudden haze

Of dizzy faint struck to leave her swaying

And struck her to the floor with a final sense of calm

And yet sharp crystal

Clear clarity of an overlooming dark, heavy swirl.

 

It was then she faintly recalled the deafening swirl

Of red and blue to save her from times stormy

But left her and her crystal

Blue eyes in a fleeting haze,

As she ended her struggling and finally closed her eyes with calm

And let go of the overwhelming pain to feel herself suddenly swaying.

 

Brought to a clear blue ocean and a soft pink haze

Painted in the sky, free of stormy

Days, she calmly floats, swaying.

 

Missing Tooth (RONDEAU)

Giggling in fleeting bliss, the girl’s face is momentarily illuminated

By the flash of a camera that had caught and captivated

A young girl in the bloom of youth,

Her mouth wide with a missing tooth,

And a laugh, free and liberated.

 

Now a woman, youth fadingly saturated,

She glances at a photo of a young girl faded

But laughing with a missing tooth,

Giggling in fleeting bliss.

 

With deepening wrinkles, the woman, sophisticated

With age and laughs weighted

With a solemn truth,

Glances at a photo with no missing tooth,

Of a young girl liberated,

Giggling in fleeting bliss.

 

Golden, Warm Air

A broken butterfly fluctuates in its soar,

Through a journey over poisonous gardens,

Cool air,

Broken wing flapping,

Flying with its thought: one last time,

But landing with its golden swirls in the warm hands of a warm-handed woman.

 

A broken woman staggers in her walk,

Through a journey heavy of poisonous people,

Dark air,

Broken past looming,

Walking with her thought: one last time,

But landing in her warm hands: a broken, golden-swirled butterfly.

 

The broken butterfly flew with the weight of fragile life

Atop its golden-swirled wings,

But remaining now, safely nuzzled against the warmth of a woman

Who had too walked heavy.

 

The woman weighted with broken past,

Begins to walk steady,

Illuminated by the golden swirls of a golden-swirled butterfly

With a broken wing,

Beginning to fly.

 

Golden-swirled wings glow from ascending warmth of warm hands,

And is released from the warm hands of the warm-handed woman,

Flying away free,

Into the golden, warm air.

 

A golden-swirled butterfly with a broken wing,

A warm-handed woman with a broken past,

But themselves no longer broken in harmonized air:

Whole.

 

The Biggest Game of my Life

          

I’m standing there in the tunnel waiting for my teammates to exit the team room. I’m feeling nervous because I have never been in this big of a game. I know this because I could hear my heart beating and nothing else besides that. This is the state championship game. The game that decides who would be crowned “king” of the state. My teammates are hyped as I try to hide my nervousness from them because I was one of the best players on the team. I could not be having any of these feelings before such a big game. Our coach screams that we are about to run out onto the court.

I close my eyes. I imagine everything our team has accomplished this year. How we were the best team in the league, which was a surprise, how we had four all-state players, and how I broke the scoring record in state history. This was one of the best moments of my career. It might be okay with my teammates for just getting to this big of a game, but I for one wanted to go out there and win it all. After all, not only was it my last season, but it was also my last game ever for my school.

***

I wasn’t always this kid who was amazing at basketball. In the beginning of high school, I was this 5’5” kid who did not have much of a jump shot and below average ball handling skills. But in-between now and then, I had grown to 6’8” and worked harder than I had ever worked before. I had top programs knocking on my door now, and it came down to six different programs. So, I talked it over with my parents, and it came down to Duke, North Carolina, Villanova, Kentucky, Kansas, and Virginia. On National Signing Day, I decided that I would be attending the University of North Carolina. At the end of the day, I reflected on how I had changed so much over the past four years and how my hard work had really paid off.

At the beginning of the season, I did not expect us to do so well. Our practices were terrible because almost nobody knew the plays, and don’t even get me started on the games. So one day, my coach sat me down in his office, and he said to me, “Look, I know this is your last season and you want to go to the state tourney, so what you have to do is become a leader or else this season is a lost cause.” I was leading the practices, and we actually started to win games. By the end of the regular season, our team had secured a spot in the state tournament, finishing with a record of 18-5. It took a lot of hard work, sweat, and grit, but I was proud of this team and what it had accomplished this year.

***

I remember when my son started playing the game that my husband loved for so long. I remember the times when he could barely play, but he stayed out long past dark shooting the basketball in that hoop I bought him for his eighth birthday. One day, he came home from school, and he said, “Mom, I don’t want to continue playing this game because I am terrible at it.” I told him that to get better, you have to practice more. I could tell that he wanted to get better because basketball was his life and one of the most important things that he cared about. My son had worked long and hard to get to the place where he was now; and I’m not just talking about all these college scholarships. I’m talking about the state championship game. He had been talking about this since the first moment of his high school basketball career. And now here he was, just about ready to play in the state championship game.

***

I’m standing there, ready to take the floor. As I run out onto the court, I look at the section where my mom is sitting and see how proud she is of me. She is looking at me and is so happy to see what my teammates and I had accomplished. We were so pumped for this because I know for me and six of my other teammates, it would be our last basketball game for this team. For those other six seniors, it may even be their last competitive basketball game. We take our last warmups, and then our coach calls us in to give us one final pep talk. I’m not really paying attention because I can’t focus with everyone yelling in the stands, but he is probably saying “I’m proud of you guys. You fought hard all year long, and it’s a true accomplishment just to get here.”

Here I am, three minutes before the biggest game of my high school career, and I’m so determined to win this game. This might be because it’s my last game ever for the school or because I want to give the fans a game to remember. But as I waited for the game to start, I remember those three minutes being the most nervous moments of my life. Oh, how I will never forget those three minutes before the game began.

 

Nervous

             

The light stains my eyelids a

lurid pink.

I fumble with the

Pen and paper

That lay on my desk.

The others are still sleeping,

The sun is yet to rise,

And I shiver in the cold.

The room looks too large without

The others.

I fidget in my seat,

Unable to sit still.

The paper stares at me

Marred by my shaky writing.

The timer dings announcing my time is up,

And I hand in a paper half blank, half gibberish,

Dripping with sweat.

So much for my future.

 

for the poets

      

your words coat my lips

like honey

i sit cross-legged on my bed and speak them

over and over again

until i can taste them

imprinted on my tongue

they crackle

on the crumpled papers of

my spiral notebooks

i write them over and over again

the blue ink bleeding from

the margins

of my math homework

seeping over the equations

numbers have always made sense to me and

math is refreshing in its clarity

but i can’t help but be

entranced

by your words

they spill over my walls

printed thoughts that stain the blue paint

until there’s no room for posters

poetry on poetry

even your names flow easily

from my lips

pablo neruda

e. e. cummings

william carlos williams

{is having a poetic name a necessity

to be a poet?

or could beth the barista

publish her own printed thoughts one day?

could jonny the jockey

stain a teenager’s walls?}

eventually your words

the ones that coated my lips

imprinted themselves on my tongue

bled over my math homework

twist themselves up in my trachea

so that when i speak your words

they’re not the same

they’ve been reborn

your words

those honey coated ballpoint pen masterpieces

have been reformed into

new

bright white leather baseballs

shiny copper pennies

brand new words

{extra! extra! hot off the presses!}

your words are repeated

rewritten

recycled

refurbished

some people take quotes from movies

or pop stars

or presidents

but i take mine from you

you poets,

you creators,

you gods of your masterpieces

i dismantle them

i dig into every crack and crevice

i check and double-check to make sure

i shake loose every word

and i reassemble them

so that the barest whisper of you

remains

enough to make it clear

that you are my inspiration

but besides from this whisper

the words, formerly yours,

are unrecognizable

i take my words,

my shining pennies,

my fallen stars

from you

and i make them mine

 

Weird Dream

A dream that I had once, which was extremely odd, was that I started off standing on the top of the moon. I walked forward to the edge of the moon and fell all the way through space, down to earth. When I hit the pavement, I jumped out of my sleep. This dream has happened over at least five or seven times. The only logical explanation I have for this dream occurring multiple times is that when I was younger, I used to imagine that I was sleeping on top of the world. I guess that my wondrous imagination somehow turned into a terrifying dream that winds up having my body completely in pieces when I hit the ground, turning my “awesome dream” into a heart pounding moment for me.

 

Potatoes to Apples

        

“Just a small town girl

Livin’ in a lonely world

She took the midnight train goin’ anywhere” – Journey (1981)

 

For all my life, I’ve wished I could be someone else. Somewhere else. New York. I remember being a kid, flipping through magazines at the one dentist office within a five mile radius, looking at the glamour and flashiness that the models and actresses flaunted in their pictures. I remember the article I was reading, something about the Big Apple, with a beautiful picture of Lindsay Lohan in the right hand corner. You know. Before she got sent to rehab.

She was in a red dress that skimmed the floor with these big hoop earrings. I flipped to the next page where there were even more A-List celebrities, carrying around their mini dogs in their mini bags before it was passé, and I fell in love. From that day on, I knew New York was my town.

I wouldn’t stop bothering my mom for a dress just like Lindsay’s. She got me one from the thrift shop that looked and smelled like it’d been worth about two dollars. Mom told me she’d gotten it for one. Did I care? No. I wore that dress until the fraying sleeves wore down to threads and I had had to cut up one of Dad’s old shirts for makeshift straps.

Idaho wasn’t ready for a star like me. And I made sure everyone around me knew that. My friends got tired of me talking their ears off about how great New York was and how terrible Idaho was. Can you blame me, though? We aren’t called the potato state for nothing. There’s nothing else here. It’s not exactly like you can party it up in a silo or anything.

So I made a plan. My town had one train station about two miles away from where I lived. Maybe I should have bought my tickets a little earlier, considering the fact that the only tickets left were for a train leaving at midnight. The only problem was that the ticket fare for a cross country trip was close to $200. Which meant that I would have to ask my parents for the money.

The closest I’ve ever been to a cross-country trip is driving to my Aunt Tilda’s house about two hours away from mine. My parents aren’t exactly what you’d call well-traveled people either. So I expected them to be a little protective of their only child going to a far away city and whatnot. They laughed. And when they saw how upset I looked, they stopped for a second.

“Why do you want to go to New York?” Dad asks, not even looking up from his newspaper. I could tell they weren’t taking me seriously.

Okay, so maybe I had already threatened to run away from home in eighth grade. They probably thought it was just one of those phases that I went through as a kid. But I’m not a kid anymore! I’m almost 18!

“I’ve looked at the train fare already, and it’s close to $200.” I showed them the online train schedule. I’ve already established that I’m an adult by showing them that I’m responsible for looking up the train times. To ask anything more of me would be overkill.

“And you just expect us to give you the money?” Mom stops peeling potatoes long enough to exchange glances with Dad. I know that glance. It’s the should-we-entertain-our-delusional-daughter-or-tell-her-how-the-world-actually-works glance. Which is ridiculous. I’m not delusional, and this isn’t a phase.

“It’s not just giving me the money, Mom.” I roll my eyes. “Think of this as an investment. I’ll go to New York, I’ll make money, and when I get rich and famous enough, I’ll buy you and Dad a house someplace better than Idaho.”

“How, exactly, do you plan on making this money?”

I stop for a second. Do I even know what I’m planning on doing in New York? Whatever. I’ll figure it out when I get there. They don’t need to know. God! Why can’t they just support me? It’s just $200. And the money I’ll need to rent out a place or stay in a motel. And the money I’ll need for food and a ticket back. But it’s not like I’ll be coming back anyway, so I don’t even need that $200. I’m already thinking ahead and saving money. So I go about convincing my parents the only way I know how: begging.

“Please? Please? Please?” I stretch out each syllable and make eye contact with my parents, hoping to send across some kind of subliminal message that says, “I need to go to New York now, and if I don’t, I might die.”

“Let’s say you did go. Where would you even stay? We’ve only left you at home alone once while we went to Marcie’s wedding.” Mom starts to cut up the potatoes into little chunks. It feels like the potatoes are my dreams, and my parents are just willing to cut them up into pieces for soup, or whatever dish we’re having tonight for dinner.

“I’d stay in a motel,” I answer quickly. “They’re cheap, and I’d be able to stay there for a while.”

They don’t look convinced.

“No.” Mom goes back to the potatoes. I can feel my dream slipping through my fingers like a wet bar of soap. Ew.

“But that’s not fair!” I feel tears gathering behind my eyeballs. I can picture it now. Me, years from today, in another house just like this one. I’m peeling potatoes, or washing dishes, or mucking out a cow yard. I’ll be just like… my parents. My boring, mediocre parents. I can feel the walls of our tiny kitchen start to close in on me. I have to get out of this state.

I manage a smile and try to make eye contact with my dad. “Okay. You’re right. I’m not responsible enough to stay by myself, especially in a whole other state.” I force a laugh but end up sounding like a car backfiring.

Mom pushes her mouth into a straight line and nods. “I’m glad you see it from our perspective.”

“I’ll just go to my room and get ready for dinner.” I turn to walk upstairs.

Dinner that night is kind of weird. Unusually quiet. But that might be because I’m trying to think of how to execute my master plan titled, How I’m Going to Get Out of Idaho by Stealing Money from my Parents While They’re Sleeping.

I mull over my options. I don’t have access to any of the things I see in the spy movies, which means I’ll just have to sneak into their room. They keep this ceramic bottle somewhere on their nightstand that has our emergency money in it. This is an emergency.

We finish eating in silence and go upstairs to wash up and go to sleep. Once I hear the faint snoring coming from the room across the hall, I know it’s time for me to put my plan into action.

I roll across the bed and plant my feet on the floor as softly as I can. I start to make my way to my parents’ room. Barely three steps into my plan, my foot and the floor create this awful creaking sound that gives me a heart attack. I reach the door and turn the handle slowly, wincing a little when it squeaks. I stop for a second and listen for any sign that says they’re awake. When there aren’t any, I turn the handle the rest of the way to let myself in.

I tiptoe my way to Dad’s side of the bed and reach around on the nightstand trying to find the ceramic bottle. I make contact with something cold, smooth, and cylindrical. Score. I shake it around a little to make sure it’s the right thing, and sure enough, the money inside makes a faint swishing sound as it hits the insides of the bottle.

My dad grunts in his sleep, and I almost fall back, but catch myself on the edge of the nightstand. I come back to my room and switch on the lights. I uncork the bottle and pull the money out with a pair of tweezers.

There’s about $500 in 20 dollar bills. I decide to take all of it. I empty out my school bag and pack a sweatshirt, some jeans, three shirts, and four changes of underwear and socks. I stuff the money into a fanny pack that I’ve put on under my hoodie and get downstairs as quietly as I can.

Once I make it outside, I do a little victory dance. Now all I need to do is get to the station. I check the time on my phone. 10:46. I have around an hour to get to the station before midnight. I walk down the driveway connecting my house to the road. It’s a quiet night and close enough to summer that I can feel the shirt under my hoodie start to stick to my skin.

I’m doing it! I’m finally getting out of Idaho!

It takes a while for my eyes to get adjusted to the lighting at the station. I see the ticket desk as soon as I get inside. There’s a pimply, tired looking kid around my age sitting behind it.

“Hi. One ticket for the train to New York?” I slide the money into the little compartment under the speaker. He looks up and types something into a machine and hands me the ticket. I wait for him to be impressed, maybe ask some questions about why I’m going to New York. A couple of seconds pass. Nothing. I lean with my elbow on the counter. “Yeah, I’m going to New York. By myself. I just decided I needed to get out of Idaho, you know? Who knows how long I’ll be gone.” I check to see if he’s listening. He’s not. “I might meet some celebrities there too, no big deal. I’ll ride a subway or two, go to Central Park. I’ve heard it’s all very glamorous.” The guy finally looks up. Yes! A reaction! He opens his mouth to say something. Maybe about how cool it is that I’m taking this journey? Or maybe about how he’s always wanted to go to New York too and how he’s so jealous I’m living out my dream?

“Did you say something?” He takes out the earbuds that I’ve just noticed and looks at me with a unimpressed, mildly annoyed expression. The earbuds play loud rock music that cuts through the silence of the station.

“Um. Nothing. Have a nice night.” I take my elbow off the counter and walk quickly to the seating area. Okay. Not exactly the reaction I was looking for. Not really a reaction at all, if I’m being honest.

But it’s okay! In about 15 minutes, everything about this garbage state will be history. The train will arrive, and I’ll be off to live the life I always knew was for me. I go out to the platform and sit on a bench with my hands tucked into the pocket of my hoodie and wait. Then, the train pulls up.

I enter the car and shuffle all the way to the back. I hoist my duffel bag up into the compartment and sit down in a window seat. It’s all dark outside with the exception of the lights from the station. I’m ready to reenact the victory dance from when I left the house when I notice there are two other people sitting in the car with me. I shrink down into my seat.

There’s a lady sitting in the seat across from me. She has hair that looks like it’s been dyed, and even though I’m sitting pretty far away, the smell of cigarettes and cheap perfume wafts from her direction. I feel kind of awkward, but it’s not like I’ll have any reason to talk to her anyway. I settle down into my seat and lean back into the headrest. I’m just about to doze off when a guy gets on and sits in the seat in front of me. From what I can see from the back, he has on a Pistons jersey.

The train jerks forward a little, and we start to move out of the station. I press my hands up against the window like a little kid and move my face as close to the glass as I can and crane my neck up to look at the sky.

For all I complain about Idaho, it really does look pretty at night. We even got some national reserve for looking at the sky. The stars look scattered, like someone took a paintbrush covered in white paint and flicked the bristles until the dark canvas was covered with tiny dots of light.

We start to pick up speed. I hear shifting in the compartment where my bag is. Then, my bag tumbles to the ground with a graceful thump, articles of clothing flying everywhere within a four foot radius. Crap. I scramble around looking for the things that fell out and manage to locate two shirts and three pairs of socks.

The lady sitting across from me looks around her seat and finds another pair of socks. She hands it to me. “Thank you so much.” I take the socks from her and stuff them into my bag. I’m positive my face is bright red.

“Don’t worry about it,” she says with a small smile. “You seem to have packed quite a bit. Might I ask where you’re going?” Finally! Someone who shows interest. I’m going to pretend she didn’t just see my pair of socks with the embarrassing polka dot print on them.

“I’m going to New York by myself,” I say. The guy in front of me turns around and hands me one of my shirts. I don’t want to seem rude, so I thank him and ask where he’s from. You know. Small talk. I’ll need it for when I rub elbows with Taylor Swift.

“I’m from Detroit.”

“Ohhh. Like 8 Mile?” I hope I’ve hit an emotional chord for him. Like, maybe he really likes Eminem and wants to follow in his footsteps and reach rap stardom. He gives me a blank look.

“What’s that?”

“Nevermind. But isn’t Detroit way closer to New York than Idaho?”

He shrugs. “I stayed with some relatives here for a while.”

I turn to the lady next to me and ask her where she’s from.

“I’m a singer. I have connections with some friends in Brooklyn, and they said they’d book me a gig at their bar.” She brushes her hair behind her ears and checks her phone.
 “That’s really cool.” I smile at the both of them. None of us know what else to say, so we all go back to staring out the windows, looking at our phones, and sleeping.

As the anticipation grows in my stomach, so does the exhaustion from all the planning and scheming I’ve done for the past five hours. I close my eyes. Hopefully I’ll wake up just when we arrive in New York. It’s kind of like a fresh start.

A fresh start for me and everyone else on the midnight train.

 

Golden Blood (Excerpt)

“We need to find her.”

“Sorry?”

“The girl.”

“Sir, which girl?”

“The girl, Zira. She’s one of the last ones. We won’t stop until we get what we need — her blood.”

The man stood in front of the committee and swore to do whatever they asked. Immediately, he started to work on finding her in the other world, Earth.

***

I’m concentrating on my comic submission, due next week. Music plays loudly on the radio in my room, but it sounds like background noise to me. The ink flows on my paper freely. I quickly glance at the clock. 11:46 P.M.. New page. Just as I start to draw a new box, my phone rings.

I jump, then scramble to find my phone under the mess on my desk. It’s only my friend, Kyla. I hit the green button and answer with a dry, “Hello?”

She answers much too enthusiastically for this time of the night. “Hey! I’m out right now, so what do you want for your birthday?”

I can’t help but chuckle. “Kyla, why are you out this late? And my birthday is technically in 14 minutes.”

“I know, but I’m getting you something right now anyway. How do you feel about — ”

“It’s okay, I don’t care what you get,” I interrupt. “I’m busy with something. See you tomorrow,” I say and press the “end call” button just as she was about to protest.

I go back to focusing on the comic. I had three pages written already, of my protagonist battling monsters and whatnot. Where I’d left off, my protagonist was standing in front of the biggest, scariest monster of all.

I don’t know what to draw next. I switch my lamp off and go to sleep.

“I’ve come to take you back.”

I shoot up from my bed. I suddenly have a tingly feeling over my entire body, and I grow very hot and dizzy. I find myself too weak to stay sitting up. I see my phone on the bedside table turn to 12:00 A.M.. Thursday, October 11. This isn’t what I thought turning 18 would feel like.

“You’ve been in this other world for much too long and need to get back to your people.”

The view of my window becomes blurred as I drift back to sleep, or faint. I can’t remember.

When I wake up, I’m only confused.

Am I still dreaming? I don’t know what time it is, but it’s dark. I don’t know what day it is. I check my phone. Friday, October 12. 10:45 P.M.. How? What happened?

I’m not in bed. Still confused, I start to feel scared. I’m as good as paralyzed. Terrified.

Why am I in a fancy dress? I hesitantly stand up and realize that I’m in a classroom. I walk out to the hallway. Empty.

School at night is eerie to begin with. Every sound from outside feels louder than it should be, and everything seems bigger than it is during the day. I struggle to remember why I was here in the first place.

There’s a gash on my thigh, bleeding underneath my dress. I hold the muddy ruffles tight in my fist. Not only am I scared and wondering how I ended up here, but an overwhelming, unexplainable grim feeling consumes me. My spirit had been brought down.

Then, a creak.

Lockers line the entire hallway, but one creaked open behind me. A chill goes down my spine. I’m not turning around.

“Who’s there?”

I stay completely still. My body is cold. I couldn’t keep my mouth shut.

“Who’s there?” I ask again. My breaths were heavy. Nobody’s there.

I squeeze my eyes shut, the way you do when you get a shot at the doctor’s office and you just want it to be over. I spin around and open my eyes.

Nothing. I had a sinking feeling there was nothing there. It wasn’t a draft. The hallway is spotless. No garbage, or bugs, or even a single dust mite. If only I could see a dust mite.

I step gingerly towards the exit. I keep walking, stiff.

Why am I here? Why am I here? I ask myself over and over, as if it would give me the answer. The last thing I remember is drawing, the night before my birthday. I realize I don’t remember what happened on my birthday, which was also homecoming. That’s right, this is my homecoming dress.

I push hard on the exit door to open it. It doesn’t budge. Locked. I’m beginning to feel lightheaded. I’m trapped.

“Is there anyone there?” I call out through the door.

The gash on my thigh is the only injury I can see. It had started partly scabbing over. The rest of my body is just covered in dirt. The horrible, ominous aura wouldn’t go away.

What happened? I rub my eyes, hoping maybe it was a bad dream. Mascara smudges onto my hand.

As I start to lean on the door and cry, it swings open. My heart feels like it dropped to my stomach and is pounding from there.

I look eye to eye with a guy standing in front of me. I recognize him. I can’t put a name to his face at the moment, but surely I’ve spoken to him before.

“Um, are you okay? What are you doing here?” he asks.

“Help me.” I say it in the weakest voice, but the guy helps me out of the building.

***

Next, there are thick, dark clouds. Purple, black. They surround me. It’s cold. Something is talking to me.

“Come,” they say. “Come to the other side… ” Over and over. The echo is everywhere. It doesn’t matter where I turn; the voices and the clouds are all that exist in this moment. I can’t escape.

“No,” I say. “No!”

I wake up in an unfamiliar place, with the same guy by my side. What is his name? I still have a sick feeling. “Where am I? How did I get here?”

He holds a glass of water. “Shh, it was just a dream,” he says. “I brought you here. This is my house. I would have driven you home, but I didn’t know where you lived, and I’m right around the corner from school.” I sit up straight, abruptly. He tries to hold eye contact with me, but I’m flustered. He gives me the water.

“Do you remember anything from last night?” he asks softly.

“I remember last night. I know I was at school, but I don’t… I don’t know why… or what happened before that,” I stutter.

“Okay, well, it’s me, Tyler,” the guy says. Tyler. Right. “Last night was homecoming night.”

“I figured that out from my dress,” I say, gesturing to it. I’m still wearing it.

“Your parents are probably really worried,” Tyler points out. “Do you, like, need help or something?”

“They probably aren’t.” Actually, I bet my dad is. It’s not like I told either of them that I was sleeping over at someone’s house. I just didn’t come home. “And I don’t think you can help me. Something’s going on,”

“Well… yeah, I think that’s safe to assume,” Tyler answers. He looks down at his feet. He kind of looks like he wants to say something but decides against it.

I roll my eyes. “No, I mean… I don’t know. Like, it’s not over.”

“Do you want to talk more after you change clothes? There’s a guest room that no one goes in. There’s clothes there,” he offers. I don’t know Tyler that well, but somehow I trust him. There seems to be a connection. I can’t tell what it is.

I nod, and he tells me to go to the room on the left. I follow his instruction and leave the door the slightest bit open.

The room is painted a subdued red. There are eight pieces of artwork, two on each wall. They’re all overwhelmingly dark, depicting graphic pictures of wars and monsters. There’s one portrait. The girl in the portrait cries dark tears.

How unsettling.

I quickly find a T-shirt and shorts in the dresser under the portrait. My mind was clouded with sounds. I need an aspirin or something.

My perception of time is completely messed up. I close my eyes and try to imagine myself in school. A normal day, before yesterday. I imagine myself on the field, running endlessly. It all seems so far. Whatever happened, I want it to stop. I want them to stop torturing me. I wish I knew who “them” was. If they want to kill me, then why not just do it?

Tyler is sitting with his back turned toward me. He seems to be taking some sort of pill, but his cup holds a dark liquid, like grape juice or something, rather than water. He groans in pain.

“Hey,” I say. “Are you good?”

Tyler looks up now. The light in this room is off, but it’s still bright from the daylight coming through the window. He stands up.

“I’m fine. Hi,” he says.

Ignoring the incident, I ask, “Why do you have those paintings?”

“They’re… ” he pauses. “Memories.”

I sit down on the hard wooden chair. “Where’s your family?” I asked. “Are they their paintings?”

“Yes, but I won’t say anything further than that.”

“What does that mean? Are you, like, adopted? You know, I’m adopted.” Why did I say that? He doesn’t care.

“That’s not quite it,” Tyler says. “I don’t know how to explain them.”

“Can you try?” I want to know more.

“I brought them with me when I came here. They’re, uh, otherworldly, I suppose. We had them in my home when I was younger. I can’t go back, though,” he says.

“Why?”

“It’s just not… here,” he says.

We look at each other for a long moment. Now that I can really look at him, it’s the first time I notice that he’s actually attractive, even though I was acquaintances with him for a while. I look away and focus on an area where the paint is peeling off on the ceiling.

“You should go home and rest. Let’s talk more another time,” Tyler says.

I look back at him. “Okay.” I know he would keep to that. Or at least, I hope.

He drives me home. I stand in front of my house for a few seconds before I walk in. It’s the same. Why wouldn’t it be?

My parents sit together on the couch. My dad looks me up and down, a stern look on his face. “Hannah, how did you get that?” he asks, pointing to my thigh.

“Oh, this… it was, uh, an accident. Someone hit it by accident. ‘Cause it was dark and stuff… ” I decide to shut up before my lies become obvious.

“And why are you still wearing your dress? Are you okay?” my mom asks.

“You just fell? Sober?” Dad comments. Ouch. That stings.

“No, I wasn’t drinking. I was at a friend’s house, that’s all. We were really tired after the party, and I slept over,” I answer. He doesn’t seem convinced.

Mom nods her head. “Okay honey.”

I go upstairs. There’s not much else I can tell them. There’s not much else I know.

My bedroom hadn’t been touched since the night before. The comic book pages were still sprawled on my desk. I picked the first one up. There was a drawing of a thick cloud, similar to the one I found myself in while sleeping.

I feel uncomfortable, so I turn it over.

Down the hallway, I turn on the water for a shower. I stand under the water for a bit, just feeling it run down my face. After I’m done, I don’t know what else to do. I sit on my bed and look out the window.

“Hannah,” I hear my mom call from downstairs. “Dinner’s ready!”

I don’t want to eat. I snuggle under my blanket and face the wall. As soon as I hear her footsteps on the stairs, I close my eyes. I hear my room door open.

“Oh, you’re asleep,” she says. “Alright then. Good night, sleep tight, and don’t let the monsters bite.”

My eyes fly open. I’m still facing the wall, so my mom doesn’t notice. She leaves the room innocently. Did I mishear “bed bugs?”

At first, I think I won’t be able to sleep at all. But I drift to an in-between state — both sleeping and awake. Again, I find myself stuck within these dark clouds. It almost feels as if I am falling. A person emerges from the fog. At least it looks like a person. He’s tall and skinny and wears an all black suit. He sports a thin purple scar across his cheek.

“Hannah,” he says. His voice is raspy and intimidating.

“What do you want?”

“Come back to us. This is where you belong.”

“Where are you?”

“Come back to us… ” he hisses.

“Why? Why are you torturing me?” It feels like I’m screaming at the top of my lungs as I say it. I’m filled with anger, passionate anger. Before this happened, I remember that everything was fine, that I was so excited to be turning 18. And now I don’t know what’s going on.

The person disappears with one gust of wind. The echoing of voices uttering incoherent things makes the setting all the more unsettling.

I wake up out of breath. I check the time. It’s completely dark out. 12:34 A.M.. How?

My family must be sound asleep. I turn on the lamp on my desk and rummage for a post-it note. On it, I write “out for a morning jog, be back soon.” If they wake up while I’m still out, they won’t get worried. And they won’t assume I left this early.

Carefully, I stick it to the outside of my door and then proceed to climb out my window.

Once I reach the ground, I pull my hoodie on and walk twenty minutes to Tyler’s house. I don’t know why. I’m not sure what I really wanted to do outside in the first place. It’s cold. Going to his house just seems natural.

It’s not, of course.

I hesitate for a moment in front of his door. Knock, or don’t. I knock once, pause, and knock again. What am I doing? My heart is racing. What will I even say? It’s the middle of the night; would he even —

The door swings open.

“I really wasn’t expecting you to answer,” I say, kind of shocked and out of breath.

“I really wasn’t expecting you to knock on my door at one in the morning,” Tyler deadpans.

“Me neither.”

Tyler steps back to let me in. “So… why are you here? I mean, not to be rude, but this is one of the weirdest things that has ever happened to me.”

“I don’t know why I’m here either,” I say. “I just wanted to, I guess.”

Tyler nods, but his facial expression shows confusion more than anything else. I debate whether or not I should get into my dream. It seems a bit much to walk all the way to his house just to talk about a bad dream. Talk about being needy.

“I can leave,” I say.

“No, no. Don’t worry about it. Are you sure you don’t want to… talk about something?” Yes. I would like to talk to him about something. Those damn clouds.

He sits down on the couch, but I stay standing in front of him.

“No, it’s not like talking would help.” I pace back and forth a few times.

He’s facing the ground. “So, what do you want?”

“What do I want?” What a loaded question. I wish the clouds would leave me alone. I wish I knew why or even what was happening to me. “I want a regular life back. I don’t understand what’s happening to me. I’m scared all the time, and I can’t sleep anymore. I turned 18 yesterday, and I can’t even remember it. And this, this thing won’t leave me alone!” I cry.

Tyler doesn’t speak immediately after. I burst into tears. He stands up and wraps his arms around me. He hugs me tight, and the warmth makes me feel safer.

“Hannah, I think I know why this is happening,” he whispers to me.

“What do you mean?” I pull back and look at his face. He sighs. He looks down at his feet and avoids eye contact.

“Remember when I said my home isn’t here?” he asks. I nod. “It’s in a parallel universe.”

At first I’m speechless. Nothing. “Am I supposed to play along?”

Tyler drops his head, like he knew I wouldn’t believe him. But who would? “Can I tell you how I came? It’ll help you.”

I roll my eyes slightly. I don’t know where he’s getting at, but I’ll listen.

“I’m sorry, it sounds stupid. But when you leave that world, you automatically lose every memory of it. And some there are special, valuable. They have gold blood, and that’s why they’re always in danger.”

“Okay, wait,” I interrupt. “Out of every explanation you could’ve possibly given me, this one is the most unbelievable. This isn’t even useful.”

“I promise I’m not messing with you. Just listen. You’re one of the special ones. That’s why the smoke or whatever is in your dreams. Because your memory was automatically lost. And you’re valuable to them, so they need you back.”

“Yeah, okay, sure.”

Tyler is obviously frustrated. He puts both hands on my shoulders and moves me out of his way. He leans over to grab the scissors on the table. I become tense. “Tyler, what are you doing?”

He pulls up his sleeve, not answering me. With the scissors, he cuts his hand. Dark purple liquid oozes from the cut. I suddenly think of the portrait. Dark tears. Dark blood.

“Give me your hand.”

I hesitate, holding my clenched fist to my chest.

“Hannah, I need your hand. Please,” Tyler pleads. I slowly open my hand and give it to him, almost against my will. He grabs it and cuts it in one swift motion, too fast for me to react. I don’t pay attention if it hurts.

I stare at my hand. The blood is gold.

“W-why… why wasn’t my blood gold before? And why do you know this? What am I?”

“Calm down.”

“Are you joking? Calm down?”

Tyler puts his hands on my shoulders again. “Yes, I’ll tell you everything. Let me continue.” He makes me sit down and takes a deep breath.

All I could do was stare at my trembling hand. Where did it come from? How did nobody notice, not even me?

“I don’t even know where to start but — ”

“You better start somewhere,” I warn.

Tyler leans back, half sitting on the arm of the couch in the living room. He put his hands in the pocket of his hoodie, but his fingers were still fidgeting.

“So,” he begins. “First of all, I’m the only one who can remember here in this world. I figured out a concoction that kept my memory in place despite going through the portal. The regular purple bloods need the gold-bloods for the gold. And so when they leave, by whatever reason, they need to find a way to get the gold-bloods back. I guess it’s also a punishment for anyone who leaves.

“The portal between our two worlds is the clouds that you’ve been seeing,” he says. “The blood is disguised on Earth until they are discovered, and eventually what they want is to bring you back. So this is what you’re experiencing.”

I stay silent for a few minutes. We sit across from each other, not making a sound or moving one bit. “So… What now?” I say softly. This isn’t what I expected when I came.

“Well now you know. So, it’s up to you what you do next.”

“I’m going home,” I say. “I’ll… see you on Monday, I guess.”

“Do you want me to drive you again?” He starts to get up, but I stop him.

“No, I’m going to run home. Thanks.”

I step outside on the street, and the wind hits me in the face. I don’t know how I’m able to leave so easily with all this new information. I still have so many questions. So many thoughts.

I sneak back to my room without my parents noticing. It’s still dark out.

I’m exhausted. Exhaustion is the least of what I was feeling at the moment, though. I lean against the closed door, ready to just give up.

A thick stream of smoke wafts in through the window. It moves as if it has a brain of its own, and it’s coming straight to my face. It curls around me, but not encompassing me. “Hello… ” it whispers.

“Is this a dream? What are you?”

“I think you’re imagining me. Don’t you, smart girl?” the smoke says to me.

“No. This is real.”

The smoke curls around my feet, and slowly makes its way around my body. “You belong with us. You have a place… ” it hisses.

“No.”

“You were destined for things greater than this weak planet. There’s a set place for you, a rare good under our empire. You’re supposed to come back… you shouldn’t have left. You need to be under our control,” the smoke provokes.

“What if I like it here?” I respond.

“You’re a difficult one.” The smoke curls up around my chest and behind my neck. It feels like breath as it speaks. “Aren’t you looking for something more? An identity, perhaps. A true identity?”

“You aren’t even a real person,” I say bitterly. “You are only a soul.”

The smoke laughs, sending a chill down my spine. “That’s what makes me powerful, dear golden-blood. You can’t hurt me, but I can hurt you.” The smoke nears my face, threatening to suffocate me as I pull away.

I clench my fists hard. “You already have. I know you won’t kill me if you need me back.”

The smoke loosens. “This won’t be the last time we meet. Don’t doubt that we will have it our way.” The smoke vanishes, out my window where it came from. I rush to close the window immediately after.

I breathe heavily. I change my clothes, shaking.

The person I see in the mirror is unrecognizable. There are huge dark circles under my eyes.

I know that I’m becoming a tense and anxious person, something I’d never been before. I close my eyes for a moment to think. What should I do? Inhale, exhale. I think back to when I was happy and carefree. I didn’t know things could change so instantly.

My comic still lay unfinished on my desk. The submission date was fast approaching. Maybe it would take my mind off things. I crack my door open to let in some fresh air. No way was I going to open the window.

Where did I leave off?

The protagonist was fiercely fighting off her antagonists. If the drawing can do it, why can’t I do it? I continue to fill in the background and started a new square.

The sun starts to rise, and before I know it, it becomes complete daytime with the sun streaming into my room. Somebody knocks on my door.

I jump. Mom walks in. “Relax, it’s just me. What’s up? Why so jumpy all of a sudden?”

“I know, I’m just… I’m fine.”

“Come eat with us,” Mom asks. I look at the deep creases in her eyes. She’s so happy and oblivious to my nightmare. I love her. I could never leave her, especially for something like smoke and nightmares.

I say nothing as I sit across both of them. I eat small bites and avoid looking at them. They talk about mundane things. Work, switching the lights, laundry. I zone out into my thoughts. What can I do? How did this all even happen?

“Are you alright?” Dad asks. “You seem really out of it.”

“No,” I say reflexively.

“What’s wrong?” they both ask.

I don’t know how to respond. They don’t even know. I stay quiet.

“Hannah, you can tell us what’s bothering you. We love you,” Mom says. I start formulating what I want to say. They stare at me, very concerned.

“I just… ” I finally begin, cautiously giving the rest of my answer. “I don’t have some information that could help me. Like, I don’t know what happened at homecoming. And… I don’t know who I really am, and I don’t have what I need to figure it out. Where am I from?”

My parents exchange a glance.

“Hannah,” my dad says, “This conversation was a long time coming.” I bet. “I wish I could share your origins with you. But we don’t know anything about before we adopted you either. There’s no information about your birth parents, birthplace, or anything like that.”

There’s no forms. It clicked when he said that. There was my proof that I wasn’t born here. “Absolutely nothing?” I ask.

My parents shake their heads. “You were all alone when we took you in. You weren’t at an orphanage. You were a year old or something, and you were in the street,” Dad says.

“What about the legal stuff? School, doctors… ” I say. Nobody must’ve realized that I had gold blood. Heck, I didn’t know until last night. How did the purple-bloods get away with it? It’s interesting to hear my parents speak about this when I’m referring to drastically different things.

There are still a lot of holes in my story. I sit there, half blanked out, half listening. My parents share about the loopholes they were able to get through, like my birth certificate. I was born “at home,” it seems. My head is spinning.

There was still a big “why?” hanging over me. I understand that I’m obviously from somewhere else, but why did I end up here? Why do I matter so much? Why won’t it go away?

“Thank you, Dad.” I give him a quick hug and rush to my room.

I’m weirdly excited. I feel anticipation for the answers I’ll receive tomorrow. It’s the closest to happiness I’ve felt in a while. Something to look forward to rather than to fear.

I try to sleep. There are too many things on my mind. I sit up. It won’t be long before I speak to Tyler. I tap my leg lightly with my finger, thinking of something to do.

Visually lay it out. Get my thoughts on paper.

I jump out of bed and flip on the lights. I get an empty notebook floating around on my desk and open up to the first page. Just like drawing a story. Except this one is real.

I take a deep breath.

I draw and write furiously. A baby, adopted and moved around, a determined runner, and homecoming night. Arrows and little comments cover the piece.

I drop my pencil and massage my wrist. It’s very late, and it’s been a few hours since I’ve eaten with my parents. I sneak out of my room to get a snack.

The kitchen lights are still on even though both of my parents are sleeping. I grab an apple and slowly make my way back up the stairs. I shut my door gently. I sit back at my desk, ready to keep working.

The drawings were now in color.

I drop my apple and it rolls under my desk.

All of the pictures of me were all colored gold, even though none of them had blood. There was also smoke added. Clearly I wasn’t alone.

I step back and look at the filled up pages. I feel scared once again, just as I was starting to get over it. Just as it was dying down, just as I was about to get answers.

Disregarding the time yet again, I decide to call Tyler.

No answer.

Should I call again? I click on the call button one more time. And again, he doesn’t pick up his phone. I throw my phone on my bed.

I want to show him the pictures. But I don’t want to touch them. I don’t know what’s been done to them. I don’t know if they’re hiding somewhere in my room.

I don’t feel safe.

 

Enough Is Enough

              

An AR-15 has 15 functioning parts. The length of the gun, the speed of the bullet determines how lethal a fatality is.

The time it takes to unload the empty chamber.

That one flick can cause a mass destruction.

The silver ruthless bullets that trigger screams of horror.

The painful, excruciating sound when the revolver clicks revealing the sight of ammunition.

The cylinder, when inclined, locks the hammer into place.

The trigger requires an explicit amount of pressure to fire.

The target erupts, opening a door that cannot be closed. A ruthless act that cannot be undone. A callous school shooting cannot be undone.

That it has many working parts.

The morning of, the child believes the day will be like every other day.

A test first period.

The sound of the bell at 8:15.

The sound of countless kids screaming in the cafeteria.

The sound of bookbags dropping like a ton of bricks. The sound of birds chirping, on the morning on February 14.

The sound of 17 sharp gunshots.

A day filled with laughter was turned into horror in seconds.

The first shot triggers a lockdown.

The bell rings.

Code Red, but it doesn’t seem like a code red. One thought this would never happen to them but it did.

The fire alarm pounds loud in my ears as chaos erupts.

Classrooms become inescapable like gas chambers.

The shooter shoots. The sounds are still and silent.

The eyes are tearful and the stomachs are churning.

The police arrive, with precision, as a shot is fired, the separation begins for the student body.

Those living and those that the shots have hit.

That one massacre of school children triggers the carnage lost in Boston.

Why does this keep happening?

But we barely notice until we marry 6 feet under the ground.

I thought this was supposed to be a good day?

The day with pencils tapping on the desks.

The sound of gossiping.

The sound of teachers demanding for classwork.

The sound of the chairs tipping back.

It all disappears in seconds.

The stoplight turns red but the gun turns green.

The gun doesn’t kill people, the numbers do.

3100 South Springfield Avenue. A truck turned the corner. Not the ice cream truck. This gray truck was mean. It forced her to fight for her life in the hospital bed until 5:24 p.m.. The doctor says, “I’m sorry for the words that I’m about to say.”

Sunday, October 1, 2017, Las Vegas, Nevada. 58 gone. Near the Mandalay Bay.

I was there 2 years prior.

Texas, Sutherland Springs, a day we cherish Jesus and stare at the cross. 26 souls joined with him, but not out of sacrifice. Just one out of sacrifice, but he didn’t have to die if it wasn’t for that silver bullet!

But the debate on gun control only lasted for so long after the Columbine shooting.

How many more times?

A teacher takes a bullet to save her 6 students.

The child did not get a chance to hug Mommy and say, “I love you.”

A father is heartbroken.

He cannot even remember if he even kissed his little girl goodbye when she left for school the morning on February 14.

Now the father is saying, “Enough is Enough.”

 

I So Don’t Want to Be Here (Excerpt)

“I so don’t want to be here.”

Desiree looked up at the blonde girl in surprise. “Why?” she asked her.

“Why? Why? Isn’t it obvious why I don’t wanna be here? We’re in detention,” she said, a flash of irritation in her eyes.

“No — I know that,” Desiree told her, “What I meant is… why are you talking to me?”

Alice thought for a moment and shrugged.

“I — I don’t know,” she mumbled.

“Do you even know my name, Alice?” Desiree asked her, a hint of amusement laced in her voice. Alice said nothing.

“Yeah… didn’t think so.”

Alice still said nothing.

Desiree smiled softly at Alice. “Would you like to know my name, Alice?” she asked.

Alice nodded. “Yes please.”

“It’s Desiree,” she told her and extended her hand so that Alice could shake it, but Alice didn’t budge. Perhaps a handshake was too formal of an action for situations such as these, and Desiree put her hand down on the table in a failed attempt to seem natural. She picked up her pencil and began writing.

“So why are you here, Desiree?” Alice asked, as she proceeded to examine the state of her most recent manicure. She began picking the pink polish off her nails, watching it fall to the table in small pieces. Pick, pick, pick. This action greatly annoyed Desiree, seeing as the chips of nail polish were getting all over the table, and the two would probably have to clean them up afterwards, but she said nothing about it. Instead, she sighed heavily and answered the question she had been asked.

“I’m here for a pretty dumb reason.”

“Oh?” Alice raised an eyebrow, her eyes still focused on the nail polish she was picking off. “And what might that be?”

Desiree thought this was quite rude, but seeing as she was still writing her essay and not fully paying attention to the conversation either, she didn’t really have a right to criticize.

“I’m here for breaking dress code,” she explained, rolling her eyes in irritation. “God forbid I wore something I actually wanted to. To be fair, it was an accident. They change the dress code so often that half of the time I don’t even know what’s in it.”

Alice snorted in response. “Yeah, you were right.”

“About what?”

“That is a really dumb reason.”

Desiree smiled. “Tell me about it. At this point, I’m not even writing an essay. I might as well be writing a book. And instead of writing about what I did wrong and what I can do to fix my ‘dreaded behavior,’ I’m writing about why the dress code is stupid.”

“So rebellious, Desiree,” Alice mumbled, more to herself than anyone else. Desiree pulled at one of the strands of her frizzy, brown hair.

“Yeah, you’re right. I’m not rebellious at all. I guess that’s the thing about me. I follow the rules, even if I hate them. This is really the first time I’m speaking out against them.”

Desiree put her pencil down and turned to face the girl. She was still picking at her nails, completely oblivious to the large mess she was making.

“What’s the point of getting them done if you’re just gonna pick the polish off?” Desiree asked her.

Alice’s head snapped up. She looked at Desiree.

“I’ve got no fucking clue,” she told her.

“Huh. Interesting,” Desiree muttered, and Alice nodded. “Well, regardless of that, will you please stop picking off the nail polish? You’re making a huge mess.”

“Oh.” Alice became flushed with embarrassment. “Yeah, sure. Sorry.”

“It’s fine — ”

“Hello, you two. Have you completed your essays?”

Desiree turned, only to be met face-to-face with the school’s biggest asshole and assistant principal, Ms. Ronen, who stood in front of them with her hands on her hips. Everyone in the school liked Ms. Ronen — everyone but Desiree. She hated this woman with every fiber of her being, mostly hating her for the obnoxious voice she had, which was the voice a person uses when talking to a dog or a baby. It made her feel extremely insignificant and insulted her greatly, though nobody else seemed to care or have any issue with her whatsoever. Desiree also hated Ms. Ronen because she always seemed to get into some sort of trouble whenever she was around — which she hated because she was a good kid. She was always well-behaved — always had been, too, but for whatever reason, she always ended up doing something wrong.

Desiree nodded and handed Ms. Ronen her essay. The woman stood there, shocked as she realized that there were now five back-to-back pages in her hands.

“Is that good enough? I could always add ten more pages.”

Ms. Ronen’s eyes widened in horror at Desiree’s suggestion. “Oh! Oh no, no, no, that’s — that’s fine, Desiree. You’ve done great.”

Desiree smirked. Bet she’ll have a great time reading that, she thought.

“And what about you, Alice?”

Desiree looked over to where Alice was sitting, looking bored and uninterested. She sighed.

“I don’t have my essay.”

“Oh? And why is that?”

“Because I didn’t want to write it.”

The assistant principal looked appalled. “You do realize that you can’t just not write the essay… right, Alice?”

Alice shrugged and turned away.

“I barely did anything, though,” she whined.

“You skipped class, Alice,” Ms. Ronen huffed, “That’s a pretty big deal.”

“But I have to write an essay about why I feel bad for doing what I did,” Alice told her.

“And? Your point is?”

“My point is that I can’t write my essay because I don’t feel bad. I don’t care.”

Ms. Ronen’s face reddened in anger. “Just — just pretend you care… okay?” She sighed, obviously too tired to deal with Alice’s shenanigans. Alice nodded.

“Fine… ”

“And hurry up, too. It’s almost time for you two to leave.”

At this, Alice’s eyes widened fretfully. “But — I can’t! I can’t finish an essay in such a short amount of time!”

Ms. Ronen sighed as if she knew that something like this was going to happen. “Okay, fine. Just — finish it at home and bring it in on Monday.”

Alice nodded vigorously. “Okay! Fine by me! Can we leave now?”

There were more words exchanged between Alice and Ms. Ronen, but what they were exactly Desiree wasn’t sure. The only thing that Desiree cared about in that moment was the use of the word ‘we.’ ‘Can we leave now,’ Alice had asked, not ‘Can I leave now.’ She wondered what Alice meant by this, because as far as she was concerned, there wasn’t a ‘we.’ It’s probably nothing, Desiree thought. She probably just said that by accident. Even so, Desiree planned to ask Alice about this later on… well, if they ever talked again, that is.

Desiree knew for a fact that they probably wouldn’t.

 

Seasons

           

Summer

A lot of times I don’t feel comfortable without a coat on. The thought of people staring at my arms and my body is terrifying to me, so whenever I’m going out anywhere I always take a coat. The only bad thing about this is that it only works in the winter. In the spring and summer is when I really feel uncomfortable.

In the winter and in the fall, it is socially acceptable to wear a coat inside because sometimes, it’s still cold even when you’re in your house or the school building. This is mostly because my school is too cheap to actually turn on the heater. And sometimes, our landlord is too cheap to turn on the heater as well. But in the spring and summer, if you go out wearing a coat, then you look crazy, and the people in the street give you mean looks, which is funny because in those moments it is the very thing that protects me from the judgement of others that is making other people judge me. And then sometimes, when I am going to leave the house for a little while and I go to grab my coat, I am scolded by my mother because “it is scorching outside and you will burn in the heat.” Then, she tells me to leave it at home, and I get upset because if someone I don’t want to talk to comes and tries to talk to me, then I can’t just put my hood up and ignore them, so it won’t be as awkward because I can’t see their face.
I think everyone should just wear coats during the spring and summer.

 

Fall

I’m a very approachable person. This is both a blessing and a curse.

On the one hand, I know how to handle myself in social situations, and I have no problems at all when it comes to talking to people at parties and other social situations, since people are always trying to initiate conversations with me, while on the other hand, I hate being approached.

“You’ve inherited my gift with people,” my mother will often tell me. However, I’m not quite sure whether or not that’s true.

I mean — I’m okay with people, but not great. I’d rather not talk unless it’s required, but when it is required, I’ll always provide at least the bare minimum amount of conversation necessary for whatever situation I’m in. I’d rather avoid being noticed, because contrary to common belief, I’m a very anxious person. But not my mother. My mother is a gracious person, who is skilled when it comes to talking to people. She is witty, and interesting, and humorous, and sociable. She is caring and kind and beautiful, and she has the ability to spark up conversation with pretty much anyone. She can bring introverts out of their shells, and she can make the shy ones laugh. Something about her is just so open and inviting, and just makes you want to get to know her immediately.

I’m not that kind of girl.

I don’t go out of my way just to talk to people. In fact, it’s the exact opposite. It’s just the people who are always going out of their way to talk to me.

Except, I have no idea why…

I’m nothing like my mother. I’m not interesting or appealing or witty or talkative. I’m not particularly pretty either. It’s not like I’m anything special — I’m just a short, pale girl with short, dark hair that curls perfectly over my ears. Perfectly simple, perfectly boring. Just a short, pale girl with a closet full of turtlenecks and pastel colors. Just a short, pale girl who likes to draw and paint. A girl who is utterly and painfully short of any personality.

 

Winter

I don’t know exactly what it was that triggered the start of my ongoing three-and-a-half year battle against dermatillomania, but somehow here I am. I’m not sure if it was something I always had, but if I didn’t have it when I was little, then I certainly have it now.

Perhaps one day, I had an especially bad panic attack and in a flustered, anxious frenzy, decided to dig my nails into the bumps on my arms and after coming to the conclusion that I enjoyed the feeling, decided to return to it whenever I was bored or anxious. Perhaps I had found a pimple on my face and thought that the best course of action was not to pop it, but to scratch it hard until it was gone altogether. Or maybe I had just washed my hair and whilst making sure that I had gotten all of the shampoo out of my hair, I accidently came upon some dandruff and by mistaking it for nits, continued to poke around my scalp with my nails until a piece of my skin was picked off. At this point, who really knows?

But it doesn’t matter, because how I developed this disorder won’t make a difference. In the end, I still end up here in some therapist’s office every Tuesday, where they hire some hippie to come and ask me bullshit questions.

If I’m honest, I don’t even know her name.

I never use her name anyways.

Sometimes, she asks me questions about how my day was, to which I answer truthfully, but other times she’ll ask me questions about my “condition,” to which the answers I give her are always lies.

“What triggered you to pick at your skin?” she’ll ask me. I’ll shrug at her and sigh.

“I don’t know,” I’ll tell her, but this is not true at all — not even in the slightest.

I hate telling lies, and I always have, and because of this, I try to avoid lying as much as possible, and when I do lie, I am always sure to at least reveal a little bit of the truth. For instance, there was this one time when my mom baked a tin of banana bread, which usually is quite good except for this one time when it was extremely dry.

After eating a decently sized slice of it, she came up to me and asked me what I thought of it, to which I responded with, “Yeah, it was really good! Just a little bit dry, but otherwise really good!” and she smiled and went on her merry way.

Was her banana bread really good? No, it was just average. But was it dry? Yes. Yes it was. But I couldn’t just say that, could I?

But with this particular question, I can’t even share my answer. My answer will always be overridden. The truth of the matter is that most of the time, I start picking whenever I am bored and need something to do with my hands — specifically during my classes. But if I even try to explain this to the therapists, they’ll never believe me. They always seem to think that me picking at myself stems from anxiety — some deep, dark fear gnawing at me from the inside out.

Except it’s not.

That’s the thing with therapists. There always needs to be some type of ulterior motive — one that more often than not isn’t there.

At this point, I’ve just stopped trying to defend my illness. There really isn’t any use because I always find myself answering the same goddamn questions over and over again, and at this point have grown tired of it. It’s mentally draining, and I’m over it. The cognitive behavioral therapy doesn’t help — not when the therapists try to act like they know what I’m feeling or thinking better than I do myself. Perhaps one day, I’ll find someone who will just listen.

 

Spring

Sometimes, I like to sit with my dog out on the stoop and watch people walk by. My dog is a Pomeranian, and she’s really fluffy, so lots of people stop to pet her because she looks really soft. But some people don’t like little dogs like mine. They’d much rather have a big dog than a small one. I’ve never understood this. A dog is a dog. I like both big dogs and little dogs equally — and if given the chance, I would totally get a big dog, but I live in an apartment in the city so having a Husky or Bulldog isn’t an option.

I like my dog more than I like most people. I can tell Jazzy anything because she won’t tell anyone or think I’m weird and secretly judge me, and I like this. Another thing Jazzy won’t do is get up and walk away from me when she sees the scabs on my face, like that one lady on the bus did after sitting next to me.

When I was little and Dad was still around, he used to play his jazz CDs on the radio really loud in the morning, and then I would get up and dance around the house. Then one day, he brought Jazzy back to the house, and I named her after something my dad really loved. Then one day, Mom found out about the affair. Then, he left. Now I don’t listen to jazz anymore. I still have Jazzy, though.

Lots of days Laura will come to my house after school, and we will sit on the stoop together. She doesn’t like to hang out in her house very much because she has four younger siblings, and they’re always in her face. But today, Laura isn’t here. This is because we had a fight at school today, and she got mad at me.

I had come out of the principal’s office during last period to find her staring at me with her arms crossed. She looked really mad, and that made me upset — so much so that I felt a sudden urge to open the door to the closest classroom, step inside, and lock myself in there so I wouldn’t have to deal with whatever harsh thing she was gonna say to me, but that wasn’t an option.

We walked to the cafeteria together in silence. It was only after we sat down at our usual table that she said anything.

“What did you do this time?” she asked.

I sighed. Why did she have to be like this?

“I yelled at my para,” I mumbled. I hated the paras. They were basically hired to help me one-on-one, but all they seemed to do was piss me off.

She rolled her eyes, “Go on.”

“O-okay, I cursed at my para.”

“Are you sure that’s all?”

“… I punched my para.”

Laura scoffed, “Really, Callie? Are you serious right now?”

“Yeah!” I yelled, “I am!”

“What the hell were you thinking?!”

“She hit my hand!” I protested.

“Callie, she probably didn’t. She probably just tapped your hand to tell you to stop picking, and you freaked out. Jesus, do you have to be so Special Ed all the time?”

I froze. Only seconds later did she realize what she had said.

“Oh Callie… I’m so sorry.”

“I can’t just stop picking. That’s not how things work. Do you think I enjoy picking myself bloody? Because I don’t, and if it was as easy as not doing it, then I would’ve stopped a long time ago.”

It was at that moment that I got up from my seat and left. I ate by myself in the bathroom. I didn’t talk to her for the rest of the day.

So here I am, sitting on the stoop of my apartment, sketchbook and pencil in hand and a dog at my feet. I listen to music as I draw and this time, I do not draw what is in front of me. I draw what I see in my mind.

I do not look up from what I am doing until around 8:00 when Jazzy starts barking. There’s Laura, refusing to meet my eyes.

“Can I… can I sit with you?” she asks.

I nod, and she comes to sit next to me, wrapping her arm around me tightly. We don’t speak for a long time.

“I’m not just a Special Ed kid,” I tell her, my voice hushed to a whisper. She sighs.

“No,” she agrees, “No, you’re not. I’m sorry.”

“I’m a person.”

She is silent once more.

“Yes, Callie. You are a person.”

“Then why am I treated differently?”

At this point, I am crying my eyes out, and she can definitely tell.

“I don’t know, Callie. You just are.”

She pulls away from me, and my arm feels cold.

“Take off your jacket, Callie. No one’s judging you.”

My jaw drops. “How did you know?”

“I’m your best friend, Callie. I’m psychic,” she winks at me, and I laugh. “But seriously. Take the coat off.”

And I do.

 

Trump Tower

April 2017

 

Jason walked right up to me in front of 70 Pine, our designated meet up spot. As always, he was late, and I was early. The sun was going to set at almost eight o’clock, and it was only six, so we were good to make the sunset shots.

“The man, the myth, the legend. Nice to see you, Jason. You ready?” I said.

“You know it. So how are we getting in?”

“Easy. The school right there. I’m friends with them. I’m sure they’ll let you in… just say you need to use the bathroom.”

“Got it.” I pointed to the school and showed him an outline I wrote earlier in art class of how exactly we were going to get in. We crossed the street and walked into the school.

“Hey Marlon, how are you?” I said, putting my hand out.

“Happy to see you again! What you need.”

“Just need to use the bathroom, if that’s okay. I’ve been looking for so long.”

“Of course, just use the one on the third floor.” I smiled and started walking up the stairs, Jason following right behind me.

“Your friend can wait down here,” he said, looking back at me.

“Okay.” I looked at Jason and signalled for him to ask.

“Do you mind if I go wash my hands upstairs?” Jason asked.

“It’s fine… you can go up,” Marlon said.

We walked up the stairs and looked at each other. I smiled and said, “We’re in. We did it. We passed the hard part.” I smiled a big smile and kind of giggled right as we got out of sight of the security. We got to the third floor and passed by the bathroom and kept walking down the school. We saw the exit sign signalling to go to the right. We took a right, and we were in the clear: no cameras and the stairwell entrance right in front of us.

“Okay, put on your bandana.” I took mine out, and so did Jason. He had a blue on, and I had a red one… ironic.

“This is what we’re going to do. Go to the ninth floor and transfer to staircase H. From there we take it down to the fifth, and we’re past the security in the offices, and we could take the elevator down to the lobby. From there, follow me.”

“Okay,” Jason said. We both had our bandanas on, and my hand was on the staircase door handle. I took a deep breath, turned the handle, and walked in. I covered my eyes in front of the three cameras pointed at the door. It didn’t phase me. I just kept walking and kept my head low. We ran up the stairs and arrived on the ninth floor. We opened the exit door and came inside an office area inside the Trump building. I saw the golden elevators, but there was a glass door blocking me from them. We were close but still a mile away. I led him around to stairwell A, and we took it down to the fifth floor. Open sesame! The moment we opened the doors, we saw the golden sheen of the Trump elevator doors.

“Bingo,” I said, jumping up and down.

“Take your bandana off. We’re good. Just follow me, and don’t be afraid to look around. Try to act normal,” I said while laughing. All the pressure released from my body, and I felt calm. From here, it was just the matter of not getting stopped while going into the elevators, but there was no worry for — Bing! Within seconds, we were already at the lobby, and the golden doors opened to more golden decor and white marble floors. I walked out and took a slight right to the elevators labeled forty-five to sixty-two. We walked into the hall and clicked the button to call the elevator. Immediately we heard a ring, and both of our necks swiveled backwards. We walked in and almost at the same time, we saw the cameras staring us down. We turned around and smiled at each other. We were in Trump’s most valuable tower.

 

The elevator was fast, but relative to the tall building, it took a minute or two to get to the sixty-second floor. The doors opened, and we both sighed in relief. The elevator door shut, and we heard the whirring as it went down beneath us.

“Well… we’re here! Look at that view,” I said, pointing to a huge window looking out at the sunset.

“Damn that’s beautiful,” Jason said, staring into the sun. The blue, almost fluorescent sky lit up as the sun started making its way down, turning it orange inch by inch.

“Okay, what next?” Jason said.

“I’ll take you to the highest we can get, but the door to get to the spire is locked. I checked earlier.”

“This has been done before. I’m sure we can find a way.” I looked back at Jason and clicked the elevator button leading to the top floor. It opened up with a loud, creaking noise. It was an old, freight elevator contrary to the new, golden, shiny ones on the main elevator. Again I clicked the highest floor, and it started to go up. The elevator buzzed, and we made our way out. I stuck my head out of a half open window and looked up. We were about forty feet below from the base of the thinning spire.

“There’s the lock right there.” I pointed to the entrance leading to the spire. Jason walked up to the lock and started fiddling with it, turning it, and banging it. We even tried to break the lock, but nothing worked.

“I guess we should find another floor where we could go on the outside,” Jason said. I nodded back. I walked into the stairwell and lightly walked down the stairs. We checked every door on every floor, and everything was locked, but when we got to the sixty-fourth floor we found a wide open hole in the wall. It was dim, and the walls were made of brick. There were loud noises and lights coming from inside from rusty machines that probably have been there since 1930, when the Trump building was made. We walked into the room and saw orange light peeking through the windows. We walked toward it. It was a fully open three-foot window. Just enough for us to easily get in and out.

“Jackpot.” We dropped our bags and jackets and looked out. It was breathtaking and familiar, but it felt as we say in the Philippines, “biten” (BIH-TIN), meaning not enough or that it didn’t hit the spot. We both knew this wasn’t the building’s full potential, and it didn’t really satisfy what we did all this work for. We stayed there for a good twenty minutes and got a lot done. Not a second is wasted when rooftopping. Everything has to be as correct and precise as possible while still being quick and silent. We took photos, Snapchats, and hung from one hand from the side of the building. Just normal things. We were both done, and all I wanted to do was leave. I gave up, and in my mind I knew getting up to the top would be impossible without a pick lock or explosive.

“Okay Jason, let’s go… I don’t wanna get caught.”

“Hold up. C’mon, I have an idea”

“No, we’re going.” I called the elevator and got in. Jason got in and shook his head.

“Silly you.” He pressed the highest floor we could get in again. The door shut, and we were going back.

 

The elevator door opened, and I had a feeling that I normally get while rooftopping. Most rooftoppers have anxiety that when the elevator door opens, a horde of police and security will be waiting there for them. In all honesty, using the elevators is the most nerve-wracking, especially when going down. But that didn’t happen today, it never does. It’s something that happens on YouTube.

“Get your keys out right now,” Jason said, as he walked out of the elevator.

“Stop, that’s not going to work.”

“I’m being so serious. Give it to me.” I shrugged and dug through my overfilled pockets. I felt the rigid ends of the keys and yanked it out. I tossed it to Jason, and he walked over to the locked door.

“This should work.” Jason stuck the key in. It fit perfectly, sliding in with ease. He turned it left… didn’t budge… he turned it right. Didn’t budge. Then he wiggled the key and left just about a hair line out of the lock. Then boom, he turned right, and I heard the most satisfying sound I’ve ever been a part of.

“NO FUCKING WAY! NO WAY!” I screamed.

Jason looked at me nonchalantly and said, “Ladies first.”

I gladly said yes and slowly walked up the spiral stairs. Within the stairs there were small circle windows about 1.5 feet in diameter. I saw higher than I ever saw before. So many things were racing through my head. I didn’t even care if I got caught anymore. This was the most badass thing I’ve ever done. Everyone dreams of climbing the Trump Tower, and I could basically do this in my sleep now. We walked all the way to another metallic, almost brand new, spiral staircase. I saw the bright lights surrounding us pointed out to the city. I knew exactly where we were… we were in the spire of Trump’s most valuable tower.

 

“I think we should leave our bags here,” Jason said. I nodded and dropped my bag down. All I needed was my camera. Everything was setup and ready to go. We started to climb up the rusty, old, steel ladder to the top. I kept my camera hanging from my neck and propped off the side of my back. I tried my best not to let my camera hit the grimy bars on the ladder. The ladder went about forty feet up and got dirtier and rustier the higher I got. When I got to the top, I stood on the bars that went across the ten-foot space. The window out was right in front of me, waiting for me to go through. I held on to the side walls as I waited for Jason to come up. He got up and looked outside the window.

“No way… we are here man. No turning back.” Jason said.

“I know. Is it safe to go out?”

“Yeah, I’m going first, then just follow along. Here, hold my camera.” Jason handed me his camera, and legs first, he squeezed through the window.

“Okay, pass my camera.” I climbed toward the window and handed Jason his camera. He stood out there fiddling with his camera and looking around the sky. He looked up and froze.

“Yo. Yo, grab my camera right now… RIGHT NOW.” I grabbed his camera without hesitation.

“What happened,” I said, as I started to make my way down the ladder.

“No, no, no, stay here we’re fine, there’s just too many helicopters out here. Let’s wait till it gets a bit darker.” He awkwardly squeezed back through the window facing backwards. When he got back in, we both sat on the rusty bars and looked at each other in silence. We sat there slowly relaxing every second. I felt my heart rate slow down, and my thoughts about getting caught slowly slipped out my mind. We were in the roof area for about an hour now and nothing has happened. No cameras, no motion detectors… nothing. I could, with authority, say this was one of the easiest roofs in NYC. We waited inside looking out the window for about thirty minutes. The helicopters didn’t stop, but they slowed down as the sun went down.

“I think we should go now,” I said.

“Okay, hold my camera.” I took the camera and cradled the lens like a baby. He quickly got out to the spire and grabbed his camera. It was my turn, and by God, was I ready. I held on to the top ledge of the window and propped myself out legs first. I looked up and saw about thirty feet up till the end. Never had I been so high in my life, and there was nothing that could top this, so I tried to make the most out of this trip. I took out my camera that was already set up and started firing away on rapid speed.

 

The shots came out beautifully and needed minimal editing. I tried to hang or do some daredevilish stunts, but everything was thin and flimsy and hadn’t been restored since 1930. We walked in circles. The distinct, almost mint green still sticks in my mind. I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a beautiful, worn out green so close up in my life. You have to see it to appreciate it. I continued to take shots and videos of this mission. But for just a minute, I put the camera down and enjoyed what I wouldn’t have for a long time. The World Trade Center glowed with its smaller buildings, making it seem like a small, utopian village in the middle of other futuristic office buildings which took up the Financial District. Then, you walked to the opposite side and saw Manhattan’s tapering down to the Staten Island Ferry. It was surreal looking down and seeing nothing but the green of the rest of the roof.

“I’m doing it,” Jason said, as he walked toward the ladder leading up.

“Crazy mofo.” He started scaling even higher than the nine-hundred feet we were at. Relative to where we were already at it didn’t seem to make a difference, but the view was beautiful. Jason climbed to the top of the spire as I peered down. He took one candid shot, and I went back to shooting. What I didn’t know was that he took the best photo of me I’ve ever seen.

 

He headed down, and we knew it was time to go. We’d been up there close to two and half hours, and we didn’t want to cut it any closer. Jason climbed down from the spire, and I passed him my camera. I hopped inside the small room back in and squatted on the bars I was standing on.

“Get my camera,” Jason said. I took his camera, and he awkwardly squeezed himself halfway and then got stuck because he was coming out backwards.

“Fuck, what do I do,” he said.

“Jeez, let me help you.” I went across the bars and slowly held him as he went back out to try again. He went feet first and pulled himself in. I gave him his camera, and he packed it away in his bag. I strapped my camera to my shoulder and started climbing the ladder back down. Jason then followed behind me. I packed my camera into my bag and put my light cashmere sweater on. We were back to where the big LED lights faced out. I remember staring at this a couple years before and enjoyed the thought of such a tall, beautiful building. New memories like this always make me appreciate and compare my past experiences.

“Wow, I can’t believe we’ve done it,” I said. Jason looked at me and started laughing about how hilarious and insane this situation was.

“We’ve really done it this time,” Jason said. We were all packed and ready to leave the roof. I looked one last time and started heading down the spiral staircase. On the way down, we saw small, circular windows that gave us the first and last views from the roof. We then came to the end of the staircase and the gate that was opened with my key. I looked back at Jason and looked out to see if any workers were there waiting for us. I took a deep breath and pushed the bar. It was almost over. We walked over to the elevators and took it down to the sixtieth floor, where we would transfer to the lobby elevator. The doors opened, and I clicked the button for the next elevator. We waited for a good three minutes for the elevator to come. By then, we started getting worried about the security catching on. We heard a ring from behind us, and the elevator door started to open. It fully opened, and it wasn’t filled with police… phew. We got in and pressed the lobby. The elevator down was nerve-wracking. I could only think of the worst… getting caught. We whirred down the flights and finally arrived at the lobby. The elevator door clicked open and opened to a full lobby of not police, but gold rimmed chandeliers, and the exit! We took a right from the elevator trying to act as normal as possible. We came up to the door, and it was blocked by red velvet rope. I looked at Jason, and we quickly turned around. This meant we had to leave from the main entrance. We walked toward the turnstiles and walked straight through them.

“Have a nice night, guys,” the doorman said.

We both looked at him and nodded. We walked out and looked at each other with the most “I can’t believe we just did that” look.

“You know what this calls for,” I said.

“What?”

“Mission accomplished Snapchat videos!” We both put on our bandanas and went across the street to a plaza. We did our handshake and stared at 40 Wall. We then parted ways and had to explain to our moms why we came home so late.

 

It was June 18th, 1999

It was June 18, 1999, when Bob lost his first finger. It was an otherwise normal day at Gleg’s Edible Food. The vegetable guy had gone on a “mission to mars” (this was a scam), so Bobby “Ten Fingers” was to do the job. He was instructed to cut the frungis, by Gleg himself. Gleg told him to take the first knife down the rack and then hit the frungis with it until the frungis was thin enough to put on something that looks like a sandwich if you squint.

“When the knife breaks, get a new one. This will happen every ten ‘time inches’ or so,” said Gleg.

Bob didn’t understand what a “time inch” was, but he assumed that it’s about a minute or an hour. It was good for the first 48.09 time meters until he got to a very hard bit of frugis. Every time he’d chop at it, the knife would break and catch on fire a bit. After trying with twenty-three knives in counting, he got Glegs (in)famous “punishment katana.” The punishment katana set on fire and soon the frungis was on fire and then everything was on fire. Then a rocket made out of old car parts, with the old vegetable guy in it, landed on a quite surprised Bob’s left pinky finger. And that was how Bob lost his first finger.

Ten years later came the day Gleg died. Gleg had never been the most lovely looking guy to most. His greenish, brown flesh, black eyes, bull dog/toad like face, and one tusk was “a turn off” and “horrific” and “unnatural” and “holy mother of a cube what is that?!” so Gleg was never one to interact with customers. But June 18, 2009, a strange beast known as a VEVIVALOGALOGANBRIVCALQUINTEZSRABCOONADECRITXIAOPLAVINGRELVALOFEDINVERININIVOLOMORPH or a VEVOLOMORPH (in our tongue). The VEVOLOMORPH was a scaled, black beast. Its back and its head were in armored plates with predatory teeth exposed when its mouth was closed — its body bulging with muscles and eyes glowing deep blue. It ordered the first thing on the menu, which was some fried whatever (a classic middle of nowhere meal), then when Bobby “only thumbs” ran up to the counter, the VEVOLOMORPH smiled a smile that could shake a rock of adequate size and number.

Bob replied, “That will be 1 46.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.”

The creature handed him 34 arembles, after writing it down on a mobius strip and dividing it by zero. It came out to about 1 46.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.5, but he kept the change after handing the beast the fried whatever.

He said, “Good day.”

To the VEVOLOMORPH, this was insanely offensive (not to all VEVOLOMORPHs, but to this VEVOLOMORPH). Because “good day” is not “great day,” so he rushed into Gleg’s room and politely explained why he was mad. Bob misinterpreted the intentions of the creature and called the cops (they knew to have someone armed near Gleg’s by now). The cop rushed in. It shocked poor Gleg into a heart attack, killing him.

It was December 29, 1971, when an immigrant (this was Gleg) from central nowhere came to the United Regions of Lacrundest to open up a store — a very store-ly store after buying some unbuyable land from a shady man with a “mars program.” That man opened Gleg’s Edible Food. He outcompeted What You Look At You Pay For and Asderof’s Incomprehensible Meals, but on one bright and cloudless night on September 15, 1972, came the greatest threat to Gleg’s, the FDA… dun dun dun… which is somehow the same as in our world. The FDA had a visit last whenever and gave the first ever G- grade due to ludicrously high number of mutated roaches in Gleg’s. The FDA (or fida) used the new, scorched earth method on Gleg. Soon, a gentleman for the FDA named B-10-9.vrt, who happened to be a killer robot with an old teddy bear for a head, katanas for hands, and a distaste for all things unclean, walked in. The vaguely deformed cockroaches saw B-10-9.vrt and descended on him and quickly were sliced into bits. The robot saw Gleg. It ran at him, firing two katanas (one of which would become the punishment katana). B-10-9.vrt was out of katanas, but seeing as the roach problem was gone, he left…

 

The Absence of Hope

The stars were punch-outs in the blackness above her, sometimes it hurt to think about space. She could think herself out of the earth, through the blue ring of atmosphere and even further beyond, looking down. If she willed it, it was possible for her to imagine herself growing more distant, shrinking, fading into… what? She stopped there, unable to visualize anything more. She returned to the night now, wet grass and a slight frostiness. The flowers were curled into themselves, huddled and chilly, hugging themselves closer. She was damp but decided not to care. She fell back into the cool foliage, choosing to embrace the discomfort. She wished she had someone to share this with. Someone as young and idealistic as she was, right at this very moment. She ached for someone perfect, knowing she was alone. She let herself drift away to think crazy, hopeless thoughts.The stars blinked and remained steady. Now she was only empty and abandoned, the romanticism faded but lingered at her edges. She felt she could cry, or maybe she would laugh instead. Moonlight played in the shadows. She sat up and felt the pressing moisture on the fabric at her back. She wanted companionship, love, a hand to hold, a mind that would absorb her thoughts just as she meant them, spin them with poetry and return them to her. The moment of such youthful, breathtaking, painful joy faded into dim and threadbare sadness. She pushed herself off the grass and began to walk ponderingly towards home.

He could hear music as he lay there in the meadow. He opened his arms and spread out, looking up. He liked knowing he was alone there, far away, he could think silly things but make them beautiful in his head. He loved nighttime in this way, he could be isolated but alive. He felt like there was a chasm in his chest filled with inexplicable elation, he was flying as he lay smiling in the dark. He soared. All the same, he was aware that he wanted someone else here. They could laugh loudly in this place. Recklessly, without abandon. He could see him and that someone else falling into each other, down, laughing, laughing, warm together in the great, wide openness. The music played on. Violins, maybe a flute. Pretty music that dwindled and then surged with his thoughts. He closed his eyes and fell back into himself. His eyes opened, he was opaque again, no longer dreaming. He sat and regarded the world at large for a moment before lifting himself up and cementing himself back into reality.

Carefree. Brimming with wonder. Life was serious now, but she could still appreciate beauty as she always had. It was her superpower. She could endlessly enjoy small things: the smell of home, a petal, sunlight through tall trees. She was an adult, though still young. She had escaped bitterness thus far and probably always would. People around her moved in generic patterns, only partially awake and still sleepy. There was sunlight and people, faint sounds of cars and friendship and leaves rustling halfheartedly. The world was bright and still miraculous but in a solid way. There were no more uncertain fairies brushing by in the twilight, no longer any bursting flashes of happiness to be found lying exultantly in the weeds. She wished now for those things, but there were concrete tasks to be completed, responsibilities to assume.

Sometimes he still heard music, internal snatches when he least expected them. He had grown and matured, but some of his innocence remained. His life was busy and cluttered, like his mind. Some of the poetry had drained from his thoughts. He thought now in prose, at least most often. He had a job and a small, constraining office that looked out on the ocean. It was a cubicle, but his mind often strayed beyond its thin, gritty walls. He was a “real man,” but he frequently felt still like the teenager who had worshiped the beauty in sunlight and the fire of dusk. He was someone who loved old books and read them in big, drafty libraries with muted light fraught with dust dripping through the windows. Even in groups he felt isolated. He didn’t fit with other people. Rarely did he have the time to explore new worlds from the comfort of a large chair.

The air was thin and frozen. Time felt like something silly, but also pressing, as she made her way down the side of the empty highway. The grass crunched pleasingly under her feet, but she wasn’t only a forlorn daydreamer anymore. Mundane things like treadmills and shoelaces and orange juice were a part of her. She could fold back into past buoyant thoughts easily, but in her day-to-day existence she did not. She was still young, not bitter, but she had a yearning for something that was always out of reach. She wore sweatpants and ate tabbouleh salad in the lunchroom, and her imagination livened the monotony of office work in a small town. When she sat at noon every day with her plastic fork and the muddy snow melting outdoors, she would imagine herself away to a forest or on top of a mountain looking into the sea. Everything in her mind glistened with impossible beauty and a faint, sad knowledge that none of it would ever be as splendid and untainted. She knew people thought of her as distant and aloof. She was. She wanted more, more of something. Was she pretentious for feeling this way? She didn’t know. Some days, she still hiked far away from everyone and watched the sun set in the cold. She was happy then but lonely. She had phony friends, but she knew they were fake. It was mutual. She had never found anyone who shared the glory and the grandeur of her inner self. Someone who could understand the flashes of joy she derived from lying alone in a garden or staring out a window at the rain. Life happened, and she lived inside herself.

She noticed only because the sun was dimming. She loved the sun because she could count on it and because it was beautiful. Her sunrises were paler, faded. She thought it was just her imagination waning at first, but then it grew whiter and increasingly washed out. News reached her little office on the outskirts of the world a few hours after it had become cause for panic elsewhere. She heard and put down her plastic fork. Solemn, resigned. It made a small sound on the folding table. She stared and then sat silent as the chaos surged, until they told her she needed to leave to get in line.

The line was much less than that, a messy horde. In corners, people huddled trying to believe it wasn’t true. In town halls all over the world, in schools and parking lots and community centers people gathered. All around them rose the clear bubbles they waited to board, huge, perfectly round, life-preserving prisons. Apparently they’d known for years and had been working out this system. He was angry at first, then frightened, and finally indifferent. It was probably better this way, he reflected, the horror of not knowing was put off until the final moments. It was now more than ever he wished he had someone to care so much about. Someone to comfort and to comfort him, someone to climb into the future with, whatever it looked like.

Now it was haphazard. An escape method was available, it was there to take or leave. Push the green button and theoretically you were safe. People all around him found each other and latched on. They needed to feel that they would not be forgotten. Sparks flew and buttons were pressed. Momentous decisions were made perhaps without thought, but there wasn’t time. Often, choices were unexpected. Familial ties that had worn thin, fraying over the years, snapped suddenly with the shutting of the doors. Heartbreak spilled and tore through millions, chasms opened where before there had been love, trust, kindness. He stood straight, and they paired him with a woman from nearby he’d never met. Strange, how someone could live one neighborhood over, and he didn’t recognize her face. There were only enough bubbles if everyone had two or more people. This was it, and he was oddly emotionless. The doors closed, and her hand came down on the button. The bubble clicked and rose into darkness. They were alone but together, and he pressed his face up against the side. The end.

Except, of course, it wasn’t. As they lifted away, she was silent. The earth grew fainter, and the pain inside her swelled. The world, her world, with its breezes and smooth stones, its flower petals and warm sand that could stick between your toes. She missed rivers already and forests and beaches, mountains and the jungles she had never seen. It all looked so tiny to her. She felt tiny, miniscule. Why bother to build a bubble. She couldn’t possibly live without snowy mornings or the sound of raindrops falling on wet leaves. The smell of a lake in nighttime or the feeling she had sitting high up in a tree. But living she was, inexplicably. It didn’t feel real anymore, but it was. The world drifted from view and she realized now that she was crying. Space unfolded itself before her and now she was in the midst of something she had imagined forever. It was nothing like she’d thought, but it fulfilled all her wildest dreams. Everything was bigger, actual, so much less abstract. She cried in earnest now, guttural sobs that racked her body and propelled her to the curved floor. It fit her body perfectly but the unresponsive glass beneath her could never compare to dirt, or grass, or sand, or layers of decomposed forest. It was artificial, nonliving forever.

“Well.”

“So.”

She pulled herself to her feet, and they stood side by side, looking out. She imagined their silhouettes. There was light inside but outside only obscurity. She didn’t know how, it emanated, not piercing their surroundings at all, simply existing. The bubble shone dully in its own glow. She thought of what was going on out there, in space, that there was so much she was unaware of. She thought of what had happened somewhere in the distance, she no longer knew where, and then she decided to stop thinking.

They stood until they broke, and then he cried while she comforted until she couldn’t not cry anymore. Then he held her until they were sobbing together as one. They sat and drowned in common grief, mourning their lostness and the absence of hope that they both felt so sharply. Up here, they were so detached, so incredibly isolated, but now they also had each other, they were two people who so completely shared the same experience.

For days, there had been a glow from some eerie distant world, their own but no more. They were here now, and that was behind them. The glow seemed to settle into itself then, to subside and taper before it melted out of sight completely. Like a puppy getting ready for bed, the waning sunlight began brighter and gradually its energy drooped until it had vanished calmly and they were left in darkness. There was still a pale and cloudy light that radiated from inside the bubble. They were deserted now.

The reality set in. It was hazy at first, surreal. Then the awareness hit them, but still they remained in their own misty worlds of isolation and forgotten dreams. Did survival truly matter any more? What was the point of continuing to endure living if you could only meander through darkness full to brimming with stories to tell no one would ever hear.

They decided together without speaking that they would simply live until they couldn’t. They didn’t ration or conserve. Somehow they were able to breathe. They didn’t cry anymore. They didn’t talk. Once she opened her mouth as is if to say something, but it closed after a split second of heavy expectation, and she retreated once more into her own mind. Hours later, or days or a year or a lifetime, a fragment of a poem stumbled across his lips. It was accidental, a mistake from another existence, but it was a rock thrown into water. After the poem, there was quiet. She stared.

“I.”

“Oh.”

“Do you?”

“No! Yes!”

“I’m…”

“I’m so.”

“I know.”

“Are you?”

She nodded.

“I’m glad.”

“It’s beautiful up here. Sad. I’d always imagined it would look like, well, not quite like this.”

“I understand.”

“You do?”

“It’s real up here, not a dream. I can’t — think myself down.”

Something from outside grazed the bubble. She took his hand, and they stood together, like on their first day. The glass of the pond trembled and broke, and then the two of them struggled to retain the air to make their thoughts into language. Words tumbled into sentences that were strung together like precious beads on a necklace into paragraphs and then pages. Words upon words that crowded into and on top of one another. The ink of broken silence blurred as they twisted sound into meaning from where before was only stillness. They shouted sometimes because they could, and then they whispered until they couldn’t articulate words. It was a release, an explosion. A torrent of suppressed emotion that had been kept hidden for no reason at all. But here it was, here they were. Trapped, but free nonetheless. They talked first of the past, of what they had left behind, what they missed, and what they hadn’t realized was important. Of people and places and the indescribable indistinct quality of clouds. Once, he sang. She clapped, and the sound of her hands against one another in the midst of infinity was at once intimidating but independently perfect. They discussed poetry, art, literature, elite, and perhaps supercilious forms of enjoyment before they spoke of simple joys one had encountered like little buried treasures in the past world. Something new surfaced in the bubble now, a small bit of happiness had dripped its way into being. With this later followed companionship, affection, tenderness, and eventually love which was expressed and then explored as the two of them glided silent between the stars. It was just what she had hoped in an entirely unexpected setting.

Finally, there was someone on the other end of his thoughts. As a teenager, when he’d lain smiling in a moonlit meadow, he had taken himself seriously. Later, but still so far away from the present he had reflected, slightly chagrined but still faithful. It was funny to him that now in this situation, so strange and unlike any place he’d ever envisioned, somewhere where his life chances were so slim and escape could not be considered he could be so gloriously happy. The pieces of his own individual puzzle seemed to fit into place even if the smooth, outside edges would never be configured. He’d always been told to put the corners together first and then fill in the center, but here he could break the rules recklessly. The whole puzzle might never be complete, but he had some parts connected and the section of the image he could see now was almost too brilliant already.

It felt like she could fly, like the bubble had opened, and she could spiral through space. That was the problem. She wanted to skyrocket, to leap and bound through a wide open space. But they were shut in here, closed off, stale. The worst was that it would never be any different. They would stay like this for as long as forever lasted. She wanted room to dance, room to spread out her soul knowing her emotions could reach into faraway places before she herself could get there. At the very least, she needed to feel that the possibility of change, or variety or escape was remotely a possibility. But here she was, surrounded by nothingness. Sounds echoed in the bubble, but she wished that when she dropped something, the outside would be affected too. She hated that her surroundings were so cold and oblivious, so impassive and untouchable. She had wanted children in her time spent on Earth, but that was just another door this new life had closed for her with the pressing of a button. She had wanted kids, so she could raise them in the past world, she could teach them how to tell wildflowers apart and how to skip stones. How to appreciate butterflies or the smell of the forest or the sound of other people’s happiness. It was unthinkable, bringing someone new into this settled existence of blank space and numbing insignificance. She needed at least a glimmer of a potentially different reality. But that candle had burned down long ago and was stiff with congealed wax. Up here, there were no matches with which to relight it and no way to get any more. What she truly wanted was hope, and hope was gone.

Still, they were not jaded. Love made them buoyant, but they knew a change was necessary if they were to retain their sanity. Then again, why was that such a concern? A decision was reached after endless discussion. They turned it over and over as they continued to float through eternity. After a while, it seemed the only option.

It took days, weeks maybe. Measures of time were unimportant now, the concept of the Earth’s revolution around the sun had vanished with both of those celestial bodies themselves. It was risky, but was it riskier than the hasty decision they had made before, idealistic, uninformed, naive. It was dangerous, irrational, enormously stupid. They cut a hole. Plastic sawdust piled at the floor. They took turns sawing at it with whatever small tools they could find. The absurdity of the risk elated them with its being so absolutely out of the ordinary. They had found human connection in each other, but the expansiveness of life had disappeared. This ridiculous alternative terrified them with how singularly enticing it was.

Her turn was the last. They had cut a rectangular groove in the thick plastic so deep that if moderate force were applied to it, it would give way. She shook him by the shoulder, gently, but with an urgency that was simultaneously meaningless and present. He came awake slowly.

“Now. It’s ready.”

This registered. He blinked the sleep away. It took him a moment to remember where he was, even after so many instances just like this. They walked to the rounded wall. She looked at him. There was half a smile on her lips, but her eyes were wet. He looked back, and his throat felt stiff with helplessness, resignation, regret, love, anticipation, anguish. Flutes played tremendously in his head, the violins reached a panicked crescendo. The space outside seemed to pulsate with everything pent-up that could never happen. Together they pushed the worthless piece of plastic into the extreme. It fell noiselessly into the void, pathetically flimsy in the depths of the universe. He had always thought that in books, when people’s lives flashed before their eyes, it was just fantasized wordplay, but he could see now all the nights in the cold, the people he had known, the characters he had resonated with, and the dreams he had cherished. She nodded, and they gripped hands as they flung themselves wordlessly into the outside. There was a sigh — of relief, elation, gladness, pain, or sorrow and then they were gone, forgotten. The black dust and the stars rose up to greet them. The open bubble still bobbed through the boundlessness, not above where they had fallen but simply somewhere in relation to them. The existence of everything continued as it had, and with a plunge into the unknown, two people who had lived so vividly were instantaneously erased. Somewhere a star exploded and elsewhere a planet turned on its axis, slowly, methodically, spinning unceasingly over and over itself, unnoticed and undisturbed.

 

grey

      

I.

the type of tiredness that settles behind your eyes and doesn’t leave.

the type of quiet that twists your gut and unsettles your mind.

the type of moments that make you wish for an alternate reality.

 

it’s not dark out, yet.

the sun hasn’t fallen asleep.

the sunset is colorless.

 

your world is monochrome,

your life colored by shades of grey,

blurring, blurring, indistinguishable.

 

your emotions faded and wrung out to dry,

worn through by the people who came before,

hand me downs that don’t quite fit right,

and the person in the mirror is not yourself.

 

perpetual dusk, perpetual dawn,

unreached potential and unused opportunities,

the feeling when the curtain is lifted

and the magic wasn’t real all along.

 

the sidewalk is endless.

the buildings are identical.

your eyes never near the horizon.

the pedestrians are like ghosts,

whispering in languages long since forgotten.

 

you are tired.

you’re just so, so tired,

and the darkness wins.

 

sometimes the colors come back.

sometimes the grey fades to black.

 

II.

the darkness whispers.

quiet, steady tones,

to the rhythm of your heartbeat.

 

your mind is blank and racing.

 

the nothingness gets stronger, more overpowering,

drowning out your thoughts

and ideas

and hopes

and dreams

into

nothing

nothing nothing

nothing nothing nothing

 

the void so loud you might as well be screaming

but your face is blank and your eyes are blank,

easily masked and easily masqueraded,

false emotions replicated through sounds and words,

everything exactly as empty as you.

 

you’re gone.

 

not a blank canvas, not a new start,

not the pure, pale white of literary symbolism,

swallowed by the type of endless grey that numbs your soul and your feet and your words.

 

so fill it-

fill it with books and music and art and work and friends

and anything you can get your hands on

because everything fades.

 

blank, empty, fading.

 

III.

the crowd is muffled and the colours are muted.

you can’t quite recall how many people are outside, or how you found your way home.

you can’t quite recall whether this is your home, your bed, your life.

maybe that’s the point.

 

maybe every now and then you have to hit mute on life and listen to the white noise,

the background static otherwise drowned out by your everyday living,

 

it’s almost peaceful, this lack of emotion.

you could stay there forever.

forever- forever’s a long time, you tell yourself,

but it doesn’t seem worth it to get up,

much less to go outside.

 

so you compromise and sit.

and you wait.

 

time ticks by

as you wish for the colors to come back.

 

IV.

i watch the colors swirl down the drain.

the neons and the pastels and the brights,

the shades that made the streets lively and the city interesting,

gone.

 

all that is left is shades of grey

and the constant beat of rain.

taptaptaptaptap

in time with my racing heart.

 

there is a simplicity to be found

in a world devoid of colour,

where all that’s left if shapes and silhouettes and essence.

a shadow of another world, maybe,

but there is beauty to be found in this reflection.

 

i see myself staring plainly back at me.

i see the potential in each colorless house,

i see what could be and what once was.

 

i am one with the rain,

i blend in with the shades of grey.

 

beautiful. simple. honest.

 

gasoline sickness

 

and they told stories, too, of gasoline sickness,

the bloodshot eyes and ragged breaths,
the sleepless nights and sleepwalking days,
how they were homesick/homesick/seasick/homesick,

the unsteady children riding unsteady waves into an unsteady future,
the ground and the capitol walls always
hours
minutes
seconds away from breaking,

how they had gone from sanitized news to desensitized people,
from sanitary streets to desensitized passerby.

how they built the walls around them,
they brought the hated to them
with their unwillingness to believe
and unwillingness to change,

poisoning the bodies of some,
with lead and bullets and dirt,
and poisoning the minds of others,
with ignorance and neglect and hurt,

how this world had so much and was still yet so empty.

how a few hard workers,
a few believers,
a few who see how it should be

cannot push past the fragile gasoline outline of a world
where empty houses and galas take place
while people starve to death right outside.

for you cannot push away your conscience
(as much as you may try)
and the sickness,
the empty, numbing, kerosene and matches,

will burn you from the bottom up.

 

Darling

The doorbell jingled as a woman and her daughter entered the cafe. They did not look at all alike.

The daughter was short and chubby and seemed to waddle instead of walk; the mother was tall and lanky, each angle from chin to elbow sharpened to a point. The woman wore a close-lipped, businesslike smile as she strode up to the counter. A pair of metal-framed glasses balanced precariously on her sharp cheekbones, the lenses immaculately clear. The girl followed behind, close enough to tread on her mother’s heels.

“How can I help you this morning, miss?”

“One black coffee please,” the woman replied curtly, without a single glance at the menu. She had already pulled out her wallet when she noticed that the girl had pressed her face up against the glass case of pastries, mesmerized by the colors. The woman’s pale cheeks flushed suddenly and furiously, as if she had been slapped, “…and a pastry,” she added. She smiled somewhat embarrassingly, thin lips peeling back to reveal sharp teeth.

“Sure thing, miss. Which would you like?”

“You heard her, darling. Which one would you like?” The woman bent down to be at the same height as her daughter. “Do you want,” she squinted through her glasses at the menu, “a slice of cake, or a cookie? Or perhaps a brownie?” “Darling?”

The girl turned her head and stared up at her mother with big, blank eyes, then turned back to the glass case. The woman noted with a little shudder that the girl had already left several hazy, smudged handprints on the glass. With a sigh, the woman straightened herself and gave the cashier a terse smile. “A piece of cake, please.”

“That’ll be $4.89, miss.”

The woman exchanged glossy credit card for a paper bag and cup, warily eyeing the spots of grease already forming on the brown paper. She took a step back from the counter, carrying the bag, when she nearly tripped over her daughter, who had been silently standing close behind her. As the mother regained her balance, her daughter only stared at her silently with big eyes. The thin eyebrows of the mother suddenly twitched as something flashed across her eyes, quick as lightning. She pressed the bag firmly into the girl’s hands. “Darling, please, stand a bit further from me. You always get in my way.”

 

partition

         

partition:

an indian pakistani sestina

 

August, 1947. The British divide Colonial India into two independent countries, Muslim Pakistan

and Hindu India, inciting the largest and bloodiest mass migration in human history.

 

One nation, torn apart

by cartographic line

and the thunder of fifteen million footfalls.

Bodies pile and neighbors leave

for a chance to live.

That history, I am its future.

 

The fated future.

Like cells, doomed to split apart

tearing people, taking lives

like each human had a dotted line

across their heart, “cut here” and leave

unaware of the destruction, of the fall-

 

-out, the cleanup, the spilled blood which falls

from my veins as I watch from the future

unable to scream or leave

like the little boy hiding, watching his parents diced apart

with swords, closing his eyes and mouth and running across the line

with only a bloody teddy bear, to live.

 

He prays for his parents in the religion that took their lives.

It doesn’t matter which faith; both fall

under the same nation, divided by a false line.

False, because fifteen million people needed to run to have a future

and refugees pulled apart

doors of trains only to find hundreds of dead bodies, murdered trying to leave.

 

On the tree of Hindustan, I am the leaves.

The massacre gave way to life

as my parents, on the fiftieth anniversary of partition, vowed “till death do us part.”

My blood is the innocent blood that fell

on both sides; the animosity of the past only a haunting memory in the future

where I straddle the line.

 

I am half-Indian Hindu, half-Pakistani Muslim; my family line

proves there is hope, if you believe

in miracles, I am one, I am the future.

Each day I live

is a day closer to the fall

of the forces tearing my nation apart.

 

It’s time to take apart this line.

Make this wall of wills fall to the ground, and leave.

As long as I live, I am the future.

 

Stigma

                           

You know that feeling when some days, we wake up and we just don’t want to get out of bed? So bedridden that sometimes, it even hurts to breathe.

What’s the point of all this?

Why do I have to get out of bed and put myself out there into a world that doesn’t feel?

But the feelings are strong. We can all feel it.

Or can we?

Maybe the person to my right can feel it, but not everyone is so lucky. Only some of us know what pain feels like. When somebody sticks a knife through you, or better yet, fifteen. But you don’t see what’s on the inside, because you are not me. It’s a constant battle inside. Like your mom, brother, sister, cat, dog died, but it doesn’t go away. It can’t go away.

When the stigma says “get over it.” It’s like a joke or even worse, a tease. Don’t you think if I could, I would?

I’m sorry I don’t want to do anything. Just leave me alone. I’m tired of it making me get the image of jumping off a bridge.

It’s always like you have to be happy, you know?

Do I need to if I can’t? Is that how it works? Can I just decide to be happy?

Like it’s my choice to feel this constant pit of emptiness inside of me?

The fact is, I don’t even know why I’m angry. I just am. I’m sad not because I want to. It’s because I just am. It’s like when somebody turns on and off a light switch.

Because, the word ‘’stigma’’ defines us as some little kid’s entertainment. You know: on, off, on, off.

We need help, but you just don’t see it. You’re so caught up in this fog, that you are blinded by this stigma that makes me feel worthless. I need help.

Or do I?

I hadn’t noticed these cuts and scratches on my body. Have you ever looked at them as anything  besides disappointment? Have you ever just thought for a second how much pain one can be going through? Really, look at them. To you, I may just seem as one who is “attention seeking.” No.

They may just look like random lines and scars, but they tell a story. They tell my story.  A story that I could not put in words. I just couldn’t, and why can’t you understand that?

Remember that day when I didn’t come to school and I told you I was sick?

You didn’t ask why.

Maybe it was better that way, to ask absolutely nothing, to stay completely silent.  Because depression is not always obvious. Nobody walks around with a tag around their neck that reads, “Hello, I’m OCD.”  I don’t walk around saying that my name is Anxiety. And you most certainly do not walk around with a name tag that says, ‘’The World’s Prettiest Girl.”

Remember the day you asked if I was okay?

Well, when I went home that day, you texted me a heart. I think we both knew what happened or what had happened, already happened. What gave it away?

Was it the letter, signed with my name? Or was it the knife on the kitchen counter?

I bet you thought it was just a “phase.” I bet you thought it was just a “mood.” No.

It’s a freaking disease that requires help. When someone has lung cancer, are they crazy? So why should we be labeled in that category?

I didn’t choose to be depressed or angry.

Did you see my footprints in the snow as I ran home as fast as I could? I was alone through every bit of it.

“Why me?” I ask myself everyday as I stare into that filthy mirror.

I tried to kill myself.

But, something, someone inside of me whispered, “don’t.”

I don’t want this “thing” to define me. Will I ever get better? Fifteen years too long. Fifteen years too young. More than a precious life ahead of me.

I am too young. I can’t go back to where I was before. It’s not pretty or happy or in any way, shape, or form easy. It’s not easy.

But I’m doing better. And everyday that’s ahead of me, I continue to do better than the day before. But I’m going to need some help. And now, I’m not afraid to reach out, because I know that I am just like every other person in this world. Normal and unique.

I hate the word “schizo.” It’s not nice. Are schizophrenic people crazy to you? Is that what you think?

Whatever happened to being a “leader” rather than a follower?

I hate that depressed people are labeled as losers, emo, or crazy. I hate that when you ask someone what’s the first word that comes to your mind when you hear the word “mental hospital.” Why is it “crazy people” or “the addicts”? “Drug dealers” or “the insane”? Like in the movies, “insane asylum.”

I hate that we are called names that are so hurtful in ways that you can’t even understand. You just say them like gunshots heading straight for the target.

Why?

Do we look different? Because last time I checked, depression is not always obvious. Maybe it’s how society labels us as: disgusting freaks.

Why?

God damn, why?

Why us?

Guess the main question is: how did we end up as outcasts or “not important?”

And most certainly, taking medication does not mean you are weak.

And how come this stigma targets eating disorders as well?

If a girl is thin, is she anorexic?

Why put labels on our backs of the LGBTQ community too? So, to you it’s different? It’s different, right? Different, right? Different, right? Right?

Oh wait, sorry. It’s my OCD again.

They are not labels or adjectives, so stop!

I’m pretty sure it’s because we’re different? Is it?

If you can’t explain it, then keep your mouth shut.

We are tired of running and dreaming of getting hit by cars. We just want to wake up happy, but sometimes we don’t even want to wake up. Poor mental illness is a killer, but you make it worse due to your actions. Yes, you. Don’t look away, and don’t stop and stare. Don’t take a picture and post it on the media, labeling me as “mental.” Don’t freak out when you see scars on my arms. Don’t leave me when you have seen me at my worst of times.

Just because you can’t see it, doesn’t mean it’s not real. I don’t want to be another statistic for suicide. I don’t want to be labelled. I want to wake up and be myself. Go out into the world and not be ashamed of having depression or bipolar disorder or any other mental illness.

So, if this has to be said, it has to be said…

I am not the stigma, and I no longer want to be.

So break the silence and stop the stigma towards mental health.

 

Province of Darkness

The Gathering

In the early morning, the large waves were crashing against the thick sand. The beach was shadowed by a small, grass covered cliff, which was shadowed by a large mountain. The top of the mountain was an open crater, and inside the crater was a large fortress. The fortress was made of light brown stone. The walls were made of large, square stones with battlements on the top. Tall, circular towers soared over the wall. In the middle of the fortress was a large, square building with four towers.

This was not an ordinary fortress. It was the Hall of Concord, the official meeting place of the Universal Congress. The hall was located on an island south of Maltopia. Although it was within the boundaries of Maltopia, the island was owned by all the nations of the world.

Today, the Universal Congress would meet in the Hall of Concord. It had been two years since they’ve met. There were many reasons for this meeting, many proposals. But one proposal was heard to be appalling.

In an open space shadowed by the main building, a Venorian maid, wearing her long, brown dress, was sweeping the leaves off the stone floor. The space was a circle, with four entrances and seating on the edge. In the middle of two entrances was a statue. The maid brushed her scaly forehead and looked up at the statue. It was a large, marble sculpture of a Dark Elf woman holding a sword in one hand and an olive branch in the other. The maid looked down at the engraved label that lay on the base of the monument. It read:

This monument is dedicated to Queen Alexandra of Mirewood.

Founder of the Universal Congress and Co-signer of the Great Law of Peace.

The maid let out a great sigh, and shook her head in grief.

From one of the entrances came a human boy. He had white skin. His straight, brown hair grew from the top of his head while the rest was shaved off. The boy stood straight beside the maid.

“Boy!” said the maid, towering over the boy. “What are you doing here? Aren’t you supposed to be cleaning the garderobes?”

“I did,” said the boy in disgust. “The housekeeper told me to help you.”

“Well, it’s about time,” said the maid. “I can’t sweep these leaves all by myself.”

The boy got himself a broom and began to sweep the leaves.

“So, what’s the commotion this time?” asked the boy.

“What?”

“I mean, why is the Congress meeting after all this time?”

The maid put her broom down and let out a breath. “Well, there are many things being presented, from what I’ve heard. Queen Andrea of Mirewood’s proposal is apparently the most shocking.”

“What is it?” asked the boy with wide eyes.

“I don’t know,” sighed the maid in exhaustion. “But a nobleman fainted when he heard it.”

“My lord,” gasped the boy in excitement. “I want to hear it now!”

“Whatever it is,” stated the maid, “it probably won’t be as good as her mother’s proposals.”

The maid stopped her work and gazed at the statue.

“I remember when I started working here. I remember seeing Queen Alexandra’s face for the first time. It was ten years ago, and she made a proposal to build better roads connecting all the cities of Lavonia and Kanaida. A proposal so basic and genius, even I, a maid with the knowledge of a peasant, could understand its benefits. Like many proposals, it had a great opposition. The rivals were overly wealthy humans who would spend a coin on nothing but themselves. Every word they spoke made me angrier and angrier. No one called them out for their rudeness that day, except Alexandra. She did not give those men respect. After a long while of arguing, the proposition to build better roads was passed.”

The maid turned her head to the boy who stood still, leaning his broom on his shoulder.

“You see, boy, those were the days. Back then, the Universal Congress met every month! But alas,” sobbed the maid, “Queen Alexandra is dead. And now her daughter, Andrea, is Queen.”

“Well, who knows?” said the boy in a high-pitched voice. “Maybe proposition-making runs in the family.”

“Let’s hope so. I haven’t seen a good proposal since Alexandra’s last meeting.”

The next day, the maid, the boy, and the housekeeper, who were the only people living in the Hall of Concord, stood waiting for the members of the Universal Congress. The housekeeper, who was only an inch taller than the small boy, stood nervously, sweeping his balding head and twitching his pointy ears. Usually, the housekeeper was much calmer, but this was different. It was Queen Andrea’s first meeting, and he wanted everything to be perfect. He didn’t know Andrea, and due to her being Alexandra’s daughter, he did not want her to leave the Universal Congress.

Every once in awhile, the housekeeper would turn towards the boy and maid and ask if all the chores were done. Every time, they would answer yes.

As the sun was almost in the middle of the sky, the housekeeper saw the first ship enter the harbor below. He quickly went to the entrance of the fortress, the maid and boy following. When all three were there, they waited anxiously to see the first arrival.

Without surprise, it was King Eremurus of Maltopia. With two guards beside him, the lizard king walked forward. His golden rings reflected the light of the sun, as his dragonskin gauntlets blended with his turquoise scales. The housekeeper looked up at the tall Venorian and saw his bare chest, his abdomen which was guarded by an iron corset, and his pelvis area which was clothed by a thick, blue, linen-wrapped skirt.  

“Derik!” said Eremurus. “It has been so long. How are you?”

“Patricia and Jonathan have kept me company,” said the housekeeper, waving his hand to the maid and the boy, still looking up at the lizard king. “Have you heard of Andrea’s proposition?”

Derik always spoke to royalty in a formal manner, but always talked to Eremurus normally. Eremurus was much friendlier to the housekeeper, unlike the other leaders, which allowed Derik to speak in an informal tone.

“Ah yes, I’ve heard,” said the lizard king in excitement. “I only hope it’s better than one of Dido’s proposals. Ever since Alexandra’s death, she’s manipulated the whole continent of Lavonia to do her bidding.”

“Yes, but not Mirewood,” smiled Derik.

“Oh please,” sighed Eremurus angrily. “Andrea is only sixteen. She’ll probably be kissing Dido’s feet in no time.”

When the sun hit the middle of the sky, another ship entered the harbor. The longboat was more narrow and had wooden swan heads on both points.

Through the entrance came a six-foot tall Orc wearing a seal hide over his ice-blue skin. His thick upper body was clothed by a necklace with two walrus tusks on both sides.

“Greetings, King Ukmar of Ek’da,” said Derik. “Shall I take your coat?”

“No need,” said Ukmar. “The heat is soothing.”

Another ship entered the harbor. This longboat had steel platings on the bottom, used for tearing through ice. Through the entrance came Chief Karnok of Pangona, a black-haired Orc wearing brown bear fur.

Over time, more ships arrived in the harbor. Through the entrance came Chief Toure of the Apocalypse, a dark skinned human wearing a black, hooded shawl and gray clothing. After him came King Lumos IV of Morrisland, a moon-skinned Elf with dark blue eyes and golden hair. He was followed by Lord Demeter of Silver Coast. Her long copper hair was braided on the top of her head as her sparkling green dress glittered the light of the sun. Soon after her was Chief Pocatowa of Indie, a muscular human dressed in a wolf pelt and leather pants.

The leaders were scattered across the entrance area, talking and waiting for the other members. Karnok and Ukmar, who were the only Orcs there, were plotting for tomorrow’s meeting.

“So, when Grognar states his case,” said Karnok quietly, “we’ll come in and demand retribution.”

“Do you think we can convince the whole Congress?” asked Ukmar.

“Trust me, at their state, the Venorians would not want another conflict.”

As the two went on, another ship had entered the harbor. Through the entrance came King Grognar of Red Rock. Grognar was thinner than the other two Orcs, and much taller, rising seven feet. His jet black hair grew all the way to his chest. His rose red skin glimmered in the setting sunlight. He wore a sleeveless leather shirt with a silver neck guard, and a bronze armband on his upper left arm. Unlike other Orcs, his fangs were small, and his nose, the most attractive part of his face, was thin and curved. Its nostrils were almost unnoticeable, and its bridge was dented like an arch.

After being greeted by the housekeeper, Grognar walked up to Karnok and Ukmar, who stood silently.

“Fellow Orcs,” greeted Grognar. “Tomorrow is the day. The day justice is finally served. After many painful years, the scars will be healed.”

“Yes, Grognar,” stated Ukmar sadly, “but unfortunately, nothing can heal the damage the Venorians brought upon our people.”    

“I disagree,” said Grognar in a hopeful voice.

But Grognar’s optimism soon died when another leader came through the entrance. He recognized his brown skin, his hooked nose, his black short hair and shaven face, his pointy shoes, his golden sparkling cape, and his white turban with a diamond in the middle. It was Sultan Ahmad of Gold Coast. Grognar looked at the young Sultan, walking proudly with his small Goblin servant, as rage swarmed the young Orc’s insides.

For twelve years, Red Rock and Gold Coast were at war with each other. During the war, Alexandra (who was not queen at the time) took Red Rock’s ancestral Fire Stone and gave it to Gold Coast. Soon after, the Orcs declared peace and gave a heavy payment to Gold Coast. Grognar and Ahmad were not ruling during the war or the peace treaty, but because of Ahmad’s refusal to give back the Fire Stone, the two were enemies.

“Keep close to me, just in case,” said Ahmad to his Goblin servant as he walked up to Grognar.

When Ahmad stood straight in front of him, Grognar looked down at his purple pointy shoes. He then turned his head and noticed the small Goblin beside him.

“First, you disrespect and persecute our culture, and now you’re enslaving Goblins?!”

“I can assure you,” stated Ahmad, “that this Goblin is paid more than the amount of money stored in your vault.”

Grognar was boiling with rage. He growled, clamping his white teeth, until he heard someone yell.

“Everyone, quiet!” yelled Derik. “She’s here!”

Through the entrance came four servants carrying a gold draped sedan chair. When the servants lay down the chair, two guards on each side stood in front, facing each other. From the chair came a tall Elf woman in a long, white dress with a small crown on the top of her head. Her braided, black hair and gray eyes blended with her white skin. She walked slowly out of the sedan chair as the others stared at her. Derik walked up to the woman and greeted her.

“Empress Dido of the Fifth Vergimin Empire and Chairman of the Vergomon Council. Welcome back to the Hall of Concord.”

Dido looked down at the housekeeper. “Is my room clean?” she asked.

“They are very clean,” said the housekeeper loudly so all the leaders could hear.

Through the entrance, a human dressed in a violet fur cape and a golden crown stomped on the stone floor.

Before Derik could greet him, he yelled, “Hello everyone!”

As the rest of the leaders greeted him back, he gave a big grin, covered by his short orange beard. Finally, Derik was able to greet the fat man.

“King Charles of Galdoria. Welcome back.”

Standing beside Charles was another human dressed in a white and gold robe. His brown hair was balding at the top, forming a halo on his head. The monk walked up to the short housekeeper.

“Hello, Derik.”

“Brother Martin!” said the housekeeper, looking up at the monk. “How have you been?”

“I’ve been well. Are we waiting for anyone else?”

“Well,” said Derik nervously, “Andrea is the only one left.”

“May the divines carry her safely to this island,” prayed Martin. “Come, let us pray for our safety tomorrow.”

Brother Martin was the head of the Universal Congress. His job was to keep the peace amongst the members and break ties during a voting session. Although he was supposed to be in a neutral position, he was secretly sided with King Charles, who was sided with Dido and Lumos.

As the sun finally set, the leaders stood with excitement, waiting for the new member. They were all silent. Jonathan, looking over the wall, saw a caravel, with a black sail with a diamond and an eye in the middle, docking in the harbor. He ran towards the housekeeper, who stood near the entrance.

“She’s here! She’s here!” cried the boy. “The Queen of Mirewood is here!”

The housekeeper and leaders all stood frozen with their eyes fixed on the entrance. Their hearts raced at the same time, creating a quire of heart beats. After a long suspense, the quire of heartbeats turned into applause. Through the door came the new member of the Universal Congress. She walked casually, almost like a commoner. But she received the applause of a divine hero.  

She was a thin, tall girl, rising five feet and ten inches. She had bedraggled, blackish-indigo hair that went to her jaw. Unlike other Dark Elves, her skin was a lighter shade of blue. Besides that, she had pointy ears and yellow hawk eyes. She wore a black, satin shirt, which draped over her black, knee-high leggings. Her sleeveless shirt was choked at the waist by a brown, leather belt. Covering that was a thin, black cloak going to her ankles. Unlike the other leaders, shel did not wear any gold or silver.

Derik walked up to greet her, but everyone else beat him to it. A quire of cheers and hellos filled the entrance area. The girl, in reaction to this madness, gave a surprised but frightened smile. Finally, Brother Martin shushed the leaders and walked up to the girl.

“Queen Andrea of Mirewood. Welcome to the Hall of Concord. We are proud to have you in the Universal Congress. Your mother would’ve been proud.”

Andrea gave a silent “Thank you” as the members of the Universal Congress, except Grognar, clapped their hands.

 

Laughter Heals All Wounds

  

“Laughter heals all wounds, and that’s one thing that everybody shares. No matter what you’re going through, it makes you forget about your problems. I think the world should keep laughing.” – Kevin Hart

 

During some of the most difficult moments of my life, I would use comedy to cope. I remember dashing up the stairs, and bolting into my room in search of my iPad with its bulky, green case. I’d swipe through page after page looking for the YouTube app. After finding and clicking on it, my fifth grade self would type “Kingsley” in the search bar. I admired his sense of humor. The way he talked about the unfortunate events in his life were not only amusing but relatable. Kingsley’s videos would rid that feeling of loneliness that lay inside me. It helped me realize that I am not the only person dealing with people who would judge me based on some characteristic that I can’t change. He influenced me to laugh at and belittle ignorance instead of allowing it to tear me down.

Whenever people first meet me, they usually think I am shy and reserved.  But over the years, I have realized that people who know me really well think of me as “the funny one.” After spending hours of free time watching comedians like Kingsley or Kevin Hart, I decided to start expressing my sense of humor to everyone. Well, scratch that, I expressed my jokes to small groups of people I know, or that I am getting to know. Making people laugh allows me to find confidence in myself. When I am laughing with my friends or my family, it distracts me from the sadness and sappy emotions that I feel on the inside.

Now you are probably wondering, What on earth is making this girl so sad?? I will answer your question with a brief story about my life. But I don’t want to share a depressing story with you because as you can tell, I prefer to think happy thoughts. I will tell you about some of the remarks and actions people have directed towards me regarding my race. Although the experiences completely diminished my self-esteem, looking back, I often realized that my reaction to these situations were so ridiculous that they were actually quite funny. Be prepared to read the unfortunate yet amusing story that is my life.

To start off, I would love to thank the Hill School for shaping me into the kind, compassionate person I am today. Also, fuck the Hill School for blinding me to the world of racism and mean people. From preschool to third grade, I attended that “crunchy granola” place with its unrealistic views of the world. Hill School is located in New York City, and the campus is every child’s dream. The building is yellow and resembles a castle resting upon a grassy hill. There are vivacious colors from the flora and fauna surrounding the school, and a beautiful creek that can only be crossed if walked over the wooden bridge they built to make us feel special. If this does not sound ridiculous to you, then you need a reality check.

We literally spent the majority of our time talking about having “good moral values” and “sticking together as a community.”

At 8:30 in the morning, every student walks single file into the gym, and then proceeds to disperse into groups based on grade. The music teacher walks to the front of the gym with a guitar in hand, and smiles at all the children waiting to start the school day. He strums the chords of the “Garden Song,” and all the students put their hands in the air creating motions that represent the lyrics of the song: “inch-by-inch / row by row / I want to make my garden grow / all it takes is a rake and a hoe and a piece of fertile ground.” It was as if we were preparing ourselves to plant flowers together.

Since we spent so much time learning how to collaborate and how to be inclusive, students were never really mean to each other. Well, of course every now and then, there would be some traces of bullying. However, mean behavior was not tolerated – especially among the kids. The kids who would lash out at their peers were often isolated by the rest of the class. One girl, Nora, was the biggest bully in our entire class. During recess, she actually had the nerve to push me down the slide with aggression, screaming, “Go down the stupid slide! The slide is stupid and you’re stupid too!” I hope you are all laughing at this scene. I really thought this was a big deal as a kid, but looking back this is now mildly amusing to me. Anyways… a group of my friends went and told the teacher, and Nora was put in time out for the rest of recess. Just for calling me stupid! Hill did not stand for this type of behavior.

My parents began to realize how cushy the Hill School was, so when our family moved to New Jersey from New York City, they decided I needed a change. So they pulled me out of the granola paradise and sent me to the Valley Girls School in an affluent New Jersey suburb.  I had a lot of mixed emotions about transitioning. There was a sadness in my heart because I had to leave the comfort of my old school. However, part of me was really looking forward to a change.

Growing up, I watched a tremendous amount of TV. For some reason, I took all the shows I watched very seriously. My expectations for life were quite high because of these ridiculous shows. I am honestly still trying to understand why I believed the plots could even be close to reality. Literally, 20-year-olds were playing high/middle-schoolers living the most perfect life, and so I thought to myself,  “Lol, when I go to this new school, I am going to have a glow up and make so many friends on the very first day.” By the time I walked into the building on my first day at Valley, everything hit me. The television had been lying to me!

Valley marked the beginning of the rest of my life. My view of the world was suddenly altered. At Hill, everything seemed to be one color. The idea of difference was never really addressed. For example, when looking at my friend, I wouldn’t see her as my “white friend,” I’d see her as my friend. However, at Valley, everyone emphasizes how we are different and the same. We wear uniforms to make us all the same, so we spent all our time emphasizing all the ways that we were different. In some ways it is a good thing, but in other ways, it is quite demoralizing.  My new school suddenly brought my race into focus.  For the first time, I started confronting what it meant to be different: a black, dark-skinned girl, growing up in a predominately white city in America.

First off, Valley has a very different way of running their morning meetings compared to Hill. As I sat in the gathering room at Valley, I was expecting an old man to walk to the front of the room and sing about the greatness of nature. Instead, a young British man stood in the middle of the room and told us to stand up and face the flag. Now I am thinking to myself, What on earth is going on? People put their hands to their hearts, and start pledging allegiance to the flag. Even though I spent the majority of my life in America (I lived overseas for a couple years), this pledge was unfamiliar to me. I’m not sure what was going on at Hill, but we did not learn the Pledge of Allegiance and my parents are foreigners, so we never really talked about it at home either. I didn’t really consider myself to be living in America or really understand what that meant. In my ten-year old brain, I just thought that we are living in a tiny corner of the world with people that I care about. So, I was feeling really confused during my first day of morning meeting at Valley. I didn’t know the words to this pledge and didn’t know what to do with my heart. So my fourth grade self looked around aimlessly trying to mouth the words to the pledge of allegiance, with my left hand on the right side of my chest. D-I-S-A-S-T-R-O-U-S. That morning foreshadowed what I was about to experience at this school.

One thing I wanted to accomplish at Valley was to be “popular.” On the TV shows that I would watch, the pretty, blonde white girl would usually be the one with all the friends, and would have guys falling all over her. This girl is typically a strong reflection of American stereotypes. So going into Valley, I thought to myself that I needed to find the blonde, preppy girls so that I could become popular. Some of you may think, Why assume that there is a certain look for popularity? Well, in this affluent suburban town, there is a group of white girls placed at the top of the social hierarchy. I know that I am correct because as soon as I got into the classroom, there they were. Two blonde, preppy girls standing in the corner of the room, giggling and twirling their extremely light hair. And let me tell you, those girls carried a lot of power. Our grade made a conscious effort to name that little clique by combining their names. From what I remember, a lot of people were kind of jealous of them, and low-key yearned to be a part of their little, privileged bubble. I was one of those people, and at first, I really thought that I could be friends with them. Remember those Hill values? Everyone should be friends with everyone. That can work at Valley too, right? L-M-A-O! Oh boy, was I wrong.

When my dark-skinned, goofy self came up to “the populars” attempting to make convo, they looked at me as if I were crazy. I felt as if I didn’t have the right to be friends with them because of the way I looked. This is the first time in my life, that I remember wanting to be white so badly. One day, I saw one of the blondes brushing her hair after swimming. The bristles went through her hair so elegantly. I wanted my hair to do that, so for some reason I thought that if my friend and I could take out my cornrows with scissors and a huge brush, my kinky hair would do the same. However, I am black as ever, and my hair is so thick that running a brush through it would be like biking through wet cement. On that day, I lost a lot of hair trying to be white. Funny how six years later, I am still trying to grow out my hair after that incident (and the relaxers and blow-outs too, but that is another story.)

Eventually, I understood that I will never be white.  And my friends will not be friends because they are popular or pretty. But, there were feelings of shame for being black. I really had trouble looking in the mirror and being happy with what I see. My school worsened my self esteem. On my 12th birthday in the sixth grade, I was waiting in the lunch line. As I was staring at the chicken on the platter, there was a tap on my back. This girl kept trying to talk to me while I was just trying to get some food. She kept on rambling, but I was so focused on that chicken that could have been in my stomach. This child kept running her mouth, and eventually she said something so ignorant. “Your nose is big because you black.” At first, I was not phased because one, I hear shit like that all the time, and two, I was hungry and food was more important to me than addressing that dumb comment. One of my close friends Charlie heard what Ms. I-don’t-have-an-off-button said, and she proceeded to tell the whole grade what happened. The Ms. Off-Button got in a lot of trouble which was a bonus, but unfortunately, I kept replaying the situation in my head. The more I thought about it, the angrier I became. My nose became one of my biggest insecurities. As I went into middle school at Valley, racist comments were thrown at my face. My own friends would comment on the versatility of my hair. Whether it was braided, straightened, or had a weave, my white friends would always have something negative to say. With all that negativity, I really started hating myself.

Do people at this school only come for their friends’ appearance? Lol nope, they literally judge your wealth (or lack thereof) as well. It is shocking that kids in middle school would make fun of someone for living in a small house. These girls would feel so powerful for having the money for a big house. But I am just sitting here thinking, Your ten-year-old ass is not doing anything to make money, so why do you think you have the audacity to talk about other people’s social class? When I went to Hill, everyone lived in a relatively small house. Then I came to this superficial school, and children are out here comparing mansions… I would feel embarrassed inviting friends over because they would make remarks about my house like, “Don’t you feel crowded in here??” and I would just say in my head, Well I can move my arms and legs. I have the ability to walk around. Does it look like the walls are closing in or something, Ms. Privilege?

Now on top of my appearance and status, there is another issue. My personality. Don’t worry, I am not a mean person, but throughout middle school, my peers thought I was not “black enough.” First of all, the majority of my friends were not black, and they were kinda on the emo side. So, I spent a lot of time being with them and embracing emo music (I was already feeling depressed because of the way I looked and I ended up connecting with those songs.) I started to be made fun of by my black peers who are the complete opposite of me. They are outgoing, have the ability to twerk, listen to rap music, and they’re popular because of it. Fantastic. I am not white enough to be with the popular white kids or black enough to be with popular black kids. What does that make me? Raceless??

So there I was. Antisocial. Emo. Black. Ugly. Confused. At the start of eighth grade, I really couldn’t tell who I was looking at in the mirror.

I had to do something. The feelings of confusion and depression needed to go. There needed to be a good change around this heinous school.  There needed to be a good change within myself.

Let’s take it back to the beginning of my story. I am good at making people laugh. Not only my friends, but the rest of the people in the school. Comedy is the one thing that makes me feel like I know who I am. After all those hours of Kevin Hart and Kingsley videos, I decided to take my humor in front of larger groups of people. During my presentations in Chinese class, I was able to encourage my peers to laugh in a language that I don’t even understand that well. Before middle school ended, we were all forced to tell a story about our lives. Since my life is ridiculously hilarious, I managed to get a lot of laughs out of all my classmates. Once I started getting comfortable with my jokes, I started to actually gain confidence in myself.

I am now going into eleventh grade. The person I am now is completely different to the Hill girl who just stepped in the building several years ago. I am embracing my black beauty, and have found a group of friends who appreciate me for who I am rather than the stereotype I should be a part of. Am I 100% happy with my appearance? Nope, but now I am on a path where there is a possibility for me to achieve happiness. If I didn’t focus my energies on making people laugh, I could still be an emo black girl. Moral of the story is: there will always be shitty people who will make you feel less than. And if you are as sensitive as me, the comments will always hurt you. But once you’ve found something about yourself that you admire, the sky is the limit.

Leaving Hill transitioning to Valley was one of the most difficult experiences of my life. However, the whole process is shaping me into a developing superstar.

Hill has taught me to be a caring person, to treat everyone equally, to join together as one. Valley has taught me to fight back negativity with grit and a huge punch of comedy.

 

M.

The water was dirty. He could see the grime washing off with every move of his hands over his dirty body; specks of blood flaked off into the water and opened old wounds that he didn’t know he had. His toes poked against the surface of the water, hair slicked back with shampoo. Months without relaxation, and he was tense. His long curls were matted and dirty, their once shiny brown now a dirty black from the soot and soil in the places he was sleeping. When you are on the streets, you don’t look for luxury.

There was something so odd about being in a stranger’s house, a stranger’s bed. But Haven House was filled with strangers, was it not? No one here had known him before this had happened, and that was completely fine by him. He closed his eyes. He needed to stop thinking. He needed to stop thinking about all this. His momma’s words swirled in his mind as he lathered his arms up to wash away the grime from the streets, and his green eyes glanced around the neat bathroom.   

One: Talking about yourself in the third person makes things easier to handle. It’s like disassociation, this method, but it isn’t as intense. It can come and go as you please.

Two: Words never really mean anything. A promise is just air out of lungs. A promise can always be broken.

Three: He wasn’t worth her spit.

Four: The lord would save his soul if he would just stop calling himself a boy. He wasn’t a boy. He wasn’t a boy, he would never be a boy. Dreams like that aren’t meant to come true.

Take a deep breath. One more. Then another. Release. Wash the soap out of your hair and run your fingers over the bruises. Let the water drain from the tub and towel yourself off, watch as your skin slowly turns caramel again instead of the dirty brown.  Stop referring to yourself in third person. You are here, you are safe, you are here.  

I am here.

***

I step out onto the cold floor. My feet hit the linoleum and I stiffen as the hairs on my arms stand up. The towels are comforting as I wrap them around my form, and I remind myself that I am alive. I am a human being.  All my life, I have been told to be a good girl. My momma, with her teeth rotten and yellowed, spoke in harsh tones. I was brought into this world as a mistake, an accident waiting to happen. The moment he touched her, she told me once, her entire body was ignited in a high that the pills had never given her. And as a result, I became a life. I became alive.

She isn’t here, though. She’s somewhere a few towns over, working for her pay in a diner and winking at customers as she pours their coffee. At night she’ll shack up with whomever decides to have her, and she’ll get extra pay, and she’ll use it to rot her teeth even more until they fall out of her head like her Daddy’s did and his Daddy’s before him. It’s a never-ending, spiral addiction at its finest. My momma belongs on a drug PSA.

When she goes to church, though, that doesn’t matter. She washes her hands in the baptism tub and all her sins are gone. She is a new being, a deity of pure blood again. Gramma always told me that the second my Momma was born, Gramma knew she was “inauspicious.” She was the only one of her children who never dreamt of growing up to be something monumental.

There were nine. Stacy said she wanted to be a princess; Gilbert, an astronaut; Bimmie, a movie star; Eugene, a singer; Clarice, the president; the twins, secret agents. Pangea said she was meant for stardom. Momma just said she wanted to grow up.

***

I put on the clothes they gave me for bed and tie my hair back with a borrowed scrunchie, my tan hands fumbling with the thick waves as I reach for the electric razor. One of the other kids knocks on the door and I clean up my mess before opening it for them. His eyes glance over me, razor in hand. I recognize him from the front office. Devin. He has a soft face and red hair that brushes over his skull softly — in a way that makes him look sweet — but I get the feeling there’s an edge inside him, that he did some regrettable things to stay alive on the streets. Then again, we all did. That’s how they found us.

***

He reaches his hand out for the razor, quirking a brow at me as his deep voice fills the stiff air between us. It takes me a moment to process his offer to give me a haircut. My suspicion about his character is proven when he tells me my long hair makes me look like a girl.

He’s invalidating my existence already, and I’ve only just met him.

He seems like what I imagine my father to be like.

***

I sit down on the floor and pull at his shirt to tell him to sit, and he obliges and plugs in the razor for me. “You’ll have to be still so that I don’t nick you,” he says.

I nod, understanding. Before he turns it on, the tool emits a soft buzzing as he presses it against my skull, his other hand holding the back of my neck. I don’t like people touching me — but could I tell him that? He runs the razor over my head in a long streak, my hair falling onto my legs as he continues working to get my hair off.

“Damn.” He says, blowing off the razor. “You got that thick Indian hair, huh kid?” He asks, and I grit my teeth. It has always been this way. My thick hair, my Indian skin, my green eyes that Momma says my Pops gave me. She has blue eyes. They’re light and gentle, like a loving touch to the shoulder, and if you weren’t in her family you might even go as far as to say they looked kind.   

He lets me go, and I don’t even realize until I reach up to touch my head and feel the fuzz. My head is now bare, the locks all over my legs and the floor beneath them. Devin grins like he’s about to catch his prey. His teeth are all crooked, and they remind me of the man who works with my Momma and always offers me free milkshakes, since Momma told him they are my favorite. They’ve been working together since I was six, and until I was nine, I never realized what the milkshakes meant. I stopped liking milkshakes that year. I stopped going to the diner. I started wanting braces to fix my crooked teeth. The trouble with trauma is that, to this day, my gut still turns when I see him.

They got married last spring.

***

Devin leaves. I am still sitting on the floor, glancing down at the pale blue tiles on the bottom edges of the tub. As I crawl up to sit on the edge of the bathtub, I feel like a child again. This happens often, the feeling of reducing myself back into a smaller, naive version of myself. Most people like to talk about being young and only having to worry about things like coloring inside the lines, but I never had that luxury. Most often, I was wondering who would be sleeping next to me at night. I stand up, dust myself off, walk to the next room to grab a broom, and sweep my thick hair up and into a dustpan to throw it away. In Japan, they like to say that cutting your hair off is a form of letting the past go. Like cutting the pain away, as if it were a dead limb. In a way, it is. What I feel is a lot like having a ghost limb. Except, maybe, it’s not your own arm, but someone else’s — with a constant hand around your neck.

***

As I make my way downstairs to the office, my feet pad along the floor.  In the hallway, some of the doors are open; I see the other kids, straightening their rooms for the night. One girl, or I assume she’s a girl because of her fuzzy pajama pants, is putting her phone under her pillow and shutting off the lights. I leave the lights on, always, because there’s something vulnerable about being in the dark.

When I walk in, the woman at the desk starts talking to me. Her voice is softer than my momma’s constantly angry tone — it’s almost like the sound equivalent to melting butter. I really don’t understand half of what she’s saying, because I’m too focused on the way her lips curve upward in a sympathetic smile; one that I can tell she puts on for every kid here. She stands up, and I notice that she’s wearing a skirt. Her name tag says “Imogene”. Judging by her neck and her facial structure, she looks like an artist’s model. I remind myself to test her structure with my charcoals later, wondering if I’ll be able to swallow my anxiety long enough to ask for paper.  I follow after her as she leads me to a closet and hands me a pair of sheets, a comforter, and other bedding. The hallway walls are a pale yellow color with white trim. The cleanliness of it comforts me in a way, and for that I’m thankful. Especially because I’ll have to meet my new roommate in just a moment. Imogene knocks on the door to one of the rooms on the lower end of the hall, and a tall boy (or at least he seems like a boy) opens it and stares me down before stepping out of the way.

She instructs me to make my bed and put away what I have in my bag, then tells the taller youth to show me to the clothes’ room for new garments, since mine are fairly dirty and torn. He nods, and holds a hand out to me. It’s much bigger than my own, swallowing my tan fingers beneath his pale palm. Once the bedding is made, he shows me to the closet, tells me his name is Wyatt, and waits for me at the door as I grab a few shirts and jeans.

As we go back to the room, my eyes already start darting around the room. In my head, I take notes about my surroundings, already figuring out how easy it would be to run away if things go bad. There’s one window between our two beds, above a nightstand that I assume is to be shared. On the nightstand is one lamp, with a dirty white shade and a silver base that reflects the shining overhead light. The walls are a pale basche and the bedding is a soft yellow that makes it seem almost unreal, like something out of a retro movie about teenage runaways. Wyatt has small metal structures. They look like they’re mostly made out of tin cans, scattered around surfaces in the room. Different types of flowers are made by bending the thin metal, others are small robots and things of the sort. I was just starting to think of what his fascination with them might be when he pulls out a wallet, shaking it in my direction.

“If you touch this, or look through my things without my permission, shit will hit the fan. My side,” he pauses, draws a line with the toe of his sneaker. “Your side.” He gestures to my side of the room, then sits on his bed and starts stripping to get ready for bed. I quietly crawl into my bed.

“If possible, I’d like to leave the lamp on for the night. I’ll get something to replace it soon, but for right now I want it on if it doesn’t bother you,” I quietly request with my eyes trained on my nails. He nods, stands up to turn the lamp on, then shuts the bright overhead light off. The lamp is dim, but gives off just enough light for me to see if anyone walks into the door. Perfect.

There’s always been something about a dark room that made me nervous. The vulnerability of it, perhaps. That’s why the alleyways I slept in were comforting, in a way; there was always light. Trusting that whoever you’re sleeping with isn’t going to decide to strangle you in the middle of the night, or something just as awful. It’s never been easy on me; I’ve never dealt well with roommates. My trust is always tested by the second day.

Regardless, Wyatt seems decent so far. He doesn’t seem too alarming, though it’s a bit surprising that the facility leaders are actually allowing me to sleep in the same room as someone who is, more than likely, biologically male. It hadn’t really occurred to me that my gender identity would be respected, even in a place like this.  Even after the light is off and the lamp dims in the night, it takes me a while to go to sleep.

***

When the morning comes, it’s easy to pry myself from the bedsheets and convince my tired brain to let me calm down for a few seconds. My legs dangle over the mattress and I take a few deep breaths, looking at Wyatt still fast asleep on his bed. And then standing up, I make my way to the bathroom and brush my teeth with one of the unopened toothbrushes from the large container on the counter. I turn the water on in the bath tub and pick at the scabs on my arms, looking at my frail form and my freshly exposed features. I debate whether or not I should just leave now and save everyone the trouble of actually getting to know me. I’ve always thought like this; my brain is constantly poised for fight or flight. It’s tiring, at times, to be as on edge as I am.

***

I step into the bath, letting the warm water pool around my legs and slowly up to my stomach. There has always been something about questioning my existence while taking a bath that I find fitting. So, thinking about how life has been for the past few months, I start to come to a conclusion.

It’s like being a tadpole. In the large pond we all call life, there are frogs and fishes and so many things that are capable of eating you alive. And in order to stay alive long enough, to grow into a frog and make your way up the food chain, you first have to figure out how to maneuver your way around the pond without getting swallowed by so many bigger species. And once you finally do make your way up, you don’t have a choice but to prey on those smaller than you to survive. And I don’t want to do that, but it’s the only way to stay in the pond.

Sometimes I think maybe I should just give up now and save myself the trouble. Drowning is always a possibility, like a flashing emergency exit in the back of my skull telling me that if I REALLY need to leave, it’s always there. Drowning victims can only struggle on the surface of the water from 20 to 60 seconds, and once you’re sinking, you only have a matter of minutes to get yourself to the top again before everything dies and your light goes out for good.

The tub isn’t large enough to submerge my entire form without my nose poking through the surface of the water, so I rule out that option. I would rather stay alive than have to live with the embarrassment of getting caught in the middle of an attempt to drown myself in the bathtub of a youth home for troubled queer kids.

Nonetheless, I can feel the large hands of gravity pulling me down to the Hell my momma always talked about. It’s a soothing thought, eternal nonexistence, but I can’t entertain the thought for too long. If living is wishing to survive then I’m doing something incredibly wrong, because my chest continues to pulse and it doesn’t feel like a heart is actually there, even though I know it is. There’s a wasp nest in my head, and they constantly fling themselves against my skull, hoping that eventually they’ll break through. It won’t go away, making me second-guess my decision to live. The wasps want me to die more than I want myself to die. I feel, most of the time, like my head is a totally different city than my body. Thinking of  myself as something inanimate makes it easier to handle things that are plaguing me.

By now, the water has tinted my skin pinker than its normal brown hue, and I realize that I’ve probably spent the last thirty minutes thinking about something that isn’t any more than a headache. Someone is banging on the door telling me to get out so that they can get a shower, so I open the drain and watch as the water swirls out before standing up and drying off, tugging on my clothes and leaving the bathroom with a muttered apology.

I’ve only been diagnosed with a hand full of disorders, but none of them relate to being transgender. They all just happen to be side effects of my childhood, and I don’t see my gender, my desire to peel off these breasts and stuff my pants, as a side effect.  It’s more like a fate that waited to come to me. When I start down the hall, I see a man in a suit, and it seems like the entire weight of the world is pressing against my back telling me to run because men in suits never come just to shake your hand and tell you good job. It always means something serious.  I rush off to my room, put my things in the laundry bin, and pick at the scabs on my face as I look in the mirror. This has become religion for me, messing with my face every morning, trying to pick off the imperfections.

 My train of thought is interrupted when a woman walks in and tells me the psychiatrist is here to do a mental evaluation in order to make sure I’m a “fit” for the home. She assures me that it isn’t going to be my job to pay for the expenses and then ushers me out of the room, down the hall to where the man is standing with a clipboard in hand and pencils sticking out of his jacket pocket. I find myself starting to draw away.

His blazer is navy blue, and the shirt underneath is white with diagonal stripes that match his blazer and pants that are a light khaki. It’s unsettling how professional he looks, how rich he seems just by his fancy haircut and his outfit. Like he could come to this place dressed casually, or at least more casual than this, but he would rather not because he has fancy suits to spare. He shakes my hand, and it’s then that I notice his frame is much larger than mine. When his palm swallows mine, he gives me a smile that plainly reads “I’m only here to get paid so that I can keep buying these ridiculously expensive outfits, and I can already tell you’re fucked up” before holding the door to a small office open for me. I run over a list in my head, trying to reassure myself that it’s not going to end too badly. It can’t.

  • He’s only here to make sure I’m healthy. He isn’t going to make me feel bad if there is actually something wrong with me.
  • He’s seen worse people than me.
  • I have problems, but that doesn’t mean they can’t be fixed; being out of my momma’s house was the first step.
  • If I really want to, and if I put in the effort, I can get over what happened in my past and finally be a kid. I can stop worrying.
  • I’m safe here.

 

I’m standing at the edge of the doorway when I hear the front door to the house slam and two women trying to sternly usher someone out.  I look over to see what the commotion is all about, when an adult from the other room comes over and tries to hurry me into the office, giving the doctor a concerned look as she places a gentle hand on my shoulder. And that’s when I hear it. The Spanish cursing, her words sharp enough to cut through an artery, and I freeze as my momma comes into my view, her hollowed out cheekbones just as sharp as ever. If I had to guess, she and my stepfather got high right before they came. For now, though, my brain is stuck in panic mode. She figured out where I was and traveled all the way here. As she comes through the doorway, her husband is beside her, holding her hand tight, and she’s screaming at the top of her lungs, mostly directed at a nurse who’s trying to hold her back. From what I can tell, it looks like Imogene.

Momma is busy looking at the nurses but as she glances over to target another with her screeching yells, her eyes fix on me. I can tell she notices my freshly shaved head, and that she’s raging inside because of it. She knows better than to act angry towards me when I’m surrounded by professionals, though. She knows they have the authority to keep me out of her grip for good, and then what would she do? So she uses a softer tone, trying to let them know that all she wants is to get her little girl back. Trying to sound like a half decent mother:

“Marissa, baby,”

And that’s when it all snapped. That’s when I couldn’t take any more, and the voices in my head were all screaming, and I just couldn’t hold it in any longer, and there weren’t any tears. I couldn’t help it, I had to stop myself, I had to pause and make a new list, because that’s all I could do to stop myself from screaming at her. The tone of my own voice in my head, threatening to spill from my lips, was so threatening that I scared even myself.

  • I can be the boy I’ve always known I am, and she can’t change that.
  • Violence won’t change their minds.
  • My name doesn’t have to be Marissa if I don’t want it to be.
  • Everyone here, everyone in this house, is here to help. She can’t hurt me.
  • The restraining order is already in place, she shouldn’t be here in the first place. 

 

So I take a deep breath. I call myself down from the ledge of a psychotic episode, and I speak.

“It’s Michael.”  The proclamation of my new name is the last thing out of my mouth before I walk into the psychiatrist’s office. I watch the doctor lock the door behind us, while my momma keeps screaming as they drag her out of the house. But I know I can do this, I know I can tell him what’s wrong, and I know I can be honest. The last thing I hear is her promise that she’ll come back to get me, to make sure I know how much I’ve hurt our family and our “good name.” But if I know anything in this world, it’s that words never really mean anything.

A promise is just air out of lungs.

 

The Curious Cottage

It stood with white brick, tattered with dirt and age. The door was a rustic red, gaping open in an ivy, spiraled archway. Over the years, it developed rotting wood, the pungent smell of dead rats, creaky floorboards, and the decay of things that had not been touched in decades. This only became clear when inside the house, but nobody dared to take a single step on the property. There were windows looking out at the top of the small cottage. These windows were dirty and cracked, yet dark. There were big holes where the windows had been broken, but all that could be seen from afar was infinite empty space, like a black hole had swallowed everything that made the house a standard place to live. The front door was always open, as if there was no force strong enough to make it move just a single inch. Through that red, paint-peeled doorway, a chair was in view. A single chair of the most repulsing nature. What used to be a large, wooden structure had turned into a rotting, discolored, shriveling pile of wood.  

The hill towered at the very perimeter of town. The mossy grass was such a vibrant green; it was as if it had been raining everyday for a year. But it never rained in this dry town. In the center of the village, amongst the small shops and homes, the air was cool and clear.  Around the hill, the air was thick with humidity. This had sparked rumors with the older folks in town, claiming that if one older than 60 breathed in that toxic air, it would stop their heart within minutes.  

The one elementary school in town was like something out of a storybook. It had red brick intertwined with chalk-filled grout and was always bustling with animated kids. The classrooms were filled with colorful plastic chairs, and the work of fellow students. During snack time, even the youngest kids would talk about that eerie cottage. They said that the house was haunted with ghosts and evil spirits. The older kids would go along with this, mainly as a joke to scare the little ones. Deep down, however, they too had their suspicions about the house.  

Some of the mothers and fathers of the town would go to the local coffee shop after dropping their kids off at school. This early in the morning, they could see fog from the morning dew smuggling the hill so only a miniscule portion of the house was seen. Around the circular, wooden tables, steaming coffee in hand, they would converse.  

“I don’t want my children going anywhere near that place,” a concerned mother would say.

“I always thought the disappearance of that young girl 10 years ago was linked to that house,” a father would chime in.  

Some of the other parents would try to change the subject, too uncomfortable talking about a cottage that could make their own loved children go missing.  

It was like they already knew that the new kid in town would let his curiosities get the best of him. It was inevitable. Having not lived there for long, this boy could not have heard the countless rumors and stories about the house. All that was given was a warning to not go near the cottage on the mossy hill. No explanation, just a sharp warning.

The moving truck drove smoothly into town on a sunny Saturday morning. Trailing the truck was a blue van, a family car.  But something was off about this family. From the moment the vehicles came to a halt at the friendly blue house, the parents were screaming nasty things at each other and to their son, Troy. With a broad structure, standing at a height of 5’9, he looked older than he was. Merely 13 years old, Troy had to learn to be tough. It was just expected of him when his family moved every two years.

When Troy was in the grossest, grimiest homes, he imagined that he was living in the biggest, most luxurious ones. When he was at a new school and had no friends to talk to, he imagined that he was back home, playing basketball with his friends he had made before he had to pack up his life to move every two years. After talking to the woman who came over with a welcome cake, Troy had something new to think about.

“Welcome!” she had said.

“Hey,” Troy had said while reluctantly opening the door.  

“Well, look at you! You look like you would get along with my boys. How old are you?”

“I’m 13.”

“Oh, you’re still so young! You can come out and explore the town… but don’t go into that cottage on the hill,” her tone dropped significantly, showing a more serious side of her.  

“What cottage? Why?” Troy had asked, his interest suddenly peaked.  

“It is for your own safety, just stay away — Alright, I have to get going now. Say hello to your parents for me!”  

And with that, the woman was gone, and Troy was left at the doorway with cake in hand and curiosity skyrocketing.  

Now Troy sat on the sturdy steps of his front porch and ate the remaining bits of the cake he had all but devoured. He looked up at the picturesque blue sky and watched the clouds move across his view. He felt the smooth, cold concrete underneath his fingers, identical to all the houses on his street. Cookie cutter houses they were, alike in size and shape. There was something calming about looking at the similar houses. Troy became happy with the idea that if all the houses were perfect and pretty, including his, maybe his family would mold to become just like the other families in those houses too.

He almost began to feel comfortable sitting on that hard, cold porch when his father came clambering down the stairs of the house and out the front door.

“What are doing? You don’t expect us to do all the unpacking while you sit here enjoying yourself do you?” he boomed.  

He leaned down, so close to Troy that he could smell the alcohol in his breath.  

“No, Sir,” Troy murmured, rolling his eyes.  

He immediately hoped that his dad wouldn’t notice. But he did.

“You don’t get to roll your eyes at me. Come on.”

He hastily grabbed Troy by the collar of his shirt and dragged him inside, his muscles bulging as if the weight of Troy was the equivalent of a feather. Troy curled his hand into a fist, debating the possibility of finally fighting back. But he didn’t. He never does.  

After staying his first weekend in town, Troy finally had to go to school. He was used to coming part way into the year, but he never quite got used to the smirks and stares that accompanied being the new kid. The long, sharp trill of an alarm clock started Troy’s morning.  Just like he had done before every other school, he got dressed, ate breakfast, brushed his teeth, and quickly grabbed his backpack on the way out. On his short walk to school, Troy’s eyes stayed fixated on the glimpse of the cottage that he could see from the rocky path.  He didn’t know exactly what was in that house, but he wanted to know.  

Troy climbed his way up the wide concrete steps of the school. The doors were propped open with bright, plastic chairs, and he could hear the noise of the other kids lingering. As he walked inside, everything seemed overwhelming. The sounds of eager kids, the aroma of sandwiches and lunch food, and the colorful array of clothing darting all over the hallways into the classrooms. It was like he was moving in fast motion, from the awkward conversation with the principal to being sat in a math classroom with a dozen other 13-year-olds. Things slowed down when he had been asked to introduce himself.  

He shyly stood up and mumbled, “Um… hi. I’m Troy. Um… I moved here last weekend.”  

“I. Um. Don’t care,” a rather plump boy mocked.  

The class exploded into giggles and snorts. Troy sank into his seat and looked down at his shoes. They looked unclean and on the cusp of falling apart.  He decided to focus on that for the rest of class instead of the immature boy or the number sequences that danced across the chalkboard in front of him. The bell rang, dismissing the students for lunch. Startled, Troy jumped out of his seat and gathered his things in a frenzy. He came out of the classroom, unsure where to go. Troy followed the herd of kids running outside for lunch on a warm day.  He sat on a plastic bench by himself, watching the commotion as the tables filled up with hungry students.  

“Look who it is! Shy boy!” the plump boy yelled, sitting on the bench right next to Troy.  

His friends huddled around them, watching as they stifled their laughter.  

“Come with us,” another boy said.  

Before Troy could respond, he was yanked off of the bench and dragged to the warped wooden fence that encased the lunch area.  

“Climb.”

Troy frowned, contemplating the situation. He knew that if he didn’t go with them, he would be bullied more than ever. He started climbing. He turned his head to see if any teachers were looking, but it wouldn’t have mattered anyway. The group of boys hopped down on the other side of the fence, dirt cushioning their falls. They took off running, leaving Troy to trail behind them. Troy was fast and caught up with them quickly. It was only when they came to a stop, jagged breathing, that he realized where they were. Chills crept up his spine as he took in the sight of the towering cottage. It felt as if the whole town fell silent as they all stood there, bewildered.  

“I bet you wouldn’t go into that house. Probably too scared!” Another boy from the pack taunted Troy.  

Troy took a step back, a look of terror washed over his face.

“Yeah, come on. What are you waiting for?” the boy that had called Troy out in math class said, pushing Troy closer to the bottom of the hill.  

Troy had not heard any of the rumors about the house, so more than anything, he was curious. He was not dumb though and saw the way that the other boys were looking at the house. Each of their legs trembling, faces calm, but eyes alert and scared.  

“Okay,” he agreed, gaining confidence.  

He was slightly excited to see what was in that cottage and if he could do that, and prove his bravery to the boys, maybe his life in this town would be bearable. Taking a deep breath, Troy began to trudge up the hill.  

“No way!” a voice from behind him exclaimed in surprise.  

Troy focused on his shoes again, which were mostly submerged in mud, as he made his way through the moss. Finally, he reached the top of the hill.  

Up close, the cottage looked much bigger, more intimidating. Troy stood frozen in his spot, trapped by the eerie silence. The air felt humid. Toxic. He breathed heavily, trying to gain the courage to take one step closer to the cottage. He did. As he eased his way to the front door, he swore he could hear sounds coming from inside. Maybe there really were sounds, or maybe it was all in his head. The red door was ajar as always, so Troy slipped through.  

“What do we do?” one of the boys said, freaked out.  

He put his arms behind his head and crouched over.

“I don’t know! I didn’t think he would actually go in,” another one said.  

The worry-stricken kids clustered together and craned their necks to see the cottage.  Their hearts raced as they tried to see him through the cracked windows. Troy had walked into the cottage in a way the boys had never seen. He was confident. Head held high, walking into the unknown, he needed to prove something to himself, to the boys, to his family. He had walked into the curious cottage, and the boys were left outside.

 

The Factory

The factory was the most beautiful building in town. It stood proudly at the corner of 17th and Orlando Street. It was a treasure to the people of the town. To a passersby, it was obvious that it used to be a church. It had beautiful stained glass windows in the most vibrant colors, making it stand out in the otherwise dull cityscape. If you stood inside, you could see rainbow light coming through the windows. The big red doors were intimidating to all who looked; they acted as a barrier rather than an entrance.

Although the neighborhood was worn down, the factory created interest, breathing curiosity into everyone who looked upon it.

The front of the factory was built with strong, brown bricks, now painted over several times from years of being passed down from owner to owner. This time, it was painted crisp white. It hadn’t been retouched in years, and the paint was starting to chip. The previous colors shone through.

No one had been in the factory for years; the floors needed dusting, and the brush had grown out enough to look almost as though it was protecting the factory from intruders. There were dolls sitting in the windows, slowly decaying, but their little white shoes still shone bright.

Everyone knew it was a doll factory, it had the words “D LL FAC O Y” with certain letters missing due to age. It was written in bold, yellow letters embossed on a black awning on the north facing side of the building. This awning had been a newer addition to the factory. Many older folks had complained. The factory was a historical building, and the awning added a level of tackiness to the complex. But others ignored the awning. They didn’t let it distract them from the mere beauty of the building.

Perhaps, the building reminded the elderly of a more simpler time: a time when people would actually talk to one another, a time when people wouldn’t feel bare without their cellphones. Maybe that’s why they stood so strongly against renovations to the factory. It was the oldest building in town. It was almost a time machine, grasping people’s attention and briefly taking them back to that simple time, then quickly releasing them back into their plain lives.

But none of it really mattered, that was many years ago. The factory hadn’t made any dolls in a while.

Just around the corner, past the factory, there was a field. The field was filled with beautiful flowers. Most days, those flowers would be left on the doorstep of the factory. No one knew who did it, or why they did, but this added to the mystery of the factory. There were always rumors circling around town about the mysterious flowers. There would never be dead flowers on the doorstep, always vividly colored fresh ones.

In a way, the factory thanked the flowers. It thanked the flowers for always being there. No one else ever was.

That’s what I had in common with the factory, no one was ever there for me when I was little.

When I was growing up, nothing was given to me. My parents hadn’t died; they just didn’t know what to do with me. I wasn’t a troublesome kid, but I was someone easily forgotten. I knew where they lived, just down the street past the old candy store in a little blue row-house. And when I ran away at age 15, there were no search parties, and no one came looking for me. Deep down inside, I knew I only ran away to see how much they cared about me. Turns out they didn’t care at all. By then, I was used to it. Sometimes, I would walk up to their front porch on my midnight walks. But I would never try to go inside. Too much time had passed, and I knew they didn’t want me. But I didn’t hate them for it. I tried to see the good and beauty in life rather than the bad and the ugly. In this case, it was hard to see what good had come out of it. But I like to think that I was better off on my own.

This year, I would’ve been a junior in high school. That is, if I had stayed in school. I had a small group of friends that I had met freshman year. One of my friends, Jun, was 18 and had very rich parents. They had bought a house for her last year. I had asked her why and she simply replied with, “they wanted me out of their hair.” She wasn’t spoiled, but her parents gave her things rather than attention. Most nights I’d stay with Jun. I stayed with her mainly because she didn’t care either. We weren’t that close. But, she was kind.

I didn’t like being alone in the house, although, often times I was. Being alone let my thoughts take over; it let my thoughts run wild, and it let me think of the darker times I had faced. I didn’t like it one bit.

I loved to stroll around town. It wasn’t a pretty place, but it was familiar and consistent. I liked that about our town, nothing ever changed. Most days, when I was walking back to Jun’s house from town, I would pass by the factory. Only this time, I stopped. I stared. Something about it was different. Now, the brush wasn’t trying to keep me out; it was almost inviting me in. It had arranged itself along the pathway leading up to the factory. I had never seen it like this before.

I stepped closer to the doors, and they didn’t intimidate me. Rather than pushing me away, the doors were left cracked open. I could see light trying to escape from inside the factory. No one had been inside for years, at least not that I knew of, and now the doors were suddenly unlocked.

It was midnight. I loved to take walks at midnight, when no one was around, when the air was fresh, and the sky was pitch black. I looked around just in case someone was watching.

No one was, so I opened the doors.

I almost fell on my face from using too much force. The doors were a lot lighter than they appeared.

Inside, it looked different than what I had expected. The outside was naturally beautiful, but the inside… The inside of the factory was extravagantly decorated, with candles lit in all corners of the room. The chandeliers hung from the ceiling and a table set for two sat between a conveyor belt and an assembly table. I thought this was the weirdest part. I wondered why the table was set up like this. I was alone. There was no need for it. The wind blew through the now opened windows, sending a chill through my whole body. It all felt off. The moonlight gracefully drifted through the room. Suddenly, uneasiness crept over me. The first hallway looked almost like a tunnel, only you couldn’t see light at the end of it.

It looked like someone, or maybe something, had been living here. I felt like someone was trying to make me feel at home and this feeling was off putting.

I walked down the long, dark hallway, waiting for someone to jump out at me, something to creep up when I least expected it.

“Hello? Is anybody in here?” I asked, not really wanting to hear a response.

No answer.

I heard my voice echo through the hallway for a lot longer than it should have. It was too quiet. The horror-movie-like setting wasn’t what scared me the most. It was the fact that this place felt alive; this place felt happy to have me there. But, it wouldn’t be happy to see me leave. I wanted to run, but something was keeping me there. I should’ve never stepped foot in the factory, yet here I was.

Now, the air felt heavy, and it smelled stale. I looked around to see why and realised that all the windows were now shut. I tried to open the door but it wouldn’t budge.

“Why won’t you open?” I screamed, my fists banging on the door.

But, of course, no response.

And suddenly, I stopped banging on the door, I stood for a moment thinking. Why did I want to leave? What did I really want?

Maybe that’s what it wanted me to think. I had accepted my fate. I knew I wasn’t going to get out.

I walked around the factory for a few minutes, examining every shattered piece of glass, every lost screw.

I was strangely at peace.

I stopped walking. Then, quickly, picked up my pace and started again.

I had been walking around for hours now. Hours turned to days, days turned into weeks and as time went on, my heart got heavier and my steps became weaker. I had lost my grasp of time.

The last thing I saw was a doll, and it looked strangely familiar.

Years passed and no one came looking for me. My joints stiffened. My little white shoes stayed bright. My now-porcelain skin felt cold. And, just like that, everyone forgot about me. Just as my parents had.

The factory was the most beautiful building in town. It still stands at the corner of 17th and Orlando Street, with its magnificent collection of dolls.

 

Chasing Stars

The night sky plasters a layer of darkness above us like a ceiling. We lie stretched out on a blanket, our phones inside the house and turned off. The air is still, as the fireflies appear sporadically and then dip back shyly into the darkness. I’m not thinking about my potential mosquito bites or how tired I’ll be tomorrow. Instead, I listen to the low hum of my sister’s voice as she describes the stars we’re lying under.

“Does it comfort you?” She hesitates with a tone of anticipation. “Does it comfort you to know that there is a whole unknown world out there?” It’s a pretty random question, even for her. But everything feels so uncomplicated that it seems like the right conversation to have.

“I don’t know,” I respond, still staring straight up at the sky. “I guess it’s both comforting and terrifying.”  

“Terrifying?” She exclaims, shocked. “How can it be terrifying?”

“Well, it makes you realize that you don’t really matter. Like, none of this — not you, not me, not the people we know or the things we do. I mean, what are we compared to the stars that will still be here millions of years from now?”

She’s silent for a moment, slowly processing what I’d said. We’re only two years apart, but sometimes it feels like four. Difference in age creates one hole in our relationship, but our personality differences open many more. Although I was born only one minute after my twin brother, I am the first-born in spirit. I’m the classic type-A perfectionist. Don’t worry, I’m working on it.

Despite our holey swiss cheese relationship, we’re as close as the cars on the I-95. I always pack her bag when we go on trips because if she packs hers, she’ll forget underwear. Oh, and we share a room, so that definitely adds to the dynamic. I go from picking up the clothes she left strewn over the floor, to singing every lyric of Summer Nights with her at 11:00 pm, in our parallel twin beds.

Lily is like a sparkler. She’s the kind of light that you hesitate before igniting. Not because you don’t want to, but rather, because it’s so forceful, so full. She is so full. Not physically, she’s actually long and lanky. But her presence is all encompassing. And her light makes you want to trace your name into the darkness with it. She turns her face towards me, her freckly nose crinkling thoughtfully.  

“I guess that makes a little sense,” she says, though I know she’s still skeptical.

“To me it’s exciting. It’s exciting to know that there is so much left to discover. So many corners of the earth to explore.”

“So couldn’t it be scary to think you might never see those corners?” I pose.

“Well,” she starts confidently, as if she had already thought of that, “that’s why you have to go seeking. You have to seek out the corners, not expect them to fall in your lap.”

“Lily, where is this coming from?” I ask, genuinely confused.

“In health today, we talked about cancer,” she says.

“Oh,” I say. Our grandfather had been diagnosed with bladder cancer four years ago. It was tragic, but there was a level of detachment between us and the issue, so it   wasn’t  something we talked about plainly.

“Let’s get out of here” I say, hoping to change the subject. It was only nearing 10:00 pm, so Brookville Supermarket was still open.

“We can get ice cream at Brookeville.”

“I hope they have bubblegum,” she says.

As we fold up the blanket and step into our flip flops, we take one more look at the stars. We walk inside quietly, and Lily sets the blanket back down on the couch. I grab my wallet from the counter, and we walk out the front door, closing it softly.

As we walk up the street, the sound of our flip flops create a casual rhythm. Lily sprints ahead for a moment and then slows down; she thinks she can run faster in the dark. I think she’s crazy, good crazy. When we reach the market, the renowned “7- Up” and “Brookeville Super” signs are illuminated on the side of the building.

The bell on the door jingles as we open it. We step into the coolness that occupies most grocery stores, and it wraps around us like an old friend. The florescent lighting takes a few seconds to adjust to, but once I do, I am overwhelmed with familiarity. I can almost feel the weight of my polka-dotted fifth grade backpack and the cool glass of the ice cream counter on my nose as I point to coffee, my favorite flavor. My eyes find their way to the dark curls of Ryan Gibson, standing at the cash register. His green eyes flicker to the corner of the store where we stand, and when he sees us, a smile spreads across his face.

“Hey, Harper,” he says eagerly. Ryan and I went to elementary school together. Although we parted ways for high school, we used to be good friends. We haven’t talked in awhile, and it’s surprising to see him here.  

“Ryan! When did you start working here?” I ask, feeling a little like I too should have a job.

“Two weeks ago. My mom wanted me to have a job for the summer, so I thought I’d start now.” It was late May, and at school, you could tell everyone was checked out. Once the warm weather arrived in Chevy Chase, school felt wrong.

“I’m impressed,” I answer, examining his face, still shocked at how much older he looked.

“We came for ice cream,” says Lily, impatiently.

“Of course, Lily, what can I get you?” says Ryan, making his way over to the ice cream counter.

“Bubblegum in a small cone please,” she says.

“And for you?” He asks, looking towards me.

“Coffee in a small cup,” I answer, my eyes trained on the ice cream scooper. We pay for our ice cream, and I tell Ryan I’ll see him around. We sit at the table outside and eat our ice cream in comfortable silence. Lily has around an inch left of her cone so I eat it, then regret it when I realize coffee and bubblegum are not a good match. We walk home to the beat of our flip flops and the reassuring feeling that tomorrow is Saturday, and we can sleep in.

 

I wake up to the sound of pots and pans and the low drone of the espresso machine. I check my phone; it’s 8:42. When I come downstairs, everyone looks at me. Lily, my mom, and my twin brother, Nick, are all seated at the table. My dad is frothing the milk for my mom’s coffee, and there’s a stiffness in the room.

“Does anyone want to tell me what’s going on?” I ask, confused. I wanted to tell them that I was thinking about getting a job for the summer, maybe at Brookeville market. I could spend time with Ryan and serve ice cream to cute little kids. But it felt like the wrong time with this awkward vibe.

“We have some news,” my mom starts, “I want you to remember that this could be much worse and that you are very lucky kids.”

“What happened?” says Lily, concerned. “Did you lose your job? Are you guys getting divorced?”

“No, no, Lily, stop it.” My mom says.

“Then what? You’re freaking me out,” says Lily, abandoning her cereal, her eyes wide.

“We are moving to Santa Barbara, to be with my dad,” my mom says, slowly.

I focus on the ceiling fan, whipping around in endless circles. I try to follow one of the petals, but lose it after a few seconds. I feel like somehow I should have predicted this, or maybe it just seems that way when you get shocking news. I look out the small window above our kitchen sink. The glass makes the outside scenery look like a painting. My grandfather paints.

“For the summer?” I break in, my mind spinning in a million different directions. “Or for the school year too?”

“You guys will go to Santa Barbara High School starting September,” she says. “We leave June 16th.” I think about what a serious decision this is to make. To move our family of five from Chevy Chase, Maryland to Santa Barbara, California. This must mean that my grandfather’s situation has worsened.

I find a new petal to focus on and watch as it spins.

“How is he?” I ask, tentatively.

“The treatments are moving slower than we expected,” my dad says, handing my mom her coffee in her favorite Cafe De Flore mug. “We want to help your grandmother and spend as much time with them as we can.”

“Can I still play golf out there?” asks Nick, the school record-setting state champion. He crosses his arms, tanned and muscular from playing and caddying.

“Of course,” my mom says. “We want to make the switch as smooth as possible for you guys; we know it’s tough to switch high schools and move across the country.”

“Imagine moving from California to the Philippines as a sophomore,” my dad says. He moved around a lot growing up.

“It won’t be for too long either,” my mom says, “just until things get better.” My mom and dad are total opposites. My mom, raised on Park and 93rd on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, went to Spence. My dad, raised in Ohio, Sacramento, and the Philippines, went to UC Riverside, and then lived in Tonga with the Peace Corps.

“And the beach and school are just a short walk from the house,” my dad continues, “west coast, best coast.” Lily and I exchange glances. The beach did sound nice.

“Harper and I can pretend we’re Cali girls,” Lily says, her big blue eyes light up with the magical idea.

“Well, thanks for listening and cooperating,” my mom says, standing up from her chair and folding her robe around her floral pajamas. My sister and I climb the stairs to our shared room. I sit on my unmade bed and peer over at Lily. Grabbing her glasses from her nightside table, my sister sits down in the same position, and we face each other.

“Well, at least you’ll get to see a new corner,” I say, only half joking. The reality of starting over completely in a new school was starting to sink in.

“You’re right,” she says delighted, “Harper, we can go to the beach whenever we want — ”

“Lily,” I interrupt, “you know how hard this is going to be, right? Finding our people, our crowd at a new high school. I mean, I’m going to be a junior this fall. I’m zooming straight into the infamous tunnel that is junior year all by myself. You’ll be doing the same as a sophomore. Like, yes, we’re seeing a new corner, but we didn’t seek this one out. It fell into our laps.”

Lily keeps her eyes trained on the pink stringlets of our shag carpet as she starts to speak.

“Harper,” she starts, “you can’t be picky with the cards you’ve been dealt, or rather the corners. Some fall into your lap and some you seek and find. This one happened to fall into our lap. We get to live in California. Think of every cancer patient out there who can’t live to the full extent that they’d wish to. What would they tell you? Embrace the change and live it up in Santa Barbara, no matter how awkward the first day of school is. Or worry about the rocky start to your junior year?”

I look over at the vintage Vogue covers and New Yorker prints hanging on the wall above our desk and tell myself that I am not the only star in the sky. People everywhere, under the same stars, face incredibly tough hardship — I am up to a mere change of scenery. Especially if it involves brilliant blue Pacific waves.

“I guess it will be pretty cool to start over,” I say. “To meet people who know nothing about me.”

“That’s more like it,” Lily says, getting out of bed and unplugging her phone from the charger.

Later that night, I walk into the sunroom to find Lily lying down on the couch, clad in sweatpants and a quarter zip, a remote clutched in her hand as she scrolls through movie options on Netflix.

I set my stuff down on the table, and, without turning around, Lily asks “Blood in the Water or Stranger by the Lake?”

“Stranger by the Lake,” I respond, intrigued.

“Blood in the Water it is,” she says, flashing me a sneaky smile before turning back to the face the screen.

I’m lying in my bed almost asleep, in that half-awake state where only the slightest sound can draw you right back into wakefulness. My eyelashes flutter against my sleep mask. The door to our room opens with an unforgiving screech, and Lily steps into the darkness to get into her bed. I’m awake now, but I don’t feel like talking, so I pretend I was never broken out of my almost-sleeping state.

And just as I am about to drift off completely, Lily whispers, “Harper, I’m scared.”

“Me too,” I whisper.

Sunday came and went and so did the last week of school. Telling my friends that I was moving across the country felt wrong, like I was playing a part or reading a script. This didn’t feel real. It wasn’t so much that I would miss them terribly — I don’t rely on my friends as much as most people do. It was more about familiarity and comfort. I’m comfortable, but that is going to change when the plane takes off June 16th.

It’s Friday, June 9th, and I’ve just finished my sophomore year. I’m in the passenger seat of my mom’s silver Volkswagen bug, my hand stretched out the window, fingers curling to catch the 30 mph Connecticut Avenue breeze. It’s weird how we wish for summer and then once we get there, we’re stuck. Stuck in the feeling that we should be doing all the things we put off until now. The screen of my phone lights up with a notification that reads “This iPhone hasn’t been backed up in 97 weeks.” I make a mental note to back my photos up on my laptop later. My mom drops me off at the Silver Diner, where my friends and I order french toast and milkshakes from the all day brunch menu. Jade, Stella, and I sit in our usual booth by the window. Jade to my left and Stella across from me. Stella has shoulder length blonde hair, green eyes, and a slight, dancer’s frame. She is wild and fearlessly independent. Jade is more like me, cautious and mindful. Yet she’s also fierce and scrappy. Her eyes are light brown with specks of golden light that often emerge.

The milkshakes arrive, the extras in tall frosty silver cups.

“Cheers to junior year,” says Stella, raising her glass.

“And cheers to a west coast Harper,” says Jade.

“Guys, please don’t forget about me” I say, looking each of them in the eye.

“Girl, that’s impossible,” Stella says.

“Yeah, we’ll Facetime you a ton and keep you caught up on school gossip. You’ll meet surfer boys and come back all tan, looking like a Brandy Melville model,” Jade gushes.

“She’s right,” says Stella, “you’re gonna be so exotic when you return, I think we should be worried about you forgetting us.”

“Oh stop it,” I chuckle, glad that I came out tonight and quickly realizing that this may be one of the last times we’re all together before I leave.
“So I leave in a week,” I say, seriously.

“Let’s make it the best one yet,” Jade says, twirling her spoon.

And it did end up being one of the best. We spent our days at the pool, letting the sun seep into our skin and our tan lines stand out further. We would go for long drives at night with no destination in mind and with all the windows down. We would stay up ‘til 3:00 in the morning talking, and then sleep in ‘til 1:00 pm. We would talk about our futures: the near, the far, and every place in between.

 

The next thing I know, I’m walking down the narrow aisle of the plane, looking for 24C. I sit down in the middle seat, then trade with Lily for the aisle. I take my book, earbuds and phone out of my bag, then set it under the seat in front of me. I am about to fasten my seatbelt when something — someone catches my eye. I stare at the head of dark curls I am almost sure belongs to none other than… Ryan Gibson?

“Ryan,” I call out, hoping to get his attention. What was he doing on this flight?

“Ma’am, I’m gonna need you to be quiet,” the flight attendant says. Her red hair looks familiar. Is that… ? My ninth grade biology teacher? Since when is she a flight attendant?

“Ryan,” I say again, louder this time.

“I’m listening to a podcast, do you mind keeping it down?” says a blonde girl across the aisle that looks my age. Wait..

“Stella?” I ask, “what are you doing on this flight? Why are there so many people I know on this flight?”

“You don’t remember?” she asks. “We’re coming with you to Santa Barbara. We’re all coming with you.”

There is a beeping in my ear that won’t stop. Everything feels so hazy, so off. I turn around and see three of my classmates in the row behind me. I face the front of the plane and Ryan turns around; I think he sees me. The beeping noise won’t stop, and when I focus on it, I realize it’s my alarm. I roll over in bed and open my eyes. I sit up to grab my phone and press stop on the alarm. It’s 6:00 am, June 16th and our plane takes off, for real, in three hours.

Our carry-on bags inch across the belt and under the metal detector. We stack our plastic bins and put our shoes back on. My dad is sporting his usual worried travel face as we follow him to the gate. When the weight of the plane is lifted and the wheels take off, I am overwhelmed with a heartbreaking nostalgia. It feels as though it has been chasing me ever since I woke up this morning, and when we took off, it finally caught me. When the ground we walked on minutes ago becomes a speck in the distance, I try to focus on The Stranger by Albert Camus, instead. But every couple of pages, my mind drifts back to what I had just left behind.  

The sprawling hills and immaculate landscapes create a scenic and smooth drive to my grandparents’ house in Montecito. We pull into the gravel driveway and when I see the weeping willow in the front yard, I instantly remember this place. After greeting my grandmother in the kitchen, I wander into my grandfather’s bedroom. I hang by the doorway, not wanting to disturb him as I watch the steady rising and falling of his chest.

Later, Lily and I decide to investigate the shed in the yard. We find two beach bikes and take them out for a spin. I had forgotten what it feels like to bike down a long windy road in Montecito, with the yellow light of the late evening sun shining down on us, leaving dappled patterns in the road.

I hear a crunching noise and keep biking, not thinking much of it. Lily slows to a stop at a crosswalk and pulls out her phone to see what time it is. I reach into my pocket to do the same, only there is nothing for my fingers to clasp onto. I get off my bike and walk back up the same way we came down as the harshness of the situation casts a shadow on my preceding happy mood. I find my phone face down on the ground and pick it up. The screen is shattered into tiny pieces of glass, and when I push the home button, there is no reaction. We walk our bikes home in shock. I think of that iCloud storage notification, and all the photos I had just lost.

That day, we had run away from our comfort zones and into the unknown. The seemingly magical, sparkly unknown, that involved beaches and surfer boys and yellow evening sunlight. We ran straight into new lives. New lives with cracked phones, lost memories, awkwardness, and unfamiliarity. The start to my junior year was rocky, but I found my crowd, and I found my way. It wasn’t easy, but I did. As for Lily, she got to experience a new corner; we all did. Lily and I unfold one of our grandparent’s big fluffy blankets, and set it onto the grass in their backyard. We each lay down, our feet hanging off the blanket, tickled by the grass. I take a deep breath and gaze up at the stars.

“I changed my mind about the unknown world out there,” says Lily, declaratively. “I think it’s good that we don’t know which corners will fall into our laps.”

“Why’d you change your mind?” I ask, softly.

“Because I realized, if we had been seeking a different corner, maybe we wouldn’t have been given this one. Maybe we are supposed to wait and see whatever random ones fall into our laps.”

“You’re right,” I say, shocked at how clear and simple her message was.

My eyes fixate on the stars, scattered throughout the dark sky. Some shine brighter than others, but each and every one is important.

 

Janitor

The man walked up to the school building early in the morning. The students wouldn’t be there for another hour, but he had to be there before anyone else. He groggily fumbled with his keyring, his fingers not awake enough to choose the right one. He eventually found the right one and unlocked the heavy double doors to the elementary school where he worked. The time went by quickly in the early morning, and teachers began arriving, along with children and their parents. The children were often afraid of him, with his heavy work boots and tall stature, but he didn’t mind. He had watched many of them grow up and thought very fondly of them.

Later in the day, as he was mopping the floors of the hallway, he saw a little girl running excitedly in his direction. She held something in her hand very tightly. In her excitement, she didn’t see the newly cleaned floors which were still shiny with water.

“Hey!” he screamed forcefully. “Stop running!”

The little girl stopped running. The janitor ran over to her.

“You can’t run like that,” he said. “You could get hurt.” He hadn’t meant to be aggressive, but apparently he had been; the girl started to cry. The man was uncomfortable and didn’t quite know what to do. He awkwardly crouched down to her level.

“I-I… I’m sorry. What’s in your hand?” he asked. The girl opened her fist to reveal a pearly white tooth. It was no bigger than a grain of rice. The janitor smiled and stood up.

“Come,” he said with a beckoning motion. The little girl wiped her eyes and walked with him to the school nurse.

***

It was a painfully cold day outside, but the warmth of the heater made the school feel safe and comfortable. The children were all content and cozy in the sweaters their parents had dressed them in. It had been snowing heavily all week, and the children hadn’t been allowed to go outside to play at recess. Teachers tried to keep them busy with stories and projects and baking cookies, but kids were getting antsy.

Wintertime was extra laborious for the janitor. He had all of his usual responsibilities, but he also had to shovel snow and keep the boilers working. Many others on the janitorial staff were out sick, and this left him with even more work to do. The kids were getting restless and making more messes than usual. Everything had to be disinfected extra carefully, so they wouldn’t get sick. All of this sometimes made the janitor grumpy. He didn’t mind too much, though. The job was thankless, and the children always put a smile on his face.

The next week, the snow had calmed down enough for the students to go outside for recess. This, of course, brought much excitement to the school, and everybody was anxious to play in the snow. The janitor watched contently as the children built snowmen and threw snowballs. He saw all the little ones walking around in their clunky boots and thick coats. The man smiled; they were practically double their size. When playtime had ended, all the children came marching inside with red cheeks and frozen fingers. The teachers helped the younger ones take off their boots, and snowpants, and mittens. They were all soaked through. The kids went with their teachers to their next class with a spring in their steps.

The janitor stood in the doorway of the kindergarten classroom. He saw the pile of wet coats and scarves and socks, and reminisced about his own childhood. He carefully hung all of their soggy layers on the heater to dry.

***

The janitor locked up the heavy doors behind him as he finished a long day’s work. The schoolyard was quiet, and the sky was dark. He zipped up his jacket to block out the chill as he walked to the bus stop. The bus was delayed, so he had to wait for about ten minutes. When it finally arrived, he waited patiently as an old woman slowly stepped onto the vehicle. There were no seats available, but people would probably get off. He lived very far from the school and got off at the last stop. He found a pole near an old lady and a mother feeding her baby a yogurt. The janitor leaned against the pole and began to drift off. He was suddenly jolted awake by a large bump in the road. The unexpected movement disoriented him, and he lost his balance. He stepped backwards, in an effort to regain stability, but the bus bounced yet again. His foot slipped and he fell on the floor of the bus. He tried to get up, but was surprised by a sticky pink substance thrown in his face. The baby sitting next to him had spilled his yogurt all over himself and the janitor and had started bawling. The child’s mother was scrambling to calm down her baby and clean him up. The bus pulled up to the next stop, and the mother quickly realized that she had to get off. The janitor was left on the floor, covered in strawberry yogurt, seemingly forgotten about.

***

Unfortunately, the janitor’s neighborhood was teeming with people, all staring at the large man emanating an artificial-strawberry smell. He heard some children on the playground snicker as he walked by. He zipped up his sweatshirt and pulled the hood over his head. When he reached his building, the janitor pulled out his keys and unlocked the front door. Most people used the buzzer at the front door, but this was only functional if somebody else was in your apartment. He walked up the three flights of stairs to his floor; his heavy boots made thunking noises all the way up.

The man let himself into his home and carefully unlaced his shoes — so as to not track dirt inside. He gingerly removed his soiled clothing and put it in the washing machine. He changed into some clean clothes and washed his face and hands clean of yogurt. For his dinner, the janitor took out a frozen meal. He peeled back the plastic and put it in the microwave to defrost. While his meal was cooking, he scanned the day’s newspaper. The plastic container of food was hot to the touch, and the comforting warmth seeped into the janitor’s fingers. He sat down on the couch with the hot food, a glass of soda, a cigarette, and ate as he watched the TV — as was his daily ritual.

About an hour later, the janitor received a phone call. It was from the principal of the elementary school.

“Hello?” the janitor said, tentatively.

“There has been a break-in at the school. Twenty computers were stolen, as well as cash from the office,” said the principal.

The janitor was a bit taken aback by the principal’s brashness. “Oh. Uh –”

“Please come to my office tomorrow for questioning,” the principal interrupted.

“Questioning?” asked the janitor.

“Yes,” said the principal. “You were the last one at the building. I have to admit that it doesn’t look good for you.”

The janitor was stunned. “Uh, okay, so you think it was me?” he asked.

“Unfortunately the evidence is stacked against you. You have no education past high school, which you didn’t even complete; you took the GED. You have the keys to the building, a salary just above minimum wage, and you work at a well-funded school in a wealthy area. Not to mention that you were the last person in the building today.” The principal continued speaking, but the janitor was too lost in thought to listen. After years of having a steady job, a job he somewhat enjoyed, he was going to be fired. Fired for something he did not do.

“I will see you tomorrow,” said the principal with finality. The janitor was left standing there, the old landline in his hand and the buzz of the ended call in his ear. He was frozen for a moment, as he let all that had happened sink in.

A wave of anger washed over the janitor. He thought of all of the years he had worked, tirelessly, thanklessly, at the school. He thought of everything he had done for those kids and how he never got anything in return; he was ignored, pronounced unimportant, and left on his own. Rage began to pour over him like a hurricane. It was as if a fire had started in his chest, and he felt the burning heat reaching all over his body, igniting something within him that he himself had not known about. It felt like his breath was not moving up and down, but rather moving in circles, creating a whirlpool inside his lungs. Adrenaline pumped through his veins. A tornado of earth, wind, water, and fire raged within him. For years the man had done mundane and tedious work — never complaining, never asking for a change. In tough times, he had often imagined, as many do, great outbursts that he wished he had the courage to conduct. He had always seen himself as the janitor, and nothing else, but no longer would he stay dormant.

The newly accused man’s face lit up as he crafted his plan of action. He laced his boots up tight – preparing for battle. He stormed out of his apartment with only a pack of cigarettes, a lighter, his keys, and bus fare. It wasn’t much, but it was enough. With bitterness in his heart, the man marched down the streets to the bus stop. He didn’t care as he pushed people out of the way to get a seat. He marched to the school with his shoulders back and his chest proudly puffed out. His strong, heavy feet walked with purpose. Every part of his being knew what to do. His fingers nimbly unlocked the heavy doors, and he felt powerful as he opened them with ease. He no longer felt pain; only blinding infuriation. The man seemed to glow with fire as he walked down the hallway to the principal’s office. He did not fear anything. He knew exactly where to turn to avoid the security cameras, he knew which key to use, and he knew what he was going to do.

The empowered man closed the door of the principal’s office behind him. He took one last moment to think of his past. He could feel an explosion of fireworks going off within him. He felt a volcano erupting. With confident hands he took out the pack of cigarettes and the lighter. He took one out of the box and set off the lighter. He stared into the illuminated lighter for a moment before he put the end of the cigarette into the fire. With exasperation, the man dropped the lit cigarette on the floor of the office and watched as the principal’s carpet (and eventually the rest of the room) caught fire.

The man walked out of the building with satisfaction. He stood outside the building, and watched as it was consumed by flames. Within an hour someone had called the police, but he was not scared of the sirens. He took the bus home in a revenge-filled daze and was aware of nothing and no one. He walked mindlessly back to his apartment with the image of the glorious fire in his eyes. He unlocked the door to his house and unlaced his heavy work boots. He sat down, turned on the TV, and lit a cigarette; he was content.

 

The Teddy Bear

A headless teddy bear lay in the grass. Its body reached for its head only a few feet away. It stretched its neck in vain. The teddy bear was hopeless, hapless, and distraught. A few feet away, a man took out a pencil and began to sketch the trees, bushes, and grass that surrounded the teddy bear. The man breathed in the park smells: pine, wet grass, and crushed cigarettes. He didn’t notice the teddy bear’s head by his boot.

The teddy bear frantically called out to the man, “Please, sir, if you could just pass me my head! Right by your foot!”

But the man didn’t hear him. He kept sketching the park, finished his drawing, and left.

A businesswoman passed by next. She walked along the grass on the pavement, talking to someone angrily on the phone. She yelled about her finances and her stupid, no-good secretary. She huffed and rolled her eyes, then said, “Fine, I’ll tell you the number, but this is the last time, I swear…”

The woman dug around inside her purse until she found a piece of paper with some numbers on it. As she took it out, her red, leather wallet fell out onto the grass.

“Miss, your wallet has fallen from your bag!” the teddy bear called.

The woman ignored the the bear and kept reading the numbers, with her hand on her hip and her eyes rolling constantly.

Then she said, “Yes, of course,” sighed, “Yes, you’re welcome,” rolled her eyes, and left.

The teddy bear began to cry, only to realize that its head was still two feet away and was now covered in salty tears. More tears pooled around the the head, and it began to float away.

“My head!” cried the teddy bear.

“Where is your head?” A little girl cocked her head to the side. She sat criss-crossed in the grass beside the bear. She wore sandals with little pink flowers and dancing Hello Kitties.

“There! There!” The teddy bear pointed halfway down the little river of tears that had formed.

Its head bobbed up and down. The girl chased after the teddy’s head, splashing in the tears as she ran. Finally she caught the head and gleefully brought it back to the teddy bear.

“Oh, thank you! I have been trying to get my head back all day!”

Relieved, the teddy bear pushed its head back into place, stood up, and started off.

“Wait! Wait!” called the little girl. “I thought maybe we could play? I have a doll house and another teddy bear. They can play too!”

“Sorry, little miss, but I have a job to get back to. Why don’t you sit in the grass and play alone?” The teddy bear continued to walk off. “Oh — and thanks for my head!” it called over its shoulder.

The little girl sat down in the damp, tear-stained grass. She didn’t like to play alone; she always played alone. She smelled the pine, wet grass, and crushed cigarettes, pushed aside a red wallet on the pavement beside her, stared at her sandals, and watched the little flowers sway and the pink Hello Kitties dance.

 

Space Baby

Eliza’s eyes grew wide at the world. The space around her was light and airy. She floated up and around the little room in the aircraft. Her face was soft, cheeks glowing and red. Her lips were thin and moist, but no breath escaped them.

For a moment, everything was silent in the little, white room with no windows. The baby floated higher. Everyone stood about the little child in a dome below her, waiting. Eliza’s mother sat up, staring almost angrily at her baby. Her eyes wanted to command the child to breathe.

And then a cry rang out. Bubbling from Eliza’s mouth, a shrill, joyous cry echoed throughout the tiny room and into the ears of her family, the astronauts, the doctors. Everyone had been waiting for this moment, and it had come. In only a moment, the scary, silent room became abuzz with laughter, crying, shouts, and whoops. Eliza’s mother silently sobbed in a corner, watching in wonder as her beautiful, baby girl bounced around the room, crying gleefully.

Then it was time to take Eliza out of the room she was born in, to show her a world much bigger than the one she already knew. A universe.

Carried in the arms of her mother, Eliza was led to an enormous window at the front of the aircraft.

“Look, Eliza,” her mother said. “This is my world. And now, it is yours.”

Eliza cried again. But through her glassy tears, Eliza could see the world. She saw the dark sky with smudged stripes of purple and pink. She saw the sun’s bright rays and the moon’s pale, mysterious reflections. She saw the planets which she would one day explore. And the infinite stars were reflected in her wide, elliptical eyes.

Eliza slept in her cradle. A large paperweight held her blanket down, and she snuggled into it. Eliza’s mother watched her newborn with sunken, hollowed out eyes.

“You should get rest. Your girl isn’t going anywhere.” The doctor gave an encouraging smile.

“She won’t go anywhere, but I’m already gone. We’re years away from Earth. You know I won’t make it.”

“We don’t know that. I’m not making any predictions yet. Hold on for your baby, for the future of space science. You’re making history!” the doctor insisted.

Eliza’s mother smiled sadly and lay down on the floor next to her baby’s cradle. Her skeleton curved around the walls of the little cage. She cried. Her tears all gathered in the deep circles under her eyes. Bubbles of the salty liquid floated off of her face and made it look like the walls were crying, too. Her face was a waterfall that didn’t flow. She was a broken woman.

And they had made history. Even if both Eliza and her mother died, the first baby had been born in space.

 

Colorado

         

The creak of broken brakes and

the soft whoosh of bicycle wheels

lift up lazy dogs’ heads

as we slip through the night.

 

Blinking red lights announce the arrival

of the thunderstorm of a train pounding past,

the rhythmic thudding echoing with

our pulsing hearts,

pumped full of exhilaration,

a drug that makes us pedal faster,

round and round empty lots,

our hands lifted recklessly in the air,

our eyes reflected, full of light.

 

As the train pulls away,

the empty night, stars masked by the scintillating city,

receives our worries and confessions,

covered up by the train’s screaming whistles.

 

Iceland

        

We woke up early that day,

a cold morning with icy winds that burnt our faces.

We gripped our hot chocolates with stiff fingers,

every sip of warm rich liquid somehow warmer than a summer day,

because despite the cold wasteland surrounding us,

we felt warm inside, and happy.

 

We woke up early that day,

at the hour when even streetlights and road signs were drowsy.

I slept in the back seat of a borrowed car while my parents drank coffee,

and struggled to stop their eyes from sinking

as they stayed awake through the deep white blue snow that led down the road

to where the earliest touches of sun, orange and glowing,

lit up through the clouds and shone upon the glaciers that surrounded us,

and filled up the sky more than the sky itself.

 

We woke up early that day,

to set steady feet on a swaying deck

that would carry us across vast blue waves with foamy white crests

to a distant island with only duck prints, and icy hills

that could be skated down with any old shoes.

So we ran and slid across the slick surface

before falling down the rest of the way,

our laughter guarding us from the jagged ice at the bottom.

 

The Worst Roommate

 

**CONTENT ADVISORY: The following story contains sensitive content regarding suicide that some readers may find disturbing and/or may not be suitable for younger readers.**

I had the worst roommate on the planet. You may think I’m exaggerating, but someone has to be the worst, and I genuinely believe it was this guy. The university I’m at has an absurd policy regarding changing your roommate, and if yours isn’t actively plotting to murder you, you’re out of luck.

Anyways, on the first day at school, I walked into the dorm and I found him sitting in the fetal position on one of the kitchen stools. He had an unfortunate combination of greasy long hair and a messy beard that did not compliment anything about him. He was wearing a long sleeve, flannel shirt with some ominous stains and nothing else besides some boxers. I paused for a moment but decided that I was nobody to judge and nodded to him. He gave no signs of having noticed my presence, his eyes fixed on the entirely unremarkable wall opposite of him. I went and unpacked my stuff in the room he hadn’t taken and returned to the common area to find him sitting in the exact same position, looking like he hadn’t moved a muscle. I cleared my throat. No response. I cautiously offered a simple verbal greeting. Nothing. At this point, decently creeped out, I slowly made my way over to him and tapped him on the shoulder. His head violently spun around, and he focused his beady eyes on mine. I had no idea how to react, and apparently neither did he, because we sat there staring at each other for a moment. Finally, he broke the silence with a line that I’m now sure he has tried dozens of times.

“Let me tell you about the Jews and their lies,” he said sharply.

What followed was a very uncomfortable and very one-sided conversation about lizard people, the moonmen, the world government, Hillary Clinton and of course, the Jews. I was finally able to make my escape by claiming a need to use the restroom.

“Make sure not to drink the water from the sink!” he shouted after me.

Although it had originally upset me, I was suddenly very glad that my pet lizard was safe at home, being taken care of my Jewish, liberal family, far, far away from this madman. I spent a few moments mentally preparing myself for the year I would have to spend with this man. I stepped back outside into the common room, calming myself with the knowledge that this was probably the worst it would get. Boy, was I wrong. When I had exited the bathroom, my roommate was once again intently staring at the exact same point on the wall as before.

“What are you looking at anyway?” I asked, curiosity having finally got the better of me

“Ghosts,” he muttered.

I decided to end the conversation right there and walked into my room and pulled out my laptop, hoping to find some distraction from what had just transpired. I mainly played video games on a console back home, but I had finally caved into the pressure from my friends and bought a gaming laptop and a few games I hadn’t gotten around to yet. I fished around for the paper with the wi-fi information and password I had been given, and once I connected I started downloading a few games that my friends had recommended. I opened up my web browser and mindlessly browsed the internet while I waited for the games to finish downloading. An hour or so later I alt-tab-ed over to see how the download progress was going and was shocked to see that it had barely downloaded anything. The download speed was abysmal, significantly lower than what was promised by the university. I was annoyed at myself for actually believing the promise of high speed internet when something occurred to me.

I walked out into the common area and was briefly surprised to see the stool that my roommate had been occupying was now empty, but I figured he must be in his room. I walked up to the closed door and knocked on it.

“Who is it?” shouted his muffled voice.

“It’s just me,” I responded.

Labored footsteps could be heard approaching the door, followed by the sound of many locks being undone. When the door was finally open, he had a toothy grin.

“Well, you should have just said so!” he stated excitedly as he welcomed me in. “But for future reference, could you knock three times? That way I know it’s not the police,” he requested as he closed the door behind him and locked it’s many locks.

My feeling of discomfort only strengthened as I entered the room. In only a short few hours, he had managed to make the dorm room that had been meticulously cleaned only days ago look like it had not seen any love in a very long time. The window was covered by a black painted piece of plywood and the lights were off, so the only source of light was coming from a nice-looking computer monitor sitting on the floor in the corner of the room. It was attached to an impressive looking PC with a fan that sounded like a jet engine, and a blanket and some pillows were sitting around the setup with the keyboard and mouse, all strategically placed on the floor in what was most likely the only possible comfortable position. There were a few cardboard boxes lying around, all unlabeled. The only decoration was a bright and happy poster for some K-pop act, which only managed to make the room altogether even sadder.

“You wouldn’t happen to be doing anything bandwidth-intensive, would you?” I inquired, after having taken it all in.

“Oh, yeah yeah yeah! I have a special program that encrypts everything I do online so that it can’t be monitored by an ISP or the government and right now I’m downloading some stuff so it kinda eats through the bandwidth, sorry about that. I set it up for you if you’d like though!” he said, emphatically motioning over to the monitor, where an unfamiliar user interface sat, doing … something. As I looked closer I realized that he was torrenting some file with a name that appeared to be Japanese written in the English alphabet. An idea hit me.

“Hey, I gotta go out to do something, but I just realized that I don’t even know your name,” I said cautiously.

“Oh, you can call me Wiley,” he responded.

“Thanks. I’m Logan,” I said as I started towards the door. I reached for the handle when I realized that I had no idea how to undo the hastily installed extra locks.

“Sorry, I’ll get that for you,” Wiley said.

When I was in the common area, I took out my phone and Googled the name of the Japanese file he was downloading. It was anime porn.

***

“What!?” I spat.

“Can you prove that you have been threatened or are in danger?” repeated the annoyed-looking lady in the campus dormitory offices.

“Well, no, I just got here. He just creeps me out, okay?” I responded.

“If you can’t prove anything, we can’t do anything, got that?” she said, rolling her eyes.

“He said that the Jews are controlling everything! I’m Jewish!” I said, bewildered.

“Well, that’s just his opinion, okay? Now, if you’re done complaining, I have work to do,” she said, turning her body away from me and making it very clear that the conversation was over.

Feeling defeated and offended, I returned to the dorm room to find Wiley in the common area setting up a TV that had probably been impressive a few years ago. It was connected to a very long cable that snaked over to and under his door.

“What’s this?” I asked.

“Oh, it’s you! I was thinking that maybe we could play some video games!” he said excitedly, motioning over to the couch where a wireless controller was sitting there waiting for me. I was going to just head back to my room without saying a word, but when I thought about how much time he had put into setting up the TV, I decided to indulge him for a bit and sat down on the couch. He started up Portal 2, one of the games I had attempted to download earlier and had always wanted to play. He selected the co-op mode and we started playing the game. It was fun. A lot of fun, actually. At first neither of us said much, but as the puzzles ramped up in difficulty, we were forced to communicate and actually ended up with some decent banter and jokes and ate some pizza. Although many of the jokes were somewhat offensive (most notably when he referred to the game’s villain as “what happens when you have more chromosomes than IQ points”), he mostly seemed to be in good fun. Thankfully, he never brought up any of his conspiracy theories, although he did examine the pizza for an unnecessarily long time before allowing either of us to bite into it. When I finally got to bed, my face had taken on a smile.

***

“So there’s this girl in one of my classes, and I think I might be interested in her,” I said during a lull in the gameplay. It had been several months now, and us playing games and talking about unrelated things had become a fairly regular occurrence.

“What’s her name?” Wiley asked in the same monotone voice he always spoke in.

“I haven’t talked to her yet, but I believe her name is Rochelle,” I responded.

“What’s she like?” he asked.

“Well, as I said, we haven’t talked yet, but she has this adorable smile and laugh, and she seems super nice and likes a lot of the same music as me,” I said, barely concealing my excitement.

“I see,” Wiley responded in the same cadence as before.

***

“Listen, he’s just creepy, okay?” my girlfriend Rochelle said.

“Look, he’s not that bad once you get to know him, and besides he doesn’t have the long-term planning skills to murder someone anyways,” I said.

“That man is a school shooting waiting to happen, and you know it,” she retorted.

“That sounds like something that he would say,” I teased.

“Shut up!” Rochelle said, with an embarrassed smile on her face. She continued, “Going back to the topic at hand, do you want to come over tonight or not?”

“Yeah sure, but I already told you that I’m going back at 10. Wiley and I have plans to finally finish up Castle Crashers,” I responded.

That night I had found myself cuddling with Rochelle when I suddenly became aware of the time. It was 10:45.

“Oh fuck,” I muttered, mostly to myself. “I gotta shoot Wiley a message to let him know that I’m busy.” I hammered out a basic text message saying that I was with Rochelle and that I was busy. I then put my phone back down and slowly drifted off to sleep.

I woke up and reached for my phone to check the time. It was dead. I had forgotten to plug it back in after I sent the message to Wiley. Shit. I checked the physical clock on the wall and saw that I was late for my engineering classes. Shit. With no time to charge my phone, I quickly threw on last night’s clothes and ran to my class.

Wiley wasn’t in class that day. Not that him skipping class was an unusual occurrence – in fact he he did it more often than not, but I was eager to see him in person to apologize. When class ended, I dashed back to our dorm room to find him. I found a small, handwritten note on the common room table.

“I’m sorry that I wasn’t good enough for you. It was nice to know what it felt like to have a friend. Goodbye Logan.” the note read.

Terrified, I looked around for him. His door was closed. I reached for the handle. It was unlocked. As long as I had known him, Wiley had never had his door unlocked, whether he was there or not. With a massive sense of dread, I slowly turned the knob, pushed, and stepped into the dark room.

A great roommate leaves you with a friend for life. A good roommate leaves you with a friend for college. An average roommate leaves you with nothing. A bad roommate leaves you with a pain in your ass. The worst roommate leaves you feeling guilty for the rest of your life.

After his suicide, I was invited to Wiley’s funeral by his parents where I learned a lot about him. Wiley wasn’t his real name. His family was Jewish. He had a very similar upbringing to me. He suffered some kind of head trauma when he was seven, seemed to have developed schizophrenia and began to suffer from intense paranoia and anxiety. After that point, he rarely ever left his house and didn’t have any friends. I was the only person outside of family at the funeral.

Personality seems so constant, so baked in, but is it really? I wonder if the only true difference between the two of us was that he hit his head as a kid and I didn’t. Was the only deciding factor between a decently happy college kid and a paranoid suicide victim random chance? I’ve come to the realization and accepted that any moment anyone could die, but I’ve always looked at it from the point of view of the person dying, not the others. What does it feel like to watch your child reject everything about himself and isolate himself from everyone?

Wiley was certainly crazy, had an abrasive personality and was sometimes an asshole, but I cared about him. He was probably the worst roommate on the goddamn planet, but he was my friend.

 

Downward Spiral

THURSDAY

George woke up sweat-drenched and anxious from his slumber. Before he could think, George’s thirst couldn’t be contained, and water was what he desired. Unfortunately for him, this was not possible. His surroundings began explaining themselves: the absence of windows, the tiny lantern serving as the room’s only light source, and worst of all, the rope that tied him to a wooden chair. Suspicion only increased when he noticed a massive trash can next to a writing desk. Recalling the past events was a struggle for him, but the reason for this difficulty was unknown. He was certain that he was being held captive, and George thought, Food will be brought any second now. And seconds passed, then hours, then days. His stomach screamed in agony, and his throat cried in pain. Tied to this chair for the past three days, George began to ask, “Will you comfort me when I die, Mr. Wallace?”

But Mr. Wallace didn’t respond. Instead, he slowly vanished as George reached his long-awaited death.

 

TUESDAY

“I’m sorry, sir, but we can’t hire someone with a crime of this magnitude on their record,” said the employer. “Jobs don’t come easy for a guy like you, Mr. Wallace.”

Walking away from the building as fast as he could, George’s hopelessness became more agonizing than ever. His fridge was empty. He wouldn’t be able to live in his apartment for much longer. He couldn’t wash his clothes, and his depression was corrupting his brain. As a last ditch effort to save his life, he bought a stack of loose-leaf paper and a pen, and walked back to his two-room apartment. When he entered his old, dark, and sweaty home, he hastily sat down and got into his writing position. George was never a great writer, so ideas were quickly scrapped, and papers were crumpled. After four hours of torturous disappointment, George fainted from heat exhaustion.

 

WEDNESDAY

George woke up.

Dehydrated and hungry, George managed to lift himself from his chair and wondered, How long have I been asleep? As he rose from his wooden chair, a wave of inadequacy washed over him once he saw his trash can filled to the brim with failed ideas. Walking out of the room, George began to notice something strange. An old friend that he had met in prison, Mr. Wallace, was waiting for him, with only a rope in his hand.

“I always knew you were a disappointment.”

Mr. Wallace jumped onto the skinny and frail George, overpowering him with his unfathomable strength. Blood was spilled as each one of Mr. Wallace’s sharp knuckles rushed into George’s skull. Succumbing to the pain, George became unconscious.

 

A Rainbow Appears

A Rainbow appears. When I started 6th grade, I thought I was gay because I liked to cross one leg over the other when I sat, and I liked talking about my feelings. Then I started finding girls pretty again and learned how to sit leaning back with my backpack on and my legs splayed out. Gay was something that described my grandma’s and some of my mom’s strange, effeminate friends. Strange because all of Grandma’s friends were strange. In the latter part of 6th grade, once I had a round table in the front-back end of the lunchroom and a regular group that took the B61 together past 4th ave, gay meant lame or stupid. Gay was the tiny cookie in the cafeteria that day or the friendly comment made when a vicious comeback was expected. Gay was something they called each other on South Park and Family Guy.

In 7th grade, gay was the wierd, emo kid with dyed pink and blue hair. In 8th grade, gay was cool in girls but scary in guys. In 8th grade, boys played football with their shirts off while girls sat in the grass. Trans was the strange porn you accused your friends of watching while you called them gay. In 9th grade, gay was what you thought would be a good wingman and the strange kid you talked to sometimes and maybe hung out with in a group once or twice. In 10th grade, gender-queer was my music teacher of five years, a camp counselor who was all-around badass, and one of my favorites, David Bowie, and the Australian person from Orange is the New Black.

Gay was a 5th Avenue pride parade and Cherry Grove in the summer. In 11th grade, queer was me and three, four, two, three of my close friends, and kind of a little bit of everyone. Eleventh grade was the year “the group got gayer.” Queer was feeling guilty, and paranoid, and the urgent need to end every sentence with bro instead of habibi. Gay was why, as my dad said, we had no leftist unity. Gay was rich, white men taking advantage of the efforts of women of color like Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera. Gay was the two dads of my one friend who lived in a certified mansion. Two dollars beat $1.70, and both certainly beat my $0.70+ odd child support payment I got. There is no gold pot at the end of the rainbow.

 

Basketball Should Not Be Done with One-and-Done

In 2006, a rule was implemented that stated that all players picked in the NBA draft must be 19 years old during the calendar year of the draft, and any player, who is not an international player, must be at least one year removed from the graduation of his high school class. This rule has come to be known as the one-and-done rule. In the 2017 NBA Draft, 10 of the first 11 players drafted were one-and-done players, with the lone exception being an international player, Frank Ntilikina. At 18 years old, Ntilikina was younger than most of the one-and-done players selected. I am a basketball fan who enjoys watching the NBA and the NCAA tournament. I am a Knicks fan, and many of my favorite basketball players are one-and-done players, including Carmelo Anthony and John Wall. NBA players want to be able to declare for the NBA draft right after high school. Many people want these student-athletes to be forced to go to college for more than one year, while others argue for a format similar to the MLB’s, where athletes have the opportunity to declare for the draft after high school. But if they do go to college, they must stay for at least three years. However, I believe that the one-and-done rule should stay the way it is. It gives fans the opportunity to watch players for a year in college and then see them compete at the highest level in the NBA.

Many college basketball observers argue that players need to stay in college for longer than one year because 19-year-old kids are not mature enough to handle millions of dollars. As Jason Clary wrote in a 2009 article for bleacher report, “Go from rags to riches too quickly, and these athletes may not know what to do with their money. Before you know it, they could own a ten bedroom house on Miami Beach with a BMW and Ferrari in the garage. You may say ‘what’s the big deal?’, but both you and I know this is not how money should be spent.” There is also a common belief held among many college basketball fans that the one-and-done rule is bad for college basketball, a point that it is very difficult to counter. They argue that having the best college players leave for the NBA after one year ruins the entertainment value of college basketball, as many fanbases lose their team’s best player each year. Although going one-and-done usually works out for the players, critics of the rule argue that some players have a false sense of confidence and make the costly decision of becoming a one-and-done too early. Jereme Richmond, Tommy Mason-Griffin, Evan Burns, Thomas Hamilton, Jonathan Hargett and Adrian Walton were one-and-done players who were not drafted at all and did not go on to have success in the NBA.

The one-and-done rule may not be the best thing for college basketball. The one-and-done rule ensures that the best young players, who would otherwise be dominating in college basketball, are playing in the NBA. If it wasn’t for the one-and-done rule, players such as Karl-Anthony Towns, Devin Booker, Myles Turner, Ben Simmons, and Lonzo Ball would still be playing college basketball. But consider the early careers of Anthony Davis, Kyrie Irving, Derrick Rose, Kevin Love, and Kevin Durant. All were one-and-done players who were also all-stars within the three years after they left college. These players were capable of being NBA all-stars during the years that they would have been in college. Had they stayed until their senior year, they would have missed out on those early chances to prove themselves against the superior competition in the NBA and the resulting increase in the appeal of the game. The best basketball players belong in the NBA, and most one-and-done players are good enough to compete in the NBA after their freshman year. Those players do not belong in college basketball, and they should be in the NBA. Also the NCAA tournament is not any less successful due to one-and-done players. In fact, the 2017 NCAA tournament was one of the most watched NCAA tournaments in history. The one-and-done rule does not ruin the NCAA tournament, it just gives players who are capable of playing in the NBA an opportunity to join the NBA earlier.

Many people believe that 19-year-olds are too immature to handle millions of dollars. Critics argue that 19-year-olds are too immature to handle all of the money they earn and that they will waste it on cars and other expensive things that are not good long term investments.  The NBA should not make a rule to deny every great 18 or 19-year-old college basketball player the ability to secure their future by declaring for the draft just because some of them make bad decisions with the money. Professional athletes can use their money on whatever they want. It is not right to deny them money as a result of things they buy.

The drafting of one-and-done players does not always pan out, but that is largely because one-and-done players often declare for the draft before they are ready, or before they are good enough to be a high draft pick. But not becoming a one-and-done may also hurt a player’s draft stock. Failing to choose the correct option may mess up a player’s career. Ivan Rabb would have been a lottery pick if he had declared for the 2016 NBA draft. Instead, he elected to return to Cal for his sophomore season and was a 2nd round pick in the 2017 draft. He would have been guaranteed a salary of $7,807,100 in his rookie deal had he declared in 2016. Instead he dropped to a second round draft pick, where no contracts are guaranteed. This was a costly decision for him. If a player is going to be a first round pick, he should use the one-and-done rule and declare for the draft rather than risk injury or a bad season, which could derail his career. However if the player is not going to be a high draft pick, it is not a good idea for them to become a one-and-done player. However, each year several players make the decision to leave for the pros too early and are left in a bad position when they are not picked. The one-and-done rule does not cause these problems. The decisions of players who are not that good causes this problem.

The one-and-done rule allows for the best college basketball players to join the NBA. The one-and-done rule is a change that has caused lots of controversy during its 11 year existence. I believe the addition of the one-and-done rule was a positive change for the NBA. The best basketball players in the world belong in the NBA. I’m excited to see all of the one-and-done players from what is supposedly a very promising draft class, and all of the top players in the 2017 draft class are one-and-done. One-and-done players are what the NBA draft is built around. One-and-done players are part of the reason the NBA draft is exciting, and the 2017 NBA draft had 3.4 million viewers. Every year, basketball fans get excited to watch the players who were drafted by their favorite team whenever the team has a high pick in the draft. I am excited to watch Frank Ntilikina, an 18-year-old French point guard, play for the Knicks this season. The best draft picks are usually one-and-done players, and young European players, and they often make for the most exciting rookies.

 

Works Cited

Aaron Dodson, All the NBA Draft’s One-and-Done Lottery Picks: A Scorecard (theundefeated.com, 6/22/17)

National Basketball Players Association Website (http://www.nbpa.com/cba_articles/article-X.php)

Jason Clary, College Vs. Pros: Should Athletes Leave School Early? (bleacherreport.com, 12/13/09)

Kerry Miller, Ranking the Worst 1-and-Done Decisions in College Basketball History (bleacherreport.com, 6/24/14)

2016-2017 NBA Rookie Scale (basketball.realgm.com)

NCAA, 2017 NCAA Tournament is Most-Watched in 24 Years Across Television Through First Sunday, Plus Record-Setting Digital Consumption (ncaa.com, 3/20/17)

 

Time Wears Gloves

     

Time wears gloves on its hands.

It tiptoes past us,

Cautious of alerting us to its shadowy presence.

We only notice its movement once it has gone.

 

It tiptoes past us,

The absence echoes other absences, stolen and loved.

We only notice its movement once it has gone.

Ghosts coat all our rooms in dust, the fixtures in dust.

 

The absence echoes other absences, stolen and loved.

Plucking memories without a trace

Ghosts coat all our rooms in dust, the fixtures in dust.

My mind used to be so much more.

 

Plucking memories without a trace

I feel empty

My mind used to be so much more

I long for the beach. I want to feel the sand tickle my toes

 

I feel empty

Time wears gloves on its hands.

I long for the beach. I want to feel the sand tickle my toes

Cautious of alerting us to its shadowy presence.

 

Peeled Away

     

A layer of skin has been peeled away

Revealing what lies beneath me

Secrets exposing themselves

In the burning light

 

Revealing what lies beneath me

A heart like a broken clock

In the burning light

The timing of feelings is always slightly off

 

A heart like a broken clock

Our face like its display

The timing of feelings is always slightly off

It’s imperfect, but not needing to be perfect

 

Our face like its display

Hands covering the eyes, the expression of the lips

It’s imperfect, but not needing to be perfect

Only safe from such piercing, cold indifference

 

Hands covering the eyes, the expression of the lips

A layer of skin has been peeled away

It’s imperfect, but not needing to be perfect

Secrets exposing themselves

 

Anger and Fear

    

Anger and fear are very similar

they both lead to death

fear: the most powerful spark in history

anger: a flame that burns faster

 

They both lead to death

crossing a high, wooden bridge

anger: a flame that burns faster

plunging us unwillingly into the waters below

 

Crossing a high, wooden bridge

chasing our hopes for love, for glory, for honor

plunging us unwillingly into the waters below

where rapids pummel our limbs

 

Chasing our hopes for love, for glory, for honor

swimming against the tides of time

where rapids pummel our limbs

shoving us towards the shores of death.

 

Swimming against the tides of time

anger and fear are very similar

shoving us towards the shores of death.

fear: the most powerful spark in history

 

The Foundation behind the Teal Ribbon*

     

Just because you have a mental

illness, does not mean you are different.

People with anxiety are fighters. People

with depression are survivors. People who

self harm are strong.

I am strong. They did not just tell me to

walk again, but they taught me a new way

of walking. Not with my head down, but up.

Because rock bottom is where I rebuilt my

life again leading to the road of recovery. I

am worthy of recovery because I am

human, just like you. I am a warrior to top

that. The semicolon stands strong beside

me. My story was going to end with a

period, but I chose to keep writing it because

it’s not over yet. I am a warrior, with the “I”

being a semicolon. It makes me strong. I am

strong. I am a fighter. I am beautiful.

I am a friend.

I am a daughter and

I am survivor.

 

*(Teal ribbon for anxiety disorders)

 

The Stag

Prologue

The cave was filled with the smoke of a thousand herbs smelling sweet, smoky and savory. Pools of water bubbled on the ground, releasing gouts of steam.  Somewhere, water dripped, making echoing, plinking sounds. Mara entered in her white robe, an acolyte of the Oracle. Her hair and face were covered by a light veil.

From the back of the cave, a voice. High and serene, the voice intoned: “Come, my child, I have something to tell.”

Picking up the the hem of her robes, she hurried towards the back of the cave . She pushed through a wall of steam and saw her, the oracle. She was a wizened old thing, ensconced in her brown robes, sitting on a chair carved into the rock of the cave. From her robes emerged a single gaunt hand with one thin finger beckoning Mara towards her. Mara stepped forward and waited.

The oracle began to shake, her bent frame convulsing. Her eyes rolled back, and a milky white was all that was visible in the sockets. Her head bent back and the oracle in an otherworldly voice declared:

“Though the land is broken,

The fields awash with blood,

One will come to rule them,

And unite them in the mud.

The child of the unmarried will do this,

Flying the blue flag,

But to bring peace to the nation,

They must slay the white stag.”

The shaking ceased, the hand went back into the brown robes, and the eyes rolled back and then closed. She muttered a prayer in the hope those eyes would open again. Mara ran back to the entrance of the cave. She had to spread the word.

She emerged from the cave and made her way down the rough track to the monastery, almost tripping on the rough red stone. She could see it now, smoke rising from the kitchens, the spire of the temple reaching up to the gods above. Abbess Eleanor, thought Mara, she would know what to do. She reached the bottom of the path and entered the wide courtyard of the monastery.

“Child, what did the oracle tell you?” said the Abbess, a stern-faced woman, a head taller than Mara with her hair and limbs hidden by voluminous blue robes. Mara repeated what she had heard.

“My, that is important,” said the Abbess. “Come with me.” The Abbess turned heel and Mara followed hastily.

They headed into the main building of the monastery itself. It was built from the same red stone as the mountain with floors worn smooth from centuries of feet walking across them. They turned left and then right and ascended a spiral staircase. Mara could tell they were going to the pigeon roost.

They came to the top of the stairs into a huge room filled with grey and brown pigeons warbling and cooing in little cages. Instead of an outside wall, there was just a giant window out of which the pigeons would fly when released. From out of a corner hustled a short, mousy woman in a brown robe, the pigeon keeper.

“Abbess, to what do we owe the pleasure?” she chirped.

“We have a message, a prophecy, from the oracle,” replied the abbess.

“Ah! Understood. I’ll get the pigeons ready!” she squeaked.

“Abbess,” began Mara softly, “what will happen?”

“Well, we will send a copy of the prophecy to every town and castle in the land.”

“But what if it causes chaos? What if there’s another war?”

“Mara, our responsibility, given to us by the gods, is to hear their will in the form of prophecy.  We do not interfere in worldly affairs.”            

“I suppose so…” Mara was troubled, but she forced herself to seem convinced.

The Abbess lifted Mara’s head to look her in the eyes. “I know it’s hard for one so young to understand, child, but in time you will come to.”  

 

Chapter One

Winter, the castle shivered in the last snow of the season. Out on the walls, a lone sentry walked, trudging through a foot of snow. Clinging to his spear, he shivered even through his layers of fur, leather, and mail surrounded by a wool cloak. On the tip of his spear flapped the flag bearing the white eagle on a blue field of the House of Maren. He looked out on the snowy field surrounding the castle where once there had been a road and fields of wheat, but now there was only a desolate whiteness.

Jack had lived here all his life, born of a miller’s daughter and a traveling bard in the nearby village. As soon as he was old enough to be considered a man, he was brought into the service of Lord Maren to fight at the Bloody Marsh. He shivered again, this time not from cold, and muttered a quick prayer. A man now of four and twenty, it still haunted him. At night, he still heard it. The braying of trumpets, the clash of steel, the thrum of arrows, a brother’s scream.

The winter had muted the once-lively castle. Where once training swords clashed and horses whinnied, now there was only the soft crunching of snow and the furtive whistling of wind. Through the walls of the great hall Jack could hear them, the people of the castle breaking their fast. The sound of their laughter would be his only companion until he was relieved.

Then he heard it. A clomping sound, like the one made by the destriers the knights rode into battle. It was coming from the forest, but Jack couldn’t see the source at first through the pines and the bare branches of the oaks. He strained his eyes and saw a flash of gold through the trees moving quickly toward the field in front of the castle. Then in a blast of snow it burst from the forest: The Stag.

As tall as two men, its fur was a ghostly white. Atop its head were two enormous golden antlers long as a man’s leg curved and twisted half a hundred times with points like daggers. The sun rippled off them like on a river in summer. And when it snorted, smoke puffed out of its nostrils. But what struck Jack was not the fur, not the antlers, but the eyes. They burned a scarlet red and seemed to flicker like a flame. The Stag reared up and let out a roaring bellow. It was like hundreds of warhorns blowing together in a blast that seemed to go on for a year.

The sound of it shook Jack like a thunderclap did a dog. He sprinted to the nearest tower, dropping his spear. As he ran up the spiral steps, he could see through the windows that the sound had roused some of the men from the great hall and a few were running to the walls. He reached the top of the tower and began to ring the great alarm bell, pulling the rope with both arms. The roar stopped and as Jack looked at the Stag, it looked back, peering into him. He felt its fiery eyes burning into him.

Then, with a push of its powerful legs, it was off again flying over the snow.

“By the gods, what madness is this? What’s going on beyond my walls?”

Clovis Maren, Lord of Rookfort and Stone Harbor, had climbed onto the walls. Closer to fifty than he was to forty, Lord Clovis was no longer the strong man he had been in his youth. He was red in the face and short of breath from walking the long stairs up to the wall. Behind him walked his second son and heir Peter, a young man of middling height and a thicket of curly brown hair.  Adjusting his blue velvet tunic, Clovis turned to Sir Wyatt Witspear, the master-at-arms.

“Sir Wyatt, what’s going on here?”  

“A stag, my lord, a white one with golden antlers just like in the prophecy,” replied Sir Wyatt. His gravelly voice and scarred face revealed him as one who had lived his life as a creature of the battlefield. A head taller than most men, he wore a tough leather jerkin and at his belt carried a mace, a short iron-headed lead-weighted club with sharp spikes.

“Well who first saw it?” asked Clovis loudly, so all could hear it.

Jack, now back on the wall, shouted back “I did, milord!”

“There’s three gold coins for you. The rest of you, go back to your posts. I have no need of a crown.”

Behind him, Peter raised an eyebrow and smirked.

***

The forest was eerily beautiful, he thought. The steps of the horses muffled by the snow, the soft clink of armor, a soft chuckle here and there; in the forest, it seemed that everything became quieter. Long, thin icicles dripped down from tree branches, and the green of pine and fir trees was the only break from the endless white and grey and blue of snow and stone and sky.  

Hunting was a thirsty business. Hunting for a stag, hunting for a crown…Sir Ryan of Velburg took a sip from his wineskin to keep away the cold. He put it back in the saddlebag of his palfrey. They’d been following the stag for nigh on three weeks now. It had not been a fruitful search. He and twelve of his best riders had been tracking it ever since it was spotted in the forest near Velburg and had been following its huge hoofprints ever since.

He supposed it was fitting that he would try to kill the animal that was his coat of arms. He wore a steel breastplate with a white stag emblazoned on the front. His helmet, slung on the back of his Squire Wat’s horse, had two golden antlers coming from the top. His sword hilt had a pommel with a white stag’s head with ruby eyes. He had been granted Velburg by the King for loyal service just before Bloody Marsh, and with it he took the symbol of the town for his coat-of-arms. He smiled a cold smile when he thought of what he’d done at the marsh.

“Lamb, where in the hell are we?” he shouted back to one of the riders.

“I think we’re in Clovis Maren’s land!” Lamb shouted back. Lambert Till fancied himself the intellectual of the group. He, too, was trained in arms, but he had a stack of books in his saddlebags.

“Maren! Is that fat oaf still the lord? I think he is!” he cackled. “Boys,” he turned his horse and faced his men, “I think we should pay the lovely Lord Clovis a visit!”

Spurring his horse, he gestured back at his men with a wave of the hand and they galloped on. Maren! Ryan remembered that charge, when his horsemen had broken Maren’s lines and won the battle for the king. The king for now… Paying the Lord a visit would be droll. Custom would demand he and his men be accepted into the castle and into the feast hall with open arms. He cackled again. Being a noble was fun.

 

First a Whimper, Than a Roar

A girl and her family sat on a pale brown couch. They were in a one bedroom apartment with muted green walls. The TV in front of the family clicked on.

“The hunt for the Leomates has gotten stronger. Military forces have been searching homes and office buildings,” said a lady on the television. She had a bright red sweater on.

“Thank God for this, Susie. The Leomates are a danger to the society, and I do not want them anywhere near me and my family,” said a man in a green shirt, standing next to the lady with the red sweater.

The TV went black. Silence overcame the room.

“Well, enough of that, it’s nonsense. We’re safe. They won’t check our house. It’s all talk to scare us out,” the father rambled.

The mother worriedly signaled to the father. They walked over to the backroom, to where they thought the girl couldn’t hear them, then slammed the door shut. The young girl, maybe fifteen years old, tiptoed over to the backroom. She pressed her ear up against the peeling, plastered wall.

“We are in danger, Matt. We will be hunted and killed if we do not flee and hide from the military,” said the mother, stiffly.

“Well, what do you propose we do? Run out of this house while people have been searching up and down this block? I think we should stay here, and when things get really bad, we will run as fast as we can and leave this bloody house!” the father exclaimed.

“Matt, it has already gotten really bad.”  

The mother shot open the door.  

“Come on, Isla, pack your bags. We are leaving,” the mother said calmly.

The girl knew better than to talk back to her mother. She ran to the corner of her apartment, to a wooden dresser. She thrusted open the rusty drawers and grabbed all of her clothes in one fell swoop. She stuffed them into a small, green bag. She looked up at her bed, which was shoved into a corner, where the roof caved above her head. On her bed lay a small, stuffed brown bear. She grabbed him by his neck and kissed him on his check, feeling his scraggly, fake fur on her lips. Then she stuffed him into her bag.

She looked at the clock on the ceiling of the living room. It read 12:13 am. Her father came over to her bed. Her stroked her soft, blonde hair.

“Hey, bean, wake up. We have to go now.”

The girl was already awake. She rose up out of bed and hugged her father. She hugged him so hard, she thought his ribs might break.

They slowly made their way down the rotting staircase, being careful not to make a sound, freezing every time they heard a noise. The girl held her father’s hand as the mother led them through the darkness with her dim flashlight. The mother pushed open the heavy, metal door. The girl and her father stood behind a wall, protecting them from what might be beyond the heavy doors. The mother signaled back at them, meaning it was safe for them to go. The father and the girl hesitantly walked over to the mother. They stood by the door frame, looking out into the distance. The mother took a breath in.

“Go,” the mother exhaled.

The girl, still grasping onto her father’s hand, ran as fast as she could. Her ribs began to ache. Her feet began to slow and slur on the dirt road. Her father, now well ahead of her, looked back at her. He squeezed her hand and looked into her soft brown eyes. She ran. She ran as hard as she could. Hot tears rolled down her face, making her vision blurry. But she just squeezed her father’s hand and ran. Ran for her life.

***

The girl, who was sleeping, woke up to see her mother and father embracing. They were swaying back and forth. Tears streamed down her mother’s face. The tears dropped down onto her cheek, then on her father’s shoulder.

She resented her mother. She didn’t want her mom to cry. While the family had been hiding in the house for months, the mother wouldn’t let the girl cry. Even when the girl missed her friends and family, who were caught and captured by the military, she was to stay stone cold, showing no emotions. The girl sat up from the dirt. The father noticed. He moved his wife from his shoulder and crouched down to be at the girl’s level.

“Hi, bean. Good morning,” the father said quietly.

Isla nodded in response, her knotted, blonde hair swishing back and forth. She then turned on the radio that was positioned next to her.

“The Leomates are destroying the world. I mean, you have seen them. They are disgusting. They infecting the world with cancer, which the rest of us have already become immune to. And you know what? There is a reason for this. They are stupider, they are dumber than us. They can’t adapt to the bloody sickness that we have already been immune to for thousands of years,” grunted a man with deep raspy voice.

The father licked his lips in anxiousness. He rested his hand on the girl’s knee.

“Don’t listen to them. They don’t bloody know anything. We are just as good as them if not better,” the father affirmed.

The girl just sat there, not listening to what her father was saying, just listening to the radio. Just listening to their hateful words that she thought were true.

Bang. The sound of a gunshot. In horror, the family hurled themselves around, looking for a hiding space. The mother’s dark brown skirt swished in front of the girl. She grabbed it, clinging on. The mother looked behind her with her light green eyes. She grabbed the girl’s dirty hand and ran. They hid under a pile of fallen trees. They stayed there in silence, not speaking a word. They both knew what had happened to the father, but both were too scared to admit it. After the darkness had fallen once again, they ran out to the initial hideout. There lay the father, a pool of blood surrounded his head. The mother let out a small whimper and fell onto the father’s dead body. The girl just stood above them, confused. She did not cry or whimper. She just stood, unable to believe her eyes.

***

The sun rose again. As it always did. But this morning was different. Her father did not come to wake her up with his soft, sweet voice. Today, it was her mother. Her mom’s rough, stiff voice whispered in her ear.

“Get up.”

Isla shoved her mother away from her.

“Young lady, you better apologize for that right now.”

Isla didn’t respond. Isla felt the burning sting of her mother’s cold, hard slap on her face. The mother’s nostrils flared, and her eyes widened.

“I did not ask for this. I am doing my best to keep you safe. I loved your father, and I wish that it were me lying on the floor with a puddle of blood surrounding my head. But it is not. Now, you better listen to me and respond to me when I tell you. Do you hear me?” the mother yelled.

“You’re a selfish pig. You didn’t even try to save father. You don’t care about me. You care about saving yourself. Dad was ten times the person you are. You know what? I wish it was you in the puddle of blood too.”

The mother gulped. Her eyes filled with tears as a knot formed in her throat. She calmly got up and walked her way over to a tree, distancing herself from Isla. She slid her back down a tree trunk, dropping down onto the dirt. Letting out a small whimper of pain, then a roar.

Night had fallen once again. Isla sat alone on a large rock. Her stuffed bear was sitting on her lap as she played with its ears. The mother slowly walked towards the girl and her bear. Isla prepared herself for the yelling and pain she would endure from her mother. But instead, the mother sat down on the rock with the girl. She reached out to touch the Isla’s knee. Isla flinched in response.  A single tear rolled down Isla’s pale skin. Her jaw clenched. The mother then hugged her around the neck. Isla pressed her cheek against her mother’s, making her feel an indescribable sense of warmth. They stayed here, feeling the warmth of each other for what seemed like the first time.

***

Isla was woken up by her mother’s pleading voice.

“I beg of you, please, I am the only one here. You killed my husband, and now I am to follow in his fate. Please do it, and then be done.”

“Load her in the back of the truck. We will kill her when we get there,” ordered one of the head military officials.

Isla continued to hear her mother’s pleading and begging, as she sat quietly, hiding behind the pile of fallen trees. Her knees curled up under her chest, tears streaming down her tired face. Her teeth dug into her knees as she held back wailing screams. Stomps that had once been far away had become closer. Her heart heaved. The stomps ceased. Isla saw the green and brown boots of a military official in front of her. Her eyes slowly scanned the man. First to his green jumpsuit that had been splattered with patches of blood and dirt. Then to his face. He had pitch black hair with dark brown eyes. His eyes not filled with distaste or hate, but with sorrow and pain, eyes that resembled her own. The man called out.

“No one here. Just a rabbit.”

“Okay, you can come back and return to your duties,” called out another military official.

“I am gonna stay here and look around a bit more. Is that okay?”

“Yeah, just come back before nightfall.”

The man crouched down to the girl, just like her father had a few days ago. He reached out and grabbed the girl’s hand. His eyes filled with tears. Isla swung her arms around his neck, hugging him. She then let out a small whimper of pain, then a roar.

 

Nameless

It was colder than usual. Nothing was right. The wind blew so hard, the candles on the table went out. The sound of leaves whisking around the house was unbearable.

The thump of high-heeled shoes walking across the wooden floor alarmed the girl.

“I shall not support this. She has to leave. If you keep her here, I won’t help you. Do it for her. The boy doesn’t stand a chance there. He is only eight. The reform is clear: nine and older. I am sorry,” said the lady that was fluffing up her curly, orange hair and pulling up her long, puffy, purple dress that seemed recently sown at the finest dressmaker in the village.

“NO… NO…  I… can’t. She is mine. I won’t let her go. Why would you… No… NEVER.”

The little girl heard the footsteps stomping towards her, and she ran to her bed while her mother opened the door.

“She is leaving now,” she said, calmly, and closed the door. That poor mom slipped sweat off her face. She took a deep breath and slammed the door behind the orange-haired lady. She knelt down and started crying as silent as she could. Time passed. Minutes… hours… days.

“God, Beth, I say we go for it,” said the drunk man, walking around, all dizzy, bumping into the table and wooden plates.

“Pete, you’re drunk again. How could you do that to her, me, and Benjamin.”

The mother looked into her husband’s eyes to see if there was a bit of humanity left in him.

“Who cares anymore? We need the money. Take it, or I will,” said Pete.

“She is our daughter. How could you say such a… what happened?”

The mother’s worried eyes looked down to Pete’s bloody arm.

“You owe debt,” she said calmly, as she walked towards a small stove and a wooden table they called kitchen. She picked up a glass bottle sitting on the table. She screamed and threw it at the door.

“Calm it, Beth. You know I did it to win us some money.”

Beth started laughing loudly. A bit too loudly.

“And yet you lost it all. And the worst part is you want to… give our child away to her… of all the people in the world.” Beth took a breath. “How about Benje?”

Pete looked down.

“I thought he could start work. Besides, it’s not like I want to give our daughter to a stranger. It’s your sister.”

Beth sat down on the only piece of furniture in that cottage.

“My sister wants to make our daughter a labor worker…” said Beth, like she was disappointed.

“But she will give her lessons to read, and a better home,” said Pete.

“So you forgot the part about you getting her salary till she is older. She is my daughter. I won’t let her leave my side… I can’t,” said a sobbing Beth.

“Good God, let her go… I will give you another one or something,” Pete said with humor.

All was silent for a while as far as Benjamin and his sister could tell. Their ears were close, trying to hear the result.

“They won’t give you up,” said Benjamin, trying to convince himself and her. The sounds started. They had lower pitches this time.

“She is only twelve, and he is only eight. We can’t separate them,” said Beth, trying to find a way out of her husband’s poor judgment.

“ Hm…” said Pete, “it’s not like they depend on each other.”

Beth took a deeper breath. “YES, THEY BLOODY DO!” she shouted.

What could she say? How could her husband be like this? She could not believe this. Anger took control. This was the 5th time this was happening. A drunken man with no clue of the important things in life other than money. Yet Beth knew deep down that without that money Pete lost, they were doomed. She did not care. She pushed Pete aside.

“Good night,” she said plainly and walked way.

She went to the bucket of water and splashed her face. Beth undressed from her daily clothes and plopped on her hay-like bed, crying.

Every second next to Pete was torture for Beth after that night.

“Wake up, kids. It’s harvest day.”

The family of four headed out with buckets and shovels and tools.

“Start there, boy, and you help your sister. Me and Mama will take the bottoms,” ordered Pete.

“Actually, you and Benjamin can take the sides, and we will take the bottom,” said Beth with a sly look to Pete.

The day was hotter than ever. The poor mother and little girl worked in their heavy dresses, which were now wet.

“How are you, my sweet?” said Beth with a fake smile, trying to make her daughter feel better. She nodded, as in a fake “Okay.”

“I am sorry for your father’s behavior. He was affected by alcohol, and we all learned how bad that is, sweetheart.”

Again she nodded, as in “Whatever.” Yes, she knew her mother would not let her go, but she knew at the end, they were broke. How could her mother fix that? Unless God sent magic seeds to make them have ten times the wheat they have now, nothing would work.  

“Work, boy. We don’t want you to fail at this easy job. You will be a working man soon,” said Pete, trying to cut as much wheat as possible.

“But Papa, I am only eight. My friends in the village say they go to school and all,” said Benjamin, trying to put some sense into his father. Pete lightly laughed. After a second, it became a shameful laugh.

“Yes, boy,” said Pete. “I understand you want that too, but we don’t live near the village, and we can’t send you to school.”

The rest of the day, the family tried to keep quiet, because they had nothing else to say.

The next evening was intense. The dinner was only bread and a few sprigs of parsley they had left. Beth thought Pete had decided to skip dinner, apparently. He was not even back from town, and Beth was worried.

“I love the food, Mama. It’s so good,” said Benjamin trying to keep a positive atmosphere. “How about you? Do you like it, sis?”

She nodded, but did not say a word, and continued eating. Beth turned and looked into her daughter’s bloodshot, red eyes. It was obvious she was not sleeping.

“Okay, it’s time for bed. Head along, children,” said Beth, nicely.

The children got up and went to their small room. Beth picked up their wooden plate, and she put it on the counter. She sat down on a chair, staring at their window, waiting. Hours passed, and Beth was about to give up and go to bed.

“I have made a breakthrough,” shouted Pete, crashing into the door. “Why don’t we invent something? A device that can make you sober in a second. How funny would that be?”

Beth stood up as fast as she could.

“Yes, and then men will want it, and we can make a fortune,” said Pete.

“Oh, Pete, I was worried sick. What is wrong with you? Go to bed. I don’t want to hear another word out of that wrecked mouth. Go now to bed, before I force you out of the house.”

Pete laughed. “No way. We have a giant workshop to build.”

Beth shook her head in disappointment. “No, we are not…you are not doing that. Go to bed before you wake the kids.”

Pete stood there lifeless for a second. “I don’t know really how you feel about them…”

Beth looked up and asked, “You mean our children?”

Pete nodded. “We either have to sell them or put them up for work.”

Beth stared with impatience. “You make absolutely no sense. Have you lost your heart?”

Pete continued on about how he had been able to find buyers for their children for slaves or labor work, and so on. He started from bad ideas to awful, but he could not stop. He did not care. Beth grew madder by the second.

“GET OUT NOW!”

Beth slammed the door on Pete and went to bed.

Deep thoughts went through that family’s heads that night. All of them.

BANG. A loud sound took over the field. Beth and the children ran outside to find the most horrifying scene. Beth looked with shock. The children looked stunned. Pete was lying between the wheat… dead, with a wheat cutter gone through him. The blood had splattered, and the wheat was no longer yellow, but deep red. Benjamin looked at his sister, who started to cry. Beth looked down at her traumatized children.

“Go inside, now.” The kids held each other’s hands and they ran inside.

“God, why, God,” Beth screamed and sobbed.

***

She woke up confused. She looked at her brother’s bed but he was not there. She got up and opened the door to her room and looked into their cottage. Nothing was there. More importantly, no one was there. She opened the cottage door to find two horses connected to small wooden carriages. Beth walked towards her. She smiled at her daughter and handed her a small bag. Beth took her hand and led her to one of the carriages. She kissed her on the cheek and helped her climb on top of it. She gave her a hug and left to the other carriage. Benjamin sat with a suitcase on a bale of strain wheat. Beth went towards him and gave him a kiss.

“Goodbye, my sweets,” she said out loud.

The two men on the horses said, “Giddy up,” and the horses started trotting on the road.

The kids looked back on to their mother’s crying face.

 

Psychologist

As I sit on the dull gray chair, the distant drone of an old AC stops every so often. Just beyond the small, barred window is a cat that scavenges on the littered pavement. Staring at the glossy tile floor, the blurry reflection of deja vu stares back at me. I look away. Closely observing my curious behavior is a woman with piercing, green eyes and long, frizzy hair. Her pale hands tap rhythmically on a blank, white notepad. She asks me to share my thoughts even though she knows I won’t. I can’t. I look down. Down to the secluded darkness that isolates me from the rest of reality. The girl. The sweet, innocent girl who was taken away from me. The girl with the small, doughy hands, hopelessly crying for help. Papa, Papa. Over and over again. Papa, Papa. But time has run out.  Now, the woman with the pale hands comforts me. She tells me that I’m different, that it wasn’t my fault. That I couldn’t control what happened to the girl. Papa, Papa. The woman gives me a picture. A man. I recognize him. Papa, Papa. I hear the girl shouting my name, but I can’t do anything. This man in the picture, he killed her. Who is he? Who is the man who took the girl with the small, doughy hands away from me?

“You.”

 

Rowdy

What haunts me most had absolutely no effect on anyone but me. It did not hurt anyone, or change anyone else’s life. But the scene still replays in my head, as though I tore out the heart of my best friend.

My dog, Rowdy, was almost fifteen years old. He had black and white fur, and was on the larger side. His dark eyes were a bit filmy with age, but they still glittered. He would eat absolutely anything, including paper towels. Once, he ate several pounds of dark, imported chocolate. We called the vet, who told us to make him sick to his stomach. Rowdy and his sister, Chessie, had a strange quirk where, if they ate anything frozen, be it ice cream or an ice cube, they would get sick. So we put out a bowl of vanilla ice cream, which Rowdy ate happily. And that did it. He was saved.

When he was angry at us for going out and leaving him alone, he would destroy something in the house, usually our mail. When we came home, he would get so excited and rush at the door. One of my first words was “Back!” spoken as soon as the front door opened.

He had been my only dog for quite some time, as Chessie had died, when I was three, from lymphoma, gained through our ignorance in letting her walk on pesticide-soaked grass. At that time, Rowdy’s eyes lost their sparkle. He moped around the house and ate only about half of his food. For him, that was akin to a hunger strike. We had to do something to shake him out of his grief and bewilderment.

But we never thought that a brief trip we took to Philadelphia would be what did it.

Rowdy had fallen asleep in the back of the car, like always. But just as we were driving into the city, he woke up and looked around. His head snapped from one window to another, his eyes widening. He gave a short bark. He was amazed. He regained the jaunt in his walk, and the gleam in his eye. Philadelphia saved him.

But five years later, I couldn’t.

Rowdy was past his best years. His kidney was failing, and it was time. I was eight years old and begged for more time, more nights when Rowdy would come into my room and lick my hand, more days where we would go on walks. I did not understand what home would be without a dog, and I didn’t want to understand.

But my parents were adults and less selfish. They explained that Rowdy would suffer if we let him continue on as he was, and the kindest thing for him would be to put him to sleep.

I remembered watching him get shots (benign ones), boosters, and vaccines at the vet before. The vet would put a dollop of spray cheese on a tongue depressor, and Rowdy would lick it up without the slightest idea that a needle was entering his flesh. I wondered if it would be the same way this time.

But I wouldn’t know. I wouldn’t be there. I had to go to theatre camp, though I had no thespian talents to speak of. Our play was almost ready for production, and I needed to be there for the dress rehearsal, though I would have gladly skipped the entire show.

The last morning, we had plans for me to stay at a neighbor’s while my parents went to the vet, and she would drive me to camp when it was time. I woke up, dressed, and felt the little time I had left pressing upon me like a vise, so that I couldn’t savor any of it.

The neighbor came over to get me. She, my parents, and I were standing in our front hall. Rowdy was sitting in the middle, looking curiously at us all.

Everybody was watching me, knowing this would be the last time Rowdy and I saw each other. It was our goodbye, our final moment. I knelt down, scratched his ears and his head for a few seconds, looked into his eyes, and went out the door.

That was it.

In the midst of my conglomeration of eight-year-old feelings, from awkwardness to sadness to stress to confusion, I did not say goodbye. I did not tell him he was a good boy one last time. I did not tell him I loved him.

Maybe I didn’t say anything more because of all the people watching me, and I felt embarrassed. Maybe it was because I had to go to camp, act in a play, and like a normal person in general, and I didn’t want to start crying. Maybe I just wanted to pretend none of this was happening. But whatever the reason, I did not tell my moribund dog that I loved him.

That did not matter at all. It had no effect. Rowdy didn’t understand, and my parents were probably so distracted by their own grief that they weren’t really listening. Rowdy understood a few words, of course, like “sit” and “treat,” but he had no idea of what I had said or not said to him his last day on Earth. I could have recited a poem in his honor, and he would not have felt any differently.

Yet, I regret my final meeting with him more than almost anything else.

At camp that day, the grade above mine did their dress rehearsal while we watched. I couldn’t believe it, but the star of their show was a kid — boy or girl, I’m not sure — dressed as a dog, which depressed and annoyed me at the same time. And there was a maudlin song in their play called “Memories” (not the one from Cats.) All the while, I was unsure whether or not Rowdy was still alive and wondered if I should somehow sense the moment he died.

My failure to make the most of my last moment with Rowdy is a strange thing to be so fixated on. It’s insignificant and compared to the other problems in the world, ridiculously minor. But thanks to me, something that should have happened didn’t.

Rowdy never knew that I hadn’t said goodbye that day, but maybe he somehow hears the goodbye that I carry within me every day since.

 

Breathe Again

Cecily hated the color yellow. Everyone knew that. Well, she hoped they knew, but she was always wrong about that. Sadly, the paint in her eyes that slowly started seeping into her mouth was yellow. As she wiped the paint from her eyes and spit out the rest from her mouth, she stared at the culprit who had dared to throw paint at her. As she looked through her paint-filled eyes, she knew this was going to be a very long day.

“Sorry,” said Martinho sarcastically.

Martinho hated her. He was constantly pulling pranks on her, causing her to always bring a change of clothes. The first time he pulled a prank on her, she had to endure the rest of the day with whipped cream in her hair, eggs on her butt, and tomatoes all over her body.

She knew he hated her, but she did not know why. She never said a word to him. She probably wouldn’t even know his name if it wasn’t for her friend, Varinia, who was crushing on him hard.

She gave him look that said, Why do you always do this to me?

He knew that look all too well. She gave him that look every time he pulled a prank on her. He started laughing at her and taking pictures of her. He always took pictures because he always had to have a souvenir. He ran into the cafeteria, grabbing The Richards, the most popular guys at school, to join him laughing at her.

When she saw them coming, she ran into the bathroom, hoping they didn’t see her. As she hid out in the bathroom, her friend, Luciana, ran in, wondering if she was okay. She wasn’t okay. Martinho was starting to get on her nerves.

Cecily asked Luciana to get her change of clothes from her locker, but before she could get them, someone pulled the fire alarm. Everyone grabbed their jackets and ran outside.  It was pouring outside, but she didn’t care. As Cecily stood outside in the rain, the paint started to wash off, and she realized that she couldn’t let this go on.

Behind Cecily, there was a crash! Bang! Zander jumped out from behind the dumpster. The teachers saw him and took him to the principal’s office. They assumed that he did it because he was always causing mischief around the school.   

“Well, that was unexpected,” Luciana said.

Cecily smirked and gave her a look that said, Really. “We both know he had it coming. Plus, we know who really pulled that fire alarm,” Cecily said, looking at Diamanda.

“Yeah, Diamanda. So, tell me, what’re you gonna do about it?”

“I’m going to do nothing. There’s no point,” she said, defeated.

“What!” Luciana screamed, and everyone within a five mile radius turned to look at them. They didn’t care, but decided to talk a little softer. “What? This has been going on for half a year now. You need to tell somebody and stop going on, bringing different clothes.”

“Maybe you’re right. My parents are starting to wonder if I’m going to school to change my clothes and impress a guy, but I’m not. Now, my dad wont even let me keep my door locked unless I’m using the bathroom. Sometimes I’ll take a shower, and I’ll come out and find out my door is unlocked when I clearly locked my door,” Cecily said, crossing her arms.

Luciana started laughing her butt off.  She could never take Cecily seriously. She was the kindest person she had ever met. She would never hurt a soul. She would act all serious, but she always had kind eyes.

“Dang, girl,” she said, still giggling, “how do you live like that?”

Cecily whined, “Will you stop laughing at me? It’s not funny.”

“Fine, I’ll stop. But you’re gonna have to figure out what to do.”

“I don’t know what to do. It’s getting harder and harder, being someone’s puppet on a string.”

“Well, never forget that I’m always here for you, okay? Unless Elijah calls. Then, I’m going to be preoccupied.”

“Girl, you are never gonna be preoccupied because we both know that Elijah will be calling me up, not you.”

“In your dreams, chica.”

“You’re right. He is in my dreams.”

At that, they both started laughing. Elijah has never even spoken to them, let alone known who they are.

After the Fire Department declared it a false alarm, they went back inside. Once Cecily was inside, she quickly grabbed her change of clothes and went to the bathroom. When she opened the bag, she cursed like a madwoman. She accidently grabbed her younger sister’s clothes, which looked like booty shorts on her.

Meanwhile, outside the bathroom, Martinho gathered up The Richards, Diamanda, and whole bunch of other people to see Cecily look like a wet dog. In the bathroom, Cecily realized she only had two options: put on her sister’s booty shorts, or keep on the wet sticky paint clothes. Cecily really only had one option, but she made two to make herself feel better.  As she put the clothes on, they became smaller and tighter around her waist. Her top turned into a crop top, showing way too much belly button for her liking.  As she looked at herself in the mirror, her knees started to tingle and became very wobbly.

“Dang, girl. You look hot,” Luciana said, staring at Cecily with amazement.

“Stop!!! You’re not helping! You’re supposed to tell me that I don’t look good,” Cecily said desperately.

As her voice got higher, Luciana said, ”Now why would I do that? I would never lie to you.”

She looked away at that last comment. “Lies. If I had a nickel for every time you lied to me, I would be rich.”

“Now, that is a lie. Look at yourself. I bet you, the moment you walk out of that door, those guys will be following your every move.”

“The only way I’m going out there is if there is no one out there. Go check for me.”

While Luciana went to go check to make sure no one was there, Cecily tried to boost her confidence and self esteem.

Luciana came back with bad news. “Ummm… I uh… really think you should put on your gym clothes.”

“I’m not taking gym this year, so these clothes are my only option.”

“Well… you see… there’s this really big crowd outside, and they’re waiting for you to come out.”

“No!! Why does he hate me so much? I’ve done nothing to him!” Cecily whined.

“I don’t know. If you say you’ve done nothing to him, then I believe you. But your best bet is to suck it up, pull it together, and go out there like you came to school in that outfit.”

“Yeah, that’s easy for you to say. You’re not the one wearing this skimpy outfit,” Cecily started to yell.

She tended to yell when things were getting out of hand, and she couldn’t do anything.

“Yeah, I’m not wearing the ‘skimpy’ clothing, but you are the sweetest, nicest person I know who wouldn’t dare get mad at someone, even when justified. You need to stop caring what everyone thinks about you, and only worry about what your friends think, because we’re the ones who are beside you through thick and thin, not them.”

“You know, you maybe a bookworm and a soccer fanatic, but sometimes, you give really good advice.”

“So, are ready to go out there?”

“Do you think we can wait a bit? I mean-”

“No. We can’t wait any longer. You need to face your fear. And buy me lunch, because lunch was shortened thanks to the fire alarm. So we need to hurry before they run out of fries.”

“Okay, fine. Let’s get this over with.”

As they walked to the door of the bathroom, Cecily could feel her stomach clenching with butterflies. She came to the door and paused. As she was about to bail, Luciana yanked the door open. Everyone couldn’t believe their eyes. The nerdy girl, who always wore oversized clothes, actually looked hot. Even Martinho was staring, which is a first for everyone. As she looked upon the crowd, she saw smiles and looks of encouragement. Well, except for Martinho and Diamanda. Martinho stood next to The Richards with his mouth opened wide, staring at her, while Diamanda looked like she was going to kill her.

Diamanda growled at her, ”What are you wearing?”

Cecily replied, “Clothes, like you.”

Everyone started laughing. Cecily didn’t know what was so funny, but Diamanda sure did. Apparently, the “joke” Cecily made was to say, “Well, I’m wearing skimpy clothes, just like you wear skimpy clothes all year long.”

“Was that supposed to be joke?” she asked angrily.

“What was supposed to be a joke? I just answered your question.”

Cecily may have been a nerd, but when it came to popular stuff and noticing when a guy likes her, she was clueless. Diamanda started walking in a circle around Cecily, making her feel very uncomfortable.

“So, you think that you can just go around skimpy clothing, and everyone will forget what a dork you are?”

“I’m not a dork.”

“Oh, really? What are you, then?”

“I’m a decent person, unlike you,” Cecily said with a bit confidence.

Now Diamanda was furious. She could not let Cecily get the better of her. Cecily also couldn’t believe what she was hearing and seeing. Diamanda had the nerve to question what she was wearing, when she practically wore this everyday. If she didn’t know any better, she’d say Diamanda was little jealous. But why? She felt herself getting angry about this whole situation.

Cecily walked straight up to Diamanda, got in her face, and said, “You know what, Diamanda? I don’t care what you think about me. I know that you pulled the fire alarm so I could be soaking wet. And the best of all, I know damn well that I look good in these clothes, way better than you ever will.”

At that note, Cecily strutted into the cafeteria, with Luciana on her heels, who was laughing uncontrollably.

“Damn girl, I didn’t think you had it in you. You were on fire. After you left, Diamanda looked like you just took whatever soul she had left and ripped it into a million pieces.”

“Thanks, Luciana. Now I feel bad. Should I go and apologize?”

“Are you crazy? You just stood up to her, and now you want to say sorry? You shouldn’t feel bad about something that was a long time coming.”

“Yeah, you’re right. She totally deserved it.”

Luciana and Cecily were at the cashier, having their daily talk with the lunch ladies. Meanwhile, nobody could believe what just happened. Nobody spoke to Diamanda like that, let alone leaving her speechless in the process.   

“Well, Cecily’s a little spitfire, isn’t she? I thought you guys said she was a shy one,” said someone in a black sweatshirt.

He was one of The Richards.

“She is. I don’t know what’s gotten in her,” said Martinho.

He sure did like the new Cecily, but he kept that thought to himself.  

“She is so dead. The next time I see her…”

“Diamanda, just leave her alone. It’s not cool what you’ve been doing to her,” said Black Sweatshirt. “You too, Martinho. Why do you guys always mess with her?”

“Why do you wanna know?” Martinho asked defensively. “I didn’t ask questions when you were messing with…”

‘That’s in the past, and it’s going to stay in the past,” said Black Sweatshirt defensively.

The boys were neck and neck right now. Diamanda was about to step in when Cecily and Luciana walked out of the cafeteria. When Diamanda caught wind of Cecily, she glared like no tomorrow. Cecily was about to act like a coward when she decided to glare back.

As Cecily and Luciana were walking to the counselor’s office, Black Sweatshirt ran up to them. His heart was guiding him, not his mind. Black Sweatshirt secretly has had a crush on Cecily since kindergarten. She left soon after that, but he never forgot what she looked like. Seeing her again going into high school was like walking in a dream for him. He never thought he would get the chance to her again.

“Hey, Cecily! Wait up,” said Black Sweatshirt as he ran to her.

“Uh… hi,” Cecily said nervously.

“You don’t remember me, do you? We went to kindergarten together,” Black Sweatshirt said, hoping she would remember something.

“Uh… sorry. I don’t remember you,” she said nervously.

Black Sweatshirt gave Luciana a look that said, “Can you give us minute?” and she slowly slipped away.

“Don’t worry about it, it was a long time ago anyway,” he said. “My names Elektrec, and I was wondering if you could help me with something,” he said nervously, hoping she wouldn’t say no.

“Uh… maybe. Will I get in trouble for it?”

“No, of course not. I would never do anything like that to you,” he said sweetly.

Cecily couldn’t believe her ears. That was the nicest thing anyone had ever said to her. When Elektrec realized what he said, he started to blush.

Diamanda, Martinho, and the rest of The Richards were watching this whole exchange. Diamanda couldn’t believe that the hottest guy in school (and her long time crush since 5th grade) would ever like someone like Cecily.

Martinho was suddenly very jealous. He liked the new Cecily. Before, she was a nobody, a nerd. Now that she was finally something, he wanted her. He was the reason that she was a somebody now anyway. He sprayed her with that yellow paint that made her change her clothes, and that probably gave her the boost to stand up to Diamanda. She owed him, and he knew exactly what he wanted from her. He gritted his teeth and began walking towards the two to interrupt whatever was going on between them.

“Hey guys. How’s it goin?” Martinho said mischievously.

“What do you want?” Cecily said, annoyed.

“Oh, I just wanted to come and talk to you for a second. In private,” Martinho smirked.

“Actually, I was talking to her first. I just need to ask her one question, so could you give us a minute?” Elektrec asked nicely.

“You know what? I think I’m gonna stay right here. So you ask her whatever you want. I’m not going anywhere,” Martinho said, crossing his arms.

Elektrec slowly breathed out, “Uh, okay. Well, I was wondering if you wanted to go on a date with me this weekend?”

“You… want to go on a date… with me?” Cecily asked, not believing a word that just came out his mouth.

“Yes. I really want to go on a date with you.”

“Is this a game? Are you just trying to play with me? Because that’s not cool and-”

Elektrec took a couple of step forwards and grabbed her arms. Looking deeply into her eyes, he said, “I want to be with you, and only you. So what do you say we go out Saturday night? I’ll pick you up at 7. Wear something comfortable and warm, because we’re going to be outside.”

Cecily was in awe. She couldn’t believe her ears. The only thing she could do was nod her head.  Elektrec gave her a swoon-worthy smile and, boy, did she swoon.

As he was leaving, he told Martinho, “You hurt her, and I hurt you. Got it?”

Martinho gulped and answered, “Yes, sir.” He turned to Cecily. “So, Uh-”

“No, just stop right there. I don’t care about what you have say. You don’t have the right to say anything to me after everything you have done to me,” Cecily said, getting angrier by the second.

On that note, she turned on the ball of her foot and went inside the counselor’s office. As soon as she got into the room, her friends started pestering her with questions about what happened. She told them about her date with Elektrec, and how she stood up to Martinho. She then realized that although today may have started out a terrible day, she stuck through it. Instead of today being the worst day of her life, it turned out to be the best day of her life, for new things began today. She might even wear her yellow scarf on the date.

 

The Sky (A Sestina)

            

The blue

sky shows your heart,

Shows you how to sing,

Lets you speak,

Teaches you to think,

Helps you be you.

 

Sometimes you

might wonder,

Why you are blue,

But remember to think,

Your heart

is yours, so speak

your mind, and always sing

 

Your own song, you must sing

even if it seems insane to you,

And when you speak,

You won’t be blue.

Your heart

will shine once again, freeing you to think.

 

You may think,

You may sing

a different song, but your heart

may not want to listen, may not trust me over you.

But please, don’t let others make you blue.

Don’t be afraid to speak.

 

Never be afraid to speak.

You think

bad things will happen when you speak out, but if you don’t you will stay blue.

Remember to sing.

Sing loudly, let them hear you,

Let them hear your heart.

 

Let your heart,

shine out, let it speak,

Glowing through you,

Ignore what they think,

Just help your heart sing,

Show what you’ve learned from the sky of blue.

 

Right now, don’t think,

Just sing,

And trust in the bright sky, oh so blue.

 

Anxiety

    

I know it’s you,

I can always tell,

when you show up at my door,

and lean on the bell.

 

As I reach to turn the knob,

I want to turn away,

refuse you entry

and go on with my day.

 

But I know from experience

that, if I lock my doors,

you’ll rattle my windows

And shake my floors.

 

Too soon, the glass will break.

Was there ever any doubt

you’d get in and show me

it was foolish to keep you out?

 

You’ll break all the dishes,

scatter clothes across the lawn,

leave my house one big mess

I’m left to clean up when you’re gone.

 

There’s no way to ward you off,

I know that by now,

so I welcome you as honored guest

and before you I bow.

 

A Man-made World

                       

My breath leaves clouds on the small window,

Dissipating to reveal fluffy clouds outside,

The wing of the airplane in which I sit.

 

Below those clouds, the ground is a patchwork,

A carefully cultivated quilt of orderly green squares,

All the same, like they were made in a factory.

 

I doze off as the blanket below grows boring,

Settling into the kind of monotonous patter only man can create.

My head bumps softly against the window.

 

When I wake, the scene has changed.

The plane has passed through the gates of Eden,

To a wild, untampered land, unmarked by Adam or Eve.

 

The snowy peaks of a vast mountain range spread out below,

Wild as white-capped waves on a rough and windy sea,

So bright I have to shield my eyes.

 

But wait, could that be? Yes —

A chairlift,

A stain of civilization on even this wintry scene.

 

A Collection of Fears

Account One: Creating

I think my biggest fear is creating something of little worth. More than that, creating something that floats around aimlessly in space on its own, not meaning anything to anyone. No one would be paying attention to it. No one would be bothering to even glimpse at it. Or, if someone did look at it, they would be detached, unfeeling, uncaring towards this thing. What’s the point of making something if no one even cares?

You could do it for self-fulfillment, to tell yourself, Wow, I made something. But that only satisfies you a bit for a certain amount of time before fading into a sad, insignificant speck.

I see other creators who are widely successful. It’s crazy, the amount of people who like them. People are inspired by them! People are actually changed by them. Isn’t that insane?

But I also see creators who create and create and create. But they get nothing. Absolutely nothing. And that’s terrifying.

 

Account Two: Grainy Memories

When I was younger, my friends and I would run down hills, climb and fumble on top of gray-red slides, and build fantastic things of imagination, only to leave it alone and start a new project. Even with a cold, fall wind whispering about the incoming winter, nipping at our noses and ears, we still played outside, hugging our knees, and leaning on our toes while trying to capture crickets. The next year, we didn’t go outside as much.

One day, we stayed inside as the clouds clung together, rumbling ever so softly once or twice. My friend’s phone glowed bright on her face, and her hair spread out behind her since she was lying atop of the table. I sat on a squished chair, that was meant for equally-as-squished toddlers, sketching with flat, teal crayons that would go in every direction except for where I wanted them to go.

My other friend was opposite from me. Her arms were crossed, and her head was comfortably placed on them.

“I’m so bored.”

“Hmm.”

“Yeah.”

“Do you remember pretending to do gymnastics at the old building?”

“Yeah.”

“Hmm.”

We kept on sitting there, each to their own, by ourselves, with the rain randomly tapping the window.

 

Account Three: The Dark

The dark is an unknown expanse that swallows anything with its boneless jaws. In a house, it’s unbearable. Every whining creak from old, wooden floorboards made in the 60’s, every soft whirr from basement machines, every sound fills me up till it’s overcome by an even more booming heartbeat.

God, I almost want to laugh at myself. The dark? Seriously? Especially in my own home? One that I’ve lived in for so long, that the smell of it is my blanket. Each squeaking floorboard engraved into my very being, and I know every secret. Yet, here I am, struggling at 1 a.m., trying to walk to my own bed. Groping the walls while I lie to myself that I am okay. I am definitely okay. Ha.

The light reveals – no, confirms – everything that I know. Everything is in its proper place, and I am perfectly sure that nothing will change. But in the dark, that comfort is replaced by uncertainty. I think that the bag I just stepped on is mine? Or is it my sister’s? Maybe that’s my bedroom over there? Or maybe it’s my mom’s bedroom. No, it’s my mom’s bedroom. I can hear her light snore.

In the dark, my once-assured guffaws at serial killers and slippery demons that crawl along the walls, with deception slithering out of their grinning lips, fade away into fake chuckles. The kind that the main characters of a horror movie does in order to persuade themselves that nothing is wrong, and they won’t die. But they usually die.

In the end, I do make it to my bed, the bright, neon clock in our room glows on the silhouette of my sister. I lie down. I cover my entire head with my quilt and try to sleep.

 

Account Four: Decisions, Decisions, Decisions

I hate making the wrong choice or feeling like I’ve made the wrong decision. What if that wrong choice leads to a terrible future, which then makes my life miserable, and all of that terribleness is just because of something I had decided?

So I sit down in the middle of the room. My arms are holding my legs close to my breathing chest. And I sit, eyes closed, doing absolutely nothing.

On the flip side, I hate missing chances, chances that could be absolutely amazing, and change my world someway, somehow. So I stay in this stalemate, where I sit and refuse to do a thing.

 

Account Five: Love

I’m afraid of love. More specifically, I’m afraid of loving someone so much that the love is squeezed out of me until I’ve fallen out of it. Then that would mean I was never really in love with that person. Or maybe I was. I suppose I was in love when I only knew them for what I perceived them to be rather than for who they were. Maybe I was in love with only half of the person, or maybe just a quarter, or maybe even less.

People romanticize the idea of falling in love. This flowery, rosy affair where both parties are happy. But what happens when you spend too much time with them? What happens once the rose petals and pastry crumbs are dusted off? What happens then?

Of course, a good, healthy relationship goes beyond the flat gifts and compliments. It’s a deeper understanding of that person. It’s the maturity to know that a person is a multi-faceted being that needs more than just hugs and soft kisses on cheeks. It’s for that knowledge to really click. I don’t know if I’ll ever have that kind of relationship, though. Maybe I will. Maybe I won’t. Who knows.

 

Inquisition

Prologue

Dr. Howard

The Tyrian purple carpets of Dr. Howard’s waiting room gave the whole room a medieval feel, like I was waiting within the walls of a castle. Even with the navy blue carpeting in the outside that felt as modern as it could be. It’s funny how once you’re severed from the rest of a building, the entire aesthetic can change. Just like how this room looked like a place suited for royalty, but it felt like some sort of dungeon. My mother had promised me that this would be a “way to practice socialization with other children your age” and “help you get to know people in the real world better.” But let me tell you, it didn’t feel like it would help me whatsoever. Two therapy sessions a week, plus many more at school, was good enough. And I still wish she hadn’t forced me into a group, especially not Dr. Howard’s group. Especially not his.

I took a seat. The chairs were the same color as the carpeting. There were two other kids here: one African-American kid wearing a suit and tie, and another kid with light brown hair who was wearing a T-shirt that stated “If History Repeats Itself, I’m Getting a Dinosaur” in bold, green letters, along with a helpful illustration of a tyrannosaurus rex. They weren’t talking or even looking at each other; one reading his phone and the other a copy of Action Comics which was apparently in the bin of comic books and encyclopedias. The whole place seemed to have an aura of menace to it; I wasn’t sure if that was my own feelings or the serious looks on people’s faces, but it was something.

It took a full five minutes for Dr. Howard to come out of the waiting room and beckon us into the main room. Immediately, I noticed how the slate-grey couches changed the aesthetic a bit more to the modern side of things, but the purple shade of carpet was still there.

“So, today we have a new member of our group,” Dr. Howard began. “Would you like to introduce yourself?”

“Um, sure,” I said, caught off-guard by the question.”My name is Theo Moore, and I am in 8th grade at the Peterson Day School.”

“Excellent,” Dr. Howard said, ”Just what I was looking for. Sebastian, would you like to begin the group by introducing yourself to Theo?”

“Alright,” the African-American kid said, “My name is Sebastian. I’m in 9th grade at Lockhart Academy.”

“And why are you here at this group?” Dr. Howard asked.

“My mother recently left my dad and married some new guy. Still trying to cope.”

“And Gregory, why don’t you introduce yourself and your goals?”

The other kid perked up. “Well, my name’s Gregory, and I go to 11th grade at the Candlelight School. I’m apparently here because I’m too ‘intolerant of others’ and a bunch of other crap like that. But for real, I’m just trying to help some Jews at my school figure out the right way through life.”

“So, you’re a Nazi,” I said flatly.

This was not what I was looking for — I was going to be spending an hour and fifteen minutes a week with some crazy racist.

“Dude, Hitler killed eleven million people. That’s bad any way you slice it. But now apparently it’s awful to hate Jews, or to try to convince them to repent, because six million of those guys just happened to be Jewish. So, no, I’m not a Nazi, thank you very much. I’m just a humble anti-Semite, and I wear that badge proudly.”

I looked over at Sebastian, shocked to hear these words coming out of somebody I was supposed to practice bonding with.

“Yep, he’s a Nazi,” he said.

“I am not — okay, whatever. I’m not gonna explain it for the umpteenth time.”

“So, Theo,” Dr. Howard interjected, “What’s your goal for this group?”

“Well, I guess it’d be to be more social with people, as that’s the reason my mother signed me up.”

Everyone nodded. This group would grow to do the opposite of what my mother wanted; it would not turn my social life into a success, but it would actually destroy the remnants of a social life I would grow to have. If my mother had found a different group, and I had never met Gregory Redford, none of this would have happened. None of it.

 

Chapter One

Welcome to Candlelight School

The first time I had heard the term “Asperger’s” was on some YouTube meme; an ad for a McDonald’s burger that aired in some Asian country overseas. I was six, and YouTube was what I used for downtime. Apparently this type of thing was funny to me. The commercial involved a seductive Ronald McDonald pulling a burger from, well, behind his lower back. An “ass-burger,” if you will. Many commenters were smart to notice this and said that they finally understood “ass-burgers,” which I thought was just a funny use of the word. But it was because of my “ass-burgers” that I thought seeing such a tame curse word being used randomly and indiscriminately was funny.

This is the story of how my life went for the first eight years of school. I went to the Peterson School and tried to justify every pamphlet about how it treats kids with “learning differences” as “everyone’s different, and we use that in our teaching.” Medication was just something I thought everyone took; my dad took vitamins for a period of time when I started taking my pills, which reinforced the idea that I was the same. Even when it started to dawn on me, there were still misconceptions. If you had asked me back in 6th grade what my disorder was, I’d say OCD. I exhibited symptoms of it, and I heard people mentioning it, so I thought it had to be what I had. But I eventually found out, even if I couldn’t pinpoint an exact time when I realized I was on the spectrum instead.

But as I realized the fact that I wasn’t the most normal kid, I also realized the benefits. To put it simply, I was smart. I may not have been the most well-mannered kid (far from it), but I ran academic circles around my classmates who couldn’t remember how to format an essay. Obviously, this meant we learned it every single year of school. Eventually, we decided that enough was enough and started to look for a new school. That school became Candlelight. Now, I’m not gonna go into all of the schools that rejected me, because there are a lot. But I will say that Candlelight was probably my second choice once I visited it. It was a great school for me, and I got accepted to the school around mid-May. I ditched Peterson shortly after and was ready to start my new life.

The orientation was fun; this was where I turned in the homework they gave me over the summer and picked my classes. There were five classes in a day: you started with an English class you choose for the whole year, followed by two classes that rotate every seven weeks: A science and social studies class (the latter can be another English class, history, or anything that isn’t science). After that, you have lunch, followed by math, advisory and an afternoon elective. No classes were separated by grade, minus maybe a few of the harder ones. Candlelight was a very small school, only around sixty kids total.

Orientation was fun. But after a long weekend, it was time for business.

“Welcome, welcome, welcome. My name is Julian, and I’ll be your English teacher. This class will be focused on expressing race and identity through literature.”

I chose this class because it was something I was interested in, well, the identity part more than the race part. I’m a white Christian male, but I did have “ass-burgers” to shake things up. Julian was an older man who had brown hair that was greying slightly and thick-rimmed glasses. Simply put, he looked like a professor.

“It looks like you’re all here today. So I’ll begin with you guys introducing yourself to me with your name, grade level, and your favorite soda.”

We started to go around the circle. I think now’s probably a good time to mention something. If you’ve been observant, you may have noticed that Gregory went to Candlelight. He was asked to leave, but he still went there. And of course, that means he told me lots about the happenings of the school. So I know… um, a bit more about the school than some other new kids.

“My name is Emily, I’m in eleventh grade, and my favorite soda is Sprite.” Attempted suicide by sticking her head into a carbon monoxide oven.

“My name is Devon, I’m in tenth grade, and my favorite soda is Pepsi!” Cheated on his then-girlfriend because she was overweight.

“My name is April, I’m in tenth grade, and I like most types of orange soda.” Heroin addict, suffers from crippling depression.

“My name is Derrick, I’m in twelfth grade, and my favorite soda is Coke.” Got into a fight with his friend that resulted in a three-week suspension.

“My name is Jeanette, I’m in tenth grade, and my favorite soda is Dr. Pepper.” Prone to migraines, tends to often leave class because of them.

“My name is Thomas, I’m in ninth grade, and I love Sprite.” New kid, I think. Not someone I had heard of before.

“My name is Zach, I’m in tenth grade, and my favorite soda is cream soda.” Hoo boy, this one’s a doozy.

If any kid was mentioned in the group more than the others, it was Zach. The Jew. The degenerate. The stubborn kid who wouldn’t accept the evils of Judaism and repent. The kid whose hate-filled stories you didn’t need to read between the lines to figure out: he was being bullied. By Gregory. I felt really bad for the guy, no matter how much Nazi propaganda Gregory spewed about him. It was hard not to. And here he was, sitting in the class, seen for the first time with real eyes from the group. It’s always weird meeting someone like this in person. I mean, I kept insisting that “Zach’s a human being,” but now I knew it.

And finally, myself.

“My name is Theo, I’m in ninth grade, and I’m not a fan of carbonated beverages. I do enjoy Snapple drinks a lot, though.”

***

The rest of the class was a Q&A session with Julian about himself, the class, and what to expect from his classes. After that, we headed to our science classes, mine being a genetics class.

Abe, our genetics teacher, was a little late, so we piled into the room. I sat down and grabbed a Chromebook from the cabinet nearby, going off of the veteran kids who did the same. Everyone was talking… well, except for myself and a couple others who were most likely new. Suddenly, something caught my eye, or rather, ear.

“Looks like Gregory isn’t coming back.”

It was a girl with light brown hair and braids. My heart sank. I hated Gregory, but I was hoping nobody would bring him up.

“Praise the Lord,” muttered another kid I realized was Derrick. “Hallelujah.”

“Are you guys seriously out of the loop? Kid was expelled, like, three weeks before school ended. What, you thought he was going on a trip?” This one was a girl with long, flowing black hair, brilliant blue eyes, and a beautiful smile.

“That’s too late, though,” Derrick continued. “Erwin should’ve shut it down as soon at the bullying became apparent. Not waited two or three months until Zach got mental trauma.”

“Yeah, but he’s gone now. Can’t change the past.” Braids again.

“Damage has been done, Valerie,” the other girl said, “Both to Zach, and to me. You have no idea what he’s done to me.”

Before Valerie could inquire what the other girl was talking about, a voice came in from the other room.

“Okay, chuckleheads. Time to start class.”

And thus marked the end of that discussion.

 

Chapter Two

Kelly and Amelia

“Hey, how was your first day, Theo?”

I hopped into my dad’s car as we began to drive home.

“It was fun,” I said.

I didn’t want to mention anything about Gregory to him, about what they talked about in genetics class.

“So what classes did you get?”

“Well,” I began, “I didn’t get geology, but I got genetics. Other than that, I got the race and identity English class, Roman history for social studies, algebra one for a math class, and ceramics as an elective. Pretty much all my first choices.”

“And who’s your advisor?”

“Well, I didn’t get Abe as my advisor like I wanted, but Julian, my actual advisor, seems nice enough.”

We talked until we got home. When we got home, my mother was cooking a pot roast in the slow cooker, and my senior year brother, Lawrence, was at study hall. His school started a week ago, and he was already lagging behind. Stella, my seven-year-old sister, was watching TV.

“So, Theo, Stella,” my mother began, “I am pleased to tell you that Nana and Grandpa have been fully moved to Crisp Gardens, and we’ll be seeing them over the weekend.”

“Does — does that mean we’ve sold their house already?” Stella seemed to be on the verge of tears.

My mother sighed. “Well, technically, not yet. But we’ve been moving stuff out of their house. Uncle Elvin’s currently in Pittsburgh to sort things out.”

Stella started to cry. “But I — I love their house. I don’t want it to be sold! Could we make it, like, a vacation home for the Moore family?”

“Sorry, honey, but there’s really nothing we can do. Houses are expensive; we can’t just buy another one like that.”

“Please? Uncle Elvin could pay half of it! Please?”

“I’m sorry, but you’re just gonna have to deal with it.”

Stella stormed upstairs, crying. This has been an ongoing struggle with the family. Amelia, or “Nana” as I call her, has lost her short term memory, and “Grandpa” Paul has been struggling with assisting Nana with everything that she has trouble with these days. I was upset about losing the house, but I didn’t show it. I was never one to cry. Lawrence also doesn’t show it, but I think he’s pretty upset himself. Stella, however, has been taking it hard.

***

The next day, the three of us piled into the car. We first dropped off Stella and Lawrence at the Raymond School, a private, academically competitive school that seriously makes me wonder how my parents pay for our combined tuition. Then, it was just me in the car. When we got there, my dad turned off the radio, currently set to 2000’s hits, and issued me a challenge.

“Hey, so I know it can be hard to socialize, but you can take it slow. I challenge you to say hi to another student. It’s that simple.”

I spent the rest of the day contemplating who the simple hi should be directed at, who might be a kindred spirit, and who definitely wasn’t. Eventually, I decided on Zach, as he probably felt lonely due to the bullying anyway. So I was ready to sit down next to him at lunch when a girl walked up to me. The girl with long, flowing hair who was previously talking about Gregory in my genetics class.

“Hi,” she said.

In what universe does a girl like her walk up to me anyway?

“Um, hi,” I said.

Mission accomplished.

“What’s your name?” She was smiling, and just overall gave an aura of positivity around me.

“Theo,” I responded after three solid seconds after staring into space.

“I’m Kelly. Welcome to Candlelight! Mind if I show you around?”

“I guess,” I said.

My heart sank. Remember when I was talking about how Zach was the most used name by Gregory in our group? Well, Kelly’s up there. Like, really up there. His girlfriend. His pride and joy who he would always talk about quite creepily. And then, she cheated on him with someone from her hometown. Walter or something. They broke up shortly after. I walked with her, but it was more of a sleepwalk, because I was barely hearing her talking. I was thinking about Kelly, and how she cheated on Gregory. I didn’t blame her, but it was still quite a jerk move. I knew my way around, so it didn’t matter whether I was listening to her tour.

We got to the upstairs area, and I tuned back in. Her voice was very beautiful and uplifting. Why would she go out with someone like Gregory anyway? Whatever. After the tour, we decided to eat lunch together. My mother had made pasta with sausage sauce last night, and so I ate that.

“So what school did you go to before Candlelight?”

“Peterson,” I responded.

“Ooh, just across the street!”

It was true; Peterson was really close to Candlelight. Most people’s reactions to hearing that someone went to Peterson would say something like “What do you have?” or “Autism or ADHD?” Something that would make you feel a little uneasy. But she was nice about it, just pointing out other things relating to Peterson other than “the bad kids” that go there.

“Yeah, it’s nice because we don’t have to change our morning routine. We can still drop my siblings off at Raymond before dropping me off.”

“Wow! You have siblings that go to Raymond?”

I could see genuine wonder in her eyes; Raymond is a very selective school. `

“Yep. Sister and a brother. Brother’s not taking it well, though. Senior year and his attention’s still elsewhere.”

“Oh. Hope he’s going to do better later, especially in such a crucial year.”

Kelly was actually really good at keeping up a conversation with me, and I felt at home. I didn’t forget the cheating part, but I kept it in the back of my mind as we hit it off. She was clearly more than Gregory said about her.

***

“So, what grade are you in, Theo?” Amelia had asked me this not half an hour ago.

I felt bad for her, but Lawrence was just annoyed. Sorry, I mean “Elvin,” my uncle’s name, and the name Amelia was calling Lawrence for a while.

“Ninth,” I sighed.

I was getting tired of it, too, but it wasn’t her fault. Therefore, I kept it in.

“Sorry, could you speak a little louder, sweetheart?”

“Ninth,” I said, accentuating my voice.

I made sure that she could hear.

“Oh, ninth! You know, when I was in ninth grade–”

“Come on!” Lawrence growled before my father walked him out of their room in the assisted living complex.

A brief silence.

“Continue?” I asked, to my mother’s delight.

“Oh, yes, yes, yes. Ninth grade, right?”

I nodded.

“Yes, when I was in ninth grade I went to a new school. I told the whole place that at the old school I went to, I was a cheerleader! I wasn’t, though, but people believed it! It was truly delightful to see all the young men there crushing over me. But halfway through the year, a girl I knew from my last school came. And you see, she actually was a cheerleader. The illusion broke, and everyone hated me. I was the loneliest kid in the–”

“That’s enough, Amelia,” Paul said very directly.

This story was new to me, but apparently not to Paul.

“What she’s trying to say is not to pretend to be someone else. It will backfire.”

“Okay,” I muttered. I waited a while and then said, out of earshot from my mother, “What if you just told half the story? Where nothing I said was a lie, but I still don’t mention the bad stuff?”

Paul looked into my eyes and said to me, “Then you’re playing a dangerous game of Russian roulette.”

 

Chapter Three

The Smackdown

It was not yet two weeks into my class when the first conflict happened.

It was early morning, at around 8:00 a.m. I got seated in the classroom early, as I usually did so I wouldn’t be late. Jeanette and Derrick came in together a few minutes after, then April and Emily. Then Devon, then Zach, then Thomas. We all got seated and waited. All the students were there. And none of us really noticed that Julian, the only member of the class who needed to be there, was not.

After a short while, Derrick spoke up. “Hey Thomas, where were you yesterday? You’ve missed school three days in a row.”

Thomas, who was typically the quiet kid, muttered something under his breath.

“Sorry,” Derrick responded, “what did you say?”

“I said, it’s none of your business,” said Thomas, with the nastiest tone he could have used.

“Okay, sheesh, I’m sorry. I didn’t know if it was personal. Sorry if it was a problem. I mean, if you’re depressed or anything, I’m free to talk whenev–”

Smack. Next thing I noticed, Derrick was on the floor, rubbing his cheek.

“You’re gonna pay for that, you little shit!”

He jumped up and charged at Thomas, knocking him to the floor and beginning to choke him. Thomas started kicking frantically until one of his kicks hit a part of Derrick that I shall not mention in this text. Derrick let go and ran back. Thomas punched him again. Zach pulled out his phone.

“Do not talk to me again. Period. Got it?”

Thomas kept punching him over and over again. Zach held his phone in the air, apparently filming the sequence of events. Derrick raised his fist up in the air and hit him hard in the head, knocking Thomas over and onto the ground.

“Ow…” Thomas replied, clenching his head.

“That’s what you get,” Derrick said angrily.

He marched away and back to his seat. I looked down at Thomas, who was now in pain a mere nine inches away from the back right leg of my chair. He looked at me back in agony. I ran up the flight of stairs that took you from my English classroom in the basement up to the main floor, and burst into the front office.

“Um, I think we’re gonna need a teacher in Julian’s classroom quickly. Please.”

The next day, I entered the common room for morning announcements. When I walked in, I noticed an large, old man with white sideburns and little hair other than those sideburns. It was Erwin, the head of the school.

“Greetings,” he began when we went into the room. “Now I’m sure some of you had heard about the fight yesterday between Thomas and Derrick in the English classroom, or at least a tiny snippet of what happened yesterday.”

Everyone nodded.

He continued. “It was quite the nasty fight. Thomas is currently in the hospital from a minor concussion, and the rest of the people involved have been disciplined accordingly. There have been many fights at Candlelight. But very few reach the level that this one did. Remember: once you decide to put hands on another person, the entire situation escalates beyond your control. And none of you got a teacher in the room until the damage was done. I thank Theo for what he did, but honestly, he should have found someone at least a full five minutes before Thomas hit his head on the tiled floor of our classroom. Devon could have done it too, as could have April, or Emily, or anyone there, really. But nobody made the right choice in time, and the price was paid. Zach is currently facing a two-day suspension for his decision to film the incident. Thomas will be returning to the school after his own suspension and head injury are each taken care of. But Derrick, due to having a history of fights much like this one, will not be returning to our community here at Candlelight. I hope you understand the severity of this incident, and that we will not tolerate something like this again. Have a good day, and go to class.”

The whole day had a bit of a somber undertone to it, mostly due to the long speech Erwin gave about the fight I stopped. I did feel bad about not getting to the front office earlier, but Erwin grilled me about this whole incident, and I was on the verge of tears.

So, thinking that telling a group of people meant to comfort me and keep my secrets safe would’ve been a good idea can be forgiven.

***

“Hold on? Derrick was expelled? Finally, I thought that dude would never go.”

“Please, Gregory,” I said, “this isn’t something I want to make light of, okay? It was a shocking experience for me.”

“Yeah, but not as much of a shocking experience for this Thomas kid, am I right?” he winked at me.

Gregory has a tendency to make jokes that only he out of the entire room didn’t hate.

“Please stop!”

“Okay, okay. And what did you say Zach did? Filmed the thing?”

“Yeah,” I muttered.

I did not like where this was going.

“That degenerate has always liked watching people suffer. Just like the Jewish elite care so little about anyone minus themselves. It’s in their blood.”

For the past few months, Gregory had been looking at a website dedicated to “exposing” the Jewish conspiracy behind all our money and has gone from a “humble anti-Semite” to a full-on lunatic about this stuff.

“He’s not a degenerate. Seriously, stop calling him that.”

“Can’t stop calling him that if it’s the truth.”

“Please, please stop.”

“Okay, okay,” interjected Dr. Howard. “We get the point, Gregory, you don’t like Jews, and you don’t like Zach. Theo has asked you to stop, so please stop.”

Gregory sighed. “Fine.”

Sebastian, known to give great advice to both myself and Gregory, spoke up. “I know that principals can be tough on us, but he’s punished who he’s wanted to punish. You did the right thing, even if it was a bit late to the party. Don’t keep feeling bad for yourself.”

“Thanks,” I said, even if I didn’t feel much better.

***

I didn’t hear anything more about this until Thursday, two days after my group meeting with Gregory and Sebastian and the day Zach got out of his two-day suspension. It just so happened that when I was about to go to lunch with Kelly, Zach had walked up to her and started talking.

“Listen, Kelly. We’re kindred spirits here. Both of us have been wronged by Gregory. So I feel it’s important for you to see this first.”

Kelly let out a small “Mhm”, and I walked up to them.

“Hey Theo, this is Zach,” Kelly said, clueless about how much I truly know about Zach.

“Hi,” I said, “I believe we’re both in Julian’s English class,” I said matter-of factly, ignoring what happened in that class.

“So you need to know about this too, I guess, considering you saw the fight. Have you heard of Gregory Redford?”

“Know the name,” I said, startled.

“Well, long story short, he’s a bully. Bullied me because I’m Jewish. Got expelled late last year, but it appears the tirade has not yet ended. Listen to this.”

What followed were the most intimidating sixteen sentences of my life.

Listen, I heard what happened yesterday. Two guys duked it out in your class. Beating each other up, choking each other. It was a mess, that’s for sure. And did you alert a teacher? Did you try to intervene? No, you just stood around and recorded it on your phone. How could you do that? Just keep a record of one of the worst fights in Candlelight history? Doesn’t surprise me, honestly. I mean, you people do it all the time. Don’t think you’re off the hook yet, Jew. I’m still around. I got a spy at Candlelight reporting everything you do and more. And maybe one day you’ll consider repenting. I sure hope so.

“Wow,” Kelly said. “I thought the guy’s expulsion would be it. Sorry this happened to you.”

“That’s not the problem. I’ve learned to ignore the guy. But listen.” He rewinded the voicemail and played the last five of those sentences.

Don’t think you’re off the hook yet, Jew. I’m still around. I got a spy at Candlelight reporting everything you do and more. And maybe one day you’ll consider repenting. I sure hope so.

Rewinded again.

I got a spy at Candlelight reporting everything you do and more. And maybe one day you’ll consider repenting. I sure hope so.

And one more time.

I got a spy at Candlelight—

Paused.

“This is a big deal. Means he still talks to people outside of Candlelight, and they tell him things about the happenings around the school.”

“Is that really a big development?” I asked timidly. “I — I mean, he has to have some friends here.”

“Nope,” Zach said. “Pretty much everyone here hated his guts. Besides, his parents block social media on his devices, so he couldn’t have gotten it that way. This is really big.”

“I need to go to the bathroom,” I said.

I called home sick before math class that day. I had never hated Gregory so much in my life. He broke confidentiality just so he could get a kick out of someone. I mean, what we say in group is supposed to stay in group. And I knew that the “spy” wasn’t anyone who went to Candlelight last year.

I knew it was me.

 

Melt Away

                

You watched your grandfather die.

I believe you were 7 years old at the time

But the strangest thing was even though he wasn’t blind

he refused to acknowledge your face.

 

It was strange; he acted like it was a game

He would just close his eyes when they fell on your frame

Even when you were trying to keep him away

From the trance he was making his grave.

 

You could tell his mind was dying

while his shrink was simply trying

to keep the thoughts clumped in his brain

from falling right out of his head

 

But his childish actions receded

As the doctor, he then treated

him with a little too much of the drug

that started his demise.

 

He seemed to have a moment,

“The Surge,” I think they call it

during which his eyes were full of

such a sudden recognition!

 

“Please, grandson,” he called out, desperate,

and you rushed; your eyes, they met his

but he simply held your gaze

unlike anything before.

 

“I will leave this Earth in sadness

and in hatred of my madness

for I have stopped myself

from seeing your beautiful face.”

 

And with that, his vitals worsened

a stench filled around his person

and you could tell by his face

his soul had left while incomplete.

 

Maturity

              

Earbuds vibrating inside my head

A barrier from those who leave me dead

They park their hearse outside my weary skull

Emotions bubble but my face remains dull

 

The hearse takes out a coffin so grandiose

It takes my childhood and starts to close

Wonder swells from within its closed walls

I try to defend, but the noise made me fall

 

The feelings start to invade

and the hearse, it drives away

with his soul

 

It was life; I could not deny that fact,

But something sacred persuaded me to act,

So I began to conquer the edges of my mind,

I could tell it was hiding something deep behind

 

My attack reigned,

new thoughts reclaimed

I could make them

happy again

 

And then I noticed

a bit of cold

as a cave dared to unfold


I saw within it

a strange glow

the cold increased

as I went to go

 

And then I saw

with tearing eyes

a gun held up to my pride

 

My attack reigned,

new thoughts reclaimed

I could make them

happy again

 

And then I noticed

a bit of cold

as a cave dared to unfold


I saw within it

a strange glow

the cold increased

as I went to go

 

And then I saw

with tearing eyes

a gun held up to my pride

 

Within the cave I saw a face

reflected from this creature

it was mine

 

Earbuds vibrating inside my head

as I try to clean up what I have just bled

my doubt of myself has ended its decline

I have confronted it; now I can climb

 

My derelict soul then sees the truth

naivety seeps from us

as we live

 

Houses on May 28th

Mary went upstairs later that night to check on Jamie. She knocked on his door quietly.

“Jamie… are you there? It’s Mommy.” Mary jiggled the handle and the door was locked.

There was no sound. “Jamie… I’m sorry I yelled at you earlier.”

Still, no reply came.

“Jamie, listen. How about we go to the arcade? You and Lisa would have much more fun there than picking out a toy from a store.”

Mary went downstairs and got the emergency key they kept in case somebody accidentally locked themselves in a room. She unlocked the door and the room was empty. Everything was completely untouched. Peter’s books were all in order by genre on his shelf and the globe he got for his birthday was in its regular spot.

“Peter!” Mary yelled.

Peter came running up the stairs.

“Mary, what’s wrong?” Peter was out of breath, although lately he’d been trying to work out more.

“Jamie’s gone! He’s not in his room!”

“I’m sure he’s in the house somewhere. You check the bathrooms and I’ll check Lisa’s room.”

Minutes later, Peter and Mary met up again in front of Jamie’s room.

“He’s not in the bathrooms!”

“Lisa’s gone too!”

“Where do you think they went?” Mary asked.

“The arcade!” Peter replied quickly.

“No, you ass! They wouldn’t be able to get to the arcade by foot.”

“Maybe they went exploring. You know how much Jamie loves exploring. And how courageous Lisa is.”

“You get the car keys and I’ll get some flashlights and we’ll go!” Mary said.

Together, they left to find their children.

 

***

“Jamie, are you sure this is a good idea?” Lisa asked.

They were walking in the woods behind their house, and it was about half past one. A slight breeze blew through the air and the sky was clear.

“I think it’s a great idea.” Jamie answered.

“We’re gonna get in trouble.”

“No, we’ll be home before Mom and Dad wake up.”

“Are you sure,  Jamie?”

Jamie paused. Lisa’s flashlight was flickering. The bushes were rustling and a small figure stepped out from behind them.

“Good morning, kiddos.” It was a boy about eleven years old, the same age as Jamie. He had blue eyes like the ocean and chocolate colored hair.

“I’m the same age as you, Scott,” Jamie said.

Scott laughed. “It’s a figure of speech.”

Lisa looked grumpy. She reminded Jamie of the floating rainclouds over grouchy people’s heads in cartoons.

“Why the long face, Lisa?” Scott teased.

“Scott, I’m eight years old. Don’t call me kiddo.”

“Alright. If it really bothers you guys that much, I won’t do it.”

“Scott, where are we even going?” Jamie asked.

Scott smiled and his eyes lit up.

“It’s this old house that I live next to. It’s really cool and I wanted to explore it with you guys.”

“I’ve got two water bottles, my flashlight, a pack of batteries I stole from the kitchen cabinet, and a box of Girl Scout cookies.”

“Yep, that’s everything we need to survive,” Jamie said sarcastically.

“What kind are they?” Scott asked.

Lisa looked inside her yellow backpack.

“Shortbreads,” she said.

“Goddamnit. I wish they were Thin Mints.”

The kids continued walking to the house. They approached train tracks that smelled of rust after rain, which was strange because it hadn’t rained that night or the day before.

“Jamie, please don’t go on the train tracks,” Lisa said.

“Why not?” Jamie said.

“I don’t want anything to happen. I have a really bad feeling.”

“What do you think, Scott?”

Scott froze. “I think you should listen to your sister. For some reason I think she’s right.”

“Are you really sure, Lisa?”

“Yes.”

Jamie got off the tracks and they continued to walk along them. It had been about five minutes when Lisa turned around and they noticed a light in the distance.

“Jamie, do you see that?” Lisa asked.

“What?” Jamie said and then turned around. He saw the light.

Scott saw it too. “It’s a train. And it’s getting faster.”

Scott was right. The kids could hear the sound of the train huffing and puffing. The train whisked by them.

“Lisa, if I had stayed on those train tracks, I don’t even want to think about what would have happened,” Jamie said.

“You made a good call,” Scott said.

“Are there trains on this track often?” Jamie asked.

“Not usually… ” Scott said, and trailed off.

The house was the size of a mansion with tiles coming off the roof and a mailbox practically grasping to hang onto its pole. It was covered with vines and the bushes were overgrown. On the porch was a cracked light and a wooden rocking chair. There was also a small driveway, which was strange, because the house was in the middle of the woods.

“This looks like a shack,” Lisa said.

“Scott. What. Is. This?” Jamie asked.

“A house.”  

“You know, I never really noticed that.”

“Are we gonna go in or what?” Lisa said.
Together they walked onto the porch, and Scott opened the door. The first thing they saw were crimson colored stairs.

“Where do you guys wanna go?” Scott asked, with a grin.

“Let’s go into the bedrooms,” Jamie said.

Scott led them upstairs and there were three bedrooms. The first one they entered seemed to be a guest bedroom. It was pretty bare and simple with only a bed and a dresser. The second room was a child’s room. There was a small bed with pale, pink blankets and pale, yellow pillows. There was a shelf with books, dolls, and records. Jamie reached up and picked one up off the shelf.

“Scott, do these still work?”

“When I found this place two weeks ago they did.”

Jamie went up to the record player on a table and put on a record. It was jazz music with a man singing about how he missed somebody.

Scott picked up one of the dolls. It had a crack in its cheek. The doll had green eyes and brown hair. It had on a dark blue dress with lace falling off. Its eyes seemed to glint in the flashlight’s beam. He shuddered.

Lisa looked at the books on the shelf. A Wrinkle in Time, The Wizard of Oz, The Phantom Tollbooth, The Secret Garden, and Peter Pan. Lisa looked around, and she got a sickening feeling.

“Let’s go into another room,” Lisa said. They went into the next bedroom, which must have been the parent’s bedroom. There was a bed with green covers and white pillows. There was a table with old makeup products, and the mirror above was chipped. There was also a large wardrobe with a drawer hanging open.

“Hey, guys. Look at this,” Jamie said, and pulled out a large book from the drawer.

Scott frowned. “That’s strange. When I was here, that drawer wasn’t open.”

Scott hesitantly sat down next to Jamie and Lisa did the same. The book happened to be a photo album. The first picture was of a young man and woman smiling. The man was a sailor. The next photo was with the same man and woman, but she was kissing his cheek. Another photo was their wedding and there were many photos of what must have been aunts and uncles and cousins. Another photo was the house. The next one was the couple sitting by the fireplace in the living room, and the woman had a rounded belly. The photo after was a baby. The next photo was the couple playing with a female toddler. There were no other photos after that.

“You know what’s weird?” Lisa asked.

“What?” Jamie said.

“None of the pictures are labeled,” Lisa said.
“This is really creepy,” Scott said.

Lisa looked at the mirror, her eyes widened in fear.

“Lisa, what’s wrong?!” Jamie cried.

“Did you turn the record player off?” Lisa asked.

“No. Why?”

“Because it stopped playing.”

They all went silent.

“We should leave,” Lisa said.

“Yeah. Make sure you have all your stuff,” Jamie said.  

Together, the kids got up and closed the door behind them. They quietly walked down the hall as though they were trying not to disturb a sleeping dragon.

Suddenly, there was a thumping sound coming from the child’s room. It was getting louder and louder.

“Guys. Quick. Go!” Scott cried. They ran as fast as they could. The thumping sound got louder. When Jamie and Lisa got out of the house and into the woods, they stopped to relax.

“Where’s Scott?” Jamie asked.

“Scott! Scott! Where are you?!” Lisa yelled. But no matter how loud they yelled and how far they searched, Scott was nowhere to be found.

 

***

“Where’s Mom and Dad?” Lisa’s quivering voice came from upstairs.

Jamie and Lisa had arrived home after running all the way through the forest, back to their house. As soon as they got to their lawn, Lisa was filled with a burst of energy and she ran through the door, all the way upstairs. She quickly realized that her parents weren’t there.

“I don’t know!” Jamie said. “Maybe they went shopping?”

“Why would they go shopping at five in the morning?” Lisa asked.

“Right. Alright,” Jamie said, trying to calm himself down.

The front door flew open loudly and in came their mom and dad.

“Jamie! Lisa! Thank God. We’ve been looking for you for hours!” Peter said.

Mary hugged both of her kids. “What were you doing out this early in the morning? We were going to call the police!”

“Mommy, Scott’s gone!” Lisa cried.

“What do you mean?” Peter asked.

Jamie began to explain. He talked about his plan to go exploring with Scott and the house he took them into. He described the fright they got and how they left Scott. Jamie hung his head low.

“I’ll call the cops,” said their dad. “He’s probably still stuck in there.”

Jamie and Lisa were sent to their rooms as a punishment. They fell asleep with hope in their heart because they knew their dear friend would be found.

 

***

The police went and searched the house, but they found nothing. Scott’s parents were devastated. So were Jamie and Lisa. A giant search was led to find Scott. They searched for five months. At the end of the fifth month, a scrap of paper was found in the house which was believed to be in Scott’s handwriting. It said: May 28th. Nobody could figure what that meant.

A funeral was held in Scott’s name in November. Jamie and Lisa thought that the date meant something, and that Scott was still alive somewhere. They kept this between themselves.

 

The Stone of Shadows

 

Chapter One: Elf in a Tent

 

It was the crack of dawn, and the evergreens were standing proud and tall by the small river. The trees stood twenty-seven feet tall, making plant life on the forest floor almost impossible. But these trees were surrounded by roaring hills, standing so tall that they could not be measured. In response to the rising sun, the birds had gone as wild as a tiger in the radius of fire. The bird’s chirping had echoed off the forest with the response being confused as real.

A small, leather tent stood by the fast, running river. Within the tent, a dark elf, by the name of Alexandra, awoke to the sounds of dawn. Poor Alexandra laid sick from the cold, for today was the second day of winter, and she was unprepared. It wasn’t that she lost her winter coat or anything like that. Alexandra intentionally left it. She had escaped her sanctuary during the winter solstice and didn’t bring her coat. But her lack of warmth was not the main issue (her race was known for having a small resistance to the cold), it was the amount of damage done to her body that showed. Scars and bruises went from her face to her ankles, and they were not going anytime soon. Besides that, Alexandra’s appearance had cloaked her true age, for she was a twenty-seven-year-old trapped in the body of a fourteen-year-old. But for a dark elf, she was quite tall, standing five-feet and eleven inches, three inches above the average height.

Alexandra, looking up while lying in the tent, had to figure out what to do. A town had settled not too far away from her location. But her wear had consisted of a completely black shirt with sleeves going to her elbows, pants that went to her knees, and a hooded linen cloak. With damage all over her arms and legs, she could not go to town. Alexandra wanted to avoid questioning and suspicion from the town.

An hour later, Alexandra was squatting outside the tent by a small fire. She stood close by the fire to keep herself warm. Unfortunately, it did not provide much warmth. At a nearby tree, a deer was sniffing the ground for whatever he could find. Although it was the second day of winter, it had not snowed. Therefore, the ground looked like that of a steppe. Alexandra looked at the deer’s fur with envy. The deer looked up and saw Alexandra squatting by a fire. Suddenly, the deer wiggled his ears and galloped away. Alexandra looked confused. She did not move a limb, but the deer ran away. She looked behind herself and saw a man standing high above her. The man had a fur cap and wore a fur coat going down to his knees. The man’s face, in addition to his rough beard, was quite frightening. Slowly, Alexandra stood herself straight in front of the vicious looking man. Although she was tall, the man had stood around a foot taller. Alexandra slouched herself to show the man he was more powerful. The man didn’t seem to care. In a deep voice, he began to speak.

“What are you doing near my tent?”

Alexandra did not know how to respond to the large man. She began to straighten up.

“I use that tent during spring, summer, and autumn,” said the man. “I am a hunter, so you understand why I don’t use it during the winter.”

Alexandra nodded her head.

“Usually, I find runaway slaves and traveling prostitutes staying in my tent. But you’re different.”

The hunter observed Alexandra with his eyes and hands, with no intention of hurting or sleeping with her. She stood frozen in awkwardness. The hunter noticed her long, pointy ears, longish black hair, yellow eyes, and blue skin color. It was not common to find a dark elf running about, but the hunter was unimpressed. He then noticed the damage on her naked arm.

“Well, you have a story,” said the hunter. “But, I know you’re not a slave because you’re not wearing ragged clothes.”

The hunter observed Alexandra again.

“And you’re definitely not a whore. So, if you are neither of those two, what are you?”

Alexandra relaxed herself and spoke in a calm tone. “My story can’t be explained in one word. And I don’t title myself as any sort of class.”

The hunter looked surprised by Alexandra’s voice.

“You are obviously older than you look,” he said. “Follow me, you can tell your story by a warm fire.”

The hunter walked away, beside the river. Alexandra needed warm asylum, but the hunter seemed sketchy. If he did try something on me, she concluded, I can fight back. Alexandra followed.

 

***

The fire crackled loud while Alexandra sat in comfort and warmth. She took a drink from her warm, pine tea. The hunter was in another room, fixing a solution for Alexandra’s scars. Alexandra looked around the fireplace and saw the display of bows and arrows. These bows were not just a simple stick and string. These bows looked very powerful and expensive.

“You are obviously very wealthy,” Alexandra yelled to the hunter.

“Yes. I am the only hunter in town, so I tend to get a lot of customers,” said the hunter, walking towards the fire.

Sitting next to Alexandra, he handed her a bowl of crushed herbs.

“Here,” he said. “This should get rid of those scars.”

Alexandra rubbed the solution on her scars.

“What’s your name?” asked the hunter.

“Alexandra. And yours?”

“Bjor.”

The two stood still while the fire cracked.

“Are you hungry?” asked Bjor.

“I’ll be alright. I don’t want to take any of your product.”

“Well, of course you’ll pay me,” said Bjor.

“Well, I’m sorry, Bjor, but I don’t have any money,” said Alexandra. “And I’m not paying any other way.”

“How about your story?” asked Bjor.

Alexandra felt bad for judging Bjor. He was not the perverted freak she expected.

“Alright,” said Alexandra, putting her tea on the ground. “Now, listen closely, because this is very important.”

 

***

A day before the winter solstice, Alexandra was with her two sisters in a dressing room of her family’s castle. The room had a mirror and a small window looking out to the black, oak forest. It was near the end of the day, and a large glare had entered the room. Fortunately, the mirror and window were right next to each other, so the glare did not hit the mirror.

Alexandra and her older sister, Anna, were in front of the mirror, trying out clothes for tomorrow’s party. For dark elves (and other elves as well), the winter solstice was a very important day, for it signified the end of life. Usually on the first day of winter, Alexandra’s father, Mallekath, would host a large party. The party would consist of other families within the region of Mirewood. It was a very large gathering, over a hundred and seventy people or so.

Anna looked at herself, wearing a white dress, in the mirror with Alexandra standing two inches taller than her.

“Alex, do you think this is an excellent dress?” said Anna, posing to the mirror.

“Why would it not be?” asked Alexandra.

“I feel like it would bring too much attention.”

“But isn’t that good?”

“Yes, but last time, I felt like the main attraction of the party.”

Anna took another glance at the mirror.

“I think I’ll give it a second try,” said Anna. “What are you going wear, Alex?”

“Just the usual black cloak, shirt, and pants,” answered Alexandra.

Anna stuck her tongue out at Alexandra in disgust. Alexandra looked at her little sister, Krosna, sitting in the corner of the room. Krosna was only twelve but was very intelligent. However, she was also shy and tended to hide in her room during the winter solstice parties.

“What are you going to do this year, Krosna?” said Alexandra.

“I think I’ll pass on the party this year,” said Krosna in a soft voice. “I’m worried about father. He’s been acting very strange lately. I think he’s getting too close to the Shadow Stone.”

The Shadow Stone was one of the many ancient artifacts that granted absolute power. Each stone provided a special attribute to the user. The Shadow Stone allowed the user to create an army of shadows, if handled by the right person. However, if the Shadow Stone (or any other stone in general) was handled without caution, it would be catastrophic.

“Krosna, that’s silly,” said Anna in a minorly frightful voice. “Father knows what he’s doing.”

Krosna silently shook her head.

“I wouldn’t worry about it,” said Alexandra.

 

***

At midnight, Alexandra was lying in her bed looking at her toes, which were uncovered by the blanket. She looked up at the ceiling and saw how extremely tall her room was. She then looked at her large window and saw the moonlight streaming into her room. Alexandra got out of her bed and walked towards the window to draw the curtains. Suddenly, she heard a crash. The sound came from the main hallway, the room where the Shadow Stone sat on a large column.

“What could that be?” Alexandra said aloud.

She left her room and quietly ran towards the hall. When she entered, she saw her older brother, Michael, trying to clean up a vase he broke. Michael looked up at his sister with an evil eye. Michael didn’t have a good relationship with Alexandra. He usually tried to take control of things. But Alexandra tended to resist.

“What are you doing?” Alexandra asked.

“None of your concern,” answered Michael in a rude tone.

Suddenly, their mother, Elis, entered the hall.

“What is going on here?” asked Elis in an annoyed tone.

Michael looked at Alexandra, then at his mother.

“It was Alexandra. She intentionally broke the vase and tried to frame me,” cried Michael in an accusing voice.

“That’s a lie!” yelled Alexandra. “I was in my bedroom when…”

“Alright, alright, I don’t want to hear it,” said Elis. “I don’t care. Just let the servants get to it and go back to bed.”

Michael left the room, not looking at anyone or anything. Elis turned around, walking towards the doorway.

“Mother…”

“Go to bed, Alexandra!” yelled Elis.

Then, Alexandra’s mother had left the hall. Alexandra did the same, but she was more frustrated. As Alexandra walked towards her room, she ran into Babastian, the Venorian servant. For those of you who don’t know what a Venorian is, they were basically a cross breed between a lizard and a human. They usually lived in the deserts, wetlands, and mountains, and they originated from the continent of Maltopia.   

“Master Alexandra, why do you walk the halls at midnight?” asked Babastian in a concerned voice.

“Why do you ask?” said Alexandra.

“It is my job to make sure you are well, and lack of sleep can turn a man insane.”

“But I am a woman, am I not?”

“It applies to all,” said Babastian.

Alexandra walked on. She then remembered her father.

“Babastian,” she said turning around. “Has my father been acting strange lately?”

“Oh, my dear,” sobbed Babastian. “Your father has truly gone mad. He always stumbles his way to bed, yells out rude things to your mother, and talks to himself all the time.”

Alexandra looked worried. Her father was usually not like this at all. Maybe Krosna was right.

“Do you think it’s the Shadow Stone?” said Alexandra.

“I wouldn’t be surprised,” said Babastian. “I saw him stare at it for over half an hour. Just the other day, little Krosna suggested destroying the stone itself. Although she presented a solid argument, your father was outraged and ended up throwing a cast iron pot at her.”

Alexandra was shocked by the story. She could not imagine her father doing something like that, especially to his daughter.

“Anyway, I must be on my way,” said Babastian. “I wish you a good night.”

“Goodnight,” said Alexandra as Babastian walked away from her.

 

***

In her bedroom, Krosna was deep asleep with a pillow over her head. Alexandra entered the room and quietly walked towards her sister. She then kneeled beside Krosna and softly shook her.

“Krosna, wake up,” whispered Alexandra.

Krosna opened her eyes and removed the pillow from her head.

“You were right about father.”

Krosna was now wide awake. She rubbed her eyes and took a breath.

“We have to destroy the Shadow Stone,” said Krosna.

“How do we do that?” said Alexandra.

“The stone is pretty easy to destroy. The hardest part is acquiring the stone without anyone noticing. But I have a plan for that, and you would be very useful.”

 

***

On the night of the winter solstice, around twenty families had shown up to the party. Alexandra stood at the edge of the main hall, seeing the Shadow Stone towering over the crowd of people. The stone was a cube shape and medium size. Alexandra wore her usual wear with a necklace hanging from her neck. The necklace held a blue, transparent, diamond-shaped gem. She remembered the exact instructions her sister gave her. If anything goes wrong, break the gem in half.

Alexandra felt nervous. It was almost time to do her part of the plan. She needed to create a distraction while her sister snatched the stone. Suddenly, the time had come. Alexandra found a position where she could see most of the party. She cleared her voice.

“Excuse me, everyone, I have an announcement to make.”

The party paid attention to Alexandra (with all eyes looking away from the Shadow Stone.)    

“I am happy to say that this is the fiftieth winter solstice party that my father has hosted.”

This was not true. It was actually the twenty-first. But the crowd applauded anyway.

“Because of this special event, let us celebrate to our fullest.”

The crowd was in uproar. Their eyes were still pointing away from the Shadow Stone. Mallekath came out of the crowd and walked towards his daughter.

“You usually don’t speak up like that,” he said. “What gave you the motive?”

“I just found a reason to celebrate,” said Alexandra, hesitating.

“Well, you should have probably waited twenty-nine years, but no harm done.”

Mallekath turned around, and his eyes gazed at the balcony above the left doorway.

“What is your sister doing up on the balcony?” he asked.

Alexandra saw little Krosna on the top of the balcony, gripping a rope. Suddenly, she jumped off the balcony and swung across the great hall, grabbing the Shadow Stone on her way. When Krosna got to the other side, she grabbed onto the ledge with her right hand, her left arm wrapping the stone and holding the rope at the same time. “That little bitch!” yelled Mallekath in anger.

Without hesitance, Mallekath pulled out a crossbow from his left belt (which he always carried for safety purposes) and shot it at the little girl with the stone. The bolt sped through air and hit Krosna in the leg. The little girl let go of the ledge and rope, dropping around twenty feet or so. Krosna hit the ground with a thump, the Shadow Stone beside her. The party had completely stopped and looked at the little girl lying on the floor, unconscious and damaged. Elis came out of the crowd, in shock, and cradled her daughter in her arms. Then came Mallekath and Alexandra. Then Michael, Babastian, and Anna. All surrounded Krosna.

Elis looked up at her husband with an evil eye.

“How could you do such a thing to our daughter?!” she yelled.

“She tried to destroy the Shadow Stone!” said Mallekath, picking up the stone.

“She did it to save you,” yelled Alexandra. “She knew the stone was consuming you, so she tried getting rid of it for good.”

Mallekath stared at Alexandra like a wolf staring at its bait.

“And you. You helped her,” he said in a monster-like tone. “You will pay for this!”

Suddenly, Mallekath pointed the stone towards Alexandra and a great beam of light, coming from the stone, blinded the crowd. Without delay, Alexandra ran away from the stone. But a great blast came from behind and pushed her out of the hall. The main hall behind her was consumed by a blinding light of death. The walls cracked and broke while she sped through the air. In a second, she ended up falling off the outside balcony. Alexandra was speeding down with the rough terrain beneath her. With no time to think, she took the gem from her necklace and split it in half. Alexandra disappeared from the scene.    

 

***

The fire crackled as Bjor stood in shock from Alexandra’s story. He gave her a piece of venison.

“You’ve obviously been through a lot,” said Bjor as Alexandra was munching on her venison. “You said you were from Mirewood, right?”

“Yes. I was in the northwest. On the border of Morrisland and Mirewood.”

Bjor let out a strong sigh.

“Well, if you’re planning on heading back, I suggest staying ‘till the end of winter.”

“Why?” asked Alexandra in an anxious voice.

“Well, this is Red Pine.”

Alexandra sighed in frustration. Red Pine was a region in the Orcish kingdom of Red Rock. This mostly human area was more than two-thousand miles away from her home. Why did the gem bring her here? It must have been a mistake from the gem. The destinations were sometimes random.

“You can stay here till the spring solstice,” said Bjor in a kind voice.  

“Thank you. I’ll try not to be a burden.”

 

An Old Friend

The castle had remnants of grandeur, of beauty long forgotten, now hanging in rubble and ruins over the cliff of the violently churning sea. Perhaps once it had been glorious, but now it lay in tatters, much like the man who claimed residency there. Torn and ripped apart at the edges, his gloom hung heavy upon the castle, echoing in every cracked mirror and shattered window, hauntingly beautiful in its demise.

His shouts were etched in every stone, carved into the very fabric of the castle, for to separate one from the other was surely impossible. Years of mindless madness had ruined him, now only a shadow of what he once was, a mere flicker of humanity trapped inside an empty, bloodied shell.

Stumbling blindly over the cracked, ancient marble, chasing the figures that tormented him so, the nameless man ran ragged through the ballroom, following those who had broken his mind, crumbling it down until it had turned to dust. Breath flowed harshly from his parted, cracked lips, hands scrabbled for grip upon the cold, unforgiving walls. Yet those he hunted so perversely were never caught, steps echoing upon the floor painted with tales of centuries past, the scream falling from his tongue before he had a chance to catch it, to stop the sound of pure, unforgivable hell filling the room like a chorus of demons, their faces savage as they ravaged his mind, their hands upon his shoulders, forcing him down upon the ground, and yet he could not feel them. Only his eyes could find their grotesque forms, the sunken orbs frantically searching from beast to beast, fingers scrabbling at the moonlit shadows that cast paintings upon his pallid, translucent skin, the unforgiving years hallowing his frame until only a small, pale ghost of a man remained.

He could hear the laughter ringing around him, their mockery agonizing him until his palms bled, the ugly crescent marks staining the whiteness of his hand vivid red, blood pooling under the fragile surface. Blood was not new to him, in fact, he welcomed it with familial affection, glorifying the way it spilled from every vein his demons ruptured, venerating each drop as if it was life itself, and in a way, it was. Yet as the blood spilt upon the floor, it proved a painful reminder of his greatest tragedy: the feeble beating of his wretched, forsaken heart. Each beat thrust against his ribcage as he was brought abruptly to his feet, the hair on the back of his neck prickling as he felt the undeniable feeling of being watched, of being hunted, the figures that had eluded him so suddenly gone in a moment of terrible clarity, vanishing into smoke and ice as he was left alone in the banishment of his solitude.

Staggering to ripped, aged curtains of ravished velvet, the unwelcome solace of the horrendous truth slowly building in his decaying mind, swelling like the great rise of a revolution destined to fall. The hunter had nothing, now stripped away until only the prey remained, weak and trembling, gripping those curtains as if they could save him from the ending of his story, the last inkblots staining the crumbling page. But even as the air filled his lungs, as the pain of life fell so heavily upon his weakening shoulders, he felt a gloved hand upon his neck, belonging so clearly to a being more than merely smoke and shadow, finding the chilling comfort of an old friend as his hurried whispers dissolved in one last moment of finality.

 

Butter

                                       

It happens quite often that I feel my thoughts start to disseminate like continental drift.

It happens also that I feel like I am biting into a chunk of solid butter.

Sometimes, though, it is melted butter, and sometimes, the butter is whipped.

Those days are good ones.

From time to time, the sky appeals to me so much that I have an uncontrollable desire to drink tufts of clouds through a peppermint-striped paper straw and feel the wispy white slinking down my throat.

I have a muscle in my leg that, when I’m really concentrated, pulses under my knee and doesn’t allow me to stop bouncing it.

Sometimes, when I watch rain pouring down outside my window, I feel water lapping over my contact lenses like there are windshield-wipers in my eye bags.

 

I do feel in control of myself occasionally, though.

I know how to swallow on purpose, blink on purpose, listen on purpose.

 

Some days, I have neutral legs.

Neutral wrists.

Neutral shoulders.

My legs and wrists and shoulders give off a slight vibration that is unnoticeable: energetic, yet calm.

 

When I’m cold, my sweat glands secrete fire; when I’m warm, they secrete ice.

 

I wonder if there is anyone in the world who has pierced fingertips and five hoop earrings dangling from each hand.

I wonder if anyone else has ever wondered about that.

 

Sometimes, if my mom is driving our car, my dad will stick both his legs out the passenger seat window.

I’ve never asked why, because he probably won’t have an answer that makes sense. But I’ve always assumed my impulsive nature stems from the strands of DNA I inherited from him.

 

I wonder if he has an urge to drink clouds. I wonder if anyone else does.

Sometimes, I am frozen milk left out in the sun, and I’m dripping and unfreezing and whipping myself into wispy clouds so that I can drink myself.

 

When I listen to people talking while I’m mad, all I can hear are potato-peeler sounds that cause my skin to flake and my feet to writhe.

When I listen to people talking while I’m sad, I am the churning heat in the air, creating wind slowly, like a milkmaid making butter.

 

My brother is less than one year old and hasn’t quite mastered crawling yet, so when he tries, his knees are soft, watery butter, and he slips and smacks his tummy on the ground, so I pick him up and put his knees in the refrigerator for a while.

Soon, he will have butter-knees strong enough to crawl on.

 

Sometimes, though, my mom is confused to see drawings of knees sitting in the fridge, but I tell her it’s a metaphor.

“I’m teaching Alec how to crawl.”

She gives me a look.

This is when I know my thoughts have disseminated.

 

“Mom have you ever seen someone with pierced fingertips?”

“I don’t think people do that. There are too many nerves in fingertips.”

“Is it possible?”

“I guess so. Don’t do it, please.”

 

My leg is bouncing, emitting blips of energy without my permission, but I am melted butter today, so it is a good day.

 

I have decided to like cauliflower and pumpernickel, and I have decided to like these things as a two-year-old likes bubbles.

 

My lips are bubbling. I used to play with bubbles.

There are liquified soap bars in my stomach, and solidified liquid soap has encased all the wiggling cells in my brain.

My brain contains pink soap balloons.

The balloons are turning yellow, like salted butter. The yellow balloons taste like sour apples. The sour apple taste is delicate, like cauliflower.

 

When I was a two-year-old who played with bubbles, I would catch them in my mouth and feel the soap cover my tongue.

A few years later, I melted butter and mixed it with whipped cream in a bowl and drank my mixture and pretended I was drinking butter-flavor whipped clouds. That was yesterday.

 

Sometimes, I wonder if it is possible for butter to rot to the extent where it’s brown like pumpernickel.

I wonder if anyone else has wondered about that.

 

Biting into frozen butter with buckteeth is like being the only one awake on a double-decker airplane.

Butter for buckteeth.

Rotten pumpernickel butter for buckteeth.

Expired airplane pumpernickel butter for buckteeth.

It happens on occasion that I feel like my tongue is a frying pan being burnt by butter.

It happens also that I feel my irises revolving like a silver doorknob.

Sometimes, the doorknob is sticky from bubbles.

Sometimes, my tongue is sticky from bubbles and butter.

 

Sometimes, I think my urine is melted butter.

 

Sometimes, my stomach is chunky like a chunk of butter after I eat butter.

Sometimes, my mom tells me not to eat butter.

 

Sometimes, I think I’m allergic to butter.

 

One time, when I was trying to pick Alec up off his tummy, there were hoops dangling from my fingers, and I couldn’t.

So Alec had to stay on his tummy.

 

I’ve decided I won’t pierce my fingertips.

                                                And clouds are too high up for me to reach.

 

My brother has learned how to crawl. Now I am waiting for his soft-butter-feet to harden.

 

Honeysuckle Yellow Sunny Socks

                

There is water in the air bubbles that pop when I crack my knuckles. I am in a tank of water. The water tank is full of floating honeysuckles.

I am out of the water tank. There are strings of honeysuckles wrapped around my arms. There are honeysuckles in the air bubbles that pop when I crack my knuckles.

 

There is clean dust on my curtains.

There is clean dust in the air bubbles that pop when I crack my knuckles.

The clean dust from my curtains sprinkles down onto the honeysuckle strings on my arms. The clean dust on my honeysuckle strings trickles down into the cut on my foot. There is a sanitary infection on my foot from the honeysuckle clean dust.

 

The honeysuckles in my knuckles are dyeing my finger bones yellow. My yellowing finger bones are dismembered and have joined my honeysuckle strings.

I am a honeysuckle.

There is saliva contaminating my sanitary foot infection.

 

My foot infection is secreting yellow pus.

 

When I walk, my honeysuckle yellow sunny socks are whispering to the moss that is being squished under my heels, and the moss is shouting at my sunny socks. I feel the discord under my toes, squish-squashing, clay against green against yellow against flesh.

I am listening to the leaves of honeysuckle bushes rustling, and the rustling is beginning to sound like crashing ocean waves. Leaves are waves like I am honeysuckle.

There is someone pulling the honey vocal chords out of my honeysuckle-body.

The water from the tank is seeping through my pores and filling my lungs.

I’m alone in a water tank and drowning with no honey left in my blood.

There is someone plucking my honeysuckle pistils.

I’m being picked apart.

I’m crumbling into dirty dust.

Yellow pus is soaking my yellow sunny socks.

The pus is turning green.

Dirty dust is tickling my unsanitary infection.

I’m starting to float and bloat like the honeysuckles in the water tank.

There is dirty dust and green pus in the air bubbles that pop when I crack my knuckles.

There are dirty, dusty curtains in the air bubbles that pop when I crack my toe knuckles in my honeysuckle yellow sunny socks.

All the floating honeysuckles in the water are seeping through my pores and into my skin.

I am full of bloated honeysuckles.

All the water from the water tank is inside my body.

 

I am swollen and swelling and swamped.

 

The Last Time I Saw You

              

I remember the last time I saw your face

It was nighttime

The sun was falling over the horizon

You were angry at me but I didn’t know why

You wouldn’t tell me why

You looked at me, frustration exploding like fireworks all over your face

You couldn’t communicate your feelings to me

I didn’t know that

I know that now

But it’s too late now

What will I do without you

Without your pretty face

Without your certainty of my purpose

Without your constant and unwavering encouragement

To lift me up

And then

At the end of the day

When it disappears

And the real you surfaces

Only to show your real face

Your real side

And when I look at you then

I find that your heart is missing

You are unable to love me

I want to fix you

But I can’t fix you

Please let me fix you

 

Ants

The queen died last night. The colony is in a fervor. They look lost. Each wanders the tunnels they made, like aliens. The dirt and glass, that used to wrap them in warmth and keep them safe, now feel like a maze with no end or prize for solving. They don’t eat or sleep. Ants are strong creatures, but without direction, it doesn’t matter that they can carry twenty times their own weight. Once there’s no one left to protect, it doesn’t matter that they can fight to the death to protect their colony.

He could wait for the last eggs to hatch, but thinks he’d rather not trust his luck. He’ll have to find another queen outside later.

He sighs and sits back from the desk where his ant farm rests. Even from back here, he can see their movement, like rocks tumbling through kaleidoscopes, jumbled and directionless. He drops in some food, but knows it won’t make a difference.

The desk is empty of anything important besides his ants. He used to do homework here. Schoolwork stays on his bed now; clutter has seeped into the rest of his room like mold. The sparse sunlight, coming through his window, does little to drive it out.

After one last check on the ants, he grabs his backpack and heads out to walk the three blocks to school. It’s bright out, the kind of bright where you can’t see anything, but it doesn’t feel like seeing matters much when no one can. The dry, dusty air doesn’t help. He heads to his first class, biology, and sits in his usual seat in the back, two seats behind that girl: the mayor’s kid, who always writes down the answers, but doesn’t raise her hand and always seems to get her hair caught on the nails on the back of her chair.

He saw the mayor last fall, when she gave her annual speech at graduation. Though she probably doesn’t have much better to do, he muses, taking care of a town like this, with as many stop lights as they have water fountains. It’s three, not that he’s counting. Seems like she couldn’t take care of her family too well either, with all that he’s heard about her. He thinks the girl is lonely. At least, he hasn’t seen her talk to anyone, and she walks through the hallways as if, despite her years here, she’s never seen them before.

He lets out a breath and takes out his books. Maybe he was too loud; she turns around. She’s never done that before.

“Will you quit staring at me?”

He stops for a second. “What?”

She’s already turned back, and maybe she heard, but she might not have; class is starting. It’s another lesson on macromolecules.

He taps his fingers one by one on the top of the desk, almost feeling the vibrations. He imagines all the bugs, the bacteria and parasites, and all the little creatures that live beneath his feet. He feels like he’s in a million pieces, a million tiny things swimming around in space that, when looked at from far away enough, happen to resemble one being. For some reason, the more he tries to understand, the worse it gets. So he looks at the grayed whiteboard, streaked with faint lines of different colors from where lines have been drawn and erased, drawn and erased. The ceiling is falling in, the drooping panels pretending that instead of metal bars, they’re hanging by a thread. The lab desks are painted black, but those are chipping too.

From back here, the kids are just hair, a motley of dull brown and black. Not a large enough group for a single redhead. He thought middle school would be bigger than this, with looming lecture halls steep enough to slide down, so they can fit all the kids. There are twenty-three kids here, and he knows each of their names and their parents. It’s easy to look down on them, knowing they’ll be stuck here forever, first at the college, then as workers in the electrical plant or the grocery store, and he will have escaped.

He blinks back to the lesson and tries to remember that even in a place like this, there’s something alive. It’s just too small to see.

When class is over, the girl walks out, not quite rushing, so he takes that as a good sign and jogs to catch up.

“Hey, wait.”

It almost looks like she’s walking faster, but it’s hard to tell. Someone bumps into him and while he’s distracted, she slips away.

He walks home on the same route he’s been walking most of his life. He thought he would be out of here, going to the elite boarding school two towns over. But when the money fell through, he found there weren’t too many scholarships available for ant enthusiasts. He supposes the town owes it to him, owes him good education, or at least a chance. The college is the only thing keeping this place on its feet, but it doesn’t seem that different from the rest of the town.

A car drives by, kicking up dust and dirt. He starts to cough. It’s the first car he’s seen today, but the dust doesn’t make his eyes water like it used to.

He stops by his house to grab some supplies and heads down to the only park in town, which is less of a park and more of a field. Grass and trees don’t live long in the desert. As the sand and dirt and dust came in, so did the ants. Now there’s hardly a place you can walk without stepping on one.

He crouches down by a tree near the entrance. Here, ants have nestled their homes, between the thick roots that bend through the dirt like tentacles. In order for the queen to be ready for a new colony, it must be hatched and mated, but not yet bonded with her colony. There are several colonies here, so at least one should have an extra queen. He keeps track of the ants here passively, just in case something should go wrong. He takes out his container. Lays down a trap.

The queen is coming for it. He just has to wait.

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees something.

The girl is standing there. Looking down at him. And there he is, playing in the dirt.

“Boo.” She doesn’t sound like she’s trying too hard to scare him. “What are you doing?”

“Oh, uh, nothing.”  

“Just hanging out?” She sounds incredulous, but almost smiles, as if this is a perfectly plausible excuse.

He tries to swallow and sighs instead. “I need an ant queen. For my ant farm?”

“Oh, right, your ant farm. You know, I forgot about the ant thing, from the science fair in third grade? Nice to know some things never change.”

He shrugs, not able to do much else. “Why are you here, then?”

“I just had to get out for a bit.” He can’t tell if she means her house or all of this, but it makes sense.

Her hands jammed in her pockets, her eyes shift across the landscape. “See you later, ant guy. If I can’t avoid it.”

He turns back to find his ant prize all wrapped up for him, but he leaves confused.

Introducing a new ant queen to a colony takes meticulous time. A single worker must be removed, refrigerated to make it less aggressive, and then placed next to the queen. She has to prove her dominance on the worker, and the worker must get used to the queen’s scent. Then, another worker is refrigerated and added, then another, over the course of days or even weeks. The queen has to win them over one by one, though the first is always the hardest.  

People always used to tell him that when he got older and got a job, he would get caught in the grind of life, waking up early every morning and completing whatever slack-jawed job he was assigned until he went to bed. Maybe it will happen one day, but for now, his life isn’t like that. Not just because his schoolwork doesn’t occupy all his time, but because the time he wasn’t working, he spent on something he’s actually enjoying: his ant farm. People could talk, but it didn’t bother him when he knew he had at least made meaning in a life where everything seemed to be working against just that.

When he introduces the first worker, it keeps its distance. Maybe he didn’t wait long enough. It still seems stuck on its old queen. It’s aggressive towards the new one.

Ants fighting those from other colonies often battle to the death, and he doesn’t know how far this one will go. He leaves them alone and hopes for the best.

The problem with people is that they can’t be kept isolated or refrigerated to make them docile.

In his next biology class, she’s missing. Absent, unexcused. First time this year.

On his desk is a pencil-sketched picture of an ant.

***

A week later, more worker ants have been added to the mix. There’s fighting still, with the queen and each other. He should have waited longer, but now, he just follows the process, adding one ant a day.

She still hasn’t shown up to class. He thinks about looking for her and tries going to that spot in the park again, but finds nothing.  

He starts to worry about her. Something had to have happened. People don’t just disappear, especially in a town where it’s hard enough to leave by normal methods.

There’s a species of ants in the Amazon that build elaborate traps out of plant fiber. They fill it with holes, and each wait beneath one, and when an insect comes on top, every ant reaches through the hole and grabs the insect with their jaws. They’re predators, sometimes even to other ants.

The ground has been feeling pretty thin to him lately.

***

It takes a month for him to incorporate the rest of the worker ants with the queen. From their eyes, it must be a massive crowd. It would be hard to find a spot where your antennas weren’t bumping into anyone. Some of them climb over each other, and though there isn’t much fighting, there’s tension in the container. A queen is a queen, and while they know they need her, they don’t bow to her. He starts to incorporate them back into the ant farm, though this is a first for the new queen. It seems to reinvigorate her; in her own domain, with her special chambers, she begins to take control.

He starts to anticipate biology class; now there’s a black hole in the room bigger than the lab desk and two spots farther away. He feels like the jellyfish used for DNA splicing — some strange thought is now part of him, and there’s no way to get it out. He wonders if anyone else notices her absence. Are they looking for her? Are the police looking for her? What if she was murdered, or kidnapped?

When his curiosity gets the better of him, he asks the teacher, who shrugs, then the kids who sit next to her chair, who do the same. It’s not that no one noticed, but no one seems personally invested enough to try and do anything. He isn’t either, but the more he learns of others’ negligence, the more he wants himself to care.

So after another week, when his ants have settled and he has nothing he can distract himself with, he heads down to the mayor’s house.

It’s taller than the other houses on the block, but not imposing. It has a porch, tall windows, gray walls. The driveway holds a single car, pointing outwards.

He’s seen the mayor before, up on stage and in pictures in the town hall. He’d been in there a couple times, for his fifth grade piano recital before he quit, and then for graduation. He often wonders if she knows him, if she remembers the names of most of the citizens, or if she just directs from afar. Ant queens use chemical signals to direct different workers, and he wonders how much of her job is behind the scenes.

He looks at the doorbell, the creaky steps, and covered windows. The chipping, cesious paint on the doorframe reminds him of the biology desks. The door, however, looks freshly painted, so he can tell someone is trying to keep up appearances. The windows are dusty, so he imagines if they spend time looking out across the town, it would be on this porch, on the couch, and scattered chairs. There’s a deck of cards on the table in the middle, and he wonders if they spend a lot of time out here.

He decides to go in the back way instead.

There’s a shed with the door open, so filled as to make the place unusable, yet still somewhat organized. Bikes are in their slots on the back wall, posters for a Girl Scout cookie booth on the walls, tennis rackets in a pile next to the balls, and portable net. There’s a life here, a childhood. Nothing too recent, though.

He heads in the back door. He’s been here twice before, once for her birthday party, once for an invitation to “hang out.” He thought they had fun, but she didn’t really talk to him or invite him over after that.

He wonders if the mayor is home. He hasn’t seen her lately, but she must be around, attending to the town or something. He wonders if she’s been looking for her daughter, if she knows where she went.

It’s a little familiar, and he figures out where to turn to go up one flight of stairs, and then another. He glances into the rooms he passes: a bright kitchen, a formal living room, rows of bedrooms ready for use. There are lots of signs and crochet pillows with sayings like No Place Like Home and Love This Place.

When each of the rooms turn up empty, he heads up to the attic.

It’s strange to think of the deadness he’s seen in this place for so long as contentment. Do people really choose to live here? The mayor must. But looking around, her attic is empty, except for dust bunnies and a few boxes on the sides and in the corner. There are ants living in almost any climate, even the tundra, but he doubts his ants would like it up here, in the dry heat and stale air. He supposes for once, he’s grateful he’s not an ant.

There’s a small, square window in the center. He pushes aside the curtain and stops to look out.

It’s getting late, and he can see the sun passing over the horizon. A first star looks down. When he thinks about solar systems, it’s easy to imagine ours as an atom, one cog in a massive machine beyond human comprehension. It’s nice, for once, to imagine himself as part of something greater.

From here, he can see everything: the paths of the school, the buildings and streets, the hospital he was born in, the ice cream place he used to walk to from his house. The lined passageways don’t make a matrix, they make sense: a thousand weaving roads each leading to another, all centered around this house. There are dozens of people out, some driving on the roads, others walking through the park or standing in their lawns. Only ants have to follow the passageways they build.

Looking out, he can’t think of where she would have gone. He used to think he was stuck here, but now it seems like the only thing keeping him here was himself.

Out of the corner of his eye, he thinks he sees her car, a black dot, speeding away like she’s being chased.

 

I Remember

           

I remember the last time I saw you

The last night I saw you at that party

Your eyes looked pained

But every time I asked if you were okay, you said nothing

You were drinking champagne from a wine glass

The wine glass had a red lipstick stain on the side

I knew from the red ruby color you had given up

You had a far away look in your eyes

I could tell you wanted to go

I could tell you wanted to leave this life

You were done

You couldn’t handle everything happening around you

It was overwhelming you too much

You couldn’t take the violence anymore

I felt the same way

I think you knew that without me having to say it

I still loved you

I wanted to tell you that so badly but I knew you had moved on

I didn’t want to ruin you all over again

I didn’t want to knock down the wall that you had tried so hard to rebuild

I’m sorry I never tried again

I know you loved me

You know I loved you

We both wanted it to work

But it couldn’t

Maybe it just wasn’t meant to be

I miss you

I miss the sparkle in your eyes

I miss the way you used to say my name when you were angry

I miss the way you would run your fingers through my hair

I miss watching you put lipstick on in front of the mirror

I miss watching you dab at the corners of your mouth with a tissue to make it perfect

I miss when you wanted to look good for me

I wanted to look good for you

As time went on

As we beat at each others walls

As our walls slowly began to crumble before the other

As we began to see the other

As I began to see you for who you really were

It made me love you even more

I never told you that

I’m sorry

 

A Sky Full of Mediocrity

“Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the western spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun.

Orbiting this at a distance of roughly ninety-two million miles is an utterly insignificant little blue green planet whose ape-descended life forms are so amazingly primitive that they still think digital watches are a pretty neat idea.” — Douglas Adams; The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

***

They had originally started out as simple, single-celled protozoa, just like everybody else. All was well for a short while until, one day, one of the protozoa thought it would be pretty neat to turn cannibalistic and eat all the other protozoa. And so came the very first case of obesity in the history of mankind. Overtime, more of these obese protozoa developed, and as they continued to eat each other, they turned more and more into the shape of what was eventually deemed as “man”. Man came to create governments to help maintain stability in the chaotic realms of his world. He claimed that the duty of the government was to represent the general populace and to listen to whatever this populace had to offer.

Yet, for some reason, these duties were never reciprocated back from the populace itself, as they had chosen to ignore the incessant government warnings that, some day, the planet could actually reach its breaking point. They ignored government threats warning that if they drilled to the core of the Earth, they would most certainly find liquids along the way, but it most certainly would not be oil.  They had chosen to ignore the warning signs that Earth was deteriorating. All until it was too late to turn back.

By the time the people finally lifted their heads up from the computers and the unbelievably expensive power bill, it was far too late to turn back.

“Maybe we could just move somewhere else,” someone suggested. “I hear that we haven’t completely destroyed all of space yet.” (He was quite wrong, for that matter. But not that anybody knew.)

Since nobody else had the insight to come up with an alternative, it was decided that everyone would emigrate elsewhere in space. They wrote an appeal to their government, asking for permission to use some of the stored petroleum that the government had been keeping, just in case anything like this should come up. “We want to go to another planet,” they wrote, “and find another place where we can charge our phones and get good cellular service.” They sent their letter off with high hopes.

The government took its time, as it always did, to answer. After three long months, a small note, printed on a sheet of fine plastic wrap (as trees, and subsequently paper, had long disappeared), arrived. The response was quite succinct:

No, but nice try.

Everybody was extremely taken back, as they had all the necessary equipment for the one-way flight and all they needed was government approval and some fuel. All they needed was a yes, or, at least, no response, so that they could just assume that the government was busy and didn’t have the time to deal with their trivial matter. Yet, clearly, the government had not thought of their plan as a trifle, and even had taken the time to write them a response, despite it being so terse and blunt.  It was quite clear that the government would take extreme measures to ensure that everyone would stay where they were.

Another letter was quickly written back, only this time slightly more assertive: “We seek your approval on letting us travel, as our phones are running out of battery and some of us really have to update our social media statuses. Quite honestly, we would just like to be anywhere but here.” They left the reasoning part out, added something that sounded slightly more professional, and sent it in, hoping that this time the government would be a little more lenient.

***

When one of the government staffers received the new letter, one of the first things he had to do was to quickly finish his sandwich so that he would have enough plastic wrap to write a response. The second thing he did was figure out how to formulate an answer that could concisely explain that nobody was not allowed to leave Earth, yet at the same time be convincing and satisfying enough so that he wouldn’t get another plea to leave and have to choke down another sandwich.

Hold on a second, he thought. Why can’t they leave?

If they leave, he thought, I’ll never get another one of these letters! No letter means no work!

The staffer was enthralled by the idea; he lumbered to the safe full of fuel and grabbed a canister to ship away. “Please do not feel the urge to write a thank you note,” he scratched on the bottle. “Your departure will be equally appreciated.”

***

Back home, everybody was elated to see a small package arrive. They hastily filled their rocket tank with fuel, and made some general calculations for how they were going to travel to their final destination (“Just point the rocket up. It doesn’t really matter where we land.”). Finally, the chance to devastate yet another planet had finally arrived!

The average amount of time required for a rocket to reach space is approximately eight minutes, but after fifteen minutes, it seemed that our heroes were nowhere close to space. They were starting to worry a little bit, but since there seemed to be nothing wrong with the machines or the control room, everybody just assumed that maybe they were going slower than usually recommended.

It is said that time goes by slower in space, as the planets’ orbiting around the sun and the galaxy result in approximately a one second loss per Earth week. The Earthlings most certainly felt this time loss, perhaps a little more than they were supposed to. It had already been half an hour, and there was still no sight of human-sized, parasitic-looking creatures, or extraterrestrial air crafts that shot out spectacular laser beams. The sky, or whatever it was that was surrounding them, was most certainly getting darker, but it wasn’t the kind of dark like when you forgot to turn on your night light at night. The air around them seemed to be much denser than before, and the color of the clouds around them was like the color of your phone screen the second after you shut it off, at that moment of transition from dying to dead. It was a very uncomfortable sight: just looking around made everybody cringe a little.

The eerie journey only worsened from there. It had been more than an hour since take off, and nobody was quite sure whether they were still trying to break through the atmosphere or if they were just in a very disappointing-looking part of space. The engine was starting to sputter sporadically, and people were beginning to wonder if there was something wrong with the shuttle, or even the fuel itself.

The hours of mental pandemonium turned into days. People began licking the oil off the plastic wrap letter from the government staffer, and chewing on their leather seats. By the end of the week, our advanced group of obese protozoa had been completely wiped out.

***

Meanwhile, back on the desolate wasteland, the government staffer who was obliviously eating another sandwich decided that it was time that he summon up some courage and ask someone about what was really up there, beyond Earth, when suddenly he saw a bright, shining object fall out of the sky. A sub? A gyro? Ooh- a calzone? No, that was too good to be true, but his inevitable sense of curiosity still drove him outside. He really hoped that there wasn’t rye bread: he had already had that for four days in a row, and it was starting to taste bland.

Fortunately, there wasn’t any rye bread. Unfortunately, there wasn’t any food either. Whatever it was, it was extremely worn out: the sides were dented so much that what appeared to be letters was completely illegible. The entire mechanism itself was crushed; just like the way the staffer himself crushed soda cans.  

The staffer was deeply immersed in the idea of getting a can of soda later when he suddenly heard a deep, bellowing voice. “What’s a damn spaceship doing out here?” It was the staffer’s boss.

A spaceship? The staffer mused, how would a spaceship get here? Wouldn’t it need fuel in order to…. Oh. Shoot.

(But he didn’t say shoot. He said something much worse.)

“Well, it most certainly can’t be our ship,” the staffer’s boss huffed. “We haven’t allowed anybody to leave the planet since, well, a long time!”

The staffer turned around to face the burly man that was his superior. Now was his chance to know the truth. “Why not, sir?” he asked nonchalantly.  

The staffer soon learned why not. After admitting his mistake, the staffer’s enraged boss sent him up on a spacecraft with another canister of petroleum. Six days later, another bright object came plummeting out of the sky. When it crashed, the shock created almost tangible waves, as the buildings nearby shook a little. This nearly scared the living daylights out of the new staffer who had been hired to replace the old one. He had clutched his sandwich in fear and buried it deep in his chest.

***

Years later, the mystery of the two unidentified objects that fell from the sky was resolved. Researchers had literally poured their blood, sweat, and tears into finding the answer to the phenomenon, but when the question was finally answered, nobody celebrated. The answer sent a simple but haunting message to the few earthlings that remained: nobody could ever leave the planet.

Apparently all the unattended trash particles and whatnot had come together and formed almost this sort of behemothic wall of plastic wrap and unpaid electric bills, which then, having no place to escape, began to cloak Earth’s upper atmosphere. Since nobody ever bothered to do anything about it, the wall had expanded exponentially in size over the years, until it was so thick that nothing could get in or out (since people had been relying on technology for the past few decades to live, sunlight and skin cancer hadn’t been much of a problem for a while). Therefore, the scientists reasoned, the two objects that fell out of the sky must have taken off from Earth, and when it crashed into the wall, the two aircrafts, having nowhere else to go, must have fallen back down to Earth, leading all of the passengers to their presumable deaths. Whatever actually happened to the bodies of the passengers still remains a mystery; the scientists had to go on their lunch break.

Lost

          

Don’t know where to go
I’m lost, but not found
No solid ground, just walking around
Will I ever find a purpose?
I’m lost, but not found
I need help, but no one’s around
Will I ever find a purpose?
A piece of me is gone, severing my true soul
I need help, but no one’s around
I need to find a path, a road, something!
A piece of me is gone, severing the soul that is truly me
It’s like I’m a stranger to myself
I need to find a path, a road, something!
The future that awaits me is a blank slate
It’s like I’m a stranger to myself
I know nothing about me, and I don’t remember my past
The future that awaits me is a blank slate
I have no value
I know nothing about me, and I don’t remember my past
I’m just a wandering vessel in space with no sense of direction
I have no value
Don’t know where to go
I’m just a wondering vessel in space with no sense of direction
No solid ground, just walking around

Imaginationland

Finals. Hudson had stayed up all night studying for his chemistry test. Hours and hours on end, he had tried to memorize all he could to complete his goal of becoming the valedictorian. However, Hudson could not focus; all he could think about were the characters from his favorite books and movies. He pictured himself fighting alongside Luke Skywalker to defeat Vader, and going on all of the journeys with all the superheroes to help save the civilians. But no. Instead, he had to study for his final for hours and hours on end as he thought about boring formulas and useless equations that he would never use in his life.

Sunday, June 12, 2016. Hudson was extremely nervous. He knew he needed to ace his final if he wanted to be the student with the highest honor. Then, he received a text message that turned his life around.

Lauren: Hudson I’m sorry this is not going to work out. You never talk to me. All you ever do is play stupid video games and read books about fictional characters. You are just too childish.

Thoughts swirled around his head. Hudson felt trapped. He began to think about being in a world on his own with nobody around him.  He tried to distract himself from the message by grabbing his notes, but he could not think straight. He picked up the phone, but realized he had no other friends to talk to because his only friends were in his mind. Hudson ran to his bed and put his face into the pillow and cried. He knew it was time to make real friends and to start growing up. He ran to his desk and grabbed his laptop. He turned on the first documentary he could find and tried to start acting like the other kids around him.

Before watching, Hudson lay down on his bed, and he began to stare aimlessly at the ceiling as he realized that it was time to become an adult. Suddenly, he heard the sound of a door opening. Hudson’s eyes darted to the location of the sound, and he glared at the dark, mysterious door with the sound of wind howling through the cracks. He began to think that he had gone crazy, as he had just seen a door pop out of nowhere. He closed his eyes for the next ten seconds, then opened them again, and he still saw this mysterious door. Too afraid to call his parents, he stood up and slowly headed for the door. Hudson then cautiously turned the knob, and inside, all he saw was empty space with a very narrow, white walkway that seemed to never end. He looked back at his bed and saw the documentary, causing him to picture himself all grown up and having his girlfriend back. But he shook his head and realized that he would be miserable not being the person he really was, so he decided to take a step onto the never-ending walkway.

Hudson was extremely nervous. He looked around and saw nothing but empty space and a narrow walkway leading nowhere. He believed he was walking toward his destiny, or maybe even a path to his past. He walked for miles and miles on end, then sat down and looked straight up. He heard a sound and jumped up and saw what looked to be a godly figure. Hudson cringed in fear as he saw this large man with a white beard and a staff that seemed to look like a lightening bolt. He walked closer to the man to a point where they were only a few feet apart from each other.

Hudson looked at this person, who seemed to look like Zeus, the Greek god. He was in shock. He wanted to ask him who he was, but was afraid to talk to this muscular, tall, and powerful-looking figure.

After staring into his eyes for a few seconds, the man said, “Welcome to Imaginationland.”

Hudson questioned himself for a second and thought that this man was crazy; he knew that there was no such place as “Imaginationland”. Hudson now looked away from him and realized he was walking on a pathway leading nowhere. He began to consider the idea that he was in a different world.

Hudson slowly moved his head back toward the man and shyly asked, “Are you Zeus?” Hudson was scared that this man may have gotten offended, but as the godly creature began to move closer to him, he saw a grin on the man’s face as he said one word.

“Yes.”

Hudson’s fear became joy as he realized he was in a new world with a character from his dreams. Zeus asked Hudson to follow him to the world where all the characters from his imagination lived. Hudson looked at Zeus and his joyful face turned to one of doubt. He began to think to himself that he was probably just dreaming, and that his mind was just playing games on him. He thought back to all the moments where he got teased for not acting his age, and to the time when his girlfriend dumped him over text, leading to him feeling depressed.

However, Zeus realized his doubt and anguish. Without realizing it, Hudson was in Zeus’s arms, causing him to snap out of his hesitation as Zeus exclaimed, “Let’s go!”

Zeus jumped off the pathway with Hudson in his arms, and they began to fly over the dark, bland, empty space. After flying for what seemed to only be a few minutes, but hundreds of miles, Hudson looked below him and all he could see was darkness, causing him to fear that he was travelling to a dark location. But then, he approached the largest gate Hudson had ever seen. He was amazed. He looked at the gate and saw his reflection in the pure gold layering, which towered 100 feet over his head. Glamoured by its beauty, Hudson went to touch it. At first, nothing happened, but then the gate shook; it felt like an earthquake, causing the gate to begin to open. Hudson saw a bright light, so he looked away as he was blinded by the brightness. Slowly, he turned his head back toward the gate and he saw all the friendly faces he pictured in his dreams. Hudson rubbed his eyes and noticed that in front of him were the friendly faces of all his favorite characters, such as Aslan the Lion, Gandalf the Gray, and Captain America. He ran into the world that seemed to be held up by white, powdery clouds and stood alongside his idols with a smile larger than his face. He looked around, and he saw a village which seemed to have been made out of golden bricks. Hudson felt free; he finally felt comfortable being himself. His favorite character was Captain America, so he asked him about all of his adventures and how his shield was designed. Then, he ran to Aslan. At first, Hudson felt dismay because he was standing a foot away from a sharp-toothed lion. But Hudson remembered that Aslan would never want to hurt him, so he ran up and greeted the lion.

Hudson met all the characters of his dreams and asked them more questions than they could even handle. He toured the land and noticed that all the people were living in harmony and joy, causing him to forget the problems he had at home. After journeying across their land, he was brought to a room. This was a dark room with no windows and room for only around two people. Then, walked in the king of the land, Aslan. Hudson looked into his eyes and saw fear.

Aslan said with a powerful voice, “We are under attack!”

Hudson dropped back in his seat as this was the first time he ever felt nervous while on the new land. He thought that everything would be adventurous and exciting, but he heard this horrific news and put his head in his hands and frowned.

Hudson then yelled, “Who is attacking us, and why?”

Aslan sternly replied, “These large, beast-like mammals that outnumber our population two to one!”

He then beamed his eyes toward the lion and cried, “Why was I brought to this land?”

Slowly, Aslan whispered, “You are the one who controls us. You created me and everyone else in my kingdom. Now, we call on you to come save us.”

Hudson felt powerful. He believed that he could now fight off the fact that he had to become an adult, and that he could live with the people he was surrounded by in Imaginationland. Aslan took Hudson to the highest point of the castle, but left him alone. It was up to Hudson to save the kingdom because he had the power in his mind to control the outcome of the battle. However, he could not focus; there was so much pressure coming from the people of the village that he could not think straight. Hudson peered over the walls, and he noticed the beasts crashing through the walls and attacking the homes of Harry Potter, Hawkeye, and Donald Duck. Hudson now felt angered, but determined. He cleared his mind and pictured Captain America ferociously attacking the beasts. Therefore, Captain America ran towards the invaders and fought off the creatures for as long as he could. Now, Hudson realized how powerful he was, so he sent everybody to fight the beasts, not realizing that he could not control all of his imagination at once.

Then, the beasts demolished every character that came in their way until they surrounded Hudson, as it was now only him left. He was frightened because Hudson thought he would be attacked any minute now. Then, the largest beast of them grabbed Hudson by his claws and held him up above his head. Hudson’s face was white, but he shook his head and remembered that he was in his imagination, so he could control himself. He broke free, causing the beasts to cry in fear because Hudson gave himself superhuman powers. Subsequently, all the vicious creatures retreated, so it was only Hudson in his own imagination. After protecting Imaginationland, Hudson sat down and pictured all of the creatures in his dreams coming back, and sure enough, Hudson was surrounded by all the heroes he loved.

Chants roared from the crowd as Hudson was congratulated for his bold and heroic accomplishments. Hudson then saw Aslan pushing his way through the crowd of people. With a sense of urgency, Aslan pulled Hudson aside and told him that it was time for him to return home. Without saying goodbye, Aslan and the other creatures walked off. Hudson was in despair; he did not want to leave. He knew that only here could he be his true self without getting judged. He cried in despair because he did not want to be set free from the teenage life that he had now become a part of. Then, Hudson saw a flash, and a door appeared, but this one was special. This door was white, and it shined brighter than a star. He walked towards the door in doubt, until he saw a message carved into the marble, reading, “Always hold on to what you love.” Hudson looked at the message for hours, trying to comprehend the meaning of the words carved on to the door. Frustrated, Hudson gave up and decided to just walk through the door and forget about what just happened. Anticipating that it would take him back to the opening gate, he took a step through the door. But this time, he ended up exactly where he started, in his room lying down on his bed.

***

Now, school was finally out, and Hudson had the whole summer to become an adult. He went, grabbed his laptop, and reopened the documentary that he thought he should have started a long time ago. Right before he hit the play button, he thought about the message he saw carved on the door that led back to his room. Hudson thought back to when the beast-like creatures were attacking his imagination and came to the conclusion that the beasts were the signs of adulthood that were bound to come. He thought for a second, then realized that he always had to hold on to his love of his imagination, and that he could not forget about what made him happy. However, he also came to understand that he was growing up and must become an adult. Hudson felt happy to finally expand his horizons while not forgetting about his love of his imagination. Finally, Hudson felt pride in being his true self.

I’m Not People

Characters:

DARA – A high school girl who lives in a superficial world, but is searching for more. She has trouble truly understanding self-involved girls like Audrey. However, she knows how to “play the game” and blend in to survive the social scene.

LYLE –  A boy in Dara’s homebase class. He is a bit of a loner because, like Dara, he is fed up with other people’s dishonesty and shallow values. Lyle has a direct approach to life. He is frustrated with peers who are not straightforward like him and is driven away by their social climbing, political correctness, and selfishness.

AUDREY – Dara’s best friend. She is quite the diva, but not a “valley girl.” She is shallow, gossipy, and self-absorbed. Audrey likes to boss around the less dominant, more submissive Dara to make herself feel superior without being directly mean to her friend. However, she does love to criticize and judge other people.

 

(We see LYLE in an Italian restaurant. He is eating lunch alone in a booth. DARA and AUDREY walk onto the sidewalk, laughing, dressed in SoulCycle brand attire.)

 

DARA

Oh, please!

AUDREY

No, but she so did. Hold up, my shoe’s untied.

   (AUDREY bends down to tie her shoelace.)

But seriously. Why would she hook up with him? It makes no sense.

DARA

It was unexpected. I’ll give you that.

AUDREY

He literally looks like the little, green guy from that “phone home” movie.

DARA

E.T.?

AUDREY

Yeah, that’s it.

DARA

I guess she just has low self-esteem. Or maybe she’s actually into him.

AUDREY

Ew, no! Like, I love Brit, but this is an issue that needs to be addressed. If he has a beer belly at sixteen, then it’s a no-go.

DARA

Maybe his soft stomach felt like a pillow.

AUDREY

No, Dara! That’s gross!

   (beat)

Oh shit. You have a tampon?

DARA

Sorry, Aud.

AUDREY

I need a bathroom asap. Like, I’m in my Lulu’s and everything.

DARA

Right now?

AUDREY

Yes. Like Mother Nature, I don’t wait.

DARA

Wait, maybe I do have one. Hold on.

AUDREY

Finally.

   (DARA starts digging through her bag. AUDREY is impatiently waiting.)

Take your time. Really, I’m fine standing here in my own filth.

DARA

   (Gets out a tampon and hands it to AUDREY)

Relax. I got it.

AUDREY

   (noticing the restaurant)

Okay, let’s go in here.

   (DARA and AUDREY enter the Italian restaurant.)

AUDREY

   (noticing LYLE)

Wow. Some kid’s eating alone on a Saturday. That’s really pathetic.

DARA

Wait, we know him.

AUDREY

We do?

DARA

He’s in my homeroom. His name is Lyle.

AUDREY

That’s weird.

   (beat)

Where’s the bathroom in here? There’s no arrow pointing to the restrooms or anything. It’s ridiculous.

DARA

   (ignoring Audrey)

Should we say hi?

AUDREY

No way. We would look like such creepers.

   (catching DARA staring at him)

Why?

DARA

Why not? He’s really cool, actually.

AUDREY

Ooh. Does Dara have the hots for the lone wolf over here?

DARA

   (giggling)

Will you stop it?

AUDREY

You know you want it.

DARA

I do not! He just looks a little sad, and I want to comfort him.

AUDREY

   (teasing)

I’m sure you want to comfort him all night long.

DARA

Oh shut up and

   (slightly louder)

get your tampon

   (back to normal)

that you were desperately searching for.

AUDREY

Shush! Dara! That’s so embarrassing! Now, everyone’s looking at us.

   (LYLE is minding his own business in the booth.)

Continue reading I’m Not People

My Love

     

Love reminds me of a shirt I made for my sister,

sweet candy yams.

Love is my sister at Coney Island at night,

going on rides with me,

taking pictures,

going in the water.

it’s blue and cold,

warm,

quiet.

 

Love reminds me of my brother,

sitting on a beach, playing with the rabbit on the beach

playing with the sand.

I’m watching my sister and brother

so they can play.

“I love you,” she says.

“Da, da, da,” he says. “Ga, ga, ga,” he says.

“I love you, too.”

 

Love reminds me of singing at church,

it’s big, it’s brown, and it has bricks,

my grandmother is there praying,

praying about our family,

and for others.

 

Life Lost, Love Hidden

  

Life lost love hidden I lost it all in one sittin’

so I grabbed a pen and pad and started spittin’

I’m more than a conqueror so there’s no quittin’

even now it feels like my heart’s been ripped from my chest

but I keep flowin’

tryin’ to not let emotions be showin’

even now the pain keeps growin’

 

Life lost love hidden

Life lost love hidden

Life lost love hidden

 

a lot of people in my life aren’t here no more

but I’m gunna keep growin’ for them for shore

just because you passed away doesn’t mean I need to close

all of life’s doors today

 

life lost love hidden

life lost love hidden

life lost love hidden

 

Mom you’ve been gone for so long

and I would like to introduce you to our life song

tellin’ you that I never steer myself wrong

 

life lost love hidden

life lost love hidden

life lost love hidden

 

Life gained when my left wrist got sprained everything seemed ta change

my maturity surely has gained since my left wrists got sprained

I repeat my sprained wrist because that’s my only tick

 

Gained my level

lost my level

Second time I lost my mind,

But I know this isn’t gunna be the last time

That I have to keep my mind

But I have to do good to keep my mind

Meaning I have to be mature to see my past in a good mind

Not having to ask anybody if they have the time

I matured because now I can understand the word no

so I’m gunna keep maturing for show

and I got everything on track and that’s why I’m back

 

Xanthous

My classmates are filing out of the front doors of the school, while the bell I dread every day rings, and I sit on the sunbaked front steps. None of them acknowledge me. They are rushing out of school to summers filled with friendship and freedom while I dread the car that comes to pick me up and deliver me to another two hours of emptying my brain to professionals of everything they consider “toxic.” They want me to be normal, and they continue to repeat that as if I believe it is something that I’m not. Every day, I take pills upon pills that are supposed to calm me down and pick me up at the same time so that I run on a wavelength they think will match everyone else’s. The doctors tell my parents that I am not trying, that I don’t seem to want to get any better. My parents think this couldn’t possibly be true because they don’t believe that I cannot see what everyone else thinks is the matter with me.

In the car, my mother tells me how good this vacation will be, how it will give me a chance to relax and a break from what she thinks is so stressful. While she talks, I think about how the summer will give me far too much time to think. After a while, she decides there is no way she can get me to reply, and she matches my silence for the rest of the ride. There is no such thing as a comfortable silence between us. The absence of words between my mother and me only ever means she is wishing she could read my mind and fill it with her own thoughts. As I leave, she shouts out a message to encourage me to share, which simply reminds me that none of them understand me and that all of them want me to change. She thinks that watching her sister go to therapy prepared her to send me into this room, but she’s wrong. If she had really been prepared for this, she would understand how much better it would be if I never went.

The room is always stifling. They think that I will be more comfortable if I can see the sun streaming through the windows, and they think the soft, white furniture and the bright walls with colorful paintings will inspire me to be as bright as the sun and as colorful as the bowl of fruit hanging behind the smiling lady. The questions are always the same. The doctors whose names I never bother to learn before they trade me off always want to start the same way.

“Tell me about yourself.”

They say that as if they are doing me a favor and giving me an easy way to begin. They present this as a statement and not a question, and they listen through my answer, trying to find somewhere to interject and give their opinions which they think they can fix me with. But I am smarter than them. I have been for a while. I know what I am supposed to say, how to talk in circles so that I have all the power. I know how to present all my unrelated issues as the basis of what is wrong with me so that they waste their precious time fixing a problem that I discovered yesterday, that wouldn’t have bothered me tomorrow. Sometimes, I forget the circles and simply list facts that they cannot dissect so we can sit in a standstill and wait for the other to break first. I never break first. Every once in a while, I start to feel bad that my parents spend so much of the money they care so much about on trying to make sure I am okay, but then I remember that they haven’t bothered to find out whether I already am okay. I can confuse the doctor easily, more easily than almost anything else I do, but I can’t seem to convince my parents that nothing is wrong. So I begin listing the facts they think will add up to me and create who I am.

“My name is Elizabeth Morgan. I just finished the ninth grade. My favorite color is gray. I have two dogs named Salt and Pepper. I run track, I write poetry, and the only bad grade I have ever gotten was in my sixth-grade Spanish class when I threw up during my oral presentation.”

I decide that’s all the information she needs, and I lean forward and sigh as if I am about to tell her how this all makes me feel, as if I am about to do her entire job for her and diagnose myself, and then I sit back and watch as her smile turns into a look of bafflement and disbelief. She didn’t think that what the other doctors said was true. She was hoping she would be the one to crack me open and make me see what the other doctors saw that made them pump me with pills. The next question is the same as it has always been.

“So why do you think you’re here?”

This question was hard to answer at first. I couldn’t figure out how to explain that I didn’t belong here without sounding like an insecure teenager that simply felt out of place. I’ve discovered the best way to get someone to stop asking you questions whose answers you don’t want to think about is by questioning their purpose in the conversation. I refuse to move to answer the questions I have heard a thousand times that have been presented as an innovative way to discover what is wrong with me, so I sit in the same position that shows just how bored I am by all her attempts.

I answer, “Isn’t that what you’re supposed to tell me?”

Sometimes, they think I am joking, but they tend to figure it out quickly. Sometimes, they think that I don’t understand how therapy works, and they launch into long-winded lectures on how this room is a safe space and how they’re simply there to guide me to discoveries about myself. Those always give me a nice chance for a nap. This doctor isn’t any different. She laughs as if I have said something funny and not as if I have said the only honest thing I will say the whole time. Moving on, she tries to ask me how I feel about the approaching summer. I give her the response I know that she is expecting, and she sounds like a broken record of my mother, explaining how good this break will be. Eventually, she lets me leave. She doesn’t seem quite as defeated as I’ve come to expect, and I wonder if she’ll last longer than the last doctor who decided he couldn’t help me either. Another silent car ride, and I’m finally home.

Dinner is not a particularly pleasant event in my house. My parents have conversations with their eyes, thinking that if they don’t make any sound, I couldn’t possibly hear what they’re saying. While they do this, I try to find something to fill the stretch of empty time lying in front of me. Once I leave the table, they give up on their silent conversations, and I once again listen as they try to decode what could possibly be happening in my head. My mother whispers about a sister she stopped mentioning to me once it became clear I might have ended up with the same problems everyone thought she used to have.

“I’m worried about her, you know. She seems so much like my sister right before, well, you know what happened. We can’t let that happen to her. She’ll never be able to move past it.”

My father has never seemed comforting to me, but he manages to calm down my mother as I walk back to my room. Once I’m there, I begin to wonder more about this woman I’ve only heard of in passing. “Aunt” is not a term I have ever used before to describe this woman who used to be in my mother’s life. I have never met her, and everything I have heard about her is composed of my mother’s desire to convince me how important it is that I do not let things get as far as her sister did.

Back in my room, I decide I need a plan, a way to escape the routine they designed to help me which can only be making me worse. My aunt will take me in, I’m sure of it, and she won’t tell anyone where I am because she understands me. Everyone thought she was sick, and I know by the way they talk about it in the past tense she has to have proved them wrong. If I can just get to her, she won’t let them bring me back to this. The only problem is I don’t know where she lives. But that can be solved, and having a goal helps me feel focused. When I don’t have a goal, I feel like I’m drifting. Like I can’t move unless I’m moved by someone else, and no one ever sends me where I want to go.

It won’t be easy to find out where she lives. My mother hasn’t talked about her openly in two years, and even before she stopped being mentioned completely, my mother only ever told me how troubled she was. But my mother has a weakness. She believes so thoroughly that I will one day see in myself what she wants to change that she will believe anything I say as long as I show her that I am trying. And so, I set my plan in motion.

It is easy to convince the doctor that I’ve finally changed, finally seen the light from which all the others refused to give me shade, and that I am finally prepared to use their help. I ask her whether she thinks it would help me if I could talk to someone outside of this room, someone who has lived through what I am feeling and isn’t being paid to try and fix me. I know it’s only a matter of time before my mother cracks and sends me to her sister. I have given her just enough hope for me that she’ll think even her sister can’t drag me down. Later, my mother is helping me pack. She can’t hide the fact that she is nervous, but she tries to, saying she’s simply going to miss me.

The door to my aunt’s apartment is gray. My mother drove away ten minutes ago, explaining that she couldn’t possibly see her sister again, even after all this time. I haven’t rung the doorbell yet, and a second later, I don’t need to. The door swings open, and a woman steps out. She is small, like my mother. I am bigger, but standing in front of her shrinks me. There are a thousand colors in the clothes on her body, and her shoes are missing. It looks like a costume, but makes me feel like, in my gray t-shirt and black pants, I’m the one wearing a disguise. I can’t tell if she’s happy to see me, and I am shocked by how little she reminds me of myself. Seeing her makes me realize how many expectations I had for how she would be. When I had imagined her, it was always as if I were talking to a mirror image of myself who simply had the power I didn’t. When she ushers me into the living room and sits across from me, I am shocked by how familiar it feels until I notice the oranges sitting in a basket on the piano behind her. I want to believe she will help me the way that I want to be helped, but I am afraid she will help me in the way everyone else has been trying to.

Instantly, I know she is wondering why I could possibly be here. We have never talked before, and she doesn’t understand why I think she can help me. I’ve never been much for small talk. Or if you’ve heard my mom speak recently, I just don’t know how to communicate anymore. So I’m instantly uncomfortable when she starts in on all the questions she has about my life. Her first question surprises me.

“Are you glad to be out of school?”

I don’t know how this question is supposed to help me, so I don’t bother responding. She tries again, this time it’s a question I can answer. A question about facts.

“What grade are you in?”

“Tenth,” I reply quickly, and she seems surprised by the sound of my voice. Her questions don’t seem to be getting more helpful as she continues. She asks about the drive — fine –, and how my father is doing — fine –, how school is — horrible –, how my friends are — nonexistent –, what I like to do in my free time — not much. She doesn’t ask any questions about me for a long time. Finally though, she breaks, although the question confuses me as much as the others.

Her next question is too familiar, the same as it always is. “So, why are you here?”

I am shocked that she does not understand why I can’t answer that question, I can’t lie to her like I can lie to the doctors, but right now, I can’t see how they’re different. I want to leave, but of course, that would be too easy. I don’t know why I expected this to be simple; nothing has ever worked exactly the way I wanted. Whenever I think I have reached something, life has a cruel way of telling me to be careful what you wish for. I’m no longer sure why I am here; it has become glaringly obvious that she will not do what I need her to, but I have no other answer for her.

“Because you’re the only one who can help me. You understand what they’re putting me through. And you can save me from it.”

Once the words have left my mouth, I can see that she will not help me. Her head shakes. Then, almost as if she is not aware she has already denied me of her help, she speaks.

“I can’t save you from this. You don’t need saving.”

Already, I think that I have figured her out. So I am not surprised. She doesn’t want to help me, she thinks that I should suffer through what she had to. She is not what I imagined. I have not cried since my days when scraping my knees on the playground seemed like the end of the world, but by the time I remember what the burning sensation behind my eyes mean, the droplets are threatening to spill over. I cannot believe how much I allowed myself to believe someone would be able to help me. Then she shocks me again.

“But I will help you. You may not believe anymore that I understand you, but I do.”

She is more complicated than I thought. We don’t talk anymore after that. There doesn’t seem to be anything left to say.

Later, I sleep. The room I am in is too colorful. It reminds me of a vacation, and vacations are a time when I am left by myself for far too long. The walls are yellow, and the blankets on the bed are a myriad of colors that I am sure are the reason I am having trouble breathing. Turning off the lights does not help. The colors are still everywhere, and so I close my eyes and hope they will go away.

In the morning, my aunt makes breakfast. I pretend that I have taken my pills, and we sit at the table, and she does not try to make conversation. Tonight, my mother will pick me up, and I will forget my aunt, and I will go back to knowing there is nobody who can help me.

“You know they think they’re helping you.”

It feels as though she can read my thoughts, but she sounds too much like my doctors for me to want to believe that.

“But they aren’t, and they’re not changing anything. I don’t need help. Their version of help is making everything worse.”

I surprise myself with these words. They are the closest I have come to admitting something could be wrong, and I can’t believe they have come from me. My aunt looks at me sadly, like she is remembering.

“Do you remember why they sent you to the first doctor?”

No one has ever asked me this question. This is one I must answer. This is a question about facts, and I cannot lie about facts.

“My mother was scared.”

She flinches at the mention of my mother, like she forgot that I came from a part of her past.

“My friends stopped talking to me, and she didn’t understand why I was not upset. She didn’t understand why I did not try to make other friends and started coming home from school to spend all my time alone. She thought that I needed professional help because I wouldn’t talk to anyone else.”

I haven’t thought about that day in a long time, the day all my friends decided I was no longer worth talking to, and then a few weeks later, when my mother decided that ignoring everyone meant something was wrong. I didn’t seem to know how horrible those days would make my life. I know that I am angry now — that much has been clear for a long time — but I do not remember being angry then.

The first doctor I met was nice. She was the first one to ask me the questions. Before I crafted my perfect answers and before I learned that she wasn’t trying to help. I was not angry when I went home that day. I didn’t feel anything when I went home that day. Just as it had been for the past few weeks. My mother was not too happy when I came home, and my father didn’t bother to look up from his paper. He was not worried then. It was still only my mother’s job to worry then. She had wanted me to talk, and I had just wanted to sleep.

A week later, my mother sent me to another appointment. “We’re going to try someone better today.” I realize now that those were the last weeks she expected me to come back the way I was before. A new doctor entered the room and asked me the same questions. Another person had left, and still, I did not care. The new doctor lasted two months. In the beginning, he had understood when I did not want to talk. Later, he had tried to explain to me why I was there, and I had refused to acknowledge it. He had given up. And the pattern continued. Somewhere in the middle, the doctors had decided questions would not be enough and had all written me prescriptions for pills that were supposed to do the same job, only this time I wouldn’t have been able to fight it.

I want to know why my aunt was sent to her first doctor. I want to know whether she was angry. I want to find my connection to her again because if everyone else can still see it, it has to still be there. She breaks through my thoughts, and it surprises me. I am not used to being surprised, and this weekend hasn’t given me a chance to get back on my feet.

“It’s ok that you had a few bad days, you know. Bad days are ok. Once they start stringing together for so long that you can’t remember the good ones, that’s when it becomes a problem.”

I want to know if she remembers the good days now.

She does. She tells me she does.

Suddenly, I want to remember my good days. I want to laugh again and be happy when someone new talks to me, but that still all seems so far away.

“We should have a good day.”

I don’t know what she means by that, but I know that whatever she does can only help. I have been hovering over rock bottom for a long time now, but I’ve been refusing to look down and see how close I am. Anything we do can only help.

She takes me to an art studio. It is filled with people, which should make me nervous, especially when they all turn to look at us, but I can tell that they will not force me to talk. My aunt seems to know everybody. Every time we turn around, there is someone else waiting to ask her how she’s been and to show her what they’re making. Their laughter sounds too harsh, too foreign. Some of them glance at me, and when my aunt notices how tense I am, she distracts them. After a while, it seems like she has greeted everyone, and she makes her way to the middle of the room where an easel stands. She places something on the easel, and I notice the painting she was working on when I went to bed. It’s a room with yellow walls. There are a thousand colors in the painting, and in the corner, there is a dark spot. A girl in black sits in the corner and looks like she is fighting the room, fighting for her dark spot to grow, but the room is winning.

I decide I want to see what everyone else is creating. The room is filled with people who want to talk, they want to explain what they are creating, and this feels safe to me. So I listen as everyone manages to show themselves through their paintings and their drawings and their sculptures. All of them show a battle, a flower breaking through a barren wasteland, the sun breaking through a dark night over a city. Sometimes, the dark side is winning, and sometimes, both sides are equally frozen, like the artist isn’t sure which side is fighting harder. These are the ones I understand.

By noon, my aunt has finished her painting, and everyone in the studio has stopped working. They all wait for each other, like there is a protocol and they all know how this goes. So I follow along as we walk as a group, a noisy group filled with laughter, down the street and into a cafe. The waitress smiles as we walk in and hands me a menu. Everyone’s food starts arriving as I look through. Eventually, we’re all eating and talking, and I find myself smiling. Their laughter doesn’t sound so harsh anymore, and a few times, I find myself joining in. By the time we leave the cafe, we’ve been talking for two hours, and yet, I have the most energy I’ve had in months. In the studio, my aunt leaves her painting and makes her rounds to say goodbye. I don’t think I am ready to leave, but she drags me home.

I expect to feel different in her apartment. I expect the colors to be suffocating again, but they seem lighter now. I don’t want to go home tonight, to a room filled with gray and void of all color.

“You can’t stay here, you know. You can’t hide here and pretend you’re getting better. You need to go home.”

I know she is right, but I’m scared. I haven’t felt anything in a long time, and now I am feeling everything too much and too fast and it’s okay here because it’s new here, but I know that when I go home, it will be too much.

“How do I stop being scared?” I need her to tell me, I need to know that she did it so that I know I can.

“You don’t.” I think I stop breathing for a minute. “You have to let the fear help you. If everything gets easy, there isn’t a fight anymore, and it’s too easy to let everything take over.”

That night, it’s hard to say goodbye. She won’t talk to my mother. It’s too hard for her to remember how little my mother understood her. I understand, so I say goodbye in her living room. Behind her, there is a basket of oranges, but there are also paintings. In the corner, they are dark and scary, but directly behind her, they are full of light. I am not sure which ones I am afraid of.

When I say goodbye to my aunt, I’m not sure when I’ll see her again. She hugs me goodbye, and then she straightens up and clears her throat.

“You know your mother ruined my life. She doesn’t understand us at all. For your sake, I hope she doesn’t mess up so badly with you.”

She sounds so sure when she says this, as if she still knows my mother and she knows that it can’t be avoided. But she hasn’t talked to her for over fifteen years, and I can’t believe she is still acting like everything that happened between them was yesterday and that there is no way my mother could have changed. It shocks me that I feel so protective of my mother even though I thought she was so horrible for what she did to her sister. At that moment, I realize I don’t even know what she did to her sister.

I’ve never bothered to ask my mother why it was so hard for her to see parts of her sister in me. I realize that my aunt has never bothered to ask why my mother had such a hard time when she was getting help and that my mother has never bothered to understand her story either. I realize that my mother wasn’t the only one pushing off the blame and responsibility of the destruction of their relationship.

Every little comment my aunt has made about my mother seems to add up, and I know I’ve heard more bad things about my mother this weekend than I ever did about my aunt. As the gray door closes behind me when I walk out, I know that it is closing for good. That I have gotten what I needed from my aunt and that she faced my mother through me in the only way she could have. We don’t need each other anymore.

The car ride home is quiet. It’s no longer a bad kind of quiet. My mother and I are finally realizing that we both need to change. When we are almost home, my mother tells me she thinks that I should start therapy again. I do not yell like I would before. I understand now. I tell her that I can’t take pills anymore. She understands now.

Things are not different at home. Dinner is still quiet, but my parents are no longer talking about me silently. We are all apologizing with our eyes.

In my room, there are cans on the floor. They are filled with yellow paint, and for the first time since I scraped my knees on the playground, I let myself cry.

San Francisco Collective

        

Prologue

I am terrified and also a little bit excited. Mostly because Jude said I have a story to tell, and she doesn’t lie about anything. I guess that I do have a story, and I’ve collected all the moments that make it up, but I don’t know how to string them together in a way that makes sense because my life doesn’t really make sense. I’ve saved up these fragments to write about, and I was always waiting for the right time to start working, but now the “Right Time” is staring me in the face, and I am scared shitless because I don’t want to fuck this up. I have screwed up a lot in my lifetime, but this thing feels sacred. I have this notion that it’s the one something that I can’t mess up because if it goes bad, then it’s like I’ve gone bad.

1

My name is Russell. Up until I turned sixteen, I lived with my mother in a suburb of Springfield, Illinois. The house was small and dumpy. My mother’s name is Bliss, which I thought was pretty fucking ironic seeing as all she really did was watch true crime TV after my father left. He was a quiet, friendly dude named Carl, who always seemed a little nervous. He was really gentle, didn’t talk much, and had a weird bald spot on the back of his head. Back when Carl was still around full-time, my mom was happy. She smiled a lot and hummed Elvis Presley songs.

Things were pretty run-of-the-mill, I suppose. And then my father was hired to work a nationwide circuit for his car dealership when I was ten. Things were a little tight in terms of finances, and my mother began to slide into depression. When he was gone, her smiles were infrequent and looked kind of manic because the happiness never reached her eyes. She lost her job when the local post office branch shut down, and we started living on welfare checks. After six years of this, he sent us a letter from Chicago. My mom read it first, and then left it to drift onto the kitchen table, turning slowly to walk to her room. I don’t think I was very surprised either when I read the note. I knew in the back of my mind for a while that his absence would soon become permanent.

It was still a tiny bit of a jolt to see that what I had feared in the abstract was no longer abstract, but very much real and very much happening to me. The letter was sappy and emotional and full of apologies.

He was sorry, but he could no longer live as the person he convinced himself he was.

He was happy now and living with a man named Herb, who was his partner.

He loved Bliss, but just not in the way that she loved him.

He had tried and tried for years, but couldn’t bring himself to care for her in the way she deserved to be cared for.

He would always care about us, but he could not be a part of the family any longer.

He told me I could come visit him whenever I wanted, and that Bliss could feel free to take loans from him if needed. I still loved him, sort of, but I knew I would probably not visit him.

Even though I barely interacted with my mother anymore, I felt a little twinge of pity watching her sit alone on the couch, swaddled in blankets, watching The F.B.I Files. She was pathetic, an overgrown child, no longer able to take responsibility for anything.

Don’t think I was weak or a pussy or anything. I was still planning to get the fuck out of there as soon as I could. Just to see the world a bit. Or at least get out of Illinois.

In late junior high, I went to an end-of-the-world party where I drank for the first time, and I smoked pot for the first time. Obviously, the world didn’t end, so the party ended up being my gateway into the world of marijuana. I smoked occasionally throughout freshman year, and a little bit more in the summer before sophomore year, and then even more throughout sophomore year, mainly because I fell in with a crew of self-proclaimed pagans who worshipped Satan and Mother Nature or some shit.

Before I got friendly with the pagans, I was buddies with this guy Darren, who I thought was really cool because he had a green buzz cut and wore a leather jacket from his uncle’s biker gang, but he turned out to be a little weird in the head. He was one of those emo types inside, and he tried to hide it by pretending to be “hard” and “gangster.” He tried to get me to enter a suicide pact with him in February of freshman year. Even though my life was kind of shit at the time, I still wanted to make it through. It seemed sad to die without ever having actually kissed a girl, so I decided to leave Darren and to find new friends instead. Darren didn’t kill himself, but he did move to Texas at the end of the school year.

The pagans were a small, exclusive gang of kids that hung out on the outskirts of the school campus, behind the clumps of trees surrounding the parking lot. There were all sorts of sick rumors about them, like that one of the girls had set fire to the music room a few years back by just summoning a flame into her hand or some shit, or that the guys in the group had turned the pool water into beer. Anyway, there were a few people in the crew at the time that I joined.

There was Melody Armstrong, a really pretty former cheerleading captain who now wore lots of layers of knit clothing and odd fabrics and lots of necklaces and had like ten ear piercings. She was still the wet dream of lots of guys, even after she transformed into a weirdo. Some creepy guy wrote a haiku about her after gym class one day in the locker room:

“Melody Armstrong

Your stomach so pale and tight

I want to screw you.”

I had a bit of a crush on her in elementary school after she beat me in a race at lunchtime. That was back when you could actually see her bright, blue eyes without the layers of black eyeliner masking them, back when she didn’t cover up her freckles with cakey makeup. There were lots of pervs at my school who used to watch the cheer team practice, just to catch glimpses of her skin while she did flips and leaps and shit.

The unspoken leader of the crew was Gunner Jorgensen. He was this tall, lanky guy with a handsome face. His face was angular and sculpted, and he was the main reason why the pagans were almost (counterintuitive as it may seem) mainstream. Gunner was clever, but didn’t get good grades because he rarely showed up to his classes. He was a junior. He listened to heavy metal bands like Cannibal Corpse and Burzum and Varg Vikernes, and he lived in a modified cabin in the woods. In addition to being very good-looking, Gunner was very charismatic, but also ruthless and cold. A dangerous combination, in hindsight.

There was also this girl Raven, who transferred in during her junior year. She must have been ordinary once, but she definitely wasn’t by the time she arrived at my high school. She wore goth clothing and an assload of makeup, heavily applied around her eyes like that chick Avril Lavigne. She really did look the part of a witch. People made fun of her in the beginning, but she didn’t seem to care. Somehow, rumors and gossip spread from her old school about how she’d been expelled for doing lots of drugs and bringing a sacrificial knife to class, and then people didn’t fuck with her anymore. She became kind of friendly with the pagans really quickly.

Most of the girls who had been in the group had hooked up with Gunner at some point, but Raven wouldn’t let Gunner into her pants, and I think that he latched onto her because she was a challenge. She became like the queen to Gunner’s king.

There were other kids in the group too, a few random dudes named Jack and Rudy and Smith, and then there was one other girl named Jane. She didn’t talk much. The pagans would mostly just hang out in the wooded areas on campus and smoke and stuff. After school, we’d hang at Gunner’s cabin instead. I did my first hallucinogens with them during some weird, batshit Wicca ritual. We’d do those sorts of things occasionally, but most often, we’d just chill as a group and get high and/or drunk and break glass for fun, because nobody could hear us from the middle of the woods.

So I ran with them for a few months during my sophomore year, and life was pretty interesting. Being with them kept the drugs flowing, and the girls were hot. I wouldn’t say that the pagans were really the type to share your secrets with or whatever, but Darren was long gone, and there was nobody else of interest in my school, so it was them or nothing. At any rate, my mother was kind of wigging out at the time, and she was drinking and crying a lot, which caused me to feel weird and uncomfortable in my house. I began crashing at Gunner’s occasionally, and then more and more, until I was spending most of my time at school or the cabin. I only went home when I needed more clothing, really. Over the summer before junior year, I lived with the gang full-time.

At least once a week, Gunner would throw a sort of party at his cabin. It was at one of those parties that I decided to emancipate myself from the pagans and potentially get out of Springfield. At the time, it was only a little idea at the back of my mind, and it slowly grew as I realized how crappy things were with my mother.

So anyways, the cabin was really dim and kinda grubby, and it had a pentagram carved into the wall of the main room where we all used to chill. Beer was flowing, and joints were circulating, and we had all sort of fallen into a groove. We weren’t talking though because Gunner had put on some weird, head-banger metal shit and it was too loud for conversation.

It was a sizeable group that night: me, Jacko, Rudy, Raven, Jane, and Raven’s cousin from out of town named Isadora. That probably wasn’t her real name because it sounded kind of medieval and uncommon, but I never asked nor did I ever see her again, so it didn’t matter. Gunner and Melody had disappeared into another room.

After a while, the CD ended, and the room was weirdly quiet for a moment before we heard raised voices from Gunner’s room. It was uncomfortable, to say the least. The words were unintelligible, but it was obvious that the two of them were violently arguing with each other, and there was even a crashing noise or two. Then, the argument cut off abruptly, as though they finally realized that the music was no longer playing. The door slammed open, and Melody strode out, looking furious. There was a small cut along her left cheek, which was an angry red color. Gunner shouted the word “slut” after her violently. Needless to say, the rest of us were sort of embarrassed at having overheard the emotions of what was probably meant to be a private conversation. Nobody said anything to Melody as she shoved open the door that led to the deck.

A few of us made awkward conversation until Gunner put another CD in, and the death metal resumed playing. He looked like he was fuming — his nostrils were flared, and his eyes were doing some weird, intense thing, and I joked to Rudy that he looked like Loki, the evil Norse god (because Gunner was Nordic, ha ha.)

A little while afterwards, Gunner motioned to me to come into his kitchen, which actually just consisted of a derelict fridge, a broken camp stove, and some wooden cabinets where he put his used takeout boxes. I zig-zagged my way over, and he put his hands on my shoulders.

“Melody wants a piece of this,” he slurred (he was obviously obliterated), motioning to himself. “She wants a piece of me,” he said again in a weird, drunken sing-song way, followed by a foul burp.

I refrained from telling him that Melody Armstrong definitely did not want a piece of him, as he had just called her a slut. Instead of saying anything, I patted him on the back and told him to sit down. He did, and he continued to speak.

“All the ladies want a piece of Gunner. All of them.”

This time I couldn’t help but chuckle and nod, because Gunner sounded like a ridiculous sleazebag.

He sang to himself again — this time his lyrics were “poppin’ cherries everywhere I go!” — and I began to laugh. The drunkest, the most pathetic, and the most unfiltered and uncalculating Gunner was trying to make himself sound like a virile sex stallion or some shit. I was laughing so hard, I almost started to cry. Granted, I was smacked and would have laughed at just about anything.

I was wheezing and wiping my eyes when I said to Gunner something along the lines of, “Dude, you disrespected her. We all heard it. I’m just saying, she probably doesn’t want a piece of you. Like not even a tiny piece, man.”

Like I was dreaming, Gunner’s expression soured, he pulled back his right arm and slammed a fist into my abdomen. He learned how to box freshman year, enough said. I curled up on the ground in the fetal position, retching. My eyes watered, and Gunner just stood over me, watching. Through the pain, I noticed that his face looked curious, and it reminded me of scientists. I guess the best way I can explain it is that it was like he was just watching me to see what would happen. He looked cold, detached. But my mind was still swimming with thoughts, and I felt overwhelmed, so I closed my eyes for a little bit.

After a while, I managed to stand up straight, but I was still reeling from shock. I felt a bit out of whack at that point, both physically and mentally, but I grabbed another beer from the cooler and headed out to the deck to sit and breathe. I chose a spot somewhat close to Melody, who was sitting alone and looking sort of pensive, but also pathetic. I popped the tab of my beer and took a few sips.

It was in that moment that I decided that Gunner was kind of an egotistical, sexist maniac. Somewhere deep inside of him, where his conscience was supposed to be, his ego just sat, watching his life happen, and majorly jerking off.

I said “Hey”,  to Melody. She didn’t say anything but sort of looked at me and half-smiled. She hadn’t been crying or anything, but her mouth was turned down at the corners and her eyes looked droopy. We were quiet for a few minutes, and I took a few sips.

But then, I don’t really know what came over me,  because I turned to her all of a sudden and said, “I’m leaving the crew.” She looked at me blankly. “I’m outta here. You should come with me. Not in, like, a weird way. But these guys are really weird. And Gunner’s an asshole.”

She nodded slowly and looked almost convinced, but maybe not convinced enough because after a second, she said she wasn’t sure, and that those guys were still her friends. I said cool. She said sorry. I said that it was no big deal. Then, she looked down, and that was the end of the conversation, so I took a few swigs from my can and got up and left from the back. I was done, gonzo, desaparecido.

I returned early the next morning when everyone was dead asleep, or too hungover to notice me, in order to gather up my stuff. That was the last time I went to the cabin. But it wasn’t the last time I spoke with Gunner. A few days later, after I had taken some time to regroup, I was in the library when Gunner walked in. He looked at me like he was curious, but he was also smiling in a weird way. Gunner’s smile is kind of scary, which just adds to his intimidating presence. His teeth are perfect and white, and his canines are really sharp because he underwent a procedure to have them filed into points a while back. The corners of his mouth pull away when he smiles, and so he kind of looks shark-like, predatorial.

Anyway, he said, “Hey bro, what’s up?” or something similar, and I responded in such a fashion. It had been a while. The group was doing well. I was fine back at my mom’s house, just helping her around the house and stuff. He asked me what had happened that night of his party, ‘cause I had just sorta disappeared. I made up some phony story about how my mom needed me to help move some furniture or some shit, and that I had drank a few too many anyhow and needed to rest.

He seemed to buy it though because he nodded and said, “Been there, man,” and that was the end of that. He had either been too drunk to remember the punching incident, or this was his weird way of apologizing. Either way, I had made my decision.

But in typical Gunner fashion, he brought the conversation back to himself. “Dude, you’ll never believe it. I hooked up with Raven a few nights ago, man! Let me tell you, that chick is a freak in the sheets. But she’s also a freak on the streets, so I guess just a freak overall.” He laughed at his own joke, and I smiled. Inside, though, I just felt like he was being a prick.

“And you wanna know something?” I didn’t say anything, but Gunner didn’t need encouragement. “Afterwards, she told me her real name! It was like, Caitlin or Maddy or some shit. I don’t remember.”

“Wow, man, that’s whack,” I responded, but the whole time I was thinking, What a fucking douchebag, he hooks up with a girl and then can’t even be bothered to remember her real name.

Needless to say, my friendship with Gunner was over. We made a little more awkward small talk, and then I came up with a shitty excuse to leave. He told me to come and stop by the cabin sometime soon, that my presence was “sorely missed” (which I didn’t really believe. Pagan satanists don’t really tend to form many meaningful attachments, I guess.) On my way out, we power-shook, and I began to walk away.

“Hey, Russ,” he called after me, and I turned to listen. “Blood brothers, man.”

I replied, “Blood brothers forever, dude.”

We nodded, and he said, “Wicked.”

And then, I walked away, and that was the last time we spoke. I don’t miss him.

Getting ready to leave my mother’s house was not particularly difficult. I don’t own very many things. My room didn’t look too different once I packed the necessary items into a backpack. Bliss had been sitting on the couch, dazed the whole week. I felt a bit concerned at first, but then reasoned with myself and decided that this could be good for her, not having anyone there to do shit. Maybe she’d take back her responsibilities and be a normal mom again by the time I came back. That was the only way I could reconcile leaving. I guess I do have a soft spot.

Saturday night came, and I felt really restless, but also nervous. I began to worry if maybe I shouldn’t leave Springfield at all, but I figured I’d never know if I’d made the right choice until I left. I’d already paid for the tickets — Springfield to Chicago, Chicago to San Francisco. I had no excuse to stay. Before leaving that morning, I left a note on the table for Bliss that said that I was leaving for a few weeks, and that she shouldn’t look for me or try to contact me. Not that I actually believed she’d go out of her way to get in touch. It was just a way for me to feel like I wasn’t just abandoning her. She’d be fine. My departure would be good, maybe even for both of us.

The morning was brisk for late August. The sun hadn’t fully come up yet and made the low-hanging clouds look like a child had finger-painted on them in an orangey pink color. My bag seemed lighter that morning, and I felt pretty good, or at least I felt much better than I’d felt the night before.

I walked quickly into town and up the hill onto the exit from Route 125. The walk from the exit that led into Pleasant Plains was pretty short, about ten minutes or so. Soon enough I was on the side of the highway, and I stuck out my thumb in order to hitch a ride into Springfield. A few cars passed by me, followed by gusts of wind and car exhaust fumes.

Finally, a pickup truck stopped, and the passenger door opened. I grabbed my stuff and jumped in. The guy who was driving the truck was short and had a beer belly and a thick brown mustache. He asked where I was headed. I said Springfield, and he nodded and said he was headed there himself. He introduced himself as Bud, I said my name was Russell, and we shook hands. There wasn’t much more to say, so Bud turned on the radio to the local country station, and I rested my head against the window of the truck. I liked how I could feel the cold glass pressed against my temple, vibrating softly.

After about forty minutes, we could see Springfield ahead of us. Bud asked where he should drop me off. I said the Amtrak station, and so that’s exactly where he left me, standing on the corner with my bag and a nervous fluttering in my chest.

 

Bloody Sunday

She mistakes blood for love,

which is why each time

his hands ache from

the punches or

her stomach is

smeared red,

her eyes gloss over

starry-eyed.

This, she thinks,

is what her mother meant

by “an endless honeymoon.”

 

She mistakes blood for love,

which is why when she looks

at her bony knees,

scabbed and dyed purple,

she smiles.

Her hands trace the

coarse surface,

each bump a love letter

typed in bangs and cracks.

This, she thinks,

is what her mother meant

by “modern romance.”

 

She mistakes blood for love,

which is why when he

comes home at 12:27 a.m.

on valentine’s day,

drunk on cheap liquor

and stale cigarettes,

she glows.

“Would you turn that down?”

he says,

“it’s too damn bright.”

She’s confused.

She thought he liked it

when her open wounds

glistened in the moonlight.

 

She mistakes blood for love,

which is why when he

approaches her,

eyes shaded a darker blue,

she does not cower.

His fingers wrap

around her neck.

This necklace is

the present no one

asked for.

A bouquet of

violet irises

and pale blue bellflowers

sprout from her throat.

 

He lets go.

So does she.

 

“There,”

he says to

her limp body

now glowing a different way,

“A little color to remind you

of my arrow.”

My Brother’s Shadow

My brother’s shadow was a marshmallow’s toasty crisps of goo. It was the cozy convenience of “younger brother,” the smaller footprints my cleats left in the soil. Sitting on his shoulders as he galloped down the sidewalk, unnoticed as folks whistled at him from all corners of the universe. Alone in the bleachers, but still feeling satisfied because when his muscular body hurdled down the basketball court, I told myself I could never please our parents the way he did. Outgrown t-shirts and underappreciated teddy bears always found their way into my arms because outgrown love was fresh when it wore my brother’s blueberry scent. A constant conversion factor loomed, in which his layups equaled my full-court shots, and despite my efforts, I could never achieve anything applause-worthy.

Suddenly, with the crinkling of the leaves and the fading sound of the basketball bouncing into oblivion, he was gone. With his absence came the lengthening of his shadow as the crowd gradually dissipated. His shadow became the hulking space in the bleacher seats, the empty loneliness which swallowed me whole. The grief was significantly more potent when there was no one to be compared to, when the would-be hand-me downs remained locked in his closet out of respect. Because when a shadow is left by itself there is no light to counteract its misguided ways, and it’s eternally fixed in a darkened spotlight. His shadow morphed into the clumpy, death-black cigarette tar with that distinct, sticky consistency, a texture I knew quite well from my quiet evenings in its seductive company. That inherited teddy bear, accidentally left in a moldy cooler, was submerged under layers of irregular ice cubes. And I can’t help but wonder if a shadow can ever escape itself, or if it’s confined to its own pitiable existence.

 

Snowglobe

The room was cold. They liked it that way. They used to talk about living in a snowglobe.

“Maybe you should talk to him, Mike.” Sarah’s back was pressed against the thin plaster wall, her knees curled into her chest, her cherry hair tangled beyond hope, her eyes sunken like stones. “Maybe you should hear his side of the story.”

Mike scoffed. His position, perched on the windowsill like an owl, cast his body in faint darkness, until Sarah could only see a black silhouette where pale skin and hazel eyes used to be. He faced the outdoors, nose pressed against the foggy glass, breathing onto the chilled surface and watching little clouds of his dirty exhalations form.

“I’d rather jump out this window,” he muttered, peering at the bustling city street below. There were yellow umbrellas down there. Yellow like the sun, like caution signs, like dead skin. Like her dead skin. “And become a flat little pancake.” He almost laughed, thinking about how the ants below would shriek and crowd around him, wanting to know why he’d done it. Tyson, he would’ve said. Ask him.

“Then go ahead.” Sarah’s voice was biting, venomous. Her eyes widened as soon as the words escaped her lips. She was always the pacifist, but just look at what the world was doing to her.

Mike turned around and she could now see his face. His eyes were sunken, too, and he grimaced. “Harsh, Sarah.”

She looked down at her bare feet, at the way her mangled toes curled on top of one another, making her cracked nails the least of her problems. She usually wore socks, but today, being raw felt comfortable.

“It’s not a bad idea,” she whispered, clenching and unclenching her toes. “It might do some good.”

Mike rolled his neck, then turned back to the window and the lifeless people below. “What, killing myself?” There goes an ambulance, he thought. Someone else is dying. But an ambulance isn’t a hospital, and paramedics can’t do shit. It’s all too slow. They’re probably already dead.

“No!” Sarah was too loud; her ears rung. “Talking to him. He deserves to hear what you have to say.”

Mike scowled. “That son of a bitch deserves nothing.”

The people below were frantic now. The cars were still; the ambulance couldn’t get through. Too slow, too slow, too slow. Mike imagined the line going flat, the steady beep that told him she was gone, piercing through their shrieks like a child’s scream. Then a punch was thrown, and Tyson was knocked to the ground, and Mike’s knuckles were bloody, and she was still gone. All because he was too slow.

But this ambulance didn’t have his sister in it. This was someone else’s doom.

“You can’t ignore him forever.” Sarah pulled her arms around her, goosebumps suddenly prickling her skin. “He didn’t know Jo was gonna take too much. None of us did.”

Mike whipped around now, gripping the edge of the windowsill like a lifeline. Sarah tried to shrink against the wall. Smaller, she thought. She wanted to be smaller.

“He fucking well knew she was going to take too much,” Mike hissed, his heart thumping. “And when she did, he did nothing.” His eyes were red, ablaze like candle flames and fresh blood. Sarah turned away.

“Did you ever think maybe it wasn’t just his fault?” Sarah asked, stroking the wall against her back. The plaster was scratched and flaking. A delicate pastry, like the ones Mike used to buy her when they pretended they lived in a snowglobe. “That maybe we all had something to do with it?”

“Are you saying I killed my sister?” Mike turned back to the window. He pressed his nose against the glass and breathed out, one drawn-out sigh escaping his lips. “That’s pretty fucking screwed up, Sarah.”

“I don’t know. I was just thinking. Maybe we were all just blind.”

“Blind?” Mike watched as the people below bustled through the streets, yellow umbrellas twirling and feet moving faster than cars. The ambulance had turned its siren off. Mike knew what that meant. He looked at the cracked watch on his right wrist. Time of death: 12:01.

“Yeah. Like, we all just kind of ignored her,” Sarah’s words were fast, fast and quiet, like quick breaths in the absence of oxygen. “We knew something was wrong, but you and I just lived in our fucking snowglobe, while Tyson kept her pain going. Until it was too late.”

“And then we were too slow,” Mike whispered. The cars started to move again, and the ambulance with the dead girl disappeared around a corner, heading to the hospital. Next comes the calls, Mike thought. Then the fighting. Then the funeral and the blame and the numbness that falls over a widowed family like a noose. That’s when you know your snowglobe is shattered. That’s when the water starts leaking out, and you suffocate, and there’s nothing you can do but watch and wait and try to breathe.

Mike suddenly turned around, eyes wide. “Why is it so cold?”

Sarah shrugged. “We used to like it this way.”

Heartbeat

He’s every toddler on the floor

who looks at you and turns away,

who smirks and laughs and grabs your hair,

‘cuz it’s all he needs to make his day.

 

But hidden beneath his sunlit face

lies a fear not taught but instilled deep.

Not that of hidden caves and ghostly heights,

but that of blood and loss and death

 

because no magic can bring back the dead.

No lie can change the past.

No words can erase the pain.

Memories forever last.

 

The static of a thousand rays

captured in the tear

of a heartbeat,

a silent scream ripping through the swallowed air.

 

A nightmarish fracture of the jagged gunshot.

Eyes grappling through the sudden bang

of lost light,

a broken black cloud forever expanding, consuming.

 

The pounding of a vacant heartbeat

drowning in a web of trying lies.

Tangled voices pushing through

the rest of his life blown right by.

 

We read these stories,

a country restless and upset.

We grieve, we call for change,

then our lives push and we move on.

When the Clocks Stop (Excerpt)

When silence fills a room, the tick of one clock can be louder than a heartbeat. The steady sound of the seconds passing fills empty air with a melancholy cloud of missing time.

But then, if one clock is a heartbeat, fifty is a thunderclap.

The largest clock was set above the fireplace, its large face counting over the proceedings of the room like some sort of eternal judge, heavy hands rusted and numbers chipped and faded. Its edges were yellowed like paper, and justice squeaked in its spinning gears, friendly and stern.

Below it on the mantle, a much newer clock stood stiffly: white and pristine with dashes circling its face instead of numbers. Its hands were long and narrow, ticking with noisy efficiency, primly aware that it was wound just a bit too tight.

The grandfather clock stood in the corner, solemnly counting the seconds, dust gathering at its feet.

Shining mahogany faces gleamed from the ceiling, twins, ticking faster and faster, competing with each other’s balance of numbers.

Dozens of other clocks lined the walls, varying in shape, size, and color. The ticking rang out from every corner, some quick and desperate, others seeming almost despondent, but all somehow exactly on time, up to the very second.

The man who sat in the center of the room muttered to himself as he dug through a small pile of tools. Secrets whirled about him, brushing against him, begging for his attention, but he waved them away.

His hands never stopped moving, searching through the pile while dragging his fingers agitatedly through his hair. He tapped along to the ticking, still muttering under his breath. He gave a frustrated sigh, and the largest clock whirred questioningly.

“When I was young,” Arkwright informed the clocks, his eyes heavy with the weight of thousands of years, “I wondered why people grew old. Silly thing to do, I thought. Why let time control you?”

It was strange, really, how someone could look so young and so old all at once. Eternity blossomed before his face, dancing before his eyes.

“Old is one thing. Ancient is quite another.” He pinched the bridge of his nose, squeezing his eyes shut and dissolving the illusion.

The twin clocks on the ceiling exchanged worried ticks as he continued, motioning grandly with one arm. “You grow old from too much living. You become ancient from too much time; that’s the secret. Too much time and not enough life to fill it.”

“Timekeeper. You’re rambling again.” He turned to see Eldon standing in the doorway, silhouetted against the light pouring out behind him.

Arkwright arranged his face into an innocent expression. “Am I? I suppose so. Can’t be helped.” He looked ruefully around him at the spare bits and broken bobs scattered on the floor. “Life is relative, my friend. Time plays with fools by being generous.” The prim little clock on the mantle hummed in annoyance. “You would know that, of course.” He fiddled idly with a scrap of metal, turning it over in his long fingers so it shone in the firelight.

Eldon smiled sadly. “Of course.”

“Of course,” Arkwright muttered under his breath, studying the brass scrap, “of course. Nothing is ‘of course.’ Some things are ‘possibly.’ Some things are ‘maybe.’ Nothing is ‘of course.’ Nothing can be that certain, can it? You blink and it’s gone. It never lasts.”

“It just disappears.” Eldon’s voice was sympathetic, almost pitying.

“Disappears? No. Flickers.” The Timekeeper drew out a pair of spectacles, balancing them precariously on his nose. He rubbed the brass with his thumb. “Like a candle.”

Eldon closed the door gently and approached the man sitting on the floor. “A candle?” he asked.

Arkwright resolutely turned his back on Eldon. “A candle,” he agreed, waving a hand vaguely behind him. “You know. Burning down the wick, dripping wax, dancing on the edge of oblivion.” He looked up from the scrap for a second, peering deep into space. “Surviving merely to be extinguished.” The grandfather clock creaked in agreement, its peeling, painted numbers looking sad and lonely.

Eldon picked up a shard of twisted glass which lay on the table and held it up to his eye. “Well,” he said, “if you see it that way.”

Arkwright hesitated, still studying the opposite wall over the top of his spectacles, before adjusting them and returning to the scrap. “Yes, well. There’s no other way for me to see it. I live from my point of view.”

Eldon grinned openly at this response. “As do we all.”

The fire popped and crackled as it burned lower. Arkwright deposited the brass scrap absentmindedly on the floor, picking up a coiled spring. “So. Come to kill me again?” he inquired politely. He asked the question in such a matter-of-fact tone he might have been discussing the weather, but the ticking around them gained a more ominous note, speeding up an infinitesimal amount.

The grin fell from Eldon’s face, and he seemed to age ten years as looked down at his hands, replying finally, “Yes, I’m afraid so.”

“Oh no, not like that!” Eldon looked up in time to see the Timekeeper climb to his feet. “Chin up! If you’re going to kill me, at least be confident about it! You haven’t lost faith in this old game of ours, have you? No.”

Eldon sighed. “If you would stop being so bloody cheerful about it, it might make a difference.” A squat, grey clock near the floor groaned in agreement, and Eldon half-glanced at it.

“Oh! Sorry.” Arkwright tried to arrange his face into something more suited to the situation. “Better?”

“Not really.”

“Mm.” Arkwright bobbed his head distractedly, before straightening up, folding his spectacles and slipping them back into a pocket. “Right. Better get it over with, then. Do you have a plan this time, or are you merely going to ‘wing it,’ as they say?”

“Listen, could you not do that?”

“What?”

“You know. That.”

The Timekeeper raised an eyebrow. “I’m afraid you’ll have to be a bit more specific.”

“Your whole crazy, cheerful babbling act. What part of ‘kill you’ did you not understand?”

Arkwright, however, was now ignoring him. He had directed his attention instead to a particularly small clock, whose hands looked limp and feeble. Its ticking had slowed, and the seconds were out of step with the others. The noise in the room grew quieter as the Timekeeper put a hand on its face, fingers tracing the tiny numbers gently as he muttered words of encouragement. The clock was small, with a shell-colored rim and innocent numerals circling the edges.

Eldon watched curiously. He had done this time and time again (Ha. he thought weakly, Time and time again. How accurate.) but this was new. New was rare for him these days, but, he justified, that’s the price I pay.

The clock squeaked mournfully, and Eldon noticed that Arkwright’s hands were shaking slightly and he stroked the clock face. Now that’s definitely new.

This was the first time Eldon had seen anything but a smile on the Timekeeper’s face. Worry creased Arkwright’s brow, and every miniscule line on his face grew more pronounced. The firelight played on the bags under his eyes, casting dark shadows over his face.

The ticking of the other clocks was barely more than a whisper as time slowed down. The tiny clock shivered violently, nearly falling out of the wall altogether, but Arkwright held it in place, still muttering under his breath.

As Eldon watched, the Timekeeper pressed a gentle finger against the second hand, stopping it completely. The room was silent in shock, as even the other clocks forgot what they were supposed to be doing.

Arkwright stood slowly, turning to face his other clocks, who hastily resumed ticking. As he returned his gaze to Eldon, his true age seemed to be written all over his young face. His pale eyes were filled with a determined fire: ancient, grief-stricken, and ever so slightly furious. He turned his gaze on Eldon, who took a step back involuntarily, filled with the unmistakable feeling of witnessing the calm before a storm. The Timekeeper spread his arms wide, and said quietly to his killer, “Get it over with. We have work to do.”

Eldon glanced nervously at the other clocks, but they ignored him, concentrating only on counting the silent seconds as they passed. A gunshot echoed through the room, and as the Timekeeper fell, the clocks stopped for the second time that day.

 

Lost

I was born into an endless maze,

like the one people drag pencils through.

Dawning a facade of hope each night,

waking to the same walls unmoved.

 

The thick grey hedges grew tall,

taller each day.

Not a sunlit filter of leaves

but a wall opaque and faint.

 

Everything an ebbing deception.

A brilliant ray of contrasting white,

the sudden edge of a greying shadow

objects of failing imagination.

 

Looking to the sky to the soaring birds,

yearning to be but themselves

as the stars ice over darkness

into a blissful escape they delve

 

and realize

 

the reason for the dark clouds

raining tears of bitter memory,

is that we live no longer in a maze

but a circle –– of loss, of poverty.

 

The paths that stray

are clouded with mist,

leading only to pain

still penniless.

 

The teardrop lets go its final thread

and it sends a ripple across the sky.

The sun cast its response,

shooting a ray wide and high.

 

Perhaps we claim this flash blinds our narrow minds,

or the mist clouds our earnest sight,

or the rain closes our parochial hearts,

or the darkness forbids our competent height.

 

Yet all are lies,

but the fault lies not within our sense,

but within our mind

where we refuse to make amends.

 

Forever in this cornerless circle,

first step they walked, first day they talked

homeless, powerless and jobless,

only hope and love they sought.

 

A pencil in hand,

a hedge axe on our side,

yet we stand

immobilized.

This Place Called Home

  

I come from a place where quarters are

tailored as lustrous silver buttons

strung together with the residue riches

of small town life.

The houses are planted like

impeccable lego ziggurats

with their roots clutching on

for generations too long;

and the children here beam with

straight white pearls

that reflect off the silver linings of

embellished rusty clouds.

 

Here–the crime rates are as low

as the stress is high

with the nerve picking pressure

of decisions to be made.

Gaping mouths and parched throats,

gasping for four magic words:

fame, money, success, power,

fame, money, success, power.

There is a constant velvet pretense

masking closed plastic doors

and an incessant gloom smothered

with upper class glamour.

 

Just last week, I saw a girl with depletion

carved on her forearms.

Her eyes

are still sketched in my mind.

And yes,

clean classrooms have taught me

exhaustion in three different languages,

but I’m still more drained than

these tongues will know.

I come from a town known for its

lustrous silver buttons,

but here,

smiles are bought with pennies.

Trich

10:00 p.m. I should probably be going to bed.

I turn on my lamp and turn off the main light, plunging myself into bed. I prop my leg up on my nightstand, right in the lamplight. The light illuminates my leg, revealing stout and short hairs. They dance in the light. They sing to me. Pick me, pick me. I lick my lips.

I pluck my tweezer from the drawer on my nightstand. I click it a few times, listening to the clank of metal on metal. Slowly, I bring the tweezer to my leg. I grasp a hair. Pull it out. Savor the delicious spark it creates in my nerves. I crave it. I crave more.

I pull, hair after hair, from my leg. The tweezer does an elaborate dance across my skin, biting my prey and swallowing it. I can feel the little hair vanishing from my leg, pulled up by its roots, like a child picking a flower. I have been waiting all day for this, for the quiet time before bed when I can pull at my luxury, aided by the tweezer.

While picking at my leg, I think about my day. I think about how hard it is to pull with just my nails, with the prying eyes of teachers and classmates. I remember them asking what I was doing, assuming I was peeling my skin, and turning away in disgust. But it’s worth it. Each pull brings a sting that feels like beauty in the form of what most people call pain.

I tire of plucking my right leg and move to my left leg. It feels just as good, just as worth the time. When I finish, I stick my foot on the table and scour it for hairs. I pick at a mound of skin that holds an ingrown hair. It bursts open and the hair leaps out, wriggling around, glad for freedom. I take it. I pull it. The nerves send the feeling to my brain. I do another one.

I do the other foot. The logical part of my head screams for me to drop the tweezers, to turn off the lamp, to lie down and charge up for school tomorrow. I don’t listen. I can’t listen. I don’t care. I climb up my body. Legs again. Thighs. I savor the delicious feast of removing hair.

Next, I do the stubby, prickly hairs in my pubic area. I open my underwear and look down, selecting the thick, black hairs to rip out.

Armpits. Hands. Fingers. I slowly become full from my feast. Slowly.

Upper lip. Nostrils. The tweezers go everywhere I need them to go, sliding out hairs like drawers slide out of cabinets.

I lay the tweezer down. Some hairs stick out of it, but most litter the nightstand and the carpet in between the nightstand and the bed. Still, my body begs for more. It wants the stress-relieving reap of the harvest. But I can’t do more. I need to sleep.

11:00 p.m. I turn off the lamp.

I am ashamed. I could have gone to bed early. I should have. But I chose not to. Instead, I pulled. The logical part of my brain yells at me. I need to control myself. Everyday, I promise myself that next time I will go straight to bed. Everyday, I break that promise.

 

It seems that I will always be a trichotillomaniac.

The Telephone Wants to Retire

   

She is tired of sending wired hugs

she no longer wants to hear tearful goodbyes

and screaming hurts her electronic ears

She has already learned the code of voices

the nervous giggles of first date calls

the half hungover messages to work

and the infamous breakup over a call

 

new generations of little girls and boys

say they prefer text anyways

they hate the sounds of their own voice

She now knows the difference between

a sister and a roommate and a cousin once removed

the obvious contrasts of

mother and a mom and beloved mommy

and she knows if the news is good or bad

just by how they say hello.

 

judas is crying now

 the old me was exuberant

she was small and confident

her cheeks shone yellow like the sun

she could jump on flowers

use the petals as landing pads

and if she stepped on a worm

she shrugged her shoulders and kept running

 

that old me died in an explosion that burned bright in the night

the flames billowed like sheets hung out to dry, caressed by the wind

i couldn’t tell you why or where it was

but i could hear the boom of timbers breaking

i could feel the stirring in my soul of a simple melody gone gravely wrong

i could feel a piece i had no idea existed fall out of my chest and splinter on the pavement with an almost musical melancholy sigh

 

i was called to the funeral, and i wore a yellow dress

to commemorate the color of her cheeks

 

i realized my mistake when i saw that

everyone else was wrapped in black and frowning at me

 

after the services someone pulled out a radio

rusted with blue nostalgia

they put on her favorite song and asked me if i would dance to it

for i looked just like her

 

i tried to match the steps but

the music got faster and the dancing more twisted my foot struck the edge

of the radio i hopped in pain the radio stopped and

i fell and they kept frowning and

i started crying and holding my foot and wishing

for something

wishing to be something

that wasn’t her

all i felt was one word ringing through the pathways of my body as if i was standing

on a huge bell

impostor

impostor

impostor

Letters

Mama sips her morning tea from the kitchen counter, the strength diluted by her fading smile and tense, constricted muscles. Her skirt, drenched in a deep black and frayed from continuous wearings, skims the hardwood floors. It dances in a steady motion, at the morning breeze’s will rather than her own.

I beat my hands in a consistent rhythm, matching my mother’s dress and shutting my eyes until I’m soaked in a vast swarm of people.

Mama’s laugh echoes off the cliffs of the beach, and she’s dancing again. Spinning and twirling as the drums beat on and the swarm’s melody erupts into a harmonious climax. And they’re at the center of it all. Mama and Papa pulled tightly together, the passion infused in the cores of their eyes. Anna and I stand on the edge of the circle, clapping and shifting to the pace of a movement much bigger than us. Yet, when I turn to peek at the joy in Mama’s eyes, I feel Anna’s hand clutch my arm, and I’m abruptly snatched from the depths of the moment.

“Lizzy?” she calls, and her big blue eyes fill the void of the newfound silence.

“I’m fine,” I retort. I don’t intend to convey such a boiling frustration. Lately it just spills out of me in spasms and streaks, directed at the easiest prey. With Anna, I feel a force that consumes me. I’m standing on a tipping iceberg and the bitter grasp of death compels me to lash out. Mama stares straight at the cracked, uncleaned cup in front of her instead of coming to Anna’s defense as I secretly wish she would. Anna’s pained face adds to my dread, to the pulse of my drained body. I lay down on the dirt-ridden floor, the one that used to be so pretty with its black, well-maintained tiles, arms sprawled, and my sister comes to tap me.

“Why isn’t Mama eatin’?” she inquires, the gap between her two front teeth prominently exposed.

“She’s not hungry,” I dryly respond.

“But she wasn’t hungry yesterday,” she persists.

I pause and inhale. “Well, maybe she’s not feeling right.”

“Then we should call Grandma and Grandpa. They could help her. Give her some medicine or somethin’…”

“NO!” I shout, my stubborn resistance ricocheting off Anna’s droopy ginger pigtails and compiling in wrinkles underneath the rims of her eyes. “What’ll they do? Save her? Make our tummies full or her mug empty?”

Anna’s pursed lips and angular bones jut into my eleven-year-old conscience. Mama’s position on the opposite side of the counter with the tattered, discounted yellow curtains swaying behind her, stands in a stark contrast. I conclude that my baby sister certainly won’t feed herself.

“Alright,” I relent, assuming that something to chew on is better than an empty stomach, even when the tears make the food salty. Maybe if she eats, I reason, she’ll forget for a while. “How ‘bout I fetch you a nice blueberry Eggo?”

“Leggo my Eggo!” she eagerly replies, captivated by a fresh sense of delight.

I stroll over to the pristine refrigerator, wrapping my hands around the stainless steel of the handles. I freeze before the cold hits me: drawing me in — the vibrant letters, plastered to the fridge with magnets purchased from the local ninety-nine cent store. Falling to my knees, I reach out to trace the mariposa-wing orange “C” with my dirt-stained fingertips. I run them down in trickles, inching over the curve, reaching the sharp ends. And all at once I feel the crisp corners of his jaw. The way it felt that clear spring morning when Anna and I tackled him in bed, reminding him of his thirty-fourth birthday. How he hadn’t shaved, and his beard covered his chin in sporadic prickles, jostling when he creased his cheeks to smile. And the way Mama threw her head way back in a careless thrust, and spoke in a serious manner to remind us of our place and break from the bouts of teasing.

“Birthdays come and go,” she announced, firm and easy. “Remember the little things, and try not to grow big-headed like your daddy.”

Then came the “U,” yellow like the sunrise, and just as slow moving. Just when it made you suppose it had got the best of you, you were left dumbfounded by its unforeseeable comeback.

“U” was the uncontrollable undulations of Papa’s hair in the summertime. Like when we all went on down to the state fair in Georgia, and Anna was scared to go on Thunder Mountain. Me, being the bigger sister, I tried convincing her to come along. But, no sir, she stayed huddled right there with Mama, eating a big old stick of cotton candy as Daddy and I waited in line. And his huge brown curls tossed and turned on the drops, but he stayed laughing up a storm, me howling right with him.

When it was all over and we rolled up into the station he pulled my ear over to his mouth and whispered, “Now listen, I wanna tell ya something. You are brave. You are one piece of wonderful work, more like your daddy and your granddaddy than you’ll ever know. And don’t let any folks ever tell you otherwise.”

I savored his words, sweeter than any cotton candy I’d ever tasted. I kept that little secret tucked among my eyelashes as I shuddered and hesitantly dragged my fingertips towards the terrifying “R.”

“R” was the dreaded letter. It was the one that appeared suddenly and out of the blue: the relentless rage and mutated genes that exploded out of Daddy the Cotton Candy Machine. “R” was when Daddy never showed up at the Thanksgiving concert, or to pick us up at the bus stop after school that day. “R” was coming home by ourselves to Mommy’s sobs and Daddy’s massive bellows, screaming about things only he understood. For the hatred that seized him, and for the protectiveness that made Mama muster “Go stay in the closet until I call for you. Like hide-and-seek!” between broken cries that failed to sound like counting.

For the peeking out of a crack in the closet and the way I covered Anna’s eyes to be the brave one just like Papa told me. And for what happened next: for the image that would become stained in my memory, but not in Anna’s. For his blow, which came like an avalanche in slow motion, striking Mama in a thunderbolt tinged with pity. And for my tongue, bitten and swollen from when I ordered tears back to the deepest depths of my throat.

For the constant “sorry’s” and “forgive me’s” and Mama’s late-night phone calls. To the fake smiles, prepared meals, and empty wallets, drained without a penny to spare. To the day she agreed to stay — for us, not her. For when our dinners started to have conversations, and she stopped having to use scarves to cover the bruise. And all went back to normal. “R” as in “revered,” when Daddy was a strong man in a house of forgetful girls.

Santa came. Leaves fell. A thin layer of ice emerged on the roads. And Mama picked us up from school. “T” as in tangled tendencies, tangled tactics, and tangled terms. Mommy unlocking the front door. Put down the scarf. Scream. Run. Collapse.

Protect Anna. Go to Mama. Look away.

Papa was there, but he was distant. Far away. Dead with a bullet in his head. Gun down. Man down. Curls drenched in a coat of thick, drying blood. Ambulances can’t help the deceased.

The note said Daddy loved us very much, but that he couldn’t go on any longer feeling like a stranger in his own body. I wondered how much he could’ve loved us, leaving a black casket and sighing old ladies as our last image of him, and not roller coasters and birthdays. After all, he never did reach thirty-five.

Anna forgets. They say it’s ‘cause it’s too painful to remember. I can’t cover her eyes forever. But I want to shield Mama’s. She can’t un-see. But maybe she can stop staring and start living. Instead, she sips her tea. It is spring again. I open the fridge, and grab the Eggos.

Immortality

I smile at the nice lady holding up the two lollipops.

“Which one do you want?”

I take both.

The first day of school is the most important day of school because you have to make a good first impression on the people around you, and your teacher because the teacher is the most important person in that classroom except for yourself so, go in there and have some fun because that’s what you need to do. What in the hell do I do with this wooden stick in my hands.

After all of the words and letters and numbers and letters and names and places I go and I leave and I go out into the sun. Gotta get that vitamin D, imperative for bone and overall growth and bone marrow and growth of bone marrow.

I go and have some fun, because that’s how it works.

I look up and see a bear. I scream and yell but nothing happens. People around me are laughing at a joke so I start laughing too. We all start laughing harder, and it’s ok because the bear took off its head and it’s also laughing. What was the joke guys, I bet it was really funny because y’all are laughing so hard, and I really want to hear it please…?

Because after all. We all need something to calm our nerves.

We all start typing away, writing a paper or article or essay so we can pass this course and graduate from college and graduate from graduate school and get a nice and cushy job and retire in southern France with vines all over the walls. I print out my paper to my professor’s watch, where he can then access it manually or have the ScanMan™ grade it along with the others. The professor gives me a small, sad smile as I run out of lecture hall and into the sunlight.

 

After all. We all need a release from our bodies once in awhile.

 

Where did the time go?  After all these years, all I have is a giant stuffed bear that says “Go Big Reds!” emblazoned on the top its forehead and it’s looking at me funny and oh sorry but I have to go and go color in circles with sticks.

I stand at the door of the researcher and he looks at me in pity and fear and worry and surprise and hope and sorrow. I smile winningly at him but the muscles in my face hurt so I stop and then the jackhammer in my chest breaks through and it’s okay though because I am the first.

But really. It’s okay. I’m okay.

He asks me if I want to call someone because he has to.

I smile.

I sit.

I close my eyes and take the lollipops and throw them onto the ground because all of the words make sense.

I won’t be the last.

My Body Is a Temple

 My body is a temple

Anyone may walk

Through my propylaia

Who needs to pray.

I lay brick upon brick

On top of my

Concaving shoulders:

Being their Atlas.

My columns bear

The weight of their troubles;

I am crumbling

But I still stand.

 

My body is a temple.

I am stagnant.

I serve others

But receive nothing

In return.

Not because it

Isn’t offered

But because I

Am my own Caryatids.

 

My body is a temple.

I am given thanks

But sometimes taken

For granted.

Everyone’s names

Have been carved

Into my skin:

A permanent reminder

Of who I buttressed.

No stone quite fits

The piece of me they removed.

 

My body is a temple.

Extroversion is mixed

In my mortar.

Human interaction is

What holds me together.

 

My body is a temple.

I am ever-changing

My presence in their life

My cellas hold unique meanings

to each individual.

 

My body is a temple.

Though vandalized,

Every mark left behind

On my frieze tells a story

and helps me grow.

My own experiences

Improve my ability to aid.

 

My body is a temple

And I feel blessed everyday.

Angst Declassified: Teen Survival Guide

So, you just turned 15, and like many other teen girls out there, you feel sad. Misunderstood. Like a bialy on a plate of bagels. You feel like you might be depressed but you don’t want to say anything because, well, you saw what happened to the last girl who said anything. Logically, you have one question: How do I hide this? Look no further! By following these simple steps, you can shame your sadness into that dark, decrepit part of your brain we like to call The Subconscious.

Step 1: Add “lol” to the end of every sharp utterance to seem cool, casual, and unaffected, kind of like a comatose cucumber. For example, the phrase “I wanna die” becomes so much funnier as “I wanna die, lol.” If you can laugh at sadness, perhaps you can distance yourself from it.

Step 2: Take mental health days, but hide them under the pseudonyms of obscure illnesses with multisyllabic Latin names. You don’t come to work because you have a touch of “situs inversus” and you miss your AP biology final because your “lymphatic filariasis” is acting up. Everyone will extend thinly veiled sympathy towards you. You’ll mistake their platitudes for care and start showing up for life again.

Step 3: Exonerate your worries through a fad diet. Juice cleanses are the most effective, but the Paleo diet has had moderate success when coupled with binge drinking. Busy your mind with how many calories are in 8.5 ounces of distilled carrot juice and drown your fears in unfiltered antibiotics. Side effects include hallucinations and extreme irritability, but you’ll be 7 pounds lighter and unburdened of heavy demons.

Step 4: Get a boyfriend. Break up with him. Get another boyfriend. Break up with that one, too. Repeat the process until all the people-shaped holes in your heart are plastered over with the memory of you having the upper hand.

Step 5: Buy yourself really extravagant gifts like hoverboards, commissioned busts of worthless dignitaries, and tickets to shows you’ve never heard of and think sound pretentious anyway. Take yourself on the worst dates. Spoil yourself until you’re a rotten peach. Yes, things are not the key to happiness. But they’re so damn fun, aren’t they?

Step 6: Bleach your hair and then dye it red, or blue, or any color but brown for Christ’s sake. Watching your hair turn into limp, rainbow-colored straws guarantees weeks of enough nail-biting excitement that you’ll stop writing cryptic tweets. Then, in the aftermath, you’ll be too be preoccupied with covering up your bald spots that maybe, just maybe, you won’t wonder if he still likes you.

Step 7: Find yourself a good corset, one with lace and enough underwire to compress your sadness until it whittles down into nothing. A 25-inch waist can’t possibly bear the weight of an existential crisis. Why do you think models always look (emaciated) and happy? Their bone structure isn’t conducive to depression.

Step 8: Develop an online alias with a sexy name like Eliza, Brandy, or Candi. Give her a rom-com profession, such as artisanal baker or heiress to Dad’s paper clip throne. Then, proceed to catfish as many guys as possible. This will give you tons of practice at lying. You’ll be doing a lot of that soon.

Step 9: Take your coffee black and when people ask why, tell them, “It’s because it matches my soul.” They’ll mistake this as a cry for help and maybe it is. There’s nothing more polarizing than an unsweetened existence or a person who’s too “real” for artificial sugar. These people will ask concerned questions about your life and your feelings and you. You’ll probably like this whole being the center of the galaxy kind of thing. Perhaps it will center you.

Step 10: Hit things, not people. Punch pillows, smash trophies, and burn pictures. Turn every worldly possession you have into scraps of abstract art. Nothing matters when it’s in pieces. Nothing matters, anyway. We’re all just projections floating on a sphere in space. Money is just a man-made concept. So is time. The sooner you realize all of this, the less sad you’ll feel because feelings don’t matter, obviously.

Step 11:  Yell a lot. Text in all caps. Shout in libraries. Scream in movie theaters. Loud sounds are cathartic. That’s why wolves never stop howling, I think.

Step 12: When all else fails, take these meds: Prozac. Klonopin. Xanax. Robitussin. Advil Extra Strength. Dry swallow them until your throat feels scratchy and your stomach is bloated with cure-alls. Your brain won’t know what direction is up, but it won’t know what direction is down either. This isn’t quite sadness or melancholy. It’s a new feeling: confusion. You’re going to love it. It’s less blissful than ignorance but it does a good enough job distracting Depression and Loneliness. Maybe, just maybe, you’ll be able to think.

Arilla and Endar

Arilla had always been a writer, but always struggled with finding an inspiration. Going to the local coffee shop certainly helped with her creativity, but sometimes it just wasn’t enough. She had thought about using the strange, lilac colored man as her muse, but she could never work up the courage to ask him for his consent.

For two entire years, the man would be at the coffee shop every time Arilla went. At first, she was slightly concerned about it, but eventually realized it must have just been a major coincidence. She knew the man wasn’t stalking her or anything like that, because she had never seen anyone who remotely looked like him outside of the shop. She wondered (only a few times when she was sleep deprived) if she could be stalking him, but once she got coffee into her system, ridiculous thoughts like that were banished from her mind. Once Arilla was done being paranoid, she realized that there were a few other regulars that she saw all the time, so she knew it wasn’t all that odd for both her and the lilac man to inhabit the shop every morning. Even after she knew she had nothing to be afraid of or nervous about, she still felt weird about asking the man, a stranger, to be her muse for a new character. It wasn’t a question that people knew how to answer. Probably because it had never been asked before. Arilla certainly didn’t want to ask that of a random stranger.

Arilla knew nothing about the man, other than the fact that his skin was lilac and his hair was dark. But, because of how much the question and her lack of inspiration tormented her, she began to discreetly observe the little things about him. Not like a stalker would do, Arilla told herself, but like what a journalist or other writers would do. Her observations made it clear that he was an artist. He constantly had charcoal and ink smudged hands as well as paint-stained clothes. Arilla also determined that his eyes were a light grey color, which complimented his black, almost blue, hair quite nicely. In no time at all, she learned many things about him, all of which translated well into a written character. Of course, there were still gaping holes in the knowledge she had of him, so she decided to finally act. Her decision took up to a full month, but that’s neither here nor there.

Her nerves ate away at her as she got up from her seat and made her way toward his table. Unfortunately, that made her unfocused, which lead to her crashing into the very same man she had wanted to talk to. This meant that not only was she more embarrassed than she would have been, but coffee splashed all over her, and the papers that the man must have been holding littered the floor.

They both muttered curses and attempted to help each other. Arilla leaned down to pick up the man’s scattered mess, and he reached over to a vacant table to grab some napkins for Arilla’s own mess.

“I am so sorry!” Arilla’s face burned bright. “I was actually walking to your booth to talk to you, but I was nervous because what I want to say to you is really strange, and it might weird you out-” The man’s chuckling interrupted Arilla’s rambling.

“It’s alright,” he handed her the napkins. “I actually wanted to talk to you, too.”

Arilla reddened even more. “Um, here are your… sketches?” She tried to peer at the stack of paper she was holding before handing them over.

“Thanks,” the man smiled, trying to obscure them from her view.

“Is that me?” She gasped, pointing to the top sheet of paper.

“Well… they kind of all are,” He winced. “You’ve been my muse recently, which is weird, I know.”

“Wow, they’re amazing,” Her eyes widened in awe. “But what’s really weird is that you’ve been a muse to me, but as a character. I’m a writer, not an artist.”

“Oh,” he laughed. “Surely I’m not that interesting.”

“No, you very much are,” Arilla assured him. “But, a character that interesting needs a name.”

“I think Endar suits him,” He held out his hand.

Arilla shook it. “You know, I think that’s an amazing name for him.”

“I’ll need the author’s name, so I can be sure I’m buying the right book,” Endar grinned.

“Hmm, I believe it might just be Arilla.”

“Well, Arilla, it’s great to finally put a name to the face I’ve seen on a regular basis for two years. It’s funny, but I did once think you were stalking me with how much I saw you.”

“Likewise.”

In Search Of

 you find it

at the bottom of a beer can.

wince

as cold metal pokes at your knuckles.

fingers grasp

at the paint-chipped edges:

red lead.

it’s a throw-away toy,

the kind you find

in a cereal box

or at your next orthodontist appointment.

“Purpose”

this rubix cube-shaped puzzle calls itself.

you don’t have instructions

and brain teasers are for the cerebral.

who needs a mind

when you’ve got hands like a roman emperor?

you throw away the plaything,

buy another 40 ounce,

and chuckle while your friends mock

your disappointment

when there’s no reward

for guzzling tinted nothing.

 

you find it next

in the voice of a millennial

you’ve been fucking

for the past month.

she talks about her old friend,

Purpose,

while you wrap a loose arm

around her waist.

the gods paint a psychedelic watercolor

on your window.

she misses Purpose more

than she’ll ever want you.

misses her petite hand

pulling her in a northward direction,

towards infinity,

while you blather

about the improbabilities of quantum physics.

you don’t mind.

tell her to keep your shirt.

pay for her cab.

wonder if stalking her is synonymous

with stalking Purpose.

 

you find it later

in the aura of a nightclub.

it’s the dark blue light

that makes everything enticing.

it’s the sweat on your brow

from trying not to think about

the implications of being twenty eight

and here on a wednesday.

mostly, it’s the name of the new dj,

Purpose,

who spins all your favorite tracks.

he adds a new bassline.

it thumps louder than the hum

you’re used to.

demands attention.

you think it’s a calling

but you’re not sure for what.

you have all that you want, right?

hands that can build

an entire army

and a home.

you leave the club

and amble directionless.

 

you find it last

in the timbre

of your alcoholics anonymous’ mantra.

it falls in between the platitudes

you know are placebos

but work

like ground up adderall.

it squeaks its way into your morning jog,

helps you count the steps

away from the unemployment office

and into your new cubicle.

it’s small

but you like the sound

your fingers make when they tap the keyboard.

it’s an awful lot like

Purpose.

The Legendary Magician

The old woman reached for the letter opener with a bony hand. Cutting open the envelope, she found a yellowed piece of paper:

 

A long time ago, in western Europe, there lived a man, myth, and legend who was simply known as the Miracle Worker. His abilities stunned the world as he pulled off many astonishing crimes, such as a string of robberies, and somehow the assassination of the leader of an army of mercenaries. However, the man became a legend when he  stole every pound of gold from the corrupt Kingdom’s treasury and vanished without a trace. Nobody knew him, except for me, and today I will tell you this man’s story from the beginning to the end.

 

Magiano was a boy who could never keep out of trouble. He stayed alive in the once-known kingdom of Shoto by stealing food and water, and begging in the streets. Sometimes, as practice, he would steal the swords out of the sheaths of the passing soldiers in the street.

As time went on and the boy grew older, he was introduced to the world of gambling. He caught on very quickly to how the games worked and, after watching over some experienced players for some time, he worked up the confidence to try and win a game of cards using his stash of stolen money in order to bet. To further ensure his win, he had an extra set of cards hidden up his sleeve.  

As it turns out, he was naturally lucky, along with his quick hands, to pull the cards he needed. With his abilities, quick hands, and craftiness of a cheating gambler, it was no wonder he caught the eye of Sergio, an older magician who later became his mentor. The mentor believed that he had similar beginnings as Magiano, and eventually they became great friends. By age 15, Magiano began training under his new mentor, and by 16, he mastered the act of magic. At 17, Magiano performed a trick in which he levitated six audience members from the crowd onto the roof of the venue, earning him the reputation of the greatest magician of all time, to the joy of his mentor.

 

Now, I know you’re asking: how did the Miracle Worker turn from a performer to a thief, killer, and ghost? Well, you will find the answer to that question through a girl by the name of Casey. She was beautiful, with long dark hair and a smile that could evaporate the bitterness from a person’s soul.

She and Magiano met when he spotted her in a crowded square one afternoon, browsing the sweet selection of roses the vendor was selling. For the first time in his life, Magiano had experienced love. It is one of the most incredible love stories to date, in my opinion, because in order to impress her, he walked up to her with a closed palm and blew a kiss in her direction. She had a confused look until she realized that after he had blown the kiss, he opened the palm of his hand and a bright red rose emerged from seemingly nothing.

They soon continued to date each other until they were married a year later at the age of 20. We all know the feeling that comes with young love, and how it lightens the soul and brings joy to our hearts. That was what Magiano felt, but sadly fate decided strike the proverbial spear of tragedy straight through his heart.

During this time there was a rebellion raging throughout the kingdom. It was a rebellion against a violent and unfair king who had just raised taxes to half a pound of gold per person, and triggered a building tension in the working class of Shoto’s civilians. Alas, while on an outing at their favorite restaurant, Magiano and his wife were caught in the middle of the most violent protest in the history of the kingdom.

“Down with the king!” someone shouted.

Magiano turned to see the door being busted down by the broken body of a man who had been trampled under the great mass of rioters.

“R-run,” the man managed to whisper before he collapsed onto the floor of the restaurant. Magiano grabbed his wife and swiftly led her out the door by her hand.

He managed to keep himself and his wife safe from the hail of arrows and projectiles raining on the mob of people in the strangest way. Nobody knows if it was luck or magic, but every time an arrow seemed like it would kill either of them, the arrow would miss or get blown off course by the wind or some other force.

By the time Magiano and his wife reached the end of the crowd, the path which they had run through was the only spot not covered in arrows or dead bodies. They kept running until they thought they were a good distance away from the action. Thinking they were safe, Magiano relaxed and looked over to his wife just in time to see a stray arrow pierce its way through her heart. Catching her as she fell, he had no time to say any last words before realizing she was dead.

After this happened, some say that a part of him, the good part of him, died with her, and what do you get when the peaceful side is gone?

You get the boy who lost everything, you get a fighter, and, lastly, you get the dark side of the Miracle Worker.

After that day he abandoned his practice and show altogether and gave ownership to his mentor. He then disappeared, never to be seen for a few months. Some say he moved to a foreign land where his wife had been born, and others say he threw himself off a cliff overlooking the sea.

 

Yet what the public did not know was that Magiano was not one to give up. After his wife’s death, Magiano emerged as one of the greatest criminal masterminds of his time. He went back to his old ways of stealing anything he could get his hands on. However, unlike his 12-year-old self, he went beyond stealing and even became a master of murder.

It first started with a bad business deal with the leader of a notorious street gang known as the League. The gang dealt in assassinations, drug trafficking, and the forced “protection” of establishments at certain prices. During the months after his wife’s death, Magiano had gotten into making deals with this gang in order to sustain himself with proper income, and was constantly scamming them with fake drugs and other forged products.

It eventually got to the point when the leader of the gang decided he was fed up with Magiano hindering his business. He began threatening Magiano and directing his gang to harass the citizens of the Kingdom in the hopes of drawing Magiano out of the shadows.

Soon, the crime rates of Shoto were shooting through the roof, with an estimated 80 percent chance of being mugged in the streets. All this, just for Magiano to turn himself in to the gang and allow himself to be punished. Instead, two weeks after the increase in crime, the king’s police found the leader of the League lying on his living room floor, dead. On his body was a note reading, “The king claims peace yet uses this man’s gang to collect money for his ‘perfect kingdom.’”

People still say to this day that Magiano achieved the perfect murder – no evidence, no witnesses, and no sign of any sort of struggle. It was as if the gang leader had just laid down and fallen asleep. I would later ask Magiano how he did it, and he would repeat the phrase you hear most magicians say: “A good magician doesn’t reveal his secrets.”

Besides not having to deal with the gang members constantly in the streets, Magiano became somewhat of an urban hero. The public attempted to identify him by many absurd names, but eventually decided to settle on the Miracle Worker. And so, out of a violent and tragic background, the legend was born. From that day forward, more and more of the king’s corrupt supporters fell to this mysterious embodiment of death.

It was months after the day of his first murder before the Miracle Worker struck again. This time, he killed the head protector of the Kingdom’s treasury. The protector was a trusted and good friend of the king, and was mourned throughout the king’s castle after his body was found slumped over on the king’s throne with the words, “Throne of lies” written in blood across the floor. Due to this, the king decided to increase the security of his castle with the addition of more soldiers and a very experienced head guard of the soldiers watching the vault at all times. With such high security and experienced guards, the king thought no one would ever dare try to set foot in the castle, let alone steal all of the money. Despite the logic of this statement, the man had forgotten that Magiano was someone who had defied reason time and again.

This replacement occurred during the week that the king was sent a message with an open challenge from the Miracle Worker himself. The message read,

“Meet me out in the central square if you want to know what I am going to do next. Bring your guards if you want. You won’t catch me. —Max.” (You may be wondering about the name change, but I will get to this later.)

The king’s face paled at this, but thankfully, nobody was around to see it. He quickly called every guard in the castle with him and set off to the square.

The king arrived at the square and looked around for a familiar face. He eventually found it when he saw the Magician appear to materialize out of the crowd and into the square.

“Oh my god,” the king whispered to himself. It can’t be, he thought.  He should be dead. There is no way a mere boy could survive on these streets.

After spending so much time on this planet, I have become very good at reading people’s emotions through their faces. In the king, I saw anger, fear, and, to my surprise, a small sign of remorse.

It was the standoff of the century: the infamous Miracle Worker standing face to face with a corrupt king and his army of guards. It was an extremely surreal encounter with both of the men staring each other down. I’m actually pretty convinced I saw tears in both of the men’s eyes, but considering their reputation, they did a good job of hiding whatever emotions wanted to escape.

However, the one thing people did notice was the slight physical similarity. Despite being much more heavyset and shorter than Magiano, the king seemed to have similarly colored eyes. This is much more of a big deal than you might think, because the king’s stood out for their rose-like tint, and Magiano’s seemed to posses that same red color. Yet, in the king’s face, I saw something thought to be impossible: guilt.

The king finally spoke. “Whoever you are, I don’t care for your reputation.” The stony-faced king continued,“You are still a criminal who has committed many crimes against me and the citizens of our nation, and for that you shall be arrested and hanged!”

People cried out and a tremor spread throughout the crowd. I was tempted to walk away as I sensed the tension spreading through the masses, but I had to make sure Magiano would be okay, even though I knew he would be. Suddenly, a voice came from underneath that dark hood, and the Miracle Worker spoke.

“And what have you done? You force people from their homes, steal their money with absurdly high taxes to fund your own personal projects, and to top it all off you work with organized crime bosses to get what you want.”

He then lifted his head so his face was visible and said, “If it were up to me and the rest of the people you rule with such an iron fist, you would have been executed for your crimes the day you clawed your way into royalty.”

Magiano spoke softly, yet his voice projected across the entire square.

“You know who I am, and you see what I have become. You created your own demons, and I am going to make sure you regret everything you have ever done. Also, thanks for the money.”

And with that, he vanished into the crowd as quickly as he appeared. The king stood puzzled, until another realization finally dawned on him.

“Hurry!” he shouted to his guards. “GET BACK TO THE TREASURY!”

As he and his royal guard retreated to the treasury, a low yet powerful noise could be heard from the mob that had been watching.

“BOOO!”

It was the start of a revolution.

 

I’m sure you have already figured out that by the time that the guards managed to get back to the unprotected vault, every single ounce of gold was gone. In its place was another note. The message on it read,

I will never forgive you for what you have done, and now I have been given the revenge I have waited so long for. I will not kill you, I will no longer bother you, but I’m afraid you have literally just paid for all the pain you have caused me.

Signed, the Royal Prince

 

That was the last the public saw of the Miracle Worker, but not me. He came to me the night after the great heist for a last talk together before he disappeared for the last time.

I had just finished leading some soldiers away who were hunting for Magiano when he came to see me. I heard my back window open and there he was, still in his magician’s costume with a black hood and cape.

“You’ve been causing some trouble,” I said casually.

“Thought you were done with those fancy disappearing acts,” he replied to me in a stoic voice.

“Yeah, well, I had to make an exception for that man. We both know that he is one politically corrupt animal.”

We then sat down and I began my last conversation with my old friend.

It’s almost as if he was making some sort of confession to me. He told me about how he was so torn apart by the death of his wife, and that key motivating reason for him to go after the king. As he spoke of this, I noticed how the emotionless shield which he usually wore began to fade as he discussed the past events. As he began to speak of his murder of the gang leader, I had to stop him and mention how the way he pulled off those tricks was incredible, even to me, so I asked him.

“So, my boy, how did you pull it off? How did you steal all that gold? In such a short time as well!”

Once again, with a devious smile on his face, he replied with a familiar phrase,

“I’m a good magician, and good magicians never reveal their secrets.”

As he was about to stand up to leave, I had to ask him one more thing. “I noticed the king’s reaction when he saw you.”

Magiano’s hands that were usually steady had begun tapping a fast rhythm on the table beside him.

“It was almost as if he were seeing a ghost!”

I then took a deep breath and stated the last fact which I was sure connected Magiano to the king, “You also have those same, distinct, red eyes.”

After looking at the floor for what seemed like an eternity, Magiano finally whispered, “Yes, you would be correct to assume he is my father.”

“Then why are you not the prince?” I exclaimed.

I would have jumped out of my seat as I said this, but my age prevented any sort of sudden movements. “This whole damn country would have been in much better hands with someone like you in control!”

He once again looked down to the floor. “I was good. Too good for my own sake, I guess,” he said, taking his hands away from the table.

“I had been stealing things practically since I was able to walk. Then came the day when I thought I would be able to get away with stealing one of my father’s personal robes for a homeless man I had spotted outside the castle. As you can expect…” He sighed. “I was caught and swiftly brought to my father, and we all know his attitude toward the people.

“Well, to him, I guess I wasn’t any different, and I was banned from the castle.”

Magiano then closed his eyes, and, with a broken voice, said, “I remember he last said to me, ‘You like homeless men, boy? Then why don’t you become one!’ and with that, he threw me out.” Opening his eyes he continued, “After that, I decided I couldn’t bear to keep the name Max which he had given to me, so I went by Magiano instead.”

I sat there with a grave face, one of sympathy and understanding. We were both silent for a while until he stood up at last and whispered, “Goodbye, my friend.”

With that he, he glided across the room and slid out the back window without a trace. I got up and prepared to go back to my bedroom until I noticed something on the carpet, in the spot that Magiano had been hanging his head. There was a single tear stain, one of satisfaction and grim revenge. When I saw that, tears welled up in my eyes and I cried the hardest I had ever cried in my 87 years on this planet.

I’m not going to lie, it took me a very long time to get over Magiano’s disappearance. I knew the boy would be something special, yet he was a candle meant to burn brightly, but shortly. I know you have experienced enough sadness in your own lives, so I will spare you from the burden of my own.  

Allow me to explain what happened after Magiano’s disappearance. Soon after the loss of the nation’s treasury, the king eventually went bankrupt and was overthrown. During the debates about how to run the kingdom, a single cloaked figure apparently ushered one of the political heads into a room to have a private discussion. It was after this discussion with the mysterious figure that he suggested the country be run as a democratic republic.

Now, enough about the old news. Let’s get to the point of why I wrote this letter. You may be asking what happened to the money he stole from the king. Well I’ll tell you, he left half of it for me first of all. At least he still cared about an old man such as myself, who was practically a father to the boy. However, he has left the other half for you. Go to his wife’s tomb and dig under the tree next to her gravestone. There you will find Magiano’s last wishes along with the gold which he left for you. Magiano and I send our regards.

 

To: The Family of Casey

Signed, Sergio (Mentor of the Miracle Worker)

Cactus Blooms

As I write to you,

the echinopsis flowers have begun

their petal game of peek-a-boo,

the crested caracara flies

high in the dusty sky,

and I am slowly suffocating.

 

Every day

breathing gets harder.

The oppressive hot air

scrapes the inside of my nostrils.

Swallowing is painful,

prickly sand dots my throat.

 

You brought me here

to this mysterious place

filled with natural wonders.

 

My choice was yours,

because living together

meant moving together,

and I didn’t argue.

 

At first,

the sparkling sand

and shining sun

charmed me.

You were happy

and I was content.

 

But I realized that it was all a mirage.

 

This morning,

my broken dreams suddenly

appeared in my cupped hands.

They were the quills of a cactus

and my blood was theirs too.

 

I realized that we are sun and sand.

I reflected your radiance,

but then was stomped on.

Your neglect left deep bootprints.

 

I realized that I was foolish.

I am still foolish.

Foolish powder that wishes to be glass.

 

I thought I saw opportunity on the horizon,

beckoning with flaring gestures

and brilliant colors.

But that was just the sunset,

and it wasn’t as pretty as I had hoped.

 

My dreams are wider than the landscape.

My ideas, more sporadic than tumbleweeds.

You and I both know that I will fail,

but I’m no longer afraid of taking chances.

 

So when you receive this

letter of surrender,

flying white from the hand of the mailman,

I will receive my freedom,

And I do not care for a reply.

The Sweetest Dreams

I kind of want you in my bloodstream,

like a thick caramel serum.

 

I want to inhale your scent,

like I’m in a powdered sugar delirium.

 

I really want to suck on you,

like a lollipop with succulent swirls.

 

I need to let the remnants of soda pop on your lips

roll around my mouth in luscious twirls.

 

I’ve been searching for a sugar high,

in this twisted candy land.

 

I’m left drowning in fields of gumdrops

and suffocating on cotton candy strands.

 

I’m knee-deep in ample puddles of marshmallows

oozing and tearing with each step.

 

I’m trying to keep up with you on a trembling tundra

of crushed snow cones, dribbled with flavorings that’ve bled.

 

I hate the winding roads of broken gingerbread

you’ve carelessly constructed.

 

From the mountains of cake to each iced layer,

all the sugar-coated froufrou of a daydream

 

makes me cringe and leave you forgotten,

 

and led me to this sickening realization

that sweetness turns bitter and bitter, rotten.

Supernovas

I never should have been in a courtroom. Not without him.

 

“If you could be a kid again, would you, Steph?” Justin was lying on his back, making “snow” angels in the comforter of the half-broken hotel bed. We were both high.

 

“Miss Rose? Are you paying attention?” the judge taps his microphone, and the heavy silence of the room is interrupted by the methodic click of nail on metal. I gulp, nodding quickly and brushing a lock of curly hair behind my ear. “Good,” he continues. “We’ll proceed, then.”

 

“That’s a weird question, Justin,” I said. I crawled off of the armchair I was perched on, making my way to Justin’s side. When I reached him I put my head on his shoulder, leaning against him until my nose touched his neck. His skin was smooth. Like silk.

 

I nod again, glance around the room. There’s the jury on the right – a collection of fifteen or so middle aged men and women clad in professional attire, attempting to look poised, though god knows they’d rather be anywhere else in the world right now. I make eye contact with a girl in a black dress, seated in the front row. She gives me a curt nod, then goes back to staring at her fingers and all the different ways they can intertwine. For a brief second I wish I was her — bored, detached, calm. Instead, I’m falling to pieces.

Beside me is my lawyer, a shadow of a man with a hooked nose and beady eyes — birdlike. He told me earlier to say my lines like we rehearsed them; without a tremor in my voice. Without letting on. I don’t know if I can do that.

 

“I would. Want to be a kid again, I mean,” Justin said, eyes trained on the ceiling.

“With or without your broken childhood?” I smiled slyly.

“Fuck off, Steph,” Justin said, rolling his eyes. His tone was sharp, though his words should have been playful. I winced. “It’s your turn.”

 

“You are here under accusation of the murder of Justin Moore on February twenty-ninth at roughly 3 A.M. Is this correct?”

“Yes,” I whisper, staring at my dirty sneakers, not daring to make eye contact.

“Excuse me?”

“Yes,” I repeat, louder. “Yes, but I didn’t — ” the judge cuts me off with a wave of his hand.

“Not quite yet, Miss Rose.”

 

“It’s a stupid question,” I said, ignoring his demeanor and returning to our banter. The ceiling is supposed to be white, I thought, but it’s covered with years of water stains and other patches of color that I don’t want to know about. Now it’s closer to grey. Maybe one day it’ll be black.

“Why is it a stupid question?” Justin moved a few inches away from me as we lay there on our backs, the comforter wrinkling between us, forming little hills with roads and moats and castles.

“Because I already had my childhood and you already had yours,” I said. Justin rolled his eyes. It was always that way — Justin was eccentric. A dreamer. I had to reel him in, and then I was the bad one.

“I wish I didn’t. It screwed everything up.”

 

“Our first witness,” the prosecutor begins, motioning for someone to rise. A state-appointed lawyer, he’s not much better than mine. Behind me a small hispanic woman stands from her seat on the edge of a bench. She walks to the podium, swaying as if a gentle breeze would knock her over. I cast my eyes to the floor again, not wanting to look at her face.

“Miss Ramirez,” the prosecutor begins. “You were the housekeeper assigned to the hotel room under a pseudonym by Miss Rose.”

“Yes,” she says curtly, nodding quickly. “Noisy. Very loud.”

“Could you identify the source of the noise?” the prosecutor tilts his head, contemplating. I try to see into him — who is he, besides the only person, aside from me, that cares about Justin’s life? — until Miss Ramirez speaks again.

“Screaming.”

 

We went on like that, talking about our pasts for a while, reminiscing in the hazy glow that came with old memories and moments we had tried so hard to forget. I decided I wanted another hit, and got the coke from my bag. I felt a rush at the sight of that white powder, and my fingers shook as I pushed it into a line and snorted. I could feel Justin staring at me — he wanted more, too.

“You already had your share,” I said, turning my back to him and preparing another line. He didn’t like that.

“I paid for half that shit!”

I sighed. “You paid for a third. You already had a third. The rest is mine.”

Then the shouting began. I wouldn’t have called it screaming, but to Miss Ramirez, we were two crazy addicts fighting over a bag of shitty coke. To her, and to the world, we were worthless.

But to us we were the height of passion. We called ourselves Bonnie and Clyde. We had escaped our pasts — Justin’s drunken father, my cracked family — and ran away. We didn’t let each other look back.

 

I miss him. God, do I miss him. Tears froth at the corners of my eyes. It was never meant to be this way. I was never meant to be without him.

“And what did you do then, Miss Ramirez?” the prosecutor asks. I squint, trying to focus, but everything is swimming from the tears and the quick thump-thump-thump of my heart. I’ve been like this since that night — confused, like I’m half-drowning, half-flying, like the hardest thing in the world is to stay in the here and now.

“Knocked on the door. Then they went quiet, but I could hear them whispering. There were other noises, too. Like they were throwing things.”

 

“Someone just knocked on the door,” Justin stared at me with wide eyes. His whole body was quivering, vibrating up and down and up and down. I could feel my bones shaking beneath my skin, and my thoughts were speeding up, as if someone had slammed on the accelerator. Now I could hear it — a steady thrum against the wooden paneling of the door. “Jesus Christ, Steph, someone’s knocking on the door.”

I looked around the room. A bag of coke on the bed. A metal tray on the table with leftover white powder, surrounded by little mounds of mismatched pills. A stolen credit card by the lamp. A rusty knife on the dresser.

“What if it’s the police?” Justin ran his hands through his hair. He was pacing now, and I could almost see his heart beating outside of his chest. I ran over to him, grabbed his shaking hands. “I’m not going back to rehab, Steph, I’m not fucking going.”

“No. You’re not going. We stay together. Always,” I whispered, and I ran to the table, hastily picking up anything incriminating. Justin closed the blinds, out of paranoia or habit I wasn’t quite sure. He took the bag of coke from the bed and hastily snorted a line. I didn’t notice at the time. Two seconds later he dropped the bag in my hands and I shoved it into a backpack, zipped it up, and hid it behind the cracked leather of the armchair.

The knocking had stopped.

 

“What happened after that?” the prosecutor asks, clearing his throat.

Miss Ramirez blinks a few times, her eyebrows furrowing. “Well, I left.”

 

“That was your fucking fault!” Justin hissed at me, striding to my position behind the armchair. “You were reckless, shouting like that!”

His words were daggers in my back. It wasn’t usually this tumultuous; I could ignore his spitting insults if he tamed his paranoia to a manageable state of pain. Yes, we were a turbulent storm. But we always had each other to hold close when the eye drifted over us and brought a few seconds of peace.

Yet in this moment I wasn’t sure if he was on my side at all.

“Hey, Justin, calm down, sweetheart — ” I put a hand out, trying to hold his shoulder. He swatted it away, then turned his back on me. His body was vibrating, his entire being pulsing up and down, the way it always did after a hit.

I stood and narrowed my eyes. “Did you steal from my stash?”

Justin didn’t answer. He began to pace, his walk quick and uneven. “You always do this, Steph. You get us into all kinds of shit.”

“Did you steal from my stash?” I repeated, louder this time. Justin kept pacing. “Hey! Look at me!” Justin finally stopped, and when he turned his eyes were crimson, the color of sunsets and cherries and blood.

“Yeah, I had a hit, Steph. I had a fucking hit and now the goddamn police are gonna take us both away!” He motioned to the door, and in a second he was pacing again. “You and your fucking rules, your fucking shouting and nagging and bitching. You always do this!”

It was as if the breath was knocked right out of my chest. Everything was too much — his words that pierced my skin like knives, the knock on the door, his greed and cruelty and blame. I was always the pacifist. But this time I fought back.

“Oh yeah? You — you’re the screwup, Justin Moore. And you can’t talk to me like that.” I crossed my arms, attempting to look fierce, but I was shorter than him and smaller in every way. He was a pulsing collection of radioactive elements, a tornado that destroyed everything in its path. I was the waves of the sea, wise and cloudy and still. Only meant for a gentle storm.

His eyes were no longer serene, no longer the hue of my ocean. He was blue fire, razor blades, torn skin. “Fucking bitch,” he said. “Fucking good-for-nothing bitch.”

 

“Thank you,” the prosecutor says. “That will be all.” Miss Ramirez nods and goes back to her seat.

“Anything else, Mr. Simmons?” the judge asks, idly cracking his knuckles.

“Yes, sir. I would like to call upon the accused herself; Miss Rose, would you please rise?”

Suddenly everything is too bright. The lights drill into my skull, making my knees weak. I’m lightheaded, but not the good lightheaded, and I want to run. Run away, never look back, never turn to a pillar of salt or rot in a tomblike cell. But Justin isn’t here to help me.

I stand and walk to the podium. Everything is shaking – my body, my vision, the world around me. I hear Justin whispering in my ear, something about being a kid again and not wanting to go back to that past, but wanting a new one. He was always saying things like that.

“Let us restate what happened before the police arrived on the night of the 29th, shall we?” the prosecutor says, circling me like a hawk circling its half-dead prey. I nod. “You and Justin were arguing, were you not?”

“We were.”

“And why was that?” the prosecutor smiles, clearly pleased with his work.

“I don’t remember.” I don’t remember, I repeat to myself. If I say it enough maybe it’ll be true.

 

“I’m the bitch?” I asked in disbelief. I took a step toward Justin. “I’m the bitch? At least that’s better than being the product of a whore and a drunk! What does that make you?”

Justin turned away from me and began pacing the room, cracking his knuckles and rolling his neck. I could see the vein popping beneath his skin, matching his tensed muscles as every inch of him burst to the extreme.

My heart was a hammer pounding against my ribcage — so loud I was sure Justin could hear its nervous tremor. But his words were a knife held against the raw skin of my neck, pushing deeper and deeper until my windpipe was split and crimson rain leaked onto my shoes.

He’d gone too far.

“What does that make you?” I asked again. “That’s right. An unloved bastard, no better than your piece-of-shit father.”

Justin’s eyes were that of a rabid animal as he lunged for my throat.

 

“You don’t remember?” the prosecutor asks again, straightening his tie. A bead of sweat began to percolate on his temple. “Was that because you were high, Miss Rose? On cocaine?”

 

His fingers found my skin and we crashed to the floor. My head hit the hardwood with a loud thud and my breath escaped my body in a quick exhale. Justin was on top of me, legs wrapped around my torso, nails clawing at my throat as I struggled for a gulp of oxygen. Every limb felt cold and numb and detached. My vision started to fade, but Justin’s bloodshot eyes were piercing the strengthening darkness and they were feral and rampaging and hurt.

 

The lights drill into my skull. Say something, Stephanie. Speak.

“Yes.”

“You were using illegal drugs that night?” the prosecutor smiles.

“We both were,” and now I’m getting lightheaded and I find it hard to breath. My lawyer drops his head in defeat.

 

I gasped for breath, but Justin’s fingers were tightening around my windpipe. My arms were stretched out to my sides and I looked like Justin making snow angels in the comforter. I looked like I was a real angel. I looked like I was about to die.

Some instinct kicked my arms into motion and I flung them beneath Justin’s chest. Using every ounce of strength I had left, I pushed Justin up and to the side. His head smacked the ground and I scrambled to my feet, chest heaving and blood sighing as fresh air seeped into my lungs.

 

“So you testify that you were both using cocaine,” the prosecutor says. I nod. “And you were arguing. At some point during the night, Justin was killed. Could you tell us what happened, Miss Rose?”

 

My face was sticky from sweat and tears. My entire body shook.

Justin held his head in both hands as he lay on the ground, rocking back and forth. And suddenly he looked like a child, a confused and broken child. But then I remembered his sharp words and fingers like daggers against my neck, and he’s Justin again, with spiked hair and dirty skin and a crooked mouth with a razor for a tongue.

Behind me was the dresser. I backed up against it, the tail of my spine touching uneven wood. My hand grazed the surface and hit something odd; a smooth handle followed by cold metal. The rusty knife.

 

“He — he attacked me,” I start, my voice barely more than a whisper. Say the lines. Nothing more than reading from a script. “It was self-defense.”

But the prosecutor looks at me and a faint smile creeps onto his lips. He sees through my cracks, sees through my broken facade and shaking skin. Though he’s barely adequate at his job and has more nervous tics than I, he sees me, and I know I am finished.

 

Justin slowly got on his knees, then one foot was on the ground and the other was beneath him and he stood. He turned to face me, hands balled into fists. There was a trickle of blood slowly swimming down the side of his head, the same color as his eyes.

“Get away from me,” I croaked, my throat scorched. “Don’t you dare come any closer.”

Justin licked his lips, and a slow laugh emanated from the back of his throat — more choking than giggling. He took a step closer and I felt my fingers tighten around the hilt of the blade. “Or you’ll do what, Steph?” his voice was lilting up and down, robbed of all stability. “You’ll do what, huh? You can’t do anything.”

Now my hand was firmly around the handle. Justin crept closer.

“You know what, Justin?” I said, every word a struggle to get out. “You’re sick. You’re sick and miserable and hopeless,” Justin rolled his neck, preparing to lurch at me again. I gripped the knife harder. “You say I’m the bitch. I’m at fault, right?” he was four feet away, utterly wild in his manner, limping as blood percolated on his neck. He licked his lips again. My heart pounded. “You blame it all on me, don’t you?”

Justin had become another being. He was not the man I fell for, the boy I met when we were reckless and alive. He was not the soul who gave me my first hit or the child who told me about his father. He was not loving, because he was not capable of being loved.

Or maybe he was who he had always been. Maybe he was just Justin, wild and feral and childlike in his wishes. Maybe he had always been broken. Maybe I found him that way, and he tore at the seams bit by bit until tonight when he finally snapped.

 

“How can that be? The blade marks show he wasn’t charging at you, Miss Rose. You charged at him.”

 

“You can’t take back the past, Justin!” I was screaming now. I didn’t care if anyone heard. Justin clamped a hand to his ear at the sound of my shriek. “You can’t change a goddamn thing!”

“Shut the hell up, you fucking cunt!” Justin shouted, the veins on his neck popping. “Just shut up! Shut up! Shut your fucking mouth for once in your life!” Justin’s finger was pointing at my chest, his eyes scarlet and crazed.

 

“Perhaps the fight provoked you, Miss Rose. Perhaps you were sick of hearing what Justin Moore had to say. So you killed him,” the prosecutor smiles again. My gaze drops to my feet and I squeeze my eyes shut. Darkness overwhelms my vision but I’m brought no sense of calm. Justin’s words echo in my head, growing louder and louder with each passing moment.

 

Justin let his hand fall to his side, and his hair was a bird’s nest, his skin a mix of blood and tears. His eyes locked on mine and we were silent for a moment. It could have ended like that. He could have stopped talking and I could have loosened my grip on the knife and we could have gone our separate ways, both trying to forget and daring to remember. But it didn’t.

 

“Do you maintain your statement, Miss Rose? ‘Self-defense?’”

 

And then Justin opened his mouth and his tongue was a razor again. “At least I have a reason for being this way, Stephanie Rose,” his voice was low and broken, like the edges of cracked glass. “I had a drunk father and a slut for a mother who killed herself as soon as she could. But you? You’re just a girl who likes darkness,” he knew his words were slitting my skin, and he smiled. “You’re just a failure who destroyed whatever was left of me to make you feel better about your pathetic little self,” he turned away from me then, and though I couldn’t see his face I knew he was satisfied.

I wasn’t going to let him be satisfied.

In one swift motion, the knife broken through the back of his skull and found the center of his brain. He let out a soft groan and fell to the floor, head smacking wood as a pool of red surrounded him. It was over as soon as it began.

My breath came in fast heaves and there were tears in my eyes as I spoke. “You can’t take back the past, Justin. And you can’t blame it on me.”

Through the sea of adrenaline and tears I heard a sound. Sirens.

 

“Yes,” I whisper, tears now cascading down my cheeks. “Self-defense.”

Penny Lane

… Meanwhile Back in Penny Lane…

“In Penny Lane there is a barber showing photographs, of every head he’s had the pleasure to know. And all the people that come and go, stop and say hello…”

Track 1

The street corner is bustling with people of all ages. An old man wearing large oxfords stomps down the sidewalk. A little girl with pink ribbons tied in her pigtails holds her mother’s hand. Schoolboys looking smart in their uniforms run and shove down the street, playing foolish games. It’s raining, which is normal for England. I would know; I’ve lived here my whole life. But this street corner is unfamiliar.

Just a minute ago, I had slammed my bedroom door and flopped onto my bed in frustration over yet another confrontation with my Granddad. Following my routine, I popped in my earbuds to calm myself down, and began to listen to The Beatles album I chose for tonight’s insomnia playlist.  So why do I now find myself wide awake on a busy street? I am surprised to see that I am no longer wearing my pajamas, but am dressed in a yellow gingham dress that I have never seen before. It has puffed short sleeves, a long cotton skirt, and a brown belt. I lift the foreign skirt between two fingers as if it is fragile china. It looks like something an old-fashioned paper doll would wear. My earbuds are still in and the Beatles album is still playing. I pause the song and tuck my iPod and buds into the convenient dress pocket for safekeeping.

I have suffered from insomnia ever since my Mum died. When I first started having sleepless nights, my father didn’t know what to do. I would come into his room and lay down on Mum’s side, which didn’t help the empty feeling in my chest, much less my sleep. The kids at school would tease and call me “Ruby Raccoon” because of the dark circles I had under my eyes. Actually, even now, without bags under my eyes, my classmates still tease me. We went to three different therapists, each prescribing different medications and solutions, which either nearly rendered me comatose or had no effect at all. It took four different paint jobs for us to figure out that changing the color of my bedroom was not helping or hurting my sleep patterns.

One night I finally discovered my cure. I had a funny song stuck in my head that Mum always used to hum. Obla-di Obla-da, life goes on… brah! I downloaded it on iTunes, synced it with my iPod and the next thing I knew, light was peeking through my thick “light absorbing” curtains.

It is music that lets me fall asleep. I guess it calms me because it reminds me of my Mum. When she was alive, she was always humming a tune, dancing in the supermarket to the Muzak, or playing her endless CD collection on our family room’s big stereo system. Morning and night that old clunky stereo was blasting rock ’n’ roll, bopping smooth jazz, or shrieking pop music. She even played it when no one was home as she said it was the best way to ward off burglars.

But she’s not alive anymore and I’m not at home. I’m on a strange street corner in who knows where, and I am still upset from the quarrel that I had with my Granddad at supper. My Grandmum had cooked her special shepherd’s pie and we all sat down to eat when Dad got home from work. From across the table, I watched my Granddad sulk and play with his food, making tiny mountains out of mashed potatoes, and rolling the peas around the plate. Even though this was his typical dinner-table behavior, it still bothered me how childish he acted. This was my Grandmum’s special dish, her own recipe, and she had spent all afternoon preparing it.

I continued reading the newspaper. It’s my habit and my prerogative to read while I eat. I call it “reating.” Although some people think it’s rude, no one really ever talks at my dinner table. I was reading the front-page story of The Guardian, when my Dad reprimanded me:

“Rube, put that away, we’re eating,” he said sternly, looking pointedly at the paper.

“But Dad, this is serious!” I protested. “Eighteen people were killed in a freak fire on the 4th story-”

“Ruby, put that away!” My grandfather pounded his fist on the table causing the peas to jump off his plate. He glared at me with burning eyes.

“Why can’t we just talk about it? It’s so tragic! Why not? Why can’t we talk about anything serious?” I asked.

It was always the same, I would try to bring something controversial or difficult up and then someone would chastise me and tell me to change the topic. Especially if it was about my Mum.

It has been nine years since Mum died. Yet there was still an unspoken rule; a boundary that I needed to stay within of “not talking about Mum’s death,” or anything related to it for that matter. There were only a few safe topics – the weather, school, sports, and Royal Family gossip. Everything else was censored.

I pushed back my chair with a screech, grabbed The Guardian, and stormed out of the room.

 

Track 2

Weeeooowww, weeeooowww!

I am broken out of my trance by the siren of a fire lorry speeding out of the station. I watch it turn left and squeal down the street. The lorry looks too old to still be operating. There’s a ladder leaning over the top and the firemen are seated in uncovered open seats. On the side in gold letters it says, “Liverpool Community Fire Station.”  I spy a bench and sit down, trying to get my bearings. I am in a suburban neighbourhood with several shops including a fire station, a bank, a barbershop, and a bus station. It appears to be a typical neighbourhood, except that everything looks dated.

A Rolls Royce pulls up a few feet in front of me and a man in a tuxedo with long coattails strolls out and into the bank. Nobody seems surprised to see the fancy black car, even though it looks like it just rode out of a James Bond film.

The sky is filled with foreboding clouds and the rain is starting to pick up. The street is long with one end turning off onto another avenue, and the other ending in a roundabout. Why am I here? I wonder for the hundredth time since arriving. I scan the street for clues. Am I dreaming or is this real? It seems pretty real…

I’m afraid to ask anyone where I am or when I am, as I know I would receive strange looks. I stand up and begin to walk past the shops. Just then a couple approaches me, the man dressed in grey trousers and a striped sweater, and the woman in a short-sleeved white sweater and long blue skirt. They stop in front of me and say, “Hello!” and “G’day!” Then they keep walking, but my feet are frozen in place. Huh. That was really… nice. No one usually stops just to say hello.

I pause beside the swirling red, white, and blue column outside the barbershop and peer in at the calendar on the wall. November 11, 1955.

1955?!

“Ey love! Why doncha step inside for a minute? It’s raining bloody buckets outside!” I turn and see a portly middle-aged man looking at me with kind, crinkled eyes. He beckons to me and I oblige, stepping into the shop and stomping off my wet shoes.

A line of black-cushioned chairs stand in front of a long mirror, all occupied by men and women getting a trim or shave. Each station is outfitted with a comb, a bottle of Brylcreem hair gel, curlers, scissors, hairspray, shaving cream and a brush. On the far side of the shop, I see women in curlers chatting and reading magazines while their hair is being dried under hooded salon dryers.

All of a sudden the woman under the middle drier lifts off the hood and winks at me, then lowers it back. I blink my eyes hard. That was weird. I recognize her… I turn away slowly and see a whole wall covered with a mosaic of black-and-white portrait photos of customers all modeling their new “do’s.” I take in the rows of pictures, two per person, one showing the front of their head, and one showing the back.

“Y’alright?” asks the man.

“I was just admiring your wall of photos.”

“Ah yes, these are the heads of all the customers that I’ve had the pleasure to know. Here at Pepper’s Hair, after you get your first cut, everyone always gets a picture taken. It’s one of our unique offerings. Allow me to introduce myself.  I’m Mr. Pepper, owner and main barber of this fine establishment.” Mr. Pepper is wearing a crisp white jacket, black bowtie and grey houndstooth pants. It is quite ironic that he owns a hair salon, for his hair is a shiny shade of bald. He gives me a firm handshake.

“And you are?”

“Ruby. Ruby Whittington.”

“I’ve never seen you before, and I know everyone in town! Are you from the area?”

“No, well, not exactly…” I look back at the wall of photographs, desperate to change the topic. It is then I see him. At the top right corner, there is picture of a man that looks just like my grandfather… well, a much younger version.  His light blonde hair is coiffed and gelled in a side part.

“Who is that?” I ask Mr. Pepper.

“That young man, Ms. Ruby, is one of our best and brightest. He’s a fireman for our local station and he recently saved the lives of 30 people in a collapsing building. I’ve heard that he keeps a portrait of the Queen with him. He’s our town hero.”

“What’s his name?”

“His name is Michael Beckett.”

Beckett. Beckett is my Mother’s maiden name. Beckett is my Grandmum’s married name. Beckett is my Granddad’s last name.

I lean closer and notice the dimple in his left cheek; the one thing that we have in common. Could he be my grandfather? I start to shiver.

“Ruby, are you alright? You’ve gone stark white, child! Let me fetch you a cup of water.”

I need to leave. I need fresh air. Yes, fresh air would do me a lot of good… I feel sorry leaving Mr. Pepper, but I can’t stay there a moment longer. I hurry out the door.  My grandfather, a hero? It can’t be him, it simply can’t!

The Granddad Mike I know is the opposite of a hero. He is a lazy curmudgeon who refuses to do anything except bum around the house all day, watching Antique Roadshow, soccer matches, and Wheel of Fortune. Although, I can still remember a time when Granddad was kind and fun to be around. We used to play “Pattycake” and compare the size of our hands, go on long walks by the river, and he would always read me bedtime stories.

I need time to think this through.

 

Track 3

“Poppies! Poppies for vet-rans! Buy a flower for the man in your life that made an invaluable sacrifice!” The rain has let up and a petite young woman in her mid-20s is standing in the middle of the roundabout.  She is wearing a Red Cross uniform and selling poppies from a tray.

“They’re our fathers, our mothers, do them a favor and give thanks today.” She trills. The way her silky dark hair curls under her white hat reminds me of – no it couldn’t possibly be. As I approach her, I notice that she looks a lot like my Grandmum.

Grandmum?

Grandmum grew up in Liverpool, in a two-story apartment house. Her whole family had a hand in the Allied war effort; her mother was a nurse, her father was a doctor, and her brother served and died in France. She was born in 1938, right before the start of the war and lived the first seven years of her life wrapped up in wartime turmoil. At the same time she was learning her ABCs, she was learning about food rations. She grew up accustomed to the sound of a blaring air raid siren in the middle of the night. My Mum told me that wherever there was an opportunity, she would volunteer, whether it was collecting supplies to send to troops, helping plant victory gardens, or writing letters to soldiers. When she was finally old enough, my Grandmum dove in headfirst. She joined the Red Cross.

“Dearie, do you have a brother, or an uncle, or a father that served our country?” The nurse looks at me inquisitively. “Well, no – not exactly, I mean –”

“Buy some poppies for them then!” she says cheerily, “All proceeds go to the Red Cross.”

She seems so kind, and I find myself drawn to her.  Maybe this nurse can help me figure out why I am here.

“Um, no thank you! But could I help you sell them? The poppies? You look like you could use some help and I’ve, uh, always wanted to volunteer.”

“Of course! Thank you! Here, how about you put this on…” She takes her white peaked cap with a red cross on the front and places it on my head. “There, now you look the part.” She smiles and I swear that she resembles my Grandmum.

I murmur a thank you and assume position – next to a random girl on a random street in England selling flowers for Remembrance Day.

“So, what’s your name?” she asks me in between shouts.

“Ruby.”

“Oh, I love that name! If I was ever going to have a daughter, I would name her Ruby.” she flashes me a bright, full-toothed smile, “I’m Beth. Not as lovely as Ruby, but I like it. I want to be an actress, but it’s hard to make it in the acting world.”

I nod, but my head is spinning. My Grandmum was an actress and her name is Beth. I look at her out of the corner of my eye. What is going on here?

Right then a beautiful woman walks up to us. Beth asks her if she would like to purchase some flowers, but the woman looks directly at me and says, “Yes, I’ll take two please.” She is angelic and I am gobsmacked. She has bright green eyes and dark brown hair, just like me. I fumble with the flowers.

“Here you go.” I say. She hands me the money, but I feel a lump between the bills. I separate them and find my earbuds curled up in a nice ball. When I look up again the woman is nowhere to be seen.

“Do you know her?” asks Beth. I don’t answer. I am in shock. I realize too late that this woman was the same one that winked at me in Pepper’s Hair. I feel in my pocket for my earbuds but they aren’t there. I must have dropped them when I hurried out of the shop. I close my eyes and picture her face again. I see the face of my mother.

 

Track 4

“Poppies! Buy some poppies for a loved one! Hello Michael, would you like to buy some poppies?” A tall, handsome young fireman stands in front of us and she grins at him from underneath her eyelashes.  I suck in my breath. My Granddad, or future Granddad, is standing inches away from me.

“Sorry Beth, I have to run.  I just heard about a fire across town. Apparently it’s a house fire and the family has three kids. I can’t imagine what it would be like to lose someone you love, especially a child. I’ll come by later.” He gives her an apologetic smile and then rushes off. As he runs towards the fire station, he pulls a rectangular object out of his coat and kisses it, then tucks it back into his pocket.

“Go save some lives!” yells Beth. The next minute, the fire lorry roars by.

“That’s Michael. He’s really sweet.” She says, gazing after the red truck turning the corner.

“You like him, don’t you?” I blurt, then almost clap my hand over my mouth, astounded at what I just uttered.

“Yes, I do,” she giggles.  “It’s hard not to. He’s always saving lives and helping others. Did you see what he did? He was kissing a portrait of the Queen. Isn’t that lovely? It’s his good luck charm. In fact, when he comes back, I’m sure he’ll buy us out of poppies. That’s the kind of chap he is.”

At this point I have no idea what to do.  My Granddad is a town hero, my Grandmum sells flowers for vet’rans and my mother keeps making guest appearances.

“Thank you so much.  This has been great, but I really need to go home.  Can you please show me where the bus station is?”

 

Track 5

On our walk to the station, I feel my mind slowly begin to slip into the past. Or from this past to the later past…  I begin to think about my mother and how much I miss her.

My mother had only just turned 40 when she was killed in a house fire.  Our house fire, and it was my fault.  

I was six years old and my mother was cooking her own birthday dinner. Mum insisted that she cook because no one could make her favorite meal of Beef Wellington and Fried Potatoes as well as she could. My grandparents were over to celebrate, but my father wasn’t home yet. I was upstairs in my room, playing with my “wacky sounds” keyboard, and entertaining my teddy bear, who was wearing my “blankie” as a royal robe. I was bored and lonely. I had no siblings – and not many friends – so this was, and is, a common occurrence. I tried to get someone’s attention by banging on the keyboard, but the potatoes kept frying and my grandparents kept laughing and talking. I put my keyboard on dinosaur mode and hit a couple notes, but the roaring didn’t get their attention either. So I started to cry.

Finally I heard Mummy coming up the stairs, “I’m coming Rubes, don’t worry.” She appeared behind the childproof gate and walked me down the stairs and into the living room where my grandparents were talking and reading the newspaper. My Mum left the room to go back to cooking, but moments later I realized that I left my “blankie” upstairs. I started to cry again, “My blankie!”

Mummy heard me and immediately went upstairs to retrieve it.

Several minutes passed. She came back down and handed me my “blankie.”

“There you go sweet pea.” Those were her last words. What came after is a bit blurry.

My Mum had gone back into the kitchen, unaware that a towel near the splattering potatoes had caught fire and had spread flames to the ceiling. I suppose she thought she could put it out herself, because I don’t recall hearing her yell for help.  I remember my Granddad hustling us all out of the house and ordering us to stay put while he went back in for her.  We watched in horror as the flames jumped out of the kitchen window. Those were the longest minutes and the worst day of my life. My Granddad couldn’t save my mother. It was too late.

 

Track 6

From the bus, I watch Beth wave from the sidewalk, growing smaller and smaller. I retrieve my earbuds, put them back in my ears and am surprised to find that the same song is playing, even though I definitely remember hitting pause.  I quickly turn around in my seat and look back at the street. “Penny Lane, there is a barber showing photographs of every head he’s had the pleasure to know…” My eyes dart to the swirling barber’s pole outside the shop. Mr. Pepper!

“Behind the shelter in the middle of a roundabout, a pretty nurse is selling poppies from a tray…” Oh my god, Grandmum!

Just then, the fire lorry zooms past, “And the fireman rushes in from the pouring rain, very strange…” Granddad!

“Penny Lane is in my ears and in my eyes, there beneath the blue suburban skies. Penny Lane.”

I turn back around and close my eyes.

Thanks Mum.

 

Track 7

I open my eyes and I am back in my own bed. The room is dark and I look at the glowing face of my alarm clock. 6:30PM, only ten minutes have passed since I left the dinner table. I hear footsteps outside my door and the doorknob turns. My Grandfather walks in, looking more tired than usual, but wearing a surprisingly cheerful expression. He sits down on my bed.

“Ruby, I …” he pauses and still hasn’t looked at me. His face looks sunken, the wrinkles on his cheeks looks like the ripples in water after you’ve thrown in a pebble. And yet, he looks different, better, as if he’s resolved something.

“Your mother, she was a very special person. When she died, you were very young and didn’t fully understand. I want to explain…”

I raise my eyebrows. What is going on? Why now?

“I haven’t been able to forgive myself for not being able to save her.  She was the reason that I retired. After that, I knew I could not continue. When she died, a little piece of me, of all of us, died with her.

“No, no Granddad. It was my fault.  If she hadn’t gone upstairs to get my blanket then none of this would have happened.”

He finally looks up at me in earnest. “Ruby, dearie, it seems that we share the same burden.  But you are not to blame.  It was my fault. I was the fireman and her father. Why wasn’t I able to save her?” He looks pained. “Well Rube, I’ll tell you why. Do you know how many years I was in fire department?”

“No, I don’t Granddad.”

“45 years. 45 years I fought fires, battled blazes, attacked the heat. In most cases, we saved everyone, no fatalities. But there were times when the people didn’t make it.” Granddad’s eyes suddenly became glazed over, as if he was reliving the past. “Dogs burned alive, sons burned alive, mothers burned alive! And every time we were left staring at a crumbling building, family members and friends sitting crying on the sidewalk, their hair streaked with ash. And, do you know what I was always thinking? ‘What if that was me?’ What if someone I loved was hurt and I was powerless to save them? That was my greatest fear.” His gruff voice was getting wobbly and his hands were starting to shake.

“So when I went to get your mother out of that burning kitchen, I was suddenly paralyzed. I couldn’t move beyond the doorway. Couldn’t move my feet.  My worst nightmare was coming true, happening right in front of my eyes. I was so scared Ruby.

“There is a rule that we follow in the fire department, after six minutes if you haven’t already gone in, then you should just stay out. I stood there for way more than six minutes. I was so cowardly, Ruby. She was my daughter. It was only when the fire started to spread towards me that I was broken out of my trance. I was way too late.”

His eyes are wet, but I can tell that a great weight has been lifted off of him in revealing this to me. I really don’t know what to say. But he does.

“I’m so sorry for the way that I’ve behaved these past several years. How I refused to cope with this and lived in denial. The way I ignored you. You are so, so precious,” he says.

We are quiet for a long time after that; each lost in our sadness.  Finally I know what to say.

“Granddad?”

“Yes Ruby?”

“When you were a fireman for the station in Liverpool, did you carry a portrait of the Queen in your pocket?”

He looks at me curiously, and I see a twinkle of young Michael Beckett in his eyes, the shared dimple in his cheek. He rises from the bed, and then returns moments later. He hands me a small frame with a black-and-white photo of a young woman wearing a dazzling crown.

“I used to take it with me wherever I went. I wanted to remember that I was serving our country. Why did you ask?”

“Oh, I just wanted to know,” I say, smiling up at him.

I raise my hand, fingers outstretched, palm facing out and he does the same. We put our palms together, and I see that his is still much larger than mine; bigger, stronger, protecting.

 

The End

 

A Crinkled Page

You bend down and pick up the crinkled page that I wrote this on.

You see these mysterious words and try to picture the anonymous writer; you are encapsulated.

 

Meanwhile, I walk down the hall after a long day,

inside a fog. I am encapsulated.

 

I leave the building and look out at the world in front of me.

By everyone I see, I am encapsulated

 

I pretend that I don’t see some, but I say hello to most.

The instant that I smile at their comforting, familiar faces, in my mind, they are encapsulated,

 

but as soon as the people pass, all I see are empty spaces in the outdoors

between the holes in the landscape. I am encapsulated.

 

I look down at my watch.

In that moment in time, we are encapsulated

 

I walk up the steps and through the doors, and as I infiltrate the entry, I pause to take a breath.

My lungs expand and I push out my rib cage in which my charred heart is encapsulated

 

I plop down in a desolate corner and I close my eyes.

Inside the darkness, I am encapsulated.

 

You toss this sheet of paper into the recycling bin and walk away.

You walk down the hall, move on with your life. In this simple action, your existence is encapsulated.

Wishful Thinking

“‘Hello, my name is Steve. I am a male underwear model, so I know how to strike a pose!’…and that’s when I just wink and point my fingers like guns and…. BAM I got myself a girlfriend!!”

I circle the word “Goal!” on my notebook and start twiddling my pencil between my fingers and think, No, no that’s waaay too cheesy. Darn! At this rate I’m never gonna get myself a girlfriend! Plus my name’s not even Steve. Why did it have to be the uncool name, Swanhilde! Along with this lame name comes my short height which would never make me a model! Arg, I just about have the WORST luck in the world! Maybe I should just give up and become a priest or something. At least that way I would have a legitimate reason as to why I don’t have a girlfriend… Ugh, but being a priest would be so exhausting! I mean, keeping the secrets of people’s bad deeds and repeating the same lines over and over again everyday is definitely not for me. Okay, okay, I just need to take a few breathers, calm down, and think of a plan that would actually work; because at this rate I’ll never get a girlfriend by the end of high school!

…Alright so it’s already been 30 minutes, and I still can’t think of anything better. I mean now my mind has somehow wandered into the realm of cheesy pickup lines with the horrible catastrophes, “Are you a banana? Because I find you a-peeling,” or even, “You’re so beautiful that you made me forget my pickup line.” Now I’m starting to feel as though something’s wrong with me. All those years of being raised under the constant torture of my dad’s bad jokes is probably finally getting to me.

I stop to seriously think for a minute, then finally a brilliant idea pops in my head.

“Maybe it’s about time I got some professional help,” I proclaim.

I grab my phone out of my pocket, swipe through the contacts and stop at that beautiful name, Jacob a.k.a. the Love Expert. This guy has dated tons of girls; he’s dated girls in our high school, girls from different high schools, girls that currently go to college, and girls that are out of college and working. He is definitely my idol; the man who will hopefully one day turn my name from Swanhilde to Suavehilde. Although none of his relationships have ever worked out…but that’s not the point. The point is that he has experience. Wow, I never thought I could ever associate that word with dating, but it’s all because of that truly divine man, Jacob. I quickly dial his number, press the call button, and begin listening to those lull rings as I anticipate that “Hello?” when the love expert picks up and can finally answer all of my prayers… But instead I find myself with his voicemail and decide to politely leave a message asking him to call me back.

Alright, so it seems that so far I have not made any progress at all, and all I’ve been doing is sitting at my desk for a few hours thinking of nothing but pure nonsense. At this rate there’s no way I’ll ever get a girlfriend, I should probably give up on such wishful thinking for now. I guess it would be a good time to commence the backup plan. I scrummage through my backpack and whip out my true bae, my Nintendo DS. I insert my pokemon game, the screen begins to glow, and that beautiful theme song begins to play. Well, I may not be able to catch the ladies’ hearts, but I know for sure that I am a master at catching pokemon! I flop on my bed and play until I fall asleep. Jeez, being a teenager is exhausting.

To Me, Izzy Meant

To me, Izzy meant losing someone

It was the end of something old

But the start of something new

I realize now that it was for the best

Even though at the time it was horrible

 

To me, Izzy meant finding myself

It was a painful process

But less hurtful than staying

I realize now that staying would have killed me

Even though I wanted to kill her

 

To me, Izzy meant technology

It was the horrific memory of my old life at school

but the amazing memory of starting over

I realize now that I became a better person

Even though at first I was worse

 

To me, Izzy meant hateful words

It was blaming myself for everything

But then realizing nothing was my fault

 I realize now that it was no one’s fault

Even though I put blame on everyone

 

To me, Izzy meant a change of name

It was a new way of seeing her

But in truth I knew the real her all along

I realize now that I was trying so hard for everything to stay the same

Even though I knew it never would

 

To me, Izzy meant taking sides

It was understanding that I was alone

But knowing I had a whole army to back me up

I realize now that I was so much more powerful

Even though I had felt so weak

 

To me, Izzy meant popularity

It was trying so hard to fit in

But knowing that I wanted to be myself

I realize now that something was wrong

Even though I thought everything was perfect

 

To me, Izzy meant the friendship was over

It was forced at first, never seeming right

But at the time I didn’t see it

I realize now that she was horrible to me

Even though I was worse back

Thunderstorms

The water hits the window

and she sits on the couch.

Wind howls outside

and a candle flickers on the table.

 

The sounds echo around her,

reverberating in the space.

 

Everything is illuminated

for an instant,

before it disappears.

 

Coldness seems to seep

through the windows and walls,

sneaking past her sweater

and chills her to the bones,

as the demons fight in the air

where they can’t be seen.

 

Their loud cries of rage and pain

and the shining streaks of weapons clashing

makes her feel small.

 

Their tears and blood splash

against the roof,

slipping down the sides

and collecting around her

like an ocean.

The Last Moments of a Noble Man

To obtain the quietness of a mournful passing, one must have the grandeur of the coronation of a promising king. The silence is all there needs to be, the warm touch of a predecessor of life, the assurance that a mark is left in continuous progress. Let there be that touch in all that is bonded, for bondage is not to be hidden. The heavy breathing of all that witness, that of the dying, that of the skies, that of the following, it all comes together in unison, a monologue of dreadful sadness, and yet, there is a hearth that lies at the opposite side of the room. The heat is belittled with each passing moment until there is nothing left but ashes, but may these dusty forms represent the eradication of pain, and an epiphany of equilibrium. The silence is a moment of respect that is acquired through the actions in one lifetime. To all that is unsaid, is the greatest triumph of all, formulating an epitaph that feeds on the dripping tears, to make something much greater; a legacy. There is no sound louder than the radiating pound of quietude.

There lies a man flat on a bed, his hackle horrendous, his skin frosty, his eyes a certain color of impassive magnitudes. The hoarseness of his breathing infected the atmosphere with dense tension. For such a small room, with even a blazing fire, the family could not produce enough body heat to thaw the pain from nature’s debt. There is a love to be had, and as great as affection might be, there is a hardship that must be endured. The negative correlations that are lived through the flow of a starry damsel who meanders in the sky, and then takes a good long look at the moon, and realizes that if the beginning of such a beautiful gift known as life can be mysterious, then the embrace of the unknown shall be more inviting to explorers of the edge between reality and fantasy. A paradise is what people crave, an eternity of serenity, though do people deserve such a reward? Those that have silence very much do. Their acts are imprinted in the past, but also an example for the future, and morals, even when altered by different time periods, are never to cease to be. Existence will always gaze down from the patterns in the sky, but nothingness will never have a voice in a universe so filled with pioneering. Such pioneers waltz to the tune they have formed by themselves, as their closest friends and family gaze in amazement and see that the elegance of death is that it is just a phase, much like a benchmark that unlocks a new establishment of freedom.

Some relatives step outside for a break of strain. They see an ensemble of colors that paint their faces with the subtle light of dusk. The variety of colors masterfully splattered on a view most magical for a reality. Some of their fingers tremble and decide to light a cigarette, while others just let the water flow from their eyes, and accept that it is an alleviation from the burden of watching a loved one in pain. None of them interact with each other, for they would not hear each other anyway. The silence could not be talked over; too deafening. The grass grazes their ankles, the wind tickling their ears. They all import this image to a fond memory. An instance of the innocence in youth, a grin, a harmless mischief, a celebrated union. The memories recollect and meet in the span of a few moments, a place taken by the present. To the amazement of the wanderers, they realize that all they craved from the past is put on display at the death of a noble man.

——————————————————————————————————————————-

The man of high honor but no aristocracy traveled to the depths of his memories and remembered believing that what is considered customary is the natural forgetfulness of happy times. Foolish in character, wise in mentality, he was never a boy who sat still, nor a boy who meandered off into abstract proportions. His priorities lay with his mother, a pure nonpareil of justly strictness who made the absolute best pastries in the entire village. A village in Central America where sand sprinkled on the streets, and the breeze of the ocean whipped the faces of the inhabitants. Tall palm trees sprung, blue skies glowed, and clouds enveloped themselves in the warm blueness of serenity. There was a spicery on almost every corner, and on a specific one, the manager installed himself, ready for the day. He pulled a picture out and placed it on his desk every day to remind him of what type of father he was. A father who acted as a jester for the sake of an image of a grinning baby. Both parents devoted themselves to family, both diving in dangers, and both loving every second of it. Any other type of family that considered themselves the epitome of unification were caught with dropped jaws of mediocre conduct when compared to a family such as that of the noble man’s. Were they wealthy? Not too deep in impoverishment, but on the fair side of needing, but not receiving. In fact all that was earned, was given to those who did not know if living the next day was an option. Thrown off by benevolence, the parents came down ill. With money scarce, and a denial of interrupting their alms, proper treatment was but an illusion.

Word of the sudden deaths of the two parents dispersed throughout the village, and so the flood of tears flowed under the gloomy eyes of friends, and rushed into the cracks of the streets. Their ends were not far apart, only a gap of a few days. Though for their son, he crouched on the floor and picked up his mother’s favorite flowers–dahlias. He placed them on both of their caskets and said indistinguishable words. Never were they repeated, until the day of his final gasps.

The orphan had an aunt, a physical replica of his mother, though with ill-founded motives, and abusive teachings. The orphan had more quality time with a belt from auntie’s husband than with the pair during dinner time. There was to be no leisure, and education was said to be a waste of time, a blockade of entering life earlier. The orphan liked to look at books with pictures in them, though he never understood the words on the page. However, even gazing at the books was most punishable in a family of farmers. His mother never had such extremities of either complete neglect, or conscious beating. Mother always rewarded for goodness, and only dare smack him for doing something repulsive. Something against the rules she always made. Father always had a soft spot for his little boy, but he knew there had to be a balance in parenting, a balance that the little boy would never receive.

Quotas were to be met; number of cows milked, berries picked, and fields shredded. No protest was ever uttered by the little boy, until one day he left a scribbly drawing depicting that he was to never return to the household, the household in which he was dying at the very moment.

The boy became a lad through the discovery of starvation and thirst. He joined a group of street kids whose rags matched the dark colors of the ashen streets. They robbed from the central market that placed itself in the grand courtyard in the middle of the village. Even with the exotic name of Plaza de Fortuna, no men nor women of high status mingled in that courtyard. The adolescent knew it was against the lessons his mama had told him, but he was just so hungry. It took him three days to decide to take an apple from an old man who only had a few coins in his jar. The juice of the apple burst in his mouth, the sweetness pouring and flooding over his taste buds. He moaned at the beauty of the savory taste. The skin of the apple melted in his mouth, until the second bite. The second bite tasted of corpses, rotten, spoiled. The apple, so beautiful in its shining redness, was now thrown on the ground, the smack of his mother’s backhand imprinted on his cheek. But now, even his mother was not there to discipline him.

A homeless man stood at a corner of a collapsed church, a gold cross hanging on his neck, a single shoe on his right foot, and a beard that stretched to the base of his neck. Though the man had the eyes of a youthful being, his wrinkles made him look old and worn. He was playing a melodic tune with his embarrassingly scratched guitar, and tapping his shoe with the rhythm. Like the merchant, nothing but a few coins in a jar. The boy, without even greeting the beggar, approached the old man, placed the apple next to the jar, and decided to simply sing at the melody. It was not for a moment of glorious spectacle, nor was it for an income. It just seemed comforting to have some music with an accompaniment of vocals. The man did not protest, and so the strings of the guitar danced with the pitches of the boy’s singing. It lasted from the morning all the way to midnight, with no meal in between. The jar had filled up to a decent value of a loaf of bread to split between the two. What was thought as a one-time occurrence, became a daily occupation, and everyday the two would split a loaf of bread and even add some jam, without even a conversation spoken. The only language they needed was that of their music. There was one day where the boy purposefully tripped on the sidewalk near their usual music spot. The scrape against the rocky pavement left a bright red bruise with a thick smudge of dirt mixing with his weary skin. The old man helped the boy up, tore a strip of his sleeve, and patched him up with that. The old man told the boy not to be so clumsy, but it ended in a brief gaze of bondage between the two. However, once again, few words were exchanged.

After several months of trudging, though rather enjoying the frustration, the old man bought a book with the title Blueberries for Sal printed with large font on the cover. The boy told the man he did not know how to read. The old man said that he would teach him, though he admitted he knew little as well. They worked during the day, and read during the night. The words, the sentences, the pictures, it all became an obsession to the boy. With permission from the old man, the boy bought more books. Each night became an infuriating passage of perseverance, understanding what each word meant, what the story wanted to say.

It led to one night where the boy finally spoke to the man under rags.

“Where are your parents?” said the young boy.

The old man did not look at the child. “Far and happy,” he said. “What about you? I assume you ran away. Why?”

The little boy sighed but did not shed a tear. “I would never run away. But I would say they’re far and happy.”

The old man regretted his question. His relation to the young boy still disoriented his manners towards him.

The boy knew the silence in between was for that very reason of mixed communication. He did not feel offended, for he was the one who commenced the conversation. “Do you have any kids?” asked the boy. His curiosity was greater than his proper manners.

The old man leaned on his elbow, believing he had not heard correctly. “What?”

“Do you have any children? Like the bears in Little Red Riding Hood. The bears have a smaller bear. He’s their child. Do you have a smaller version of you?”

The old man looked away and sighed. “Go back to sleep,” He felt his closure to the topic was rude on his part, and added, “Have a good night.”

“You too, papa.” The man did not hear the last word, but they both slept soundly that night.

The old man coughed horrendously and in colossal intervals. His strength was weakening, his motivation was deteriorating, his eyes were fading. The little boy knew what was happening to the old man, for he had seen it twice before, and it was about to be three times too many. The old man passed away within the spectrum of a few days. No proper funeral, no relatives, just the little boy. He decided to cry only after the man’s death, because for a man so dear, the moment belonged solely to him. The boy trudged through the sadness and thanked the heavens that he had the opportunity of having two great fathers. The old man was buried in a rotten field, with an unpolished cross sticking from the ground. It read in carved letters, To the Father Who Was Kind Enough to Give Me Blueberries.

———————————————————————————————————————

With the noble man’s memories slipping away, he decided it too painful to keep looking there, and instead focus on the people that stood near his bed. He hated the house for all its malice, but the people that were in it–each had a light inside of them that gazed into the noble man’s heart, and built a connection. All that was needed to say farewell was received, but not spoken. The relatives that stepped outside resumed their positions in the room, standing tall as if to prove that the next generations of the family would be in good hands.

The noble man’s eyes scanned the room, his neck creaking, his bones snapping, his muscles tingling. He met the eyes of his daughter, a beautiful woman with dark brown hair and a stance that shouted promise. Her two children, teenage twins with blue eyes and bright hair also had the same stance, though their eyes were watery and red. The noble man found his son, a man with the eyes and mouth of his mother and the distinguishable nose of his father. It reminded the noble man of his own parents, a lovely pair they were, and lovely he indeed saw in the room. The noble man’s grandchildren, Sophia, Maria, Thomas, Daniel, Fernando, and the littlest one, Paula, all sat at the edge of the creaky bed. The noble man smiled at them, and he saw a little glow behind their soaked cheeks. Cousins, nephews, nieces, friends, neighbors, they all came with pretty faces and ugly expressions. The thought saddened the dying man, but he soon grinned as much as he could, because it was the first time in a long time that all these faces were in one room.

The male nurse nodded his head to the noble man’s children. The dying man closed his eyes slowly, he tilted his head back and listened to the sound of paper unfolding and the sweet voice of his daughter break the silence–the words spoken, the same words he had said to his own parents and the old guitarist: “I thank you, not just for being a figure for the family, but for being the person that everyone needs. It is tragic that you are passing, but be assured that your legacy of goodness will not end here. All is good, because now, we will always be together, in life, in death, and beyond.”

The Death of the Party

The party ended long ago

Yet why I’m still here I don’t know

The music of the broken chair

A symphony that spreads, threadbare

 

The red balloons float near the wall

Their strings drift slowly toward the hall

Beneath my thoughts, a wistful broom

The dust around it sweeps the room

 

A candle molds on windowsill

It holds a light that sits too still

Whose slice of cake lies on the floor

Within the shadow of the door

 

I don’t remember who was here

To celebrate throughout the years

I want to stay, although I know

My party ended long ago

Newly Independent

Oliver had been in the hospital for 15 days before his wife came to visit him. He had recently been struck by oncoming traffic and flew about 27 feet before he hit the ground and was instantly paralyzed from the waist down. She, his wife, had reason to be upset, but her straight face as she walked through ICU proved otherwise. She didn’t frown or make any gesture that would indicate unhappiness, her neutrality was in fact quite disconcerting. The pale walls, speckled by miniscule black dots surrounded her as she walked through the corridor toward Oliver. Meanwhile, he was sprawled out in bed, blinking once for yes and twice for no, watching television, with the hum of the fan overlapping the voices of all patients in the wing. The screaming, oh the screaming was horrific, and once or twice every four minutes a bleach white stretcher would pass by his room, being pushed with much haste towards emergency care. He would on look and ponder the idea of what had brought each person in, maybe that one was a burn victim in a house fire on the west side, maybe that one was struck by a car as well, possibly.

She reached the main desk of the intensive care wing and proclaimed she was visiting room 163, the attendant replied with a nod and had her sign in before saying, “Down the hall to the right.” He threw up small amounts of water and bile beside him and sighed in exhaustion. He tried again, but with a failure realized he still couldn’t move his legs. He prayed that at least one toe would wiggle as he tried with all his might, but it was a conclusive no. She reached the door of 163 and slowly placed her hand on the brass knob that would open up the rest of her life. This was it, married last month, and already restriction, whether it be this new disability she would have to live with, or her discomfort in understanding that she was not ready for this. She was not ready to live like this, with him, with anyone. She drew back and stood outside the door. He was not ready for this, he was not ready for stability, he in general, was unprepared for everything that was to come. The reason for uneasiness was just unidentifiable to him. He then threw up again, and laid back in his bed staring at the ceiling above and tracing the grids.

She walked in and immediately both pairs of eyes met each other and for a moment became stuck in that position. She walked towards his bed greeting him with a quiet, “Hello, Oliver.” He nodded back in recognition, for his speech was impaired. The doctors believed this was just temporary. She sat in the chair adjacent to the bed and spoke calmly with small breaks, knowing that he had been mentally impaired as well as physically.

“Oliver, I know you can at least partly understand me. Listen, I know how you must feel about my absence. I just couldn’t bare to see you like this, knowing who you were and what you did before the accident.” She paused.

Oliver focused on her face and tried to understand and tried to control his frustration and anger. He gripped the keyboard he had been using to communicate sentences. He didn’t use this regularly because it was still a very tedious task, that just frustrated him even more. She watched as he began typing, his bony fingers resembling ivory spider legs as they stretched and pressed each key. She anxiously waited for a response to her obvious displeasure in being there. He stopped and the atmosphere of the room grew cold and uninviting.

“I wish I had died,” read the small screen sitting across the room. She stared at him for a moment and he stared back. She grew pale with apprehensiveness, as he just stared at her. His eyes moved down to her fingers, no wedding band, he couldn’t remove his. She wanted this moment to be internalized within him, she wanted him to believe there was no life between them anymore. She stood up and walked out of the room and a silent understanding had been achieved. He laid back again grasping at aspirations in his mind that now seemed intangible and unachieveable. She closed the door to 163, and in an instant her life was committed to experience and selfishness. Everything was up in the air, she went back to her car in the garage of the hospital and sat for a moment with the engine on. Her temple pressed on the steering wheel, she bent forward and let the tears falling from her cheek hit her lap. She slowly laid back into the seat, and pictured what will be in the days to come, an empty house, dinners for one, the removal of all things Oliver. She had lived in the same place for what feels like an eternity, four years with Oliver in the same house, mixing CD’s and records, sharing plates and cups, compiling DVDs together. She wondered why Oliver had patronized her so before the accident. She dug her fingernail into the crevice between her thumb and fore finger, and the wound already there from this habit began to bleed. She glanced out of the window, the wedding band laid just a few feet from the car, she couldn’t stand having to endure that experience with it still on. She thought about the rise and settle of the sun, and how the world, although crashing around her, would still be in this constant cycle. She sat for a while and believed she would never move, but eventually she backed out and began to drive towards the exit of the garage. As she moved through this darkness, passing cars and descending towards the bottom level, she expelled all memory of Oliver. The slow passing of minutes as she descended and drove out of the garage became a slow passing of hours as she drove towards any and everything, and the atmosphere of the situation really began to hit. Night had proceeded to envelop the world, and she was now unsure of every decision she had ever made.

She settled for a singular bowl of soup that night, and fell asleep to the faint sound of emptiness, and she wondered whether it was emitting from the lack of people in the house, or the unsettling finalization of a life well wasted.

Masked and Lost in Thought

Masked

 

Hidden behind a mask

A true master of disguise

No one knows what he looks like

Hair as dark as night

Eyes as blue as sky

Tall and lean

Quick is he

No one knows where he is

No one knows what to do

He is an unstoppable force

Hidden from sight

 

Hidden behind a mask

A true master of disguise

He stalks his prey in the night

Quick as lightning

Swift as air

He is an unstoppable force

Hidden from sight

 

Hidden behind a mask

A true master of disguise

He saved me

The man in the mask

He saved me from drunken men

The master of disguise

Fought for me

He took down eight men

He left without looking at me

 

Hidden behind a mask

A true master of disguise

A hero thought to be a monster

How I hope to see him again

I want to say thank you

My masked hero

You saved my life

 

Lost In Thought 

How long will I live?
When will I die?
Is there a heaven?

Is there hell?

I’m lost in thought

 

Will I pass?

Will I fail?
Is there a god?
Is there a devil?

 I’m lost in thought

 

Are angels real?

Are demons real?

Will I fall in love?
Will my heart break?

I’m lost in thought

 

Do my friends care?

Does my family care?
Does my dog care?

Do my fish care?

I’m lost in thought

 

Why is life so hard?

What happens when you die?

Do we have souls?

Are we reborn?

I’m lost in thought

 

I will die

I will know if there is heaven

If there is hell

I will learn if angels exist

Demons live inside

I will fall in love

My heart will break

I’m lost in thought

 

My friends care

My family cares

My dog cares

My fish care

I care

I’m lost in thought

I’m lost in thought

 

Flower Poem

A mirror stood in a dark, cold room

and displayed the image of a wilted flower.

Its petals gray and worn,

its stem weak and limp.

As the minutes passed,

it lost the little color it had,

and lost the little structure it had.

In front of the mirror stood a young, vibrant, firm flower

who looked at its reflection in dismay.

Although the flower was young and vibrant,

within seconds, it turned gray and crumbled.

There lay a dead, wilted flower,

with nothing to blame but a mirror.

What remained of the flower laid on the cold, hard floor,

and the mirror stood in the cold, dark room.

Dreams and Silence

The moon awakens to my feet

Who gently part the weaving wheat

Ahead, the shattered light of trees

Their branches seem to tug at me

 

No longer can I glimpse the glow

Of rooftop white with blowing snow

And here, the moon knives through the night

The leaves like puppets in the light

 

My shoes they stop where pastures end

And ghostly grove meets riverbend

Beyond, there’s only dreams and snow

And silence

Homophones

In my hands the blue teapot has a weight.

I can imagine where it lived in the old house

Where my grandma had to wait.

 

The dark walls rough as bark

Underneath my fingers.

Outside, I hear the guard dog bark.

 

In the courtyard, the beat

Of some hopping game my cousins play.

In the kitchen, strange cooking roots that look like beets.

 

I can tell my uncle’s coming from his gait.

He walks past and farther in,

Behind him the creak of the garden gate.

 

He stands by the family altar

All our names written in a book

Over years the pages hardly alter.

 

The drying laundry seems

Like ghosts

The wind crying over mended seams.

 

My mother speaking how she was taught

In her broken mother tongue

Waiting for her next word, the air grows taut.

 

Next to strange family, I palm

Their home made dumplings

And feel this round, blue teapot in my palms.

Commencement

Meryl sat at the end of the bed with her feet stretched out towards the carpet covered floor. George was reading a newspaper article in his same monotonous tone that had grown long on Meryl, but she loved it with all her heart. The air was sweet and thin with the smell of petunias and irony that cracked like a whip on a race horse’s calf. Meryl just sat and George just read and the slight hum of their bleach white fan glared over top of both of them. George stopped, and with angst and anxiousness all the like stared at Meryl. He set his newspaper down.

“Meryl, I’ve got something I want to tell you,” George exclaimed while raising his paper thin hand to to adjust his night cap. “Meryl, I’ve got something to say and I don’t want you to speak, just listen. I’ve been reading the obituary, and I’m seventy-four now. I will never understand those things, honor the dead by posting their worst picture in the paper. I mean for Christ’s sakes I can see right through their beady little eyes into their soul and there’s nothing in there but memories of their youth and beauty. Meryl, I want to say I love you and I have never been stingy with this phrase, when it comes to anytime of day or condition I’m in. Meryl, I love you.”

She rocked in anticipation of something unknown and it disturbed George to the fullest extent.

“Meryl, say whatcha’ doin’ shakin’ like that.” His question came with no reply, but her uneasiness died down and her neck craned towards the ground, focusing on every dust particle within her line of sight. George gazed at her protruding spine and traced it with his gaze down to where her nightgown was no longer taut enough for it to show through. But with this pause came more words from George, he spoke with a sweet refrain

“Meryl, I’ll love you till the day I die, which is practically Tuesday. Ya’ know I’ve never felt this way for someone, for this long, ever, and I jus’ won’t be able to bear leaving you, you’re the love of my life.” His voice trembled with the thought of death, although he invited immensely, knowing it would take him away from his diminishing conscious, that was now only taken over with bits and pieces of memories and miniscule ideas. The atmosphere of the room depleted as Meryl began to shake vigorously again and havoc began to ensue, but peace was still noticeable in every form. She shook and shook, and George could only stare with a blank face, his physical body froze in an attempt to conceal his emotions. She stopped and turned towards him, her face was pale and drooped with every wrinkle, and he noticed the contours that now receded into her sad lonely structure, she once was beautiful.

“George, I’ll love you till the day I die, and that’s practically now.” Her face drew slowly cold and she dropped once more to the bed, just as she had when they made love and the heavens sung their song of tranquility and infatuation. George picked up the newspaper with haste and scrolled with his eyes down to the left corner of the page he had been reading.

“Meryl Smith: Dead at 78. Her epitaph shall read ‘Death was beauty upon arrival and then swiftly took me from all I had ever known.’”

All Right

The world was bleeding.

As far as the eye could see there was a barren wasteland.

Nothing.

Blood soaked the acrid ground leaving a macabre work of art, and bodies-

Oh god, are those people?

They laid on the ground, cold lifeless eyes staring up into the scorching sun. Choking down a wave of nausea, she ran to them. Carrion birds pecked at their eyes, leaving large red gaping holes.

Oh god, it can’t be.

“Go away!” the little girl shouted at the birds, their beaks red with blood. Her voice was raw, it scraped against her throat painfully, as if she had swallowed sand.

Please, please oh no.

Rolling a body over, the stench making her stomach churn, she prayed.

Please don’t be her, please.

The man’s face was scraped raw by sand, blood stained his beard, which was long and unkempt, hung in thick strands past his chest. Blood dribbled slowly from the corner of his mouth, which was twisted in a grimace of agony. He had taken many wounds before collapsing in the burning sun.

Thank god.

No, no, what was she thinking!

Tasting blood.

Tearing at her hair.

The smell, oh god, no.

He’s dead.

She must be, too.

“SHUT UP!” the little girl shrieked, holding her head in her hands, hot tears ran down her face as she stared up into the unrelenting sun.

A warm hand landed on her shoulder.

She’s alive!

Bloody and bruised but alive.

“Sis.”

A smile, a strange awkward attempt of a smile crossed her sister’s lips. Heavy racking sobs shook the little girls small frame as she clung onto the older girl.

“I’m here, now,” her sister said, hugging her.

And at that moment, despite all the chaos and despair, the little girl knew that everything would be all right.

An Excerpt from an Untitled Novel

Chapter 1

As Susan approached the mail chute, she played back his words in her head. Do not go anywhere near the fifth floor. The strange man in front of the seemingly abandoned building had not been clear when he warned her. Despite her questions, he refused to explain the dangers of the fifth floor, which only made her more curious to find out what was lurking there. Her intentions were never to put herself in danger, but she could not imagine what could possibly go wrong if she simply stepped inside to take a look for herself. Worst case scenario: I’ll scream, she thought, and someone should be able to hear me. True, there aren’t many people around here, especially as it’s 2 a.m. in Brooklyn, but someone ought to be passing by. That old man, for instance. Susan recalled the man’s words again, but it was too late now. She was already on the fifth floor, slowly walking towards the mail chute which had an odd, almost tangible aura around it. The man could’ve just been a lunatic, she thought, an escaped asylum patient. But she couldn’t deny that she felt something strange and different when the ancient staircase led her to the fifth floor. As she suspected, the building was abandoned; in fact, it was completely bare. All except for the single mail chute.

Susan was now close enough to notice an aged envelope lying there, and grabbed it to discover what it contained. Was this why the man warned me? Is there something in this letter I shouldn’t know about? she wondered, but tried to get the thought out of her head; he was insane, after all. The front of the envelope only contained a capital T written in indigo ink, with smudges on the side. With growing interest, Susan grabbed the envelope, attempting to open it, but before she could, an intense pain from her fingers began to distribute to the rest of her body. Wincing in pain, she cowered, suddenly realizing that her legs somehow looked smaller. With her hand before her eyes, she gasped as she watched each finger slowly shrink. By the time her mind could wrap around what was happening, she was already a miniscule fraction of her once tall and wide frame. Susan became just small enough to fit into the mail chute.

In spite of her better judgment, she sprung up high like a flea into the chute, and soared through its winding tunnels. The faster she fell, the weaker she felt. Her orientation was almost non existent, as she could no longer tell whether she was falling face down, sideways, or not at all. This is just my imagination. I’m at home. In my bedroom. Sleeping. This is just my imagination. This is just my imagination. But no matter how hard Susan tried to convince herself, she knew that the unexplainable events of the day were real. It was only two hours ago that I found John dead. It was only two hours ago that I ran from the house, heading nowhere. It was only an hour ago that I stumbled upon this place. It was only a minute ago that I made the mistake.

Bend after bend, tunnel after tunnel, Susan fell onto a concrete surface. I can feel that barbeque chicken pizza coming back up, she thought as she was overwhelmed by vertigo. Once the dizziness began to fade, she got on her knees and stood up, trying to figure out her surroundings. What she first thought was a regular road, was actually a thick piece of paper. What she first thought to be flowers or trees, were actually multi-colored ink marks. Some were sky blue, others navy; some grassy green, others dark forest. Squinting her eyes, they appeared as letters written in calligraphy. Her first instinct was to laugh; this could not possibly be what she thought it was.

“Watch out!” a deep voice echoed behind her. Susan spun around, only to come face to face with a horse black as coal. “Would you watch where you’re going, Miss? Some of us are in a hurry!” a man perched on top of the horse bellowed, his face turning the shade of a tomato. “And please do yourself a favor and put some clothes on!” What does he mean? I’m wearing a dress. The dress I wore to the dance. The dance I went to with John. Once he passed, it struck her that she was in the middle of a papyrus road. Old fashioned carriages pulled by the finest horses she had ever seen were passing by; the horses almost looking two dimensional like paper cut outs. Still, they galloped forward, obviously not restricted by their unusual form. She crossed onto what she assumed was a sidewalk, with its lightweight paper curbs and risen platforms. The individuals strolling along were not exactly the typical New Yorkers she was used to seeing on a daily basis. The girls who wore short shorts, the guys who wore baseball jerseys. These people were different; their clothes, their manner, their features. Susan had never seen such long, elaborate gowns, or such elegant, colorful hats. Not one of them had their ankles bare, or their back slumped. Each lady that passed looked more superior than the last. The men, likewise, looked like they had just come out of a Jane Austen novel. Mr. Darcy’s were surrounding her like tourists in Manhattan. Monocles, top hats, and waistcoats were all she could see; and she could not look away.

Again, she laughed, attracting attention from the 18th century-like crowd. This is some joke. Some sick, horrible joke. This day didn’t happen. It didn’t.

“Ow!” Susan’s thoughts were interrupted as a heap of sheets fell down on her, knocking her out of place.

“There’s no place for prostitutes in this town!” she heard a thick cockney accent from above. Susan glanced up at the paper houses, but the owner’s voice had disappeared. Without a second thought, she wrapped herself in one of the lace sheets, creating a makeshift ankle length skirt, to cover up the short mint green dress she had worn earlier this evening. John had loved it. She recalled the way he made her spin around in it, watching as the tulle fabric danced around her. It seemed like the start to a memorable night. And yes, it was memorable, but not in the way she would have ever wanted.

“My, you seem to be quite lost,” a pale faced lady said, looking her up and down as if she were a dirty peasant. Well, I sure must look that way to her.

“Uhh- Well, yes, I am. I’m really lost, actually. Could you, um, tell me where I am?”

“Certainly, my dear. You are on Quill Lane, right across from the park,” the woman replied.

“Yeah, but,” Susan paused, not quite sure how to ask the question. “Which country am I in? Or is country not the right term? Which land am I in?”

“Which land? What do you mean, child? There is but one, and this is it. Triarta,” the woman seemed caught off guard, thinking she must be talking to someone suffering from amnesia. “Poor child, you must come with me. You’ll be better soon, and when you are-”

“Triarta. With a T?” Susan interrupted.

“Why, how else would you spell it?”

It makes sense now. Susan thought back to the envelope she saw. A single, indigo T written across. The entrance to this country, this land, this world. Triarta.

All Kinds of Wonderful

In a hole in the wall there lived a mailman. It was a damp, dusty hole, a small apartment full of dirty dishes and ripped shoulder bags and a musty smell. The mailman was not only a mailman. At least, he strived to be more. Everyone else seemed to be so many things: a brother, a daughter, an athlete, a musician, a lover, an adventurer… But Frank was just a mailman.

Every morning, Frank would turn off his alarm, roll out of bed, slowly button his starched blue uniform, grab a PopTart, and dash off to work. And work was where Frank’s life began. There was nothing in this world that made him happier than carrying letters, packages, and catalogues to the homes of suburban families. It gave his life meaning to know that each silver-haired businessman and young craft-blogger wife would receive each and every advertisement and private-school tuition bill on time. That was who lived in those fancy houses and tended those manicured lawns, wasn’t it? Frank never really paid attention to the people who left him Christmas checks in their mailslots. He didn’t even really pay attention to the mail he delivered. All that mattered to Frank the Mailman was the address on each envelope and the number on each door. He lived life door to door, satisfying his hunger for achievable goals with delivery after delivery and paycheck after paycheck. Frank’s rhythm of living had never been disrupted, and never would be for as long as corporate monoliths continued to send forests-worth of catalogues and fund drives to potential customers around the country. Or so he believed, until one fateful day in the dead of winter.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Besides the occasional aggressive dog scratching on a locked door or unsalted, unshoveled walkway post-snowstorm, Frank had never really had difficulty getting mail to each door. Today’s challenge was entirely unfamiliar to the determined young mailman. Never before had he ever faced an obstacle so… impenetrable. As he arrived at the door of the first house on the street, Frank found himself at a loss. He had not the slightest inkling of what to do: the mailslot was boarded shut. Who boarded their mailslot shut? Were they trying to give their friendly neighborhood mail carrier an existential crisis? Frank turned away from the door and took a deep breath. Clearly the owner of this Craftsman-style, painfully beige home did not want to receive any mail (though Frank could not begin to fathom why). But he had a job to do.

“Screw the homeowner,” Frank muttered softly. “I am delivering this mail and that is that.” He slowly raised his fist to the door, freezing in place without making contact. The young mailman took three slow, deep breaths and knocked. Three times, he knocked, boney knuckles striking glossy beige paint over dense wood. No response. Frank waited a full minute before knocking again. BANG… tat-tat. He let out the breath he had been holding as the sound of footsteps began deep within the house. The door creaked slowly open.

Frank’s heart stopped as the most beautiful face he had ever seen appeared in the doorway. The face looked down at him from inside the house.

“How can I help you?” Frank blinked as the man in front of him spoke.

“I… have your mail, your mail slot’s boarded shut?” He stuttered over his words as he struggled to breathe in the presence of an almost inhuman beauty. Frank had never really noticed people’s faces before. Other people had just never really interested him. But this man– well, this man was something special. His green eyes shown wide with fear, and his thin, delicate lips were pressed tightly and nervously together. He took one deep breath before speaking to the mailman.

“I don’t want any mail. It’s always either ads or people.” Frank thought for a second before answering.

“I delivered mail to this house yesterday. Did you just move in?” The handsome stranger nodded slowly.

“The houses are farther apart here. Less neighborly. Please take your mail and go,” he turned away and closed the door.

Frank, not wanting to contribute to the furrow of the green-eyed man’s brow, did as he was told. But as he continued on his route that day, he could not keep his mind off the gorgeous, paranoidly detached young man in the beige house.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Another day, another truck full of mail, and Frank was eager to get to delivering it all. But as he arrived at the first house on his route, he remembered yesterday’s excitement. The beautiful stranger’s mailslot remained boarded shut. Frank froze in indecision as he pondered what action to take, torn between fulfilling the man’s desire to be left alone and completing his set task. And, though he would never admit it (especially to himself), Frank really did want to look into those wide green eyes just one more time. There was something about them. Something new and unfamiliar and overwhelming that drew Frank in and would not let him turn away. His decision was made– Frank climbed intrepidly up the stairs from the road to the man’s front porch.

This time he did not hesitate. He knocked three times, sharply and quickly: rat-tat-tat. And again. Frank was just about to rap on the door for the third time when he heard the soft sound of the man’s feet padding up to the door. It creaked open.

“I said I don’t want any mail,” the man said, promptly swinging the door shut–

“Wait!” Frank blurted, pushing the door slightly open again. “It’s just mail!” The man tried to slam the door in Frank’s face, but the mailman stubbornly held it open.

“I’ll call the police if you don’t le–”

“I’m Frank,” he interrupted the stranger’s threat.

Raising an eyebrow in confusion, the man responded, “Aaron.” It occurred to Frank that Aaron’s confusion was not directed at him, but within. Aaron did not know why he answered. Neither did Frank know why he had asked.

“Aaron,” he repeated softly. The name felt strangely comfortable on his tongue. “Why are you so afraid, Aaron?” Frank surprised himself by inquiring.

Aaron’s green eyes widened with shock. “Please leave. You’re my mailman. Goodbye, Frank.”

“Aaron! Wait!” Frank put out his hand to stop the door as Aaron began to close it yet again. As Frank looked past the door and into the house, he saw his beautiful stranger standing in a room like in one of his catalogues that he delivers every day. The room just within the doorway was a living room, filled with neatly-stacked books and impeccably-folded blankets. But there were no pictures. No Christmas cards. No evidence of a human life. In a way, it reminded Frank of his own living room. He had no pictures either. He received holiday cards from his parents and his sister’s family every year, but he just threw them out. Frank was anything but sentimental. Looking into Aaron’s house, it occurred to him that maybe this other man was afraid of connecting with people, rather than simply uncaring.

Frank was shaken out of his introspective daze by a loud ringing from within the house.

“Are you gonna get that?” he said to Aaron.

“No. It’s either a telemarketer or someone I used to know.”

Frank sighed. Turning around and leaving Aaron forever was certainly not an option anymore.

“What do you want, Frank? I don’t want your mail. I told you. Please just leave me alone.”

“I…” Frank paused. What did he want, really?” And before he knew what he was saying, Frank had done the unthinkable. “I want to take you on a date.”

Aaron stared at him, his face expressing the same shock that Frank felt. “Wh… wha– mm… Friday at 6:30,” Aaron stuttered, and slammed the door.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Frank had not been on a date since high school. He actually had just never really desired one. The whole world seemed to be focused on dating and love and all that, but Frank was never really interested, which would concern him if it were not for the fact that nobody interested him, ever, except Aaron. Frank had only met him three days ago, and already he was feeling something completely new to him.

He danced nervously on the curb outside his car, hesitant to approach Aaron’s house for non-mail purposes. Nothing in Frank’s life was ever for non-mail purposes. But he knew that the apprehension he was feeling was nothing compared to Aaron’s utter terror. Frank took a deep breath and walked to the door.

Three slow, nervous knocks later, Frank was looking into Aaron’s eyes for the third time. The taller man was dressed in a crisp blue button-down and grey khaki pants. He had clearly put effort into his appearance.

Frank smiled. “Ready?” Aaron grimaced.

“I don’t know, Frank, I’m not sure I want to do this… I’m sorry, I can’t. I’m sorry.” He turned to close the door, but Frank blocked it. This seemed to be becoming a pattern. How odd it was for Frank to be the one encouraging interaction. His place was usually Aaron’s, the one closing the door on someone who only wanted to connect. But Frank closed doors out of apathy. Aaron closed doors out of fear.

“Aaron. We don’t have to go anywhere fancy if you don’t want. I just… I’ve never wanted to do this, whatever this is, with anyone else, and now that there’s you, and you’re afraid, and I don’t know why, I just can’t turn away. And I don’t think you can either. You set the date, and I’m getting the feeling that’s not really your thing.” He paused for breath. Frank had not used his voice for anything this important in his life. Nothing had ever felt so important. Aaron stared at him for a while before answering.

“Okay,” he said softly. “Okay. Let’s go.” Aaron stepped over the threshold and locked the door behind him. Frank noted his key in his hand. Aaron’s change of heart must have occurred the moment Frank knocked on his door. The two men walked together to Frank’s car and got in. They spent the ride in tense silence.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Frank stared at the glass in his hand, spinning the ice around with his straw. What had he been thinking? Here they were, Aaron telling him about his interests and his family, and Frank had nothing to say. He had no interests. He never talked to his family when it was not required. All he really cared about was delivering mail. So he just kept asking Aaron questions, which made the other man extremely nervous.

“Frank? Why do you need to know so much about me?” Frank swallowed.

“I don’t, I’m just interested. Maybe. I don’t know, I’ve never really been interested before.” He looked across the shiny, beat-up wood table into Aaron’s deep green eyes as he admitted this.

“Frank. I don’t know if this is such a good idea. What if you hurt me? What if I hurt you?” Aaron spoke with urgency. “I mean, someone’s going to get hurt. It always happens. It’s inevitable, Frank, the world hurts.” Frank nodded. It made sense that the man who boarded his mailslot shut felt that the world was out to get him. But Frank couldn’t really relate.

“You know, I don’t think it does. The world is just kind of there. Why bother doing anything other than survive? I deliver mail to buy food to eat food to live. It doesn’t have to hurt.”

“But that sounds so boring,” Aaron responded. “I mean, if all there is is survival, why would you even want that?” It was a good point, Frank thought. He had never really thought living was an option. Life, and life only, is compulsory.

“Well, it’s better to not care than to be so scared of getting hurt, isn’t it? At least I can live.”

“But can you? Do you?” Aaron asked. This question was one he had asked himself often. Frank, though, had never felt the need. But now it had been asked. And it needed an answer.

“No.” Frank was suddenly struck by a sense of possibility. Things could change for him. Things needed to change. Frank had never seen value in caring, but now he saw the opportunity for all kinds of wonderful in human connection. He saw potential for joy he had never thought to desire. And across the table, looking into his eyes, Frank had a sense that Aaron was feeling a similar sensation. Here he was, feeling something beautiful, and seeing potential for more than just pain. The fear was still there, still just as strong, but the hope he felt was overpowering. In a rare moment of bravery, Aaron leaned across the table and pressed his lips against Frank’s.

Frank forgot how to breathe. This was something new, something he never wanted to forget. In the moment before Aaron pulled away, Frank caught himself thinking,

You know, maybe there’s more to life than mail.

The Written Sea

He walked with a heavy step through the grove of trees. Tall and stately, Alistair felt small beneath their looming branches. It was 9:57 and a Saturday, which meant the rain was due any second. Alistair looked up and his eyes were met with an ominous sky. He reached into his bag and pulled out a black umbrella, which he unfurled only a second before the ghostlike clouds let loose a torrent storm.

By ten o’ clock, Alistair had quickly woven his way through the small town and arrived at the post office. He stood underneath the red awning, his suit soaked through with the rain, and shook his head like a dog, attempting to rid himself of the water. He gazed out upon the abandoned street, pausing to look at the dark storefronts and the empty tables of the cafe. It was too early for most to be out and the rain had scared away the rest. As Alistair turned back towards the door, he saw the figure of a young woman darting behind a car, her turquoise dress flashing like scales. The rain has tricked you once again, he thought, and slicked back his dark brown hair. He swung open the door of the post office, the bells singing his arrival.

Alistair strode in and watched Bertha’s head snap up, like a dog who smelled fresh meat. She gave him a huge smile and laid her long red nails on her desk.

“Hello, Alistair.” She twirled a large, orange ringlet around one of her fingers and her smile somehow grew.

Alistair approached the desk nervously and gave Bertha a weak smile in return. “Good morning, Bertha.”

The post office was small and brightly lit, a pleasant little place, but Alistair couldn’t help but detest this Saturday morning routine. This was mostly due to Bertha and her intrusive nature.

“Now, what can I do for you today?” she said, batting her huge, green eyes, and leaning towards him. She looked as if she was about to devour him, a feat Alistair wouldn’t put past her.

“Just wondering if you’ve received my letter yet,” Alistair said shyly.

Bertha’s smile dissolved, a rather ugly expression left in its place. She stood up, curling her lip, and turned away from Alistair to examine the many tiny boxes that lined the back wall of the post office.

She turned around again and plopped back into her desk chair. “Nope, nothing. Again.”

Alistair peered behind her. “Doesn’t look like you checked too carefully, though. Perhaps another try?” he said hopefully.

Bertha gave him a murderous expression. She stood up, her long skirt unfurling like the wings of a fury. “Alistair. You have come in here every Saturday and every Saturday, I hope you have come to finally ask me out.”

Alistair weakly pointed behind Bertha. “My- my letter,” he stuttered, but Bertha ignored him.

“But no. You come every Saturday just to see if your letter has finally come from France, and every Saturday, I tell you, no!”

Alistair sighed and looked down at his palms.

“She hasn’t written to you, Alistair! She was lost at sea, remember? There is no letter coming!” Bertha started to pace back and forth behind the mail counter, papers fluttering wherever she stepped. “You are twenty five and you can’t wait for her forever!” She turned back to face him, her eyes flashing. “You must let her go, Alistair!”

Bertha sat down again, let out a long sigh, and began sorting through a box of letters. The door swung open, and in hobbled a rain-soaked Mr. Peterson.

“What’s all this racket I’m hearing?” he said, furrowing his brow and combing his fingers through his large mustache. He walked past Alistair and joined Bertha behind the desk. She stood, flustered, and Alistair was struck with amusement at the sight of a short and stout Mr. Peterson staring up at Bertha with a vexed expression. “Why are you yelling at a customer, Bertha?”

Bertha looked down at the floor with an insolent countenance. “Sorry, father,” she muttered.

Mr. Peterson shook his head. “Alistair, we are so sorry for this little inconvenience.”

Alistair smiled and shook his head. “No trouble at all. I suppose she’s right.”

Bertha turned to her father with a victorious smile. “See?” she shrieked. “I was just trying to help!”

Alistair noticed he had been standing awkwardly in the same spot for almost ten minutes and quietly began to exit.

“Bertha!” yelled Mr. Peterson. “You try to help everyone that comes in here! And most don’t find it quite as helpful!”

Alistair swung the door closed behind him, muffling Bertha’s cries of protest. The rain had stopped and the sky had morphed into a light gray. As Alistair walked down the street, he saw shopkeepers beginning to open up, and mothers pushing babies in strollers. Children chased each other around on the sidewalk and men sat at cafe tables, opening the front pages of their newspapers leisurely. Their days have just began, Alistair thought to himself, and mine have already ended.

Alistair strolled around aimlessly, before realising he had gone in a complete circle. The town of Whittlesbury was a small one, impossible to get lost in. But that meant it was also impossible to find anything new, and Alistair found that he was bored and without a destination.

“Alistair!” Alistair whirled around to see Timothy running at him. “Long time, no see,” he said with a grin, and engulfed Alistair in a hug.

“Hello, Timothy,” said Alistair, extracting himself from the embrace carefully, then smiling back at Timothy. “I wonder, do you have any room for a man in search of some breakfast?”

“Do I?” said Timothy, gesturing at his empty restaurant. “Hope you’re in the mood for pizza!” he called over his shoulder, as he ran back into the small restaurant.

Alistair grimaced and sat down at one of the red outdoor tables. Tim’s Pizza was usually deserted, as no one in town seemed to like Italian food. However, this had never discouraged Timothy, who was always dreaming up new kinds of pizza.

Alistair watched Timothy prepare his meal, using his mermaid shaped tap to fill a glass of beer. Fifteen minutes later, he ran out with a huge tray. “I hope you’ll enjoy my new delicacy, chicken barbecue pizza!” Alistair looked at the giant pizza, and highly doubted he would. Timothy pulled out the chair across from Alistair and sat down. “So, how’s Mr. Alistair?”

“Fine, thank you very much.” Alistair took a small slice of chicken barbecue pizza and cautiously took a bite. It was extremely spicy, and Alistair quickly took a gulp of his water, hoping he didn’t seem rude.

But Timothy appeared not to have noticed. “Well, I found a rather nice girl,” said Timothy looking at Alistair cautiously.

“I’m very happy for you,” said Alistair distractedly, attempting, in vain, to cut his slice with his dull butter knife.

“Well, she’s not for me,” said Timothy carefully. “She’s for you, old buddy.”

Alistair looked up at Timothy, his silverware clattering onto his plate. “Timothy.”

Timothy ran his hands through his black hair warily. “I thought it was a nice idea, Alistair. You haven’t been the same since the boat crash, and I just thought it might be a nice idea-”

“Please leave me alone,” said Alistair, looking morosely down at his breakfast.

“I’m sorry, Alistair, I just thought-”

“Please go.” Timothy got up quietly and walked back into Tim’s Pizza. Alistair got up, left some money on the small table, and walked away. As he crossed the street, he couldn’t help but regret the entire encounter.

Alistair shoved his hands deep into the pockets of his trousers, his head bent over in thought as he made his back to his home. As he walked through the grove for the second time that day, he felt truly lost. The trees seemed to reach for him and he walked cautiously, carefully avoiding the skeletal branches.

Alistair’s house was located in a secluded clearing only minutes from the center of Whittlesbury. It was small and white, and constantly being pounded by the rain. As he climbed up the rickety steps that led to his chipped, red front door, he considered the thought that his little cottage may have become a little worse for wear. He turned the key in the rusty lock, and threw open the door.

The inside of the cottage was no better than the outside. As he walked to the kitchen, Alistair remembered the days when his house had to be spotless. But as he studied his empty refrigerator and his kitchen table, which was covered in newspaper clippings, he realized this was an idea of the old Alistair. He grabbed a box of cereal from the shelf and made his way to his study.

“Never, ever comin’ home again,” crooned a woman’s voice from the living room. “Because it’s filled with you.”

Alistair always left the radio on, but he didn’t ever listen to the songs. As he sat down in his large, leather chair, he remembered the days when every song that played the radio was happy. These days, they all seemed so sad.

“Okay, Alistair,” he said, as a ways of encouragement. “Let’s get this done.” He sifted through a large pile of papers that sat haphazardly on his cluttered desk. He was co-editor of the Whittlesbury Times, but he found no joy in the articles sent to his house. For the third time that month, Alistair quickly picked a few articles to be published, solely based on their titles. He slid them into an envelope and leaned back in his chair.

“Someone used to care,” sang a man soulfully. “Nobody cares anymore.”

His office was covered in photographs, some in frames, others in stacks on his bookcase, on his desk, and all over his tapestry-like rug. Alistair loved to take photographs, until about a year ago, when he smashed  his camera to bits on his asphalt driveway. But he couldn’t bear to get rid of all of his pictures.

His older photographs were of the ocean, mostly. When he had first moved to Whittlesbury, Alistair would go out sailing everyday, taking pictures of the sea, but he quickly found out that this couldn’t make you any money. He had been forced to also take pictures of families around town to retain a steady income.

About a year after this, the pictures began to change. No longer did they depict the ocean from Alistair’s boat. Instead, they portrayed a woman. With short auburn hair and turquoise eyes, she seemed to glow, even while being photographed in the pouring rain. Most of the pictures were of her, picnicking in a long yellow dress, or covered in paint, focused on a colorful canvas. Alistair still had some of her paintings, collecting dust in his attic. Alistair loved all of his pictures, especially the one in which she stuck her head in a large cutout of a mermaid at the town fair.

Alistair was only in one photograph. It was framed on his desk, portraying both of them. She wore a long white gown, with her hair in loose curls. Alistair wore a white suit.

The sky had turned to a calm gray by the time Alistair threw open the heavy curtains. It was about three in the afternoon and the sun peeked out warily behind wispy clouds. Alistair couldn’t hear the melodies wafting from the radio anymore, the sweet songs morphing into a dull roar. As he sorted through the piles of photographs, sitting on the hardwood floor, he had the distinct feeling that one picture was missing. The sky began to darken as Alistair looked for the missing photograph among the thousands spread across his study. Finding a large, sealed cardboard box, he reached into his pocket to retrieve his swiss army knife, hoping that maybe he had found the location of the photograph. He pulled out his wallet hurriedly, taking out his money and various papers in his haste. But while searching for the blade, he found his photograph.

Stuffed in the back pocket of his wallet, beginning to fade with time, it was Alistair’s last photograph. A girl stood in a green, spotted bathing suit, watching the sea from the deck of Alistair’s boat. On the back was written “Honeymoon to France, 1958.” It had been a sunny day in the middle of June, about a year ago. Alistair could hear crashing of waves and laughter, smell the sea salt and the suntan lotion. He watched as the boat collided with a group of large, craggy rocks. He flailed helplessly in the water, holding his photograph above the frenzied waters. As he searched for a woman, all he could see was the white foam collecting above the water and the flash of a turquoise tail.

When the rescue boat pulled him out of the freezing waves, Alistair stood shivering on the deck, his photograph clutched in his left hand.

“I’m sorry, sir,” said a man in a red jacket. “We were unable to find your wife.”

 

Later, Alistair walked alone at the docks. He waded through the waves, his loafers in one hand. The smell of sea salt surrounded him, as did the immenseness of the great ocean. He closed his eyes, envisioning the small steamer making its way through the vast waters. In his mind’s eye, he saw the boat sink into the green-blue. He remembered an old story about mermaids who made their homes in sunken ships on the ocean floor. Alistair watched the sunset turn the ripples to golden rings, and hoped that some lost things could be found again.

BROKEN CITIES FINAL PIECE

¨Mark, how’s the water supply?¨

Mark shifted the bag to his side, and peered down at the bag.

¨Low. Okay, but not enough to last. We need to stop soon.¨ Leo nodded.

It had been a week now since they had fled the city, and Mark had become used to the way things could look outside Manhattan–the weird forests, the swamps, clean and intimidating houses, and roads cutting through barren desert–where he, Asha, and Leo were walking down now.

The code engraved into the metal block still seemed heavier in his pocket each day. Last night, he had studied it in the moonlight, thinking too hard. He sorted the shapes in his head, traced them on his skin, reversed them and compared them to the few words he knew until his head was throbbing and he could have thrown the *** thing out the train window. But he still had no idea what the symbols and numbers meant. He couldn’t fathom how they could be such a threat to the labor camps that the Officials would run him at gunpoint out of the entire city. Maybe if he had learned how to read when he was younger, he could figure it out…

Mark shook his head. There was no point in worrying about that now.

For once, there was a pleasant breeze in the air. Closing his eyes and feeling the air dance across his face, Mark could almost forget the exhausting journey ahead of them.

¨Hey, you ever thought about what you would do if you were clinker?¨ Asha asked, her voice light — which was strange for her.

Mark smirked a bit. ¨Sometimes.¨

¨I just now started thinking about it.¨

¨I don’t know. I mean, I’d probably use all that money to change things. Get kids out of the work camps.¨

“Me too. But also, you know…¨

¨So much food.¨

Asha chuckled. ¨Exactly. I don’t even care what it is. I’d stockpile.¨

¨Ï would drink that stuff Pete had every morning. Y’know, the hot, uh…¨

¨Coffee, Mark.”

¨Coffee,” Mark agreed. His memory was so fuzzy and slow these days. ¨But other than that, I can’t imagine it, you know? I can’t comprehend how you can have that much. How you can be that safe. I’d wake up and have no idea what to do. ¨

Asha nodded as she ambled along, wiping the sweat from her brow. ¨Disgusting that some people have too much to know what to do with.¨

Mark scowled as he exhaled slowly. It was getting too hot. ¨They don’t even need to work.¨

¨Yeah.”

“That money could go to kids like Nat or Char. The little ones who work thirteen hours every day so they can eat food that poisons them.” Mark spat. He felt his throat rising up in his chest, the clenched feeling he got when the thought about everyone back at the camp.

“I hate them. ¨

¨Yeah.¨

Nat and Char, whom he’d told stories to around a kerosene lamp, watched over when they got into bed, protected the way he used to protect his brother, Matteo. Leo, Asha and he had given them rides on their backs when they were too sore to stand, even when the pain from the extra weight was nearly too much after a day of back-breaking work on the broken buildings.

Now everyone in that drowned city was hundreds of miles away. They could all be dead, and he’d never know.

Hours crawled by. Conversations slowed to a stop, the noises of the wind and desert creatures drowning out any ideas. They bit cautiously at the provisions, taking only the bare minimum to keep walking. The heat was deafening, but Mark was used to it. Just one week ago, he remembered, he was prying metal from unforgiving cement in this weather.

Midday turned to evening, which turned to dusk. Leo held the compass, tracking their steps carefully, making sure the road was still headed due west.

“What time is it?” mumbled Asha.

Mark tipped his head up the sky and studied it. “Like…eleven. Or midnight.”

Leo groaned, running his hand exhaustedly through his hair. “Do you know how much longer?”

“No. We don’t,” said Mark. “But Aan said we’ll be close when we pass a green sign.”

All three of them searched in the dark, but found no signs of color.

Asha cleared her throat. “We should decide what to do once we get to this place. With the Code.”

Leo sighed heavily. “Do I have to say again that we can’t trust anyone?”

“No,” said Asha, “Because Aan made it very clear that we have to trust these people.” She lifted her chin, staring fixedly ahead. “‘If you share this secret with them, it could save your lives. You could have the best protection in this land.’”

“‘Could,’ Asha. He kind of gave the hint that this could also break us. What if this is all a trap? They could report us, or kill us right there.”

Asha quickened her pace, her eyes narrowed. “The ‘breaking’ has been done. We’re god*** outlaws. The government — or whoever they are, is following us. I don’t think this can get much worse.”

“I think … yeah. We need to take the leap if we want to go anywhere. But let’s get to know them first.” Mark decided. Asha gave him a grateful look. Leo shook his head, silent.

The dust and sand and open space reminded Mark a little of home. As his mind wandered aimlessly, he started thinking of Matteo. What if he just showed up out of the dark, walking in the opposite direction?

Mark wondered what he’d look like. How tall, and how dark he would have gotten. What happened to Matteo? What did the world inflict on him? Was he hard and mean like Mark, or broken, or safe, or dead?

And the real question, thought Mark bitterly, what kind of coward of a man can’t protect his little brother or mom?

Asha was stumbling as she walked. Mark had never seen her in less control–not even when the dirigible was crashing, all those weeks ago.

He held her arm to steady her. She didn’t say anything. Sweat beaded on her forehead.

“We should stop.”

Asha jerked away. “What? We can’t.”

“You’re not well. It’ll be even worse if you pass out or something. We need to stay–”

“NO!” Asha exclaimed, her eyes widened. “I’m good! We need to make it there before sunup. We’ve stopped four times already,”

Mark narrowed his eyes. Asha was usually wise about her limits.

He decided to let it go. “Fine,” he grunted. “Don’t faint.”

Asha scowled.

Just five minutes later, relief came.

Lights pierced through the dark in the distance when Mark glanced up again. He drew a sharp breath, feeling something surge forward within him.

“Is that…”

Asha let out a strangled sound of relief.

“Yes. It has to be,” mumbled Leo.

Exhaustion running heavy and black through their veins, the three ran the final stretch, stumbling over the gravel, lights in their eyes warm like candles, waiting for them to come home.

…

Mark peered inside the rusty gate. “Do we just…”

Leo shook the gate. “Are we waiting out here ‘till sunup?”

Asha sighed softly, pressing her face to the gate as if praying. Her skin blended in with the night.

“WHO’S THERE?” came a sudden scream, nearly knocking Mark over. “WE’RE ARMED!”

Leo raised his hands over his head. “We’re just looking for somewhere — somewhere to stay. He — Aan the Most Wise, I mean — told us we could be safe in this village” he shouted back. “We’re from New York, the labor camps—“

“Prove to me you’re telling the truth,” the voice maintained, hard and sharp—the person kept in the shadows.

Mark felt his heartbeat slow as he clenched his fists. The time had come, apparently.

“My name is Marcos Gunner. My mother was Anita Gunner.”

A gasp came from the person on the other side—a girl, it sounded like.

“Is she with —“

“She’s dead,” Mark said.

There was a silence on the other side of the fence. After five beats, a light blinded Mark, Asha, and Leo.

“You’re kids. So am I. Come in.”

The gate creaked open, and Mark saw the village for the first time.

Winding paths leading on for what looked like miles to him, with houses—clay, or brick, or wood, he couldn’t tell—on either side. There was a well every few houses, and lanterns inside. He saw crops growing in the distance, somehow, in the middle of this desert. There were eyes peering at them from the windows nearby. A child. Mark nearly called out hello.

“This is…” Forbidden. Beautiful. Safe. Like home. He exchanged a look with Asha and Leo, who grinned back at him. Relief coursed through Mark’s veins. Safe.

Before he could even turn around, the stranger darted off, returning a moment later with a small mob of people. Mark absent-mindedly shifted the coded block deeper into his bag as they approached.

A blur of faces in the dark overwhelmed Mark, a pair of hands guiding his steps, alongside Leo’s, out of the clearing and down a path. Someone was leading Asha away — Mark tried to break free and tried to catch up to her

“She’s sick,” the man said, holding him back. “We’re getting her to the Marp.”

Mark shook his head. “Is that the infirmary? Is she alright there?”

“Yes. We’ll check it out. Take care of her tonight.”

As Mark and Leo stepped into one of the homes, the world felt like it was tipping over. The warmth and light and enclosure felt claustrophobic, but Mark didn’t care. He sat on the dusty ground, lowered his head between his knees, breathing deeply as his senses came back into focus.

“Take this,” the man insisted, pressing half a loaf of bread and a cup of tea into Mark’s hands. He gaped at the food, then the man. ¨Thank you,¨ he breathed. ¨Thank you so much.¨ The man slipped out the door.

It was as if he was holding two worlds. Mark stumbled across the room, to find a bed — a real, comfortable looking round bed, with sheets and blankets and a floaty, plump white pillow.

He almost teared up.

Leo collapsed into the bed. “This is…amazing.” Mark laughed for the first time in days.

His body screamed of exhaustion, begging to sink into this weird masterpiece and bury itself there, never to get up again. But he forced himself to only sit, and eat six bites of the loaf of bread first, which was so delicious it was almost wrong, and to drink his cup of tea.

Feeling warm and disoriented, he fell into the cloud-like bed and let his eyes close — but not before the glint of the metal in his sack caught his eye.

Symbol after symbol after symbol. The more he looked at them, the more he wished to just leave it behind.

Tomorrow, he thought vaguely. Tomorrow, I’ll tell them…

Mark slipped into a dreamless, heavy sleep.

Her Silhouette

Her mother told her to take off white cotton tees.

Her father shoved kale down, and pinched her throat.

Her father cropped her body from the family photo,

told her she did not fit the frame.

 

Her mother knew her secret.

Her mother weighed the good and the bad.  

Her mother sided with her father.

 

Her father

now smiled at her appearance.

Her father

bribed her with new white denim.

Her father

applauded her small waist size.

 

Her mother wanted her alive, fed her

a midnight snack under the covers.

Her mother had no say. In mornings,

 

vanities didn’t make her beautiful. In the mirror,

she saw her torn teddy bear, her fleshy cheeks.

At school she hid in bathroom stalls,  

thought a toilet would flush away the world.

Yelp Review

Cerebral Hawk and the Combo are an LA based, indie rock band. With their first album, “Hate People, Love Small Rodents,” they demonstrated their love for simple, guitar based melodies with aggressive percussion. Their breakout song, “High Schoolers Makes Me Nauseous,”  featured the lead singer, Blackout Betty, with her extensive and expressive vocals. Cerebral Hawk and the Combo promise a new album soon, but for now, they are touring Siberia.

 

Lyona R: Over Labor Day weekend, I wanted to go to a fun, low key concert nearby.  Since they were touring in Ohio and I live in the Grand Canyon, it was a pretty short drive. I went with a few of my friends, fellow indie rock enthusiasts like myself. When we arrived, expecting a chill, fun day, we were totally taken aback. The guitarist and drummer had gone out to go get tacos, and the lead singer and the bass player were the only remaining players. The singer was very dramatic and spent forty five minutes crying into the mic. She thought that they had left forever, since apparently both the guitarist and drummer hated tacos. The bassist was very awkward and tried to get the crowd revved up and started playing some music, but the singer pushed him off the stage. When the guitarist and drummer came back with coffees, the singer was so moved, she threw herself at them, and they dropped their coffees, which broke the amps and nearly electrocuted everyone. Needless to say, I had a terrible time. One star, because the singer had cool hair.

 

Krazy Kyle: I love Cerebral Hawk and the Combo! They are so good! I have been to every concert, except the one in Ohio, because I live in Michigan, and that’s much too far. I highly recommend them! The lead singer is very chill, fun, and sometimes dramatic, but what would you expect from a musician? Go see them! They are great! Five stars from this guy!

 

Judy W: I went to go see Cerebral Hawk and the Combo with my children because I thought it was a scientific and educational band. It was not! Do not be fooled! We went to a concert in Boston in May and it was terrible! The leader singer had very unbecoming hair, the bassist was awkward, but the drummer and guitarist were very handsome. Nevertheless, none of them wore enough clothing and their songs were all rock and roll! No thank you! I wish we had gone to see Minions instead, that’s for sure!  Zero stars.

 

Tyrannan Lee: I went to go see Cerebral Hawk and the Combo because I loved their song, “High Schoolers Make Me Nauseous.” So imagine my surprise when I saw the amount of teens there. I hate teenagers! Many near me talked about weed and yolo and I wanted to throw up. The songs were okay, though. Three stars.

The Guy’s Perspective

I was going on a date, was it a date or was it not. It was confusing. I mean it was not really officially a date but it seemed it. Well I got an uber to the longboard shop. My mum is so suspicious about me when I go out late. So I told her I was going with my friend Vikram and a couple of others. He is so trustworthy that my mum would let me go to an underground rave with him. Fortunately he was not there because he is the worst wingman ever. Anyway at the longboard shop I grabbed my board that I had left there and boarded to the theatre. When I got there I was waiting for my maybe date. I was nervous so I started boarding around. A security guard came up and yelled, “No boarding or I will take your skateboard!” I was so close to telling him it was a longboard but I didn’t.

Anyway it was about 9:25 p.m. and I was nervous I was going to get stood up. I mean it wasn’t really a date but I was still worried. I mean it seemed so impossible I was going to see a movie with this girl. She was so far out of my league it was ridiculous. I mean I was pretty sure she just viewed this as a platonic movie. But we were seeing Paper Towns, that is not a platonic movie to see. I was just sitting there as about 30 teenage girls walked past. There was a guy sitting on the bench across from me and I swear he thought I had been stood up. Just as I sent her a snapchat asking where she was I saw her.

Now I am not going to do the whole routine of how beautiful she was or anything like that even though she was but that’s too cheesy. But as a teenage boy I will say, she looked good! We made some small talk about how her little sister thought she had a boyfriend. When I heard that I was scared. Was this some kind of secret girl signal that I shouldn’t make a move or what?

We walked inside and this is where my English roots came in handy, I had bought both tickets and we just went in. When we got into the theatre, auditorium 4, I looked around. There were no guys anywhere. We made small talk, I think I slipped a couple of compliments in, but I can barely remember what about because I was so nervous. I could feel my heart beating so loudly. I am not usually like this but this girl was special, all I could think of was how out of my depth I was, and how out of my league she was. I made her laugh a couple of time and that made me feel better. She kept fiddling with her bag and I wasn’t sure whether it was because she didn’t want to be there or for some other reason. The lights went down and the movie started.

I kept thinking about whether I should make a move or what. I decided to go get a drink for myself and she asked for a slushie. She gave me a 20 to buy the drinks as I had paid for the tickets. I bought the drinks and paid myself. When I got back I gave her back her 20 and told her it was the change. I was hoping she was just going to put it in her purse but she realized that I had paid. I have been taught from a very young age that if you take a girl on a date you have to pay. This wasn’t officially a date but it was close enough. She was surprised I had paid but flattered I hoped.

I kept telling myself that the next time this or that happened in the movie I was going to do the whole yawn and put your arm around her. I kept chickening out and procrastinating but finally I built up the courage to do it. In regal cinemas you can lift up the armrest but it is tough to do so. I was afraid that I wouldn’t be able to lift it and would like an idiot. I lifted it up and put my arm around her. This is where it is the worst part from a guy’s point of view. You don’t know whether she is too scared to say no or really uncomfortable. About ten minutes later she went to the bathroom. I didn’t know what to feel. Maybe she was calling her friend complaining. Anyway I decided that when she got back I wasn’t going to keep my arm around her because she seemed really uncomfortable. When she got back we just held hands. This probably seems silly but for a guy the first move is the worst. After that you kind of know what to expect. The movie ended and we walked out. I was going to give her a goodbye kiss but she said her dad was nearby and the only thing scarier than teenage girls is their dads. I was so nervous about what to do I forgot my longboard. We just hugged and she left. For most this story seems kind of silly. But to a guy the first date (maybe, kind of, was it a date?) it is the most terrifying thing. I still don’t know what’s going on. Maybe she is creeped out and thought it was really stupid of me. Anyway, that is the guy’s perspective.

Vanilla Sugar

I keep three packets of vanilla sugar in my room at all times because I’m the type of person who goes to bed at 3:27 a.m. just because I can, and at any given time I should be able to reach into the mahogany drawer on the left hand side of my bed and pull out a packet of vanilla sugar. And I believe that at 3:26 a.m. I should be awake enough to tip toe to the kitchen and grab a carton of whipping cream and make some of the best whipped cream you’ve ever tasted, because the secret is vanilla sugar, and who cares what time it is?

And right now it’s 12:10 a.m. and I have two hours and sixteen minutes to go but I really want some whipped cream and I can’t wait for every second of those two hours and sixteen minutes to pass because not even I can resist my own whipped cream. And the sky blue of my walls matches the color of my eyes and now that I think about it, that’s tacky. My walls should be light grey to match the color of my eternal need for whipped cream because it’s not with passion it’s with longing, and light grey is the international color of rainy days and on rainy days you long for the sun. But I don’t long for the sun. I like the grey days because then I have an excuse to sit in my sky blue room with an elephant onesie and eat whipped cream with a full packet of vanilla sugar.

It’s 12:11 a.m. and I can see the snowflakes outside my grey window and they just remind me of the vanilla sugar that I want, that I need. I’m covered in a light grey throw blanket and the nest of chargers next to me is the main barrier between myself and my three packets of vanilla sugar and if I don’t get up I’m lazy, but if I get the packet out of my drawer I’ll inevitably tip toe to the kitchen and whip up the fluffy white cream and then I’ll have no self control. But if I sprinkle some raspberries on top…

No.

I’m fine with the reruns of Tom & Jerry; I love Tom & Jerry; Tom & Jerry were the first to make me laugh. Tom & Jerry can keep you distracted long enough to forget what you want for a few seconds because you’re caught in the rivalry that you know is ridiculous but you need some ridiculous mammals right now because ridiculous mammals don’t require vanilla sugar to calm you down. Ridiculous rivalries between ridiculous mammals are all I need right now. Because there’s an envelope from the Harvard Admissions Office on my desk chair and it’s staring at me, looming over me, and it’s been there for two days and I can’t manage to do anything but make whipped cream and stuff my pillow cases with vanilla sugar. Because who needs college, right? And I can’t even see how big the envelope is because I don’t know the difference between big envelopes and small envelopes and everyone knows what a big envelope means, but who got to decide what makes an envelope big? I mean, to Tom, a big envelope is a regular sized envelope to us, and who got to decide that? Who has the right to say, “If you got into our pretentious little academy then you get a nice big envelope filled with nice big forms,” and why should I fall into the trap? Why would I ever want to fill out a nice big form? I hate big forms.

Thirteen days ago, I was the type of person who collected stamps and had an extensive knowledge of psychology and brains and thought that maybe I could work with brains; maybe I could be the type of person who helps psychotic people. Eleven days ago, four point oh average London Harris got her acceptance letter. Ten days and twenty three hours ago, I strolled to the deli half a block away from my house, still calm, and bought my first pack of vanilla sugar. Ten days and twenty hours ago I started noticing that mothers look up into my eyes and reflexively pull their children away. And now, as I’m ready to tear open my two hundred and seventeenth packet of vanilla sugar, I can feel this weird vanilla sugar haze seeping from my brain to my eyes and nesting there, whispering “Packet or letter? Packet or letter? Packet or letter?” And I don’t know what’s better: packet or letter? And then suddenly there’s a devil on my left shoulder and an angel on my right and the angel is dressed in a vanilla packet suit and the devil is wearing a maroon Harvard crewneck. They’re climbing into my ears and one’s yelling “packet!” while the other screams “letter!” and  I’m just sitting there while miniature nuisances kill my cochlea. And it sucks. It really, really sucks, because all I want is vanilla sugar. I don’t even care, okay, I don’t even care about Harvard. I just care about the teeny crystalline balls of magic held within this baby blue, two-square-inch, glorious wrapper with a picture of a sugar cookie on it.

I demand my vanilla sugar in its packet like Monday morning teenagers need lattes with two shots of espresso and fake sugar, because real sugar is only for those who appreciate it. Because people who fake the sugar don’t appreciate it. They don’t appreciate it, don’t appreciate it.They don’t understand the joy that you get with sugar in your blood. Insulin levels, glucagon levels rising, trying to fix you. What is wrong with you? Why are your sugar level so high? What is up with your hormones, why aren’t they filtering it out? What are you doing? Where is your fake sugar, your Splenda, Sweet ‘n Low, but I can’t take my lattes with Splenda. What even is Splenda? I need to take my sugar like my life: with a hint of vanilla, not the fake stuff. Appreciate the sugar, okay. Appreciate it like children minus the ickyness, no boogers in vanilla sugar. There’s no Harvard ink font letter in my baby blue vanilla sugar packet of happiness, but pure bliss like high school drop-out gangsters get from drugs minus all those needles because, ew, ouch, no needles, they make me cry crystalline tears that look nothing like what you think vanilla sugar would look like nothing at all because it’s powdery not shiny and I love it, I love vanilla, I love it, love it, love it, look up to it appreciation at its finest

appreciate the vanilla sugar like catholic school children appreciate God

     sweet crystalline crystalline from sugar cane

vanilla beans like string beans but not green or gross

they make my vanilla sugar packets

vanilla sugar soul packets

vanilla sugar heart packets

not your splenda fake sweetener heaven hidden from the real life society that goes on

inside the walls of vanilla sugar wall veins

   take me into your vanilla sugar arms

and  let me melt into your carbohydrate shell

your glucose and sucrose and all the ose-s

sticky summer vanilla bean ice cream

whipped cream vanilla dreams

baby blue packet

like           baby           bonnets

Nilla Wafers probably have

vanilla sugar

completes my soul like a half-moon penumbra

Love Letter

To my dear Venice, from a lonely suburban town,

My bones are bare ivory, decorated with pastel paints

and freshly painted shingles like an old lady’s dentures.

My intestines are winding roads, half-paved gravel, tire marks

scraping up the chiseled green grass like alien marks–

but no one believes in aliens here.

My muscles are public schools with bowling alley gyms, coffee shops

where the milky lattes are more water than zest,

flat sidewalks, dusty chalk, dull blue skies.

My skin is prim, buffed until all the callouses have chipped away,

gilded like my eyes, my straight locks, my button-nose.

But, my dear, there is a loneliness in polite. A void among the dyed roots.

A core like a dilapidated creature, made of polished metal, with a coating

of rust that lies beneath it all.

 

But you – you’re an ethereal being.

Skin like ancient stones, carved with Roman secrets in code,

waterways, arches, locks that seal love from long ago.

Your muscles are the Italian Romance, the way

Shakespeare’s Verona sounds on the tongue,

the light of the stars glistening on gentle waves,

open windows, stray dogs, sparklers thrown into the abysmal sky

like a flare shot into the night.

Your intestines are the meandering footsteps, the music,

possessions floating through your roads, lost to the world, finding

a new home somewhere across the city. There’s a magic in the air,

and no one can deny it, no one can deny the way you glisten,

an alien sent to teach us earthlings what it feels like to be alive.

And your bones. Your bones are the people,

the ones who spin gelato, who say nocciola in the right way,

the builders of St. Mark’s Clock and the Bridge of Tears.

They listen to the hum of the air, the movement of dancers

with toes off the edge of a gondola, the stripes of shirts and

the shimmering jewels on a mask. They understand

what it means to be ethereal. They understand what it means

to let your grass grow uneven, to let your hair fall in loose curls, to let your skin

toughen up with bruises and cuts. Your soul, my dear, is a vision.

 

I’d like to visit you one day.

 

Forever yours, a lonely suburban town,

Katonah

Food Entry 5

Food Entry 5:

On the second weekend of May, my mom and I ventured downtown to have brunch. Eating out with my mom is a pretty rare occasion because 1) my mom loves to cook and 2) our schedules completely clash, so when we do have the chance to eat together, I try to make the very most of it. Saturday was the first day I really felt like spring had made its transition into summer, even though it was only May. I had woken up with my hair plastered to my face and a dampness that seemed to surround my entire room. Shorts weather had come upon us and with it, the use of Air Conditioning. As my mom and I exited our building, steam clouded my glasses and the air felt as if it was trying to push me down onto the burning hot concrete. I squicked as I sat down on the hot black seat of my car, and immediately lowered the windows down, all the way. I decided that I was in the mood for a good iced tea. The nice thing about my neighborhood is that it is filled with trees that provide a good amount of shade, but as my mom and I got closer to our destination, the only thing that shaded us from the scorching sun were scattered buildings.

Shortly after finding a parking space, we headed to Jack’s Wife Freda, a small restaurant with a really big line. While we waited in line my mom and I chatted about school, the weather, and our summer plans. A good thing about my mom is that she is never lacking in conversation. Even if she has nothing new to say, she manages to find a subject, relevant or not, to discuss. That day the topic landed on Greece. Every summer since I was little my mom and I have gone on trips. This summer the destination was Greece and I was more than excited to venture there. My mom told me that the island of Santorini had the most beautiful sunsets in the world, and that the city’s architecture was also amazing. I was daydreaming of our trip when “Young, table for two” was called from the hostess and we then shortly entered the restaurant.

Filled with only a couple of tables, Jack’s Wife Freda was as homey as I had expected AND even better…it was air conditioned! I looked at the menu and ordered a large iced tea and eggs with mixed vegetables. My cold drink arrived, brimming with ice cubes and raindrops of water dripping down the side. As I brought the drink to my lips I felt a cool trickle of sweet tea run down my throat, refrigerating my body. I smiled and looked down at my newly arrived eggs, with a beautiful array of vegetables sitting by their side sparkling with carrots, spinach, tomatoes, green and yellow peppers, all the colors I hoped the Santorini sunset would hold. As I bit into my eggs, steam clouded my mouth, but instead of being annoyed by the heat, I devoured it. Every bite of egg was followed with a cool sip of iced tea, the perfect combination. As the iced tea washed a smile onto my face, I realized I had finally found the perfect spot to cool off from NYC’s summer heat. There are a couple ways to make New York bearable in this season that I’ve picked up over the years: Good food, shade, and dreaming of a far away place.

After finishing my meal, every last bite, my mom asked for the check. We soon rose up from our table and took a step from the cool room into the sticky outside. I could feel the cloud of heat hanging over my head, but this time a slight breeze whistled through my hair, cooling my brain and making me think about the island and those Santorini eggs.

Muddy Eyes

I put the key in the lock, my cracked and bloody knuckles shaking as a cool shiver went down my spine. With one hand I twisted the dull brass edge of the key, the other quickly brushing thick red hair out of my eyes. I could feel my breath in my chest, like a balloon near bursting-point.

Inhale.

Exhale.

Inhale.

I heard a low ‘click’ as the bolts locking the steel door to the two-by-two box retreated. I slid the door to the side, and grabbed a flashlight from a pack strapped tightly to my back. Shining the light into the box, I saw the silver flare of the handle of the pistol. Jackpot.

I slowly drew the gun out, the weight odd in my hands. This was nothing like the high-tech, aerodynamic models we trained with in school. This was heavy in the back, and seemed to resonate with pure physical power. There were no settings, no long-range or short-range dials. Just a Flick The Safety, Point At Target, And Shoot kind of gun.

I examined the chamber, and to my relief there were four golden bullets. My hands stopped quivering at the sight of them, as if they were a drug and I the low-life druggee.

All at once, while staring entranced at the bullets, I became aware that I was not the only person in the weapons chamber of Hartsdale’s Laboratory. I heard a low exhale of breath, followed by a quiet rumble emanating from my mystery man’s throat. I lifted my head slowly, attempting to conceal my presence, as I clicked the chamber shut and flicked off the safety. My eyes narrowed, and I straightened my spine, the seams of my dark navy jacket thankfully silent as my neck craned upward, then to the right, then to the left.

At the very edge of the room, half-hidden behind a row of test tubes and layers of petri dishes, I saw him: a masked figure with an inhumanly long arm at its side, half of it the same metallic silver as my gun. The figure raised its arm and I heard a high-pitched wind-up, like the sound before a doctor’s report, or the withheld breath of the dead – the sound that we all attribute to silence.

On instinct I dodged to the side, agile and swift, living up to my nickname of “The Red Fox” given to me by my professor of Ancient Assassinations, period seven, three years in a row. A bullet narrowly missed my head, a millimeter away from skimming my ear. I cursed under my breath, and lifted my gun. Without blinking I clicked the trigger, once, twice, three times, and on the third the golden arrow made contact with the figure’s mask. My orders were clear; a headshot was to be administered for anyone who stood in my way.

“Jesus, Alice!” The figure cursed, and my hazel eyes widened with surprise as his mask came flying off. I saw his deep chocolate skin, and beautiful muddy eyes, rimmed with a scar I gave him from training two years ago. My breath stopped short, as if I were suddenly smacked in the chest, and I managed to whisper his name before my common sense kicked in.

But in that narrow lapse between my astonishment and my knee-jerk reaction to shoot him in the heart six times, he raised his gun and fired. A stinging pain ricocheted through my shoulder, throwing the entire left side of my body backwards and sending me crashing to the cool tile floor.

I shrieked, and pushed myself to a sitting position with my good arm. I raised my gun, though my shoulder felt as if it were on fire, and slammed my finger on the trigger.

I was just able to see the cold fear in those muddy eyes before the bullet drilled into his forehead, and he flew backwards, slumping against the wall.

Panting, I pressed the palm of my hand into the sticky wound on my shoulder. I would never hesitate to shoot again.

Into The Green

I drink in my surroundings, hot

Like earthy green tea.

The mountain dips, cradling me

In its valley, wood-whistlers rustling

Above my head.

 

The forest is in a daydream,

Bathed in a bitter juice

Sucked from the base of a stem.

 

Into the green I go,

 

The chimes of late summer announce

My arrival.

I’m forty years older than when

I last traversed these trails.

 

I pause to sit on a craggle croak,

My hiking boots shift the

Riverside soil.

 

These woods have bewitched time.

The trees and knolls and rocks,

Statues of their former selves.

 

Why have I changed so?

Yet you, wild nature,

Remain ageless and ancient at once?

 

I regret now those lost years of turning rigid

Routes, encaged in narrow steel confines,

And following streets with meaningless names.

 

I came back here to find some tangible truth,

A reason for all this that could infuse

My being with peace.

 

But epiphanies don’t come to those who look for them.

Even I know this to be true.

 

I stand and turn round back my way.

I’ll bring my kids here, yes,

I will bring my kids into the green,

So they can find

What I have lost.

John F. Kennedy International Airport Adventures

murmurs of commotion, excitement

the smell of stale

people and personalities

unintentional noise, ears popping

I’m sorry

I spilled my iced coffee on your shoes

gum popping and

the smell of tourist mint

 

waiting for the risky grey flying machine

that takes you to and from

countries with twisted tongues in the form of words

and food that makes your tongue recoil like a rattlesnake

mommy,

I want mac ’n cheese please

stern voices

that force the memory of exotic etiquette

 

pearly whites strung together with wire

don’t make the alarm go off

even though daddy said they would

an extra ounce of strawberry shampoo

makes more noise

on the metal detectors

than my morning alarm does

to my phone

 

because here and there

extraneous sounds soar

from New York City to Beijing to Geneva

all coiled up into one little flying machine

until it’s all let out into a collective

sigh

 

Parfait Pantoum

The oranges are making me bananas

Yogurt is a weird word

Especially oranges, they make me go nuts

Is a berry a fruit?

 

Yogurt is a weird word

Granola crunch crunch drives me crazy

Is a berry a fruit?

I really want to know

 

Granola crunch crunch drives me crazy

I went down to the apple store and

I really want to know

How the parfait came to be

 

I went down to the apple store and

Especially oranges make me go nuts

How did this parfait come to be?

The oranges are making me bananas

Memoriae Vitarum

As your aura fades from

your jacket,

your car,

my memory,

I have trouble recollecting

the time we had together.

Only hospital beds and funeral homes

seem to come to mind.

 

It’s been

6 months,

1 week,

2 days,

3 hours,

27 minutes,

and 42 seconds

since you last walked this Earth.

 

But who’s keeping track?

Who’s keeping track of the

very last time

you smiled at me,

you winked from across the table,

you told me how proud you were?

 

Your love of travelling

was passed down

to my father

and then to me.

You’ll be with me in spirit

as I tour the world.

My children will inherit the same vitality

I gained from you.

 

From the days where I could

wrap my tiny toddler hands

around your index finger

to our last hug goodbye,

your presence kept me

safe and secure.

 

Though now it’s

merely metaphorical,

you will remain eternally

by my side.

Grandpa.

Satires: A Collection of Current-Event Satires

A collection of current-event satires in the style of The Onion

 

Tragedy Strikes Cast of Finding Bigfoot, When They Actually Find Bigfoot

 

Tragedy struck the cast of Finding Bigfoot yesterday, as what was once a fabricated show preying upon the dementia of elderly conspiracy theorists quickly turned into an all-too-real nightmare, when in their fake search, they actually came across a Bigfoot-like creature. “We were behind the studio in the woods, where we film most of our scenes involving fake noises, when a large, humanoid shape emerged from the dark,” recalled cast-member, James Fay, struggling to hold back tears. “Then the thing lunged on us and proceeded to pounce to death the rest of the cast, and then just left.”

 

“Shock” and “terror” were words used to describe Tuesday’s incident, as the cryptid hominid was not only in fact proven to be real, but by matter of sheer chance, discovered on the very-show capitalizing on its unproven existence. Camera man, Mark Ryans, who narrowly escaped dismemberment from Bigfoot, said in a press conference that despite the show’s title, “I never signed up for this…I never thought we were actually going to find Bigfoot!” A visibly shaken Ryans added that, “I was hired under the pretense that I would be working for a show that peddled false science to the most vulnerable population demographics…not a legitimate pursuit of mythical beings with a murder streak!”

 

This incident has also put the rest of society in the awkward position of having hermetic, senile conspiracy theorists and impressionable 8-year-olds being able to say, “We were right all along…there is a Bigfoot!”

 

Alas, it was an all-too-familiar tale of a patently misleading reality TV show, through an event of bizarre serendipity, ironically falling victim to the very thing they originally falsified. In February of this year, The Discovery show, Ghost Hunters too fell victim to this increasingly common trend, when the show’s producer was inadvertently possessed by a demon.

 

As for one elderly fan, and self-anointed “Bigfoot expert,”: “I mean, they kinda had it coming…when you play with Bigfoot fire, you have to be prepared to get Bigfoot burned.”

 

Lobbyist Now A Regular at Senator’s Office

 

After visiting the office of Arkansas Senator, Tom Cotton (R-AS), six times last month, and leaving sizable donations in the undisclosable, dark-money, SUPER PAC, and…100% legal tip jar, Exxonmobil lobbyist John Richards has been upgraded from occasional customer who stops by when convenient, to a reliable regular.

 

Every lunch break, Richards can be counted on to order a hefty serving of fiscally irresponsible tax cuts, with a side of reduced labor requirements. “You got it,” Cotton replies, scribbling down his order on a yellow ticket to hand off to the chef. “Anything else we can do for you?,” Cotton cheerfully adds, before asking if he would like napkins with that.  “We make a mean comprehensive, multi-billion dollar subsidy program, too, you know.” While Richards usually demurs, he always promises to try it next time.

 

“He’s one of my best customers,” Cotton admitted.  “I don’t even need to ask for his order any more.” As Richards said, “It’s gotten to the point where I walk in and the industry-wide tax cuts and financially reckless corporate handouts are already waiting for me in a brown paper bag.”

 

Dr. Oz Recommends New “Stranded-at-Sea” Diet

 

Dr. Mehmet Oz, a decorated cardiothoracic surgeon known for his evidence-based medical advice and sustainable weight loss programs that don’t put emphasis on universally dubious and unregulated pills, has recommended a new strategy for those looking to drop a few in time for summer.

 

“I like to call it the ‘Stranded-at-Sea diet,” said Oz on his daytime show, noting that his nutritional innovation could revolutionize the way we lose weight. Over the course of the 65-day diet, one should consume a raw fish, preferably drenched in seawater, no more than once every three days; sardines, mackerel, and reedfish are all fair game, so long as they are not cooked, seasoned, or otherwise prepared to eliminate potentially lethal pathogens. “Mercury poisoning and intestinal infections are just more ways this diet helps you lose weight fast,” Oz said to his enthused crowd. While seaweed collected from the ocean’s surface also comprises a significant portion of the stranded-at-sea diet, according to Oz, “the bonus is that you can eat as much as you want.”

“No more late-night cravings,” as one fan of the show remarked. The key, though, is to limit water intake to about every four days. As Oz put, “with no taste, no texture, and no smell, water is really just empty calories.”

 

While side-effects include severe dehydration, vitamin deficiencies, and internal bleeding, Oz noted that eating like a cast-away on a liferaft is the only sure-fire way to lose weight fast. “There’s very strong evidence to support my claims…I mean, has anyone who has spent 65 days stranded at sea ever come back fatter than when they left?…I don’t think so.” Although Oz has faced criticism from fellow practitioners, studies have repeatedly shown that eating like a driftaway is positively correlated with weight loss. Whether it is the nutrient rich jellyfish or complete lack of requisite nutrition, one study published in Doctor Daily found that “in almost 80% of cases, the cast-away diet resulted in significant fat reduction.” While other diets focus solely on reducing fat, noted Oz, “my diet is the only holistic method that helps reduce not only fat composition, but muscle mass, brain tissue, cardiac organs, and liver function too.”

 

Following Baltimore Protests, Uncle More Racist Than Usual

 

Seemingly galvanized by Fox News’s coverage of the events, conservative Uncle, Rob Lance, who visits occasionally on holidays, seemed to be seriously intent on besting his own previous records for unbridled racist banter. “Normally”, said Vance’s brother, “he would drop a few ill-conceived, factually unsupported, poorly construed race-based generalizations at the dinner table, or maybe while playing golf.” But with recent protests across American cities suggesting that black individuals were not in fact completely subjugated at the hands of all white male hegemony, Vance began his day-long attempt to post record racial numbers. In a matter of hours, Vance progressed from a mere casual racist who blanketed his statements with such pleasantries like “I’m not racist…but” or “it just so happens” to dedicated hate-mongerer, as evidenced by his halftime decision to switch to the n-word of the hard “r” variety. As the night wore on, Vance covered the spectrum, with his uninformed diatribes ranging from “welfare queens” to those “gangsters with saggy pant.”

 

While no one who attended Saturday’s family reunion expected Vance to top his once unbeatable 1992 Los Angeles riot statistics, onlookers say he made a valiant attempt at dashing the dreams of a post-racial society.  While relatives noted that age had taken a toll on Vance’s ability to spew unjustified mistruths with intensity, Vance said that as long as he legitimized the concerns of those who rightfully believe that racism had not in fact been vanquished, “it was good enough for him.”

 

Crack Addiction Changes Middle Age Father For The Better

 

Susan Wallace, wife of 56-year-old accountant, David Wallace of Danbury, Connecticut, was surprised to learn last week that her husband had been abusing a form of powdered cocaine, a highly addictive substance banned in every state except Florida. Mr. Wallace, who was often described by family friends as a “dull log, slightly more awake than a comatose patient” never liked taking risks or acting spontaneously. Before his addiction, “he shopped from the eight-dollar bin at Kohl’s, drove a Nissan Altima, insisted on eating at Olive Garden, and got his hair done at Supercuts,” said Susan, struggling to hold back tears. Only just a couple weeks ago, “he would come home from work and drool as he listlessly watched Fox news,” David’s sister-in-law, Barbara added, noting just how much his addiction had changed him.

 

“Now, he’s an entirely different person,” Susan said.  “Crack has changed my husband from an apathetic accountant to a fun-loving, energetic, if occasionally delusional father.” While the jitters and occasional shivering were annoying at first, according to Barbara, “I’ll take addicted, erratic David, over that indifferent lump of tissue anyday.”

 

At press time, David was planning to purchase a motorcycle in order to jump the Housetonic River in mid-air.  When asked about his devilish antics, Susan grinned and said, “It feels like I finally have my husband back.”

 

The Mistress

It wasn’t silent, as nothing ever really is.

Moonlight lay on the waves

and hung in her tears.

 

The crashing of the water on the bay

echoed through her head

weaving its way in between each jumbled thought.

 

The sky and the sea shared their color,

the moon hanging from a string in the inky atmosphere.

 

She stood with her feet in the sand and waited for sunrise

so that she could return to him

and take once more what she believed to be rightfully hers.

 

But there was only midnight and the sea,

and the sun had a long way to go.

The Afterlife

I didn’t expect death to feel like what it did. There was no welcoming light at the end of the tunnel that appears as a great spirit gently leads you by the hand to the other side. Angels didn’t take me in with open arms and shining smiles, ensuring that my stay in eternity would be comfortable. There was no place where all of my deceased loved ones stand at the pearly gates, floating on clouds and illuminated by a holy golden light.

The transition between the worlds of the living and the dead is not one’s life flashing before their eyes. I was expecting to see my childhood with my siblings, playing in the large backyard with our black lab and a hose. Our dad would already be working on the barbecue with a warm smile, as the role of both parents was hard to fulfill. Awkward braces, acne, chipping nail polish, badly-cut bangs, crushes on subpar hormonal middle school boys could’ve all very well been my last thought. I could’ve seen partying in short dresses and underage drinking, staying up late and desperately trying to type the last words of a paper due tomorrow, crying in bed, worried half to death about what the future could hold.

I should have seen myself through moving towns and switching schools countless times, each one less painful than the last. All my broken bones, every favorite song, every embarrassing moment, every mean thought, every friend I made and lost.

My soul could’ve been violently ripped from my body as it crossed over, leaving the past behind. Would I have seen my dying body from above, clawing at my solid presence, desperately hanging on to the last bit of my small existence?

Perhaps I could’ve drifted along the earth as a ghost, watching over my family and friends, wanting to reach out to them, but unable to make my presence known. I would likely haunt those who I had disliked in my mortal life, dropping items on their heads as they passed under me. They would probably get fed up with all the flickering lights and doors being slammed by an unknown force, and I would then be exorcised back to the realm of the dead.

I guess that’s where I am now, but it isn’t like I would’ve thought at all. It’s lonelier than I expected. I can’t see my relatives, I don’t know where they are. I want to find them, to call out to them, but I can’t.

The way I died could’ve been worse. Although I suppose I’ll never know how it feels to die in any other way. All I saw was more and more bright light as I felt myself slipping away from life, which was, to say the least, a bit cliche. The “go into the light” stereotype wasn’t totally wrong. But it was too sudden. I was too young, I didn’t say goodbye. That’s how concussions happen. I thought I was fine, and nothing went wrong for the longest time, but then I went to sleep one night and I never woke up.

I still feel asleep. Time passes so slowly, if at all. I can’t move. Or rather, I don’t have a body to manipulate.

I barely know how long it’s been since I’ve died. It’s too dark to see anything, although I’m sure there is nothing here to see. Light doesn’t exist anymore. Nothing does.

There are so many things I would’ve wished the afterlife to be, and this is not any of them. Maybe there is something else for those who lived their lives better, where they can live their lives in eternal happiness, although I doubt it. I wish that, if anything, I would’ve been sent to the Hell that people believe in. With fire and lava and never ending torture. Perhaps I would’ve prefered that, for at least I would be able to feel.

This seems worse. So, so much worse. I am nothing. Everything is nothing. Everything except my thoughts. My thoughts that pound their way through my no-longer-existing mind. I want them to stop, but they won’t. There’s nothing I can do with them except keep thinking. I would kill myself to get rid of them. But I am already dead.

As a child in church, I would wonder if the Heaven those men in the robes preached about was real. I would wonder if we really did live forever amongst the clouds and all our deceased loved ones. I would tug on my mom’s sleeve, questioning what Heaven was. She would usually answer with something along the lines of “Whatever you want it to be.” I wouldn’t question further. But it isn’t like that at all. When I died, I realized I would find out what really lied beyond our mortal lives. I did find out. It was nothing.

Cartography

No. 1

Awakening, I saw:

The first thing I ever loved was a pigeon through my window, when I was fourteen and hated Juliet because she was my age and had killed herself

And where did that leave me?

Believing that gods were only in love because they wanted to take our curved ribs- if I was made from Adam’s rib, I was cracked

Maybe our womanly ribs were too soft to hold up our bodies, maybe we were bags of jelly scrambling for a foothold, our armour becoming our structure because it doesn’t work;

Our ribs never really protect our hearts.

It turned to watch me, curled by the window, waiting in the darkness like a shark.

One eye fixed on me, red like acrylic paint half dried, glossy yet faded, uneven

And that was the first time I was in love- I loved girls and I wanted boys, like the man who died amongst the bleached bone white sands, unable to chose between love and life, and so I starved

And so I loved

And I like to think it loved me back- but then again it was a very dusty window.

And I was a very romantic little girl.

 

No. 2

My mother:

She was all sharp edges, but delicate as paper, addicted to fire, determined to go down blazing up like a Japanese lantern

A woman who could walk in triangles and never leave the centre.

When she tucked me into my clean comforters, she whispered that there was no such thing as silence, and I held my breath and listened as my heart fluttered against my ribs:

After all our cages protect us and our traditions ground us. I was lost.

 

No. 3

I dreamed:

Once I went to a feast in Jesus’s castle and there was a table piled with food like presents and it smelled beautiful and warm and all emraldy- though I never smelled an emerald; it was what emeralds should smell of- but I didn’t recognise any of it so I sat and starved.

Jesus came up to me- yes, He does wear those sandals- and said it was ok to want to be a man and a woman all at once and gave me grapes nestled next to the canned beers in his fridge.

We talked for a long time about why castles are inconvenient, and He patted my hair and said that this was it and He told me it’s ok to be scared:

“I cried on the cross.”

He really was wonderful. He showed me the tattoo He had gotten because He was mad at His father- a tiny cross hidden by His ear. And He showed me His scars and they were small and unexciting, and I dreamt I showed Him mine although my wrists were at least five years too young.

I told Him I loved Him and He told me sternly I was too young to know what love was, and to tell Him in five years when I had decided whether or not to believe in Him.

I looked for Him but didn’t find him again.

 

No. 4

My room:

A dark place that never failed to surprise me

As if I had been walking in the dark for ages and had only just realised the sea had been crashing down on me on all sides

Monks and zebras floated on clouds in the walls, appearing in the paint sponged thick and chipping.

In the shadows, under the beds, there were always green hairy armed monsters waiting to grab me until I realised that my monsters were much more concrete and much more subtle

Frankenstein told me people are mirror faced and believe in what they reflect, and that love makes you crazy.

Dracula told me flesh and blood didn’t have enough bones

In the dark I cried

My salty sea blood throbbing in my eyes as I dreamed dreams that tormented me in an unfathomable way

Always, I fell

Sometimes I jumped.

Or I fluttered past ladders that spun in the dark

 

No. 5

Upstate, at the cottage:

I danced on the beautiful dock that sliced through the lake- submerged like someone had said

hey, hey, hey

I don’t have enough stone to raise my dock out of the water but fuck it

I can walk out to the middle just the same

So fuck it

I’ll build it anyways.

And he did.

 

No. 6

My mapping is done:

Remember when we were young?

They like to say remember when

but no, no I don’t

I forget because I was young and it is not for the young to remember,

I am not a hard-drive, I am pink icing and blue jelly

That bounces around because it can

Because it hasn’t hardened into bone, because it is buoyant and has no anchor to remind it where the ground is

Because I still have more to know than I have to remember

This is my protest; let me rust.

Animal Wedding

The young doe looked spectacular in her snowy dress, its train gliding elegantly across the carpeted floor.  Her chestnut coat was scrubbed to a shine, and she hardly made a sound as she was walked down the aisle in her white booties.

All of the guests had been dressed in only the finest attire and were gossiping madly about the new couple:

Black top hats had been fitted onto the prickly heads of the three porcupines, and the two portly walruses were adorned with monocle and cane.

The lioness exhibited a scarlet gown that had been living in a closet all year, waiting for just this kind of occasion, and the penguins wore seersucker button-downs.

The egret was delighted to show off his navy blue herringbone suit, even though it made him quite hungry; the caimans grinned devilishly in houndstooth.

The tyrannosaurus watched the whole procession from afar, downcast because he was not invited (at the capuchin’s bat mitzvah, he had eaten all of the mini quiches).

No one acknowledged that sad, skeletal monstrosity:

The red river hogs were too busy fighting over a pair of Prada heels.

Four bighorn sheep were butting their way to the front row of fold-up chairs in plaid slacks.

One fun-loving grizzly in a neon blazer made her way through the noisy crowd, asking the partygoers for their phone numbers.

The gibbon boasted a polka-dotted bow tie; his velvety arms stretched outwards to hold a Bible.  He was to be the officiator of this holy matrimony.

And it was impossible to ignore the blue whale who hovered cheerfully over them all in a slim-fitting, yellow blouse.

The human stood beaming at the end of the aisle in his blue coveralls, proud of his work.  Everything was in place, and his bride looked as gorgeous as ever.  He loved the way her furry ears poked out from under the shimmering veil, the way her lifeless eyes reflected his own.

But of course! He had forgotten: she needed to be standing.

Bob – for that was the human’s name – rearranged his fiancé’s corpse so that she stood upright on her two hind legs.  He gave her a kiss on the cheek and then fussed with her body some more.  After making sure she was stable, he hurried over towards the entrance doors to close them; this was to be a relatively private affair.

Bob hummed “Here Comes the Bride” to drown out the clamor of his pounding heart.  His low voice bounced off of the emptied glass enclosures and echoed throughout the museum.

He returned to his betrothed and took his place with her under the altar.  He awaited the gibbon’s blessings, frowned when he did not receive them, and then pried the holy book from the animal’s cold hands to read from it himself.

The groom cleared his throat nervously and wiped the sweat off of his forehead.  “Dearly beloved.”

He stopped and took a deep breath.

“Dearly beloved: we are gathered here today to celebrate–”  A surge of nausea swept over him.  He closed the Bible.

Moonlight poured through the large windows and illuminated the faces of the invitees.

The human, standing before a sea of statues, decided to speak his mind.

“We are gathered here today to celebrate our kinship.  We are gathered to celebrate our kinship,” he repeated for emphasis, “because, in today’s world, each human is an island; because my mother cares for me no more than my co-workers do; because people ignore each other on the subway.  Love is but a game of cards we play to distract ourselves from the unrelenting ennui of our daily lives.  Win some, lose some – It’s all the same.

“Everything is so horribly fickle, but we eat it all up so willingly.  This great city is populated by a mass of walking and talking museums.  Each dinner, each movie, each fuck is awarded its own habitat.”

Bob beat his fist on his breast.  He was stronger now.

“And they are be well-maintained habitats at that.”

He inhaled deeply.

“My friends, we are gathered here today to witness a real marriage of two very real individuals.”

Bob turned to his intended and produced a silver ring he had purchased at a stoop sale for two dollars and fifty cents.  On it, Claudia was inscribed.

The groom’s words were smooth and rehearsed.  “This ring is a token of my love.  I marry you with this ring, with all that I have and all that I am.”

He took her hoof gently with his free hand and tried slipping the band onto it, but to no avail.

Bob glared determinately at the ring, then at the doe, and then back at the ring in sincere contemplation.  He did this for quite a while before he fell to the floor with a pained sigh.

But wait!  Maybe…

The human pounded the dainty piece of jewelry against his bride’s foot.  Hard.  Then her ankle.  Then her thigh.  Her neck.  The side of her face.

No.  It had all made sense in his head.  His darling’s fur was disheveled, and bruises decorated her figure.

Bob’s knuckles stung; so did his quiet tears.  He flung the wedlock’s consummation across the dark hall.  It tottered aggressively, but only for a moment, before becoming inanimate once more.

 

 

A Prayer for Elizabeth

 

Scene 1

(Scene opens. JULIAN is sitting at a desk in his empty bedroom there is a stack of books and a pair of headphones on the floor)

 

JULIAN

Dear Elizabeth. I had a crap day at school today. Some moron bumped into me after I got my lunch and my tuna salad spilled all over my shirt. The Grateful Dead one with the stripes. I was gonna throw it out anyway because the skulls scared Amy. Amy’s a grown ass woman and she can’t handle a skull? But like whatever, I’ll get a new one. I’ll get twelve new ones. I’ll buy every single fucking skull shirt just to piss off Amy.

 

(JULIAN kicks his headphones on the ground)

 

(The stage goes dark, the light goes up to CLAIRE in an empty room kneeling with her hands clasped looking up)

 

CLAIRE

Dear God. I am asking for your forgiveness. I missed church this morning.

 

(CLAIRE looks down sorrowfully, then looks back up)

 

CLAIRE

But in my defense it was for an entirely worthy cause! You see, last night there was a boy, a very troubled boy, my neighbor actually, he was in an unhealthy state of… intoxication and he needed to find his way home. When I had returned home after bringing him back safely, It was very late and I forgot to set my alarm and by the time I had awoken from my post-rescue slumber my family had already left for church.

(CLAIRE takes a deep breath)

I realize that my actions were unjustifiable, but all I can ask for now is forgiveness. God bless that boy’s poor soul. And his family’s too. God bless Mother, Father and Gregory. In the name of the Father, Son and the Holy Ghost. Amen.

 

Scene 2

(the scene opens with JULIAN, AMY and CARSON sitting around a table)

 

AMY

Julian, elbows off the table.

 

(Julian looks up, and then back down while his elbows remain on the table)

 

AMY

Julian, did you hear me?

 

JULIAN

Yes Amy, I heard you.

 

CARSON

Then why are your elbows on the damn table?

 

(AMY rests her hand on CARSON’s shoulder to calm him. JULIAN removes his elbows from the table)

 

CARSON

You weren’t at church today.

 

(JULIAN shrugs)

 

JULIAN

I overslept.

 

AMY

It’s never too late to reach out to God.

 

JULIAN

Bullshit.

 

AMY

Julian! Carson, how can you sit by and allow this behavior?

 

CARSON

Julian, go to your room.

 

JULIAN

Gladly.

 

(JULIAN stands and pushes his chair out of way)

 

AMY

Make your bed and tidy up the living room, will you? We’re having dinner guests.

 

(JULIAN exits)

 

AMY (calling after JULIAN)

The living room is that way!

 

(AMY points stage left, then rolls her eyes. AMY stands and pushes in her chair)

 

CARSON

Dinner guests?

 

AMY
Robert, Janette and their children. Carson sweetie we already went over this!

 

PAUSE

 

AMY

I’ll be in the kitchen doing the dishes. Talk to your child, please?

 

(CARSON and AMY exit in different directions)

 

Scene 3

 

(JULIAN is sitting at a desk holding a journal)

 

JULIAN

Dear Elizabeth, It’s March 27th. Exactly two and a half years since you died. 21,914 hours.

(Pause)

I haven’t slept in days. Last night, I was lying in bed, and I shut my eyes, and I cried. I cried because I miss you. I cried because I need you and because I’m hurting. I cried because (BEAT) sometimes I think you wanted us to get hurt. I cried because you didn’t love us-me, you didn’t love me enough to stay. I cried because I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to do, Elizabeth.

 

(The stage does dark, the light raises on CLAIRE on the ground with her hands clasped)

 

CLAIRE

Dear God, it’s March 27th. Exactly 11 days since I got my braces off. 264 hours. I was the last one in the 9th grade to have their braces off, but I have interpreted that as a sign. You were testing my patience, and I remained faithful, even in my darkest hour when I almost bit Dr. Kalswell. Thank you for blessing me with beautiful teeth, if only the same would happen with Gregory. God bless his youthful soul. God bless mother, and father and the great state of Ohio!

 

Scene 4

(The scene opens with a dimly lit room with a long table stage right. CARSON is sitting at the head of table. ROBERT, JULIAN and GREGORY are sitting on the left side of the table, JANETTE, CLAIRE and AMY are sitting on the left side. They are eating.)

 

ROBERT

Amy, this very well might be the best roast beef in all of Columbus.

 

JANETTE

You’re gonna have to fight me for that title!

 

(Laughter)

 

AMY

Thank you Robert. It’s always a pleasure to have you and your family over. Isn’t it Carson?

 

CARSON

Um, yes yes. Lovely company. Robert, have you finalized that deal with the Roger’s?

 

ROBERT

I’m trying. But with a bit more urgency this time. After we lost the big sale in Cleveland-

 

JANETTE

Business is not for the table.

 

(JANETTE adjusts the napkin on her lap)

 

JANETTE

Julian, look at how you’ve matured! Is that facial hair, I see?

 

(JULIAN looks down. CARSON, ROBERT, JANETTE and AMY laugh)

 

AMY

You would see him more if he left his room and went to church. You know, Julian, you would have liked last week’s sermon.

 

ROBERT

Ladies, can’t you see you’re embarrassing the poor boy?

 

JANETTE

I remember when you were just a little boy and you used to have that grand swing set in your yard! Can you believe it’s been four years since we moved?

 

ROBERT

Four wonderful years!

 

CARSON

Has it really been so long?

 

ROBERT

Well we reconnected after Elizabeth-

 

JANETTE

Robert!

 

CARSON (softly)

No, no it’s alright.

 

AMY

Julian, how about you show Gregory and Claire your bedroom? (to ROBERT) he has lots of fun posters.

 

(JULIAN looks at CARSON, sighs and then stands, pushes in his chair and begins to exit)

 

JULIAN (to GREGORY and CLAIRE)

You coming?

 

(GREGORY, CLAIRE and JULIAN exit)

 

ROBERT

Carson I didn’t mean to-

 

CARSON

No, no it’s alright. She was always a big hit with dinner guests. I don’t know if you remember but five years ago, we hosted a new years party. She bought a karaoke machine and the two of us belted out Elton John the whole night long.

 

(AMY stands and removes two plates from the table. JANETTE stands)

 

JANETTE

Amy let me give you a hand with those dishes.

 

AMY

Oh, thank you.

 

JANETTE

Now, you just have to tell me where you got those shoes! I haven’t seen pumps like those since my college years!

 

(AMY and JANETTE continue their conversation silently while walking stage left. The light shifts to CARSON and ROBERT)

 

ROBERT

I like her.

 

CARSON

Pardon?

 

ROBERT

Amy, the girl, I like her. She’s a keeper.

 

CARSON

Yeah, shes great. Plus she makes a mean roast beef!

 

ROBERT

She’s also easy on the eyes

 

(ROBERT and CARSON laugh)

 

ROBERT

So, you haven’t made it official?

 

CARSON

What?

 

ROBERT

You know, I don’t see a ring

 

CARSON

Oh, well we haven’t really thought too much about-

 

ROBERT

Don’t get me wrong, it’s just that you two have been living together for almost a year now. Right?

 

CARSON

Yeah, it’s just that…I guess I don’t think we’re ready.

 

ROBERT

It’s the sex, isn’t it?

 

CARSON

What? No. – I mean

 

ROBERT

You can be honest, I won’t judge. God won’t judge.

 

CARSON

What’s this God bullshit coming out of your mouth? You haven’t gone to church since the stone age. (PAUSE) And the fact of the matter is, I’m just not ready for that kind of commitment. I mean (PAUSE) marriage? It just feels too soon.

 

ROBERT

Elizabeth has been gone for what; 3 years?

 

CARSON

Two and a half. Exactly two and half, this day.

 

ROBERT

Do you hear yourself Carson? You’re stuck in the past. Now I know this is not my place, but hear me out when I say that the girl won’t stick around much longer if she knows theres not gonna be any commitment.

 

CARSON

I didn’t say there wasn’t gonna be commitment, I just said not yet.

 

ROBERT

You’re just scared.

 

CARSON

Don’t tell me how I feel. I’m not scared, I’m just not …ready, alright?

 

ROBERT

Fine, fine. I’m just saying, a single man of your age, it’s difficult to find a decent woman

 

CARSON

You did pretty well yourself with Janette.

 

ROBERT

Oh shes wonderful, until she blows all my money on stretching out her forehead and making her mouth bigger.

 

(They laugh)

 

ROBERT

But seriously, if she wants get herself a job and spend her own money on those colorful powder sets, be my guest! But my money? Hell, I have a family to provide for!

 

CARSON

Women, (sigh) truly a species of their own.

 

Scene 5

 

(ROBERT is sitting on the bed. CLAIRE is sitting on the ground holding a poster. JULIAN is lying on the ground with his headphones in, listening to music)

 

CLAIRE (to JULIAN)

You call these fun posters?

 

(CLAIRE holds up a Led Zeppelin poster. JULIAN removes his headphones)

 

JULIAN

It’s vintage

 

CLAIRE

It’s ugly

 

JULIAN

You just don’t know good music

 

CLAIRE

I know plenty of good music

 

JULIAN

You’re young and seemingly uncultured.

 

CLAIRE

You have no right to speak to me that way!

 

(CLAIRE folds her arms)

 

JULIAN

Listen little girl, if your gonna throw a fit I’ll gladly show you the door

 

CLAIRE

Your parents would not be pleased to hear of your lack of hospitality.

 

JULIAN

(mockingly) ‘My parents’ don’t give a shit as to how ‘hospitable’ I am.

 

CLAIRE

With language like that it’s no wonder I don’t see you at church.

 

JULIAN

You’re one of those Jesus freaks?

 

CLAIRE

Jesus freaks? You can’t call me that just because I don’t waste my life with alcohol like you.

 

(JULIAN sits up, and looks to GREGORY)

 

JULIAN (to CLAIRE)

Keep it down, will ya?

 

CLAIRE (to GREGORY)

Gregory, will you help mother with the dishes?

 

GREGORY

But I don’t want to

 

CLAIRE

Gregory, dishes. now.

 

GREGORY

But I-

 

CLAIRE

Gregory when you go to hell because you wouldn’t help the woman who gave you the gift of life-

 

GREGORY

Fine. But I’m telling mother that you yelled at me

 

(GREGORY exits before CLAIRE gets a chance to respond)

 

CLAIRE

He can be so annoying sometimes. Like people need to learn not to talk back to-

 

JULIAN

You’re not going to tell anyone.

 

CLAIRE

What?

 

JULIAN

Tell anyone about our run-in last night and I swear to God I will find you and-

 

CLAIRE

And what? I don’t even think you remember what happened last night because you were too busy regurgitating everything ever on to my new blouse. Just saying. Plus, you should be thanking me for practically saving your life.

 

JULIAN

Saving my life?

 

(JULIAN laughs)

 

CLAIRE

It’s not a joking matter! You could have had alcohol poisoning and died! And no one could have been there to save your dying soul.

 

JULIAN

What do you know about alcohol poisoning? Better yet- what do you know about soul? What are you, eleven?

 

CLAIRE

I’m a petite fifteen! And I refused to be treated unjustly due to my appearance.

 

JULIAN

Listen, kid. You stay out of my business and I’ll stay out of yours-

 

JANETTE (from off stage)

Claire, come down sweetie. It’s time to go.

 

CLAIRE

Well this has been pleasant

 

(CLAIRE exits)

 

JULIAN (calling after CLAIRE)

Wait, kid! Um, Claire! We never made our agreement.

 

Pages: Page 1, Page 2

Getting Ready

Characters:

TRUMAN – A senior in high school who is in the middle of a pre-college crisis. He is struggling to find a true sense of independence.

DIANE – A sophomore in high school who witnesses Truman’s crisis unfold and lets him take up as much space as he needs to. She is a caring sister who is surprisingly wiser and more mature than her brother.

(We see TRUMAN fixing his hair in the bathroom. DIANE enters and bangs on the bathroom door with her umbrella.)

DIANE

Hey, Truman. Are you in there?

TRUMAN

No.

DIANE

Come on, it’s raining like crazy outside.

TRUMAN

Sorry.

DIANE

Are you still getting ready?

TRUMAN

Don’t come in.

DIANE

Mom and Dad say we have to go now.

TRUMAN

I’m not ready.

DIANE

Your hair looks fine.

TRUMAN

Let me fix it.

DIANE

Shouldn’t I be the one who takes an hour to get ready?

TRUMAN

I don’t know. Should you?

DIANE

Look, I’m coming in there and–

TRUMAN

You better not. I’m taking a shit in here.

DIANE

You just said you were fixing your hair.

TRUMAN

I can multitask.

DIANE

I don’t buy it. I’m going in.

(DIANE enters the bathroom.)

DIANE

Just as I thought. Bravo.

TRUMAN

You’re so annoying. Get out.

DIANE

No, you’re the annoying one. I’m hungry. I want pizza. Your hair looks fine.

TRUMAN

Just let me fix it.

DIANE

What’s the special occasion?

TRUMAN

None of your business, Diane. Go back outside.

DIANE

No! Tell me now or else I’m calling Mom and Dad and they’ll ask you about your personal issues instead.

TRUMAN

Fine. Emily is going to be at the pizza place celebrating Charlie’s birthday.

DIANE

And if you come in there with fantastic hair, she’ll take one look at you– her fifth grade boyfriend– and dump Charlie right then and there, on his birthday and everything. Because she can’t hide her love for you any longer.

TRUMAN

Very funny.

DIANE

Seriously, Truman. You need to get real here.

TRUMAN

I can’t get real here.

DIANE

Why do you still think about Emily?

TRUMAN

Because we’re perfect for each other.

DIANE

Don’t give me any bullshit.

TRUMAN

Well, it’s true. She lives right across the street and her dad and our dad have played golf together for years.

DIANE

And you want Dad’s approval, so if you date Emily then you think you’ll get it.

TRUMAN

Maybe.

DIANE

(pointing her umbrella at him and tapping his shoulder with it) I knew it.

TRUMAN

(pushing the umbrella away from his shoulder) He was proud of me in fifth grade, when I was so good at baseball and wore that Penn sweatshirt every day.

DIANE

But now he’s not.

TRUMAN

And it sucks, but I don’t want to go to Penn. I shouldn’t have to go. Brown is a great school, too.

DIANE

I agree. Why should it matter?

TRUMAN

It shouldn’t, but it does to Dad. Apparently, if I went to Brown, then I wouldn’t be “keeping up his legacy.”

DIANE

So you think if you do some of the things you did in fifth grade then you’ll win him over again? Even though Dad’s been dead set on you going to the same school he went to since you could walk, you think that if you get a new girlfriend that he likes, all his disappointment in you will be magically washed away.

TRUMAN

Pretty pathetic when you put it like that, isn’t it?

DIANE

Yeah, so will you quit this Emily bullshit? Just go to Penn if you’re really that desperate for Dad to be proud of you again.

TRUMAN

But I should stick to my principles, right?

DIANE

Right.

TRUMAN

Even if Dad hates me for it?

DIANE

Oh my God, Truman. It’s time to build a bridge and get over yourself, my friend. Make a choice.

TRUMAN

I don’t know. I don’t have a lot of time before I have to either accept Penn or Brown.

DIANE

Honestly, if that’s your biggest problem in life then you’re doing just fine.

TRUMAN

Well, I’d like to see how you handle this in a couple of years.

DIANE

Trust me. I will never have to handle this.

TRUMAN

Seriously–

DIANE

Just make a decision. Follow your heart. I want pizza. Can’t you think about this later?

TRUMAN

(sarcastic) Wow, impressive. I have it all figured out now. You should be a shrink.

DIANE

Actually, I did psychoanalyze you quite well, especially given that it only took me a minute to catch on to what your crisis is this time.

TRUMAN

What’s “this time” supposed to mean?

DIANE

Nothing. You just take up a lot of space sometimes. But that’s okay. We love you for it.

TRUMAN

What?

DIANE

Anyway, you know it’s not Emily anymore.

TRUMAN

Wait. Can you repeat what you just said before? About me taking up a lot of space?

DIANE

I didn’t mean it like that.

TRUMAN

It’s fine. I’m not asking because I’m mad at you for saying it. I just want to know what you meant.

DIANE

Okay. I mean that you’re debating between Penn and Brown because Daddy wants you to go to Penn but you’re leaning toward Brown. Some people are worried about getting into any college at all– like me– so you should be happy about getting into two Ivy League schools.

TRUMAN

You’re going to get into college.

DIANE

Well maybe I’m not. Dad never told me that he wanted me to go to Penn because he knows that I would never be able to get in.

TRUMAN

That’s not true. I think it’s just different with daughters, that’s all.

DIANE

No, that’s not it. I’m not smart.

TRUMAN

That’s not true. You’re smarter than me right now because you’re able to help me solve my problems when I can’t even figure it out.

DIANE

But I don’t get good grades. I’m not really good at much, to be honest. So that’s why he doesn’t put pressure on me like he does with you.

TRUMAN

Believe me, you don’t want Dad putting pressure on you.

DIANE

Not saying that I do, but I would trade with you in a second. Your problem isn’t as big as you think it is.

TRUMAN

True.

DIANE

All you have to do is get some independence. And that’s easy for an eighteen-year-old guy to do.

TRUMAN

I guess so.

DIANE

So just try to do the right thing. And I know we both know what that is.

TRUMAN

What is it?

DIANE

You’re not a fifth grader who’s going to be satisfied as long as Dad is proud of him. You’re a senior in high school now and you’re going to be great out there. It’s your life so you’ve gotta take control.

TRUMAN

Thanks. I know you’re right.

DIANE

Me too.

TRUMAN

I’m going to Brown. But hey, forget about me. You wanted pizza, right?

DIANE

You don’t even know.

TRUMAN

Yeah, let’s focus on you now.

(TRUMAN and DIANE exit.)

Nobody in this Story Is a Cannibal

(No props will be used except the two chairs, everything else must be mimed)

 

Two guys (mid to late 20s) sit on chairs, an equal distance apart. They both talk directly to the audience and they never look at one another.

 

ADAM

We’d stay up all night, talking. On our phones. We’d just wait until midnight came. That was our signal. Midnight meant that we had to power down and go to sleep.

 

JAMES

Sometimes, we’d just stall for a while. We never wanted to stop talking, but, we’d sometimes run out of things to say. We’d fill our conversations with padding, useless shit. Always keeping our eyes on the clocks, and then the minute it changed from 11:59 to 12 it was over. At midnight we’d stop talking, and that’d be it. We’d stay up for hours, waiting, dreading, midnight.

 

Adam and James pick up their chairs and place them at the bottom of center stage, Adam exits stage right. James sits down in one of the chairs, as if there’s a table in front of him.

Adam walks through the door, as if not to disturb anyone. He goes to the fridge and grabs a pitcher of water. Adam appears not to notice James.

JAMES

You want dinner?.

 

Adam does not respond.

 

JAMES

It’s sitting there. In the oven, I mean. It’s black and crusty now. Want it?

 

Adam still does not respond.

 

 

JAMES

The timer went off, but I ignored it. I finally pulled the lasagna out of the oven when the fire alarm started screaming. The batteries are on the counter over there.

 

ADAM

James. What’s this about?

 

JAMES

What’s this about? Maybe the fact that you’ve been gone, for a few hours.

 

ADAM

So?

 

JAMES

Do you know how long I was sitting here?

 

ADAM

What?

 

JAMES

Do you know how long I was sitting here?

 

ADAM

I don’t know, a few hours.

 

JAMES

Five. I have been sitting at this fucking table for five hours.

 

ADAM

So?

 

JAMES

I’ve been here since seven, when you said you’d be home, when you’re always home. I just kept sitting here thinking, that you were gonna be home at any minute. Do you know what happened, Adam? Do you?

 

ADAM

I never showed up.

 

JAMES

Yeah, you never did.

 

ADAM

So, I’m here now.

 

James and Adam break out of character and reset the chairs back to their original positions.

 

JAMES

The first time I knew he liked me we were sitting on his couch, playing Mortal Kombat and he just reached for my thigh. But, it wasn’t like that, it was less about sex and more about touch. There wasn’t anything erotic about it, it was more about wanting to just be near someone. To share their energy. It was, it was pretty sweet. He was always so weird, so unintentionally awkward, seeing him like this. Seeing Adam vulnerable, watching him put his feelings out there, it was, it was something.

 

ADAM

There’s a weird sense of emotion that runs through you when you just go with your gut. When you feel this urge rise up inside you, and you ask yourself “is it worth it?” Then all the possible outcomes start racing through your head at ridiculously fast speeds. It’s a great feeling to just, you know, do something that you actually wanna do. Not having to run every thought by your inner critic for approval. Just doing something for the hell of it.

 

Adam and James put the chairs back in the apartment setting.

 

JAMES

It doesn’t fucking matter that you’re here now.

 

ADAM

Stop freaking out, man.

 

JAMES

Don’t call me “man.” We’re not having a conversation, we aren’t two bros talking about their days, we’re not supposed to be friends right now.

 

 

ADAM

God, you always do this, you put people into little boxes, you organize us, you, you just try and fit everything into a tiny little compartment so everything can go your way. Do you want to know something? Do you?

 

JAMES

What?

 

ADAM

Right now, we aren’t supposed to be anything. We are having a conversation. And we are friends, alright. You’re so stupid sometimes, you try and make everything work in your fucked up favor and it’s never going to work. So stop it, stop saying what we can and can’t be, stop directing everything I say or do or think about doing because it’s stupid. You’re stupid. (pause) I’m going to bed.

 

JAMES

Fine, leave. Go to bed, see if I care. You know what I’m gonna do I’m going to take all of the food in the fridge and stuff it into the oven, then I’ll tape it shut and crank up everything as high as it can go then the building can fill with smoke and then everyone can asphyxiate.

 

ADAM

Fine. Kill us all, see if I care.

 

JAMES

I will.

 

ADAM

Good.

 

JAMES

I’m gonna do it.

 

 

ADAM

No, you’re not going to do it. You’re just saying stupid shit to get me to feel bad for you, to understand your pain. Well you know what, I don’t give a fuck.

 

 

JAMES

C’mon, this isn’t us. Why don’t we go into the bedroom, and I’ll let you do anything to me. Or. On me.

 

 

ADAM

Do you know how sex with you feels? It’s disgusting. It makes me feel disgusting. It’s awful, and it’s gross, and it feels like punishment. I hate it, I hate everything about it. I hate it, I hate it, I hate it.

 

Chairs return to side-by-side positions

 

ADAM

The first time we had sex, it was awkward, it was weird. There was so much we didn’t know about each other’s bodies. Constantly asking if the other felt ‘OK’

 

JAMES

There was tension. And fear. But also passion and care. A weird concoction of different emotions. A balance of acids and bleach. Cancelling each other out, the bad and the good. The hate and the love, everything. It was something like, lightning in a bottle. Never could happen again. It was perfect.

 

ADAM

The second time, we were more adjusted to, well, everything. That’s the thing about sex, it isn’t romantic, or loving. It’s everything. It can be beautiful and passionate, but also disgusting and awful. I guess that’s what makes sex so cool.

 

Back to apartment.

 

JAMES

You hate it?

 

ADAM

Yes, I hate it.

 

JAMES

Alright.

 

ADAM

Sorry. I am. You know that I..that I care about you.

 

JAMES

But you don’t love me, right

 

ADAM

When did I ever say I didn’t love you?

 

JAMES

Right then, when you stuttered.

 

ADAM

I was thinking.

 

JAMES

You weren’t thinking.

 

ADAM

Fine, I wasn’t thinking.

 

Pause.

 

JAMES

You think I’m dumb.

 

ADAM

I don’t think you’re dumb.

 

 

JAMES

Yeah you do.

 

ADAM

I don’t.

 

JAMES

Yes, you do you’v-

 

ADAM

I think you’re very smart.

 

JAMES

You always thought that I-

 

ADAM

I don’t think that you’re dumb.

 

JAMES

That I was an idiot, and that I wasn’t-

 

ADAM

Shut up. Stop talking, please, just shut up.

 

Chairs move back to side by side positions.

 

JAMES

I wanted red hair in high school, like, I really wanted red hair. But Adam told me that I’d look like an idiot, what’s the point, I basically am a idiot.

 

ADAM

He bought this weird hair dye off of Amazon, and a bleaching kit too. I swear he looked insane. Then he started getting tattoos. What he called art ruined his body, it made his skin ugly.

 

 

JAMES

I was told that changing my hair was unnatural, that I would be gawked at and nobody would ever take me seriously. No one ever asked me how I’d feel, how having exciting hair would make me feel. They were trying to protect me, that’s what they said, that they wanted to protect me from what. I didn’t care if anyone leered at me while I walked down the streets. I didn’t mind if people called me freak, I was a freak, I am a freak.

 

ADAM

We were walking down the street, holding hands, and this old lady just stared at James. I knew it was because of his hair, that stupid fucking dye job.

 

JAMES (Looking directly at Adam)

Maybe it’s because we’re gay, Adam. Did you ever think of that?

 

ADAM (In response to James)

You looked like a fucking retard.

 

JAMES

Did you ever stop and think about how happy I was with my hair. How it made me feel beautiful.

 

ADAM

You didn’t look beautiful, you’re beautiful when you don’t have some weird chemicals in your hair or ink shoved in your body.

 

JAMES

But I felt beautiful, I feel beautiful. I don’t care what you think about what I’ve chosen to do to my body and-

 

ADAM
Stop it. James you have got to understand-

 

James gets out of his chair

 

JAMES

Stop it, stop doing that, please. I hate it when you talk to me like I’m fucking five. I’m not five, so stop treating me like I’m a child because I’m not a goddam child.

 

ADAM

You’re right. You’re not a child. But you-

 

JAMES

There’s always a fucking but. Why can’t you just admit that I was right, just once.

 

Neither of them say anything, for a very long time.

 

JAMES

Just tell me. (pause) Why you were out until midnight.

 

Adam says nothing.

 

JAMES

Please?

 

ADAM

I was in the park.

 

JAMES

The park?

 

 

ADAM

Thinking. Sometimes, late at night, I go into the park and I lay on the grass and I just think. I look at the sky, I look at the stars. I just think.

 

James picks up a chair and sits down.

 

JAMES
Do you think I’m an idiot?

 

ADAM

What?

 

JAMES

Do you think that I’m an idiot, because you think that I’m going to believe that you go into the fucking park to think for hours on end. That you lay on the grass, in the dark and-

 

ADAM

Shut up! Just shut up, please. God.

 

JAMES

No. Listen to me.

 

ADAM

No. Just listen to me. Please.

 

JAMES

Just tell me where you went.

 

ADAM

I was in the park.

 

JAMES

No you weren’t.

 

ADAM

Fine. I wasn’t laying in the grass. I wasn’t looking at the stars. I wasn’t even in the park. I was out.

JAMES

Where?

 

ADAM

Just out.

 

JAMES

Just fucking tell me.

 

ADAM

Why do you care?

 

JAMES

I just wanna know.

 

ADAM

Why?

 

JAMES

Because I want us to work out.

 

ADAM

That’s it, you just want everything to be fine and dandy again. (Pause) Just face it, it’s never going to be okay again. This is it.

Adam walks towards the door.

 

JAMES

Where are you going now?

 

ADAM

Out.

Adam opens the door.

JAMES

Where?

 

ADAM

Just out.

Adam shuts the door.

 

Raven

Fight fire with fire

 

And pain with pain…

 

___________________________

 

My name is Raven. The Earth has orbited the sun about sixteen times since the day I was born, but that is irrelevant. Age is no longer a restraint here in Endgame. What matters is your experience. You have to fight to survive around here. Almost everything wants to kill you, and absolutely everything can.

 

I was given my name because I was born with unnaturally black hair. My identical twin got the name Onyx for the same reason.

 

Onyx and I have shared a mental bond since birth. We were always able to tell what the other was thinking. I could communicate with Onyx from across a room.

 

One week ago, that bond was severed. Why? Because Onyx was murdered. I don’t know who murdered her, or why. All that I know is that it hurt. A lot. The mental link was enough to tell me that. Every day, I recover more and more memory of that night, and sometimes I catch glimpses of a knife, or a crooked smile.

 

Every night, I relive the agony of having my mental bonds snapped. I never knew how much Onyx meant to me until I lost her. Tonight, however, will be different. Tonight, I will track down my sister’s killer.

Fire at The Don Cesar

“A fire has been reported in the building. Please exit down the stairs. Un fuego se ha reportado en el edificio. Por favor salga por la escalera.”

My mom has turned on the light and is standing above me.

“Put your shoes on and let’s go.”

“She doesn’t have time to put shoes on!” shouts my dad, who’s already standing by the door to our hotel room.

“Dad, let me put my flipflops on!” I yell.

“Mommy what’s going on?” asks my sister Gracie.

“We need to go!” My dad is getting upset. Or he’s just psyched there’s a fire.

“Relax, we’re coming!” says my mom.

It’s spring break, and we’re in St. Pete Beach, Florida. My family and I are staying at the Don Ce Sar hotel, where my dad went with his dad and brother as a kid. The Don is everything I hoped it would be. It’s pink, for one thing, with two pools, a spa, and a restaurant where we’ve eaten every night except for the night we went to a spring training baseball game but we had to leave early because my sister and mom fell asleep.

As we step out into the hallway, families and elderly couples are heading for the stairs. We’re on the sixth floor. Tough for the old people, but perhaps even tougher for me considering I don’t have my contact lenses in and everything is frustratingly blurry. If I die tonight I can blame it on shitty genetics and the fact my glasses make me look like Sarah Palin, which is why I had to leave them at home.

On the way down the stairs, I bump into an old lady and may have knocked her over, but there’s no time to look back. For a split second, I think about going back to help her but I realize that this is a life or death situation. A fire is really no place for arthritis or back pain. This is not a drill! Lives will be lost. Bodies will be burned. Vacations will be ruined because of this fire, this fire that is probably hot on my heels as I flee down the crowded staircase to safety, my parents and sister right behind me.

I feel the heat on my skin, and my hair is definitely being singed by the flames. I’m running so fast and everything is blurry, but I hastily glance back to look the fire in the eye. Well, actually I don’t see any fire but that doesn’t mean it’s not around here somewhere.

We dash through the lobby, and go outside where there are already clumps of tired and frightened vacationers. We stop by the fountain right outside the hotel. I squint, and in the distance I can make out a tacky neon sign that says “Come See Our Naked Mermaids!” Oh, Florida. Keeping in Klassy.

Because I am a teenager in the 21st century, I grabbed my phone as we headed out the door and check the time. It’s 6:02 am.

It’s starts to rain, and we move under the main awning. I look up and instead of finding comfort in the hot pink Spanish-style building, I am horrified to see fire leaping out of all the windows. But those flames are dark gray. Turns out, those are shadows from the air conditioners. I avert my attention to the bell tower in the front of the hotel. My little sister whispers to me, “Lily, doesn’t the bell tower look like the one from that scary movie Mommy made us see?”

Shit, it’s Vertigo. Now I have to think about Vertigo while I’m also thinking about how I left all my clothes and belongings in our room. (I should really start bringing a pre-packed mini suitcase with me that has all my most precious clothes and belongings in it so I can grab it quickly if I’m ever in this life-threatening and goddamn terrifying situation ever again. If I survive this, that is). I take a deep breath and wait for a body to be spewed out of the bell tower, plunging to its death, riding a wave of fire.

“That movie haunted me!” my sister says. Her eyes are wide with renewed fear.

I glance around me. There are families huddled together, some with dogs. I did not know this hotel allowed dogs. How impractical. This is a fire, and small dogs could be easily swallowed up in flames and no one would notice. Actually, some people would notice but by then it would be too late.

Yesterday afternoon at the pool I saw a totally gorgeous Titanic-era Leonardo DiCaprio lookalike. I was entranced. At last I would get my very own spring vacation romance that Seventeen magazine never shuts up about! Then we’d date and all my friends would be jealous of me! He waved to me, and I enthusiastically waved back. I was wearing a cute new bikini I bought online for $38. Yes! Seventeen would be so proud. I tried to wave back, but I couldn’t tell if he saw me or not so I made a plan to get a fruit smoothie at the same time as him today.

I catch sight of him now standing with his family. He’s wearing purple terrycloth pajama bottoms and a Taylor Swift t-shirt. What never happened between us is now over.

An old man is wearing skull-and-crossbones PJs. His wife (or his mistress, how should I know) is wearing one of the fluffy bathrobes from the hotel bathrooms. A lot of people are wearing the hotel bathrobe. Dear god, am I glad we don’t have to see what they’re wearing underneath. I wish I had thought to bring a sweatshirt with me. It’s chilly outside. I see a group of girls my age taking selfies and posting them on Instagram. They’re posting photos on Instagram during a fire? I have some questions about that. One, they’re taking a selfie with bedhead? Two, how are they getting WiFi?

I check my phone. It is 6:10. I’m starting to get ridiculously bored. My parents are talking about work, relaxed now that it’s looking more and more like the fire was not a Gone With the Wind-level situation. My sister has fallen asleep standing up. Her eyes are closed, and she’s humming the Harry Potter theme song. She’s asleep.

God, this is dull. People are chatting, the sun is rising. The sunrise is beautiful in an annoying way. Annoying because I no longer want to be in Florida. I want to be back home in New York City, where nothing dangerous ever happens. This is such a pain, they better be giving us all complimentary chocolate chip muffins at breakfast.

It is now 6:12. Progress. There’s no sign that we can go up anytime soon, and the hotel managers are looking harried as they run in and out of the hotel, checking to count the bodies and see how many lives have been lost. Suddenly the hotel guy standing by the door yells, “All clear, folks!”

I survived! We move towards the door.

“Are you sure it’s safe to go inside?” My dad asks him.

“Um, I think so.”

“Would you mind double checking?”

Oh, please, Dad. Everything’s fine. This is not a real thing, it might even have been a drill. I’m exhausted and I want to go back to bed. We’re allowed to take the elevators now that there’s not a fire, and everyone’s waiting for them. I hear one woman say to her young children, “Daddy’s going to take you two back to bed. Mommy’s going to the gym to burn off that cheesecake because she won’t be able to fall back to sleep.”

The sun has almost fully risen behind the sign for naked mermaids. The air is cool and even though I’m tired I feel very peaceful. I put out that fire with my mind. I know I did.

Now I’m delirious and the hotel guy comes back. It’s safe to go up.

 

The next morning at breakfast, no one mentions anything, but some respect has definitely been lost amongst the guests after seeing each other in horrifying pajamas. We’ll probably never see each other again, but we’ll all have the same near-death vacation story to tell. Maybe Taylor Swift t-shirt will write about it for his college application essay. I start thinking about the fire, and next thing I know I’m contemplating human existence and what my purpose is on this planet and whether I’ll live my life any differently now. I hope I’ve been changed by this fire, but I don’t feel anything yet. Maybe it takes a few days. Later, my mom and I head to the spa to get facials and I look up and see the Vertigo bell tower. When I close my eyes, I can still see the fire.

 

Voices

I am the voice that kills you.

I am the voice that seeps into your brain and tells you that you’re wrong. Whatever you’re doing

is wrong. You are wrong.

The lunchtime bell rings. It is lunchtime. Today baked potatoes will be consumed. Or not. And I

am the voice that will tell you not to eat it. Not to eat it and just to drink your water and cut it

into little pieces and offer some to your neighbor and exit as early as possible and –

And everyone is walking down the hall, some with smiles on their faces, some looking as though

they’d rather die; in fact, most look as though they’d rather die, and some look like they have

already.

I am the voice that tries to count the calories burned on the walk down the hallway and she is the

girl who passes you and who is healthy and who always finishes her meals without any trouble

and you are the one who does not and you are the one that you hate and

I

am

the

voice

that kills you.

The aroma is intoxicating, and the lights are fluorescent and the nurses are smiling and you are

dying inside. And that’s not too far from the truth, in reality. Maybe if you ate that baked potato,

you could stop dying inside and out.

But you can’t and you won’t, because I am the voice that trumps everything else. Logical

thought does not matter. You are not smart. You have no idea what’s good for you. I know what’s

good for you. You are in a bad situation where they want you to eat baked potatoes, but I can get

you out. You just have to trust me.

There’s butter on the tables and cheese to sprinkle on anything and everything, and little packets

of ketchup and mustard and mayonnaise that are waiting to be torn open. Poor ketchup packets.

No one will pick them up; everyone will shun them and pretend that they don’t exist, even when

the nurse encourages you to have one or two.

You don’t really feel bad for the stupid ketchup packets. You feel bad for yourself. Because

you’re picking up your fork

you’re glancing around the room to see who else is eating

you’re looking at your plate

you see your reflection and who the fuck planned plates like that anyway and it’s traveling

towards your mouth and you’re chewing and you can’t stop you can’t stop you can’t stop

you can’t stop

you can’t stop

And I hate you, you didn’t have to eat it, you could have done what you did before, before they

told you what’s good for you, and now you’ve ruined everything. You ate the baked potato and

it’s traveling down; it’s in your system and that’s it. One bite ruined everything. I am the voice

that will make sure to let you know that you have ruined everything.

They are the girls who sit across from you and carefully place their napkins on their lap,

and smile as they chew and converse with the nurses,

and they are the girls who somehow run to the bathroom afterwards and lock the door and get on

their knees but they’re most definitely not praying, because they know at least that they can’t eat

baked potatoes. They are the girls who are smart, and I am the voice that tells you that you’re not

like them; that you’re never going to be as good as them, that they have their lives figured out

and they know what they’re doing, but now you’re taking another bite because maybe you can be

like them,

but you can’t and you know you can’t.

I was the voice that somehow carried you into the gym and outside on the running track for miles

and miles and hours and hours until your lungs felt like they would burst and your legs gave out

and you almost passed out crying,

I was the voice that blamed the hunger on the stress of school and that made you stay up until

past midnight worrying about what you would or would not pack in your lunch bag the next day,

I was the voice that made you dread grocery shopping; that made you anxious every time you

passed a fruit stand on the street; that made you claw at your face and your legs when your

mother mentioned mozzarella or a birthday dinner.

And it’s your fault that I’m now the voice

that followed you in here;

that nurses try to squash with every minute;

that everyone talks about as if it’s a person, but I’m not a person, I’m a voice, and I will stay with

you. They might say you’re okay, or that you’re getting better, but you’re not okay and you’re

not better and you never will be, because you’re a failure that fucked up and landed yourself in

here, in fact it was probably because you didn’t run that extra mile that Tuesday and because you

had that second piece of pizza the Saturday before that.

And everyone knows that all humans die, but you’re dying early, because you let me in,

you let me in,

and I am the voice that kills you.

The Girl With The Map Face

The girl with the map face has lived on my block since I moved here twelve years ago. She lives in a small two story house with a small one story tree in the front yard. I’ve never seen anyone else in her house. She must live alone. I wish I lived alone. But my house is always filled with things that won’t go away. There’s a cherry blossom tree in the bath and there’s a brownstone in my living room. My kitchen is filled with giraffes and a bird’s nest grew at the foot of my bed. Sometimes new things pop up and sometimes the old ones grow. Some were there when I moved in but they were smaller then. About the size of saplings.

 

Today I’m out of orange juice so I head to the store. Walking down my block I see the girl with the map face. As she walks she laughs. Head back, shoulders heaving she laughs wholeheartedly. I wish I could see what she was laughing at, but maybe I did and just didn’t find it funny. She could’ve been laughing at the sound of someone stirring their tea in the café. Or at the laundry making rounds in the laundromat on the corner. Or at a fly that buzzed past her. She’s funny that way.

She turns with me as I make a left into the parking lot of the supermarket. We walk along past the parked cars and the lost shoes and the shopping carts. People turn to look at her as they walk by, wondering if they’ve seen her correctly. When they do she smiles and waves. I’ve never been as confident as that. I’ve never been anything like her. She walks into the store, opening her arms wide as the automatic doors swoosh open. Once she’s in she shuts her arms together as the doors swoosh close. She laughs and turns on her heel, disappearing inside. I follow shaking my head, almost in embarrassment, at the people staring in shock or disgust. They’ve never understood the girl with the map face the way she understands herself. They’ve never understood themselves the way she understands them.

 

* * * * * *

 

My name is Johnny Garage and I love people-watching. I’m good at it too, I notice the smallest details. On the subway my favorite thing is seeing people’s pupils race as they follow the signs on platforms as they rush past them. My second favorite thing is making up stories about people in my head. New York City is a good place for people-watching. There are stories walking down the street, in the park, in the library. My notebook is almost full with them, their lives and thoughts and what they’re eating for lunch spread out across my wrinkled pages. I have several sections devoted to the girl with the map face. Each page suggesting a different disaster for her to overcome. Volcanic eruptions, or robberies, or murder mysteries, or lost in the desert, or something.

 

Today’s subway ride home has a sobbing baby at one end of the car and a man playing loud music at the other. It starts to get to me and so I decide to lose myself in the girl with the map face’s miraculous escape from an underwater cave. I am writing intently until we reach my stop. It’s late and the darkness outside shocks my eyes as they go from the flickering fluorescent lights to the pitch black outside.

I pass by the laundromat and the café and am walking by the playground, empty of kids now. A shadowy figure is laying on the bench. I can tell it’s her by the dreamy way she looks up at the stars. I stand outside the wrought iron gate and watch her. Her hands are up, pointing at the sky, tracing constellations. She lifts her head suddenly and smiles up at me. Lit up by the streetlamps and the moonlight, she sits up and beckons to me. I stay there, watching, waiting. She turns away with her back to me. I cautiously take a few steps in, then a few more until I’m there, sitting on the bench next to her. She doesn’t look at me or say anything. We sit there in silence. The girl with the map face and I are sitting in silence.

We stay there for a while, watching the sky, watching each other. Then she turns to me. “You should come over sometime.” She hops up and walks away. I sit in the dark a while longer.

 

A map has attached itself to the wall in my stairwell. That’s the way it is with the things in my house. They spring up out of nowhere and nothing I can do will tear them down. I wonder if the map could have anything to do with tonight. I don’t know how it knew. How my house knew.

The goldfish bowl in my cupboard has grown to the size of an oven. My cereal boxes are pressed up against it, fighting for the bit of room left on the shelf. I pull them out, make myself some cereal, and eat. Some of my best thinking is done over cereal.

 

I don’t know how I know, but I can tell that today is the day she wants me to come over. The map in the hall grew a few inches and when I walk out to get the paper it winks at me the same way she beckoned last night. I sit at the kitchen table. What if she isn’t home? What if she doesn’t actually want me there? I can’t think about it too hard so I get dressed. I stand in the doorway of my house looking out at the sidewalk. There’s a sharp red line folding down over the stairs and curving sharply left, sketching out the way to her house. It propels me to walk, to go down the stairs and follow it. Her house is finally there, looming with a kind of forgetfulness. I open the gate. I’ve never even thought about opening her gate. I’m the kind of person that watches. And now here I am, opening her gate. The walkway up to her door is the same as any other but it feels different. I stand on her porch and hesitate. But the red line urges me forward and I ring the buzzer. A bell sounds throughout the house and then I can see her coming towards me, opening the door. She’s standing in front of me. She is barefoot, her toenails painted an orchid shade of pink. She grins at me. “I’m glad you came.” I follow her inside.

The girl with the map face leads me through her house. I don’t look at any of it as it goes by. I look at the back of her neck, forming delicate creases as she turns her head around to smile at me. I look at her arms dragging along the walls, her fingers tracing the picture frames. I look at her heels and the way they pound the floor making a thud that spreads like a spiderweb through the house. We reach the back door and walk out into the backyard. It’s small and grassy and in the center is a blanket, food laid out on top of it. She turns to face me. “I thought a picnic would be nice.”

We eat ham sandwiches and chocolate chip cookies. “I’m sorry, I’m not the best cook,” She says. I shake my head. “Oh, I don’t mind.” She lays back on the blanket and I do the same. “I’ve seen you before, you know. Before you came to the playground.” She turns her face to me. I could watch it for hours. “I know,” I say. I didn’t know. Her face flickers and for a second I can see the laughter from a few days ago.

“What do you write in your notebook?”

“Stories.”

“Am I in any of them?”

I contemplate a lie. “Yes.”

She sits up. “Why?”

I’m confused. “Why what?”

“Why am I in them.”

I have to think about this for a while.

“Because I like thinking about you.”

This makes her grin. She falls back onto the blanket. Her face is shining as she smiles and laughs, making the map dance.

“You like thinking about me,” She repeats. I don’t say anything.

“Let’s take a walk tomorrow,” She pronounces.

“A walk?”

“Yeah. A walk.”

I think about it. Then I say the only thing I can think of.

“Okay.”

 

* * * * * *

 

Tuesday was a drizzly day. The sky all grey and the clouds all grey and at sunset the clouds outlined in red. I stood on the corner, in front of the park where I saw her before. I checked my watch. Each girl I saw, each swinging hips, each long legs, each red lips, I thought it was her. But none, no face was her. And then she was coming down the street and her hair was streaming behind her as she ran and her cheeks were flushed behind the map and she was wearing a blue dress that I liked a lot. When she stopped in front of me I looked at her and I watched her pant and catch her breath. “How are you?” Never had I thought harder about a question. “I’m here,” I smiled. She grinned. “You are.”

 

We walked on down a long avenue. I hadn’t been to that part of the neighborhood before. At least not to my memory. I may have been there before but just didn’t see it. I think that when I’m with the girl with the map face I open my eyes wider.

 

We stopped in front of a church. Not a big one. Not one that belonged. Not one of the normal city ones, the ones made of brick or red and brown stone. Not one of the stacked monsters as present as air that practically shamed you into going. And it wasn’t one of the little ones. Not one of the falling down ones where Sunday School takes place in the basement. It was a country church, the kind you see in a Quaker town in Massachusetts or along the coast of Maine. Pale blue wood and a steeple with a cross on top, and white double doors left open. “Let’s go in,” said the girl with the map face. We traipsed up the steps and into the musty church.

 

The pews stretched far into the back, with a scattering of people draped along them. The church was dark and the wood floors creaked as we walked along to the front. The first few seats were all empty, the church-goers preferring the anonymity of the back pews. The girl with the map face sat down at the front in the very first row. I sat beside her. I’ve always liked churches. I like the way the air reverberates with a hum and how the electric fans spin lazily above you. I like the people who go in churches on Tuesday afternoons, the ones with repentance or pinchy high heel shoes. And I liked sitting among them, with a unanimous decision to leave the silence unwrinkled. I looked over at the girl with the map face. Her eyes were closed and her back was slumped and if I hadn’t known any better, I would’ve thought she was asleep. But I knew that behind her eyelids her pupils dilated and constricted and darted about as if she could still see it all.

 

We stayed in the church for a few minutes and then, startling me, the girl with the map face stood up and walked out. I stayed on the bench for a second and then ran to catch up. She was standing on the steps waiting for me. “Where to now?” She asked. The map crinkled as she smiled brilliantly at me. I shrugged. I liked that she left me speechless sometimes. “Are you hungry?” She asked.

“Yes.”

“Perfect.”

We walked down the street and as we turned at the corner she slipped her hand into mine.

 

After that Tuesday in October, I didn’t see her much. I looked for her when I passed the playground or at the orange juice in the supermarket. The other day I went by the church we had gone into. But for some reason our paths never crossed. Then one Saturday in November I was in my room when the phone rang. The telephone receiver was cold in my hand and the voice on the other end garbled. “Hello?”

“Johnny. It’s me.”

I knew who it was.

“Do you want to go to the museum tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow?”

She laughed.

“Come on, Johnny!”

I thought about it for awhile. Or rather, I told myself I thought about it for awhile. I already knew what I was going to say.

“Alright. Let’s go to the museum.”

“Okay. Come to my house first.”

She hung up first.

 

The museum. We were going to the museum tomorrow. I liked the fact that she had called me first. I liked the fact that before calling she must’ve been thinking about me.

 

The museum was seven blocks and a long subway ride away. I met her at her house and then we walked to the train station. It was a pretty day, pink and blue and white sky and you could still see the moon a bit. The train was filled to the brim with people and they spilled out the second the doors burst open. We shuffled on and filled it back up with our haunted thoughts and plaid scarves and frozen breath. I leaned with my back against the pole and measured her with my eyes. She smiled silently at me and then slipped an earbud into my hand. We listened to songs I didn’t know. I tried to remember every word. I wanted to sing them to her.

 

We bought two tickets to an exhibit on the fourth floor, one I had never heard of. The art itself was unimportant to me. I just liked being with her. We talked about each piece and it didn’t matter that we were the only people talking. It didn’t matter that we were getting glared at from all directions. She made things stop mattering.

 

The girl with the map face seemed to always know the intent of the artist and exactly what the piece meant. Well perhaps she made it all up, but she said it with such conviction that I couldn’t help but think it was the only possible explanation.

 

After the exhibit we explored the gift shop. She slipped a postcard into her coat pocket. I pulled a pin up into my sleeve. We carried our stolen prizes outside, exchanging them on the street.

 

The day had changed from the pastel sky to a royal blue as we walked in the cold back to our lonesome block. “Come in,” she said as we stood outside her gate. We walked up the steps and she unlocked the door. In her room, a small one smelling of lavender, I sat on her bed while she rummaged beneath it for something. She pulled out a box and set it down beside me.

“These are pictures.”

“Of what?”

“Of everything. But mostly barbed wire. Barbed wire is one of my favorite things to photograph.”

She lifted off the lid and inside were hundreds of polaroids in mismatched stacks. I reached a hand in and pulled out a few. Barbed wire set against a blue sky, against a sunset, a dog in an alleyway, a lost shoe in a parking lot. A picture of herself, of a pale pink house, of a fire hydrant, of her friends. I pulled out stack after stack and looked at them all. She pointed out her favorites or told me what she was wearing the day she took it or something like that. And then I came across a picture of me. It was taken through the laundromat window on a day I didn’t remember.

“When did you take this?”

She thought. “I don’t remember exactly.”

I laughed a little bit thinking about my notebooks and about the endless stories I had written about her. Maybe I’d show them to her someday.

I felt strange when I was with her. I felt a gingerbread warmth that made your eyes sparkle and your cheeks blush, the bewilderment of Times Square and the rushing crowds like the tides, and a certain iciness and a fog over my eyes.

 

I reached home and sat on my bed staring off into the wall. A string of Christmas lights had appeared there.

 

* * * * * *

 

Over the next few weeks we went places. We went to the movies, to the beach, to libraries, we went to a casino. And then it was Christmas. And the thrift stores and Salvation Armies were filled to the brim with moth eaten red and green sweaters. And there were people in red bibs on corners, shying away from the cold and ringing their bells to keep their blood flowing. And then there was snow. There were snowmen in the streets and masses of children in the parks and I was in my pajamas staring out the window when I saw her. She was standing across the street in a long grey coat, and her cheeks were pink and her nose was pink, and her dark hair had a sprinkling of crystalline flakes glistening over it, and the map was blushing with chapped lips and melted snow. She didn’t look up at me, sitting alone by the window, drinking coffee and staring intently. Look up, look up, look up, I thought to myself. And then she did. And she laughed and smiled and waved up at me. I waved back and found myself thinking I had never seen someone look that good in New York City in the wintertime. She raised a Polaroid camera and I saw the flash go off. And then she skipped away, holding her developing photo to her chest. I smiled to myself and then went to watch TV.

 

“It’s funny how many songs there are about Santa Fe,” the girl with the map face said to me.

“How many are there?” I asked her.

“I don’t know… I can think of at least six just off the top of my head.”

“Well, why is that funny?”

“I don’t know. I’ve just never thought of Santa Fe as being important. You know, I could understand New York, or Texas, or California, and you know there are a lot about those. But why Santa Fe?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe people just like how irrelevant it is.”

“Well I’ve never been there. And I’ve never even thought about going there either.”

We were standing outside of a travel agency. The snow was falling heavily and everyone on the streets rushed past us. But we stood, in our overcoats and knit hats, outside of a travel agency. She turned to me.

“I want to see the Rockefeller tree.” She said with a smoky look in her eye.

“Let’s go see the tree.”

We took the F up to Rockefeller Center. As we walked we sang Christmas carols. She didn’t have a good voice but no one really cared. I didn’t have a good voice either. We shoved through the crowds and made our way up as close to the tree as you could get. She stood with her neck bent all the way back and stared with wonder. I looked at her and then at the tree, hoping to see whatever it was she thought so amazing. But all I saw was tree.

“It’s beautiful,” She murmured.

I shook my head. “I just see a tree.”

“But it’s more than that. Look closer.”

I did.

“See there, that’s the park where we met. And there, that’s the little church we went to. And there’s the museum. And there’s my backyard, the picnic we had. Don’t you see?”

I looked harder, and harder still.

And I didn’t see it.

Then she looked to me, “You see it don’t you?”

I looked to her. And that’s where I saw it. I saw it in her face. I saw wet pavements and Polaroids and sunsets and barbed wire. And it was breathtaking. I felt as though I was looking past her skin and past her skull, as if looking beyond the sky and seeing outer space.

“I see it,” I told her.

She nodded. “I see it too.”

 

We walked lazily home, swinging our arms. We stopped in a bar and got drunk and then swung our arms even more.

 

I walked her up to the porch of her house and kissed her sloppily on the cheek. That was Christmas Eve. And that was the last time I saw her. Some friends called me up Christmas morning and we went out to New Jersey and spent the day walking around and making fun of everything. I didn’t think about the girl with the map face until the next day, the day after Christmas, the loneliest day of the year for someone like me. I wanted to see her, but I didn’t call. And then a week later, on New Years day, I got a call from her. I wasn’t home for it, but after I got home from my friend’s party, I heard the message.

 

“Hey, Johnny. I… uh… It’s me. I need to tell you something.”

It was the first time the girl with the map face didn’t sound sure of herself.

“I’m leaving. I’m not leaving you, I’m just leaving… this. This place. I’m sorry, Johnny.”

She sounded so

“And It’s not as if I’ve been planning this for a while. I just decided. Last night. I’m so sorry, Johnny.”

Small. So unlike herself.

“I know you’re thinking about what you could’ve done to make me stay.”

I thought of what I could’ve done to make her stay.

“But I promise you, nothing. It was so absolutely not your fault, not anyone’s fault.”

I knew it was my fault. I knew I should’ve done something.

“Please Johnny, don’t be sad. Please just forget.”

Or she should’ve told me so that I could do something.

“I love you so much Johnny. I just woke up this morning and…”

She loved me. And yet she left me.

“I knew I needed to go to Santa Fe and I…”

She was in Santa Fe.

“I know why they write all the songs about it.”

“It’s because of the view. Because you can look around you and see everything, your whole life, spread out against the sand like a map.”

Like a map.

Like her.

 

* * * * * *

 

It’s been years since that day in rotten December. But I still write about her. I still stop outside of churches and travel agencies and listen for Santa Fe songs.

The map still hangs in the hallway. It’s grown a little bit since she left, it’s about the size of a doorway.

 

All in all she was classic rock radio stations and artificial cherry flavoring. She was leaves shaped like elephant ears and she was marathon runners and checkered floor tiles. She was black ankle boots and American Bandstand. I remember the days of the girl with the map face with a burnt orange kind of fondness.

 

I never saw her again. But once every year I receive a blank Santa Fe postcard and a pressed flower in the mail. There is no return address, no note. Yet even an idiot would know who it was from.

 

End.

Not Sure What You Mean by Unrelatable: A Study in Humanities

I never skip class. I’ve never just not gone to a class. Sure, I’ve taken “sick” days and days where I’ve actually been lying on my couch with a 102 degree fever, but skipping class? Coming in late? Never. Nada. Not happening.

 

But, on May 24, that all changed.

 

“MOM!” I yelled from my bed that morning.

 

My alarm had gone off at 6:30,  but was I getting up? No way in hell.

 

“What’s wrong?” my mom said, rushing into my room. I never bother my parents in the morning: one of my dad’s favorite things to brag about to his co-workers is that I can get up and make breakfast on my own.

 

“I’m not going to humanities this morning,” I said smugly.

 

Humanities. Humanities.

 

The night before, I had gotten a C- on my Great Gatsby essay. The essay that I had started a week before it was due, that I actually made an outline for, and that I had put many hours into. I had come up with my own topic and ran with it. I had put so much thought and effort into this piece. Here is an excerpt from my not-done-the-night-before essay that I actually cared about:

 

The Great Gatsby is a book that tricks you. It tricks you into thinking that the theme and the characters are unrelatable, but,  when digging deeper, it is evident that everyone can identify with at least one character in some way–and that is what is the most painful and the most shocking about this novel. Each of these main characters reflects and reminds us of a part of ourselves, which proves the Great Gatsby to be an “inclusive” novel.  

 

When I was sure my argument was well-developed and it was perfectly proofread, I electronically submitted the paper at 11pm.

 

I went to go take a shower and when I came back to the computer to finish up some math homework, I saw that I had one new email from my very favorite, should have won the teacher-of the-year-award, humanities teacher. (He actually has published 7 books and has a PHD from an Ivy League and has taught at schools such as Harvard, Brown, and Sarah Lawrence College, but still.)

 

I took a deep breath, and opened up the email. I mean, I wasn’t that nervous. I felt more confident than usual, since I had put in so much thought and care into this essay.

 

Jane, he starts off,

See my comments on the attached. What’s good about this essay is that you make a real effort… The problem — it’s a big one — is that you don’t really support your assertion with evidence. I’d like to see you work on this some more. I’m hoping that the detailed feedback will give you a map. We can also meet if you’d like. I give this paper a C-.

 

Ok, first of all, can I just say that I hate when teachers say, “We can also meet if you’d like” after they give you a horrible grade? I mean, come on, you couldn’t have met with me before I got the C-? And now that I hate you because you’ve given me the bad grade, I am NEVER meeting with you.

 

Second of all, the detailed feedback he had sent me included words and phrases such as, “Awkward”, “confused”, and, my personal favorite, “Not sure what you mean by unrelatable.”

 

I’m sorry, but how can a guy who graduated from, like, five different Ivy League schools not understand the word “unrelatable?”

 

Also, let me just add in that none of this supposedly “detailed feedback” was bolded…or colored…or italicized…so I had to search high and low in this seemingly-cursed word document for his critiques. At one point, I thought that I had forgotten to proofread, but then I realized that it was just him.

 

But, anyway, back to this so-called genius not being able to understand what “unrelatable” meant. Listen, I haven’t even written seven books (yet) nor do I have a well-thought-of American History blog where I talk about my students (yes, true story,) but I can certainly tell you what “unrelatable” means.

 

Unrelatable means something that you can’t relate to.

 

Yeah, yeah, I know that you’re not supposed to use the actual word when defining the word, but whatever—save that for your SAT tutor. When you can’t relate, it means that you don’t feel a connection. You don’t feel connected to whatever it is you’re seeing, learning, or, in this case, reading. Even though the word “unrelatable” isn’t technically a dictionary-definition-kind-of word, it’s the kind of “urban dictionary” word where you should be able to use your common sense to figure out what it means! The novel appears unrelatable, even though it really is relatable…duh!

 

So, clearly, my point about The Great Gatsby being unrelatable didn’t seem to “connect” with this humanities teacher.

 

Which brings me back to the morning of May 24, the day that will go down in history, when I skipped my first ever class.

(Well, okay, I didn’t technically “skip” it…my mom called the school office and told them I was coming in late because I had a “doctors appointment.” But still, I missed humanities that morning and that was all that mattered.)

That entire morning I sat in bed, computer in lap, with my Gatsby book by my side. For some reason, I was determined to fix this paper. I don’t know why, either, because I’m usually the type of person who brings out my inner Cher from Clueless to try to find a way to negotiate with/sue my teachers in order to give me a better grade, but this time was different. I was determined to get this paper back to Mr. Humanities that very night.

 

It was kind of weird, actually. But then again, I’ve never gotten an email like that from a teacher nor have I ever started a paper the week before it was due and worked to no end, so I’m guessing that’s probably why.

 

So, all day and all night I slaved away on that stupid paper. I found tons of new quotes, tried to make my thesis more clear, in other words, make something that was more up Mr. Humanities’ alley and less up mine. And I even changed my title. Come on, you know when you change a freakin’ title of an essay that means you really revised it.

 

I e-mailed the re-write of the essay at around midnight, and went to bed feeling extremely relieved and maybe a little cocky. I was done with that Great Gatsby essay forever, and I sent my re-write in less than 24 hours. I deserve at least, like, nine awards. Probably more.

 

Jane, Mr. Humanities’ reply to my re-write starts off.

 

This is better. The thesis is clear and you’ve gotten rid of the a lot of the distracting, unsupported assertions. As I note, though, the quality of your evidence is not quite as strong as I think it should be; you don’t seem to pick your examples with as much care as I’d like to see. So while I think it’s certainly acceptable — I’ve changed your grade to a B — I invite you to work on this some more. But that’s up to you. Have a good weekend.

 

You know what, Mr. Humanities? No. I’m not going to have a good weekend. In fact, you’ve ruined my weekend…so don’t even bother signing your uppity email with that.

At this point, I was ready to accept the B. (Wow, Mr. Humanities, maybe I’ll make that the title of my next book) I mean, a B is not the end of the world. I had worked hard enough on that essay (all in less than 48 hours, may I add), so why not just call it a day and take the B?

But then, I checked my overall grade point average in humanities…

and decided not to take the B.

 

So, by now, you all probably know the drill—I sat not in my bed but on my couch this time, with my computer in my lap and my stupid god-damned Great Gatsby book by my side. By now, it felt like me and F. Scott Fitzgerald were old pals. Mr. Humanities wanted me to add a motive to my paper, which he defined as the “so-what?” in an essay. So why does your argument matter?

I worked all day, I worked all night, and by the end of the weekend, I was finally done (literally and figuratively) with this stupid essay that has made me never want to see the Great Gatsby movie.

 

This time, I had changed my argument to one I didn’t agree with and didn’t like. I used all the big words I could find on Wordreference.com, found even more quotes, and even made a bibliography, which wasn’t even necessary, but I obviously had to spice things up a little bit. I saved the essay, hit send (with a subject line of GREAT GATSBY WITH MOTIVE, just in case he didn’t understand that I was now writing the essay for him and not for me), and closed my computer. I never wanted to see another word document again.

 

Monday morning, I sat in my free period at school, and checked my email. I knew that his reply to my reply to his reply to my reply to his reply was sitting in my inbox.

And it was.

Jane, he wrote, like usual.

This essay continues to improve. I do think you understand what a motive is now — that’s good. As I mentioned last time, I might have liked to see you refine your evidence, and in particular I might have liked to see a motive that goes beyond essentially agreeing with an author and making a more original statement. But there’s no question that this piece has a clear argument, buttressed by real evidence and an evident structure. I hope you feel these revisions have strengthened your sense of craft. Revised grade: A-

 

Thank God! Finally, an email from him that didn’t require me to re-write something?! I thought this day would never come. And I get an A-? Wow, Christmas must have come early this year. Humanity for all!

 

 

We Shatter Glass Globes

Euphony

 

 

The pads of fingers kiss and synchronize with gravel tunes

and smooth notes, quick meter

and bounce

snap

baby, do you wanna dance?

 

Pointed nails trace lines and lyrics

and engrave them onto the nape of your neck

and mama tells you

she is sad

 

Violet violas play

as we lift up up and up

conducting with our pinkies

I see, I feel, I hear

light

 

She prays in spanish

clasps a golden cross

between her interlaced palms

She is thanking through furrowed brows

and speaks singsong

 

I complain about his knuckles,

swollen from beating his drum, punching bags, and cold faces

he replies in clops of drunken laughter

and blue bellows

 

 

 

Up

 

 

She climbed sedentary cement-levels

escalating through the house-front hole

lined with photosynthesizing unflowers

 

Fractured letter-post read “Thank you for caring”

iron-oxidized, corrosive

gnarly-hydroburnt

burnt

burn

 

She witnessed

dissociating benumb-white chill

idiosyncratic beads of saltsnow

both on the pavement and brimming the see-spheres of aunts and cousins

 

Inside smelled of coy co-chemicals

snuffed by undulating back-noise

gentle upcurved liplines that were quasi-fermented or rather,

rotten

 

Down the intra-footfalls

was light

and a casket

 

She imagined the lower person-place beamed boisterosity

saw his palms permeate pendulumic light

heard kinder loud-letter words

soft-spoke organic condolences

 

Still she remained at the uplevel

in troposphere of precipitated cumulus

not daring to dive

 

Up was unheavy

 

And there were finches

caged in encumbered plexi-clear

dipped in wavelength wing trails

crests and troughs hyper-reciprocated

always resurfacing

An Ode

 

 

A child

Deserving innocence

And undulating imagination

She knows nothing real

she will learn nothing physical

 

Mass renders gravity

And wakes

and crumpled cars

and broken bones and the first days of school; the world-rules

They only procure see-sphere tears

and foggy eye-ozone

 

My child

How her heart dilates

and her pupils pulsate-pump

In wonder and novel maturity

She sheds her adolescent hubris

Embalmed in adulthood rigor

 

She sprints through the increments

Exclaiming, “This year I will be brave and dance and I will be temerarious and wily

and I will be incisive and subdued and reluctantly phlegmatic

and I will be sometimes blue

 

I will learn about anti-motion emotion and I will master tardiness and I will gain

a few seething pimples, but of course, never pop them

I will quote Sophocles and misspell Oedipus Rex, and I will reinvent the alphabet,

eliminating the sequence ‘ine’ because it stifles round vowels and

breath

 

And I will be an un-childish”

 

Our un-child,

How she lives our love

 

Missing Mae

Bill woke up one morning and noticed he hadn’t quite realized how loudly his knees creaked before. He hadn’t noticed just how cold the hardwood floors got in the winter, hadn’t seen all the dirt on the windows. Had there even been any dirt, before Mae died? The stairs had been a challenge for a while, now. He kept meaning to buy a new cane after the other one broke a few days ago, but he never could bring himself to leave the house.

Soon, he knew, the food his son had bought when he’d been there two weeks ago would run out. Jack had bought him what felt like a year’s supply of food; Mae left the house constantly, so she only used to buy a few days’ worth of food at a time. And she was a wonderful cook, too. That’s what he’d first noticed about her when they started dating.

When he finally got down the stairs, Bill looked around at the living room. When had it gotten so dim-looking? Like an old folks’ home, he thought, that’s how it looks. And Bill always swore to himself he’d never let himself get stuck in an old folks’ home. He sat down on the couch, slowly. The dent in the cushion from years of sitting felt like an old friend. Bill always personified things. The therapist he’d once had had said it could be a sign of something serious. Bill didn’t know about that, much. Mae had said she loved his personifications, when he told her what Dr. Baxter had said.

He felt bad for the cushion that Mae used to sit in. He could relate to it. They both missed Mae. But at least Mae’s old cushion still had Bill’s cushion as a partner. Bill was on his own.

The phone rang, and Bill realized he should have listened to his neighbor and put a phone nearer to the couch. It was so hard just to stand up lately. And he’d only just sat down.

He groaned, feeling a pain in his back that he was starting to think maybe he should call a doctor about. “I’m coming,” he said to nobody in particular; maybe to the phone. “Hello?” he said, once he finally reached the other side of the room.

“Dad,” came the voice. “How you doing? How do you feel? Gone outside?” It was Jack.

“Yeah, I’m fine, kiddo,” said Bill. “Gone on walks, been to the…park.” It was all a lie, of course. But Bill had never been good at asking his son for help. And his son had never been good at knowing when Bill was lying.

“Great, great. Well, just checking in, making sure you’re doing okay. If you need anything, let me know, alright? I’m just a few miles away.”

“I’m sure I’ll be just fine, thanks. Tell Melissa I say hello.”

“Will do. Bye, Dad,” Jack said, and hung up. Back on the sofa, Bill turned on the television. He’d never watched it much when Mae was around. Now he could barely remember what he did when Mae was around. But it sure as hell didn’t have anything to do with a television.

He clicked the on button and the screen lit up, a man he didn’t like the look of yelling at him to “BUY USED CARS TODAY!” and holding a big blue flag. Bill changed the channel and another man he didn’t recognize, but assumed was famous, was being extensively talked about by a group of young men and women. All the people, all at once, unrecognizable, upset him. He didn’t know these people, didn’t know what they talked about, couldn’t even hear their voices clearly. And they made him feel so alone. He shut off the television in a hurry, ready to escape them all.

But what next? He really did need more food, really did need a cane. And he wouldn’t accomplish much by staying seated on the lonely couch forever. Bill barely knew where a person would go to get what he needed. Target, he’d heard Mae talk about. Target. She’d said there was one on every corner, it felt like. His stomach jolted when he thought about leaving the house, being in a room full of strangers. And he would need help, wouldn’t he? Wouldn’t he need help navigating what he assumed to be a big store? That meant talking to someone new.

Maybe I could have Jack do this, he thought. But worse than the thought of a room full of strangers was the thought of needing his son desperately. Needing anyone desperately. Bill had only let him buy the food because Jack hadn’t asked. Just showed up with it all.

The old man put his head in his hands. He’d known this would have to happen, sometime. Finding his way in the world without Mae, though…always seemed like it could never happen. And he never thought it’d happen this early, if ever.

His stomach growled angrily up at him. I can’t do this anymore, he thought.

And he felt like a coward. He felt angry.

The walls were suddenly the ugliest yellow he’d ever seen; the color of rotten mustard and dirty teeth. The carpet was too thick. He hated how he could see the little spills of coffee, or maybe tea. He hated how the kitchen table had to have a thin plastic-y tablecloth because he couldn’t trust himself with a normal, cloth one anymore.

And Bill hated himself. He felt nauseous, disgusted with himself and his old age and his horrible house. It was never a horrible house back when Mae lived in it, even though he assumed it must’ve looked just the same. But it couldn’t have looked just the same; Mae changed it.

At least the nausea meant he lost his appetite. With a grim smile, he thought that if only he could stay disgusted with himself, he would never have to eat again.

He pushed himself up from the couch, aching as he did so. He immediately regretted his decision; he realized he didn’t have a plan for what to do after he stood. But there stood Bill, head rushing from standing up with what didn’t used to qualify as speed. They had a guest room on the first floor of the house, so Bill decided to go to sleep. Maybe it was about time to move into that room permanently. His hunger was back.

He hadn’t wanted to touch the canned foods that Mae had left in the cellar. He didn’t want to disrupt anything Mae had made with her own hands. He would figure it out when he woke up.

The bed was softer than the one upstairs. This was a relief; it gave him an excuse to switch bedrooms. Not that there was anyone he would have to give an excuse to. But he almost felt like he had to give Mae an excuse for why he left the bedroom they’d shared for so many years in exchange for one that Mae had barely touched.

Bill’s eyes shut, his stomach crying out one more time. Eventually he would have to disrupt the cans of food.

He awoke when a shout came from the street. He turned his head and saw a little girl running past his window, chasing a little boy. The trees aren’t happy with the children’s noise, Bill thought. Neither am I. He wished he could let the trees know he understood, let them know they weren’t alone in their feelings.

He laid there for a moment, surprised to find himself in the guest room. “What the hell?” he muttered.

And then he got hit with remembrance, at the same time feeling a pang of hunger.

He decided he wouldn’t let himself starve; besides, Mae made that food for a reason. Why let all her hard work go to waste?

Slowly, he went downstairs, eventually reaching the door. It was heavier than he remembered, but it had been years since he’d tried to open it. It creaked loudly, and the smell of dust came through the doorway. The light flickered on once he managed to make the stiff switch budge upward. And there were shelves and shelves of jars and cans.

The jars were full of what looked like pickles, olives, blue and red and purple jams.

There were cans of peaches, raspberries, pineapples, and pears. Mae had also kept paper towels on the lower shelves, though Bill wasn’t sure how well he could bend to reach those. He was so relieved to see how well Mae had prepared for a storm. But it saddened him, knowing that she would never know how helpful she’d been. And his pride in her only made him miss her more.

With a sigh, Bill pulled down a can of peaches and a jar of pickles. He hoped he made the right decision. He didn’t want to upset the other foods. “Goodbye,” he said, as he flicked off the light to the cellar and made his way upstairs. He would be back for dinner.

The stairs groaned sadly as he stepped on each one, the wooden planks unused to his heavy feet.

When he reached the kitchen, Bill found the can opener and a bowl. He dumped the peaches in, only realizing afterward that he didn’t even like peaches much. But then again, he didn’t like anything, much, anymore.

He sat in the chair and ate the peaches quickly. He barely even tasted them, but smiled as he thought of Mae’s careful hands slicing the peaches what must have been years ago.

The window watched him, feeling his loneliness. The old man felt bad and, with a great deal of effort, shut the blinds. He didn’t want to cause any sadness to anyone else.

When the peaches were done, he didn’t want the pickles. He left them on the table, figuring he could use them for dinner. He rinsed out the bowl and placed it on a towel to dry.

He had a headache; he could feel it coming on. He walked to the bathroom and forgot what he went there for the moment he saw his reflection. He looked like the dogs with sad eyes and droopy ears. Bloodhounds. He used to have a bloodhound named Georgia. He missed Georgia, now, too. When had his eyes gotten so bagged and wrinkled? When had his hair become so thin? He used to be a handsome man, he knew. In high school he’d had many girlfriends, but hadn’t liked any of them much. He’d never been in love till his sophomore year of college, when he met Mae.

He nearly walked away without the aspirin, but the dull throbbing in his head reminded him once more.

He opened the bottle but couldn’t pick which pills to take. He felt that if he offended one it would surely not work the way he wanted it to. “I’ll dump the bottle and take the first two,” he said. He felt that this satisfactorily explained the situation to the pills.

Bill poured two pills into his hand. “Sorry,” he said into the rest of the bottle, and shut it. Swallowing the medicine, he hoped he’d made the right decision. He didn’t want to hurt anyone.

He was suddenly tired again. It was four o’clock. He walked into the guest room and laid down again, on the other side of the bed this time. He decided to spend an equal amount of time on each side of the bed, so that both sides felt useful. He would do his best to make the bed feel as if Mae was in it, too.

He couldn’t fall asleep as quickly, this time. He just sat in the bed, thinking that maybe he should read. Or maybe he should try the television one more time. He might as well get used to it. Maybe he would learn to like it, even.

After what felt like hours, Bill decided to leave the room and read. The bed was unhappy that he hadn’t slept, he knew. It felt like it hadn’t done its job. It probably wished he was Mae. He couldn’t blame it. He would wish the same.

When he reached the bookshelf he realized he hadn’t read since before Jack visited. It’s been too long since I’ve used my brain, Bill thought. He shut his eyes, randomly choosing a book from the shelf.

Reading felt good. It felt like he was himself again. He didn’t know why he hadn’t done it in so long. Time felt faster when he read. Until he remembered that he was alone in the room. Then he could barely read the words, so he shut the book and stared out the window. The worst thing about missing someone, he thought, is that the only thing that could ever make you feel better is being with them. He couldn’t escape. He said, “how could you do this to me?” And the pattern on the rug swirled and he swore he could see Mae’s face for a moment. She was disappointed, he knew. He wasn’t living well enough without her. And she had always taken such good care of him.

The phone rang, distracting him momentarily. He picked up. “Dad!” said Jack.

“Hey there,” Bill replied. “How are you, son?”

“I’m fine. You know I’m calling to ask you the same thing.”
“I’m doing alright. Read a book, ate some peaches, took a nap. Took a walk. Went to the grocery store. Learning to like the television, even. I’m doing great.” Bill was lying through his teeth, praying the bit about the TV wasn’t too far-fetched for his son.

It wasn’t. “That’s really great, Dad. So good to hear. Do you need anything? Mel and I are on our way to the mall now, anyway, and it’s not that far from your house.”

“I’m really fine. Don’t worry about a thing.”

“Alright, if you’re sure. Bye, Dad.”

“See you.” And he hung up with a click.

Bill had never been a religious man. He wasn’t disdainful of religion; he just hadn’t felt that he could use it in his own life. But lately he’d been praying.

When Mae started looking worse and worse, he prayed that she would live.

After she died, he prayed that he would be able to live without her.

And now he prayed for this again, but with a little less hope.

He also prayed that his son would never realize the poor shape his lonely father was in.

He was embarrassed. The walls were seeing him in a way he’d hoped they never would. He felt that Mae could see him through the walls. He wished he could be somewhere empty, somewhere where there were no walls or cushions or pills to be saddened by his inability to live without Mae.

The floor wished it could help him, the empty can of peaches he had thrown out earlier thought it deserved something more than just being tossed in the garbage. It deserved a monument. The burned-out lightbulb on the ceiling was upset that Bill had been ignoring it for so long. The whole world pitied Bill. And he hated being pitied.

He felt trapped, but didn’t want to go outside. He couldn’t bear the thought of opening himself up to more people’s sympathetic eyes. The sadness of his own house was bad enough.

So there he was, standing by the phone, praying as best as he knew how. He hoped it would be enough.

“I know I don’t pray a lot,” he said out loud. “I hope you don’t hold that against me. I just…things aren’t going so well.” He cringed when he heard himself say this. “I’m fine,” he decided, unable to leave his previous words just hanging in the air.

 

Should The Government Ban Large Sodas?

Mayor Bloomberg recently prohibited the sale of sugary drinks larger than 16 ounces at movie theaters, food carts, and restaurants. Bloomberg has done this due to the rise in obesity. He believes that obesity has been a looming challenge for the nation as a whole, not just because of their health, but economically in paying for the treatments of diseases caused by obesity. Although these statements are true, I think the mayor is going a little too far.

Imagine a new movie just released in the theaters. Moe and his friends are going to the theater as we speak. They enter the concession stand, about to buy some popcorn to share. Moe is ready to choose his favorite soda, extra large. He orders it, and is all done by the time the movie over. Moe goes home, has a dinner of fried chicken, french fries, and another couple of Cokes. And some cake. And a cookie or two. And a bag of chips. Bloomberg is curious and interviews Jeff. Jeff is some guy that works at the movie theater. He recalls 15 large drinks have been bought in only the past hour. He distresses for humanity. So does Bloomberg.

The mayor then comes up with a plan. It’s simple, but he’s sure it will be the most effective. Ban large drinks all together! Forbid Moe to ever lay his eyes on a 16-ounce Coke again. He imagines Moe with his salad and glass of milk at home. Ordering the healthy options in restaurants!

Then imagine a new movie is just released. Moe and his friends are going to the theater as we speak. They enter the concession stand, about to buy some popcorn to share. Moe is ready to choose his favorite soda, extra large. Just as he asks, Jeff tells him Mayor Bloomberg banned all large sodas. Moe is really depressed, so he orders a medium Coke and five bags of Cheetos. He is all done by the time the movie is over. Moe goes home, has a dinner of a jumbo cheeseburger, french fries, and another couple of Cokes. And some cake. And a cookie or two. And a bag of chips. Angry Moe emails Jeff.

Bloomberg is left with a sudden outburst from the community. Americans around the world are outraged. The mayor wants to see if the ban helped in the movie theaters. He interviews Jeff. Jeff tells him that there were no sodas sold (obviously). The mayor is overjoyed! But then Jeff informs him that 25 medium cokes were sold. And there was a 20% increase of popcorn purchases. Bloomberg becomes extremely at loss.

Jeff then forwards the email from Moe to Bloomberg. It reads: “This is a ridiculous argument. Americans have the right to drink what they want. You should invest in bigger problems! Education and the homeless. If people want to be obese, that’s their problem and their choice. It’s not hurting anyone but us. This ban isn’t going to change anything at all.” Bloomberg opens the email and takes it into consideration. What if Bloomberg remembered how Americans’ diets were still unhealthy? That people were still making bad food choices? What if Bloomberg then realized one size of one category of drinks in one place isn’t going to save the diet of humanity? He needed a plan.

Imagine a new movie is released in theaters (again). Moe and his friends are going to the theater as we speak (again). They enter the concession stand, about to buy some popcorn to share. Moe is about to order a medium soda, and nachos, and his own personal bag of popcorn because he’s feeling antisocial due to the shock of the large soda being banned. Then, he saw a poster. It explained how much little choices can mean. It informed about health and the rising obesity of Americans. As Moe read, he decided to try to make a healthier choice. He looked up at the food options: Nachos, corn dogs, chips, large sodas, salad, veggie burger. Wait. Salad?! Veggie burgers?! Large sodas?! Moe ordered a large soda and a salad, saving himself tons of calories. He is finished when the movie is over. Moe goes home and has meatloaf and green beans. And one slice of cake.

Bloomberg is overjoyed, humanity has been changed, and… nothing has changed with Jeff.

Oasis for Lost Souls

The lightning strike happened once every century. A fork of white heat would streak across a black canvas, like a spotlight, a searchlight, a beacon whistling a quiet plea of notice. Then came the purple glow, and legend had it that the glow was a direct calling from God himself, imprinting instructions into their wandering minds. Last was a cascading flurry of red dashes, crimson cuts, eyelashes blinking, clouding the purple eye, staring down at the Called.

 

Then it was gone, and darkness enveloped the world once again.

 

Diana was twenty-two. Black hair. Big eyes. An artist from the Big Apple, yet somehow she found herself in Vegas, two hundred dollars and an extra pair of shoes in her drawstring bag. New Year’s Eve coming up, too. She brought friends along with her– some no-names from the art scene in Brooklyn– to get roaring drunk and spend their last quarters on the slot machine. They didn’t have enough to pay rent anyway.

 

Diana couldn’t explain why she’d chosen Las Vegas when her friends asked her where they should go. It felt as if a magnet was stapled to the back of her head. Every step she took to the east, to the coastline of the city, or to the Portuguese bakery next to her favorite park, she felt a sharp tug pulling her west. There was an odd pressure against her neck when she went to bed, and her head would twist to the side, never quite resting on the pillow right. She was distracted, too. A recent NYU graduate, she knew she’d be stumbling around blindly for a while. But this was something else.

 

The first few days in Vegas were uneventful, if gambling and drinking and puking weren’t considered events. Diana couldn’t relish the moment. With shaking hands she threw down a pair of sevens, lost fifty dollars, and with shaking eyes she watched her friends tilt their heads back, necks arched, cackle as if the money were nothing. Diana thought maybe if that magnet wasn’t in the back of her head, she could tilt her neck in the right way and laugh along with them. Yet her heart was still misguided, and with twenty five dollars to her name, she spoke up. “You chose this place, Diana,” they scolded when she suggested slowing down, saving something so that they could afford that last night in the hotel. “Don’t be such a fucking killjoy.”

 

On New Year’s Eve, Diana tried to drink champagne, but the bubbles wouldn’t slide down her throat without scratching the skin inside. Her friends were drunk, and they danced to the beat of a dubstep song in the back arena of the hotel. Diana felt the bass of the music in her spine, tried to move loosely like her friends, but she was a robot among ballet dancers. Too little alcohol, she told herself. Drink.

 

But it wasn’t working, and Diana could feel tears threatening to cascade down her cheeks. Chest tight, she pushed her way through the crowd into open air. She found her feet planted on the back porch of the hotel, facing the western sky. The sun trickled beneath jagged cliff edges, and Diana forced herself to breathe. Be normal just for once, Diana. Breathe.

 

Except that magnet was still in the back of her head, twisting her thoughts as if her mind were trapped in a tornado. She focused on the sunset, focused on the melting hues and the perfect stillness, the rocks a mile out that looked like shark teeth. She told herself, over and over, to be normal. Just for once.

 

And then Diana felt her feet move. Not back to the hotel, to her intoxicated friends and full glass of champagne and pulsing strobe lights. Her feet pulled her off of the porch, onto the dusty rubble of Nevada’s vast deserts. One after the other, toe to heel, she moved to the jagged teeth and the hot, melting sun.

 

Diana couldn’t speak as her legs jerked up and down, pulling her to the west. She knew she should be terrified, should be sobbing and clawing her way back to the hotel. But an odd sense of calm wafted over her, and she decided that if this was what being possessed felt like, she didn’t mind it in the least.

 

The sun was sinking below the shark teeth, casting the desert in a warm orange hue. Diana was transfixed, eyes peeled open and head held high. The glow of the sun was like an oven, sizzling Diana’s skin as a bead of sweat dripped from her hairline. But she didn’t mind; the tranquility was stronger than any drug she’d ever used in Brooklyn. It was a natural high, and she felt like she was soaring.

 

Soon Diana was standing below the teeth. It hadn’t taken quite as long as she’d expected. She reached a hand out and felt the cool rock in front of her. The sun had completely disappeared now, casting the world in a dark navy tinge. Diana watched as her hand moved back and forth, felt the little bumps and ridges and nooks of the rock. She glanced behind her. The hotel was a little blip of light on the horizon.

 

A light to the left made Diana stop. She whipped around, and a door was etched into the rock, a pasty glow emanating from inside. Every instinct, every hint of sanity and reason and rationality told her to turn around and run. She’d probably been drugged, or was on an acid trip and didn’t even know it. Fuck it. She had to run.

 

Except Diana felt the magnet pull her forward, into the light of the door. All at once, the light overwhelmed her senses, and all she could see was white, all she could feel was the escalating beat of her heart, all she could hear were her quick intakes of breath. If she was dying, she didn’t mind. The fear had evaporated with the burst of light at the door.

 

“Welcome to the Oasis for Lost Souls, Diana. I hope you enjoy your stay.”

 

The voice was inside her head. Calm. Soothing. Like a thick pool of honey trickling down her throat from that cold metal spoon. Her mother used to make her eat honey when her throat hurt, back in the suburbs of New York. Then Diana left, went on her big adventure. Big Apple, Big dreams, Big debts. Big, vacant holes that she just couldn’t fill. Big, whopping tears, then finally, dry eyes in the desert. And now the soothing voice that enveloped her like a warm blanket. It knew her already, she could tell. It was an old friend welcoming her home, like she’d never been home before.

 

The light began to wilt, slowly trickling to form a cool grey. Diana squinted, blinking her long lashes. Shapes danced around her, midnight blacks and pearly whites. Voices, not The Voice, but voices all the same. A bustle of energy. More squinting, lashes flicking. A clear image clicked into place.

 

It was a diner. Tall red and white-striped pillars lined the entrance, tapering into the blurred horizon. To Diana’s left were rows of booths, two seats with room for two facing each other, a violet marble table perched between them. To her right was an endless clear counter, lined with pink cakes and crumbly muffins and sweet tarts. Glittering red stools sat side-by-side. There was no ceiling, she realized, tilting her neck as far back as it could go. White light like a crystalline sky encased the diner, folding around the contents in every direction, even the floor.

 

And the people. Seated at the booths, idly stirring mugs of coffee, chatting away. Swiveling on the stools. Walking up and down the main path, grins plastered on their gleaming faces. Some were waitresses and waiters, dressed in pinstripes. The others were a melting pot. Diana had never seen such diversity, not even in New York – headdresses, Chanel bags, suits, robes. Diana laughed, cupped a hand to her mouth. Standing in the doorway, she was an outsider. But she already had an odd premonition that this place was hers.

 

“See that empty seat? It’s all yours.” The Voice. In her head again.

 

Two minutes later, she was seated, swiveling back and forth. Her mind was reeling. Drugs? Too real to be a hallucination. Had she died? Maybe. Was she terrified? Not sure.

 

“It’s a lot to take in, isn’t it?” A waitress was suddenly standing in front of her, leaning on the countertop. Diana realized it had been the waitress’ voice floating through her head. The waitress turned away before Diana could speak. But soon she was back, with a steaming mug of green tea, no sugar. Just how Diana liked it. “Soon you won’t be stuck in the initial shock. You need time is all.”

 

Diana nodded. So many questions. Yet she could feel time trickling away. That slippery beast, time. Never enough. “Where am I? I know it’s an… Oasis. But really. Am I dead?”

 

The waitress laughed. “Nonsense, sweetheart. Just in between. You’ll be back in a little while.” The waitress pursed her ruby red lips, her blue eyes bright. She leaned down to Diana’s eye level, then pointed behind Diana’s head. “See that clock over there?” Diana swiveled her stool, gazing at the white sky, searching for what the waitress was talking about. Then she saw the black frame, about five feet in diameter , and the intricately carved hands. On ten. It was only ten o’clock?

 

The waitress, now whispering in Diana’s ear, sensed her confusion. “Time runs differently here. That clock controls it all. At twelve, we’ll disappear.”

 

Diana’s heart thumped. It should have been ominous, yet the waitress spoke nonchalantly, her voice laced with a thick twang like melted sugar and gooey cotton candy. If she wasn’t concerned, Diana shouldn’t be, either.

 

“How is this happening?” Such a simple question, and Diana pleaded for a clear answer. Intriguing as it was, she needed concrete. The white sky wasn’t enough to plant her feet on.

 

“Well, that’s the million dollar question,” the waitress began. Diana nodded her head, eyes wide, begging the waitress to go on. “See, you’re here because you’re, shall we say, finding your way. And we’re here because of the lightning strike,” the waitress paused when she saw Diana’s unblinking eyes and slack jaw. Lightning strike. Sounded like a bad movie. “It happens once every century,” the waitress continued, idly twirling a strand of chestnut hair. “And there we are. Here I am.”

 

“Where do you go? You know, at twelve,” Diana struggled to string the puzzle pieces together. Champagne. Shark teeth. Light. Diner. Waitress. Clock. Lightning strike. The progression was too fast, too disjointed. It didn’t fit.

 

The waitress giggled, and grabbed Diana’s cup of tea that Diana hadn’t realized she’d emptied. In a second it was steaming in front of her. “Too many questions, sweetheart.” The waitress straightened her apron on her uniform and turned to the woman on Diana’s left, pouring her a glass of lemonade.

 

Diana swiveled her stool to face the rest of the diner. Hundreds of people. Hundreds of stories. She was overwhelmed, yet unbelievably content. It was that magnet whispering emotions into her head, she was sure.

 

“I’ve got it!” Diana felt a tap on her shoulder and turned her stool to the right. She was bombarded by a pair of icy blue eyes boring into her own, a finger pointed at her chest. “I bet you’re a Diana. It’s the nose.”

 

“Excuse me?” Diana’s heart thumped and her spine tickled with nervous anticipation for the first time since she had entered the diner. She hadn’t uttered her name aloud, not yet. Maybe the rest could hear that voice in her head, too. Maybe–

 

“Sorry to freak ya out,” the man with the icy blue eyes leaned back on his stool and took a sip of coffee. “The name’s Barns. From Missouri. Been here,” he gazed at the clock on the wall, “five hours. Lovin’ it.”

 

Diana nodded. He seemed friendly enough. If he was in the diner, and if the waitress wasn’t lying, then he was lost too. Instant connection.

 

“So tell me, Miss Diana– oh yeah, it’s the nose because all them Diana’s got it; that English princess, the Roman goddess, and that actress on the TV sometimes. I always try to guess folks’ names. It’s a talent of mine — what brings you to the Oasis?” Barns peered closely at her, and it felt as though he was looking directly into her soul, unspooling her genes and thoughts with each syllable.

 

She hadn’t really thought of why she was there, actually. It just felt right. That magnet.

 

“I don’t exactly know,” she confessed. “I’m just here, I guess.”

 

Barns leaned back in his chair and cackled. “I guess? I guess? Well, Miss Diana, therein lies your problem! You’ve got to be sure! No more second-guessing. Put in all you’ve got, or go home crying, that’s my motto,” Barns jabbed a thumb at his chest, clearly proud of his advice. “I been living that way since ‘79. Sure of everything I do, and certainly certain of that.”

 

“Then why are you here?” Diana let the words slip out before considering their weight. But Barns laughed again; not a cackle, but a slow, remorseful laugh.

 

“Even the most sure of sures have some issues, Miss Diana. Had a daughter. Not anymore. She looked a bit like you,” Barns’ icy blue eyes stared into Diana’s once more. Diana didn’t shirk away. His eyes were pure. Empty pools, ghosts of lost loves still haunting the gentle waves. It was sad, but Barns didn’t seem to mind. “Anyways, I’m lost.” Barns stared at the clock. “Dammit. It’s already eleven. Time flies, that’s another sure thing.”

 

Diana gulped a sip of tea. Only one hour left. The magnet was pleased; she didn’t want to leave.

 

Barns leaned his elbow on the counter and propped his head on his hand, the way a father would when listening to his daughter’s worries. “Tell me. Tell me something you’re sure of.”

 

“I don’t believe in heaven.” Diana was startled. But it was true. “And I don’t know if I believe in this place. I want to, but I must be on a trip,” she lowered her voice, “You know, drugs. I came from Vegas.”

 

Barns cackled again. “A trip! How endearing!” He stopped laughing and was once again serious, if not for the slight smirk on his lips. “Got another tidbit for ya. Don’t question too much. Some questions are good, but some will drive ya just plain mad. Don’t focus too much on those. Focus on the now-time, Miss Diana.”

 

Diana found herself laughing. The now-time. She loved the way Barns spoke – a mix of southern slang and old-English. And he was right, too. The magnet brought her somewhere that was so isolated, it had no time and place, aside from the clock on the wall. It was the most extreme of now-times, and Diana was happier than she’d been in years. Maybe it was the magnet. But the harmonious tranquility felt deeper than that.

 

“Another cup of tea, sweetheart?” The waitress was back. Diana nodded and in a second her green tea was steaming again. Diana stared at the thick green liquid, entranced by the coils of hot mist that made her eyes warm and wet. Wet with tears, maybe.

 

The waitress noticed her melancholy and bent down to her level, whispering in her ear with those ruby-red lips. “I’ll let you in on another secret, Diana.” She leaned back and grinned, flashing pearly white teeth. “You’re this much closer,” she held her pointer finger and thumb an inch apart. “To finding your way. And I know that doesn’t seem like much, but I’ve met thousands of you Called. And believe me, once you leave, you’ll be heading in the right path.”

 

Diana wanted to ask her how she knew that. How she understood Diana’s predicament– lost with too little and too much at the same time. She wanted to ask about the Called. Wanted to know what to do once she left, if she’d really be going the right way. Or the wrong way. But she glanced at Barns next to her, his icy eyes still staring at her own, and she understood. It was the now-time that she had to worry about. Being sure in the now-time.

 

And Diana was sure that the waitress was right. Something inside had changed in Diana– like a switch flicked the other way. It was just an inkling, just a premonition of hope, a twinge of security. But Diana knew that the Oasis had given her that insight she needed. The Oasis had given her the wisdom, the secrets of a bigger world, one that wasn’t impossibly intimidating, one that wasn’t a labyrinth with no exit. She had been given the push she needed to find her path.

 

A loud gong shattered Diana’s heavy repose and she jumped, spinning her stool to face the clock. The thick black hand was approaching twelve, and moving swiftly.

 

“Time to abandon ship,” the waitress laughed and pursed her lips as she grabbed Diana’s tea and the woman to her left’s lemonade. “I really do hope you enjoyed your stay, Diana,” she said. Her eyes were sincere as she leaned down and kissed Diana’s cheek, leaving an almost nonexistent lipstick stain. She turned and made her way down the aisle, gathering more steamy mugs and tall glasses.

 

“Remember, Miss Diana, remember what to focus on.” Barns reached out a hand and Diana shook it, attempting to memorize all the ice and sparkle and mischief in his eyes. It was happening too fast. She was leaving too soon.

 

The gong sounded again. This time the black hand was almost on twelve. Diana whipped her head around the diner, spinning her stool in a full circle. She wanted to memorize it all. She didn’t want to go back to Vegas, didn’t want to face her friends and money and full glass of champagne. But she had to remember the now-time. The present. The certainty in the moment.

 

Suddenly Diana’s world erupted in a flash of white light, just as when she had entered the Oasis. She felt her heart pounding, felt the blood in her veins and the tea warming her throat like her own personal sun. The gong rang. Once, twice, and then, silence.

 

Diana realized her eyes were closed. She opened them hesitantly, all too aware of the darkness around her and cool air on her skin. Her head felt lighter somehow, and she thought she might faint.

 

She was standing at the edge of the back porch of the hotel. Her toes were dangling over the wood, almost touching the dry desert floor. She stared at the jagged shark teeth in the distance. They were so far away — maybe a mile — and she thought she may have gone crazy. But it was too real to be drugs, too true to be imagined. The waitress was real. Barns was real.

 

A strike of light illuminated the sky for a split second before the darkness fell and the stars returned. It was a fork of lightning, with an aftershock of purple and red. The waitress had mentioned that. The lightning strike, marking the appearance of the Oasis. Marking its exit, too.

 

“Diana!” Diana turned to see her friends in the doorway, stumbling over each others’ feet and holding sloshing glasses of champagne. “There you are! Come on, let’s party!” The others shrieked in response and quickly fled the doorway, raising their glasses to the beat of a heavy bass and pulsing lights. Diana watched them go, not sorry to see them leave.

 

She turned back to the jagged shark teeth. Their silhouette against the black sky was almost invisible now, and Diana squinted to make out the sharp lines. The door was somewhere in there. Maybe it was gone now, but it had been there. She knew it had been there.

 

Diana faced the party. Her head still felt light, and again she wondered if she might faint. But it wasn’t dizziness that caused her to feel like a feather in the wind. Something was missing.

 

With a deep breath and a wave of sudden serenity, Diana realized it was the magnet that was gone. No longer pulling her to the west, no longer pointing her in a mysterious direction.

 

But she didn’t need it anymore.