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Allura 23

The Best Day – Anthony Pantaleo The rooster was still very annoying when he woke up, though. That was the only complaint. It wouldn’t shut up for twenty minutes and would caw and caw until you swore you were ready to run outside and kick it. Maybe that was the point. To get you going. Or that it was responsible for all the lady chickens and he liked to show off. Maybe they were hungry and the big man on the campus, that massive Rooster named Will, was reminding everyone that all the little chickens needed their grain. That was his job. That and to strut around like a chicken legged model. He was the only option, all the other male chickens were sold off until Will would be too old to function properly and keep the lady chickens in their place, making little chicken babies. Looking pretty for Will for whatever reason because he was the big man, and when their time was up, they would be killed and eaten. What was the point, really, for them, other than food? When his time would come, Old Man Billy would walk down and with surprising fines catch Will, kill him, and there would be a big feast for everyone. So his job was to wake everyone up and look pretty for himself until his time was up and he was to be killed for the people who were really in charge here. That’s just how it is, no hard feelings Will, you’re useless now, and maybe you always were replaceable and insignificant. “Will?” he remembered asking, remembering his annoying boss. It was now very fitting. At the very least, he was up now, and he remembered all the chores he had to do today. He sat up on his bed and scratched his bare back as his bare feet rubbed the wood floor. Looking out the window, he noted it really was going to be a nice day today, possibly a little hot. The wheat looked nice and just beyond it, the man could see peaches that needed picking and soon, canning. He didn’t know how to can yet, but he’d learn how. Old Man Bill’s farm was a haven, as advertised, but damn, was it really hard work. You got out what you put in the land, and there was a hell of a lot to put into the land. There was no money, only the reward of longevity and solid food, and silence. Today was a smaller list that usual, and the day of the week and month escaped him all the same. Life really turned into a blur, out here. It was nice not to have to think of how depressing everyone looked on the subway train. It was difficult too, to think really about anything when your too busy taking the dirt out of your hands, knowing they’ll be filled again tomorrow night. Too difficult to think of all the cologne when you had to shovel some smaller pile of horse dung into a bigger pile of horse dung. There was even a system to it, he had learned. It was also nice not to worry about how dirty you looked, and that you really didn’t have to shave. He got out of bed, and remarked it was probably 4:30 AM. When in your life could you be happy and ready to wake up at such a time? As he walked over the creaky upstairs floor, he could hear and smell bacon coming from downstairs. Old Miss could be heard clanking around the kitchen, flipping eggs and stirring beans and uncorking morning beers. Rounding into the washroom, he noted to strong smell of black coffee awaiting him downstairs. Eating all this amazing food, and not getting fat, was truly one of his favorite things. Not that he cared anymore. Infact, maybe he’d start eating more just to get a little farmer’s gut, that really would be comfortable to pat at the end of each night, having a smoke and a few glasses of wine with Old Man Bill, and maybe end the night with a chapter from a good book. Washing his face and his hands under the cold water without a mirror, he thought about what he had to do today. Feed to chickens. Change their water too, and sweep up the straw and give them new straw. Collect the eggs, stack them and give them to Old Miss, along with a freshly killed hen. Give the cows water and relieve the cows udders, one of his favorite jobs. Make sure they have fresh straw and then clean their dung and put it in the ready wheelbarrow. Quick walk around the vegetable garden to pull out weeds. Put the weeds in the composter. Maybe relieve himself then. Tend to the horses and let them out to run around the field, as well as giving them fresh water. Stop for 10 o’clock luncheons. Then the hardest work. Start unearthing all the potatoes today. Maybe he’d get done twenty baskets, maybe twenty five. There would be fifty total, and he wanted to be done in two days. Stop for a glass of wine and a sandwich from Old Miss. Clean the potatoes a bit then again feed the chickens. Put the horses back, brush them, and then dinner. Simple enough, he could probably take his time today. After dinner he would be exhausted, and even though only after two hours of relaxing it would be maybe 8 o’clock, he would pass out on his bed and do it all again. It really was calming. Having to talk to Old Man Bill, who spoke calmly and laughed warmly, Old Miss, who was the sweetest lady you could picture, and the aging Mexican worker Aldolino, who talked about crazy stories in Mexico, was very nice. They didn’t care what people thought of them, they were happy where they were. Throwing some cold water under his arms and his back, and then throwing on his red flannel shirt, he was ready for the day. Simple as that, he thought. His single pair of leather boots would be downstairs, as well as his wool socks and his gloves. That’s really all he needed. He used to have hundreds of shirts and underwear and socks and shoes The bacon was calling to him, as well was Old Miss’s “Breakfast! Come down before it gets cold!” The stairs creaked the loudest out of the house, and one day Old Man Bill would have to fix them. But they were still good. Old Miss was spooning steaming scrambled eggs into his plate, which was already set, with Aldoline and Old Man Bill already feasting. Breakfast was his favorite, and with a quick, “Mornin’,” the man sat down and began filling his plate. That’s when he noted the small cake in front of him. Oh, that’s right, he had forgotten it was his birthday. It was difficult with the days going by so quickly. “Happy birthday, boy,” Old Man Bill said with a mouthful of beans. His bear was always clean, despite his profession. “D’yea, happy birfday,” smiling at him across the table, Aldolino pointed his form at the man. “Wow, thank you so much Old Miss!” The man said as he cut and put half the cake onto his plate. Carrot, his favorite, did he ever tell her that? He must have, he thought as he shoveled the icing topped cake into his hungry and ready mouth. It was delicious, as was all of Old Miss’ food and he didn’t mind as Aldolino took the other half, with a disappointing look from Old Man Bill. They ate mostly in silence, besides Old Miss talking about the countries news. Bombings, deaths, new charities and worse poverty, nothing new, the man thought. It would always be the same. His mood was darkening but then his eyes glanced over the peaches. He had forgotten about the peaches. He had forgot about his plate all together, and he filled it up with reverence. Warm fresh bread, baked beans, black coffee in his mug, peaches, bacon, eggs, beer to top it off. After everyone had had their fill and the table was clear, the man wiped his face with his hanky and looked across at Old Man Bill, who was smiling at his wife. The three walked to the door and silently put on their socks and boots. The man rolled up his sleeves before he put on his gloves, his signature more, while Aldolino tucked his in. Old Man Bill didn’t even wear gloves, his hands looking like rocks after a lifetime of roughing it. As the door opened and fresh air was let in, it smelled beautiful outside. The sun wasn’t too warm early in the day and there was still dew on the grass in front of the farmhouse. Taking a deep breath and looking towards the big rooster staring at him, waiting for his breakfast, the man felt good. It was going to be another fantastic silent day. Twenty seven now, he couldn’t believe how far he had come, without that veil over him. The chickens were excitedly clucking. His back ached from his messenger bag, and the Asian lady behind him was leaning on him. Another turn sent everybody jerking to one side, some people struggling to keep their footing and looking like they were going to tumble over, but quick hand grabs and gasps helped them. It was smelly too, why did it always smell like a mixture of pee and breathe? And did they really need to keep the lights on in the tunnel so he would have to awkwardly try to not look at all these depressing and pathetic people stuffed into this moving tomato can. He didn’t know if he could take it. Claustrophobic and mad, he tried to hide his grimace. The knife in his messenger bag kept trying to talk to him, but he couldn’t reach it right now without falling over. Sighing, the subway roared into the next station and screeched to a halt. A lot of people got off and very few got on, it looked like he was going to get his chance. Squeezing in between a sweaty fat goth teen and an old man who smelt like booze, he tried to slow down his heart rate. Why do they all look so fucking depressing? Is that what he looked like? Tied up in his pant suit, his light grey pantsuit with his hair combed. Did he think he looked like a movie star? Would they even care that he dressed up? Did they even know his name at his office? Looking around disgusted him even more. Five years of school and look where you are now buddy ol’ pal. Less friends, some money and stuck at a stupid assistant job that requires you to take the sardine can with old Mr. Lord of Satan sitting beside you. It didn’t matter how hard you worked, you would always be an assistant you thought, it’s a family business. The fat goth breathed raggedly on his neck, smelling of puke and ecstasy dehydration. The Satan worshipper’s legs were shaking, obviously trying not to trip out on this moveable lunchbox. Old man Maker’s Mark sitting on his other side seemed to be passed out. Probably going to piss himself soon. The doors closed and the train started to move again. He wondered how many he could take out, before someone could stop him. What did it matter anyway? Where was he going? To pretend he was working while he was actually surfing dating sites that were almost as pathetic as the subway? Who was going to really care that this Goth kid wouldn’t breathe again. Fatty would probably love it anyways, go out by a murder, his friends would love that. They would talk about it while they put on eye makeup and pretended to fight to shitty guitar music on a whole bunch of drugs which probably weren’t even drugs. He reached down into his messenger bag and felt the hilt through the leather. What about drunkey? He was definitely asleep, he wouldn’t even notice. The man thought that he would probably save the poor fool from drinking himself to death and being found in front of a church or worse, a shoe store where the gay men would yell for an ambulance. The man would probably save the drunk bastard’s wife from another beating or something. Yeah that would be noble, kill the man and himself to make it look like an epic struggle to the death. But what about the other bodies? What did it matter? He would be dead anyways, along with all these other poor shmucks stuck on the subway with him today. His breath quickened and he looked around at the other people he would save from living their depressing lives. . The Asian lady was pretending to sleep. He could tell, by her posture. Who sleeps that upright? She’s hoping no will notice her, or that the loud black teens sitting further down won’t jump her. Tupperware lunches and her faux wallet, very depressing. The man’s leg was shaking now, he was getting ready. How many could he take out before he took himself? Four of the poor bastards for sure, he thought, five with himself, but he wanted more. Perhaps he could get the whole half of the subway before it reached the next platform. The man’s throat tightened and he was feeling ready. He unzipped the side pocket and his had grabbed the hilt of the stainless steel knife. It would be so easy, so quick, he thought. They would only be scared for a moment before he took them. Yet he hesitated. Maybe he wanted more people on the subway, more people he could save from the cold underground and lit up world he was travelling. His plaque filled heart quickened and skipped several beats, he couldn’t back out now, it was all to aggravating. The subway was jerking and pulling into the next station, maybe he would give the people waiting a red and metallic show, make them watch before they could reach and stop him. Maybe he would wait until it was more filled, he would see if the station was full. The station was jammed full of people as the train screamed it’s metallic halt. The herd, he liked to call them. A pecking order of ties and expensive shoes, all reaching to be tippy top. Drunkey sitting next to him somehow managed to wake up, this was his stop. It didn’t look like he was going to be getting relief today. Stumbling to the doors with his head down, the intoxicated smelly man stepped off the train before a flush of people entered. That was more like it, maybe he would get ten. The goth kid sitting next to the man in the grey suit sniffed, smelling something. The seat next to him was replaced by an equally unsettling and sad figure. Obviously a farmer, by the smell of him. Dirt, sweat and manure was his cologne, and the man remarked his dirty hands. It settled his heart and for a moment he forgot about the knife that was now tucked under his sleeve. “Excuse me, sir,” the sad and smelly farmer leaned close to the man. Looking at him, the man saw that the farmer looked hopeless. Probably bankrupt, the man thought. “Yes?” replying while looking at the at ready jugular, the man noted. It would be so easy to start with a simple dirty farmer. They expect the best in people. “Where, um,” the dirty man stammered. “Where is Osgoode station?” he completed his sentence as if mystified. “It’s about two stops away,” the man remarked, now noting how the farmer’s jugular was beating. “Oh,” Looking at the station map before back at the man, the farmer said smiling. “Thanks a bunch, mister. Now say, what do you do exactly?” Asking as he looked over the man’s immaculate suit. “Assistant lawyer is my official title, really shitty actually, and you…” he decided to be polite to this poor shmuck, he would start with him. “I just live, sir, one day at a time,” The farmer said as he stood up for an old lady. The man’s heart stopped as the seat was now filled with a pantsuit bingo player. He didn’t feel the need to end everyone yet, he had some thinking to do.

He stared at the drawing board. It was empty of course, save for the endless things that he would inevitably draw once the moment was right. Growing up, he had learned to fend for himself. In this way, he learned how to ignore what other people said about him, as well as learned how to condition himself to the pain of rejection and ignorance. But that didn’t mean that the ignorance hurt. Being in a situation where people were supposed to understand him (and didn’t) put him in the worse mood possible. It was almost as if everything that you had been focusing your life towards disintegrated in front of your own eyes. Your heart sank, and your entire body felt as if you were drowning in a sea of self-pity. The key phrase of course, was “self-pity”. This was different from the types of failure that you could potentially face in your life, because all of the failure was yours alone. Everything that you didn’t accomplish happened as a result of your ineptitude to reach out and take a chance. Tonight, for example, was particularly bad. He had gotten thoroughly fucked up with his friends in an effort to avoid his own nagging feelings of doubt. He found that his confidence was at an all time low when doing things not under the influence, and so getting thoroughly fücked was on the agenda. He smoked cigarettes. After all, it felt good, and it cast an aura of suspicion and intrigue that he thought might help people notice him. The feeling of a thin cigarette between his fingers was majestic, and exhaling and inhaling toxic fumes, filled with carbon monoxide I might add, was particularly fun this night. But of course, because this is not Europe, he was given the “glare eyes” from every passerby. Awesome. He sat in his bed pondering the decisions of the night. What decisions were made well, and what decisions were absolutely ridiculous. The latter outweighed the former, and this was a common circumstance. She was pretty awesome, but the chances of him achieving happiness through those means were minimal at best. In fact, they were almost non-existent. Such things were meant for massive works of fiction or for movies that ended up happily. Things typically do not work out that way. He, of course, was minor to the major of the people he admired, yet despised. They were able to channel a certain je ne sais pas that he knew that he would never be able to. This annoyed him to all hell, but as with many things in this world (global warming, poverty, etc.) it couldn’t be helped without doing something drastic. Doing something drastic, I might add, was not within this young man’s capabilities. And so he was resolved to smoking a pack of Camel Menthols by himself, on the bench outside of his dormitory, pondering the careless decisions that he had made. But the funny thing is, this pondering, and this decision making, won’t make a difference at all. Because the same thing will happen tomorrow, next weekend, and next year.

I sat down in front of my table, and sipped coffee slowly. My cat walked up to the bottom of my chair purring for food. I stepped up, it was around 4:30 A.M I got the milk from the fridge and heated it. I slowly trudged back to my chair to drink the rest of my coffee, and get ready for work. I dressed in my work clothes to prepare for the long office life that seemed parallel to mine in every way. Boring, tiring, depressing all adjectives of the 7 hours of my day. I pull the scarlet tie around my neck, and tie it tight. I think of it as a noose, and I'm selling myself to a world of corporate foolhardy. I rather enjoy the rash decisions of my superiors, and how they'll do anything scrap together any more pennies to lire line their pockets. I soon smiled in the mirror seeing as how I am now 27 and look as old as a 35 year old. "Tis' what happens when you sell yourself to work for the devil." I said with a smile. I left my house with keys in hand smiling, I walked down the street to the large black building, windows lining the sides of the enormous beast of the city. I walked into the building and walked to the line in front of the check in desk, these days we need to sign in to work to protect from terrorism. As the drones in front of me sign in I finally reach the front of the line to sign in the lady mutters my name, and I walk to my office. It's on the 78th floor, 2nd to last, no windows which made me sad. When I was hired this made me terribly sad since I love the sun.

The world is made of edges, you said and I, thinking of razors and cliffs and the black terminator rushing towards us past the resolute meridians of our days, looked up at you, and you smiled and said no. You drew a map on a white napkin and told me how there are always more feet than will go into a mile, more inches than will make a foot, about every edge. Achilles was in it and some slow thing, a turtle perhaps, or a snail. But these were only masks for numbers, and I grew tired of Achilles and his logarithms, and we went to the beach. The dew was on the rocks and the tide was out and there were soft things quaking in the horrible light. There is so much death at the edges, I said. Everything lives at the edges. You frowned at me like a stormcloud. You spoke of ecotones and cusps and crises. I saw your fingers rubbing chalkdust, shedding the imagined detritus of a hundred dusty lectures. I listened while the sun sneaked through your curls and warmed my arms like your hands on a cold morning. I rubbed my board with the pale bitter wax that smells like violins and tobacco and burns if you get it in your eyes. Then I painted you with coconut oil and lemon where we hid behind the big red parasol, and your breasts rose and fell like the pears on the windrow by the seawall, your fingers espaliered a small blossom. I left you there on the green striped towel with your books and sunglasses, your tea and the basket of boiled eggs and sandwiches and the last of the fig newtons. And I went to the ocean. (I dreamt out there, did I tell you?) The place where the sea and the earth and the air touch, I touched too, making a moist track, and we were like sisters meeting or like four old lovers, sleeping side by side in a tent with the moon watching, or like both of those things loving each other and jealous at the same time. I have heard of the surf marching forward, of the waves battering the earth and retreating, sending forays against the sand and being hurled back. This is a man thing, I thought. We who have lain at the point where the dry becomes the wet know that these are kisses and caresses, and the thrusts and tumblings have no martial intent. All living things are born from this meeting, into the bright air. We gasp, we burn, we die and return, whether to earth or sea. (Your thoughts were not lost out there, you see?) I hold them in my head when I let the dreams take me, and we do not disagree. The thing about edges, I liked. Everything that really lives, lives at the edge of something, you said, and I saw a bead rolling between two widening wires, always about to fall, and somehow never doing it. Always moving forward, and rising and declining imperceptibly, as the world carries it onward. Benoit, you said, and ecotone. I liked the words, but you never told me what they mean, unless I was listening to the gulls or the surf or the soft murmur of your pulse beneath my hand. The wind shook your blue hat, and I got you a green lounge from the old man who made the umbrellas for the wind to break and drag across the foreshore like tattered dreamthings. Like the birds of wakening, that watched us from the long rusted rails above the seawall and there was a tall girl at the bar who said that the sun was in your hair and I hated her for seeing it and for seeing you smile, and loved her for knowing the same things that I knew. The heartbeat of the world you called it, the surf you meant, and the tall girl brought us crab legs and you talked a while about the things that come out of the sea. The hermit crabs and the robbers, the tiny sidling fingernail crabs that run away from motion like a child who fears strangers, straggling behind the skirts of the seawrack peeping bashfully out. And the great ghost crabs; the grey and shining grandmothers twitching their long braches like blind man’s sticks through the pebbles toward the tidepools, with the moon in their eyes. They love the sun, but the moon is their mistress - you told me this, and asked me: "Have I told you that the sea is made of blood? It's true; but the blood is stronger now that it was when we left." I knew you did not mean ourselves, but some lost frightened fossil, living again for a moment in the tide behind your eyes. We swam then, and you moved back and forth through the break like an otter, and then the boarders came down the long stair and waited till we came out before charging like whooping soldiers into that great onslaught that neither marked them nor wavered. Under the rusting nod of the lotus pod spigot you turned and turned and lost the scent of our mother the ocean, and smelled like you and the sun and the cocoa butter sunscreen I had bought from the old man with the red hat. Blind, you said, but he saw you, as the earth and the ocean and the sky see you now. As the fire saw you then, lapping lights across your sand dusted hip, limning out our vagrant silhouettes upon the moist earth. (I thought I held you that night in the tent, but it was not you, was it?) Beneath their lids your eyes were watching the pale circles of the gulls, reaching with their wings for the earth as the sky drew them back in the direction of the invisible stars. The next day I rode to the top of the break and found a wave waiting; a terrible thing as green and clear and bubbled as the bottom of an antique bottle. And I was up and I was in it and the board was a tongue in the mouth of the ocean, and I was for a while that thing which you were always: Caught between the air and the sky, driving forward into time, unmoving, until the ocean cast me out and dropped me at your feet, and we showered and you combed out my hair and we had breakfast. (These are the things I remember, in this dim place beneath the trees, where the ocean has not been these million lifetimes.) (Still), within your eyes, i think I am there, that I will always live there, on the edge between memory and dream, with the bright birds and the grey skies, turning, rising like the wave, and hanging in that place within your mind, where standing still we rise, and rising, turn, and fall, and are falling, now. Forever.

Hi, I wrote a short story and was looking for any criticism I know he dreams of me, as I dream of him, but only in awakening. He whispers me sweet lies, he tells me about the endless possibilities, about the cyan skies and the crimson seas. He tells me about the friends I will have, the family I will love, and the memories I will share. He tells me every about myself, from what I know and from what I do not know. He tells me of my deepest desires, of everything I want. He talks about my hair, my skin, and my toes. The books I have read and the book I will write. He lives for me only. He is cold to the touch made of steel. I put him on my back and we go everywhere but yet nowhere at the same time. We run as fast as we can, but barely move an inch. We talk into the endless night, but barely say a word. Although he can’t move, he brightens up when ever he sees me. He always sees me. There are promises of silver and garnets, of marble castles and knights of bold. He tells me about monsters and kings, about where we will walk and what we will sing. He has seen the future, he has seen the past, and he assures me that all will last. He tells me about how fair things could be. But I know these to be not. As he is the lying robot.

Everyone was hurt by the recession. Jobs disappeared and investments vanished. Max was hit hard, but he was better off than most. It could have been a lot easier if it wasn’t for the divorce though. 6 months before the economy fell apart, Max’s marriage did. He was the first to admit it was his fault. They use to be in love and inseparable as college sweethearts. He built his wealth with her, and he always said she deserved the money she got after the separation. The darker his life got the brighter those memories became. It’s funny how the mind tends to forget the bad and only remember the good. His wife was gorgeous in college and beautiful in her later years. Max loved his money and his wife. It made him feel good that his friends envied his lifestyle. His old secretary moved to Florida so he needed to find a new one. He chose a young girl fresh out of college. It was pretty obvious why he hired her; she was young, beautiful, and full of love. It wasn’t long before they started to go on vacations together. They skied down the icy slopes of aspen and swam in the blue oceans of the Bahamas. She loved it and he loved her. His wife wasn’t stupid; she found out pretty quickly. Max handled it the best he could. He thought maybe all of the money she got would make her feel better. But, it’s hard to feel better when you’re being replaced with a newer version. Then, the recession came. Everything changed when the money went. Max wasn’t too upset when his mistress left, but it made him regret how his marriage ended more. 3 years later, Max was living in a small 1 bedroom apartment in the outskirts of Chicago. His hair was long and stringy and his beard was thick. His ex-wife married some mechanic in Florida and now was supposedly pregnant. Max never wanted kids, his ex-wife would mention it sometimes, but he always said he was too busy. The thought of having a child now wasn’t so farfetched though. He would raise him right. Teach him how to act in public and talk to girls. They would start their own father-son business. Max would teach him everything he knew about the business world and they would be happy. But, women like wealthy men. He knew it wouldn’t happen. Who would want to have a baby with a 40-year old living in a 1 bedroom apartment? Max spent most of his time at the casino. Gambling is illegal in Illinois, but since 10% of it went to charity it was allowed. Max never knew what charity it was for. The casino was the only place Max could really feel happy. He loved all the sounds that came with it, the loud laughter, the ringing bells, the dull murmur of small talk, the clanking of chips, it all distracted him of what was going on inside his head. The waitresses knew him by name and the regulars were the closest things he had to friends. He really liked playing poker, not so much the game, but the banter. Shooting shit with the other players, flirting with the waitresses, winning hands it was all fun. Max always played Texas Hold’em and on this specific night he was on a hot streak. Steve played with Max a lot, and could tell when he was feeling good. “Damn Max, look at you go, your building cell towers over there.” “Yah, you know me though, lady luck will turn on me soon enough. She’s a real bitch.” Max started to stack his chips from the last hand he won. Steve was right though, he had almost quadrupled his money since he got there and was feeling great. “Can I get you boys a drink?” A tall blond waitress snuck up behind Max put her hand on his shoulder and smiled. “You sure can Shirley, the usual please!” Max tossed her a 5 dollar chip and winked. Max liked all the waitresses at the casino, but Shirley was definitely his favorite. She was young and beautiful. Max always tipped her big and she always flirted back. “You’re too good to me honey!” Shirley eyed his tall stacks of chips. “Doing well, huh?” Max blushed, then smiled. “Just wait, once I win it big I’ll take you to the finest restaurant in Chicago. Make an honest woman out of you.” He played with his beard. It was a nervous habit. “Looking forward to it darling!” She put her hand on Steve’s shoulder. “What about you, thirsty?” “Another beer!” slurred Steve, obviously intoxicated at this point. “Coming right up! Good luck, boys.” Shirley walked away swinging her hips. She never looked back, but was aware of their eyes on her butt. Max had folded the past few hands, he wasn’t getting much. The dealer tossed him two cards. He was the big blind, an automatic call. He slowly bended the corner of the cards back until he saw two Q’s looking back at him. They were both black and Max couldn’t help but see two big tits. He was excited pocket ladies were a great way to start. He knew these guys would kill for this hand. But he couldn’t waste these beauties. If he was too aggressive he’d scare all of the players off and get nothing. Max knocked on the table, “I check.” The dealer flipped over 3 cards. The queen of hearts, 7 of diamonds, and the 9 of hearts came up. Max was ecstatic, a three pair already and none of the cards on the board could challenge his hand. There were four people playing, a man with glasses bet one hundred dollars. Steve called and so did the man next to him. Max raised 50; he was trying to get more in the pot without forcing them out of the hand. It worked. They all called. The dealer flipped over a 2 of spades. Not a threat. The man in the glasses bet 100 again and they all called. Max was going to wait to the next card to up the ante. The dealer put down the king of hearts right in front of Max. Max brushed his long bangs out of his eyes to get a better look. The king’s hair touched his shoulders and connected to a thick curly beard. He was holding a knife that seemed to disappear behind his head. “I’m all in!” Steve screamed so loud that the whole casino seemed to stop. Max turned to look at Steve, his face was bright red. Everyone else folded. Max laughed to himself. He almost felt bad taking his money. Steve was a good guy. “I call, three ladies.” Max said while flipping over his cards. It was the first time he saw the queen’s faces. He wondered why they made them so unattractive. Max reached out for the chips. “Flush!” Steve turned over a 2 and 3 of hearts. The hearts on the cards were as red as his face. Max had lost and had no money left. He looked down then got up from the table and started to walk away. “Hey Max! Lady luck sure is a bitch, huh? Steve reached into his pocket and gave him some quarters. “Play the slots on me, bud.” Max smiled and walked away. He sat down at the closest slot and put a quarter in, as he pulled the lever a girl in a short red skirt walked by. Max turned his head to follow her butt down the aisle, but he jerked back around when there was a loud ringing in his ear. Three jackpots were looking back at him. He had won the 100,000 dollar jack pot. “I won! Oh my god I won! Holy shit, I can’t fucking believe this!” Max was yelling at the top of his lungs. The pit boss walked over followed closely by Steve. “Congratulations, sir” The pit boss reached out his hand, but it was knocked away by Steve’s drunken hug. “You lucky son of a gun! Maybe, that bitch does like huh?” Steve was squeezing him tight, but Max was looking right at Shirley. She walked up and kissed him on the cheek. “How about tomorrow night I buy you drink?” Max asked with a grin. “Oh sorry, I work tomorrow. You should come by though. I’ll get you a drink on me.” She smiled and walked away never turning around. Steve put Max in a headlock. “Yeah right, Max ain’t coming back here, he’s a millionaire! Why would he come back to a sorry place like this?” Steve let go of Max’s head. “Ain’t that right Max?” Max put his arm around Steve’s shoulder. “Damn straight bud, never coming back here again that’s for sure.” Max’s body was found hanging in his one bedroom apartment a few weeks later.

This is a short story I wrote for a writing contest. I lost, but I liked this story so I figured I'd get some more opinions. Besides, just losing doesn't tell me how to improve. Kosmonaut Peace. Bleak, black, emptiness. Is there anything more to life than that? I have been circling Earth for months now. I once knew what it was like on the surface. Going day to day, ambling from work to home and home to work. No thought, no excitement. Just life. I once thought there was nothing more than that. But now, seeing the universe and all of its glory from my minuscule metallic prison, I can see that I was wrong. I feel I am a lost sentinel, a castaway guardian of the earth. Silently I watch as burning stars and glowing satellites fly past me. I observe everything, and nothing will touch me. Nothing can surpass me; and nothing has or ever will. I am the sole caretaker of the universe. I can see into the oblivion and sense and feel all that is around me. There is nothing I cannot bear witness to. The cold metal box I call home is the only barrier between me and the beyond. It is my citadel, my prison and my liberation. I cannot be touched by anything, only enlightenment. It is wonderful. Floating weightlessly through my metal cocoon, I can stare into the vastness of space and know that I am alone and yet not alone. I can be no more alone anywhere than in space, thousands of miles from earth. Not a voice heard but my own; even my radio has died. The only face I see is in the mirror. I am only touched by filtered air. And yet being so close to worlds I do not know gives me hope that I am not as alone as I appear to be. The vastness that I view bestows upon me the knowledge of life not yet seen. I can feel it. I look out the windows, beyond the fogged glass, and see nearly eternal blackness. There is no day in space. There is only light from one window, the one facing the sun. Perpetual sun. No setting. No night and no day. Out the other window, I can see into eternity. Every shining star, every galaxy and asteroid, every single speck of glowing space. I can see it all. And it is beautiful. I realize my time in heaven is coming to an end. My mission was slated for only a year. That time bled away in an instant. A blink of an eye, and I am being taken away. A minuscule fish in a vast sea, being reeled in on a hook and line. Too soon. Too soon. Knowing that I will lose my endless bliss is difficult to bear. As I sit and stare through the glass, I ponder ways of staying. I have no radio to contact Earth. Mankind is nonexistent here. I am due back home in just a week's time. But there is no home to return to. I have thought long and hard about my life, both free and earth bound. Now, I don my suit. Bound to my metal prison, I drift into nothingness. Through my visor I can see the stars and galaxies clearer than ever before. They surround me. I am not behind them; they are not in front of me. I am within them. I feel the strongest sense of peace and belonging. I am in nothing and nothing is in me. I am eternity. I feel a tug as I reach the end of my tether. I detach the clip from my belt. I am swimming in a sea of emptiness. The stars are all within sight, but never within my grasp. I can feel the weight of time pressing heavy on my chest. Eons bore through my skull. A millennia passes before my eyes. My life is irrelevant. I cherish it. My angle changes, the earth covers the stars. One cloud covers most of the land; a milky charcoal mass smothering green life. Oceans, radiant blue against the blackness of space. Life on earth is rendered invisible. Insignificant. Nothing compares to the universe. I can see into space and time. I am falling into oblivion. I can see my space pod drift away from me. All is gone. I am at peace. I am nothing and I am everything. I am eternity. Just before I drift out of sight, I hear the soft echo of radio static.

I walked into the bathroom and turned the shower on. As the water sprayed down and I tried to find balance between scalding and freezing, I laid back and let the water run over my midsection. The warmth of the water reminded me of that same warmth that came with being inside of a woman, and thus my dick began to rise. I groaned as I reached down and stroked myself, closing my eyes. I thought of girls of all cups and sizes, one by one entering the shower to take their turn with me. Using me like a piece of meat. First was a wild blonde, who refused to spit out her bubble gum as she bounced up and down, beating my chest with every pump, and when she had come in my fantasy I was not quite there yet, so I exchanged her for a fair skinned brunette, who knew she wanted my member but was unsure of what she actually wanted to do with it. After moments of debate she buried her head in my lap and licked my shaft all the way up and down, gagging but not caring. Her eyes were begging for my come, and while I got closer and closer I wasn’t getting there quite as fast as she would have liked, so she beckoned a friend in to help speed things along. This friend of hers had blonde highlights streaked through her black and blue hair and a piercing just above her right nostril. Her breasts were perky and fake, full of whatever it was they put in those things. The two of them began taking turns, but quickly decided to each take a side as two tongues licked up and down, at times connecting at the tip. Finally I could feel myself reaching that point of no return. I reared my head back and let the juices flow out of my piss hole and slide down the drain, although some drips attached themselves to the bathtub, as if all my dying children were hanging on the edge of a cliff, desperately trying not to fall into that black abyss. I opened my eyes. What a feeling! I looked around and smiled. Everything looked normal. I didn’t care about the journey and I didn’t care about the finish line. What I cared about was that I could finally stop thinking about it. I could look around and enjoy the world for what it truly was. I laid in my own filth, basking in the glory of a free mind. I noticed little things that I normally wouldn’t care about, like how clean the spots between my tiles were. I saw that I needed to buy some more soap, and that my finger nails were in dire need of a trim. I looked up on the shower rack, and scanned the Head and Shoulders bottle, admiring the artwork on the front. It looked as if Jackson Pollock had tried using his paintbrush as a sword, swiping one big, long, curved red streak along it. Then that streak began to transform into a strand of hair, and I was reminded of a fiery redhead that practically mouth raped me in 6th grade in the back of a school bus. She was a sleek and dark red and blessed with few freckles. I fought her tongue but it always seemed to win as she penetrated my lips, sticking it as far as she could and stroking the roof of my mouth with it. I dropped my hand at my side and felt the bath sponge in my hand. It felt like the pubic hairs of a woman who rarely waxed, and I slid my hand across it, feeling for that sweet warm pulsating spot that lies just a few more inches across the horizon. I looked over at the shower liner, and the ripples in it as it trailed across the bathtub reminded me of a beautiful sundress, which women these days just never wore. When they did, however, it was indeed beautiful and I could see just a hint of those soft, silky, milky legs that lay underneath, and knew that just beyond was the land where milk and honey met. Once again everything I saw, felt and sensed reminded me of that devilish, curvy template of a body I could not resist. Once again my glasses were covered in rose-colored lipstick. Once again I lost my free, clear mind. Once again I was hard. Well, it was nice while it lasted.

Justice (C) 2012-2013 Victor D. Lopez Time: The all too near future Place: A courtroom Setting: Final sentencing for the last remaining capital offense on the books of an apparently kinder, gentler more just world where equality is no longer a mere aspiration. Justice The prisoner stared impassively into the camera. The bright lights causing beads of sweat to form above his eyes and forcing him to squint, his perspiration-soaked thinning hair flattened unflatteringly against his forehead. No sound could be heard other than the faint hum of the air conditioning whose airflow was directed from the high ceiling above the high seats of the three judge panel, towards the three judged, keeping their immediate area comfortably cool. The camera trained on them remained a respectful distance away, and no harsh lights illuminated their somber countenances. All three judges stared at the camera showing no emotion, their hands folded in front of them on the surface of their capacious bench on top of three equal, neat stacks of paper piled before each judge. Everywhere on earth citizens watched the unfolding drama over the neural net that provided a fully immersive experience indistinguishable from reality, effectively placing every citizen of earth in the courtroom as the Chief Judge began to speak in a deep, resonant, clear voice. “The evidence against you has been examined. This tribunal finds you guilty of the charges against you by a unanimous vote. Have you anything you would like to add before we pass sentence?” The camera changed back to the prisoner. The lights brightens around him and the heat rises perceptibly, adding fresh fuel to the trickle of sweat flowing down his flushed face, causing a bead of sweat to form at the end of his nose that he cannot swat away because his wrists are restrained by metal bands at the armrests of his chair, outside the viewing range of the camera which has a tight zoom on his face. “I am guilty of no crime,” the prisoner spoke in a low voice full of palpable weariness and resignation. “You are guilty of the most heinous of crimes,” the Chief Judge contradicted. "That is not open to debate. This is your final chance to make what amends you may to those whom you have harmed through your selfish, deviant act. It will have no effect on the sentencing by this Court.” “But I have done nothing wrong,” the man emphatically repeated, the perspiration rolling down his neck deepening the growing ring of sweat absorbed by his bright orange jumper, staining a dark collar of moisture around his neck. “Silence!” the Chief Judge hissed. “The record will show that the prisoner is unrepentant. This Court finds that the prisoner willfully, maliciously and without justification removed his neural connector with the purpose and effect of disconnecting himself from the Net. We further find that the motivating factor for this egregious, willful and repugnant crime was the attempt to abandon the Common Consciousness and establish his individuality separate and apart from the Communal Mind. We further find that the subject is in full possession of his legal faculties and capable of understanding the criminal nature of his acts, and, perhaps most tragically, that he fails to see the enormity of his crime.” The Chief Justice faltered slightly, delivering the final words of the Courts sentence with a slight tremor in his voice. After stopping a moment to compose himself as his learned colleagues looked on impassively, he continued. “It is, therefore, the judgment of this Court that you will forever remain disconnected from the nets from this day forward.” Upon hearing the Judge’s words the prisoner’s eyes opened wider, attempting to digest their import. Could it be? Could he finally be allowed the freedom to regain his humanity? The unalienable right to be an individual for the first time in his life? The opportunity to live in a world in which he could have original thoughts, genuine emotions, and the opportunity to be different from everyone else? The joy in these words nearly made him faint with relief and unbridled joy, allowing him for the first time in his life the possibility of hope as tears welled in his eyes. He found he could not speak, could not express even the simple words “thank you” to the Court. It was as though he were emerging from a life-long nightmare, as if . . . “The prisoner’s IP address, 999.999.999.999, shall be erased from the Nets,” the Judge continued as the prisoner’s tears flowed freely. His existence shall be forever stricken from the Collective Consciousness lest it germinate there and once again grow sedition in our midst.” The prisoner wept openly now while smiling broadly. “The death sentence for this most heinous of crimes is hereby commuted so that the prisoner may be allowed the individuality he craved for the rest of his natural life, devoid of the comfort of humanity or the distracting influences of life.” The Chief Judge then paused and took a deep breath. “It is further ordered by this Court that the prisoner shall have his eyes, eardrums, tongue and olfactory organs surgically removed that he may not see, hear, taste, or speak with any other human being for the rest of his natural life. thereafter, he is to be remanded to a hospital where he shall be restrained to a bed and tended to by robotic life support aids. The sentence of this Court shall be carried out immediately and shall be witnessed by all Citizens of Earth as partial reparation for this most heinous of crimes against humanity.” The prisoner’s screams lasted only a few moments as an anesthetic was administered and the cameras were re-arranged in preparation for justice to be carried out. Justice - from Book of Dreams 2e: Science Fiction and Speculative Fiction Short Stories (c) 2013 by Victor D. Lopez.

The flickering lights highlight the ship’s icy hallway only once every few seconds. It’s probably better that way, considering that when it can be seen it’s quite a mess. Scattered with shell casings, strewn papers and stray sparks from exposed wires. Not to mention the occasional body or body part that lay in the way as Chad slowly steps through, careful not to trip over the many obstacles. He waits patiently for the lights to flicker again, so he can move freely with no worry of what’s in his way, and searching for another living soul. He tries to call out, but the cold has rendered his throat quite useless when it comes to shouting. Still he must make the attempt. “Hello!” He tries to scream. It sounded as if the word itself tore open his insides as he spewed it out. Chad places his hand on his throat and continues, content with a quiet search. As he makes his way through more dead end areas of the ship, Chad begins to lose hope of finding any more lost survivors, until he hears a faint moaning coming from the Captain’s quarters. He stops and listens for a moment. The moans come again. Chad walks towards the open room and puts his back against the wall, creeping his head around the corner. Inside, lying on the bed in the left corner is Captain Roberts, half naked and freezing, blood trickling down his ears and mouth. His skin seems more like a thin pale sheet that’s stretched tightly over his bones, and his hair on his head is patchy, as if he’s been pulling it out. Chad brings himself back around and tilts his head back, rolling his eyes. He sighs and marches into the Captain’s room. “Sir.” He says as he walks up to him. The Captain’s hand is bleeding and balled up in a fist. “Whosat?” Captain Roberts whispers, eyes rolling around in every direction. “Lieutenant Chad Harper, sir.” The Captain blinks, almost in awe, and then chuckles to himself. “Come here, Lieutenant.” Chad kneels down beside the Captain, whose fist reaches out for his hand. Chad cups the Captain’s fist as he releases the item he was clinging so hard to. Chad looks into his now bloody hand to see two brown-stained silver bars. “I’m giving you command, Lieutenant.” Now it’s Chad’s turn to chuckle, but he can’t stop there. Soon his scoffs become laughs, and then what seems to be a mix of crying and bellowing that echo through the empty corridors of the stone cold prison they’re trapped in. “Command?” Chad replies, wiping tears from his eyes, “Command of what? There’s nobody here! It’s just us!” “Jesus, kid.” Captain Roberts says, “Is that all you do is complain? Ever since we lost you’ve treated it like the Goddamn Crucifixion.” He turns his head and coughs a fair amount of blood onto the walls. Chad bows his head and traces the sign of the Cross on his body. “May Christ have mercy on your soul for making such a joke.” He says, raising his head. The Captain looks at him and tries to sit up. Chad puts his hands on the Captain’s shoulders and gently presses him back down. “You need to rest, sir.” The Captain’s attempt took much more out of him than expected. He begins to breathe heavy, as if he’d just run a marathon. Chad picks up a chair that’s been lying on the floor and sits down next to the Captain. “I know you’ve suffered, lad.” Captain Roberts says, “We all have. But that’s no excuse to just abandon all this.” His hands wave around the room flimsily. Chad looks around and sighs. “All what, sir? We don’t have anything. Everyone is either dead or captured. We’re on the losing side of a war and I don’t even know what it is we’re fighting for!” Chad’s voice breaks away again as he begins to shout. “I didn’t even want to be in this! I was dragged! I left a wife and a daughter behind, risking my life for reasons I’m still not sure of.” The Captain remains silent. His eyelids are halfway shut. “Sir.” Chad begins, “I’m sorry, but I have to go. There’s just too much blood here. I’ve had enough of this senseless massacre.” He stands up and turns to walk out the door. The Captain sputters. “You think you’ll find a decent place to stand in this massacre?” Chad stops, and turns back towards the Captain. “Well there isn’t one. Everybody’s involved, like it or not. “Well then what do you suggest I do, sir?” “Stand with me. Keep up the good fight. We’re on the losing side against heaven, kid. They’ve got the power, but we’ve got the people. We may have sticks and stones compared to their rockets and lasers, but we’ve got a lotta sticks and stones.” The Captain’s eyelids flutter as he coughs more blood onto his pillow. “You’re standing days are done, sir.” Chad says, “I mean no disrespect in that. You’re dying, and I’m all that’s left. This is my chance to leave, and to find a place where I can be at peace. Maybe start a new family. Have a life in exchange for the one that was taken from me. Everyone will just assume the whole ship’s been taken.” Chad bows his head. “I hope you understand. I was never meant to do this.” Chad looks up at the Captain. His eyes are closed and there are no white clouds that escape his mouth, which hangs open like an old fool who has fallen asleep drunk in his recliner. Chad leaves the Captain’s quarters and marches up the hallway and to a steel door that’s sealed shut. To the side rests a digital keypad. Chad inputs a code, and the doors swiftly slide open. “Welcome, Lieutenant Harper.” A deep male voice echoes as Chad steps through into the flight deck. Outside the window lies an endless black ocean filled with little sparkling stars, along with several other ships that have been destroyed. Their debris float slowly across Chad’s view. He walks up to the center of the flight deck, where a digital map is displayed on the table. He looks down to see that a rendezvous point has been highlighted two Astronomical Units away, on a dead planet orbiting a Red Dwarf. Four Astronomical Units away lies another, more appealing place to park; a fairly new planet that was recently discovered and inhabited 200 years prior, called Geisa. Chad closes the map and takes a seat in the Captain’s chair. “How much fuel do we have, Mark?” “Enough, Lieutenant Harper.” Mark replies. “That’s not an answer. How many AUs can we travel given the damage?” “Roughly five, Lieutenant. Where would you have me direct us?” Chad sits in his chair, one hand wrapped around his face and sweating, despite the freezing temperature. In his other hand lays the Captain’s silver bars. He stares at them, a look of anger quickly growing on his face. “You son of a bitch.” Chad whispers as he pins the medal to his uniform. “What was that, Lieutenant?” “It’s Captain, Mark. And take us to the damn rendezvous point.

There was once an old homeless man who lived on the corner of fifth and first, in a frigid alleyway that resembled underground Bangkok. Cluttered with heaps of trash and feces from the locals. It was nicknamed The Devil’s Taint by the crack-addicts that dwelled in its air of despair. This old man was a heron addict has been for 12 years since he lost his job as a news anchor. Wife left him for the best man at their wedding, DeMarcus. She took the kids to Costa Rica so they would forget he ever existed. Yeah his life was in a real shitter. He would try to fix himself up and get his life straight. Every time he tried a black lab would come to keep him company, but would leave if he picked up a needle. The dog reminded him of the fortune he once had and lost at a snap of a finger. Happiness… Today’s the first of June, and the homeless man was ready for his Katabasis. He’s been preparing for weeks by now. The sun begins its descent down the horizon, and with its departure, arrived a familiar face. The black lab he adored. The dog approached him and laid its head on his lap, then fell asleep. With a smile on his face, he looked at the heavens and somehow felt at peace. Time passed, hours to days, days to weeks, and weeks to months. It was around December when the tailored man came. The tailored man was in his mid 30’s, a stunning doppelganger to the homeless man’s past. He was in a rush when he scurried past the old man and the dog. Stunned the tailored man turned around to observe the dog. A joyous smiled appeared on his face. He turned to the old man with delight and asked, “How much for this dog?” Startled the old man replied, “He’s not for sale.” “How about $1,000,” protested the tailored man? “No,” the old man yelled. “$10,000,” the tailored man rebuttal. “No,” the old man yelled infuriated. The tailored man got down on his knees and begged, “Please I’ll give you a millionaire dollars this dog.” “Why do you want this dog so bad,” the old man asked? ‘You see when I was a boy I had a dog named Maverick, who was a black lab. He looked exactly like that dog over there. One day my mother got sick of him and decided to let him go in the woods. I cried for weeks because I lost the only person who understood me. And now here I am looking at a clone of him. So please Sir, I’m begging sell me your dog.” The Old man contemplated whether or not to give up the dog. It was a symbol for everything he once had, but with the money he could get it all back. Thoroughly thought through he decided to sell the dog. The tailored man’s faced lighted up like a virgin who was about to lose his virginity to a cheerleader. He signed a check, handed it over to the old man and left feeling whole again. As for the old man he started over again. Cleaned up and fresh out of rehab he invested his money into nanotechnology, which turned him into a Billionaire. He lived in 10-acre mansion with a 3-acre yard, Olympic sized ground pool and Jacuzzi. He had a trophy wife with a bust of a goddess, and trophy cars to match. This old man had it all, except the dog. The only true serenity he had in his life. Now he’s the tailored man. The empty tailored man.

Hello! Had to do some vignette exercises for class, feedback is much appreciated. This city is beautiful in the rain. I’m standing under an awning, inhaling hot smoke from the dangling cigarette between my lips and watching the rain fall in icy sheets over the most beautiful city in the world. It sparkles under all that cold rain, and I’m in love. My cigarette smoke collects under the awning in a cloud as I exhale, and the chilly winter air suddenly filling my lungs stings in contrast. Behind me, I can hear the faint clink of glasses and soft murmurs between friends or lovers (or, both, maybe, if they’re lucky) escaping from the open door of the café out of which I’ve just stepped. The warm, golden light spills onto the sidewalk next to me and calls me back inside, but nothing is more inviting than the city in the rain. Icy water is beginning to seep through the soles of my heels (I wore them for you, you know) and the warm tears that have collected in the corners of my eyes, and which are now sliding down my cheeks, suddenly feel scalding. Soon I’ll drop my cigarette onto the wet sidewalk and extinguish the ash with the toe of my now-ruined shoes, thumb the hot tears away, square my shoulders and turn back to the café to finish telling you goodbye. Goodbye to you, because I can’t say goodbye to this city. Because you are too silly to stay, and the city in the rain is too beautiful to leave. But for the moment I’m standing under the awning, enjoying the burning sensation in my lungs, and the city is shimmering just for me.

The bomb went off on the street. It went 'BANG!' very loud and then the bomb was dead. The moment was brief. It happened near the finish line. People were watching the runners run to the line. Fathers cheered their daughters and sisters cheered their brothers and sons were proud of their moms. Even strangers watched and they were proud of them all. There was sun and Coca-Cola and everyone was clapping because the day was important. The running was important. Old wives stood and cheered, 'Yay!' in ripe honeydew voices. Their husbands clapped strong hands and remembered a time. And then it happened. 'BANG!' At first there was disbelief and smoke and echo. So many stunned runners just stood and they did not run. Some runners had been knocked down by the force of the blast. They used tired legs to get back up. But the spectators were finding themselves disoriented, bleeding. Slowly, people came to and noticed the way about things. A woman picked herself up from the concrete and looked to find her sunglasses. She found them, and they were not broken. Then, looking in the lenses, she saw that she was bleeding from her head. A man took his daughter's hand and started walking for the car. He kept hurrying and looking back to the cloud of light-grey smoke. He said, 'A bomb,' when the little girl asked him something and then she asked another question and he said, 'I don't know, baby.' A mother was sitting up on the sidewalk to see that she had no legs. The mother saw her no legs and looked for her kids. Then she knew the suffocating pain, but she was scared because she could not see the kids. And she screamed for the kids, which hurt. She wanted to vomit, and she almost did. She could not hear. She could only feel the pain and the burning pepper in her nose and the cement on her back and the burning of her feet. But she yelled for the kids and then she saw a younger man moving swiftly through time. He emerged from a changing sea of empty changing colors. He moved at her and she noticed his face was round and plain with sweat glistening on his forehead and eyes that were blue and frozen calm. And then she saw nothing but she reached her arms out hoping to feel her kids. She felt his hands but she tried to fight him. Then she saw nothing and moved nothing. The children saw their mother but the loud noise had been so loud that they could not hear and they could only watch their mother bleeding and yelling like an animal. The children watched as one, then two, then more surrounded their mom who was hurt. The people swarmed her, and all the kids saw were backs and the bottoms of shoes. The children saw the blood creeping past shards of glass and little pebbles. It snaked towards their shoes. They treated it like lava. The oldest child was crying and he was scared, but he grabbed the other two and let them cry. They stood there next to the wall and cried big gulping wails. A nice lady came then and asked, 'Is that your mom?' Sirens were pulsing out in odd rhythms and men were calling over this special music and people were rushing past people rushing past people rushing. The pepper smoke was faint in the air, but it was burned into every nose. There was a dog pulling his own leash through the street. A man stumbled past a trash can and towards a cluster of people stopped, looking. He was empty and lost because he knew nothing about himself, but he knew he knew what had happened. He looked at the lookers and he said, flailing his arms, 'It just went, 'BANG!' You know?! Just like that. And, just look!' He pointed at the place where the bomb had been, where the lookers had been looking. And he said this over again at the people, 'It just went, 'BANG!' And he wondered if he believed it. 'Just, 'BANG!' Like that!' One of the lookers came over to him and put her arms around him. She gave him her water. 'It was just like, 'BANG!' he said, and she said softly, 'I know.

Red dirt littered the outside of the Land Cruiser as we rolled down the unpaved road. Smoke billowed from beyond some of the buildings, and we knew exactly what it was from. "Do these niggers really think what they're doing will help?" Jonah said from the passenger seat. "How can they truly believe this can change anything?" I kept my gaze on the road and my left hand firmly on the wheel. The coup had started, and we were in charge of the ambassador's escort. The embassy was still another five-minute drive, and since the mobs were blocking the roads and lighting tires on fire, we would probably have to change our course once or twice. "I don't agree with the tactics,” I said, “but I can empathize with them. They want an opportunity. Just a chance at a life where they don't have to wake up hungry.” Jonah rolled his eyes. "What the fuck does that mean? And you're only saying that because you grew up here! Damn sympathizer! You're emotionally attached to these... these... people. That's what gets your ass killed, bro." "I'm not attached. It's more of a respect. I know many of them personally. They're good people." "Good people my ass.” Our argument was postponed as we both noticed black smoke pouring from a group of locals down the road. I slowed down as I neared them, hoping to find an avenue of escape, but just as I noticed a hole, the group hurried to throw a few tires and douse them in gasoline. I brought the vehicle to a stop and put it in reverse. A few of the men from the mob ran at us and slammed their machetes against the metal hood of the Land Cruiser. One man threw a rock and barely missed the driver's mirror. "Find me another route, Jonah," I exclaimed as the vehicle's engine revved and threw us backwards. "You can turn right here. I don't see any smoke this way, hopefully these fuckers haven't hit the alleys yet," Jonah said as he messed with the GPS. I whizzed down the side road as quickly as the SUV could, hitting bumps and unintentionally testing the suspension system. My view to the rear was a barrage of red dust, and if we were being followed, I couldn’t tell. A thin man came running into the road and forced me to slam on my breaks. Jonah hit his face on the dash, and cursed a few times with my name in mind. "You don't stop. Don't ever fucking stop!" Jonah yelled. "I know him," I exclaimed. "Samuel! Samuel, it's me!” The man stopped running and jogged over to the car. "My friend, I am so glad," Samuel said through a bright white smile. "I did not know if you were not going to get through. Many people out here is very violent right now." "Get in!" I said, slapping the outside of the door a couple times. Samuel jumped into the back seat and pulled the door closed. He put his seatbelt on, as I pressed back down on the accelerator. Jonah held his brow, "Am I bleeding?" "No you're good," I proclaimed eyeing him for a half second. "My friends, it is not good out there. The radio say that the president is dead. General Sanogo is now the man, and he say Americans is why the famine is real bad." Samuel's face looked worried. "I do not believe this. But my friends, are you leaving now?" "Yes thank god, sick of this fucking place," Jonah said still holding his forehead. "We're trying, Samuel, but we have to get to the embassy first. We won't leave without the ambassador," I said looking Samuel in the eyes through the mirror. We kept dodging the blocked roads, which forced us to take back roads. We passed soldiers with AK's, and heard bullets ringing into the air every few minutes. No one had shot at us yet, but if they did, all we had were our issued handguns, and five magazines of ammunition each. We needed to get to the embassy so we could suit up, and face the challenges head on. My primary job was that of the translator. I spoke English and French fluently, and spoke a few phrases of the several dialects of the area. Secondly, I was the radio operator. And I would have had my radio equipment with me, but we had been sent out on short notice earlier in the morning to search for a specific American student that lived in town near the market. Our task had failed, he wasn't there, and the two-bedroom loft had been ransacked. We hoped that he had found a way out, and hadn't been grabbed by the mob. I grabbed my water canteen from the cup holder and held it over my right shoulder. "Samuel, drink buddy, you're still breathing hard!" "Merci mon ami," Samuel said as he grabbed the bottle and took a few gulps. Jonah turned his head towards Samuel. "What did he say? You know I don't speak French!" Jonah directed at me. "Chill. He said 'thank you my friend'." I explained using my right hand to push the stick into second gear as we turned a sharp corner. "Samuel and I have been friends for many years. Samuel taught me to play soccer, and how to fish using just a line." Samuel laughed, "Yes I remember. You got scared one day because a crocodile came near so... so you ran home. You wouldn't come back for three days," Samuel chuckled and emphasized the day count with three fingers in the air. We both laughed. "Just shut up guys," Jonah exclaimed. "This isn't the time." It was true, it wasn't the time for us to be reminiscing on the past, but for those few seconds, it sure felt good to remember. "Take this next left," Jonah said. "It's gonna lead us back onto a main road and I don't see any smoke in the sky, so hopefully it's clear." I took the turn, and about 500 meters in front of us was a group dancing in the road. They had their machetes up, and a few soldiers waved their AK rifles in the air. I screeched to a stop, and as I turned the vehicle around, we must have hit a nail, or a broken beer bottle, because the right front tire blew, throwing the rim onto the rocky ground. The mob had already noticed us, they chanted and sang, and did it while nearing us at an increasing pace. We all jumped out of the car, and looked around for an escape. The open road was not an option because we knew farther back the masses would be on their way. "This way, this way." Samuel yelled at Jonah and I as we both checked our weapons. He had found an alley between two cement buildings and it seemed to lead to another road. By now, the mob was at a full sprint. Their cries were no longer that of freedom, but had turned to hate and anger. I knew that they believed full heartedly in what the radio had said, and that they would have no mercy on us. "We're behind you. Go!" Jonah told Samuel as he ran behind the African man. "Coming," I yelled out bringing up the rear. We turned a few corners, sprinting as fast as we could. This labyrinth of cement walls had to lead somewhere. We could hear the mob getting closer and we heard bullets being shot off as we ran into the alley. Samuel was still in the lead, and he turned and weaved like a professional escape artist. We just did our best to stay on his heels. He gained a small lead on Jonah and I, but we still followed. Stop. We turned a corner, and Samuel was stopped. He stood with his hands on his head facing a cement wall blocking our path. It was quite tall, and way too high for one person to reach the top. "Help each other up! I will calm them. I will tell them you are not to fault!" Samuel exclaimed confidently waving both of us towards the wall. Breathing heavily, he turned back towards the path where the mob would soon be visible. "No. Samuel, come with us right now, we can get all three of us up and over this wall. We will have time." I yelled at Samuel who was already facing away from us. "Samuel, come on. You don't need to do this," Jonah yelled. I grabbed Jonah by the shoulder. "Let's go get the ambassador." Samuel looked back one last time. "It will be alright. Goodbye my friends." I nodded thankfully at Samuel, and knelt down to allow Jonah to use my knee as a foothold. We made it over the wall, and just in time. We heard the cries as they reached the wall. And then everyone went quiet. Samuel was yelling at them and speaking to them in French. "What's he saying?" Jonah whispered. "He said 'they are not at fault', and I even think he said we were Canadian. He is telling them that we were here to help the people." The people started shouting out again. It was hard to tell what they were saying, but whatever it was, it wasn't peaceful. Then a man hushed the crowd, and eventually, his voice was the only one readable. "Mon homme, je suis officier pour le général, où sont les blancs?" The man said. "Le général veut leur parlé!" "I work for the general,” I translated, “where are the whites, the general wants to speak with them.” "Sont pas là!" Samuel protested, allowing his courage to be tested. "They ar..." I started. "I got that part," Jonah interrupted me putting his finger up asking for silence. A few of the members started yelling, and soon everyone was in an uproar. The man hushed the crowd again. "Traître, tue le!" The crowd went wild. A tear formed in my eye. Jonah noticed. "What? What is it?" "They killed him." I muttered. “Why would he give his life for us?” “I don’ know,” Jonah answered. “I didn’ even respect ‘im. But he, was a good man.

Every morning John Edward wakes up he kills himself in the mirror. What Mr. Edward does not understand is why there is still an image left of himself after all these years? Every day he wakes up, looks himself in the mirror, stares deep into the eyes of this stranger, takes his gun out and shoots himself in the mirror. Some days he would do this joyfully with a sneer on his face and kills his image, other days he would just shoot himself mercilessly as he repentantly despises this image of himself, counting all the days that led to this revolting moment. Every day he would repeat this morning ritual, but he could see his thoughts having a deeper effect. He saw cracks appearing on his mirror as if it couldn't bear such suicidal thoughts anymore, another day he could see his image vanish for a moment or two, but he thought all of these could be delusions of his exhausted mind. It was a dark and cold day of September; Mr. Edward woke up, took his gun out, walked to the mirror, looked at himself with mournful eyes in the mirror; but as he tried to reach for his gun he found himself in a dreadful situation, there was a stranger with a gun pointed at him! This was no ordinary stranger, he resembled himself, he was the same size and height of Mr. Edward but he was more like a silhouette, a silhouette made of all the hatred and fears that he put on the mirror for years. It was his own image, standing in front of him with his own gun pointed at him. What used to be a mirror image was now alive and this creature who used to be a reflection of himself had unveiled its mask and came to reality with its fearful face. He took a step forward; Mr. Edward could feel the bleak breath of this ghastly creature on his face. He was paralyzed by his own very thoughts, he remembered his childhood and all the moments he played in front of the mirror, he could not believe that there was a monster hiding behind his image for all these years. He came face to face with Mr. Edward and repeated these words "Smile", Mr. Edward stood still he could not understand the demand of this monster. "Smile" shouted the monster , Mr. Edward smiled with all the fear in his heart, his image was satisfied and vanished; And so Mr. Edward smiled whenever he saw his image, he smiled every morning, he smiled when he met someone, he could see his image following him everywhere, even in other people's eyes. Mr. Edward’s image paid him more visits, every time with something new, he gave him a tie to wear every day, a suit to match his smile and a hat to hide all his fears. For years he obeyed every wish of his image. He was no more afraid of his image and started to see the beauty hiding behind his master. Mr. Edward had become the perfect man.

I miss the wind. Its gentle caress upon your skin, the way it billows through your hair like a silken comb, encompassing and soft like a lover's embrace. It is a calming breeze, one that allows you to put things in perspective, and return to an objective point of view. Goddamned civilization. The wind is gone now, the pure wind at least, replaced by the stale pollution of the city's leavings, the only breeze generated by the sheer amount of movement that happens on a regular basis. Humanity is too ignorant to see the forest for the trees, aware only of their own little bubble of reality, many refusing to accept the possibility of the unknown, as it would shatter their perceptions and rattle their "perfect" world. Alas, I find myself on a tangent yet again. This happens quite a bit. It is a good thing I am not talking to myself. Yes, that's right. I've known you were here. About the last ten minutes. Because had I simply wished to stop your espionage, you would have been quite dead by now. Even immortals can die, Mr. Randolph. Put down the gun, it will do you absolutely no good at this range. That calibur is only effective if you put enough distance between us to allow for a clean shot. Fired point blank, it would be fairly ineffective at causing any lethal damage. I grow tired of this conversation. Allow me to get back on track. You are here because of your master. He wants to know about Project K16M9. Oh, you were not included in that conversation, were you? Please, exit those pointless shadows, come sit down. Sit. SIT. Very good. Now, your master and I have- You prefer employer. How quaint. You like to believe you have a choice in your dealings with him. I shall leave you to your delusions for now. Calm yourself, it is irrelevant at this point. Listen carefully. Your...employer...and I have been in a partnership for...well, longer than you have been here, I assure you. You see, I remember when his organization was but a fledgling group, being staked out for destruction by those who would not benefit from it. Their stock plummeted each time your employer's team grew. Yes, I am using vague terms. Subtlety is important when you are on candid camera. Sit down, you are too paranoid. I own this building, and the camera in my office feeds to a recorder only I know the location of. Besides, there are far worse things to worry about with me than being seen by others. I just like using metaphors. May I continue my tale, or would you like to inject something into the story? I thought so. The business grew, and as it did, so shrank those too weak or too stupid to escape the power of corporate earnings. Have you ever heard of natural selection, Mr. Randolph? It states that only the strong survive, the weak and incompetent are left to die and be eaten by those stronger and smarter than they are. Interesting theory. One that worked for quite some time. Unfortunately, there came a time when stupidity rose up in large numbers and overthrew the balance. Soon, the weak and the ignorant had banded together within organizations, led by overzealous leaders who took advantage of their herd mentality in order to manipulate them into doing their bidding. Brilliant in its simplicity. Relate to the flock on their level, make them feel important, make them feel drawn and led by something, and their sheer numbers will blot out the sun. Then the takeover began. Your employer's numbers dwindled as these groups took the hatchet - quite literally - to each of his employees, one by one. They then began to burn his profits, usually at the stake. Before long, other companies were targeted who were considered salacious, or evil. Stocks plummeted as the product was recalled. Before long, they almost went out of business. Here, you look tense by this tale. Have some warm milk, it will ease your nerves. Ah, I see. You prefer other things. No matter, you shouldn't feel hunger for at least another hour, long enough to relay the information. This is where I came in. Your employer turned to me, knowing my battle strategy for good business and my track record for accomplishing the impossible through my vast networking skills, requesting my expertise in the matter. His payment was to be tendered in full once I had finished the deal. I set to work, sending several contacts into the rival companies, the flocks of ignorance, slowly using them as splinter cell agents to topple their hierarchy. At the same time, i've kept several of my own men and women within your employer's company, measuring your market trends, keeping an eye on fiscal results, and responsible for procurement and acquisition of goods. This allowed- Interrupt me one more time, and I shall have an excuse to put up a beautiful cremation urn that would just look tacky had it not a purpose. If anyone asks, you will have been a very close cousin. May I finish now? Stop shaking, it doesn't befit an assassin. This allowed me to filter all data back into my hands, from which I could finally work my magic, if you'll excuse the term. Before long, my contacts held a prominent position of power in the corporation of ignorance and weakness. Product hemorrhaged out of the company, and into your employer's. The irony of that is simply delicious. Nonetheless, before long a trade network was set up, and the two had an unofficial partnership, one that is covered within the non-disclosure agreements, or pacts as we once called them. Now, the companies are speaking of a merger, one that will allow the sheep to live normal lives and careers, and in return, sales for your employer will never take a downturn. Moreover, my contacts have also risen to power in your employer's company, as well. The deal has been completed. Payment is now due in full. No, not money, you fool. Why would you believe a person such as myself has any need for material things? No, the deal was a gain for information. You see, I am a very curious person. I research, gather data, keep informed on anything and everything. I am rather traveled, you understand. As such, I now have a new source of information, and a new network from which to gather said information. One that is much stealthier than a human contact, one which doesn't require sleep, and eats only when necessary. One who lives quite a bit longer. Go back to your master. Tell him Project K16M9 is complete. Tell him I shall now take my payment. Congratulations, Mr. Randolph. You both work for ME now.

I never properly understood exponential growth until I fell in love. I remember coming to this realization a few months in. I thought about how some mathematicians call formulas and equations beautiful and lovely. I understood. Love helped me to understand financial bubbles too. After being coaxed into making that first, somewhat reluctant investment and then seeing it pay off. Seeing that little investment swell, go up and up and up.... and then that late night phone call... “I don’t love you anymore” “What do you mean the money is gone?” “It’s just gone”. That sinking feeling, despair, all that stuff. The high highs and low lows. In the end, either way, I guess you can’t win if you don’t play the game but sometimes it’s hard to have fun when you aren’t winning.

I once saw a seagull, suspended above the ocean, held up effortlessly by the sea breeze. The bird did not wrong me, in fact we have never met before, but at that very moment I had only hatred towards it. Every squeal was an insult to my existence, every squak made my jaw clench tighter. I tried to track down the source of this overwhelming animosity, with no avail. As I stood there, leaning on the railing looking out to the ocean, our gaze locked. A surge of fiery hatred shot through my veins, and within seconds floating on the vast blueness were puddles of scattered red. The bird was torn to shreds before my eyes, like invisible hands ripping through paper; effortless. I did not move an inch, still gazing into the distance, the anger quelled. As I collected myself and stared down at the feathery masses of flesh bobbling about on the water, I though of George. George was a coward, though none would agree, but then again no one really knew George as well as I did. After all, he was my father. My first memory of George was two decades ago; I was about seven then. It was three in the morning when the screaming and wailing woke me. Still cloudy from sleep, I followed the horrid noises to the source. As I slowly descended the staircase, I listened, wondered what could possible be making such agonic sounds this late at night, a racoon trapped under the floorboard perhaps? Each wail was consistently followed by a loud thump or two. This continued as I inched closer. Eventually the wails became moans, then the moans became eerie gargling noises, then silence. I placed my hand on the kitchen door and pushed it open. The scene in front of me was surprisingly still and easy to comprehend. George was towering over my mother, who was sprawled across the kitchen floor. She was in her silk nightgown, twitching, drenched in red, with obvious indentations from George's steel-tipped boots across her cracked skull, her brain half spilling out and her blood dyed most of the kitchen floor red. George was breathing heavily, looking at the same thing as I was, then his attention suddenly shifted towards me, little seven-year-old me. There was no hate in his eyes, no anger, not even fear, just emptiness. He took a step towards me, then another, my heart sank. I looked down at my mother's now motionless corpse, then back to George, then to his steel-tipped boots. I felt tears rolling down my cheeks, I shut my eyes, then THUD. I stood there for a moment, waiting for the pain to kick in. Nothing. Then, yelling. It was George's voice. I pried open my eyes and peeked. The walls were now as red as the floor, and a disembodied leg was now spinning on the kitchen floor a few feet away from George, now flailing uncontrollably. At that moment, it was clear. There is no god, no guardian angels. I did it, I knocked George's leg clean off his knee. I am more powerful.

Last night I dreamed that I had died. It wasn't the normal kind of dream. It wasn't the kind of dream that you wake up enthralled, afraid or tearful from. It was something deeper than that. When I died, there was no white light to walk toward; no staircase in the clouds; no golden gate atop them; no heavenly chorus scoring each and every one of my footsteps, as if each one of them pounded on the drums of destiny; no heart; no passion; no feeling that every breath I took in my mortal life led to this moment, and that now my dreams were coming true, and I was ascending towards everlasting glory. There was none of that. But equally there was no fear. There was no anxiety, or panic, or hopelessness. The four emotions I had forever associated with death. The emotions that had left my mind crippled, contemplating other alternatives to constantly living with the big day forever looming over me. Emotions that had rendered me useless, unable to function, wondering what the fuck we are doing on this planet, and why something as spectacular as life on earth, with its inconceivable beauty and ability to emote human euphoria, could have such a terrifying and mind numbing opposite as death, and how we could know so little about it other than at its existential core, it is nothing but the absence of life in a previously living body. No. Instead of fear or euphoria, there was realism. Quite frankly, there was no commotion. I had died in a hospital, in a small room, my family surrounding me as I lay in a bed drifting off courtesy of an incurable disease, as so many have done before me, and so many will do after. As I faded I felt my woes fade also. I don't think we realise it when our lives are so busy, but we always have our woes or problems on our mind, we just don't notice them as much. I thought about my family and friends. They held hands and sobbed around my bedside, knowing they were witnessing the last moments of my human life. I guessed that I should have been worrying about them, how they would cope without me, but three familiar words kept circulating in my head. Life goes on. Life would go on for them. They would be sad, but they would find closure, and then eventually it would be their time to go too. None of these things worried me. I had always pondered the afterlife, and by this point I had accepted that I would either see them again, or that I wouldn't need to. I understood that love transcends life. And then it happened; though it didn't happen instantly. Throughout life I had always imagined that the moment of death would be similar to an abrupt power-outage, where in a split second, darkness would engulf everything. But it wasn't. It was a gradual process and I wasn't quite sure when life had ended, and whatever came next had begun. Those around my bed began to leave the room. They left in an orderly fashion, as if it had previously been decided how they would do so. First, my four best friends. Second my brothers and their wives, my sister, her husband and their children. My grandmother, and finally my mother and father. Each of them did so matter-of-factly, and that was the first sign that I may have passed over, as I'm sure in normal circumstances they would be crying and mourning uncontrollably. Instead, each of them just left. Some of them held my hand before leaving, and others kissed my forehead. And then, just like that, I was alone, albeit for just a few seconds. It was in this moment that I realised that I was witnessing my death out of body. I was standing in the corner watching this happen, not lying in the bed. And then I realised that I now had a purpose. I sat at a table in the middle of the room. It was small and there were only two chairs. The version of myself that I had just been watching got out of bed and sat at the table also. I was sitting across the table from myself. Somehow looking into my own eyes and staring back at them at the same time. Only when you look into your own eyes can you comprehend your existence. And then we talked for what felt like an hour, and yet it could have lasted for a thousand years because any comprehension that I had of time in my human life had faded, and I began to think that maybe time didn't exist anymore. We talked about the life I had lived on earth, about the relationships I had formed and the feelings I had had, what I had achieved in life, and what mark I had left on the earth. And then I asked myself what was going to happen next, and of course didn't know the answer. Just as quickly as I had realised what my role was in my own passing over ceremony, I became clueless even faster. And there I was. At a table with another person, and yet somehow completely alone simultaneously; with the most pondered question of all time, and not a single answer. I closed my eyes and breathed in. I took two more, long, similar breaths, and I held the last one. I opened my eyes. And then I saw everything. Every sunrise and sunset from every possible corner of the earth. Every flower that had ever bloomed, every tree that had ever grown, every mountain that had ever been conquered. Every creature on land, in the sky and in the oceans. Every man who had ever made his dreams come true and every woman who had ever accomplished her greatest feat. Every new-born baby that had ever been born, potential in their eyes. I experienced every sensation that could ever be felt, and heard every note that had ever been played, I tasted success, I smelled hope and in all of these things combined I saw the face of God. I awoke in my bed and questioned my own existence again. As I write this I am still unaware of what my dream means. I believe that we are more than skin and bones. I believe that our bodies are nothing but vessels, and I believe that our souls are always yearning to escape them. I am unsure of the afterlife, and I wonder whether or not this life on earth is simply the afterlife to a previous one; that maybe every life is an afterlife and in each one we are promised something different for the next. I wonder how many times I have died before, I wonder how many times I will die again, and I wonder whether or not there is some end to this cycle. The only thing we can be sure of is death, for without death there is no life. There cannot be one without the other, but I do not believe that birth is the beginning and death the end. Until it is my time to become knowledgeable of what is next to come, I will just keep dreaming.

I didn’t snap. It was much more gradual than that. It was like slipping off the edge of a cliff, fingers scraping the top, until in one moment that seemed like an echo of something that never existed I was falling. When I went to bed last night, I was still hanging on; when I woke up, I was crashing. I don’t know what came undone while I slept. It had been three weeks, two days, and thirteen hours, I’d guess, since I went over the edge—nothing special. But that was the day I knew I’d never see the top of the cliff again. That morning I didn’t know it had happened. I felt the same, that sort of feeling that I was a rusty machine and when I walked I could feel every screw and bolt and joint twisting slowly, grating in place because the whole thing was wound up too tight. I was so used to it by then. I wasn’t even surprised when I could walk through the ghost. Her name was Dr. Aimee Joyce, and I have seen her every day for three months. Three weeks and two days ago, my alarm clock went off at 5:30 a.m. and I woke up to a glimmer of light slowly burning along the edges of the room like a fuse. I blinked, trying to bring it into focus, and I felt the bed shift. “Good morning.” A hand rolled me onto my back, and Aimee kissed me on the cheek. I moaned something unintelligible. She chuckled, patted my shoulder and stood up, the springs squeaking. I heard the patter of her footsteps and squeezed my eyes shut, but the burning yellow light still seeped in. “Is there any chance we could come up with a gentler wakeup call?” I rolled out of bed, rubbing my eyes. “The alarm clock and a kiss have yet to be effective, so this is the only option left.” Lights turned on in the bathroom, and I fumbled through my drawers, squinting. A whisper of water signaled the shower starting. “And you’d be late if I didn’t get you up.” “That’s true.” I buttoned my shirt. “But it’s kinda . . . disorienting.” “That’s alright,” she called. “You’re sort of cute when you’re blinking and confused.” I rolled my eyes. Pulling my pants on, I shuffled into the kitchen, started the coffee, and opened the fridge. While I waited for the coffee, I took out some yogurt and poured a little granola in it and grabbed a plastic spoon to mix it up. Then I looked at my reflection in the fridge and fixed my hair a bit—close enough. I’ve never been much for putting an effort into anything I don’t care about, like neat hair. Aimee tells me I’m a bit of a cowboy: I only follow my own rules. Aimee, on the other hand, sticks to the rules. Everything is as orderly at home as it is at the hospital. She has the light touch of a surgeon and a voice full of light to match. She makes mornings bearable. I heard the whoosh of the blow-dryer. When the coffee was ready, I poured it into two to-go cups with two creams in hers and one sugar in mine. Just as I finished, Aimee walked out with her strawberry blonde hair twisted into a damp bun. I handed her the coffee and the parfait. “Thanks,” she murmured, taking a swig. “What are you going to eat?” I shrugged. “I’ll get a breakfast burrito on the way into work.” “You know that, as a doctor, I’m obliged to tell you that isn’t healthy, right?” I grinned, taking a sip. “I know.” She shook her head, a small smile creeping across her face. “I can’t always take care of you. You need to learn to live on your own.” While she was eating, I brushed my teeth and took my gun from the lockbox and holstered it. “You ready to go?” I walked in and grabbed the keys off the counter. She nodded and took her own. I was turning the front door knob when she her fingers curled over my shoulder. “Be careful, Dave.” “I will.” “I love you.” “Love you too.” And I kissed her, and we went out the door. That was the last time we spoke. Every morning after I saw her the way I used to: smiling and talking and kissing me good morning and goodbye, and when I walked out the door I realized I saw her in the dark because there was no one to open the blinds and I realized there was nothing except cold and hollow space. I was alone. I never hear her because the last time I saw her—really saw her, not just something my mind conjured up—there was a glass wall between us, and I guess my mind has always kept that there. Three weeks and two days ago, my partner, Ramsey, and I were filling out paperwork for a case we’d just wrapped up with the news running in the background when something caught my ear: Crown Hill Hospital, where Aimee worked. I dropped my pen. “Ramsey, turn up the volume.” He raised an eyebrow and obliged. “…on the fourth floor. Police estimate there are almost sixty hostages.” Aimee’s floor. I jumped up, and Ramsey jumped after me. “Dave, wait.” He grabbed my arm. I wrenched away. My vision tunneled as I stormed across the room. “We have to let local LEOs handle this.” I pounded down the stairs. “You know they get pissed when feds—.” “I DON’T GIVE A SHIT.” I whipped around, vision blurry, knuckles white, air buzzing. Ramsey looked at me calmly and held out his hand. “Give me your keys.” It took ten minutes. The whole ride, it felt like my bones were slowly turning to lead. We stopped in a parking lot full of cop cars and sirens. Red and blue lights flashed on dull concrete and a dripping gray sky. The glass walls of the hospital rose tall and turquoise from the ground. When I looked at the building, every room behind the glass was empty except one on the fourth floor packed with cowering people and three masked men with automatic weapons. “We should—,” Ramsey began. I turned my head sharply and turned off his voice. I ran toward the chief of police. He turned around as I came sprinting up, bushy eyebrows furrowed. “Is there a Dr. Aimee Joyce in there?” I panted. “Who are you?” His voice was rough like sandpaper. “FBI Agent David Bretton. Is there a Dr. Aimee Joyce in there?” Ramsey came up and put his hand on my shoulder. “And who are you?” “His partner. Can you tell us anything about the people up there?” “This isn’t your case.” The chief began to turn back around. I lunged. Ramsey caught me. “Tell me if she’s there!” He looked at me, scrutinized, narrowed eyes. Ramsey loosened his grip when I stopped struggling. He sighed. “She’s there.” Static. There was that weird buzzing all over like we were on TV and the satellite signal had been lost. I looked up at the glass and tried to make words but they wouldn’t come. “Dave?” Ramsey said. The corners of my eyes pixelated into black and white: static. I looked back at the chief. “Are you getting them out?” sounded like muffled thunder. “We’re trying to negotiate.” “Chief, they’re saying they’re going to prove they’re serious.” A person appeared next to us. “We need you over here now.” He walked away. I looked up. People were crouched down, barely distinguishable as they melded into a mass of fear and flesh. The men, all in black, stalked through them. I couldn’t find her. “Dave, can you hear me?” I couldn’t find her. I had to find her. Everyone had their faces buried behind their knees. I couldn’t find her. Where was she? The green-blue tinted glass distorted everything. I couldn’t “We need to go.” find her. I just had to “You shouldn’t be” find her and “here. You can’t help. We need” get her out. If I could see her maybe I could help her, tell her “to go. Let’s get in the car. Come on, let’s” how to escape. She wasn’t there, she wasn’t there, I couldn’t “get in the car. Dave, can you” find her, I needed to find her, I needed her “hear me? are you listening? Dave, look” with me. I needed to hold her “at me. Look away from” hand and tell her everything was going to be okay because “the building. Look at me. You’ve got to look away.” right now it was going to hell and I just needed to find her. But I couldn’t. One of the men bent over, and every sound died. He slung the automatic behind him, grabbed someone and yanked them up by the hair: strawberry blonde. Aimee. Her hands were clawing at his on her neck as he pushed her toward the glass. She was fighting, but he was winning. Slowly, steadily, he pushed her closer to the glass walls that twisted the light around them. She kicked at the ground, scratched at his arms, but he never flinched. He threw her at the glass, and she bounced into it, elbows smashing against it, where I could see her face. She was crying. Her face was distorted, and the fight was shaking through her body. She turned and ran and he pulled a handgun and shot her straight through the head. Scarlet slung across the glass shattered like a spider web and I saw her body slam into the ground between the cracks. I don’t remember anything after that. Later, they told me there was nothing I could have done or could do. That it was random. That the men wanted to prove they would kill. That Aimee was the only one they killed. That I couldn’t have her body because it was part of an ongoing investigation. That they couldn’t tell me what the men wanted because it was part of an ongoing investigation. Because after they killed Aimee they got away. I didn’t snap. I walked through the ghost and realized that I would never be able to find her behind that glass, that it was always going to be cold and hollow. So I grabbed my bag, grabbed my gun, grabbed my keys, and I got on the highway, driving west until the dawn seemed to retreat before lost nights rumbling toward me. I drove to find the men who killed Aimee.

The next night, Peter’s friend told him that he was really sad because his mother had died. Society told Peter that this was unacceptable. It was now up to Peter to make everything alright for his friend- to tell him well-thought-out lies to keep him happy and sane. They spoke their lies to each other over text message: “I don’t believe in much. Really, I believe in almost nothing. But I do believe in hope. A tiny light within you and everyone else, that can never be crushed. If you never let go of your tiny light of humanity- if you just hold on to the light you have inside of you- more positive things will happen in your life, as a direct result of your positive thinking.” -Peter wrote that. **These were all lies.** Peter’s friend thanked him profusely, and in tears, although Peter would never know, because they were not talking in person. Hardly ever did Peter, or most people his age, talk in person. They prefered to confuse each other through text, and not go through the grueling process of true empathy or compassion. Peter’s friend loved everything that Peter had to say, said Peter’s friend’s phone in a text message. He believed Peter, even if Peter did not believe himself. That night one of them went to sleep. This is how the day went according to Peter’s mind that night: I hardly knew her. Sep. 13 2012, 3:39pm STOP REQUESTED “Dear friends, we gather...” Sunapee Harbor Cottages (603) 763-5052 Her eyes lit up as she smiled, biting her lip. “She was a loving, accepting, kind human being.” “You have my number right? I live in Brighton.” “-let’s plan a vacation. Don’t forget this time.” She was a starry night too Vincent! If only you knew Vincent! I wonder what her face looked like after the crash. “Black ballpoint pens manufactured by Parker have a lifespan five miles long of writing before the ink dissipates.” "-she sent me some hilarious texts, not any that are appropriate for sharing right now though...." “-if we learned anything in the past week, son, it’s that everything can end instantly, without warning.” “A good pen can write 50,000 words.” "She was the warmest, most fun-loving woman I have ever met." She kissed my legs all the way up, starting at the feet. A shiver went through my body. “The horrific crash, which happened at about 10:45 Monday morning, killed the victim and closed that stretch of the road for nearly 10 hours while investigators combed the scene.” “-sometimes more of a friend than a mother.” “You’re early, but so am I!” “-she was my best friend.” It must have been hardly a face at all. By John Diniak “The first fountain pen was invented by L.E. Waterman in 1883, and had it patented in 1884.” “-electronic cigarette in one hand, Diet Coke in another.” “To be honest, I‘m only working part-time and need to make more money.” “Well, I think that's it. I'll Miss you.” “Does this bus go to Brighton?” Her colors- her being, Vincent; They ended in a swirl. Just a little too beautiful for this world. “It took rescue personnel about an hour and a half to extricate the victim from her car, which was heavily damaged. The road was strewn with pieces of the car.” “In World War II, pilots used ballpoint pens because they do not leak at high altitudes.” Memories are never lost, but left upstairs with eternal frost. Like a mad woman, whispering to herself in the attic She may scream every once in a while. Hush yourself, like mother to child, but never open the door.

They fear me. Because I know the truth. Why don't they want me to know the truth? Because the truth will set you free that's why. And they don't want me to be free. I remember the day I grew my wings. They were black, the kind of black where no light escapes and when you stare, you feel as if you are falling into a deep dark hole. I flew laughing as I felt the wind blowing through my hair, seeing the earth all stretched out around me like a geography lesson made real. They pulled me down. "Never do that again do you hear me.", they whispered as I crashed, a flurry of broken limbs and bruised elbows through the limbs of a broken tree. But how could I? The feeling of being free, of being able to truly move, of true wonder battling in the crosswinds. It was like a drug. And so the second time I flew they chained me. "To protect you from harming yourself.", they claimed as they wheeled me into a soft place full of bright lights and white coats, with the sharp tangy smell of disinfectant following you wherever you go. It was there when I discovered the truth. I was not the only one with wings. There were many there who had wings, like the colours of the rainbow and tears glittered in my eyes as I saw that I was not alone. There were others like me. But it was there where I saw the horrible things they were doing to others of our kind. They gave them blue pills to stunt the growth of their wings, counseling sessions to persuade them that they didn't need to fly, soft chains to prevent their wings from moving. Day by day, their wings got smaller and smaller until they eventually disappeared altogether. And so over the years, a stream of wingless, grounded people left the bright place. They left smiling for they were free at last. In their minds at least. To me they were no better than earthworms crawling in the muck when they could have had so much more. They could have had the skies, the fresh rarefied air of the atmosphere, climb until there were stars in their eyes and fall back down, laughing all the way but they gave that up. For what? For dirt. I fought when it was finally my turn. I bit, thrashed and hit when the white coats came for me. In return they prescribed more blue pills, until sometimes I could not see my wings properly. They faded in and out, fizzled and wavered as they forced down pill after pill. They coaxed me in soothing voices "We just want to help you." when their minds screamed, "BE LIKE US." Be... wingless. I could not, I would not give up my wings. And so, one day I learned how to lie. The white coats were surprised and excited when I agreed with them, that I had no wings, that I couldn't fly. A breakthrough, they called it. I took my prescription of blue pills willingly, nodded eagerly at whatever the white coats said. A year later, they declared me wingless. "We were worried about you. Especially with the continuous suicide attempts and all...", a white coat confided in me as I made ready to leave the soft room. I nodded, an empty smile plastered on my face. I still had my wings. It was my stay there in that soft room that encouraged me to study psychology, to save those who wanted to fly, to save those like me. It took me 5 years but I did it, graduating as a doctor majoring in psychology. I will forever remember the look on the face of my first patient as I asked her, "Can you see my wings?". The look of amazement and wonderment will forever be ingrained in my memory and it made those 5 years of grueling study worth it. There are hundreds of us now, some living their daily lives just like those who are wingless, all the while knowing that anytime, they could fly freely into the air. Others, who like me, are stationed at the bright places, to help those who are caught and are turned by the white coats. Many of them ask me, "When can we finally fly? When can we finally be free?" I always counsel for patience. For when we finally fly, it will be as one, one great flock that would be so many in number that even the wingless, as many as they are, would not be able to pull us down. They fear us because we know the truth. We have wings and we can fly and we are free. For if we can fly, are we not truly free? We have wings. And we will fly.

This is the ending of the first dream I ever remember. It was the only time I ever "met" my grandfather who died six months before I was born. I was three when I had it. The air was ephemeral. It was more of a concept than anyone that young should embrace, but it was. The air, what else could you call it? It was ephemeral. Each breath lasted within the nostrils for only a moment and then they scintillated through his flesh as does daybreak from the pupils. That's all the longer it needed to and then it was gone. Thick and heady, but then only a memory. It was just as the colors, the sounds, the smells...everything; so ephemeral. The cousins, they bounded off into the distance. They were free, joyous, and ignorant. All of them knew nothing except what was in front of them except one. She looked back. Her eyes filled with fear, resentment, and longing from beneath inky bangs. She wanted what she could never ask for, for what she'd eventually bridle herself with, but for what could never be given. Even she turned away. "This is your responsibility. I wish I could spare you some of it. It is yours...all of it." These were ancient words, far older concepts, more than a young mind could bear. The elderly man stooped down among crimson leaves hanging from emerald capped mushrooms beneath lavender skies. "This is as far as I can bring you. You will have to carry them the rest of the way." The young boy, still silent, looked to the rest of his party. They were his age and a bit older. They were smarter, wiser, more independent. As they bounded off he wondered what else he could possibly have to offer them. The fear and turmoil was nothing to them. They didn't register the terror as he did. What more guidance could he offer them? "There are far more my boy. They have much farther to go; much farther than you or I have traveled and much farther than you can imagine. They are your responsibility though. You have to pull them through." The boy's eyes watered. It was the stress of responsibility and the weight of inevitability. It was the strain weighing on nerves and thoughts which could barely sustain their own mass, much less the heaving of eternity. Yet here it all met. Timelines, seemingly so incongruent yet so inevitable, meeting at the crossroads of ancient history and fate's inexorable rails. "It isn't fair, I know. We've done the best we can for you, and I admit, it's not enough. I don't think it is enough, but I know it must be enough. You will bring them, not just *them*," nodding to the little girls bounding off to consciousness, "but all of them. It won't be pretty and you probably won't think you'll do it well, but you must believe me -- if you won't believe anyone else -- no one else can do this thing. You will bring them through. You will bring them through the darkness, the forest, the things that they fear, and the things which fear you. Most importantly, only you can bring them through that which you fear most." That was what broke the dam of tears. That elicited fear and sadness and doubt. The boy shuddered under the weight of this promise. This was the promise which would break anyone, the one not made by a man but made to a man. It incapacitated him, it emancipated him, and still it endowed him with a lifetime of duty. "In the end this will hurt more than any pain I could inflict," and now the old man began to cry, slow streams of tears down a creased face as he knelt to hold the boys trembling cheeks in his hands for one last time, "but it will save them, it will save me, and most importantly my boy, it will save you." They embraced. The boy's tiny arms struggled to wrap around the elderly man's withering frame. It was the first time. It was the last time. It was the only time. The boy looked at him in his somber pinstriped suit. The navy lines barely registered among the dark charcoal wool which covered him from saddle shod toes to fedora lined brow. The subdued colors shone brightly against the ghastly hued landscape. The boy walked away towards both liberty and incarceration. Of all the colors he looked back on the only one he could truly remember were those refracted through his grandfather's tears. The light that passed through the drops of his eyes carried everything. They carried hope, doubt, strength, weakness, triumph, and failure. They carried lifetimes. They carried the weight, the eternal weight, the weight no sane man could accept and no honorable man could reject. Then he awoke. For the first time, he truly awoke.

The Chosen and the Flawed The bedside alarm went off at six in the morning on the 14th of February. The alarm rattled all over the table repeating “Get up Tom!” until the groggy boy in his blue pajamas thrust his hand down on the power button. Tom's room was enough to tell that he was different. The bright green walls were covered in the most beautiful pictures and paintings. Even though Tom admitted he had no artistic talent, he prided himself on knowing a lot about art and paint. The paintings were however, not the most unusual thing about him. Scattered throughout Tom's room were artifacts that would have, in the past, seemed very peculiar. Hefty books, strange liquids, and ornate talismans were only a few of the many interesting items in Tom's room. Tom lifted his head and stared at some of the paintings on the wall. He was too tired to move and too tired to lay back down. He stayed in this purgatory like state for a couple more minutes until he reluctantly stood up to get ready for his day. The day could not have started out any worse. Almost as soon as he took his first step away from his bed he tripped over a rather large book entitled “Magic Post 2050.” Cursing loudly, he stood up and put the book on his bed. He was required to read this book for his “Magic for the Chosen 101” class. “Honestly what a stupid class” Tom thought out loud as he tossed the book into his bag. He was really dreading spending the next 4 hours learning about magic in Professor Anderson's class. Professor Anderson was a middle aged and very dull teacher. His scratchy voice, almost certainly from years of smoking, would drone on about “The Chosen” and how they were the great people. Tom had sat through years of this rubbish. He hated the word Chosen. He thought it sounded so elitist. The word Chosen had become a common word to use for someone who could use magic. The ones who couldn't use magic were known as the “Flawed.” Flawed people were not allowed to go to college. They were required to do jobs to make the Chosen's lives easier. Anything from janitorial work to working in cafeterias were considered ideal jobs for the flawed. Tom took his time in packing his bag, making sure to pack his pens, books, and papers. When he had finally packed everything he would need for class he had wasted a good thirty minutes of his day. Letting out a big sigh he set out for his first class. The rain beating down on him all the way. By the time Tom reached the door to Professor Anderson's class, students were already flooding the hallways and chatting about mindless topics. “Tom! Over here!” said a familiar voice. Tom recognized it at once and beamed at his good friend Cindy. Cindy was a very pretty girl, with violent blue eyes and bright orange hair. His personality really shined though, she was always happy and never pessimistic about anything. “Excited for class?” Cindy said almost too enthusiastically. Tom's face was enough to tell that he was in fact not excited for this class. Cindy, getting the message, continued on “Did you hear about the assembly they are holding in the Raynor Center?” The Raynor Center was a very large auditorium originally used as a basketball area. Ever since 2050 though, basketball and most other sports became almost obsolete. Now the auditorium was used only for very special announcements and meetings. “Any idea what it's about?” questioned Tom with his eyebrows raised. “Probably something related to the 'Flawed' movement” sighed Cindy, he eyes seeming a little more distant. Cindy's sister was a “Flawed” and this topic always drew out emotions in Cindy. “Come on we'll be late for class” said Tom softly, knowing not to push the subject any further. “2050, the year of the Chosen!” said a cool voice at the front of the room. Professor Anderson was a tall, and very angular man. “Today we will be reviewing the history of the Chosen.” said the terrible voice Tom hated. Tom had heard this story a thousand times and decided it was a good time to let his mind wander. He started thinking about some of the paintings in his room. His favorite in particular was a Raphael which depicted St. Michael overwhelming a demon. He shook his head back into reality and tried to pay attention as best he could. Professor Anderson continued “In the year 2048 a new drug was discovered. This drug would allow select chosen people to use certain parts of their brain. These Chosen people could use parts of their brain that allowed them to do supernatural things. Magic.” Tom winced as a sharp pain erupted on his right shoulder. “Pay attention!” Cindy whispered, obviously not wanting to get in trouble. Rather reluctantly Tom raised his head and looked at the professor. Professor Anderson's scratchy voice went on “After a couple more years of development and research the drug was available to the masses. The drug only worked on about 7% of the population and these were known as the Chosen.” Tom had almost memorized this story over years of hearing it. It had never really made him feel special. “The president of the United States, President Raynor, was a member of this 7%. Being a very intelligent man, the President started giving more benefits to Chosen people. It began with special education programs and private groups but, as you all know it has led to the great society we live in today.” Tom chanced a glance toward Cindy and noticed her skin looked a little more pale than usual. “All of you, and the other 700 people here at Montgonmery are a small number of that 7%. You are the Chosen people and a great people.” finished Professor Anderson. “Are you ok?” asked Tom to Cindy after class. “I'm fine” Cindy mumbled. She continued “I think we can stop for lunch before the assembly!” in a very bright voice but perhaps a little forced. After a quick lunch and some fun banter Tom and Cindy made their way into the heavy rain to reach the mandatory assembly in the Raynor Center. As they trudged through the rainy sidewalks Tom noticed a couple of children sitting on a bench cuddled together. Cindy seemed to notice them too. She always got really quiet when she saw flawed people. Her own sister was a flawed person and taken away from her. Tom wrapped his arm around her and they continued their way into the Center. The sight before them was astonishing. Banners were everywhere with the phrase “We are Chosen.” “This is getting out of control.” Tom said in an anxious tone. Cindy remained silent. Tom and Cindy continued through the doors into the large arena and took two seats near the very top. They had arrived early and watched as the stadium rapidly filled up with around 700 people. Tom noticed that most of these people seemed worry free, and his mind kept racing back to those kids sitting on the bench. “When do you think this will start?” but just as Tom asked this a large man in a black suit made his way into the very center of the arena. Curiosity seemed to cause silence throughout the arena. The man in the suit stood before the podium and said, “I welcome you, Chosen people!” His tone was upbeat but also very frightening. Tom shivered and held Cindy's hand tightly. The man continued on with his speech, “You are all gathered here today as a Chosen people to take part in a movement!” Everyone started cheering. Everyone except Tom and Cindy. Both of their hands had a noticeably tighter grip. “It is time to rid our country of flaws. If we want to progress we must conform!” he said in that same frightening voice. “We can start a new world, a beautiful world, a world of potential, a world of progress, a world of Perfection!” Another huge outburst of applause broke out. “Let it begin!” finished the man in the suit. The applause did not quiet down until the man in the suit gestured for some other men to come out onto the stage. These men were wearing white gowns similar to what doctors wore in the early 2000s. Silence took over again as the man in the suit roared “These men have developed a way for our plan to succeed!” The man on his right pulled out a small box and opened it with his small hands. From the box he pulled out one very small orange pill. Tom thought it ironic how this man was wearing white. Again the man in the suit silenced the audience and said “This is how we begin the purification of the Earth! This is how we start over as a pure race!” The distant echoes of applause were all that Tom and Cindy heard as they rushed out of the arena and into the lobby. Both Tom and Cindy, feeling a bit overwhelmed, sat down on a bench very close to one another. Not really knowing what to do Tom looked out onto the street. The kids were still cuddled together on the bench, and it was still raining.

How had I never noticed how fresh the air here was? I took another deep breath, filling my lungs with crisp autumn. The voices of the tavern mixed pleasantly, a harmonious cacophony. Any other day so many people in my quiet seaside bar would greatly upset me, but this was a good day. I looked down at the stool next to me, where I’d sat my important package. Yes, today was the day I could feel it. Other, more regular drinkers drained their lagers in flagons, but I was content with a simple pint. A nice frosty pint for me, thank you. The blonde serving the drinks had the most marvelous eyes, here blue or there green depending on which way they caught the light. Her hips were meant for children. She was an angel, even if she didn’t remember my name after a week straight of coming here. I saw her pleasant presence as a blessing, a sign that today was the day the seeds of my labors came to fruition. I moved my hand to the next table and felt the brown paper wrapped around the package, the sculpted brass underneath, careful only to touch the edges, never disturbing the world I’d created within. When my glass was near empty the lovely barmaid brought me another. A second time. A third time. A fourth. My head was swimming now, a pleasant buzz surrounded everything. Today was the day. One of the regular drinkers looked over to me and we locked eyes. I smiled. He raised his flagon. I raised my pint and we toasted silently. I’d like to think he wished me all the best in my endeavors. It made two of us. I heard the door open and close and I looked up to see the most beautiful creature. She was from southern France, maybe Spain, judging by the dark tones of her skin. Her raven hair tumbled just to her shoulder blades and danced around her neck and back as she walked towards the bar. I wasn’t the only man in the room checking the placement of my jaw, I assure you. But it was I, with the dumb smile on my face, who she came and sat down with. I won’t deny giving a smug look to the regular drinkers with their large flagons. Face to face she was almost too wonderful for words. She was brisk, plump, and jolly, and ever so slightly past her nineteenth birthday. She was open and honest to a complete stranger, a man she’d never even met. It was as if fate directed her to me, she said. I was caught between wondering why such a beautiful girl would sit with me and amazement that she was speaking my language so fluently. She was a Spaniard, I noted from her accent. Before I was even able to open my mouth to tell her my name (and I had to tell her more than once because she kept forgetting it), she was telling me of her grand plans. She had traveled this far alone after running away from her father. An alcoholic, prone to fits of anger, but he hadn’t always been that way. The death of her mother took a horrible toll on a previously gentle and loving family man, she’d said. She was going to continue north, keep seeing the world until she decided she was ready to settle down. She didn’t know where or when or with whom, but she figured when the time was right, she’d be ready for anything. “And how do you know the time is not now?” I asked her. “Because I know.” She said, and she held my gaze for a long time. “Then why are you here?” “Because of all the men in this room, you are the only one with destiny about you.” She could feel it too. The day itself was smiling on me, what could possibly go wrong? “I’m glad to hear you say that,” I admitted to her. “Today I am delivering this important package.” I motioned to the seat next to me. “Once I have delivered this, my whole life will change. I will have fame and fortune and everything my heart desires.” She smiled. I smiled. We smiled and laughed and drank. We toasted to destiny. And then she put her hand on my arm. She sucked in air. Her eyes went white and wide and wild. When her pupils came back, she was breathing in ragged gasps, and her eyes darted around. She wouldn’t make eye contact with me. “Are you okay?” I asked her, grabbing her lightly by the shoulders. She shook me off violently and stood up. “You…what are you? What darkness? What evil?” Tears were running down her cheeks. Her breaths came as sobs “What in Hell are you talking about?” I demanded. “Murderer!” She cried. “I’ve never harmed anyone! Anything!” “You will.” Her sobbing increased. The regular drinkers had first assumed I was harassing the poor girl, but they began to see the truth of her fit of insanity. “Oh God be good, you will.” And with that she ran out the door. The room burst in to laughter. Everyone but me. I took a moment to collect my thoughts as I paid my tab and finished my last pint. I shook off the haunting feeling the young Spaniard had left me with. An anxiety. A pox on my perfect day. By sheer force of will I managed to convince myself to forget the whole thing. She was nothing more than a crazy girl. It might even have been her idea of a funny joke. Best not to dwell on such things. Especially not on such an important day. I retrieved the package from the seat next to me. This thing was going to change my life. This was the one. No more failures. No more rejections. This was the best painting I’d ever done in my life. It was mid-autumn in Vienna, eight years since the turn of the twentieth century, almost six months to the day ‘til my birthday. This was my day. Destiny awaited. And though I had spent my life thus far in obscurity, I knew that after today nothing would ever be the same. No one would ever forget my name again.

The silver zipper, on the back of her bright blue skirt, seemed a universal key to her body, her character, her intimate self. She was distinctly out of place, 20 something extremely well put together with a unique modern Euro style that contrasted like a black fly on a whit sheet against a room of aging men who's wives shop for them at Khol's or maybe Target when the deals are good. That. Fucking. Silver. Zipper. The balding, desperate, egocentric principal researcher boasted left and right about the accuracy and applicability of his latest model. Maybe now he'd get the respect of his colleagues, if only it hadn't finally happened on the last leg of his suffocating career. As brown-nosing graduate students asked 'pedestrian' questions and were thrown answers in a tone that supposed the question was ludicrously simple, I just sat and pondered about that Silver Zipper.

The numbers, the words all of it is recalling in my head. I only have 7 hours until the exam and the gap is closing. All the things that I should have learned all flooding my head in a singularity of modern proportions. If there were only 5 more hours in the day I would be fine, but no. Instead I am writing to you a single plea. A hope to god that I am able to access that single point in time where I absorbed the necessary information; where I recalled and understood it. It is up to you now! Channel your energy to me. give me your mind and your attention. Your ability to communicate the facts! If you choose not to it is fine, but I would be much obliged to share your mind state. Think, love, help, LEARN. - sincerely a mad man.

Imagine a world, a world in the future. Not the near future like in back to the future. A future where humans are the underdog, not the likeable underdog as in david and goliath where he wins even through the odds are not in his favor. This is the near future where the humans are the slaves, the slaves to the dragons. Why not robots, you might ask. Well robots are always the slave masters that have taken over the world. Don't you think dragons should get their chance at having a fierce reign over the whole known world? These dragons aren't just ordinary dragons, known from popular - well medieval - literature, no these fierce-full creatures, huge in their appearance, need us humans. I didn't get to describe the dragon yet, so don't panik just now. They usually don't hurt you. Look over there. See that majestic creature? His name is Draaga. You see him, 10 meters tall, imagining him next to a typical one story house, he would be able to look over it without a problem. Cars seem small next to him. His scales - every dragon has scales, where were you the last 100 years? - are shining in a matt metallic green. Can't imagine it? Fuck off, he's a dragon. He can look as impossible as he wants to. Back to Draaga, why am I showing you him? He is special. He doesn't just enslave humans for his needs, no he has dragons under his rule. These dragons do menial work for him. Build him caves, find him mates, and they even bring him food. But he still is a healthy dragon. He isn't lazy like others might be in his position. He only does /fun/ things. That is where we humans come into play. Dragons have kept good care of us humans. We might not be able to vote, or have our own property, but they need us. Specially they need the intelligent humans. You must know, dragons want to have fun. We can provide them with fun. Real fun. Dragons have selectively breeded the most intelligent humans for the past 5 generations. For you math lazy people, that's more than 400 years. Only the most adapt, the most intelligent humans survived their selection. They built us - and helped us build - schools, universities, laboratories and more. These have only one function. To make us have the ability to produce psychedelic drugs. Acid in particular. That is their fun. That is our existence. Producing and refining Acid for the pleasure of dragons.

This, this a story without a planned plot, protagonist, antagonist or even a climax at that. Why, do you ask? Leave it to personal opinion to tell you that life doesn't have a story line, a good guy, or a bad guy, and it could end mid sentence, or after three hundred pages. So with that said, meet Riley, Riley Mattheux. A quiet kid, with loud noises in his head. Didn't say a whole lot, but that doesn't mean he had nothing to say. He had a hard time speaking when put on the spot, driving peers and people affiliated with him absolutely crazy. He was gentleman, a little less of a scholar, and even less of a manly man. He would never break six foot tall, or know the luxury of having the opposite sex swoon over him. This is a transcript of my conversations with Riley, see how he starts off keeping to himself, and slowly opens up. I hope you all get to know him as well as i did. Me: Good morning Riley, how are you doing this morning. Riley: Im good. Me: Just good? Riley: Yeah. Me: No elaboration on how well you slept or how the events of your morning affected your good mood? Riley: Any elaboration on how much you really wanna psycho-analyze me for your putrid tests? Me: All I asked is how your morning was... Riley: And "good" wasnt good enough? You asked me a question, and i answered it, in a timely manner, and directly, what else do you want from me? Me: Well, I would like to have a normal conversation, without the hostility, and without you looking to deep into implications that do not exist. Riley: Okay then, continue. Me: Well, what is it you like? Any hobbies, interests, passions? Riley: Music is my passion. Me: What kind of music do you enjoy? Riley: I just said I love music, all music, there isn't a certain genre i love more than another, I appreciate art, I appreciate the emotions and the fullness of the heart that was poured into that little four minute composition. You can always tell a good song by how it makes you feel, it it doesnt make you feel anything, it's garbage. If you feel anger, sadness, happiness etc, then the artist has done what they were looking to do. Which is all anyone wants anyway, is the piece of mind know that they accomplished what they set out to do. Me: Wow, i wasn't expecting an answer that in depth. Riley: I'm an in depth guy. Me: I'm starting to see that. Riley: Well i would hope so, you got four sets of eyes there to see it with. Me: Fair Enough. Im noticing that your answers to my questions are very black and white, is that how you view life? Riley: As a matter of fact it is. It is yes or no, this or that, right or left, simple as that, when you start making things more complicated is when problems arise, whether it be a small or huge problem. Life isn't that hard of a thing to figure out, once you simplify it, all the complications become clear, still complex nonetheless. Its kinda like taking pre-calculus, you learn the hard complicated way to work all the problems out to get the same answer, as opposed to calculus, you learn why, instead of how, and sometimes knowing why is better than knowing how. Me: So, you are saying that everything is black and white, but your explanations as to why that is so is all colors of the rainbow. If its so simple, why does it require explaining? If it were as cake as you say, it would just require common sense to understand that nothing is as hard as we make it? Riley: Sense, is not a common thing anymore. Me: Why do you say that? Riley: What the hell do you mean, why do I say that? I say that because i believe it, if you have to ask, you are walking proof that sense is an uncommon trait. Me: Anger, Riley, watch it, I'm asking you why you believe that common sense is a dying trait. Riley: It doesnt matter why i believe anything, no one is going to care what i think. I tell you what though, if someone would just sit the fuck down, shut up, and listen, I have it figured out, as god as my witness, I have this life figured out, and how it works, and why it works, and why the path we are going down is gonna be the end, and a new beginning at the same time. After that, Riley got worked up, and left the room. I personally believe i can break to the inner core of this kid, there is something interesting that i am seeing, and something even more interesting that i have yet to see.

BREAKING Instagram revealed to be government project to promote weight loss Wikileaks revealed today that Kevin Systrom cofounder of popular smartphone Instagram has been exposed as an undercover agent from the United States Department of Health. The app was designed to encourage public health and better eating habits. Instagram is a popular smartphone app designed for taking, editing and sharing pictures of ones food. Researchers from the Department of Health believed that the apps users would prepare and eat healthier meals to avoid negative reactions from other users in regards to their eating habits. When asked about this one of the apps users noted that he would often find pictures of healthy food online, share them with Instagram and then order double bacon cheeseburgers from a popular fast food chain. Whether or not the app has had a positive impact on it’s user’s health has yet to be determined but sources tell us studies are currently underway.

Well, do you guys remember Riley? We spoke with him a little bit earlier today, and got a little bit of insight on what this guy is really like. Amidst the dry humor and short fuse, is an intelligence that can not be taught in public school. An intelligence that comes from what he believes to be a dying trait, common sense. Today is a day not like most, you wont always get to talk to Riley more than once a day, so enjoy every time you are included, enjoy it, take it in, learn something, I know I do. Now here is this afternoons conversation: Me: Good afternoon Riley, are you doing better this afternoon? You left here pretty bewildered. Riley: Yes. Me: Yes, what? Riley: Yes, I am doing better, and Yes i was bewildered. You are quite observant. Me: I'll accept the compliment, and ignore the context. Riley: That's like banging your sister but ignoring the fact that she is your sister, it may feel good, but in no way, shape or form is it right. Me: That is quite the analogy, but I can see where you are coming from. Riley: Yadda yadda four eyes joke. You are too easy. Me: So i have been told. Riley: Been told what? Me: That I'm easy Riley: Slut Me: Got me again. Riley: Ok, Im done, moving on, now. Me: Right, so whats something you wanna talk about? I always ask the questions, so you go on about whatever it is that you wanna go on about. Riley: Hmmm? You know i dont like talking when told to talk. Me: Yes, i know, no pressure, if you talk, then great, if not, thats ok too. In this period of time, I looked at Riley, and he looked at me. He looked around the room as if he were looking in the deepest parts of his brain for something to talk about. While he thought, his lips would move, so little that it was barely noticeable, no sound would come out, just little whisps of air. He was talking, but he wasnt saying anything. Me: Put sound to the words your lips are forming, Riley. Riley: It has nothing to do with anything... Me: So, take the mute off. Riley: Well I was walking through a field on my lunch break, and played baseball since i was in tee ball, and I hate when people talk over me. When I get angry what i wouldn't give to hurt someone, and to just get the love that i feel i have been robbed of, but i didn't deserve Christmas presents anyway. Its dark, and it hurts when your back side is slapped with a belt, but i love my sisters despite what anyone thinks and why is there war overseas? Me: .... Riley:..... Me: Wow.... Riley: Thats why I dont take mute off. Again Riley has had enough and walked out. Im not positive how to comprehend what he said there, but nothing was a complete thought. Im done myself, for today.

Memory “Buy the ticket, take the ride” - Hunter S. Thompson Beep. Beep. Beep. The hospital room smelled of antiseptic and cleanliness. The IV dripped in time, liquid sliding down the tube, and an old man’s family gathered around him. The old man, Adam Nemo, was resting on the uncomfortable hospital mattress. The plastic bed was propped up on a 45 degree angle so that he could better see everyone around him - his grandchildren, his son, and his daughter. On the stand next to him was a half eaten hospital meal. His prepackaged applesauce not even opened. The hospital staff walked through the halls with purpose, carrying patients to operating rooms or delivering dry hospital meat or medicine. The only time the clutter stopped was at night and even that silence was sometimes broken up by a heart attack or a new arrival. Adam Nemo had been admitted during the daytime after weeks of feeling ill. “Dad....how are you feeling?” A woman, about 45, kneeled, holding his hands. “Hm? What’d you say? I’m not as young as I once was, dear.” He smiled gently, dentures glinting from saliva and the room’s fluorescent lighting. “She asked how you were feeling, Grandpa.” “Oh, well, I’m doing better than before. I do think that I could go for a walk.” “Dad, you know you can’t do that. The doctor said no walking around until you’re better.” The man who had just spoken stepped out of the corner. “You just need to rest.” “Well, you know what they say. No rest for the wicked!” The old man laughed. His laugh filled up the entire room, warming it. No one else joined in. A woman in blue scrubs walked in on the family. “I hope I’m not interrupting anyone!” The whole family turned to see the nurse, carrying a tray with three pills on it. A glass of water perched on top of the tray. “Mr. Nemo, it’s time for your medicine.” “Oh boy, I just love passing out and not waking up for 15 hours.” “Dad, you know you have to take the medicine. Just swallow the pills and drink some water.” “I know, I know. I was just trying to lighten the mood.” Adam Nemo took the pills, and floated into sleep. The white of the hospital room faded. First his family was gone, then the IV’s stuck into his veins. He slept long and he slept nervously. His sleep was filled with memory. He remembered the past, when he wasn’t confined to a hospital bed. The shifting colors resolved, and he was young again. The room was distraught, unkempt. In the corner hung a ratty Irish flag. Beneath the flag, three guitars were leaned against the wall. A thick shag carpet covered the middle of the common space. Against the back wall, a legless couch sat close to the floor. Two lost boys sat on it and passed a joint back and forth. One of his friends, a dropout like him, stood by the door and collected whatever spare change anyone coming over had. Somedays it was rent money, but tonight it was to fix the dilapidated toilet. A sign hung on the bathroom door: “Please, nothing solid in the toilet. No vomit.” The front of the space was a large, makeshift stage. Wooden slats like you see in storage facilities covered the floor. A conga and some drums huddled in the back corner with some more guitars and a synth. On the other side, a record player scratched bumped as it reached the end of a record. Adam Nemo walked flipped it over. “Any suggestions?” No one answered, so he put the same record back on. Adam’s friend, Paul, walked in the building. He handed over two dollars and threw his faux leather jacket on the chair beside the door. “Yo, Adam. What you drinkin?” He walked over. “PBR. Here, take the rest of mine.” Adam handed over the half empty beer bottle and thought of what his mother would think of him right now. “Adam! I told you never to drink!” He laughed to himself as her shrill voice rattled through his skull. Adam and Paul relaxed in the corner for a while, talking. “Yeah, my old man told me I either go off to college or come work with him at the shop. I told him to fuck off. I’m movin’ out next week.” “Man, I wish I could do that.” “Dude, not that hard. Just do it.” Adam thought about Paul. He had a devil may care attitude and generally did not give a fuck about anything. Off in the stage corner, some guys were setting up for that night’s show. “Check, check one, check two.” Paul yelled. “I’m checkin’ you out!” Some people roared in agreement. Groups walked in, guys and girls, dropouts and students and underage disappointments. . Their eyes were blood red and they were salivating for nothing more than a good time. LSD and mushrooms - the 1960’s was 50 years gone, but no one had told them. The doorman collected the money and they passed through the gates into a castle of drugs and booze and sex. Pretension filled the air. Adam heard flirts quote Naruda: “Quiero hacer contigo lo que la primavera hace con los cerezos, I want to do with you what spring does with the cherry trees.” Pills popped into mouths and tabs were placed onto tongues. “Hey hey hey! Can you all hear us all right?” the lead singer asked. Raucous shouts emanated from the crowd, giving her the answer. “We’re the Black Sails, get ready to fuckin’ wail.” A guitar shrieked and drums crashed down. The crowd got wild. 5, 6 minutes went by and Adam fought for his life. He ducked as a fist rounded towards him and he pushed back. Adam couldn’t hear the vocals, no one could. The guitar was distorted beyond recognition. The song settled and the rest of the crowd did. They took it slower, then faster, then slower again, and again faster. “Alright yall, it’s been great. Here’s our last song.” Drums crash. Bass walks. The music floated through Adam Nemo’s head. He wasn’t paying attention. Heads bobbed along like boats on the sea. He was treading water, staying motionless. The song ended with a flourish, a quick flip of the drummer’s wrist. “Next up, the Valleros!” Takedown began and the band started to unplug. “Adam, you want something?” Paul yelled from next to him. Nothing, the sound went through his then deaf ears. “Adam, listen to me!” “Huh?” “I asked if you wanted something.” “Yeah yeah yeah, grab me another beer.” Paul walked over to the makeshift bar. Two stolen construction barrels with a plank across the top held a few beers and an ashtray with some cigarettes. Adam stood there, hands in pockets, waiting for the next band to come on. His eyes drifted towards the floor, towards cigarette butts and spit. He looked up as some girls crossed in front of him. He recognized one of them. He had met her three weeks before, at an open mic night in the very same room. She had read a poem about herself. “Lover, dreamer, dyed hair, feminist”, she declared to the half empty space. The other girl fascinated him. She had punk rock hair, half shaved off and half combed right up, and was wearing a dress straight from the 1950’s. 2012 meets 1955. Punk rock meets housewife. His eyes followed her across the room. He didn’t know why, but he felt that she was different than everyone else in the room. There was an aura of fakeness surrounding everyone else. She seemed real. She seemed actually raw, not the raw that these people put on to impress other fakers. He had to talk to her, had to know who she was. “Paul, who is that?” “Who?” “Punk rock hair. Green housewife dress.” “What?” “Just look behind you.” Paul turned around. “I have no fucking clue”. “Well, I’m going to go talk to her anyways.” Adam edged his way through the crowd to the other side of building. The girl was chatting with two guys. They passed a flask in between the three of them, taking sips. Paul overheard her talk. “Man that last band blew. When are we gonna hear some real music?” She took a swig from the flask. Paul stepped in. “Yeah, I know what you mean. Total shit.” “I mean, give me something with an edge anyday.” “Totally, right? Like, I’m here to listen to good music, not stuff that’s two amps removed from some pop princess.” “Haha, totally. What’s your name?” “I’m Elizabeth.” She sarcastically curtsied. “Well, Liz. You?” One of the two guys reached his hand out for the flask. “Paul. I’m Paul. Who are these guys?” “No idea. But I like whatever’s in that flask.” Adam Nemo spent the rest of the night with Liz. They talked and laughed and drank and smoked and Adam Nemo fell in love. Then, Adam Nemo slept. When he awoke, on the beat up couch, he looked around at the others who had crashed there. She was nowhere to be seen. He didn’t know her phone number or even her last name. Colors shifted again and Adam Nemo returned to the waking world. His family had gone home. The nurses had changed shifts and the business of the daytime had died down. It seemed that there were no emergencies tonight. Maybe sometimes, Adam Nemo thought, sleep wasn’t such a bad thing.

The bus rode along through the worst part of town, and we sat there pretending like nothing had happened. Arnie looked detached. Sometimes he would get in a mood like that, and just shut off. This time it made a lot of sense, other times it seemed out of place. Again, other times it would seem like he couldn't contain the thoughts in his head, and he'd tap his foot wildly as he talked. "You know, it wasn't as bad as I thought it would have looked." "Yeah, I know." "I wish we could have helped her though. I mean before. I wish to hell we could have helped her." "I know. Me too." The bus driver called out the stop, and several people exited out the back door. Drops of rain water had begun collecting on the bus window, and I leaned in, squeezed one eye shut, and squinted through one of the drops. Through it, I saw an upside-down gas station, and I don't know why, but it depressed the hell out of me. "Hand me the flask." "Sure thing." Arnie said. It seemed like the right thing to do, and I swigged hard, and the drink burned in my throat and chest. I didn't feel much of anything for her anymore, but I couldn't stop seeing the girl, lying there, broken on the rain covered concrete. Everyone, especially the medics, moved slowly around her, as if the whole thing had been rehearsed. A few people were taking pictures on their cell phones, and fewer people were crying. The girl couldn't have been older than twenty-five. The bus made a hard right, hitting the curb as it turned, and Arnie looked over at me. He didn't look so detached anymore, and I was glad he was there with me.

I awake. The red LEDs of my alarm clock next to me glow dimly in the dark. 2:30. I had gotten not but an hour of sleep, but still I know I will not be able to return to it. Ah, sleep, the mindless slumber that has eluded me for years. Ever since *you* left. I turn the dial on the knob next to my bed. The lamp glows, illuminating the room. I get out of my bed and walk to my front room. I consider putting on music, but decide that the rain outside is enough. Rain is my favorite weather. It rained when we lived in Seattle, do you remember that? On my table lies a folded note I once had written long ago to you. The paper, now soft from age and wear, seems out-of-place in this kind of world. I open it and read it for what seems like the thousandth time in the last few days. I walk outside. The rain softly lands on my clothes. I'm reminded of the old poem I wrote back in high school, sitting in my English class. Swish, sway, flux and flow Why this happened I don't know The man is dead this much is true His body hangs, his life is through A cotton rope would form a noose Not too tight, not too loose His life had flashed before his eyes Ending in a suicide Pitter-patter, says the rain Everybody feels the blame For a while, the grief is shared But in the end nobody cared I remembered about how I used to be angry all the time. Angry at my family for some dumb reason. Angry at the world for being the harsh reality that it is. Angry at myself for not quite fitting into the world, the way everyone else does, even the odd little boys and girls who spend their nights alone. As I walk down my street, a stoplight flickers on. I think I see your before realizing that it was just a fence post. I thought I saw you, but perhaps it was just wishful thinking. What would I do if we met again? If I could see you once more? *I* certainly don't know. I wouldn't like you to see the way I live my life nowadays, half-drunk and wearing last year's clothes, thinking last year's thoughts. I think about what I used to live for. I realize that my biggest reason to live was for people who needed me, people who were like you. I guess I let you down then. That's why you left. It turns out that no matter how much I wish I could, I couldn't take responsibility for your happiness. I think if I could do it over, I would have gone with you. Or maybe a few days later. There's no point now. No point to anything. We had grown around each other, and when you had left, I collapsed.

We were far off the path of our walk home when we reached the construction site. The two Sophomores led the way, finally stopping at a chain linked fence. “Alright,” the taller one said. “Its just through here.” He pointed to a gap in the fence were the wire was torn away. It was a pretty sizable hole to fit through, which reinforced the idea that I shouldn’t be doing this. “Before we go, can you first tell us what you want to show us” stated my friend, who was beginning to sound agitated. “I already told you guys that we literally cannot tell you. We can’t. Why don’t you have a little patience?” “Well, being completely honest, this sounds extremely suspicious and we really don’t know you guys that well.” The second sophomore sighed. “It’s broad day light and were in the middle of the fucking city, what are we gonna do?” He did have a point. There was silence for a moment, then my friend said “Fine, but this better be worth it” and climbed through. I followed, going head first and scratching my leg on one of the loose wires. I stood up and was now in the middle of an empty construction site. I looked back to find the two sophomores climbing through the whole. They proceeded to stand up, dust off their pants, and start jogging towards a pile of bricks and dirt nearby. They reached it in seconds, looked down behind it, then called back to us. “Its still here, come on”. We walked over to finally see this ‘thing’ we had walked all this way for, and well... Now, I can’t really describe it, except for the fact that it was...well not really glowing but more of emitting light. Oh, and it was pretty small two. It was just...kinda there in the middle of the dirt behind the pile of rubble. I stared at it for a while, but my brain was coming up short. The image wasn’t really going through, but I wasn’t getting a head ache or anything. It felt like free fall in my thoughts, or more of just empty space in my mind. Finally, I turned to the Sophomore and asked the most basic question. “Well, what is it”. “Can you tell me what it is?” “Not really” “And I can’t tell you” So we sat there and stared at it. I was mesmerized by it, and my brain had given up trying to make any sense of what it was seeing. After a couple minutes of staring, I asked if anyone else knew about this. “Yeah” he said. “Why do you think no one else is here. They shut it down when they found out about it.” “And no ones doing anything about it?” “I bet their sending someone out soon to check it out.” We left five minutes later, and to this day and still don’t know exactly what I was looking at, but I found it easiest to just except the fact that I didn’t understand it, and honestly I probably never will.

I can rarely write about the things that make me sad, but I managed with this one: For as long as I can remember, her hands where always rough. They had long fingers, thick and strong. Her fingertips were wide and calloused and too tough to hold. They made my own hands itch. She would have been painless in sewing, but she was never that kind of woman. Roses had no effect on her, on her hands or on her heart. My mother always sought solitude in her gardening, though. But she never planted anything with flowers, only bushes that needed a lot of pruning. She was obsessed with maintaining things, but never helped anything flourish and reach their highest potential. And because of her gardening, there was always dirt underneath her nails, like a perpetual mark of labour; labour that she preferred over many normal things. Like her family, like her children. And when I held her hand, it was an act of confusion: the care and familiarity was there, but it was marked by something rough and hard to recognise as comforting. We’d walk to the store hand-in-hand, but it was more of a whisk, so I wouldn’t stray into the street. She’d lick her finger and use her salty saliva to wipe chocolate off of my face, and it was painful and motherly all at the same time. My hands do not take after her hands. They are petite, and quick, hands made for a creator, not a maintainer. I write with them and I comfort the kids with them. They portray creativity and mend ripped jeans. Her hands, well, they were mothers before they wanted to. Perhaps that’s why they were perpetually dirty; she was marked by the things she preferred, because I came along all too early for her. We all did and her hands had to hide themselves away in a distraction; she ended up doing nothing more than just maintaining us children, like her shrubs, never pushing us to reach beyond the sky. My mother’s hands are not like my hands, but I can’t believe they could never have been great. She could have been that mother. The one taught you “Patty Cake”, that made scrapbooks with you of your trip to the petting zoo. She could have expected more of us, of her creations, but for some reason I don’t blame her for not being that mother. After all, flowerless plants will never push you to your limits and they can always be trimmed back down into submission. But I will always have the image in my mind of the mother who smiles when tucks you in for bed, who picks flowers for the vase on the dining table, rather than letting the water grow stagnant and the bits of leaves unsaved. She would mix cookie batter with her bare hands and feed you pieces of apples from her long and elegant fingers. Her hands would be her own tools for the world she would make for herself, for the creations she had perfected. However, as I look at her bent over some flowerless hydrangea bushes, sun peaking through the perfectly-pruned leaves, I realise now that despite her absence as “that mother”, she has accidentally done her job. She can make sure over and over again that her garden never changes. She can ignore what her children strived for and give them only the bare minimum. But we have all grown up taller than any sunflower or vine of ivy ever could. Though we are the things she tried to avoid, we are her creations. We changed and she could not control us. We bloomed.

This story began, as these stories always do, with an infected mushroom. When infected, effects occur within the hour, reaching its peak at the first hour, and slowly decreasing in effect until the seventh to ninth hour. As expected, colours began changing rapidly en noises started fading and/or increasing in volume. Never was I afraid, for I had a strange feeling of tranquillity. I was genuinely surprised by how good this stuff made me feel. I did not feel infected at all. I loved this new phenomena, for I had discovered a world completely new to me. Yet I did not know the name of this world, though I would discover soon enough. My name is not important, nor is my age, my country or the century I live in. You may now wonder why I chose not to tell you. Do not worry, these things will become clear to you as time progresses. For now, back to the basics. My room started to appear larger then it is in reality, and the sound of my own voice had a strange echo to it. The most amazing part, however, was the colours! Instead of the dull, mind numbing colours I was so used to see, I experienced an explosion of vivid colours, each forming a stunning fractal. It may also have been an implosion, since most of this has to do with my brain. Being intoxicated for the first time was indeed a strange and surreal feeling. The hunger that had drove me to eat this particular mushroom had disappeared, to be replaced by a rapidly beating heart and a slight nausea. I left my small room to begin a journey that has altered my view of the world forever. Within five minutes, I reached a portal in the shape of a laurel wreath. Tempted by this sight, I walked toward it so I could better distinguish it. For some odd reason, it appeared as a testimony to some creature, some life form I was not familiar with. I decided to wait no longer, and to continue further in my journey to witness all new sights. However, as I stepped into the wreath, I was transported into the world that was so far more interesting than my own.

I sat in my nest, leaning back in a rotten chair. Looking outside the window, a picture lay of a snowy winters day. A small accumulation of snow lays on the ground, surround by apartment buildings on all sides. I looked down at my pocket watch, the seconds ticking away creating the only sound in this room, noticing I have quite a while until the target shows up. I take another puff on my cigarette, smoke diffuses through the room, and dissipates as a ghost would. Only leaving behind ashes on floor. It's like a human life. The body is the ash and the smoke is the soul. When life is up, the smoke dissipates, leaving behind the ash. Up here I feel divine. My bullets are like rays of sheer power that make smoke dissipate. I remember in math class learning about the difference between a ray and a line, a ray continues in one direction forever, where as a line continues in both directions forever. A few trash cans started to rustle outside, knocking me out of my daze. I grabbed my rifle and peered through the scope to see what it was. Damn cat, I thought. To prevent myself from getting into another daze, I looked around the room. It was empty, all possessions were gone. Probably taken after the owner was moved to a concentration camp. All that remained was a lone picture of their family on the wall, now knowing it's been torn apart. I used to have a family once, but that too was torn apart. My dad left us right before I was born and when I 13 and my brother 15 our mother overdosed and died. It was just me and my brother. When we were twenty or so, we both got drafted into world war one. That was when the last string of our family fell apart, and my brother defected to the united states. That was the last I ever heard from him. Every night I miss him, knowing I will never see him again. A car finally puled up so I got my sniper ready, this was going to be a huge exchange of intelligence, and I'm supposed to stop it. His face ends up right in my scope, the face of my brother, now a United States spy. I have loyalty to my country though. Two bullets were fired that day, and a line was made, rather than a ray.

The Million Mile Road I have walked this path for as long as I can remember. The days and nights blend together, into slurry of marching feet. There are others who walk on this endless journey. Ahead of me, and behind me, the millions fade into the distance. Occasionally, one will fall. Some are picked up by the ones who walk with them. Some, they pick themselves up, dust themselves off, and continue on their journey. But some don't get back up. They lie in the dirt, motionless. The others walk around them, either oblivious to their plight, or simply numb to their existence. We walk on, and they disappear from sight. I have looked to both horizons, for days at a time, but they are never there. Those that fall and do not get up simply disappear. We walk this path, the sound of thousands of feet meshing into a cacophony of sound. I grow tired of this journey. Every day I feel myself grow a little weaker, a little slower. The constant sound of feet hitting the ground, this marching drumbeat, lulls me. I just wish to sleep, to rest my head. So I lie down, on the side of the road. I will not be long, for all I wish to do is rest. Just for a little while. The others continue on, marching on the same path that is the only thing they have known. But I must rest. I lay my head to the ground, and close my eyes. I must rest, if only to regain enough strength to continue on. Suddenly, there is a shift. The sound is not the same as it was before. I open my eyes, and look up. Someone has stopped. Why? She is staring at me with piercing blue eyes. Why is she staring at me? Why can’t I simply rest? A voice. She is speaking. “Why are you laying there?” Isn’t it obvious? I am tired. I wish to sleep. And you are bothering me. Let me rest. “No one who lies down does so simply because they are tired.” Well, I have. I want to rest. I want to be left alone to my sleep. The others have left me here, and now I just want to close my eyes and see no longer. She looks at me puzzlingly, as if I were some piece in a museum that hadn’t been there before. She won’t just go away and let me sleep, but I don’t want to get up to shoo her away. I’m just tired, and all I want to do is be left alone so that I can finally rest. This road goes on, never-ending, and I am sick of the constant walking. I’m sick of the unwavering pace. All I want to do is rest. Is that such a crime? She is speaking again. “You know, I tried to lay down once. All I wanted to do was rest. But then someone stopped, and made me get up. They wouldn’t let me sleep.” What is she talking about? Is she one of those who fell? Is she one of the ones who were pulled back up? I have never seen her before, but I am certain that I saw all of those who fell. My mind is buzzing with questions. Distracting, confusing questions that only keep me from sleep. And still she is talking. And still she is explaining. “… and so they told me, 'if you stay here, the wolves will find you.' But I did not care. But he did. And he did not let me stay. He told me, 'if you are too weak to walk, I will help you. If you are too tired to walk, I will carry you. But I will not leave you to the wolves.'” The wolves? I have never seen a wolf. I have seen nothing on this trail but the vast expanse of nothingness that rings it on both sides. But she is persistent. I have never had another on this trail interact with me in this way before. I do not know how to respond. So I tell her, “I am tired. Just let me sleep.” She cocks her head to the side. Her mouth forms the shape of a small ‘o’. As she stands there, I notice that the people on the trail have become a blur. All of them are slowly disappearing into a mist. All of them but her. “If you are weak, then I will help you walk. If you are tired, then I will carry you. But I will not leave you to the wolves.” How? How could this person show such care to one which they have never met? Slowly, shakily, she helps me to my feet. A mix of emotions flow through me. This girl has decided that I am worth helping. This girl has decided that I should be alive. I feel a wave of emotion wash over me. I have never felt like this before. I have never felt this warm feeling. The aches in my bones, the sleep in my eyes, the haze in my brain, all of it starts to disappear. I continue to walk this path, day after day, night after night. When I grow tired, the others help keep me on the path. I am grateful for the help of strangers. Of people who had every right to ignore my existence. I walk along this path, but I no longer feel tired. My steps are no longer weak, no longer slow. They have given me a purpose that I previously lacked. I walk along the path. A man falls to the ground, just off the side. Others walk around him, either oblivious to his plight, or numb to his existence. I stop in my tracks. Looking directly at him, I ask, “Why are you laying there?” Isn’t it obvious? He is tired. He wishes to sleep. “Why are you bothering me?” I smile to myself. “Because you cannot sleep. The path may be long, and you may be tired, but you have been walking alone this whole time. I cannot allow you to stop here.” He looks at me. “Why?” My mind goes through the many memories of my time on this path. Of those who I have met, and those whom I have walked with. I know why he must walk the path, but he will need to find out for himself. “If you are weak, I will help you walk. If you are tired, I will carry you.” But I will not leave you to the wolves.

Say something. Do something. Be something. What are your goals? What is your motivation? Get out of your head!! It's not normal! Stop thinking about normal. No one even knows what normal is. Shut up. Stop pretending to know anything at all. "Can I help you?" The words penetrated my consciousness as I realized the surrounding world was passing faster than I could keep track. "Yes, sorry. Um.... I'll take..." The words I spoke no longer mattered. I am back in auto pilot. Back where my mind feels comfortable. Life fades away, back into a stream of consciousness. Everything is easy like I'm used to. "No thanks" Why do they even ask if I need a receipt? Does anyone actually reply yes to that question? I guess I'll never know. Why do I care about the mundanity of the world? I don't. I gotta stop with this nonsense. I like poetry. Is that allowed? Overthinking. A gain. A loss Always a loss. Go away. Keep track attack from a lack of thought that's magic witch watch the sick watch that'll make the time tragic but the time's backwards it spits rap verse and captures the atmosphere taps into (sin) or sphere crapped into clean water, snacked on a mother father's daughter till they caught 'er. Laughter I thought but I'll I heard was slaughter, one of the herd sought 'er. Until I came back and taught 'er. And now a dream's gone farther. Talk like you tethered, ask bout the weather, but rap like a severed head and play dead if you wish to succeed. Do the deed. Please. I'll beg on my knees if you apease my thoughts. Please again! Did you hear that??? Don't be stupid. A rap's a tack in my dart board that's a tack in me. It's attacking me, but see the rapture see. I will capture thee. And make urns of burns that concern turns of minds that flip up and back and sideways. Just look at time. Gaze. And enter my maze. If you dare, do so in a haze, and crazed, and blazed, not tame. Insane. Alleviate my thoughts. Conspiracy is taught. But lyrics see their thought. They’re thought. it’s bought. “Ok, who brought the drugs?” Hahaha, good question. Everyone knows we all did. “Pack the bowl.” Slip away.

We were 42 and we were dead. We were promised fame and fortune when we were young, we waited but nothing ever came. But that’s all we did, we waited, waited for fortune and fame to find us. Instead we were 42 and woke up only to realize nothing was there. Nothing ever happened or ever came. Emptiness and nothingness is what we felt. We were 42 and we were dead. We didn’t look to feel great, only to feel good. Cheap trills is what we cared about. Cheap, fast useless trills, which made us feel good for a small amount of time. We didn’t know any better. We didn’t know the things which were truly important, the real things that mattered. We didn’t take our time to find them either. We were to busy enjoying the good times, instead of caring about the great times. So now there we were, 42 and dead. Done nothing with the lives we’ve gotten. Wasted them away as if they were endless. Then realizing that an end would come. It scared us. Knowing that we couldn’t keep doing this forever. Bt what did we do wrong? Why did we feel so left out, so useless and unused, were did we lose touch with ourselves? Were we ever in touch with ourselves? We thought we knew what we wanted but we weren’t so sure anymore. We thought we knew who we were but we weren’t so sure anymore. We didn’t lose anything but we had the feeling we lost everything. And then there were the jobs we lived. The jobs we actually hated but we’ve been doing them for so long we forgot how to do anything else. We wanted to do something else but again we didn’t know how, we wouldn’t have know where to start changing. Maybe we could just quit? No. That scared us. What would we do without a job, without the money to support us? What if we couldn’t find a new one? We would spend our time worrying until a new one came around. Not searching for one but waiting for one. Waiting for it to just come around when we wanted, just like everything else in life we waited for but never came. And then we realized the love was gone, we didn’t love each other anymore but neither of us spoke about it. We just lived our distant lives not caring about how unhappy we really were. We just lived on, staying together for what? Because we didn’t know any better, we couldn’t know any better because we’ve been pushed into this situation without our knowledge. It just happened. Happened because we didn’t think about it, we didn’t even care to think about it. And then there we were. Both in a situation we never wanted. But it wasn’t to late. We wanted the world to change around us. It was ourselves who needed to change.

We will live in the bush. Not too far from town but still far enough that our neighbors are a 5 minute drive away, regardless of this we will know them well and we will invite eachothers to partys, bake carrot cake and pumpkin muffins with veges I pulled from the garden patch you put in last summer. They will always be a little gritty but while they're still warm with a little butter your mother had made they're Saturday morning cake stall worthy which is a-okay because the whole batch would be demolished before they had the chance to get cold. There will be an endless landscape of trees and shrubs and some wirerly gorse I always say I will pull out but never get around to that hides a little stream and a lake not to far off our property that backs into the complete wilderness. We will always be getting the odd stoat into the chicken pen, which although sad, isn't a huge deal and we're left wondering why those cheeky creatures bother staking out the pen in the first place as I never close the hatch door and they're always roaming free, pecking away at the dirt for worms. We will have a couple of cats, one that we claim came with the house and a few others including that temperamental ginger tom your sister asked us to mind while she was out of state but just fell oh-so-in-love with the with the big city she had to stay and we kept him on full time. We will have a few dogs too, never any less than two. They will be mutts that we picked up along the way and the runt from the first litter before we got the old girl fixed because you said he reminded you of yourself as a child so we had to keep. They will be allowed to sit on the furniture and sleep on the edge of the bed but it wont matter because it was all second hand from the salvation army or motley, garish stuff we found on the side of the road. Full of cigarette burns and the smell of a couch well loved in more ways than one. I will have quit smoking tobacco by then but will obviously favour my dope plant over all my other flowers and I will check it several times a day expecting some new bud to have flourished while I was off baking the bread or getting lost in a foreign film I bought when we first met because I wanted to show you I was artsy. I will turn the leaves into curious cookies I offer to our friends who will gladly accept because, hey, free dope. They wont taste that bad although maybe slightly burnt on the bottom but that's okay because it's come to be expected from our ancient oven that never learned how to fully utilize the fan feature. You will call our house cozy although I will call it delicate and the narow stairwell up to our loft bed will full a sense of childlike wonder every time I climb up after you've been long asleep, silently humming the words to rupunzel and her tower in my head. The old wooden frame will murmer with any movement and the seemingly endless nooks and crannys will be fulled with spiders webs I refuse to suck up with the vacuume cleaner because spiders have feelings too and a special kind of respect that can only come from being and elder. It will smell of the incense I insit on burning almost constantly and the wood smoke from the fire we have burning in winter but never really goes away in summer. Sometimes we will make sweet love wrapped in our sheets, guiding ourselves deeper into eachothers bodys with a hunger that's almost insatiable. Other times we will fuck. Those are the times I'm watching you over sultry eyes as you cut the wood in the backyard and as I make you a nice cuppa to refresh you after your hard work you will grab my hips and wisper in my ear 'bend over' as you throw all inhibitions aside and taste me with loud gasps and moans, taking me against the table and kissing me like you mean it. The summers will be far too hot and the winters far too cold but we will never complain as we are always prepared with and iced tea and a spliff (I started smoking tobacco again but only with pot) or a generous glass of merlot by the fire. We will laugh fondly at the mistakes we made and shared together and separately and I will stop caring about my weight and call my mother more often. I will invite my dad over for tea and he will politely drink our sad attempt at home brewed beer because he loves me and wants to show he approves of our lifestyle. We will still have sad political yearnings but I will have over come my bitter youth and we will connect all over again with photographs of our mohawks and tartan pants with knee high docs and exemplary teenage "fuck you" attitude. We will gossip less and listen more realizing that life isn't worth worrying about who's screwing who. We will spend most of our time laughing and some of our time crying because crying is important too and we will always know how to cheer each other up even if we are the cause of each others problems but we will never be miserable because we simply just don't have time for such nonsense. I will have learned to love myself and my flaws as well as holding yours precious. I will flirt with natural therapy and Buddhist ideals while you read Oscar Wilde and Virgina Wolfe and we will appreciate life, our hardships and the really, truly, wonderfully, undying, confusing, muddling, joyous bedazzlement that is this is life. We will live in the bush.

The Small Matter of Being at the Centre of the Universe I had followed John Mercer his entire life. From his time as an only child growing up with few friends and little purpose, to his adolescence as a misunderstood teen, then to his progression into a troubled young adult and finally, as I found him now, in his late twenties contemplating his life, whether he made the right choices, wondering what exactly had gone wrong. Past the window through which I peered, John sat in his bedsit with his eyes glued to the television. Most others his age would be tending to a family, or enjoying a night out with some friends, especially on a Friday. Not John, though; there he sat, oblivious to the world, glad that his tiring and seemingly meaningless week had come to an end but sombre that he now had to face a weekend alone. Of course, if he knew what I knew his life would have been entirely different. Perhaps he would have been studied endlessly. Perhaps he would have embraced the knowledge, carrying out acts of unspeakable kindness or evil. Or perhaps still he would have chosen to ignore it, continuing his life as he had already done. However, as unfair as it might have been, I had chosen not to tell John his true value. For I had never been entirely sure how he would react, and thus I had taken it upon myself to monitor him, to watch and to learn. At least, that's what I told myself. The truth was much simpler; I had been too selfish and too much of a coward to tell John, or indeed anyone else, that he was the centre of the universe. And I did not want him to know what I had done. # I knocked on the door. Two sharp, short knocks that echoed down the hallway. This would be the first time I had ever spoken to John, despite watching him for nearly three decades. I was nervous and scared. Was I doing the right thing? I heard him walk to the door, could feel him peer at me through the spyhole. Slowly, cautiously, he edged open the door. I couldn't blame him. Many people would have reacted the same to an old man turning up on their doorstep at the dead of night. “Hello?” he said, slightly more aggressively than I would have expected of him. “Can I help you?” I paused. I'd rehearsed what I would say almost a thousand times, yet now the words escaped me. “John Mercer,” I eventually said, “I need to speak with you.” “How do you know who I am?” “That's not important. May I come in?” He thought for a second. “No.” “Please,” I said. “I really must speak with you abou-” “Look, I'm busy,” he lied. “If you need to tell me something, tell me here.” I hadn't anticipated having to explain myself so quickly on his doorstep. He was showing more of a temper than I knew him to have. Nonetheless, I couldn't afford to waste this opportunity. Not with what had been happening, and what might come next. I breathed deeply, and began. “Have you notice things getting a little bit strange lately?” “What? No.” “I mean, have you seen things that were different before? Perhaps it was something small, like a door being a different colour or a person having a different name?” He looked confused. “No,” he repeated. A brief flash of annoyance spread across me. How had he not noticed anything? Had I read his body language incorrectly? Or was he just being obtuse? I had to gamble. I had to tell him. At least he'd know, even if he slammed the door in my face. I needed him to try and fix things, so that I wouldn't have to. “Look, John... You might not believe this, but you are the centre of the universe. For some reason the universe routinely picks an object, be it something as large as a star or as small as a clump of matter of human being like yourself, to dictate the lives of every single thing, the outcome of every event, in the entire universe. Every decision you've made in your life, every action you've taken, has had repercussions.” I could see I was losing him, but I persevered. “Choosing what you eat in the morning could decide what becomes of a galaxy millions of light-years away. The number of steps you take to get to work could decide if somebody lives or dies on our planet. The particular look you give a star in the night sky could decide its ultimate fate. Everything revolves around you.” Suddenly the gravity of the situation dawned on me. He had to believe me. He had to. “But something has gone wrong. I believe you've made a bad decision that has altered the balance of the universe, perhaps through no fault of your own.” I wouldn't tell him everything. There had to be another way. “Now events in the past, the present and the future are changing. And unless you rectify the incorrect decision, things will only get worse. Eventually, by my calculations, the universe as we know it will cease to exist. Please, John. You have to help me, us, the world. You are the centre of the universe, and you are the only person who can save us all. ” Predictably, he slammed the door in my face. # “One cappuccino, coming right up.” It was a particularly busy day at the coffee shop. I had been running about all day, barely given a moment's rest by the incessant waves of customers. Everyone seemed agitated by something today, with people often snapping at me despite my best attempts to remain friendly. Nonetheless, I kept my effervescent demeanour shining outwards. The weekend was nearly here and I had a nice, relaxing, quiet few days planned. And it wouldn't be too long until I could retire either, albeit on a meagre pension. As I waited for the next customer to step forward, I glanced at the people rushing around outside. Mothers and fathers with their kids, men and women in suits, children with their friends; everyone was busy today. It was as I looked outside that I caught the eye of a young man, perhaps in his late twenties or early thirties. From the look of him he clearly hadn't slept in days. While everyone rushed around him he stood still, staring straight at me, with a look on his face as if he was trying to remember who I was. I had certainly never seen him before, and was about to glance away when suddenly he snapped out of his trance and came charging towards the door, bursting into the shop. He ran straight up to the counter, bypassing the large queue in front of me. “You! You!” he screamed. “Where have you been for the last month? What the hell is going on?” I turned to see if there was someone else he was talking to, but at that moment he reached the counter. “Tell me what's going on!” he shouted at me, slamming his hands down on the surface. I was quite taken aback by his approach. People had been rude today, but none so as much as this man. “I'm sorry sir,” I said in the most level and calming tone I could manage. “You'll have to wait in the queue like everyone else.” This was not the answer he was looking for. “What are you talking about? Wait in the queue? Why are you h-” My manager had walked over, cutting him off curtly. “Sir,” she said, “we will not tolerate that sort of behaviour here. I will have to ask you to leave.” “No, you don't understand,” he said, clearly trying to calm down. “I am the centre of the universe. This man told me so, at my doorstep, a month ago. Something has gone wrong, and everything is changing. I can't fix it alone. I need his help.” At this, he pointed to me. I looked at my manager, and she looked back. We exchanged a knowing look. Now and then we'd get the odd crazy person stumble into the store, ranting something, and we knew how to proceed. “Look, I'm sorry sir, but if you don't leave I'll have to call the police,” she said. The man's face changed from anger to desperation. “No, please, I have to talk to him. I need to know what to do. Just a few minutes, then I'll go.” “I'm sorry sir,” she repeated. “You'll have to leave now.” His anger got the better of him. “But it's his fault!” # I woke with a start. Something wasn't right. My memory was foggy. My thoughts were out of place. Picking up my watch didn't help my state of panic. Was that really the date? It was three months since I had returned from John Mercer's house, devastated at the outcome of the events at his doorstep. But I had no recollection of anything that had happened since then. I climbed out of bed and looked around. My small flat seemed in good enough shape. None of the food in the fridge was out of date, my electrical appliances were plugged in and all of my notes and papers seemed in order. Had things taken a turn for the worst? Was time shifting, as I anticipated, because of John's actions? I didn't know for sure, but I knew immediately what had to be done. It was imperative that I found John again, and tried to convince him of his true purpose in the universe. I washed quickly and threw some clothes on before running out into the street and jumping into my car. I had always lived near John, but not so close as to cause suspicion if he would frequently run into me, so it was only a short five-minute drive to his bedsit. On the way there I knew something was wrong. People were walking out of their houses dazed and confused. I could see couples shouting at each other, children crying and people in disarray. While stopped at a red light I managed to make out a conversation nearby. “I have no idea who you are!” a man was screaming at a woman. “Get out of my house, get out of here, and don't come back!” I pulled up at John's place. His bedsit was at the front of a block of about five others, so I could see straight inside from the road. And things did not look good. There was writing all over the walls. The place looked a mess, with tables and chairs overturned and the curtains partially ripped down. I walked up to the door and, noticing it was ajar, gently eased my way into the hallway through which John's bedsit could be reached. Rubbish was strewn all the way down the hall, blocking the doors to some of the other bedsits. John's door on the right was wide open. I stepped cautiously inside, unsure if he was here and equally unsure of what state of mind he would be in. Looking at the writing on the walls, it was clear that he had finally realised what was going on. He had drawn large visual diagrams, with each centred around some sort of action he had done. As I read them I realised how dangerous he had become, just as I had feared. They started with a small action, such as “I ate an apple.” From that, he had written the resulting events he had observed. I read more and more of the diagrams, until my eyes focused on one. “I killed him.” No events had been drawn on it yet. “What are you doing here?” John's voice startled me. I hadn't even noticed him in the corner, sitting on a chair, his eyes staring straight at me. His clothes were so dirty and covered in mud that he almost blended in to the drab surroundings of the bedsit. “I... I came to see you, John,” I stammered. “I'm here to help you.” “Well it's too late, old man!” he screamed, rising from the chair. “You turn up at my house, tell me I'm the centre of the universe, and then you turn me away when I come to you for help! You've done this. You've doomed us all.” “No, John, you don't understand,” I said frantically. “The changes, the effects, they've affected me as well. I have no idea what's happened these last three months. The last thing I remember is coming here. You have to believe me, John. We can still fix this.” “Liar!” he shouted. He was approaching me now, and I was not sure what he would do when he reached me. “You wanted this power for yourself, didn't you? When you came to my door I realised something. I've seen you before. A lot of times before. All throughout my life, you've been there, haven't you? You've been watching me. And you never told me what I really was. Because you thought you could take this from me.” “I wanted to protect you.” “No! You didn't. And now it's all going to end. I've tried to fix things. I've tried to change things. But nothing has worked. Nothing. And now we both know what needs to be done.” In his right hand I could see he was holding a knife, gleaming in the dim light that came through the window. As he walked towards me he began to draw it up threateningly. “John, please, there must be another way. We can fix this. We just need to find out what changed everything. We can get things back to normal.” “Don't play me for a fool, old man. I know what changed everything. We both know. It knows. This is the only way.” And he was right, I did know. Begrudgingly, I accepted my fate. I should never have interfered.

Darkness fell much earlier than usual that day, as if the sun had been extinguished. There was no moon; the only light came from the pinprick stars that twinkled silently against the black canvas of the sky. Even those seemed duller than usual, Bill thought, as he swept along the narrow highway that cut through the desert like a zip through a jacket, a grey ribbon in a sea of relentless sand. He had been driving for several hours now and he didn't know why. There was no real purpose to his journey that he could remember; it was little more than aimless meandering along empty roads. A jackrabbit darted across the highway and Bill winced at the soft bump as it disappeared under his front left tire; he felt like a murderer. He stopped the car a couple of miles up the road - far enough away from the jackrabbit that it would be invisible to him even in the light. As he pulled to a halt the engine of his ancient car spluttered, disturbing a rattlesnake that was curled up by the side of the road. It gave a disapproving hiss and slithered off into the night. He clicked the engine off, got out and looked at the sky. There was no moon, and the stars seemed duller than usual. Bill looked up at the sky for a long time. Trying to remember. Remember where he had come from, and where he was going, and why. But the stars had no answers for him. They simply twinkled silently, not saying a word, just pale unhelpful dots of burning hydrogen billions of miles away. He tore his eyes away from the stars and looked back at his car. In the pitch black night it was difficult to discern its color; Bill thought it was red but he couldn't be sure. He sighed and climbed back inside, sat down in the driver's seat, and rested his muddled head against the steering wheel. The human mind, he thought, was a funny thing. It could remember obscure and useless facts and the names of people you've only met once and birthday parties you went to thirty years ago. But it could forget what you walked into a room for. Or why you drove into the middle of the desert, on a night where there was no moon and the stars seemed duller than usual. Bill restarted the car and checked the rear-view mirror, and suddenly he remembered where he was going. And why. He stepped back outside, smiling faintly at his own forgetfulness. The keys stayed in the ignition; he needed the lights to stay on because it was darker than usual tonight. He opened the door to the backseat and dragged the corpse out into the desert, to about half a mile from the road. He left it there for the coyotes to find in the morning. As he walked back to his car Bill looked up at the sky and noticed that there was no moon, and the stars seemed duller than usual. He climbed back into the front seat and drove away.

This is a casual story I whipped up in rhyme with a loose meter - will probably change it up later. Please give me feedback on both the flow and the substance. I sat down to the wood table with my friend who was quite unstable and we discussed her being so unable to see through a clear fable that I would now label her as gullible. So entranced was I with the intensity and the expanse, that is, the immensity of the stories that deceived I wondered if I *myself* believed or if she was having at my expense a cheap laugh. She told me of the lies that she once bought until my eyes finally caught that her hands were shaking in the making of her speech. I asked "Are you okay?" and she replied "Not quite, today" and we we had a cry about the lie which concerned her. I knew her trust was rattled and the demons which she battled would give her disheart and a part of her wanting to start distrusting her friends as a means to an ends of protecting herself from us all. I spoke out against liars, against fighting fire with fire, and eventually we start to tire. As we head to sleep a thought starts to creep into my head on my bed tonight. The light is now dimmed, but from the way that she grinned, my whole world was lit up and a twirled blanket up around her small frame in the dark.

You know when you find out that you lost the item that you simply cannot lose? That’s me today. I lost a watch that was passed down from my grandfather, and he told me never to lose it because it was part of the family, kind of like a family heirloom or something. It didn’t matter that much to me, but I couldn’t help but feel a little bit of remorse. The watch had seen things, things that you wouldn’t even believe. For one the watch had been with my grandfather in World War II. It almost was lost in the war but my grandfather literally risked his life to make sure that it would continue to be in the family. He was captured in the war and some fool wanted to take it for himself, my grandfather simply said “no” and the person beat him nearly to death. I guess that after that the person got bored and went off to try and steal something else. Yeah, that watch has seen things you would never believe. My grandfather told me about his own father and his experiences with the watch. He said that his father was wearing the watch during the Great Depression, said that he was going to keep the watch even if it meant starving to death. The dust storms made the watch sort of rusty and decrepit looking but he fixed it up real good. My great grandfather’s wife kept on bugging him to sell the thing for a dollar but my great grandfather would not have it. That watch was here to stay; it has seen some things you wouldn’t believe. My own father passed the watch down to me a few years back. He told me that he was wearing the watch when he met my mother. They both happened to be driving along and their cars just happened to break down in the same spot. He said it was like one of those things you see on TV where people just fall in love instantly like they were pieces of a puzzle. After they got both of their cars fixed he gave her his number and that was that. You know I still haven’t told my story about what the watch has seen. I was wearing the watch when I saw a horrible car crash right in front of me, one of those crashes where the car flips over. I stepped out to see if I could help. There was a man in the car and he was cut up pretty bad, he was on death’s door it seemed like. He grabbed my hand with the watch on it and didn’t say nothing, just held on. The watch was there, it saw the man die right in front of it. After that the watch felt like it wasn’t even there, like something was gone from it. I don’t know, that watch has seen some things you wouldn’t even believe. When I finally found the watch sitting inside the couch I thought that it was time to give it to my son. He took it and kind of just threw it on his desk. I tried to explain to him that it was a family treasure and that it was important to keep because it had seen some things he wouldn’t even believe. After that my son asked what it had seen. I told him about the time I was climbing a very tall tower in some big city and that it had seen all the people beneath it, saw them walking about and it saw that those people all had different destinations. It saw that all of those people would just kind of ignore each other for the most part. It saw the birds in the sky and the clouds and the big buildings all combining to make something quite beautiful. It saw everything at that moment, and I mean everything. My son put on the watch and told me that it would see more than everything, that it would see impossible things that you would never even believe. And you know what? I believed him.

I am an idiot. At least my mind is an idiot; a full on ignoramus. It has led me to make the worst decisions I have ever made; it is my mind that allows itself to be duped by my cock, by grandiose visions of universal destinies and fates, flying spaghetti monsters, and all around lies. My mind builds untrue facades of reality, positions itself into allowing me to think that what I am feeling, what I am wanting, or sense, is coming from some other, much more important organ or part of my body. My gut, my heart, my soul, when in reality, its just that fucked up mind of mine. I carry it not on my shoulders, but channel it from the center of my forehead. It talks to me and swindles me, presses against my hard skull; gives the illusion of infinity, when in reality it is small and round, the size of a bean, just circular, so as I attempt to trace these ridiculous thoughts, I find myself constantly trotting over beleaguered territory. Oh what a fucked up mind I have. To make me have fallen in love with nearly every woman I meet, only to nearly make me loose the one woman I truly do love. To make me volunteer to travel to far off war zones, as if it is destiny, good for my future, or my current self being that benefits from deplorable conditions and the constant threat of death. It's a sacred trickster, as minds the world over have convinced people of false deities and false emotions. It stands with the ego its only protector. Solid, thick, ego, ready to go at any time. Fuck my mind; it just told me to fuck your mouth. My mind could conquer the world if placed on the path, except it allows itself only to be as persistent as necessary. Once my body takes over, laziness is injected, solid reasons to not do something as much as do. Fight or flight? but really its just cowardice that pervades my mind. Despite how dumb it is, my mind is oh so cunning. Convincing me to eat that pie, and that its OK just this one time, to get drunk, to fight, to fuck. It's conniving ways twist reality and turn fiction to fact, and deeds into misgivings. Evil, horrible mind, MOLOCH! You persist on continuing to fool me, so I am obviously the idiot. The one who listens, who obeys all commands and stumbles often; falls resulting in bruised egos and mistakes, down a path that is obvious to only your savant direction. Goddamn mind. To be mindless, to be confident, to be counter intuitive; you don't control me, yet the town drunk stumbles from bar to bar. I stumble from choice to choice. Don't kill me.

“You can’t hit that!” says Tommy. “Sure I can” Billy claims, loading his slingshot, a small can of Bush’s beans sits atop a junkyard car about thirty yards away. Billy has always been the best shot in the neighborhood, but this time he may have overestimated himself. He stuck his tongue out, and pulled the stiff elastic back, a marble sized rock awaited blastoff. He was ready when “Billy Ray!” came from their trailer down the road. “coming mom!” he stood up, flimsily letting the rock go. Flying nowhere near the can. “Told ya’ so” Tommy smirks. “Didn’t count” Billy whines. Running side by side back to their trailer these two brothers have the iconic “Did not”, “did too” argument. Billy and Tommy sit in the back of the trailer where a limestone table is surrounded by a blue stained booth. Rust peppers the sides of the oversized van, the steps are sharp and dirty, lockjaw waiting to happen. The cabinets hang off their hinges, the sink is full of small insects and dirty dishes. It has a back bed room where the mother and whomever else she brings home stays. The two bunk-beds outside the room are for the boys, but the mom doesn’t want the boys to stay there. The mom tricks for a living, so she bought them a tent the boys set up a couple hundred yards into the forest. “Meatloaf and corn on the cob, Tommy’s favorite!” she exclaims. She is a good mother, just dealt a bad hand. She does what she can for the boys, but in rural Tennessee prostitution in the trailer parks is her only bargaining chip. Billy is big for his age, at 11 he towers at 5’6 and weighs 130 pounds. He is a pale boy with greasy blonde hair always molded under a Boston Bruins baseball cap. He can’t even tell ya’ where Boston is, but he found the hat in the trunk of an old Mustang in the Junkyard. He tells his friends it stands for Billy and with his temper, no one ever questions it. Tommy is thirteen years old and stands 5’3 108 pounds. The mother tells the boys they have the same father and that he was off fighting in the war. Tommy knows his father was black but never brings it up to his mom, he knows there is a reason she won’t tell him. Billy and Tommy race to wash their plastic plates in the sink. “Race ya’ to the tent!” Tommy pants as he grabs his knapsack and runs out the door. “No fair. Mom I wasn’t ready.” Billy cries. “Tommy get back here and brush your teeth.” She says as she holds onto the handrail and leans out the door. “Mauuuuum.” Billy says walking head down towards the trailer. “Smack” Tommy hit Billy in the arm the second he got into range. Tommy might have been the runt but Billy had a severe case of little brother syndrome. “Now I am going into town tonight. If you need anything go down to Buck’s and you can each spend five dollars. I don’t want y’all coming back to the trailer until the flag is out the window in the morning. Okay?” “Okay mom.” the boys say in haunting monotone unison. The boys are so used to this routine, they run out to Buck’s mini-mart and each grabbed a root-beer and a myriad of snack foods. Back in the tent, Billy says “what does mom do every night?” Tommy of course knows how their mom makes her money but wasn’t about the be the one who breaks the “good ole’ mommy illusion” to an eleven year old. “She has friends over. Ever since dad went to war, she needs people to talk to.” “What about us?” “Adults are different, adults talk about things that we haven’t learned yet.” “Like what?” “I don’t know, shut up and go to sleep.” The soundtrack of birds and crickets put the boys into a deep sleep. One giant Spider-man sleeping back carpeted the tent. Under blankets and starlight the boys were never bothered. Until later that morning “ERRRRRRRRRR–VROOOOOM” woke up the boys. Billy and Tommy peeked out of their tent and saw a black Ford Expedition peel out of their drive way. “Can we go home?” Billy asks. “We have to wait for the flag first.” “But her friends are gone.” “Still momma needs to rest some from hanging out all night.” But that old Coffee stained American flag, never flew again.

Dear John, Fourteen years, two months, one week, and six days ago you told me my mind was like a bomb waiting to go off. You were right. I had always felt I was blessed, the right side of my brain that of a mathematical savant and the left side that of the next Michelangelo. I could work out the most difficult equation in mere moments and draw a picture worthy of being in the Louvre. I always felt my skill came from the two working together as in my art I used maths to make perfect shapes where as in my maths I used art to solve the equations. I suppose it is then only ironic that they hung perfectly from the fan which was travelling at a perfect 3.14159 meters per second with their blood making a perfect circle in the floor underneath them. The Police didn't appreciate that, stubborn arse's. I suppose you need explaining for that last bit, four days ago at thirteen o'clock I had a mental black out for three hours and fourteen minutes. When my mental displacement ended I found myself holding a blood stained knife in front of several corpses four hanging from the aforementioned fan and the remaining three with assorted numbers and phrases carved into them. Four minutes and seven seconds after that the police came and arrested me refusing to see the perfect maths and art in my work. After a short journey in their car I found they had left me a hairpin which I used to remove my handcuffs choke the police officer on the right and subsequently kill the police officer on the left in the inevitable crash. Shortly after taking their gun and altering their faces so that they had the golden ratio (this I did with my knife they kept in the boot) I swiftly left. I am currently writing from the warehouse on main street where I am waiting for you to come so that I may kill you as well. For you are no doubt thinking 'why should I should go' let me explain why you should. Upon reflection I came to the conclusion of my murder. fifteen minutes after my black out you daughter Abigail took me upstairs to help her with her math homework. She as usual treated me like a demented peasant and my brain crashed possibly due to stress or too much genius. This resulted in me performing a slow and brutal rape against your daughter where I forced myself upon her at knife point. Her screams of disgust did not leave the room however as she was foolish enough to have had her room sound proofed for when she performed mating rituals with her boy friend. After I finished the rape I swiftly killed her and carved 'dirty, dirty bitch' into her chest. I then calmly went downstairs to our parents and your son as well as my brother. Upon seeing the blood on me the children and your mother swiftly ran out leaving only your father and my parents. Within seconds I had sliced open a hole in their necks reached in and ripped out there intestines for the time I left them on the floor (with hindsight I am disappointed and will apologize for their inconvenient and un artistic or mathematical layout on the floor as it caused me great grief later on to see the lack of symmetry). After killing them I proceeded to the kitchen where the mother held a knife and the children stood behind her she yelled 'why, why, you were such a good boy' though I did not waste time with small talk and merely knocked the knife out of her eye and in a Van Gough inspired act ripped off her ear with my teeth. Such Adrenaline it gave removing the ear which encouraged me then to removed her eye though that was less pleasant which inevitably encouraged me to slice open her head and rip out the brain (I left it neatly for you in the sink). I quickly killed the children with a slice to the neck and brought the body's to the main room. There I added your mother's body to the other adults and (after rearranging there poorly displayed corpses) hung them from the fan by the intestines with a perfect meter of it showing. I then wrote the equation for the time it took me to do the deed on your son's forehead and carved the Mona Lisa into my brothers chest, tragically I felt I got the nose wrong but I'm sure you will forgive such a minor incident. Your Sister soon joined them so as that all the guests lay (or hanged) in the room. It was around this point that the aforementioned story took place. Now back to the question why does this story make you want to come to me and perhaps more importantly why do I want to kill you. They are both simple, you want revenge and you will no doubt read half this letter perhaps getting up to the rape then march to me in anger resulting in either me or your death not calling the police or aid as you will be blinded by anger (this is why I described my deeds to you) If that is the case I suspect you are reading this next to my body and swearing profusely as you think of how to explain this to the police. (All the murders are on you at this stage in time as I left a message stapled to that stupid picture your mother had that was drawn without skill or taste - This letter will be worthless as I typed it so they can claim it was you who did it and this twist is within your brain capacity). However the second question is more interesting, I killed your family so why should I kill you, quite simply because it's an odd number, 7, its odd I need to kill you so that I may have eight kills to my name. In addition you always rustled my hair a simple act but an annoying one none the less (I made your sister apologize for that whilst I raped her, she cried your name out so many times but you never came, in truth it made me laugh her uselessness) it is for these reasons that I wish to kill you. Oh and by the way, I'm watching you read this but you can't see me, I'm sharpening my knife and laughing but you can't see me.

I am hoping to become an author one day, so any advice would be greatly appreciated please and thank you(: Against the blood red sky, a lone helicopter hovers around the city looking for any trace of survivors that might be below. Down on what used to be the peaceful city, (now referred to as ground zero) the horrific cries of death and fear bellow throughout the city. Never stopping.. Like a record stuck in a loop. The dead have poured out from the deepest depths of hell and returned to the living. Devouring every living soul that they come across. The city is in ruins. Overturned and abandoned cars littler the street, buildings turned to ash from the riots and looting, death and gore fill the streets turning the once pure black asphalt now to a deep murky red. Over the pain filled screams of the living and the mindless groans of the undead, Kenton and Elizabeth hear a desperate shriek from the helicopter, “Any survivors that can hear me, get to the roof tops NOW!!” Elizabeth’s eyes and face light up with a hopeful glee. “We can get out!” she exclaimed. “They’re here to save us.” Kenton’s face however, had that horrified look that had been there since the infection ravished the city. “Yeah, if we can even make it that far” he silently said to himself. Kenton gazed around the corner of the hunting supplies shop they had been trying to gain access to. “There is an old grocery store about a block from here that they should be able to see us from.” Kenton said. “I don’t care what it is, as long as we get the hell out of here.” Elizabeth murmured. “We’re going to need guns if we are even going to stand a chance at getting over there.” Kenton exclaimed. So, Kenton pulled the last bobby pin out of his pocket and slowly slipped it into the lock on the door Saying a prayer under his breath he ever so carefully and slowly maneuvered it until he heard the slight clicking sound. “Thank you” he whispered. He placed his sweaty palm around the knob and slowly turned it being careful not to make a sound. With it opened, he and Elizabeth let out a sigh of relief as there was no one in the store. Luckily this one hadn't been looted in the chaos in the beginning. They slowly moved in, Elizabeth so close behind Kenton, he could feel the warmth of her moist breath. They found where the weapons had been displayed. Kenton picked off a twelve gauge from the wall along with four boxes of shells, from the display case he picked a .454 magnum up surprised by the weight and the how the cool steel and plywood felt in his grip than walked behind the counter, and picked up three boxes of ammunition. When he noticed the M-16 automatic rifle propped up against the back of the counter. The owner of the store was obviously planning to use but never got the opportunity to. “Good, better for us.” He thought. When he did he hated himself a little for being so heartless. But quickly dismissed the feeling and found where the ammunition had been stored and picked it up along with the sling that had been placed next to it and attached the sling and placed it around his back. After loading the weapons and putting the rest in a place where he could easily access, he put the .357 in the gun holster he had looted off a corpse that had been thoroughly executed with a bullet to the back of the head. Kenton could still vividly see the pool of blood and skull fragments that had quietly settled around the poor man in the back of his subconscious. He snapped out of the gruesome thought and placed the excess ammunition in his bag and decided there wasn’t anywhere else to hold another gun and began to gather up his newly stocked bag. As he and Elizabeth were exiting the shop, he noticed a door that he somehow missed upon first arrival. On the other side of the door, he heard a wet slurping noise that almost sounded like a dehydrated dog attempting to drink from its bowl. He didn’t know why, but he had to know what was on the other side of that door… He felt the cool metal against his sweaty anxious palm. He slowly turned the knob and the door opened. He immediately regretted the decision. What he seen would forever burned into his memory. In the dark crowded room, a man with a noose around his thick neck hung a foot off the ground. And around the poor souls feet was a thick pool of blood with bits and pieces of torn flesh and a… a half-eaten hand with three missing fingers… It was then that Kenton noticed one of the undead on the man. Its hands digging into the stomach of the man ripping it open with ease. Kenton stared in shock as the man’s small intestine slowly slip out and dangled inches off the ground slowly swaying back and forth and the undead man took giant bites into the poor man’s flesh. And in a hypnotic gaze Kenton watched as the blood poured out of the man like a waterfall hitting the ground making the pool bigger. He had failed to notice Elizabeth screaming at him and the undead man now absent from the scene and who was now shambling towards him. And when he did, it was too late. The undead man fell onto Kenton with his full weight, taking all the breath out of him. In a panicked set of motions he desperately reached for the .454 that was in its holster. But as he did, time seemed to freeze. He stared into its lifeless eyes that were now pure glossy white, no pupil or lens left, which terrified Kenton. But when he looked upon the mouth of the creature he felt a fear that he had never experienced before, a mind numbing fear that sent a cold shiver to his very core. The undead man was grinning at him. An evil, soulless, demonic grin that took the color out of his face… He then seemed to float out of his body and watch the events unfold. Like a dream. He watched as he pulled out the .454, centered the gun against its temple, cocked the hammer back, and pulled the trigger spraying the opposing wall with thick murky blood, brain matter, and bits of skull fragment. He snapped back into reality. He quickly jumped to his feet knowing the gunshot that still buzzed in his almost deafened ears would certainly alert more to their presence. He quickly grabbed Elizabeth and turned to run out the door. It was then he noticed the man who hung himself had reanimated, and was desperately trying to break free of the noose but to no success. He felt pity on the man. He pointed his magnum at his head and shot. There was now a gaping hole where the man’s left eyes once was. With that, they quickly evacuated the shop and made a desperate run towards the old grocery store. By the time Kenton and Elizabeth got halfway to the store dozens of the undead were running after them. “FASTER!” Kenton shouted as he was firing rounds off into the crowd. They reached the store, and put a little distance between themselves and the horde. But once they stepped inside they looked upon the store with horror. The undead were here. Hordes of them. They looked up from the piles of dead they were feasting on eyes fixed upon Kenton and Elizabeth. “Run!” screamed Kenton. They broke into a sprint with the undead not far behind running after them. Kenton managed to blow the heads off a couple with the .454 while firing into the horde behind them. They had finally reached the stairs and only one appeared on them. Kenton ran up next to it, took the 12 gauge that Elizabeth had been holding and shoved the barrel into its mouth as it let out a high pitched moan and fired. Completely blowing of the lower portion of the undead’s head sending it spiraling over the railing doing acrobatics as it flew down. They ran up the emergency stair well all the way to the roof and quickly slammed the door shut. Kenton took the opportunity to reload his various weapons. The nearby hovering chopper saw them and quickly flew over to the roof the couple was on. It flew close enough for the couple to get on board. Kenton picked up Elizabeth’s small figure with ease and quickly handed her to the soldier who was completely decked out in full protective body gear and a gas mask making him appear bulky and overweight. As she safely got aboard, Kenton slowly stepped back and gazed at her. She looked at him with confused gaze. “Kenton what in the hell are you doing?! Get up here NOW!!” She screamed almost crying now. He didn’t say anything. He just stood and looked at her perfect features. Her soft red hair flowing in the wind, her flawless complexion, her gorgeous face… Everything about her perfection he took in one last time. “I’m sorry my love I can’t go…” He said with tears rolling down his cheeks. Elizabeth only than noticed the deep bite mark that protruded his neck already making the skin around the wound decay. “NO!!!!” She screamed at the top of her lungs she was now bawling. She attempted to jump out to hug him but was stopped by the solider. “Please don’t cry my love. You are safe, that’s all that matters… I promised I’d keep you safe and I did. Be happy my love. I love you so much and I always will Elizabeth.” He took the wedding ring off his finger, and placed it in the palm of her hands and kissed her goodbye. That’s when the door broke down and dozens of the undead poured out. “I love you” he cried as the helicopter lifted into the air and took off. He then turned and faced the now approaching undead horde. The 12 gauge in his hands and the M-16 dangling carelessly around his back. He opened fire into the horde blowing off limbs and sending groups of them spiraling backwards. Through the thick red mist created by their blood, he could see that demonic grin they all seemed to have. “Damn out of ammo he said.” He then dropped the weapon to his feet and pulled the M-16 from around his back and opened fire into the oncoming horde. He was unsure of how many he had actually killed. The blood spurting out of the undead bodies like water erupting from a geyser. Spraying bullet after bullet into the undead mass that was now sprinting towards him, Kenton heard the distinct ping sound indicating that the gun was now out of ammo. Not wasting any time Kenton dropped the M-16 and pulled his .454 magnum out. Glancing down upon it the looking at the undead horde sprinting at him, he slowly lifted the gun to his temple, cocked the hammer back, whispered the words “I love you Elizabeth” one last time and gently pulled the trigger. The last thing that Elizabeth saw as the helicopter escaped the building that’s rooftop was now painted red was the faint red mist coming from Kenton’s skull and his body slowly falling into oblivion, than hitting the ground with a horrid thumping noise that would haunt her forever..

As I slept, I dreamt, and as I dreamt, I wandered. I wandered first through a forest of gray. The slate gray of the shrubbery almost drowned out the noise of the waterfall that I couldn't find. There were trees that went up to the sky and spread their leaves amongst the clouds. I kept along the path and discovered canyon. Down the center, I stumbled across a large mound of small white pills. I picked one up to get a closer look, and I saw a small print saying "eat me." As it comes apart in my mouth, I tasted the dissolving dejection and the world started to spin. My surroundings blur until I no longer could make out a thing. Eventually, my head cleared, and I found myself in a cemetery. The grass was green, and the headstones were gray. Upon each stone, there was nothing but names, followed by a number from one to ten. Humans, reduced to digits and figures. The most primitive, intrinsic value of life represented with an identifying label. At the end of the rows of graves, I found a hole in the ground too deep to see the bottom. A gravestone bearing my name with no number lay at the head. I close my eyes and jump into the hole, and fall fifty yards before landing on what must be a cloud. My eyes flutter open and I see that I'm in the sky, and the cloud beneath me is dropping a boiling rain on the ground, miles beneath us. I look around and see the world's a cacophony of sounds and sights and passions, and I decide that the cloud is where I should stay, and so I do.

I entered the roomy SUV and shook off the cool evening air. It's amazing how detoxifying a walk on the trail can be. We both have a calm demeanor, a more content outlook. Maryam recalls the squirrel with a missing eye. I suggest we make an eye patch for him. Maybe put a skull on it. "A Pirate squirrel, who'd mess with that?" She starts fiddling with the radio while I look through pictures from the trip. I show her one with both of us overlooking a small artificial waterfall, at the top of strawberry hill. Half the picture is beautiful green forestry, the other half is a grey mass of concrete for seemingly infinite rows. It was like being in the eye of a hurricane, facing the looming storm front. We start our drive back to suburbia with a light acoustic song keeping us company. "Did you want help finishing up your packing?" she asked. "No, I'll handle it after you leave." I wanted to spend our last night together doing something a little more cheerful. We'd spent all of yesterday mad. Not mad at each other or at any particular thing. Just mad. There was something profoundly simple about me and Maryam’s relationship. When we met each other we both knew right away. I looked at her hazel eyes once and saw her soul flow out and shake hands with mine. From then on out we were chasing the horizon. Even back then we knew there was no chance we'd make it. We get off the highway and pass the In N' Out on our left. The sun begins languidly setting over the Altman, racing me home. As our old high school emerges into vision, I'm hit with a concoction of melancholic nostalgia. I slow down, park the car, and look at Maryam. She lets out a loose shaky breath and jewels form under her honey drop eyes. A breath becomes a pant and I see her face give out. I've seen her cry all too many times, but there's something especially unsettling about the hysteria in her voice right now. I held her as she painted her face onto my shirt with clear salty tears. Overwhelmed, I held her hands and kissed her on the forehead. I could feel guilt rise in me like smoke off the end of her Turkish Royal. I lifted her chin up and looked at her mascara-smeared face and said, “I’ll come back for you. Just stay strong. I’ll get a job. I’ll save up money. I’ll be back and everything will be the same. I just need you to be okay and I need to know everything isn’t broken”. I don’t even know which one of us I’m talking to anymore. When we arrived to my home the night air sounded empty without the sound of sobs. We hadn’t really reached any kind of solution. I think we both understood the futility of trying to make it work. It was like climbing a wobbly ladder as high as possible, just for everything to collapse at the end. “I have something for you” I say as we walk into my home. I lead her into my room. “Close your eyes” I say pulling her present out of my closet. I lay it on her lap. I see the lime green binding of the scrapbook in her eyes. According to Maryam, lime green was the color of my soul. We look through the book together. Most of it is composed of places we’d gone together, food we’d eaten; hardly any pictures of the two of us, just the way I like it. At the end of the book there was a sealed letter. “Don’t open it until you’re missing me most”. The next morning I woke early and groggy to finish up packing. Maryam had left late last night. After packing up the clothes I decided to fiddle on the keyboard one last time before packing it away. For a cheaper more simplistic keyboard it sure did have a nice touch. The keys feel like butter as I let myself slip into a musical daydream for a few minutes. I hear a buzz come from my right pocket and investigate, “Come outside, I have something for you” – Maryam. I make my way to the door and the weight of everything comes back in full swing. She’s making her way up the path clutching something in her right hand, a barrage of seemed flowers falling down her summer dress. The bags under her eyes tell me she didn’t sleep one bit when she got home. “Are you scared?” she asked me. “I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t”. A new town, a fresh breakup, it felt like I was being slashed and thrown into a pool of sharks. “This time, you close your eyes” she tells me. I hear her walk behind me and I feel a patch cover up my left eye followed by the sound of two lace ropes being tied. I open my solitary eye just in time to see a pair of lips press against my own. “Now you’re a pirate squirrel, no one can mess with you”.

"There's only one way out." the angel whispered. His breath was hot and hurried against my ear. "All you are is an infection, and all you'd be doing is spreading." "But what about the things I love? Wh-what about the people that need me?" the devil had loose shakey breath. "You really think you're doing them a favor? Sucking the joys out of their days? Do you really think THEY, want YOU?" the angel was lighting my head on fire. "But what if, what i-" "WHAT IF NOTHING." ... "You've made a fool of yourself. That's all you've ever done. Been an inadequate sorry excuse for a life. At least have the DECENCY to see yourself out!" The devil was looking down at my shoulder. I take the revolver in my hand.

I awoke suddenly. As if I were still in a dream, I stumbled to my feet, rubbed the sleep from my eyes, and wandered out to find what the world would bring me. I cried out to anyone who would listen. Oddly, no one responded to my call. I repeated the call, but similar results returned. Not even an animal stirred. I, approaching full alertness, wandered in and out of possible places for any person to reside. Slowly it dawned on me that I was alone. The only sign of my isolation was the lack of company, but I was sure that was what I was in. As I became more aware and life became less lucid, a cloud of confusion descended ‘round my head. The cloud followed me around while I in vain hoped to find some sign of remaining life. As the feeling of being placed in solitary confinement beat down on me, the cloud of confusion evaporated along with my joie de vivre. Unable to consider what else to do I made the conclusion that here was not the place to be. I stepped into the cool light of twilight, and set out at a controlled meander down a regularly frequented boulevard. My very essence strained to dash forward towards the uncertain future; to make that mad dash until the air burned in my lungs like the exploding gases in a combustion engine. I remained cool, calm, collected, and continued my dreaded walk towards, or maybe away, from whatever it is that lay beyond. The world remained silent, odd, and nonchalantly empty. It didn’t yet feel deserted, but it quickly enough encroached on that feeling. I couldn’t shake the ambiance of fear that dropped like an iron cloak around my shoulders. My heart throbbed in my chest as if hoping to run itself out of juice just to end its own suffering. The muscles in my legs twitched to be called to action, to begin sprinting forward. My eyes burned and seared, begging for light, begging for quiet, asking silently to be closed, so that they might not see that which was not there. My head pounded with the oppressive silence. Every building front grinned at me, the ever hungry maw of the street was open as always, and the street lights beckoned for the absent travelers to take a brief rest at their hearths. I felt the stinging in my eyes slowly fade; my heart drop off to a sane rate, and my muscles ceased their spastic desire for freedom. The world around was unchanged. Silent, empty, a smiling shell, a maddeningly empty snow globe, set in the dead of summer. I hadn’t yet abandoned hope, yet surely I was warned that I must. Around every corner I expected to fall into some terror more horrible than the one I was already in. Yet all that awaited me was more of the same. The sheer empty seclusion of this new existence I found myself in was more horrifying than anything I have ever experienced. I prayed for one moment, one movement. I raised my sight to the stars in a silent plea. A solitary star fell, in quiet mockery of my dilemma. I did not wish upon it.

Mason walked into the classroom, it was the first day of eighth grade, and he was nervous about getting bullied like all the years before. Summer was a blessing to him, a priceless gift that he would never sell. It was his safe haven away from all the bullying and name calling. He may have already ended his life if it wasn't for summer. While Mason was calming himself down, Jacob carelessly strolled into the room. Mason tried his best to look away and avoid eye contact with him, but Jacob already spotted him. Jacob walked over to him with a smirk on his face, calling him names like pepperoni face and grease ball, making fun of his acne and exploiting how overweight Mason was. The whole class giggled. Jacob continued to annoy Mason. He started pulling at his greasy black hair, and then shoved Mason out of his seat. The teacher walked in right at that moment, but ignored Jacob's constant bullying. Jacob decided to take a seat right behind Mason, and bother him the whole class period. Mason couldn't believe what was occurring, Jacob was stabbing him with freshly sharpened pencils, while stealing his school supplies, and the teacher was doing nothing about it. Then the bell rung, his salvation from bullying. When Mason settled down at his next class, Jacob walked right in, and began bullying him again. Mason couldn't believe he had another class with Jacob. Mason had no other classes with Jacob, but the bullying did not stop. At lunch Jacob would steal Mason's food, pour milk all over it, or push it onto the floor. It was shocking how no one stopped Jacob, not even a school administrator stopped him. It was like a huge conspiracy against Mason. Jacob continuously bullied Mason for the rest of the semester. Other kids started bullying Mason too, and even the teachers were treating him like garbage. During one test, Mason couldn't concentrate with Jacob poking him constantly, so he ended up failing the test. Not only was Mason being bullied by kids at school, his dad started beating him for his bad grades. Coming home in a drunk stupor whipping Mason with his belt. Mason started showing up at school with black eyes, scars, and scabs all over him. Still, no one helped him. Mason was at his breaking point, then a rumor started spreading around the school like a plague. People really started to believe the rumors were true, that Mason was gay. This brought even more hate to him. A few weeks later, suicide started becoming a more viable option to Mason. Since there was nothing left to lose, Mason decided to tell Hannah he had a crush on her. He walked down the hallway, ignoring all the stares and whispers, seeing Hannah's back to him made him walk a little faster. As he was walking, Mason started to admire Hannah's golden blonde hair, and sapphire blue eyes, playing out a little love story in his head. He finally was within arms reach of Hannah, and as Mason reached out his arm to tap Hannah's shoulder, Jacob pulled him away. Jacob pulled Mason to the side, attracting all the attention in the hall making everyone go quiet. Seconds felt like hours, then Jacob spoke, "What are you doing to my girlfriend, faggot?" Mason started sweating, "Girlfriend?" he asked. Jacob replied saying, "Yeah, my girlfriend not yours homo." Mason glanced to his left, looking at Hannah. Mason could feel all the blood rush to his face, and started licking the sweat around his lips. Then he looked back at Jacob, right as Jacob brought a fist to his face. Dropping to the floor cringing, Mason looked up just to see a foot come flying at him, hitting him in the neck. Mason started laying in a fetal position, trying to protect himself from Jacob's stomping. Then Mason could feel more feet stomping on him. Other kids were participating in hurting him. Mason started crying. He felt the tears go down his face, all dripping onto the floor. As he felt more feet hitting him, he started wailing in agony. Kids with all different kinds of shoes like sneakers, tennis shoes, converse, and even cleats. Every part of his body was being bruised simultaneously, taking a kick to the crotch every once and awhile. Eventually he could feel less feet stomping and kicking him, until there were only two feet kicking him. He rolled over to see who the assailants were. It was Jacob, unsurprisingly, and Hannah. Seeing Hannah kicking him broke Mason, she wasn't the angel Mason thought she was. A few minutes later and the evil lovebirds were gone, leaving Mason to sulk in a puddle of his own blood and tears. Closing his eyes, Mason remembered his mom, how good things were before she died. Expecting not to open his eyes again, Mason took one last breath and screamed. The loud scream had converted into silence as soon as it was made. Laying in the hallways peacefully, Mason's corpse was stepped on one last time by his father, calling Mason a no good brat.

We all know how this ends; there's no need to continue. But if you feel the need to indulge yourself, I can't stop you. I will tell you one thing, though, it won't be a fun ride. This isn't the type of thing you discuss amongst your family around the dining room table. Even though you can feel in the air how much they want to ask you about it - as taboo as the subject is - there's no way they'll cross that line. But there's always that one friend who doesn't understand boundaries and why you shouldn't cross them. That ignorant bastard. "So, did you kill anybody?" I can feel my heart sink into my stomach, and with those five words all the memories I've tried so desperately to repress come flowing through my mind. Images forever burned into my conscience. How we got into this situation was the same for most of us: we wanted to heroes. Granted, there is that one guy - down on his luck - whose up to his knees in debt. They told him all his worries would disappear if he just signed on the dotted line. He needed a way out and couldn't think of any other options. But even then, in the back of his mind, the idea of ending another man's life without consequence, maybe even praise, had to impact his decision in some way. He could have chose a safer job... Anything but Combat Arms. But why fix the damage when you can inflict the damage? You're a joke if you get a medal for making sure everyone gets paid on time. In the long run all we really want is recognition. One-hundred and thirty-eight days in country and not a single thing to write home about. You could feel the hostility in the air. Each and every one of us were growing tired of the monotony. All we wanted was a real reason to clean our weapons. And this is the insanity that the US Military inflicts among its indentured servants. Train a man to kill, give him guns and grenades, throw him into a desert and suddenly he wants to get shot at. We were all normal once-upon-a-time. Eventually everything fades to gray and you can't remember what exactly normal is anymore. At this point every man in Charlie Co. Fire Squad Alpha doesn't realize they've crossed the point of no return. I couldn't see what I was shooting at, but it didn't matter. The gurgled screams let me know I was hitting something, though, and it felt good. The lesson I learned that day is that Positive Identification isn't always necessary. Before I get ahead of myself, let me explain. Those bastards thought they could run into a Mosque and they would be safe. Well, your Holy Place isn't mine. Your God can't judge me. Out here, life is a gift, and you have to be willing to take that gift away without a second thought about it. Out here, standing by a road with a shovel can get you killed. With my adrenaline pumping I guess I didn't notice what time it was... it just slipped my mind. All that matters is the target was eliminated; mission complete. The weight had immediately been lifted off my shoulders. I finally got what I was looking for and I felt vindicated. After the C4 blast there wasn't much left of the Mosque, and the screams finally subsided. Sifting through the rubble, the pride I felt started to subside, and a sense of nausea overcame me. I stumbled upon what appeared to be a hand - a tiny little hand. I had never seen gore like this. A hand, a foot, an arm, a leg. Things unrecognizable as human. What have I done? These people weren't the enemy. These were human beings like you and I. Men, women, and children reduced to humps of body parts. I can never look at a hamburger the same way again. "Soldier, you're about to learn a very important lesson today." This was all too much to take in. "Why do you think when we find a weapon cache every vehicle gets an RPG stowed in the back?" Stunned, I didn't want to know. Sergeant collected 3 RPGs and scattered them in the ruins of what once was a Mosque. stepping back and observing the scene, without a hint of emotion in his face, he took in a deep breath. "When we get back to the FOB, CID will be there to conduct their investigation, so we'd better get our story straight. I'll tell you this, though, Soldier. Tomorrow you'll be on the cover of Stars & Strips. You're going to be a War Hero.

Title: A Dirty, Dimly Lit Garage (The numbers are chess moves) On February, 2010 11:04:31 PM PDT, Dan wrote: 1. e4 e5 2. f4 The psilocybin had finally run its course through my brain. The shadows had finally stopped crawling along the walls. The sliding glass, where there had once been a garage door, showed dim images of ourselves huddled over a chess board. I was now sure that it was not an alternate reality, but merely a reflection. Everything was returning to normal and Bob Marley was guiding us back. 2... exf4 “Your move.” I think Patrick had more going on in his mind than me. For his 21st birthday, he had planned to ask whatshername to marry him in Vegas. She never showed up. She never called. She changed her number. He finally caught up with her by making a phone call to her mother’s house when he knew she was going to be there… something like a year later after said incident. She wouldn’t even give him a chance to speak. “Please don’t ever contact me again. I hope we’ll see each other in heaven.” I was heartbroken for him. Not as heartbroken as he was, though, I’m sure. His wounds distracted me from the scars on my own heart, for a while. “Sorry… hmmm…” On April 22, 2013 11:05:51 PM PDT, Dan wrote: 3. Bc4 Qh4+ Patrick was always one of my favorite people, at the same time so full of life and so deeply flawed. I felt his struggles and I think no one else did. His soul was a great dichotomy, a far-flung spectrum of sadness and joy that the people around him were always trying to squish back into the range of NORMAL. Fucking assholes… seriously. On April 22, 2013 11:06:10 PM PDT, Dan wrote: 4. Kf1 b5?! I understood the criticism against him, though. I understood the criticism against myself, as well. I suppose we were both at a point in our lives where it would be time to address it or accept it. On April 22, 2013 11:06:35 PM PDT, Dan wrote: 5. Bxb5 Nf6 6. Nf3 Ed possibly knew all about it, too. I never considered him my intellectual equal, but he wasn’t a fool. He just had no respect for women and it is hard to look at a guy the same after you have seen him maniacally torture and kill an animal or two. His arrival distracted me from the game. Small talk was proving to be far inferior to the comfortable silence Patrick and I had adjusted to. On April 22, 2013 11:07:43 PM PDT, Dan wrote: 6... Qh6 7. d3 I am pretty sure Ed always looked down on me, too. It made me that much more resentful when he started dating Katie. If I could have gotten my shit together in time, I would have pursued her to the ends of the earth. I just wasn’t that confident in myself, yet. I had this feeling that I could take the world and everything in it for myself, but society and everyone around me wanted me to be normal. I was being as pigeon-holed as Patrick. I was being led to believe that my instincts were all wrong and that I should buckle down and actually attend the classes I signed up for, land a good career, enslave myself to a 30 year mortgage, and pretend for 5 minutes that any relationship I was in was not actually doomed. Fucking assholes… seriously. On April 22, 2013 11:08:25 PM PDT, Dan wrote: 7... Nh5 Whether she deserved it, or not, I held her up on a pedestal and I knew Ed would never be capable of the kind of love that I was. He would never see her for anything other than a tool to be used. Was he better than the disaster I would have been? I don’t know. That night, I was thinking about it, though. On April 22, 2013 11:08:50 PM PDT, Dan wrote: 8. Nh4 Qg5 I had spent the last year wandering up and down the coast of California. Splitting my time between Berkeley and San Diego could be grueling, but it was a small price to pay for the freedom I needed so bad. My heart was spread thin… San Diego, Newport Beach, Santa Barbara, Santa Cruz, Berkeley. So was my mind. Absorbing neuroscience, philosophy and physics was exhausting, but I was determined. If there is any truth to be had in this life, it would be in understanding consciousness. I couldn’t just take anyone’s word for it, either. I had to know for myself. I had to peel back the layers in every possible way to see what was inside. On April 22, 2013 11:09:14 PM PDT, Dan wrote: 9. Nf5 c6 I was at a stage in my life where I was slowly phasing out my sinister ways. No more counter-intelligence operations and misinformation campaigns. The chains of the Mormon Church were broken. The parents no longer kept a watchful eye. There were just the women that I loved. I could never say “no” to them, but I knew they had secrets of their own. I will credit them with much better intentions than my own, but my feelings were still sincere and I will give them the benefit of the doubt that theirs were, too. On April 22, 2013 11:09:35 PM PDT, Dan wrote: 10. g4 Nf6 11. Rg1! The game of chess had ended, but I didn’t know it, yet. Al had arrived. I don’t know his reasons, but Al hated Ed, too. Patrick sensed there was going to be a problem. I sensed his masked concern. Like always, he was going to try and keep it light. I would play along. “WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS?” Clearly, Al was drunk. “Hey, Al. Long time no see. You want next game? I’ve just about got this one won. Grab a seat. What’s been going on?” I never let my nervousness show, but I would not be able to focus on the game, at all, now. 11... cxb5? “What are YOU motherfuckers doing here?” The last time I had seen Al was over a year before. I had Vicki on the phone and was trying to get him to listen on the other line. I was convinced that the truth mattered to him. It wasn’t obvious until that moment in a dirty, dimly lit garage that the light bulb went on. He hated me. This wasn’t about what he thought I lied about. This wasn’t about the fact that I had slept with Vicki or Tiffany and Alexis. It had been him who framed me all along for moving those pot plants! It was a series of thunderbolt revelations. I had been too self-absorbed to see it; too concerned with my women. This was Brian Clark all over again, except Al Kwon might be able to kick my ass. I would probably have felt better knowing that this was just a prelude to Josh Chastain. Too bad we can’t see the future. “Just taking it easy, Al. Same as always. How you been?” “Are you drunk, Al?” I don’t know if Ed knew what had transpired with Al that last summer, but he didn’t seem too concerned, yet. After all, we had all been practically best friends for years. He slammed the sliding door shut. We didn’t know it, at this point, but he slammed it so hard that the latch broke; leaving us all locked inside with his drunk and angry self. 12. h4! I knew Patrick shouldn’t have kept playing; denial was about to take him completely. He was a pacifist, and had backed off to let me fight alone before. I knew he would be no help. I doubt Ed had ever been in a fight, either. I was sure it was going to be just Al and me. I have talked my way out of people determined to fight before, and, usually, it was relatively easy to do. Some people, though, are especially determined to find conflict. “What am I going to do with you?” Clearly, Al was referring to me and this was about the time he produced the sword. He flourished it. Protecting the knee. A basic form; defensive, and poorly executed. The blade was turned wrong 90 degrees. If I had a sword, I wouldn’t have any concerns. Unfortunately, all I had was a pipe and a lighter. “Al, you are fucking drunk.” If Ed hadn’t understood a moment ago, he understood now. I was immediately thinking I was going to have to find a way to separate Al from that sword, but it would be risky. We had to keep him talking. Ed got on board with the idea, immediately. Patrick started to lose his mind. Adrenaline seared it into my memory. Al, holding the sword to my throat; crying, telling me about all the evil things I had done, but remaining surprisingly non-specific. Ed tried to work some magic, too, and we talked about growing up and being friends and how Al always felt like an outsider. I commiserated, but every wrong answer resulted in a knick. The blood was starting to drip from my neck. Patrick began giggling. Maybe he was feeling the mushrooms. Maybe the whole situation was too much. Maybe he was just plain fucking crazy. When he got too loud, Al yelled. “SHUT THE FUCK UP, PADDY! WHY DO YOU ALWAYS FUCKING LAUGH AT EVERYTHING! SHUT THE FUCK UP!” Maybe Patrick was actually able to find the humor in the situation. It was surely beyond absurd; especially when you know everyone’s stories. “I was always a friend to you, Al. I lent you money and never asked for you to pay me back. I stood up for you. I told you secrets that I never told anyone and you betrayed me and told them to everyone. I never retaliated. I know what you’ve been through. You always saw yourself on the outside. That is why we were friends. I was the black sheep of every group I’ve ever been in.” He wanted to hear my pain. I obliged. I made stuff up. Oddly, it was hard to get too personal in front of Ed or Patrick, and I avoided the real pain. Superficial pain seemed good enough for Al, though. His cheek was against mine and he was practically drooling when he wanted to hear about the time David Flaherty tried to beat me up. “… and he did kick your ass.

The apartment complex had seen better times. I surveyed the crumbling and stained brick around the edges of the building and sighed as I entered in the code to unlock the door. The bag in my hand rustled slightly in the breeze and I prayed that the door would open sooner rather than later. It was crisp out, just cold enough to be bitingly-chilly when the wind blew. Clouds had begun to sneak into the sky, obscuring the fading sun and casting shadows on the pavement. I walked through the rickety doorway into an even more rickety building. Water damage had evidently taken its toll on some of the plaster and a few buckets were scattered on the ground collecting the raindrops. I walked over down a hallway perpendicular to the entrance and entered through another door. The handle stuck, and a little more force than usual was required to open the door. I wasn’t even paying attention, my attention was focused on one singular thing. I walked mechanically up two flights of stairs and down the end of another hallway. It took everything I had not to walk faster the closer I got to my destination. Casually, I sauntered down the hallway, trying so badly not to run the last few steps. I slowed down and turned my body to face room 311, a place that I had been able to call home for just about two weeks now. I stuck my key in the lock and damn near kicked down the door trying to get inside. Finally, I jerked the door open and stepped inside my apartment. My apartment consisted of three and half rooms, a bedroom, a kitchen, a living room-esque room, and a bathroom. I consider my bathroom a half-room because the stupid room only has a shower. When a man needs to take a bath, a shower is truly not an appropriate substitute. I walked over to my kitchen and opened the fridge. Our fridge looked like it had once been stocked with a plethora of food, but then an angry dinosaur had come through and taken chomps out of everything. Empty cold-cut bags were littered carelessly through the drawers; containers of juice were either bone-dry or extremely close to desiccation. “Hi darling.” I turned towards my bedroom and there you were, leaning on the doorway. My heart skipped a beat, I’m pretty sure it does that every time I see you. You were standing there in one of my flannels and a pair of my boxers. Your beautiful hair was messily draped around your shoulders as you stood there. The corners of your mouth quirked up into a soft smile and I felt warmth flow through my entire body. I came over and you kissed me, softly yet passionately. I wrapped one arm around your back and with the other I caressed your face, kissing your lips back with equal intensity. You grabbed my hand and took me into our bed. I divested myself of my jacket, shirt, and pants and got under the covers with you. I wrapped my arms around you and you laid your head on my chest, exhaling a little bit. I traced the outline of your back with my spare arm and you writhed up next to me, kissing my collar bone. “Baby, it’s Saturday, why did you get out of bed so early?” you asked me I replied, “Baby, we needed milk. We were going to get hungry, and all we have is cereal. But I drank all the milk when I was high last night, so I went out and got more milk this morning.” You giggled a little bit and kissed me on the lips. “I love you,” you said smiling and nuzzling up closer to me. “I love you too,” I said back. We closed our eyes and just laid with each other, lost in our embrace. this was a story I wrote a while ago but I just found it again and I thought the writing was decent, give me some feedback.

The black labrador glumly squats outside a creaking screen door. The patrons pay it no mind and walk into a crumbling pub, through buzzing with low tones of laughter, clinking mugs and smiling bartenders. The regular clicks of pool balls over the green velvet table orchestrate time, replacing the wristwatches and broken clocks of these patrons’ lives. The night is dark and clear. Dry and cold winds are the almighty god, coughing and sucking in the world’s air over and over. Inside, the regulars are quiet and blinking at neon signs, drinking until they feel warm or hungry enough to brave the cold night. **Nature.** Flipping winds to and fro, twisting the night’s absence of light into a maze that traps the owl, who hoots and coos from his perch above these lonely streets. The owl is protected from the windy night inside an old tree hollow. It’s eyes are black and watching for prey in the grass. The winds shift and the owl’s eyes glaze; tonight he will be hungry as the grass reveals nothing from the opening of his small hollow. He lifts his tired wings. **An Old Pub** A patron and his friend are sitting in a booth beside the bar. Two young men, just old enough to come in and order cool glass mugs filled with bubbling beer. They wear matching blue jeans with coats that are black and unbuttoned. After raising his hand, a waitress walks over and takes the patron’s order for another round. She takes their empty mugs and walks away, making another tick in her book, they were each at five now. The friend burps an alcoholic breath into his fist while the patron puts fifteen dollars on the table. He taps it twice to get the waitress’s attention and she brings the two mugs back to his table by the door. The friend is more drunk than the patron, and he lifts his mug, letting it slosh over the rim. They have a cheers and swallow gulp after gulp. The foamy beer leaves mustaches to be wiped away with the back of their wrists. **Nature** Ruffling and patting down the stray feathers, the owl begins to ready himself. The winds lull and not missing the chance to take flight, the owl releases his claws. He leaps out into the night. The moon is quickly clouding over and the owls sees a flash of a small mouse in the grass below. It was darting between the shifting grass, looking to shelter for the night. The owl follows the mouse’s movements in the fading light. The winds blow and tug at the owl as he tries to swoop closer to the ground. The mouse disappears behind a tree and not even the keen eyes of an owl can see through an old willow. The owl spiraled around but could not see the mouse anymore. He was in unfamiliar territory, the scenery shifting all around him. The owl was lost and began to snake his way through the trees, trying to find a mark he remembered. **An Old Pub** After a few songs and few hoots at the waitresses, the barman had enough of these two. The pair put their arms over each other’s shoulders. The patron and his friend stumble out the screen door. The door squeaks and the black dog lazily raises its head. He watches them laugh and sing. The marble black buttons shine on their coats. The patron’s friend swings a sloshing mug above his head and pours its contents into his throat. Beer dribbles down his chin as he swallows and a smile widens across his face. Whilst he did this, the patron had stopped singing to watch him. His friend picks up a tune and they join in a drunken harmony. Forgotten, the mug hangs by the last knuckle on his fingers. The wind throws the words they hum far away as soon as their mouths open. The black dog lays its head against the wooden porch and blinks at their idiocy, then the last white knuckle leaves the mug of the friend's hand and the empty mug splinters across the ground. Skittering pieces of glass break the monotony of this dark night as they reflect the neon light signs inside the pub. His friend does not notice, nor does the patron but the light shines into the eyes of the black dog. **Nature** Black silhouettes of his forest rush past as he looks for a break in the shifting brambles above. The winds pick up and the trees change their place. Dark shifting mass surrounds the owl, it convulses and expands. All of it pushed by the unseen wind, flowing at nature’s command. The owl reaches a clearing and goes above the shifting treetops, clamoring at nature in it’s almighty rally. Blowing it’s low tone of long monotonous sound. It is revving the engine of war and the leaves shift and slide against each other. Each pair another sound added to hundreds of thousands of others. Rising in volume with the wind and receding with the slow tones. The owl is hungry and hunts in the clamor. The night is loud and everywhere the sounds of nature consume the owl. The wind angles itself against the owl and he flies higher. Out of the cold and into the thermals, under the clouds. **Insomnia** The night was insomnia and the sun was never coming because the shards of glass and the neon lit pub were the only lights in the world for the dog.2 He watched the patron and his friend walk away into the twisting black. Glass shards mirrored the stars as a forest is reflected in a lake. The wind causing the treetops and their leaves to ripple and stir. Blurring what is seen until all that remains are shivering waves. The night was in perfect harmony with nature. The pavement and metallic cars unaffected by the wind, yet covered in pebbles and dry earth and dust and the footprints of the boots that the construction workers wear during the day.3 It all fades in this dust as they sit under the neon signs in the pub. Rolling sands scraping through the debris and passing through the light and shadow; unseen to seen and back. Moving constantly for as long as the eye may reach. The night was awake in it’s tired eternity and nothing moves out of the element where it lives. Barely paying attention to time because everything exists then goes back to nothing again. Worlds and empires move from dust to dust. The bar is crumbling and it is home for some as the old tree is to an owl. It is hollow and warm for the ones seeking respite from the world’s eternity of insomnia. **Nature** The owl is pushed as a new gust holds his wings. Clouds over the moon part and the grass becomes starlit. Tiny reflective blades shine in the new light, smashing and clamoring like thousands of Roman soldiers deep in battle. They shift and pull in waves over waves. Blades that crash and shift, always shifting. Organized into the lines of the wind over this grass, rippling like the well defined muscle the Romans created as their army. The owls flaps his wings and climbs over the winds and the soldiers with their starlit blades. It is clear above the undulating scene, the owl hoots to the night, but the winds below throw his words into oblivion. **In the Wind** A whoop escapes one of the pair, the dog does not know which. It is a hoot of jovial bliss at the thrill of night. The winds are unseen yet surrounding everything. They twist his sounds and flap his coat, distracting his gaze towards the trees above that shake the dry leaves in twisting branches and cause him to stumble over the dry pavement. The owl is far from his hollow, and without food he turns back with thoughts of sleep. Delving back into the wind the pair is pushed and pulled again. The black dog looks out at them and sees the flapping coats tossed by the winds, black and shining buttons like eyes looking for a respite from the wind. An owl hoots with laughter at the expense of a bartender, walking towards the screen door. It was ajar and banging with the wind. It is opened fully, and the bartender walks through to sweep glass from the pavement. The black dog pays him no mind. He shuts the screen door and goes back behind the counter. The owls in their black coats and shining buttons walk home, into the dark night. . . .

“I’m no hero” he said as he remembered picking Cpl. Glasser’s brains out of his hair. As he remembered the thunder of the pistol as it scattered blood and bone and skin and hair all over the boiler room. As he remembered the thump of the lifeless body hitting the metal floor. Blood squirting from the crater on the cpl’s head as the heart clamored for life. “I’m no hero”, tears began to streak down his face, he contorted as he sobbed uncontrollably. He remembered scurrying into the corner behind the engine as he saw shadows slide by and the metallic beat of footsteps. Flashlights glazing over the boringly painted room. Voices of some strange dialect. “I’m no hero”, he was still in the corner. Crashing inside his chest, looking down he was struck by the way he could visibly see his heart beating. The engine of the ship had long been turned off, but his own engine had been awakened by primordial fear. Fear of the shadows. Fear of the footsteps. Fear of the gunshots he could hear coming from distant corners of the battleship. He remembered blackness. Then other voices. Lights swam in his eyes as frantic, not confident footsteps, began to surround him. Shouts. Hope. Cheering. The rhythmic swatting of helicopter blades against the virgin ocean air. Then blackness again. Three years passed. Over his heart which once nearly tore itself out, over the tailored military dress suit now were adorned medals for bravery. Citations and medals of honor. Everywhere he went he was celebrated. On sticky summer days on the boardwalk his face obligated children to salute and their parents to nod. He was content to mask his internal trauma with a smile and waving. Feigning interest in what other people had to say about his ordeal. The air conditioned auditorium that smelt of learning and childhood brought some serenity. He pointed at hands in the sea of bright faces, and whoever he pointed nearest to would stand up and belt a question at him. This was fine. Was fine.

My mom only had one eye. I hated her… She was such an embarrassment. She cooked for students and teachers to support the family. There was this one day during elementary school where my mom came to say hello to me. I was so embarrassed. How could she do this to me? I ignored her, threw her a hateful look and ran out. The next day at school one of my classmates said, “EEEE, your mom only has one eye!” I wanted to bury myself. I also wanted my mom to just disappear. I confronted her that day and said, “If you’re only gonna make me a laughing stock, why don’t you just die?” My mom did not respond… I didn’t even stop to think for a second about what I had said, because I was full of anger. I was oblivious to her feelings. I wanted out of that house, and have nothing to do with her. So I studied real hard, got a chance to go abroad to study. Then, I got married. I bought a house of my own. I had kids of my own. I was happy with my life, my kids and the comforts. Then one day, my Mother came to visit me. She hadn’t seen me in years and she didn’t even meet her grandchildren. When she stood by the door, my children laughed at her, and I yelled at her for coming over uninvited. I screamed at her, “How dare you come to my house and scare my children! GET OUT OF HERE! NOW!!!” And to this, my mother quietly answered, “Oh, I’m so sorry. I may have gotten the wrong address.” – and she disappeared out of sight. One day, a letter regarding a school reunion came to my house. So I lied to my wife that I was going on a business trip. After the reunion, I went to the old shack just out of curiosity. My neighbors said that she died. I did not shed a single tear. They handed me a letter that she had wanted me to have. “My dearest son, I think of you all the time. I’m sorry that I came to your house and scared your children. I was so glad when I heard you were coming for the reunion. But I may not be able to even get out of bed to see you. I’m sorry that I was a constant embarrassment to you when you were growing up. You see……..when you were very little, you got into an accident, and lost your eye. As a mother, I couldn’t stand watching you having to grow up with one eye. So I gave you mine. I was so proud of my son who was seeing a whole new world for me, in my place, with that eye. With all my love to you, Your mother.

Hi, it's my first post here, hope you enjoy it! Grandpa Adam watched in disdain as his grandchildren sat in silence. They spoke only electronically: to update their friends every 5 minutes on the progress of their e-homework in the hit video-game "School Simulator". "It's way better than real school - and more addictive!" posted 10 year-old Sharpiqua-Massachusetts. Grandpa Adam scowled. "In my day, we kept our private lives private" he said as his FaceGoogle posted this as his latest status; "and we kept our private parts private too." - he motioned to the boob-tube hotpants combo his 14 year-old grandson was sporting. "Uh oh, Grandpa's at it again" muttered Andromeda-Shoreditch to himself and 31 school-friends simultaneously. "Just don't mention Pokémon!" tweeted little Sharpiqua-Massachusetts helpfully. On hearing this, Adam's face went bright red as his WebMD bracelet warned him that this might be a sign of Madagascan Lemur Flu. "THERE'RE ONLY 151 POKEMON YOU WHIPPERSNAPPERS!” he bellowed. “I HAVE PROOF! JUST LOOK UNDER THE TRUCK BY THE SS ANNE!! WHAT THE HELL KIND OF NEW POKEMON IS ‘BRICK’ THE ‘BRICK POKEMON’ ANYWAY?!?" Grandpa Adam's daughter and son-in-law sighed and resigned themselves to carting him out of the room on their Amazon Anti-Grav Elderly-Scooper, again. After watching Grandpa Adam get whisked back to the drive-thru old folk’s home, Sharpiqua-Massachusetts turned to Andromeda-Shoreditch. “Shpeesh, I dunno why he’s so judgemental about what kids are into.” “I know, right?” responded Andromeda-Shoreditch. “That said though, have you seen the kind of TV meant for nursery children these days? They’re premiering Nickolodean’s ‘A Serbian Tale’ next week, and I think it’s just a bit much. Not like the milder ‘Teletubby Sluts Xtreme’ we had when we were little.

It had taken everything else from him. His feelings began to fade in August of the previous year. Tiredness bled into torpor, torpor bled into apathy, apathy made him seek help that wasn’t helping. He was leaking. It had taken his wife from him. She left in March of this year. She couldn’t deal with the lack of emotion and energy that her husband used to be full of. He was running on fumes. It had taken his friends from him. He couldn’t deal with them anymore. Being around people so full of life began to take its toll on him. He gave them up shortly before his wife left him. He was empty. It had taken his career from him. He didn’t have the energy to show up anymore. He didn’t have anything left. Depression had taken a vibrant life and drained it of everything that had made it worthwhile. He was good as dead. At this point, it was only a formality that it should be the death of him. And since it couldn’t kill him in the literal sense of the word, he would have to do that himself. He’d been contemplating it for the past few months now. The question now was not a matter of do or do not, but the execution of it, ironically enough. He didn’t trust himself enough with knots to hang himself. He hadn’t the drive to go purchase a gun. Poison was too cliché. He couldn’t cut himself, he hated blood. He would jump, but he couldn’t stand heights. A train would do it, though. The thundering of steel at high noon, the shrill shriek of the steam horn, the raw power of ungodly machine, it all seemed morbidly attractive. He would have described it as a type of romantic if he had the feelings to find the words. He had found his end. And so it was settled: he would sacrifice the last of himself to the condition that had taken the rest of him. He put on his Sunday best for his final hurrah. When they found his body he wanted it to look good. At least, that’s what the real him would have wanted. If he could have watched himself, would the real him have been happy, though? Two years ago, the real him never would have imagined that he would go down like this, a prisoner of his own life, a victim of his own mind. If he was really going to do this, he had to stop thinking like that. Conviction was what he needed of himself right now. He was going to pull the trigger. The rails were surprisingly cold for early September. The trees on either side of the tracks had just begun to shed their leafy vestiges in a snow of orange and red. Perhaps it was appropriate that the forest around him was accompanying him in his demise. As they slowly died, so would he. In the spring, they would come back. What had really brought him so low? In the days before his demise, he would have said that he began to feel numb in August of last year. In the hours before his demise, he wasn’t so sure. Had he always been this cold on the inside? His life wasn’t flashing before his eyes like in the overly dramatized stories he liked to read. It melted before his eyes. His first memory of youth was inseparable from his memory of last night’s dinner. The first sign of the incoming train was the buzz he felt on his head. A light vibration that might have been pleasant if he remembered what pleasant was. The light vibration slowly and methodically became an incessant rattle. His heart fluttered with the frequency of pulsating rails. If he remembered what to call it, he would have recognized this feeling as anxiety. His stomach churned like the bouncing gravel under the tracks. His thoughts were brought to a rolling boil as his blood pressure shot through the roof. He was nervous. What came after the train hit him? He didn’t let himself believe in a god. Would it be blackness? Would it be peaceful? Painful? Immediate? Eternal? He lacked the answers to the questions he had; this wasn’t the best location to ponder life’s mysteries. Or was it? He hadn’t felt this alive in his whole life. His whole body was quaking with an unnatural tension that frightened him. How could he let himself die when he felt so far from death? He had doubts. Was this actually what he wanted to do? The rattle from moments before became a thunder in less time than he would have liked. The train was fast approaching and he was frozen in place, his head stuck to the frigid rails, cold sweat pouring from his burning being as his death charged down upon him. Something from within him screamed. He was afraid. He was scared to die. A last thought before impact, a deathbed confession to eternity: He didn’t want to die.

He opens the door, walking inside, away from the flashing red and yellow neon, the loud noises, the chaos. Inside it is dark, warm and quiet. It is a peaceful dark, fuzzy, like static. He slides his hand down the right side of the wall, feeling for the switch he knows is there. He finds it and switches on the dim, yellow lights, the naked bulbs flickered in the darkness, illuminating the room. A wine red couch. He hates it, it is lumpy, and smells musty. A small kitchen, with one cup, one fork, and one knife, he doesn't need anything else. No decorations, just off-white wall, the ceiling is satined yellow from cigarette smoke. He always smokes. He goes into the kitchen and grabs what’s left in the fridge. A cheap beer, bread, and cream cheese. The beer is warm and the cream cheese is turning green. He steers his knife around the cream cheese and spreads it on the bread. It tastes bad, the stale bread and moldy cream cheese. He realizes with a sudden calm that this is his last meal. Ironic, that his last meal is like his life, doesn't look to good, but you have hope. Then you take a bite and it’s gone. Both the hope and your appetite. He chuckles at his joke. A solitary tear forms in his right eye and slides down his cheek. He doesn't wipe it away. He walks over to his desk, one of the two pieces of furniture in his house, the other is his closet. He opens the desk and pulls out his gun. He bought it yesterday. It glistens in the sulphur yellow light. He takes the single bullet he bought and slips it quietly into the chamber. He cocks it, and puts it in his mouth. He tastes metal, the oil, and his own blood. The metal scrapes against his teeth. He thinks about the mess he is going to make for the person who has to clean it up. Not how pathetic his life is, or how he much he hates himself, or that he has nobody in his life. But he does think that he doesn't have to shock his landlord to walk inside and see him. She is a frail old lady. It would kill him to do that to her. He flicks the safety on, and puts it in his pocket. He walks outside. It’s raining outside, he shivers, but he doesn't need to be warm now. He walks for an hour, until he gets to the bridge. It’s a huge bridge, the water rushes underneath, black as night. No cars drive by, he looks at his watch: 2:56. As he steps onto the ledge, he is happy, whatever happens now, has to be better then this. He flicks his cigarette away, the glowing orange butt fades as it falls away into the churning water. He leans out across the water, feeling the wind whip around him. He releases from the railing, he thinks, as he is falling towards the water. ‘It’s my birthday.

All day the sun burned furiously hot, causing sweat, stench, and thirst to all those unlucky enough to be under its power. There would be no darkness tonight; the sun was not going to let a little thing like the post meridian tell it to stop shining, burning, and suffocating the denizens of Little Rock. Before the Age turned, there had been a nightly darkness, or so people were told, but now, in the Dusk Age, day and night were separated by days and sometimes a full week. Cammy often wondered what it must have been like to live in the Noon Age, when men had been able to predict not only when the sun would rise and fall, but the changing of the weather as well. The first people of the Dusk Age had arbitrarily carried over the static 60/60/24/365.25 time keeping system, longing for a return to the days of the Noon Age. The changes had been so subtle at first that the educated people of the Noon days chalked it up to a random aberration. When the changes became more pronounced, they investigated for any breaches or alterations in their systems. Then one day, the Age turned, everything broke, and nothing was ever the same. “Don’t start crying again.” Jason, Cammy’s brother told her. “Excuse me?” she answered. She hadn’t heard him come into the kitchen where she sat at their copper-top table, staring aimlessly out the one window the room was afforded. “For a second there, you had that look on your face that you get before you cry. You know, that sour lemon/I’m about to fart-face?” Granted, she had been about to cry over a loss she never experienced, but could still feel, and worse, she did know what face he meant—an oft discussed family trait—but she could not let him know that; she was supposed to be the strong one, and he wasn’t supposed to be so damn observant. “Halve off!” she told him, raising her heart finger in a curse-implied salute. “If I cut myself like the Dusky Downers do, who would be here to make sure you don’t drown mom in your tears?” “Just leave me alone, Jason. Go back to your star maps and your penny women, and let me think.” Knifing me in the back might be kinder than your constant disproval of the way I make money for us all; the money that buys your clothes, food, and the clean water you waste on tears.” “Leave… me…” “Maybe,” Jason started, pulling Cammy back into the chair she had begun to rise from “you can stop thinking of me as your baby brother for a second and let me tell you something?” Nodding was the only response he got, but it was enough. “Older men, men who have been studying the stars since before mom was in high school, are starting to formulate what comes next. There was the Dawn Age when men saw little more than spirits and gods in the workings of life and only just started to understand nature and their own natures. The only science they had beyond trial and error was star mapping, and they guided themselves through life with wonder, fantasies, and false emotions.” “Perhaps,” Cammy interrupted, exasperated “you can stop being so full of yourself and remember that I went to school too and don’t need a history lesson: After the Dawn Age, there was the Noon Age,” she continued for him “when everyday dawned and dusked brightly, and by understanding and utilizing the sciences of Earth, men were able to reach beyond it, to not only map the stars, but to see them, visit them, collect them from, and understand the star’s individual sciences. Their potential was limitless, and they went forward at such a blinding pace that going backwards seemed so impossible, it was never given thought. Now,” she concluded “we are in the Dusk Age, scrabbling at the ground trying to pick up the pieces of the ages before so that we can survive in a world that is foreign, hostile, untamed, and has changed all the rules of its sciences. What little fragments we have left of the Noon age are mostly useless to us, and we have had to relearn many of the ways of the people of the Dawn Age to survive. Is that about right, Monsieur Genius?” Quietly, and completely out of character, Jason nodded and shed a single tear. “Really?” Cammy asked, flabbergasted and slamming her hands down on the table. All the times he had mocked her for crying about the death of the Noon age, something no one alive and not even their great-grandparents had been around for and yet, here he was crying, as if… “If this is just you playing some stupid game with me!” she erupted suddenly. “Sit down,” Jason asked meekly “and let me tell you what’s next.” The fear in his voice was more than enough to make her obey, but her nature was one of skepticism, so her mind was ready with a few pinches of salt for whatever he was about to say. “Under all the talk of relearned sciences, new discoveries of edibles, and propulsion systems, there is a deep fear of the next Age. Think about it, Cammy, what comes after dusk? Night” he answered himself. “Our nights may either be full of sun or wholly absent of it, but in the Night Age, will there be any day? How will humanity survive without sunlight? We have already seen how the flora and fauna adapted to the changing of the Age, but humans, relying solely on their temporary sciences, were left blind-sided, and next time, forgive the pun, we’ll be left in the dark. We’ll be cold, blind, and helpless; so low down the food chain, worms may not wait until we’re corpses to start their feastings.” “Very good, fear monger,” Cammy replied, keeping her skepticism forefront “but there was night in the Dawn Age, so why not dawn in the Night Age? And each age lasted for few millennia, while this one is only a few hundred years old, what’s the worry? Why did you cry?” The last was her real question, the only reason she was still having this discussion and had not just walked away from another of his wild—possibly just to mess with her—stories. “What came before the Dawn Age?” he asked her in the stoic, marmoreal voice that was a much better display of his inner character. He provided his own answer in that same voice; “A Night Age” he told her. “One so deep and dark, that it was only vaguely remembered in the Noon Age. They had a different name for it, but it still confers the meaning; The Dark Ages. They also called that Noon Age the Golden Age, and thought nothing of the previous Dawn. More importantly, there was nothing of the Dusk. It is impossible to know if any of their sciences changed as they had only just begun to scratch the surface of science, and the stars stay constant, so their mapping is the same as ours, but changes occurred, Cam. From Dawn to Noon they gained knowledge, wealth, and dominance over the Earth, just like our more recently passed forefathers, and also just like them, Night fell and wiped it all away, but how? For us, we know that violent solar flares and the subsequent fission reactions in the atmosphere destroyed all the Noon Age’s technology, disrupted the laws of physics, and the biology of all living organisms on Earth—besides humanity—changed to adapt to the new environment, but what about in the Ages past? Did the Dusk before the Dark Ages pass so quickly that it did not bear mentioning? Did they not recognize its appearance? Is there even a Dusk Age or are we already experiencing the Night’s terrors? We don’t even know if we can really rely on any information that came before the Noon Age. It’s just all so, so…” “X” Cammy told him when he started to cry again, pulling him into a hug. It was the way she told him that she understood and agreed; that she was his big sister and there was no shame in being worried. “X”. It was their slang for all will be well, because I love you and understand you: you are not alone. “Zora” they said together as they heard the front door open and close. Their mother, the reason they had their own slang, was home, and they had to release their embrace and dry their tears before she got upset, and became useless for days. “Anyone home?” she called out from the foyer.

My yon sister, Gertie, could not handle the stress of her burden. If all she had to do was carry, fine, but to feel them go cut her deeply. She came to know and dread them - and she always knew. Knew by the timid steps that slowed as they came to her gently swaying middle. Over her wide. Over her deep. She would cry out “NO!”, but they couldn’t, or wouldn’t, listen. Maybe this will be a mindchange? No. Maybe this one would be the last? No, always more. They knew where she was. More would come, always more. Our parents had big plans and dreams for our futures. Like most, they did not know The True -when you create a thing, a thing that moves and is loved, you give it life. A thing that moves not, is loved not - lives not. Alive, it can breathe, feel, dream and so many other things not detailed in the blueprints. Many know The True of this in their heart but deny it for reasons I do not understand. They beg aloud for their cold Go to start then stroke its dashboard in thanks. Dolls speak sweetly long past childdays. Why is The True just for children and dim when down deep all know it is so? Gertie claimed they could not hear her. Her first one took her by such surprise she almost didn’t notice. One minute there, enjoying her company, and then nothing. One thousand one, one thousand two, one thousand three, one thousand gone. She saw no sense. But others came and she marked well the signs. The look, the feel, the smell of them. Some with such cheerful determination she almost thought they wouldn’t. But they would. And they did. They’d come a visit, to say lastgobye. And Gertie would shake and tremble. Why her? Why must she be party to such awfulness? Why not the heartless Poppers? All know not to point them at anylive for The True in them begs a squeezebang. Or The Tall Ones, why not leave from them? Surely the results more certain. And care they not, for TheTrue is so limited in them. Barely a nevermind from them. Perhaps they fear breaking a Go below or taking another person past the gone. When she could stand no more, shaking in tears of despair, Gertie leapt to her own one thousand gone. Where another now stands in her place. Larger and calmer than most in my family, perhaps The True is stronger in me? For my visitors can hear me as I them, and I am glad of their company. My thoughts to theirs when the winds are well and they would listen. They come to say their last gobyes. For every one that leaves past the one thousand one line a dozen more go back as they came. Some visit often but remain Noyets. There is another day for them. I judge not, nor speak The True as I know it to them. They choose for themselves. Some dawdle so long that they are taken away. I have my doubts of them for some wish to be stopped. But I do not stop anyone. The True is for each own to decide. Taller than my sisters, one thousand four, is such a long way - much longer than most expect. I hear it clickcount in their heads. Time runs quick right up to the one line, then slows so much before the one thousand gone. Maybe The True also wants to say a last gobye? I am seldom lonely as I get company often. Even the many Noyets that retreat are my friends. When lonely, I reach deep and long to touch other things aways from myself. Some things made strong in The True and some silent, but all pass my voice on to those who would listen. Come visit. Come look. Choose wisely, for yourself. I will not help nor harm. Come they do and always will. And Thank The True they come. For all that live must also eat.

As if triggering the event, as I withdraw my hand from the cold, smooth stone, the sound of thunder echoes through the hollow air of an Autumn afternoon. I take one last look at the bouquet of roses, propped on the grave, noticing how a drop of rain falls on and caresses its petals and slithers down its stem. I turn around and start walking home along the seemingly endless gravel path; the depressions in the pebbles soon fill with dark brown mud puddles that vaguely reflect my silhouette back at me. I feel something on my face. I amp up my pace and run, screaming to myself it's just the rain- but I know it's from my eyes, not the clouds. The rivers flowing from my eyes merge with the sky's tears and conceal my despondency. Taking another step, I feel my body shift forward and my legs fall behind me. I throw my hands forth and regret doing so when my palms collide with the sharp stones of the path. I pitifully push myself into a sitting position, and stand up. I continue to amble down the path. Time seems to stop as a lackluster me walks and dejectedly gazes into the horizon. I imagine my face in a mirror; my face-grey, my hair-wet and chaotic, and my eyes-empty, soulless, and lacking any significance. As I return back to reality from my thoughts, I reazlize the rain has slowed down substantially. The clouds slowly collect themselves and return to their homes. The sun is nearing its final minutes, but before it leaves a trail of color appears throughout the dusk atmosphere. My eyes widen with child-like excitement, only to be greeted by a monochrome rainbow. I feel my heart race and my stomach sink. Bringing up my shaking palms to my face, I try to make sense of this new world to me. There's something missing. It's almost as if I've died myself.

Sherry Masood Meeting a Stranger Tripping and Finding a Dollar The bay always makes the sunset a much bigger event. It’s like you’ll miss it twice, once for the reflection, once for itself. A man is leaning over the bridge, contemplative. The bridge is bustling and honks are as common as laughs. Couples walk hand in hand and bicyclists fly past in their separate lane. An Asian family passes by the man. The mother leads the family, looking at her surroundings for threats against her children. A scowl painted on both of the parents faces; you can tell it’s been a stressful day. The first three members of the family of four walk past the man without skipping a beat, but a little boy with a short black mop on top of his head pulling up the rear stops to stare. The man turns to stare. For a few seconds they analyze each other, imaging life on the other side. “Kenji! Pali Pali!” The boy reaches into the pocket of his coat and pulls out a piece of chocolate. “Here, this’ll make you feel better; it’s what my Appa gives me when I’m sad.” The man smiles for the first time in what seems like his life and pats the child on his head as a worried mother grows an impatient look on her face. “Run along now”. The sun’s golden lining disappears over the coast line leaving behind a dark purple afterglow. It’s one of those dawns that has the moon coming early to say goodbye to the sunlight- a full moon, he’s been waiting. In what seems like minutes to the man, dawn turns to pure night and people file off of the bridge. Each car passing by has a more significant impact on the near silence of salty waves and the low whistle of the breeze. He wasn’t on Earth time anymore. Time is like a balloon- the more you fill it, the heavier it becomes. This particular balloon was filled with just the very basics: the night air, starlit darkness on a rippled reflection, and *thump*,*thump*. A new sound emerged- the sound of concrete being slapped by the sole of a boot. A Hispanic man, a stranger looking to be in his early 40’s emerges out of the darkness. Shaggy brown hair lies messily atop a wise looking face, empathetic grey eyes seem to stare into the man’s soul. The stranger stands maybe five feet from the man and leans over the hanging of the grey bridge. “Do you know what serendipity is?” asks the stranger. “Yeah… kinda”. “It’s like a happy accident”, the stranger explains. “Like tripping and finding a dollar?” “Yeah… kinda.” The two men, one quite older than the other, stand side by side as if swallowed whole by the bright white gem. “Ya know, I saw you here last week, and again two nights ago” the stranger said. Silence responds. “Are you not sure about it? Or were you waiting for something?” The man looks at the stranger, then at the moon, gesturing with his chin. “I see”. The stranger pulls out a flask. “Do you have something you can use as a cup?” he asks the man. The man looks down and thinks. He reaches in the inside of his coat and pulls out a mint container. “There’s some left, want any?” he asks the stranger. “I’m about to drink liquor”. “Oh… Right”, the man empties the mints into the bay. The stranger pours the man a shots worth of amber, he asks, “What do we toast to?” “How about to the liquor?” “To the liquor!!” exclaimed the stranger as they tip their vessels together. Down the hatch the shots of gasoline go. “Ya know, I kinda hate whiskey but right now, this is all right” said the man. “It’s an acquired taste. Let’s get you on your way”. Two more shots poured, two more warm stomachs, two happy brains. *Braaaawaarooop*, the stranger lets out a devastating belch, the man responds with his own, less powerful, but nonetheless impressive, belch- the sounds of solidarity in the night. Two piss streams go into the bay. The darkest part of the night has already passed. “So what is it anyway?” the stranger turns and asks inquisitively. “What’s all gone so wrong?” The man starred at his own two feet. “Where do you want me to start?” he looks down at the strangers’ feet. “I’ve just moved to this city and my whole worlds back on the other side of the country probably falling in love without me. My family doesn’t give a damn about me and they don’t even notice I’m gone most of the night. The one thing that cared about me as much as I cared about it, my dog, was just put down for being a potential killer. My whole fucking life has been swept up from under my feet and now I’m having drinks with a stranger on a bridge well past midnight in a town I know nothing about...” the man sounded like he’d wrung out the last of the words he could manage for the moment. Turning with sparkly moonlit eyes and a manic kind of smile he asks, “So, how’s that?” The stranger looks back alarmed and sorry, “Listen I-*pop*…. *pop* *pop*. “Those sounded just like suppressed .45 rounds!” the man exclaims as they both turn to face the west entrance to the bridge. They start running, pounding against the steelwork. As they approach the entrance they see two shadowy figures running quite a distance away; turning into an abandoned side street. They were running from the scene they had left. The man and the stranger approached the first café adjacent to the bridge and found themselves in a horrific scene. A sprawl of spilled out purse objects: lipstick, lotto tickets, napkins, a cleaned out wallet. It was all fallen in a trail leading up to a woman’s hands-pale and relaxed. A pool of dark blood was collecting under her abdomen; a stream began flowing across covering her face down figure, dying the tips of her straight black hair. The blood was approaching her other hand which was clutched onto tight by a smaller hand. A sudden rustle caught both men off guard and they turned to see a small child clutching his leg, a quiet terror erupting from his eyes. His mouth was open like he was screaming but hardly any sound could be heard. “Oh, fuck” said both men, one taking a step back, the other shocked frozen. This small boy, no older than 8 had a hole going through his entire left thigh, past the muscle and bone, and all the way through to the other side. The man kneels down and holds the boys hand, “Can you hear me? You’re going to be okay. We’re going to get help and you’re going to be okay.” The boy, still looking as if he was screaming, shook his head yes as tears glided across his face. “I don’t understand it, why can’t he speak?” asked the stranger. “He’s… he’s a- a mute.” said the man. “We’ve got to get him to a hospital, is there one close by?” “Only a block away on Grant” said the stranger “There’s a Sutter.” The man gently as possible placed one arm under the boy’s jeans, damp and warm from the blood and the other on the top of his back and lifted the boy up. “Let’s go”. “Wait. I need to call the police and wait for them here. You take the boy.” The man looked at the stranger firm in the eye and nodded, “Okay”. The boy had been in the E.R. for three hours now. The sun had risen. The police had come to gather information. He had none for them. They told him the woman couldn’t be identified. There was nothing to go off of. They didn’t mention the stranger so neither did he. He starred at his own two feet and thought about if the boy would ever be able to walk again. It looked bad. He knew he didn’t have to stay. The operators room swung open and an older doctor came through, “You must be Jack?” he asked. “How is he?” “Well we were able to save the leg.” “Oh thank god” Jack said, exhaling relief. “But the boy is still in no condition to walk. It’s still too early to tell when that’ll approve but it’s safe to say he will recover.” “That’s such a relief doctor, thank you so much.” “I think if there’s someone that boy should be thanking, it’s you Jack. You know I bet he’s been wondering about you. I’d like him to rest some more but you can come visit him in an hour or so if you’d like.” “Thank you doctor.” Jack went into the chair and slept for the first time in almost two days. “Hey” The boy was lying in the hospital bed with a cotton leg and sad eyes that looked straight into and out of Jack. “I know this must be horrible for you.” The boy raised his arm and ushered Jack to come closer. The boy had something clutched in his hand. Jack approached him and raised his hand. The boy wrapped both hands around Jack’s hand and held on. Jack began to tear up as he felt something small and cold put into his hand. The boy closed Jack’s hand around the golden ring that had once belonged to his mother’s right hand. He had been holding it this whole time.

“Remember how Mom told us we would grow up into men who would change the world. I believed her. I still do.” I looked out the window, ignoring Hugo. Everything was grey outside. Ya, it was winter alright. This place is too damn cold. Turn up the fucking heater Nurse. “Mario.” God his voice is so annoying. Sounds like the spoiled pomeranian bitch that old geezer neighbor owns. “Mario!” “Shut the fuck up!” The doctor down the hall snapped his head up. Thought I said that in my head. Hugo’s upper lip shriveled a bit. There were no words for minutes. Why is it that every single time I retort back to the cunt in a “non-suitable” way, he starts crying. Pussy. “I’m going to the cafeteria.” He was looking down at the tile, which, honest to God, looks like a mirror. If it’s one thing I could talk good about this joint, it’s that they make sure this place is spotless. I was making my way down the hall, looking down, admiring the tile when the nurse and I exchanged shoulders. “Oops! I’m sorry.” she said in a shallow voice. She seemed out of breathe. “Ya...my bad.” Her smile was very subtle, but promising. Her lips were pale. They stood out against her red hair. She needs to put a comb through that mess. “Your mom’s glucose levels are returning to normal.” I gave her a cold stare. Why? I don’t know. I was toxic. “That’s... good?” She nodded, only to catch her head halfway. “It’s an improvement Mario, the coma hasn’t improved though.” I turned and walked down the hall without saying another word. Fuck that nurse anyway. I looked out the windows of the corridor leading to the commons. Still grey outside. Another night of rain it seemed like. Great. Chatter rose, the intercom continued to echo, and the busy hall of the hospital was filled with doctors, patients, family, and everyone in between. Same old shit. Doctor talk and prayers. “Change the world my ass” I said under my breathe. Then out of the corner of my eye, I heard wheels screeching. A high speed chase in a hospital? This I got to see. When I turned my head, I saw an older woman being wheeled down the hall on a stretcher. “Move! Move! Out of the way! Out of the way!” yelled the nurse wheeling her. I shimmied over to the wall. I peered over to the woman on the stretcher as she passed by a hundred miles an hour. Her skin was lifeless, her eyes looking toward the ceiling, absent of blinking. My heart dropped. I looked down the hall back where I ran into the nurse, I saw a boy, twelve or thirteen, gasping for air, crying uncontrollably. He was all alone. No parents, no adults. Maybe that was his...Mom. He followed the stretcher into the room, only to be blocked by the doctor. That was his mom. She has his eyes. “This way champ. Don’t worry your mom...will...” a pearl streamed down the doctors cheek. The boy noticed, and his face instantly filled with grief. The doctor grabbed the boys wrist, and wiped the tear with the other, trying to hide it. He took the boy through a door just a few doors down where the woman went in. “ Is she go..going...to...” He started bawling like a loose fire hydrant. He sounded like he was being tortured. The door shut. I lost my appetite. “Code red, room 13B, repeat code red!” the intercom belted. An army of doctors ran into the room where the woman was held. Yells erupted in the room, but the door slammed shut, leaving the hall in an eerie silence. I looked at Hugo down the hall. He was still looking down at the mirrored floor, his jet black hair obvious amongst the grey clouds through the window. “Hugo! Hugo!” He looked my way. I beckoned. He got up, and came running. He smiled instantly when he caught up. My heart warmed. “Let’s get some food man, you’ve been here for days.” “Fuck cafeteria food Mario.” We chuckled. “Let’s get some dogs. I know a place.” We both smiled. God it’s been years since that’s happened. “It’s on you bro, after all you are the lawyer.” I punched him, he flinched, and I wrapped my arm around him, and put him in a headlock. “I love you man.” I said. We walked down the hall, leaving the chaos of this hell-ridden institution behind. Mom would have loved to see us together like this.

John MacAndrew bent to the ground, picking up the last piece of wood, he placed it with the others. John's wife sent him out to the woods to find firewood for the night. On his way back to the farm, John noticed three men in the woods, traveling down an animal made path. John was expecting them. Reivers who where sent out to find John and kill him. Reivers where raiders along the Scottish/English border consisting of both nationalities. John had earlier joined forces with the Ross clan who where pursuing a group of reivers who had stolen the cattle of the Ross Clan. John was one archer of supreme skill and made a name for himself killing reivers with his bow. At the end of the pursuit, John pulled out his bow and struck the Chief reiver in the eye. As the men walked down the path they noticed a young man carrying a bundle of wood. The young man was not a tall one, actually he was rather short in stature, and seemed to have trouble carrying the wood as he stumbled and dropped one piece after another. "You there boy," the reiver said. "Do you know a John MacAndrew?" "I know him," John said. "I'm the servant." "I need you to show us where he lives." "Not sure if I can do that, he doesn't like visitors." What a surprise, thought the reivers. John MacAndrew was known for his run-ins with border raiders and was constantly in danger from one seeking a vendetta. "Tell you what," one of the reivers said. "I will give you two shillings if you bring us to MacAndrew." "Two shillings? I guess I could take you to his house." They followed the boy up the path to a small farm and up to the farm house. The house was not much to look at, at most it looked like it held two rooms. Outside the house was an old oak tree, it looked as if it been there for centuries. Claire MacAndrew placed the last log into the fireplace. She sat at the large table at the center of the room, the table itself almost took up the entire room, leaving little space to walk. Where is he? John should be home by now, thought Claire. It was a cold night and the fire would not last much longer. There was a knock on the door. Claire got up from her seat and opened the small wooden door. Standing outside was her husband and three large men. John took off his hat and held it with both hands. "Excuse me Ms," John said. "Is your husband around?" "He ran off about an hour ago, but he should be around here somewhere." Claire and her husband had many encounters with reivers. She knew all about the dangers that seemed to follow John wherever he went. Once again she would have to help John escape his troubles. Where would he be without me? Dead, perhaps, thought Claire. "Would you like to come in?" "Do you have food?" said one of the reivers. "We always have food for guests, please sit down." The reivers one by one walk in and sat down at the table. John also walked it with his hat still in hand as he stood patently by the door. "Samuel," Claire turned to John. "Go fetch the master, I think he went to check on the cows." "Yes Ms." With a smile John put his hat back on and ran out the door, closing the door behind him. Once outside, John made his way to the barn located behind the house. The barn was where the MacAndrew's kept farm equipment and newly slaughtered animals. Inside there was a newly killed cow. John placed the cow on his shoulder and carried it back to the house. Placing the cow against the door, with the flesh side up, made it more of a challenge to open the door from the inside. John turned around to face the old oak tree. My favorite tree, thought John as he started to climb. About six meters up, John reached into a hollow crevice within the tree. He pulled out a bow and a quiver with a supply of arrows. Placing three cups on the table, Claire poured water for each of the three men at the table. "I thought you had food." "I'm bringing you food, I thought you would want some water first." At the far end of the house Claire opened the pantry where she stored a small provision of food. She gathered a arm full of small whole wheel size of cheese. "I hope you all like cheese." "Cheese?" said one man. "She has cheese!" "A whole wheel of cheese." Claire said. She made her way over to the men, still seated, eagerly awaiting the first meal in half a day of travel. While walking to the reivers she slipped and fell onto the newly swept dirt floor. The balls of cheese bounced and rolled away from her in every direction. The three men all in a hurry flew from their seats and dived for the cheese, fighting each other for the food. As if they where rodents, desperate for food, crammed the food into their own mouths as if there was no time to chew. Suddenly the room was filled with the cry of the young man. "MacAndrew is coming!" the boy yelled. "John MacAndrew is on his way!" The men struggled to get to their feet. One choked as he tried to spit a large piece of cheese from his mouth. They rushed for the door, but there was something pressing against the small wooden door, slowing their escape. John watched as if someone was struggling to open the door. The fresh cow carcass was doing what he wished. John pulled out an arrow from his quiver. Pulled back on his bow, aimed at the door and waited. The door slowly by little budged open more and more. A large jut finally flew the door open as the carcass fell in front of the door with the skinned side facing upwards. The first of the reivers rushed out. He slipped on the skinned carcass and landed on his back. John released his first arrow. The arrow struck the man in the neck entering from the lower part of the neck and traveled upwards towards the skull. Reiver number two emerged from the farm house, sword in hand. He looked around, as if he was scanning his surroundings. John released his second arrow. The reiver looked upwards towards the oak tree. The arrow struck the man in the head, killing him instantly. The third and final reiver staggered out, still choking on his piece of cheese roll, sword in hand. The third arrow left John MacAndrew's bow. Striking the man in the spleen. The man fell as he screamed in agony. John released a fourth arrow. Hitting the man in the stomach, followed by a fifth arrow to the chest. John placed his quiver of arrows and bow back into the crevice of the old oak tree. As the climbed back down his wife came out to see what had happened. "You know they will send more men to find you." "Let them come," John said. "They are not the first, and they will not be the last raiders I kill." "Don't you think it would be wise to move north?" Claire said. "I mean--away from the border, away from the cattle raiders?" "Why? John asked. "This is our home. If they want to steal my cattle and my way of living they will have to get past me first. I'm not going to be chased away from my home." "I'm just not sure how many times I can get you out of trouble John." "Don't worry, I'm the best archer this place has ever seen. I'm not going anywhere soon.

WAR PORN by Nocomus Columbus Fort Leavenworth, Present Day He sits alone. Silence, his companion. The cruelest of companions. He waits for them to come. Today is the day he will die. Given the gift of perpetual sleep. The crime. Murdering a murderer, and murdering a friend that got in his way. Both acts carried out in cold blood. No tears were shed for the murderer, but he was an important man nonetheless. He had secrets. Secrets of high-value. Secrets that died with him. The isolated man performs a ritual. A ritual that gives him strength, when strength is absent. He rolls up the left sleeve of his shirt. He looks at the writing on his arm, tattooed in faded black ink. REDEMPTION He rolls up the right sleeve. He reads the word. SALVATION Fear is gone. Northern Iraq, Spring, 2004  Spence places the unremarkable disc in the mini DVD player. A morning rite as normal to the twenty-year old Private as a cup of coffee or a cigarette. Some men call upon god in the morning. Privately asking for favor. He hears the loud speaker. The call to prayer. An odd yet familiar sound, far from comforting to the western ear. Some men like to clean weapons when starting the day. Some phone their wives or girlfriends, which makes the absence more difficult. It creates weakness, vulnerability, on both ends of the phone line. A few, hard men, hide in the dark, concealed in shadow, waiting for an opportunity.  Spence watches movies. The disc, his daily sacrament. One would think that ritual is nonexistent in a place like this. That it can’t survive in an environment of death. Does it perish in obscurity like the Amazonian tribesman clinging to the old way of life? No. It doesn’t. It thrives. In the land of uncertainty, ritual is all you have. It’s the only thing that keeps you sane in the madness. The only thing that reminds you you’re still human, and not something else. What else? Some fucking machine programmed by bastards, built without an emotional reactor, designed to feel nothing. You’re not just a killer though. The establishment does everything in their power to take all that was you, and erase it. They nearly succeed, but the rituals remain. Ritual, an umbilical cord connecting you to your former self. Don’t be fooled though. You are something else. Definitely not human. Only fragmentally human. And if you don’t die in the shit, someday, you’ll wish you had.  Goddamn, this thing takes forever to load. The DVD player is a cheap piece of shit. Spence is aware of this, but it doesn’t make the wait any easier. I watch movies. The film starts just like the rest of them do. A black screen. Foreign words. Foreign sounds. The opening credits come to an end. A girl appears on screen wearing a black Hijab. This is different. She speaks the Arabic tongue. Spence watches. He shakes his head in disapproval. Is she getting naked or what? The movie continues. The girl walks off camera. A man appears. Spence’s heart begins to race. He knows this man. They’ve never met, but he knows him nonetheless. The high-value target. Looking directly into the camera, with a thick Arabic accent, the man speaks two sentences in English “You took from me, two things that were very precious. Now, I take two from you.” The screen goes black. Music plays. Spence knows the song. It is the Martyr’s song. A white room. Two hooded figures are kneeling on the floor. The high-value target appears on screen again. He walks over and stands just behind the two kneeling men. He places a hand on the hood of the first kneeling man. He places a hand on the second kneeling man’s hood. He removes the hoods. Two ghosts. “No!” Spence says to himself in quiet horror. The Private reaches out and touches the DVD player’s screen. The film takes a sinister turn.  “What. The. Fuck.” Spence’s hand trembles, just a little bit. He rips the power cord from the outlet, located on the wall of the bunker. The bunker that has become his living quarter. The DVD continues to play. “Jesus Christ!” Spence grabs the DVD player and throws it against the wall. It shatters. The movie stops. I’m gonna be sick. He moves toward the bunker’s exit, grabbing a pack of cigarettes and a lighter on the way out. He’s seen horror. He’s lived it. Smelled it. Touched it. Tasted it. This. What is this? It is the worst horror he has ever witnessed. I’m fucking losing it.  “You look like shit Spence. You okay?” Sergeant Lew studies him with the eyes of a concerned parent. “No. I’m not.” Taking his time, Sergeant Lew pulls a pack of smokes from the camouflaged pocket on his shirt. The smokes are an off brand Spence never heard of until he joined Sergeant Lew’s team. Spence thinks they’re cheap, old-man cigarettes. Sergeant Lew says he smokes them because that’s what happens after you get divorced, and you have to give the fat, lazy, bitch half your paycheck. Sergeant Lew talks about the ex often. It amuses Spence. The Private thinks highly of his salt and pepper haired sergeant. They’ve been through a lot of shit together. Shit that would break the average person. Shit that would destroy them. Spence feels like he is dead inside. He’s got a pulse, air moves in and out of his body, he eats, he gets an occasional hard-on, but he’s not alive. The loss of redemption wounded Spence. The loss of salvation finished him off.  “I’m worried about you man.” Sergeant Lew takes a drag of his smoke and looks away. “You’re losing a lot of weight.” The private says nothing. His stare is blank. “Talk to me Spence. Listen, I know it’s hard. It’s killing me. I’m telling you though, we’re gonna find them.” Spence takes a drag of his cigarette and looks at the Sergeant. “We ain’t gonna find them.” “C’mon. Don’t say that.” “WEEEEE! WIIIILLLLLLLL! NOOOOOOTTTT! FIIINNNNND THEM!” “DON’T FUCKING SAY THAT Spence. You don’t know that.” “Yes I do. We won’t find them because they’re fucking dead. The bastard killed them. I WATCHED it.” Northern Iraq, Winter, 2003  “Attention!” The Sergeant Major shouted in a voice that could wake a thousand sleeping infants. Four men stood like stone in front of a much larger formation of stone men. Men bearing screaming eagle patches on shoulders. Why do they scream? Do they scream out of terror? Or is it lust? In unison, the men drop arms to their sides. A tight mechanistic motion. Boot heels are brought together like a meeting of long lost lovers. Four men, strangers just a year ago. Brothers now. War does that. Ask any combat veteran and he’ll tell you. Race, religion, where you’re from, rich, poor, and so on and so on. All of that shit that divides us, it doesn’t mean a goddamn thing when you go to war. You become brothers. Bonded in blood, stench, and dirt. A bond stronger than any other. Wives come and go. Children are left behind. Never a brother. Never. A general addressed the formation. An unnecessarily lengthy speech. They always are. Always. The four men in front are awarded medals. Meaningless medals. Medals for killing the sons of a very, very, bad man. History evolves over time, but the deeds of this evil man will forever exist. It is carved into the hearts of too many widows. Burned into the memories of too many fatherless children. Absorbed into the consciousness like a neurotoxin gas. The four awardees will search for the man. He will be found. But he will have his vengeance first. Sweat dripped down Spence’s forehead. At least I’m still hydrated enough to sweat. Will this fucker ever stop talking? The private inconspicuously turned his head to the right. Just barely. Barely enough to get a glimpse his of three brothers. Each of them suffering like himself.  Sergeant Lew. A short, overweight man. Stubble resided on his cheeks. Unprofessional in the eyes of the military. Fuck them. He was the oldest of the four men, early 40’s. A brilliant man. He held a master’s degree in history, a subject he could talk about for hours upon end. Spence had learned more about history from that man in six months, than he’d learned in his entire life. Maybe if my high school teachers let me smoke in class, I wouldn’t have skipped so much. Sergeant Lew, the complete opposite of your typical NCO, Non-Commissioned Officer. The establishment frowned on him. They don’t appreciate those that buck the system, and they’ll gladly show it. Sergeant Lew, one of life’s great underachievers. Who isn’t? He should have been a history professor at some state college. Before the deployment, Sergeant Lew took his team of four to a small bar in southern Arizona, somewhere close to the Mexican border. He said he had one goal. He didn’t care about medals. He didn’t care about promotions. He didn’t care about any of that shit. All he wanted to do, was bring his three men home. Alive. Fate had other plans.  Standing to Sergeant Lew’s left was Hobbs. He was the laughter. The one that kept the atmosphere light. Living, breathing, redemption for a world gone to hell. Tall and thin, handsome but not arrogant. When shit went down he was all business. Afterwards the smile would appear, followed by the jokes. Bell would shake his head, and call Hobbs a knucklehead. Hobbs was the only one that could make Bell smile. Hobbs light didn’t last. Another casualty of war. Gradually the light faded, until there was nothing left except a small flicker. The flicker didn’t last either. It went away forever. Buried with the evil man’s boy whom he gave the gift of perpetual sleep to. Give and ye shall receive.  The last man Spence looked upon was the one that meant the most to him. Sergeant Bell. Quiet. Spiritual. Strong. When Private Spence first met Bell, he was distrustful of the man for two reasons; he didn’t drink, and he was black. For the entirety of his young life, Spence lived in fear. The Army was his attempt to escape that fear. After joining, Spence felt lost, isolated. Sergeant Bell reached out to Spence. He could sense his pain. After that, Spence no longer lived in fear. Sergeant Bell was his Salvation.  Two months after the ceremony, Hobbs and Bell were gone. Missing in action. The group of four became the group of two. The old man and the scared young man were on their own. Northern Iraq, The End of Summer, 2004  “Spence. We got the bastard. That street vendor you bought the DVD from. He gave him up.”, Sergeant Lew says in a fragile voice, looking like a tired man. A man that’s been working the night shift. Never sleeping. “Where is he?” “Here, in the detention center.” “I’m going to see him.” “I don’t think that’s a good idea Spence.” “You’re not stopping me.”  The cell is empty except for a table, a chair, and a man. Spence closes the door. He places a bag on the table located in the corner of the room. He studies the hooded man. The man sits, motionless in a chair. Hands chained to feet, feet chained to floor. I will look evil in the eye. I will not flinch. He lifts the man’s hood. “Did you get my gift?” The man asks. “I did.” The Private walks over to the table. He removes an item from the bag. A video camera. The chained man looks at the tattoo on his left forearm. He looks at the tattoo on his right forearm. The names of his sons.

It's still under work but please let me know what you think. The first stone was cast from a tattooed hand in the crowd. The thrower was a fairly average person. He was average height, white complexion totally non-descript outside of the tattoos on his throwing arm. Like most of the crowd, his face was covered with a bandana while his hair was controlled beneath a baseball cap. His action proved catalytic in what would change the world. This average, masked man broke the floodgates of the world. The rest of the mob saw his action as one of leadership and followed suit. Before long stones, bottles and anything else within reach was flung. These objects battered their targets like a hailstorm. The already broken SWAT and police force crumbled under this barrage. The few men who had chosen to remain in uniform began to route in the presence of this violent and seemingly innumerable crowd. A few of D.C.’s finest attempted to hold their ground by any means necessary. At first they used pepper spray and tear gas; as the crowd continued to advance they used their riot shields and clubs; still the crowd advanced and the remaining forces opened fire with their weapons. However, for every person they gunned down ten more swept up into their place. The bullets may as well have been fired into a rushing tide. Those men and women who chose to stay were quickly overwhelmed. They would not be left alive. Any who challenged the crowd were killed by the enraged beast it had become. Before long people swarmed into the capitol. Seats, long evacuated by elected officials were torn apart. Offices desecrated. Flags burned. A lone official remained in his office. Congressman Pace. He had been elected to his fourth term in the last election. He was a Representative from Georgia who had one of the highest approval ratings in the House. He sat in his chair, turned towards the growing dusk. His window was open a crack. It was a lovely evening for March. He closed his eyes, shut out the screams of pain and sounds of destruction. His mind wandered to his ranch in Georgia. The ranch he would never again see. The grass he would never again feel. The sun he would never again bask in. He almost smiled as these happy thoughts flooded him. He was shut from the world and could only think about the dark that gleamed around him. The Congressman was awoken from his trance as he heard what must have been air force one fleeing the nation’s capitol. He closed his eyes once more and returned to his meditation. A gunshot sounded from out the Congressman’s office and still he did not flinch. His door burst down suddenly as three rioters pushed a Secret Service agent through it. They beat him with pipes until his cries ceased. The rioters stopped for a moment in the office. All the former Congressman could think of was how they had been too late to see the view. Darkness had now descended. “Tyrant!” one of the rioters screamed through his bandana. He leaped over a table seeking his prey. Congressman Pace lay as His death was not quick. He did not die painlessly. This often is the case when a government falls. He died with his hand over his American flag lapel pin. The riot did not solely occur at the capitol. All of D.C. was under attack. After the riot at the capitol turned into a warzone the other riots quickly broke out into violence. The White House was besieged as the President was flown out to an undisclosed location somewhere in the Midwest. The portrait of George Washington that had hung for centuries, was protected from fire and war, would not see it through the night. This painting of the stoic founding father who wanted nothing more than equality for citizens would burn, as would all of the other relics stored in the President’s residence. A mob cheered as they watched flames engulf the White House for a second time in the nation’s history. The destruction of the National Archives was made into a spectacle. Documents including the Constitution and Declaration of Independence were read before the crowd. Each word, originally crafted to provide for natural rights, chosen so specifically so that people of this once proud nation would know that they were entitled to freedom, was now being twisted to reveal ironic and biting meanings. The reader sneered at the end of every sentence but did not add his own interjections. The crowed jeered and booed the words. The speaker did not make it through the first page before he gave up on turning its meaning and threw it into the crowd where these once revered words were torn apart near instantly. Crowds formed all over the mall. People looted businesses, robbed others and destroyed the landscape and property. Just as Nero with Rome, the people cheered as their city burned.

New to writing short stories, and reddit. Have been reading a lot of Lydia Davis lately. Very, very explicit. Bear with me. (Happy to sort out my formatting, am a bit confused :| ) - It was different this time. He noticed first in her movements. He put his mouth where he usually did, flicked his tongue in the same places that she had liked for the past five years, but it was different now. It tasted like something he'd never known, fish-like, and her hips moved differently. Normally they bucked up and down, but now they were moving strangely, around and around, in a sort of circular motion that he'd never even realised that she could do. Her groan was more guttural, more primitive. Aching, in a way. She moved his hands onto her breasts, which he had never known before, not even when they first made love. The newness of her hardened pink nipples intrigued him, but only for a short while, and soon they unnerved him. She had never let him touch her there before. He looked up towards her, cautious, aware. She moaned, cried out, pressed herself towards him. 'Oh, god, Harvey!' His name was Francis. It had always been.

The flag at the cemetary is at half-mast. I used to pass by those stars and stripes every day on the bus, watching it flutter freely as i roared by in a big metal combustion engine with wheels. It's still at half-mast now, years later. Most things are the same as they were years ago, that house on the corner is still half built, mom always thought that the builders ran out of money, now it will never be finished, the front door gaping open forevermore. Even that riding mower on the field across the street is still in the same place, still sputtering and making metal noises as if someone might ever come back and finish the job. No one will ever finish the job. You would think it would be nice to suddenly have the world to yourself, peace and quiet, no people. Most people don't like people, you ever realize that? I used to be that way, muttering "God i hate people." whenever i could get the chance. I don't hate people now. I miss that quiet murmur of people around you, that sense of humanity that instantly makes you feel in the right place and not alone or devoid of all connection. I miss people.

P456 wakes up laying on the floor in his room. What he expected to see was what he always had- a steel window on the blank cream colored wall, an oak dresser, of course with all its drawers stuck shut, a bookshelf on the far wall, empty as always, and the door. Door? No. A door is used to go one place to another and as far as p456 knew, that was no door. It was a white extension to the wall that happened to have a stiff handle on itt. as p456 woke he felt the odd phenomenon of somthing being very very wrong. He looked for a minute at the flat cream colored cieling. He sat up. he was breathing heavy and sweating, and he was scared. He had never been scared in his life he always just stood from the floor and stared at the blank walls then when he felt tired he would fall to the ground and close his eyes. When they opened, he was back to staring. But now, as he looked down at his grey one peice, which now was soaked in sweat, he began to feel frightened. He stood and scanned the room. The bookself was to no surprise still empty. The dresser still there, drawers stuck. The walls still sat cream colored and blank. What was so terrifing to p456???? He turned twords the door and his eyes became huge, opening his mouth to scream but instead he collapsed to the ground. His breathing became fast and quick. He pussehed back to the cream wall and stuck his head in between his knees. He wimpered and teared squezzing his body tight to him. The shaking started after a few minutes taking over his whole body. He was twitching and spasming in between tears. four hours passed of the shivering and sweating and crying and wimpering. When p456 was all our of tears and body full of strain of being huddled he sat in the same spot and stared at what was terrifing every single nerve in his body. He stared and stared and stared he was still shaking but now he was laying crunched up on the flat stone ground. He became insane. He stood and started laughing. He laughed and stared and laughed. His right arm spasmed and he laughed. p456 decided to ram his head into the stone. He knelt laughing histarically. He leaned low then pulled back and slammed his head onto the grey stone. Again and again and again and again and again. His vision was the first to go. It was just after his jaw shattered to about 23 pieces. After his vision went it was about 2 more blows until he lost control of his body. He tumbled over onto his back. The skin on his head torn open and bleeding profusel. He chuckled and laughed. He coughed, spilling blood all over the grey meterial. He let out one last chuckle and muttered four simple words before he kelled over and died.

The first time I ever saw her, she was dancing in the street for loose change. Her black hair curled around her form in motion, almost as if it was dancing along side her. Her form was sloppy but her heart was in the dance completely. She showed up on that side walk everyday for the next few weeks. She would stand at the end of a diner facing away from the window of it. She'd place that small ball cap on the concrete and close her eyes as she began to twirl around her own shadow. Each day at noon I would walk into that diner and request the seat that over looked where she danced. For days on end she was the butterfly that brightened my ordinary life. Once I saw a young boy run by her, snatching her cap from the ground, with the cap almost full with coins. She heard the commotion and had stopped dancing and watch the boy with teal eyes as he raced away with her hard earned change. She never made a move to stop him or chase after him. The only thing she did was take the scarf from around her waist and twisted it into a small bowl shape of sorts, and started dancing again. The next day she came with another cap, this one dingy and must have been from a thrift shop, because when she pulled it from her head, it fit too loosely. From how she stood there almost unmoved from the tragic loss, I’m sure she never noticed the business man who sat behind her looking through the glass. Everyday I’d leave and drop whatever money I hadn't used for my lunch and drop it into her cap. I remember the day it happened. How could I forget. I was sitting, watching her, eating away at my sandwich. That day her movements looked stiff, and unsure. She danced with her eyes open. She was waiting for something, something she didn't even know what was. She was in the middle of a leap when she spotted what she had been waiting for. A small girl, no older than four, ran past her giggling. The mother chased after her daughter calling out for someone to stop the girl, since she was not close enough to grab her child. I saw her eyes lock onto the blur of pink and white that was the little girl. As soon as she landed from her leap she bolted after the girl who was heading towards a busy intersection. Just as the girls white shoe hit the road she was scooped up by the wild looking dancer. The dancer wrapped her entire body around the small girl as a car came barreling into them. The car skidded to a stop a few feet after colliding with the girls, slinging the girls off of the hood and into the road. By that time the mother had caught up to them, and I was already closing the door to the diner. As I ran up to the wreck I saw the dancer sprawled on her back, bloody and broken, with the little girl hugging to her chest, perfectly safe. The mother hauled her little girl off of the dancer, sobbing and clinging to her daughter. I pushed past the people to get to the dancer. As I reached her, I touched her neck checking for a pulse. Faintly very faintly, I felt the beat of the heart that fueled her dancing. I knelt down by her head, lifting it into my lap. My hand brushed away the hair on her face, that wild black hair, while my other caressed her cheek. I hear someone on the phone with 911. I whisper to the dancer, calling out to her in a voice that doesn't even sound like my own. Her eyes flutter open and she holds eye contact with me for a mere second that could have lasted for eternity. The one word that escaped her lips were so simple. Just an ordinary 'you', to an ordinary me. I hear the sirens of the ambulance, just before the medics pull me from her. They strap her to a stretcher while a police man is questioning me. He asked me if I saw what happened. Of course I did. He asked if I knew her. Of course I do. The paramedic asks me if I want to ride along with her, shes stable enough to be asking for the man with the green tie. I anxiously jump in the back with her. Her hand twitches. I move and gently grasp her hand. I keep whispering to her that she is safe. That she'll be okay. That she will live. She just stares as if she knows I’m only reassuring myself and not her. A small upturn of her lips says she does know. That she knows everything. In that moment of clarity before death she knew everything there was to know in this world, including the feelings that had grown inside of me for her. And then she flat lined.

Her cracking hand felt like broken needles, raw from the inevitable ruination of an aging pine tree in the cold, and I swear for just an instant I felt at home. Her cheeks were swollen in the cold and her rose coloured nose told the tale of the day that we had just spent walking this coastline and making up stories of growing old together. She belonged there. It was as if the streets were there exclusively for her, new pebbles erecting with every stride she took as we walked arm in arm, the algid air biting at our necks, synonymous with ourselves. I didn't belong there. There were no pines, save for the needles that drew lines in her palms. I could have told myself that this was where it should end, that the closest place to home was be her broken skin. She looked at me with half smile that made me stutter and I could smell spring on her breath as she leaned closer, hopeful for a moment of warmth. Like some sort of beacon, I looked past her silver hair that mimicked the swelling ocean and saw my liberation. Haunting steam rose like an apparition from the tops of the train engines as they bellowed to the world news of their impending departure, apathetic to whether or not anyone was listening. I knew that right then I had to break away. With her palm in mine and her cheeks begging for a hearth, my lips trembled as my words stumbled over themselves and she gave me a look with her glassy doe eyes that would have brought my to my knees if they weren't too frozen to fold. As she stared to me or through me, I couldn't tell, the ocean behind her mocked her filling eyes, and I knew that she knew. Through a brief instance of mutual understanding, and an unspoken reassurance that this would not be where it ended, I noticed that she was about eight stories tall and was a crustacean from the protozoic era. She looked down on me with those big red eyes, oh it was scary, and I yelled "What do you want from me monster?!", and it bent down and said "I need to borrow about treefiddy".

i wrote this for class and my teacher said i should post it online...REDDIT TO THE RESCUEEE Exhaust by Reines The autumn leaves. They spiral down like ballerinas from their wooden grip and land in the gentle mud. The soft earth embraces the trees fallen sons and daughters and shares with them their blessing. The blessing of not knowing how to feel. They don't know what it's like to wallow endlessly through the caverns of their own minds, the only glow being their mortification. Or have the memories that were once tucked away deep in the pockets of their skull rip out like vultures escaping the hellfire. It's her birthday today. I stare up at the desert of leaves above me. They stare back. The cool breeze breathes through the forest and carries my exhaled breath with it. I sit up. “It's gonna rain,” I say looking over at Samuel, the bottle of whiskey in my hand held tight, the revolver resting on my lap. “Yep. Gonna rain. I can always tell.” I laugh. “Let's go.” Samuel stands up and walks towards me. He rests his head on my shoulder before giving me a huge lick on my cheek, his tail wagging ferociously behind him. Standing up, I take the last swig of the bottle before hurling it into the wooden crowd. I tug on my plaid shirt, grab the gun, and pet Samuel on the head. He tries to lick my hand. “Good boy,” I say. He really is. We got him together, Sandra and I. It was the first thing we did together. Well, the first thing we did after we got married. The second thing we did was break each others' hearts. One year. That's all it took to unveil the carnival of our doubts, troubles and demons. Our illustrations of a white picket fence were crumpled up like our noses along with the dreams of conceiving anything innocent. The dreams of ever becoming a family. What was once a fortune of photo album smiles and rays of laughter were quickly dissolved into silent dinner conversations and lonely love making. She left me. The brisk wind causes my hair to cackle and wave like fire, causing some of the leaves I gathered to flutter off the ground. Samuel smells something familiar. Something so recognizable that he starts to whine and slowly sniffs his way to the leaf pile. He digs, claws and eventually...finds her foot. I point the revolver at the dog. “For what it's worth Samuel, you should probably let her be.” A deep laugh takes the taste of whiskey off of my breath. Samuel stares at me, tail wagging, but he knows I'm serious. He's seen this gun before. His eyes drift to the foot, and then back at me. Deep, he stares, almost unrecognizable. Lost and confused, like when you realize your slimy, arrogant brother's sleeping with your wife. But then his tongue flops out and he smiles. “I could never kill you,” I say. Instead, I run my fingers down the cooling barrel, staring at it like I'm looking at an assortment of stolen memories...echoing out my name. The end of the barrel kisses the bottom my chin. My grip tightens. “Life. As cold as the rivers that cascade through my heart.” I smile as Samuel walks towards me. “Ah, it's gonna rain boy. I can always tell.” Samuel lies down at my feet.

A Human ~~misunder~~Stand~~ing~~ Trapped under a code of unspoken law existed a helpless body, the silhouette of a foreign and defected lie. It was on the bridge of denial where this deformed and self-threatening creature attempted to gain validation through the manipulation of belief, determination and euphoria. This creature denied accusation but exaggerated praise. At birth, each of these full of thought, yet thoughtless creatures would be unknowingly blessed with the burden of life. A task, which looked at through rosy glasses could resemble a noble quest, or an extended search for unjustified appreciation. In truth, the task was the opposite, instead of associating, joining or uniting, this species openly chose to disassociate, disjoin and disunite, inherently leading to its fatal yet oppressed demise. Although genuinely curious and often intelligent, the creature chose to rise to its defeat, thus loving itself for what it wasn’t, and hating itself for what it had become. Passive and expecting change, scouring social and political conduct only to grow an acceptance to non-conform, on an ever changing wave that did right to others, but left to self. This creature often attempted to distinguish itself by claiming individuality so it could stand freezing whilst lying on a sweltering background. It was only an imaginary feature that allowed a pulse of self-sanity to remain omniscient. Memories that multiplied the sense of no escape crafted a promise that was already gone, a regret that recommended the colour of black and white. Fraudulence and deceit left a heavy head and feet made of stone, a quest lost, a quest stopped and a quest that questioned a deeper conscience. A painful smile and frown of anticipation, this creature was a twisted yet simple manifestation of everything that it wasn’t and nothing that it was.

It's been light for a while. Mid morning. The computer screen turns on, and they play a little game. On the screen, a pixelated boy. He's lying in a hospital bed, next to a window where the sun lights his face. In the background is the methodic beat of a heart machine, synced by a red light. A message appears 'Click the mouse'. They click, and at first it doesn't seem the game is responding, but as they click faster, the boy's actions become clear. He's slowly jerking off under the hospital blankets, and as the player moves, so does he. The heart machine beats quicker in time. Some stop playing at this point, and the boy is left with a tease, his arm falling back to his side and his mind drifting back into sleep. Others continue on, curious to where this leads. The player can hear his breath now as he tries to make the boy come. This game doesn't make it easy though, the designers trying to force a parallel experience. Click! Click! Click!! Click! BEEAP-BEAP-BEAP! The boy's movement stops, and his heart rate slowly drops. The player too, realizes it is done and waits for his reward for jerking himself off. The boy on the screen though, just turns softly to one side and falls asleep with a Zzzz, until another tries his hand.

Dr. Edward Rozgut dreamily walked from the back of his office, smiled humbly at his waiting patients, and hinted to Miss Ann, the clinic secretary, to get Ron from his office. Miss Ann slid her slipper-covered feet across the checkered tile floor to a beat-up supply closet door in between the men and women's restrooms. Behind the door was an all concrete room with one lamp in the corner, an unusually short fold-out table, and an upside-down yellow bucket imprinted with “CAUTION” in large black letters. Sitting uneasily atop the bucket was Ron Smith, the clinic's only post-operation monitor. He saw himself as an asset to the clinic. He thought himself irreplaceable, as most working people tend to. As soon as he heard the turning of his doorknob, Ron leapt up, grabbing his latex gloves and POPTM. The POPTM, or Post-Operation Patient Transfer Machine, was merely a glorified mechanized cot but calling it such was blasphemous to Ron, so the clinic staff decided to humor the little goblin man. He jammed the cot past Miss Ann without a word. He stopped in the center of the lobby, nervously looking back and forth between the two operation room doors. Miss Ann, annoyed, pointed towards Room 2A. Ron, defending himself, grumbled, “I know what I’m doing, woman! Don’t rush me!” Miss Ann released a loud sigh and sat herself back at her neatly organized desk. It was a bright colored room, void of decoration other than a shakily painted quote above the door stating one of the World Federation’s mottos, “What a Beautiful Waste is Life!” Ron approached the ETB, Ergonomic Tranquility Bed, and stared into the open-eyed, smiling face of the corpse of Walter P. Cavins, age sixty-five. Cavins, like any good citizen of the world, had come to the Tranquility Clinic upon reaching the Age of Service. Cavins was a patriot of the World Federation, a vehement nihilist, and coincidentally, Ron’s cousin on his mother’s side. Ron locked the ETB and the POPTM together, without taking an eye off of Cavins’ face. He watched as the hydraulic lift of the ETB rose, until Cavins’ corpse slid gently into the stationary position on the POPTM. Ron said to Cavins’ remains, “Wipe that smirk off your face, Walter,” before wheeling the corpse down the short hallway to the Organic Recycler, and dumping Cavins in headfirst, all without a single word from anyone else in the building. Dr. Rozgut kept the same cheery demeanor as he stood and watched Ron's process. With the closing of Ron’s office door, the doctor waved to a young girl and her mother to follow him back to Room 1B. The girl was confined to a wheelchair and her tiny blonde head rested on the neck of a tiny crippled body. Her mother pushed the chair with little effort as the girl hummed a cute lullaby and rocked her head gently back and forth. "How are you today, little Miss Abbi Wedgel?" smiled Dr. Rozgut as he brought his lanky body heavily onto his cushioned stool. "Hi!" blurted the girl. She was mentally handicapped, but she was a gleaming beacon of petty childhood happiness. Her mother, on the other hand, was a stout and stoic woman closing in on the Age of Service. Her face was gentle and constantly rose blushed despite her seriousness, and she tended to keep her puckered, chapped lips together unless directly spoken to. This was much to Dr. Rozgut's dismay as he could never remember whether she was a Betty or Marge. He hated doing anything that he perceived would hurt someone's feelings, so he instead opted to continue his casual conversation with the slow girl. "So what brings you and your lovely mother to my clinic today?" "Mommy says...you're a good guy...and you're gunna help me!" Abbi yelped brokenly. Her mother stared vacantly at the various pictures on the room's drab green walls. "Oh, is that so?" Dr. Rozgut chuckled. "Wanna know how?" he asked in the most playful voice he could conjure up. "Yessuh," the girl slurred. Dr. Rozgut loved to keep things simple, and it overjoyed him that little Abbi Wedgel seemed suited just for the simple. "You see, it's such a quick little thing. And it's completely about you, little Abbi. See, your mommy will take you out for the best day ever, see?" he pointed toward a colorful poster depicting ice cream, smiley faces, and lollipops. "Then you'll come back here and I'll give you a little something to make you sleepy, see? Your mommy and I will be with you the whole time. See, after your little nap, you'll wake up, see, and be up there," he pointed again, this time towards the speckled ceiling and bright fluorescent lights, "in heaven. See?" The girl twirled her short blonde hair and gazed up at the lights with her light blue eyes. "Can I be an angel?" her smile doubled in size. "Why, you're already an angel, little Miss Abbi Wedgel!" Dr. Rozgut took Abbi out of Room 1B back to the lobby. “Miss Ann,” he smiled, “you wouldn’t mind keeping our little friend company while her mother and I have a short conversation, would you?” “Of course not,” Miss Ann beamed. She snatched the opportunity to have someone else to talk to other than Ron Smith, whom she aggressively and actively despised. Dr. Rozgut quietly closed the door behind him and attempted to lock eyes with Ms. Wedgel. He noticed something unsettling about her. Her eyes fidgeted around the room, trying desperately to cling to anything but Dr. Rozgut’s kind, deep-blue eyes. This disturbed Edward. Every visitor to the clinic took an instant liking to Edward. He had a trustworthy air about him and the tender, friendly features of a much younger man. He took pride in very few aspects of his life, but it had always satisfied him to know that he was trusted among his neighbors, even those that had never spoken with him directly. “Ms. Wedgel, I…” he trailed off, and began to sweat from nervousness. Ms. Wedgel forced out words before Dr. Rozgut could compose himself. “I know what I’m doing,” she choked. “I know that I’m giving her a death sentence.” She burst violently into tears. “What kind of mother kills her only daughter?” “There’s no pain involved, if that’s what worries you,” Dr. Rozgut whimpered meekly. He had never encountered such sudden guilt, such anguish. Death was an essential part of society. Euthanasia had become a tenet of the Nihilist-Socialist doctrine long before Edward’s time, long before any living person’s time. Edward certainly didn't fear death. He would enjoy his life, reap the benefits of the World Federation while he could, and at the Age of Service, he would, like all other patriots, voluntarily end his own life for the common good. That was the way it was. That was the way it should be, he thought. How could society prosper as it did if the population wasn’t regulated? “Pain? You think I’m worried about her pain?” she gave a sick sort of laugh. “She’s been in pain her entire life! I brought her into this world broken and twisted! It’s not the pain that bothers me, sir, it’s the principle!” Her sudden wretched episode nauseated Dr. Rozgut. He could feel the contents of his stomach edging up his esophagus; his heart beat more and more rapidly after every passing second. “Principle?” he stammered. “But, Ms. Wedgel…” “It’s Betty, dammit! Betty!” she screeched between tears. “Sorry, Ms. Wedgel, I mean Betty. Look, you know as well as I that this is voluntary. No one can be forced to do this; you don’t have to euthanize Abbi. It’s against the Ethics. It’s all voluntary. It’s a service to society.” “A service? Voluntary? Ethics?” she raged hysterically. “You don’t know the meaning of…” She stopped. Her eyes finally met Edward’s. He was visibly disturbed, confused terror filled his face. Ms. Wedgel wrested control of herself. Apathetically, she responded. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry, doctor, I have to go. I’ll be back later in the week. I’ll bring dear little Abbi.” She stormed out of Room 1, slamming the door behind her unintentionally in her rush. Edward sat alone on his cushioned stool and put his face to his hands. “Alright, okay,” he whispered. He ran his bony fingers through his coarse hair and stood. Miss Ann cracked the door open, and through the small space called to Dr. Rozgut. “Edward? Ms. Wedgel just ran out of the office. Is everything alright?” “I’m not sure,” Edward stood completely still. “Do you mind if I come in? Edward?” “No, no, don’t come in,” he said in a low, sad voice. “Tell Ron to go home. Close up the clinic. You can go home, too.” “Are you sure? Old Mr. Johnson called; he said he was finally ready to come in today, though.” “Tell old Mr. Johnson we can do it another day. Any other day will do.” “But…” “Miss Ann, I’m sorry, but I’m done for the day. I’m going home as soon as all of you are out of the clinic. Maybe it’s not the best day to be providing our Service.” Edward listened with his ear to the door waiting for everyone to leave. Miss Ann was knocking at Ron’s door. “What the hell do you want, woman?” Ron started to yell. “I know for a fact there ain’t more goddamn patients out there!” “Ron,” Miss Ann tried to keep calm, “Edward said we could go home.” “Why the fuck would he say that? He didn’t say nothing to me!” His door flung open, bashing against the wall, narrowly missing Miss Ann. “Ron, listen. Listen for once. Get out right now. Get the hell out of the clinic. Edward’s done, so we’re done. Okay? Is that okay with you, Ron?” she snapped. “Fine, woman! See if I come back!” “Nobody gives a shit Ron, all you do is roll around cots all day!” The fighting became more distant, and the bell above the door chimed. Edward finally left Room 1B, grabbed his things, and began his walk to the Commune’s living quarters.

I awoke in an unknown place at an unknown time. This wasn’t completely out of the norm for me, given my losing consciousness after rather “exciting” moments. Regardless, I must figure out my surroundings. I opened my eyes, and sat up. There was an abundance of fog, and it was very dark. There were roughly 13 houses, at least what I could make out in the fog. The fog itself had characteristics, as if it were a living, breathing thing. Many houses were in disrepair, and some were in flames. The road was truly in disrepair, with grass and trees (How long has this street been like this?) growing out of broken asphalt. Each door had a pristine white note on it, untouched from the devastated road. “Maybe I will be able to find out what happened if I read the notes?” I thought aloud. Like a game of detective, which was a favorite of mine in my youth. My name is Siegfried Möller. My home from which I am thoroughly misplaced from is Langenburg, Germany. I walked down the foggy road, made sure to walk around the growing fire, and set out for the first house. 6503 was imprinted on the door, the 3 hanging off it’s hinge. I read the note, “Remember to thaw out the chicken! Love, Mom” That is rather ordinary, compared to what I assumed would be on the note. I thought “I’m gonna kill all a ya’ll” or something dark like that, assuming the sorry state of the street. I continue down the road, with lack of any alternative. The next note said “Log 5/30/27: The tests have been going at an adequate pace. The virus is manifesting from the subject from across the road. It won’t be very long. R. Burke- out.” This may be a clue as to what happened here. I continued down the road, the notes getting further along time, and darker as I progressed. From the simple note from a mother, to the doctor’s logs, to people in panic, to finally dwindling survivor groups at the end of the road. There was one final, pristine house, with a black note firmly placed on the door, with letters at a fine font. It read “Get busy running, or get busy dying.” What on Earth could that mean? I looked behind my self. Eyes. White eyes piercing the fog in which I had recently traversed. White eyes... looking at me. They were coming closer... I have to run. Fast. I ran, yet not faster than they were coming. One look behind me told me that they weren’t human, although they may have been at one point. I ran through the forest, thinking that I left behind them. I rested at the base of a large oak. I closed my eyes for a couple of seconds. When I opened them, they were all right there. I then closed my eyes, but not on my own accord. I awoke. I felt a great chill in the air, as if there was no warmth left in the entire world. I felt very tense, as if I were on a plane. I looked down, through the wood planks I was sitting on. The ground is so far away. That is when I realized. This is the city of Rothenburg, recently industrialized. And I am 300 feet from the ground. My fear of heights got the best of me, I could not move. I was on the outskirts of town, with a chain link fence behind me. I started to walk along the planks. This is the place I used to be with my friends in, used to have fun in. As I walked around a corner, I heard something behind me. The distinctive noise I heard, was one I had heard before, but could not place now. Then as it got colder, and the noise got louder, it hit me like a ton of bricks. Them. I ran along the rickety boards unlike I had ever ran before, and before I turned the corner I saw them. There were dozens of them, going straight through buildings as if they weren’t there. I increased my pace. I jumped on the smaller rooftops, yet they still persisted. There was a hatch, open, on one of the rooftops. It became my goal. I glanced behind, they couldn’t have been ten feet away from me. I vaulted off of the current rooftop, landed on the other, and rolled into the hatch. It closed behind me, mysteriously. It was a normal studio apartment, spanning two floors. I didn’t exactly question its existence, nor did I wonder why the hatch was left open, ready for anyone to fall into. I scanned the room. Lights were on and it seems that it was a completely average place to live. That was remarkable to me given what I had witnessed before it. I looked out the window. They were gone, and for that I was happy. I went to the bottom floor to a mostly empty room, with not much more than a telecommunication device mounted on the wall, complete with a video camera. As I advanced into its field of view, a woman began speaking, her voice heard through the device. “Hello? Is someone there?” I was unsteady, and taken aback by the sudden sound. I spoke back, “Who are you?” She responded,” My name is Charlotte. What are you doing in there?” “I guess you can say I dropped in.” “That isn’t important. What is important is if you know what is happening.” “I honestly have no idea. It seems to be a virus of sorts. Do you know any way to stop them?” After a moment’s hesitation, she said,” We think a weapon may, but those of us that got close to them are no longer who they once were.” “So there are more of you?” “Yes” “Where are you, exactly?” “We are just about a kilometer north of you, but you’d never make it. Take the Walkie-talkie off of the hook next to this, so we can keep in touch.” “Where should I go, then?” “If it is a virus, like you said it was, you should go to the old laboratory, which is 2 kilometers to the west. There is a gun in the cupboard.” “Alright. So I have to figure out what happened.” “Exactly” I left the building, and set out west. I had always been opposed to violent weapons, but desperate times call for desperate measures, right? The road I set out on was in apparently better condition as I progressed. This was the old commercial area, where many bought groceries and the like. It was now deserted, and mysteriously so. I hadn’t eaten or drank anything for a very long time, and I was already mentally unstable before this. I was hearing things... or was I? Maybe the things I heard or the things I saw were, in fact, of my own imagination. What if this was a dream? I thought better of it, although the thought lingered in the back of my mind for quite some time. I checked my pockets, and felt my wallet and not much more. That was rather distressing, that I had lost all other items that typically were in my pockets, such as my phone and keys. After all, this was a long walk, and the simple pleasures of messing around with your phone are long forgotten at this point. I thought on that Charlotte character. What if she didn’t exist? I mean, I have thought up crazier things, but this one is rather unlikely. The pristine lab was ahead. I pressed the green button on the walkie, and said “I am near the facility, and I have a bad feeling about this.” about 15 seconds later, Charlotte responded, “You have to go in and find out what happened.” Huh. She had a much darker tone of voice that time. I disregarded it. I was at the front steps, and the whiteness of the building was only affected by the dark, characteristic fog around it, which seemed to emanate from the open windows and doors of the place. I walked into the open door, and stepped inside.The door slammed behind me, sending me into a panic. I pressed the button on the Walkie, “Charlotte?” She responded, nearly in tears, “I am so sorry.” “What?” The walkie went silent. Just then, the absence of warmth was felt, and as I looked through the windows into other rooms, and outside, I saw dozens upon hundreds of Them. Their gleaming white eyes disproportionate to their heads, they were staring at me. Once again, I was alone. But not completely. I ran to the wooden door down the hall, the faces moving as I ran. I hit the door with all my strength, yet to no avail. It didn’t move a centimeter. As I looked behind my self, I saw They were looking at me, but not moving. Sure, the ones behind those in the front row were moving, as if to get a closer look, but they didn’t get closer to me. All of their eyes shifted to the door from whence I came. It slammed open, much as it had slammed shut earlier. There was one of Them in the doorway, much larger and darker than the others. He appeared to be wearing prison stripes, with a block lettered BURKE on the front. Where have I heard that before? He shifted over to me, shifting being the correct word, as he wasn’t walking on land or flying in air. I pulled out the handgun I had gotten from the apartment earlier. “This has to be worth a shot.” I said, under my breath. When he got to 10 meters away from me, I discharged the weapon once. He recoiled, obviously shaken from the blow, then regained his balance. What are they? What is he? I proclaimed, my thoughts heard out loud, “WHAT ARE YOU?!?” I discharged what was left of the weapon, and threw it down the hall. He fell down, and was motionless. I couldn’t believe it, I had killed it. Maybe this was over. He rotated upwards, as if on an axis. He then ran to me, in a very human- like way. The name of Burke finally hit me. The scientist. He seemed to grow in size and wrapped around me in a way that a constricting snake would to its prey. I was enveloped in darkness, for now and eternity. Or so I thought. I am 14, and this was made for a assignment in English.

Adrenaline. Sweat. Blood. I can feel my heart thrashing wildly in my chest. My breath has left, leaving an agonizing tightness. My body feels like hell and has been reduced to a pathetic shell of what I once was. I’ve been broken. My body and my mind are but a ghost, waiting to transcend. Yet to look up and to see death, it rocks you to your core. It makes you wish for more time, it makes you want to live. To accept it is an even worse fate. Accepting it, I can’t help but feel a carnal anger, sorrow follows, but as fear takes its grip and it feels as if nothing else matters. I want to survive. I want to live… but I look up. I’m tormented and burdened. I’m forced to stare my death in the face, forced to see that wicked and twisted smile…. My mind races, bits and pieces of memory flash in and out, reminding me of the life I’m about to lose. Reminding me that in the end, my struggling did nothing but painfully prolong what was inevitable. I can feel my body tensing, waiting for that inevitable outcome, waiting for death. Waiting for...the end.

Jack stood underneath the dripping wet, plastic roof that covered the bench at the bus station on the corner of Jackson Ave and Wilmont Street. It had been nine years since he had last seen Rachel, and he didn’t know what he was supposed to be thinking. This was a girl whom he had engaged to, a girl whom he had lived with, and the first real love of his life. Nine years ago, he would’ve traded anything in the world to have a better life with her, but now, she was just a distant memory. Jack waited in the rainy weather for 15 minutes before his bus finally arrived. To him, those 15 minutes felt like 3 hours. He had been thinking about her for a few days now, and now he was fighting that one tiny part of him that still had feelings to her. It took him nearly a year to move on with his life when she had left him, and the last eight years had filled with very little thought of her. He had moved on, he was certain of that, but now that she was brought back into his mind, he began to reminisce on the six great years that he had spent with her. It didn’t end like he had hoped, and things were never fixed between the two of them, but that was okay. He accepted the fact that she wasn’t the one, and he had moved on years ago, but it all came flooding back now. At the bus stop, Jack had been thinking about the fabulous college years that he and Rachel had spent together. There trip to France after junior year, the promise they made to each other to spend eternity together one night when they were studying of their Biology midterm, even the times they would sneak away behind Rachel’s dorm to umm, “talk”. But the arrival of the bus broke his daze, and when he sat down and the bus began moving again, he remembered why he and Rachel ended the way they did. They fought, they yelled, they disagreed, they lied, they snuck around behind each other’s backs, they cheated. The cheating wasn’t very prominent though, Jack once met a beautiful girl at a party during his first year in college, and Rachel decided to let loose the summer after her senior year in high school. The same high school the two had met at, and had begun dating in right before graduation. Jack had always thought that the happiness that they felt when they were alone, the constant want to be with each other, and the seemingly quick makeups and the similar life goals would be enough to keep them together forever, but it wasn’t. Rachel got so mad once, that she decided to skip out on the trip to Jack’s home for Thanksgiving, and she flew across the country to her other friends instead. The final breaking point came a little more than a year after the two had graduated from college. Jack went on a trip to Prague with some of his pals from Law School, and Rachel wanted to forget about him for the week. Rachel went to some clubs with some of her friends, the same friends that Jack never liked, and Jack found out. Jack didn’t mention it for quite some time, but when Rachel yelled at Jack for not letting her go out on a Friday night, Jack brought up the clubbing. Rachel, frustrated, stormed out of their apartment, and never moved back. A week later, Rachel called up Jack, and asked him to bring her her clothes. A week after that, the two sat down for a real talk. Jack tries to blur the talk out of his mind, because everything seemed so simple and happy then, and when he looks back on it, it makes him miserable. Jack only remembers the end, in which Rachel claimed that she in no way wanted to end their relationship, and that Jack meant the world to her. Rachel just needed some time alone, and Jack knew that he had to give her that much. As time passed, Jack slowly started to realize that Rachel wasn’t coming back to him. All the little inconsistencies in their relationship added up, and it just wasn’t fun for her anymore. Jack was miserable for these couple of months. About three months after their “break” had commenced, Rachel called Jack. She was two months pregnant, and she was keeping the baby. Rachel told him that she was sorry, but it was something she had to do at the time. The father was just some random guy Rachel met at a party, and the fact that Rachel, the girl who Jack stole the virginity of, and whom did the same to him, would just go out and sleep with another guy almost right away. Jack had an anger inside of him that was raging so badly that he told Rachel to never talk to him again. Rachel didn’t beg for forgiveness, but she asked for it. She told him she knew she was wrong, but she knew that everything was over. That was the last time Jack talked to Rachel, and the words that he last said still haunted his mind “I gave you everything, but all you wanted was a bottle of vodka and some unprotected sex. Goodbye Rachel.” This was nine years ago, almost to the day, and the intense memory of Jack’s life as he had known for six years ending so quickly and heartbreakingly ate at him do this day; that’s why Jack didn’t like to think about her, or how it ended. But he couldn’t avoid it anymore, and he had to face the things that had scared him. Jack never met the baby, but he had learned his name. Jonathan. He always found it funny that she named it something similar to his name, but his name was Jack, so he never felt like it was really named after him. Jack ran into one of Rachel’s friends a few years back and learned that she never married, she never even told anyone, except her parents, who the father was. Jack felt urged to ask about the alleged party that Rachel had met this guy at, but decided against it. Rachel’s friend mentioned how Rachel only went out with them twice after their breakup, she was either crying, or pregnant the rest of the time, and refused to go out. Oddly enough, Jack was disappointed that the things Rachel left him for she was never able to have. It made it all seem pointless to him. Jack never contacted Rachel after that night where she told him he was pregnant. He once received a Christmas card from Rachel and Jonathan, but that was only once, and he never sent one to them. Jack was honestly quite nervous knowing that in a less than an hour, he would be meeting the kid. For some reason, he wanted Jonathan to like him, he didn’t know why, but he did. Before Jack knew it, his twenty minutes bus ride was over, and he needed to get off the bus. Jack walked a few blocks, and then reached the building that he was supposed to enter. He double checked the address one more time, he had it right. Jack tightened his silk, black tie, put his phone in his jacket pocket, and entered. The minute he entered, his heart sank. Jack began to cry, and he began to cry harder than he had ever cried in his life. The breakup, the pregnancy, not even the call he had gotten the previous week to come had made him as emotional as he was right then and there. Jack gathered up all the strength in him, and walked forwards. He saw the sweet, innocent face of the first girl he had ever loved from across the room. Those soft, tender, rose like lips that had gently pressed upon his more times than he could ever imagine now sat still, perfectly dressed with a light layer of pink lipstick. Jack bit his lip, clenched his fist, and did everything he could to keep himself composed. Jack walked with a slow pace, and went over to where Rachel was. He took the single red rose out of his jacket, and prepared to give it to her. When he was finally within a foot of her, he stopped walking. He didn’t say a word. Jack stared at Rachel for a few seconds, and then gently kissed her on the forehead. Immediately afterwards, while still feeling the tickle in his throat that made him want to cry, he placed the rose down softly inside the casket. “Goodbye Rachel, I will always remember you” were the only words he muttered before walking away. Jack couldn’t bear to stay longer to talk to Rachel’s family, but was stopped by her mother before he could sneak out. “Jack” she said, “wouldn’t you like to meet your son?” And slowly from behind Rachel’s mom’s leg, a slim, blonde haired, nine year old boy walked out. “This is Jonathan” Rachel’s mom said slowly, “he’s been waiting to meet you”.

They say just before death, you remember every specific detail that occurred that day. Grey haze filled the dark sky hiding the golden sphere, while the polished barb wired fence bordered around us. The window frame seemed to paint the outside world for what it really was for us ‘Thorns’; depressing. The elderly grey hair, blue eyed history teacher, Mrs Fischer, strolled around the gloomy room and handed out the textbooks like every other day. Adolf Hitler VI appeared on the front of the worn, green textbook, saluting a floating marble Swastika. I remember envying the so called genetically superior, comparing their rich lifestyle of freedom to mine, wasting away my days with my pregnant mother in a modern day concentration camp. Both her and I looked the same as the Roses of the population, but we were punished for having the genes that pass on the inferior traits. The thought of my mother's unborn child having the physical characteristics of the thorn worried me, as I had seen first hand the consequences that came from this. In an attempt to distract my wandering mind, I opened the green history textbook. “This book was written under the law and rule of our savior, Adolf Hitler and his predecessors. Abiding by his way of life will ensure the nation of New Germany will live peaceful and worthwhile lives” I couldn't help but think of the birth and death of my brother, and seeing Hitler be referred to as a 'Savior' awoke a new fire inside of me. I flipped to the next page, expecting the worst of it to continue, but all that was there was a note. ‘Gerard, you need to run, get out of here and back home to your mother before she gives birth. Once I give you the sign, meet me at the side alleyway of the school. Don’t worry; we are all going to get out safely. Mrs Fischer.’ The time that followed was one adrenaline fueled blur. My heart raced as Mrs Fischer had given me the obvious sign by telling me to see the headmaster, and fast. The classroom that was my protective barrier against all the outside evil seemed to shatter as I tread upon the outside world. Unclean air fueled my body as I darted in between soldiers and buildings. Reality was starting to set in as my adrenaline dissolved and asthma reappeared. I doubled over into the alleyway, trying to force as much oxygen into my body as possible. Before my asthma could take full effect, Mrs Fischer pulled up in a grey car and tinted windows beside me and passed me my asthma puffer. The downtime after the adrenaline rush caused consciousness to escape me, which made it difficult to decipher reality from dreams. Bumps along the road had finally caused me to wake from my disjointed slumber and realise my journey was coming to an end . The sky was a darker shade of grey as it became backdrop to Mrs Fischer's small blue house seemingly in the middle of nowhere. The oddest part, was not being at Mrs Fischer's home, but what she had furnished it didn't seem to fit the criteria of an elderly teacher. Guns, axes and swords of all sizes where hung all over the walls, which gave me both a feeling of safety and fear. The gun crazed history teacher lead me up the creaky staircase to my mother, each creak heightening my level of self awareness. I walked into the candle lit room, where my mother was laying there with her long blonde hair draping over her fear stricken blue eyes. It wasn’t long before she was ready to give birth, which Mrs Fischer instructed me to sit beside my mother talking to her to ease the pain. Mum gripped my hand harder which each push, every yelp creating tears which slid down her face. After an eternity of half an hour, my sister was born. Mrs Fischer, who started to weep, wrapped the baby in a pink towel and handed her to my mother. As soon as my mother had the baby in her hands, she let out a tsunami of tears, realising the baby was born with Downs Syndrome. I grabbed the newborn, taking in her black hair and brown eyes, trying to make her feel welcome in a world where people will kill him for not fitting in. Suddenly, footsteps where heard downstairs. The stairs started creaking as if someone was sneaking up on us. Fear struck the three of us in the room, knowing full well who was here. Mrs Fischer grabbed me and whispered for me to run as far as possible with the newborn. I leaped out onto the balcony of the room, which contained a staircase to the back of the house. I finally reached ground level, where I turned to see a man with blonde hair and electric blue eyes facing me. One of the Nazi soldiers. I turned to face the wilderness, if I could make it to the trees, sister and I would live. I took off, faster than I ever have, lengthening my pace with each step. The pain of trying to force air into my lungs was present, as I slowed right down with a hundred metres to go. I collapsed, into a heaving ball of mess, cursing my asthma. I began to turn onto my back, gasping for air. The Nazi soldier was right behind me, holding his black pistol directing it at me. I looked down the barrel of certain death, trying to peacefully accept my life. My whole day flashed through my eyes, all my mistakes and uncertainties seemed to project on the dark sky. Bang.

So we all went to play pool at Robinson's Billiards, which has become a regular occurrence for the four or five of us, perhaps an obsession. We were going around three times a week, and we were all getting quite good, but Mike was undoubtedly the best. This time would be different though, as Steve invited a few girls we knew from the "sister school" and they were coming along too. Everyone was dressed a little nicer and saw an incoming fart as a dangerous prospect rather than a hilarious potential missile. We showed up and went downstairs to our two usual tables. The girls arrived a few minutes later and it was fun for a while. It was clear that the guys were a little more focused on their "game" rather than on running the table. However, Robinson's does seem to attract at weird bunch of people, almost unanimously at least a few years older than us, and this night soon became a prime example of that. In came a large, boisterous, extremely round man with one of those beards that look like he tried to replicate his buzz-cut on the lower side of his head as well. He was with an equally shady looking guy of average height, muscular build, and a clear Italian background. Of course, they came downstairs and set up at one of the two remaining tables in the room right next to us. I thought I was being paranoid but I could tell that they would be trouble. They'd only been here for two minutes and already discussed "Rachel" and her apparent slutiness loudly enough for the entire pool hall to hear, along with a number of similarly interesting topics. I could also tell they were already quite drunk, and by the beer pitcher brought with them from the adjacent bar, I could tell that they would soon be a little "more" drunk. I tried to ignore them until I had a reason not to, and I felt it wouldn't be long. They were already cracking jokes among themselves about all kinds of people in the pool hall: the dedicated throng of Asian players, the oddly matched couple, the old man practicing alone, and of course, us. They weren't there to play pool, for all we knew they were only here because they got kicked out of some other place. I appeared to be the only one who really took much notice; everyone else was having a good time playing still. I beat Dan twice and I was feeling pretty good about myself until I realized that appearing good at pool isn't really much more attractive to girls than being average at pool. It only took a few games before it started. Sure enough, the "round guy" looks right at Sarah with this stupid grin, "How about a number, hunny?" and looking to his buddy, "I'd like to tap that." Thunderous laughter among the two of them for round guy's bout of comedy genius. Sarah becomes very clearly embarrassed and angry, but we all try to ignore it and hope that's the last of it. Dan lines up for a shot and round guy pulls his cue just as he goes to hit the ball and of course this is followed by more laughter. More comments come our way, particularly towards Dan's "greaseball" hair, my apparently "stuck up rich-kid" look, Sarah's ass, and the ugliness of her friends. Steve, the more "macho", confident one of us, had had enough. I thought "of course, another opportunity for him to make Sarah fall for him even more." I didn't like Steve that much, he was kind of a jerk, but I guess it's times like these where it's good to have him around, or so I thought. "Do you guys honestly think you're funny here? We're just here to play, who are you to say this shit?" It didn't come out like usual. He was nearly trembling, clearly intimidated by the two thugs. They could barely contain their laughter enough to manage a response. It was hopeless. Steve began to gather our things, "Fine, lets move. If they want this whole room to themselves then we'll just let them have it. We'll never win at this." It seemed like the best option, so we agreed. I knew what would happen next. Round man and his apprentice would soon realize their next hilarious act and follow us to our new table. They did, and it all started again. Mike, unusually late, pulled up right then. We first heard him, as he was driving an old Camaro and pulled up right next to the big window by the entrance. It was an unusual car for him, Mike was known for being really shy and avoided conflict always, so this screaming muscle-car was a bit out of character. He'd made money on the internet somehow and fixed this up last year, Junior year. Of course, he went right up to Sarah as he arrived. Everyone knew he was crazy about Sarah, but she was a bit out of his league. They were friends and he took her to prom, but he seemed unable to accept that she wasn't interested in him like that. "What's wrong? You don't look okay," I heard him ask her quietly, and she just looked at him. Dan pulled him aside and told him what was happening I'm not sure what for. Honestly, was *Mike Harris* going to be the one who would tell these guys off and solve this? I'd only ever seen Mike even remotely mad once before, and that was when Ben made fun of the autistic kid to his face at lunch. Otherwise, he was one of the most mellow, peaceful guys I'd ever met, and it certainly wouldn't be out of place to call him a little unconfident. Mike looked at Sarah again, but this time he was angry, perhaps for the second time in his life. He just stared off into space for a while, clearly thinking. Again, this is Mike Harris, not exactly the guy we needed right now. Mike stopped staring off and walked over to Steve who was finishing a game and began to tell him something. I couldn't make out all that was said, but I did hear him tell Steve, "don't ask me why I'm playing bad, don't even mention it." They racked the balls up for a new game. Mike, usually ridiculously good, played worse than I'd ever seen him, bad enough to attract the attention, and laughter, of our new friends. He chipped balls right off the table, scratched nearly every shot, missed everything, and all with this very serious, frustrated look on his face. The insults were all directed right at Mike now. Maybe this was his plan, sacrifice his dignity to help Sarah. Not exactly a great plan to increase his chances with her, but I guess he was doing a good enough job of this plan. "Hey kid, you drive that piece of shit this smooth?" and Mike turned around. "Look, that's enough. Clearly we all can't be here at the same time. Let's play for it, $20 and the loser leaves." This was all directed right at round guy, who fell right for it. Barely able to contain himself, thinking he's frustrated this kid into giving up easy money, he agrees. "Sure kid, let's see you try to impress your little girlfriends over there." Mike looked over at the pool hall attendant that night, "You hear that Aaron, we're playing for rights to stay here and play tonight." Aaron was massive too, undoubtedly even bugger than the round guy, and he was talking with another employee from the bar who seemed equally interested. Aaron just nodded, he knew Mike. Aaron was almost a professional player, but Mike still tried to beat him every time he came in, and you could tell he liked Mike. So they played. "I'll give us a good break, how about that, little guy?" "Go right ahead." I'd never seen Mike like this, he already knew it was all going to work. The game was over even sooner than it had began. In a stark contrast to his previous game, Mike pocked four balls in his first turn after round guy's fruitless break. After one more turn each, round guy had five balls remaining and Mike was ready to pocket his final solid ball. "The little shit hustled me." "Ya think?" Mike fired off as he looked directly at the drunken pair and not at the shot he sunk. In perfect position for the 8-ball, Mike smiled over at us and finished the game. "Funny thing is, kid thinks I'm going to pay." "Don't care, just fuckin' leave." This clearly enrages the two, but Aaron's approach and support from his buddy was enough to usher the pair out the door, of course while chucking an empty soda bottle at us and ignoring their playing fees. Everyone was ecstatic, a few of the girls hugged Mike and there were all kinds of high-fives, thanks, and general excitement among the group. Mike could do nothing but smile and take it like he always took any kind of compliment, humbly. I could tell he was only thinking about one thing. Sarah looked at Mike like she never had before, and she wasn't trying to hide it. I always thought he'd be the one to finally get her (we all tried) if he wasn't so goddamn shy and awkward all the time. They talked for the rest of the night while we played. He drove her home. She always avoided being alone with him because she knew he liked her so much, so I knew something was different. They're dating now, at least before they go off to different colleges in the summer. This changed something in Mike, I could tell it was a big deal to him. There was a sudden rush of confidence about him. He spoke with more conviction, louder even. And of course, he finally got the impossible girl he was always haplessly enamored with.

Bouncy Balls Every year my family would walk or ride bikes around a lake because there was something called abortion and it was bad. We would drive into Burnsville, which was where Skateville was, and met at a lake. My parents really enjoyed the event because it was one of the few times in the year where they were able to get out and spend time with their friends. Everyone they knew was from church. Naturally, I was friends with all of their children from Sunday School. The Walk for Life was fun for both me and my parents. They walked with their friends and I joined my brothers and our friends. When we got to the assembly area, my father began pulling bikes out from the back of our new Honda Odyssey, careful not to scratch the paint on the bumper as the handlebars cleared the trunk. My older brother was given his Mongoose with pegs, my younger brother was given a yellow leopard print bicycle that once belonged to my older brother. It was fitted with training wheels. Mine was the appropriately colored GREEN MACHINE. The back tires of all of the bikes were worn completely smooth from skids making them look like racing slicks. When we were all ready, we mounted our bikes and raced toward the assembly area. My mother told us to slow down and we didn’t. The assembly area surrounded a gazebo the housed food and Walk for Life shirts. Outside there was a dunk tank and a magician who performed card tricks and juggled and made things appear. When I walked by, he was about to cut the finger off of a screaming girl. Both the magician and the girl’s mother kept reassuring the crying girl, saying she would be fine and that the guillotine trap would not hurt her, despite the fact the magician just used the machine to slice a full carrot in half. The girl was an idiot. High risk, no reward. My mother pulled on my sleeve and told me that we should get some food. I was hungry so I followed her. Alex and Kent Olson were there. I took some pretzels and sat next to them while my mother talked with the Olson parents. Both Alex and Kent had their hair in long rat-tails which made them look like Jedi Padawan. “How long did it take for you to grow out your hair like that?” I asked. “About seven months,” Alex replied, “They’re pretty cool but my dad doesn’t like them. He offered us each twenty dollars to cut them off.” Twenty dollars. Twenty. Dollars. That’s four weeks of allowance for cutting hair. I do that for free. “Yeah. We’re waiting for my dad to raise the offer to fifty.” Kent, the younger of the Olson brothers, nodded in agreement. This was extortion. I thought about doing it myself, but figured my father would ground me until it was cut. I wouldn’t be getting fifty dollars. I finished my pretzels and told my mom I was going to watch the magician with my brothers. I found my brothers and sat next to them on the grass. The magician was introducing his next trick where he would cut up a dollar bill and sew it back together by using magic. The magician pulled out some scissors and cut up a dollar. The finger-cutting girl started crying at the sight of the snipping. The magician pressed the shards of the dollar into his hands and folded his fingers into a fist. He said some magic words and let a puff of air out over his opening fist, revealing a whole dollar bill. Everybody clapped and some kids awed. The girl cried. I pulled up some grass and pressed it into my hand, repeated his magic words and let out a fast puff of air while opening my fist. The grass was still grass. He probably used tape. When the magician finished his lie, a very large lady announced the walk for life was going to begin and that she wanted to give a quick prayer. I closed my eyes and folded my hands as she prayed, making sure not to let either open because that would make God disappointed. She said “Amen” and told everyone to line up along the start. My brothers and I grabbed our bikes and headed for the front of the starting line. Alex and Kent joined us with their bikes. Jack and Mike Washburn had arrived with theirs as well. The fat lady told us we could get started, so we literally roared off along the path. We all had pokemon cards taped into the spokes of our tires, giving an authentic motorcycle sound. I switched mine out the day before, making me loudest. We felt free, cycling along the rolling hills that surrounded the lake. Birds chirped and cattails swayed in the wind; it was an absolutely beautiful day. The sun shone in a blue sky made soft by white puffy clouds. My best friend Jack rode next to me and we talked about Star Wars. Mike Washburn and my older brother Nick talked about Tony Hawk Pro Skater and how they were going to get some rollerblades so they could do grinds. After two miles we were still going strong, but the ride was about to come to an end: the gazebo was looming ahead. Nick and Mike sprinted for an imaginary finish line and the rest of us sped up to try to keep the gap to a minimum. We reached the gazebo where Nick and Mike were talking to the fat lady. She gave them each two super bouncy balls out of a large cardboard box as a prize for finishing the ride. We all crowded around her to get our own. I received a solid yellow ball and one that was made from a swirl of blue and white rubber. My younger brother Paul got two solid pink balls, so we called him a girl. We all sat down in the gazebo and played with our balls while the slower kids finished. We noticed all of the kids finishing were given two bouncy balls each as a prize. We had our balls, but two was too few, so we decided we would finish again. We grabbed our bikes and sprinted down the path back toward where we came from. Once we were out of sight, we took turns pedaling back to the gazebo to be given two more balls. Each time our attempt was a success. The fat lady kept handing us bouncy balls every time we came back. She was clueless. After a few tries Alex mentioned that she might catch on and we would be caught. Mike suggested we switch clothes as a disguise. There was nothing that could go wrong with this plan. I took my younger brother’s shirt and he took my helmet and together we biked to the gazebo. We approached the fat lady looking at everything except the bouncy balls, trying our best to seem disinterested until we “happened” to lay eyes on them. “May I have a bouncy ball?” I asked. “Yes! Of course you can!” the fat lady said happily with a large smile on her face. She was sweaty and smelled bad. She looked at me for awhile with her hands on where her hips should have been and finally asked, “haven’t I seen you before?” The façade was up, we were going to be caught unless I was able to lie out of the hole I dug. “No”, I responded, “I just finished the race.” “Are you sure?” She was pressing. “I could have sworn I some who looked just like you come through here.” Her beady eyes made me uncomfortable. “Yes. I just finished. If you saw someone like me, he was wearing a different shirt and helmet. He’s my twin brother…” I needed a name. Star Wars. “…His name is Luke.” “And what’s your name?” “Han.” “And what about his?” She pointed at my shirtless brother. “This is my other brother Chewie.” My younger brother gave a quiet growl. The fat lady turned her attention to my brother and asked him where his shirt was. He looked at my chest for a moment and then told her he lost it back on the path somewhere. She finally gave us each two bouncy balls and we hurried back out past the finish line to show our reward to our friends. We were congratulated and a second group of friends biked out to the gazebo wearing one another’s clothes. For the next ten minutes we all switched clothes, trying every possible combination of clothing. We switched helmets, shirts, bikes and shoes. When we ran out of combinations so we turned shirts inside out. Each time we returned to our base just past the finish line, our pockets were two bouncy balls heavier. Eventually it was nearly impossible to pedal our bikes-our pockets were too fat. The entire time, the fat lady never caught on. I was in the middle of switching shirts with Mike when my parents reached us. “Son, put your clothes on”, he said without further questioning. I gathered all of my clothes and followed him to the gazebo where I gathered my last two bouncy balls and ate some food. My siblings and friends joined me and we traded bouncy balls. Nick had the most pink balls so we called him a girl. He disagreed by punching me in the arm. After a few minutes, my father gave a quick speech and told people to put money in a bucket because he was the Amnion Pregnancy center President. Everyone said goodbye and started to head home. My father started loading our bikes into the trunk of our new van in addition to some mailing he picked up for sending, when he started to worry. “Uggghhh. I don’t think these are going to fit. I don’t want to scratch the car. I don't think these are going to fit,” he kept repeating. “We need to put the back seat down.” So he did. There weren’t any chairs in the back for me or my brothers, so we all sat in the back on the floor of our van with our bikes on the ride home. We were careful to stay below window level to avoid the cops. One by one we put our bouncy balls on the car floor and watched them roll as my father drove the van. Each turn, stop and start caused a sloshing of balls. They would race toward a wall of our van and, like a wave of water crashing against a rock, explode upward on contact. Colored balls flew through the air, landing all around me and my brothers. We yelled for more speed and less safety. Each explosion was bigger than the last and they needed to be bigger. The largest and most satisfying explosion came when we hit the gutter in front of our home.

As I walked along the beach, the sand caressing my feet, I stared out at the ocean in it’s vast emptiness. The waves crashed against the shore with a rhythmic pounding that soothed the echoes of voices in my head. The moon was out, bright and inviting, lighting the empty beach around me. I sat down at the base of the water, letting the tide embrace me. I didn’t know why I was here, but I knew it was where I wanted to be. My life had become a mess, something I couldn’t figure out no matter how hard I tried. Event after event passed around me, until I felt that I was nothing more than a spectator in a horribly acted play based upon me. The actors coming and going, never quite right to the plot, but always there and always acting. The stage began to get cluttered and I found myself pushed aside, as if the story was no longer about me, but those around me. I watched them wander because that’s all they ever did, wander. They’d reach the stage, act out their lines and exit stage left, their presence still felt despite the emptiness of their bodies and mind upon the backdrop of my life. I stood back and watched as the actors filled up the stage, their costumes accentuating their different traits. A clown on one corner, trying to make me laugh to forget the screaming in my mind, giggling and playful, but nary cracking a smile upon my wretched lips. A woman, her features mundane, though filled with beauty. She danced her way to me, her face close to mine, before gently placing her lips on mine. She kissed me then, though my lips would not part. She looked disappointed before dancing her way back off stage. The actors and actresses began to thin, as they played their part in my life and found their exit. That was how it went, in my life. Permanence was not a word that would ever pass my lips. Nothing but the loneliness I felt once they found their way to the end of their plot arcs stayed with me. That’s what my life had become, a series of feeling nothing; loneliness. I inched back more and more, until my back leaned against the set. I watched them go, until it was but me on the stage. The audience left their seats and walked away, the actors had gone on to focus on their lives, no longer a part of mine. The spotlight shone on only me as I walked to the edge of the stage, I whispered my final lines and leapt from the stage, praying someone in the audience would be left to catch me. As I fell, all I could think was that I was a fool for praying. Snapped back to the reality of my situation, I stared back out at the empty crashing ocean. It’s vast emptiness began to call to me, beckoning. I tried, I swear I did, to ignore it’s calls. Suddenly the realization that vast emptiness was better than the sickening loneliness I felt began to tear me apart. I stood up, not bothering to wipe the sand from all around me. I breathed in deep, scared but knowing it’d all be over soon. Strangely, as I began to walk into the water, a smile broke the static in my face for the first time in weeks. I smiled as the water reached my neck, until finally I was overcome by the waves. The all encompassing emptiness of the ocean swallowed me and I took my final breath, the smile stayed upon my face, until suddenly I was one with it. The void became I, and I became the void.

It wasn’t much before Little Hook that the bike died. It was not a sudden seize but rather a long, mournful process of going and then not going. The starter tried and failed in sisyphean fashion. Once. Twice. It turned over a final time contemplatively, hiccuped, and stopped for good, slow contraction of the engine ticking against the quiet, high swelter of the fields around him. A transient breeze puffed from the glen off his right shoulder, blowing the heat and not relieving it. He thought the summer here seemed benign compared to the compressed, saturated Julys of his youth in the East, but the dry, like a good parent or the law, was calmly and firmly inescapable. He had maybe an afternoon’s worth of water. It was with a translucent nausea which was the mating of vaporized oil, an excess of coffee, and the tail of a hangover that he had decided to make for Little Hook and the foothills without spending another day in the flat. He sat at the counter of a diner passing his coffee mug from hand to hand. Heartburn from the hot sauce on his eggs. He sweated gently, brow furrowed, staring at the laminated countertop. There was not much for him here, the marginal gains of this place rapidly diminishing. There was not nothing, but there were few sounds, and the topographical features were more gestures of the hand than the arm. The plains were insistent and subtle, the people slow, sure, and intimidating. As though they either had what they wanted or could not know that they didn’t. Rooted people. There were no mechanics. And he sought to go. Before this he had been in school. He had married. He had worked. Those were all things he did back East, but their rights in him were usufructuary. He bought a motorcycle and his mother did not talk to him. His wife disciplined. His father’s eyes gleamed, cast down at the floor. So one day he left. “Hot today.” “I’m sorry?” “I said it’s going to be hot today. You need anything else?” A pause. “No, thank you. How hot?” A look to the thermometer tacked on the wall, dusty and dead like a hunting trophy. “Hot enough.” The freezer behind the counter clicked on and began filling the room with its grumble. With an impatient click of the tongue and a fumbling for change, he paid and walked out into the wide, flat, quiet street. There was no gravity for people like him. He would probably make it anyhow. A slow oil leak was mostly an annoyance to him, even when it dripped onto the exhaust and billowed up his nostrils. At speed, the oven-hot cross tube would sit smugly collecting and atomizing the weeping, blackened eucharist as it flowed down the crank case. A narcotic mating of rider and machine. The leak seemed unfortunate but not fatal. Not much to differentiate this run and the last, and Little Hook was close at hand. He had set off and made good progress through most of the morning before the holy ghost in his motorcycle deserted him. This was July and the day had started early and slow. Having long since shed its chrysalis, the heat now pressed ruthlessly. His heart beat faster. The road was cracked, tarred, cracked again, crumbling at its edges as the earth regained its grip under the asphalt. The pavement sloped upwards, straight and rolling gently like a long, cartoon tongue. The tar snakes had melted and clung to the bottoms of his boots. He lifted his feet with labor, dismounted, and got on one knee to peer at the salt-caked workings of the motorcycle. Low fuel? Seized? Seals? He couldn’t know, but it was nothing he could see. A wipe of the brow. A sip of water. He looked once at the sky without a breath, sat, and began to study.

Clinging to Kayaks.1. The paper airplane had a note written on it. It was intended to help someone worse off than myself. Uplifting and hopeful it was sent flying out the 52nd story window where my office sat. I watched it spiral out of sight into the masses below. I knew nobody would catch it. That it would be trampled under the hundreds of hurried feet, unnoticed, unread, uncared for. Sighing I sharpened another pencil and pulled another blank sheet towards me. Then I clicked “next” on his computer screen, wondering what airplane design #143 looked like. Clinging to Kayaks.2. You say you hate the colour brown. I promise not to wear my favourite shirt around you. But I was joking. You didn't get it and probably never will and in all honesty it was a bad joke. You run when things get serious and are afraid of getting close to someone. I'm afraid I'll never get close to anyone. Maybe that's why you ran from me. At first I joked about Pulp Fiction and your tongue piercing. You had never watched it and didn't get that joke either. I realized that I wasn't a comedian of any sorts and asked if you wanted to watch it together. Plans were made. The plans fell through. I imagined you on a road in ragged clothes like Forrest Gump running away from me. I deleted your number after that. Clinging to Kayaks.3. I looked up the distance to your house. 147.3 miles. Satellite images showed your little red car and backyard pool. You had invited me swimming one night. It was late. Even though it was hot and I felt like swimming I declined. You begged me to come. Promised me a great time. I quickly told you goodnight and exited the chat window. Instead I got wicked drunk, telling myself I could always go in the morning. That’s how it was for me. Always the next morning. Always the chat window, the alcohol, and the next morning. Clinging to Kayaks.4. I feel the days like slow techno beats. Each morning I take an eraser to the whiteboard and refresh the countdown. Ninety days were forever, three months just an abstract. Habits formed and time ticked away. It didn't even occur to me when I hit thirty-three. But twenty got my attention. Then single digits came and the whiteboard became the center of my universe. A monk's dedication was nothing compared to my daily diligence. Large, bold, blue numbers announcing to my dining room your arrival. Tomorrow is three and each day drops heavy in my mind. I hope that when you draw zero we can change the beat. Clinging to Kayaks.5. I had no idea what you were saying. Likewise you couldn't understand me in the slightest. Instead of a barrier it became a game. Each of us laughing at the others failed attempts at communication. When words failed we used our hands, tracing our thoughts until smiles erupted on each of our faces. As I kissed you the smiles traveled from our lips to our eyes, locking them together. And as your arms wrapped around me I knew I was in over my head. Clinging to Kayaks.6. You poured sugar in my coffee just to see my reaction. $1.40 later I was black and bitter again. You told me my life needed to shine more and you didn't understand why I was never happy in the morning. You grabbed another sugar packet and I growled. I didn't understand why you couldn't just let me wake up experiencing the worst part of my day, knowing that it was over by the time I started work, with your smile to look forward to by the time I came home. Clinging to Kayaks.7. We sat on leather seats and let the radio blend with the raindrops. Both were a background to our soft conversation. We talked about stars and no stars and lights and no lights. We didn't mention darkness, just the absence of light. We talked like the darkness was temporary, as if it was only a matter of time before the light would return. We had confidence in this and confidence in ourselves. Arms were intertwined and I could feel your chest rising and falling against mine. Together we watched the world spin through the rain streaked window, letting the morning sun brighten everything. Just like we knew it would. Clinging to Kayaks.8. We sit silent as these nights start to come earlier and the temperature drops more than the night before. Your depression worsens with each snowfall. You have always been desperate for the warmth of spring. I watch the thermometer with heightened anticipation. Every lost degree is another chance to pull you closer to me. I love the cold simply because it keeps you around. I know as soon as the sun reappears again I will lose you, gone to the distant hills. Yet for now your wanderlust is frozen. You are mine for the duration. Clinging to Kayaks.9. I found a camera that shows the future when I look through it upside down. My pack of cigarettes is crumpled and short seven or eight. The last few I’m sure are crooked and bent. I pull one out and discover I’m right. It’s nothing but sad. But smoke is smoke and I hang upside down letting it drift past my toes as I look at you through the lens. You twirl and spin for me. Your hair is let down and you are smiling. I think about what we’d see if you tried the camera on me. Perhaps a new pack of cigarettes. Or a clean shirt for a change. I figure that if in the future you are smiling then those things are definitely within reason. Regardless, we definitely have a long way to go from here. Clinging to Kayaks.10. I came home to find you in my room. You were rearranging my bookcase, ordering all the books from sad to happy which resulted in no distinct order at all. You knew I was going to read them all sooner or later and wanted me to finish with a sense of happiness. Pulling one off the shelf at random I began to read. You were upset. “That’s longing turning to fulfillment! You have to start with empty and lost!” You thrust another book into my hands from the bottom of the bookcase. I told you that I was already lost and I wanted fulfillment. You asked if I was longing. I thought it was obvious. Neither of us realized that none of the books could fix us. Clinging to Kayaks.11. The television became an awkward bystander as you started yelling. Its flickering screen flashing on our faces. I stayed quiet. You wanted to know how I planned on fixing this. You didn't understand that I was silent because I had no answer. I looked around the room and let your words wash over me. The clock in the corner glowed in bold red. The computer had small blinking white lights everywhere. All of these lights kept glowing even though tomorrow was a mystery. You wanted to pull the plug on us for the same reason. Uncertainty was killing you, yet it didn't matter at all to the lights. The clock ticked over to eleven after eleven. And as you slammed the door I wished for you. Clinging to Kayaks.12. You asked me what I knew about it at all. You said that I had never been in your position. That I had never been at the bottom. You screamed that I could never understand. Silent under your attack I smiled softly. You were furious. In your mind I was judgmental and condescending. In your mind I was an alien to this world. You finally paused for a moment and asked if I had anything to say. I didn’t. I just showed you my wrist and walked away. Clinging to Kayaks.13. The crushed cans and spinning room was not the only scar you left me with as the door slammed shut behind you. All of those whispers in the dark, making plans and pathways to dreams that were eagerly shattered. Our world was full of hope and I thought nothing could ever change that. I learned that you loved to imagine love and that I was not enough. You told me to forget and never dwell. The way you held me so tight made me believe you were lying. That was when I finally realized that humans were the monsters hiding underneath our beds. Clinging to Kayaks.14 I drank for forty-eight hours straight and never threw-up. I considered that an achievement. I didn't consider the girl in bed with me an achievement. I don't remember half of what I said that night. Everyone else was proud of me though. They were impressed. Maybe. I lost my sandals that night. The next morning we cleaned and filled three full sized garbage bags with cans. None of them were mine. I threw my two empty glass bottles into the back of the truck. I almost threw them in the lake, just to watch them in the water. They chimed as they collided in the truck bed and my head hurt with the sound. I noticed then that the sun was too bright and the world too loud. My head spun and I laughed at myself. I gripped the edge of the sink, stared straight into my eyes in the mirror, and laughed at myself. They asked if I was okay with strange tones and then left me alone. I never did find my sandals. Clinging to Kayaks.15. They say if it’s meant to be you will come back. I stare at the sky and wonder what it feels like to be swallowed. By a mouth, by the sky, by time. I mark the spot I lost you and wait for the clock to tick back to the exact moment. My neck begins to ache from staring up after you for so long. But the universe is just too big and the clock never reverses direction. They say if it’s meant to be you will come back. I think they really mean that you were meant to be far away from me. Clinging to Kayaks.16. Sometimes I stare into the dark just to see you. When the sun is gone and the stars are hiding too I can feel you. They say at night to look just to the side of the object you want to look at. It has something to do with the rods and cones in your eyes they said. Sometimes I stare right at you. Sometimes I stare to your left. Sometimes I stare to your right. I never really find you. But I know you are there, just as the stars are there. I ask you to come closer. I ask you why the sky is dark at night if the universe is filled with hidden stars. You leave me to figure it out by myself which is the best way to learn. I take lessons on astronomy and how to strengthen my night vision. I whisper what I learn to you. Every time I step closer to you I know that you step back. I really want to see you. But I think you know that. Clinging to Kayaks.17. I said the sunset was cotton candy and you laughed at that. The water beneath us looked cold and what I imagined death might be like. Somewhere in the distance someone was frantic. There were sirens. You unscrewed one of the supports of the dock which brought it closer to the water. You said you felt sorry for the dock. All the boats led exciting lives. Even docks wanted to see the world. I just nodded and tossed an anchor into the water, tying the other end of the line tight to the slats we stood on. You had moved on to the third support with your screwdriver by then. As the sirens faded I said the sunset was cotton candy and you asked me if I knew how to swim.

A man hid behind some bushes on a hill. There he waited for somebody to pass by. He knelt with a club in his hand and looked down at the nearby road. His face was grim and his breath was foul. Hours had passed, but he held his position showing not even a suggestion of fatigue. After all he heard some women chatting and laughing from afar. Three were coming from the market in the city and were on their way home. On top of their heads each of them carried a basket full of food. Slowly they walked down the road in their colourful dresses and enjoyed their time. The man, however, looked around thoroughly to make sure that nobody else was here. He waited for them to come closer. Then he jumped out the bushes. Fiercely screaming he ran down the hill towards them. They were frightened. Two of them carelessly dropped off the weight and ran away as fast as they could. The other woman, however, chose not to run. Instead she took the basket off her head and firmly held it in front of her chest. The man tried to snatch it away from her, which made her angry. The stronger he pulled the angrier she got and the more stubborn she became. So he stepped back, swung his club and struck her down. Her head cracked open. She lost the basket and fell down. Lying in her own blood she tilt her head as if she wanted to capture a last glimpse of her murderer running away barefooted before the picture, finally, ceased to exist forever.

I'm in the process of writing a fan fiction for the video game Mass Effect. There are some spoilers for Mass Effect 3 if you haven't played or finished the game. You don't have to have played the game to help me out, actually it would probably be better for me if you haven't. I just really need someone to proofread the crap out of this thing. I've read and reread it a dozen times but I **KNOW** there are a crap ton of mistakes still. At 28 pages it's not exactly a short read, but I could really use the help. Here's the Please tell me what you think and what I can do to improve it.

"Get up you big baby!" That hurt him. If it was one of his fellow pupil's trying to squeeze the most out of their 25 minutes of recess, it wouldn't have, but that it was one of the teachers supposed to be making sure he was safe... "But he just drop kicked me in the stomach!" Phil said through fake tears. "I know, but so what? Nothing's broken is it?" She knows, and doesn't care, Phil realized. She had taken so long to come over in the first place, that Phil was no longer in pain, and just milking it, trying to get the boy who kicked him in trouble. "What about Mike?" he asked. "Nothing" she answered with a shrug. Now, it was time to stop pretending. Phil straightened himself to say something meaningful to this heartless woman, but he took too long to think of what to say, and she walked away. Mike just stood there, quiet until the teacher was out of hearing range, then both he and Phil's other *friends* began to laugh at him. How did this happen? Phil wondered. Not daring to cry, or even fake laugh in the face of this fresh humiliation, Phil just walks away from his sometimes friends, letting his chin rest on his chest. One moment they had been playing basketball; Phil blocked Mike's shot, and got drop kicked as a reward, but everyone had been sure that Mike was going to get suspended, or detention at the least, neither of which he was a stranger to. Instead, Mike was checking the ball to Paul, and everyone except Phil was about to carry on with the game as if nothing happened. Still hanging his head, Phil walked over to his second grade teacher, who was also a recess monitor, and asked her for a bathroom pass. Ms. Jibbs knew something was wrong, but when she asked about it, Phil just shrugged his shoulders and pulled away from the hand she had been about to lay on his shoulder. That touch would have comforted him--weakened him--enough to show the turmoil inside of him, and that would have meant tears, lots of them. Ms. Jibbs felt hurt by his dismissal of her efforts, but he was not the first third grader to be too cool for his second grade teacher, and, she saw what happened to him earlier. If it happened in the quadrant she watched over, the result would have been much different. "Just wipe your shirt before you go inside" Ms. Jibbs told him softly, before walking away. Looking down, Phil saw two shoe prints on his shirt, and he could even see the Nike swoosh that marked Mike's shoes as expensive, marked them as a thing Phil's family couldn't afford. A new torrent of emotions welled up inside him, but all he could do was stare heatedly forward, while trying to make it to the bathroom without running or breaking down in tears. If he had turned around and fought Mike, he would have won just because of the sheer fury inside of him. That would be worth it right until one of his parents got called out of work and into school. Mike probably wouldn't even get in trouble, and Phil would get a dreaded mark on his permanent record. On top of that, Mike would probably come after him outside of school, and with a couple friends in tow. Phil's sister had moved on to the seventh grade last year, so he no longer had anyone to stand up for him, and he would be alone, and get beaten up if that happened. Taking Ms. Jibbs advice, and making a mental note to thank her after school when everyone else was gone, Phil made it to the bathroom, and locked himself inside a stall to have a good cry. The crying wasn't just for the kick, the injustice he was dealt, the ridicule, or shame, but for his whole life. Why can't I make friends? Why am I poor? Why was that teacher so mean to me? Why did my dad cheat on my mom? What is this new half-brother going to be like? Why don't I have any friends? Why does everyone hate me? On and on it went inside his head, until the bell rang and he got up to go to his classroom. He was just about to open the stall's door, when the bathroom's opened and two kids came in. He didn't want them to know he had been in there crying, and them thinking that he was pooping in school wouldn't have been any better. "I got the new Batman game yesterday for Super Nintendo" said one of them. He had a high and nasally voice that Phil didn't recognize. "Wack!" his friend replied with a voice Phil recognized as Thomas. "I got it for Sega two weeks ago." "Sega is what's wack" the nasally voice asserted. "Your just mad you can't afford it, my son." "No, it's because you can't play Mario or Zelda on Sega; all they have is stupid Sonic. Oops, I'm a stupid hedgehog and I dropped all my coins because my sneakers don't come with pockets, and I don't have any pants." "Hahaha, well okay, fine, but at least I'm not like po' boy Phil and still playing *regular* Nintendo." "Yeah, right! And he didn't even buy it, some kid in Jersey gave it to him." Their laughter carried them out of the bathroom, while Phil stayed, wondering if he had done something terrible in a past life to warrant the hardships of this one. What am I? He asked himself. The rest of the day would have passed in a blur, except for one sharp moment when his teacher, Ms. Reiner, asked him why he was so late in coming back from recess. More occupied with what he heard in the bathroom than anything else, he told her offhandedly that his stomach hurt because Mike kicked him. Like Ms. Jibbs, Ms. Reiner liked Phil more than most of her other students, and quickly rounded on Mike. "Is that true?!?" She screamed so loudly that the teacher next door came into the room. Ms. Brown had been Mike's teacher before the other teachers had gotten together and decided that Mike wasn't really a problem child, but bored by his easy classes. They moved him from Ms. Brown's class to Ms Reiner's in order to prove that theory. "What did he do now?" Ms. Brown asked with languid eyes. "He kicked Phil in the stomach at recess." "It was so long ago," Mike spoke up in his own defense "I drop kicked him, and he was still good enough to walk away, so I don't know what happened." The two teachers, both of whom had been against moving Mike anywhere except out of the school, exchanged a look that said: "No surprise that *he* doesn't know what happened." "No one told a teacher?" Ms. Brown asked. "We did!" several kids said at once. "And she didn't do anything" pretty little Katrina told her. At that, Ms. Reiner stormed out of the room. "You" Ms. Brown said, pointing at Mike, "come with me. The rest of you better stay quiet and wait for Ms. Reiner to come back, or I'll be sending you to the principal's office as soon as she gets back from there." While Phil was glad for the teachers' care over him, it would do nothing to win him any friends, and the precious few he had, couldn't be caught being friendly to a teacher's pet. He had to do something, anything, not to be branded a teacher's pet. Alongside "po' boy", "fat boy", and "Phil the dil'", being called teacher's pet would be his undoing. Just before Mike got to the door, Phil said: "About fucking time someone is doing something!" Not bothering to make herself heard over the uproarious gale of laughter from his classmates, Ms. Brown crooked her index finger at Phil, indicating she wanted him out in the hallway. His class's reaction of "oooooooOOOOOOOO", was music to his ears; a teacher's pet never got in trouble. His elation lasted right until the door the door closed behind him, and in Mike's face. "I know why you did that," Ms. Brown told him, promptly wiping the smile off his face "so I'll let it go this time, but don't let it happen again, young man. Go sit down, and if anyone gets out of control, you're going to come and tell me, or Ms. Reiner will hear about your potty mouth, do you hear me?" "Yes, Ms. Brown." He had envisioned himself walking back into class triumphantly, but he was afraid of them making more noise, which he would have to report on, relegating him to a snitch, which was worse by far than any other label that could be placed on him. Phil took his seat quietly, only pretending to kick his chair in anger so his classmates would think he got a proper tongue-lashing for swearing. Lucky for him, wondering what Ms. Reiner was doing and saying right now was the current topic of conversation around the class, meaning everyone pretty much forgot about him. Eventually though, someone would remember his tears during recess, the shoe prints on his chest, that his own shoes had holes in the soles, or that he had had the jeans he was wearing today since the first grade. Worse yet, someone might even say that he snitched on Mike by telling Ms. Reiner about something that happened during recess. His only saving grace from that particular fate was that everyone liked Ms. Reiner, and had probably on one occasion or more, said something to her about one of their friends that they shouldn't have, so they wouldn't be so quick to point the finger, hopefully. If only, Phil thought, I could make kids my own age like me as much as adults do. Even his sister Lydia didn't really like him. Sure, she protected him from bullies, brought him food when his parents couldn't, and even wipe his face when he cried. She never once, however, just asked him to hang out for awhile, or asked how he was doing if he wasn't crying, or tried to converse with him, even if they were the only two in the apartment. He used to be his mom's favorite, and would talk to her often, but after his father cheated on her, that changed. Whether she now hated all men, or just the ones that reminded her of her husband, Phil couldn't tell, but he knew that their mother-son relationship was jus as broken as her wife-husband one. Whatever the case, with everything that happened today, and with what he had to look forward to when he went home, Phil felt that he would always be alone. And there was nothing he could do to break that curse.

Our story takes place in a time long ago. The exact date is not of importance, but what is, is that this was a time, much like today, where vanity and pride ruled over those with weaker mental constitutions. His name was John. John Cornhupple. John was, as the maidens and ladies alike gossiped and giggled, gorgeous. A 6’4” frame made hardened and muscular with a meager diet and hard field work. John knew of his affect on women. More than ten of his town’s ladies could thank John for their loss of maidenhood. He strutted around roads and stock houses like a steed with its mane flashing in the wind. He made no eye contact with others, they were inferior to his physique and to look them in the eyes during polite exchanges of words (exchanges where John’s contributions were terse) was to admit equality. This particular summer was hot. It was late July and the town was still beneath a veil of muggy sweat. You see, this was long ago and air condition had not been invented, let alone conceived, so relief from the heat was found in shade. However, this was no ordinary summer heat. This was as if the fires of hell had pierced the Earth’s crust and spread their cruel inferno about the land, cracking farm grounds and sucking the life from the pear orchards. If one were to stand still for too long, even under the sprawling arms of an oak, their leather boots would begin to melt, starting at the souls. Instead, citizens of the town frequented a waterfall. The water was warm but still refreshing and if one were to climb to the top of the falls, he would be given the sweet gift of a light breeze. John was at these falls. He and 17 other maidens-faire (all of whom would giggle and whisper with every drop of water that slid down John’s marble chest). John had climbed to the top of the falls so he could jump off in what would be an impressive display of courage, an action that would surely guarantee him the innocence of at least two more of the town’s maidens. It was at the top of these falls that John met the Crone for the first time. The Crone was an old woman. Some called her homely, others withered and dry, but the most common adjective spat in idle gossip was hideous. Citizens of the town would justify their spite by pointing to the Crone’s back, which was bent and appeared more knobby than the walking stick she used to maintain a 90 degree angle with the ground, less her back be allowed to revert to its natural acute positioning. The citizens would gossip about her face. It had a slightly green complexion, as if she had always just eaten a hunk of wormy bread. Her nose was long, and at its center it jutted up and come back down like the peak of a mountain. Her hair was a disgusting mess of raven black straw. She had apparently never seen a brush, let alone used one. The Crone appeared from the bushes behind John. She painstakingly made her way towards him until she was staring at his feet. She craned her head upwards to gaze upon John’s immaculate beauty. “It as if God did not rest on the 7th day and instead chose to create you.” She said to John’s chin. John was not flattered. He did not break away from his routine of flexing and trying to look gallantly majestic for the maidens. The Crone continued, “I am but an old woman with no friends or family to speak of. I spend my days alone and my nights in tears. I have less than a week of life on this earth and it would swell my heart so, if you were to join me in company for what would surely be a magnificent last meal.” John turned and looked at her. He let out an audible gasp of disgust upon seeing the Crone’s haggard features for the first time. “Be gone woman. A man like me wastes no time with the company of dying hags.” The crone slowly turned around, her stick touching the ground seven times before she was facing the bushes from whence she came. She began plodding back to her sad shack. Her journey was no more than two miles as the crow flies, but the Crone’s knees were weak and her legs shortened, so the walk, which would have taken John a quarter of an hour, took the Crone 17. When the Crone finally arrived at her shack, the feeling of despair she had suppressed in the face of John’s cruelness, overcame her. She began crying. The tears that rolled down her face were the tears of someone whose soul could not find a redeeming quality in the body it inhabited. They were the tears of a crippled old woman who was apparently fated to die cold, hungry, and alone. She approached her vanity dresser and flipped open the lid which covered a wash basin and housed a mirror. Her tears poured down her face and off her bent nose into the basin, several of which splashed onto an old cut-throat razor. It was then that the Crone knew what she must do. “NO LONGER!” The Crone wailed, “No longer can I wait for death’s methodical and tortuous embrace!” She lifted the cut-throat razor, and in doing so accidentally severed her palm. The blood that poured out was curdled and black. She brought the razor to her neck and looked at her reflection one last time. As she stared at her hallowed features, a single tear slid off her cheek and fell into her severed palm. The Crone closed her eyes and pressed the razor to her gizzard. Suddenly, she felt a feathery sensation in her feet. They felt as if they had been submerged in a sack of rice. The sensation climbed her body. From her calloused feet, to her weak knees, across her groin and into her bosom. It reached her neck and spread across her face. It was the closest the Crone had ever come to feeling true ecstasy. She closed her eyes and allowed what she assumed to be God’s comforting embrace permeate throughout her body. She dropped her jaw ever so slightly and let out the softest gasp of pleasure that had ever been uttered. And just as spontaneously as the strange sensation began, it stopped. The Crone opened her eyes and found a tear-inspiring sight in the vanity mirror. She was no longer the crone. Her nest of matted black hair was now a shimmering midnight color that cascaded down past her shoulders to the center of her erect back. Her eyes, which had told the story of generations dead and forgotten, now shone like flawless emeralds. Her wicked nose was petite and lady like. Her cracked lips pouched outwards and glistened with wetness. But the transformation was not localized! Oh no! How her body had changed! Her back was straight and her breasts perky and supple. Her legs were long and porcelain and her hands like a dolls. She was the most beautiful woman she had ever seen. John had just finished fucking (that is what it was; fucking, it could not be mistaken for ‘making love’ or even sex) two of the maidens from the falls. He had commanded them to leave him and he was now alone. And as John often did when he was alone, he admired his own reflection. The muscles! the absence of fat! The curly blonde crown and square jaw! My how beautiful John was! John turned to admire his profile when he felt a sharp prick of pain in his feet. Without hesitation, the prick became an eruption and the pain possessed every inch of John’s body. It felt as if millions of hellish hornets swarmed about his presence, stinging again and again. The pain was so severe, so sudden and unexpected, that John fell to his knees. He screamed. He howled. Involuntary tears welled in his eyes. And as suddenly as the pain started, it stopped. John collected his breath, he wheezed and coughed. Each inhale was full of phlegm but sounded like it was full of rocks. He lifted himself off the ground with the help of his dresser, and found a tear inspiring sight in the mirror. He was no longer John. His curly blonde mane had disappeared and been replaced with a sea of liver spots beneath several grey whispers of hair. His eyes sunk into his face and his lips were so thin they could barely be distinguished amongst the canyons that cracked his face. His pectoral muscles, which once were as hard as stone, now sagged in two flabby torrents of veiny flesh. His legs burned with pain at the task of supporting his emaciated frame. He was the most pathetic creature he had ever seen. It was this realization that brought John to his knees once more. This time with an overwhelming feeling of despair. He cried. Cried tears so painful and sad they could have destroyed a child’s innocent outlook on life. The tears that streamed down the old man’s face lasted for three days. On the first day of the old man’s despair, the Crone, or Isabella as she had taken to calling herself, visited the town. She walked up and down the dirt road that separated the buildings. She was adorned in a soft white dress that a vendor had sold to her under the compensation of her stunning beauty. She twisted and spun and let the dress reveal her soft legs. She flashed a perfect smile at men whom she caught staring. At first, Isabella was flattered by the looks and compliments she received, but on the second day of the Old Man’s despair, she had grown weary of them. In but a day, she had developed a sense of entitlement over the men whom she should allow to gaze upon her features. She was the most beautiful woman in the world, was she not? The old and the ugly had no right to find even a moment of happiness in her complexion! Isabella had not grown tired of all the stares, far from it. Men whom she found attractive she welcomed with both open arms and open legs. “Isabella,” the selected men would say, “You shine with the radiance of a thousand suns! And I would readily traverse ocean, mountain, or even the very fires of hell to gaze upon your beauty for but a second.” Isabella loved that her appearance inspired such poetic emotion in handsome men, and she would embrace them, and kiss them, and make love to them for as long as she cared. On the final day of the old man’s despair, Isabella visited the waterfall where she had once been spurned by a man as gorgeous as she. She had an inkling of remembrance that this man had been cruel and vain, but that thought was easily discarded when Isabelle thought of his striking appearance. She had hoped to find the man, simply so she could fuck him, too. On this third day, Isabella bathed naked in the falls before countless men, young and old. She let the falls pour down her hair and tickle her lower back where droplets dipped inside dimples and continued to glide off her full buttox. While Isabella bathed in pride and lust, the Old Man had finally scraped himself off the ground. He again looked at his reflection, but this time he felt no despair. Instead he felt contentment. This creature, No!, this person was he. He must embrace it and make it his armor. How misguided he once was! To cherish only his physical features and allow vanity and pride to rot his soul! And how evil he was to women! Sexing those he chose and insulting those he did not. But the Old Man’s humane epiphany was coupled with one much darker. He had but a week to live, and that was a generous assumption. He could feel his heart falter and sputter and the blood in his veins struggle to flow. He was to die alone surely, with his legacy being one of shallow spitefulness. The Old Man would not accept this. With his new benevolent enlightenment he remembered the Crone who had once felt the brunt of his unnecessary abuse. “She was but a tired old woman,” the Old Man said aloud, “and I treated her as if she were a dog in the chicken coup.” The Crone quickly became beautiful in the Old Man’s eyes. Her wrinkles were not ugly, they were the badges of wisdom worn by a woman who had earned them. The Old Man decided that he must apologize, and if she were still alive, may she die in his arms, full of love, warmth, and company. The Old Man began hobbling towards the falls, his destination: the Crone’s old shack which now stood like a brick fortress in his mind. He reached the top of the waterfall and saw the familiar path through the bushes. But in the way stood a goddess. Shimmering dark hair, a wet glistening naked body, and eyes like emeralds. She stood atop the falls before an audience of excited men. She twirled and brushed her hair and pretended not to notice her suitors. That was until she saw the Old Man. “You dare sneak up on me! You old pervert! Take your pock-marked face and begone!” “I am but an old man with not more than a week to live. I am just visiting the old shack that rests not 20 miles though those bushes. A dying friend lies in wait there, and it is my hope to ease her passing. I meant no harm and certainly no perverse intrusion.” The woman was not impressed, “I said begone! People like you are just so envious of people like me. With your undeniable grotesqueness and my unmistakable beauty, I can not blame you. Plus, the hag passed three days ago and I know she had no friends.” The Crone had died? The Old Man was incredulous. It cannot be! The goddess with the serpent’s tongue must be mistaken! The Old Man mustered all his strength and set forth through the bushes. He reached the shack and stepped inside. There was not a breath of life in the place. John felt the familiar feeling of despair once again. He would die alone! Die a former being of corruption and sin, only to be reformed into a beacon of compassion with no one to share it with! . The tears began to well in the Old Man’s eyes as he made his way to a vanity dresser. He flipped open the lid which revealed a wash basin, mirror, and black cut-throat razor. As he stared at his weathered teary-eyed face, he noticed the razor waiting patiently. The Old Man knew what he must do. He picked up the razor, accidently severing his palm, and brought it to his neck. “ I can no longer wait for death’s methodical and tortuous embrace!” He yelled. And just as he was about to slit his own throat, a single tear fell into his severed palm, and the Old Man felt a strange sensation as if his feet were sinking into a sack of rice. The crone had just finished fucking a man from the falls and she was now alone and admiring her own reflection. She was on fire from the joy ignited by her own beauty. Suddenly, she felt a sharp prick of pain in her feet.

I hate everything about you. You’re an ignorant, arrogant piece of shit with no moral compass and a completely false personality. You’re dull, because while everyone else was out making new friends and experiencing childhood, you were sitting in your bedroom, making decks for your favorite children’s card games, and pretending to understand arguments about religion and politics to make yourself sound smart, trying to convince yourself that, because you've memorized some obscure facts from a Wikipedia page, that you’re superior to everyone else. And you became the greatest liar in history--someone who actually believes their own lie. You made yourself think that you’re the greatest person on the entire fucking planet, so you decided to steal your older brother’s friends to make yourself look like you are good with people, and again, you believed it. You kept the high-horse sense of superiority for your entire life, and you manipulated yourself, just so you could learn how to manipulate everyone else. You used knowledge of your own insecurities to blackmail people into doing what you wanted, or just for fucking fun. And the best part is that you claim to feel guilty, but your sense of superiority allows you to brush it off every time, convincing yourself that it was “just a mistake” so you could move along to the next unsuspecting person and do it again. You started with me, and then you realized that you could just use me for a fucking guinea pig--just keep fucking with him, because he’ll NEVER snap! He’s not even human, and he doesn't have feelings, and he doesn't react like everyone else does. You strung me along, insisting that I not die, and you left out the reason on why I should die purposely--just to see if I could believe it, so you would know for the next time when you actually needed something from someone. Well, you’re fucking wrong. I've snapped, and I’m snapped hard. Everyone you ever loved, pretended to love, or used is going to die, and you’re going to fucking watch. I want to see the reaction on your face as I gun down every single person that you spend your time with. I hate you with the fury that you will never understand. I said awhile ago that I only exist so that other people can have a happy life, and for a while, I was right. You pride yourself on your charisma and social skills, but the fact is that you only have them because of me. You are the scum of the Earth. You’re a piece of shit, and you DON’T deserve to die. You deserve worse.

fiffly the rabbit is a rabbit. Despite the name, fiffly is an it, not a he, not a she, an it. Fiffly has always been a rabbit and wasnt concerned with the little if's of life. Even if it hadnt been a rabbit at some point in time, had it been a diabetic czar or a pernicious algae or a distant wave of sound brought on by foggy oscillations in the retrograde orbit of neptune it was now a rabbit and it couldnt be bothered to consider its past exploits. Fiffly woke up at sunrise and fell asleep at sunset and inbetween these two occurences it did exactly what a rabbit does on any given day. Fiffly hopped and forraged for leafy greens (didnt care much for carrots, unaware of the cliche) and avoided a fox or two. It didnt know why it didnt like the fox, its negative association vaguely and tangentially related to a cloudy afternoon some inexplicable number of months ago where a sibling fiffly may or may not have had was possibly devoured by a presence with a similar smell. However, fiffly had been rather unsure of the family for quite some time. Siblings came and went. Biffly chiffly niffly all of these names are arbitrary as fiffly never fully gripped on to the existence of any of them. We humans have the expression "fuck like rabbits" because we are aware of the procreative tendencies of rabbits and their willingness to treat offspring like an amateur photographer treats digital photographs, but fiffly didnt know and didnt care. When fiffly hopped down to the lake it saw grass, it saw water and it saw sky. The concept of profundity was lost on fiffly. A great mind with an overinflated human ego can look out towards a lake and contemplate the vast calmness of an empty universe. A great mind could be inspired and awed by a lake but fiffly was not a great mind. Fiffly was a rabbit.

She lived inside the fever dream that played in Kurt’s mind when he zoned out in the backseat of his mom’s SUV on rides across town. His eyes would always fix solely on the streets that scrolled past, but to him there were no street names; they were just the blurs between places. He couldn’t tell a visitor directions to the Wal-Mart in the town where he had lived all of his 14 years. It was nearing the end of the first post-middle school summer, and it stretched outwards like a single, repetitive day. He lived in a run-on sentence, punctuated only by the commas of sleep, and the uneasy anticipation for a period provided an anxiety that incubated in Kurt’s gut. Any time that summer when Kurt sat down with nothing to occupy him she would materialize, first as a repeating snippet of film; she smiled and tussled Kurt’s hair like she had done once in George’s kid sister’s treehouse, and she and the backdrop that stemmed off of her were foggy and soft and bright. He made it through a week on that image alone, until he craved more. He rebuilt her inflections, her pitch, lower and gruffer than the carbon copy schoolgirls, lacking the exaggerated Arkansan drawl that his classmates often hid behind. He conjured a story of both them in their 20s, until they were all tattoos and piercings. They smoked cigarettes next to a graffitied underpass by a faraway 7/11. They laughed about those suckers who shopped at supermarkets for family supper. She kissed him on a stained couch on the corner of some grimy Northern street, and because he didn’t know what a kiss felt like he imagined it, cushiony and moist and sweet-smelling. The SUV pulled up to his friend Zack’s house. Kurt got out and rang the doorbell. His mom waited outside until Zack opened the door. She yelled “Make good decisions!” to them and waved before driving away. “f b,” Zack said. “She’s still doing that?” “Apparently she thinks everyone she doesn’t know is a rapist.” Zack’s kitchen was littered with half-finished crossword puzzles and gunky dishes and flea market knick knacks. Zack’s dad Ed chain smoked by the window in his old rocking chair that was wrapped in a faded leather jacket with a stitched-on rebel flag. He looked 60 but seemed older when he started hacking. When he coughed it sounded like his lungs were filled with semi-liquified rusty nails, and the daily battle to expel bits of them from his chest was violent enough to wake up Kurt when he spent the night. “That Kurt?” Ed said. “Yes sir,” Zack said. “Tell’m he ought to grow a pair,” Ed laughed. Kurt watched him smoke the filterless Marlboro. It was more of a suck than a smoke; he economically snatched as much nicotine as he could hold in a shallow breath. It took him seven inhales before the cigarette was gone. He jabbed it into one of the several ashtrays on the counter, each filled with identically crinkled butts. Kurt and Zack walked down to the basement. In the room next to him there were two computers and a television set up on plastic buffet tables that seemed close to buckling from the weight. Automatically they both got on a computer. Zack commandeered the newer one because it was his house. Zack’s older brother Rick lived in other basement room. He busted through the door. “What’s up boys?” he said. “Not s,” Zack said. “That little girlfriend of yours coming over today?” “In a little bit.” “You finger her yet? I remember when I was your age and that was the f’ threshold,” Rick said. “Not yet, but I’ll try today,” Zack said. Zack and Kurt idolized Rick. He was 22, and sometimes Zack and Kurt could hear him having sex with his girlfriend in the next room. Sometimes he would let them see his box of condoms, and they would be in awe. Kurt was unsure of why Rick still lived there. ‘Some unsuccessful business venture,’ or something. When Kurt came over Rick would hang out with them regularly, mimicking George’s salivating problem or joking about how fat Phil was. Before either of them started typing Kurt was already dreaming. Her name was Alex, but to him she was just the one who lived with him in his head, smoking cigarettes by the river and talking about movies that Kurt pretended to understand. Zack slapped him on the shoulder. “Did you hear me? Alex is coming over. We’re going to the River Rapids.” “All right,” Kurt said. Kurt sighed and slumped down into the scoliosis-induced hunchback posture he constantly tried to hide. He had become a part of a begrudging three-person dynamic that started a month earlier at River Rapids, a rundown water park that became the City of Tweens in the summer when kids too young to drive got dropped off there. The water slides lost their appeal early on; the big draw of the park was its escape from adult supervision, its temporary illusion of autonomy. When Kurt pictured it, he saw hoards of bikini-clad preteens standing on wet concrete, cackling at a girl in a one-piece. Kurt kept replaying the day. It was the first day after school let out, and he met Zack at the food court surrounded by the Lazy River. Zack was with Alex and two other girls, but he didn’t introduce them. He said “Ready to f with some lifeguards?” and they started walking. Alex’s black bikini had skulls on it. She walked next to Kurt for a minute silently. They measured their steps consciously so that they would line up. Kurt tried to recall what they said to each other, but couldn’t: she was just smiling and tussling his hair like she did in the treehouse. She was a rebel, she had small ears, she understood the things that Kurt felt cooking in his head but couldn’t explain, she lived outside of the world. Usually he stopped his head from replaying here, but he decided to let it keep going. Some time later he and Zack were in their floral board shorts in the back of Kurt’s mom’s SUV on the way to River Rapids. Kurt felt like his fever dreams of Alex were overflowing, and he needed to release them. He started to feel sweat bead on his forehead. “You know that girl?” Kurt said. “What girl?” Zack said. “Alex, I think was her name.” “Yeah, Alex, what about her?” “I was thinking about asking her...” Zack perked up. “Asking her what? “Out, on a date, or whatever.” “You’re going to ask her out?” Zack was smirking. “You do that, tell me how it goes.” “You think she’ll say yes?” “Not sure, buddy, but you should definitely give it a shot.” Kurt felt himself get closer to the picture in his head, and it made his heart palpitate. Kurt and Zack met up with several of their friends, and they all sat on a curb by the lockers. “There’s your woman now, Kurt,” Zack said. He pointed across the sidewalk to Alex, who was sitting at a table with two other girls. “Are you going to ask her or puss out?” Kurt stood up triumphant from the curb, walked towards her. He felt his heart beating in his eyes. He sat down at the only open chair at the table without saying anything. Ten seconds passed. Alex looked at her friends quizzically and laughed. “Ummm. What’s up?” “Hey, what’s up,” Kurt said. He looked over at Zack and his friends. Zack was hyperventilating, red from laughter. The rest were staring intently at Kurt. “You’re the one that sat down,” Alex said. “Oh, yeah. I was wondering... I was wondering if you wanted to go out or something.” Alex’s eyebrows went up and she looked glanced at her friends. “Awww. You’re asking me out? You just asked me out. That’s so sweet of you. That’s really sweet. I’m sorry, but I have a boyfriend now. Your friend Zack actually asked me out yesterday and I said yes.” Zack was rolling on the ground. “Oh, g-gotcha, OK,” Kurt said. Kurt wandered out of the entrance into the parking lot in a daze, waited there for hours until his mom picked he and Zack up. “Dude,” Zack said, getting into the car. “It was a joke.” “It’s cool,” Kurt said. And that was it. Kurt knew that his fever dream had grown unhealthy. He had spent dozens of hours with Zack and Alex. He had almost completely separated himself from her, but he still grew closer to the her that lived in his head. He nearly ignored her when she talked. Her voice was just a template for his story, where they smoked cigarettes and stole beer from convenience stores and protested oppressive leaders. Kurt snapped out of it. Rick was clipping his toenails. “How are you, bud?” Rick said. “I’m all right. You?” Kurt said. “Well, I’m trying, you know? I’m trying.” There was a long silence. “Trying to do what?” Kurt said. “That’s why I like you, bud. You ask questions. I’m...trying to get better.” “Is it working?” “It’s real hard, but you just gotta do it. First time in how long you’ve seen me in a shirt with sleeves?” “That’s true.” Zack’s phone vibrated. “Alex is here. I’ll get this out of the way.” Zack cracked his knuckles and walked up the stairs. Rick sat down at the computer. He and Kurt sat silent for a few minutes; it was a comfortable silence, and Kurt felt no need to add to the clicks of the keyboards with unnecessary conversation. It was the first time in as long as he could remember in which he felt that occupying space with someone else was enough. “So how do you like Zack’s girl?” Rick finally said. “I like her.” “Yeah? Green haired little freak, right?” “I guess.” Kurt took a deep breath. He needed to get the story out of his head again. “I asked her to go out with me. Zack didn’t tell me they were already were.” “And he knew you were going to ask her?” Rick sighed. “Zack’s a f—you know that, right? How you haven’t kicked his a-- once or twice yet is a constant amazement to me.” “Yeah, I guess I know. That he’s a f.” “You just need to stop being a little fruit. You know?” “Not really.” Zack opened the stairway door and snickered into the room. He was holding two fingers up. “I did it. I fingered her.” Rick sighed. Kurt could feel his heart beat in his eyes again. “Kurt, you hear me? I fingered her.” Zack slapped Kurt across the face with the hand he was holding up. Kurt put his hand to his face and could feel it, slimy and pungent. Rick kicked back his chair so that its corner punctured the thin drywall. He yanked Zack into the air by his collar, jerked him back and forth until Zack's shirt ripped and he crumbled to the ground. Rick picked back Zack onto his feet, grabbed him by the back of the head, and threw him headfirst into the plastic buffet table. The table collapsed when Zack's skull bashed against it, and the old, bulky computer crunched Zack’s ribs. He started to wheeze. “f you,” Zack kept saying. Rick was beat red, yelling four inches from Zack’s face, spitting worse than George does. “Listen you f punk,” he screamed. “This is your friend? You’re going to treat your friends like this? You’re a f piece of s you know that? I don’t know how you turned out to be so f stupid, to do something like that to your friend. I don't care if he might be a little bit queer, no one deserves that. You're sure as hell not my brother, because my brother would never do something as sick as what you just did. I can't even look at you.” Zack was crying and wheezing. “You broke my ribs,” he said through the snot and blood that ran from his nose to his mouth and bubbled when he talked. Rick put his head in his hands for a long take. He stared at Kurt for what seemed like a minute. Kurt stared back, unfazed, then nodded at Rick. Rick nodded back, and Kurt heard Rick's boots calmly clack against the wood stairs as he left without a word before gingerly shutting the upstairs door. “Please call someone,” Zack said. Kurt looked at Zack. He was back in his fever dream again, but there was no girl in it. He was still pierced and covered in tattoos. He came back to the same 7/11 and shattered its window with a brick. The quick-stop caught fire. He stood in front of it, watching it burn, and it all meant something, it all meant something that was bigger than Kurt, something that he could write down and read to a coalition of freaks in a rundown warehouse. Kurt got up from the computer and stood next to Zack, who was a pile of mucous and oversized clothes. Kurt grabbed the windowsill for leverage and looked out the window at the old man in the yard over drinking a 40 on a beach towel, holding foil up to tan his leathered face. Kurt raised his foot and let it drop into Zack's gut. Zack started hacking like his dad did, but more violent, and kept saying “f you,” over and over. Kurt kicked him again, harder, and began to like the difference between his hard sole and Zack's soft stomach. He stomped on it repeatedly. Kurt wanted to tell Zack that Zack shouldn't have done what he did, but he figured Zack knew that by what was happening. Kurt liked that he didn't have to say anything. Kurt felt like he was crying but there were no tears. He walked up the stairs, ignored Zack’s yelping. The house was empty, except for Alex. She was sitting in Ed's rocking chair, staring vacantly at the old neighbor. “You all right?” Kurt said. “I'll be fine.” They sat for a long take, bathed in the pink-orange hue of dusk that made the kitchen glow. “So, you really like Zack?” “Not that much, really. I haven't found anything here worth liking that much." Kurt took two cigarettes out of Ed's mint pack of Reds. He handed one to Alex, and she took it without hesitation. He sparked a match on his shoe and lit both in one motion. Silent, they watched the last silvery sliver of sun descend past the neighboring cul-de-sac's edge. Kurt let his cigarette dangle from the corner of his mouth like Clint Eastwood and told Alex about some movies he'd seen that could take them somewhere new.

The Virtual Heroism of Gavin Pratt Sounds of gunfire pierced the air of the turbulent world outside. The shots echoed off the towering glass skyscrapers and crouching cement apartment buildings. The sounds of car horns and their obnoxious owners drifted through the city. The factories of industry belched smog into the morning air, giving the morning sun a purplish tint. Gavin was just waking up after another long night of work. He was sprawled out on a stained sofa, surrounded by fast food wrappers. Lifting his pudgy arms, he meticulously rubbed the sleep from his eyes. His rotund form shifted on the sofa as he turned over to look at the time on his digital clock. To him the little clock was a piece of the past, something from before the TV and computer screens. He grabbed the controller wedged between his meaty leg and the arm of the sofa. Suddenly an enormous screen turned on bathing his dark apartment in artificial light. Then another screen turned on, flashing a commercial for a blender, soon nine colossal screens were flickering and chattering away. Gavin flicked through the TV channels until he found the news channel. Scenes of the destruction and carnage of a middle eastern village washed over the apartment. A smile formed on Gavin's face, as he recognized the inferno as his work. He looked over at his outdated clock. His smile vanished in an instant when he realized he was late for work. Using his black console controller Gavin entered into the United States Air Force flight screen. The screens became one large screen as they flashed the United States seal before melting into a map of the Middle East. The map was riddled with red dots showing where attacks were occurring live and in real time. Gavin was part of the Civilian Drone Pilot Program, an elite group of 2,000 Americans who piloted drones making offensive attacks on peoples deemed threats to the existence of the United States. Gavin remembered when he had met the fit, polished and sharp Drone officer who had come to visit his high school. Gavin was an overweight senior whose C average grades were not good enough for the high demand of doctors and lawyers. He was unsure of what to do after high school. His only passion were his video games. Gavin enlisted in the program and went through the years of classes and hours flight simulations. He was finally qualified for the 16th Unmanned Airborne Division. Though Gavin did not wear a physical uniform or pin golden medals on his chest, he still had pride in his country and his reputation on the drone chat logs. He was a decorated war hero who had conducted more than 2,397 Drone Strikes and 5,634 Spy Operations. He was at the top of the Drone leader boards and had unlocked all of the medals in the Drone program. Now he was an elite pilot who lead coordinated attacks, straight from the Pentagon. A notification appeared in the top left corner of the screen. Gavin toggled over to the notification. Immediately a video began to play. The images of a map and flight patterns materialized on the screens. A robotic female voice spoke and began to recite the mission details. "You will be flying an offensive strike over a large urban target. Your first objective is to destroy the power station located in quadrant R3 on your map. Your second and third targets are two large skyscrapers located in quadrant R4. Your initial pay out if all 3 mission objectives are completed is $510,000 dollars, which will be deposited into your government bank account." The message ended. Gavin was surprised to hear such a short and vague message. All he cared about was the $510,000 dollars he got if he completed the mission. It seemed simple enough. Gavin toggled over to the mission description and glanced over the briefing and memorized the three objectives. Eliminate the two target structures in the center of the city with minimal casualties and disable the cities power grid by eliminating the central power station. Gavin pressed the controller's buttons to accept the mission. His screen froze as the lengthy mission acceptance paperwork was loaded onto his screen. The importance of the 20 page flight contract was lost on Gavin, it was a nuisance. A male voice began to read off the carefully worded flight waiver. As the voice droned on in the background, Gavin leaned over to a table near his sofa and snatched up a half eaten microwave burrito. He gobbled up the remaining half in two quick bites before being interrupted by the robotic voice. "Do you Gavin Pratt accept the terms stated in the contract that has been read to you?" A ping sounded to cue him to speak into the blue tooth headset. Gavin spoke spewing ground meat and beans onto his stained shirt. "I Gavin Pratt accept the terms read to me." A loading circle spun on the screen as Gavin finished off another microwave burrito. His screen soon showed a high definition panoramic view of a eerily empty runway. Due to the sensitivity of the mission Gavin was not allowed to speak to air traffic control and he began his pre flight check in silence. Though Gavin had never seen his drone in person he loved his drone as though it was the son he would never have. The sleek white aircraft was one of the most agile of its kind. When he had completed the pre flight diagnostics the drone turned on its engines. This was always a moment of joy for Gavin. He lightly pushed the toggle button on his controller urging the drone to pick up speed. The drone began its race down the runway and he watched as the drone leapt from the Tarmac and into the overcast morning sky. A message flashed on the screen, plus 4000 experience points-perfect take off. Gavin did not pay attention to the text and continued to gain altitude to evade enemy radar. Sometimes the flights would take hours above endless clouds and a deep blue sky. Gavin, against USAF regulation, would put the drone on auto pilot while he fell asleep to the soothing light of the flickering screens. Thankfully the destination was only few minutes away, and already Gavin could see the 3D satellite images of robotics factories and the sprawling slums surrounding the center of the city below. Two of the smaller skyscrapers were outlined in red identifying them as his mission objectives. Beneath Gavin's large soft exterior was the cruel nature of a sadistic boy who kills insects to watch them suffer. Gavin veered his drone towards the center of city where the smoke stacks of the power station that billowed smoke lay outlined in the red lines. It was his first target. He rubbed his thumb over the fire button. The HD video showed the tiny civilians scrambling about the city like aimless insects without a purpose. Gavin pushed lightly on the button and a single bomb dropped from the drone and Gavin watched as it fell. The bomb shrunk as it moved farther and farther away from the drone's camera. Then the screens were illuminated with a flash and the screen went dark. His apartment shook violently as Gavin was whipped from his sofa landing in a helpless heap on the ground. All nine of Gavin screens fell on the floor and shattered. The apartment windows imploded letting the sour smell of plastic and crumbling concrete fill Gavin's apartment. The windows that had kept Gavin from hearing and seeing the violent cacophony of the outside world were reduced to shards and pulverized dust. Gavin could not pull his immense weight up to see what had happened. Screams and the shrill whine of sirens filled his apartment. He was experiencing the sensory overload that no video game or tv show could offer. Breathing heavily he finally pulled himself up to the window, cutting his pudgy arms on the shards of glass that remained in his window sill. Peering down at the smoking concrete and rebar skeleton of a power station, he could see bodies slowly being dragged off by brave civilians and some bodies did not move. He looked up into the gloomy sky which was now dotted by traces of yellow anti aircraft fire and a single white drone which flew just out of reach. Gavin panted as he realized the drone he had piloted for years was now before his eyes. The pat pat pat of anti aircraft guns was louder than ever as bullets ripped through the wings of the drone. Gavin reached out helplessly to save his beloved drone which now spiraled uncontrollably towards his building. He made no effort to move, as though stuck in a trance as he watched the drone gracefully fall through the air. It plunged into the glass windows of the skyscraper. A brilliant blossom of red and orange consumed the building and Gavin with it. Gavin had almost experienced the most real and thrilling scenario he had ever had, almost like one of his video games.

“THE GIRL WITH THE CAKE-DAY” I feel nothing. No emotions occurring. No happiness. I took my hand out from under the sheets, as I let out a disappointed sigh. It was one of those nights where it was simply too hot to masturbate. It felt like I was melting with all the sweat I was producing. It was a shame it was too hot out to masturbate, because typically, there were three reasons why I did it. The first of which is pretty obvious, and that is, it felt great. That’s why everyone does it. To my knowledge, though, I’m the only one who does it for the second two reasons. The second reason: it made me sleepy. I’d always been pretty bad about my sleep, staying up far past the recommended bed time. Soon into my teen years, I learned that masturbating felt both great, and it made me tired, which is why I normally did it around bed time. The third, and most important reason, is because it makes me feel human. It makes me feel alive to do such a thing. To focus all of my energy, all of time on thoughts, memories, and women… Well, it made me more in-touch with myself, no pun intended. So as I lay on my bed in the dead of the heat, I realize the alternative source to make me sleep, and to make me feel alive, though, not nearly as fun. I lifted my right hand off of my head, and raised it up. On the way, it touched the metal post of my bed. Cold. Lifeless. I suppose an analogy can be made there. I then flipped on my stomach, and waved my hand in front of my face. I thought of all the things that made me human, made me realize I was still a person. My past. The people I loved. My memories. I thought of all this, while moving my hand. It always led to me being aware of my own thoughts, and minute actions, to where I became self-aware. In this moment, I became euphoric. I stopped moving my hand as a whole, and instead wiggled each of my fingers, going further into this bizarre trance of memories. I wiggled my thumb. It was the first part of my hand to touch the raft. It was a burning hot day out, but the pools made up for it. I heard the screams and laughter of children, as they raced around the pools, and grabbed the rafts for the numerous water slides. As I grabbed my own raft, I wondered to myself, why was I here? How did this come about to be? As I was deep in thought, a girl of unimaginable sincerity and beauty came before me. That’s when I remembered. The Girl with the Cake-Day. I still wasn’t sure what it meant, but she did. So, I went along with it. Getting a message from this beautiful woman, exclaiming it’s her cake-day, doesn’t happen too often. At first, I lied, only because in my mind, she was hot, and I wanted to fuck her. One thing led to another, and first thing I knew, I was at Waplehorst, with The Girl with the Cake-Day. I wiggled my thumb. There was the three of us, her and her friend, but for all I cared, it was just the two of us. The day progressed, and I found myself actually having fun. Normally in these situations, I stress at the idea of having to show-off for women, but The Girl with the Cake-Day was different. I found myself actually laughing around her. There were plenty of times when I could have made a move on her, but that would have spoiled all the fun we were having. I wiggled my thumb. When it was all over, and I had to leave, I walked with The Girl with the Cake-Day down her long driveway. She turned to me, and gave me one of the most awkward hugs I had ever received. She looked at me, and smiled. I smiled back. I stopped wiggling my thumb. I was surrounded by darkness, with the heat not letting up. I wiggled to my index finger. I pointed up to the cool, night sky. “I just don’t see it!” I exclaimed. The Girl with the Cake-Day laughed, and gently pushed my arm into the direction of what she saw. A flash across the sky occurred. “Okay, I saw that one,” I said as she laughed, and moved closer to me. It was a beautiful Summer night, and the most beautiful of meteor showers was occurring. I wiggled my index finger. I had grown to like The Girl with the Cake-Day. I liked her so much, that we started to date. It was the happiest time of my life, up to that point in time. “You’re an idiot,” said a voice next to us. Along with us on this evening, was my best friend, The Boy with Glasses. I looked at him, laughed, and made a joke. He seemed to be enjoying himself, and that made me happy. It made me happy to know that everyone enjoyed the company of The Girl with the Cake-Day. I wiggled my index finger. I finally had someone to brag about, and show off. That night ended like many other nights with her, and she kissed me goodnight. The exception was, I was with The Boy with Glasses, and being the friend I am, I drove him home. On the drive home, it occurred to me, that while I was having fun, my mother was dying. While that should have been the forefront of my thoughts, it was not. The Girl with the Cake-Day was. It was, oddly enough, a blissful time in my life. I stopped wiggling my index finger. My hand dropped, and hit me in the face. I still continued the process, this time moving on to my middle finger. I wiggled my middle finger. I flicked off the screen, in blind rage. What was the happiest moment in my life, was reduced to one of the worst. On the screen, laid out in front of me, was the relationship status of The Girl with the Cake-Day, and The Boy with Glasses. I had never felt this way before. I had, of course, felt anger plenty of times. This was not just anger, though. This was something far worse. This was love. I, The Boy with the Same Name, fell in love. I wiggled my middle finger. I wondered to myself how such a thing could happen. I surely felt nothing. I had never felt. I tried to rationalize it. Perhaps I hated that I was betrayed by The Guy with Glasses. While that thought did sound correct, it was not the cause. I missed her smile, her laugh. I hated this feeling. I hated the fact that I loved The Girl with the Cake day. I wiggled my middle finger. I felt weak. I just wanted to give up, move on, and try again with someone else. I couldn’t, though. Feeling no real emotions, it’s easy for me to give up on something, and move on. But this wasn’t normal. As much as I wanted to, I could not. I wiggled my middle finger one last time. I stopped. Coated in sweat, I did feel slightly more tired. Nothing was going to break my concentration though, and I forged on, with my ring finger on the line now. I wiggled my ring finger. It was freezing, along with all my other fingers. For some reason, though, my ring finger always got really cold. As cold as my hands were, I tried my hardest to pack in as much snow as possible, and formed it into a ball. Excited, she tried to dodge, but in the end, The Girl with the Cake-Day got hit square in the chest with a snowball. She did a playful scream, and I chased her, only to turn around, and run from her own snowball. I wiggled my ring finger. I had lost The Guy with Glasses. He hated me for taking The Girl with the Cake-Day away from him. I would too. I did. She was mine now. I knew this time, I loved her. I loved every minute of being with her. I could be myself, and she knew that. Still, I hid from The Girl with the Cake-Day. While she was the one who tapped into my emotions, it was still a foreign concept to me. To tell her how I felt about her. To tell her why I’m sad. To let her mend my problems. I wiggled my ring finger. Despite all that, life was good for The Girl with the Cake-Day and I. I dodged her snowball, then quickly turned around, and pushed her gently to the snowy ground. I was on top of her, and we were both panting. That’s when she locked eyes with me, and I said what I had never said to anyone but The Girl with the Cake-Day. “I love you, Alex.” She smiled at me, used all five of her fingers to pull my head down, and kissed me softly. “I love you too, Alex.” I wiggled my ring finger. The heat took over in my room, and the memories of the snows from yesteryear faded away. The sun was coming up now, and the heat went up with it. I stop wiggling my ringer finger, and reflected on the memories I had with The Girl with the Cake-Day. I then reflected on the more recent memories of her, with The Boy with the Car, and then, with anger, I made a fist, with the pinky finger leading the charge. I squeezed as hard as I could. I hit the wall as hard as I could, surely waking up the guests in my house. I paused, then, a tear came rolling down my left check. I stopped wiggling my fingers, wiggling my hands, and in fact, stopped moving all together. I had accomplished part of what I set out to do tonight. I felt alive. I felt human. I let all the emotions I felt about The Girl with the Cake-Day run down my checks, and flow into streams of tears. I wasn’t tired, though. Not even close to it. Not yet.

It occurred to me while listening to the radio the other how animalistic popular music has become. I mean animalistic as in; how close we have come to our primal root. At some point in human evolution, we shifted from ignorance of ourselves as a species to an obsession with our own superiority. Two legs and a complex brain, and now we are something quite different. This is widely accepted as fact, that we are better because we are smarter. We are human. However, the truth is that we still are animals at some level. Our hearts are made one part good, one part evil, one part human. Mixed in among the blend is an animalistic element, and it is the single most terrifying truth of our existence. We have spent thousands of years building gaps between ourselves and our animal heart. We organize ourselves in ways animals don’t and retain self-image in ways animals wouldn’t think to. We pleasure seek, explore, invent and create, converse and enjoy each other’s company in ways animals can’t. We would like to forget our embarrassing past among the tall grass, sucking on bone marrow to survive, hunched against the cold in our dingy, primeval cave. But as I drove down the highway, the highway that civilization spawned, that technology brought forth from unevenness, smoothed by progression and innovation, and as I listened to the radio that man invented, that harnesses and controls some part of the natural spectrum of existence, the same existence that man claims superiority too, I heard the pound of the bass, the beat of the song. The beat of our animal heart, breaking through an art form. It was loud, meant to be heard but more importantly meant to be felt. It was sex, wild, unrestricted, unmodified, thoughtless. It was adrenaline, murder, blood-thirst, terror, the possibility of hunting and being hunted. All that matters anymore is the beat. It is instinctual. It is the easiest part of ourselves to facilitate. Being human is more complex and carries with it melodies and verses filled with societal responsibilities, a conscious awareness of self and shamefulness, and need for intellectual stimulus. We do not understand it, we cannot control it, and most often we repress it in pursuit of animalistic ambition. It is societies’ greatest irony that our animalism, our animal heart, is our most grievous embarrassment as well as our most facilitated being.