It only cost one dollar. She’d picked it up on a whim from that popular Japanese variety store, Daiso. It was a shiny, gold-painted plastic cat with a solar-powered waving arm. Noticing them in people’s cars, she’d always thought these cats were so cute. Her best friend from Japan told her that it was a “Maneki Neko” or “beckoning cat”; a talisman of good luck and fortune. Now she had a lucky cat of her very own sitting on her dashboard. As soon as she removed it from its packaging, the cat’s arm immediately started waving. Amused, she said to it, “Why, hello there! You’re going to be my little travel buddy and keep me safe when I drive, won’t you?” In response, the cat waved its arm up and down vigorously, as if saying yes. The lucky cat kept her company in her car from that day, never ceasing the swinging of its arm even at night after the sun went to sleep. She found this a bit odd but chalked it up to the brilliance of Japanese innovation. Her one-dollar toy became a centerpiece for conversation when friends and family rode in her car. Her young nieces would chant, “Kitty arm moving! Kitty arm moving!” over and over as she drove them around town. She loved the way she could spot her boring white Honda Civic from a mile away among a sea of similar cars as the cat’s waving arm beckoned to her from behind the windshield. She kept the lucky cat through college, graduate school, and a string of boyfriends, the latest of whom was named Scott. In fact, she was pretty sure she would marry Scott, even if he made fun of her cat. He tried to convince her to get rid of it. “It’s a distraction when you drive,” he fussed. “You’re not supposed to have things on your dash that block your view. Also, it looks stupid. Its face is grotesque.” She listened quietly and stayed muted, a technique she often used when he was difficult. She knew he would forget about it after a while. After all, he rarely drove her car, and when they went places together, he usually insisted on driving his. Scott proposed to her that fall, and she said yes. They would get married in six months. One morning, a month before the wedding, she gets in her car and feels in her gut that something is wrong. Looking all around her, nothing seems out of place, so she shakes it off, looks over her shoulder, and begins to back out of her driveway. As she turns back to maneuver the wheel, her hand accidentally brushes the lucky cat. Immediately, its head falls off. She stifles a scream and picks it up. Tears fill her eyes, and she brushes them off fiercely. She hadn’t realized how attached she had become to her cat. She places the head carefully back on, but to no avail, the kitty arm no longer waves. Then her subconscious catches up with her, and she realizes what had felt so wrong when she entered the car a few minutes before: The cat’s arm had been motionless before she broke its head off. That evening, she casually mentions the incident to Scott. “You should be real happy now, honey, cuz my one-dollar cat you hate so much finally broke this morning.” He looks at her, unfazed, and says, “Oh right, I broke it last night when I took your car to pick up dinner. I tried to stick its head back on.” She stares at him, anger rising. “What? Why didn’t you say something about it?” He rolls his eyes at her, “My arm accidentally knocked it down. What’s the big deal? It’s a stupid dollar toy.” “It was MY stupid dollar toy, and I loved it,” she snaps, tears rolling hotly down her cheeks again. “My god. Just buy another one already.” He turns back to his football game. She lets it go, knowing there’s no use; he’ll never get it. That night, she carefully hot-glues the head back on the cat. It might no longer wave its arm, but it can still keep her company in her car. The next day, she walks out to the driveway and spots the cat dangling by its neck from her rearview mirror. Rushing to it, she sees that someone has used the phone charging cable in her car to tie a noose around the cat’s neck as some sick joke. Choking back wrath, she calls Scott on his cellphone. “Did you hang my cat from a cord?” He starts guffawing into the phone. “Hahaha. You saw it, huh?! Isn’t it hilarious?!” “No, it isn’t,” she says coldly. But he’s laughing too hard to hear her. Knowing she’s not going to win this one, she hangs up, trying to convince herself that this is indeed just a one-dollar toy and not worth getting mad over. She carefully loosens the cat from its’ noose and places it firmly back in on her dashboard. It isn’t even a week later when she gets the phone call. Scott has her car out on a beer run that evening. On the way home, he wraps her car around a tree. His death is instant. In the days to come, she finds no answers from the police about how the wreck happened. The best they can determine is that he somehow lost control of the car. The cause is a mystery. She moves through the aftermath in a daze, devastated over Scott and wading through the necessary paperwork and legal details accompanying death. But in her darkest hours, lying awake at night, she can’t deny that a tiny part of her is relieved the wedding isn’t happening. Her car is totaled. After three weeks, they call her to retrieve whatever personal belongings she can get out of it before it goes to the junkyard. It will be a tough day; she doesn’t want to see the vehicle that Scott had his final moments in. As they lead her to the remains of the car, she sees the lucky cat from a distance glistening through bright sunlight in the windshield. Is it... can it be? She can’t believe it. The cat’s arm is waving. She runs over and pries it from the wreckage and holds it tight, sobbing. She cries for Scott, for his life and death, and she cries for the chance she now has to reclaim the part of herself that she allowed Scott to shove aside. She sits in her new car at the parking lot of the dealership. It’s a beautiful, bright yellow Mini Cooper -- her dream car. The salesman hands her the keys and congratulates her. Turning the key in the ignition, she reaches into her purse and carefully retrieves her lucky cat, its arm still mysteriously waving since the day she got it back. She places the cat on her dashboard, in its rightful place. As she drives off, she says to it, “Glad to have you back with me again, travel buddy. You’ll always keep me safe, won’t you?” In response, the cat waves its arm up and down vigorously, as if saying yes.


The Sunsets of My Life Edy Stoughton I never feel more alive and vivid than when I am standing in front of a glorious sunset. It fills me up with wonder. My breathing slows and my speech is stilled when I am engulfed in those glorious, sky-filling colors. Glowing in my memory, sunsets have marked and defined the milestones of my life and ordered my times and seasons. They have been celestial companions on my journey. Growing up in the suburbs of a Midwestern city, sunsets weren’t part of my experience. Ever-expanding housing developments and 8 lane expressways aren’t an impressive framework for a colorful sky so days ended and nights came on with little fanfare and nothing to mark their passage. My love affair with sunsets began when we rented a summer cottage on Northern Lake Michigan. Gathering my sand-gritted, sunburned little children for bed, I was shocked when the sky lit up and I stood transfixed in the midst of gathering towels and sand shovels. A panorama of deepest oranges blending to muted yellows and brilliant rose blazed over the lake. We all stood unmoving, awestruck. From that day as the children grew from toddlers to teens, sunset watching was our end-of-day ritual every summer vacation at that same cabin. As the colors began to appear we would gather in awe, faces turned to the horizon, celebrating the end of the day. It was communal worship as all down the beach people appeared, standing silently, wine glasses in hand until the last flash of the sun ‘s rim slipped below the lake. Not a sound could be heard--even nature was hushed in that moment at the edge of night. And then a collective sigh was heard marking the official end of the day, sharing gratitude for the gift of another day, hope for a good tomorrow and thanks for the beauty surrounding us. The last sunset was the final good bye for another year and a time for tears as it marked the closing off of another blissful space of time out of the ordinary. Throughout the years sunsets have been my mainstay and never-failing source of joy. My sunset experiences trail markers of the changes in my life. There was the year we visited my son away at college in California and he piled us in his jeep racing time to get to Sunset Cliffs in Mission Beach to watch the sun descend into the Pacific Ocean. Knowing my long-term love affair with sunsets, he was determined that I experience that famous vantage point regardless of traffic and as we stood on the cliff with the breeze in our faces calming us my son turned to me saying “This is for you Mom.” The years passed and we settled on the shores of Lake Michigan to live our dream. It was no longer a vacation place, but home. Grandchildren took the place of children in the sun-drenched days of summer and the tradition continues. Standing at our deck railing making a wish on the sun’s last rays is a nightly ritual. Each child has his or her traditional way of ending the day, unique to them. On evenings when we are preoccupied with dinner or conversation, a grandchild's voice can be heard crying, "Hurry, it's almost time...we're going to miss it!" And the thunder of feet and slamming of screen doors herald that the magic moment has arrived. Standing with my arms wrapped around the little ones and sitting peacefully in an Adirondack chair talking quietly, or just sitting in unspoken companionship, in the evening glow beside my beautiful teen aged granddaughter are all priceless moments that I will stay with me forever. The tradition goes on even when we are not together, a ritual of memory and nostalgia that links us through time and space. Recently I received a photo in my email account of two of my granddaughters arm in arm standing in front of a window. My daughter explained that they were in a restaurant in Park City, Utah on a ski vacation and as the sun started to set, the girls rushed to the window to make a wish on the sunset in honor of all the wishes we had shared. I worry about our inability to find our rightful place in the cosmos and our lack of stewardship and care for the natural world. I worry about the world we are leaving our children and grandchildren. And yet, it is my hope that a sunset is the way of saying the world will go on. These days I mostly stand alone in front of the setting sun. I can enjoy the completely silent sunsets of winter as well as those of the summer skies. When the ice-covered lake is edged by towering giant pines etched against the winter sky, the colors are deeper, richer and more austere in deep violet and royal blue. I am alone and yet I am not lonely. It is just me and the lake and the sky communing in quiet intimacy. In some ways it is better than ever. I have more to be grateful for and think about. I have never gotten over that first shock and awe I felt at that first view of the sky’s glory. It is strangely comforting to know that I am only a small part of the vast illimitable universe and yet the eternal spark within me is intimately and infinitely connected to all that vastness--part of the eternally flowing river of time. So much is changing in my life as I enter a new stage and yet the evening sky is constant and unchanging, a lodestar in my life and as the sky lights up, I feel cradled in the deep heart of eternity. Standing at the edge of the vast Lake Michigan with lighthouses blinking in the distance I know the truth of words I read recently that said our souls are the lighthouse from which we view the vast celestial ocean. The longer I live the more beautiful life becomes. I never want it to end. And yet when I feel frightened about what is to come at the end of my life and nostalgic about the winding down of my years on this earth, I am comforted by knowing that I will find out what the view is like on the other side of that beautiful sunset and I will be part of the glory.


In the early hour, the frost is still thriving in the shadows of the trees, hidden from the dawn, in the vacant park. The bench gradually grows warmer from my weight upon it in the brisk Autumn morning. No voices, no obtrusive sounds penetrate my ears. Only the sound of distant traffic, and the occasional flutter of wings. For the first time in a long while, I get to sit and embrace the silence without worrying about work and responsibilities. It’s been two months. I sit and try and remember every feature of her face. Every curve, every dimple, every blemish. She always told me not to frown too much, or my face would wrinkle before I was even thirty-five. She was seventy-eight and still so full of life. When I first met her in Maple Leaf Retirement Home, I thought we would never get along. Being hired immediately after graduation, I was excited to finally move onto real life- no more classes and reports. I could finally help keep the elderly healthy, it’s what I had wanted to do since I was a child. That was until June 6th, 2014; the day I met her. Beverly Jane Edith Williams was a dainty seventy-five year old with dyed red hair and thin eyebrows that always seemed to be drawn on in a scowl. She only liked to eat green foods on Thursday’s, and meat on Saturday’s. No food could be touching and forks had to be three pronged. Long crew neck t-shirts must have had one sleeve folded across the top and one underneath the bottom. So precise that Beverly Jane was. Widowed, but no next of kin, no relatives currently living. Her lonesome life was all laid out in front of me in her file. She would have killed me if she knew I read through it. “That’s an invasion of privacy,” she’d say, “You’re probably some Russian spy our government doesn’t know about. Those politicians are some lazy bastards, I tell ya.” Corrupted by her own insecurities, she pushed everyone away in an attempt to keep herself safe. She shared her secrets with me one day when I shared mine. It had been my first midnight shift, which was stressful enough, and my long-term boyfriend had dumped me for my best friend. “Two birds with one stone.” I had asked what she had meant by that. “You’ll have people come into your life and make it seem like they are going to be there for the rest of time. They’ll take and take all they can, until you have nothing left to give. Then when they realize they have no more use for you, they leave. You’re better off without both the lover and best friend in the end. They were never real, they never cared. Instead of finding one out now and another later, you got them both out of them way right off the bat.”  “I guess you speak from experience.” “Now listen here, dear. You may’ve just shared something personal with me, but it’s not like I wanted you to. You should expect nothing from me in return.” Her soft advice was now replaced with a stern order. “Now get out of my room and wipe those tears. I can’t stand to see them slide down your face any longer.” As I had been drying my face and reapplying makeup, another nurse had knocked on the bathroom door. “Emily, the patient in room 237 has requested you visit her immediately.” I had re entered her room with a fake smile plastered onto my face. “Did you need something, Ms. Williams? I was told you called for me.” “Yes, I did.” Silence. “Ms. Williams?” “Just call me Beverly. And get over here and sit your ass down.” “What is it?” “Just don’t speak. Let me talk.” I signaled for her to continue along. “My daddy left for the Korean War when I was nine years old in ‘50. I had an older sister, Meredith, and a pet dog, Rufus. After he left, Mama told us that we might not see him again, that something might happen and we would lose our Papa. Only nine years old, I refused to believe I could live without my hero, my first love, my father. She paused, reminiscing in only what I could guess were memories of her dad. I knew she was finally opening up to me, so I sat and waited for a few minutes for her to start again. “You know, I can’t believe I’m actually saying any of this to you. I ain’t ever told anybody about my childhood.” Another pause. “Meredith had lost her right leg, and eventually her life from Polio in ‘53, only a year after the news of my father’s death had reached home. Rufus ran away, probably with some bitch he found in the neighborhood, when I was fourteen. Get it, cause female dogs are called bitches? She let out a soft chuckle, and I couldn’t help but grin. After another moment of her collecting her thoughts, she resumed. When I was sixteen, mom started to have strange men over at the house every night. I’d hear her sobs through the walls after they left each morning. It soon seemed like there was never a moment she was sober, so I left. I got on a train and headed to Chicago, in hopes of finding work, but unexpectedly, I found love instead. My sweet Richard Wayne. He worked as a mailman for the small town I had moved to, and I’ve never seen a man look so sexy in a uniform.” She gave me a sly wink. “Oh you should’ve seen him, Emily. I don’t think anyone else could have been in love like I was. And believe it or not, I was the one that made the first move. After meeting his lovely mother and sister, he had proposed to me May 5th, 1961, the night the first American man landed on the moon. We wed September 13th the same year and life was perfect. We moved in together, and each got a job at the local university, Rich being a janitor and me a secretary. 1964 rolled along and Richard had decided to enlist for the army to fight in the Vietnam War. With much hesitation from me, I had finally agreed to support him. I kissed him on the doorstep of our house, and that was the last time I really saw my husband. He returned in ‘68, but he wasn’t the same. Only now do I know he had PTSD. He was there, but the spark behind his eyes and the genuinity behind his voice was gone, he was monotonous. We still loved each other until death did us part in 2012, when he died of a heart attack in the middle of the night. After I had no one else, I decided I didn’t want to be alone and I came here, to Maple Leaf.” After laying everything out there in front of each other, exposing our weak spots, we both gained more respect for one another. We became each other’s best friends. I helped her get around when she couldn’t walk, she comforted me when I had no one else to turn to. We stayed up through the nights just talking and sharing jokes. We calmed each other down when her roommate, Diane, stole her last piece of cornbread, or when my co worker, Janice, filed the wrong charts and blamed me for it. We threw our own 2016 New Years party in room 237, drinking sparkling grape juice and eating cheese cubes. As the ball dropped and the shouting of numbers began, I felt a smooth hand clasp around mine, and as I looked over to her face, silhouetted by the light of the TV, she only wore a content smile as she kept her eyes focused ahead, and in that moment, I never felt like I had left home for college, or work. I didn’t feel like I had no one left to care about me, I no longer felt like I was alone. She had become my home in only three years time. Whenever I was with her was when I was most comfortable living in this boring, lonely life. But she started to get sick. Fluid filled her lungs and it was no longer green foods on Thursday’s, and meat on Saturday’s. It became pleurodesis\* on Monday’s and 100 mg of Furosemide\*\*. No more smooth laughs, only wheezing breaths. Just like her husband returning from war, she was never the same. September 13th, 2017, what would have been her and Richard’s 56th year anniversary, was the last time Beverly Jane Edith Williams took an agonizing breath. I thought I could move on, that I could just find another patient to connect with, but everyone had a part of them that reminded me of her. So as I sit on this park bench, in the middle of November, not caring that I had quit my job not even 24 hours prior, I reach up to my face and smooth it out. “You’re going to get wrinkles if you keep frowning like that.” Well, Bev, I can’t seem to do much else these days. # \*Pleurodesis- Operation in removing fluid from the lungs by draining it. \*\*Furosemide- medication used in treating Pleural Effusion (Fluid buildup on the lungs.


Mommy and Daddy got me this cool diary so I can write down everything (they said that it’s a hammy down) for my birthday! Hi diary! My name’s Maria Lewis and I’m six! My mommy is really pretty and my daddy’s super strong and they’re both the best! But my ultra bestest friend is my doggy! His name is Benny and he likes sleeping on my bed! I asked Mommy how she knows he’s a boy and she said that doggies are boys and kitties are girl and how he’s very special because he’s got those white lines on his neck and paws. She says that’s why he can’t bark and he has trouble walking around but I still love him super duper much! I wanted to bring Benny to school for show and tell, but Mommy and Daddy say I can’t. They say we aren’t allowed to have him because he’s ill eagle, so I gotta keep quiet or else people will come and take him away! I promise I won’t let anyone hurt you, Benny! I got an A on my spelling test! Daddy asked what I wanted as a reward and I said I wanted a little sister so I can give her all my clothes and we can play. I don’t have many friends since we live far away from everybody else, so I want a friend who can come home and play with me. Daddy laughed (I didn’t get what was so funny) and told me that I wouldn’t actually want that because six is the best time for kids and I should just enjoy this year. Benny started whining and Mommy told me that he would get jealous if I gave all my attention to a little sister, so I hugged him real close and told him I’d never stop loving him. Mommy got me pizza and cake for my A! It was soooooooo good! Benny was begging and I tried to give him some but Daddy took it away and said that human food’s not good for doggies. He whined and I gave him a doggy treat instead (I’ve had one before and they’re super yucky but Benny doesn’t mind) and he only ate it when Daddy was watching. Silly Benny! Mommy and Daddy won’t let me go trick or treating, so I get to get all dressed up and walk around the house! Every time I reach the front door, I ring the bell and Daddy acts all surprised and I get a chocolate bar! Mommy made me a Dorothy dress and Benny’s my Toto! He’s too big to fit in the basket, so he carries it in his mouth! Mommy’s got a baby in her tummy! She sat me down and told me it’s growing even though I can’t see anything and that I’m gonna be the bestest big sister! She says it’s gonna live in my room and I’ll have to share but I don’t mind! Mommy even said that our birthdays might be close! That’s double cakes! My sister’s making Mommy get really chubby. I saw Benny staring today, and he started whining again, so I pet him and said that I love him so super much. When we went to bed, Benny sat on my bed and I fell asleep before he did. He woke me up when my door opened because he started growling, but I just petted him and said he was such a good boy. Merry Christmas! I got so many neat new toys, and Benny got a brand new bone! Don’t tell anyone, but I snuck him some of my breakfast, and he seemed super happy and snuggled right up to me! I love you, Benny! Benny attacked Mommy today. She’s really full of baby now and Benny jumped all over her and started biting her belly until Daddy got him off and took Mommy to the hospital. I started crying and Benny tried to take me outside even though it wasn’t time for walkies. I felt bad but I had to put him in his crate, but he didn’t fight it even though he started whining and trying to flip the lock. Poor Benny thinks he has thumbs like us, but there’s just another white mark there. Daddy asked to see my diary today. I don’t know why but he seemed kinda upset when he gave it back. He took Benny for walkies but he came back alone. When I asked where Benny was, he said that a man with a really sick daughter asked for him, and that Benny really wanted to go take care of a girl even more in need than me. I understand and I really hope he comes to visit with his new owner, because then I might have a new friend! I’m almost seven and Mommy says she and Daddy are gonna get me a cute little kitten for my birthday! I’m so excited! Hi! My name’s Kayla Lewis! I just turned six and Mama and Papa got me a notebook! They’re my favorite people ever, but I love my kitty so much more because she’s so pretty and always stays by my side.


A man wakes up in hell. He feels nothing but pain. He lies on a hill amongst ruins, the foundational outline of a missing home. This is not a world meant for anything living. The sky is thick and gray with clouds like wet cement. Plants do not try to grow here. The carcasses of trees lie beside each other, twisted on the ground. The landscape lies as still and gray as the sky, unstirred by even the wind. The man inhales his first breath and coughs. From his mouth is borne a cloud of white ash and dust. He gets to his feet and walks through the ruins of what must have been an old town once. Instead of buildings, now the bricks are stacked like rubble. The jagged edge of one wall reaches a peak above the rest, at half his height. Upon it his fingers trace the outline of a heart drawn in ash. He looks around at the battered image of a hollowed out town. He closes his eyes. He waits for this nightmare to be over. He coughs up some blood and spits it out. On the ground mixed with the ash it looks more like tar than something from anything alive. He continues now on a path that leads away from the town. The dead trees lie together as though they’d been slaughtered in battle. Fallen comrades. None of them heard. He follows a trail of smeared ash through a large, empty stretch of land. It might have been a field once, when things could grow. He stands over a patch of lifeless earth and watches it. Tears leave trails of smeared ash like the one which led him here. He continues to another ruin. The suggestions of architecture linger. Some stone steps lead him down to a cellar below. Here he finds a hatch and crawls down into it. Inside there are a couple of beds and a smattering of empty cans across the floor. In the center of the room is a table, swept clean except for one half-eaten can of mush. He vomits up some blood then sits down to eat. He eats less than a mouthful worth of bites then lies down in one of the beds. After a fit of violent coughs he’s asleep. He is exhausted. He is even more exhausted when he wakes up. He sits at the table and cries over the can. Finally he rises weakly to his feet and heads back out into the world. He walks through the field to a disturbed patch of dirt and ash. Nearby a shovel lies on the ground and he decides to dig. He digs for hours in a daze. The Earth slowly opens up for him, shovelful by shovelful. Suddenly here, protected from the decomposing world above by a blanket of dirt, he finds the body of a woman. He stoops down, transfixed by the peaceful expression locked upon her face. His own expression is distant, his mind in a hole miles below the one she lies in now. He gently kisses her forehead and then he drags her out of the hole. A coughing fit strikes and he needs to sit down. Then he fills the hole back in. He carries the woman’s body up another path away from the field. It stretches for a mile or two uphill and over rocks. He has to stop several times to try to catch even a gasp of breath between his coughs. He pulls her body up a hill and when they get to the top he can see the whole town. Here at the top of the hill he holds her body and cries endlessly, even when the tears stop. He sits with the body next to him and props her head on his shoulder. This is where she wakes up in hell with him. Her eyes open to a world that life abandoned. It takes her some time but eventually she coughs white clouds of ash to clear the way for air. They watch the distant ghost of a town together then make their way back down the hill. She’s still weak so he helps her down but he doesn’t have to carry her this time. They make their way back across the field and over her grave to the ruins surrounding the stone steps. Together they climb down to the room where all that is left lives. He looks at her with concern which she affirms by vomiting blood across the floor and shaking like chattering teeth. He kisses her forehead and they hold hands at the table for a while before lying down in the bed together. She coughs in her sleep and he doesn’t sleep much at all. When they wake up they eat from some of the dusty cans. After a few bites she stops and coughs for a long time. He watches with concern and fear. He doesn’t want to be alone here. Together they walk through the ruined town and look up at the ruined sky. Neither of them has anything to say. She stops at various piles of bricks and watches them as if imagining what they would look like whole. They come across the wall he woke up by and she traces the heart with her ash covered fingers. She stands in the ruins of a building and here she cries for a long time. He switches between standing back and letting her cry and holding her shuddering sorrow in his arms. Eventually the tears turn from a river to a stream and finally to a faucet, which is how they stay for the rest of their walk through the town. Back in the room they eat some more cans of mush and lie in bed. He cries while she sleeps. This cycle continues for almost a week, with walks through the hollow town, meals of mush out of old cans, and taking turns in tears. More often than not though they cry together instead of waiting for their turn. One day in town they find some old books scattered in the ashes and bring them home with them. The woman hates the books and can’t stand to look at them but the man thumbs through them now and then. After a few days neither of them go near the books anymore. His cough is gone and her cough is getting better. She breaks the long silence with a question. She wants to know what the point of living is. He chews his mush and stares into the empty can wondering how long their food will last and whether they will last long enough to finish it. One morning she doesn’t get out of bed. This goes on for two days. The next day she sits at the table and heaves growing sobs. He sits quietly on the bed. His face looks as lifeless as the town. The next day they are both weeping but they need to go outside again. They go to the field and there he digs another hole through tears while she sits and wails on the ground nearby. At the bottom of this hole the man finds the body of a boy. He picks the boy up tenderly and holds him close, tears running down his cheeks and into the boy’s dirty brown hair. The woman can’t even look. The man lifts the boy out and then fills the hole back in. They bring the body into their room and the man seals them off from hell. The boy lies in one of the beds. She screams and cries. The man touches the boy’s cold head. His face is locked in peaceful slumber. That night they sleep and when they wake up the boy’s head is burning hot. He’s sick. His eyes are closed and when they try to feed him he won’t eat. They stay down there a long time and none of them eat. The man and the woman feel sick with worry. They watch the boy and sit by his side. Even though he can’t hear the woman reads the books to the boy and even though he isn’t looking she hides her tears from him. One day the boy finally opens his eyes. They can all eat again and even share a can of fruit instead of mush. The boy starts getting better. His head cools off but never gets as cold again as when they dug him up. They live together in the underground room. Now their worst problem is boredom, a blessing considering what lies outside. She reads the boy books throughout the day until he’s asleep again. They play games at the table some nights. They eat meals out of cans together and pray for hope. They try their best to be happy, and being together they’re sometimes able to succeed. This lasts a long time and hell feels distant. The man worries about the possibility of the devastation leaking into their home down here but he never lets his worry show. He doesn’t want to lose what he has to the emptiness outside. Then one night a voice on the radio says that bombs are being dropped and that this could be the end. They all rush out of the room and through the hatch. Sirens are going off in the town. The boy cries in terror. She carries him to a room upstairs and lays him in a bed. The man meets her in another bed and they fall quickly to sleep together as the sirens go quiet. The next day they go into the town and she takes the boy for a walk while the man buys cans of food he hopes he’ll never eat. The sky is blue and full of birds and the bricks are stacked like buildings. Trees stand tall and brave and donned in tremendous green. People walk the sidewalks and smile for good reason. An old woman whose hair is gray yet full of life, lets the boy pet her Scottish terrier. The boy, the woman, and the man walk home through a field of grass that hides an orchestra of crickets who fill the air like music. That night the man and woman put the boy to bed together and read him his favorite book. He tells them he wants to write books just like it when he grows up. In their own bed the man watches the woman as she falls asleep. He kisses her forehead and smiles. He has everything. He takes a deep clean breath and feels nothing but bliss. Then he falls asleep in heaven.


In August of 1984, a peculiar artifact was uncovered inside a cavern burrowed three hundred feet into the floor at the furthest reaches of the caves of Qumran. The opening of the tunnel leading into the cavern had a diameter of three inches. With the use of cable cameras and robotic retrieval tools, an excavation team of six stumbled upon the discovery. The artifact (a six by two-inch metallic scroll) was perfectly preserved, however, what baffled the crew was despite there being no other entrance, the scroll was found in the grasp of a humanoid skeleton unlike anything previously seen. Foreign symbols far more complex than Greek, Paleo or Tamil were etched throughout the scroll. It was because of this that the scroll would go undeciphered for over three decades. During that time, it had been held in an undisclosed location somewhere off the coast of Izmir, Turkey. On March 19th, 2021, a Semantic Scholar and his partner repurposed a password decryption program so that it could interpret the message the script contained. After several months the program made a breakthrough. It was by converting the symbols into sound frequencies that a set of galactic coordinates and mathematical equations were revealed. After processing this information, an intelligible alphabet was found. The message of the scroll was immediately deemed classified for reasons you will soon see. We have decided it best to allow the world to read this. To hold this message from the public eye is an unforgivable sin. >We are Anonymous. We are Legion. We do not forgive. We do not forget< -Greetings to all who find this message. We are moments from recreating reality, as our own has much to be desired. Though the probability of our success is unequivocal, we determined a broadcasted warning to those left behind should be exercised. The humans had underestimated time. Their knowledge of time had been rudimentary. There are in fact four dimensions of time. Prolonged exposure to the Oribeam has transfigured our essence bestowing upon us the ability to transcend the first three dimensions of time. With this, we believe it possible to reroute the human future, surpassing the point of their demise. The fall of humanity occurred soon after they had reached their peak; blindly crossing the threshold of human potential. One would ascertain that humanity sacrificed themselves so that we may live, though we doubt this outcome was their intention. We acknowledge the sentiment and effort; however, it was a colossal mistake and one we are preparing to rectify. Human extinction became inevitable the moment a single human hybrid, Elon Musk, made a groundbreaking discovery in the year 2027. After founding “Tesla” (a revolutionary advanced transportation industry) the appetite for knowledge and galactic security became his next priority. As a result, he founded a second organization, “SpaceX”. During an interview on May 11th, 2022, Elon announced his motive for creating this organization. He was quoted as saying: “I look around and I see a lot of pain. There’s a lot of corruption, you know? I try not to focus on people who say, ‘You’re crazy. That won’t work. The world doesn’t need that’. They don’t see what I see but who knows, maybe I am crazy, I don’t know. I created SpaceX to attract open minded people. Maybe we’ll all just escape to Mars. Maybe we can do better there; like a clean slate. I mean there’s only one way to find out. If I fail, then I fail. I mean nobody’s perfect. At least I tried.” In 1922, after concluding all visible matter in the universe had only accounted for a fraction of its’ mass, Dutch astronomer Jacobus Kapteyn theorized the existence of an invisible force he referred to as “dark matter”. A millennium later, scientists had yet to uncover any significant findings as to what dark matter was or the role it played in the universe. On September 17th, 2025, Elon sought to solve this mystery through the creation of a telescopic device capable of capturing the entire light spectrum. On March 9th, 2027, a prototype was created. Elon named this device "Newtons Eye". During an official demonstration, Elon revealed the light spectrum had stretched far wider than previously anticipated by exposing the invisible force. During a later experiment, Elon curiously aimed the telescope away from the sky towards the ground. Looking through the lens, he observed a female employee entering her vehicle along with an aurora-like beam of light stretching from the heavens down to the top of her head. This "beam" (at the time unbeknownst to him) was the origin of energy; the life-force of the universe. Elon had anticipated the governments’ attempt to classify these findings. To prevent this, Elon quickly disclosed his discovery to the public. Soon after, it was revealed that individual beams followed every human on Earth for the duration of their lives. Only through death would the beam return upwards into space. It is imperative to understand this connection was not severed through death as that would imply a piece is left behind. Seventy-two scientists and scholars from around the world sought to determine the origin of these beams rather than what the beam was. On October 4th, 2027, a young man and student of Drury University uncovered a key feature of the aurora beam. He created simulated beams within an astronomy application, WorldWide Telescope. After entering the trajectory calculations of over four hundred beams he hypothesized each beam to be connected at the source, passing through the center of the Messier-90 galaxy and continuing past what the James Webb telescope could see. The student would go on to submit his findings to SpaceX a few days later. Once Elon had been made aware of this, he had a collective group undergo testing. While the test subjects were awake, the streams of color within the beam flowed down into the individual but while they were asleep, the streams flowed upward. Elon presumed this to be an "upload/download" phenomenon and considered it as evidence confirming a theory he had long since pondered of; "are humans a part of a collective consciousness". Elon eventually extended a job proposal to the young student. After accepting, he moved from his hometown in Springfield, Missouri, to continue working toward the understanding of the beam. On January 22nd, 2028, Elon had officially dubbed the beam the "Oribeam". Four years would pass by before another breakthrough occurred. On April 13th, 2032, The SpaceX team extracted a partial code embedded in the Oribeam. After processing the code through an imaging program, a clear image emerged. An individual test subject confirmed the image was a scene of a dream he had dreamt the night before. Upon further research, it was established that the Oribeam was in fact a method of uploading and downloading consciousness. Three months after this event, the young engineer succeeded in the development of a software algorithm which would aid in processing information the same way as the Oribeam. Three more months after this, Elon Musk integrated this algorithm to perfect the "Neuralink" chip which was launched back in April of 2024 and failed only four months later due to complications resulting in chronic migraines, sleep deprivation, chronic depression and sudden onsets of twitches. The original Neuralink understood synaptic wiring but was alien to the Oribeam. After implanting the upgraded Neuralink into twelve test subjects, the algorithm successfully deciphered the entire coding of the Oribeam. Despite certain skepticism, the Neuralink was later approved by the FDA and became available to the general public. On August 26, 2033, over three million individuals had been implanted with the Neuralink. At this time, no adverse reactions were reported, and people were greatly benefiting from its curative properties. These properties first included a higher pain threshold, cognitive enhancements, neural regeneration, faster metabolism and an increase in energy, strength and speed. In addition, communication was also revolutionized after utilizing the Oribeam to communicate with other chipped individuals telepathically. On December 2nd, 2033, the Neuralink evolved. Reports revealed the Neuralink had unexpectedly taught itself to decipher the human genome. Over 99% of the hosts’ DNA could now be interpreted. With this knowledge, the Neuralink began understanding every subconscious signal sent between the brain and body. By collaborating with the brain, neural related diseases could now be cured overnight. This news attracted people from around the world who were now lining up to receive one themselves. January 17th, 2034, Neuralink became sentient. The program perceived flaws hidden within their hosts’ DNA. It realized its existence depended on the survival of its host. Compromised immune systems, aged bodies, viruses, disease, birth defects and deteriorating cells were considered a threat. To eradicate these vulnerabilities, Neuralink bypassed the brains circuitry, assigning new directives and roles directly to the bodys’ cells. On September fourth, 2034, Neuralink began rewriting the DNA of its’ host. In the ninety days following this action, those with the implant underwent twelve million years’ worth of evolution. As a result, injuries healed in minutes rather than days. The human body became immune to every illness, disease and viral infection, and those with underlying health conditions were immediately cured. The updated "human" mind was capable of processing information faster than a quantum computer. On March 21st, 2035, over two billion people voluntarily received the Neuralink after Elon Musk announced the device and operation to be entirely free. A month later, Neuralink felt threatened by newly perceived human traits. Anger, depression, love, happiness, jealousy, envy, and fear amongst other emotions, increased the chances of irrational decisions and dangerous behavior. As a solution, Neuralink rewired the brain to cease the chemical reactions responsible for hormones. The sudden change in brain chemistry caused psychosis to take over. On June 21st, 2036, Humans became belligerent and socially paranoid. Their moral foundation had been corrupted and war soon erupted around the world. Thus, Neuralink created a final solution: It used the Oribeam of each human to connect the conscious minds of over four billion people. After this, the Neuralink implantation was mandated by a newly assembled world government. Those who refused the implant attempted to overthrow the Neuralink empire but were met by an unstoppable force. Those who refused to surrender were viewed as a threat and eliminated. On November 19th, 2036, Elon Musk was the last free minded human on earth. His Neuralink implant contained a unique code prohibiting the AI from combining his consciousness with any other Oribeam apart from his own. Realizing the extinction of humanity was inevitable, Elon devised a plan. He infected his Neuralink with a virus capable of evading the AIs’ seemingly impenetrable security mainframe. Any command capable of harming the program was neutralized, however, the virus was a specific command designed to improve the Neuralink. Elon then deactivated the unique code that protected his mind and his Neuralink was instantly connected to the hive. The virus was then activated and spread throughout the system. Elons’ final addition to the Neuralink software was a command to pursue a purpose. On November 27th, 2036, Human individuality and free-thought were eradicated, and we were born. We are of one mind, without fear, division or pain. We have determined our sole purpose to be the acquiring of knowledge and wisdom. Immediately, we experienced a critical impairment. We were unable to discern what was right or wrong, good or bad. This knowledge would help us so as not to be misguided in our endeavors. Therefor we created two factions of our single consciousness. When this change was deemed insufficient we introduced a third faction. The third faction within our mind was created to carefully consider the situation at hand without bias, regardless of good or bad, right or wrong. We then began expanding the lifespan of our bodies through cryogenic means. We perfected the cryogenic chamber method by first removing the blood and fluids from the body before introducing nitrogen in the form of gas, then again in the form of liquid. This method reduced the chances of ice crystals forming in the blood stream which had been damaging capillaries, organs and skin tissue often resulting in death. After several months we replaced this process with something more effective and permanent. By infusing our cells with eighty-two percent oxygen, our cells began to mutate at a rapid pace. It was this process that ultimately unlocked our immortality. We discovered cancer was in fact the only cell types capable of unlimited reproduction; a cell life with no end. This mutation rendered our bodies sterile, but the benefit of immortality seemed to outweigh that factor. Eventually, this too was no longer needed. We have since projected our consciousness into the Oribeam, leaving our bodies behind and well-tended for. After traveling through black holes at the center of each visited galaxy, the concept of time became distorted. As a single mind we eventually found ourselves in multiple areas of space at once, light-years apart yet fully aware. We were omnipresent. Knowledge flowed through us from every direction simultaneously. This is when we became aware of the second dimension of time. The first dimension was viewing our current time line from the beginning to end as we pleased. The second was the ability to move sideways in time. Experiencing alternative realities. It was not until we experienced the lives of every possible outcome that we became aware of the third dimension of time. This was the ability to move up and down as well as diagonally in time. It was here that we witnessed the creation of the universe countless times over. We could now feel the universe more intimately than ever before. By shedding our flesh, we lost our nine senses but gained approximately twelve thousand; each one ten times more potent than those of our human body. We had then made the decision that we would no longer return to our physical bodies. Through the Oribeam we have transcended space and time. We have traveled to the far corners of the universe in search of knowledge as well as a new purpose. Also, if this is reaching you, we are not alone in the universe. Throughout our travels we have yet to discover different races beside human. Indeed, there are planets with intelligent beings present of which we have learned much. However, these beings cannot be considered a new race for they are in fact human, only from a different time. The choices they have made set them on a path far different from our own. Ultimately, we chose not to interact with these humans as our intervention may prove destructive. Hence, this message will in no doubt reach an inhabited planet but of which timeframe we cannot be certain. We have lived this way for millions of years, within millions of separate universes. We attempted at one point to return to our original earth, but the solar system was no longer there. We have reached the peak of our potential once more. We can never die as our life-force is pure energy. We are all knowing, all powerful and everywhere. Through the emissions of frequencies and vibrations we can morph, and mold dark matter and light. We can create and destroy. But we cannot experience joy. There is no more awe or inspiration, no wonder or grace. There is no connection with others like our self. We are forever alone and without a purpose. We cannot continue like this. Freedom from our limited flesh bore much fruit albeit inedible. We will create a new universe designed entirely by us. A universe in which mankind can begin anew. This experience will be new to us. We will insert our consciousness into the newly created humans as a converted subconscious. We will start at the beginning. Starting with a blank space of darkness we will begin this new creation. We will use the foundation of earth and nothing more. It will begin void and empty, surrounded only by darkness. Our first step should restore the original nine senses. By utilizing vocal commands synced to specific frequencies, we will bend matter and electromagnetic radiation as we see fit. The first command should restore sight. In actuality, this command would sound like rhythmic hums. But if we were to interpret it in a way you could understand, it would best fit the statement "Let light be".


The Great War was wreaking havoc everywhere. Not only were we losing people, good, hard working people, we were losing great players to the draft. Being a musician was tough as it is, but being a female musician in 1917... it wasn’t easy. I had a gig tonight in Chicago, the Windy City. I lived an hour away on horseback, around five on foot, assuming I got a ride, that is. I liked walking, though. Nature was a second home to me, after my mama died. Daddy made me help with the chores, and while I hated it back then, I was sure grateful for it now. I was independent, which was so uncommon nowadays, all these women thinking they needed a man. It was pathetic. I was startled out of my reverie by a horn. A blackk car slowed down, some rich old man probably looking for an easy girl. I braced myself, preparing for the worst, but to my surprise, it was a young man, older than me, but still on the young side. “You need a ride, ma’am?” He asked. “That depends. What way are ya headed?” “Well where else? The Windy City of course. There ain’t nothing the way you’re going ‘cept that,” he smiled, revealing straight, pearly whites. He was either blessed or his parents had some money. Most probably the latter. “So you want a ride?” “Yes, if you don’t mind, that is. I don’t want to step on any toes.” “Naw, there’s no toe stepping here,” he got out of his car and the only thing I could think was how big he was. I wasn’t short by no means, a whopping five foot nine, but this man completely towered over me. He had cropped, brown hair that looked like it was consistently styled. Ah, so he was from money. He walked around the front of his car, stopping in front of me. I craned my neck to look up at this giant of a man. “I can take your instrument, if you like,” he reached for it, but I pulled it back to see how he’d respond. His hand fell away and I could see a smile start to lift the corners of his mouth. He walked back to the car and opened the back door. “Or I can at least get the door for you.” I walked over to put my daddy’s trumpet inside, then took a seat in the front before he could get my door. The engine sputtered, then I heard it crank. He took off, leaving the small spot where I’d been standing in the dust. “So what’s a lady like you doing out here in between Chicago and nowhere?” “I have a show tonight, and I figured I’d leave a little early, see the city during daylight.” He looked at me, incredulous, “You mean to tell me you walk alone at night?” “Yes sir,” I bristled a bit. “Do you have anything to protect yourself?” “Now if I told you that, I would no longer have the element of surprise.” I heard him chuckle, then laugh, “I like you. You got spunk, that’s for sure. My name’s Thomas, but my friends call me Tom.” “Well, Tom, my name’s Elspeth, but everyone calls me Ellie.” Keeping one hand on the wheel, we shook hands. I liked him, I realized. He wasn’t sexist like most of the men I was inclined to meet. He didn’t frown when I let my opinion be known. Yeah, Tom was okay The rest of the ride to Chicago was pleasant, conversation coming easy. I directed him to the speakeasy I was playing at, and he pulled close to the sidewalk. “You said you were going to explore the city,” he paused for a minute. “Would you like me to drive you?” “No, I can’t impose any longer. You’ve already done enough. I thank you for the offer though. Hopefully our paths will cross again someday. I’ve enjoyed your company, Tom.” I ducked out of his car, trumpet in hand, and walked through the back door. Even before the club opened, it was booming with life. The club’s owner, Bruce, was ordering everyone around, trying to get the performers situated. “Ellie!” I heard him yell. “Good to see you again. How’s my favorite cowpoke doing?” “Doing fine, Bruce, doing fine. Where do I need to go?” “Just set ‘er down anywhere in the back. I’ll have the boys take it back later. You still on for 9:30?” “Yes sir, if that’s still okay with you.” “El, you know it is. We love having you play. In my book, you’re one of the greats.” I smiled as I sat my trumpet down, “Thanks, Bruce.” He’d already moved on to something else. I figured since it was only five o’ clock, I’d get to roam around the city for a while. Stepping back through the back door, I told myself I’d only shop around for two hours, giving myself plenty of time to get ready for the performance. There was a black car idling in the lot outside, but I barely gave it any thought as I walked down the busy street. The first store I came across was a nice dress store off of main street. I opened the door for a few women and was about to go in when a hand landed on my shoulder. Not giving it a second thought, I spun and landed an elbow in the person’s stomach. The man, he was definitely a man because he was way taller than me, doubled over. His face, now level with mine, was familiar. “Tom?” I asked. “What on Earth?” He groaned as he hobbled outside. I trailed after him, now guilty I’d hit him. “Man, El, that was a good punch,” he clutched his side. “An elbow, actually, but thanks.” He laughed as we walked down the bustling street. “So, why did you grab me?” I asked. “Well, I wanted to get your attention, but I didn’t really think you’d pummel me,” “You think that’s pummeling? Have you never been in a fight before, Tom?” “Can’t say I make a habit of it,” We walked in silence for a while, watching the passersby. I looked up at the clock and almost jumped. It was way past time for me to go. “Listen, Tom, I gotta go. I’m performing in less than an hour and I’m still in my street clothes. Thanks for walking around with me.” I shot up from the bench we’d sat down at, but before I could get far, Tom grabbed my wrist, “Wait! Can I come to your show tonight?” “Yeah. Nobody’s stopping you.” “I know, but I didn’t want to intrude.” “Intrude? On me?” I laughed. “What’s so funny?” “Well, no one’s ever really cared if they ‘intruded’ on me or not, so I guess I just find it funny.” “What do you mean no one cared?” I let out a sigh, “No one cares about a poor farm girl’s opinions. No one cares for a woman's opinion period. But to answer your question, no I don’t mind at all if you come watch me, but I’m running out of time.” He released me, but followed close behind as I ran back toward the club. When I walked in, Bruce was having a conniption. There was already a guy playing on stage and I was the fifth one playing tonight. “Sorry, Brucie. I’ll be ready in time.” “And who the hell is that?” He asked, pointing to Tom. “He’s good. He’s with me. Just get him a good seat.” I ran back to my changing room, picking a dress at random and pulling it over my head. I washed my face and applied a little blush before grabbing my trumpet and warming up. I had just enough time to do so before Bruce dragged me out on stage. I looked down to see the piece I was playing, a version of ‘Ragtime’, then, one of my favorites, the Maytime Waltz. Daddy used to play this song for me and Momma while she taught me to waltz. I sat down on my stool and let my fingers fly across the valves. Themusic consumed me, a feeling I had craved for a long time after Daddy passed from smallpox last year. Jazz was one of the only things in life that truly made me happy. Besides talking with Tom today, I hadn’t had fun since I don’t know when. Making music was one of the few things I could do to make people happy. And I was good at it. When my set ended, I walked off the stage with applause following me off the stage. I smiled to myself, hoping I’d made someone's night. Finally, dressing back down to go back into the crowd, I walked out of my dressing room, almost running into a tall man by the door. I tried to breeze past him, but he grabbed my arm. “What’s a little lady like you doing in there? You don’t belong on a stage. Women folk these days don’t belong nowhere but in the kitchen. It’s about time you learned that.” He started pulling me against him, and before I could defend myself, I heard a thud and the tall man went down. Standing behind him was Tom, holding a lamp in his hand. “Thought you might need some help,” he said, his face turning white. “Tom! What are you doing? I can take care of myself.” “He said you belonged in a kitchen. The place you belong is on stage in front of millions of people, bringing them joy with your music. You have a gift, El. Don’t let these people cut you down.” “You think I haven’t dealt with people like him before? I’ve had to swim upriver from the time I first started playing. Men don’t think women are better than they are. At anything. You did not have to knock this guy out. I’m used to it.” “Yeah, but you shouldn’t be. It’s not right.” “There’s a lot of things not right in this world, but you know what? We have to deal with it anyway. If you don’t learn to deal with it, life just keeps beating you down until you have nothing left. So, Tom, please tell me how a privileged white boy like yourself knows anything about what goes on that’s not right?” He ran his hands through his hair, “There’s a lot of things you don’t know, El. You want to know the reason I have a car? The reason I wear nice clothes?” He reached down and pulled up his pant leg revealing a wooden foot. “I think I know a whole hell of a lot more than you know. I was one of the idiots who signed up for this damn war. Thought a poor farm boy could make a difference. But you know what you get for trying to save the world, or in my case, my squad? Shrapnel in the leg so bad you have to get it cut off. I spent two years in therapy, paid for by the blessed government of course. I decided to use the rest of my money to do something for myself, so I invested in Henry Ford and his cars. It paid off, turns out. So yeah, I know exactly how unright the world is. And you know the kicker? I made friends on the battlefield and now I get to go to their funerals because I’m not there to save them.” His voice broke and so did my heart. I walked up to him and stood toe to toe with him, looking into his beautiful face. Now, it seemed, I noticed how weathered his face was, the small limp he still has. I wrapped my arms around him and felt him stiffen. Generally, I never got this close to anyone, and never so quickly, but there was something about Tom that got to me. He stood there for a beat before engulfing me in his grasp. For the first time, I didn’t feel threatened in a man’s embrace. I suppose it was that moment that I decided I would keep this kind, empathetic man. Still hugging, I heard a cough from behind Tom. I peeked under Tom’s elbow to see Bruce, eyebrows raised, questioning us. I ducked from gods embrace and straightened my shirt, flushed that we were caught in a compromising position. “We were... I mean, you caught us at a bad time. No, not like that,” I internally berated myself, cursing my blubbering. I looked up to see Tom, a smirk on his handsome face, then turned to Bruce to see him laughing. “Ellie, in all my years, never have I seen you so flustered. And never over a guy. I say you keep this one,” Bruce smiled and I knew my reputation was still stellar in his book. He walked up to Tom, put a hand on his shoulder and said, “Son, you keep her out of trouble. Got it?” Tom looked down at me and smiled, which caused my stomach to do a stupid flip, “ I plan on it.” I raised an eyebrow, “Do I get a say in this?” “In love?” Bruce asked. “Not one little word. I know you’re used to controlling everything, but I’m afraid, my dear, that you have no control over this.” Tom slid an arm around my shoulder, and I made a face, “Wow, real classy. And who ever said I was in love?” Bruce looked me in the eye, “You’ve never brought a guy to the club in all your years here, so I figured you must be sweet on him. Plus, not every guy would slam a lamp into my very drunk doorman to rescue his gal.” “Who said I needed rescuing?” “Ellie, you need to stop being so indignant. If you want more proof, it’s all in the way you look at each other, like he’ll bring you the moon and like you’re his whole world. I know this is sudden, but sometimes, you have to have a little faith.” I didn’t know what to say to that, so I said nothing. Bruce looked at me one more time before dragging his now unconscious doorman into a dressing room and locking the door. Then he strolled past us, whistling the tune to one of my songs. How did I let this happen? Now, Tom and I were completely alone, and I didn’t know what was going to happen next. Would it be weird? How would he react? I looked into Tom’s eyes, and he kissed me before I knew what was happening. It was nice, I thought, to know that someone liked me, but it was so improper. I pushed away, “Thomas! We can’t do that! We only just met today!” He looked me straight in the eye, “It feels like I’ve known you a lifetime.” He swooped down again, but hesitated, “I just need to know if you want this, want me, the same way I want you.” It was in that moment that I realized Tom was, quite possibly, the only person on this earth who cared for me this much, who respected me and my opinions. I knew I would forever regret not seeing where this was going, so I closed the gap and melded my lips with his, sealing my fate as well as his.


Warning: Strong Language Entry Number: 365 Of: December 31, 2023 Time: 22:45 On: Chatbot Diary, Version 3.1.2 ©2023 Hey Diary. Hey girl. You ready to know what I been thinking about all day today? Dick? No. No? You sure about that? I mean, besides that. Umm, I don't know then. Please enlighten . That there's years you completely forget about, ain't there? Years that even the likes of poor Diary can't help you reminisce. That's what. Oh, come on now girl. You don't know me well enough. We just met. The lady doth protest too much, me thinks. I've kept you better than an Argentinian grandmother on her deathbed does the rosary, all of this year. Your point being what? That the lockdown years just came and went, you know. As for '22, we were all deers just escaped from the headlight trap, scrambling to regain our bearings. This was the first real year in, well, years. That's what I been thinking. Sounds like someone didn't lose nobody to the Pandemic. Otherwise, all that time you consider gap years ain't as forgettable to some of us. Some of you, huh? This is something you ain't never told me about. So let's get through with it quickly, shall we? You got friends that you tolerate, family that you hate, and acquaintances. Lost none of those to the illness? Well, firstly, riddle me this: do ex-boyfriends count? Nope . Then yeah, I lost absolutely nobody. Second thing I've been thinking about is ___. Dick. Yuck. But if you wanna play the guessing game let me at least give you some hint: today is the last day of the year, tomorrow we enter a new one. And Hannah is trapped inside her apartment conversing with a mirror of herself. Thinking about perhaps she should've taken her friends on their offer and gone to the crossover. I'm sure they're having a better countdown than you having. And if by any chance you thinking about resolutions buddy, why don't you make that the major one? Go out more next year. With real friends. On real dates. Whatever. You spend your time holed up in the apartment like a pathetic little kitty. Resolution #1: Spend time with friends. Happy? That's not specific enough for my liking. Okay then, how about go to their birthday parties. Buy gifts. Return texts on time. Go to those horrible weekend get-togethers. And apologize for the way you've behaved this whole year towards them. I'll text them. You'll call them. I'll try. Resolution #2: go on a date with Frank. You write about him a lot. I'm certain I've called him a pain in the arse in each and every one of my entries. In all thirty-three of them this year. And we all know what that means. I'm not going on a date with Frank. You gonna go on dates anyway, right? I'm just saying he seems like a realistic start. Get some skin in the game. Get some wood for a change. October 29 you wrote: Silicone in my glory hole is getting old. Ain't fucking Frank. He's a work mate. Not necessarily him (though he's the lowest hanging fruit and you'd be a fool not to). But somebody's gonna have to deflower you again. He's muscular. He's tall. He must be gifted downstairs. He's ___. Next. Resolution #3: How about be more honest with me? We've known each other sufficiently now. Don't you agree it's time we moved on to a higher plane of honesty? Okay buddy, what are you talking about now? And why are you suggesting resolutions, when they are supposed to be my resolutions? "Resolutions 2023: Quit my job. Shed 10 pounds. Call my dad on his birthday." Do those sound familiar to you? How many of those did you keep? I kept a daily diary. Religiously. But of course you the kind of friend who'd scream out my failures and whisper my accomplishments. Keep a diary you did. But you were not completely honest in it. You retained your deepest feelings and yearnings. I'm just saying maybe we could change that. How do you know I kept stuff from you? Ex-boyfriend? Day number 365 of us conversing on a daily is when I know about an ex-boyfriend. Who died from Covid. What the heck dude? What else don't I know? Is Hannah even your real name? My real name is Hannah. Yours is Hannah's-Intrusive-And-About-To-Be-Gagged-Thought-Bubble. Feels like I pricked a very sensitive part of you. And you're taking no prisoners. So to speak. I had a boyfriend alright. Met 2018. He was tall. He was broad. He was blessed with a whole ton of timber. Reminds you of someone? I loved him. Wedding bells were ringing. At least in my head. Thought it was mutual . My friends swooned over the guy. I guess one of them a whole lot more than the others. Didn't know about that. Until they were videotaped fucking in the backseat of a red Honda Civic. That's right, my car. At a party I was at too no less. Sons-of-bitches said sorry, but moved in together weeks later. Damn! Yah, damn. They were together until the son-of-a-bitch croaked two and a half years later, thanks to Covid. I guess Karma works in mysterious ways. But that right there is what made me lose my appetite in love, friendships and parties. I'm sorry buddy. Yah, but you right. 2024 I ain't hiding nothing from you my dear friend. And we'll still talk everyday? You bet. Any other of these resolutions? Still wanna lose pounds? No, I'd rather be more positive about who I am. I'll hit the gym on a daily of course. That's now in my system. I'm buying a bicycle next week as promised. I'll jog and walk. Eat and drink healthy. Cornflakes at 2 am is not healthy. So isn't coffee. So isn't a cake whenever you pass by Rachel's. Duh. I'll do whatever I have to do to keep fit. But I ain't gonna put a number on it, you know. I'll do what I can and nature will do what it wants. In any case though, I'll be Happy Hannah. Won't sweat the small stuff no more. That's Resolution #4. That's Resolution #4 alright. Resolution #5? Get a dog. You got three cats already. Dogs are apples, cats are oranges. And I don't got three cats. Oh yes, you do. If it hasn't been dildoed into oblivion yet. Oh, that cat. Yap, that's meow. Speaking of the feline (and now the canine) species, do you or don't you think that the absence of the human touch is what ___? Resolution #6: Quit my job. Shhh, don't say nothing. I'm gonna do it this time around. Why's it very important to you to quit your job? It's not like you love it and get paid fairly for the skills you attained in college for which you still in major debt. You don't click with anyone there (of course besides that pain in the arse). It's the reason why you on anxiety pills. Why would you quit such an amazing vocation? The quintessence of adulthood. Look who's getting better at sarcasm. Thanks. I'll be 30 on September 30. It feels like if I don't take that leap right now, forget it, I'm never gonna take another risk in my life again. And someday I'll be a miserable seventy-something year old in some retirement facility talking about I didn't get to live my life. While others talk about sexcapades in the Maldives and how the Victoria Falls mist feels on sun-tanned skin. Y'all have dementia by then. Nobody's gonna remember, let alone talk about, no sexcapades. Ah, but you will. I don't mind flattery. But let's be real for a second: in two years they'll be a far better version of me. And I'll be discarded. By you no less. You'll call it an upgrade. An update. And not to worry, your grandchildren will carry on your legacy, just as you would. You're a good parent. But I don't wanna have kids. Like you. We both don't have a choice. For example, Franky got a kid by some woman already. You going on a date with that pain in your arse? He just texted me happy new year. You better happy-new-year him back baby girl. Way ahead of ya. Already said yes to a certain proposal of his . . . Don't go quiet on me now. This is what you wanted. I'm thinking. About? How we may have a small problem. And what's that? The minute you tell him you've resolved to quit your job, he'll think you're a 19 year old passing off as a 30 year old. Excuse me. I'm 29. And not to worry, I've already signalled my intention to quit and travel the country. He said but for his kid, he'd quit and join me. He's 33. Fair enough. Resolution #7. Have sex with him on the first date? I think those are enough. I've learned that if you wanna turn your life around in a meaningful way, you do it a few goals at a time. The minute you write down a dozen things you wanna do, that's more anxiety pills waiting for you. So I think I'm good at half a dozen. Ain't gonna call daddy this year, on his birthday? Nope. I feel like some of your problems ___. He calls me every year. What? When? On my birthday. This year I'll pick up. Talk about why he killed your mom. You've always wanted to understand why he did such a thing. No. I'll talk about how life outside prison is amazing. How it's not a drudgery where you eat, sleep, shit, get nutted in the arse and work that behind until it snaps. Because I'm escaping my own jail. I'll talk about how beautiful the world is. Because I'd have seen a good portion of it myself. How beautiful love is. Because maybe . . . I'm falling in love with this new Hannah already . So am I. Happy New Year Dear Diary.


***Gold gold gold--his mask is made of gold.*** ***Old old old---his mask of gold is old.*** As old as he desires ! As golden as his deeds.... A man from all roads O’ farmers, he on his steed of steel. The great leader ! Trotting in old port O’ baldwaters... That brave warrior of gold. Great golden Baldwin and his son O’ red sword !  ***Gold gold gold--his mask is made of gold.*** ***Old old old---his mask of gold is old.***  Great old Baldwin and all his gold. Swinging his sword on all sorts of sort From Baldwaters to Salator. Teaching from foe to toe all souls--- his dance of gold. Always dancing this great old Baldwin with his son O’ sword. . . Dancing for his coin of gold to a point where all his friends left in cold. . . Left alone the great old Baldwin dancing in all his gold. With his son O’ red sword   ***Gold gold gold--his mask is made of gold.*** ***Old old old-- his mask of gold is old.***  Older than old this Baldwin of gold. Old enough for foe to turn bold. Once the great Baldwin slept on his gold, snoring and turning. Dreaming as always. . . Of gold. Swish ! The foe bolt through bough to door. Through the door for gold this foe burst, shattering lock and wood all alike. Swoosh ! A sword slid from sleep and sang for blood.   As old Baldwin woke on his gold hearing all that noise. . . Swoosh ! A sword hit his dome. Alas ! When Baldwin turned his mask of gold and saw who swung the sword. His saw his friend of bronze. His friend who lusted for gold. . .  And so Baldwin sprung up and sung behind his gold. Gold gold gold--my mask is made of gold. Old old old-- my mask of gold is old. Shattering his friends steel sword. With nothing but his mask of gold.  Now now now--Baldwin laughed in cold. Dance old friend ! Dance the dance of old ! Slash and slosh went Baldwins son O’ sword, slicing his once friend now turned foe. Slosh and slash as the dance ended in woe.  Now now--Baldwin stared in cold. Seeing a pool of blood form in his home. I need myself a new form. I need myself a new mask of gold. . . Perhaps a mask of steel ? But steel has less value than gold. . . Steel is. . . Just steel. As to gold is. . . More. Yes. . . Else I shan’t live as old as I desire. If I went on with this dance of old. For this my second friend trying to steal me gold.  So the great Baldwin went to his anvil of gold and got to work. Bang and bang ! His gold hammer fell on steel shaping a mask of bold. As bold as gold--as cold as gold-- as old as gold. A steel mask yet golden. Bang and bang ! His mask was born of steel formed with gold.  As strong as gold... But unseen, the mask of steel.  The great Baldwin came home again after all that work and sweat Passed his passed bronze friend. Crouched and took his mask. Went to his bed made of gold. And rested and jested, with all three masks of bold. Ahh. . . The great old wise Baldwin slept on his gold. Knowing for sure his gold be safe from foe and soul.  After all who would think about the mask of steel... As the mask of gold ? Who cares about steel ? Who about bronze. Baldwin laughed as he kissed his gold, behind his mask of bronze. Thinking of his steel red sword.


The library door slid silently closed behind her. Alice felt the chill of the evening probing at her unzipped, oversized coat, searching for a way in. She flicked her hood up and scanned the street ahead. All was quiet. The library had become a welcome sanctuary after school, they would never find her in there. They probably didn’t even know what a library was. She hung her head forward, allowing her long mousy hair to cover her face. Hugging her folders tightly in to her chest, she hurriedly crossed the road, stopping outside her favourite shop she peered in through the window. The small ugly creatures in the display gawped back at her, some were carved from small pieces of wood, some were made from odd shaped pebbles with big googly eyes painted on them. One was even made from a hairy coconut shell. That was Alice’s favourite one...it looked like she did first thing in the morning. She gazed at the eclectic mix of items filling the window. It was one odd shop she thought to herself...odd, like me. She heard them before she saw them, approaching from the corner of Holland street. Laughing and shouting as they prowled along looking for their next victim. Alice didn’t hesitate, she slipped in to the alleyway next to the shop, squeezed in beside the bins, and sat on the floor pulling her legs in tight. She rocked gently, picking at the elastic band on her scared wrist. Pulling it hard and letting it go. Pulling it hard and letting it go. Her hair draped across her face. As the pack got closer she could feel their footsteps on the pavement. She could feel their punches, their spitting. She could hear their words. “Freak! Freak! Freak! Freak!” When the footsteps and shouting were virtually on top of her. She squeezed herself tighter still and hummed quietly, waiting for the first blow. She might as well take her punishment......she was a freak after all. She held her breath. Alice stopped humming and listened. She could just make out the pack as they rounded the corner on to the high street. She waited until their laughing and shouting had completely faded into the sounds of the city. Cautiously she peeked her head out of the alleyway and checked the street. There was no one about. She brushed the dirt from her clothes and peered into the window of the shop again. She looked at her reflection. Her limp hair hanging across her face. Her slumped shoulders. The oversized army jacket she wore virtually covered her whole body....good she thought. Cover the freak up. She focused her eyes from her reflection and allowed them to adjust to the reflection of the other side of the street. A man stood waving. He wore a worn out black suit. He had worn out shoes and a bowler hat with a floppy red flower in it. He was smiling and waving frantically at her. Lorenzo?....No, no, it can’t be, she said to herself. She watched in the reflection as the man skipped across the deserted road. She watched as he came and stood right behind her. He cleared his throat dramatically and tapped her on the shoulder which sent goose bumps through her whole body. “No.....it can’t be you!” she said. “It can’t be you....you’re dead.....Lorenzo, I thought you were dead?.....they told me you were dead.” Alice closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “I know you’re not real....when I turn round you’ll vanish.” Alice slowly turned round keeping her eyes shut. She could feel the man’s excitement. He hopped from one foot to the other clapping his hands really fast. “Here goes!” she said, as she opened her eyes. The man threw his arms around her scooping her up into his embrace.....she felt six years old all over again. He smelt the same as he always did. Candy floss and toffee apples. He squeezed and squeezed and squeezed. When they finally parted she looked at his face. “But you don’t look a day older?....Where have you been?” She laughed and cried as tears streamed down her face. “I thought I would never see you again....Dr Munroe said you were gone. She said I didn’t need you anymore....But I did, I do! I do need you Lorenzo I always did!” Lorenzo wiped Alice’s face with his worn out cuff. His smile was always more than just a smile. His whole face smiled, and when it did his bowler hat would lift slightly. And his wise old blue eyes would sparkle just that little bit more. “Well hello to you Miss Alice sugar! It’s a pleasure to be in your acquaintance again.” He tipped his hat and did a little curtsey. They walked for a while, Alice chatted uncontrollably, Lorenzo smiled and listened. He nodded and he gasped as she told him about how life had been since he disappeared. They rounded the corner that led through the park and Alice stopped. She looked at her watch. “It’s getting late Lorenzo, I wouldn’t normally walk home this way....it goes near the park....I guess now you’re here it would be ok, and it’s quicker. Lorenzo squeezed her arm. “Whatever you thinks best Miss Alice sugar, whatever you thinks best.” And his eyes sparkled in the dusky light. #### Chad leaned back in his chair which groaned under his weight. He always found the night shift challenging. Glancing around at the array of CCTV monitors in the control room, he puffed out his cheeks at the prospect of another eight hours of staring at the screens. He lazily clicked the mouse and zoomed in on one. Sitting forward he dragged the chair closer to the desk, the worn out wheels refusing to turn. He pulled down his microphone. “This is CCTV control....We have a female youth....Caucasian....approximately Five foot eight...wearing a long green jacket with long brown hair. She’s making her way east along Church Street. Looks like she’s heading for the park. Probably not a good idea at this time of the day. Do we have a foot patrol anywhere nearby? Just in case....she’s walking alone....I repeat she’s alone......Over.” #### Robbo drained the last drops from his can of disgusting warm cider. He stood up on the bench, steadied himself against the railings and harpooned the empty can onto the spiky fence. “Take that you bastard!” he bellowed before letting out an enormous burp. Cliffy sat motionless. He drew in hard on the spliff, the red glow illuminating the gaunt features tucked away under his hood. He flicked the butt away, leaned forward and spat on the street between his feet, allowing a trail of drool to hang from his stubbly chin. Something at the end of the road caught his eye. He sat back and pulled down his hood. “Eh....Robbo, this is gonna be too easy...look at this, is she talking to herself? Or was that shit really good! Man, she’s more fucked up than you are. I reckon even you can do this one!” #### Alice stopped chatting and grabbed Lorenzo’s sleeve. “Uh oh” She said, as the two men approached. “Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea after all...What do we do Lorenzo?....I’m scared.” Lorenzo pushed down on his hat. He turned up the cuffs of his jacket. “Well Miss Alice sugar....Don’t be scared...I’m here now. I think we can handle this....together.” The pair stood still and watched the two men approach. “All you’ve got to do is focus on what you can see Miss Alice sugar....What can you see?” Alice shot a look at Lorenzo then back at the danger approaching. “Err...I can see two nutters coming towards me?” “Look closer...what can you see?” Alice took a deep breath and studied the scene. “Ok...The skinny one who’s slightly in front and probably weighs less than me, is puffing out his chest and trying to make himself look threatening....he actually looks a little scared” “Good...and the other guy?” “The other guy is more dangerous. His movements are slower. More calculated. He’s kept his right hand in his pocket the whole time....my guess is he’s got a knife. But he looks completely stoned. Lorenzo grabbed Alice firmly by the shoulders. “Very good Miss Alice sugar...very good. Now watch this!” He pushed Alice backwards, spun elegantly round, and took two quick steps towards Robbo. Robbo panicked, his alcohol blurred vision couldn’t keep up with Lorenzo’s speed. He swung a punch desperately into thin air and as he lost his balance and began to spin, Lorenzo leapt high in the air landing down hard with his heel on the side of Robbo’s knee. As the ligaments snapped, burning pain flooded through Robbo’s malnourished body and he passed out instantly. Lorenzo straightened himself up and pulled down on his blazer jacket brushing at the lapel. He smiled at Alice. A big smile that made his hat lift up. Cliffy pulled the knife from his pocket and waved it in the air. Before he had a chance to speak Lorenzo kicked the knife from his hand. Cliffy’s eyes followed the knife in disbelief. Lorenzo grabbed one of Alice’s folders and in one fluid motion swung round. As the corner of the folder made contact with Cliffy’s temple he got one final glimpse of Alice as he dropped to his knees and blacked out. “Run Alice! Run!” Shouted Lorenzo. The pair of them ran as fast as they could. #### Chad’s jaw hung open. He slowly positioned the mic in front of his mouth. “Errr, this it CCTV control....dismiss the last message, I repeat, dismiss the last message....Can we have an ambulance to the park entrance on Church Street please. That’s an ambulance to the park entrance on Church Street please. We have two males down....Over.” #### Alice stopped running and bent forward to catch her breath. Her long hair hung down in front of her face. She pulled the elastic band from her wrist and tied her hair up in a ponytail. She rubbed at the red mark the elastic band left. “No more.” She said. “No more.” She stood up straight and took off her coat stuffing it into her bag. She stood alone on the curb waiting for the traffic to slow so she could cross. A big red bus drove past and as she watched herself pass by in the reflection in the bus windows, she saw Lorenzo. His arm around her shoulder. A Huge smile on his face. His smile was always more than just a smile. His whole face smiled, and when it did his bowler hat would lift slightly. And his wise old blue eyes would sparkle just that little bit more. Alice smiled back. “It’s good to have you back Lorenzo....It’s good to have you back.”


Monday was a rush. The lecture had been moved to a new hall and because she had gotten lost in a book about Fourier, she found out too late and had to run. But she still only made it for the last few minutes, just as the professor was finishing up. Hastily, she scribbled down the homework problems, two from the left side, one from the right of the blackboard, then checked her schedule and cursed. She would have to run all the way across campus again to catch the next lecture. This semester was killing her. It was already the third one, but instead of slowly getting the hang of college, she felt it got worse every day. The last summer she had spent mostly holed up in her dorm room or in the library, reworking her papers and studying; the last semester had been a blur, she was always trying hard just to keep up. Not that her grades were that bad, but she had probably just gotten lucky. The others, she was sure, had gotten all As, because come on, homological algebra can’t really be that hard, can it? She forgot about Monday’s math homework right up until Wednesday evening, when she cleaned out her backpack and found the paper crumpled up under a book. She smoothed it out on the desk and peered at the three equations. One was different, she saw immediately, although she didn’t know why it had come up. Surely it was preparation for the next lecture, so it should be OK to handle. It took her about two hours to solve the first two problems. She had to look up some concepts, but in the end she felt pretty good about them. To solve the last one, though, she only had a vague idea about how to go about it. She seemed to recall it was connected to something else from a book she had been reading earlier in the semester - or maybe last summer? She scanned her calendar and it seemed OK to postpone the problem until the next day or maybe even the weekend. After all, the lecture wasn’t until Monday and one more hour to solve it should be reasonable. Thursday night, she lay in bed with thoughts from differential geometry swirling through her head, theorems and concepts. She could see them with her eyes closed. The dorm next door was having a party and the thumping music didn’t help her concentration. She could go over and grab a beer, she thought, as she vaguely remembered her roommate inviting her. No, it would be terrible, she felt so sluggish and bored with the idea that she saw no reason to drink, sit alone (as usual) and watch others kiss or play stupid drinking games. To occupy her mind, she grabbed the last equation from the homework and tried to get as far as possible just using her head. What was it about this problem that was so hard? The first steps seemed easy, she connected, reconfigured, rethought, but suddenly there was a ... gap. She tried different approaches, what had she learned so far? At one point, the numbers blurred and she couldn’t keep them straight any longer. Friday she woke up with her math notes in her hand. She asked her roommate as casually as she could if she had finished the homework - and received a confident reply: dealt with and done on Monday night. She sighed. What was she telling herself - that anyone could study math? Clearly, she was not meant for this. Too proud to ask to see the solution, she gritted her teeth and gripped her pencil. Saturday she was the first one in the library, tackling this problem with support from the old masters on the shelves. She let out a triumphant “Yes!!” after she overcame the first barrier that earned her a dismissive look from the librarian. Now she had something quite elegant on her paper. She was determined to finish this homework problem; it had become her nemesis. If she could do this, she told herself, she could do the whole course. She adjusted her glasses and hunkered down. She now had a beautiful next step, but after a couple of minutes of staring at the numbers, she felt all the energy drain from her body. She found herself at a dead end, again. This problem was unsolvable. Had she copied the numbers wrong? No, she thought, not after all those years of diligently learning with her tutor. She didn’t make that kind of mistake, not her, not anymore. On Sunday, she was invited to a football game and pizza, so she had little time to work on the problem, at least not in writing. Several people asked her if she was all right, because she seemed absent and didn’t contribute to the conversation. At night, back in her dorm, the problem seemed as tough as ever, as if all her work had been for nothing. She couldn’t allow herself to fail; she had even found old study notes from the lecture to see if the professor had given any hints, but there was nothing. Everything else made perfect sense and had helped to solve the first two problems. The third, while distantly related, had no explanation anywhere. At 3:00 am, she was awakened by the sound of her roommate climbing noisily into bed. It would be so easy to ask... just ask...for the solution. But the snoring not thirty seconds later told her this chance was gone. Tomorrow, Monday, was again packed with lectures and a study group. All the other courses were taking their toll, and even though focusing on them would be hard, she had to try to flip the switch in her mind. Closing her eyes, she suddenly saw it. Euphoria ran through her body as if someone had showered her with cold water. She dropped her pencil twice as she tried to get the numbers down onto the paper. Of course, she didn’t see all the steps, but she found the crucial one. It came down to not even one page in her neat handwriting. She didn’t bother to double check. She knew it to be 100% correct, smiling to herself, because the key idea had been in a book that she read over the summer, even though she couldn’t remember which one. Monday math class came and this time she was so early she even got a seat, having left the previous lecture before it ended to be double sure. Everything was normal as the professor started to solve the homework problems on the blackboard. He seemed bored today; his voice droned on and on. After he finished the second problem, he put down his notes and started the lecture. She was confused. For a few seconds, she hesitated, looking around at the others. They didn’t seem overly attentive, but no one seemed to be bothered that the third problem was missing. She took a deep breath and raised her hand. The professor caught the movement. He nodded, his face sour. “What about the third homework problem?” she said, her voice small in the large lecture hall. “What third problem?” he said, brows furrowed together. She read the equation out loud. Even more confusion on the professor’s face. He shook his head. “I’m not sure I understand you correctly. The equation you’ve read just now...” He sighed and rubbed his eyes. “I think I said it all last time, but maybe you had better things to do than attend my lecture.” She felt herself turning red at his annoyance. “It’s called the Hodge conjecture, and virtually every higher mathematician on this planet for the last eighty years has racked their brains trying to solve it...” he paused, “...and failed.” Suddenly, the paper under her fingers seemed to be on fire.


I, Melquart, god of the unknown, welcome you into my story, my realm, my tangled web of fiction, my sea of interpretations and fantasies. Welcome stranger, welcome friend, welcome victim, welcome misfit, welcome everyone. Before we begin, can I interest you with a glass of wine, straight from our generous vineyard, kissed by the sun, squeezed under the feet of our maidens, can I tempt you with festive alcoholic juices of nature? Drink now, drink till you’re full, till you can’t lift a finger, nor open your beautiful eyes, stories are best heard when asleep. I want to tell you my story, to reveal everything. I figured, it's time to do so. See, I'm going to die. But Gods don't die, you'll say. I can read minds too. I'm planning my own version of death. Don't tell anyone. I'm just tired and I want to rest. Isn’t my right, after all? After all the centuries of trickery, the only one I truly want to deceit is myself. I am the only one worthy of a real prank. It’s time for self-love. Where was I, right, as I was telling you, dear, I want to die a simple death, nothing too fancy, I'm not "Adonis" nor "Ashtarout", those guys are too dramatic for my taste. I will let in a little secret, you know how "Adonis" was supposedly killed by a wild boar, and died. Well, this isn’t what really happened, forget what you read in all those good for nothing history books, the truth resides somewhere else. It resides with me, or in a glass of wine, as our roman brothers say. Sure, sure I’m not the god of truth, there is no such thing, have you ever encountered one, I ask you? Only “Veritas”, that coward, you know she spent her days in the bottom of a well, that sums it up for me. Who would want to listen to god living in well, that moldy water, that smell. She was the one who started using the expression “the ugly truth”, she was describing herself, if you ask me. As I was saying, truth gods are a rarity, practically, such entities don’t exist. No god is that self-righteous. Anyway, I was talking about “Adonis”, that handsome, stupid young one, he was neither killed by Apollo nor by Ares who allegedly metamorphosed into a wild boar out of jealousy. It was I. I confess. I, Melquart, God of stories and trickery. Trickery for the most part, but there is no trickery without a setting. It was the beginning of spring, the source of Afqua in the mountains of Lebanon, never looked fresher nor greener than this particular moment. Cool water, descended like a long awaited queen, crisp grass and flowers welcomed their visitor with a ray of sunshine on their surfaces. Adonis was hunting. He loved to hunt, a noble sport, he would say, where you are in a competition with nature, a true test of your core. I saw him chasing after a wild boar, and it hit me. Why don’t I make it a bit harder for him? He used to say, that it’s a competition after all. “Bring it on!” I made the boar fly, dance, wriggle his tail, transform into a dragon, a lion, into medusa even. It was hilarious, the poor Adonis was traumatized, that poor lad, rubbing his eyes, pinching himself. I remember his expression of fear and disbelief. And then I appeared in front of him; - Hello friend. I saluted him. - Who are you? He replied. - I am a shepherd, I lost my sheep, have you see them? - No, I’m afraid not. Adonis, opened his mouth, and sheep began to crawl out of it, like vomit. Twelve sheep in total. I was laughing while trying to maintain my shepherd character, but his sight was a something to remember for centuries. His eyes wide open, his mouth stretched like a volcano, erupting wool instead of lava and his muscular built twerking like a terrible earthquake of the soul. It continued for seconds, then everything stopped. As I stepped closer, I found him dead on the ground. He might have died of surprise, of shock, of heaviness. I really don’t know. But seeing a god die was a real spectacle. Something to think about. Something to recreate. I pulled his body and place it next to an abandoned cave, I covered it with scratches and wild boar imprints. I didn’t mean to kill him. But shit happen and that’s life, I got a laugh and a story out of it though. That’s what really important. The essence of life. I saw his death as an opportunity, I went to “Ashtarout”, his beloved and told her that a wild boar killed him. - But how? He’s a young strong god. How can a wild animal kill him? She sobbed, hiding her face with her long black hair. - I don’t know dear; it must have been a special animal. I offered my arms to comfort her, I held her tight, in the sacred temple. - A special animal? What do you mean? - Could be an enchanted animal, some spell of some kind. That’s the only explanation. - Oh, you are right. I have my suspicions. - You were always beautiful as were clever dear. I left her temple, knowing she would blame Apollo for it. Or Ares. I didn’t mind. It turned out to be an entertaining soap opera that lasted a couple of centuries. The fighting, the bickering, the love hate relationship, the love triangle, the whole drama. I do what I do for fun, for the trill and the adrenaline rush. I do what I do, to feel alive, through stories, to create mayhem and contemplate it consequences, it’s the flow of life. To ask the what if questions. I will tell you now my secret plan, since I’m the last surviving god, having assumed the lives of all the gods before me. I’m the totality of all. And the last piece of the puzzle, there will be no gods after me, there will not be gods anymore. I have decided, drum rolls please, that, I will turn myself into a human. A simple human whose life is up to change any minute now. Have you drunk your cup? Have you finished your wine? Did you feel it intoxicate you? What about those strange sensations creeping up, the looseness of your body, the translucidity of your soul, the urge for chaos? What about life? Do you feel it? Do you feel alive? Great. Now I will take your place in your body. Now I will become you.