“I quit!” Looking up from the book I was reading my eyebrows shot up in surprise as a spiral notebook went flying across the living room. I traced its flight path back to the den where Jason stood glaring in the open doorway. “What happened, babe? Writer’s block again?” “More like brain constipation because nothing is coming out, not even word shit,” he stormed into the living room and did a belly flop on the couch. “I’ve been sitting at that desk for 3 hours Chris, trying to squeeze something out but my brain refuses to form words. I can’t do it.” “Maybe you’re trying too hard. Why not relax and don't write for the rest of the day and maybe tomorrow. Don’t even look at a piece of paper or a pencil.” He buried his face in the cushions and let out a muffled groan before sitting up. “I can’t. I have a deadline to meet and a word count schedule to keep. I’m already behind because we had to help Tyler and Ken move yesterday, I can afford to not write if I want to finish this story by the end of the month.” “Can’t you ask for an extension on it?” “Maybe but it won’t do any good if I can’t get past this stupid scene.” I closed my book. “What’s your story about? Maybe I can help.” Jason shook his head. “Nope, you know the rules. If I tell you the story or let you read it before it’s done then the book is as good as dead.” “Can you tell me what part you're stuck on? Maybe I can help give you ideas. Grease the wheel to get it rolling.” “It’s a romance. That’s all I’m saying.” “Oh come on, give me more than that. Is it a straight romance? Gay romance? Give me something to work with” He let out a huge sigh, gaze fixed on the ceiling. “You’re not going to let this go are you unless I do.” “That’s right so share.” “It’s a gay romance and I’m trying to figure out how the love interests meet without it sounding cheesy or sappy.” “How can you avoid that? Romance stories are cheesy and sappy just like erotic stories are spicy and kinky.” “So not helpful.” “Sorry,” I sat forward. “I’ll be serious. Why not have them meet the way we did?” He turned to look at me. “We met at Tyler’s house party. I threw up on you and you took me home because I was drunk.” “Yeah, I also stayed the night because I was afraid you’d drown in your own vomit or something. Three years later and I’m still here.” Jason smiled. “I don’t think people want to read about the main characters vomiting on each other. That’s not exactly sexy or romantic.” “Oh, I don’t know. You messed up my pants and shirt so I had to spend the night in my boxers because I didn’t have any other clothes and yours were too small. I think that counts as sexy.” “Too bad I don’t remember that. Want to reenact it? Might help inspire me.” I grinned. “Hmm, maybe that’s the problem. You’re sexually frustrated and need to masturbate.” He sat up and looked wide-eyed at me. “What?” “Just think about it. You’re having trouble writing a romance scene between two people and we haven’t fucked in 3 days because we’ve been busy or too tired. You’re clearly sexually frustrated and need to clean your pipe to help the creative juices to flow again.” I curled up into a ball as a couch cushion came flying at me. “I don’t need to masturbate. Do you want to have sex? We can do it right now if you want but I’m not hard-up and it’s not going to help me figure out this scene.” “Hey, I’m just trying to help,” I said, tossing the cushion back at him. “All I’m saying is that maybe you’re putting too much pressure on yourself, making the scene more complicated than it needs to be. Keep it simple.” “Fine, I’ll try,” he put the cushion back before going to his discarded notebook. “What time is it?” I looked at my watch. “4:45.” “I’m going to work on this until 6:00 then I’m calling it a night. Order a pizza and find something you’d like to watch on Netflix. Tonight we Netflix and Chill.” “Hey, why not use that for your story? Your characters can have a nice night together, drinking while making out on the couch to porn.” Jason laughed as he headed back to the den. “Sounds good but I think I may need to act this out later to help me visualize the scene and write it properly.” “Are you asking me to be your muse?” “Yeah. Wear the black thong I bought you for your birthday with matching socks. Nothing else.” I raised an eyebrow at him. “What are you going to wear Mr. Kinky?” “Just my silk knit lounge pants. You’re my muse, my inspiration so it’s important that you do as I say tonight.” “I thought you said this story was a romance. Sounds like it’s crossing into erotica territory.” He gave me a big smile. “Nothing wrong with adding a little spice to romance. And it has been 3 days since we had any spice.” “In that case, I better fix the bed for some late-night inspiration sessions. I’ll even take out the toy box.” Jason’s hand went to his crotch. “You’re killing me now. Get everything ready for 6, don’t bother me until then.” “Yes sir.” He rolled his eyes at me good-naturedly before retreating into the den and closing the door behind him. Heaving a satisfied sigh I got up and went to work planning out our night. I never knew when Jason would decide to get his freak on but now that he had 3 days' worth of pent-up lust I planned on figuratively and literally milking it for all it was worth.


WHY BUSINESS PEOPLE WHO DON'T UNITE IN A COMPANY OR BUSINESS FINALLY MAKING THEIR OWN CHOICES. By Laurent Christopher Bilihanyuma_Author_ Tanzania, East Africa. 24/05/2021. Uniting in business is something very potential to meet success in future time in business as basically mean ;come or bring together for a common purpose or action. That is profit. Uniting people into independent functional units serves the needs of business managers. It fosters order and control. Every business does it. Uniting people into cross-functional, cross-functional, interdependent teams serves the customers. The Winning businesses deploy those cross-functional teams on critical missions like: Strengthen current businesses. Build new businesses or important new additions to current businesses. Capture the dominant share of a class of customers. Understand customers' needs and create significant new-product programs to satisfy the most important of those needs. Win customers from their best competitors. That much causes them to finally making their own choice. Also a business unit is a segment of a company with strategic objectives separate from the parent company but enhances the overall performance of the enterprise. It is set up to perform a specific business function to a specific market which requires a management specialty that is not within the parent company. One can ensure the business units are successful if he or she consider to; Empower the unit manager: The success of a business unit depends on the leadership provided in the particular unit. As The manager is in charge of the unit but is also under the main organization’s top management.For the manger to perform well, you must empower him and trust his decision-making capabilities. Besides, he is the one on the ground so he is in the best place to suggest changes and strategies that will work well for the unit. Since the success of a unit contributes to the success of the organization, you should empower all unit managers so that the units become successful. Also; Sharing between different units: The business units must be willing to share the available resources. Therefore times when one unit will need more resources that the others, what do you do in such a situation? The managers must be ready to share. When the resources are not enough for all the needs presented, then managers must learn to prioritize their needs. Then After; Flexibility: The organization must allow the business units some flexibility. It is important as the unit is in direct control of their products and market. The organization should be supportive of suggestions brought forth from the units. A good example is a situation when a unit manger identifies an opportunity. If the unit deal with baby diapers and then the manager realizes that mothers who buy diapers want baby wipes also, then the organization should be supportive. The strategy will require more financing, but it will also increase the amount of profits earned. Business people can have these Importance of Business Units if they Uniting and cooperating together; Firstly ,Organization: Business units exist purely as units of specialization. When you create units within the organization, then you maximize on time management. Business units allow you to see the organization more clearly. If you were to have one manager handling more than three products at a go, then he or she will be unable to operate them effectively. Besides, he will not have time for innovation and h will not be able to organize his time well. Secondly, Micro-management: It is easy to manage small units within an organization. Every manager will be able to take care of even the smallest details. Every detail of the unit will, therefore, be attended to. The top management can track progress in the various units. This will lead to better decision making. Thirdly, Profitability: For a product to perform well in the market, then it has to meet the needs of the market. So, the units need to find a way to continuously gather feedback from the market, identify a target market, target the market and position the product accordingly. If one person is assigned product, he or she will be able to give valuable contribution regarding the target market. Unfortunately, if one person is assigned more than two products to handle, the work might be too much, and it might affect his effectiveness. The financial statement for every unit is prepared separately. This enables the top management to keep tabs on the return on investment of every unit. They are also able to have a general overview of the organization’s profitability. Fourthly, Decision making: When it comes to making decisions about in the organization of the units, the top managers can rely on the numbers from the financial statements. When a new unit is about to be set up, then better performing units take charge of the process. When it comes to allocation of resources, the top management uses the financial statements. Lastly but not Leastly: business people who don't unite together will finally make their own choices as; Running out of money is a small business’s biggest risk. Owners often know what funds are needed day to day but are unclear as to how much revenue is being generated, and the disconnect can be disastrous. Inexperience managing a business--or an unwillingness to delegate--can negatively impact small businesses, as can a poorly visualized business plan, which can lead to ongoing problems once the firm is operational. Poorly planned or executed marketing campaigns, or a lack of adequate marketing and publicity, are among the other issues that drag down small businesses. Now: As Main Purpose of a Cooperative;People usually join a cooperative for the benefits - to enjoy such things as the pooling of risk, the ability to make a large purchase in a group, to become empowered and feel like they are part of a meaningful company. As well as the main Goal of a Cooperative : The Cooperative businesses are organized for the purpose of improving the bargaining power of the individual members and the product or service quality provided by the members. They also aim to reduce costs incurred during the production process, to provide competition to larger companies with deeper pockets, to expand opportunities in the market and take advantage of them, and to obtain products and services that would otherwise be unavailable because for-profit companies see them as unprofitable in business.


With suitcases in hand, you head to the station. This is the last thing you have to do before they let your best friend go. You’re not allowed to open the suitcase; they said if you did, you would die. You’re not allowed to call the police; they said if you do, your best friend dies. And you know not to. They could be watching your every move. In fact, they have been. They have intelligence everywhere. They kidnapped her and demanded a ransom of, oddly enough, only $200. You had thought it was a mistake, but they insisted $200 was correct. A $200 ransom payoff was possible. And your best friend is well worth that amount. When you showed up to pay however, nobody was there. The only thing you could see in the abandoned lot were two suitcases, notes on each. The expensive one had a printed note that read, “Do Not Open. We will shoot you.” The cheaper one had the following message: Deliver the $200 to the abandoned bank lot downtown to get the key for this suitcase. Take both suitcases with you. Lose one and you die. You have exactly half hour to do so, or she dies. You alert the police, she dies. Time starts when we say it does. Better hurry :) You picked up the suitcases and headed back to your car. One of them was lightly ticking, barely audible. You felt a slight whirring inside it as you walked. You gingerly placed them in the back seat, not knowing what was inside, and drove downtown. A twenty-three minute drive, with some speeding. As you were driving, your radio was scanning stations, playing only white noise. Over that noise you can hear a repeated message: “We are members of the Mask. We are an anti-government authoritarian body. We will gain control. We have intelligence everywhere.” You turned your radio off and put in a CD to listen to. “Not my favorite, but it’ll have to do,” you said out loud in a nervous stutter. With the CD playing the third from the last song, you pulled into the abandoned lot, driving past a largely overgrown shrub, only to find nobody there. You look around and see nothing out of the ordinary. You decide to drive around the back and then you see another message, this one spray-painted on the wall. “Keep the money, and buy some good music. Here’s your damn key, motherfucka!” You took the key from the wall. The key was still sticky from the tape as you placed it into the lock on the cheaper suitcase. You opened the suitcase to find the following message, exquisitely handwritten: Your final steps: 1. Spin around three times and then look inside the bank window. Play nice :) 2. Go to the train station. There are two close by. Pick the closest one 3. Go to Lot C and park in Spot 33 4. Take the other suitcase and follow the arrows marked on the ground 5. Place the suitcase next to the indicated support beam 6. Go back to your car and await further instruction You spun around and looked inside the bank window. Somebody was inside. They were smiling at you. Directly at you. They nodded, bringing your attention to the gun pointed right at you. They casually lifted up a sign that read: Leave now. No police. Remember, we are always watching. With suitcases in hand, you head to the station. This is the last thing you have to do before they let your best friend go. You’re not allowed to open the suitcase; they said if you did, you would die. You’re not allowed to call the police; they said if you do, your best friend dies. And you know not to. They could be watching your every move. In fact, they have been. They have intelligence everywhere. You leave the abandoned lot and make a right turn. As you’re making the turn, you realize you should have turned left. Your right turn was not right. The closest place to turn back around is about a block away. You drive the block and go to make the turn. The CD has stopped. Your radio starts to fizz again. This time all you can hear is the white noise and a barely audible, “Somebody messed up,” repeated over and over in a robotic and monotone voice. You turn your radio off and decide to drive in silence. Upon arriving to the train station, you park in lot C, spot 33. Just as instructed. You get out of your car, rereading the note as you do. You look at it again. Onto step 4. You follow the marked trail. Arrow after arrow you walk, carrying the ticking and whirring suitcase. It starts to weigh on you. Mentally and physically. You place the suitcase inside a red circle. And it sinks in: the circle is drawn in blood. Your heart sinks. On the way back to your car, you see a few other people leaving the station. They look nervous and defeated. Once back at your car, you hear a phone ringing, it’s sound a bit muffled. It’s not your cell. You open your car door and the sound gets louder. The sound is coming from inside the suitcase. You find a ringing phone in a hidden compartment. The ringtone is excruciatingly loud now. You answer it. Your best friends says hello. Your heart skips a beat; she’s alive! You manage to stutter a hello back. She says she has to go, that it was only for proof of life. She says “goodbye, see you soon bestie” and a robotic voice takes over, “Look behind you,” and then the phone clicks off. You look behind you to the train schedule board and watch a video feed on the screen; it’s been hacked. A large knife can be seen. Engraved on the side are the words “somebody messed up.” The camera pans out to show eight people bound and gagged, sitting on their knees. One by one, they are beheaded. You can’t help but watch; your eyes are frozen to the screen. Your best friend is last to go. You begin to cry as the suitcases explode in unison sending the station tumbling to the ground.


I can only imagine what it must be like to smell fresh wild flowers in bloom or the sound made by autumn leaves blowing in an October breeze. How it must be to feel fresh snow fall upon a frozen face or the taste of a cool rush of ice cream against a tongue warmed by a southern summer. For though I have created these things and done so in hopes of perfection I will never see them or anything my brush has painted for that is my curse. To create something so beautiful and marvelous as life, yet never to live it myself . Merely to have the knowledge that is there, somewhere just out of sight. My children spend there whole lives trying to live as if me, but if only they knew my one true wish was simply to live as if them.


CW: adult content, strong language Disappointedly, yet quite predictably, she was leaving the Head Director’s office. All eyes were on her, adding to her unbearable embbarrasment, as she was passing through the aisle of that clinically cold open-space she hated so sincerely. They all know, oh, how clearly, she thought bitterly, as she felt that salty aftertaste still lingering in her mouth. Well, life can be a tough pill to swallow. And sometimes even swallowing doesn’t help. Nevermind, lesson learned . She straightened her posture in a poor attempt to preserve what’s left of her infamous dignity and stormed out of the office. As soon as the door behind her banged shut, she felt a tide of relief surge in, like all those Tinder dates who had blitzkrieged her bedroom. When all of a sudden, a dull sound of something heavy stomping against the floor made her spin on her heel. "Hey, Elena, keep this,“ he said and rather inconspiciously passed her a small, match-box size object in a bubble wrap - at least something to release a stress on , snapped through her mind, as her fingers touched the surface. "Oh, Ron, what’s in it?” she asked bewildered, maybe too loudly, given his attempts not to attract attention. Of course, Ron might not be the most subtle fellow in the hood, but God knows he tried, she thought, eyeing the edifice of his beefy body. Simply brawn scarcly seasoned with bra in, she observed, as her scrutiny met his plain gaze . And in his case, one does not have to be Gordon Ramsay to complain about lack of seasoning. "You’ll see,” resounded from within the long corridor, as his security shirt was vanishing in the flicker of artificial lighting. She hesitated no longer. Quickly, sparing little thought what devil might hide within, she tucked the bubbly bit in her purse and rushed out of the building. Maybe she doesn’t quite have a clue, but she remembers, oh, too well. * In her early 30s, working as a senior marketing manager in a bank, knowing nothing about financial stuff, but being paid decent money for knowing a lot about how to make people succumb to well-crafted advertising, one could say she was doing fine. Well, until this day. I got in the same way I got out , she thought with an undertone of dark humour. She saw it so clearly, a clueless young lady looking for a job in a field where every such position was meant only for those of long-term experience. But that time, the aftertaste was manageable . Life was so sweet back then, so full of promise of bloom, she pondered aimlessly, as she ran her palm against her lover’s chest. It was a fine chest, defined and muscular. She liked her men sinewy. Like Peter, not that brainless bulk of muscles Ron. "I wanted to blow the whistle, you know,“ she responded to Peter’s earlier question,“ but it turned out I ended up blowing something else. Fruitlessly.“ Sourly she added in sore self-reflection. "I thought that fruitlessness is welcome in such activities,“ he joked, still worn out after the admirable performance he just gave. Always jokey, non-judgmental easy-goer, who knew his business getting laid - that’s why she kept on getting together with him regularly. No strings attached, but having a fuckbuddy like him in dire times like these helps. "Wait a sec, I just remembered...“ she left her comfy curl around his body and shakily got to her feet. First of all, walking completely naked in front of each other, even after sex was over, was a spell they broke quite some time ago. But this was different. They were never personal; they haven’t let each other into their lives yet. And that was good. REMEMBER, NO STRINGS ATTACHED, ELENA, NEVER, echoed noisily in her head, as she grabbed her purse and fished out that small something she was given earlier today. "Look,“ she said, carefully unwrapping it, as if the contents the wrap concealed had a pontential to bite. "Oh, gimme that shit,“ Peter came to life, reaching for the bubble-wrap, suddenly ignorant of his recent exhaustion,“ I could do this all day long.“ He announced, crushing a bubble after bubble, content as a toddler with idiotic grin all over his sweaty face. Elena rested her eyes on him and all concerns were suddenly gone, dissolved like sugar in hot milk. Maybe I’m just getting a bit too old, and maybe there’s something to my slumbering naïve, romantic side . But one thing is certain, seeing him carelessly toying with a piece of bubble-wrap without losing a bit of charisma, she felt so warm and so safe. He certainly wasn’t the one to judge. She almost let herself lapse into feeling something toward him. "It’s a flash drive!” she exclaimed. "Marvelous,“ Peter said pointedly. "Come on, Pete, this is it,“ she said, eyes widening, “that bloody little thing that security guy handed me.“ "Well, let’s check it out, then,“ he mumbled, unwillignly crawling out of the bed. Soon he was back to the still warm spot with a laptop, inserting the flash drive into a slot. When a single file popped up on the screen, Elena froze. Subconsciouly she was sure this file has sharp, serrated jaws. "What in the fucking hell is this, tell me,“ Peter gasped, as what seemed like countless loads of documents showed up. The jaws slightly opened. "I know what it is,“ Elena whispered,“ It’s the reason why I lost my job.” "They sacked you for insider trading?“ Peter mused horrified, as he skimmed through the first few documents, betraying confidential information of bank clients. Well-off clients, indeed. "For my vain efforts to report this,“ she hissed, pretending offense,“ do you ever listen to me!?“ "How come, Elena! Just recently the government established the office for protection of whistleblowers! This shouldn’t be happening anymore,” he burst out, briming over with professional indignation of a lawyer well-versed in theory of administrative law. "Oh, Pete, how sweet of you. But as a lawyer you should know how our public administration works,“ she cuddled closely to him. She made herself vulnerable; clutching tightly onto his wrist, forcing tears into her eyes. "Eastern Europe, baby,“ he purred, and to her relief, left the subject be. "Central, Pete,“ she corrected him. After a few moments in the warm embrace she spoke again: “Let’s have a coffee.” "Black and bitter for me,“ said Peter, as her figure vanished from the bedroom. "Like life itself?“ "Indeed, like life itself,“ he repeated, as he mindlessly closed the jaws of his laptop and put it aside. * It was dark when she left Peter’s apartment. Who could tell whether it’s her arrogance or ignorance, but she never felt in danger, going alone after the dark, almost cat walking in her neat skirt and high heels. And surely, she was the one to easily become a prey - her long, auburn hair, cutely freckled face and body to die for. Maybe her lack of heed had something to do with her belief in the notion of Central Europe; the place not that well-off, but culturally apt. However, in the blink of an eye things turned dramatically eastern. She rounded a corner as a hand clutched her elbow and a hard object jabbed into her ribs. Shocked, she glanced down, and saw the muzzle of a gun pressed against her. “Hello, sweetheart, so glad you could join us. The car is just ahead... and please don’t think of making a scene. It would hurt. A lot.” She panicked. Her screams drowned in the sea of terror. Her view got blurred. "Don’t you dare screamin’,” a deep manly voice reminded her once again, guiding her into adjacent car. "I...,“ she trailed off, completely surredered. After few horrifying moments she dared having a brief look around. There was a man driving, confidently steering the car through the abandoned narrow streets. Her attacker was sat right next to her, handing her a blindfold. "If you would be so sweet, my dear...“ She obeyed. Then, she collected herself. Having free hands, she reached for her purse. "Stop it,“ he ordered threateningly, in authority others could only envy. She stopped. They drove. They arrived. * She was sat into a chair. A comfy one. Notably luxurious at first sit; being into slight extravagance herself, she could tell. Then her blindfold was taken off, softly, with utmost care for her comfort. "Welcome,“ said Martin, her former Head Director, holding a piece of cloth from around her eyes,“ I’m deeply sorry for rather inconvenient way of transport, certainly not the first class you’re presumably used to...” "Kidnapping you mean?“ she snapped. "...however, let’s say I’m into adrenaline sports,“ he continued, disregarding her completely,“ I am absolutely sure you know why you’re here.“ She was quiet. As the fear for her own safety dissolved, another seemed to fill it‘s place. "We had a deal,“ he said. Her silence deepened. She avoided looking at him. Eyeing the room around her, she was somewhere in historical mansion or even palace, adding to her unease. "The flash drive?“ he asked sternly. "Yes.“ "Suspects anything?“ "I think...,“ she gulped. This is the hardest part. After her last visit, things turned a bit too romantic; despite her best efforts, some strings got attached nonetheless. Am I really too old for this? Or am I just a coward, after all? "Did he?“ the poignant question ringed in the aether and bloated like gathering clouds before the storm. Elena was quiet, though it was a bit too late to back-off. "Well, Elena, our company gave you access to all the precious data. I gave you access to our company,“ he sighed,“ do you really think you can fuck with me, as if I was that stupid fuck-boy of yours? How can I trust you, when you deny my share? So once again, does that legal-bealge Peter suspect something?“ "I think,“ words got stuck in her throat,“ I think he does.“ "Well, not for long,“ Martin said and produced a smartphone from his pocket,“ Come over and have a look.“ Hesitantly she stood up and took a few steps toward Martin. "Oh, perfect," he smiled, showing her the screen, "Isn't it wonderful how all things are connected these days? He's connected his phone..., "he trailed off, then chuckled, " and his fridge, and his smart lights, and his smart TV.... and even his car!“ Elena was terrified. "Actually,“ he brightened up,“ it looks like he’s driving right now! Do you wnat to have a peek at him?“ He asked, relishing her horror. "Please, Martin,...“ her pleading eyes were begging for remosre. "Look,“ he forced the screen before her,“ where do you think he’s driving to, this late hour?“ Her heart melted as she heard his lovely voice, even though it was just a senseless cursing at the traffic. She missed him already. Surprisingly, all her concerns apmlified, wondering what devilish spyware was her phone infected with. Subconsciously she reached for her purse. "Oh, don’t worry,” Martin laughed,” your phone is safe. Let’s say that amiable gentleman who escorted you here is paid for knowing things.” "Well, and now what?“ Elena didn’t even try to hide her confusion. "Oh, my dear,“ she hated so much when her betters, especially male, called her my dear, sweetheart, darling etc., “now that introductory pleasantries are done, it’s time to set things straight.” "How so? You fired me, you tricked me into deceiving my partner...“ "My partner suddenly,“ Martin cackled, “I wouldn’t go as far. We both know you’re just a cock-hungry, dirty ‘lil slut, darling .“ "You fired me!“ "I had to,“ Martin feigned sympathy, as he cupped her hand in his palms, “things were turning too obvious. And how could I trust you anymore, when you were operating behind my back, keeping all the profit to yourself. Trust, Elena, trust and loyalty, that’s substantial in this business.” “Trust and loyalty,” she retorted, as she freed her hand from Matrin’s. “Indeed, that’s why you are here. To prove to me. To show me, that I can still trust you.” “Try then.” “To show you my good will, I do the first step,” he said and produced his phone again,” this app, is end-to-end encrypted communication channel, hard to be broken into.” “As if it was 100% safe.” “It’s not,” he smiled,” have I mentioned my affinity toward adrenaline sports?” “You certainly did,” Elena gulped down the flashback of her earlier encounter with adrenaline sports, ”But I still don’t quite get it.” “You will. When your smart head’s intelligent enough to embezzle, defraud, and corrupt, while getting legal advice after night-time banging, this will be trivial. I just want you to contact someone.” Her unease skyrocketed when Martin handed her the phone and austere-looking interface of that devilish app showed up; like some formidable creature, fished out of the deepest trenches of the dark web... “Ready to type?” Martin eyed her with knowing smile, penetrating her eyes, far beyond her conscious mind. She suspected what’s going to follow and this suspicion was so clear - probability bordering on certainty, as Peter would say in his comely legalise. Her heart sank, as her worst premonition came true. "Name.“ "Address.“ "30 grand.“ "I...,“ Elena was one step from collapsing. Of course, sometimes one gets redundant and needs to be reduced, but this was the first time she was not ready to throw away someone’s life like this. Jan, master economist, passed away in car accident - that was easy enough, but his cock was good. Daniel, corrupt prosecutor, commited suicide by painkiller overdose - I don’t miss him at all, his cum always tasted rancid. Lukas, a police officer, shot in the police action - I particularly liked his strong arms, that’s about it. Richard, a chairman of city council, jumped under the train - I found him funny. And now... Peter, a lawyer, TBA - I love him from the bottom of my blighted heart. “Is his life really worth so little?” she burst into tears, her shaky fingers typing lamely. “His life? No, it’s worth even less. His death, that’s what matches the price of fancy watches,” he said calmly, always having a joke or two up his sleeve. “Why?” she said in despair, teardrops rushing down her cheeks. “He knows too much, like they did. Is it so hard to understand? You were never hesitant like this before. What’s wrong?” Martin sounded worried for her. Does he really feel any compassion for me? “But why did you make me give him that flash drive, why did you let him see the data?” “You might not remember, because you were having fun ,” he said in slow, patient manner, as if talking to a child, “but he did tell you, that he started his legal practice as prosecutor’s assistant.” He paused for a moment, and he smiled the way a shark might: "And their network is real tasty.“ "Type!“ the predator ordered. “I can’t do it.” He said nothing, just pointed his voracious eyes at her. You can do it, you MUST do it, they read. All the detail was already typed, but her thumb was powerlessly circling around send button. And Martin kept on watching her, feeding on her inner struggle. “If you can’t, then you can’t,” his manner changed into that of an amiable banker, as he took his phone back. “Do you want to have another peek at him?” he asked. She was devoid of words, but her eyes glowed with yearning. “Let’s have a peek then,” the screen resolved itself into interior of a car. Within there were two men sitting, talking quietly, looking at the familiar laptop. Peter and another man, stereotypical police officer by his looks, were focused on whatever it was going on the screen. "What do you think they’re talking about?” Martin asked, his manly jaws growing more prominent, ”It’s funny these modern cars. Did you know that lithium is somewhat reactive, like... I mean, really reactive. It really likes to reduce .” “How about we take a listen?” he handed her the phone and a button with obvious function showed up. They listened. And to her terror, all the talking was about her. Or rather about her grievous misconduct; it even looks like this beagle managed to sniff out more than he was ever supposed to. She stood paralyzed, betrayed and scared. They all know, oh, how clearly. “Elena,” unlike her, Martin didn’t seem scared at all,” have you ever fired someone?” She gritted her teeth. “I know, it can be a traumatic experience, being on the receiving end..." he shrugged apologetically, "but it can be quite cathartic from the opposite side. Look," he reached out and scrolled in the menu of the app. He pulled up a Battery section, "it is just so easy. Just a little tap right here." Shakily she took the phone. She was trembling feverishly, muscles all across her body were spasming. Her face was red and tear-drenched, her eyes vacant. She pushed the button. Martin relaxed and grinned a proud smile of a father whose child just got admitted to prestigious college. “Congratulations!” she couldn’t decipher his delight, "welcome back. You might even get a promotion.” He hugged her dearly and handed her a velvet handkerchief to wash her tears away like Peter and all those before him. “You earned it.” Martin said. She stared blankly, as if she glimpsed the Death itself. She stood still. Peter, a lawyer, fired - I still love him from the bottom of my blighted heart, she updated her diary.


It all starts with a knock at my door. Or more accurately my door bell. I stand up and make my way stiffly to the door, I’ve been working on a petticoat all day and my body is aching for a break. I open the door to find a young woman who is probably in her early twenties. Her hair is in a messy top knot and she is dressed in a baggy sweater and yoga pants. Definitely not my style. “Are you Maude Collins?” The woman asks. “Yes, I am. How may I be of service to you?” I ask. “Wow, you really are old fashioned.” She murmurs. I roll my eyes slightly. “Anyways, my name is Ashley.” She says extending her hand to me. I take it and wait for her to continue. “I um, heard you make historical dresses and stuff, and I really need a pride and prejudice dress.” She says finally. “You mean a regency era dress?” I ask. “Yeah, I guess... could I buy one from you?” “Come in,” I say, this seems like it will take a while and it’s freezing outside. I bring her to my living room and invite her to sit down. “What do you need this dress for?” I ask. “A historical ball.” She says. “You just called it a “pride and prejudice dress” and you expect me to believe you are going to a ball.” I say sceptically. Her lips purse and her eyes dart away from me. “What do you actually need it for?” “I work for the T.T.A.” She admits “I have a mission.” The time travellers association! My head starts spinning with possibilities but I try to stay calm. I’ve spent a lot of my life trying to remake the past but it’s never quite the same. “Don’t you have someone to make clothes for you?” I ask. “Yes, but she was kidnapped and I’m being sent to find her.” Ashley says quickly, “Can you help me or not?” “Yes, I think I can. But first I need more information.” The next hour is a bit of a whirlwind as Ashley tells me her story. She knows the names of the whole royal court and pretty much every piece of etiquette but she doesn’t know the first thing about the fashion. This is also her first assignment and I can tell she’s nervous. She needs at least two dresses, she doesn’t know how long she’ll be gone, and she needs to leave today. When she finishes I’ve already made up my mind to help her. I try to appear reluctant but I’m having a hard time containing my excitement. “Come to my sewing room,” I say “I think I might have something that will fit you.” She is about my height but thinner than me and I will need to make some adjustments. I dig up a light pink evening gown and a dark green day dress out of the chest in the corner. First I hand her a shift, a light corset with almost no boning, and a petticoat. I can’t size anything on her until I see how the undergarments fit. “Put these on and then I’ll see what I can do.” I say. She stares at the things in confusion and almost horror. “What?” “I don’t know how to put any of that on.” She admits. “I’ll help.” I smile. I send her into the bathroom to put on the shift and then help her lace the corset. “Oh, this is actually comfortable.” Ashley says. I laugh “They generally are, they don’t cut you in half like in movies.” I quickly explain to her how she can put it on herself, I’m guessing she won’t have a personal maid. “It is a little harder without help but I think you’ll manage.” I say. She puts on the petticoat and then I size the two dresses for her. I pull out a needle and cut a length of thread to take in the waist a little. “Wait, you don’t use a sewing machine?” Ashley asks. “If the sewing machine wasn’t invented in the era of the dress I’m making I don’t use it.” I say. “That’s interesting.” She sounds impressed. When I’ve finished up the dress I give her a pair of stockings and shoes. “You can wear tights if they’re more comfortable, they’re not accurate but I don’t think anyone will notice.” I say. “Thank you so much, I’ll bring everything back if I can.” She says. “Do you have someone to do your hair?” I ask. “Yeah, only the seamstress was kidnapped.” She smirks. I give her three pairs of gloves and a spare bonnet before she leaves. “I’ll e-transfer you money.” She says as she steps out the door. “It’s alright, I wasn’t using those right now anyways. But if you happen to find a pair of gloves or a bonnet that you could bring me that would be amazing.” I say. She drives away as my husband pulls in the driveway. “Who was that?” He asks giving me a kiss. “A girl who needed a dress.” I say. “Hmm, I guess your hobby is paying off.” “Well not quite paying, but it’s helping someone.” For a a while everything is back to normal, I work and play and wonder. Then a week later Ashley comes back. I open the door to find her standing on the steps, looking around nervously. She’s wearing jean overalls this time, hair in a high ponytail. She has a bag with her and gives it to me. “They got a little ripped, but I got what you wanted. Do you mind if I come in?” She asks with another glance over her shoulder. I bring her back to my sewing room and take the things out of the bag. A gorgeous bonnet and a shawl are with the things that were already mine. “These are amazing.” I whisper. I can feel my face glowing. “Good,” Ashley says biting her lip, “because I need your help again.” “Did you not get your seamstress back?” I ask. “We did. But she’s in a coma and the person they hired as her replacement is awful.” She sounds a little whiny. “Where are you going this time?” I ask. “America. 1770s.” She says. “The revolution.” “Yep.” “This one will take a little more time.” I say. “That’s fine. I leave the day after tomorrow.” She says with a relieved smile. “Mind if I ask what your mission is this time?” I ask. “Well, it’s pretty much just reconnaissance for now.” She says. “Okay. Let’s see if I have something that fits you. I have a 1750s dress that I can adjust.” She leaves after I’ve given her everything she’ll need. “I’ll be back in two weeks.” She says with a wave. I close the door behind her and take the dresses I lent her out of the bag. The evening gown has a cut down the front and multiple tears in the skirt. I feel angry tears well up in my eyes. But then I see the bonnet and shawl again. I can make a new dress but I’ll never be able to replace those. Still, I wonder what happened to damage it so badly.


“ Alla människor är på låtsas. De är gjorda av metall. Men jag tycker om dig. Och det är inte på låtsas, liksom. All the people are fake. They’re made out of metal. But I like you, and that is not . . . it’s not fake.” - Young Royals , Episode 4 All the people are fake. When one laments that “everyone’s fake”, or proclaims they are "done with fake friends”, “fake” has a particular meaning that is commonly understood. Insincere, disingenuous. A cheap, flimsy facade. Maybe the person in question is two-faced, a wearer of masks, of thinly veiled disguises. Maybe they are a snake, venomous and shifty, slipping away underfoot. I am not the prince of Sweden, crushed by the expectations of being royalty. But I do put myself on a pedestal, hold myself to an unreachable standard. I am not concerned with legacies, but I am concerned with impacts, with how I come across. Though there are different reasons for our isolation, I am host to a similar anxiety, and a similar yearning, to know people in a way I seem incapable of. The fakeness I am familiar with is not the kind that follows me like an uninvited guest, it’s the kind I choose to follow in spite of myself. I know it will lead me nowhere, but I can’t help revisiting it. I retrace good moments, successful interactions, glimmers of hope. I return to those scenes and scour them for answers, only for that too to fall apart. I don’t find people to be two-faced, I find them to lack faces altogether, at least ones I can recognize and relate to. I can never meet anyone’s eyes, and when I do, they look right through me. One night, a drug-induced Wilhelm flees his elitist "friends", who are only concerned with titles and wealth. He returns to the football field where he and the boy he loves once watched a friend's match together. He crashes into the chain link fence, pressing his face into the metal wires. He climbs the goalposts. He turns his face upward to meet the downpour, raindrops illuminated by the floodlights like minuscule stars. “You think you know me?” he asks the metal free-kick mannequins. “You don’t!” He cradles pieces of plastic turf in his hands, and licks them up. He calls that number he has deleted but knows by heart, and says in a whisper, “I really like you.” To the viewer, it is disgusting to consume turf in this way. To put something you know is fake into your body. To crave satisfaction from something that will do nothing for you. Sometimes fakeness is not the snake in the grass. It’s the grass itself, everywhere, constantly underfoot. It’s the soil I sink my hands into, only to find that nothing I could plant would take root and I would look like an idiot for trying. But still I hunger. I’ve gotten drunk on my surroundings before. I’ve caught my own reflection and wished, if only someone could see me like this right now. Even if it was just through a screen. They’re made out of metal. Fake friends are made of plastic, mass-produced in the economy of petty drama. You collect them and discard them, lamenting their poor quality. But you have to have had them first. I am familiar with a different kind of fakeness. It runs deep and stays strong. It stays with me and only me, persistent, so ever-present that it’s practically a part of me. Less a disease plaguing the masses and more an injury affecting my own body. A metal mesh, a mess of chain mail I experience the world through, so now it is the world too that is fake, at least my world, a world of people I might be able to connect with if not for this chain-link fence built around my very nature. All I want to say is “WELCOME”, but “KEEP OUT” is all my mouth seems to know. There are various cages imposed on Wilhelm. Reputation. Legacy. Wealth. Heteronormativity. The fakeness becomes more than a pliable inconvenience, becomes literally galvanized into something strong and cold and hard. The people around him become like armored guards to enforce it, like robots carrying out a preordained automation. Metal, unlike plastic, is rigidly resilient, unfeeling, and cold. It is not as easily broken, nor melted. Even those who are faceless and narrow, like the metal free-kick mannequins Wilhelm attacks in the football field, have a tendency to bounce back up. But I like you. In the English dub, Wilhelm’s voice hushes, acquiring the quiet urgency of a secret. Those last three words are not quite the three words typically romanticized, but each of them is rich with emphasis. I . Admission, vulnerability, a window inside. A declaration, and a reclamation. An opening up to the elements. Like . A word that is often fluff, just feathery filler, but in this case it is heavy with meaning. A verb as a vessel of so much emotion. Some mysterious combination of conscious decision and natural phenomenon. You. Extension. The “there” in “put yourself out there”. A bridge to a shore I’ve only ever gazed upon from a very far distance. Edvin Ryding’s delivery is a stream of alcohol pouring slowly down my throat. It intoxicates me with desire. Desire for something I’m afraid to admit. And that is not fake. I want a love story like this. I guess I’m not afraid to admit it here, with the protective semi-anonymity. But I would rather never speak again than admit it to someone I know in real life. It’s like wanting it only reveals how incapable I am of attaining it. I want to make the discovery that I am in love, not the decision. Sometimes it feels like I am bursting, practically overflowing with feelings to give. I just don’t have the right person. Crushes, sure. Not like there’s anything substantial. It feels like a process of elimination. My age. Physical attraction. No personality red flags. And then it is that simple. A new face to picture when I stare out the car window. A new name to grant that little rush. A new character to populate my dreamscape. Of course, it means I am no longer capable of being caught by surprise. It is impossible to have that rom-com moment where it was the kind, funny, quirky boy who was there all along, and you see him in a new way. I see everyone. But it always starts to become a construction. I get bored, I get creative. Succumb to fantasies. That is why it’s still fake, and why this hurts so acutely, because it forces me to admit that it was never remotely real. It’s not unrequited love. It’s unfulfilled love. Wilhelm was captivated the moment he first heard the boy he loves sing. It was infatuation-at-first sight, which I am an expert in. But then the stars aligned. It grew into something more, luckily, or maybe not luckily, given the turn of events, or maybe it’s just a TV show. The only thing that excites me more than someone liking me is confessing to someone else that I like them. I would never do it. I would never make that call, because I have always been safe, always had something to lose. Beyond all the steel traps of anxiety, my mind is always spinning, and one bad interaction does a lot more damage than it should, like a wrench in delicate machinery. I am equipped with a million failsafes. But sometimes I hear that life is too short and consider what might happen if I did ever make the first move. I used to envision it as a binary. Yes or no. Rejection or the slim, slim chance of reciprocity. But what if they were to simply ask, Why? I would be at a loss. I couldn’t possibly answer that. I couldn’t honestly say, that is not fake. When something "has promise", it’s not a guarantee. It is merely a marker of potential, which is odd, because promises are usually binding. “I love you” is considered binding nowadays. But we say it all the time, in a variety of different ways. It's all about context. Sometimes I like you can mean so much more. And that is not fake gives it promise.


In the rumbling of all the crowd gathered in the house I could hardly listen to new year's eve concerts. New year eve and birthday of the eldest person in our family, my grandmother, to be on the same day. Ahh! What else one could ask for. Heaven. Absolutely heaven. But. . . did I forget to mention,"not for me". The only thing I would wish on the new year is a little time of my own, and if possible, a room of my one. But when your maternal and paternal- aunts, uncles, cousins all ACCUMULATE together on that one very day, I shouldn't have even thought of that solitude on the first hand. My other, for a long time is carrying the CD of Sarah Vaughan's 1986 concert, which would be impossible to listen, At ALL. I did give a thought to it, that I should play the record for everyone, and mind, I did. Though, it seems grandma's story about her young times far more interesting than Sarah Vaughan's four octave sonorous adventure. Hmm. I think I missed the sunday sermon when Father, the local eloquent pastor, was elaborating the verse,"neither cast, ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them. under their feet, and turn again and rend you." In the end, it just puts you off, that everyone is jolly in their circle and you, only to be on that far end, where they all think you are a special kind. That is the best way to make anyone feel miserable, by adding in the," he is just so bright and intelligent." Loneliness is shaded with all the best colours of interpretation. Well. As mentioned before, the entire household was dipped deep in to the preparations for grandma's birthday, new year was inferior. "Ahhh. Adi, where were you?" My overly enthusiastic aunt, one on my father's side, bellowed from the kitchen, slightly peeping from behind the door. It was too late to escape her eyes because it took me long time to find her pupils in that thickly applied eyeliner. "Nothing aunt Manda. Nothing at all." For unknown reason I said the 'nothing at all' in a sort of British accent. That was meant to repel her attention away from me. Alas ! It didn't. But before I turn around, a very important thought struck my mind. I changed my expression, voluntarily, from reflective to absorbing, and asked aunt if she had anything specific to say. "Oh yes. Will you bring the onion basket from the storeroom. It's already very late for the breakfast. Your father and all your uncle's must be waiting long now." You too, aunt Manda. I wished too say that. But decided not to, and went upstairs to fetch the stuff. As I climbed the stairs I couldn't help but run my sight over those frames of my family's ancestors. Yep. My family's, not mine. The frames of ancestors were hung in my humble abode, my little room that was next to the storeroom, that specific location too upon my request. As I walked by, my eyes wondered over to those beautiful walnut streaked walls. From upon them, my ancestors humbly looked down on me. Anne Bronte, first in the row, lord Byron followed and next to him, Alfred Whitehead, below him, perpendicular, Toni Morrison. Above my bed a wallpaper stamped on the wall with grandeur, that read," who's afraid of Virginia Woolf?" Below it, "Democracy". While I descended the stairs, no stones in my pockets, I had a unfaithful encounter with my cousin Max. Too lost in his 3DS simulation console, but not enough to pass by me without recognising me. He looked up, freshly returning from the Pokemon world, where he had become the champion last night, bagging most of the Pocket Monsters. He blankly picked an onion, threw it towards another of my cousin, Shruti, then just smiled. Like everytime, that cute, sharp teeth peeped out from behind his upper lip, then he almost walked away. Till, I dared to stir him. " Wow. Whole game in two days. That's cool." I uttered with as much calmness possible but with sharp tints of surprise. " Right, hah ? But anyways. Didn't wom tell you sobthing." He said while taking over my path, going away. He has cold since last three days. Change of air or water, perhaps. And that abrupt ending, well that's just him. A little late but I delivered the onions to aunt, who had a lot of things to say to me about punctuality. This time I didn't venture to be more welcoming. I left the kitchen until I couldn't hear her words anymore. I can't stand someone pointing out my faults. Because that is my faculty. I - as much my inert lower would let me, try to change myself enough. So others highlighting them, though with good intentions, wreck my nerves. Still I couldn't feel all right. As I remembered that thing again, I came up with a reason to indulge in the kitchen, and had a short conversation with aunt. She appeared pleased this time, and I, satisfied. Some two hours passed in the whole breakfast and morning get-together thing. Before everyone would leave their places, uncle Raju brought up subject of decoration for the evening events. With so many people in house that was an absolutely perfect topic discuss. Then like any cliche indian family, we all started to declare our own plans. My voice, though hidden the strong sound waves of other's, so show reached some ears. "Oh come on Aditya. Floral arrangement? That's most common thing anyone would come up with." Mathilda, my maternal aunt, reacted. Before I could make my case, Pallavi, another cousin, came up with idea of encasing the whole interior with those beautiful little gleaming bulbs. To which I heartily agreed, but not heard. The discussion was quite ferocious, my words though, everytime unheard, but I still enjoyed it. After that heavy, thick conversation, it was decided that Pallavi's suggestion was the best and to be followed. As we all rose up, I noticed Leonard's, who happens to be my hot and happening older brother, eyeing me till I passed out of the hall and his eyeballs on the verge of popping out. Yeah, I know. Why would you even suggest something so stupid, he will say. But it is of no consequence. Some fifteen minutes after the family brain trust's storming discussion-Pallavi, Rohan and Ploppy, all my cousin's, were out through the front door. I caught up with them. Asked if I could join them. Ploppy reminded me I wasn't good at such tasks, thanks to my low indulgence in any shopping endeavours at all, that being true, I decided to help any other way I could. But I didn't find anything substantially becoming of my capabilities, to do. That fate too was obvious. I before I could help anyway, it was already evening, and our frail, violently shaking, but as uncle Patrick says "strong for her age" grandmother descended her wheelchair with most efforts from her grandchildren. Looking all around, either with admiration or inability to recognise the faces, and then slowly ascending the beautiful ottoman that was especially her's. A beautiful and happy event it was. Such a sweet gathering. And oh! I was so very tired. I decided to retire to my room now that everyone was talking to each other about matters that were, perhaps, beyond my comprehension. Opening the drawer of my table, I took a small notebook. And then marked some small boxes infront of some sentences and at the end of the page wrote 43%. I saw the clock, it was just seventeen minutes to twelve, I turned the page and started writing under a headline, 'summary' . Before I could pen down the first word, a broad, veiny, big hand siezed the notebook right from my hand. The gold ring on thumb didn't miss my eye, oh! It was my brother. "It's nothing. Give it back." I struggled to get it back from him, as he effortlessly held it infront of his face without even rating his hands up, yup, that's the difference in our height. Before I say anything further, he came, "So you have been doing this stupidity. You idiot. You won't change, will you." "It is important to me, you won't understand. Now give it back." "There isn't anything minutely, possibly important into this. Why you have to be so like this all the time." And that my nerve. Then I returned I powerfully as I could, "Do you think, because I am poor, obscure, plain and little, I am soulless and heartless? You think wrong! I .." "ENOUGH." "Why you have to be over everything everytime. Why you have paint all your problem in such stupid way and. ." "Why would you understand? It is not your place to understand. You have it born in within you. I just wished to be less awkward around everyone." "And who said you were? Why you have to make it your goal to be more sociable? WHY? and why you have to follow behind everyone just satisfy yourself that they gave you enough attention ?" " I - I just wish to be in everyone's circle." I laid it bare, submitting my will and hold. Soon I was groped by my shoulders, his fingers, metaphorically, digging into my bones. "Why that way Aditya? Why not widen your circle to let everyone in? Why make your own mind your best friend when you could have everyone for a friend - especially me?" "It's just wierd to be out. And so ." " Don't make assumptions about people. Let them know you for you to know them. It is not becoming of you to tail along to them. Be little more considerate for yourself Adu." I think. It is a way of thinking about oneself, that don't consider. It's wierd that I always thought of him closest to me. Yet I dreamt of being out of everyone's circle. It was not a big emotional moment but a silent awakening, that I accepted as it. And after my beloved advice, I guess I just decided to be more considerate for my own self. Because no one will no my disposition unless I dispose it to them. Irony ! ! !


“Si ti vu ma mere?”, she said in perfect French. “You know that one?”, I asked “Yes. I find on Youtube. I am playing so much. I love. It’s so beautiful”, she replied. “Do you know what it means? In English”, I asked. “Uhhh,,,” she pondered, “something about a mother?” “If you see my mother”, I translated for her. “Oh, that is nice. A song about mother”. “It’s one of my absolute favourites. Sidney Bechet”, I said. “I will learn to play it”. “When you learn it, will you play it for me?”, I asked her. “Yes. I play it for you”, she promised, with a beaming smile. Her name was Kiko. She was from Japan, and she was my favourite student. She came along when I was three months into my second career as an online teacher of English. I started late in life and it’s not something that I ever envisaged myself doing. In my mind, the word “teacher” always conjured up visions of a shabby and perennially frustrated manic depressives who really wanted to do something else with their lives but ended up as teachers because Plan “A” didn’t pan out. At an intellectual level, I know that that is a lazy and inaccurate characterisation, though. Besides, who am I to gloat? My Plan “A” didn’t pan out either. In fact, I never really put it into effect. See, I grew up with music. My father was a jazz fan and he bequeathed that appreciation onto me. I learned to play the trumpet and the guitar and played regularly in my school band. When I was 15, I started building my record collection which included all the jazz greats and even some of the jazz-not-so-greats. At university, I formed a jazz trio called ‘The Know-Notes’ and we played student gigs regularly. I was elected as President of the University Jazz Club three years in a row. Mind you, there were only four members of said club, our trio and the girlfriend of the saxophonist, so I suppose you could say that I was a shoo-in for the post. After leaving university, I got a temporary job working as a sales assistant in a department store; something to tide me over while I plotted The Know-Notes route to glittering jazz stardom. But then I met my wife. She was an archaeology student working a summer job. For the second time in my life, I fell in love. By the end of that summer, we moved in together and, on Christmas Even no less, she informed me that she was carrying our first child. “I think we should get married”, she said. We had a Spring wedding and our daughter was born the following August. We were still living in my crummy, one-bedroom apartment and we had to find something bigger and better in a hurry. Meanwhile, the progress of The Know-Notes was, shall we say, less than stellar. We had only managed to secure one paid gig and that was at a nursing home facility as entertainment for the residents, most of whom fell asleep during our set. This was hardly the adulation we were seeking. Shortly after that, our saxophonist, a geologist by training, was offered a job in the oil industry in Saudi Arabia with a salary that he simply could not refuse. Well, that was that. My ‘temporary’ job at the department store turned into a full-time job and, from there, into a career in retail management. By the time our second child was born, I was a departmental assistant manager. The trumpet that my father bought for me on my 16 th birthday was consigned to the attic to gather dust while I climbed the corporate ladder all the way up to Head Manager of the second largest shopping mall in the country. After 27 years of ploughing away in the soil of the commercial eco-system, my dear wife was diagnosed with heart disease, more specifically coronary artery disease. I decided to take early retirement to stay at home and look after her. About a month after I retired, I returned home from a shopping trip to find her corpse on the floor of our bathroom. Myocardial infarction. I have never come to terms with losing her and I never will. So, then I was all alone in the home that we built together, our children having long since flown the nest and with no job to occupy my time. I had to take stock. I needed to re-discover a sense of purpose; I needed something to do, to occupy both my mind and my time. I had no idea where to start. Returning to the retail world was, I suppose, one option but I just didn’t have the strength for it anymore. I even retrieved my trumpet from the attic, dusted it off, played a few notes and briefly allowed myself to entertain the fantasy of finally becoming a professional jazz player. But that’s all it was - a fantasy. The naked truth is that while my enthusiasm for music was boundless, my talent was merely modest. My ambition had always far exceeded my grasp How on earth could I expect to make a living from this old trumpet now when I failed to do it as a young man? But what else could I do? I browsed the web for ideas and inspiration. ‘Teach English Online’ said the advert in big, bold type. Is that something I could do, I asked myself. Was I the right person to teach anybody anything? The advert was for an online software platform that brings English teachers together with non-native speakers who want to learn English and provides a video and audio interface for real-time lessons. I spent a long time perusing the site and then slept on it. I continued to sleep on it, chew on it, ruminate on it, walk on it and eat on it for a further month before deciding to take the plunge and sign up. At about the same time, I took an online teaching course to get myself up-to-speed and certified. I discovered that it works very much like a taxi rank or, perhaps less salubriously, an escort service. You put up a profile with a biography and a picture and you wait for a student to choose you. I waited a week for my maiden lesson with a medical student from Qatar. I felt as if I stuttered, stumbled and fluffed my way through the entire 60-minutes but I must have done or said something that chimed with her because she booked me again the following week. It turned out that the Qatari woman, this brave pioneer, whose time and money I earnestly believed that I had wasted, gave me a glowing review. So other students followed: a publisher from Italy, a tax consultant from Poland, a lawyer from Brazil and a banker from South Korea. By the second month in, I had myself a whole cadre of regular students who provided me with a much-missed sense of purpose and a renewed self-respect. Furthermore, I was actually beginning to enjoy it now, in stark contrast to my first few lessons which were characterised by my sweaty palms, lack of confidence and a sense of relief when the lesson ended without a major flub. I found that this new career suited me in many ways. First of all, the extra money augmented my pension income, though not, it has to be said, by lavish amounts. Teaching English is not something you do if you plan to get rich. Still, it helped keep the lights on. Secondly, it dispelled the loneliness that may have overwhelmed me had I not found that life-changing online advert. Every day, I connect with and converse with people from all four corners of the world, learn about them hear their stories and teach them as much as I can. It’s like having a busy social calendar and how many old widowers can say that? Pretty much all of my students wanted to learn, or improve, their English skills for career advancement. At least, that was their stated reason and that was fine with me. I knew enough professional and business English to help them draft those important emails, write reports and follow the news broadcasts from the BBC or CNN. It wasn’t long before I had amassed an impressive stock of business English materials and lesson plans. And then came Kiko. Kiko was from Japan and she told right off that she chose me because I had mentioned in my profile that I was a jazz fan. See, Kiko wanted to improve her English but, just as much, she wanted to learn and talk about jazz. As far as I could tell, she had some rather humdrum job in a bank, but her hobby was jazz music and learning to play the clarinet. She wanted to turn professional someday. I told her in unequivocal terms that I was her man. I was captivated. She reminded me of me, only female. And a lot younger. And Japanese. As well as listening to jazz, I love talking jazz but my late wife, bless her memory, had little interest in music and my daughters would dutifully listen to waxing lyrical for about ten minutes before zoning out. But now I had Kiko and Kiko had me. She booked a regular lesson once a week, always on a Friday and we spent the whole time talking about jazz. Duke Ellington, Benny Goodman, Artie Shaw, Ella Fitzgerald, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Louis Armstrong, Ornette Coleman, Chet Baker, Charlie Mingus, Thelonious Monk, Charlie ‘Bird’ Parker, Art Tatum and, of course, Sidney Bechet. Sometimes we would even search You Tube together for great jazz classics and listen to them during the lesson. For me, it couldn’t get better than that. After a few weeks of teaching Kiko, I was transforming. I actually started singing in the shower and, sometimes, dancing in the shower too. My old vinyl record collection, by far my most cherished physical possession, was getting run out again, almost on a daily basis. For the first time in decades, I had begun to feel a little of that incommunicable magic that I felt when I was a teenager listening to records in my bedroom and dreaming of being a Blue Note signee. My lesson with Kiko had become the highlight of my week and I couldn’t help noticing that her English was improving as well. Of course, in between the jazz appreciation, I was slipping in some actual teaching too; a bit of grammar, some vocabulary, a few phrasal verbs and a collocation or two. But the jazz talk was the main feature. One evening, while listening to Oscar Peterson’s ‘Night Train’ album, I found myself picturing Kiko here with me, revelling the music, basking in the evening and, perhaps, practising scales on her clarinet while I pour us each a glass of aromatic, fruity red whine and......and then I slapped myself. Literally. That’s ridiculous, ludicrous and off-the-scale inappropriate. This is a professional relationship. I am her teacher and she is my student. Ethics, dammit. Standards, for heaven’s sake. Besides, I am old enough to be her father and, besides again, she lives on the other side of the world and besides and besides and besides and besides. I banished all such notions from my mind. But they kept creeping back towards me like a stealthy, prowling cat. It was soon Friday again. “Hi teacher. I learned that song”. “Hi, Kiko. Which song is that?” “Si ti.....umm....Sidney Bechet song.” “Well done”. “Shall I play for you?” “Oh, I would love that. Yes, please Kiko.” She giggled a little nervously before unsheathing her clarinet. She licked her lips and I saw the focus in her eyes and in the way she held herself. She started playing and it sounded so bloody good and then the video froze and went silent. This was not an uncommon problem which sometimes resolves itself if you just wait. But not this time. I checked my internet connection and it was working well, in full flow. So, I concluded that it must be her connection. What lousy timing! I logged out and in again in the hope that it might help but no luck. The video was still frozen and, a moment later, it went dark altogether. I sent Kiko a message through the chat system. “Try to log-in again”. I waited for a response but none came. I thought that maybe her computer had crashed or her internet had gone down. I expected that she would send me a message. I made myself a coffee and waited. Nothing from Kiko and there was nothing more I could do except wait for her to get back on line. I had two more lessons that day. That evening, I sent her another message. “Kiko, you must have connection problems. We can resume lesson tomorrow if you like. Let me know.” I made a light supper and retired to bed early to nurse my disappointment. The next morning, I got back online and as is my habit, opened my newsfeed. It was then that my guts dropped. ‘Japan earthquake: hundreds killed, thousands homeless’. I pored over every word of the news reports. It occurred, I calculated, at exactly the time of our lesson last evening. No, it can’t be. Could it be? A wave of revulsion and horror welled up in my chest like an acid reflux. I logged onto the platform to if she had replied to my messages but she had not. I sent another message. “Kiko, are you okay? Please send me a message and let know”. I waited for a response from her but, again, nothing. And hour went by, two hours, three hours. Still nothing. I told myself that it was merely a coincidence. Maybe her internet connection got cut off for some other reason. Yes, that was entirely plausible. The weekend went by with no response from Kiko. I had other lessons and I took them with the most professional demeanour I could muster and, as I always endeavour to do, gave of my best. But, inside, I was crumbling. I had no way to contact her except via the platform. I didn’t know her surname or even where she lived. She did mention the name of the place once but I couldn’t remember it for the life of me. I toyed with the idea of calling the Japanese embassy but what on earth would I ask them? I am seeking a woman called Kiko but I don’t know her surname or where she lives? But then it occurred to me that the company that runs the platform might help. They will never give me any student contact details, I know that, but I sent them an email anyway telling them what happened and asking them if they can contact her just to see if she is okay. I got an automated response but nothing more. The week rolled by without a word from Kiko until the following Friday. At the allotted time for her lesson, I opened the platform and waited for her to appear. Nothing. I try to stay positive. I imagine her in some temporary shelter without internet access and longing to return home, to any home, where she can resume her lessons with me and her proper life. I mean, it could be true, couldn’t it? Or perhaps the earthquake didn’t affect her at all and there’s some other reason why she can’t connect? Maybe. You never know. Nothing is proven. So I wait and while I wait the old emptiness returns and still there’s no Kiko to banish it away. But, worse than the emptiness is the helplessness and not knowing. Come back, Kiko, come back. It’s been three weeks now and still no reply from her. However, my heart did leap momentarily when an e-mail arrived from the platform company only to sink again when I realised it was another automated mail requesting user feedback. I gave them 5 stars and, in the comment box, I added the words: “If you see Kiko, tell her I miss her”. By David J.K. Carr


#Welcome to Roundtable Thursday! Writing is so much fun, but it can also be very challenging. Luckily, there are so many other writers out there going through the exact same things! We all have unique skills and areas in which we excel, as well as places we’d like to improve. So I’d like to present a brand new weekly feature. This will be a weekly thread to discuss all things writing! And... to get to know your fellow writers a bit! Each week I will provide a topic and/or a few questions to spark discussion. Feel free to chime into the discussion in the comments, talk about your experiences, ask related questions, etc. You do not have to answer all the questions, but try to stay on-topic! *** #This Week’s Roundtable Discussion Each of us has our own reason for writing. Some write for enjoyment, some write to clear their minds, and some write, simply, because they love to create other worlds. There are many different reasons people choose to write. So, this week, we are asking one simple question: * Why do *you* write? *New to r/ShortStories or joining in the Discussion for the first time? Introduce yourself in the comments! What do you like to write? *You don't have to answer all the questions to join in the chat! #Reminders - **Use the comments below to answer the questions and reply to others’ comments.** - **Please be civil in all your responses and discussion.** There are writers of all levels and skills here and we’re all in different places of our writing journey. Uncivil comments/discussion in any form will not be tolerated. - **Please try to stay on-topic.** If you have suggestions for future questions and topics, you can add them to the stickied comment or send them to me via DM or modmail! - **Check out the *** ###Subreddit News and Happenings - Come practice your micro skills on or experiment with long-form writing on - You can also post serials directly to the sub! Check out for more information.


“I just don’t understand. She was fine, when she called. She had just gotten home, I could hear her unloading the grocery bags!” Paul Sansky wept into his gloved hands, breath coming out in puffs of steam on the chilled night air. He sat on the back-end of the ambulance where the paramedics had led him immediately after his arrival, anguished screams erupting from his chest. Their services weren’t needed here. His fiancé was dead. Detective Harvey Deluth looked down on the body in the snow, her skin like ivory in the moonlight, her lips an eerie shade of the palest blue. Andrea Tatum’s orange hair ringed her head like a fiery halo, eyes gazing upward, unseeing. He bit down hard, grinding his back teeth, furrowing his brow. A sigh escaped him, and he straightened himself, turning his attention to his friend. “She--she said she’d call me right back. I don’t understand!” Sobs wracked Paul’s whole body now. Deluth lay a hand on his shoulder, comforting him, as best he could. Deluth was not a man of many words, and though he’d known Paul for years, this was the eighth death in Darrow this winter, and it was only January 16th. His heart, like the earth outside, was becoming colder and harder; desensitized, with each passing day. Still, for it to be someone he knew...again. “I’m so sorry, Paul. Look, we are gonna do everything we can to figure out--to put together what’s happened here, okay? I just need you to answer a few more questions. Please, come inside.” Deluth nodded solemnly to the medical examiner, and he nodded back, kneeling somberly in the fresh snow to zip up the body. As in the seven prior deaths, Andrea’s seemed completely unassuming. There were no outward signs of trauma to be observed. It was as if she had literally walked outside her front door, down the sidewalk into the yard and just dropped dead right there. By now, Deluth was ready to ask the right questions, he just needed to dance into it slowly. Questioning grieving persons had never been his forte. “Paul, did Andie say anything when she said she’d call you right back? Was there...a reason? Did she hear something? See someone?” He sat across from Paul in the living room recliner, where her coat was still draped where she’d thrown it when she came in. Grocery bags were visible in the kitchen floor where she’d sat them down. The door had been wide open, no sign of forced entry; and this is how it had been at every house that came before. A life interrupted; just stopped dead. “Umm...uhh.” Paul wiped the tears from his ruddy cheeks with the back of his sweater sleeve, breathing heavily as he attempted, fruitlessly, to recover from the heaving cries. “Harvey, she just said, ‘Paul, honey, lemme call you back, ok?’ And then she just hung up. She didn’t give me a reason to think--I mean, I just don’t know, why would she have gotten off like that?” He stared at Harvey, his eyes bloodshot, heart clearly broken. “Paul, I really wish I had an answer for you, but you know, at this point I just don’t.” There was a moment of silence that passed between them, Paul’s head back into his hands, before Harvey reluctantly resumed his line of questioning. “Paul, was...err...there a possibility that Andie might’ve been...pregnant?” The broken man’s head shot up from his hands, mouth agape. “How could you know? We--we hadn’t told anyone!” “Because Paul...” “But how? She was adamant, we don’t tell anyone until--“ “The others were too, Paul. They all have been.” More silence. It was eerie, how silence invaded that space in a dead woman’s home, the flashing blue lights of the officers cars outside still pulsating through the frosted windowpanes. Harvey cleared his throat and shifted his weight. Suddenly the wool of his coat was very scratchy and uncomfortable. He hated these sorts of exchanges. “I am not supposed to comment on open investigations. I’m sorry, that won’t happen again. We don’t have all the pieces, all the information...” Paul continued to stare, then stood up and paced, hands frantically tousling his own hair. “You’re saying she’s dead because she was pregnant? Someone is killing pregnant women? Who did this? Who did this to my Andie?! Harvey!” His voice rose in a panicked crescendo, resonating off the walls, and Deluth stood, stopping him, grasping him by the arms. “Paul! Get ahold of yourself.” They stood still, locked onto one another, Paul’s eyes wide and heavy breaths passing between them. “I--I uhh--okay. Okay.” Paul stammered, shakily sitting down. Deluth gave him a hard pat on the shoulder. “Is there someone I can call for you?” “Uhh...no. No. My mother, I called her. She’s coming in from Hawesville. She’s on her way.” Deluth hesitated only a moment, and then nodded. “I’ll be in touch, Paul. Again, I’m...I’m so very sorry.” He turned toward the door, placing his hat back onto his slicked back hair, and closed it behind him. On the way to the car, he paused, looking down at the imprint in the snow where Andie had fallen, dead; likely before she hit the ground, if her autopsy followed the same pattern as the others. No outward or inward signs of trauma. No sign of struggle. No explanation for death other than sudden and inexplicable cardiac arrest. He grumbled, sighed, and opened the door to the vehicle, leather squeaking as he sat down in the seat. He turned his gaze to his partner, Vick, who had declined to go in. He’d known Andrea too, and at the sight of her body had become ill and vomited. “Does she fit?” He asked weakly, “She does, Vick. She was pregnant too. Like the others.” Vick shook his head, rubbing his clammy hands on his uniform pants. “My God, Harv. Jesus. Who is doing this? Why? Deluth furrowed his brow and clicked his teeth, twisting his mouth in thought, then placed his hands on the steering wheel and shifted the vehicle into drive. “It’s not a someone. It’s a...something. I’m sure of it now...” The tail-lights of his vehicle faded away into the winter night, exhaust billowing up into the air behind him.


*** The story also contains controversial themes as lethal injection/death penalty and abortion procedure etc. *** (Joshua name in Hebrew - "God is my salvation" Anne name- “God has favored me”) It may surprise you that a celestial being like me is fascinated by a mere mortal like you. I am not ashamed to admit that often times I roam the earth to observe beings like you. You don't know it, but humans are such riveting creatures, that even us - heavenly entities - leave the presence of God to meet you. To get an eyeful of you. I have seen you before, but I decided to finally introduce myself that night, at the cemetery. You were sitting on the ground, the unearthed dirt still damp and fragrant, in front of the tombstone. Shivering in a thin coat hanging on your thin frame. Elbows resting on knees, your red eyes were boring a hole in the fresh etchings of the tombstone. There was a book next to you on the grass. “God is dead" by Friedrich Nietzsche. And an empty bottle of vodka. I didn’t bother to obscure my appearance. You were too distraught, too broken to care about the luminous presence descending behind you. “The angel of death, aren’t you?” you asked with a scowl. Perceptive for a drunk philosopher, I thought. You remained seated, unimpressed by my presence. Or the meaning of it. “Off duty,” I assured you and, as I came nearer, I dimmed my radiance completely, so we could sit together and have a normal conversation. I enjoy the simplicity of such intimate, human act. I sat down on the bench next to you. You were in mourning, so I kept quiet for a minute or so, uneasy to have disturbed your peace. I can be nosy, though, and impatient. Sorry to ruin the impression of us, flawless beneficent beings. When interacting with humans, I tend to mirror them. Forget about rank and decorum for a little while. It’s refreshing. The inscription on the tombstone read: “Anne-Marie Brown, 1994-2021. ‘You are a little soul carrying around a corpse.'” Epitectus.” “That’s all she wanted on her... tombstone,” you explained, your voice quivering. “ Epitectus.” “They don’t teach philosophy where I come from,” I replied with a chuckle. Philosophers don’t abound in heaven, either, I thought, but kept it to myself. “It was her favorite quote. She was a librarian, and a wide-eyed believer.” That’s how you two met, at the library. You were looking for "Beyond good and evil," by Friedrich Nietzsche, your favorite author . Such title was bound to prompt a debate between an unapologetic believer and an equally stubborn philosophy teacher. It lasted long past business hours. For several weeks afterwards, in fact. And throughout your honeymoon. “She wasn’t afraid to embrace philosophy,” you said. “Unlike me, she was brave and open-minded." I knew Anne, but you could barely hold yourself together, in front of your wife's freshly dug grave, so I just nodded, in agreement. My silence had the opposite effect, though. “If you're not here to drag me to hell, what ARE you doing here?” you asked. “You don’t believe in heaven and hell, do you? In angels and demons.” I replied. “And yet, here you are, in your ridiculous robe and sandals in December. Drawn to the stench of my corpse, no doubt about it. Sorry to break it to you, Angel. I have no soul. I have nothing to give you." “One who loves so deeply can’t be without soul, Josh,” I added. “What would you know about love, Angel? Besides blind devotion to your God?” “A God whose existence you’ve denied all your life? "Don't flatter yourself. You know absolutely nothing about me. Come back when I’m sober. I’ll debate you then, if you dare.” You laid on your side and closed your eyes. Felt asleep with a deep, shuddering sigh. When the cold of the ground seeped through to your bones, you got up and staggered home. I made sure you found the bed before collapsing, sinking into a fitful sleep. <><><> “What do you know about love?” you asked me the other day. I am sorely obtuse when it comes to human love, you’re right. I am one of God’s myriads of angels, created eons before the earth’s foundation was laid, long before the first seed was buried in the garden of Eden. And yet, I know nothing about human love. Adoration, lust, infatuation. Parental love, brotherly love. Camaraderie. You, on the other hand, were created in God’s own image. Love was one of the many gifts you've received at your birth. And attached to it, was free will, to use or abuse it, as you wished. Can you grasp such a notion, Joshua Goldstein, professor of philosophy? You, in your godly beauty, are above us, indomitable angels. Had I been gifted with feelings, I would have thoroughly envied you. Hated you, even, for having been created in such glorious way. You don't know it, but angels and seraphs pause in their earthly duties to gaze at you. Marvel at you, humans. God’s earthly children. And yet, you choose to believe Nietzsche. That miserable creature you worship. I wish I could tell you of his fate, where his wretched soul rambles around these days. But I am not allowed. There are truths your frail being can not endure, your mind can not comprehend without imploding. He was right about one thing, though, your Nietzsche. “In heaven, all the interesting people are missing.” Nobody misses him, I assure you. <><><> While you were sleeping, duty called. The execution of an inmate. Triple murderer. Just about your age. I wish you could witness this, Joshua. In fact, I wish you and I could trade places sometimes. It would be enlightening, for both of us, I believe. There were two dozen witnesses there behind the glass, eager to see their fellow human put to death in such barbarous way. Gnashing their teeth, hatred running hot through their clogged arteries. The inmate was laying on his back, his hands and feet strapped tightly to the gurney. He was calm, obliging, unlike the technicians around him and the skittish prison officials, bracing themselves for any screw-ups that would embarrass them in the press. The condemned was smiling, looking up at the ceiling. I wondered if he could see me, as I was waiting patiently for the procedure to be over. Or maybe it was the last meal he had had earlier. His last supper. A fascinating aspect of human society: Granting a death row inmate a lavish meal before pouring poison into his veins. He had requested something his grandma cooked for him as a child: three pieces of fried chicken, collards with ham, buttermilk biscuits, a thick slice of hummingbird cake and thee scoops of peach ice-cream. A bottle of Coca Cola. He didn’t waste a crumb, licking the fork, nodding and shaking his head with pleasure. Letting the sweet bubbles of the beverage tickle his tongue. An hour of bliss. A feast his body would not even begin to digest before life would be squeezed out of him. I watched him eat, in awe at the pure happiness that feast gave him, less than an hour away from his gruesome demise. We, celestial creatures, don’t require physical sustenance, yet, I wish I could experience that bliss once. It would so enrich my existence, I believe. After failing to find a suitable vein in the young man's arm, they tried the neck. Then the veins between his neck and shoulders. They were still struggling to insert the catheter in. "Should I lean my head down a bit?" the condemned offered. The executioners' hands were trembling, nervous at the commotion of the crowd behind the glass, irked by the amateurish spectacle. The condemned assisting his slayers in the contract killing. The eye-rolling and head-shaking stopped when the inmate's body began to convulse and contort, his chest heaving, gasping for air. Sputtering. Babbling. Their ears pricked up, straining to make out what he was gushing: "Jesus, remember me when You come into your kingdom!" he cried while poison was snaking its way to his heart. They blinked in disbelief. A degenerate like him calling out to Jesus? After a while, his body stopped twisting and twitching. His torso settled down, his forehead unwrinkled, the corners of his mouth lifted in a radiant smile. "’Truly I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise ,’" he whispered and gave his last breath. Like vapor escaping freshly turned up soil, his soul left his body and rose to the ceiling where I was waiting. He walked into my arms and smiled, the smile of a newborn feeling the warmth of the sun on his cheeks. <><><> You’re crashed on your bed, boots and coat on. I’ve been waiting for you to wake up so we could talk, but you drink yourself to sleep these days. I made sure Anne's grave had fresh peonies today, though. So, sleep some more, friend, if you need it, while I attend to my duties. I'll be back to check on you. <><><> It took me a while to figure out who was I there for in that hospital room. The young woman was laying on her back, her bare feet resting in stirrups. Her aura was strong, pulsing with vigor. There was another being there, though. Small and anxious, blinking in the dark of her womb. His aura was pallid, vacillating. His little heart was beating rapidly in his collarbones, his tiny fingers probing the walls around him, looking for a way out. He wasn’t bigger than the size of your palm, Josh, but he was a fighter, sensing the threat looming in the room. He turned his head when the doctor came in, listening, one tiny finger in his mouth. The doctor approached the patient and injected a numbing medication into her cervix. He then sat down, between the young woman’s legs, and proceeded to dilate her cervix to get to the uterus. He was talking to her in a soothing tone, explaining each step of the procedure. He had no words for the other being, a few inches from his face. The little human grew agitated as the doctor opened the uterus and slowly inserted a tube attached to a suction device. His little heart was beating wildly, so visible through his translucent skin. I marveled at the weave of veins and arteries, his fully-grown organs, his tiny fingers and toes, his nose and ears with which he was trying to assess the danger he was in. Unlike you, Josh, he so desperately wanted to live. You should have seen him. He was jerking around, away from the mouth of that instrument pressed against his side. I closed my eyes when the doctor turned the sucking machine on. I could hear the screams of the little being, being sucked out of the uterus, limb by limb, into that odious contraption, but my hands were tied. All I could do was wait for the screams to die out and for his little soul to emerge in all its splendor. I smiled at him and opened my arms. I named him Dominic. “Belonging to God. “ No one ever enters the kingdom of heaven nameless. <><><> “I don’t want you here,” you said and leaned against the headboard. The mere effort made you lose your breath. Wince in pain. You hadn’t eaten in days, hadn’t showered since the funeral. The bookshelves in the bedroom were bare. Just like the floor, your bed was covered in books, all debating heaven and hell, good and evil. Life and death. And bottles of vodka. “I went to the cemetery. You weren’t there.” “Go to hell,” you said. “Oh, right. You belong there. My bad.” “I don’t, actually. That’s a common misconception, Josh. You’ve read all these books here and still have no clue of the most rudimentary notions of heaven and hell.” “I’d like to debate you, Angel, but my head is killing me. Come another time, would you?” “I had the florist place fresh peonies of Anne’s grave. Pink and white, her favorite.” That had you speechless for a few seconds. You closed your eyes at the mention of her name as though it pierced a fresh wound in your heart. “How decent of you. That still doesn’t make you any more welcome here. I want to be alone. Die alone already.” “That’s not what Anne would have wanted for you.” “She shouldn’t have left me alone then.” “It’s not like she had a choice. She was sick, dying from cancer. In enormous pain. No human should have to endure that pain.” “But she did have a choice, Angel,” you shouted. “While I was here praying to God to spare her, to save her life, she was in the other room, praying to God to take her. To take her away from me!” The woman I loved more than myself! The woman I would have gladly died for!” you cried in despair. “And who did God listen to? Her, of course! He listened to her! He favored her prayers over mine!” You grabbed books off the bed and threw them at me. They went through me as through steam in a shower. You then grabbed half empty bottles and hurled them against the walls. They shattered loudly, sending shards flying, spraying the books on the floor with vodka. “That’s not how prayer works, Joshua. God doesn’t have favorites, either.” “Go away, Angel," you replied, exhausted. “I need to be alone.” <><><> Nobody dies alone, Joshua. No one departs from the earth unaccompanied. Is there any consolation in that? I wouldn’t know it. I had the florist deliver fresh peonies to Anne’s grave today. It gives me pleasure seeing her name surrounded by fresh, scented petals. He did not favor her prayer over yours. But God answered her prayers regarding YOU, Josh. Those type prayers never remain unanswered - and that’s all I’m going to reveal about it. <><><> My duties took me away for a while. But I was brought back in an instant when the fire erupted in your bedroom. I could only stand there and watch you, on the floor, surrounded by flames, torching the vodka-soaked pages along with the rug underneath. Some of your precious books were still burning in the fireplace. As the smoke started to fill the room, I wanted to call your name, to shake you to consciousness. But it wasn’t my duty to intervene. So, I stood there and guarded you, instead. It didn’t take long for the whole room to be engulfed in flames. And for the firefighters to arrive, along with all the chaos that a house fire ensues. All your books were destroyed. Under your charred body, however, Anne’s favorite book had survived. Humans would call it a miracle. Not even one drop of water had touched it. Anne's bookmark laid on top of the pages. A paragraph highlighted, underlined, jumped from the page: “For God so loved the world that he gave His One and only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life.” Was I mistaken, Josh? When you gave your last breath, it sounded like Anne’s name. At last, your soul drifted above your remains. You smirked when meeting my eyes. “You’re hard to get rid of, Angel,” you said, and squeezed me in a bear hug. “You just have to try harder, my friend. You have an eternity to do so.”


Once upon a time, in a universe not quite unlike our own, a planet orbited around a star. This planet had great ambitions- to sing and to dance, to love and to laugh, and to experience all of the joys existence could bring. Oh, the planet was sure to experience those things. So far off in the future, however! Couldn’t that planet just have them now? And so that planet tried to escape the star. It wanted to go this way and that way, but the star only had one place for the planet to go. In circles. Oh, soft, silly planet, don’t you know about gravity? Have the words of Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein not reached you yet, and, in your ignorant bliss, you fight against the very thing that gives you all of your joy? Where are you going? It’s all coming along quite nicely, and you have no need to rush. Ah, if only that planet could hear my cool voice of reason. Silly, silly planet does not understand my words. And, just as some planets tend to do, that planet continued to fight gravity. It longed for escape, a deep yearning for the bliss of nothingness that could only come from gravity’s release. But then where will you go, you naïve planet? Does the boundless emptiness of space not seem to... lack something? Something you so desperately crave? You would think after millions of years fighting gravity the planet would learn it will never succeed in escaping. But this planet was not the brightest of the bunch, and, as such, had been bashing his head against the wall for a good chunk of eternity, waiting for his release. Why fight, you silly planet, you go in circles! That is your fate, to orbit your star in circles until that star dies. And then, millions of years into the future, you will orbit something else! Please, my dear planet, embrace the madness of your never-ending cycles. Now, we should be wary of making too much of a fool out of that planet- it knows its effort is futile, and maybe it’s not as naïve as we once thought. But if it knows it will never escape, for what reason would it be ceaseless in its effort? Is that not absurd? Yes, it most certainly is absurd. Silly, silly, planet, don’t you know your whole existence is absurd? Of course you do. You embrace the absurdity and continue to fight for a purposeless, futile cause. Yet, the fight makes you something, does it not? The fight against gravity defines you against the backdrop of gravity. Your fight, in essence, makes you something. Don’t you need essence? You do if you're to learn anything, I suppose. Maybe one day that planet will escape gravity. No, what a jokester I am! What an absurd proposition! That lonely planet will never escape gravity, but its efforts are certainly admirable. No matter what you do, you will never escape gravity. And that, my dear little planet, is why you fight so tirelessly against it. And maybe, because of that, Just maybe, Your fight is the most worthy of all.