Mrs. Haskall squinted at herself in the mirror. A blocked lettering of the word ‘Lovely’ appeared in the upper right-hand corner. She smiled as it triggered an old Stevie Wonder song. Below the word, a readout appeared. Her temperature, heart rate, and even her breath rate. She had never known that was a thing until it had been printed out on her screen every morning. The temperature was a little high, she had handpicked the gradient from a mint green to a tomato red. It only ever showed up when she held her breath long to make her head feel like it would burst with pressure. Her temperature was now a light yellow. She brushed her teeth, the vibration clicking into different phases of intensity based on her prescribed regimen. She placed the brush back on the stand, pausing a moment as she heard the whipping sound of its vacuum sending her saliva to the base of the charger for processing. It would be screened for diseases and defects within minutes. Dora Haskall focused on herself in the mirror once again, and decided against makeup. The mask would cover most of it anyway. She combed her hair, feeling the now-usual tugs as hairs were pulled in to the spine of the comb and tested within . At-home drug tests had become the standard for companies that could afford them, though now they were almost the same price as regular combs. It beeped a cautious tone and flashed green as she placed it on a magnetic charging pad on the counter. She adjusted her face in the mirror, focusing particularly on the dark spots under her eyes. She grabbed her mask from the hook on the side of the wall. It had switched places with her face towel, which now lay flopped on the counter. The mask was more of a re-breather than a mask. A small, lithium batter drove servo motors that drove air in and out of the mask. A well-timed ejection could make those motors shoot out a used filter like a bullet casing. The filters themselves were thin and effective. They were costly. Heavily tested to block the specific pathogens plaguing everybody at the time. Each new panic led to mass selling of new filters. A person's mask was like a car, personal and with a long enough life that each one felt like an extension of yourself. It saved your life at least three times. Mrs. Haskell called to her fridge as she walked down the stairs. It reflected her addition of orange juice and chicken stock on the LED screen. The low-light shopping list would be automatically ordered at the the most opportune time. The higher models waited for eye contact to trigger a slow gradient from low to bright lettering, in your favorite font or handwriting. She clasped the mask behind her head, feeling the familiar whirl of tiny, nearby motors. She never opened her mouth while the filters spun into place, it felt too close to that sinister grind of a dentist’s drill. She breathed a sigh of relief when the motors stopped. Each exhalation was sampled and monitored. The tiny bacteria inside collected and reacted to each atom, alerting higher and higher bacteria in a bio-chemical chain reaction until the dreaded alarm was sounded. She told her kids, who were still in bed, that the bacteria wore little suits while they did their job. She reached for the door, anticipating the *whoosh* of air as the tightly closed door opened. She pressed her thumb into the base of the knob. It let out a honk instead of a beep. Her brows furrowed, almost reaching the upper tip of the mask. She turned it hard this time, but the knob stayed. She pressed her thumb again and it honked. She jumped as the honk began to echo through the speakers throughout the house. Normally reserved for the doorbell, they now resounded its short, dying duck honk. Then the words she had dreaded followed: “Infection detected. Remain indoors.” She looked down at her hands, betrayed. They crawled with invisible horrors, a horrible slime that left a killing trail along her skin as they slid. She felt a hitch in her throat, a catch like a splinter from the air caught in the vulnerable red flesh in her throat. She coughed lightly, as her children woke up to the rumbling sounds of sanitizing baths being drawn and doors mechanically clicking as they locked shut. Mr. Holcomb’s morning started with a heavier cough. His name had been John for most of his life and his mask and high-tech toothbrush had been turned off for almost a week now. John walked to his mirror, with no greeting and much more comforting: no analysis. He adjusted himself with fruitless swipes and left with his hair worse than before. His wife was asleep, though not for long. His kids had woken them an hour ago to leave for the park. their coughs echoing in the hallway before they chugged their amber. John chugged his amber as well. It tasted about as sweet as it looked and even more sour. His cough subsided, his throat coated against those annoying dry catches and throat aches. He changed his clothes and quickly rinsed his hands in the sink. The most advanced appliance he owned: when the heat was turned on it automatically spewed out lava. He threw the water off his hands towards the towel and wiped the rest off on his shirt, the sudden warmth clinging to his gut. The door was the last hurdle. He haphazardly fit a plastic mask over his face. It jutted out in places and barely covered his nose. He grabbed an ice cube from the fridge and clenched it in his hands. There were still droplets in the floor from when his kids had done the same. Every house had been outfitted with these door handles by law, government-funded. They spoke to every other electric eye in the house, waiting desperately to lock. John straightened his tie with his other hand, let the ice fall, and grabbed the handle. It stuttered and then beeped green, turning smoothly in its casing with barely a push. The breeze hit John like a fresh hug, even though in the back of his mind it carried a hidden poison that he carried too. John let the guilt fall away. He let one last cough escape, and made his way to work. John worked in the corporate offices, separated from others a few inches of glass and a thick, wooden door. In the past decade, there had been two pandemics and four other minor panics. The technology had followed. Cameras that used infrared to capture temperatures spiked in price and demand and then fell to almost free once everyone already owned one. In buildings behind decades of developed technology, some even took off their masks. John eyed the cameras around him nervously, sweat collecting on his brow. The amber was a recent concoction. It was hard to get but in his position you began to know the right people. It hid all symptoms, but was inconsistent. Sometimes, an ice cube was necessary for the smart door. John could not tell if he was feeling sick or nervous as the line towards the door of his building rushed forward. Every step by the officers around them felt like the beginning of an assassination, a skipped heartbeat as if each step was toward him. His breathing shallowed. The base of his skull throbbed and suddenly it was his turn. A door led to a small room. Across from him was an eye. Digital. A black glass iris a foot across with a glowing center. The blue dot in the middle grew to fill the whole screen, and an image of a nurse came up. John did not fall for it. He knew the true look of this device was the dark eye, with the blue point of light that looked through his soul like it was nothing but data. It greeted him with a smile. He smiled back, his upper lip coated in sweat. He suddenly had the desire to cough, and he could not tell if it was in his head or real. His mind rolled with waves of cloying guilt and denying self-reassurance, crashing after each other. His eyes flickered at the robot. It had asked him a question. His breath escaped him like it was the last bit of air he had left. It repeated: “Have you been within 6 feet of an infected person?” “No,” John replied, wincing at the crack of his voice. The nurse pretended to take notes, a glorified loading screen. It used to be real nurses in the booths. “Are you feeling well today?” A new question, not asked before. “A bit tired,” John rasped. “Couldn’t sleep.” He tried to give a relatable sigh to the robot, but felt only more suspicious as the nurse returned to note-taking. “Do you know the result of lying?” John’s eyes narrowed. His eyebrows almost touched. He had been afraid, now he felt attacked. “Yes,” he shoved through clenched teeth he felt he had earned. “And I know the consequences. Quarantine. Arrest. My family taken and locked into a house that becomes a cage.” He caught himself before he called it a ploy. The constant panic and isolation. The push of people inside and then the push outside to fix an economy that never should have been broken. A strategy to ensure they all follow, to see the weaker people die, and the rebellious become the enemy. As he walked through to work, he partly wished he had spoken more, just to see their response. He got home even more tired. A long day made worse by a rising cough that threatened to break through the amber. He had taken to rubbing ice cubes down his temples and along his neck, telling coworkers the thermostat was broken in his office. No one had worn masks today. It was said the disease was almost done, after only a few weeks this. The redundant filters were no longer necessary. They had shaken hands and high-fived in celebration. Mrs, Holcomb was bent over a pot on the stove, sluggishly stirring. She had been moving gingerly for days, feeling the aches of a fever. “How was yoga?” John asked. “Oh lovely,” she whispered back. “They’re finally moving the mats closer together. It almost felt back to normal.” She smiles softly and accepts his kiss. Their two boys were limply fighting over bread, like their batteries had been pulled out. John turned the TV on, automatically to the news. All programming was halted for pandemic news. With the soup ready, the family gathered with their bowls. They let the warmth rise into their mouths and float into their heads, relieving the pressure within. True smiles came into their faces, and their coughs became more intermittent as they ate. On the television, a local reporter was worriedly showing rising graphs of infections and deaths in their city. And the Holcombs wondered when this madness would end.


Long ago, when the sun still ravaged the earth, a newborn god was cast out from the Star Palace. He fell past clouds and birds, landing with a crash so great it made the sun pause in his ravaging. “Brother, what brings you to my world?” Asked the sun of the newborn god. “I know not.” Replied the god, “but I know this; fire and blood is no way to treat a world.” And with that, the newborn god roared at the sun, with such power as to send him back into the sky. But little was left of the world. The young god wandered his new lands, searching for a friend. One day when walking through a great jungle, he came upon a woman shrouded by a great green cloak. “How did you survive the ravages?” He asked her. “I have my ways, for I am stronger than the sun.” She answered. Suddenly, she pounced upon the young god, tearing a great chunk of flesh from his arm. The young god scampered and scrabbled, and barely escaped the jungle. He looked back, but the woman had vanished. Years later, he came upon a man scratching at the side of a mountain. This time he was more careful. The young god shouted to the man from a distance. “You there, how did you survive the ravages?” But the man did not answer. Again and again, the young god shouted, and again and again the man did not answer. He just kept scratching at the side of the mountain. Finally, overcome by curiosity, the young god approached the man, and found his head to be a mess of blood. Using his immense power, the young god healed his newfound friend over the course of seven days and seven nights, but at the end of it the man was still blind. “Take my eye.” Said the young god, reaching into his own head. With a twist he tore out his left eye, and fed it to the man. The next day, he opened his eyes and gasped. “What have you done???” Exclaimed the man, “I do not deserve such things, for I am a traitor and an exile. I do not deserve to see such things.” And with that, he raised a sharp rock to gouge out his eyes. But the young god put a hand on his to still him. “You have died, let me bring you back to life. You have been blinded, let me help you see. You have been hurt, and I have healed you. Do not take my gift in vain, for I am a god.” At the sound of those words the man collapsed into a fit of sobbing. “Weakness,” came a tutting voice from on top of a rock. “Utter weakness.” The young god looked over to see it was the woman again, this time accompanied by a bird, a cat, a bear, and a pair of wolves. “What brings you here?” He asked her. “I too thought I was alone,” she replied. “Doomed to wander this barren world forever until the sun returns.” The young god turned to the man, “How did your people survive the ravages?” “We dug below the earth. We dug so deep that the fires could not reach us. The sun didn’t have a chance of seeing us.” The woman purred softly, “Clever. I shall have to meet this people of yours.” “They are not my people anymore. I do not serve their king.” With those words the man knelt before the young god. “I serve a new king.” With a hiss, the woman pounced. Her claws ripped down the sides of the man, rending him in half in an instant. With a gurgling scream, he fell. The young god barely had time to react before she was on him as well, rending and tearing, but this time he wasn’t a child, and he fought back. For an instant, they clashed. Blood of both gods fell to the mountainside, and pooled in the forest below. Then the next instant, she had vanished into the wind. The young god fell to his knees before the shreds of his first friend. He wept, and the tears that fell upon the flesh turned it into babes. Soon, the young god was surrounded by children, all weeping alongside him. “She will return.” He told them. “But when she does, we will be ready.” The babes gave him a wise eyed stare, as if they knew.


Trevor could not have said what made him stop at the psychic shop that bitter Sunday afternoon; it was a highly uncharacteristic thing for him to do. He had neither believed in nor truly even considered the phenomenon of self-proclaimed clairvoyance much before that moment. But, impelled by forces he did not understand and could not resist, he walked through the stained, wooden doorway and peered into the dim candlelight which provided the only source of illumination in the small front room. “Hello?” he called into the dimness. “Coming,” an accented, female voice called back -- Jamaican, likely, certainly Carribean. As he awaited the arrival of the voice’s owner he took the opportunity to orient himself and scrutinize his surroundings. The shop contained no electrical lighting. In fact, it contained no electronic devices of any kind. It was like an anachronistic world all to itself. Soft, dark walls seemed to drink his pain, leaving him only peace. The shop’s owner materialized from the depths, bearing a wide, ancient lantern which she set down on the counter before turning to face him. Small, fine lines ran down the corners of her eyes and gave her a grandmotherly appearance. Her skin was very dark, and this magnified the illuminating effect of the lantern, leaving the shadowed portions of her face indistinguishable from their background such that all that was clearly visible to Trevor were her eyes and a small circle of flesh surrounding them. “Sit,” she intoned with a resonant voice, pointing to a chair just now coming into visibility as the lantern cast its light. “Thank you,” Trevor replied simply. “What brings you here?” “I... I don’t know, really. I don’t normally come to places like this...” the woman cut him off with a wave of her hand. “Nobody comes here by chance.” This was said with a decisive air of finality. “Then, why *am* I here?” She smiled and it applied a wonderful distortion to her features. “You are here because I can give you exactly what you most desire.” Trevor sat in silence for a moment, fully appreciating these words. “I don’t even know what that is.” “Most men don’t. But, I do.” She reached out her hand. “I can tell you what it is, and I can give it to you, but you must share yourself with me. All your history, your thoughts, your memories, I must see them to fully understand you. I will take nothing that you do not give me, but know that if you hide too much I will not be able to do my work.” Could this woman be telling the truth? An intuition born of some unknowable force within him told Trevor that she was. He *believed* it -- without question. Truthfully, the psychic’s proposition was very attractive to him, and not merely because of what she offered to give. Sharing himself, truly being *understood* by another human being... This was something he never believed he could achieve again. Within us all there is a primordial desire to be *known*, to break the solipsistic confines of our own mind and perceptions. We communicate our thoughts and affections and desires with paltry words, but can never know if we are understood fully and completely. And so, knowing this, Trevor took the woman’s hand. It was soft and firm, aged and weathered but still comforting. For a moment, there was mere silence. Then, he felt it begin. *Nighttime games on the streets of Kingston.* *Stern, unsmiling faces admonishing little Ionie not to play after dark.* *Dinner, breakfast, lunch at the small table by the window.* *A flood of faces, people, lost loves, old friends, enemies, a life lived and lived well, and now drawing to its natural close.* Then, with a shock, he was back in the little room and looking into Ionie’s face. For a moment, he did not understand why he should be seeing his own face as if an outsider, but the moment passed. Ionie appeared very grim. A tear fell down her cheek and hit the counter. “My poor boy,” she whispered and squeezed his hand tightly. “Poor, poor boy. You have suffered so much.” The enormity of the gesture was too much for him and his eyes glazed over with tears as well. She did not merely empathize with him, did not merely express a shallow sentiment of pity -- she *knew*. “Well?” he asked, after a dark moment of solemn contemplation. She steadied herself, drying her eyes. “The memories...” she began. “I can make them stop. I can take them all away.” She needn’t explain further. Trevor understood what she meant, and she saw in him that understanding. He looked up at her after a minute or so of staring down at his own hands. “She would be gone, then? I’d forget it all?” “Yes, I’m afraid it all must go, all the memories from beginning to end. That is the only way to heal the wound. If I leave anything, I will leave the pain too.” Trevor sighed and sat back. He closed his eyes and called up his earliest memories of Ruby, considering the woman’s offer... \*\*\* Trevor had always liked going to the Starbucks on the corner near his house. He was impervious to his friends’ accusations of conforming to the middle-class Caucasian stereotype and went there often. He spent long hours there, enjoying the solitude afforded by a pair of headphones and selective deafness. People had always posed a challenge to him. The life of the hermit held little appeal, but most other people merely and frankly exhausted him. It required great effort to force a smile and feign interest in the weather or his friend’s most recent romantic conquest. Often, after work, he would find a corner of the shop, buy a coffee and work on the screenplay he had been intending to finish for several years. From time to time, someone would recognize him and when he wasn’t able to effectively dodge their efforts to engage him in conversation he would be forced to break out of his comfortable, self-imposed isolation, plaster on a false smile and make idle small-talk. This routine continued, relatively unchanged, for some time until one day he looked down at his cup to see that alongside his name there had been written a series of digits. A phone number. He looked up from his table and caught the eye of the girl who had written it. She smiled and quickly looked away. Trevor did not know how to feel about this development. Was it a trick, he wondered. Surely she must have been put up to it; it was a cruel joke. All of his previous romantic entanglements had been hard won conquests which took months and months of painstaking effort. Usually, he invested this effort for no return. Yet, here it was, right before his eyes: the phone number. It appeared genuine enough. The area code was right. Later that night, after a long time staring at the cup, he decided to call the number. The odds were very good that it would turn out to be a Taco Bell or some such nonsense. But, he found the call answered on the second ring by a friendly, female voice. “Hello?” she said. “You-you left me this number,” Trevor replied, dumbly. “I did,” she laughed. “Do you want to get lunch some time, or dinner maybe?” “Sure,” Trevor was still in shock that the number was real. They made plans for dinner the next day at a little restaurant downtown. He strode across his cramped apartment, nearly tripping on the myriad discarded things on the floor. *I’ve gotta clean this up,* he thought to himself and set about the task with a renewed vigor. The next day, he arrived at the restaurant at the appointed time, probably overdressed. He fidgeted with his collar, cursing himself for thinking it necessary. *She’s going to think I’m crazy. I am crazy. Christ, I’m crazy...* Round and round the thoughts went, bouncing along the internal corridors of his mind as he found and took his seat. *20 minutes early. Why did I leave so early? She’s going to know that I’ve been freaking out about this all day. Am I sweating? I think I’m sweating.* Aside from the waitress coming and bringing bread to his table, Trevor was left alone with his internal monologue until his date arrived. “Hi,” he said, standing suddenly and spilling water all over the bread. “Oh...” She merely smiled and put her napkin down to soak it up. “Ruby,” she said, extending her hand. “Trevor.” “I know. I take your order every Tuesday.” Trevor sat down after helping Ruby to dry the table. She followed suit. “Right,” he said. “So, Trevor, what do you do?” “I’m a janitor at an insurance company,” he said. “This is usually the part of the date where the girl leaves,” he added, half-joking. “I’m still here.” As she said this a twinkle of strange humor played in her eye, a slight, corruscating, tantalizing thing. “Okay, who put you up to this?” Trevor was growing exasperated. “Was it Rob? I bet it was Rob, oh he loves to screw with me...” Ruby cut him off, placing her hand on top of his. “Nobody put me up to this, Trevor. I like you. I’ve wanted to do this for some time now.” He shook his head. “Nobody likes me, Ruby, and the more you get to know me, the more you’ll see why.” She laughed and he found the sound entirely disarming. In an instant, the whole edifice surrounding his jaded heart dissolved leaving only frank wonder and stupefaction. “Do you know *Crime and Punishment*, Trevor?” “Yes, I read it once, years ago.” “Do you remember the drunk Raskalnikov meets in the bar, Marmeladov?” “Yes, I think I do,” he said thoughtfully. “Marmeladov tells Raskolnikov that he believes he will be forgiven by God after he dies, forgiven for all his sins. He says, ‘And the wise ones and those of understanding will say, “Oh Lord, why dost Thou receive these men” And He will say, “This is why I receive them, oh ye wise, this is why I receive them, oh ye of understanding, that not one of them believed himself to be worthy of this.”’” Ruby was that kind of woman, the kind that could call to mind the words of Dostoyevsky to illustrate her point, yet never thought herself intelligent or wise. And, indeed, those who think themselves wise hardly ever are. Trevor took in Ruby’s appearance for the first time, fully perceiving her. Before, he hadn’t dared allow himself to know what would soon be ripped away. But, her explanation had convinced him to place in her at least that much faith, faith he did not give out lightly. So, he glanced up and studied her. Her hair was black as night, veiling a slender, curved face within which sat two cerulean eyes of deepest watchfulness. The whole world, it seemed, could be found within their blue domes, as the Earth is shrouded in its blue sky. A pair of crimson lips shone from the bottom of her face, living up to her name. Ruby was not especially tall, but neither was she diminutive, and the poise with which she executed every movement gave her the appearance of a giant, sweeping and brilliant. Trevor blinked rapidly, avoiding her eyes, perhaps afraid of blinding himself should his gaze linger there too long and allow, through its windows, her effulgent soul to connect with his. The evening passed wonderfully, and all thought of deception or malice quickly evaporated, leaving Trevor free to speak and listen in ways he never was able to in his quotidian life. Carl Jung once said, “The meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances: if there is any reaction, both are transformed.” Certainly, this was how he felt, at the very minimum transformed. More dates followed, and, proving false Trevor’s disbelief in the reality of the whole affair, they went remarkably well. He found a peace and happiness for which he had to reach into the deep recesses of childhood memories to find its equal. The two were inseparable and hardly spent more than a day apart. Eventually, the two were engaged and for a time it seemed as if he really would live happily ever after. But, life is cruel and hardly ever fair. Shortly after Ruby accepted Trevor’s proposal, made at the very same restaurant at which they had had their first date, she fell ill. It was her nature to brush such inconveniences off, to attempt to power through them with sheer force of will, something of which she was hardly lacking. But, after collapsing one day after work, she was rushed to the hospital where the diagnosis was made: cancer, inoperable. The words seared themselves into Trevor’s heart, made newly vulnerable by Ruby’s hand. No barrier stood between it and the vicissitudes of life, and those words, when he read them, annihilated his tender spirit. Long days passed within the hospital’s sterile walls as he suffered under the harsh fluorescents. He saw the love of his life transformed into a kind of cyborg, more machine than woman as her body began to shut down a piece at a time. Finally, the time came when the end was clearly in sight. Trevor had informed her family and they became well acquainted with the waiting room’s walls as well as even more intimately with each other. Grief has a way of bringing people together. Ruby’s parents and brother had come to think of him as one of their own, the fact that he and Ruby had not yet married really only registering to them as a technicality. They spoke one last time before the end, and both knew that it would be the last time. Trevor walked once more through the door to her small room and looked down into the depths of the bed sheets to see what remained of his beloved. “Why the long face?” she asked, smiling and then wincing with the effort. A tear slid down Trevor’s face in response. “No, no,” she said, and reached out for him. He drew close and she wiped away the tear. “I’m still here,” she whispered. It was too much. Trevor wept frank tears and she held him until there were none left. “Listen to me,” she said, and held his face in her hands. “I told you from the beginning that I chose you because you didn’t think that you were worthy of this. But, Trevor, you are. You are the most worthy man I know, and when I’m gone it’s going to be so easy to forget that, but you have to remember it. There are dark days ahead, I won’t lie, but pain is love too. It would be so easy for you to go back to the man you were, to see this as just another reason why you don’t deserve to be happy. Remember me, Trevor. Remember that no matter what happens there was someone who told you, who *showed you* that it isn’t true. And nothing can take that away. Even when it seems too painful, remember me.” And they were the last words ever spoken between them. Later that day, her heart stopped and nothing could restart it. She was gone. Her parting words echoed to Trevor across time, back across the years, floating into his mind and taking up residence there. *Remember me...* \*\*\* All of this fell across the inside of his eyes as Trevor considered Ionie’s offer, considered the full weight and measure of it. New tears leaked out of the sides of his eyes to join those which had already dried on his cheeks and he reached a shaking hand up to wipe them away. A shuddering sigh racked him as his eyes flew open and his jaw clenched. “Take them,” he said, dragging the words from deep within. “Take them all.” Ruby’s eyes appeared before him, and for the first time seemed sad. “Are you sure?” Ionie asked. “There is no going back.” Trevor closed his eyes again and Ruby’s last moments played themselves out as they had every time he had closed his eyes for the last month, as they had every time he had numbed himself to sleep or allowed his thoughts to wander for even an instant. *Remember me* “Yes. Take them,” he said, reaching his hands out for Ionie’s. She took them and fixed Trevor with her stare. “Love is a terrible burden,” she told him sagely. “You are wise to wish to see it erased.” And then it began, and the force of it knocked Trevor back into his chair. He saw Ruby once again, her smiling face and beautiful eyes and knew that it would be for the last time. That realization sent his stomach roiling and nearly overwhelmed him. “No, wait!” he shouted, but it was too late. There was no turning back. He saw their time together play in reverse, as if his life had been placed within a projector in his mind’s eye and was now being rewound for him. *Remember me...* *Her skeletal body in the hospital bed.* *Her face as he knelt before her and held aloft the ring he had worked so hard for.* *Dates in the park, at fairs and carnivals and the movies.* *Their first kiss.* *Their first date, and the stone wall around his heart crumbling.* *Glimpses of her making his coffee at the Starbucks.* And it was done. All gone, forever consigned to the black inferno. Trevor sat unconscious in his chair, unaware that anything had transpired, as he would forever remain. Ionie lifted him with a strength a woman of her age should not possess and carried him outside, placing him gently against the old building’s wooden wall. She looked down at him and felt a deep pang of remorse. It was never easy to say whether she had done the right thing, but that was not for her to judge. A higher judge must at some point subject her to that analysis, and she awaited His decision with utter serenity. She hobbled back into the shop, closing the door and extinguishing the lantern before continuing back into the dimness from whence she had come... \*\*\* Trevor woke some time later with a terrible headache. He looked up and saw a flashing neon sign: “Adam and Eve’s.” He looked down and saw a bottle in his hand and concluded that he must have just woken from one of his benders. With no memory of the preceding hours, this seemed very likely. He stood, steadying himself for a moment before turning to hail a cab. As he did so, and walked over to it, a flash of distant memory stopped him dead. With it came a vague sense that he was leaving something behind. He patted his pockets several times, but found all his possessions in order, yet, still, he could not shake the feeling.


The man’s eyes peeled open like a crusty scab. “I cannot wait to show you around,” hissed the mushroom speckled serpent, “there are so many fun things that you can now achieve.” It slithered over to the corner of the room and began to stir a vile of a strange, emerald-colored liquid. The creature bore a worrisome grin, that never quite left its wide set jaws. “What is that ringing sound?” questioned the young man laying on the floor. “To be foolish once is to live as a fool,” preached the serpent as it handed the vile off to the man, “but to regress is to please.” “What do I do with this?” “You are useless!”, exclaimed the reddish creature, “Obviously you are expected to drink from it!” It saw worry growing on the man’s young face and explained, “Now, now, I didn’t mean that... just trust me, this is paradise after all.” The serpent beamed a hideous, black-toothed grin. “But I don’t know what’s in there. It could be dangerous.” The creature let out a slimy cackle as it said, “I don’t think you need to worry much about that dear boy. Just drink, and you will feel a freedom never felt before.” The man began to question where he was. He examined the small, dimly lit room that he had woken in. He observed the way the walls and floor shifted around him, almost as if he were in water, except the rhythm was one he had never experienced before. He peered out through the windows, but all he saw was infinity. He was combing through his mind, attempting to pull any memory that explained his situation, when the floor dropped out from beneath him. However, he wasn’t falling. The man sat still as the environment changed around him. He watched the tiny shack he had just sat in, plunge off into the sun. Yet the sun was not actually the sun. The more he began to perceive things, the more they changed. The sun became an eyeball, unblinking and unmoving. Covered in a spectrum of colors from a dingy green to an inky red. The ground beneath him approached as a hollowed out sphere, floating in from a greater plain of existence. As the man turned to look behind him, an immense, lightning-white flash dazzled him, and a blistering horn began to sound off in the distance. Before he could question any of this however, a divine figure who stood three cubits tall, greeted him. Despite his stature, his wise voice echoed throughout eternity as he spoke. “Young man, how have you arrived at an existence such as this? You could not be more than twenty years old, am I correct in that assumption?” “Yes, that is true. What is thi-” “It’s all so very regretful,” the cherub said with a mournful scowl on his face. “But it’s okay boy, none of this lasts very long anyway. Just accept the fate you were given, and ask for the hand of the lord.” “But sir, what is this place? How did I get here?” “Nonsense. Don’t bog yourself down with these sorts of quandaries lad... these are God’s ten holy minutes. His little gift to you. Just enjoy it while it lasts, and await his arrival.” The man had not even turned his head away, and yet somehow the heavenly figure before him was replaced with a potted rose bush. He attempted to rise, in order to investigate the flower, but he soon discovered that his legs beneath him did not work. There was an immovable force that had cemented him to the ground where he lay. A car passed by. By the time the man had decided to quit his useless attempts at movement, the rose bush had grown one hundred feet tall. From each enormous, earth-toned limb hung a lantern of fire. At once all the lanterns dropped and exploded into a fiery rage, dancing along the infinite earth. The bush began to descend as the fire pulled ever more tightly together, in a ballet of flames. Words didn’t seem necessary in a place like this. The fire had finally begun to cling to the shrub, just as it sunk to the ground. Each glorious, marooned petal, floated softly to the earth as the inferno claimed its victim. All this fire and yet, the bush remained intact; petal-less yes, but still intact indeed. The motionless man marvelled over the smoldering conflagration before him. What was all this for? How did he get here? How does one escape this perpetual fantasy? He was not truly dreaming, was he? He could not move, for his legs were inanimate. He could not think, for the answers were non-existent. He could not speak, for every time his mouth had opened, the noises that followed were not his own. What was he to do? A willowy man of mortal descent, who wore a long snowy beard, drew near. His silky facial hair hung all the way between his legs, and his skull was shaped like an oblong melon. He carried no weapons, but something large protruded out of the sack he bore. He sat down on the ground beside the man, and pulled the object out. It was a book. He began to read to the man. “He was incarnate that we might be made god.” “What does this mean?” “In a land of your own, man becomes God. With no morals, with no thoughts, with no boundaries, one begins to feel holy. These are the holy minutes, spend them wisely as they disappear. You have choice here.” explained the bishop. “Everything here is so cryptic.” “Ah yes. Indeed it is. For none of this is reality. Look around you. Have you been able to truly view one thing in this entire galaxy of nonsense? Or has everything just flown by in an infinite whirl? The clock is ticking. Do not waste your time on questions, or anecdotes, or material items. Feel, love, admire. Cherish, adore, accept.” “But what if I need more time? I just got here. Can’t you help me?” “Ah lad. I’m sorry. But nothing here is tangible. Not even I. As I said before, you are God here. In these holy moments, before the fade to black. You may see an eye in the sky, or a floating cloud of dust, and think, ‘This is an odd place’, but this is all because of you dear boy. If you want mountains, or skies, or trees; lakes, or rivers, or streams; valleys, or canyons, or craters... all you have to do is such. I know you won’t understand, and that’s the dreadful curse of this all; time always expires before you truly understand how to exist... but it’s okay... you’ll be okay boy.” “But-” “Hush now. Let me read a different passage to you.” The bishop read aloud, “Dreams, dreams, an awful fright; they’ll hold you close til the end of night; and when at last the morning comes; you’ve lost control, and the locust hums.” It all began to fade away, not to black, but to a bright white. No more bishops, or books, or eyes... just white. The man looked for something to hook his eyes to, but there was nothing. A sea of unending tranquility. A monotonous drone of emptiness. Until the sky zipped open. He laid facing upward, as a human face, covered in a large pair of spectacles, appeared above him. The woman had a mask that covered the lower part of her face, and a bouffant cap on top of her head. She spoke not to the man, but of him. “He’s just not responding. I have to call it.”, she announced with a most remorseful look on her pale and delicate face. Just as fast as the sky had opened, it sealed. The man was now alone, floating in a vast array of continued nothingness. Except for a sound. A ticking sound. A sound that bounced around the walls of infinity and all throughout the man's head. Something was floating toward him in the distance. He could not make it out until it was directly in front of his face. It was a clock. This was where the ticking sound had originated. He attempted to read the clock, but it was all so blurry. All he knew was the ticking. This all had to mean something; the clock, the doctor, the visits from these fantastical figures... what did it all mean? How much time did he have left? What was it all counting down towards? In his mind he prayed for one more visit, one more explanation as to what it all meant. His prayer was answered. Out of the void grew a tree. A wearisome tree with hardly enough leaves to obscure its decaying limbs from any prying eyes. Its bark had splintered, and blistered many moons ago. Trees were not meant to exist for as long as this one had. From out of its belly it spoke. “Existence is a curse. None of this is built to last, especially you. I held the forbidden fruit in my palms, and I watched it defile you. You wish for the answers to this existence? Is this not what dismantled the last life you were given?” “I believe you, I swear I do! I do not desire knowledge that is not mine, I only hope to find a way out of here.” “A way out? There is no way out. This is it. You had your chance for the past millennia. You all burned the bridge with your absurd desire for enlightenment. My gardener, in his infinite wisdom, left when the bite was taken from that sacred apple. You are all alone.” “But I-” “No. I tell you the truth, and that is all you asked. If you desire a conversation, you may have it with whatever false idol you wish, but I simply cannot bear your existence.” The tree rotted back into the same cavity it materialized from. And they arrived. Before him now, stood all three figures previously met throughout his journey; The Serpent, The Cherub, and The Bishop. They stood still in their positions, waiting first for the man to speak. He still lay fastened to the ground before them, looking upward. “Please,” he begged, “teach me what all of this means. I know my time is running short, but you have to show me. I don’t want to leave. I don’t want to.” The Cherub spoke first, “The most important thing to remember is that your beliefs here matter. No matter what else you may have heard. You are here to ponder, you are here to wait. A sign will appear, even if you cannot comprehend it. Many cannot fathom an existence beyond logic and reasoning, and that is why these moments become so heartbreaking to watch. You are simply squirming in the dirt like a helpless insect.” The Bishop retorted, “Now now, let’s be gentle with the lad. He’s not an imbecile, he just expects an explanation of an illogical world.” He turned his attention to the man. “You see, your ears are open but you are not truly listening. This is all so incomprehensible for a mortal being, so simply listen to what I say, and just do exactly that. You have less than five minutes left before all of this is for naught. In this moment, you are holy. You are free of existence, and therefore free of sin. I suggest that you use these last moments for pleasure. Not a sinful pleasure mind you, but you may now manufacture a sense of tranquility, of contentment, of joy. Do just that, use these final minutes to accept your circumstance, and experience this moment, for you are now one with the divine.” “Stop your foolishness.” retaliated The Cherub. “He is not some deity. He is merely being tested by one. If he listens to you, he’ll end up with the rest of the sinners. You know not of what you speak.” “Is God not within all we see?” questioned The Bishop. “Yes, but not everything is God. God is everything, but not everything is God.” replied The Cherub. “The boy is not divine, plain and simple. This is his test, and he must pass.” The Cherub turned to the man, “You say you do not want to leave, this is achievable as all things are, through him. This fool tells you that you control this world, but you do not. You will see. He will present you with a message, and you must reach to his outstretched arms and say ‘Yes dear God. Please, take me with you.’” The Bishop grew more furious as the seconds passed. With a fiery intensity he growled, “You act as if I claim God is dead. He is not dead. He is alive in this moment. This is the very moment that people wait their entire lives for. When heaven and man meet. It is so very beautiful, and yet you want the poor boy to waste it on some moment that will never arrive.” Seeing a perfect opportunity to strike, The Serpent finally entered the conversation. “Don’t you see how silly these fools are? Their arguments about who is right, and who is wrong, are wasting your few precious moments. Listen to me”, it encouraged, as a smirk spread across its lips. “This rancid, hairy man is right when he says that you have power here. Unimaginable power. Think about all of the things you can do here, that you couldn’t do on Earth. All the pleasures of an infinite power, not resisted by any man or being.” “Stop it right there.” retorted The Cherub. “I may not agree with either of these buffoons, but I certainly do not want you to fall into the hands of a heathen. It would like to watch the entire cosmos burst into flames.” “Yes please son, whatever it is that you choose, do not follow this repugnant creature. It will only lead you through a path of destruction.” agreed The Bishop. “They only envy me.” hissed The Serpent. “They wish they had the capacity to live in this hellish purgatory as gloriously as I do. Follow me, and you too may have all you ever wanted.” “You can’t be serious!” “Your self-righteous charade never fooled anyone.” “I should banish you throughout an eternity of realms.” “You don’t have the power!” “Through God, we all h-” “ENOUGH.” The Man bellowed with the power of a thousand stars. “I requested guidance and yet you all purposefully misdirect me. As time goes on, I gain more of my own consciousness. This is no different than Earth. You have wasted my breath. I want you all banished from my presence.” The Man proclaimed with an indisputable authority. And just like that, they dissolved. The Man was alone once again, but this time with a sense of consciousness. He felt finally awake. He began to consider the options presented to him. The Serpent: Sin is inconsequential in a realm such as this, and therefore, The Man should live his last moments in a state of luxury not present in any real existence. If he is to accept the untold dusk ahead of him, he must first experience sin. The Cherub: God is real. He is the only way out of this situation that doesn’t end in an inescapable darkness. The Man enjoyed the sound of a life after this life, but he could not perceive a reality in which this was realistic. He decided he would look for the sign of God as his time expired, but he did not expect one to come. The Bishop: Man is man, until man joins the divine. He says that in these “moments of holiness”, man becomes God, just as God became man through Jesus. To him, this is Heaven. This is a kingdom in which man can finally will his own being into existence. The Tree of Knowledge: Man created sin. God left because man disappointed him so. None of this has meaning, just as life no longer has meaning. An oblivion of options, and an absence of time. And so, The Man realized that through all of his questioning, and discussion, he had wasted his last few moments of existence. He had repeated the same mistake all humans make in their lives on Earth. He turned his neck upward. A rain cloud had formed above him, and only above him. The precipitation wet his face with a cold, dense flood. The ticking had started again, but this time it was much faster. He had accepted the fact that all of this was over, he had only wished that he had a chance to do it again, so that he could make the correct decision this time. He smelled something. He looked off into the distance. He saw a mountain. He saw smoke. Was this a sign, or had he created this of his own will? He lay still on the ground, eternally immobile. He howled in remorse, but it was merely a whimper in the infinite sea of darkness approaching him. Fade to black.


The bus rattled as it flew along the dark highway. The lights of the big city had twinkled into the distance. I was too uncomfortable to sleep. I hugged my backpack and rested my head. Out of the window, all I saw was my face reflected on the glass. The brightest lights for kilometers around were the dim lamps onboard. I was in my first year of college in Vizag, heading home for winter break. My parents lived in a small, frosty, town called Lambasingi, a few hours away. They had taken early retirement and moved there from Vizag, soon after I joined college. They wanted to trade the big city life for something slower. As we climbed higher up the slopes, the winding roads slowed down our progress. A thick, cold mist enveloped the bus. Well-lit four-lanes had melted into skinny mountain roads. I pulled on my jacket, grateful I had remembered to pack it. I took out my phone to look at the time. It was close to midnight. Out the corner of my eye, I saw someone watching me. A man a few rows behind me. He was staring, unaware that I could see him in the reflection. I bristled at his audacity, cursing all lecherous men under my breath. I turned and glared at him. He looked away hurriedly. He was skinny, wearing square glasses, and a white woolen cap. He held a worn leather briefcase across his lap. He didn't seem threatening in any way. Maybe, he was just curious. Wondering what a young woman was doing traveling on her own. My thoughts wandered as I dozed off to the gentle swaying of the bus. ****** I was startled awake by the loud squealing of brakes. The driver was calling out the name of the stop. It sounded like Lambasingi. I panicked, gathered my stuff, and got off. The bus stop was a battered bench lit by a single street lamp. One of those old-school tungsten lamps that flickered eerily. There were no houses nearby, only dirt paths winding into the dense forest. The few shops around had been shuttered for the night. I peered at the name of the stop, still not fully awake. It was not Lambasingi. The people who got down with me walked off purposefully into the dark, and I was left all alone. This was not my stop. It was a Vizag to Lambasingi bus. So my stop would have been the very last one. I had gotten off too early. Idiot! I took out my cellphone to call my father, but there was no network. I checked the time-- I was 10 minutes away from where I should have gotten off, if the bus was on schedule. The only thing to do was to walk in the general direction the bus had gone, and hope my parents were waiting for me. The wind began to pick up. It started to snow. I was walking alone, on a cold winter night, in the only town in the whole of South India that ever got snow. Miserable, miserable, me. I spied a street lamp around the bend in the road. But my relief was short-lived. It was not a bus stop. It was one of those small-town supermarkets that stocked everything. From onions to cigarettes to pastries to menstrual pads. The snow was coming down in increasingly opaque sheets, so I was grateful for any shelter. I ducked in. There wasn't anyone at the counter. “Hello? Sir? Madam? Anybody there?” I said. "I am trying to get to Lambasingi, but I got off here. Do you have a phone I could use to call my parents? Hello?" I was getting hungry, so I gathered a soda, a chocolate bar, and a bag of chips. Still nobody. I felt a stab of irritation. What if I just walked out with this? I wasn’t going to, but I could. Standing around was making my feet hurt, and my bag was weighing painfully on my shoulders. Serves me right for bringing all my books home like a stupid dedicated student. As if I was about to spend my holidays studying! I put the bag down by the door, behind a box of potatoes. I pushed a sack of onions in front of it, just in case anyone turned up and had ideas. I sat on an upturned crate and ate some chocolate. I immediately felt better. By the time I had gone through the chips and washed it down with soda, the night looked positively rosy. It was 12:30. The bus would have reached Lambasingi without me. My parents would be getting worried. I decided to leave a note and money for the shopkeeper, and head out. As I was rooting though my bag for a pen, there was a crash and all the lights went out. I just stood there, frozen in the dark. Until the rational voice in my head said, "Its a blizzard. A tree must have brought down some power lines, and the nearest transformer blew out.” Over the soft swish of driving snow, I heard a rustling. Like fabric brushing against legs. I was torn between calling out to the mysterious person, and being absolutely still until they went away. Then I heard the rustling again, louder. Maybe it was just a rat, but I was not about to wait for it to come any closer. I switched on my phone's flashlight. It threw enough light to see the back wall a few meters away. There was a rustle again, closer. I stepped back, alarmed, and tripped. I hit my head on something. A sharp pain, and a flash of flight. ****** I don't know if I lost consciousness, or whether I was just dazed. But I think I lay there for a couple of minutes. I heard the rustle once again. This time there was a sound, like a cat crying. I sat up. My eyes had adjusted to the dark. The world outside was white and faintly luminous. There was a moon somewhere, hidden behind the clouds. The wind had calmed down a bit, and the snowfall was thinning. I had better get going. I stood up to get my things and nearly tripped over a bag of potatoes on the floor. The bag moved. I yelped out loud, certain it was a whole family of rats. Instead, an arm popped out. A baby's arm. What? I cautiously bent over the bag. By the faint moonlight, I could see that it was indeed a baby, swaddled in layers of cloth. It was the most serious baby I had ever seen. It wasn’t crying anymore. It just looked at me with large solemn eyes. It appeared unhurt. I looked around, wondering where on earth it could have come from. Who would leave their baby on the floor of a shop? I really had to get going before the snow got heavier again. But I couldn’t just leave it there. To be an easy meal for the rats, of which I was certain there were a few. I picked up the bundle and put it on the counter. But what if nobody was coming back till morning? What if the baby rolled off the counter? I decided to take it with me. My parents would know what to do. I picked it up and gently tucked it into the front of my jacket--unzipped halfway-- and wrapped my arms around it. I carefully swung my bag on my back -- one arm at a time. I stuffed a few more chocolate bars in my pocket, for later. God knows how much longer I’d be walking. My sneakers sank into the powdery snow outside and my socks became soggier with every step. Even though my companion was a baby, I was glad to have company. “Don’t worry baby, I got you. We are going to find a way home.” I said to it, with more courage than I felt. I trudged through the snow for what felt like hours but may have only been minutes. The moon had come out and was illuminating a block of stone structures ahead. Clinical and institutional, with snow-laden coconut trees framing them on all sides. A cross perched on the top of a spire. The sign on the tall green gates read Saint Mary's Academy and Convent. Should I stop here and get help? Maybe they could call my parents for me? The gate was open. I walked up the driveway, to the stone stairs that led up to a great wooden door. I knocked loudly. I waited for what seemed like an eternity and knocked again. Behind me, I heard urgent footsteps crunching through the snow-covered grass. I spun around, front and back bulging, and nearly lost my footing. It was a skinny figure. It looked like the man from the bus, except he carried no bag and wore no hat. Was he following me? I swatted that unreasonable thought away. It was probably an entirely different person. The door opened a crack, and the alarmed face of a nun peeked out. “Sister, I’m so sorry to disturb you. I need help, I need shelter. I have a baby.” From where she was standing, she must not have seen the baby’s face. She probably thought I was grotesquely pregnant, because she held my elbow, put an arm behind my backpack, and ushered me in, tutting. “Sister?” The man was right behind me, “Please, I have been robbed.” He looked like he'd been in a fight. A huge bruise swelled over one eye, there was blood on the corner of his mouth, and his glasses were cracked. The nun, bless her, didn’t skip a beat. She smoothly shut the door behind us. We were brought warm drinks. My jacket, shoes, and socks toasted by a fireplace, and the feeling slowly returned to my toes. I told them my name, and that I had found the baby in a shop up the road. “That’s not my baby,” I told them, repeatedly. They were nodding their heads pityingly, as if they didn’t believe me, but were too holy to contradict me outright. They probably had countless unwed mothers bringing them their children. I said my name again, and that my parents lived nearby and asked if I could call them to come and pick me up. The nun, Sister Agnes, told me that all the phone lines were down. When I asked if they had a cellphone, she pursed her lips and said they couldn't afford such extravagances. She conferenced with some others and carried off the baby to be changed. Or fussed over. Or whatever they thought was necessary. I was relieved. When I stretched out my aching back, I found I was truly tired. The warmth lulled me into a dreamless sleep. ****** Bright light seeped through my eyelids, and I could feel a gentle warmth on my face. The sun was streaming in through the stained-glass windows. It took me a moment to remember where I was. I sat up with a dull ache in my head. “You’re awake!” a plump nun said cheerfully, "I'm Sister Prema. What's your name child?" I told her. And asked her if the phone lines were working now. "Of course they're working! When were they not?" I was confused. I asked her about the baby. "What baby?" said Sister Prema. "The baby from the shop." My tongue was sticky with sleep and my head was throbbing. "The shop? I don't know about any baby, but Ravi, the shopkeeper up the road, brought you in late last night. Unconscious. He said he found you on the floor, with a big bump on your head. And your cellphone lying next to you, all broken." She held out my phone. The screen was cracked, and it wouldn't switch on. Sister Prema busied around me, folding up the blanket I had been sleeping under. I felt a growl of hunger. I remembered the chocolate bars I had stuffed in my pocket last night. But they weren't there now. “Could you find out about the baby, please? Sister Agnes will know.” “Sister Agnes?” She followed my gaze to the portrait that I hadn’t noticed before. It was a familiar face, with the words Mother Superior written along the bottom. “No child, that’s Mother Agnes.” Behind me, the doors burst open, and I heard voices. “Sister, they found a girl, unconscious--“ I turned around at the familiar voice of my father. He was standing at the door, my mother right behind him. My father stopped mid-sentence upon seeing me, and relief flooded his face. In a flash, his arms were around me. “We so worried. We waited at the bus stop. The driver said he remembered seeing you. That you had gotten off at an earlier stop, but he wasn’t sure where!” he said. “We tried to look for you, but it was snowing too hard.” My mother said, fussing over me, inspecting the cut on my head. “We took care of that madam,” said Sister Prema, proudly, “She’ll be fine in no time.” I assured my parents that I was ok. I turned to Sister Prema again. “Where is Mother Agnes? She’ll know about the baby. She was there.” My parents looked shocked. My mother threw a helpless glance at my father, “Mother Agnes told her?” My father sat down, his brow furrowed. “We didn’t want to tell you until you were ready. This is not going to change anything. We love you.” He addressed me by my sweetest diminutive and kissed my forehead. I must have looked idiotic with confusion because he said “You found out, right? That you’re adopted?” I clearly hadn’t, so they spilled out the story, all haphazard. My parents had been married for a few years and found out that they couldn’t have kids. My father was visiting a relative, right here in Lambasingi, on a snowy night. He got lost in a blizzard, was mugged and beaten up. Fortunately, St Mary’s gave him a warm place to stay the night. A young mother had also found her way there. All my father could remember was that she was wrapped in something red, and kept saying her name and that the baby wasn’t hers, over and over again. She was probably trying to hide the shame of being an unwed mother. Come morning, she had disappeared. Mother Agnes decided to settle the child at an orphanage. My parents later adopted that child and gave her the woman’s name. My name. My head was spinning. I wasn’t sure if it was from my injury or from what my parents were telling me. I didn’t know what to say. Just then Mother Agnes swept into the room. She greeted my parents warmly. She looked older and greyer than I remembered from last night. My father said, “Mother Agnes, I’d like you to meet our daughter." “Ah!” breathed Mother Agnes, her eyes lighting up. She started to say something, but hesitated, looking at my parents, enquiringly. “It’s alright,” said my mother. “We just told her.” Mother Agnes nodded approvingly. She clasped my hands affectionately, “You're all grown up now! I remember when you were just a--." She stopped abruptly, confusion clouding her eyes. “My, you look just like her!” My parents were gathering my things, insisting I go home to rest, and promising that I would be back to visit properly. Mother Agnes and Sister Prema stood at the top of the stairs. as we walked towards the car. I felt a chill in the air and reached for my red jacket. I draped it around my shoulders like a shawl and turned to wave goodbye. Mother Agnes stopped mid-wave. She stared at me --standing there wrapped in red-- her eyes wide with shock and recognition.


\[SP\] Below is my experimental, absurdist, speculative fiction style short story. Enjoy!  Philip sat at his desk, head in his hands. How was he to halve the cost of pet food- they were already using parts of animals that were barely considered edible by any standard. It would not take long before household cats and dogs turn up their noses and refuse to eat Furry Friend's Delight. With shaking hands he reached for his tablets in his pocket. Swallowing a single pill, Philip sat back and tried to decipher a solution. He was the CEO, he had to come up with the next big product in pet food or someone else would be elected from the board in the coming meeting. The clock was ticking. Philips heart began to beat irregularly. His mouth began to dry up and he knocked his glass of water as he tried to grab it. Not again, he thought, staring at the door to his office. I just need more time. A knock jolted Philip upright in his chair and before he could clear his throat, three animals walked into the room. One was a dog- a pug to be exact- standing five feet tall. To the Pugs left was a tabby cat with an enormous belly. Standing at four feet tall, the cat was round and had freshly licked fur sticking up across its body. The cats eyes were crossed and it had its tongue hanging out the side of its mouth. The last of the trio was a rabbit, its ears hidden beneath a rasta beanie. The rabbit was rolling what looked to be a cigarette but with lettuce rather than paper. Tilting its shades down, the rabbit began to speak in a deep foreign accent. "Philip, my man, long time no see." Philip began to stutter as the three animals found their way to the chairs opposite his. The rabbit kicked one hairy foot onto his desk and took a nibble of its lettuce. "How's the wife and kids?" "You- you're not real," muttered Philip with twitching lips. "That's no way to greet your long term customers," barked the dog. One of the cat's eyes fixated on a fly that buzzed around the room. Philip's blabbering was interrupted by the rabbit ashing his lettuce cigarette in the ashtray on the desk. "We're getting a lot of complaints, Philip," stated the rabbit in a monotone voice. "I've heard reports of fake plants being used in rabbit food across the country. Now, you wouldn't be the one responsible for that, would you?" "Yea your dog food taste like garbage- and not the good kind," growled the dog. Philip revealed a handkerchief and dabbed at his forehead. "Your concerns are valid and I hear them," rehearsed Philip as he tried to avoid eye contact with the creatures that sat before him. "As a matter of fact, I'm working on a new recipe now." Suddenly the cat pounced in the air and landed on the desk, knocking piles of paper and cups of pens. The other animals did not seem to notice. "You were saying?" questioned the rabbit. Philip tried to ignore the cat as it jumped from the desk, against the wall to a bookshelf, following the fly and creating a path of destruction in its wake. Raising his voice over the sound of ornaments shattering against the ground, Philip continued. "Yes, the new recipe. We're developing this new technique of extracting-" The cat leaped from the bookshelf, leaving it to crash to the floor. "What does it taste like? asked the dog, with its tongue hanging out its mouth and its tail wagging. Philip reached for a can in his bottom draw, ducking just in time to miss the cat cannonball overhead, chasing the fly. He put the can on his desk and admired the label. This was to be their new premium range. "I'm not sure what it taste like. I'm a human, I can't eat this stuff. The cat dropped from the ceiling and stared into Philip's eyes with a crazed look on its face. "We're all animals deep down," said the cat as its eyes lolled loosely in their sockets." The rabbit and the dog began to chant: "try it, try it, try it. You know it's good. Look at the label. It's the premium range." Philip could not help but let out a small laugh. Here he was trying to sell dog food and he had no idea what it taste like. He stood up and walked to his blinds to check if anyone was looking into his office. Twisting them shut slowly, he then turned and saw the cat sitting in his desk, pointing a can opener at him. "What is life but a series of experiences, new and old. Old and new. Pick up this can of dog food." The chanting began to grow in the background. Philip had to put his hand to his mouth to hide a giggle. The cat continued its song. "When you live life, do you see the can half empty or half full? Half empty or half full? Pick up this can of dog food." "Try it. Try it. Try it." chanted the dog and rabbit. "And what is life but concentrated meat stuffed in a can." The cat placed the can opener in Philip's hand, then looked deeply into his eyes. "Philip. Are you trapped in a can?" Philip burst out laughing. We're not in a can, we're in an office. "Well if you want to get out of the can, you need a can opener." The three animals instantaneously appeared in the seats in front of Philip's desk once again. The rabbit, lowered its glasses and spoke in a deep voice. "You know what to do."  Suddenly the office door swung open and an intern walked in asking a question. She dropped her coffee and ran out of the room screaming. "Mr. Black is eating dog food!" Within ten seconds the entire office peered through the door of Philip's office, watching him eat the dog food from the can with his fingers. Chunks of meat fell from the side of his mouth as he explained the flavor to the imaginary people that sat in front of him. Those in the office with weak stomach ran to the bathroom or grabbed the nearest waste basket. Some were fixated on the sight of their boss devouring Furry Friend's Premium Dog Food. It took security ten minutes to arrive on the floor and pry the can of dog food from Mr. Black's hands and another twenty minutes before paramedics came to take him to the nearest mental ward. All throughout it, Mr. Black giggled uncontrollably, "I've never tried it. Never once. Seven years as CEO. Never tried it. Not once. Never.


I grew up in a society where you cannot make your own decisions. It was a rule made thousands of years ago to hopefully “improve society”. My parents call it “The Golden Rule”. In my opinion, this rule is awful and shouldn’t be a rule. However, there is absolutely nothing I could do about it. Let me go more in depth about the golden rule. When you are a little kid, your parents make all your decisions. As you get into your teenage years, you get assigned a “decision maker”. A “decision maker”, hence the name, makes all your decisions. These decision makers are trained to make the decisions that the government and our parents would expect of us. The “decision makers” are boring people who don’t even communicate with you. They are just there to make your decisions. You lose your “decision maker” when you are finished with college. At college, it is required that you take a class that teaches you how to make the “right” decisions. The college classes, according to my sister, brainwashes you into doing the “right” thing. That's why she left college and, somehow, got rid of her decision maker. After college, you can make any decision you would like. However, you cant really they just want you to think that. They still manage to make decisions for you without you being aware of it. It's crazy but it's true and has been proven. I’ve been silently thinking about making my own decision for quite some time now. So what happens if you make your own decision? You die? You go to prison? Nobody knows because nobody has ever tried or succeeded. Which is crazy hard to believe because c’mon, teenagers. Teenagers want to make their own decisions, they want freedom, they rebel against everyone's rules. It's just how the teenage brain works. I refuse to believe that nobody has tried so I did some research of my own. I started online but there wasn’t much except “If you try to break the rules of the government, the consequences are severe”, but nothing clarifies exactly what the consequences would be. After my failed research online, I headed to the library. Surprisingly, I found a very large book about the golden rule from how it started to consequences to breaking the rule. I requested to check out the book but the librarian said it’s not one of the library books and has no return address so I can keep it if I please. Oh by the way, my decision maker thinks I’m at school, while in the classroom the decision makers go elsewhere. I returned to school and no one found out about my trip to the library. When I got home, I did a lot of reading and note taking. I began to understand the rule but I still thought it was dreadful. After tons of reading, I found out there was once a kid who went against the rules. They got in a lot of trouble and were never heard of again. People say that they changed their name and physical appearance and they still roam around town making their own decisions. Others say they were executed immediately. What really happened to the kid is a complete mystery. I finished reading the book and began to really think about what could have possibly happened to the kid who broke the rule. There's no way it's just a complete mystery, nothing really is. Somebody has to know. I talked to my sister about the book and she said that the person who committed the crime of making their own decisions still lives in this town. They live in a tiny house in the middle of the woods and they aren't allowed to see anybody unless someone goes to visit. The problem with that is nobody knows about this person so they don't have any visitors. Rumor has it, their parents think that they are dead. According to my sister, they haven't gotten any visitors in 26 years and have been locked in the house for 42 years and they committed the crime at the age of 17. “So should we go visit?” I asked my sister, “I mean, I have so many questions and really want-” “Whoa, slow down. This person, for all we know, could have passed or gone clinically insane by now,” She replied, “They haven't had any visitors in years and have been sitting in a tiny, one room house with nothing to do except stare at the blank walls.” “Do you even know where the house is?” “I do not, but listen here, breaking the rule and making your own decisions is a dangerous move. I know you well enough to know that you will be breaking the rule. Be safe alright?” “Got it.” “And don’t do anything extremely dumb. My little sis can’t get locked up.” She said as she lightly giggled. I stayed up all night thinking of what I would be doing to break the rule. I could attempt to get away from my decision maker and do stuff on my own or I could completely ignore my decision maker and make my own decisions. Whatever I chose, I had to make sure I was smart about it so I don’t get sent away. * “I NEED HELP!” I yelled over the phone with my sister on the other end, “MEET ME AT THE ABANDONED GAS STATION ON WALLOWS STREET IN 10 MINUTES PLEASE!” “Whoa whoa, what did you do?” “I CAN'T TALK RIGHT NOW,” I said, as I was sprinting away from what I believe to be a cop car. My legs aching from running and my lunges burning as if there was no oxygen left in teh atmosphere. My feet felt as if they were going to give out. “JUST MEET ME THERE!” I could clearly see the gas station ahead of me. My legs were burning so bad I thought I would never make it. The cop cars started catching up to me and my legs started slowing down. Going to the gas station with the cops behind me would be pointless so I took a left on the street just ahead of me. The street had quite a few old apartment buildings, all lined up next to each other. In between the buildings were alleys. The perfect hiding spot. I ran into one of the several alleys and hid behind a dumpster. It was around 4 feet away from a fence so I hid within the small gap. I sat down to try to catch my breath when I saw the police cars pass by the alley. Seeing this sight filled my body with relief. I called my sister to let her know the change of plans, “Alright, listen. I’m hiding behind a dumpster between apartment buildings. Don’t go to the gas station. I’ll let-” “What apartments? I’m picking you up right now and taking you somewhere safe.” She said with a bit of worry in her voice. “No, its too dangerous. The police are near. I’ll call you in a minute.” I hung up the phone, put it in my pocket and stood up and peaked out the side of the dumpster. Nobody was there. I got out from behind the dumpster when the cars pulled into the alley. I was internally freaking out, there was no way out now. I went behind the dumpster to text my sister and tell her what was about to happen. I leaned against the fence and began to cry. It was over. I could hear the police get out of their cars and start yelling at me to come out from behind the dumpster with my hands up. Just as I was about to do so, someone broke the fence behind me. I turned to see my sister behind me. “C’MON! IM SAVING YOU! GET IN THE CAR,” My sister yelled, “HURRY!” I turned around and saw the police running towards the dumpster with their guns up. The three of us sprinted to the car and drove off as fast as we could. I could see the police get back into their cars and drive off rather quickly. Once we got far, far away from the police and the town we once called home, I began to ask questions. “How did you find me?” “Find My IPhone. It’s useful for times like these.” She replied while laughing. “Explain everything you did. I never thought I would be helping my sister run away from the cops!” She wasn’t mad about what I did and just laughed about it. She told me that we were going to a different state where her friend was letting us stay at her house for some time. It would take us two days to get there. The place we were going has no decision makers and we will be free to do whatever we want. Sounded like paradise to me!


The air in front of him shattered, shards of the image before him falling to the ground. He curls, bent double. He drops to his knees. His face can feel the heat emanating from the ground. A warm, dense smell - the familiar industrial scent of concrete drying after a heavy rain. His hands, collecting the pieces that were once everything he cared about. A kaleidoscope of fractured memories, each piece broken and beautiful. Hands shaking, he tries to piece his very existence back together, but the images are fading quickly from the shards. He holds one fragment for an instant and it’s gone - a touch, erased from history. He’s left holding glass, clear as the sky that hangs high and mockingly over his head. A teardrop forms at the corner of his eye. It’s ready to take away another pain from the incomprehensible, yet uncontrollable torrent of thoughts streaming through his mind. It feels itself heavy, rippling from the unconscious trembling of his body. The weight of it, no longer able to be held by his eye. It falls. A journey to the earth which takes mere seconds, but for this lone tear it represents an entire lifetime. It rises over his cheek, leaving behind a trail of the thought it’s carrying. It feels every pore of his skin in the single file line it travels down his face. He feels the momentary warmth, followed by the piercing cold as the wind cools the trail. It feels the aged lines that radiate from his eyes the way a child draws the rays of the sun. It traverses the deep canyons formed from a face deep in the throws of indescribable anguish. It passes his lips, but it will never know the beauty of his smile; a smile that intoxicates everyone who takes witness of it. Instead, it’s memory of his lips will be the turned down and quivering mass, parted slightly as it tries desperately to fill his lungs with air. It’s journey has nearly come to an end. It hangs heavy on his chin. Gripping to his face as if on the edge of a cliff, holding on with just its index and middle fingers. It’s tiring. It knows it’s time to leave him. It let’s go, free falling to the ground in front of him, taking with it the memory of the smell of jasmine as they walked through the streets of Paddington in the spring together, their hands, skin on skin, the energy of their souls intertwined like the double helix of their DNA. It falls in slow motion. The pavement is looking up. Looking at this solitary droplet driving towards it. It knows that everything that touches it has fallen. The teardrop is getting closer. It knows what comes next - the familiar and predictable outcome of all tears that have ever fallen and will ever fall. It resists the atoms of the teardrop; forcing them to detach from each other. The memory contained in the lone tear explodes and evaporates. A small speck of transient dark concrete waits to dry. The memory waits to dry. Tear by tear - thought by thought, their souls disconnect. The entanglement unwinds. The knots that their love built, slowly loosen. The air around him thins; his lungs fill with the crisp cool air that only autumn is capable of producing. He can feel the tingle in the back of his throat as it enters his being. He looks up. The hands on his watch stop. The headlights shine brightly into his eyes.


Eventually She Will Crack ‘Wait, you got fired again ?’ ‘Yes. Do you have a lighter?’ Beverly reached over from the driving seat and sun in her glove compartment. She found a small silver lighter and handed it to Margot. ‘Thanks,’ said Margot, opening the car window and lighting the tip of her cigarette. ‘What for this time?’ Said Beverly, chancing glances between the road ahead and her sister in the passenger seat. ‘Punched my boss.’ ‘You what?’ Beverly’s shock took form in a lasting gaze at her sister, one that lingered a second too long, causing her to swerve violently off the curb and almost hit a mailbox. ‘Watch it, will you?’ Said Margot, clutching the door handle. ‘Did I hear that correctly? You punched your boss?’ ‘Yes, Bev,’ mumbled Margot. She could feel her older sister’s blazing blue eyes searching her like a floodlight seeking out rogue prisoners. ‘He put his hand up my skirt!’ Said Margot, finally. Beverly furrowed her brow. Her magenta stained lips opened and closed a few times, but she remained silent. Margot rolled the window open wider and laid her head against the edge, feeling the summer breeze flicker her hair. She had baked under the scorching sun while waiting for her sister to pick her up outside the tall glass building on Madison Avenue. The incident had occurred so quickly, all she could really remember was seeing the headline of newspaper on her boss’s desk: August 14, 1958. Manhattan Under Siege of Record Breaking Heat. Rather than ride the subway back to her apartment in Brooklyn, she called Bev from a payphone and requested a ride. Within the hour, Beverly pulled up the to curb among a stream of taxis in her husband’s new crimson Chrysler. ‘Well, that’s certainly awful,’ said Beverly. ‘But, Margot..’ ‘What?’ Said Margot, watching a young boy run along the sidewalk at the helm of his golden retriever. ‘You know you needed that job.’ ‘I know I did. But I also know my worth.’ ‘How are you going to pay for that apartment? You should’ve just stayed with Harry and I. We had that room all set up-‘ ‘What and listen to your baby cry all night? I’m sorry, Bev, but you know I like to work at night.’ ‘Work? Oh you mean that - that journal? God, I certainly don’t miss the clacking of that typewriter.’ ‘They’re not journals. They’re stories. And it is work. It’s work that I actually care about. I don’t want to be some flimsy secretary waiting on those awful men my whole life.’ ‘I was a secretary! That’s how I met Harry.’ ‘Oh, I know,’ said Margot. ‘All I’m saying is you have to start somewhere. You could’ve met your husband at that job and then never have to work again. Like me.’ ‘God forbid,’ mumbled Margot. ‘Look, what are you going to do for rent?’ Said Beverly as the car halted outside the low brick building where Margot lived. She turned toward her sister. ‘I suppose I’ll have to ask Mom,’ said Margot, sighing. ‘She won’t be happy, said Beverly, checking her reflection in the rearview mirror. She puckered her pink lips and cupped her hands under the buoyant blonde curls that hung just above her collarbone. ‘You know, it’s not as easy for me as it is for you,’ said Margot. ‘What do you mean?’ ‘You know what I mean.’ After lunch, Margot called her mother to inform her of the news. ‘Oh, Margot,’ sighed her mother. ‘Yes, I know. I hate to call like this.’ ‘Well, sure. Your father and I can help. But this is the last time. You need to learn to control your anger. Shall I set up another meeting with the pastor?’ ‘No, that won’t be necessary,’ said Margot, twirling the phone cord in her hands. ‘Well, if you’re not going to do that, I want you to attend a luncheon for the ladies.’ ‘A what?’ Said Margot. ‘Luncheon for the ladies. It’s a monthly get-together for some of the younger ladies in the Club. Bev usually goes, but she’s been too busy with the baby. You know, the Club struggles without an Elliot presence.’ ‘I sincerely doubt my attendance would alleviate that.’ ‘It’s next Sunday. Borrow a dress from your sister. I don’t want you going in those rags you call clothes.’ ‘Mom, I really don’t-‘ ‘Margot. You do this or no help from us. For crying out loud, it is just a luncheon. Those women are very well connected, you know.’ Margot hung up the phone and leaned against the fridge. Wiping the sweat from her forehead, she opened the fridge and dipped her face into the cold. The sweat trickled down her face as she made her way down the hallway into her bedroom. She yanked open the window, as the jeers and laughter of children playing the streets carried up the three stories. She unzipped her dress and crawled out of it, eager to shed this unwanted skin. She kicked it to the corner of her room next to a suitcase still unpacked from the spring. She made her way to the bathroom, grabbing a small rag and dousing it under cold water from the sink. Wringing it of excess water, she slapped it on her face and sighed from relief. She was reminded of the summer of 1952 when Hidden Hills found new residents in the Elliot family. Roger Elliot was translating his professional promotion for a large four bedroom house in the affluent suburb just outside Manhattan. It is there that he and his wife moved with their two teenaged girls, one blonde, boisterous and blooming in her adolescence, the other, meagre, moody and muddling through hers. Margot spent that summer lounging by the fountain in the neighbourhood park, always a bottle of Coca Cola at her side. She met Joy that summer. The girl with the auburn hair to her waist and eyes green like emeralds who had appeared before Margot like a magnificent mirage and asked for a sip of the sweet, syrupy soda. Margot had dipped her feet in the fountain pool one afternoon, only to learn through Joy that she was immersed in water tainted by Timothy Taylor’s urine. Joy laughed as Margot grimaced at the repugnance of Timothy and in fact, of all the boys in the world. The following Sunday, Margot grudgingly dressed in a purple laced number she borrowed from her sister. The dress, which accentuated Beverly’s figure, fell rather flat on her, like a musical note sung in the wrong tempo. Margot rode the subway into the city to Tally’s Tea Room, an establishment commonly referred on the tongues of the women of the social club. Margot lingered outside the window, anchored by her hesitation. She checked her reflection, smoothing down the flyaway stands too excited by the sweltering heat. Her face shone pallid and wet, especially against the starkness of her black hair. She wondered how she would look after a bottle of blonde dye. ‘Margot Elliot!’ Sung Mary Walton, throwing her arms out and dissolving Margot in her perfumed embrace. A tall, striking woman with broad shoulders and piercing eyes, Mary Walton wore an extravagant canary yellow dress with a matching hat the tilted, as to reveal only half of her glossy, porcelain face. ‘Hello,’ said Margot, mustering a smile. ‘Well, how long as it been?’ ‘Few years, I expect,’ said Margot. ‘I think the last time I saw you was back in school, wasn’t it?’ ‘I think you’re right.’ ‘Well, let me look at you!’ Mary held Margot at arm’s length and cast a slow vertical glance up and down her body. Her smile flickered as her gold lined eyes scanned every inch of Margot’s humble physical offerings. Margot knew what she was thinking. She was a stale teething biscuit smothered in sickeningly sweet purple frosting. ‘Anyway, come along,’ said Mary, linking her arm in Margot’s and leading her through the maze of small circular tables. ‘We’re just over there near the back!’ Surrounding the largest table in the room was a collective of women dressed in similarly dramatic outfits to Mary. Voluminous hats decorated in feathers, ribbons and lace were coupled with jewel toned dresses and matching satin gloves. Margot felt like Alice, suspended in a Wonderland crawling with Mad Hatters who survived on hollow conversations of husbands, child rearing and gossip.Though she folded her hands neatly in her lap and offered a polite, she struggled to keep her eyes open in the hot haze of perfume and saccharine scents. ‘We had to let our girl go,’ said Patty Molson, blowing steam from the top of her tea cup. ‘She keeps asking for Sundays off, but with Carson working extra in the city, I need full time help.’ ‘ Mmm, mhmm, mmm’, echoed the women in unison, nodding their heads in synchronicity. ‘Robert’s just bought a place in the city as well,’ said Linda Donaldson. ‘Our boys, they do work so hard, don’t they?’ ‘ Mmm, mhmm, mmm.’ Margot found herself drifting in the dreariness, when, a sudden draft from the front of the shop, accompanied by a tinkling of the door awoke her. She turned to find a woman running towards them, nearly knocking over a waiter carrying a tray of cakes. ‘Gosh, sorry!’ She breathed, laughing. He blushed as she laid a white gloved hand on his shoulder. With her long neck, dark eyes and light blonde hair pulled back in a loose knot, Margot thought she looked rather like a swan. ‘Oh, look who’s here,’ said Mary through her teeth. ‘Surprised she made it,’ said Patty under her breath. ‘Eve!’ She chirped as the woman arrived at the head of the table, gasping. ‘Sorry I’m late, ladies!’ Said Eve, peeling the white gloves off her hands and tossing them on the table. Margot chuckled as one of them landed in Barbara Atkins’ cup. ‘Not at all,’ said Barbara, frowning slightly as she pulled the glove out by one of the fingers and laying it down at Renee’s place setting. ‘It’s a scorcher, isn’t it?’ Said Eve, dabbing at her neck with a napkin and taking her spot across Margot. They eyes met for a moment before Margot, not unlike the waiter, blushed and dropped her gaze. ‘Indeed,’ said Mary, rolling her eyes straight into the dregs of her tea. ‘So,’ said Eve, reaching across the table and selecting a a few cucumber sandwiches from the tray. ‘What’re we all talking about?’ ‘Well,’ Mary cleared her throat and flipped back her hair. ‘Patty’s just had to fire her girl. So hard to find reliable people these days.’ ' Mmm, mhmm, mmm.’ ‘Have you hired someone yet?’ Said Patty. ‘Me? Oh no,’ said Eve. ‘Don’t need it.’ ‘Even after...’ said Linda. ‘The divorce?’ Said Eve, a smiling creeping on her face. ‘You’re divorced?’ Said Margot, the words tumbling out of her before she could stop them. ‘Yes,’ said Eve, biting the tip of her sandwich. ‘It didn’t last very long. Just long enough for me to find out why he’d been spending all those late nights in the city.’ A nervous shifted spread around the table, ending and beginning with Mary who coughed lightly and called for the waiter to bring more tea. He lowered a tray carrying a teapot, and several saucers, the contents of which Eve dipped her finger and brought to her tongue. ‘Mmm, Chantilly.’ She said, exchanging a smile with Margot who burned her mouth on a fresh pour of tea. ‘Cigarette?’ ‘Sorry? ‘Would you like one?’ Eve leaned against the hood of her car at the corner, halting Margot from her walk back to the subway. ‘Sure,’ said Margot, joining Eve by the Buick. She took the cigarette and held it to her mouth while Renee leaned in and put the flame to the end. ‘Thank you.’ ‘So, you’re new to the Club,’ said Eve. Margot nodded. ‘Favour to my mother.’ ‘Ah. Bev’s sister, right?’ ‘Right.’ ‘You two are so different.’ ‘I’ve been told that.’ ‘That’s not a bad thing,’ said Eve. ‘I suppose that’s her dress too?’ ‘Oh,’ said Margot, crossing one arm against her chest. ‘Is it that obvious?’ ‘No, you look nice,’ said Eve. ‘Just doesn’t look like something someone like you would pick out for herself.’ ‘Someone like me?’ Eve smiled, then squinted her eyes against the blinding sun. ‘This heat is unbearable. I can’t stand it.’ She rummaged in her purse, pulled out a pair of cat-eyed sunglasses and perched them neatly on her nose. Margot looked up at the sun, cupping a hand over her eyes. ‘Are you hungry?’ Said Eve suddenly. ‘We just ate,’ said Margot. ‘Oh, please. My cat eats more than that. Don’t tell me you got full from those little cucumber things?’ ‘I guess not,’ said Margot, laughing. ‘Come on,’ said Eve, crossing to the driver’s seat of the convertible. ‘Hop in! Do you like burgers?’ ‘Sure.’ ‘I know a great little place. It’s a bit of a drive though, do you mind?’ ‘No,’ said Margot. ‘I don’t mind at all.’ Off the road that bridged the city from the suburbs was a quaint diner called “Lucky’s”. Margot waited in the car at Eve’s insistence to order the food for them. Margot’s eyes crawled about the car, gathering as much evidence as she could in her attempt to explain the enigma that was Eve. A napkin with a lipstick imprint sat crumpled at her feet. Behind her, in the backseat, was a pair of kitten heals, newspaper and a road map. ‘Margot!’ Eve stood at the front of the restaurant, waving her over. ‘There’s a table under some shade back her. I think it’ll be more comfortable than the car, don’t you?’ The women took their trays and headed to a small table behind the restaurant, covered by the shade of a birch tree. Eve removed her glasses and laid them on the table next to her purse. Under the shade, the outer rings of her eyes glittered hazel under long curled eyelashes. She tucked the loose strands of her hair behind her ears and wrapped her thin fingers around the burger. Margot thought it was rather charming; the heaping sandwich in such delicate hands. Margot picked up a fry and nibbled at the end. Eve pushed the tray towards her. ‘You have to try the burger and tell me what you think.’ ‘Fine, fine,’ said Margot, carefully unwrapping the foil. ‘Wow, it’s incredible.’ ‘Isn’t it? Oh,’ Eve grabbed a napkin and reached across the table, dabbing Margot’s mouth with it. Margot, startled, flinched and darted backwards. ‘Sorry,’ said Eve. ‘You just had a bit of...Sorry,’ she handed the napkin to Margot. Margot wiped her mouth, careful to avoid Eve’s eye. She hadn’t meant to recoil at Eve’s touch. It just happened so quick, like burning her mouth on hot tea. ’So, how do you know Mary and the ladies?’ Margot said, finally spurred by her mounting guilt. ‘Through my ex-husband. He grew up with them. I think that’s why they resent me so. A lot of them were hoping they would be Mrs. Michael Murphy.’ ‘How did you meet him?’ ‘Through work. I used to be something of an actress. He cast me in my first commercial. I was so flattered back,’ she laughed and shook her head. ‘Now, I realize that that was just his hunting grounds and I was just another doe-eyed fool.’ ‘Do you still act?’ Said Margot. ‘No,’ Eve wiped her hands with a napkin and crumpled it into a ball. ‘That ended after I had my son.’ ‘Oh. You have children?’ ‘Just the one. He wasn’t planned.’ ‘I see. Happy accident I guess, then.’ Eve paused. ’Yes,’ she said, quietly. ‘Very happy.’ Margot unscrewed the cap from her soda bottle and took a sip. ‘Funny story. My first ever commercial was for Coca Cola,’ said Eve, her eyes resting on the bottle in Margot’s hand. ‘Really? Must feel a little special every time you drink it now.’ ‘A little bit. You always remember your first, after all.’ Eve nudged Margot’s foot with hers. Margot wondered whether this was intentional or not. Regardless, she felt tickled by the feather of a familiar bird, one that hadn’t visited her in a long timed, and yet, one that she recognized immediately. ‘Would you like some?’ Margot handed the bottle to Eve, who took the bottle from her and raised it to her lips. ‘So, what do you do?’ Said Eve, taking a long swig. ‘Oh. Well.’ Margot looked up, searching the sky as if the answer would fall out of it. ‘Not much of anything right now.’ ‘That sounds lovely.’ ‘It’s pathetic, isn’t it.’ ‘No, really! You’re not tied down to anything. You’re free to explore, learn, do whatever you want. It’s where every girl ought to be. Not in some stifling tea room sucking on sugar cubes with women drunk on their own misery.’ ‘Why do you go to those things, anyway?’ Said Margot. ‘You’re quite different from them.’ ‘Honestly, I go for the laugh. They’re so uptight, I like to poke and tease them and see if they break. Chip away at the china long enough, eventually it’ll crack.’ Eve let out a light hiccough and, her cheeks flushing, patted a hand to her chest. Margot began to laugh. It fell out of her, gaining in rapturous uproar with very breath. ‘What’s so funny?’ Said Eve, staring at Margot. Margot wiped her eyes with her hands, but every attempt to stifle her laughter simply aggravated it. ‘What?’ Said Eve, now crossing her arms and arching her eyebrows. ‘Are you laughing at me?’ ‘No!’ Said Margot, raising her hands and waving them. ‘No. I just-‘ ‘What?’ ‘I - I’ ‘Well? Tell me!’ ‘I feel it,’ said Margot, catching her breath and letting the tears trickle down her cheeks. ‘You feel what?’ ‘Joy.’