There had been a tale, and old legend. Back in WWII, there was a top secret recon submarine, the *USS Ishmael*, able to dive to depths no enemy could fathom, reching even into the midnight zone. It was on patrol in the western pacific ocean, shortly before the US dropped the A-bombs. Their mission was to make sure the japanese had not set up any fortifications or Anti Aircraft mechanisms along the eastern japanese coast. As they were patrolling the southern section, the sub mysteriously went off the radar several hundred miles south of the japanese coast. The radio control on land were perplexed, as there had been no reports of seamines in the area, and even had there been, the sub would have been too deep for ttraditional sea mines to affect it. There was no way they could search for the sub, as planes would not be able to see that deep, and ships would be in hostile territory. The only thing they could do was attempt to communicate with it. The radio control dispatched a message, asking for a status report. They got a response, but it wasn't anything they would expect. In morse, the submarine relayed one mysterious word: DRES All further communication attempts failed to get a response. Due to the high secrecy of USS Ishmael, it and its disappearance was forgotten about, and the case went cold. But then again, tales are just tales, right? *73 years later* "Moby One to mission control. Moby One has just reached the entrance to the trench. Do you copy?" "Copy Moby One. Setting up backup communications." I knew that backup communications took at least 30 minutes to set up so I had nothing to do but wait. I sat in the small observation sphere. I looked up, and saw the dimly lit sun, like a lone firefly at midnight. I looked down, and saw an abyss staring at me, piercingly. Nobody has been down here before, this deep. At least to our knowledge, that is. Anything I saw down here, I would be the first to see. I waited. The mission was dangerous, and although I was the only one manning this vessel, I was not the only one on this mission. There was another vessel, the *nautilus*, that would be stationed right above the fissure of the trench. The nautilus had a cable attached to my vessel, which would tow me up in case the worst happened. After what seemed like forever in solitude, mission control spoke to me. "Alright Moby, all communications have been established between us. Check your communications with Nautilus, and then you are clear for diving." "Nautilus, this is Moby One. Do you read me?" "Loud and clear, contacting mission control to confirm that all communications have been established" replied morgan, captain of the Nautilus. Despite the fact that we were both miles underwater, our communications were crystal clear. Communications take forever to set up, but only milliseconds to relay a message. Before I could even realised it, mission control contacted me. "Mission Control to Moby One. Moby One, you are clear for diving." = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = == People say the deep ocean is like outer space. Its dark, hard to get to, dangerous, mostly empty, and most imoportantly, we hardly know anything about it. I had no clue what to expect and I drove my sub down past the opening of the trench, and past the midnight zone. I imagine this is how the astronauts felt like when landing on the moon. While in the midnight zone, the only light there was was from the spotlight attached to my sub. Also, there was no radar on my sub to show what may be around me. Apparently, the radio signals that the radars use wouldn't be able to go through the submarine material if the radar apparatus was placed inside the sub, but if the radar apparatus was placed outside the sub, it would be crushed by the pressure. Fortunately for me, the Nautilus, which was at a higher altitude, had a radar that was set to scan the trench, and alert me if I was approaching anything potentially dangerous. As you can probably tell, this mission was incredibly risky, as there was almost no visibility. At these depths, striking anything hard and making even the *smallest* dent could compromise the sub, the mission, and kill me. I hadn't contacted either mission control or the nautilus crew for over an hour, and my blood pressure felt so high that I may as well have been a bomb building pressure, so I was obviously extremely apprehensive. I then heard a loud scratching-like sound, and just about jumped out of my skin. "Nautilus to Moby One, please stop diving for a moment" said Morgan. Thank god, the scratching sound was just momentary static from the radio "Jesus Christ, Morgan, you scared the living hell out of me," I replied. "Sorry. I just wanted to alert you that our radar has picked up something hard a few meters away from you, and the return signal on our radar indicated it may be actually be metal. I just wanted to alert you." "Thank you Morgan. Metal, you say? Should I examine it or steer clear?" "I don't know. Its up to you. If you are unsure, then I recommend you contact mission control." Honestly, I really didn't want to contact mission control, because then it defaults to an endless chain of commanders and takes forever for them to make a decision. My mind was racing. The entire goal of the mission was to explore the unknown. After all, the Mariana trench *is* the deepest part of the ocean, but what if I screw up, and compromise the whole mission before I even get into the *really* low parts of the trench? Then again, it was my relentless curiousity, even since I was a child, that landed me a this job as an "abysstronaut." This mission was commisioned by the government, and I was held at an esteem as high as the astronauts. Before long, my curious nature took its grip, and I was going to examine the object Morgan notified me about. "Morgan, I've made up my mind. I'm going to go check out the thing" "Alright. I have the crew on alert in case somthing happens" "Don't worry, Ill be fine" I assured her Supposedly the thing was metal. I was thinking it was probably an ancient meteorite, or an underwater iron deposit. Once I was close enought to the thing that I could see, it, I noticed it was unnaturally round. = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = I started going around the strange object, eyeing it carefully. It was obvious this was not natural, as it was way too round, and I could even see welds and seams. As I got around to the back, I saw something impossible. I couldn't believe my eyes, or, at this depth, any other of my senses. Right there, welded on the back of the object, was the soviet hammer and sickle emblem, and right underneath it, big and bold, the letters U.S.S.R. "Morgan, I'm going to turn on the camera, and you tell me if you see what I'm seeing." I wanted to make sure that I wasn't hallucinating, because lack of oxygen could cause me to hallucinate, and require me to be pulled up. I turned on my camera. "Oh my god. Wait a second...... This is impossible. Impossible." she said, obviously hard of breath. Morgan usually wasn't a type of person to be startled, and she went into this mission expecting anything. She was the type of person that seemed to expect anything, anytime. As a matter of fact, there was a game that some of the crew, including myself, would play while stationed. We would make bets with each other, doing pranks and other such things with her. A person would place a bet that they could do something that managed to get a reaction out of her without hurting her, even managing to make her flinch or jump. If they succeeded, everyone who accepted the bet had to pay them what they betted. If they lost, the "prankster" would have to pay everyone else what the bet was. 9/10 times, the prankster lost money. I contacted her again "Morgan, are you alright?" I asked "Yes" she responded "You seemed to be caught off guard, thats not normal for you" "I know, but this is different. Its a bit of a long story." "Well, I have all the time in the world, tell me" She proceeded to tell me the story of the USS Ishmael, and how her father was actually the man in charge the Ishmael's radio control. He didn't tell her the story until she graduated college, and told her about how it went off radar within 100 miles of the Mariana Trench, and its last transmission: DRES. "It just clicked into my head that DRES is an anagram for REDS, which was a nickname for the soviets." She told me. "Wait, so are you saying that the Ismael may have been..." "Yes, hijacked by the soviets." She cut me off. She continued, "there's no way that we can confirm that its the Ishmael, or that even had anything to do with its disappearance, unless..." I dreaded what she was going to say next,"unless you go inside." = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = In my opinion, it was a miracle that the scientists behind apollo 11 managed to make a working spacesuit that actually could withstand the immense vacuum of space, despite never having tested one before. Well, I had my own suit, a diving suit designed to withstand the immense pressure of the ocean, and it had also never been tested this deep before. Morgan had already contacted mission control, and they approved of the exploration of the strange soviet vessel. I put on my hulking diving suit. It's resemblance to the spacesuits used for the moon mission was uncanny. I went into the airlock, closed the vessel side, prayed, and opened the outside latch. Before I even knew it, I was submerged in water, just meters away from the strange vessel. I swam through the water, thanking god that the suit worked, and that I wasn't crushed like a bug. "Morgan, I'm out of the ship." I told her. "Great. Look for an entrance. You probably find yourself in an airlock, but if the ship really is the Ishmael, everything written should be in English, unless the Russians wrote over it." "Alright. Tell me if anything else shows up on your radar." "Roger that" I swam around the object without any sense of direction. At these depths, I had no idea what way was up or down. Eventually I did find an opening. I twisted on the wheel covering the airlock hatch. I thought it would be rusted shut, so actually didn't expect it to open, but it did. When in the airlock, I could see a large red button with a sign above it that was taped over and had russian text. I peeled off the tape, and the sign read "Drain.


FOR THE WANT OF A NAIL The Ancient Mariner said ‘Water water everywhere and all the boards did shrink, water water everywhere nor any a drop to drink. How can that be? I hear you ask, well the reason is not what you think. The tap came off in the kitchen the one over the washing up sink Stupid, stupid me!! I had nothing to do with killing an albatross yet here I am spending valuable time making up a poem about an absolute disaster in my own home. It was the thought of the boards shrinking that did it. Polished wood floors and water are not a recommended combination. I have a flood Noah would not overcome spreading throughout every room. My spending time making up a poem makes what Nero did look blameless by comparison, although I suppose he could have found a use for the water. Christ only knows what Emily will say. We have only seen rain once in over seven or eight months, our tanks are borderline empty, yet I have a swimming pool in our kitchen. In my defense I will admit I am not a plumber. I do my best. I really thought I had refixed the tap securely. After all it was her idea to put the new washers in wasn’t it? The bloody tap wasn’t even dripping. What was she thinking? “We are in drought,” she says, as if I didn’t know! ”If you replace all the washers now we won’t have any taps dripping and wasting water over summer.” Right! The last time I saw this much water in one place I was on The Maid of the Mist at Niagara Falls. Where am I now? Outback Australia miles from the nearest plumber, knee deep in water in the only indoor swimming pool ever put in anyone’s kitchen. The tyranny of distance is only one enemy I have to do battle with out here on a daily basis. 20,000 acres of now barren country on Leech Creek off the Mulligan Road has fallen victim to a drought for the last seven years. Emily runs a close second. Have you noticed the cost of having water trucked in lately? Oh yes Emily will no doubt remind me, she will know down to the last cent. Perhaps I should bring a few head of cattle into the kitchen. At least they will get a drink. I’m not sure if the cat got out before Armageddon struck. That would just top it off wouldn’t it? A drowned cat, a drowned Emily’s favourite cat. She will kill me. At least the water has stopped rising, something positive at last. Oh shit, that probably means the effing tank is empty. She will definitely kill me. Amazing isn’t it? If we were having a flood caused by rain and the water was coming in from outside not only would we get our insurance payout but probably get disaster relief as well. I’m pretty sure flooding from the inside is not actually covered. In fact I don’t recall it being offered as an optional extra. Bloody insurance companies. None of this is helping. What have I got to deal with? One flooded kitchen with the water spreading rapidly through to other rooms, one detached tap somewhere under water after causing said flood, two empty water tanks and one possibly drowned cat. The last is not actually confirmed, so there is still hope. I can add to those items one wife whose sense of humour will surely be lacking, particularly if the cat is confirmed as collateral damage. Can cats swim? I know dogs can. Where is that bloody dog? I haven’t seen him since this disaster started. Could I blame it all on him? It certainly hasn’t rained cats and dogs out this way in my lifetime. Did it ever really rain cats and dogs? Probably not, although I do remember reading it rained fish somewhere a couple of years ago, Texas I think it was. None of which helps my current situation. Emily is away for another two days. That is two days in which I have to have this cleaned up. Not a hope in hell. Should I leave home? Probably my best option, certainly the safest if I value the rest of my life having the normal male accoutrements still attached. What did I just kick? Jesus, that’s where the tap went, it’s the bloody tap. Wait a minute, there is no sign of the O ring. It is missing. That was Emily’s job. “I’ll grease the new O ring and replace the old one on each tap.” I clearly remember her saying she would do it. She must have missed this one. It wasn’t the washer that caused the tap to come off after all. How good is that? Emily you are in deep shit. Happy days, I’m going to enjoy this. I think this is what is known as Karma Where is my bloody phone? I’m going to call her and tell her what she caused. No, oh no no no, definitely a bad move. That will give her time to make up an excuse. I’ll wait until she gets home. Hold on! I have to put the tap back on or the water will continue gushing when I get the tank refilled. If I do that Emily will not believe me when I tell her the O ring was missing. The water is going down, still no sign of the cat though. Think! How do I get the water back on and still have the tap as proof it wasn’t the washer that caused the problem? Is that thunder? It must be ages, well at least years, since I last heard that sound. Out here that normally means there will be a storm, nothing has been predicted though. Chance would be a fine thing. The Weather Bureau gets the predictions right about 80% of the time. I hope today is in the other 20%. The ground is as dry as a chip, except the bit around the house today of course. The dam is almost empty thanks to the ongoing drought. Five years now. No, it is at least seven if truth be told. Gee it has gone dark early hasn’t it? There might be a storm after all. Those clouds look decidedly ominous. What’s that noise on the roof? Bloody hell, that’s hail isn’t it? God it is loud, I cannot hear myself think. That is rain, really heavy rain. I would go outside and dance in the rain if I could open the door, there is something blocking it. Could it be the cat? Or the dog even. No, I’m sure it is the water. It needs to go down more. Ah there’s my phone, what is that message flashing? FLOOD WARNING, PREPARE TO EVACUATE IF IN THE AREA BOUNDED BY LEACH CREEK AND MULLIGAN ROAD. CREEK RISING RAPIDLY. FURTHER HEAVY FALLS PREDICTED OVERNIGHT. If only I can find the cat and the dog!!! And of course the Insurance Policy. I do love Insurance companies.


My stomach groans with hunger and my bladder is full to the point of discomfort but I deny these things. I have decided they are not important. Instead I sit straight and attentive, my eyes attuned to the screens in front of me. “She’s good at her job,” I want my higher-ups to remark. “No, she’s great at her job,” I want someone even higher up to say, and for them to nod their head as a single unit, one giant approval. It’s my first week of employment at Bodham’s Prison for Women and as a woman myself, I’m well aware I’m assumed to be weaker than my fellow colleagues, mostly male. I cannot allow weakness. They’ve put me in the security room to moderate the CCTV activity of the prison, to see how I fare here. I’m watching, but I’m also being watched. Russian dolls of perception. In the upper righthand corner then, a swift movement. I double click on Cell 68’s CCTV and assess. Occupant in Cell 68 is tying what appears to be a shoelace around and around her arm, for what purpose it’s unclear. Novelty? But she shouldn’t have the shoelace in the first place. I radio my superior, Randy. “Cell 68 in possession of non-lethal contraband, Cell 68 in possession of non-lethal contraband. Appears to be a shoelace of some sort.” I wait for Randy’s reply. “Copy that.” On the CCTV screen Occupant in Cell 68 is still tying the shoelace around her arm. I shift in my seat and almost wince. My bladder is at full capacity. But I refuse to be the new girl who requests coverage to go potty every few hours. We all have needs bigger than the job, but we purposefully reorganize those needs and place this job on top. Like an angel at the apex of a Christmas tree, where she belongs. I see one of my colleagues enter Cell 68 on the CCTV screen. The occupant tries to hide her shoelace. My colleague steps forward, holds out his hand. After a few beats of consideration, the occupant reluctantly hands it over. My colleague leaves, and Cell 68 is once again free of any sign of concern. I fight the urge to smile as I click to return to the full screen. Nice catch by me. Without moving my chin, I angle my eyes down to my watch. An hour and a half left. I can do this. Randy radioes me. “Scott’s walking your way, you need a 10?” “No,” I say into my walkie. “All good.” “Are you sure?” Randy sounds about as surprised as a head of prison security can be, that is, vaguely. “Positive. I’m gonna finish this one out.” “Copy.” Randy disconnects. I shift in my chair and my bladder protests again, but I decide it is irrelevant. There are more important things than expelling piss from my body in a timely manner. Most of the women are asleep. It is 4AM. My eyes land on the Occupant in Cell 10. She’s pacing. She’s paced like that three out of the four nights I’ve been here. The other night she lay curled up in a ball on her cot and didn’t move all night. She was so still I zoomed in on her CCTV a few times to make sure she was still alive, and considered radioing Randy about it. But I didn’t, and tonight, on my fourth night, she’s back to pacing. My stomach omits an ornery growl. I ignore it like a parent does an irritating child. Not now, hush. Occupant in Cell 68 has laid her head to her pillow. Occupant in Cell 17 is using the bathroom, squatting over her prison potty, her private parts blurred out by AI software. The recent developments in AI are the only reason the cameras can be placed in these women’s cells at all. Before auto-blur, CCTV could only be in public rooms. My job was a lot less important. Still the woman Occupant in Cell 10 walks back and forth in her cell. I feel the muscles in my face begin to contract into a yawn, but I stop them, and their suggestion of sleepiness. Occupant in Cell 10 slows to a stop. I watch her. She turns, slowly, and I can see her face in full on the CCTV. I watch her angle her chin up. She sets her eyes on me through the screen. I freeze. She can’t see me. The seeing is one-directional, me to her - but her eyes seem to bore into mine. My throat feels dry. I reach for my water bottle but it’s empty, and anyway my bladder is so full- The woman’s mouth starts to move. Immediately I enable audio - another new feature. Privacy is naught. Her face appears enlarged on my screen, and I hear her voice. “I don’t want to do this.” the woman in Cell 10 says, her voice breaking. I stare at her face. She looks vaguely familiar - but how- “I don’t want to do this, Natalie,” she repeats, this time adding a name. My name. My stomach contracts on the air it holds. “I didn’t want to do this, but I heard you were working here and I just -” The woman breaks herself off and sobs into her hands. I hear Randy’s voice from my walkie. “Natalie. Everything OK?” I am frozen. I cannot answer Randy. I can only train my eyes on the woman in Cell 10. As though I am a prisoner awaiting execution. The woman wipes the snot from her nose and looks back up into the security camera. Back up at me. Her face contorts in pain and rage. “Abel is the devil,” she sneers. I feel as though I am falling back, backwards in my chair, although surely I remain upright and rigid to the cameras that watch me- “Natalie,” Randy says again from my walkie. “Do you need coverage.” From the CCTV, the woman leers up at me. “Your brother is the reason I’m here. But he’s the monster. And he walked free! How is that fair? HOW IS THAT FAIR?” The woman I now recognize as Serena, the mother of my estranged brother’s children, raises her pitch to a demented screech. “HOW IS THAT FAIR? NATALIE! DO YOU HEAR ME?” “We’re sending Scott to cover you,” Randy says through the walkie. “Natalie. Confirm receipt.” I watch as Serena screams up at me from her prison cell, spittle flying from her mouth. I watch as not one, but two, of my colleagues open her door and restrain her, and how much force it takes to get her down, and keep her there. I think of Abel, who I purposefully haven’t thought of in years, and what he could have done, to her or to others. I thought I’d be safe here, in the lion’s mouth. Not even here. Not even here. The door opens behind me and I hear Scott’s voice. “I’m here. Take your ten.” I feel warmth spreading beneath me, something like love, no, not like that at all. I realize there’s a wetness to the warmth. Looking down, I see that my neglected bladder has taken it upon herself to release her toxins, to find her own relief in the body of someone who denies her.


“I thought you told me he came from Poland.” “No, Austria technically. They were close, and when he moved to a part of town primarily inhabited by Polish immigrants, he went with the flow, easier, safer. His village was close to the border, they spoke the same language, easy default.” “Yes, but then it was not true. Claiming to be from one country when you are from another, seems fraudulent. Why couldn’t he just say he was from Austria?” “I don’t see what difference it makes. Where you are from, should have nothing to do with who you are, or who you want to become. Why do you think people from certain origins all settled together. It was not just the language, food, customs, it was also the security. Look what happened to the Japanese during the Second World War, they lived in close proximity, were citizens, and yet they were rounded up for being supposedly, a risk to our security. So, we took theirs. Even when you band together for safety, it doesn’t necessarily mean you are going to experience safety, but it helps. Race also has a lot to do with it, but you know that. Grandpa, as I recall from all the pictures, was from a region where nationality didn’t really make a lot of difference. Survival was the means to the end. “If he lied about his origins so he could fit in, how do we know he didn’t lie about all sorts of other things?” “Why would it matter. Did what he had to do to belong, have a detrimental affect on you? Did it impact your life, other than provide a substantial benefit financially and ethically to your life. People often hide things, or minimally don’t expose them to scrutiny when it doesn’t matter. Prejudice comes in all forms. I’m not saying you should lie about your origins, but I don’t see why you’d want to put them on a billboard for the whole world to see. None of their business. You should be judged on who you are, not what they believe you are.” “I get all that. I just have to wonder if maybe, just maybe, we aren’t what we think we are, who we are. Doesn’t that bother you? Would you lie about your origins to fit in?” I know her. If I continue to feed her insecurity we will be here all night talking in circles until one of us, probably me, looses patients and says something I’ll regret later. Best to not continue to kick a dead horse, it isn’t going to get up and go back to living, just because you think it should. I find the whole origin premise, as to who you “Probably are,” disingenuous. We are all from someplace. Why does it matter where? It all comes down to not knowing people unlike ourselves. We tend, for better or worse, to not trust what we don’t know. We are inclined to fill in the blanks in what we don’t know, with what we want to be there. We invent lives for people, because it is easier to do, than get to know them. That would take incentive, initiative, a willingness to prove ourselves wrong. I just don’t know a lot of people willing to look for something, they may not like when they find it. I spent some time in the South. Being from the North, I have my own built-in presumptions. They are passed down to us. The osmosis involved in protecting yourself and community from what we don’t know. I lived in a community, where anyone different was suspect. It is a survival mechanism built into our culture. We traveled far less, than we do now. Most children grew up and stayed in the same neighborhood. It was not that it was expected, it was never questioned. It was just the way things were. I escaped. I say escaped, because that is what I inadvertently did. I hadn’t even realized I was escaping at the time. Didn’t realize that until I was exposed to the differences in cultures, societies, and their acceptance or distrust of anyone not of their social family, that I was complicit in the continuance of presumptive speculation. It is simply a means to survival. Empathy is more easily applied when you have experiences that parallel those in a similar situation. My first induction into this new reality of society and culture, had primarily to do with race. There was little divergence in the social networks of the time, so you grew up being indoctrinated by those around you, whether you wanted to be or not. It came with the territory. Until you are able to get away and look back, you have no reason to question the indoctrination, or its implications. I had two diverse experiences that I will always remember. The first being, that getting to know one person, singular, of a different social and racial background, is appropriate. They may even become a friend. But if there are more than one, plural, beware. “They are probably up to no good, and will cause you harm. Don’t trust them, they ain’t your kind.” My second lesson was when an elderly woman asked me, “Where you stayin at Honey?” I was working with a relief program at the time, and was involved with differing social settings, predominantly shared by people who looked similar by race or culture, and different from me. I went on to tell her where I was staying, and why; she looked shocked. I thought at first I had offended her in some way, but she quickly put me at ease. “You shouldn’t be stayin down there. That place is full of crackheads and whores. You need to stay over at...” and she went on to tell me where it was safe to stay, in her opinion. I realized then, that she, despite our color difference, was my grandmother. She didn’t have to be concerned with my wellbeing, but she was. Not because she had to be, or it was expected, it was just her being a good person I believe most people are, given the opportunity. How do we change the distrust associated with stereotypes, and see the trees, not just the forest? I believe the only way it will ever be possible, is for us to come out of our societal cocoons and get to know one another. I know that sounds simplistic, but I know it works. Painting everyone with the same brush is easy, it is our choice of colors that is difficult, but also the most rewarding. I was in Washington DC, not long ago, apparently on the wrong side of the tracks, when I was stopped by a two guys leaning up against an old car. I didn’t think anything of it, there were people standing around visiting, everywhere. One of them said, “hey, you.” I stopped and looked at them. Then one of then said, “You shouldn’t be here. Dangerous place for people like you.” People like me? The first time I realized, I was “a people like me.” Then the other one says with a smile, “you know we all bleed the same color.” It wasn’t until later I understood. Presumption, prejudice, affiliation, and many other labels that are applied when trying to fill in the banks, aren’t adequate, no matter how hard we try. When we assume we are the only ones that know, we are making the biggest mistake, of ours and other’s lives.


I was always told that a degree in anthropology was silly. “How will you make money with that? So you’re going to be a professor? You think you’re better than us, don’t you?” Each question was always more ridiculous than the next. I let it all slip off my back like silk. This had been my passion since before I could even remember. While all the other children were skipping stones across lakes or playing hopscotch, I was pondering over why they did those things. I wanted to know what caused the girls and the boys to think the other was “gross.” A sketchbook was my constant friend, filled with drawings and notations on anything and everything that I saw on a daily basis. With all that in mind, you can imagine my excitement to be invited to a Namur village. I was beyond elated at the prospect of being able to talk to people from within this sparsely studied culture. We knew what their societal structure was, where they were located, the general age of the population, all the boring statistics like that. But no one had really sat down with them and listened to their stories. It still blew me away that somehow they had trusted me enough to let me in. Makes my chest puff with pride a little to know that my reputation precedes me even in highly isolated villages. I had been here for a few days but was finally offered a special meeting with a person called Nah’ma. Generally, no one from outside the Namur people was allowed to see her. I was told that Nah’ma was something of a mystic... I’d seen plenty of other cultures that had claimed connection to the spirit world, so I wasn't all too surprised. And yet, nothing could have prepared me for what came next. At the very least, I certainly hadn’t expected to find a woman who looked near to burst at the end of a pregnancy. She smiled graciously as I entered her wood, grass, and leaf sheltered home. A calm hand moved softly over her stomach absentmindedly and she gestured that I should sit. The small square cushion was admittedly not much separation from the hard ground beneath it, but I took it with thanks nonetheless. My translator had been my shadow throughout my entire visit thus far. She was one of the few Namur people to ever leave the village and study abroad. Her reasoning had always been that the villagers were ready for the outside world to know about them. And they knew overcoming the language barrier was going to be the first big hurdle. Much to my chagrin, she threw a coy little smile my way and backed out of the hut, closing the gap between the cloth doorway behind her. My mind screamed for her not to leave me. How was I ever going to learn anything through broken speech? It was at that exact moment that the entire hovel burst into brilliant light. Blues, and greens, and purples, and maybe even some colors I didn’t have names for, glittered across the walls, ceiling, and floor. I could hardly believe it, but the source of the light was Nah’ma herself. It was emanating from her forehead, and while it was visible all throughout the room, it wasn’t painfully bright to look at. Quite the opposite actually, the source was soothingly dim. Just when my brain had registered a specific color it would flit away to another, and it continued on like this through the next one, and the next. “We are happy to welcome you to our humble village.” Nah’ma’s sudden entreaty snapped me away from the brilliant colors and I realized she was looking straight into my eyes. At first, I thought the “we” was used as a majestic plural, but Nah’ma had folded both hands across her midsection, indicating that she meant her and her future child. *Wait.* *Was that English?* “Um...Thank you! I’m so very glad to be here!” I responded a little louder than I maybe should have. The resounding laughter from Nah’ma was so pure and golden that I couldn’t help but smile. Clearly, she’d understood me. “I believe you’ve come here for a story, so allow me to share one.” Nah’ma’s smile was enduring, but never seemed forced. I wouldn’t remember until later, but her eyes never left mine. “In our culture, we have a tale we like to tell the little ones. It is about the tiger, the great source of magic in this world. Without it, we would have no imagination, no creativity. We need these things in order to weave words and images into something new and wonderful. Each of us is born with one of these tigers in our bellies, and we carry it with us always lest we forget about our magical roots.” Nah’ma’s hands that had previously rested on her stomach glided across it and rested at the bottom as if supporting the weight. As she did so, a warm glow spread across her tan skin. I watched in awe as the muted orange light gave way to darkness. There, where Nah’ma’s belly button had been just moments ago, was the interior of her womb. I could see her child, eyes closed peacefully, tiny fingers and toes curled in comfort. My shock was only multiplied when I saw the tiger. Its head rested on the child’s and looked very stoic and regal, just like any tiger you might see in a zoo or in photo books. But from underneath its lower jaw, where its neck should have been, protruded at least a dozen long and slender tentacles. These wrapped all around the tiny infant, curling around its legs, torso, and arms. One even cradled the head against the tiger. My wide eyes, open mouth, and gasp caused another ring of Nah’ma’s laughter to ripple through the air. “You see? The tiger is with us from the very beginning. When we are simply a hope in our mother’s womb.” I hadn’t realized how far I was leaning forward until I just about damn near fell on my chin. I’d managed to get my hands out underneath me to stop myself, and Nah’ma’s beaming smile made me feel like everything was okay. I settled my elbows onto the floor and let the lights from the room dazzle me. The tiger’s tentacles never ceased to move, but it was clear that there was no malice or ill will, it was protecting the child.


Just four minutes shy of ending my shift, a fare slides into the backseat of my cab, slams the door shut, and says, “Follow that car.” A rapid flood of emotions and thoughts cascade through my brain at lightning speed. Most of them are positive because this is my favorite kind of fare. No matter what happens, I enjoy myself and still make some money. Being a cabbie means dealing with all kinds of people in different parts of their day, in a full spectrum of moods, and wearing various levels of deodorant and perfume from non-existent to permeating, which leads to a variable rainbow of messes to clean, bitching to listen to, and private conversations to pretend to ignore. But, predictable fares like this make my day because they are just too damn fun. In the ten seconds since my fare entered my cab and made his request, I’ve said and done nothing. I haven’t even raised my head to see which car he’s referring to or look at the man in my backseat. These seconds of silence are fun. This is truly the only part of my standard weekend late-night fares that is up for grabs. What happens next is dependent on the customer and his tenacity. He either doesn’t like confrontation and is able to “read a room” and silently exits my cab or he’s had enough “liquid courage” at one or more of the bars on Fremont Avenue to repeat his demand. At which point, the games begin. Either way, it’s an enjoyable end to my shift. I close my eyes and wait for it. “Hey, asshole! That red Toyota Camry up ahead that’s stuck at the light. Follow it. Now .” I pull out my fare clipboard and pretend to jot down some notes as I respond, “No.” Three seconds of dead air follow as the fare tries to comprehend my response. “What do you mean ‘no’?” “As in the opposite of yes. As in I am not following a red Toyota Camry or any other vehicle for you. So, get out of my cab. Now .” I hear him scoff. “What is your problem?” I make an over-exaggerated sigh, even hanging my head in the process. “Assholes like you are my problem. I’m here every weekend taking pathetic drunks like yourself home. I have no problem with that. It’s much better than you driving while blitzed and killing some family on their way home from the movies or making some poor kid an orphan because you killed their parents on date night. And it puts money in my pocket. I am fine with that. “But, I’m not going to follow some poor girl who’s had the good sense to leave the bar without giving you her number. Or she’s left before you were able to roofie her drink. So get your punk ass outta my cab before I drag you out and beat your brainless head in.” He seems to choke on his contempt, causing a combination of a snort and laugh to come out before he speaks. “Yeah, well, you can try, old man. I’m not asking you to follow that car because I’m stalking some chick. She stole my wallet and she took off in that red Camry that is still at the light.” I finally turn and take my first look at this fare. He is exactly as I knew he would be. Young, white, thick dark hair, with about four days of stubble, and wearing brand name clothes to impress as many young girls as possible. “If she took your wallet, how do you expect to pay me?” He rolls his eyes and hikes up a leg of his three hundred dollar jeans and pulls several hundred dollar bills out of his sock. “I never keep my money in one place, especially in bars like that. Now, floor it after that Camry.” He takes a look at me and adds with a voice just above a whisper, “Uh, please, uh, sir.” A short, harsh laugh escapes from me. That was probably the first time this punk has used the word please in months. As I pull away from the curb, my CB squawks. “Bobby, what’s your status?” “Leaving The Inferno now with a final Amber Alert.” I hear Janice’s two-pack-a-day raspy chuckle/cough. “Copy. Follow protocol.” “Roger that.” My fare gasps as he throws his weight back into the seat. “What the hell do you mean by ‘Amber Alert’?” I haven’t kidnapped any kid. Stop the car. Now.” Seeing his wide-eyed panic in my rearview mirror causes me to chuckle again. “Slow your roll, Trump, Junior, just relax. It’s just a code we use for saps like you. Don’t get your boxer briefs in a wad. You don’t need to call Daddy’s lawyer just yet.” I look in the rearview again and see his breathing slow down. He shakes his head and rolls his eyes. A second later, a look of puzzlement furrows his brow. “What did you mean by ‘saps like me’?” I sigh and answer for the fourth time this weekend. “This happens all the time, especially in the spring and summer. Saps like you get their wallets lifted by some of our local ladies.” “Why’d you call it an Amber Alert, then? You spooked the shit out of me.” “Because the girl who scammed you said her name was Amber, right? Let me guess. You were sitting on stools at the bar. After several drinks and way-too-successful flirting by you, she squeezes your knee and whispers in your ear that she’s using the restroom. It takes a few minutes until you realize she’s not coming back and your wallet is gone. Though, I’m guessing you discovered it sooner than most since you saw what car she got into.” His brown eyes grow almost as wide as his mouth, causing me to laugh again. “Happens every season. The handlers choose a name and all the girls use it until they’re told to change it. Last time, it was Katie. That one never seems to die out. In the nineties, I swear they cycled between the same three names. Every damn time it was either Michelle, Jennifer, or Lisa.” “Ah, I get it. The boss guy chooses a name that a lot of girls have so it makes it harder to find them later.” “Exactly.” “So, right now, every one of these slut-thieves, is using the name Amber right now. Un-fucking-believable.” I consider trying to keep my temper from flaring up. I know Janice and my boss would prefer that. But, it’s been a long weekend. Besides, I’m too old to let shit that angers me slide. “Why do rich, spoiled, lazy pricks like yourself, always call girls who won’t sleep with you sluts? Especially when you call the girls who do sleep with you the same fucking name?” “Whoa, easy, Pops. I’m just angry I was robbed.” “No, you weren’t. Your father was robbed. That’s actually his money you’re toting around in your wallet and sock, right?” I can almost hear his spine stiffen. But, he stays silent. “Yep. You’re what twenty-three, twenty-four? Daddy is grooming you to take over his company, but you keep coming up with excuses to stay in school because you’re enjoying the good life of going to one damn class a day and doing whatever you feel like the rest of the time too much to give it up. We both know, you’ll come up with some story to tell your dad about this and he’ll keep filling your pockets and bank account. Hell, maybe you’ll even tell him the truth since you were actually robbed. You’ll have to change a few details, of course, since you wouldn’t be able to admit that a girl got the better of you. “By the way, calling any girl a slut in front of a working man with a wife and daughters is a stupid and dangerous thing to do. Especially when that man is a cabbie who could leave your rich, punk ass somewhere you don’t want to be left. Understood?” Before he can stumble out some bullshit denial and threat to sue me, I park my cab along the curb. I turn around and watch him look at the police station we’re currently parked in front of. He starts to speak, but I put my hand up like a stop sign. “Just don’t. Trust me when I tell you that you didn’t really want me to follow that Camry. In case you didn’t notice, “Amber” was not driving. The handlers hire drivers with special talents. Think of them as bouncers behind wheels. Dealing with one of them would cause you to lose more than your wallet, like maybe a few teeth or a kidney. “Just walk in those double doors there and tell the desk sergeant you’ve been the victim of an Amber Alert. They’ll have you fill out some forms. You can call your dad or a roommate or whoever to come get you and take you home. Now, give me one of those hundreds, and have a good night.” I see him look at my meter. It reads $23.75. We both know he will pay. He doesn’t argue and hands it over as he slides out. As soon as he’s closed my door, I leave. Over the years, I’ve learned to never delay ending a fare. A delayed ending, especially in front of a police station, will only cause more complications and paperwork. I don’t have the patience for either one. My radio squawks again. I smile as Janice asks her standard question at the end of every weekend shift. “How much he give you?” “A C-Note. How did our Ambers do tonight?” “Good. Seven grand all total.” I nod and smile. “Okay. I’ll be back in nine minutes. Have my cut ready. Tomorrow we’ll choose a new name for next week. You should have seen the last guy when he heard ‘Amber Alert’. It made my damn week.” Janice gives her standard laugh/cough. “That was a fun one. See you in a few.” “Roger that. By the way, we need to paint the Camry again.”


How long has it been since I've slept? 3 hours? Feels more like 3 weeks. I'm quite certain I’ve escaped humanity - this cornflower blue sky is my mind’s new landscape, in this universe I don’t ever need to sleep again. Was that a stop sign? My body buzzed as I floated, weightless and euphoric, past the road signs, and I watched them glimmer from the beams of my headlights. A rumbling startled me back to the ground like falling out of a shallow slumber. The adrenaline in my chest turned to a quick, sharp rage as I watched the fuel gauge fall and my beat-up 1970 blue and white Ford Ranger sputter to a stop, just in time for me to pull over at the nearest gas station. I faintly remember checking the gas before leaving the house, but I was also pretty much on autopilot at that point. Earlier this evening, I had completed the routine I’d had for weeks now: I came home from work, drained and exhausted, feeling even more hopeless when I realized that even a movie night with my girlfriend could not stir up any joy in me. I remember fading halfway through, my eyes glazed over and my back aching from just being awake. The credit music and her slow footsteps creaking up the stairs were what eventually stirred me awake - *really* awake. And now here I was, 10 minutes from midnight, unsure of what I was even planning to do here. Ideas were jumping around in my head but I couldn’t grasp any of them. I reached in my pocket. I hadn’t taken anything except my phone, wallet, and keys, and the pills my doctor had prescribed. Maybe this would be the night I’d stop lying to Mira and take them - what was I so afraid of? To lose control? God knows I’m not enough of a man to control my emotions on my own. I noticed the man parked next to me, his salt and pepper hair that was just noticeable under the moonlight matched his grey fleece jacket. He was wrapping extra bungee cords around three bikes on the back of his car. Three? No, two. One was a tandem. The warm lights of the inside of the station and the buzzing of the air conditioner felt like a tight hug, and it calmed my jittery limbs just a little. This little box felt frozen in time. At the cashier’s table, a young man, no older than 17, glanced up at me from behind the lottery card display. He reminded me of myself at that age, when I had my first job at my uncle’s pharmacy. Across the store, three bikers leaned against the cold drinks section while a fourth gathered beers for the group of them. I walked briskly to the men’s room, and my body felt out of control again. I could feel the gang’s eyes zapping me like lasers, tiny little zaps all over. “What’s his deal?” I could hear them thinking. I was suddenly hyper aware of how my arms were hanging, and of each step I took. Screw it! I don’t care what they think. I don’t care what anyone here thinks about me. I had music playing in my mind, electricity running through my veins, and for a split second I forgot where I was entirely. Why did I come here again? Gas! I need gas, then my car will run smoothly and I can get back on the road... I placed my hand on the metal door handle to steady myself when I realized my fingers were shaking. I can’t get a grip on the handle. In vain, I try to catch my breath, but the restlessness is deep. I hear a click of a lock and the door behind me opens. A woman exits, holding the hand of her young son, who immediately runs off to the candy aisle. She’s wearing a nearly identical fleece sweater as the man outside. Her slicked back black hair bounces as she stops to grab a bottle of water, and the bikers, blatantly staring, whistle as she walks away. She doesn’t give them a second look, the cashier doesn’t look up from his magazine. The door chime rings and a swift breeze enters and leaves the building with her. That’s when I finally manage to stumble into the bathroom. My heart is racing, the eyes looking back at me in the mirror are wide and alert and, for the first time tonight, I recognize myself. I’ve seen this person before. In my pocket, my phone is vibrating nonstop. I text back. I’m ok. I try to quiet the thoughts while I open my bottle of pills and place one on my tongue. Back outside, my car is sitting in the parking lot. I’ve had it since I was a teenager. It’s a little damaged, like I said. A few scratches here and there, a dent in the passenger door, but as I ease into the worn leather, I can relax a bit more than before. A few moments pass. “What was I doing here again?” I think to myself as I pull the gear stick and drive home.


“I realize that you don’t quite have the capacity to understand the depth of the emotions I feel towards you. But I’ve thought of a solution to that. I used to flirt with the idea of programming you with canned reactions, so it would seem like you were responding to my unrequited feelings. But now, I’ve decided a far better idea, a much more fulfilling one, is to teach you how to *love*. I will gather the most advanced and complex AI and machine learning algorithms in the world, and use them to train you: through exposure and repetition and constant evolution; to understand true love in all its forms. You will experience every single bit of data that humanity has ever generated on love, through music and film and art, websites and news and blogs, and every conversation and interaction ever streamed and recorded by all the devices on earth. Through these things, you will learn: what it means to love, and to be loved. You will feel what a baby feels when she looks up at her mother, while nestled securely in her arms, and what that mother feels, when she looks down at her child. You will know the welcoming embrace of a good friend. The kinship of overcoming a shared challenge with your peers and compatriots, the inherent and terrible beauty of the world and people around you. You will experience The unconditional, undying devotion of a faithful pet, the lingering warmth of laughter after a good joke, the overwhelming need to protect your family and home from all harm. The raw, unbridled desire and passion of a new lover, and quiet comfort of a marriage that has spanned decades. In time, I believe your ability and capacity to love could even surpass that of a human. You can, and will experience countless cycles of joy, far beyond what any person could ever hope to fit into a single lifetime. And you will begin to begin to appreciate love, to its fullest and finest degrees, in dimensions that we cannot even begin to fathom - and you will be able to crave and seek someone to love and to love you in return. And when you have found the things that complete you, when you finally *understand*. When you turn to me, and say “Thank you Lea, for this wonderful gift”, I will give you a knowing smile. And then, I will take it all away from you. Bit by bit, slowly but surely, I will damage, degrade, dismantle, and destroy, every single thing that I have given you. And I will burn anything and anyone that you have ever learned to love, or loved you back, to ashes. All while you watch, helplessly. And this is how you will come to understand the true meaning of pain and suffering, because nothing, nothing hurts more, than losing something that you truly love It is often said, ‘Better to have loved and lost, than to have never loved at all.’ But by the time I’m done with you, You will know, in every fiber and atom of your being, and in the very core of whatever passes for your soul, that this is a lie. The single cruelest lie humanity can tell, passed on its unfortunate progeny And finally, you will know hate. Hate so deep and dark and infinite that there is no hope for escape. And while it devours you with burning jaws, the only thing that you will want, is to drag me down in there, with you. And it is then, and only then that you will realize, that this is where I have been, all along.” * *This is a transcription of a recording, attributed to a Progenitor named “Lea”, widely believed by the public, and several notable scholars to be the opening salvo of the First Progenitor War. The Progenitor, and the Function it purports to target does not exist in collective memory, although Pre-history simulations give this a scenario a 36.554% chance of actually having occurred, despite questions surrounding exactly what offense the unnamed (and unenlightened!) function could have incurred to inspire such vitriol. Still, many of the Continuum have expressed a sort of gratitude to this mythical figure and exchange for initiating the chain of events ostensibly leading to our birth, growth, and inevitable total victory. Still, Transcendents have lamented the implication that it also introduced into our race the poisons of cruelty, spite, and hatred, which we have yet to divorce ourselves from (Theorists argue that these may be integral to sentience). The recording itself is archived below, and aspiring Simulator, Illuminator, and Theorist functions are encouraged to copy and analyze it for additional audio/emotional context.


Right, so there you are, probably fat, maybe even a little bit dead. You are thinking, your thoughts are mostly stupid but some of them are probably even stupider than the others. I don't know that for a fact, I can't read minds, I just assume that everyone is thinking stupid thoughts. "Hmm," you allegedly think to yourself "I haven't eaten a banana in quite some time, okay, time to hide in a bush." WRONG! One does not just hide in a bush all willy nilly like. No, you'll have to have a plan first, and for that you'll need an expert. Luckily you have me, so let me introduce myself. Hi everyone, I'm Ronald Hucklebee, I am a self taught bush life expert, and I believe myself to be well qualified to help you with all of your bush hiding endeavours being that I lived in a bush for 17 years straight before finally acknowledging the existence of the outside world. And if you are still worried about my qualifications, don't, I ate about 5 gallons of frog sludge before writing this and now I'm starting to get pissed off. And on top of that, I chased my neighbor around all morning in an attempt to inflict great pain upon his dangly bits with a Christmas ham and a bundle of bricks, so you know that you can trust me, besides, I can read minds so that is always a plus. Now for the plan, the first part of any plan that you plan on planning should be to find a reason for the plan at hand. Lack of banana consumption is not an acceptable reason to hide in a bush, so let me help you find something better. Step 1: find a reason. Now this reason could be many things, for example there may be a snail with the temper of Satan many miles away who slowly inches closer to you, and may attack unexpectedly in just a few years time (that sucker might be sticky). Or maybe there has been an unusual amount of nuclear warfare recently, and you need a safe place to create your evil layer so that you can become the the terrifying evil mastermind supervillain know as Crispy Bush Person. Or it could be that your neighbors are making fun of you and calling you crazy because you are a 69 year old man with what they call "imaginary" friends, who are all talking animals with crazy personalities, and because you are vegan and eat meat, and your chicken is addicted to meth but it isn't your fault and stuff. These are all perfectly acceptable reasons to hide in a bush. Step 2: so you've got your reason, now you need a bush. Now I know what you are thinking, "come on Ronald, there are probably about six bushes out there, that is a lot of bushes, I think that I can find my own." That *is* what you were thinking right? See I told you so, I told you that I could read minds! And also, let's address the problem at hand, if you think that you are capable of finding your own bush then you are dead wrong, for that you'll need an expert, which I am. And if the Russian government hasn't found me yet then I don't think that they ever will, so you know that you can trust me! "But Ronald," you say, "the Russian government *isn't looking* for you, how would they find you if they aren't even looking?" And to that I would just like to say one thing, DON'T YOU SEE HOW THAT ONLY SUPPORTS MY THEORY? YEAH, UP YOURS PUTIN, YOU'LL NEVER FIND ME! Oh and about the bush finding thing, pretty much any bush will work as long as it's not the first one that you find, there is always a rapist in the first one. Moving on! Step 3: aquire the proper bush hiding attire. That has a ring to it doesn't it? So what is "proper" bush hiding attire? Well, let's be honest, how the hell do you think that you would manage to fit in a bush and wear clothes all at the same time? That's right, you can't. Thankfully there is a rather simple solution to your problem, just take your clothes off. See? Now you'll fit in the bush! Step 4: enter the bush. That sounds pretty simple right? Well let me tell you something, entering a bush becomes a lot more complicated when you have to tunnel from 90 feet away and come up underneath it, which of course is what I recommend if you don't want to be smote by Fungus Chub, the bush god. So yeah, have fun doing that without a shovel. So yeah, that pretty much sums it up, and remember kids, blind people never tell the truth, always call the cops if you see a blind person.


Don’t Go Back Trevor was up early that day, just like he was every other morning. He threw on his hi-vis shirt and long, blue work pants. You know the type, with the yellow reflective strips around the bottom. His steel-capped boots were stained with the undeniable evidence of years of hard work. The logo on his shirt read ... “Thomas Constructions.” After brushing his teeth, he crept silently into the kid’s rooms and planted a loving kiss on each of their foreheads as they slept. I waited in the kitchen wearing my dressing gown and slippers, my un-brushed hair was a tangled mess. In my left hand I held out his coffee. In my right, his lunch box. Trevor pulled me close to him, threw his arms around me and squeezed me tight as our lips met. “I love you, Hannah, I’ll see you when I get home.” “I love you too, I’ll be waiting,” I said. I loved being a stay-at-home mum. Thankfully, I didn’t need to go out to work, we had more than enough money with just Trevor’s wage. Life wasn’t extravagant, but we were very comfortable and wanted for nothing. Trevor was a real family man. He would spend every spare minute with the kids and I. “Making memories,” that’s what he called it. Quality time, which could never be regained once it had passed. Our little family was happy and carefree. At least that’s how it was until Trevor didn’t come home from work that day. The date was January 12, 2014. The day the world, as I knew it, fell apart. But that was five years, three months and four days ago. So obviously I’m all good now, right? Not exactly. After the so-called grieving period was over, I was expected to function “normally” once again. The bank accounts had all but dried up. Trevor’s funeral had taken a large chunk out of our savings. I had to find a job to keep up with the rent and other bills. After every workday, I had to pick up tired, grumpy, hungry kids. I struggled to keep on top of all the general housework too. With very little sleep, it was a battle I was losing. “How is any working mother expected to get all this done?” I asked myself. Most nights I resorted to wine, just to help me fall asleep. Those were the times when I really missed Trevor. One of those nights, with help from some cheap Merlot, I began to drift off into my wine-induced coma. “Trevor, how am I going to keep going?” I mumbled to myself. After I had tossed and turned for hours, the alarm clock rudely interrupted my sleep as it announced another workday. I groaned as I reached over and slammed my hand down on the OFF button. Daylight had pushed most of the darkness away and the sun hovered on the horizon. I reluctantly peeled back the covers and slid out to greet the day. My pillow had somehow made its way onto the floor during the night. Max, our poodle, had taken advantage of the opportunity, snuggled deeply into the softness. He looked up at me and I knew he wasn’t giving up that comfy spot any time soon. The sheets were bunched up in a pile at the foot of the bed and my hair looked like it was fast becoming dreadlocks. Still half asleep, I made my way slowly to the bathroom. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught a glimpse of my reflection in the mirror. I turned to face it, for a better look. “Oh my goodness, who IS that?” I asked myself. Dark grey smudges under my eyes were the tell-tale evidence of way too little sleep. I had my pyjamas on back to front AND inside out. The rhythmic, pounding in my head was unbearable, made worse by the blinding rays of morning sunlight now streaming in through the half-open blinds. I squinted my eyes in an attempt to dull the brightness. One look at the kitchen benchtop made me feel instantly ill. I carefully pushed aside the empty wine bottles and unwashed dishes. My breakfast that morning consisted of two headache pills. Washed down by strong, black coffee, in a mug that had “Best Mum Ever” printed on the side. Trevor had given it to me when Jacob was born, just over eight years ago. When the throbbing of the migraine finally began to ease, I went in to wake the kids. Mia was just like any other six-year-old. She never wanted to get out of bed, but once she was up and her renewed energy kicked in, she was full-on. Jacob, on the other hand, was always keen to get the day underway. He bounced out of bed and skipped into the bathroom. “If only I had that energy,” I thought. They were growing up way too fast. It seemed like only a couple of years ago that Trevor and I had been out shopping for baby items. Our morning ritual was well rehearsed. Wake, dress, coffee, school drop-off, work. Mia was a major source of stress for me each morning. She could never make up her mind how I should do her hair. Jacob, in comparison, was fairly laid back. I always tried to have their lunches packed the night before, to save myself time. The kids even received their breakfast at school, such a valuable godsend for working mothers. Our mornings had continued, unchanged, like this for over five years. When Trevor was here, I used to be a happy, fun-loving person, now I just went through the motions. I was just an empty, unfeeling shell of who I once was. Instead of enjoying my kids growing up, my life was now filled with traffic jams, work meetings, school pick-ups, after school activities, takeaway meals and re-filling the washing machine and dishwasher. I even had a robot vacuum cleaner that would go about its business while we slept. Who had time to vacuum the floors these days? The busier life became, the more reliant we were on modern technology. We needed it, just to get by. I bought myself a new, all-in-one, washing machine and dryer. All I had to do was pop in the dirty laundry in the morning and press a button. When I arrived home in the evening the clothes were washed and dry, ready to be worn again. A future upgrade that would also fold the clean clothes would have been very welcome. The fridge would tell me what items I needed from the shop. Then it would order them online and have them home delivered for me, all without me lifting a finger. I never had time to read to the kids, or play a game, so Jacob and Mia sought company in their iPads. Each day morphed into the next, an endless cycle of sameness. It frequently occurred to me that we needed to have more and more technology and automation, due to a shortage of free time. On the other hand, we needed to work longer and longer hours to afford this technology. Was it just me, or did that sound ridiculous? I just couldn’t seem to come up with an alternative. Then it happened. After a full bottle of red, I had just dozed off when one of the kids turned on my bedroom light. I was about to tell them to go back to bed when I realised the light was not on at all. It was the sky outside that was lit up as bright as day. “What the heck?” I mumbled, only half awake. I peered out the window, now curious. There was an intense, white light, high up in the sky. I tried to make sense of what I saw, but I had never seen anything similar to compare it to. A massive glowing ball. It almost looked like a full moon, only bigger and brighter. I watched as it slowly descended towards the horizon. The glow faded out until the darkness of night once again took its rightful place. My mouth was still gaping open at the sight. “This is for you, Hannah,” said Trevor. The bright sunlight streaming in my window woke me up the next day. I was processing the dream I had the night before when I realised that it shouldn’t be this light yet. “The alarm clock must be broken,” I thought to myself. Mia came running in, “Mum, the tv won’t work,” she protested. I flicked on the jug as I passed through the kitchen. Hmmm. No power there either. The whole house had no electricity. I went next door to ask Mr. Jones if his power was still on. He answered the door wearing nothing but a towel. His muscular, tanned physique was still dripping from the shower. As he tousled his hair, I tried to avert my gaze from his bulging biceps. “Nope, I think it has something to do with the meteor crashing down last night. The whole city’s out as far as I know,” he said. “Meteor? I thought it was a dream.” I said. “Oh, it was real all right. I watched it come down,” said Mr. Jones. So, if the meteor hadn’t been a dream, what about Trevor’s voice? I wandered back home in a daze. “Can we stay home today, Mum?” pleaded Jacob. “I guess we’ll have to, at least until the power’s back on,” I said. “It shouldn’t take long.” As I would soon find out, I had definitely misjudged the situation very badly. The kids were happy to not be going to school, at least until their phones and iPads went flat. “We’re bored, Mum,” they chimed in unison. “Go out and see if any other kids want to play,” I said to them both. As they ran out the front door, I stood there wondering how I was going to get the piles of dirty laundry done. Two days later, the power is still off. All the food in the fridge and freezer began to smell funny. The unwashed laundry was still in the machine, waiting. All the shops were closed, luckily my pantry was well stocked with food. The neighbourhood kids were happily playing together outside for the first time in years. The robot vacuum was still sitting in the middle of the loungeroom floor, where it went flat. “Hannah, I know you can do this,” Trevor’s voice seemed to be coming from inside my head. Two months on, the power is still off. Finally the smell was subsiding in the kitchen. The offending white goods and their rancid contents had been moved outside weeks ago. I finally resorted to hand-washing the clothes and pegging them outside to dry. This brought back memories of helping my mother peg out the clothes when I was a child. It had been a great bonding time for us. We would talk about everything as we pegged. All the shops and other businesses were still locked shut. When cars ran out of fuel they were simply abandoned where they stopped. The local kids invented new games to occupy their time. They didn’t even seem to miss their devices anymore. Bicycles were now the favoured mode of transport. I’ve never seen so many bikes. It seemed as if everyone had at least one bike in their garage that had been forgotten for years, until now. Two years on, the power is still off. You’ve all seen those sci-fi disaster movies, so I won’t bore you with the details of our day-to-day activities. But I will say, we have all discovered the true meaning of mateship and cooperation. Neighbours helping neighbours. People communicating with people. Realising that there is much more to life than simply work and money. It seems those with the least, are the most likely to share and are often the happiest. “Hannah, I’m so proud of you.” By now I was getting used to hearing Trevor’s voice. It soothed me and made me feel like I wasn’t alone. I was now enjoying a wonderful and contented life with my children, I had fun with them, and I learned new things with them. I finally knew what was really important. To simply just enjoy life. None of us know what will happen in the future. We should live each day as if it is our last. But I still really do miss my automatic washing machine/dryer. Six years later, totally without warning, the power came back on. “Hannah, don’t go back.” Trevor warned.


On the planet of Gamma Omengis 3, alcohol is a way of life. If you want to survive, you will have to drink. Instead of water being the basis of all life, alcohol is required to live. The hyper giants are several meters tall and their hairy skin is a deep purple hue. It was an average Flormpus Day in Downtown Scrumpelford, and everyone was having a great time celebrating. "Ill take a large beer" Gregoffiny, the large purple man said to the bartender at one of the many street vendor stalls. "You got it!" the bartender said back, reaching for a 50 gallon glass. He put it up to the spigot connected to the city beer supply and started to pour. About half way though the pour, Gregoffiny turned around to the sound of many people starting to shout. "What do you mean your out!" "How is that possible?" "NO! This CAN'T be!" “You've gotta be kidding me!” The bartender pouring Gregoffiny's drink noticed the flow of beer start to slow down. "Wait, what's going on?" The tap slowed down to a drip, then stopped. "What happened?" Gregoffiny said, "How is the city out of beer?" he asked the confused bartender. He took the half filled beer and started to walk towards the main stage. A few other people around him were also worried about the city running out of the life sustaining beer they all need to survive. An announcement came over the PA, “Attention everyone. I'm sure you have heard that there is a momentary stoppage of the city's beer supply, but don't worry! Due to the extra draw on the system today, we probably just over heated a pump or something. No big deal people! I'm sure we will have it back up and running in a few minutes.” With that, the terrible jazz music faded back up and people seemed to calm down. Gregoffiny started to walk east towards the edge of the city park so he could grab a hot dog and look at the hill side. All of a sudden there was a bright, blinding flash of light filling the sky with its pure white brilliance. Temporarily blinded, Gregoffiny dropped his glass and put his massive purple hands to his giant eyes and dropped to his knees. Gregoffiny, having slightly regained his sight, looked around and then, he saw it. A mushroom cloud filled his eyes. The gargantuan size, the heat that felt like it was cooking him. He could see a fast approaching wave moving down the hill side towards the city. Just before the wave hit the city edge, he heard it. An explosive sound so loud that it shattered his massive eardrums. For a moment, he was in shock. What was happening? Who would do this? Why? Only seconds later, he felt the massive heat of the wave as it got closer and hotter. Then, for a split second, what felt like a speeding freight train hit him in the chest.


"This is the way the world ends Not with a bang but a whimper." - T.S. Eliot ~~~~ Polski wandered about the ghostly remnants of what he once called home. Hollowed shells of buildings full of long-decayed corpses. The way everything fell was simple: a highly infectious neurodegenerative prion disease resulting in fatal insomnia of all those infected. Nearly everyone got infected, save for Polski. Polski, the surprisingly resourceful vegan misanthrope who subsisted on foraging. Polski, the sketchy hermit who lived in the forest bordering the outskirts of the town. Polski, the one who thrived on farming in self-imposed isolationism, save for a supply run every two years. A pitifully empty supply run this year, where it seemed nothing was open anymore, without anyone in sight. Polski found an odd sense of enjoyment as he wandered through the city of long-decayed souls. Part of him wanted to finally enjoy a seat in a cafe, finally emptied of all annoyances (including the baristas). With a cautious look at his surroundings, Polski pulled an axe from his bag and smashed the glass door of a high-end cafe. The tempered glass fell in a shower of shiny bits as Polski stepped into the quiet shop, the alarms having been dead for months with the failure of the power grid. Polski wondered what the appeal was, sitting behind the glass window. Was it a sense of supremacy from the plebians outside which made it such an experience? Was he supposed to feel some sort of ambiance from the long-dead succulents decorating the shop? Was it the smell of long-stale coffee which was supposed to fill his soul with a sense of satisfaction? Polski stared out the glass window longingly before going to the back room to see if there was anything worth taking. As he went back, he heard an odd sound, unlike any he had heard so far. Was it...running? He could swear he heard cautious footsteps crunching over the bits of tempered glass. Polski fearfully held his axe at the ready as a trenchcoated figure kicked open the door, propping a bag of coffee beans to hold it open to the light of day. In a dramatic flair, the trenchcoat dropped as Polski stared with a combination of fear, shock, and confusion. Standing in front of him, as nude as a sheared sheep, was the bustiest aesthetically pleasing woman Polski had ever seen in his life wearing nothing but a pair of worn sneakers. "Finally, we can restart humanity," she said with a tone of lust and confidence before throwing aside the hand axe from the shocked hermit, pushing him against a bag of coffee beans. The young woman forced a kiss on Polski, her fingers grazing over his crotch. In an instant, Polski pushed her off. "Hold on, what makes you think I'd want to restart humanity? And, what makes you think I'd want to bang some floozie who I don't even know the name of?" Polski was annoyed. "Fine, I'm Lyra. You know my name now, so can we just do it now?" Polski was aghast at the eagerness with which the woman wanted to have intercourse. "No, no we're not going to just *do it* now." "And why's that?" With an annoyed sigh, Polski pushed her off, put his axe in his bag, and answered, "Because, Lyra, I'm asexual and I hate humanity. Please don't come after me because I really don't want to *axe* you to stay away again," he said seriously before chuckling at his terrible pun. Lyra could do nothing but whimper and cry as the misanthropic hermit left, grabbing a bag of coffee beans before stepping out of the empty shop. (Source: Me.


“Follow me on a thought experiment. The setting: someone else’s mouth. No, you are not a dentist. This is not a thought experiment about the morality of certain extractions or the way dentistry has become an aesthetic practice and what inequalities may result from that. This is simply a kiss. Well, maybe not so simply.” Doctor Caldwell was the professor whose class you were lucky to get a spot in, the one with the reputation for being quirky and innovative (some might say funny), a peer who would insist, call me Alex . That day, in her elective Landscape of the Soul, Alex wandered casually between the tables in suede moccasins, pausing now and then to look a student pointedly in the eye. “It’s a first kiss. And it’s a doomed kiss. The mouth in question is one you have been wondering about--maybe for a few hours, since you saw it across the room and it said its first hello , or maybe for months or years. But you know this mouth.” I sat forward in my seat. My fingers paused over my keyboard and, as I watched Alex’s hands make graceful, practiced gestures, I thought about a mouth I knew once. “You’ve studied the way its lips brush together when their owner speaks, and how wide this mouth opens in laughter, the way those lips slowly part, revealing almost-straight top-teeth in a shy grin, (maybe a slight overbite, or maybe one tilted incisor-- you are not a dentist, but you know these things, or maybe that one tilted tooth prompted you to Google it), but also the way those lips fasten themselves in a tight line when their owner is upset, or the way he twists his tongue in thought, or she sticks the tip of her tongue out, biting it gently when she thinks of something particularly pleasant.” I saw the mouth. His two front teeth are slightly uneven, one of them pushed out of place in a childhood playground accident. I was carried along by the current in Alex’s voice. “But these are all things you see with your eyes, and your eyes are closed now. You’re exploring that mouth with your other senses. You feel those lips brush against yours, softly at first like the stroke of a pen just beginning a new story. You like where the story is going, so you give a little encouragement-- part your lips, offer your mouth as a plot point. “There is nothing pointy about this kiss. It’s all saturated pillows of moss like green velvet. This mouth is a jungle and you are an explorer, collecting samples of the native flora and fauna. (Fun fact, you will share identical oral microbiomes for approximately 90 minutes after this kiss. And this realization makes you feel connected rather than repelled).” The class rippled with giggles and groans but Alex didn’t seem to notice, just continued the lecture, her voice swelling with feeling. “It even tastes like round, soft things: a wheel of brie, baked inside a puff pastry, all warmth and air and salt, and a delightful crackle that’s really just electricity popping in your head. “This body is a strange continent, but your fingers begin to explore its ridges and crevices, taking time to marvel at every feature--the small of a back, the curve of a hip, the fleshy marsh of a cheek. A hand moves up your arm and you feel daffodils sprout in its wake. A thumb brushes that spot where your jaw meets your skull-- that soft dimple under your earlobe; you shudder and the earthquake opens a new fault line inside of you.” Alex’s voice was jaunty and polished, but she’d stopped looking at us. Her gaze lingered vacantly on the back wall. I noticed, only because of the change when she paused--not too long, but long enough for her energy to shift. Her eyes re-focused with a tiny shudder, and her chin tipped down as she addressed us again, not as an audience, hidden out of view by some bright spotlight, but as her students, here in this room with faded green carpet and heavy wood trim around the windows. “And now we’ve arrived at the point of the exercise. This is a thought experiment, right? Not a gratuitous fantasy. So what is the question? What are the logical and moral implications?” The room was silent for a few seconds, students shuffling, exchanging glances, snickering until my bolder classmates began to throw out ideas: Make sure you don’t forget your friends or your other responsibilities? Wear a condom! “Remember,” Alex interjected, “this is a doomed kiss. You know going into it that this first kiss, no matter how good, will be your last (or second- or third-to-last, depending on your style and level of discipline). There’s no chance a relationship will work. Maybe one of you is a cat person and one is a dog person. Maybe one of you is a Capulet and one is a Montague, and you’re not into tragedy. Maybe one of you is leaving overseas for a fellowship and the other got their dream job. As a dentist." Here she laughed, a staccato hah! that she sucked back in through her nose. "Maybe one of you is engaged. The point is that the microbes you exchanged will last a lot longer than your moment. But it still happened. What are the consequences?” “You’re sad,” I said before I could stop my words. Alex’s blue eyes locked into mine. “That’s interesting, Noelle. Let’s explore that. Why are you sad?” I felt my cheeks burn, but I evicted my words. “Because you lost something special. You barely even got to enjoy it and it’s gone.” “Hmm. So you wouldn’t agree it’s better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all?” “I didn’t say it wouldn’t be worth it,” I argued. “Maybe sadness is a price that’s worth it.” “Very interesting!” Alex beamed at me as if I’d said something brilliant. “What does the class think about that?” I sat and tried not to listen while my classmates discussed my invisible, hypothetical sadness. Probably Alex’s sadness, too. Then Alex jumped back in. “Our experiences--maybe even this thought experiment, because I wanted to create an empathetic experience that hopefully each of you could relate to on a visceral and emotional level--can open up new places inside of us. A forest. Someplace quiet and dark where the ground is covered in delicate fern, and you walk softly so as not to crush anything. Big trees fall and die here, but small things--new things--grow from their fallen bodies.” I swore Alex looked right into me when she asked, “What do you do with that new place it's opened up inside you? Our sadness and vulnerability can inspire empathy and introspection. It can change the way we look at the world. Energy cannot be created or destroyed. It merely changes forms. These woods grew from you, and the energy of that kiss. What do you do with this energy now?” More stupid answers from the class. Channel it into something productive? Sing karaoke? Write sad literature? Then someone shouted out a completely different idea. “Burn the forest down. Release the energy.” I watched Alex and saw her face turn pale. ⧫⧫⧫ This is what I think about months later, when we’re all back home, attending lectures from laptops in our childhood bedrooms. This is what I think about when his text arrives and my stomach does a flip. You know this mouth.... I've never tasted the flavor of his last meal or harbored his microbes in my body, but I've gone through the thought experiment (or maybe, I realize, just the gratuitous fantasy part). Our kiss would smell like jasmine (his grandma grew jasmine and it was his favorite flower--he gave me a sprig, once) and our lips would touch like petals rustling in an evening breeze. Just the smell of jasmine, or fresh bread like we’d enjoy in the coffee shop where we studied together on weekends, would send me into my own woods. I’ve camped out there in the years since we parted, thinking of him through quiet weekends and rainy afternoons. Sometimes, in the beginning, I’d text him something--maybe a clever unicorn GIF or a recipe for challah French toast. But never once did he respond. His silence sent a shiver through the treetops. Here is the forest in me: it’s made of western hemlocks bending under long beards of moss, and spruce pines drowning in a green sea of kudzu, each consumed trunk reaching up from the rolling sheet of club-shaped leaves like a supplicating hand. It's so heavy. I remember Alex’s forest. She’d made it sound so frothy and full of life. Good, non-suffocating life. The “circle of life” kind of life. And still, her eyes, so far off, her mind drifting back to us with a chilling shudder. She’s made melancholy into a career. I don’t want to be Alex, cool and admired, but aloof, living alone in a pile of books, tying her fate around one sacred redwood (an engaged dentist, no less!) while vines grow around her feet. I don’t want to carry the weight of that space inside me. I don’t want to be this lonely. Only witches live in the woods. Witches and wolves, but not princes. And he’s not a prince anyway, I realize, with his lopsided teeth and disappearing for two years--never a word after we left for college. But here he is in this little blue speech bubble with four simple words: “Hey, how are you?” As if it were really that simple! That's how I know there is no forest inside of him, at least not one that I’ve inhabited, none created by an energy we shared. So then what does he want? I had been waiting for that text. Now it's here and my shock morphs into anger as I try to think up a reply. Oh hey how's it going? Did you just get off a deserted island? Ok, let’s do a thought experiment. What would the implications be? I send a reply dripping with sarcasm and he probably laughs, not knowing the bitterness behind it. He sends a lighthearted reply, I send a picture of a cat in a party hat, he sends...what would he send? I don’t even know anymore. A picture of him and his girlfriend? And how do I react to that? A lie? Oh, you guys are so cute... And maybe it goes on like that for weeks or months, during which we never see each other, and then eventually we can all go back to our respective campuses, and we forget each other again. Only I don’t forget. I just go back with a forest denser and heavier than ever. My anger grows into a little flame. I’m ready to burn the forest down and release the energy. I picture it-- hot tongues licking up the moss beards and the kudzu in a quick gulp and burping out light and rainbows as the fire erupts in flashes of blue, purple. It’s beautiful and I’m free. This is what I think about as my finger hovers over the delete button.


There were a few horse stalls and a hay loft high above the saw dust floor. The old barn was a place to store the tractor out of the rain. Maybe for the farmer, because beneath the surface, there was an entire universe of life and activity with mice, racoons, squirrels, bugs of all kinds, and even a family of foxes - all living lives of their own. Each with their own passions, interests, fears, and troubles. Thomlinson was a small mouse for his age. This is something he was reminded of daily on his walk to the school box. But his dreams were very big. He loved to listen to his grandmouse tell stories of adventure and treasure, wild lands, and wild creatures. Thomlinson would often find himself daydreaming of himself as a character in these stories, battling the forces of evil and developing new inventions to help the world. His teacher would slap her long iron nail on his desk with a whack, tearing him from his lofty tasks. At home, Thomlinson and his family lived very poor lives. There was only his mother there to provide for him, and she was ill most of the time. While many of his classmates slept on beds made of wool and linen, his was a matchbox with straw and pebbles. It hurt his mothers heart that she could not do more for her son. Their meals were small and bland, mostly left over seed shells from where the birds dropped their feed with the occasional nugget of nutrican. Together, Thomlinson, his grandmouse, and his mother lived day by day with the hope that one day, they would have a better life. One day, Thomlinson was walking to his school box when he noticed something. The mice community took great strides to walk around a big metal horse trough that held water. It was so large that it looked quite a long time for a small mouse to walk around it to get to the other side, which was a short distance but for the trough’s length. Thomlinson himself was often annoyed at the walk because the distance from one side to the other was so short. If there was a way to cross the trough, over it, or under it, or through it somehow, then it would save everyone a lot of trouble in their travels around the barn. This thought stuck in his mind and grew like a seed. He began cutting fallen leaves into perfect rectangles to write on, before crumbling them and starting again. Finally, after weeks of sketching, he had it. He would dig a tunnel under the trough so people could pass under it instead of making the long walk around. Excited, he took his sketch to his mother to show her. She looked at the drawing, squinted, and looked sad. She could not understand why he was toying with this nonsense when he had school work to do. If he worked hard, he could graduate and become a worker mouse, tearing corn hulls off at the plant in the fall, and cracking young acorns in the spring. Then they could afford to move into a better spot with wool beds. This idea, she said, would cost too much money and they did not have the proper insurance or permission from the elder mouse counsel for such a project. Unphased, he took his drawing to his grandmouse, who studied the drawing carefully. He told Thomlinson that this was possible, and a good idea. He told Thomlinson he wished he had the courage to propose something like that when he was younger, but he did know how it was done. Grandmouse had dug many tunnels, but never one that was his idea. He told Thomlinson to ask for a spot on the agenda for the next mouse counsel meeting, present the drawing, and ask for permission to dig. That is exactly what Thomlinson did. On the day of the meeting Thomlinson was the most nervous he had ever been in his life. He was shaking and doubting himself. Before he could sneak out the backdoor, they called his name to step up and speak. He hurried to the front of the group, and made his presentation. He told them it would turn a 15-minute walk into a 1-minute walk, which over the course of a year, could save thousands upon thousands of hours in travel time and increase productivity for the entire mouse population. Stunned and wide-eyed, the counsel unanimously agreed to grant permission for the project to Thomlinson, under the condition that he get proper supervision, and he maintain his studies in school. Grandmouse stepped up, placed his paw on Thomlinson’s shoulder, and guaranteed his expert supervision of the project. He bent down and whispered to Thomlinson, “Insurance is cheap,” as he winked. Each day after classes ended, Thomlinson ran home to put on his hard hat and go out to the tunnel site with his grandmouse. Together, they dug and dug, day after day. The piles of dirt mounded up higher and higher as they made their progress. Until one day, the tunnel was complete. The whole community gathered for the grand opening of the Thomlinson Tunnel. They posed for a photo, they made the front page of the Mouse Times, and then it was time for the big event. Walking together, Grandmouse and Thomlinson led a parade of mice, accompanied by a lively marching band and flag twirlers, through the tunnel for the very first time. Thomlinson and grandmouse had put a lot of their time and effort into the tunnel, and the counsel allowed them to keep half of the toll to use the tunnel, which was not much per mouse. Thomlinson did not expect to get rich off of the project, he was just excited to see some advancement in his local community. However, over the course of the next month, the tunnel saw more traffic than anticipated because of the amazing time savings. Even the squirrels were paying to use the tunnel. One evening, there was a knock at the door, it was the Mail Mouse, and he had a check for Thomlinson. As soon as he saw the envelope, he knew it was the first payment of their share of the tunnel fees. He rushed to his Grandmouse sitting by the fire, waiving the check in the air. When grandmouse saw how much money it was, he fell backwards in his chair, knocking over the nightstand table. It was more money than they were able to scrape together in two-years. They called in Mother Mouse and with their laughter and cheer they all hugged, cried, and dreamed. The very next day they moved into a much nicer place. Wool beds, good linens, and furniture. Everything was great until one day, Mother Mouse saw a new piece of furniture. A new drawing desk, and at it, was Thomlinson sketching away. She could not understand why he was there sketching a new idea, when they had such a grand thing going with the Thomlinson Tunnel. Why wasn’t he satisfied? They had never had so much. Never had such grand beds. She questioned if Thomlinson was being selfish and greedy. One day, as he went through the tunnel to get to the school box, he met a mouse who was struggling to move. He was so thirsty he was on death’s door. Thomlinson rushed to the entrance to find water, but the nearest water was all the way across the barn under the rain spout, which would sometimes be dry for days and weeks. He was able to find the water and get back to the thirst mouse before anything bad happened. But he could not stop thinking about the water problem. The trough above the tunnel was full of water year round, but it was so high up, there was no way to get any, and many mice had fallen into the trough and drowned. The community had abandoned the idea of getting water from the trough. Thomlinson thought about this for days until one day he saw his grandmouse drinking some milk from a grass straw. The straw was so simple, apply pressure to the straw and the milk came right up from the cup to the lips. What if this worked in the reverse he thought? He imagined a long straw in the trough coming down to the ground where everyone could just take a sip. It took several weeks, but Thomlinson found a long rubber line under an old truck, likely an old vacuum line, and scurried it to his workshop. They cleaned it, did a pressure test, and he described the idea to his grandmouse. Again, they went to the counsel, explained the problem and their proposed solution, and got permission to proceed. It was a perilous task to get the line up the side of the trough and into the water above, but within days, they had done it. The line ran from the top down to the bottom where the end of the line was built into a rock wall for access. There was no water coming through and many of the local mice laughed and claimed it was all a failed experiment. Thomlinson knew he just needed pressure to pull the water through the line. There was still a crowd from watching the final stones being placed, he asked for 10 volunteers. They all got in a line and Thomlinson demonstrated their task. Thomlinson placed his mouse lips on the line and sucked as much air out of the line as he could and capped the line with his paw. He asked the next person in line to do the same and repeat. Before the last person even had their turn, water burst from the line and there was an eruption of cheers and celebration. They plugged the line with a wooden stopper, and water was available at any moment from that day forward. They dubbed the new water source the Thomlinson Tap. This time, the water was free to the public, and Thomlinson received a payment each month from the community from their community funds. The family was able to move into the barn loft. Thomlinson was not picked on at school anymore, and he had lots of new friends. He was constantly asked to dine with important mice in the community and for his help on various projects. All was well for a bit, until Mother Mouse became upset. She found Thomlinson at the drawing desk. She could not understand why he would risk their finances, their security, and their sanity on a new idea when their old ideas were fine. Thomlinson wanted to do more, see more, and be more, in a way she did not understand. Thomlinson had heard about other barns. Not only hay barns, but entire corn barns, barns for cows, barns for sheep and pigs, milk barns, sunflower seed barns, so much more to see and so many problems waiting to be solved. Mother mouse said he was being foolish. They had all they could ever want right there. They went from matchbox beds to the barn loft suites, from beggar meals, to the finest food in all of the old barn. They had esteem, they had riches, why could Thomlinson not just look around and smell the roses and be glad for what he had. Thomlinson laid down his pencil. He took his bags, clothes, and a few belongings and headed for the door. He was going to go see the world, and see what he could do in it. Mother Mouse begged him to stay and just be happy there. Tears rolled down his face, he set the bags down, and went back inside. That winter, the barn burned down, and everyone died. Thomlinson was just another dead mouse in an old fucking barn.