It all happened so fast. It was the evening of the 16th of July 2020. Only two weeks after my 17th birthday. I came home after a date with my girlfriend. I often think about her, I miss her, I hope she is still alive somewhere out there. As I went up the stairs, waving my parents good night, i saw a strange light through the window at the top of the stairs. I was, and still am, a space enthusiast, so I rushed up and took a look. "Ah man, a meteor, and I missed it!". I didn't think much of it, took a shower and went to bed. Later that night, I was woken up by bright lights coming through my room's window. "A meteor shower! Seems like I didn't miss the important part!", I thought. Put on my glasses and pulled back the curtains quickly. Shock. My hole body froze for a moment. I was always good at managing stress, so I got myself together in a matter of seconds. Focused on the strange purple-ish things falling from the sky. "Those are no meteors! I must wake up mom and dad! We need to get to the basement bunker as soon as possible!". As I am a sci-fi geek I immediately thought it were aliens, but it could as well be strange undetected objects. But they surely were weird. They didn't seem to be burning at all. I got mom and dad, told them that we are about to get hit by weird meteors, and we got to the basement. Seconds later Earth started shaking. The basement door got blocked by something, but we had food and water for days. I checked my phone, no signal. We soon realised that there was no electricity either. A few days went by, we were stuck there but were all right. Then suddenly, we heard noises out there, they sounded like steps. Dad told me and mom to hide in the wardrobe, he went up to the door to call for help. He started banging the door, screaming for help. I heard the door being ripped out. I remember his last words. It was a code he taught me when I was a small kid. He would only use the word "fortunate" in a situation where we needed to get out quickly or were in danger. He said: "How fortunate to get help, I was here alone for days, thank yo...". Then someone, or rather something, came down, looked around and left. Mom was crying. We waited out for a few hours and then I went up to check for any signs of what happened. I found dad lying there with a blue dot on his right leg. And a police officer dead in front of him, with a similar mark on his neck. I left the bodies there, improvised a door out of a thin wall that was once a part of our house, and went back down. I told mom what I saw, and held her while she was crying. My theory is that the aliens used the officer's body to lure my dad out, then killed him. I don't have any other information about them. They are deadly, and didn't come in peace. "We will soon run out of food. I am sending this out on a old manually charged radio communication device. If you can hear us, we will go out tomorrow, trying to find other survivors and food. Meet us at the Walmart, Nicksen street 7. My name is...oh shit, shit shit, no, no, no...".


(Tw: suggestive violence, nightmarish imagery, amoral and wanton displays of greed, necromancy) Throughout a brief notoriety during that heightened forest of chiseled moon dust lay on the brickyard stockades: Weimar: burnt-out. 1923. Small children, holes in their faces, are a cherubim so wan and fragile. Seven days did me and Seleck sit squat in the shinola of the straightway into a puddle of hellwater. It was after many hours mired among the cabaret moribund whereupon we were promenading, penniless, peering for some reprieve among a pauperized downhill street without making ends meet, milling, marooned in the rotten heaps, grasping at every turn around for worthless mark notes findable during the hours where we could not feign sleep; once piled, we inspected the tender tarnished from having a cent for us to claim as honorable payment, but the marks were sometimes still crisp enough to be shredded into imitation lettuce until we ate enough for our throats to swallow what would only stay cooly as our insides would, listless, bleed ink no longer a currency valuable, paled ourselves until our minds grew faster than our thoughts could catch up for a bit, so as to breathe evenly. So, all of the sudden, sprach so suggestively did Seleck surmise a plot, he almost shouted! --and so smiling brighter than the varnished shimmer seen on the empty dark streets at a limitless sprawl ahead from our own placement amid the spirals and moribund, Protestant church tops crooked into facades endless below what shadowy debris was awaiting our blameless greed, did my better devise an impious proposal: there is no wealth richer than the smiles of unmarked children. Seleck then pointed toward the national treasury silhouette domelike, marbled in blemished dimness with vast stone construction that was emptying our sight, nearly an entire kilometer from where we stood at the beginning of our ingenious looting spree; furthering back to our proximity, he then lifted his wiry profile past where the streetwater ran igneous, it seemed, under where even vagrant street lanterns joined alongside his surveying that left me aghast & flummoxed while at his flank, Seleck went about sizing up the districts, finding room in his eyes for looking deeper across steelwork crosses and finally, with a soft howl of fingers freed from a gentle sigh for a fist meant for me to accede deferentially, went ahead & started to fulsomely motion me to follow him under the enormous canopied shade. Beneath the strobe of darkening flem did I see his mouth finish his movements so delayed deliberately were his actions and directions for our heist, whereas never betraying that selfsame smile Seleck shone that was so carefully craven and toothsome, the words he sprach were almost penciled into a newsprint caricature: The teeth of children, a rare form of currency nowadays. Take them away! During the first day of our desperate theft, Seleck would search throughout the abandoned storefronts for any items that could attract our orphaned quarry. Wooden toys, bright tarnished pennants, a tin red wagon to place the previous within. Night sprawled a city. * When sundown fell across the hinterlands, the initial reconnaissance matured into the hunt once our ornamental shadows went dropsical underneath the moonlit rooftops, then canopied inside-out down an itinerant sewer grate alongside the concrete, growing contrasted, spindly while we break down the doors fastened over the mouths mewling before taken out and left carefree. Our shadows, once dogged pursuers, would remain blameless during our expedition. Watch them as twofold they flow away from our flesh, becoming sovereign while the body suffers no shade astride its struggle to suffocate the winds that blew no betterment the way of the flesh, the physical. Seleck was not alarmed to see that his prediction proved to be a demonstrably sound success. The prospect for our enrichment seemed to lay before us in gilded pavement, precipitous, interstices of a crestfallen Germany wherein, luminosity almost alien, our newfound currency was ushered forth between our pockets and the hunt for riches beyond the world's rotten belief: to follow our own intransigence for personal want to supersede our needs. We grinned brightly with beatific greed etching our contoured ligaments round fat smiles. Success was ripe for the taking. With an incontrovertible methodology in place to secure consistency with our new, albeit unconventional, gold mine. Still, we experimented with the remains, some much-needed frivolity for our fetching moods. The children were not very challenging to take from. Seleck looked bored from how easy it was during our daily spree. * Seleck was frugality in its economy of spentthrift rags twilled by stitches he combed so finely, the seams were almost fused into the motley skin and bones bent on his sinuous figure, proportions inside his threads rictused thinly whereupon walked a small, lean and high-shouldered man who was, to my recollection, shown to be less and less so spartan when his lips would swipe wetly until twofold, both rows of petite, prawnlike teeth inching as though the edges had bitten into a landmark seeming before his outsized mouth was chewing at some tantalizing part of the city's arterial periphery; only once the scenery was minced into his rhetorical meat, did my dearest fiend go manifest a voice, ventriloquistic, a terrible & cunning possession that faintly shone within his two opalescent eyes. Eyes that were so darkly luminous behind his furrowing pair of silver-rimmed spectacles, artificially enclosed his ravenous intelligence beneath a coinage he adorned often as he would breathe, seeming ready for his closed lid entry into the ferry's subterranean admission fee. Meticulous was his makeup: for any monster who has designs from a gentle swelling of the heart's wayward breeze such as Seleck was noteworthy since his behavior did not appear consistent with the unreflecting subjectivity of a narcissistic twerp. Psychiatric infirmary: where we were paired together, initially. His wicked desires were altogether unique, something the whole pauperized world therein could never diagnostically make ends meet with a comfortable appellate to merit his becalmed viscosity, free from moral vexation or any other poisonous privy: a maverick, worldly. * The next morning, we were going onward with the second day with expectations for our easy killing in fortune withdrawing our sibling surfeiting, aplomb, took every molar and incisor and sanded filament that our witless quality could grab and pilfer, always cackling during our getaway sprints alongside the concrete pillars without seepage, scurrying stealthily with the sewage when there was no one to take umbrage at what gleaming dentistry did we collect for seven days, our crime against the defenseless: savored with vehement simplicity. Each day when we awoke successively, sent ourselves jumping into pure jouissance, as though each end of our tour's exploits was so crude in shambles it shot us shameless, agog gleefully, bouncing from burglary again without ends in this tattered trampoline of our pillage, our evenings never less than what our pockets showered underneath where once again, our two shapes sat in a storefront vestibule, the glass beside us sieves bloodless when reflecting our sleeping heaps, sheepskin did dreams leave us entirely. Soundly, albeit slowly, did our sentences mobilize beneath the forms from where our acrimony took out without the children to have the slightest inkling to speak against our leave, seeing as we sprang and somersault routinely away, speedily to form a full blooming wraith, convex and darkly luminous in tenebrae long and impenetrable above the abandoned beer garden. Avalanches of vermin near starved to death and occasional sounds of crashing objects inside the townhouses poured out amply from habitations either by daytime visits, or shrouded indigo forever underneath the rills of the unconditional nightmare, the celebrants alike and prancing; maecdemic. Smashed windows refracted the oilskin dimness outside the similarly dismal constellation that shone dripping the entrails of extinguished shouts across the galaxy from their anguished sources that are only bloodless flickers in a cobalt-blue pitch engulfing the horizon with the unreflecting gorge of a celestial autopsy left festering after a defect of intelligent error cannot be stitched back from the depleted masses siphoning matter and hot gas cooly until death is smiling without the glint of death in a supernal lattice masking every living particle in a flash of a torn eye splayed over the awareness of pain that continues even in our falsely dreamt similitudes of catafalque recumbency where no body has a need except for glamorized cremation of the zeitgeist, a monkier for our foibles open-ended like a abdominal wound lacerated identical into dozens of slaughtered children stray among the strata varnished by street lamps bombarded with pamphlets of manifestos, illegitimate by the scandals their revolts will burn alive without a single dime to their heartless insurrection against themself, then occluded across every avenue as the message of paper becomes another rancid, coarse color selected to make the earlier years of decadence be pauperized until houses too are broken at our calling, then wickedly head over shouldered over quartered parts thrown toward ransacked salons and public monuments belying ancestral line of atomistic ethnic disenfranchisement. Alps shudder when I moved my glance, glaceous and generously soft when the following mornings came without a cinch, since as a scandal, there was no authority around, and all currency paled in this period of history when our own worthiness perennially would make us bachelors fetching enough for our legacy to be kept under matchbook streaks- discretion matching the laudable standard of excellence none other than Seleck delivered without having a single minute of his ploy be exposed to reproach, let alone opposition that would force us to leave earlier than our final stop inbound: the Treasury. So we drank imperturbable to the broad zenith, day after daybreak into benighted fall, our voices screeching sardonically many moons for each successive victory amid robbing the victims blind, all porcelain smashed and sunken beneath Fortune's glancing reprisal. Faintly above our surfeiting sleeves raised over our heads in vainglorious displays of our desperate happiness umpteenth reach below the horizon's crenellated debriefing: beyond us, every dawning brought a gigantic, fuming sky's orangish-pale furloughed counterfeit, a celestial acceptage moist long after the dark had finished what incriminating nightgown remains true enough to explode all this efficaciousness into smithereens, amply. * All went beautifully, with not a care for destiny or opposition for us to flinch a second along the swift means that will permit riches vaster than any nation on the face this sundry Earth. That was true until we encountered Kane. Kane despoiled what we had done during that desperate time. The outcry of our once unyielding killings, the jalouised orphanage of children who cried without comeuppance, who once were loamy as fleece-lined angels promising glory without having guts to spare among the guilty, swore fealty to Kane for revenge beyond where they lay bottommost graveyard proscenium stagework that was riotous six days without cessation in sight: here they returned, raised insurrection against our almost flawless relay toward the Treasury, requisitioned at the swift behest of Kane's interception, until the children were elongate, spidery undead so hideous that the children emerge behind us as the seventh day's monstratum: diaphanous, hollow and wrathful, slithering where we once sat and sifting the night until Kane could catch us right as we could taste wealth beyond any molestation it was belonging to, insipid though it would seem. And so our minds, doubled until both of us were some kind of desperate, panting beast with the power of two lesser shapes making a break against the weather and the pugilist glares of the city destroying all attempts at us getting out of this mess clean and saintly... Undoubtedly, neither of us felt that the spree could pan out as normal any longer, seeing as the conditions were not right for repeated attempts due to certain forces underway against Seleck's premonition of faultless minted disposal into the Treasury: his smile faded until it went sallow overnight, the cheekbones a suddenlink sorrow that had destroyed his clairvoyance until anger was visible, making him useless and clumsy as we fled, both now fledgling escapees. The vulcanized children whispering warnings, sweetly these oppressive sounds became the flotsam to our sleepless terror, inexhaustible infantry under the control of Kane's karmic concrete vertigo. Kane sent his newly fashioned toy boys into a sudden death burlesque flotilla across the nightsoil of the city, and for the longest day of the week at the end of the world's worst case was unloaded in their sweet angel heads, bent sideways where temples were coldly kissed by the wet, crushed seraphim bolt-iron rose that gave each unfeeling child their menagerie a litter of bloody eyes and welted butterflies fly away. It appears today is not the first warning of the nightmare having no end outside. The outcome was not so cleanly ameliorated, however. The fates, everso engulfed from their original larkspur- under wizened wide and glyphlike cut eyes almost faint to the point of translucency inside time worn veil of portendfinetwilled on profiles all cloak hooded. Always mutable by force, the deeds done versus victories unwon were released until impossibly, raised for future rectification right under our aquiline noses, all of our spoils were smelted in w shower that rained down whereupon we were reduced into penniless, appearances a sheet slick with our late penalties bringing liquid heat, it would seem safe to say for the sake of Seleck & company against Kane's manipulation of the dead. * The next day, we surrendered into hellwater so voluminous that our enrichment was not immediate, but thrown over the end of our infamy, oilskins that the great and late job gave as a little token for our easy sleep.


"Tell me about the case you got yesterday", Milin asked as he raised his cigar to give a smoke,while leaning his back against the chair.Milin and the detective both were sitting at the balcony of the detective wearing heavy woollen clothes as it was too cold that morning,and Christmas was arriving."Very simple yet too suspicious",the detective said with a deep breath,as he took a sip of his whisky.The sunny,wintry holiday morning has the best ever ambience to listen to any gripping story,so tell me about the case story Milin chuckled and said". "Yes, indeed, already the festival feeling is here,streets were started to get decorated with lights and decorative items",detective said.If you,are,so interested let me tell you the story. "Two people came to meet me yesterday in the police station one was the victim,John and another was the friend,Steve.When I first noticed them, both of them was sitting on a wooden bench in the Police Station almost sticking together,on yesterday's winter morning when temperature was relatively lower compared to other days.After getting the permission to meet me both of them almost hurriedly entered my room and started to say,"Sir we are in a grave probl.....","Relax,relax sit down both of you and let me know what's your problem",I said.Their whole body was covered with fluffy woollen clothes and gloves,still it could not prevent John from shivering.Though I knew his shivering was more because of his trouble rather than the chilling temperature.They sat down,but I could see the trace of the misfortune or trouble that John got into,in his pale-faced look,tears rolled down his cheeks to get dried up leaving marks of their trail,and leaving his lifeless eyes a bit moist."Now say",I said.My words seemed to be like injected life into John's veins again."I am looted sir ! My locker is empty !",even before he finished the sentence his voice changed as he weeped. "Stop crying",I said as I patted his back,as a sign of showing him support,he raised his head and finally started to say his story as he rubbed his gloomy,red and lifeless eyes to clear his vision. "I returned home late yesterday and straightaway went to sleep,as I was very tired.I skipped dinner and changed clothes and fell asleep.But today morning I opened my eyes with great difficulty,and found a hankercheif fallen on the ground,which ofcouse was not mine,I,picked it up with half-sleepy eyes and smelled it to realize I was anaesthesized yesterday,the realization taken my sleep away totally,because no one was their in my room yesterday.The thief must have broken into my house during the silent night when,it was dark everywhere including the house's inside".Now his friend Steve started to say suddenly,"The thief was careful and clever enough to convert the situation to his benefit,maybe because he knew that John stays alone.He slowly grabbed the key from under John's pillow,and progressed to open the almirah.The thief tried to make the least possible sound he could,to open the handle of the almirah with a jerk". "After that?",Milin asked the detective."I already started to grow suspicion over Steve".After thinking about 2 minutes,I asked Steve"how did you know that Mr.John keeps his keyset below his pillow while sleeping?".I thought my question would rattle him,but he very confidently answered my question by saying,"I stayed in his house many times,I saw him doing that"."His eyes didn't blink while he said,his head was very still,he had a smile on his face while he was answering,I knew the confidence he was showing was very fake.He certainly knows something,yet I diverted my attention to John to ask about the objects that were in his almirah.There were few clothes but the locker had €100000.It's huge amount isn't it?"."Yes it is!",Milin said.I asked John,"Did he/she steal all the cash?",I asked.John sadly replied,"Yes,all".I asked again,"So you mean,your almirah was full of clothes,but his attention went to the locker down,and without any hesitation he opened it,and as he expected,the locker had enough cash to satisfy him...........Was the main door open? by the way,or was the lock broken?",I asked."This time John didn't say anything he just looked at Steve,and Steve replied,"No it was locked!"I gazed at him,with my eyebrow wrinkles on my forehead,"How do you know that !!"."I have a duplicate key,and John himself gave it to me,today morning I entered his room as I was having the duplicate key,to find his almirah wide open,all his wealth looted and he was sleeping,later we both realized that John was anaesthesized.",Steve said. "But his answers were not satisfying,may be because of preconceived notion,but I felt Steve was the real culprit and was behind everything,But my next question was that how the thief got inside then,the answer I got from them was balcony.The thief used rope to climb up to break into his house"."Didn't you ask them about any clues?",Milin asked."Ofcourse,I did.A strange clue got into my hand.They handed over me a longcoat,that we usually wear in winter months.I guess the thief was feeling uncomfortable inside John's room with the coat on.So,he kept it hanging on a chair's side,but in hurry and tensed mood he forgot to take it away with him.But there was a problem,Steve has a strong alibi.I cannot blame him directly".The detective after longtime took another sip of whisky to relax,and rested his back on the chair,and stretched his legs to take a deep breathe."I see,you are involved in a very strange case then",Milin said."Yes true,€100000 is no joke!"."By the way I can give you a suggestion ,ask Steve to wear the coat, just check if it fits on him",Milin said."That's the problem,man,that's the problem.I told you he has a strong alibi,he told me he could have easily removed the coat(clue),that morning when he entered John's room,as John was unconscious".After thinking about 2 minutes Milin suggested,"Still try to check whether he fits in that blue,long coat",and added,"I should leave now,it's high time now,need to get back to work",and left the detective's house.The detective was lying in his chair for almost 1 hour,to figure out the dimensions of the case.Suddenly with a jerk,the detective stood up and dropped the glass of whisky from his hand,which got shattered on the floor.He recalled all the conversation with his friend,that happened few minutes ago,before he left.He clearly remember,he spoke about the "longcoat" as the clue,but his friend did mention "blue,long coat"........the coat was indeed blue.Now the question arises in his mind,is that,without watching the coat how did he know it was blue? !


Siri's thoughts turned to fear as Sen studied the limp human on the floor between them. Sen reassured her promptly. I will take his place! I have scanned this Humans mind and believe I can become a substitute with a few adjustments. Siri took her mates thoughts into her own and believed him instantly. He was the strong one and the most capable partner the Biome could ever have matched her with. Things will work out and they will get home his resolve now hers just as his thoughts were. Sen gathered Albert up into his arms as Siri returned Mrs Erickson to her position in the wall of drawers. They returned to their vessel with Albert and the Endocrine samples they had collected under the watchful eyes of the curious feline mammal. Back in their ship they watched the form of the human dissolve into what had previously been their stasis pod. It was absorbing him molecule by molecule, Sen passed his hands over a crystal and entered Albert's Memory and mind into the Biome. None of there kind had ever entered the sentience of another species into the Biome before. It would be a revelation on their homeworld and it would also be evidence that they had done no ill. The sustenance unit had adapted the samples from Mrs Erickson and Albert and delivered a small orb of green nutrients for Sen and Siri to consume. The effect was almost immediate as unknown but adapted hormones flowed through their bodies, It made them both giddy. There was enough to sustain them in there new environment for 7 Terran Days. Sen vocalized rather than telegraphed his thoughts, Siri giggled at the sound of it. We'll need more! The testosterone in the nutrients he had consumed having an obvious effect on his voice. Adapting the Holographic emitters and increasing the output to avoid another repeat of the incident with Albert took some time. When it was done though Sen stood up looking exactly like the man they had just frightened to death. Sen had his memories and knew his routines and duties and exactly how to perform them. Siri clapped in approval. Not quite sure why but seeing her mate this way both amused her and encouraged her belief that things would be alright. Puddles wasn't surprised when Albert emerged through the floor of the sub-basement the same way he had left a few hours before. Yeowling loudly he was hungry. Albert bent down and scratched behind his ears. Alright old fellow! Alright! Sen smiled inwardly satisfied with his disguise as he made his way back to the Caretakers room to feed the complaining cat. Albert's mind had filled the gaps in the marooned Aliens knowledge about Human Beings. It was one thing to listen to Radio and Television broadcasts another entirely to fathom the context of that information. There was humour and politics as well as music, wondrous and so varied in emotion and mathematical complexity. There was War and conflict with it's motivations as Albert understood them. Humanity existed in this point of there evolution as Tribal and geographic rivals despite the fact that they were the same species descended from a narrow mix of one dominant genome. The economics system was an evolved form of Feudalism under the guise of Democracy which for the most-part kept the populace placated. Inequity was rife under this system so removed from what Sen and Siri had experienced in their long lives. That inequity apparent here in this workplace where Albert worked in exchange for the care of his mate upstairs in the Dementia ward. Sen understood the attachment Albert felt for Shirley as being no different to that which he felt for Siri. It didn't take Sen long to determine that looking through Albert's eyes as he was that there was a great deal of things wrong with this place. Nurses substituting medications for one thing. The stolen drugs then sold to an Orderly who proceeded to sell them on further. The bone harvesting from the deceased patients another. Unclaimed bodies were seen as resources and the replacement of large bones with plastic tubing done with little care or decorum. Siri had been collecting where and what she could during these disruptions. It was difficult to judge humans by there behaviour when they were surreptitiously doing a similar thing. Sen made time as Albert did to sit with Shirley and hold her hand. It was during one of these occasions that Shirley spoke with a hint of recognition in her voice. “You're not Albert!” Instinctively Sen held her hand just that little bit tighter, reassuringly as if to say It's alright Dear. Other residents had regained a degree of awareness as well but this was the first time it caused Sen any concern. Mr Perkins in particular had been watching him closely. It had been nearly three months since Sen had assumed Albert's identity. Three months of walking the halls and changing light bulbs, unclogging drains and emptying bins. The time had gone quickly for Sen and Siri as their vessel slowly regenerated beneath the nursing home. It had gone even more quickly for Carnac. Awaking from stasis just short of his Earthbound destination he entered the coordinates of a position just behind Terra's moon in order not to be seen. The disruption in space as it unfolded from around his ship would cause little more than a gravity wave and he was fairly certain the Humans were incapable of detecting it anyway. Inspecting his console he requested any further updates from the surveillance probe but nothing was forthcoming. They're either gone or they're in hiding he muttered to himself, after all it did take so long just to get to this backwater. Just in case and as an after thought he requested the probe to scan for Hybrid DNA in case the violators were in hiding. He'd give it 48 hours Terran time to complete its scan before moving onto his next assignment. Most Alien species could not survive for long in the hostile Terran environment without adapting in some way. Between the bacteria and diseases and the ever violent mammalians the place was a disaster waiting to happen. A DNA scan would suffice for the purpose and would catch anyone trying to deceive The Ministry for Planetary Affairs. Three months worth of genetically modified regenerative endocrine hormones modified by Iriscenes so that they could survive in this environment had found there way into the locals.


“You have to do something, Keilo.” I blinked. My mother was staring at me. I knew that, yes, but I couldn’t see her. My head was in the blankets. Deep, deeply burrowed like a little bug who knew they would surely be killed if they came out of their hole. Not that my own mother would kill me. I knew that, at least. I blinked. “What are you doing with your life, Keilo?” I shut my eyes closed tighter and pulled my legs close to my body. If only I could will her to go away. I was okay. Really. It was fine. It was. My mother didn’t think so. She was determined. She was... she yanked the blankets back off my head and my burrow broke. The world was cold. “I’m fine. It’s fine. I have a life. I’m doing things. Just... quieter than before.” I rubbed my eyes. Bright bright lights burned at the back of my head. I blinked and tried to smile. “Isn’t that okay? I’m just tired.” She knows that’s not true, though. Mothers know. And I’m not good enough to fool myself either. I wasn’t fooled. What was I doing with my life? I didn’t know. Maybe I didn’t want to. I knew one thing. I wasn’t going back to school, anyway. No one missed me. At least I could sit at home in my bed and eat pork rinds and watch reruns of Old Westerns and no one missed me. I wondered what it would be like if they did, but no one misses a spider once they take away its web. “No, I mean it.” My mother grabbed my shoulders, pulling me upright. “I signed you up for something. It’s an art class. You’ve always liked art, haven’t you? Get up.” It wasn’t a question; what she said about me liking art. She practically just told me that I liked art. Always have, apparently. Well. I decided that I didn’t want to go. Wasn’t going to go, and good riddance to anyone who tried to make me. Even if it was my mother. I shook my head. “No.” I sniffed and pulled the blankets back over my head. “Thanks, though.” My mother stood up and I thought she was leaving, but she wasn’t. Instead, she picked up the glass of water from my bedside table and poured it on my head. I sputtered. “Mother! Hey!” “Get up.” She tore the blankets clear off the bed and threw them all on the floor. Then, having a second thought, she picked them up and carried them out of the room. Most likely to the laundry room. They hadn’t been washed in two weeks. It had been two weeks since... well. Since everything at school, I guess. I don’t know how else to say that. It’s not enough to say the story because the story doesn’t begin to cover it. The story doesn’t tell how everything that happened at school two weeks ago went back way before then. It went back before I ever started at that school. It started when I was born. I know that sounds dramatic and moody and whatever else you want to label me as, but it’s true. I’m not like anyone else and it’s not in a cute or quirky or unique way. That’s how girls can be, yeah, but when boys like different things, or don’t do and talk how people want them to, they don’t get called cute or quirky or unique. No one tries to sugarcoat what they’re trying to tell you. They say what they mean and expect it not to hurt your feelings, and when it does they laugh more. And if you cry... well, you’d just better not cry. That’s not something to do. Especially if you’re me, Keilo Ibanza. Because two weeks ago, something happened at my school, but like I said, that wasn’t when it started. It started when I was born, and it started when I met the likes of Orris Slavko in kindergarten. He took one look at me crying in the corner of the classroom and instead of coming over to be my friend, or sharing his crayons, or giving me the last juice box, he laughed at me. This kid, Orris Slavko, laughed at me in kindergarten when I was crying and he said, “Do your parents not love you enough to make sure you don’t have food on your clothes?” I had peanut butter on my shirt and jelly on my hands. I knew my mother loved me though. I knew that. She just didn’t have time to help me that morning. She had to get to work. I didn’t tell that to Orris Slavko, though. Instead, I cried harder and curled into a ball under the table, pretending not to hear the evil patterings of little feet crowding around me and laughing. All through sixth grade, Orris did things like that to me. Laughed and pointed and told me I was nothing at all. He’s the reason I was a bug in the first place. Anyway, I moved eventually. At the new school, I could move quietly among the shadows and no one noticed me too much, even when I joined the football team. And then one day they noticed someone else. Her name was Penelope and she had yellow hair and blue eyes but she only ever wore red clothes, so it made her look like a part of the colour wheel hanging up in the art classroom. The one that noticed her was someone else on the football team. His name was Wade Harts. He was bothering her. He said, “Hey.” She didn’t answer. He said, “I’m talking to you.” She kept walking. He grabbed her backpack and pulled her back and breathed in her face and said, “Listen to me, girl. When someone talks to you, you listen.” And she pushed him away and straightened her dress and backpack. Then Wade Harts growled lowly in his throat and he grabbed Penelope’s wrists and she yelped. I stepped out of the shadows. “What are you doing?” I glared loudly at Wade and his thick fingers wrapped around Penelope’s wrists. He laughed, “I’m doing whatever I want to do. Get out of my face, stupid, and go back to whatever gutter you crawled out of.” I ignored him. “Are you okay, Penelope?” She shook her head. “No. He won’t let go.” “Let go already.” I stepped closer to Wade. He dropped her hands and she ran off to class. I was taller than him. I was broader too, and if I wanted to, I could’ve really hurt him. Luckily, I didn’t. In fact, I didn’t want to hurt anyone until later, when I found out that Penelope was put in the hospital after trying to... well. She was trying to hurt herself because she thought it would be better that way. Because of Wade, who had been bothering her for far longer than what I thought. So the next day when I saw Wade Hart, I smacked him in the back of the head with a sock full of batteries. That’s why I was never going back to school. Because I couldn’t. No one wanted me there. And no one missed me, anyway. I didn’t want to tell Greta that because she may not have understood. She would have seen that I was too angry and too emotional and too much for my own good, but that wasn’t what I meant anything to be. I wasn’t trying to be a hero. I just wanted Wade to know he had hurt someone. That’s all. I know it wasn’t a right thing, but it was a thing that I thought could be justified. I was wrong, but that’s what I thought. I thought that I was just tired of everyone being so mean to me and not caring, so I thought maybe I could just fix this one thing. It didn’t work. Now I was awake and I was still not ready to leave my room. But my bed was cold and my clothes were wet. I should probably get in the shower, I thought. Man, I smell like the absence of all things good and holy, I thought. I trudged to the bathroom and turned on the water and I got in the shower. I got out of the shower fifty-three minutes later and then I didn’t smell so much like the absence of all things good and holy quite so much. There were some things, though, that even the longest of showers couldn’t wash away. When I went downstairs, I was wearing my jeans from last Christmas and my jacket from when I played football. My mother was surprised by that, I know. Her eyes popped and then she tried to pretend they hadn’t so she just smiled and said, “Hi, Keilo.” “Hello. What are you making for breakfast?” Small talk, I thought, was a good place to start building trust back. It wouldn’t happen overnight, but I could do it. I’d try with this, and I told her I’d go to the art class. I said yes, I will go to that class. And my mother clapped her hands together like a seal. She drove me to the community center and parked by the front doors. “Be good, you hear me?” That’s what she yelled while I was walking inside. I waved back at her to say silently, “Yes, I will be good.” That was her worry, I knew. That I wouldn’t be good, like she told me, and that I’d do something that was the opposite of good, was her biggest fear. Because of two weeks ago. She couldn’t hide the fact that well. Not from me; not from her own son. I heard the door click behind me. There was a lady at the desk who looked at me and said in her head, “Here is a menace. This is a danger. I should call the police. Yes, I think I will make something up and call the police and they will lock this menace up and he will not visit this establishment anymore.” Except she didn’t really. She just looked that way because her eyes screwed up deep in her wrinkled head and her wormy lips tightened around her movie star white teeth. I never understood how people with teeth so white could bear to eat food with color. Like, how could they eat beets? Did people not like beets when they did that, or maybe was it a sacrifice they had to make? I didn’t care, incredibly enough. “Hello, I’ve signed up for the art class here. My name is Keilo Ibanza.” I smiled pretend hopefully at the lady. Even if I couldn’t trick myself into thinking I was happy, and even if my mother didn’t believe me, I knew this lady couldn’t know that. She never could. Ha, I wouldn’t give her that, at least. “Oh. Okay. I’ll get right on that.” I could see the art class meeting in the back room. They had paint out on the table and I could smell it. It smelled like blue and purple and blue and purple was the color of bad wallpaper but great flower arrangements. “Hi, um. I see the room back there. I can just go. I know I’m on the list. I’ll check in when I meet the teacher, if that’s okay.” The lady pursed her lips and clucked cluckily like a clucking chicken. What was her clucking deal? “I don’t know if that’s a great idea. We have a strict security policy.” Sure they did! “Sure you do!” Oops, I hadn’t meant to say that one out loud. I bit my lips together but it was too late and the lady blushed furiously. Before she or I could say anything else, a girl came in the door. She looked at me and looked at the tight lipped lady and then she grabbed my arm. “Oh, I’m so sorry I’m late! Come on.” And she was pretty strong so I had to go with her, which was okay because she went to the art room. She waited in the doorway with me before we walked in. “Hi. I’m sorry about that. Is that okay?” “Um, yes. It was fine. Thank you.” The girl let go of my arm and took her motorcycle helmet off. “My name is Keilo.” Why did I tell her my name? I didn’t know. But I wanted to and that was reason enough. “Oh, well, hey. I’m Greta. You’re new to the class.” “Yes.” I nodded and blinked and howled in my head because I knew that nodding and blinking were bad and people don’t like to talk when you nod and blink too much. “Yes, I am. My mother signed me up for it. She said I needed to do something with my life.” Greta quirked an eyebrow and ran her hands through her hair. “Do you?” “Oh, I guess. I’ve been sleeping a lot.” “Why don’t you go to school?” “That’s not your business.” I pushed past her lightly and walked into the classroom. Fine. She was being nice and that was fine but there was a certain point when enough was enough and I didn’t want to answer those questions. She wouldn’t like the answers, anyway. I realised I didn’t know what I was doing. The teacher was a tall man wearing paint splatted clothes and he had clay in his fingernails. He had holes in his shoes. “Hey, I’m Keilo.” The teacher turned to look at me and smiled broadly. He held out his hand. “I’m Ivan. Your mom called me earlier. We’re glad to have you. Why don’t you sit over there by Ramona and Tarrence? They won’t bite.” A girl, presumably Ramona, waved at me. The boy next to her scowled. I walked over to their table and sat down. Greta sat at a table across from me. She didn’t seem fazed by my non-answer brush off. She didn’t seem to care at all. We were painting trees. It was tremendously boring and tedious and I hated it so much that I thought my head would fall off and roll under the table. When I was done, I found that my trees looked too long and twisted and everyone else’s trees were beautiful and shining. I crumpled the paper into a ball when the three hours were over, but I wasn’t mad I had gone. It was good for me, like my mother had told me. As I left the community center to wait by the flagpole for my mother, Greta was walking towards her motorcycle. She stopped and stood by me. I shifted from foot to foot and then I said, “What do you need?” “Um. Nothing.” “Okay.” And so we stood by the flagpole until my mother drove up in the car and I got inside and then I watched Greta get on her motorcycle to ride away. “How was the class?’ My mother asked me, smiling. “It was fine. It was great. I loved it. What do you want me to say?” She was quiet and then, “I’m glad you enjoyed it. Will you go back?” I knew I didn’t actually have a choice. I nodded. “Yep.” I hoped Greta wasn’t there and that Tarrence would stop scowling at me and that Ivan would stop blowing bubbles and telling us stories about a place called Bombolla, but yes, I would go back. I’m still the villain, and people like Wade are the victim. I should’ve known that people wouldn’t see it how I needed them to. I should’ve known they would have turned this on me. I guess now I have to learn how to trust not everyone is like Wade or Orris, and that there are still good people, like Greta and Ivan and my mother. I guess I have to learn to see the world like I could’ve seen my trees. They were crooked and tangled and ugly, broken and messy and unruly, sprawling and dark and shadowy, but they could be beautiful if you looked hard enough. If I uncrumpled the paper and looked at the picture again, maybe I could see that I wasn’t the bug after all, but instead I was a bird. I went back to the class and I looked in the trash can for the picture of my trees, but it wasn’t there. I asked Ivan, and he told me to ask Greta. She pointed to where she had taped it to the wall in the center of the room. My trees were the same. Twisted and sprawling and in the middle of the whole little shattering forest was a bird. Not just any bird, but instead it was a bird made of heart and fire and and everything in the world saying yes I can to everything that said no you won’t. It was a phoenix flying up out the ashes. And now I think that’s what I need to learn. I need to learn how to be a phoenix.


“Bye, Davis,” I said with melancholy. “Hey, don’t worry, Kate,” Davis said over the phone, “I’ll be back to Denver in no time.” Davis was my best friend since birth. Our moms were roommates in college and we were born on the same day. Davis became a consultant a few years ago. Ever since then, he has been traveling the world. He is currently in Paris, France. Right as I hung up, the doorbell on my apartment door rang. As I slid off the couch, I heard a weird cawing sound. I opened the door, but I didn’t see anyone. I heard the cawing again louder this time. I looked down and saw a bird with a red ribbon on her. “CA-CAW!” she shrieked. “Well aren’t you a pretty girl,” I cooed, “Where is your owner? Hmmm..., oh look, there’s a note.” “To a very special girl,” the note read, “Love Davis.” I took the bird inside and plopped down on the couch.. I did a little research and decided that she must be a partridge. After staring at the bird’s red face and gray chest for a while, I decided not to get too attached. I held the small note in one hand and twiddled it with my fingers. I flipped the handwritten card over and saw a few words scribbled on the back. “Her name is Holly,” the note read. “Great. Now I can do nothing but get attached,” I sighed. Once again, I heard a knock on the door. “Coming!” I called as I opened the door with a fake smile on my face. “Surprise!” “DAVIS!” I exclaimed. “Hi, Katy Kat!” he said excitedly. “You know I don’t like it when you call me that anymore,” I said trying to hide my real smile. “Remember? You were my Katy Kat and I was your D-Dog.” Pretty soon, I couldn’t hide my smile anymore. “CA-CAW!” Then I remembered Holly. “Why would you send me a bird?!” I yelled as I hit him with a throw pillow, “I can’t keep a bird in my apartment! Actually, I have an idea. You are going to stay here in my apartment and help me take care of Holly.” I heard a slight squishing sound. I slowly looked down at my brand new pair of boots. I had stepped in bird poop. Davis chuckled. The next day, I woke Davis up and instructed him to go down to the pet store across the street and buy Holly a bird cage. “I don’t have any money,” he said. I threw some cash at him. “Deal with it,” I said laughing to myself. After I made sure that Davis had left, I started loving on Holly. I realized that Holly wasn’t messing around. She got irritated by me pretty fast. The sassy partridge flew over to a wooden fruit bowl and started nibbling on a pear. “Knock-knock,” Davis said, trying to fit through the door with a large box and bulky bags. “What are all those bags?” I asked, “I only told you to get a bird cage.” “Well, I did some research and turns out, partridges eat seeds. I got a bag of assorted seeds.” “What’s the other bag?” “Frozen pizza, chips, popcorn, candy and that movie that just came out,” “But we have to take care of Holly,” “I’m only here a week,” “Fine,” I obliged. “Hey, why is Holly eating the pear?” “I don’t know,” I sighed tiredly. “ I was just wondering. It’s really ironic.” “What do you mean?” I asked as we watched Holly devour the top half of the pear. “Come on, you know the song,” Davis sang, “On the first day of Christmas my true love gave to me, a partridge in a pear tree!” I stood as still as a statue. “Kate, don’t you dare tell me you forgot!” Davis said playfully disappointed, “When we were nine years old, we went caroling at Miss Hailey’s house. She was sick and couldn’t visit her brother for Christmas.” “I remember. I tripped and dropped my candy cane. I felt like crying. You gave me yours.” “That was fun,” Davis whispered. “Okay, let’s get this bird cage together,” I said breaking the silence. With a lot of struggling, we finally got the bird cage together. “Now that I think about it,” I started, “I don’t want to put Holly in this cage.” “Seriously?” Davis said shocked, “I got poked in the eye six times.” “I know, but look at her! She doesn’t want to live in a cage,” “She has demolished a pear and half a bag of bird seed. She also has pooped on the floor seven times. That’s only in forty five minutes.” “Toshay,” “Lets just put her in for tonight and she how she does,” “Okay,” I agreed. We watched the movie and ate the pizza. Then, we put leftovers in the refrigerator. “CA-CAW!” “Hey, before we go to bed, do you want to go to the pet store to buy Holly something for her cage to make it feel like home?” “Sure,” Davis replied, “I’ll pay for it!” We walked into the pet store bundled up in scarves and hats. The bells on the door handle clanged against the glass. Dogs and cats started hissing and howling. “Hey!” the man at the counter shouted, “Be quiet, you bags of fleas!” “Hi, Darien,” Davis called to the man. “What’s up, Davis?” Darien called back. “This is Kate, my friend I was telling you about,” Davis said urging me forward. “Hello, I’m Kate,” I said as I shook his hand. “Wow!” Darien exclaimed, “She’s even prettier than what you said about her!” “What are you talking about, Darien?” Davis said through gritted teeth. I laughed underneath my breath. “We’re going to buy an accessory for a bird cage. Do you know where we can find one?” I asked. “On isle number four,” he said. “How do y’all know each other?” I asked. “We were in the same class in fifth grade and were pretty good friends,” Davis said. Once we had picked out a bird swing, I asked Davis,”Why did you come back?” He was silent for a second, “I guess,” he paused, “I felt guilty. You are my best friend and I haven’t seen you in four years. I felt like I was losing my home.” “Remember that poem we wrote for your mom on mother’s day when we were eleven? ‘ A house is made of wood and beams, but a home is made of love and dreams. Home is where we come back to. Not where we try to make a new home.’ This is always going to be your home.” “Thank you, Kate. But can I ask you something? I know you didn’t want to get too attached to Holly. You are attached. Why is that?” “Maybe it’s because you gave her to me,” “Wow..., I didn’t think you felt that way about me,” Davis said, almost too quiet to hear. “Honestly, no offense or anything, I didn’t think I did either.” “You’re a really great friend.” “You too.”


Hey guys! This is a narrative for my 11th grade AP Lang & Comp class. Please give as much feedback as you can. Here it is. A Brush With Death “Inoperable.” The word resonated throughout the stale, bleak, disgustingly clean room as the stench of cleaning chemicals penetrated my nostrils and buried itself forever into my consciousness. My chest tightened the moment it struck my ears, I was unable to grasp the meaning of the word, but what stood out clearly to me was it’s full meaning. From the doctor’s grim tone to my great-aunt’s horror-struck reaction it was painfully obvious that this was something bad. “Please, just put it simply.” “The cancer has metastasized all over the body. If we had known sooner maybe there was something we could’ve done.” “So you’re saying I’m-” “Dying. Yes.” The minutes slowly rolled by and we’d since left the claustrophobic room, but the cloud of silence and unease still loomed over us. I had heard the word before, but I didn’t truly understand it. I hadn’t lost anyone that I know of, and dying is something the people on the television do. Surely she knows this is the case. Just then the most reasonable thought I could fathom crept into my mind, she’s playing a joke on me. How could someone I know possibly die? I must tell her the joke is over, to give it up. As that occurs to me another thought makes itself heard. Almost if whispered to me by some unseen force, look at her. That is not the face of a joke. It would be rude to say anything about it, and she always wanted us to be nice to people. Go with her to get ice cream, it may cheer her up. “Aunt Shelly? Can we get ice cream?” “Sure sweetie. Whatever you want.” The car door closes and I put my seatbelt on, it would be unsafe not to. “Obey the law,” she always said, “everyone else has to.” She starts the car and I watch her, seeing what was once a strong, beautiful young woman turn into a weakly structured frame with skin carelessly draped over it, seemingly before my eyes. Has she always looked so tired? I thought to myself. I don’t remember the pale grey hair streaming down from atop her head looking so lifeless. I don’t remember the sense of pity looking at her invoked. Mostly, I don’t remember the infinite hopelessness swimming deep within her eyes. I was so immersed in my thoughts I hadn’t noticed that we’d pulled into the parking lot of the small ice cream parlor I so adored. I found it peculiar that it seemed she hadn’t noticed either. She remained blankly staring out the window, car parked, and her face void of all expression. I reminded her of our purpose and she exited the car with me. We marched onward as I was dutifully searching for an empty table amongst a sea of others seemingly doing the same. I spotted one not too far away and I went to claim it with a jacket as my aunt excused herself to the bathroom. I waited at the table for what seemed like days for her to come back but she didn’t. After a short eternity I got up in search of her but she was nowhere to be seen. I felt as if I had searched in every possible location before I remembered the bathroom. I knocked upon the door but to no response. I waited for a moment and before I could knock again I heard a delicate sobbing coming from inside. I dreadingly pushed open the door and found my aunt lying broken on the ground before me. Tears freely flowing from her eyes and a shattered expression plastered onto her face. I had finally realized what was happening. The full brute force of the situation hit me like a shotgun blast to the chest. She really was dying. It was then when I realized the truth about the world. No one is immortal. And everybody dies.


\-- Five o’clock shadow. Rabbit fur hat. Flannel shirt. Gun holster. Snakeskin boots, with brand-new spurs that clanked as he climbed down from his horse outside the old corner store in town. People stared at him as he walked past, the five-pointed star on his chest winking in the bronze sunrise. *Let them look,* the stranger thought, chewing the straw in his mouth and *clank, clank, clanking* off the edge of the road. The doors splayed wide as he entered, and the shopkeep paused, one eye on the man’s face, another on the six-shooter in the holster slung just underneath the belt. “I don’t want any trouble,” the shopkeeper tried with little success to keep the quavering note from his voice. “Ain’t gon’ get none from me,” said the stranger, throwing a bag of peanuts on the counter, “Say, you know where a man can get a decent drink in this here town?” “Uh, sure,” said the shopkeep, “There’s the tavern, up the road. Just next to the sheriff’s department.” The stranger smiled, and switched the straw from one side of his mouth to the other. “Why thank ‘ee kindly,” he said, “I happen to be headin’ that way as it is. Keep the change,” he added, tossing a series of coins onto the counter. The shopkeeper stared as the stranger strutted from the store. Taking his horse by the reins, the stranger walked with deliberate calm down to the tavern. Next to it was the sheriff’s department. He thought to wet his whistle before presenting himself there, but thought better of it. There would be plenty of time for celebrating later. He would need a drink for his horse, though. The barkeep had much the same reaction as the shopkeeper had. *The ol’ sheriff musta done things different,* he thought. “I need a pail o’ water for my horse out there,” he said. The barkeep said nothing, but fetched it as requested. *None too friendly round here, are they?* The new Sheriff thought. He left the pail out for his horse, then patted him on the neck and wandered, bow-legged, into the Sheriff department. No sooner had the bell on the door chimed than he heard a *whoa there, hands up*! And the sound of five or more guns being pulled on him. “Easy there, boys,” the new sheriff said, “Heard y’all needed a replacement Sheriff?” One of the officers was speaking into a radio, muttering something about backup. Another had rushed outside and checked on the horse, and came back saying “That’s the one sir, matches the branding of the call from the Mackenzie's farm we received yesterday.” A man was frantically taking notes on his laptop, and another man with a Sheriff’s badge came out. A real badge. Black, with a silver lining. “What the *hell* do you think you’re playing at, son?” he said, as he took the toy revolver from the holster.


>Everything is silent but the wind. An empty bus stop is across the street. The faded green metal of the shelter is rusted, and the glass has long since been graffitied. Trash is overflowing a nearby wastebin. A young man, thinly built sporting a tattered leather jacket, red beanie, and jeans comes into view. He is smoking a cigarette. >Cut to close up view on his grey eyes - you see them flick upwards, you can see he is vigilant and aware of his surroundings at all times. He blinks. >The sun is bright overhead. He solemnly approaches the bench and stands in the shade, leaning with his back against the shelter. Hands in his pockets, he glances left. >A lone stranger is staggering down the sidewalk across the street. His movements suggest psychosis. Jagged hand movements and reactions to imaginary surroundings, he is clearly under the influence of reality altering chemicals. >A bird chips in a nearby tree. the branch sways in the breeze. >Cut back to main character, light smoke curls around his face as he exhales. his eyes are trailing the stranger, face completely blank. He blinks. >The bus driver is clearly frustrated. His face is screwed up in brewing emotion. Eyes watery, face red and bushy eyebrows angrily clenched down. In the back of a bus a baby is crying, cell phones are going off, noise is building up. One of the passengers is becoming aggressive and is about to cause a commotion with another. The driver is glancing in his mirror. >The staggering stranger, is reacting violently to nothing. His movements are erratic. He steps into the street. There is froth at his mouth, eyes dilated. Incapable of forming words, he moans and blurts incoherently. >The main character glances right. >A young adult female is driving her car. She is listening to loud pop music, her hair is in her face as she dances in her seat. She glances down at her radio console, which has a glare coming off it from the sun's reflection. >Close up of her gas gauge, it is rising. She is still looking at her radio, changing the channel. Her elbow bumps her coffee and it spills. She gasps and makes a desperate attempt at saving her drink. >Cut to main character. He glances left. The bus is approaching. He starts to finish his cigarette. >The bus driver yells at the passenger. Threatening to kick him off the bus at the next stop. The passenger raises his voice. The baby is wailing. >The young woman reaches for the cup, hot liquid pouring all over the interior of her car. She is looking down at the mess. Her music is is still blaring loud. >The raving madman is seen for a fraction of a second in her windshield. The music volume, combined with her speedy distracted driving, she hits him hard. >The bird takes flight. >From main character's point of view, time is in slow motion. The stranger impacts the car and his limbs splay out at an inhuman angle. His flesh ricochets off the metal car. This bag of fleeting mortality lands in the path of the bus. About 6 feet in front of and to the left of the main character. His face is a bloody mess and the left leg is shattered in many places. A bloody pool forming around his mangled body. >The bus driver has his head turned. Attention towards the back of his bus. He hits the brakes a little harder than he usually would to spite the standing passenger that was making his day shit and yells at him to get off the bus. >As stranger gurgles blood in the road, the bus drives over his head. Brains splatter on the driver's side wheel. The bus barely feels a bump as it rolls to a stop. The door to the bus opens and a man storms off in the same direction the bus was heading without looking back. >Main character takes one last puff of his cigarette, flicks it then steps onto the bus. >Cut to black.


One year ago the ARA San Juan submarine disappeared in the Atlantic ocean during a training exercise. One distress call was made before its disappearance. The wreckage was just discovered 500km off the coast of Comodoro Rivadavia in southern Argentina. 44 Crew members were on board, none were recovered, one body com-suit has been found. 15 th November 2019 Com-suit 24# Engineman: Mundo-Maravilloso Com-suit connected “Hello, hello, checking Alpha Bravo Charlie, on. Date is fifteenth of the eleventh twenty nineteen in the year of our lord, and the time is-(static break)-ten hundred hours. Fire outbreak in the forward batteries, repeat, fire in the forward batteries.” -(muffled movement)- -(unidentified voices)- “Crew members Oruga and Alicia are with me, we are dousing the fire with hydrants. Two batteries are lit. Distress call should be being made. -(Static)- -(muffled movement)-” “OUT? OUT.” “Repeat fire has been doused. Time, ten hundred and ten hours. Damage has been done to the forward batteries and I am disconnecting, Sub will use aft batteries to continue on. Alicia would you mind telling Commander? Yeah, -(unintelligible voice)- yeah, it seems to be a water leakage, I’ll follow it and see if I can patch it up.” -(muffled movements)- “Water is coming from above, which makes me sure that it won’t have gotten into the control compartment, but from somewhere above the crew accommodations. It sprinkling in through the piping and ceiling. A tear perhaps to the hull? We made no collisions though that I’m aware of. Making my way up the crew stairway, steady as she goes.” -(static)- “Ah yup, water is raining in from above the crew corridor, making my way up again to the exhaust system which hopefully hasn’t been damaged too much from the leak. -(muffled movements)- Ah.” -(static break)- “Time is ten twenty and there is a leak in the snorkel. -(sigh)- Fixing it now.” -(static blip)- “Time is ten thirty and I’ve just been informed that the distress signal was made, leak has been patched up, and we are still moving with the aft batteries intact. Commander will probably head us towards the first port, and I’m going to check the rest of the exhaust and generators to make sure no water has damaged anything near the rear of the sub.” -(muffled movement)- -(static blip)- “Huh, its ten thirty eight and I’m making my way towards the generators and I just noticed more damage? No... a hole? No... Inside the generator room, and there seems to be an odd light coming from beneath Generator 1. Green. Report green light is coming from under the generator. -(muffled movement)- I’m on my stomach looking beneath, I can’t see any, no scratch that, I can’t see any liquid, but the light seems to be coming from a split underneath. Along the floor of the back wall I can see a small line of green light from behind the gen. I can see, a door? No. -(laughter)- -(muffled movement)- Just. Making. My way. Underneath. Report, confirming unidentified door. I have not seen said door before, nor been made aware of its existence. -(voice lowered)- How have I never seen this before? I’ve been on this sub for two years.” -(unintelligible noise)- -(high pitched static)- “Ugh, finally, wiggled my way beneath, all the lower of the Gen looks fine, but this door. Its sitting against the back wall, no one could get back here without going beneath. Which isn’t recommended. But it’s small, perhaps a containment hatch? It’s just cut into the side of the hull, a small brass handle sits to one side and... and... confirming, its only a couple of feet tall. I can’t get up, I’m stuck on my stomach touching the door. It’s warm. Solid, and made from the same metal as the hull. -(silence)- But only the pressure hull should be behind here. There’s no way a maintenance shaft or storage space could be there. I don’t understand.” -(static)- “The doorknob turns, I’m opening the door, it pulls inwards towards me, having to shuffle a little out of the way. -(muffled movement)- It’s... Oh... oh wow. The light was almost blinding as I opened it, green light shining out. Or in. But there is a room. A room! On the other side! How? -(muffled movement)- -(high pitched static)- Just wiggling my way in.” -(static blip)- “I’m inside. This room should not be here. At all. And it is a room. On what should be the outside of the Sub. I hope my com-suit is still recording, please be recording. I repeat, a room is on the outside of the sub, and the door is behind me, at my feet, only tall enough for me to shuffle in on my stomach. But this room, its like a bubble. A glass dome on the outside of the hull, metal cross work is covering it as though it was made here. Meant to be here. But this is impossible, I’ve never seen this before, it’s not on the plans. It’s carpeted too, the floors I mean. Rugs all over the ground. And lamps, like old fashioned gas lamps line the back of the room behind me, shouldering the door. Why would you put gas lamps in here? In a sub? -(muffled movement)- It’s echoey, I hope you’re picking that up on the suit-com, as though the glass isn’t double paned. But... and here, right by the glass domes front, there’s this giant torch. Like a metal barrel on its side, but pointing towards the window is a giant bulb, a leaver is on its side, I’m guessing it’s switch. Why would you have this here? It comes up to my hip, and looks old fashioned, like a lighthouse lamp. -(metal tapping sounds)- It’s not plugged in, but beside it is a vinyl player. Like, an actual vinyl player, and not the new types either, it’s like the ones you see in old films. Period films. Nineteen forties styled. -(static)-” -(static blip)- “Maybe this is odd to say, but there’s no dust. No dust at all in here. And it echoes with the sound of the water against the window, and that green light is the light coming in from the ocean. But it should just be darkness out there, a nothingness, and inky swell that is as empty as the backs of your eyes, but its not! It’s green! Glowing darkly green. Glowing inwardly I mean, like the water motions are waving on the carpets, which would only happen if there was light behind it. Behind the water, which there’s not. It just keeps going and going, just as it should. But it’s too bright. The water. It’s too see-able. I shouldn’t be seeing this. -(muffled movement)- -(high pitched static)- My head hurts. -(thud)- -(muffled movement)- Oh! Oh. -(heavy breathing)- The door closed. It closed behind me... -(quieter)- even though its on a rugged carpet, with no wind, or loose hinges.” -(muffled movement)- “Time is.... Wait. What? Time is zero two hundred hours but, but that isn’t possible. I was just here a couple of minutes it can’t be two, it was ten in the morning how is it now two am? I’m going mad, I don’t understand. -(muffled movement)- I’m getting out. I don’t like this, I need to report to the commander. We should be nearing the docks. I’m at the back of the room, but... what? -(sliding metal sounds)- -(heavy breathing)- The doors gone. -(silence)-” -(High pitched static)- -(static blip)- “Time is zero four hundred hours, though I haven’t been in here more than thirty minutes. The door is just non-existent. The back of the room is pure outer-hull metal. There’s no marks, no engravings, no door, no nothing. It’s completely clear. Like it was never even there, but I’m here. And I can’t be here unless there was a door to let me in. To be honest I’m scared. I’m shitting myself. I hope my com-suit is still on, otherwise I’m just talking into nothing. And there’s a whole lot of nothing happening behind me. In the green. The green, green ocean. I can feel it there, watching me, colouring my back with its green light and I don’t want to turn around. I’m worried what I’ll see. What if it’s just watching me, the sea, with its green eye staring in. What if I turn around and it’s black? What if I turn around and it’s gone, and then the room is gone and I’m left floating in the water thousands of miles beneath the waves and I can’t breathe, I can’t think, the pressure at this depths would explode my blood vessels. I’d pop. Out like a light. And nothing separates me and that but that glass dome. That glass dome that’s looking out into that glowing green void that shouldn’t be there. -(heavy breathing)- I’m resting my head against the hull, with my hands up against its cold body, and I want to go home.” -(static blip)- -(muffled movement)- “I’m... I’m going to turn around now. I don’t know how long it’s been but it is definitely not the time that my watch is telling me. The door has not returned, but perhaps if I look away it will. So I’m going to look away now. -(muffled movement)- I’m turning, I can see the line of gas lamps to the right, and I can see the side of the dome, it’s darker there than when you look out the front. I’m turning, and now I can see the vinyl player, but I’m keeping my eyes down, I don’t want to look into the green. I can see it though, making patterns on the rugs, swirling and dancing. It’s pretty, like a murmur of birds. Swirling. -(laughter)- It is pretty. Why don’t I look up? The green is obviously still there. -(silence)- I could look up if I wanted to. -(silence)-” -(static blip)- -(static blip)- “Oh... my head. It hurts so much. And my feet, I wonder how long I’ve been standing here, I spaced out for a few moments, but my mouth is so dry it feels like a lifetime. I’ve looked up into the dome and all I see is the green glowing ocean that shouldn’t be green or glowing. But there it is, ebbing. Ebbing. Eb-b-bing. -(heavy breath)- -(thud)- My watch looks better on the floor, it’s broken I think, it’s no longer useful to me. But this light, this vast torch pointing into the unknown, that, that is useful. Of course we would need a lamp into the sea, how else could we see what’s staring back at us. All those life forms, all that life. Just out there, beyond our sight line. What a vast kingdom beyond Human understanding. -(laughter)- -(laughter)- -(laughter)-” -(high pitched static)- -(mic pop)- “-(laughter)- Ohhh and the music! The music, of course there would be music! For the light! The light could not be without the song of the sea calling out to it! Oh what music we’ll have here, what music we’ll get to hear! -(muffled movement)- -(scratching sound)- -(whale song)- Oh... oh it’s whales! Do you hear that? -(loud tapping)- Hey do you hear that my com-suit? Whales, oh, oh no what's that? -(unidentified noise)- The song has changed, it’s like a, like a far off screaming sound. Can you hear that? -(high pitched static)- -(unidentified noise)- Agh! -(muffled movement)- Its screaming! Screaming! My hands are over my ears and I can still, still, hear it! I’m backing away. -(static increasing)- -(loud thud)- Oooft. Agh, I backed into the torch, it’s rocking, no, no don’t fall! -(loud click)- Oh! Oh, it’s on. It came on. I caught its handle on my sleeve and it’s shinning. That noise! I wish it would stop, I can’t bring myself to get closer though. It Just Keeps Screaming! Screaming! Screaming! The light! The lamp is shinning white light into the sea, through the domed glass wall and I can see! I can see... -(mic pop)- -(laughter)- What’s that? -(cracking sound)- Wait what is that! -(cracking sound)- -(static)- -(mic pop)- -(mic pop)- WHAT IS THAT! WHAT ARE YOU! OH GOD OH GOD OH GOD! HELP! -(Muffled movements)- -(screaming)- HELP! HELP! HELP ME PLEASE! OH GOD OH- -(screaming)- -(crashing sound)-” 22 nd November 2019 Com-suit 24# Engineman: Mundo-Maravilloso Com-suit reporting water fault Com-suit disconnecting Com-suit dead


"But I don't understand" I told her. "It just doesn't make sense... You are such a logical person." Phillipa looked at me and rolled her eyes dramatically. "I'm telling you that my dreams come true. I'm not saying that I believe in the flat earth theory or joining the church of Scientology - " "But that doesn't make sense!" "To you it doesn't, Amelia. I'm not sure why you're so closed minded about this. Do you think I'm lying? You know this is true! What about the time I told you I dreamed that...” it was at this point that I tuned out. I had once read a book about a girl who had dreams that came true in the future. It was a book that I found hard to categorize - simultaneously a kind of ‘dirty realism’ where you truly feel the mundane nature of the characters daily lives. Yet also tinged with a dystopian esotericism where things happened that never could in the real world. The feeling that I got when I thought of that book and the tug between reality and fiction was what I was experiencing in this conversation. Phillipa is, for lack of a less cliched way of putting it, a smart girl. She has a degree in Applied Mathematics and Computer Sciences and she works at an international firm as an Analytics Consultant. To even attempt to describe what that entails would inevitably prove my point that what she does is incredibly difficult and confusing. By all accounts, Phillipa is the picture of someone driven by reason. We’ve done all of those tests together - Myers-Briggs, the whole 16 personality test, I have even administered some Rorschach tests. She says are that they are all “statistically unreliable” and that she is “unconvinced that the data collection methods that support their findings were sufficiently rigorous”. But I just smile knowingly to myself when every time she gets placed in the categories that prioritize logic over feeling. Which is why I sit here gobsmacked as Phillipa tells me, once again, how she believes that she has dreams that happen. “So you’re basically the real life Joseph from the Bible? Having dreams that come true?” “Well I’m not sure what version of Joseph you were listening to but he didn’t have dreams that came true. He interpreted people’s dreams and told them what they meant. But to be fair, those dreams did come true. And no, I’m not saying that.” “Okay but then it’s more like star signs. So you see that you’re going to ‘have a bad day’ or that ‘good luck will come your way’ and then you subconsciously make those things happen? Because it’s already in your mind.” “Amelia. What an obtuse thing to say. You know that I don’t believe in star signs or the zodiac. It’s different to that. I’m not saying I’m psychic. But you can’t deny there have been multiple times I’ve dreamt things - I’ve written them down or told people about them, and then they happen.” Phillipa is to me an enigma in the way that her mind works. But I suppose we are all bundles of contrast. Perhaps it’s the way that I love strawberries but can’t stomach any strawberry flavored things. I love children but the thought of having my own turns my stomach. Phillipa to me represents all things logical and yet in this one area she appears to be so entirely willing to ignore facts. This woman who won’t believe a news story unless she’s verified it with at least three sources she deems reputable believes that she dreams things and then they come true in the real world. And for some reason the seemingly contradictory nature of these beliefs plagues me and I can’t help but interrogate my friend about it. “Alright, Phil. I know. It’s just interesting. It’s an interesting assertion. Do you always tell people the things you dream? Like, what id it was something big? Something bad? How do you know which of your dreams will come true? What if... WHAT IF you dreamt something was going to happen to me? What if you dreamt that I was going to die? Would you tell me?” “I’m not sure I enjoy the science-fiction tone you’re taking. But I like the idea as a whole. I’d need to think about it. If I told you, I would need to consider whether that would help or harm you. So I would consider how you were going to die and whether knowing it could make your life before then happier. I’d look at all the fact and then weight up -“ “HA! I knew it. You can’t resist. You can’t resist the logic, Phillipa. You default to reason and numbers. Does that not irk you? This one thing that seems so misaligned with everything else you believe?” “I know... I know it’s at odds with who I am and how I approach things. But to me it’s not illogical. I base the belief that my dreams come true on data that I’ve gathered. Through my personal experience. That’s been verified by other people that I’ve told about my dreams and then they’ve come true. So for me, based on my experience, it’s a deeply logical view.” Although I didn’t necessarily agree with her, I couldn’t refute Phillipa’s argument for why she felt the way she did. Even in defending an idea that seem to me incredibly unbelievable, Phillipa backed up her steadfast belief using her own personal internal system of logic. I looked at my friend and marvel. Perhaps she wasn’t as much of an enigma as I’d originally thought. “Okay but can we just agree that if you ever dream something terrible about me, like that I start enjoying pineapple on pizza or I start wearing Crocs, you will tell me immediately?” “Amelia if those were the sort of dreams I were having even I wouldn’t be able to believe that my dreams come true. I’m not completely delusional.”


The second she left that town she knew there was no going back. she took a steady breath in and kept on walking. the second she got off the bus she left in a sprint, hastily trying to avoid anyone she might've known, but it had been an hour and that determination she had fizzled out. she was tired and food deprived. Do I really have time to rest? "Isn't it a bit late for someone as young as you to be out?" the girl turned to face a slightly older man dressed in loose jeans and a black hoodie. "I dunno. is it?" she hadn't meant for it to come out so rudely but her patience was wearing thin. he held his hands up in surrender and stood up straight. "I was just concerned lady." "I'm sure you were" well... she had sarcasm on her side if nothing else, that was certain. "there is a motel down the road." she stared at him blankly. "did I ask?" a rhetorical question. one of the best kind of questions. was she really going to listen to some half drunk stranger on the side of the road? well... why not. her head hung low as she paced herself trying to find this, so called, motel that the stranger had mentioned. After what felt like hours, but were actually a couple of minutes, she stumbled upon a bright glowing sign with the word motel written in the most tacky font. well no surprise there. The girl looked around the, well lit, lobby and at the old man who stood behind the counter. "Welcome to the East Side Motel. You looking for a room?" She needed to spend her money wisely. In general she scarcely used her savings but now was when it really mattered. she needed to survive on this until she got far enough away and could actually get a job. "one night, please" that would be enough. she could get start walking again when the sun rises. the man brought her to a small homely room fit for one person. it could've been worse. she sat her bag down and collapsed into the bed. never had she been this exhausted. she ran the most recent events through her head as she tried to remain sane. The drugs. The gangs. The decision that she made had caused this. she had no one to blame but herself. the next morning she freshened up using the miniscule bathroom in her motel room. It wasn't a problem for her. She was used to living on nothing. as she left she took in the fresh air, enjoying the breeze. "fancy seeing you here" she looked over her shoulder to see the same stranger from the night before leaning against the wall of the motel. she could see him clearly now. he had bright blue eyes and curly golden locks. he wore a smirk that made his dimples stand out. its like they were mocking her. "forgive me if I'm wrong but wasn't it you who mentioned this place" keeping that same condescending tone, she said "what is it going to take for you to leave a poor girl alone, stalker" he chuckled. "Stalker?" he slowly made his way over to her. "Don't flatter yourself. my grandad owns this place ,sweetheart. I'd be careful who you called 'stalker' around these parts." "well. better safe then sorry." he ran a hand through his hair. "We started off on the wrong foot. I'm Alec. My grandad owns the place you just stayed in and he wants to take me under his wing." "I don't remember asking?" "Feisty. I like it. come one, sweetheart, what's your story?" "What's it matter to you" "Come on. feed my curiosity" why is he persistent? is it really that boring here? "I'm moving. Just needed change" in her defense, it wasn't a complete lie . "That's what everyone says. change . its merely an excuse to people. I've found that they're always running away from something or someone" she stared at the ground, struggling to find words. "or maybe I'm wrong" "yeah maybe" "I never caught your name." "that because I never threw it" "fine. Be that way. Sweetheart suits you anyways." she gave out a small laugh as she started up at him. Before today she had thought he looked older then her but now in the sunlight, his boyish smile and aggravating dimples made her question if she was wrong. "you said your grandad was going to take you under his wing, right?" why was she so intrigued "yeah he thinks that I should have my life together at 17. A bit much if you ask me." "So your 17?" he nodded. "what about you? or is that to personal for you to answer" she could hear the sarcastic tone roll off his tongue. rolling her eyes, she answered "I'm also 17" "so I get to know your age but not your name?" "names are too personal. You can find out a lot about them from small details like that" "seems like you know a lot about that." "I know first hand" she could see that he wanted to press further but decided against it. "So where you moving to?" "I don't know yet if I'm being honest" "A journey without destination. That sounds riveting and it also sounds like you are running away" "At the end of the day everyone is running away from something. I'm just taking bigger actions, following my gut" "Must be something real bad if your 'big actions' means you can't even stay in the vicinity of your home. What about your family?" "don't have any" Alec couldn't find the words to what she had just said. Instead he put his arms around her and gave one of the most awkward hugs she'd ever had. "what are you doing?" "hugging you, obviously" "well can you stop." a slight sigh left her lips as she saw the bus pull up. "it was nice meeting you Alec. Maybe one day we will see each other again" "I think I'd like that." She walked up to the open door. "see you later sweetheart" For one final moment she turned back to Alec. "Aspen" he looked at her in confusion. "My name" she turned to walk on the bus. "its Aspen"


There was only one thing Gerald loved more than a roaring bonfire and that was the thrill of watching an outsider overtake a favourite on the final furlong. Gerald Gerrison, or ‘G.G.’ as Joan nicknamed him due to his obsession, spent his weekdays in one of two locations. She’d find him either burning garden debris whilst mulling over current form or applauding the thunder of hooves on the racecourse’s finish line. # Gerald retired at fifty and with few pressing commitments; he could choose how to spend his time. He’d made his money after he inherited his father’s rag-and-bone warehouse and turned a dwindling trade into a thriving recycling business. His new clients demanded high volumes of cloth and rags to fill their soft furnishings and upholstery. It had been hard at first, but Gerald wasn’t soft; he knew about cruelty from his childhood. Years of prejudice at boarding school had toughened him up and he’d learned to observe life and keep shtum. He never disclosed his modest start in life or his humble lineage. “People can believe what they want,” he’d said more than once to Joan. “What they don’t know, they’ll just make up, anyway.” Gerald was a social chameleon. He discovered looks can be deceptive, and he adapted his manners to suit any occasion. “People can be so judgemental,” he’d say, straightening his overcoat’s velvet collar and adjusting the “G.G.” monogrammed brass buttons at the cuffs. # Gerald was a regular at the weekly gallops, where his associates referred to him as ‘dignified,’ a name that suited his superior air. He assumed a noble bearing, due in part to his prestigious attire. They didn’t see him without his knee-length charcoal grey Chesterfield with the black velvet collar and a matching bowler hat. Both were cherished heirlooms that belonged to his dearly departed father, Gerald Gerrison Senior. The distinctive garments had afforded him loyal service for over two decades and now was Gerald’s first choice for a further ten years and counting. # Not that Gerald was too mean to purchase new clothes, he was just careful with his cash. He didn’t see the point of parting with his hard earned and filthy lucre. The gossips at the racecourse said he was rich as Croesus and not without good reason. Gerald encouraged Joan to wash old cling-film in the kitchen sink and strung up tea-bags in the airing cupboard to reuse. He was proud to be frugal and Joan joked he was the ‘Regent of Recycling.’ # Gerald claimed he wasn’t superstitious, and yet he believed his hat and overcoat imbued him with supernatural luck. Joan was skeptical and made hints about wearing something a little more youthful. Gerald dismissed her veiled threat until he discovered the hat and coat with a pile of Joan’s old dresses on the upstairs bed. “I’m making space, dear,” Joan said. “It’s time for a clear out.” “No way.” Gerald frowned, retrieving the bowler. “We can’t be parted.” “Honestly, Gerald, they’ve had their day.” Joan sighed as he brushed down his hat. Afterwards, his racing form evaporated. He understood that leaving one’s hat on a bed releases evil spirits and worse still; it might portend death in the household. Gerald tipped the bowler’s brim as he left and nodded a restrained farewell. In retrospect, he’d thwarted Joan’s first attempt at a fashion makeover. # Gerald struggled to get advice concerning his cursed bowler hat and his sudden reversal of fortune. There were few local experts in exorcism. However, his local priest suggested a pragmatic approach and Gerald’s luck returned after steam-cleaning his bowler at the dry cleaners. The totes all shuddered when the elegant domed hat reappeared amongst the crowds at the racecourse. He was once more the scourge of their fraternity. They choked with fright as they witnessed its dark silhouette soar into the air on the finish line, accompanied by the crowd’s enthusiastic applause. The bookies would be in for heavy losses now that Gerald was back on top form again. # Joan was a parvenu with dreams of rising the social ladder. She aimed to join the local elite in the council chambers, drink fizz at the yacht club, and provide flowers for St Michael’s Church every Sunday. A frequent visitor at the nail bar and beauty salon, you could say she was fully occupied. Certainly, Joan’s hands were no longer suited to doing dishes or much of anything else around the house. Mr Garrison Senior once described his daughter-in-law as “a hansom-looking steed, built less for comfort and more for speed.” Joan was on a perpetual series of diets and expected Gerald to support her attempts to stay trim. In the light of her dietary regime, Gerald and Joan nibbled salads together at lunch time and then afterwards he’d tuck into a hearty meal at the racecourse; shepherds pie or meat and two veg were their standard fare. He looked forward to their Cumberland sausage and mash on Wednesdays, whilst watching the afternoon race fixtures. # Joan accepted Gerald would never part with his hat and coat, and it irked her to watch his jaunty departures to the racetrack. His total confidence in those lucky charms offended both her logic sensibilities and her sense of style. “Fashion has never been your strong point, G.G.,” she’d say. “It’s simple and understated,” he’d say, smirking. “Classic cuts never date.” “You can’t keep wearing those old things forever.” “But we can’t be parted, my dear.” “Not if I have my way...” # Gerald knew she was a woman of her word and took her seriously. He kept his race day uniform brushed and hanging in his wardrobe under lock and key. They both maintained their stance until the day Gerald visited his doctor’s surgery for his annual check up. His feet were playing up, and he suspected gout on his big toes. Joan seized the moment and, with the aid of a bolt-cutter and two bin-liners, removed his precious heirlooms and two decades’ worth of tweed and wool. Within the hour, she’d revamped the clothes rail and dragged Gerald into the 21st century. His wardrobe now housed a collection of casual jackets, department store slacks, and pastel-coloured polo shirts. # They’d switched the lights off in the charity shop before Joan pulled up outside in her sleek Jaguar. She looked up and down the road as her hand hovered over the hand brake. It wasn’t inconceivable that she would have company. Joan half expected Gerald would be behind her when she alighted the vehicle and dumped two black bin liners on the doorstep. # Gerald was busy solving his daily crossword puzzle when Joan arrived home. She prepared a meal, and the couple sat down to eat before Gerald broached Joan’s idea about his new clothes. She announced she had a surprise for him and she appreciated it might come as a shock. It wasn’t until Joan admitted she’d made some changes that his jaw sagged and his face blanched. Joan had cleared the table and started washing the dishes before Gerald staggered to his feet and up the stairs. # Gerald’s visit to the charity shop the next morning was a waste of time. He made an excuse that he’d left a lottery ticket in a jacket that his wife had donated, but they said they didn’t have it. The shop had been closed and when they arrived that morning, all they discovered was a mauled bin liner containing oddments. No bowler hat and no Chesterfield overcoat. There was just a pile of tatty old tweed suits, three flannel trousers and four twill shirts. The manager wasn’t impressed by the donation and said the offerings weren’t fit for upholstery stuffing. # Gerald’s whole demeanour changed over the following days. His once proud chest and broad back sagged, and he walked with a sorrowful gait. Nothing went well for him and he couldn’t face the prospect of losing race after race at the racecourse. Joan almost felt sorry for Gerald, but decided it was for the best. He’d have to accept that life had to progress and Gerald would have to move with the times. # It took a fortnight for Gerald to pluck up the nerve to visit a local bookmaker on the high-street. He couldn’t risk losing too much money, so he raided his supply of pound coins he’d been saving for a rainy day. It was outside the bookies that he encountered a man was more down at heel than himself. The fellow was sitting on a pile of charcoal grey wool and he held out a familiar looking receptacle, expecting to get some loose coins. Gerald spotted the monogrammed buttons amongst the dark fabric and the faded Christys label inside the hat. Gerald brightened and offered the man whatever he had on him to retrieve the items. Fifty-six pounds in pound coins and fifty pence pieces. Done! # It didn’t take over ten minutes for Gerald to stack some kindling and dry wood into his incinerator. He lit a match and watched as his father’s elderly fabric crackled and caught alight. A smile drifted across Gerald’s ruddy complexion like a respectful congregation departing a crematorium. He considered for a moment how he’d always despised Joan’s dress sense and hated those calf-length frocks. Surely her precious floral numbers were way past their sell-by-date? It would be a shame to waste the convenience of a roaring fire. The End --