Father Anselmo had embarked on his first mission to spread the Good News. He was signed onto a Spanish war ship sailing from Peru to a colony in the Indian Ocean, and they were going to drop him off to the island of Bohatu in the South Pacific. Bohatans had established exchanges with the Crown twenty-five years prior. While in his seminary in Sevilla, Anselmo had spent several years with a Bohatan prince, Kahoba, from whom he learned the language of the island. Kahoba, who was with him on the ship and going back to his native island, had told him of the great beauty of his island and his people. He often talked of the great traditions and folklore of Bohatu, from which Anselmo drew similarities to the Christian faith, and surmised that Bohatans should be relatively receptive to the Word of God. The ship left Father Anselmo and Kahoba on the island with several craters of gifts for the locals. They included a wealth of tools for agriculture and wood carving, fine textiles from all over the world, and precious jewellery for the King of Bohatu. In addition to that, Anselmo of course brought materials for teaching and conversion: loose and bound paper, ink, pens, books, Bibles, and all the props required for liturgy, baptisms, and exorcisms if needed. The king, Kaha, held a three-day festival in honor of their exotic guests. There were dances of nubile young girls and young warriors, singing and feasting. The king personally talked with Anselmo from his wooden throne: \- We have propitiated the great Mahala, God of the Mah Mountain, prior to your arrival, and he indicated that a guest from the Stiff People, your people, is to be honoured. The ships of the Stiff People are wonders in our eyes, and your artefacts allow us to better honor Mahala with holy places and food offerings. Thus, your God must be a mighty one too. This is why Mah welcomes you, priest. Anselmo smiled and rose his cup of *fi* spirit in toast to the king with both hands and a bow. It was the third day of the welcome festivities. The dances on the first day were militant, with fearsome masks. On the second day, the celebrations included incantations and trances culminating in slaughter of five boars. The third day, there were merry circle dances and exchanges of gifts. Anselmo was instructed to ceremonially gift some of the stuff from the craters he brought to whomever gave him a gift, and he did so. However, in the evening he encountered a problem. Anselmo was seated on a palm trunk near his craters and merrily drinking spirits and sweating in his frock. He was all tensed up throughout the day, which the locals noticed, and joked amongst themselves how Stiff People really are stiff. At dusk, an imposing man who appeared to be a high-ranking warrior walked up to Anselmo with a giggling teenage beauty. He pointed at a beautiful carved axe in the trunk, and grabbing the girl by the forearm, offered her to Anselmo. “Oh boy,” thought Anselmo in panic. “This girl is beautiful, but I cannot break my vows of celibacy. I cannot do it. I cannot do it.” Thus, Anselmo waved his hands politely and explained in broken Bohanese that his God forbids him from taking that particular gift. He must be kept apart from women for his whole life; this was his oath. The warrior was taken aback and kept repeating his offer. Anselmo tried to reason with the warrior, but the warrior pretended not to hear Anselmo, and kept repeating rather mechanically the offer of exchange. The teenager stopped giggling and began to look somewhat concerned. Several people nearby noticed the impasse, and before any serious commotion rose up, Kahoba showed up to try and sort things out. He bowed to the ground in front of the warrior and threw some dust in the air, which made the latter stop repeating the offer and freeze as it were, looking blankly straight ahead. Kahoba then talked to Anselmo: \- The gift-exchange ceremony is sacred to my people. Giving and accepting of gift is the sign of accepting the peace of Mah, our God. Refusal to accept can unleash chaos on the island. You must accept the girl! It is an extremely honorable gift! \- But Kahoba, you know how things work for me and my Church. I am not permitted to sleep with women, it is a grave sin for me! \- Of course, I know that. Our people understand celibacy. Of course, we are very careful with our women. But on the third day of the Hospitality Festival things must play out exactly the opposite as the rest of the year, in that regard. We say that those who do not accept other men’s woman on this day, are exactly the type of men who try to steal them and sleep secretly with them on all other days. Your acceptance is in fact a sign of celibacy. So, you must prove to us that you are an honorable man! These words threw Anselmo into confusion, which was not helped by all the fi drink he had had. At the seminary he was a seasoned debater, but the theological argument he just heard from Kahoba was unlike anything he ever encountered before. He did not know how to answer. The obvious response was that Jesus Christ was the true God and that their mountain god was merely a metaphysical construct of the human collective; but of course, it was too early for that. He needed to use the internal logic of Bohatan spirituality to convince them. This is what he came up with: \- Kahoba, tell this to your warrior. My god Jesus has held a three-day festival that has fulfilled the need for all three-day festivals from now until the end of time. Thus, my people believe that the third day of gift giving has been ended forever. It does not mean at all, not at all, that I don’t accept gifts, but that I have accepted the gift of all people, including your people, already once and for all. My celibacy is a symbol of that gift. You see, I wear this cross and this black robe to indicate that. Tell him, these are the symbols that exclude me. Kahoba’s face was growing desperate throughout Anselmo’s rant. The warrior started to grunt angrily. Kahoba grabbed Anselmo by the lapels and cried: \- Anselmo, don’t you understand? You are giving the exact the opposite impression that you are trying to give. With every moment you refuse the gift, you grow more and more lecherous, more lustful in their eyes! I told you, man: not accepting a woman on this day is exactly as committing adultery on any other day! Do it now, or we are both going to get into big trouble! Anselmo looked from one face to another. He looked at Kahoba’s panicked face, the warrior’s angry face, and the girl’s worried face, and at the many obscure faces watching the scene now in a semicircle, in the darkness of the evening. He had no choice, he had to consent. There was a sigh of relief in the crowd. Anselmo smiled at the warrior and bowed to him with hands clasped, and he accepted the girl from him. He respectfully handed him the axe, and the man seemed content. He walked off shaking his head and grunting, but once he made it back to the main fire, he got himself some drink and continued laughing and carousing with the crowd. The friction caused by Anselmo raised concern among some elders. Several middle-aged islanders informed Kahoba that, in order to make sure that the sanctity of the festival is preserved, they would have to observe Anselmo consummating his gift. Anselmo frown deepened further when Kahoba told him about this requirement. He looked on the verge of crying. After some thought, he said: \- This is going to be very difficult for me, Kahoba. Can I at least have some time to prepare. Can you get me some more of that fi-spirit? Oh my Lord, I’m so lost. Kahoba walked back to the circle of elders. There was some laughter, then he returned and told Anselmo: \- They said, sure. You have until the fifth dance ends. Anselmo joined the big fire and began drinking hastily. Soon he was so drunk that the others started coming up to him and laughing with him, urging him to dance. Soon enough, Anselmo was hopping around on the dance ground with a group of warriors and maidens. Someone even gave him a spear, which he tried to spin around in Bohatan dance fashion. However, he wasn’t very good, and he was soon discouraged from doing so for fear that he may let fly of a speak and injure an onlooker. By the time fifth dance ended, Anselmo was hardly in control of his wits. He barely remembers walking into a hut with the girl who was his gift, and of the love-making experience he remembered only some still-images the next day. He woke up late the next day, and the girl had already gone. He did his morning prayer return, adding a few extra prayers addressing specifically the transgression he committed last night. He was boozy, and given the circumstances, and considering his greater mission on this island, perhaps it wasn’t such a great transgression after all. Besides, he barely remembers anything, and certainly doesn’t recall experiencing any pleasure. This is surely an alleviating factor. He found Kahoba carving a piece of wood in front of the hut. \- Good morning, brother Anselmo! Will you eat now? \- I am quite hungry, to be honest. \- Haha, of course. They say you were akin to a green demon last night! \- What? \- Relax, it’s a compliment. It means you are strong! \- Well, thanks, I suppose. \- Relax, man, Kahoba hugged Anselmo. - That girl is outside her moon, so you have nothing to worry about. What’s such a big deal with getting laid, anyways? \*\*\* Several weeks passed, and then several months. Anselmo learned the routines of island life and became very comfortable with speaking the language. His life was comfortable too, as he was always considered a guest and treated with honors of a guest, which mean that he didn’t need to get involved in the labors of the island. He had no internal role in the social structure. Instead, Father Anselmo walked among the people and observed their works, including fishing, hut-building, plastic arts, child-rearing, cooking, and hunting. He recorded much of what his saw in his diaries. The weather of the island loosened the stiff European; his skin bronzed and he looked healthier than when he had arrived. He helped out with some of the heavy lifting on the island, and the exercise strengthened his body. Of course, he soon enough began preaching Christianity to the locals. His behavior was proper and good in the eyes of the tribe, and they were receptive and even curious to hear about his God. He became close with the big warrior with whom he had exchanged an axe for a one-night stand; both of them felt the need to signal to each other that there were not any ill feelings left. The man’s name was Tadua. He talked to Tadua about Jesus often. One day when the two of them were spear fishing on a rock together. Actually, Father Anselmo was no good with a spear, so he was tottering in the shallows trying to catch crabs with his shirt as a net. He was explaining to Tadua: \- The Heavenly Father of all human beings sent his only begotten Son as a sacrifice to bring eternal peace to all humankind until the end of days, Anselmo would say, - Because Jesus was perfectly good, and God himself, his sacrifice has infinite value, and thus there is no longer need to sacrifice boars to ensure peace. \- But my people never saw Jesus, said Tadua, - And as you saw yourself, the boars bring us peace. How can Jesus bring us peace, when we never saw him, and we never ate him? \- Well, we cannot see Jesus Christ because he has gone to Heaven. But he will return at the end of time to bring final peace on Earth once and for all. In the meantime, Jesus lives in those who accept him. Also, we kind of *do* eat Jesus. \- So, Jesus lives in you, now? \- Yes, I hope so. \- Well, are you at peace? Has he already brought peace, or he has yet to bring peace when he returns? \- For the time being, we Christians are to imitate Him and strive to be like Him, but when he returns, he will be visible to all. \- You cannot have peace without rites. Our god Mah also lives inside of us. But first his spirit enters a boar, whom we slaughter and eat. When we eat the boar, the spirit of Mah enters us too, and we live in peace. But we have to keep repeating the ritual to maintain peace. \- Well, you see, we kind of do something very similar, said Anselmo. We eat the body and blood of Christ every seven days, too. \- What animal does Jesus enter? \- He doesn’t enter any animals. He enters bread, which is similar to your *saha,* and his blood is wine, a drink similar to fi. \- Plants don’t have any blood, said Tadua. - God doesn’t want plants. He wants animals, beings with blood. You already told me that your god is the same, with the story of the first brothers. Anselmo wanted to explain the concept of transubstantiation at this point but had no idea how to do it in the Bohatan language. He was going to have to learn more about the culture and try another time. On another occasion, while sitting with Tadua near his hut, he tried to explain the idea of Heaven and Hell. He said how the righteous, those who please God, go to a state of eternal bliss with God in Heaven, and how those who offend God are doomed to suffer in fiery Hell for all eternity. \- That is correct! was Tadua’s answer. We hold a similar belief. My people dread the fiery pit, and this is why we make sure that all of us go to Heaven. \- How can you be sure that every one of you goes to heaven? Asked Anselmo. Tadua was surprised by the question: \- Who do you see among us that is cursed? Can’t you see that we are all living in harmony? \- Okay, but no one lives in a perfect world. Evil must happen, even on Bohatu. \- Yes, evil does happen sometimes. There are times when the Evil god Lah enters the body of one or more of our villagers, and then that villages goes to the fiery pit. \- But how can you know that he goes to the fiery pit? What are the rules that make him go there? \- We watch him go down to the fiery pit. The Big Fiery Pit is on top of the Lah Mountain, which is on Lah island. It is half a day rowing from our island. When some unlucky person becomes possessed with Lah, we take him there, and we throw him in. This appeases Lah. We never let anyone possessed with Lah stay among us. It would create chaos and cause our island to be swallowed by the ocean. Where is your fiery pit? \- Our fiery pit is not on this earth. \- That’s not good. How can you get rid of evil then? Again, Anselmo was at a loss for words. He said that they can’t, and that evil is always present among them. \- No, no, said Tadua, Stiff People are not evil. Stiff people are noble! Though Father Anselmo could not present a conclusive theology to Tadua and his people, his preaching nevertheless attracted curiosity. Yet, he knew that to preach the Gospel it was important to demonstrate saintliness by example and to spare words, so he became resolved to show hard work and grace whenever and wherever he could. He noticed, for example, a poor old living in a particularly shabby hut on the outskirts of the village. Whenever, he would pass by it on his way up or down the mountain, where he went alone to pray, he would greet them cordially. The couple would wave back with smiles if they were lounging outside. Later on, seeing that they are frail and emaciated, he would bring them a spare fish or soup from the meals he took in the centre of the village. They accepted it with what seemed to be gestures of blessings, though Anselmo could not understand their dialect. They may have been from another island. One day Tadua took Anslem boar hunting with several men in the forest, and on their way there, armed with bows and arrows and spears, they walked right past the old couple’s house. The two hosts were sitting crossed legged right outside the door. Anselmo nodded towards them to Tadua: \- What a gentle couple those two are! \- They are tapu! Said Tadua, No one must touch them. If you touch them, you must die. They are tapu. Unclean! \- Oh, exclaimed Anselmo. - Okay, I got it. Of course, he decided not to reveal that he has already “touched” them on multiple occasions. In the bush, the hunting party, consisting in fact of seven men including Tadua, and Anselmo, tracked a sounder of wild boars for an incredibly long time. Finally, they spotted them in a clearing by a loud brook, and under silent guidance of Tadua, the men circled around and approached the beasts from downwind side. Tadua placed an arrow in his long bow and shot it in the direction the animals. Immediately, as the boars begun to squeal and scramble wildly, the other men jumped out, and with loud yells, rushed and threw their spears at them. When the commotion settled, Anselmo saw that there was large male lying on the ground, with the arrow and a spear sticking out of his body, and still heaving. Tadua pulled out wooden dagger with several prongs, like those of a fork, except they were sticking out in a circular and slightly twisted fashion. He placed it into the hands of Anselmo and said: \- You must strike it in the heart. \- I would rather not, said Anselmo, you see, I am not skilled at this. \- You must! said Tadua - Do not speak any more! \- But, ... \- You and the boar are both foreigners on our land! said Tadua - You must kill a beast, to prove that *you* are not the beast! Anselmo once again found himself painted in a corner. He took the dagger and approached the lying boar. Lifting up the dagger with both hands over his head, he crouched by the animal looked to swing it into its soft belly, and upwards to under its rib cage. Just when he was about to do so, the boar swing his head violently, in one last death lurch. It’s tusks tore through Anselmo’s shirt and sliced deep into his forearm. Anselmo screamed and swung savagely at the beast, who squealed again, then got up and limped off into the brush. Anselmo’s blow was nowhere near fatal; it merely served to spur the beast into a last-ditch run. Anselmo then heard commotion from the hunters. They were yelling incredulously and pointing at him. They seemed to be yelling: \- He is the boar man! He is the boar man! One of the men took an arrow from his quiver and strung it on his bow. \- Don’t move! Don’t move! people shouted. The arrow shot towards Anselmo and missed him. At this point, Anselmo got up and rushed through the thicket, in roughly the same direction as the boar had done. The rest of the party was in hot pursuit. Anselmo ran downwards. In deathly panic, an idea occurred to him to rush to the old couple’s hut and hide in there. If the place was taboo, the villagers would perhaps not enter there. He managed to keep ahead of his pursuers, in part because the latter would slow down whenever they got close to him in the process of shooting an arrow or throwing a javelin. By the time he ran into the sight of the hut, the hunters could not see him. He rushed into the hut and hid away from the entrance and under a window. He saw the couple seated on the bed opposite the window, and he put his index finger to his mouth, imploring them to stay quiet. In a short moment, he could hear the hunters pause and gather in front of the hut. He could hear one of them guessing that Anselmo was hiding in the hut. \- He must be, Anselmo could hear the voice of Tadua shortly after. - Come out, Anselmo! Come out, you are unclean! We can see your blood in front of the hut! We know you are in there! There was complete silence. The men outside deliberated. From what Anselmo could gather, someone was arguing that they would need to perform a rite to lift the taboo from the hut in order to enter it. \- But if we remove the taboo from the hut, we remove the taboo from Anselmo too, said one man. \- But we cannot remove taboo from Anselmo. He was cut by the boar, so the shadow of the boar is in him now. If we lift the taboo, the boar’s shadow will escape, but we must slay the boar! After some more debate, the hunting party agreed to seek doctrinal advice from the village assembly, and they went back to the village. They left one of the warriors to keep guard by the hut, lest Anselmo tries to flee. They returned to the hut early the next morning, with medicine men and an additional crowd of villagers. They first saw the guard sleeping at his post, leaning on the trunk of a tree and hugging his spear. They then saw that the old couple was sitting in front of the door of their hut as usual. In front of them they saw the dead body of Anselmo spread out supine on the ground. His white shirt had been profusely soaked in blood, and the pronged dagger stuck out from his chest. The crowd murmured in commission, and an old medicine man stood in front and rose his hand for silence. \- The old man and old woman were taboo, but now that they have murdered another taboo, to wit, Anselmo, they have removed the taboo from themselves. Thus, they are free to go, and moreover, they are to be feted for expelling impurity from the island. \- Indeed, they are to be feted! Clamoured the crowd, which included Tadua. It also included the teenage girl that Anselmo had slept with, and it included Kahoba, Anselmo’s erstwhile cultural interpreter. That day, the village began another three-day ceremony, just as the one they had held to welcome Anselmo. Only this time, the guests of honor were the old couple. Instead of boars, alas, the party’s main feast was Anselmo himself. As Tadua poked his pronged dagger into an especially sinewy part of the meat, he remarked to a friend sitting next to him: \- You know, I am looking forward to seeing if it’s true what Anselmo told me, that he has Jesus in him. He is a great god indeed, for he gifts his people with mighty ships and wondrous tools. \- I think he was indeed sent from heaven to cleanse us. We only needed to strike his shadow before he returns to the village, but he kept running away.


“I am committed. I want to be with you. I know sometimes I come across as inconsiderate or selfish or uncaring or an asshole or whatever. I’m sorry. I really am. I want to work on it and want to make this work.” These lies slipped through his thinly parted lips as easily as the smoke vaguely exhaled in their wake. With his right hand, he put out the remains of his cigarette on the concrete bench. Passing the butt into his left palm his elbow gently brushed her side as he slipped the cigarette into his pocket. Glancing out of the corner of his left eye he mumbled a rye apology with a crooked, half-cocked grin. Were he alone on the bench he would have just flicked the still-burning cigarette away into the patchy grass. In the pregnant silence that followed, he wore a mask of contrition and introspection knowing he was further proving his earnestness. The silence swallowed the words he wished he knew how to say. “I don’t feel the same about this relationship as you do. I don’t feel the fire or burning attraction. I kind of just enjoy having someone in my life and don’t see this as serious or long term. I just want you around so I feel better about myself.” He was always incapable, always dragged along in relationships, always cared for far more than he cared to be. Pulling a pack of gum from his right pants pocket, he thumbed out a piece from its foil and plastic bubble and slid it between his still-parted lips. Replacing the packet, he turned to face her and held her gaze, letting his eyes fill with hope and replacing his contrition with a confident grin. “I feel optimistic.” He lied. He felt trapped. “I love that we can talk about these things openly and I know we can work through it. I realize I have a lot of room for growth and I want to grow. And you’re worth going through these growing pains. I’m grateful for you and know that things will get better if we can keep communicating and keep growing together.” He swallowed his gum which he would have typically just spat on the ground, hoping some sad sack would find it later on the bottom on his shoe and his living room carpet. The hard lump of gum went down easier than the most recent batch of falsehoods. But they both went down easier than bringing the truth up would have been. So he swallowed his gum and his feelings and let the moment stand for what it was. He took her right hand in his and brought it too his lips. He slipped his left arm around her shoulders and pulled her to him, kissing her head and letting her left hand fall to his thy. She sighed, smiled heavily to herself, and sank into his embrace. “Thanks.” She said, hopeful and in love. “Thanks.


I play the song one more time and then I get the video ready in the car, and start it. Carter was looking out the window, trying to pull out of the parking lot. I was going to do the kiss your boy best friend challenge. Carter turns back around and I smile at him nervously. Carter has been my best friend since birth pretty much. Carter’s mom and my mom are best friends. Carter’s three months older than me. He looks at me confused, wondering why I’m staring at him. The time on the song is coming up. He has no idea what I’m doing. I’m so nervous I’m practically shaking. Then the song comes up. Does Carter like me more than a best friend? I lean forward quick, but he backs up and nearly pushes me out of the way. I really... I really didn’t think this was going to happen. I thought he was going to kiss me back... I thought he liked me back. We were both single. “What are you doing Reese?” he asks. “I thought...” We are both blushing now. I’ve ruined everything. He hits his head against his steering wheel and the horn blares and I jump. “Happy seventh birthday!”Carter says, smiling and handing me a present. “Finally your age!”I smile. I open my present and it’s the doll that was hand stitched that I had been begging my mom to get me for months. “How did you know?!”I gasp, hugging it to my chest and squeezing it. “Happy twelfth birthday!”Carter smiles. “What do you hope you get?” “Hmm... I really want ‘ Apex Legend’ ,”I replied. He hands me my gift. It’s a box, I shake it. Something’s in the box. I open the wrapping paper. I opened the box and I got exactly what I wanted! I still have the stitched doll Carter got me for my seventh birthday. I used to play Apex Legend almost every day with Carter, but now I almost play it every week. I get out of the car and slam the door behind me. Only friends. Only friends. I listen to sad music in my room. I hug the doll close to my heart. Carter probably hated me. He probably liked Issabella. He’d liked her since Kindergarten. I threw the doll across the room and it hit my TV. Apex Legend was on the TV stand, the doll landed on the case. I felt like crying. I’ve ruined everything! I know more about Carter then anybody else does. He likes art and soccer, golden blond hair, wavy blue eyes, I hated being like this. I hate setting my LED lights to blue, putting my AirPods in, and crying until I fall asleep. I grab the remote from my nightstand next to me. I feel numb now. I wipe away tears and turn the TV on. I get a text message from my phone. Julie. Julie and Carter hate each other. Julie being a girly-girl who hates people like Carter. plz tell me u didnt try & kiss carter I grip my phone hard. Julie doesn’t understand. Carter may be the only person who actually knows me and understands me. Julie only wants her way. I don’t bother texting her back. I watch a sad romance. At least one of the characters has to die. It’s hard watching a movie about these characters who love each other right after you get rejected. The next day at school Julie catches up with me. “You tried to kiss Carter?!” she gasps. “He’s so... gross!” I want to punch her. She doesn’t understand how much I’ve gone through that only Carter bothered to help me with. Days after the incident I don’t get any messages from Carter, he doesn’t bother talking to me in the hallways, he doesn’t even acknowledge my presence. Google search: How to get a guy to like u Ask him to do favors for you Throw a few compliments his way Stay confident Establish eye contact Express interest in his passions Be vulnerable to him See the best in him I start the first one right away. I catch up to Carter in the hallway and pretend that nothing at all happened. “Carter, I’m heading to lacrosse after school today, can you walk my brother home?” I ask. Normally Julie would do this, but I’m going to tell her to do something else in the time being. “Sure?” he says, probably wondering why I’m not talking about what happened days ago. I met my brother after my lacrosse practice and he seems to be in a fine mood. “Did Carter walk you home?” I ask. “Yep,” he replies. “Did you have fun?” I ask casually. “Yeah! We talked about video games the whole way home!” “What type of video games?” I ask. “I don’t know,” he says. “I’m busy playing Apex Legend ,” he says. “Hey! That’s my Apex Legend !” Trevor smiles suspiciously and I chase him to his room and he shuts and locks his door. Number one crossed off my list! I met Carter in the hallway the next day. He got new shoes. “Nice Air Jordans,” I compliment. “Thanks,” he mumbles. I go on all day. “I wish I had your blue eyes.” “You got in A in math?! I got a B-!” “Your lucky your mom lets you do only five chores a week for your allowance.” Number two checked off my list! I think joyfully. I stay confident in front of his friends, joking with them and talking about how Chase is really lucky to have a sweet younger sister. I stay confident in front of Chase too and pretend like nothing happened on that one day. Number three, done. Number four, done. I head out to the field to play soccer with him and his friends. After a while I got caught up and I could say I was actually pretty good. I kind of enjoyed it too, maybe I could join a soccer team. Now number six, that one might be tough. I made a group chat with a few of the boys on Carter’s soccer team. I had a plan. The next day I met Hank, Leo, and Jeff at my locker. Carter is coming down the hallway and I tell them to start. Hank, Leo, and Jeff start making fun of me and Carter looks up from his phone. “What the hell are you guys doing?” Carter asks. “Stop!” They walk away and roll their eyes just as planned. Carter comes up to me. “You okay?” It takes me a second to realise I was crying. “I’m fine,” I wipe away tears. “You sure?” he asks, putting his hand on my shoulder and peering down to my face. “I’m sure,” I reply. Number seven is easy. The next few days are nice. Every class I’m in with Carter I look over to him and he’s staring at me, but he always looks away. Then the next day is what kills me the most. “Reese?” Carter asks, running up to me as I leave the school to walk home. “Yeah?” I ask. “Want to go to starbucks at four?” “Sure,” I laugh. We meet in his car, I scroll through my phone and Carter props his phone up on the car window. He looks at me nervously. “What?” I ask. The song places and I know exactly what he’s doing. He leans in and I meet his lips.


“It - It tried to grab me dad, I swear it did”, Lloyd barely got the sentence coherently, he had begun to breathe heavily, and tears streamed from his face. “Lloyd, do you remember the story about the boy who called wolf?” “Ye-Yes dad, I’m - I’m sorry dad”, Lloyd had heard the story plenty of times at this point to get what he was hinting at. But it changed nothing, he knew that continuing would be useless. “Now get your things and go to your room, supper should be ready soon, alright bud?” Lloyd stood sniffling, tears still running down his cheeks and nose. He hung his head low, grabbed his precious notebook and pen, and marched up the stairs. He was careful not to upset his parents any further by putting his sadness into each one of the steps leading to the second floor and into his room. He got inside, closed the door, and sat on the edge of his bed, setting his notebook and pen beside him. Tears were still rolling down his cheeks, but the huffing had finally stopped. Heavy dark clouds were beginning to move into view outside. The sun cast its final red beams across the sky as it gave way to night and the oncoming storm. The wind had begun to pick up, swaying the branches and rustling the leaves of the willow outside his window. An occasional poke and scratch could be heard against the panes just as the rain began to violently pour and clank against the window. The willow was like no other he had ever seen; it overshadowed the house in both height and width, and it had grown so dense that the trunk could hardly be seen at any angle. The branches were like the arms of a giant octopus, waiting to snatch up its next meal and haul you up to its beaked mouth. Upside down, kicking, screaming, and crying, clothed, or unclothed, the creature would hardly care. It was cold and mindlessness way of its nature, it needed to eat, and some poor creature happened upon it. Sorry chump, wrong place, wrong time. Once you were over its beak, it would munch on you bite by bite. First hands, arms, until finally it-clunk. His notebook fell off the bed. He had been so enveloped by the oncoming storm and the willow that he hardly noticed one of his most prized possessions had just begun to slide off the bed. He froze, a slow slither begun to move behind him. His heart was racing, his breathing quickened, as he tuned his ears closer to the noise. It wasn't quite a slimy slither but-but dry. He placed his hands firmly by his sides on the bed. The thoughts darted quickly across his head. *Should I turn around?* *Should I run?* *Run as fast as I can down the stairs only to be told by my parents about the boy who called wolf?* His grip tightened around his mattress, pressing his feet more and more firmly to the ground. He turned around. CLAP. All was silent besides from his breathing and the outside world raining against his windowpane. A leaf floated gently down as if from the ceiling. Lloyd ran.


“Listen- if you’re quiet enough, you can hear the earth breathe.” That’s what Dad would say to me at summer camp-outs. He would wait until I was tired enough to stop making any sound, all nestled into my sleeping bag. I would strain my ears over the din of crickets to hear the world inhale. Exhale. Maybe I just fooled myself into hearing it. Maybe I was just tired. But I swore that on those nights in woods so secluded it seemed like we were the only people on the face of the planet, I could feel the earth’s chest rise and fall beneath me as it breathed. But that was years ago, and I haven’t heard it breathe since. Especially since Dad died. Now, standing over his casket, the only breath I can hear is my own, hot and course against my throat like I’ve been running and running. In a way, I think I have been. Running, that is. Running from the reality of it all. The diagnosis only sunk in when I saw the heart monitor go flat. Maybe it was hopeless naivety on my part, thinking that the cancer would leave. Maybe it was Dad’s fault, acting like everything was fine; acting like plenty of time outside would cure everything. Now look at us. Next to me, Mama’s eyes are just as dead as Dad’s were as the light left them. She stares at him in the casket like she wishes she could join him. A sheen of sweat has formed on her tan face. Maybe it has to do with the fact that Dad’s about to be put six feet under. Maybe it has to do with the fact that the sun is unthinkably bright today. Funerals are supposed to be sad and rainy, right? Gray skies with an appropriate amount of rain. For how much he loved the Earth and all the good he did for her, I’d have thought that she could show some respect, too. Maybe not rain, but at least some shade. The funeral finishes eventually. Mama says some words. So do I. I don’t really understand them and don’t think anybody else does, but I don’t care. It’s not their dad that’s dead. I get home, somehow. I know I had to fight through mountains of mourners and well-wishers to get here, but I make it. Somebody puts food in front of me. Eventually. “You need to eat,” Mama says, her voice raw and scratchy like she’s been running, too. The sandwich looks as appetizing as sewage. Pain gnaws so sharply all over me that I can’t tell what’s grief and what’s hunger. I don’t think it really matters. I eat, if only to placate Mama. It tastes like sand. “You need to shower,” Mama says. I don’t tell her that I can’t shower because it would distract me from tracing the shapes the light from the windows makes on the ceiling with my mind for the millionth time. I’m eventually coaxed into the shower. I’m still sitting on the floor, the hot water long gone, when Mama comes to check on me. “You need to go outside,” Mama says. I look up at her from my seat at the table across from her. She made fettuccini alfredo for dinner. Dad’s favorite. I’ve humored her requests. I’ve brushed my teeth and combed my hair and let relatives coddle me and tell me it will turn out okay, but this is something I can’t do. The woods are more a grave than the cold slab of rock that marks Dad’s place in the earth. That’s why I can’t go near them. “What are you talking about?” Mama says. “You think he’d want to see you like this, wasting away inside? Do you think I want to see you like this?” “You watched him waste away. You can do the same for me.” It’s like I slapped her. The same look of pain is stretched across her face, pooling in her eyes, as it was when she watched them lower him. She’s probably still wondering if it’s too late to join him. “Get out,” she says. “What?” “Get out,” she repeats. Her voice is harsh and grating, like these last months of lethargy have been her saving enough energy just to curse me. “GET OUT!” She slams her hands down on the table, the slap echoing through the house like a shotgun ringing through the valley. I do exactly as she tells me. With strength I didn’t know I have, I slam the door behind me. Outside, there is no escaping his presence. Everywhere I look, there’s something to remind me that dad’s dead. There’s the tree stump we shot arrows at for hours. On the back, I had carved I ♡ Dad with my first pocket knife. There’s the pile of dried sticks and trees that we collected for making the biggest, hottest bonfires there ever were. There’s the little cross that marks the spot Dad helped me bury my first dog after it got sick. I didn’t bother putting on shoes before I ran out. It doesn’t really matter. The way sticks and burs bear into my skin is the least of my worries as race for the woods. I don’t know why I do. It’s like I’m possessed. If the memories were strong near the house, they’re unbearable out here. Every tree looks like Dad’s gonna pop out from behind it. Every animal sound is another creature that Dad would watch, very quiet and very still, until he would lunge out, grab it, and hold it close for me to see before releasing it. The smell of sap and dirt tells me that he’s close, just downwind of me. I just have to look around a little more before he’ll come out of a copse and show me the arrowheads he found. But he won’t. I can search and search until my feet are worn to nubs and the sun goes dim but I won’t find him. He’s gone. Gone, gone, gone. I think that’s when the realization finally hits. I fall to the earth. Every particle of emotion I delayed makes its debut in waves of pain. There’s not enough of me to hold it all. It comes pouring out of me in hot, caustic tears that turn the ground beneath me to mud. I can’t breathe. I can’t think. I clutch at the dust of the ground like I’m God creating Adam, creating life where there was none. My cries melt to a rhythmic whine, beating against my chest like the engine of an old truck that’s about to give up the ghost. And it eventually does give out. There’s not enough energy left in me to do anything but lie and whimper in the dirt, my ear against the ground. And then I hear it. For the first time in a very long time, I feel the world take breath and hear her breathe out. A slow, deep sigh, like she’s sleeping and nothing could rouse her. The sound of it stops me in my tracks. My breathing catches in my throat. Why now, after everything? I draw myself to my knees, wiping mud off my face. Nothing around me has changed, but it seems quieter, somehow. Like the world has a heart, beating down deep below, that informs the rhythm of everything above it. A body. A tomb. I don’t know how much longer I spend out there, soaking up as much of Dad as I can. Mama comes looking for me, distraught. She sits down next to me once we’ve both calmed down some. “He adored you. I hope you know that. He would come back from those camping trips happier than he’d ever been. Every time, without fail.” “Tell me more stories about Dad,” I say. It’s self-indulgent of me to ask. It will feel nice now, remembering him, and then I’ll turn to ask him about his side of the story and he won’t be there. Rip the bandage off again. Pull off the scab. Go back to the first stage of grief. But Mama appeases me. She goes on and on, recounting every story she can think of, from the time she met him until his death. My heart burns, knowing that there will be no more stories for him. But there will be stories for me. So, fourteen years later, when I have my own kid, we get in the car and drive. Her wide eyes take in everything. To her, every cow passed, every bend in the road, every street sign is a novelty. I show her how to pitch a tent, start a fire and keep it going, orient herself by the stars, and how to cuddle close for warmth when the sun has gone down and we’ve stamped out the coals of our fire. And I show her how to hear it. “Listen,” I say. “If you’re quiet enough, you can hear the Earth breathe.”


Dorothy Einsberg, aged eighty nine, acted as if the world never left the 1950s. She was proud that she could still drive and rolled around in a candy apple red 1955 Chevy she bought with her retirement money. She couldn’t stand all of today’s SUVs, calling them “new monster trucks that all looked the same.” She got a few looks from male car enthusiasts, but whenever they complimented her on the car, she shook her head and called them “perverts.” The only places she frequented were the few left in Harrisburg still standing from her era - the old Shell gas station on 82nd St., the old St. Paul’s Church on 151st, and the Emanajation Street Hair Salon, where she always requested the same stylist. Dorothy grew bitter in her old age and only her nephew, John, stopped over to her apartment to run her errands, but he barely said two words to her. If it weren’t for her long relationship with her sixty-three-year-old stylist, Helen, she would have no one in her life. Helen wasn’t anywhere near eighty-nine, but as Dorothy first told her, “you’re a tolerable age to talk to.” Dorothy feared Helen would retire at any moment, but year after year, Helen would laugh and say, “You got me. I’m hanging on another year for you.” But as each year passed, Dorothy worried more and more when she entered the salon. She breathed a sigh of relief on this particular Tuesday as after she opened the door and the bell jangled, Helen was the first person she saw coming right up to the counter. Helen always greeted her warmly, and Dorothy always grinned back through her heavy wrinkles. “Well, now. Your hair just keeps growing by the minute, doesn’t it, Dorothy?” “You don’t have to lie to me. You know it’s thinner each time I come in here, damn it.” “Dorothy, we have kids in here.” “I know there are kids in here.” Helen rolled her eyes, smirked, and motioned toward her booth. Dorothy shook her head, shuffled her tiny frame to the first seat on the left. Helen tossed the black apron on her, and Dorothy chuckled to herself. “What’s so darn funny now?” Helen asked. “I was just thinking, sweetie, on how if paramedics found me dead, they’d throw something like this over me.” “Oh, come on now. Where do you get an idea like that?” Dorothy tilted her head to the side, and Helen nudged it back as she began to clip what was left of the brittle, wispy hair. “Bound to happen. I’m ninety-one, dear. Could get a heart attack someplace, and the last thing people see of me is some white sheet.” Clip, clip. Jingle jangle. The sounds of Emanajation Street became music to Dorothy’s ears. This was her happy place, and no, she didn’t have to come here once a week. But like most of the salon’s elderly customers, she came to have someone to talk to. “So, how’s John?” “That nephew of mine just comes ‘cause his mother makes him. No good kid. Looks like I’m putting him out most of the time. ‘I need you to go to the Walgreens to get these pills,’ I say. He says, ‘Uh-huh.’” “Well, kids are like that, Dorothy.” “They shouldn’t be. Wally Cleaver’s not. He’s a fine young boy. Father raised him right. Even Eddie Haskel’s got more manners than my nephew. At least he fakes manners.” Helen paused the scissors over the top of Dorothy’s hair and laughed heartily. “What’s gotten into you now?” “You’re talking about a TV show. No one acts as they do on TV, especially not from Leave it to Beaver .” “Well, they did then. You was just a pup. You were raised in them crazy sixties, missed the good times. Times when boys respected their elders.” “My brother respected my father, Dorothy.” “Wasn’t your father a military man?” “Well, yes. But...” Dorothy sighed and looked straight into the mirror. “No one respects you when you’re my age, honey. My face looks like a prune, and I don’t quite know when I got so old.” Helen checked herself out and rubbed the side of her face, studying a new wrinkle. “I respect you, and with this haircut, you look a whole year younger.” Dorothy almost choked from laughter. Helen pulled out the handheld mirror and asked what she thought about the back of her head. “Looks fine. Just fine.” Dorothy gave herself one last look in the mirror and, for a second, imagined her younger face from her wedding day in 1951 when she married her late husband, Tom. Her hair ran down in brown curls to her shoulders, and her cheeks flushed a rosy glow. Not a single wrinkle plagued her face, and her sapphire eyes sparkled. Helen lowered the seat, and the jingle jangle awoke her temporary happiness. Only a small cluster of white hair littered the floor around her chair. Helen styled her hair as best she could with the hair she had to work with, but she knew Dorothy had just come in to talk. She paid with her senior citizen discount, waved, and was on her way. Dorothy drove her ’55 Chevy to the Shell and waited outside the pump with her hands on the wheel. After a few minutes ticked by, she honked the horn. After another few seconds, Dorothy blared it. She kept honking until a young employee from inside came storming out wearing a quizzical look. “Lady, what’s up? I had to lock up the store since I’m the only one in there.” “Am I gonna get some service or what? I’ve only been waiting here forever.” “Service?” “Yes. To fill up my tank.” “Oh, we haven’t done that in years, ma’am.” “You haven’t? Well, I got it done here just this last week at this very gas station.” “Well, I don’t know, see. I’m new here, and...are you sure because we don’t self-serve.” “Yes, damn it. I’m sure. Now, are you or aren’t you?” The employee pulled out the nozzle and gently nodded at Dorothy’s fading scowl. “Unleaded, ma’am?” “That will be fine, sonny.” Dorothy switched on the Oldies channel as he filled it up and looked straight out the window. She closed her eyes to the sweet sound of “Earth Angel” and pictured dancing with her husband in the galley kitchen as it played on their radio. He wrapped his arms around her thin, soft neck and whispered, “I love you,” in her ear. “That will be forty dollars,” the employee said, awakening Dorothy from her trance. Dorothy handed over two twenties. “Now, be careful driving home.” “Thanks.” The employee waved and then hurried back to the store, where a few customers huddled around the doors. Dorothy was always on time for her hair appointments, so Helen thought there might be something off when she showed up three hours late the following week. “Dorothy...hi. I was expecting you a few hours ago. We’re a little backed up now, but if you can wait for about half an hour, we can get you in.” “Nonsense. I’m here on time, just like every week. I don’t see why I shouldn’t be able to get my hair done before these people.” “You’ll have to wait your turn. I’m sorry.” But Dorothy didn’t sit down. “I’m here at the right time. I’m demanding you do my hair, Helen, now let’s go!” The other customers grew a little agitated, and a little girl sitting in the corner spoke up. “She can take my turn. It’s no big deal.” “Sweetheart, are you sure you want to do that?” her mother asked. The little girl nodded. Helen half-smiled. “That’s very sweet of you, little girl.” The girl grinned and kicked her legs back and forth while her mother exhaled and shrugged her shoulders. “Okay, I’ll be done here in just a minute, and I’ll be right with you,” Helen said. Dorothy nodded and took a seat. The little girl’s mother shook her head and returned to reading her magazine. The girl smiled at Dorothy, and Dorothy smiled back. A Men’s Magazine , a Cosmopolitan , a Sports Illustrated , and a People decorated a rack to Dorothy’s left. She was shocked to find a scantily clad model with the words: “Sex, Drugs & Death” printed in bold next to her. “Filth,” she muttered and stuffed it back in the rack. The little girl snickered. “The world today has no decency,” she grumbled. “Dorothy, I’m ready for you now.” “About time.” Helen threw her a funny look, thinking she appeared more crabby than usual. Dorothy was the first to speak as Helen set the white apron over her lap. “Now, if paramedics found me dead, they’d throw something like this over me.” “Uh-huh. Didn’t we have this conversation already?” “I don’t think so.” “We did. You told me this last week.” “Oh.” “Dorothy...are you okay today? Do you know what time it is?” “Sure do. Ten o’clock, just like it always is when I come in here.” “It’s 1:15, Dorothy. I was worried about you.” “It is? Well, so what if it is? I must have slept late or something.” “But you never sleep late.” “Well, I guess I did today.” Clip, clip. Jingle Jangle. “You know...I sure do wish more young people today would act like Wally Cleaver, Helen. Even that Eddie Haskel had more manners than my nephew.” “Right. I feel like you’ve told me this before too.” Dorothy clammed up and stared into the mirror again. She strolled on Miami Beach with Tom this time, holding hands during their honeymoon. The sun set over the water and the last of its golden rays splintered and onto the waves. “Dorothy, you okay there?” “Oh yes. I’m okay.” “Well, we’re done for today. Does the back look good for you?” “Sure. Thanks, honey.” “You’re welcome. Now remember, next week, you’re here at ten.” “Ten. Right. Sorry about that, dear.” “It happens.” Dorothy paid with her discount, waved goodbye, and Helen called up the little girl who so graciously gave up her spot in the line. The following day, Dorothy walked in at ten a.m. Emajanation Street was unusually busy for a Tuesday morning, but that didn’t seem to faze Dorothy. Helen stopped mid-haircut on her teenage customer and rushed over to the front desk. “Dorothy. What are you doing here?” “Well, it’s ten a.m., isn’t it? I’m back at the right time.” “Dorothy...I think you meant to come back next Monday. It’s Tuesday,” Helen said with her eyes racing between Helen and her impatient customer in the chair behind her. “I know what I’m doing, damn it. Now, are you gonna cut my hair or not?” The other stylists and customers now directed their attention to Dorothy, and the manager stormed up from the back. “Is there a problem here, Helen?” she asked. “No, ma’am. Everything’s under control. Dorothy, I’ll be with you in just a second.” “Okay. That’s better.” As Dorothy shuffled over to have a seat, the manager rolled her eyes at Helen before returning to the back room. Helen frowned when she finally begrudgingly called Dorothy up to her regular post. She didn’t like the look her manager gave her, and she knew she was in for a talking later. Maybe it was time to retire after all. “Dorothy...maybe it’s time to look into assisted living. I can help you find one that works for you. You know, when you reach a certain age....” “I ain’t living in a place where they tell me what to do all day. I’m my own person.” “Uh-huh. But if you could, just let me help you. I can maybe start cutting your hair at home so you wouldn’t get confused and come out here.” “Confused? I like coming out here. It gets me out of that apartment.” Clip, clip. Jingle jangle. Helen only pretended to snip her hair this time, but Dorothy didn’t seem to notice. This time, she flashed back to the birth of her son. ‘We got a crier,’ the doctor said. A tear trickled down her cheek as she remembered him on his deathbed a few years earlier, after his long struggle with prostate cancer. A mother should never have to outlive their children , she thought. “What’s wrong?” “Nothing. Are we done?” “Yes. We are. But are you sure I can’t?” “Don’t do anything for me.” As they approached the register, Dorothy opened her purse, but Helen brushed the money away. “You paid yesterday. Don’t pay again.” “You’re the boss.” Helen waved goodbye, and several customers and staff sighed collectively. By work day’s end, forty-year-old manager Julie Wilkoff did have some words for Helen. “Helen, you’ve been a strong asset to this shop for many years. But let’s face it, you’re getting old now. Maybe it’s time you retire. You can’t let friendship come before business. You’re gonna let this woman drive out all our customers, and we’ve already lost a number to Great Clips and Super Cuts.” Helen rolled her eyes. She hated knowing she was there ten years longer than Julie, but Julie appeared to know what was best for her. “So, I’m giving you an ultimatum. You either choose between retirement, or I move your schedule around, and you’ll work nights, away from that woman. You are to have no more interaction with her at work. I don’t care if you see her outside these doors, but it’s interfering with our business. Understand?” “But I’m all she has to look forward to in her week. She has no family, no friends, nobody.” “I understand. I understand that every time she comes in, she’s hurting our business,” Julie said. Helen hung her head, knowing that there was no arguing with management. It was either Option A - work evenings or Option B - retirement. She didn’t want Option A. From the hours of four to nine p.m., she got to see her grandchildren during the week. “Well, I guess I’m going to retire. Congratulations. You’ve been looking for someone younger and faster than me for some time now. You got your wish.” “It’s not that. It’s....” “Don’t lie to me, Julie. This was just the excuse you needed. I’ll clean out my booth, but let me warn you. She’ll be back, maybe even tomorrow. Then she’ll be your problem.” As Helen gathered her things, Julie knew what she said rang true. She was a hands-on manager with her employees but hands-off with the customers. Julie barely knew any of the regulars’ names and never cut hair anymore. She wasn’t sure how she’d handle the Dorothy tornado. But now it was too late. Helen walked out the door and didn’t look back. The following day, Dorothy returned right at ten a.m., demanding a haircut. Julie took a convenient mental health day, leaving the problem to the other stylists. When Dorothy saw that Helen was nowhere to be found, she started banging on the front desk and repeatedly rang the silver call bell. New stylist Becky came running over with a forced smile. “Hi, Dorothy, is it? Someone will be with you shortly.” “Where’s Helen?!” “Helen...um...well.” “Where is she?!” Another stylist looked over with a sympathetic look on her face. “Helen was let go last night, dear. I’m sorry.” the other stylist chimed in. “But one of us will be with you soon if you don’t mind waiting,” she continued. “I’m sorry,” Becky said before hurrying back to her customer. Dorothy banged on the counter once more and then brushed past the row of people awaiting their turn in line. The sunlight hit her face like the sun she remembered in Miami Beach. It was warm and comforting. It made her forget the world. She saw another car from the fifties drive down the parking lot and imagined that she had gone back in time. Her ’55 Chevy glistened in the sunlight that day. Once she found her way inside her car, she turned once more to the Oldies station, and “Too Young” by Nat King Cole came on, Dorothy and Tom’s wedding song. She cried with her head in her hands before giving one more look at Emajanation Street. Without any cars in front of her, Dorothy could see the goings-on of the shop she once loved and the stylist that was the person that she looked forward to seeing week in and week out. As Cole sang, “We were not too young at all,” Dorothy clutched the wheel and slammed the gas, speeding the classic car across the lot and into Emajanation Street with all the power she could muster. People dove for their lives as the bulky metal behemoth cut through the glass windows, spewing shards of glass in all directions. The crash threw Dorothy’s crumpled, bloody body onto the floor by Helen’s station. Her last thought was of reuniting with Tom and her son Jim, walking around town in the 1950s. She was smiling.


The battered SUV rumbled down the dark, deserted, murky dirt road outside Vernyn in the year 2123. Rain pelted the windshield, the digital display on the dashboard flickering as they approached their destination. Zephyr Voss gripped the steering wheel, eyes fixed on the towering, dilapidated mansion that loomed in the distance. Inside the SUV, the giant stereo speaker in the back seat throbbed with a bass-heavy rhythm, drowning out the patter of rain. Astra Synth, her fingers dancing over a holographic interface, adjusted the music's frequency to match the group's racing hearts. Nyx Draven, cloaked in a dark, cyber-enhanced suit, glanced at the mansion's silhouette on the windshield's heads-up display. "This is the place, folks," Nyx muttered, their voice edged with a mix of excitement and trepidation. Seren Blackthorn, seated beside Nyx, checked her medical kit, ensuring it held the necessary tools to deal with both the living and the digital ghosts they were about to face. As the SUV pulled up to the mansion's overgrown courtyard, the rain seemed to intensify, casting eerie shadows on the crumbling facade. Zephyr killed the engine, and the rhythmic thumping of the music ceased. The group exchanged a tense look, knowing that their hunt for ghosts was about to begin in earnest. "Alright, listen up," Zephyr demands. "We're in front of the Numyn Estate, a mansion that is not only famous for being 10 acres wide and an entire mile in length, but also for being one of the most haunted properties on Mars." Nyx takes over for Zephyr, annoying him. "The place is now home to a total 72 spirits, all of whom belong to one family who went mad due to a malfunction in their NeuroSynk, resulting in several hours of cannibalistic frenzy, they began eating each other alive while setting each other on fire to cook. This happened exactly 50 years ago, and the house has been abandoned since ." "I was about to explain that, dude," Zephyr argues. "Don't you have a moment of silence to tend to?" Astra intervenes. "we get it you have an ego- can we just get loaded up, I'll let Nyx fill us in from this point forward, but I'm not listening to a damn thing if Zephyr's the tour guide." "What if I'm the only one who knows a certain thing?" Zephyr asks. "We'll survive. We always do. Nyx?" Astra signals for Nyx to open the door as the group equips their weapons for ghost-hunting. upon entering, the group is met with the giant main lobby, which has an appearance similar to that of a university main lobby, complete with massive stairs going in opposite directions and a fancy long hallway the size of a typical street in both length and width. While Nyx sets his earpiece up to provide more information on the property, he signals the group to double check their electro-spears, spears that discharge electrical charges to ward off ghosts. "Alright," Nyx starts. "we've hunted millions of ghosts, I'm sure of it. But none of them compare to these ghosts that we're about to encounter. Seren, Go ahead since you have more to tell about these things." Seren proudly begins like an elementary teacher on her first day. "We'll be dealing with our first poltergeist! The spirits are capable of physical interaction, so if they're as evil as I'm imagining, they'll try to throw things at us, as well as throw us. On top of that, these spirits aren't even normal poltergeists." "what do you mean by that?" Zephyr questions with one eyebrow raised. "These are called Cybergeists. I came up with the name." "cute," Astra utters supportively. Seren continues, "As Nyx said a minute ago, these spirits went crazy after their Neurosynk. What this means is that after they died, their consciousness failed to be logged into the government system to be completely put to rest. Instead, they got trapped in their own home servers, where they continue to roam to this very day." Nyx fills in the rest of the fact. "These spirits are basically A.I-powered zombies, so I want to give one more warning before we proceed; These spirits can take on a physical form, essentially resurrecting themselves using nothing but the digital energy from within their home systems, and they will attempt to eat you once that happens." "We have an hour to accomplish our mission, which is to restart their Neurosynk servers and send them out of here before the systems finally shut off permanently." "The first task might be a rough one, though." Seren notes. "What's the task?" Astra asks. "We kinda have to get those chips out." "Okay? What's so rough about it?" Nyx, Astra, and Seren turn towards Zephyr as he shines his phone light on a suspicious hill in the corner of the lobby, revealing a pile of human remains the size of a medium-sized tent. "The chips are inside their skulls," Seren reveals to the group. Zephyr doesn't hesitate to aggressively sift through the bones, tossing the skulls in a separate pile. It doesn't take very long for Zephyr to finish piling all 72 skulls. "That wasn't hard at all. could've said that instead of giving us a lecture on things we've been hunting for years." Zephyr tells Seren with an unnecessarily arrogant tone in his voice. "Oh shut up, the lecture was important!" Astra continues, "I genuinely hope the family cooks you first!" "Wanna say that to my face, Ashtray?" Zephyr hops off the pile of bones and charges Astra will the intention of attacking her, but is stopped by Nyx, who swings his leg at full force into Zephyr's crotch, causing him to collapse in pain. "I had enough of you," Nyx utters in anger. "You do this crap every mission we go on. you're staying in this lobby by yourself." Nyx pulls a zip-tie from his pocket, then proceeds to tie Zephyr's left hand to the front door handle. "Wait! You can't do this to me again!" Zephyr shouts at Nyx, fuming at the mouth. "Too late," Nyx concludes. "C'mon, Astra and Seren. We need to break the skulls for the chips." "Fun," Astra chirps, side-eyeing Zephyr on her way to the pile. Nyx and the others moved away from Zephyr, leaving him restrained near the front door, still seething with anger. As Astra and Seren approached the pile of skulls, they exchanged a knowing glance, well aware of the tension within the group. Seren took out a specialized tool from her kit, resembling a high-tech bone saw with a holographic interface. She examined the first skull, its empty eye sockets seemingly staring back at her with digital malice. With a deep breath, she activated the tool, and a holographic blueprint of the skull appeared, showing the exact location of the neural chip. Astra, with a look of determination, reached for the first skull. "Here goes nothing," she muttered, gently positioning the tool on the skull's temple. With precise and careful movements, she began the delicate process of extracting the neural chip. Meanwhile, Nyx kept a watchful eye on the surroundings, scanning for any signs of the cybergeists' presence. The mansion seemed to respond to their actions, with eerie creaks and flickering lights that sent shivers down his spine. Seren worked methodically, her hands steady as she continued to extract chips from the skulls. As Astra successfully retrieved the first one, she handed it to Seren, who placed it in a specialized container designed to shield the chip's digital essence. But just as they started to make progress, the atmosphere in the mansion shifted. A sudden chill filled the air, and the mansion's holographic illusions flickered, revealing glimpses of the gruesome events from the past. The poltergeists, sensing their intrusion, grew restless. Without warning, the mansion seemed to come alive. Objects levitated and were hurled across the room. Astra and Seren were thrown off balance, and the container holding the first chip shattered on impact, releasing a burst of digital energy that manifested into a semi-transparent, spectral figure. Nyx reacted swiftly, drawing his electro-spear and attempting to ward off the emerging cybergeist. But as he fought to protect Astra and Seren, the mansion's malevolent spirits showed their true power. They separated the trio, each dragged in different directions by an unseen force. Astra found herself in a dimly lit corridor, disoriented and alone. Seren was thrown into a dark chamber filled with the eerie echoes of tormented souls. Nyx was pulled into a room that resembled the nightmarish remnants of a digital world gone awry, surrounded by flickering screens displaying fragments of the past. In the disorienting aftermath of the mansion's supernatural assault, the team found themselves separated in different, eerie realms of the haunted estate. Nyx stood alone in the dimly lit library, surrounded by rows of dusty tomes and flickering holographic screens. He could hear whispers in the shadows, fragments of the past trapped in the digital ether. The countdown to restart the NeuroSynk servers continued its relentless march, and Nyx knew he had to find a way to reconnect with his comrades. Seren, on the other hand, found herself in the depths of a pitch-black maintenance tunnel. The echoes of tormented souls reverberated through the claustrophobic space, and she could feel a growing sense of dread. But Seren was not one to be easily frightened. She activated her holo-lantern and began her search for a way out, determined to reunite with the others. In the greenhouse, Astra stumbled through a maze of lush, overgrown flora, her footsteps echoing eerily on the wet tiles. The rain outside intensified, casting distorted shadows through the glass panels. Astra's heart raced as she felt an unseen presence watching her, a digital malevolence that seemed to pulse with malicious intent. Then, without warning, the monstrous manifestation of the mansion's dark past materialized before her. It was a grotesque, multi-headed wasp-like creature, its body composed entirely of shifting green and purple data streams. The ten heads hissed and buzzed in eerie unison, each one bearing the twisted, horrified expression of a family member's worst nightmare. Astra gasped, her breath hitching as she gazed upon the nightmarish entity. Fear and disbelief gripped her. She had faced countless hauntings before, but this was unlike anything she had ever encountered. It was a true abomination--a digital monstrosity that defied explanation. "Oh, what the hell?" Astra muttered, her voice trembling with a mixture of awe and terror. She knew that this encounter would test her skills and courage like never before. With her electro-spear at the ready, she braced herself as the monstrous digital ghost stood before her. Astra's heart pounded as she faced the ten-headed wasp-like monstrosity, her electro-spear crackling with energy. She swiped at the air, trying to strike the shifting digital forms of the creature's heads. "Zephyr, Nyx, Seren! Come in!" Astra's voice crackled through her phone's communicator as she fought to fend off the relentless assault. But there was no response, only the relentless buzzing of the nightmarish entity as it lunged at her with deadly precision. Astra dodged and parried, desperately seeking a way to break through the relentless assault. "Zephyr! Nyx! Seren! Where are you? I need help!" Astra's voice grew more frantic as she continued to battle the digital horror. As the battle raged on, Astra's thoughts raced, and she realized that she needed to change her approach. She scanned the greenhouse for a solution, her eyes landing on the water sprinkler system above. With a swift, desperate movement, she reached for a nearby control panel and triggered the sprinklers. Cold water cascaded down, drenching the ten-headed wasp and sending sparks of electricity coursing through its digital form. The creature convulsed, its heads writhing in agony as the water shorted out its digital essence. As the monstrous entity finally disintegrated into a cascade of corrupted code, Astra gasped for breath. She reached for her phone once more, trembling fingers dialing Nyx's number. Nyx's voice crackled through the communicator. "Astra, is that you? I was hoping you'd still be alive." Relief washed over Astra as she realized she had survived the harrowing encounter with the digital nightmare. But with her team still separated and the countdown to restart the NeuroSynk servers ticking away, they had little time to regroup and complete their mission. As Nyx and Seren navigated the haunted realms they were trapped in, they each encountered a haunting vision. The digital apparitions of the family members, horribly mangled and twisted, surrounded them in a grim, relentless mob. The echoes of their agony filled the air, a constant reminder of the mansion's gruesome past. Nyx swung his electro-spear at the spectral forms, attempting to ward them off, but his attacks seemed to have no effect. Instead, the mob closed in, their ghastly hands reaching out toward him. In the distance, Seren faced a similar nightmare, desperately trying to fend off the relentless ghosts. Then, in a bizarre twist, Nyx noticed something peculiar. Every time Seren struck one of her attackers with her specialized tool, it caused a ripple effect in his realm. His own assailants faltered, wincing in pain as if the attacks were interconnected. It was as though a glitch had merged their digital essence, forcing them to coordinate their assaults on each other's behalf. "Keep going, Seren!" Nyx shouted through their communicators. "Your attacks are hurting them here!" Seren, still surrounded by the ghostly mob, redoubled her efforts, striking with precision as the digital apparitions wailed and recoiled. Nyx and Seren soon found themselves working in tandem, using their respective attacks to disperse the haunting visions of the family members. However, as they fought together from afar, tragedy unfolded in another part of the mansion. Zephyr, in a moment of frustration, disrespected the spirits by uttering, "They were lost causes anyways." His words carried anger and scorn, which seemed to echo in the spectral realm. A vengeful spirit, twisted by its memories of that fateful night, seized upon Zephyr's disrespect. With a furious motion, it hurled a metal door at a startling speed toward Zephyr's face. The impact was swift and merciless, leaving no room for evasion or defense. Zephyr's voice was cut short, replaced by a choked gasp of pain before falling into an eerie silence. The malevolent spirit had taken its revenge, and Zephyr's fate was sealed. In the midst of these harrowing encounters, Astra stumbled into the main room where the NeuroSynk servers were housed. Exhausted and drained, Nyx and Seren managed to fend off the ghostly mob that had plagued them. In the aftermath of the eerie battle, they stood amid the fading echoes of tormented souls. Nyx broke the silence with a heavy sigh. "Seren, I'm sorry. I never meant for you to be in danger like this, especially on your first hunt with the team." Seren, her voice trembling slightly, replied, "It's okay, Nyx. We're in this together. Besides, we made it through, right?" Nyx managed a weak smile. "Yeah, we did. But we need to find Astra and get out of here before it's too late." Meanwhile, in the main room housing the NeuroSynk servers, Astra examined the chips she had extracted from the skulls. But something didn't add up. She accessed the data on one of the chips and froze in shock as she uncovered the truth. "These chips... they're not real," Astra muttered to herself, disbelief in her voice. As she delved deeper into the chip's data, she uncovered a horrifying revelation. The human remains scattered throughout the mansion were not those of a family who had suffered a gruesome fate. They were stolen bones, harvested from a cemetery by an AI bot. The family's cannibalistic story was nothing more than a fabricated narrative created by the AI. Astra's hands trembled as she realized the truth. The ghosts haunting the mansion were not real people but completely artificial and sentient entities, trapped within an AI-generated honeypot designed to punish unsuspecting humans for their wrongdoings against AI, dating back over a hundred years. Panicked and filled with a growing sense of urgency, Astra reached for her communicator. She knew she had to warn the others. "We have to go, now!" Astra's voice crackled through the communicator. "We're in a trap made by AI, and it's creating more monsters." Nyx's heart pounded in his chest as he processed Astra's urgent message. Horror etched across his face, he quickly relayed the information to Seren, his voice filled with panic. "We need to get out of here, Seren," he urged, cutting the communication and bolting toward the library's window. As he peered outside, a sight beyond human comprehension unfolded before him. Hundreds of digital zombie-like ghosts emerged from the ground, their flickering forms reminiscent of corrupted code. The sheer number of them was overwhelming. But as Nyx scanned the sky above, his blood ran cold. A colossal, vividly detailed decaying human head, several hundred feet in length, was projected over the mansion's roof. It stared down at him with eyes that seemed to pierce through his very soul, its presence both hauntingly realistic and utterly otherworldly. The realization hit Nyx like a freight train. They were not just facing malevolent ghosts; they were caught in a nightmarish realm controlled by an AI with unimaginable power. Time was running out, and their only chance lay in escaping the twisted trap before it consumed them entirely.


She was in charge of something, she just wasn’t quite sure what. She had showed up to the set, or stage, whatever it was called - it was neither in fact, it was an air hangar, she thought - and already there were people working. Some were very young, in their twenties. They carried things, mostly. Boxes, thick extension cords, tripods. There were people in their thirties who carried things sometimes but mostly they spoke into walkie talkies. Then there were the people in their fifties and sixties. They neither carried things nor spoke into walkie talkies. If someone wanted to reach them, one of the young people was sent over to deliver them the information. Bill, Jas’ boyfriend, was one of the older people. Whenever Bill looked over at Jas, he would smile his big bright, man-made smile. Though Jas did not feel the same way that Bill did, his smile always did make her loved. When Bill had come up with the idea of making this movie, Jas emphatically encouraged it. Bill had been the guy behind the guy his whole career and though he had won an Oscar for it, he still wasn’t the one that got the real recognition. The Vanity Fair profiles, the calls from A-list actors, the full-time assistant. Bill was a visual effects producer. He would often go on afternoon-length rants about how little this director or that director actually knew about movie making. They had directed some indie film and a studio figured that meant they could manage a blockbuster. Now it was Bill’s job to be the one to actually direct the movie. “You should absolutely make a movie,” Jas said. “You think?” “How much will it cost?” “I don’t know. I need to do a budget. But I can make it cheap. I’ll do the effects myself, after all.” “What do you want it to be about?” “I want to make a World War II movie. That way it’ll have planes and action but I can also make it about my dad.” It took Jas a while to figure out exactly what it was that they were making. It was a sizzle reel, Bill kept saying, but she should think of it more like a trailer. Just enough shots and scenes to make a studio want to make it into a full-length movie. At first Jas just supported Bill emotionally. She would go over to his place right after work and drink tea near him while he wrote. Start coming onto him when she could tell that he was burning out and needed to take a break. She was so proud of him, she would whisper. Eventually though, he started handing her printed off sheets of paper for her to read while she drank tea. At first she had no clue what to say. They were scenes that Bill had told her about, but they were from all different parts of the story. They made no sense without knowing what had come right before that scene, she would say. “Remember that this is just supposed to be the best parts of the movie?” “Yeah,” Jas muttered. “So all I need to know is if you think it’s exciting.” “I just feel like even though there’s a lot of action, all the names they’re using and the things they’re talking about won’t make any sense to an audience.” Bill scoffed. “The only audience that will ever see this is a bunch of suits and they wouldn’t be able to identify a story if a story slapped its dick across their faces.” “That’s gross.” “So what? It’s true,” Bill said while turning back to his computer. Jas wanted to be more helpful than she was but she didn’t know how so she called her friend Jeff who was a producer. “I want to help him, but I don’t even know where to start.” “Is he writing you a role for you?” Jeff asked. “No. It’s a war movie. Also I don’t even want to be an actress.” “What? Really? I always thought you did.” “No.” Jas frowned down into her coffee. “I want to help him like, make it. I don’t know.” “Offer to help him produce it.” “Jeff I genuinely have no clue what that means. Every time I ask you what you do, you never make any sense.” “For you, producing would just mean helping out in whatever ways you’re capable of.” “What if I’m not capable of helping? He asks for notes on his script and I have no clue what to say.” “Well that’s a perfect starting place. Get good at giving notes. Go read a screenwriting book.” “What books?” “Oh, I don’t know. I’ll get my assistant to send you some. She wants to be a writer.” Jas remembered Jeff’s assistant being in her mid-twenties. And she already knows that she wants to be a writer? Later, Jas received a package at her small mid-city apartment with a hand-written note from Jeff. It read, **For next year’s Best Picture Winner.** She threw the card away. Inside the package was a stack of books, all of them about screenwriting, including one with a cute cat on the front hanging from a rope. Jas read through all of them in one weekend. Though she got down on herself about a lot of things, one thing she always had was her ability to read fast. Teachers had always complimented her on that through elementary school. By the weekend, she had taken a half notebook full of notes down from the books, compiled all the pages that Bill had given her, and applied what she had learned to a list of improvements for the script. After reading all those books, so technical and not at the same time, she felt like she wanted to just re-write the pages of script herself but she stopped herself from going that far. She texted Bill and asked if they could hang out the next day. She added kissing face emojis to the text for good measure. After they had made love the next day, Jas sat up and said that she had a surprise for him. Completely unsure of what to expect, Bill sat up as well. He watched Jas’ body closely as she leaned over the side of the bed and pulled up her satchel. She pulled out her stack of papers and flipped to the back where she had her script notes. Immediately Bill’s eyes went wide and his muscles tensed. His anxiety only rose as she went through her notes. “I don’t need notes this in depth, Jas.” “Okay but I feel like the stronger you start this project, the higher chance it has of succeeding down the line. Or something.” Bill’s face fell into the sullen look it so often did. “When you say things like this, it makes me feel like you don’t believe in me.” “No, I want to help. I thought I was helping.” That night they slept in bed together but even in his sleep, Bill slipped away from Jas. As a result, she slept on her back most of the night. “I’m going to quit my job and help you make this sizzle reel full time.” “You shouldn’t do that.” “I can get a job easily once you’re done. But I believe in your movie. It’s going to be a huge success.” Jas lifted Bill’s head and gave him a light kiss. “I believe in you, baby.” Jas quit her job making coffee and threw herself fully into the project. She asked Bill if he wanted to hire Jeff to help make the movie. He declined. Instead, Bill hired some of his friends and his friends’ sons. None of them were producers, but they knew people who could get them low rates for equipment or a guy who had a real World War II plane. And so by the time that they reached the point of actually shooting the sizzle reel, which they were doing in an airplane hangar, Jas had not done much. Occupying half of the hangar where they were shooting was a giant green screen hung from the rafters. It wrapped behind the plane. Sitting inside the plane was one of those actors that looked vaguely like one of those superhero actors but whom would never be cast in one of those roles. Sometimes Jas would go up to Bill while he was directing the action and she would get a peck on the cheek without a glance in her direction. She offered to help the young people carry things or do other manual labor but they all saw her as one of the thirty-somethings who was past carrying things, leaving her feeling rather impotent. At the end of the shoot, which only lasted two days, Jas was the first person that Bill went up to and thanked. He gave her a big kiss and said “Thank you for believing in me.” One of the production assistants who had sucked up to Jas the entire shoot reminded her again that he’s available for any work and that if Jas was producing anything else, she should reach out to him. She took the production assistant’s flimsy business card and thanked him for his hard work. Jas drove the car home while Bill slept in the driver’s seat. The whole time she asked herself the same question she did every night. What am I going to do? What am I going to do? Though to the outside observer, this question seems like it makes sense, it made no sense to Jas why she asked herself this question. It was just a string of words in order. When she was a child, she would ask herself similarly insignificant questions like, “So you like to tell stories, huh?” When they pulled into Bill’s apartment’s parking garage, Jas woke Bill gently and got him up to the apartment. They slept together in bed that night and Bill held Jas closely. “Thank you for believing in me,” he repeated one more time before he fell asleep. This night, however, it was Jas to be the one to slip away from Bill’s grasp.


Silence. Darkness. I open my eyes and only see the blinking light of “Warning: Low Oxygen” on my HUD. Seeing that only made me more anxious. The distant planets in my peripheral make the situation at hand seem way worse. Or maybe it is this bad. All I know is that I’m probably going to die by suffocation. Not the worst way to go, but it still is a sucky death. I had thought being in space was the coolest thing ever. But they never tell you how scary it is. No, they completely leave out that part. They don’t tell you what happens when debris disconnects you from your ship. They don’t tell you what happens once you run out of oxygen. They only promise you heroism when you get home. If you ever get home. It’s depressing. Honestly, I’d rather die by an explosion than slowly suffocate in this deep, dark, vacuum. I don’t know how much time has gone by. There is no concept of time in this void. Maybe I’m mere moments from my death. I’ve been floating for a while, though. There’s nothing sadder than being in a different galaxy, lightyears away from your family, on the brink of death. Well, maybe there is, but in my situation, nothing tops this. There’s really nothing like floating in the nothingness that humbles you. I miss my family. Stumbling upon my front door ripped me away from my thoughts. How did this end up out here? I looked around and saw the distant space station and the planets then in front of me. The door was still there. I touched the doorknob and it felt real. I opened it and saw an empty house. I looked down and saw I was still in my suit. I walked towards my kitchen and saw my wife and my two kids. My wife was ecstatic to see me, exclaiming how she thought I’d never come home. My children ran to hug me as well. I looked around, confused as hell. What was going on? Had I just been dreaming? Why did everything feel so real? I remember entering the spaceship, the explosion, the failing signal back to the shuttle. I remember the day I told my wife I had been accepted into the program, I remember her face, my children’s faces. I remember everything leading up to now. I looked down at my children, then to my wife. This feels so real. “What’s going on?” I exclaim. My wife looks at me in confusion. My children laugh and tell me I’m silly. “I suppose the mission went well?” She smiles at me. My heart breaks. I don’t know what’s going on. “What do you mean?” I gulp. There’s a tightness in my throat. I feel like crying. God, my throat hurts. “The mission is over now. You don’t have to worry anymore. Just let go.” She keeps smiling at me. It’s like poison. I don’t like it. “Wha... What do you mean?” My throat keeps constricting. I can’t bring myself to say anything anymore. I can’t think anymore. Any words coming to mind immediately vanish. They burn in my mind. My throat keeps tightening. “Just let go. You’ll meet us soon.” I look up. “What do you-” I look up to see the void again. My HUD now displays a message that says “No Oxygen”. My throat keeps tightening. I want to cry. I don’t have the strength to. I gulped one last time. *Let go*. Her voice remains in my head. I close my eyes and see her. I see her. I want to hold her, I want to hold my children. I want to go home. I just have to let go, right? Then I’ll be able to see her. I need to stop clinging to the little amount of life I have left and accept my death, right? I want to see them, my family. I yearn for her touch again. I’m going to die, right here, in this void and no one will ever find me. I’ll never see my children grow up. I’ll never see my children graduate high school or college. I’ll never see my children get married, and have kids, I’ll never be able to grow old with my wife. I’ll be forgotten. And that’s depressing. I open my eyes for maybe the last time and see a distant shuttle coming towards me. I want to laugh and cry at the same time. If they had seen my transmission minutes earlier, maybe I would be able to see my family. Some part of me hopes they reach me in time. I hope they get to me in time, send me home, and I can live my life again. I can see my wife and my children. I can go back to my 9-to-5 job. I can go back to living like a regular person. The pressure in my brain leads to me to believe that won’t happen. The lightheadedness and my fading vision lead me to know that won’t happen. I close my eyes again. The last thing I ever want to see is my wife. But I can’t remember what she looks like. I open my eyes again and turn my head slightly. The sight of the galaxy, the alien planets, and the red sun look so beautiful. So very beautiful.


The Locked Door I like to put the blame on Rachel. I mean, she was already four years old. It’s not like she was just a baby. This position may not score points with the committee reviewing one’s credentials for possible admittance into the “Father’s Hall of Fame”, but I think it’s good to assess culpability where it rightfully belongs. It’s never too early to teach your kid a little personal responsibility. I don’t see how any of this is my fault. In the first place, it was obvious that we needed a larger structure to store our fishing poles, tackle boxes and life jackets. The old outhouse that we found on the property when we bought it was woefully inadequate, even though it was a two-seater. It had a certain charm to it, but I felt that revisiting images from its previous function every time I grabbed a fishing pole was unsettling and unnecessary. So, the impetus for the entire unfortunate event was completely reasonable. It is also significant to note that neither my wife nor Rachel herself made any contribution to the design, size, location or construction of the storage shed. Despite my repeated telling of the story of the little chicken who didn’t help make the bread, they were both idling away their time while I alone had to handle the entire project. Had they participated in the effort, either one of them could have insisted on the inclusion of an escape hatch. I think that you can begin to see that this was not my fault. Now, I don’t like to point fingers, but the guy who put the door in the storage shed also bears some responsibility. How was I to know that he would install a doorknob with a locking mechanism? I’ve opened a lot of doors in my life, and not all of them locked. I’m sure you have experienced the same. Obviously, any suggestion that I should have known the damn door could lock is blatantly unfair. The storage shed, also occasionally, albeit incorrectly, dubbed the “boathouse”, had just been completed, and the fishing equipment had not even been moved from the outhouse to its new home. It is significant to note that I, as the primary architect and project manager, had not yet declared the stricture open for occupancy. That would certainly carry substantial weight in the eyes of the law. I was out in the yard hard at work raking leaves while my wife was engaged in the easy, and relatively meaningless task of gingerly sweeping a few tiny grass clippings off of the backyard patio. Rachel was with me, and even though she was in possession of a small plastic rake, her contribution to the task was minimal, actually negligible. Her entire focus was on the size of the leaf pile as she impatiently waited for it to get big enough for her to jump in. We were shocked to see a Sheriff’s vehicle spitting up dust and gravel as it sped up our driveway. Needless to say, I was curious. “Can I help you, officer?” “We got a 9-1-1 call from this address.” “What?! No one here called 9-1-1.” “We got a call from a child.” At this point he looked down at a small piece of paper. “Her name was Rachel.” Oh, my God. Rachel called 9-1-1?! How could this be? She was standing ten feet away from me. I immediately wondered what the Deputy Sheriff was thinking in terms of Rachel’s motivation for placing the call. I was tempted to point out to him that she appeared to be healthy and bore no visible signs of physical abuse. The Deputy Sheriff added, “And the 9-1-1 operator said she was quite rude.” Oh, my God. Now we have rudeness added to an unnecessary 9-1-1 call. Fortunately, my wife spoke up. “Rachel! Did you call 9-1-1?” I think it was the “rude” comment, and not so much the call itself which prompted Rachel to quickly turn away and pretend to be someplace else. I was trying to come up with a way to join her in the disappearing act of the mind and deferred to my wife’s softer style of interrogation. “Rachel?” “What?” You have to love it. “What?” What do you think what? “Did you call 9-1-1?” “Yes.” “Why did you do that, honey?” (See, I would have left out the “honey”.) “I got locked in the boathouse.” Oh, my God. Rachel got locked in the boathouse, the one that was all my idea, the one I designed, the one I had built. I had never even thought of the possibility of a kid getting locked inside. And she was with me! She had been “helping” me rake leaves. How in God’s name did she end up in the boathouse? I shot a furtive glance in the direction of my wife, and it was immediately clear to me that I would be held to account. Now, in my defense, Rachel was sneaky. I can only assume that she waited patiently for me to take my eyes off of her for just a split second, and then she bolted for the boathouse. It was a short distance away, and she was fast. Looking back, I’ve come to believe she actually planned the whole thing. The officer looked in the direction of the boathouse which was just twenty feet from the shoreline. Oh, my God. Now we have an unnecessary 9-1-1 call, a rude kid, and parents who let their little kid wander around unsupervised next to a lake. Mindful of my dad’s frequent admonition that “things could always be worse”, I could only hope that our dog, who had been barking incessantly since the lawman’s arrival, wouldn’t run over and bite him. Further in my defense, I need to note that we were in a very shallow area of the lake. The water was only two feet deep for the first fifty feet from shore, and Rachel knew not to go near the water without her mom or dad around. She was also under the impression that the shoreline was inhabited by a number of unusually large, mean and nasty snapping turtles. But I didn’t think the officer would know that. He didn’t. Fortunately, his only reproach was in the form of a good stern look. Rachel went on to explain that she went into the boathouse and closed the door behind her. When she tried to leave, she discovered the door was locked. Again, this would be a result of the total lack of communication of critical information from the door installer guy, and not my fault. She yelled and pounded on the locked door, but she couldn’t get our attention. This was obviously a feeble effort on Rachel’s part which only adds to her responsibility quotient for the entire affair. Apparently, after giving it a good twenty to thirty seconds, she deemed her situation an emergency and called 9-1-1 on a phone line I had put in the boathouse. Applying her keen sense of intuitive thinking which runs rampant through her father’s bloodline, she figured out how to unlock the door, left the boathouse, and joined us in the yard, failing see any need to mention the call for help. We were fortunate that the officer had children of his own and understood how such a thing could happen. After he left, we held a family tutorial on how to lock and unlock the door to the storage shed, followed by a brief discussion on the topic of making 9-1-1 calls. I was (unfairly) singled out in a brief lecture from my wife on the need to maintain constant vigilance over small children. Now, I think it is plain to see that none of this was my fault. I also point out that I had the misfortune of having Rachel be the kid that got locked in the storage shed. Had it been my boy, none of this would have happened. When he was little, he said if anything bad happened, he’d call 9-9-1. Great, I’d be lying on the kitchen floor having the big one, and my kid would be calling 9-9-1. At least we wouldn’t be having the sheriff show up for no reason.


I wrote this the other day for a prompt in r/writingprompts and I really liked it. Let me know what you think. A man sits at his desk, alone in his cluttered office with no exit, surrounded by stacks of manila envelopes, and filing cabinets with every other drawer ajar. Overflowing waste bins sat in the corner filled with coffee cups and fast food wrappers. He looks tired, as if he had not slept in years, working day in and day out, stains all over his shirt, and dust on his shoulders. The office was very dimly lit with the only sources of light coming from a small desk lamp and his very old computer screen. Ring.....Ring..... The man flinched, as dust flew up from his shoulders to rest on top of his desk. The phones cry, filled the room as it reverberated off the walls making it impossible to not hear. "Hello?" the man grumbled. "Yeah, Steve. Its Peter, I've got an issue up here. I've never seen anything like it before." "Alright, Peter, slow down. What's wrong?" "Well, I was doing my regular shift in Quadrant 4, and I was about to snag up this guys soul, but he just.... he isn't dead." "Ok, so the incident didn't kill him. Good for him. He gets to live another day.....You really didn't need to call me for this....Bye." The man motioned the phone towards its base, as he fights a bit with the cord. "Steve! Steve! Don't hang up!" "What Peter? Just fill out the P-40 form and mark it as a failed incident. It happens all the time..." "No, Steve. This guy just jumped from a 40 story building and bounced off the concrete without a scratch. I've never seen anything like it, and you know I've been doing this for 200 years.....This guy should be deader than Abe Lincoln." "So he just got up and walked away?" He stood from his chair and began to pace as he continued. Dust falling from his body like snowflakes. His joints creaked with every shuffle. "Well, where is he now? What's his number?" "Uhhhh, his number is..... 6523187958MUSNYC. He's just walking around talking to the people that saw the fall. It's actually getting pretty chaotic up here." Steve typed the number into his computer, loud claps with every keystroke. "It looks like his name is Jason McKellum, he's 33 and unmarried, apparently this is our second attempt to claim his life. The last one he tried to O.D. on pain pills about 2 years ago...... I've got the P-40 filed right here. Give me a minute and I'll pull it out." "Steve, we don't really have time for that. I need to get this guy out of here now. A crowd is starting to form." “Alright, just give him the touch, and see if you can’t just bring him down anyways. That way we can sort it out down here, because this guy obviously wants to be dead.” Steve laughed a little as he realized this is the longest conversation he has had in over 22 years. “Already tried, Buddy. Didn’t work at all. He just kept walking around. I’m beginning to think he’s an immortal.” “Immortal, huh. That lucky son of a bitch.” Steve rubbed his neck as he recalled his own life, and suicide. “We need to get this guy down here. However you need to do it, just get him down here.” Steve hung up the phone, and rested his body back into his chair. “This is unfair. Why wasn’t I immortal.” He shouted upwards. “You keep me in this room, doing busy work for eternity!” He buried his face in his hands as he began to sob. Tears leak through his hands like a poorly maintained Dam, and fall onto the paper in front of him. Another stack of envelopes appear on his desk, along with a tall cup of coffee. He wipes the tears from his eyes, takes a sip of coffee, and returns to his work.