There was a ranch in northern Idaho owned by the Desperación family. Frederick, and Julie inherited the ranch and lived in the large mansion at the center of the estate. Their niece, Elizabeth, lived in a shack beneath a large oak tree on the outskirts of the property. She didn’t mind this arrangement, in fact, she preferred it. She preferred the rolling meadows of wildflowers speckled by dashing young pine saplings than the manicured pasture of her family’s cattle whose horrid stench perished any hope of Elizabeth carrying on the family tradition. She steered clear of the pasture, barn and mansion. She felt no desire to be near them. She preferred it this way. Her aunt and uncle preferred it as well. Elizabeth, bless her soul, was a terrible worker. She couldn’t help but stare at the sky beyond the mountains, listening to the sounds of the sea. She was, as her aunt and uncle described, “a chronic idealist prone to willful forgetfulness, and an especially horrid conversationalist when it came to matters of the physical world.” They wondered how they could be related to someone as distant as Elizabeth. They spread barely hidden rumors about her to the workers, and secretly plotted her removal from the family will. Elizabeth knew these things but didn’t mind. They left her alone, and she them. She preferred it this way. All was peaceful and content in Elizabeth’s life. She would wake with the sun, or the lunch bell, or whenever she chose. No one cared when she did. No one bothered Elizabeth. She would don whatever clothes were cleanest and sink into buttery dollops of sunflowers melting in the sun, inhaling their pasty scent as she had for years on end, until she felt the desire to clear the imaginary weeds from vainly measured pine saplings that haven’t grown for years and won’t grow for years. Elizabeth was alone with her thoughts, as she always was. The ground absorbed her tears and the wind silenced her cries. She was alone, piteously alone, and there was only one thing in her life that banished the joy of death, her cousin Oliver. Elizabeth thought that with a name as whimsical as Oliver, the young man behind it must be equally so, but it wasn’t so. Oliver was a stern man, aged before his time by spending sunny days huddled within the shadow of religious doctrine. He desired nothing more than to be a humble clergyman in the church and had overcome the obstacles of pride and wealth to do so. He became a paragon of virtue, his heart a great outpouring of love and affection for all who knew him. He was a flawless man, an exemplar of his faith, save for one mortality, his love for his cousin Elizabeth, an overwhelming force only counter-acted only by her equal love for him. No one knew that Oliver was to arrive at the ranch that day. Elizabeth lay on a large rock watching two dragonflies making love in the air, pretending to hear the cry of the eagles over those in her head. Her aunt and uncle lounged in their new gazebo, sipping iced cocktails out of crystal goblets, thinking about how grateful they were to have such well-behaved cattle, such amiable weather, such excellent finances, such reasonable politicians, and how Elizabeth couldn’t mess any of it up. Just as Oliver’s car parked at the edge of the family property, they had each settled into the quiet contentment of their private agonies. Oliver rubbed his calloused hands over the letter tightly clutched to his chest. He approached his parents without looking up and mutely placed the letter on his father’s overflowing lap. They take dainty sips from their goblets and inquire to the whereabouts of his priestly vestments. He ignores their mordant questions with a shrug of his drooped shoulders and walks into the open fields while his parents indignantly wave their pink hands for his attention. After satisfying themselves with meager effort, they address the letter simply titled, “This letter explains everything.” They open it and wish they hadn’t. Suddenly the air becomes too hot, the cattle too unruly, the finances too unstable, the politicians too unreliable. They signal the servant to renew their glasses and complain about their lives into the folds of each other’s throats. Elizabeth had not heard any of this. Her favored paralytic state deadened her to the undesirable world around her. She felt today was a day of great despair, as all days were. The sky sank heavily on her sun-burned shoulders and razor-sharp flower pedals maimed her bare legs. Another day would pass without Oliver. She felt no hope for today, and no chance for tomorrow until she heard his voice say... “Elizabeth?” She sprang from the ground with joyous tears carelessly flooding her adolescent eyes. She ran to her cousin and threw her arms around his neck, determined not to let him go, determined to tell him how much she missed him, determined to tell him how much she loves him, determined to tell him that a life spent with him is greater than any life spent without him, determined to kiss him until her body fails her, determined to love him until the world ends. “My lover is pregnant, and I am to marry her. This is goodbye.” As it did then. Elizabeth fell away from her one true love. Her opened mouth wailed unadulterated anguish. She cursed the God that birthed her love for a life without her, the God that stole his life from her so that he could steal it back for another woman, the God that they worshipped and led neither to happiness, damning the God that took Oliver away, damning the God that took Oliver away. “Oliver!” He’d already walked away, sparing no comfort or attention to the crippled girl in the open field, blind to her memory in his mind, deaf to her strangled cries of love. He ignored his parent’s desperate questions and drunken bargaining and drove back to his lover whom he eventually marries and fathers two children who hate his drunken abuse and finally cast him out of their home after his dalliance with a minor. Elizabeth remained on the ranch to bear the memory of her love as reminders of her worthlessness, her hopelessness, her uselessness. It wasn’t until three days after she hung herself that her aunt found her while looking for a lost lamb.


The third time I saw Max, I heard his laugh for the first time; it came floating through the air until it pounded in my temples and made a breeze flutter through my eyelashes. All of us girls would sit side-by-side on the bleachers. We made a point to share an entire jar of peanut butter and a sleeve of crackers. We would just pass the peanut butter jar from one to the next down the line, absentmindedly. All of the girls were fused to the bleachers, silent, staring, while I would sit there and write. They all had this look on their faces of mischievous intrigue, except Jane, as her boredom was beginning to escalate. "There they go, running in a circle again, yay," Jane barely emoted from her sneering lips, “Goin’ round and round.” She made a circle with her fingers. "Big deal." "Yeah," Laura mused under her breath staring straight ahead unmoved, "super...lame," she attempted to mimic Jane’s bored tone but was unconvincing. I looked up and turned my head to look at Laura and tried not to laugh at her with my mouth full of crackers. Laura’s body made a sharp twist, "Joanie, quit bogartin’ the peanut butter," she growled with hunger as she grasped the jar out of my hand. "Sorry." I faced forward again, squinting, trying to see where she was looking. Then, once again, Max was running out ahead and caught my eye. Just then, the sky opened up and it started to rain. The girls squealed and ran inside. I didn’t stir; I just sat on my notebook, put my hood up and put my hands in my pockets. The fourth time I saw Max, was one of those rainy days. The team would keep running until it became too rainy to see, then they would move from outside into the quad. The girls would run out ahead of them, but I would follow behind. Jane thought I was nuts for staying behind and she sometimes would run from me to escape the rain, but still shouting my name with a frustrated groan. “Joanie! Joanie!” Even on what we all thought would be the clearest day, it had started to rain. The guys and girls had all rushed inside and when I finally arrived as well, I got an intense whiff of fresh rain mixed with sweat. I watched them all as they instinctively paired off, flirting, sharing towels, shameless. I looked for Max, but he was nowhere to be found. The fifth time I saw Max, was the day after Jane gave me his phone number. That day Jane said she was too tired to run, so I went by myself. None of the other girls showed either. Embarrassed, I just sat on the bleachers by myself. My eyes circled the track and I noticed none of the other guys showed. A lightning bolt of realization struck me and split me open: it was just me and Max. I saw Max’s steely eyes flash to the sideline and lock on mine as he ran by. He was at once a blur and then when he looped around again was still. Up close, he looked so familiar to me. Who was this blonde know-it-all running over to me? This can’t be Max. Who is it exactly, and why does he look like someone I’ve met before? No, it’s Max, it’s Max. Of course, it is. Oh, look at him that sure is Max. And he is running over to me, though, why? Why am I overthinking this? Not since Charlie had anyone mystified me so much. "Hey, you're Joanie, right?" He pulled his eyes from mine and they traveled about my face as he was still gasping, out of breath. "Mmhmm, that's me...Joanie." I nodded and swallowed all of my thoughts, trying to forget them. "Yeah, Jane told me about you." His smile was warm, but it startled me. "She did," I sputtered this, uncertain. Jane talking about me wasn’t always a good thing. "Yeah, she said you guys have known each other a long time, err something, I don’t know sometimes when she talks, my ears close." "Oh,” I sighed, relieved, “Yeah, well... yeah. A long time.” I acknowledged this as I looked away from him, finding it disquieting to be held in his gaze. “Too long.” "Cool." He smirked and held back a laugh. "Max, right?" My eyes were pulled into his again. "Right," a nervous chuckle replaced his heavy breathing. "She gave me your number, Max." I shrugged as if I needed to apologize but that it was Jane’s fault. He was silent, and still seemed to be studying my face. I blushed and wondered what more there was to see. “Is that okay?” I gushed with a laugh, filling the silence. "Oh yeah, she told me," he reassured, “You haven’t called yet, though.” I swallowed air like I was choking, “Well, I could give you mine err-" "-Just call me soon, Jo-we'll talk." Max looked at me in that moment as if he realized who I was, and, briefly, had an unnerved expression. He caught himself with a judicious smile and ran back to the track. I was left standing there, in shock. “Well, well.” Gabby taps her pencil on her pad and then to her lips. “Yes” My eyelashes flutter as Gabby brings me back, and I ruminate with a groan as the gray walls come back into view, “Well, well.” “Did you realize at the time,” she breathed out her curious thoughts. “I know, everyone wonders how I didn’t know who he was. He looked different, and I mostly saw him from afar," I laugh at the thought. "And Charlie had been on my mind, always, but I hoped that Max would help me forget.” “Did he?” “He would try.” “Did you form a friendship then?” “...With Max?” I smile. “Of course.” “But I mean to say, was friendship on your mind, in that moment?” She looks puzzled. I look at her puzzled and say nothing. “Was he a bit of a letdown to you,” she urges. I shrug. “Sometimes, maybe.” I nod then pause, thinking, “No.” The word is as delicate as lace and I feel it twist around my heart. “Phew,” Gabby sighs as she continues to write, “Interesting.” “It was what it was.” I sink backwards again into the couch and begin to drift. “I thought: ‘anything to bring us closer.’” “Yes, what an odd pickle you faced.” Gabby blinks at me, as the word pickle hits my brain. She says it so innocently, with her gentle British lilt, I fear she is mocking me, and the entire story. And why not? It was a silly, childish flirtation that happened eons ago, sure. But a pickle? I squirm uncomfortably. “A pickle?” I pretend to startle out of my dream and laugh, “That’s putting it lightly.” “Oh, Joanna, I apologize,” Gabby sighs and eyes me as she lifts her pad again to write on it. “Do go on." The first time I called Max, my fingers were trembling. It was that afternoon, just after track practice, when I knew he would be home. There was something about that exchange that altered my image of him. He seemed like he was getting himself together now that he was literally running with the elite. He wasn’t bored, pitiful, or lost. He intrigued me, but in a way that made me excited to get to know him. Still, I had this lingering feeling that I was forgetting something, or someone. I sat, my knees bent, all curled up in the spare room on the sunken-in white couch and stared at the elevated phone buttons. "I'm going to use the phone for a minute!" I shouted to no one. We had one phone line. We didn’t even have call-waiting yet. I didn't want to be interrupted as I so often was. I, again, stared at the buttons. I thought about whether or not it would behoove me to memorize his number. I could throw away the incriminating piece of paper with Jane's loopy handwriting on it. I ran my fingers over the buttons once more tracing from one number to the next making invisible circles, so many circles. 4368899. “Easy enough,” I took a deep breath and dialed, “Right?” The phone rang once and then a click. "Hellooooo?" a chipper voice answered, "This is Brenda, with whom am I speaking?" "This is, uh, Joanie, from school, I was calling for Max-" "-Oh," Brenda supposes, "You were calling for Max?" "Yeah, he's friends with a friend of mine, is he home?” I paused, panicking, “If not I can call back later-" Friends with a friend of mine, god. "-Oh no, no!” she retorted reassuring me, “Don't be in such a hurry to go, I'm sure Max would love to hear from a friend...of a friend at school." Pfft. "Max, are you at home?" Another pause, "Oh, hold on dear, here he comes." "Is this Joanie," the insistence of his voice startled me. "Yes," I breathed through my words as if I had been the one running, "Hi, Max?" "I'll take this upstairs!" "Max?" "Just a sec-" his words bit. After a long pause and a click, a familiar sound whispered through the phone. One I hadn't heard in a year and a half. "Joanna, this is Charlie," his whisper sounded like the breeze over the bay. "What?" I felt my heart shake and rattle like it was hollow. "It's me, Charlie, well for now," he continued to whisper, like he was abducted and frightened. "What? Charlie?" I gasped a laugh, "Max, what are you talking about?" My eyes blurred and my head swam. I kept telling myself it would all make sense soon, and then I felt a brick sink deep into my stomach. I waited for laughter, but it didn't come, "Is this a sick... joke... look, did Jane put you up to this, because she never knew him, I knew him, and it's just uncool to do this to somebody!" My voice started to crack, “I’m hanging up, now!" "Wesley, it's me!" he insisted, almost hurt, “Please, don’t go!” Shocked, I twisted the phone cord around my finger. I didn’t know what to say, and then all of those little moments of things he did, and said, came flooding back. "I knew it, I mean, I knew it-" "-You did," he gasped, gutted. "Yes. Of course, well, no, of course I didn’t!” He laughed, “What?” “I mean, I wasn't sure. I mean, I just assumed I was going crazy," I sighed and gnawed on my pointer fingernail. "Well, the therapists say that's what I am,” he laughed to himself, "Well, they don't say it but it's written down in the books-" "-Charlie!" I couldn't help but giggle his name, as I'd done so many times before. Still, the girlish way I did it, embarrassed me, "You're not supposed to look at those-" "-I know, it's Max who looks." He grunted this as if he disapproved. I paused again, for a moment, in final realization that I was once again talking to Charlie. I, then, paused in realization of the mess I was in. “Hmm,” Gabby stabs the air with her interruption, and I open my eyes again. “I wonder why Charlie was so eager to tell you?” I sit up, still struggling a bit to shake the fog. “I just thought we were the best of friends and always would be. I felt that way since the day we met.” “Tell me about that day, Joanna.” Gabby sits back in her chair and I settle into the couch again.


Craig raced outside to try to catch his bus. Just as he was about to catch up to bus, the driver closed the door and drove off. When Craig finally made it to school, he was late for his SAT, the test he felt determined the rest of his life. His giant walrus teacher, Mr. Tusk said, “ Son, you’re late for your test. You’re life is ruined!” “No!” cried Craig. Mr. Tusk continued, “And you’re not wearing pants!” Craig again cried, “No!” Just as Craig realized that it was pretty cool that the school board would take a chance on a walrus, he awoke to the sound of the real bus pulling onto his street. He had overslept for real on the real biggest day of his life! He was up in a flash; he couldn’t believe how fast he was able to get ready. On his way out the door Craig felt like he was forgetting something. “Pants,” Craig muttered to himself. He stumbled down the stairs with one and a half legs of his pants secured, and as he burst through the door, he was just in time to see the bus rolling away. As Craig raced to class he hoped it would be a sharply dressed walrus standing there. He would even settle for a fur seal, but there was no such luck. This was the real test. After the test was over, Craig’s friend Nat caught up with him. “What happened to you this morning, dude? You came in late with your pants on inside out,” said Nat. Craig responded, “I don’t want to talk about it. I had kind of rough morning; the weird thing was I kind of saw it coming.” Nat said, “What do you mean?” Craig replied, “I had a dream of basically exactly what my morning was like. It was like my body knew today was gonna suck and tried to keep me trapped in bed all day. I had three alarms set for this time!” “How did you still sleep through that?” Asked Nat. “Well,” repsonded Craig, “I forgot to set two, and I had the volume down on the third one.” “You’re lucky their giving another SAT in the summer for the two kids who had mumps because their parents don‘t believe in vaccination,” said Nat. Craig replied, “Yeah I think I’m just gonna sleep in the school gym that night. But none of that matters because today’s the day I’m finally gonna get Carol Lee to go out with me.” “You didn’t waste any time on that one. I mean it’s only the last three weeks of high school,” said Nat. “Shut up,” Craig said, “here she comes. Hey, Carol Lee. Um I was wondering if you were free this weekend, maybe we could hang out and do something?” Carol Lee looked Craig up and down for a minute and said, “Okay, look. A) No. B) If you were half the loser you are, no. C) If you were the last guy on earth, still no. Please never talk to me again.” And just like that, Carol Lee walked away. Craig had never foreseen his encounter going this way. Maybe that’s why he also didn’t think that the outdoor common area where all the students gathered wasn’t the best place to ask Carol Lee out. All of the students nearby began jeering at Craig and laughing, and as he walked back into the school he could hear whispers and giggles all around him. “That was rough. How could you not see that coming?” said Nat. Craig didn’t say anything. Later that day Nat dropped by Craig’s house to check on him. Craig’s mom opened the door and told Nat that Craig was upstairs in his room. Nat headed upstairs and opened Craig’s door. “Geez man what are you thinking just bursting in on me!” Said Craig. Nat replied, “Look man whatever you might have been doing up here would be better than what you’re doing right now. I’m not going to let you mope around all night; you’re coming with the rest of us to the summer kick-off fair tonight.” Craig said, “Why would I even think about showing my face around anyone this summer?” “Because if you don’t I’m gonna tell your mom where you hide your weed,” Nat said. Craig snapped back, “I don’t have any weed.” Nat replied, “You do now. I dropped it off on my way in.” Craig sat up in his bed and said, “Why are you doing this to me?” Nat said, “Because I’m your boy now get up.” Craig smiled and got up. That night at the fair, Craig chose the funnel cake vendor that ran out of funnel cake right as he was next in line, waited an hour for a ride that broke down as he was about to get on and dropped his wallet in the toilet. Later Craig wandered off by himself and stumbled upon an old, creepy looking carnival game. The only writing on it said “make a wish.” Craig looked, but there was no slot to insert money. All of a sudden the wooden puppet inside the glass came to liGe and said, “Make a wish.” Craig said, “I wish I could see the future. The puppet said, “Done.” Craig tried his best to see what his future held, but he could not. In fact an old gypsy woman surprised a scream out of him when she walked up behind Craig and said in her gravelly old voice, “What are you doing?” Craig regained his composure and said, “Oh, nothing I was just trying out this old game here.” “What that?” She continued, “That’s just something we use to prop up the popcorn machine. May I ask why you were all the way over here by yourself mumbling to our popcorn stand?” Craig responded, “I just had a pretty crappy day, and I was just thinking how great it would be to be able to see the future. Then maybe I wouldn’t have to deal with everything I’ve been through today ever again.” The gypsy woman prodded him on saying, “Then what fun would be left to be had? No surprises, no risks. Are you really sure you want what you’re asking for?” Craig smuggly replied, “Lady if you knew what my day was like, you’d know that I’m 100% sure I want to be able to see the future.” To that that gypsy lady just said, “Done.” As she walked away she added, “Oh, do be careful, Dear. Often those whose sole focus is on what lies ahead will begin to lose sight of what surrounds them now.” With that, she was gone. Craig didn’t know what to think of what had just happened, but what he did know was that he needed to go home and dry out his wallet. When Craig woke up the next day he felt like he could barely remember how terrible the last day had been. He got out of bed and went to take a shower. While the water was running, he remembered, or at least he thought he remembered reaching down to pick up the shampoo bottle he knocked over, as he shower pretended to be telling off Carol Lee, and slipped and fell out of the shower, ripping the shower curtain down and causing his mom to burst in on him. The only problem is that none of that had happened yet; Craig was still running the water for his shower. Sure enough as he showered, Craig hit Carol Lee with that perfect imaginary argument one liner and knocked over his bottle of shampoo. He stared down at it; he went to pick it up and slipped and fell through the shower curtain. Just then Craig’s mom burst in. “Oh geez Craig cover yourself up!” Shrieked Craig’s mom as she exited. Craig couldn’t believe what had just happened. Could he really have just remembered something from the future. No, he thought to himself; it was just deja vous. Just then Craig remembered for real that he was late again for his make up SAT test, and he hurriedly ran out the door. Craig sat in front of his test packet, As he peeled the tab to open the booklet that would determine the rest of his life, he tried not to think about how this would determine the rest of his life. While staring at the empty bubbles, Craig had a vision. It was like he was remembering when he was able to see the correct answers for the test he was taking today. “I haven’t seen any answer key, obviously this is crazy...I’m a crazy person,” Craig thought to himself, but after the shower incident Craig thought this was probably his best shot at acing his SAT. Craig’s suspicions were confirmed when he got his test results back three weeks later, a perfect score; there was also an answer sheet with the results like from his vision only this time it wasn’t riddled with red bubbles indicating missed answers. This time it was all green. Craig was astonished; he just realized that he had changed his future. “Forget college,” Craig thought, “I can do whatever I want.” Craig immediately grabbed the finance section of his dad’s paper and started to circle different stocks. One month later two of Craig’s stocks split; Craig was a millionaire. He took Nat to a steakhouse to celebrate, and while the two ate, Carol Lee, who waitressed there, came over to speak to Craig. “Hey Craig. I heard you got a perfect score on your SAT, and you’re some kind of stock market guru now. How do you do it?“ Craig replied, “You just have to have a keen sense of the future I guess.” Nat chimed in, “Yeah I mean you sold your car and invested in a Brazilian clothing company no one’s ever heard of and now everybody’s got a pair of their jeans on. How’d you know?” “Listen,” Craig began, “I can’t tell how you how I do it; I just look over all my options and listen to whatever reveals itself to me.” Carol Lee responded, “Well if you still want to get together sometime, me and some of the other waitresses are going out to the ridge this weekend. It’s not quite prom, but it’s gonna be fun.” Craig said, “I don’t think I’m going to be able to make it this weekend; I have a meeting in New York about starting my own firm.” Carol Lee responded disheartened by saying, “Oh well that’s too bad, but I understand.” “What are you doing, dude?! That was your chance,” Nat yell whispered at Craig. Craig replied, “Trust me. I’ll have another chance. Next Tuesday at Dairy Queen at 7:30.” Nat said, “What?” “Nothing,” Craig stammered. Craig finally had life by the horns; he felt invincible, except for one thing. It seemed that the more he looked into the future, the hazier his past became, but Craig’s life up to this point was anything but memorable, and things were just starting to get good. So Craig kept reading his future. Craig started his own financial planning firm that took the business world by storm. Business was so good, he was tried for insider trading, but Craig was already prepared with a defense that countered every accusation against him. He married Carol Lee, and Nat worked as the CFO of Craig’s firm after Nat graduated from college. Life was perfect for Craig, but his memory of the past kept fading. Each time Craig reached into his future to grab the next big money maker, a little of his past was wiped from his mind. At first it was just mild episodes where Craig would forget his client’s names which he would blame on having so many clients these days or forgetting Carol Lee’s birthday which he said was an unfortunate side effect of running such a large firm. But Craig knew that he was having trouble keeping everything together. Lately he couldn’t remember where his office was, who his personal chef was or what his mother looked like. Things were at their breaking point with Carol Lee because Craig couldn’t recognize her or their son most days. It would take her an hour to convince him to let her use their bathroom. Carol Lee and Nat confronted Craig about his memory loss. “We need to talk,” Nat began. “We think you might need to get some serious help for your memory, Craig.” “We?” Craig responded. Carol Lee said, “Yes we. It’s me; your wife, Carol Lee.” “I know who you both are,” Craig said coldly. Carol Lee continued, “Honey the fish oil and neutroopics aren’t working. You need to see a doctor. You could cave Alzheimer’s.” “I don’t have Alzheimer’s,” Craig returned. Nat interjected, “She’s right, Craig.” All of sudden Craig cut Nat off in a fury while he slammed his hand against his desk, “You want to know who’s right?!” “Don’t do this, Craig,” said Nat. “No!” Interrupted Craig. “You want to know the secret to all this success? It’s not you throwing charity balls, Carol Lee; it’s not that you’re such a financial wizard, Nat. The reason we have all of this is because of me! I can see the future!” “He’s lost his mind. How big is your ego Craig?!” said Carol Lee “It’s not my ego!” Craig fired back. “How do you think I knew to put fifty percent of our company’s holding into that fidget spinning thing then sell at it’s height of popularity four weeks later before it disappeared off the face of the earth? Explain that? I’m not an artist or a master or an anything I didn’t even really get a perfect score on the SAT’s. The only reason we’re standing here is because I can see the future like a memory, but every time I do I lose some of my past memories.” Carol Lee replied softly, “So you’re telling me that I sat alone at a restaurant or an opera or in a vacation home each birthday and anniversary for the last three years because you couldn’t stop making money? If this is really true, you’re a cold bastard, Craig. You’re not the boy I knew in high school.” Craig replied harshly, “Of course I’m not! You had no interest in the boy you knew in high school. You only noticed me once I started making money. I did all this for us. To keep our company afloat so you can sit alone in five star restaurants and million dollar vacation homes.” “No. You did this because you’re addicted to money and the notoriety. Don’t you dare pretend that you did this because you care about me. If you loved me, you would have been there for me all these years. I thought you were just busy running the company, so I forgave you, but now you’re telling me that you chose to forget me all this time? If you don’t stop this...this future memory I can tell you that you won’t need to remember me at all because I’ll be gone,” said Carol Lee. Nat added, “Craig we sold...I sold stock market investment guides; we put countless actual brokers out of business. I helped you claw your way to the top, and now you’re telling me that those guides were bogus? The people we fired when we chopped up firms for assets never even had a competitive chance? You and I are done professionally, and unless you stop this now, you and I are done personally.” Craig said quietly, “You dare come to me with your morals and your winey complaints. I gave you the world. You should be thanking me. I want both of you out of my office now. I won’t even remember you were ever here.” With that Carol Lee and Nat exited Craig’s office and Craig’s life. Craig continued to dominate Wall Street, and as he predicted, he couldn’t remember Nat or Carol Lee. Occasionally he would look at pictures in his penthouse and try to imagine who in his life could they have been. Craig’s life was lonely. Outside of board meeting and the cleaning lady, Craig had no real company. More and more he would stare at the pictures in his home trying desperately to remember who they were, but he could not. One night as he ate at one of his favorite restaurants, a hideous woman who was dressed beautifully walked by him, and Craig did something he had not done in quite some time. He recognized her. It was the gypsy woman who had cursed him with his clairvoyance. He approached her and asked, “How could you do this to me? You knew what would happen, and you cursed me anyway.” The gypsy woman replied, “If you do recall, which I know you can’t, I told you to be careful and to not look to hard into the future or you may lose sight of your past.” Craig retorted, “How was I supposed to know you meant I would lose my memory?” “Let me ask you this,” the gypsy said, “did you stop when you realized what was happening? No. You made your bed; you lie in it, if you can even remember where it is.” The gypsy woman chuckled and had some men in the restaurant take Craig away. Craig was beside himself; he had everything and lost it all. All he had was nothing without someone to share it with. But then he realized, he had recognized the gypsy. If he could recall her, maybe he could remember whoever it was in his photos. For months Craig spent his spare time going through old photos, old letters, emails, everything he could get his hands on. The months turned to years, Craig had nearly memorized every shred of evidence that he ever even had family and friends. Finally, one gray, drizzly morning Carol Lee opened up the door to her apartment and saw a gray, bearded Craig standing outside. Craig said, “Look I know I might be the last person you want to see, but I have to tell you something. The last four years I’ve done nothing, but try to remember who you are. Even though I didn’t know who you were, I thought about you everyday. One day I was staring at a letter you sent me after our separation, and I finally knew who had sent it. I used the address you gave in the letter to come find you. I sold the company and formed the Carol Lee Foundation that Nat is currently running. We build children’s hospitals. I want you back Carol Lee. I’m sorry.” Without speaking a word, Carol Lee walked over to Craig and wrapped him in her arms. Then she said, “I knew you would find me.” Craig asked, “How could you be sure?” Carol Lee said, “Whenever I look into my future, I always see you there.”


What am I going to do with them? *Display them on a shelf*? Frame them? Put them in a safety deposit box? Sell them for a profit? Keep them as lucky charms? Use them as a conversation opener with someone I might want to meet? Form a club?. Make a living?! I had no clue. What worldwide event may have inspired me; was it something I inherited from my parents who lived through the depression? What motivated me to do such a thing? What was I thinking? I have questions that need to be answered. Maybe **I WAS CRAZY**, but getting better, because I was beginning to acknowledge that what I had been doing... was insane! I soon realized that everyone does it at some time in their life.  It is 1947, and I am five and in the first grade. Our school is at the top of a small hill. It is called "the Old Brick Schoolhouse", and it is still there in 2018, only now, it is a library. It is a two-story structure all brick and looks like a child's block in design. It is very small with only four classrooms, grades 1-4. Two rooms are above the two at the ground level. I don't even remember seeing a principal's office, just the classrooms and two sets of stairs. There was no kindergarten for children. We all started in first grade at the age of five. There was a large grassy play area with a slide, a teeter-totter, and a large spinning apparatus that nearly all the children could ride on at once. Grades 5-12 all go to the high school, which actually had a gym, just a couple of miles away.  Mrs. Wilson, our teacher, tells us to settle down and take out our reader. We will go around the room row by row with each student reading a paragraph. She would read to us so that we could catch the rhythm and flow of the written words. It was an interesting time just a couple of years after the end of World War II, and there was happiness and friendships, but not a lot of extra money around. A nickel would buy two loaves of bread and most residents owned a sewing machine, often one called a Singer. They made a lot of their own clothes. Thus, we kids didn't have too many toys. Some had bicycles and many had homemade wagons. We took to collecting a variety of things.  There's a red, another red, a blue, 4 blacks, another red, a green. How many red today? My hands are smeared, must wash them. A bell rings. "Everyone, sit down!" comes a sweet, soft voice. It had only been a few minutes, but I was doing well. Must get up from the dirty floor. "Please, take your seat, *now*!" comes the command, not as sweet this time. It seems as if everyone is looking at me as I return to my desk with my finds. All of the desks are the same; they are old with obsolete holes for inkwells near the front, wooden with a seat that doesn't swivel, and a top that opens up for books and other supplies. No one says anything to me. They are my friends--all 17 of them. They probably hunt for treasures of their own. Most of them will do it when they are outside or walking home. They may collect unusual rocks or colorful leaves. Every day I search for my personal cache knowing that I am the only one in the room with this unusual collection. I fill my treasure chest, a small box I use for pencils and erasers, with my prizes.  I collect the lead tips from broken pencils. **Yes**, broken pencil tips. I would easily find them on desks, the floor and around the pencil sharpener. Besides pencils, most of us had a combination pencil which may be still made today. It was a red pencil on one end and the other half was blue. Some kids had colored pencils with green, yellow, and other colors that they used for drawing when we did art. Those were my favorites as they were hard to find. To this day, I don't know why I did this, or whatever happened to the lead. It was just something to do to have some fun. I also had a second collection because my dad worked at one of the two filling stations in town. A bottle of pop at the station was five cents, but I was allowed to take one for free because my Dad worked there.  Soda pop was the source. There was no soda machine, just sodas in a large ice cooler. They were bottles kept in ice water that had a large block of ice in the middle. A bottle opener was attached, and it was where everyone opened them. I collected the soda caps out of the catcher and took them home; The Dad's Root Beer cap was my favorite along with Hires Root Beer and Cream Soda, and 7-up and any type of Nesbitt-- Orange, Grape, and Strawberry. Not only could they be kept in a small box, but they could be used as war metals when playing or a badge for a sheriff in a cowboy game; just take the cork from inside the cap and put it inside of your t-shirt and push the cap back onto it from the other side. I kept only the ones that were hardly bent. It was always fun to find ones that I did not already have.  Larry, my neighbor, collected something else that cost no money. He strung string in an *"x"* fashion across the ceiling of his bedroom. He collected matchbook covers and would open up the "books" and drape them over the string. Nearly every store in town had free matchbooks with their store names on them: taverns, hardware stores, banks, filling stations, etc. A great percentage of people smoked at this time, so these matchbooks could easily be found. And, as there were many nearby towns, many were available.  When I was a pre-teen I collected marbles. We had pockets filled with pretty marbles. Some were unique and were used as shooters when we played games at grade school. We would draw a large circle, ante a few marbles and take turns knocking them out. You kept whatever you could blast out of the circle using your shooter. You shot until you missed. Should your shooter not knock a marble out, and was unfortunate enough to remain in the circle, it could be knocked out and kept by another player. It was a big loss to lose your *lucky shooter*. We played other games such as poison, a game like croquet. Sometimes we would "lag" them, toss for a line and closest would win all the marbles from those that were in the game. I guess we were gambling on school grounds, but no one ever said a word.  When I was around 13, I began to collect baseball cards. A pack of them cost around a nickel. There were around 10 cards and a large piece of bubble gum in the pack. They were major league players throwing or hitting or pitching. All of their statistics were on the back side. We all wanted the big stars such as Willie Mays, Yogi Berra, Whitey Ford, and Bob Feller. The stars were in the packs, but few and far between. Instead, lesser players' cards abounded. It was fun trading the cards. Sometimes you could get ten for one if it was one that another collector didn't have. I never knew a kid that ever assembled a complete set. The "Topps" company was smarter than the average kid.  As an adult, I have collected around 1,000-1,500 wood tennis racquets, many new! I have displayed them, sold them on eBay, traded a few, and managed to get a few actual tennis legends to sign them--Jack Kramer, Rod Laver, etc. A movie studio called a collector friend of mine and wanted around 25 early 1900-1930 racquets to be used in a movie, and he came to me because he needed a few more. So, I have had some of my collection in a movie!  I know what I did with the wood tennis racquets, with the baseball cards, with the marbles, and with the bottle caps, but for the life of me don't understand what happened to the pencil lead. Still, I guess everyone from time to time will collect something for one reason or another.


“Go north.” The old man looked across the street that was littered with snakes chewing up the blacktop. “You’re a lot of help.” Johnny replied. “I try to be.” He looked back at Johnny. “There’s nothing left here.” “What are you going to do?” The old man was dressed in a white suit, and when he turned back to the hissing of the street, Johnny noticed that even in 100 degree weather, there were no sweat marks. Johnny only saw the nicotine shades of years of smoking. “These snakes will run out of blacktop. Then, it’s just me and the desert.” “What’s north?” “Not here. That’s where north is. Not here. I’m an old man. And maybe we’re the last people for miles alive, but that doesn’t make us partners. Or buddies. I’d just like to stay here and watch the end.” And with that, the old man lit a cigarette and eased back into the rocking chair he was sitting in. Johnny looked down at his feet, then back at the road. You had to keep your distance. Some of the snakes had a real reach and you could easily get picked off if you didn’t pay attention. You avoided the road. There were a list of things the snakes lived off that you wanted to avoid. Most oils. Tar. Strangely, liquor. Cars were out of the question, unless they were armored. Scores of people had tried taking the family out with all the windows rolled up and the doors locked and ended up with the bastards coming up through the engine. Ugly situations. The parents in the front seat being butchered by foot long fangs, while the car comes to a stop and the kids look dumbfounded at each other as the snakes cocoon the car... “You know, I knew it. I knew it when they brought it up.” The old man tossed a bottle of Jack Daniels into the street and watched the rolling wave absorb it. “They say things. These scientists. They say, we know this. We know that. But they never have common sense. You pull something up from the bottom of the ocean and you examine it. That’s fine. But then you start mucking around with mother nature and” he tossed another bottle “you get this.” “Provisions?” “Is this 1894? You mean food and water - over there, across the street.” The old man let out a single laugh, then went back to rocking. Johnny eyed the store across the street and looked down the road. “You ain’t gonna get a dead end for miles. You might as well be walking to North Dakota.” “You got food and booze...and cigarettes.” “I have ways. Kinda like the snakes. If they wait long enough, someone will feed them out of desperation.” “What about these houses?” “Full of snakes. You have to find a way across that road, boy.” Johnny eyed the street and noticed the traffic lights. “Ah, smart thinking. But if you drop...” The old man belted out another laugh and Johnny strode towards the lights. He took a running start at the poll, as it was close enough to the street that he could get bit. He jumped. Hooking both arms around the poll he began to squat up. The old man threw a whiskey bottle at Johnny, hitting him in the face and Johnny dropped to the desert below. The snakes swarmed him as the old man walked quickly across the street to the store. “I told you to go North!” It's up. Nope. Got flagged. Here it is. The old man wondered up the liquor aisle and grabbed a bottle of absinthe and walked back down towards the registers. He laughed out loud and then yelled “Scientists!” Then he stopped. Two feet away, hanging from the fluorescents was a snake. It opened its jaws to reveal a mouth the size of a tire. “Hang on, old buddy.” The old man stepped backward and the snake hissed. “When they brought it up, it had all the shape and size of a meteor: just a big black rock that had been pummeled almost to death for eons. Then they pried further and found the organisms. They were smaller than a booger on a mouse. Well, these folks in these labs congratulated themselves and the world celebrated aliens. Aliens! Folks don’t even know their neighbors that well and they get all excited about mouse turds from outer space. Well, I don’t get it.” The old man paused and scratched at the wound in his face. “Feller over at the store there bit me just now. See that skeleton yonder, that was a boy I was helping across the street. Snakes got him. Got a taste for it. Next thing you know, the snakes are in the store. Well, boy howdy, I’ll tell you what - those scientists sure fucked us good.” The old man began to cry. “Look see, old boy, I know you can hear me and I know you know I been feeding you boys with the choicest cuts of human. Now, why don’t you just back up and give me some space. Get you a nice bottle of Daniels.” The old man stepped slowly back to the whiskey aisle and grabbed a bottle. The absinthe dropped and the snake hissed and took a swatch of skin off the old man’s cheek. “Har! Fuck!” The old man slammed the bottle of Jack against the floor and the snake hit the ground hissing and lapping up the intoxicant. Four more snakes dropped from the ceiling and the old man looked up. “Jesus wept.” The ceiling was covered in snakes. One snake seemed to be king over them all. It was coiled around the entire store and six of the smaller snakes were curled up in its jaws. The old man grabbed another bottle of absinthe and clipped a carton of cigarettes on his gallop out. Knees in the air in a full-on Looney Toon sprint, the old man vacated the store and paused to catch his breath when the woman asked him which direction to go. “Go north.” “Do you know what happened? What happened everywhere?” “When they brought it up...” The old man stared up at the sun, tears streaming down his cheeks. “That’s how. They played with those aliens...got in their DNA. You know - the stuff that makes you a lovely lady and me an old man.” The woman laughed. “You’re not that old.” “I wasn’t once. See, all you folks end up a mile out. Stop the car, walk into town. Tourists! You think this is interesting or something. It’s terrifying.” “Why don’t you leave?” “Why would you drive into a quarantine zone? This all happened months ago. I know you all think it’s just some virus. But it’s not. Lab’s a couple miles up. That’s where it all began. But I guess you thought you’d take a look. Last guy had a camera. Pretty sure he was a reporter. What are you? CIA?” “I’m looking for my mother.” “Let me help you - she’s dead. Go North.” The old man pulled out a cigarette and fell to the ground on his butt and began to cry harder. “I’m stuck on this side now. I’m stuck forever without my wife.” “Is your wife dead?” The old man grinned at the ground and murmured “Yes.” The woman looked across the road. “Give me your jacket and that bottle of absinthe.” The old man handed her both. She doused the jacket in absinthe, and then pushed a bit of it into the bottle and lit it. Then she hurled the bottle into the street. The snakes rushed away from the fire and she grabbed his hand and said “Let’s go.” The old man took her hand and walked with her across the street. As they passed within feet of the snakes the old man fell to the ground. The woman knelt to help the old man and he came at her with a knife. “Fresh bait!” He yelled, eyes popping out, drool running down his face. The woman paused and then drew a pistol from her lower back and shot the man twice in the throat. There was a ringing and the woman pulled a phone from her pocket and replied into it “Agent Edwards.” She walked to the other side of the street, speaking into the phone and watching the snakes recede back to what would soon be a bloody skeleton. “Our leak has dried up. Bad intel, though. Also, I think there’s a queen here in the store.” “Here comes the Hocus Pocus.” The Speaker said. They were in an old colonial-looking house off a road somewhere in California. It was daylight outside and motes of dust hung in the air and passed between each agent as they breathed. Some were sitting on couches, others on chairs. One man had his legs dangling from a counter in the kitchen. “You are on a Green Card assignment. Present Green Cards.” The group of agents each took out a Joker card from their pockets and presented it. The cards were green with a red, and a laughing joker presented in the middle of the card. The speaker, no one had any idea what rank or what agency, pulled out a small flashlight-looking device and swung it around the room, reading each card. “Alright. DCI has acknowledged me and my permission to give orders as you will find, or did find, on the cards. This is a Hocus Pocus. If you are not familiar with that situational status, I will explain it. A Hocus Pocus is a situation that has no logical or scientific explanation as we understand it. For instance, if aliens landed, it would be deemed Hocus Pocus. Scientifically speaking, it is possible. Logically, aliens - intelligent aliens, should not be able to land here as physics and our own known knowledge of our own solar neighborhood would contradict it. Similarly, a ghost would be a Hocus Pocus. Hyper-intelligent apes. Houses made out of fish. You get the idea. This however, this situation, deals with the occult. If you are not familiar with the occult, you should not be on this team. You have been selected as your backgrounds reflect a knowledge of ancient wisdom, Aleister Crowley, and Tarot cards. Basically, you people are geeks.” There was a brief spatter of laughter that wasn’t returned by the Speaker. “My name is Ed. You can call me Ed if you need to address me. You do not want my full name. You do not want any information about me whatsoever. You are to perform specific tasks. You are not to delve into the information you gather any further than your assignment carries you. You are not to connect the dots. You are not to put the puzzle together. You are the puzzle. Each of you is a piece and let no piece meet. There will be no sharing of intel outside of the briefings you will receive via Green Cards. Now, the situation. About six months ago, seemingly out of nowhere, a snake handler by the name of Cabal Brooks appeared in the desert of Nevada. This man then approached the city of Boulder, Nevada and all hell broke loose. The first reports of problems came from a police deputy who was called to the home of Brooks on rumors he was amassing a large stock of illegal weapons. This visit then turned into a shootout. The shootout then turned into a standoff. I’m sure you all saw it on the news. Brooks was never located, but soon reports came in that a cult had formed around the memory of the man, who left a bullet riddled home and two dead officers. If you look at your Green Card, you will see a picture of the man. He looks like Colonel Sanders. Always wearing a white suit. Friendly guy. The FBI sent two agents to infiltrate the group and they were converted. There was a raid. No one returned. That was not in the news. Then there was no contact from the entire town. Next, the snakes began to appear. We headed this one off at the pass, and quarantined most of Nevada under the guise of a super flu. And now we’re here. About the snakes - we do not know where they came from or what they are. Obviously, snakes the size of trains are not known or logical scientific facts of our great Earth. However, we are in possession of an escapee of Mr. Brooks’ cult. And, yes, we believe, based on this individual’s account, that Brooks is still alive. This individual claims that these snakes are a simple charm of a legion of...things...that will befall our great Earth. It is this individual’s account that Mr. Brooks is summoning...wait for it kids...Satan.” The group exchanged incredulous looks. “Boys and girls, we take this seriously. The CIA is not in the religion business. Nor are we naïve. No folks, we have project after project of information concerning the summoning or the belief to reality of certain entities we can just call deities. I’m sure you are all fully aware of a Project Babylon back in the last century and let me just drop this nugget - it worked. I will not disclose to what extent, but rest assured your reality has been tweaked since. Tweaked is a nice way of putting it. But that’s internet conspiracy stuff, right? Maybe so, but right now I can safely and sanely tell you all that we believe that a force, a hostile force, is being created and threatens the United States. If that makes it a better way of saying it, so be it. But make no mistake: we believe this Mr. Brooks is provoking something illogical and destructive and thus the Green Cards. That’s it? Any questions? Just joking. Your Green Cards will alert you to your orders. The only information I will reveal about any assignments to all of you is that Agent Edwards will be taking point. As for the snakes, you are to keep your distance. This mission is for intel, not for house cleaning. Have a nice day.” “Repeat. There is a Queen in the store. Also, I may have killed Colonel Sanders.” It sounded foolish and she laughed to herself. Turning around, she looked at the body. The snakes were avoiding it and the Colonel, or possibly the Colonel, was gasping for breath out of the two new breathing holes she had given him. The sight was putrid. It was as if someone had stuck a piece of bubble gum in a trach hole and set the person breathing through it. Just blood bubbling up and popping. She turned around and the ground shook. In the space of a second, she had found cover behind a garbage can and was scanning the area. The snakes had completely left the patch of road where the presumed Colonel lay. An Open sign was swinging in the doorway of the store and the kid’s skeleton was still lying below the traffic lights. The ground shook again, but this time all but one window in the store shattered.


Jeremy found the caterpillar one summer evening when he was foraging in the old tumble-down house at the edge of the town. It was said that a crazy old man had lived there, but he was long gone. All the local kids knew how easy it was to get into the grounds, as there were several parts of the surrounding wall that had collapsed, allowing access to the now overgrown gardens. Jeremy had been trying to free an old grass roller, rusted and trapped by tendrils of weeds, when he had heard the other boys coming. One of the voices made him shudder with recognition. Quickly he had pushed his way into the undergrowth, so that he could not be seen. He had been right, it was Rob Nicholls, and his band of followers. Jeremy didn’t need to hear their braying laughter to know that they were up to no good. He held his breath. He’d had run ins with Nicholls before. However, as they had all grown older and arrived on the cusp of their teenage years, these run ins had begun to take on a more ominous nature. It seemed with every month the nasty streak that ran through Nicholls had become a darker shade of black. So far things had been little more than threats, with a bit of pushing and shoving. But Jeremy knew they were escalating; and he was hoping to avoid being around when Nicholls went on to the next level of thuggery. He sighed a silent sigh of relief as the gang passed him by, heading around the old house to where the greenhouses were. Sure enough, the sound of smashing glass could soon be heard. There was a violence even in this that made Jeremy very relieved that he had not been caught here on his own. Something had been pressing against his back; he managed to turn himself around. Hidden by the vegetation was what looked like an old garden shed. The door was unlocked, secured by a rusty latch. Jeremy pushed; the door opened inwards with surprisingly little resistance. He pushed a little more; there was enough room for him to pass. There was further smashing of glass, reminding him that he would probably be best hanging around unseen for a bit longer. Plus, his vivid imagination had already invented a hundred stories about the abandoned shed, and he was desperate to explore. Inside there was a surprising amount of light. There was a large hole in the roof, as if something heavy had been dropped through it; a beam of moonlight entered through it, illuminating floating motes of silver and gold that danced in the air. It was, disappointingly, what it looked like, a garden shed. A variety of implements hung on the walls; shelves were filled with tins and jars with labels that had long ago faded. Attached to a wall was a rusty tap and a battered old tin bucket, There was a calendar from the 1970s on the wall, and an ancient looking stove on the floor, half buried in a sea of desiccated leaves. There were also many pieces of what looked like broken pottery scattered around the floor. Not much else; but then, Jeremy didn’t need much else. The imagination that uncontrollable shyness and being largely forgotten by his parents most of the time had provided him with an imagination that could turn anything into an adventure. He became aware of something rustling, deep in the leaves. He froze. He hated rats and was not too keen on mice either. The leaves began to move, like earth with a mole travelling through it. Part of Jeremy wanted to run; the imagining part of him though did not. The whatever-it-was came closer. Then the leaves parted. Two huge round eyes stared at him, black, unblinking. Then a body appeared, inching its way along the floor. It was a caterpillar; although this was the largest one Jeremy had ever encountered, even on TV nature programmes. It was the size of a kitten at least, he thought; and covered with silver hairs and bristles. There was something sad, lost about the creature. It seemed to glow a dull, sickly grey, like a neon sign that was fading. The creature regarded Jeremy with its huge black eyes. It would inch forward nervously towards him, then stop, as if unsure if Jeremy was a threat or not. Jeremy grabbed some leaves from the bush outside and bent down, waving the greenery in front of the caterpillar. “You hungry?” he said. The caterpillar continued to stare at him; Jeremy even imagined for a second that it had put its head on its side as if questioning him. “Don’t like that then?” He reached into his pocket and pulled out something. “You like chocolate, hm?” He unwrapped the chocolate bar and held it out. The caterpillar nudged it with his nose; then its mandibles opened, and the chocolate bar disappeared. The caterpillars body pulsed with a purple glow; suddenly his body had more of a healthy glow. “What are you doing Jeremy?” The voice made him jump. He spun round to see a girl standing at the open door. In the evening light he could make out her leather jacket, jeans, and boots that seemed several sizes too large for her. Dark make up around her eyes made her face seem even paler than it probably was. her head seemed to be shaved on one side, with a mass of green and purple hair on the other side. “Who...who are you?” said Jeremy, although she seemed somehow familiar. “I’m Stephanie!” she sighed. “Stephanie Burrows; we go to the same school!” Jeremy glanced at her hair again. “Okay, maybe I don’t look quite like this when I’m in the classroom. “I live next door, been watching you through my telescope.” She pointed to a window overlooking the garden. “Saw a shooting star a couple of days back; it came down in this garden, but I haven’t been able to find it...” she stopped suddenly. “What” she said, pointing “is that?” “It’s a caterpillar; I just found him...” “Its...huge! “And your feeding it... chocolate ?” “He likes it...makes him happy...” “Well that’s nice; but we should feed him some fruit as well. Wonder where he came from...” The girl picked up what looked like some broken pottery off the floor. The pieces fitted together into a large ball shape. She looked up at the hole in the roof. “Jeremy; I think you have found my shooting star... “I think he came down...from up there; this looks like some kind of egg...” Jeremy followed her gaze upwards. “You mean he’s a space caterpillar?” “Well we don’t have caterpillars this size on Earth, do we? “Tell you what; we’ll keep him a secret, come and feed him every day?” “I can bring him some chocolate...” “Okay; I’ll bring him some fruit from our garden.” Stephanie filled the tin bucket from the tap outside. She placed it in front of the caterpillar; the creature began to drink with a loud lapping sound. “Stay here in your nest” she said. “We’ll see you tomorrow...” They closed the door and dropped the latch. “Hang on” said Jeremy, peering out of the bushes nervously. “It’s all right” said Stephanie. “Those horrible boys have gone. I’ve been watching them with my telescope too. “So; meet you here same time tomorrow, okay?” Jeremy nodded. “I’ll bring chocolate” he said. “We can share it.” For the next couple of weeks, they fed and watered the caterpillar daily. Every day the creature grew a bit bigger, its fur became brighter, more colourful. Now when they opened the door there was a bright, healthy glow from the creature, like an oversized neon glow worm. It did seem visibly pleased to see them, shuffling forward happily and allowing them to pet its head. After almost a month the caterpillar was the size of a large pig. It glowed brightly, its fur now glorious stripes of silver and gold. “It glows like the moon does” said Stephanie. “Tell you what; lets google it.” She took out her phone and typed in the words “moon caterpillar”. “Nothing ...no, here we are. In a website called “Cryptozoo.com.” “Moon Moth. A mythological creature that travels the stars and is attracted to bright lights, such as stars and moons, in the same way an earthly moth is drawn to a light bulb.” “Moon Moth?” “Of course. Maybe they need to find a planet where they can feed and go through their transformation process...” The next day when they opened the door there was no welcome, no sound at all. The caterpillar was no longer there; instead, in the corner of the shed, was what looked very much like a huge pea pod. It pulsated regularly with purple and green neon light; occasionally there was what looked like a small electrical charge going through the body. “Amazing” said Stephanie. He’s turned into a chrysalis...” “I wonder what’s going to come out...” said Jeremy. The chrysalis remained in its dormant state for the next few days. Then one evening, Jeremy was about to open the door to the shed when there was a voice behind them. “What are you two up to then?” They spun round to see Nicholls and his gang, pushing their way through the bushes. They all wore matching tracksuits and trainers, with pudding basin haircuts and skin so pale their veins showed blue beneath. “What you doing in that shed all on your own, eh?” Nicholls sniggered, the other boys joining in. “None of your business Robert Nicholls.” Stephanie stood protectively in front of the door. Nicholls was small, almost a head shorter than her; even so, there was something about him that made her want to draw back. “Oh. So there’s something inside, is there; something you don’t want us to see, hm?” Nicholls stepped forward and pushed Stephanie to one side. She tried to push back but one of the other boys grabbed her. Nicholls stared at Jeremy, as if daring him to do anything. The other boys barged Jeremy out of the way. “Let’s have a look then, shall we. And then we can tell your mums and dads what you’ve been up to!” While the others held on to Jeremy and Stephanie, Nicholls wrenched open the door and went inside. “Right then” he said “Let’s see what we’ve got...” His voice trailed off. From inside the shed there came a strange, muffled fluttering sound; it reminded Jeremy of tent flaps in the wind when he’d been on a camping trip with his parents. Suddenly there was a scream from inside, and a frantic, panicked scrabbling at the door. “Let me out” yelled Nicholls. “Please let me out! The eyes...get me away from the eyes!” he sobbed. The gang of boys froze, unable to make a decision without their leader. At last Stephanie broke free and wrenched the door open. Nicholls came out backwards, staring into the shed and almost falling. At last he turned, staring wildly at the others. “The eyes” he sobbed again. The other boys stared at him in astonishment, taking in the damp patch on the front of his jeans. “Rob...you’ve wet yourself man” said one of them. They all sniggered; however, this time there was no arrogance there, just embarrassment, and an element of fear. Nicholls took one more look inside the shed. “Nooo!” he screamed once again. He pushed the others out of the way and bolted, falling several times in his panic to get away. The rest of the gang looked at each other sheepishly, then followed him. Jeremy glanced at Stephanie, then stepped inside. The eyes were there, enormous, glowing, boring into him, surrounded by multi-coloured patterns that swirled and eddied around like oil on water. Jeremy felt the remnants of a sense of threat, now fading into a sense of welcome, of happiness. “Those are...” “It’s wings” said Stephanie from over Jeremy’s shoulder. “He’s a fully-grown moth...” The Moon Moth towered over them. It stood on rear legs, other legs extending from a beautifully striped, gold and silver furry body. Antennae poked out of the hole in the roof, twitching as if searching for a signal. Two more eyes, the moth’s real ones, stared at Jeremy and Stephanie. “Those eyes...the ones on the wings...” said Stephanie. “I think they’re his protection; you know, like normal moths can pretend to be predators using their camouflage. I think they work by hypnotising any threat, unloading a sense of terror onto it. Like that Nicholls boy. He was aggressive, and the wings reflected that back at him, many times increased...” “No wonder he ran away...” “But he knows who we are; some memory of us has remained, even through his metamorphosis...” The moth flexed his wings gently, wafting a sense of pleasure towards them. Then, grabbing the edges of the hole in the roof, he propelled himself up and out. Jeremy and Stephanie followed him outside. He stood on the roof now and began to stretch his wings to their fullest extent. The moonlight illuminated him; and he began to glow along with it. “He’s getting energy...from the moonlight...” “That’ll be why he’s called a Moon Moth then, won’t it Jeremy?” The moth seemed to be growing in size and in strength now, more wings becoming more solid. They fluttered suddenly, the wind from them almost knocking Jeremy and Stephanie over. “He’s getting ready to go” said Stephanie. “But we can follow him!” She grabbed Jeremy, pulling him with her. They ran back to her house; Stephanie shouted a “its us Mum” before they thundered up the stairs to her room. The telescope pointed out of her window, straight at the moon. Stephanie put her eye to the viewer. “Let’s see if we can find...there he is. Have a look.” Jeremy looked. There was the Moon Moth, still standing on top of the shed, gazing upwards. His antenna were moving frantically now. Suddenly with a great flap that sounded like a circus tent collapsing the moth launched itself upwards, straight towards the moon. “He’s taken off” said Jeremy. “Okay, so follow him with the telescope...” Jeremey tracked the moth as it began to shrink with the distance, becoming smaller and smaller against the shining circle of the moon. Stephanie adjusted the settings as the moth got further away. “Okay” she said. So we’re at the furthest setting. You’re looking into space now...” Something caught Jeremy’s eye, in the periphery of his vision. Another flapping shape...and another. “Oh wow” he said. “You’d better look at this...” Stephanie put her eye to the telescope and gasped. The Moon filled the viewer; it seemed to be covered with tiny flying things, all flittering and circling, revelling in the moon’s glow. “More Moon Moths. They’re coming; from the other planets, from outer space even...” Eventually the moths disappeared into the glow of the moon. “D’you think they live there?” asked Jeremy. “Well there’s no evidence; I mean the astronauts have never seen them, have they?” “How do you know all this stuff; is that on google too?” Stephanie grinned. “I do read books you know; and there is something called the dark web, so you are partly right...” “You know what I think...that they use the Moon for energy. Charge up on it perhaps; then who knows, perhaps they sail the galaxy, the light from the stars the wind in their wings...” “I hope so” said Jeremy. “At least...he’s not alone anymore.” He found himself staring at Stephanie; until she caught his eye and he looked away sheepishly. For a while they both stood, staring at the moon, and all the mysteries there and beyond.


The Colony 9 Incident The motors of the thrusters fired as we lifted off of the Exo-8175, a planet near the constellation Lyra. I sat back in the black, cushioned seat as the g- forces pushed my body towards the back of the passenger cabin. I remember the pilots saying the required "you might feel some discomfort during take off" speech. Still, this was the least of my concerns now as I my mind recalled the massive explosion I had recently witnessed and all of the innocent lives that were lost. I shut my eyes during the take off sequence and I could see the images of all of the faces of the colonists. I saw the leader of the colony, a middle aged man with a brown mustache and beard and his daughter, who had just turned 20 Earth years old. There was a little boy there about 3 or 4 with red hair, being held in the arms of his mother. They had looked to me, with eyes of someone pleading for clemency for a condemned man for assistance and I couldn't give them anything as much as I wanted to. I failed them. " You let them die!", a voice in my head said as the gas started putting me to sleep for the long journey back, but due some reason I fought back and struggled to remain conscious " No! I did what I had to do! It was the only real choice!" , I screamed at the voice " Huh! Small comfort to Colony 9", it said to me in reply. I shook myself awake again as the gas tried to coax me into sleep, but I wasn't done yet. My trial had begun and I had to give an account of myself. and with that thought in mind, I took out my pad, inserted small card and began a log entry. Judicial Log: Colony 9 A month prior to my arrival, I had been called by the Council of Judhes to act as a mediator between two entities that had competing interests in the planet Exo-8175. The two claims had been sent to Earth and had made a long journey to the powers that were and had eventually made it's way to the Council of Judges. The council in turn, decided that they needed more information from the colony itself and had to send a representative to make the determination there on the planet itself. For my assignment, I had to have the full dossier on Colony 9 pulled from the records as well as the planetary surveys that had been done on it 50 years ago. It took me a full day to go over all the records and claims in the government records office. I found out that 50 years ago, a survey team determined that this planet was basically the size of Earth's moon and had an oxygen/nitrogen atmosphere and there was ample plant and animal life there. About 5 years ago, a group of naturalists that called themselves, Colony, 9 had taken everything they had with them, including animals and plant life, packed them all on an old, broken down freighter from the junkyards around Ceres and left Earth and headed for Exo-8175 with the intent of making a colony there away from what they called, the chaotic administrations of the Ruling Council and the revival of the "Manifest Destiny" doctrine which basically stated "if we can see it, then it's ours" The other group that liked Exo-8175 was the Space Military Industrial Complex known as the Cadre and they had filed a claim on this planet as well for mining operations as well as a supply base for military fleet. The planet was rich in mineral resources and it's location would give Earth Central a foot hold in that system for more expansion. The political climate back on Earth didn't help matters. The Ruling council was divided on how to handle the two claims and had not made any official designation for the planet's use once it had been surveyed. One faction sided with the "Manifest Destiny" doctrine and was eager to have the colonists removed as quickly and expeditiously as possible so that the military build up could begin. The other faction was more aligned with the Colony 9 pacifists and had wanted to make sure that the colonists had a fair chance at making a viable colony independent of Earth Central, which didn't sit well with a lot of the other side who considered such an act as treasonous. Since the Ruling Council couldn't agree, the matter was sent to the Judiciary to decide and the Council of Judges, not wanting to make a decision sent me to the colony to basically be the fall guy if anything went wrong. I realized this part when I had finished reading the history and the dossier. The Council had given me the full authority to declare the status of Exo-8175. After a month long journey in sleep stasis, met with the leader of COLONY 9, a man named Mark Lewis, and his daughter, Caroline at their home which was fashioned out the native rocks and mud. and the kitchen was using an old style earth-oven that was something hadn't been seen in centuries since most of the food on Earth Central was preprocessed. The whole domicile was oddly ornate and almost mirrored a luxury hotel room in a sort of rustic way. I felt that somehow, I had traveled to museum representation of early construction. I had to admire the work. Mark explained the colonist's position on Exo-8175 at his dinner table, while eating a salad prepared from the local food on the planet. " You see," he said " the doctrine of Manifest Destiny works for us as well. We agree with Earth Central that we humans do need to expand; we just disagree on how to do it. Here, we just work within the environment rather than just marching in destroying it in favor of our old environment of plastics and steel". " Yes, " I said, taking a bite of the salad. "I have to admit, I admire what you have done here. However, you must realize that it's going to take me than your interpretation of Manifest Destiny to convince the Council of Judges. What else can you tell us? " " Well, the food here is plentiful, if you know how to prepare it and it could help Earth with food shortages there. Our experiences here could be very useful to Earth. This salad for instance contains a lettuce that has as much iron and vitamin content as a our own spinach, which is almost extinct, I might add, yet the flavor is entirely different. The nuts in the toppings contain as much protein as our protein shakes. Why there is enough supply here that we could end the food shortage on Earth and other colonies as well. All we need as the chance to prove that." "Earth has lost much when the land mass was used for more buildings, parking lots and as a result, there is a food shortage. You know that everything is rationed on Earth." " You got Dad started and now he won't stop" she said as came in with drinks. Her long, tropical print skirt, flowed and swayed with the motion of her movements. She sat down to join us. "Ah yes! My own personal, peanut gallery here in the colony!" With a sarcastic bow, Caroline continued the conversation. " This drink is made from a type of mint that grows here and only here and only in certain seasons." It was hard for me to describe the taste of this drink except to say that I definitely tasted the mint and something else that was like mango and orange. "An excellent drink! " I said to her, savoring the tropical concoction with interest. It gave me the impression of being something that you would drink at the beach, lounging on the chairs and watching a sunset over the ocean. I wondered if this could revive a tourism industry " Caroline has a natural affinity for botany. She was at the top of her class back on Earth.' " Yes, I can see that " I said while sipping the drink " Well," I began as I stood up. " You have given me a lot to think about tonight. Tomorrow, the military representative will be here and her will present his case to me as well. After that, I will have to make a determination on the case. I appreciate the hospitality you have given me." After that, I went back to the ship and rested in the cabin falling asleep to the faint sounds of alien birds flying in the silver light of a double moon. The morning came and I heard the unmistakable roar of a military ship landing nearby and leaving scorched land in its wake. Obviously, the Cadre had arrived and I got up from my bunk and got ready to meet with this representative who seemed to have brought a whole platoon with him. They marched in unison towards my ship with the representative ahead of them. His face was devoid of any sort of emotion except that of disdain which seemed to radiate amongst the entire company. There was a brisk knock on my cabin door as the pilot informed me of their arrival. I had already changed and met the representative in the forward section of the ship which housed a plastic and steel conference table. The representative was a certain Captain Jennings, who greeted me rather stiffly and produced a packet of documents and pushed the lot in my hands without saying a word. I grasped the packet and looked at it while he stood at the entrance, stone-faced. The packet contained the text of the Military's claim on the Exo-8175 and restated the same claim, word for word what I read in the dossier and had the same beginning.. "We the people of the Earth Central, do declare that stars in the heavens are ours by right of Manifest Destiny and we shall take them by any means necessary.. etc etc..." and concluding with something about the importance of Earth's military might being supreme in all of the universe and hailing the great Emperor(who had been dead for 50 years and had no heir). This was obviously some sort of power grab by the Cadre. I sighed as a I placed the packet down on the table. The papers spilled out of the file almost as if an old fashioned card dealer had laid them out for display. "Do you have anything to add?" I asked Captain Jennings. He shook his head and left as stiffly as he had come, leaving me with the decision. I knew that this case had become a political football back on Earth and it was up to me and any decision I made would cause issues back on Earth and I would get the full blame. Talk about falling on your own sword. I examined the claims based on the claims alone looking as well as considering all the points of law that we had available that would be relevant to the case. Then I considered the benefits and costs on both sides and both politically and the consequences for granting a claim to either party. If I granted the claim to the Colony 9 contingent, it would mean more civil unrest on Earth. The Cadre would say that Council of Judges had usurped the power of the Throne and the Ruling Council and stir up more trouble until all out war ensued. If I granted the claim to the Cadre, then Colony 9 would be finished and the colonists would have no chance and they would have to go home as quickly as possible and there would also be more unrest on Earth. Either choice would mean civil unrest and possible war. I hung my head trying to find a solution to this one. "Mediate the dispute" I was told by the Council of Judges. Well, I thought to myself, perhaps if I stick to the letter of the directive, I wouldn't have to actually make the decision but would just help the two parties to come to some sort of agreement, although, I held no illusions that this idea would be easy. I tried to meet with both the Cadre and the Colony leaders the next day at the colony's meeting hall an effort to get them talking. I presented the issue at hand which was that I could not make a decision based on the Manifest Destiny claim alone since the Ruling Council had not approved a use for the this planet so the claims would be invalid on those grounds, so I gave them an alternative choice. They could share the planets resources in a sort of compromise or they could both leave the planet empty handed and return to Earth. Each party would develop Exo-8175 in their own way and contribute to the prosperity of Earth. Colony 9 was open to compromise but the Cadre representative, Capt. Jennings remained stone-face as ever and was visibly offended that he would be told to "go back to Earth empty-handed" After I presented my proposal, Captain Jennings began to talk cordially to Mark Lewis about sharing the resources. The conversation went on for about a few hours as they talked. I decided to wait outside while they ironed out some kind of agreement. I sat down at the bar in the foyer of the meeting hall and had the bartender make the lovely drink I had that first night. I saw the boy watching me. I smiled at him, as his mother came and picked him up. I watched her go as he turned his head over her should and waved good bye to me as she walked out of the hall into the yellowish green sunlight. A few minutes, later, Mark and Captain Jennings came back from their talk. Jennings left the building without speaking which left me with Mark. "Well?" I asked Mark. "He's unhappy about the arrangements", began Mark, "but he sort of gave me the impression that he would work within the confines of the law, whatever that may mean." He pulled up a bar stool and got a drink for himself as well. "Very well, I can report to Earth that your two parties will be working together?" He handed me a draft copy of an agreement he had recorded. "I explained that given the choice, we could both leave or we could both win" and shrugged his shoulders. "He seemed to agree to that piece of it and decided he would come back tomorrow so that we can decide what parts of this planet they want, you know, the boundaries, and so on." I held the silver tube containing the drive in my hand and glanced up at the blue sky that was partially obscured by the canopy of something like palm fronds and inhaled the smell of citrus letting it fill me. "Well," I said. "It sounds like mission accomplished and we have at least held off a civil war on Earth it seems. Congratulations!" "it's as they say... a step in the right direction, ay?" he said as he took my extended hand. "Yes" I said with a pause. "It is." The next morning, I was loading everything in the ship and getting ready for my departure. I took a look around the area before I left and I saw that all was quiet. The Colony 9 residents were still sleeping apparently, so I decided not to disturb them. I got into my cabin after instructing the pilot that we had completed our loading and we should get underway as soon as possible to present this draft agreement to the Council. The ships anti-grav repulsors pushed us off of the ground slowly at first and then accelerated as we got closer to the trees. I took one last look at the colony just in time to see the entire compound explode in flames. I could barely make out some human figures as the fire licked its way through the flesh in a greedy frenzy. I had never witnessed such cruelty. "You did this!" the voice said again. "No! The Cadre did this! I could do nothing!" "Not true. You could have saved them by deciding in their favor." While having this conversation with my tormentor or my conscience, I was also fighting the sleeping gas. I took the log I had just written and also retrieved the draft contract. I added my log to the encoded silver cylinder and waited. After the ship left orbit, the gas came in my cabin more strongly but I had to stay awake just long enough... I took the encoded cyclinder to the back of the cabin and used the garbage disposal unit to get the cyclinder out of the ship hoping that someone would find it. After that, I let the gas take me and I collapsed in the cabin just before the missiles hit us. The cadre doesn't leave loose ends. I


Eleven years ago, it was summer break, and I just completed my first year of college. Instead of staying on campus, I decided to pack a bag and drive home for a few months. I didn’t want to pass up an opportunity for free rent and groceries. Plus, I wanted to see my high school friends again. After a month of doing the same thing every weekend, we were desperate for new ideas. Being the paranormal nerd that I am, I saw this as a chance to suggest a ghost hunting night out. Surprisingly, everyone was on board. The next question was, where should we go? After some quick Google searches, I found a forum that talked about a “haunted” park that was only 20 minutes away from us. Since the park closed at 10 PM and was regularly patrolled by cops, the forum suggested that night-time visitors should park in the nearby neighborhoods and walk to park entrance, to avoid being noticed. Easy enough we thought. We packed our flashlights and headed out to the park around 10 PM. In the car, I told them all about the history of the park and reported hauntings. *According to the forum thread, an axe murderer used to wander the woods at night, killing any unsuspecting night-time visitors. Although only 3 bodies were discovered, the actual number of victims who had fallen prey to his axe is still unknown to this day. Since then, it has been rumored that if you go to the park and walk the paths during a full moon between the times of 9:30 PM and midnight, mysterious balls of lights can be seen dancing around the woods. Some say you are left mesmerized by the dancing lights and unconsciously driven deeper into the woods. The further you go, the lights disappear and are replaced by insidious laughter and moaning screams. If you are really quiet and still, footsteps in the woods can be heard. The longer you remain standing, the closer the footsteps sound and are soon accompanied by heavy breathing. And if you are brave enough to wait until the footsteps are inches away, a feeling of dread and evil will wash over your body like a wave of thick fog before everything goes completely silent.* *People may go as far to say that these woods are cursed. Similar to the Japan’s Aokigahara forest, these woods have also driven hopeless souls to their end. For the finale, if you stand on one of the seven bridges, whispers of an apparition formed by the traveling mist above the water will develop in front of you. But no one has stuck around long enough to know what would happen next...* Before we even parked our car, everyone was already creeped out. As suggested by the forum, we parked in the neighborhoods and walked to the entrance. Luckily, the streetlamps did a good job illuminating the way, but they stopped before we reached the park’s entrance, leaving us in complete darkness. The first thing we did was cross a bridge into the woods. No one wanted to risk seeing an apparition quite yet, so we didn’t stand still for very long. I can’t remember if the moon was full, but we didn’t see any lights dancing around the woods as we walked down the paths. The more I think about it, I actually think there was no moon that night, because it was pitch dark. I remember laughing about how we couldn’t have picked a darker night. After about 30 minutes of walking through the woods with no sightings, we exited onto a beach that bordered Lake Michigan. It was a beautiful, warm night so we hung out on the beach for about an hour, gossiping, laughing, and telling ghost stories while we threw rocks into the water. Eventually, we decided to walk back to the car. On the way back through the woods, I distanced myself from everyone to see if I could catch something on my camera. I stood still on the path as my friends walked ahead of me. When they were far enough to where I couldn’t hear them talking, I decided to start walking again. But right before I left, I turned around to take one last picture of the path we were leaving behind... As soon as the flash went off, I heard a child giggle from the thicket of trees right next to me and I heard fast paced footsteps heading my way. My heart sunk to my stomach and I immediately had this feeling of dread take over my entire body. Within seconds, my fight or flight instincts kicked in and I took off running at top speed. It didn’t take long for me to catch up with my friends, but I didn’t stop there. I knocked over one of my friends and I kept running until the sickening sensation wore off. I stopped and turned around to see my friends running up behind me as well. I reached out to the one I knocked over to apologize and I felt her entire body shivering. *Why didn’t you say something?!* Was the first thing she said to me. *Let’s continue walking. I want to leave.* I apologized as we quickly walked back to the car and I told them what happened to me. Apparently, something similar happened to them too. After I knocked over my friend, the others helped her up. As they stood still for a few seconds, making sure nothing was dropped, they heard someone or something softly say “Come...,” which they almost blew it off as the wind. But what scared them the most was the sound of feet crunching the rocks into the dirt, heading their way. That’s when they took off running too. Maybe it was our imagination. Maybe we weren’t the only people ghost hunting that night. But I can honestly say that I have never encountered anything that has come close to giving me that same sense of dread.