Taking her hand, They guided her through the crowd to the front of the horde. Their grip was strong. Not enough to crush her hand, but enough to feel the bones press against one another uncomfortably. Weaving in and out of the random asteroidal persons, they came to the frontline. There, in front of them, She saw what everyone was gathering to look at. "What is it?" She asked. "Can't you see it?" They responded in a monotoned. "Its right there in front of you. Just reach out and touch it if you don't believe me.". As She stood there looking outwards. She saw nothing. Expanse of nothing. From top to bottom, left to right, there wasn't just nothing in view, but absolutely nothing. No color, wind, shade, smells or anything perceived by earthy beings. A void. "Touch what?" She inquired "There is nothing there to touch. There is nothing there at all. How am I to touch nothing?". They looked at her with no expression. "If you see nothing, you see something." They responded. "Do you not trust me?". She never doubted Them as long as She had know Them. They always explained what She did not understand and took the time to make sure She was safe in her understanding. "I trust you." She replied. With her right hand, She began to move it up and towards the void. Extending her index finger, and ever so gently and tapped the nothing. It wriggled like jello, causing a chain reaction of electricity and colors unknown to her and her comprehension of reality. She quickly pulled her hand back, but found it stuck against the invisible wall. The crowd stopped surging. The mass all stopped moving. They turned to look at her simultaneously and pointed at her. A low, guttural hum resonated throughout the congregation and a slight sway back and forth, commenced. Hmmmm... Hmmmm... "I can't break free!" She exclaimed "My hand is stuck! You lied to me! Break me free! Why are they doing that?!? STOP MAKING THAT NOISE AND HELP ME!" They looked at her with a half smirk and looked forward. The colors and lights began to pulsate; slowly at first, but then in speed and intensity. Shapes began to take form and they were terrifying to look upon. Turning her face away, They reached over, took her face in Their hands and raised it level with Theirs. "It is nothing." They said "How can you be affected by nothing?". "It has my hand!" She pleaded "I can't let go! Help me!". Tears began to pour down her face as She spoke. They just held Their gaze directly into her eyes. That same smirk appeared on Their face once again and this unsettled her. Before She could speak, They turned her head back forward to watch the turbulent, torrent of chaos and beauty She had created with her touch. She started to feel something different; something raw and connected to this explosion of life. "Do you see?" They asked. She gazed forward, no longer resisting the pull of the wall. At this point, the strange ooze, coated Her hand, just to the wrist and slowly creeping up her arm. As She looked ahead, Her eyes were captivated by the swirling colors, lights and shapes. Then, right before her eyes, a familiar face began to appear within the mix. The face looked like someone She knew, but could not place where from. The face was too distorted for her to clearly see. It was a man, but so familiar to her, it hurt her heart. They turned to her and over the hum of the crowd "Do you See?" They asked "Do you See?". "No I don't!" She replied "Where am I? What is happening to me? Please tell me. I trust You and want You to help me break free!" "You asked Me to bring you here." They replied "You asked for this.". "I don't remember anything before coming through this crowd." she stated. "I know You, but nothing from before." "Think deeper." They suggested "Remember your desires." She sat and thought. Tried to focus on the task They explained was necessary in order for her, to find clarity. Closing her eyes, She turned into her unconscious to seek the answers. Flashes of faces and moments began to flood her mind, too fast for her to definitively identify the face in the vortex. The cold from the translucent liquid crawling up Her arm, took her out of her meditative state. Her eyes opened and pain shot through her stomach and groin. She looked down and to her horror, the liquid consumed her whole arm and now, it was spilled across her midsection. She bellowed in absolute terror and pain. It felt like it was trying to rip her open. She reached with her free hand, to find it bound by this same invisible geist. She raised her head to see the mass violently exploding and morphing into a body. The edges sporadically jutting out and inward, like seismometer and the world's largest earthquake. Arms, legs and a head could began to be seen more clearly. The shape of a man was taking shape, but the face was distorted still. She looked through her tears, towards the place where his eyes would be and suddenly, they opened. Two oval beams of light, with blue center, shot out from the sockets. As bright as the sun, from waking morning, she gazed directly into them. It didn't hurt. Actually, quite the opposite. It brought a sense of calm and peace. It reminded her of being at her Grandma's house, as her Grandmum would pick her up and hold her against her chest, before falling asleep in her arms. Or her Father, looking into her eyes on her graduation day saying how proud of her he is. These thoughts caused her mouth to open and a small gasp escaped. Tears began to fall down her face. Her body convulsed from the sobs of joy and understanding. Memories of her first boyfriend, kissing under the deck at Her Aunts farm, to taking her dog Ethos, to the vet to be put to sleep cause she was hit by a car. Losing a bestfriend to cancer, to her trip to Europe and the Italian boy who stole her heart and married her. Through tear filled eyes, She stood, transfixed on the being in front of her. "I remember!" She exclaimed "I remember!" They turned to her and said nothing. Only smiled, turned and walked through the crowd. She called out to Them, but They never turned around. This was destroying her. "Wait!" She cried "Don't go! I can't lose you.". But They were gone amongst the horde. She never saw Them again. The hum of the crowd began to rise and fall in frequency. It sounded like music now; like a heavenly orchestra. She could hear the brass, strings, drums and it was growing in intensity. She looked back into the beings eyes. The entity began to develop facial expressions that She knew. She smiled and wept as She remembered She did want this. She wanted this her entire life. Coming to her realization, She began pushing her hands and body further towards the being. An explosion of light and pain shot from her hands and belly causing her to scream in agony. She pushed through; above the pain, She passed through completely and silence came with a clap. No light. No sound. She was standing in a space unknown in size and depth. She stood there for some time, saying nothing. Doing nothing. A spot light appeared above her, illuminating the area around her. She looked up and shielded her eyes. She couldn't look past the light, so began to scan the area around her. Vast of black nothing lay before her, just passed the edge of the light. This caused her to cover her body with her arms from insecurity. "Hello?" She asked, voice cracking. A door of light opened in front of her. A silhouette of a man stood in the doorway. The man passed through and door closed behind him, bring back the dark background. The man walked into the light and stood a few feet in front of her. "You know why you are here?" he asked. "Yes." She replied "I'm here for you. You are supposed to come with me." He smiled. "Yes." he said "Yes I was meant to." "Meant to?" She asked unsure "I did everything I was meant to, in order for you to come with me. Did I do something wrong?" "No you did everything you were meant to..." he paused "and more.". "Well surely we can leave this place and you can come with me." She hastily responded "I have so many things I want to show you.". "You have shown me." he reassured her "Through you thoughts, memories and dreams, I've lived through you. You have given me your everything. Including...". He trailed off. "Including what?" She inquired. "Including your life." he explained. She stood there, locked in his gaze. A single tear filled down his face as he said this. "But how?" She asked. Her emotions brimming the point of loss of control "I don't understand.". "You died." he said remorseful. She could see the restraint of his sadness visibly cross his face. "Like I said, You gave me everything... and more.". She took a step forward. "So this is It?" She asked. "Until the next time, yes." he replied, also taking a step forward. Continuing her momentum, She moved within arms length. "You know I love you more than any one person can love another." She said softly. "I know." he said. Tears began to fall like large rain drops, just before a storm. "I've always known.". They stood, inches away from each other. She raised her right hand; he his left. They embraced, interlocking their fingers, never looking from each other's eyes. He released Her fingers and pulled her into his chest and squeezed. "Thank you for my life." he said. "Thank you for making my life have meaning." She replied. "Now go make me proud." "I love you Mom." said her son. "I will." and disappeared. "Until we meet again." She said "Until we meet again.


Jude made the final incision and sponged away some blood as the Cesarean Section made birth possible. Purple fluorescing lights strobed across the surgical site, cleansing it of anything dangerous as Jude set the force-fields to gently pull the baby from its dying mother. Following strict medical procedure, Jude severed the umbilical cord as Laura, the newborn boy's mother, died from her brutal injuries. Jude proffered the child to Laura on two slender manipulator arms, as she was programmed, but her subroutines, now noting the death of the mother, signaled her UltraCortex to refrain from making a verbal presentation. Instead, the baby was simply inserted into a life-sustaining cubicle and immediately sedated. Jude opened a channel to the bridge. "Laura's child has been delivered. It- It- It's a boy," the damaged robot stated flatly. "However, Laura has succumbed to her injuries and has passed away." Jude's word selection was careful to avoid undue distress. Captain Quain stared at the fiery wall on the main viewer. After a long silence, he managed, "acknowledged" and thumbed the button to sever the channel to the medical bay. "I'm open to ideas..." He looked around the control bridge at his officers and men. Frightened gazes met his and he did his best to look confident. One man spoke. "We can't break the star's gravity -but can we use it?" The wiry young man with his slicked-back blond hair and eager StellarCorps expression gave the Captain hope. "What if we push the engines to max and calculate a slingshot trajectory to get us to that small planetoid? If we can catch onto it and establish orbit, we may not be home but we won't be fried." The young fellow looked into the fires of the Zoroaster star with grave concern, his face illuminated by flickering orange sun-flame. The Captain listened to the gasps of approval from several officers and nodded soberly. If nothing else, it was something to try -and some sort of hope. He thought about the hundreds of lives aboard the UES Ptolemy and clung to any hope at hand. "Alright, then. Lt. Simms, I want you to handle the warp drive, make speed for 9 recursions. Commander Kelleway, make calculations for the maneuver. Take Carstairs and Tamaguchi with you. Everyone else, man your posts and prepare for warp. All stations report!" With practiced suave, the captain resumed his stalwart pose in his chair and exuded confidence to fuel the officers as they readied the ship for an escape from certain death. But it was all for naught. The calculations of the desperate men of the Ptolemy flung the crippled starship across space like a boomerang, first angling and then slingshotting around the star to the men's cheers. Unforseen variables wrestled with conjecture and programming to emerge the victor, however, and as cheers turned to cries of despair, the little ship from the faraway blue world slammed into the planetoid it had hoped to orbit with ferocious force. The great spine of the ship cracked in the silence of space and its rent skin ejected people into the freezing vacuum. From the Captain's eyes, it seemed to happen in slow-motion. First the walls buckled and cracked, and crewmen cried out or leaped to their feet. But as the force rippled through the ship, whole support beams undulated and the safety of walls became the vacuum of space and bulkheads were shorn and torn apart like tin-foil. For a few moments, the Captain, suddenly propelled into space and tumbling, managed to survive. As his face froze and his eyeballs bulged he saw his ship one last time. Crumpled in some places, exploding in others, the majority of it somehow remained intact, albeit embedded into the surface of a bleak and empty world and he thought of all the souls committed to the cold wastes of space under his command. And then he died along with everyone else. Well, almost everyone else. Deep within the protected heart of the ship, still mostly intact and even lit by back-up generators, the medical bay survived. Jude was barely functional but managed to run the few remaining sensors to gauge the situation. The crew was dead. All of them. The ship mostly powerless, totally defenseless, had 47 separate hull breaches and the engines were floating off somewhere near the port bow. The only life-sign came from the very room Jude was in; from the incubator. Jude swung her large, angular white arm laboriously around the thick anchor sticking up from her main console. Sensors at the end of the armature scanned the baby. Remarkably intact. Jude instructed the ship's computer, which was operating on generators and cut off from half of it's data-cores, that Jude was the only independent agency aboard and convinced it to slave all functions to her. Jude's "mind" was a complex quantum computer located within her armature base, separate from the ship's simple AI but Jude connected directly to the mainframe now and allocated all of the ship's resources to a few rooms including the medical bay. She reassigned the entire 4-year-mission's worth of food and water to the child, and made the requisite requisition forms out digitally to approve the transfer, even if she knew no one would ever read the logs. She was doing everything as she was programmed to. Jude would make food, education and eventually the entire ship's remains available to this lone surviving human child. She fed him with protein beams and replicated milk until he could eat rations. She used forcefields to guide him into walking upright. She taught him to speak, to read, and the critical thinking skills needed to master any subject in the databanks. At age 9 he learned how to repair and reconnect the rest of the data-cores. When he learned all he could about his lost home and the many people who died the day he was born, he wept bitterly. He knew he would never be found by Earth again, of course, as the chances of another deep space exploration vessel even deciding to visit this uncharted system were nil. He would never know another of his kind. He would know only what computer files could tell him. He would don a generation-old spacesuit to weld sections together over half a life time. He read every book on board the ship, even those he had to rescue by omnibot and vacc-suit, and dreamed of returning triumphantly to the planet Earth. He kept a meticulous log and diary, talked with Jude for hours every day, and named himself David. And one day, at the age of 41, he flew away. Jude's faltering mind was installed in the main computer slot of the makeshift starship David had cobbled together over 31 years, using a small section of the med bay as makeshift control room. Jude gently nudged the controls to power the engines he spent 9 years capturing and bringing in to the new Ptolemy. More of a raft in space than any starship Earth had ever made, the Ptolemy II roared to life and began a single warp recursion. It wasn't going to be fast, but the ship was on it's way to Earth. A repeating signal was the first vanguard of the P II to reach Earth outposts. "My name is David. I am the last survivor of the UES Ptolemy, lost in space in 2218. Please do not attack this ship, I am friendly. Repeat; My name is David. I am..." The media got ahold of it faster than David's engines and a host of starships and transports crowded the space lanes above the planet Earth to watch him arrive. Politicians and Commentators choked the communications channels as the Ptolemy II, looking for all the world like a derelict apartment building lashed to 2 engines, sputtered to a halt in Earth orbit. Medical and repair ships were immediately dispatched as government and public held their breaths in anticipation. Jude arthritically rotated it's single, dirt-smudged camera-stalk to look at David, sensor information filling the working sections of the screen. She examined his long-dead body, still resting in the control chair as it had for centuries, as David always knew it must, and her subroutines calculated that informing a dead person of their destination was illogical and unnecessary. "David, my son. You *made* it. You have come *home*" she said anyway.


Burp “Number 58.” I can hear the words but there is a thin piece of white cloth in front of me, dulling the sound. “Number 58.” I feel like I should do something but I’m stuck deep inside my head. “Number 58.” Pause. “That’s you.” The woman, beside me, nudges me aggressively, more of a shove. “You’re ticket,” she points at a piece of paper in my hand, “it’s your number.” My brain begins to surface, and I can see the room I’m in. “They don’t like to be kept waiting.” She says. I want to ask who, but it feels like I’m the only one who doesn’t know. The only one in a room filled with thousands of people. A young man comes up to me and takes my hand while cupping my elbow. His movement is not threatening but it feels like the option of having a choice has been removed. He takes me into a hallway and into a small room. “Sit here.” He says in a soft voice that is disproportionately lower than his youthful appearance would suggest. I sit and wait. I am alone, sitting across a huge desk. There is a large window to my right but every time I try to look out the window it turns white, fuzzy white, like an off-air channel. There is nothing on the desk, just the shine of a dark oak surface reflecting a bright white ceiling. There is a small light in the corner of the room, sitting on the floor. The chair behind the desks is large and ornate, a throne. I am the subject. I have decided this is a lucid dream, or an NDE, but I don’t remember going to bed, or dying. I just remember a sort of fading experience, I think, maybe, I was making dinner. I can hear my dog barking, but that’s it. I’m pretty sure I wasn’t killed. I don’t have anything anyone wants and I’m pretty sure no one knows me well enough to hate me that much, I think. The door behind me opens and a large fat man comes in and sits on his throne. He touches his desk; it lights up like a huge computer screen. After watching him press and swipe his desk surface for a least a few minutes, I decide to speak. “Hello?” He put his hand up in the universal shut up sign, using one finger to signal the amount of time he will need to remain a rude asshole. Finally, he speaks. “You are number 58?” “Yes.” I grab the piece of paper with my number on it, crumpled inside my sweaty fist, and put it on his desk. “Do you remember anything?” There is no concern in his voice, just data collection. “Yes,” I answer, “My dog barking, maybe the smell of my dinner?” “Shit.” He says, frantically hitting his desk and swiping, like he has killed a bug and can’t get it off his desk. “How about now, can you still remember a dog barking?” “What dog?” “Perfect.” For the first time he looks up and me and smiles. “Welcome.” “I don’t feel welcome.” He laughs and leans back. “Well, you definitely were not invited.” Pause. “Great,” I get up. “Then I can go?” He laughs again, but this time it sounds more like a snort. “Go where?” “Home?” I ask. I feel like I am being tested in my own dream. “You’re not dreaming and there is no home for you, there never was.” He leans forward, about to explain something he has explained a million times before. “You are what happens when time slips, just a bit. A glitch that creates a shadow. You existed parallel to the real you.” I am confused, but I have a feeling I am about to be more confused. Pause. “Sit.” He points with the same rude finger he told me to shut up with. I can feel myself sitting in the chair, hearing him talk to me, and I feel very real to me. “You see, time is a measurement allowing material existence to develop.” “Ok...” “It is a very slow method of frequency containment that allows the growth of what you would call a soul.” His robot tone expresses a need to release information without any concern for its impact. “If time burps, as we call it, the shift creates a shadow on the soul developing and you exist parallel to yourself, but you are not part of the system.” He sits back and pauses. “So, does everyone alive develop a shadow when this happens?” As I ask this question, I can see the interest fade from his dark little eyes. “No,” he starts scanning his desktop, moving images I can’t see. “Only a weak soul develops a shadow when a burp happens.” Did he just insult me? “Ok, well.” I stare at the top of his head as he examines something on the desk screen that is clearly more important than a glitch created by a weak soul. “Do I exist?” I whisper, not really wanting the answer. “Yes,” he says not looking up. “Please exit, someone will show you where to go.” With that, I take my weak shadow soul and leave the room. Exit, exist...maybe I’m just a fading image waiting to evaporate. A very tall woman in a purple jump suit greets me outside the room. “Hello Sunshine.” She seems friendly. “Sorry, I mean Moonlight.” “Moonlight?” I am confused, again. “I can’t get these names straight,” she says, moving her hand up and down an invisible screen in front of her. “Are you one of those pronoun people?” As her frustration grows, I offer my label. “My name is Sasha.” “Are you sure, you don’t look like a Sasha.” She keeps flipping through her invisible Rolodex. “Ah, there you are, Sasha.” She shoos the invisible screen away with a grand arm gesture that looks like she is moving through a cloth doorway. “How do you feel?” Wow, no one has asked me that yet, and now that I think about it, I don’t feel anything. “Nothing.” I answer. I would feel defeated... if I could. “Good.” My blue escort says. I don’t like her. She leads me into a long green hallway and tells me to go through the third door on the left. As she is leaving, she yells, number ten is secured, then disappears into the room we just came out of. I thought about not going into the room, but where else do I go? I open the door. There are two chairs and nothing else. I sit in one of the chairs and only then realize someone is sitting in the other chair. “You must be number 10, do you feel secured?” she laughs, but not in a mean way. I sit down, “I don’t feel anything, I think.” “Here.” She reaches across to me and grabs my left forearm. I feel a warm glow start to radiate from my stomach outward. So, I can feel again. “I figured out how to bypass the system.” She smiles, “Don’t tell anyone, always say you feel nothing, don’t laugh or cry, or look confused.” I am confused. “What are we doing here?” I kind of wish I didn’t feel anything again, it was easier. “Well,” she angles herself towards me and I am oddly touched by her direct attention. “What they are doing and what we are doing are two different things.” “OK.” I try to hide the confusion on my face. “That,” she points at my face, “that look, don’t to that around anyone.” “Ok,” this feels like she is giving me lessons on how not to be human. “Did you understand anything they explained to you?” she looks deep into my eyes, checking for honesty. “I sort of get it, but it doesn’t feel real.” She laughs, “that’s how I felt, until they pulled my feelings out. “What do they want?” this still doesn’t feel real. “They gather us ten at a time.” She pauses, “do you want me to pull your feelings, so you don’t freak out?” “Yes please.” She explains that they gather us ten at a time to see if we are compatible, as a group, to form a single viable soul. If that is possible, a process called “blending” begins. We are scanned and every inch of our limited existence is labeled and assigned a function. Then we are kept in a holding position until they can mix and match a full soul. “What if they can’t create a full soul?” I ask, not freaking out, because... I can’t. “We are sent back to our previous reality.” “Oh,” I feel a...nothing, I feel nothing. “So that’s good right, we just go home?” “No, that’s bad. If you are blended you become part of a whole, there is protection in the whole.” She puts her hand on me and returns my feelings. I feel darkness, I feel sadness. “If you are sent back and you are not attached to a soul, you are not protected.” “From what?” My mind thinks of demons and every ounce of evil. “Everything.” She finally says. “But there are ways to survive without being consumed.” “Again,” I say with as much calm as I can fake, “from what, and can you be more specific.” She looks at me directly but this time I feel less comforted by her direct attention. “If we don’t get blended, look for me and I will help you.” “How will if find you?” “My name is Lex.” She takes my hand and presses her thumb into the palm of my hand. “I just transferred my energy signature to you, press your palm with your thumb and let my name appear in your head, the two signatures will combine and create a connection.” “Sure, I guess.” I still think I’m dreaming. The room is suddenly filled with a red glow. “Shit.” Lex says. “What?” I want her to take my feelings out again. “We didn’t blend.” She looks at me and says her name again. “Lex.” I say her name as she slowly fades. I’m dreaming, I must be dreaming.


Grog lifts from my head as I open my eyes to the stark darkness of the room. Confused, I look around at the barren place. I have no idea how large the room is, but I’m sitting in a chair, slumped over from my slumber. Above me is a singular lightbulb hanging from its wire, filling a small area of the darkness with incredibly dim light. The bulb hums in a way that tells me it’ll soon see the end of its lifespan. I sit up and groan, cracking my neck, trying to remember exactly where I am. Last I remember, I was out on a late night walk. Nothing comes to mind after that. I don’t even remember going home. I stand and move toward the edge of the light, stopping short of the darkness. My stomach feels uneasy. It feels almost as though something is in the dark, waiting for me. I try to shout, just to get a feel for the room. The sound is empty as it leaves my mouth; nothing to stop the sound, nothing to echo it back. I shake my head, trying to assuage my discomfort. Only kids fear the dark. It doesn’t work -something about this darkness chills my nerves. I sit back in the chair, folding over, head in hands, trying to think of what to do. Next comes a noise which I barely even notice as first. It grows louder with each iteration. A growl, deep and guttural. Like a bear that’s been badly injured. *Now* I’m terrified. I freeze and stare into the darkness, scanning for anything, but the inky blackness is impenetrable. My breath is caught in my throat, and after a few seconds I think whatever made the sound must be gone. Then the growl comes again, from a different place. I sit to feel some kind of comfort. The growl happens at random intervals and seems to be circling me. I grip the chair and let out a scream in the desperate hope that someone, *anyone* will hear me. That I’ll be saved. The growl comes closer, off to my left, and for a second I hear what sounds like metal scraping against cement. I can feel it in my chest now, that heavy feeling. Like I can’t breathe right. My breath quickens and I can feel tears coming on. I try to scream louder. My voice quickly begins to hoarsen. In the middle of these screams I hear another sound to the right of my head. Like a tree cracking apart. I yelp and jump, startled, and the thing in the dark growls louder. The new sound comes again and the light goes out, darkness taking me. I hear nothing aside from my labored breathing. Everything is dark. I look down and can barely see my shirt. I don’t hear the growling anymore, but it feels like something is around me. I close my eyes and count down from ten attempting to calm myself and begin to realize, even with the thump of my heart in my ears, that the breathing I hear isn’t my own.  “Police and fire departments across the United States are currently reporting incredibly high call volumes, preventing most people from access to assistance. We have received reports of strange Black Cubes popping up in various states across the U.S. Rescue teams have been dispatched to these locations to investigate, with little results to speak of so far. The cubes stand six feet tall and four feet wide and seem to be made of a strong glass-like material. “One witness reported hearing screams seeming to come from the inside of one cube in Manhattan, New York. A rescue team arrived shortly after and attempted to breach the perimeter of the cube. Upon opening the cube, responders discovered the body of thirty-four-year-old Jonathan Camden inside, collapsed and lifeless. Cause of death is unknown as of yet, but the discovery has led other teams to begin attempting to rescue other possible civillians trapped inside. “No information is known on the cubes, leaving many to wonder where they came from and what their purpose is. Officials have given strict curfew orders to prevent any further occurrences. From what we know, the cubes have only shown up in outdoor public spaces, leading lead investigators to believe that they may not appear inside the home. We will continue to report on this phenomenon as we learn more. Until then, we advise staying inside and staying safe.


I don't recall the precise moment I was led into this predicament. What was now had turned into what was then, my reminiscent world has turned into an undefined murk of a shadow. When was it? When I hindered the seeing of this world: my home, my work, the outdoors, all of it. Was the sky always accompanied by clouds? The setting of the sun, what color was it? Did grass have a particular shape? Was my inquisitive manner ever so constant? When did I begin these probes? And why do I hear the voices of others? Now, do not think of me as absurd. The voices truly do belong to people, as far as I can tell with their deafened speech. Perhaps they linger in a closed off place of some sorts. It is only an assumption, I undoubtedly have no real idea of where the voices could be coming from. For the world I dwell in; is dark. Dark as in pitch black, as in I am blind in it. Whether I close or open my eyes, it is all the same. It wasn't always so tenebrific. As I had recalled before, I saw color once. I confess it is rather tiresome. The place I reside, it's not familiar to me. I have nostalgia for this 'nature' I dream about. I fantasize about my 'home'. Never have I had delight in a sunless scene. So what led me here? I know for certain; I would have never visited voluntarily. The most I have done is talk in this never-ending mind of mine, and even that can be tiring, so I cease to think. Alas, I can never go on without thinking, or I'll forget how to. The emptiness can be more alluring than others think it can be. This vast black space is always here. It hugs me with silent comfort. The voices. It was timeless before they appeared. It was so sudden, I thought they had materialized, considering my solitary state. I admit I felt tremendous blissfulness, I would rather feel accompanied than see the light again. You would be surprised at how much satisfaction one gets upon hearing the simple steps of feet, or the most enjoyment of listening to conversations. Oh have I yearned for something, anything, that rebels against this unending night. So this began; my hearing of voices. There were doubts from time after time, that the sounds are not legitimate. In the end it did not matter, I would be content either way. It is not as if I abhor engaging, I precisely can not. I have neglected my speech for such a time that I have forgotten how to speak. I also do not know of their whereabouts. I can not pursue, for I have forgotten how to walk. Walk. I don't think I have legs...absurd! Perhaps I do, but I do not see them. If someone had challenged me; and questioned the types of conversations I was listening upon, I would say, 'an array!' It was the arguments I cherished, mainly because it fancies my hearing. I have learned of these voices, one named Will and another named Alm. They seem to have a fondness for another, or that the very least get along. It wasn’t until recent events they had argued about money. Money...ah yes, I remember. Something about retrieving deodorizer and a pest specialist. I pity my dear friends, it seems they are in a predicament, as am I. I have forgotten how troublesome the land of light was. These voices reminded me. Everyday something had struck down and soiled my time, now I only have peace. Quite the irony I believe. I remember fighting for peace constantly, and now there is no struggle at all. If I am mistaken, I feel as if I am waiting on something, on somebody. Will they find me? Or shall I remain in this endless and starless daze. How would I be found? I feel as if I am blocked by a wall. Nothing comes through and nothing comes out. How long has it been? I...can not recall. Oh! But it is a joyous day, my ears have gathered a sound. My friends have come to visit. So I stopped thinking, and listened. A distant door swings open from a twist of a nob. Heavy yet quiet footsteps tred on the floor. The floor is nowhere soft, each step is audible, even on tip toe. The smack of something hits another surface. Then a creek from something that now carries weight. "Work never seems to end..." an airy voice sighs. It's Will. The continuous tapping or clicking can be heard. A random sound that continues then stops, continues, stops, then continues once more. The sound is rather calming, even if it is unbeknownst to me. The sound lasts for a long time. I even like the random grumblings that come from Will. Whatever it is he doesn't seem to like it, but he does it for such a time! He is confusing. The soft yet loud footsteps enter the room, "How long have you been at that?" It’s Alm's voice. "Oh, give me a few more minutes and I'll be there," says Will. Steps slowly pace around the room, some sounding stronger than others, and some sounding distant. "Well, the two specialists are here, I'm giving you a heads up. So be ready." Alm says before stepping away from my ears. Will stops, a shutting sound can be heard. The rolling of something gets pushed and heavy steps move then stop. Two unidentified walking patterns are headed in my radar, both walk similarly and both walk heavier than Will. Was it guests? I can feel Alm's footsteps accompanied them. "What's the problem ma'am?" "My fiancé and I have been living here for about 9 months now, we have had smell problems before. We thought it could be a dead rat. So we waited 3 weeks and the smell was gone, but then 3 months later another smell appeared! We waited again and there was another smell. We thought it was best we'd have it checked," Alm says. "Why it is nearly next year! Why'd you wait till then to call us?" "Look can you help us or not?" Will says. A grunt was made and the walking of footsteps became louder and louder until a bang ringed my ears. "Here," says Alm. Two heavy footfalls feel like an earthquake. Then a cutting sound? I am not sure, but it is loud, it is right by my ear. "Urgh! I can smell it already!" Complains Alm. "It's like animals loving dying here!" Cut cut cut. The sound of...sawing, that's the word, stops. "That don't smell like an animal" "How..how long has this been happening?" It is quiet for some time. "Well..this happens every 3 months like I said..but we haven't decided to call until the new year was over" Alm speaks slowly. The sound of sawing began again, but it became frantic and louder. Saw saw saw. Until it stops, the cutting, the sawing. It's strange..I don't understand. I have waited here, for more than a year? It felt longer. And yet my light was restored within an instant. I thought my reunion would be grander than this, my friends, guests. Why do you stare wide-eyed at me? Be pleased, for you have found me. You found me.


Thomas felt all the blood in his body rush to his legs. The world went blurry there for a second until he was able to catch his breath again. “Is- is that what I think it is?” he asked with a dry tongue. Thomas jumped when Margret replied to him, “Yeah, that looks like the ghost of Elizabeth Thomas. Murdered in her bedroom forty-seven years ago on Halloween night.” Thomas regained composure once again and averted his gaze to the brunette woman next to him, “Stop doing that!” he said harshly. “How do you always know where I am?” “Don’t act so surprised,” Margret said sharply, “You know why.” The ghastly visage had faded from the top of the stairs when he looked back. A chill ran down his spine like a drop of ice that took over his whole body causing him to shiver violently for half a second. Thomas immediately felt like leaving and forgetting the house, but Margret urged him on. “Don’t worry, none of it is real,” she said cheerily before adding, “well, for the most part.” She winked then stalked to another room. Thomas chose a different route to take instead of following her. Up the stairs, he found that the wallpaper had been rotted and stripped from the walls in many places. The doors leading to three different bedrooms, once a beautiful dark wood, were now scratched and dusty from years of neglect. A loud crash happened from somewhere downstairs. Probably just Margret screwing around in whatever room she was in now. Thomas shook his head and rolled his eyes. Fingers wrapped around the closest doorknob. The smudged metal was cool to the touch. He had to try four times, increasing the muscle behind each push to get the warped wood of the door to open. He coughed. The air in this room was musty. The smell of mold almost completely took over whatever other aromas might have lurked around. “Shit!” he yelled as a squirrel skittered past his right foot out of the room and into the hall. He laughed at himself and looked around the room. A large four-poster bed sat in the middle with the sheets torn back. Thomas wondered if they had sat like that since the night of the murder or if it was done by someone more recent on their investigation of the place. An old-fashioned clock stood atop a dresser, forever stuck at two twenty-six o’clock. Minus the dust and moldy scent, the air in here was dead and there really was not anything of interest to look at. He decided to go to the master bedroom. On his walk through the hall, Thomas heard footsteps and multiple voices downstairs. Just more ghosts he thought to himself, Margret is probably trying to make friends with them. He laughed at the thought of his weird friend sitting in a circle on the floor talking to ghostly figures like a group of elementary school children. He entered the bedroom that the murder supposedly happened in. There was no blood on the relatively small mattress or the floor. A certain disappointment crept inside of him upon viewing the room. Not that Thomas would have enjoyed seeing the dried blood of Elizabeth Thomas (or a ghost again for that matter) but he was hoping to see at least something. “Kind of boring, huh?” Margret asked in his ear. “What the fuck?” Thomas asked in a panic. His heart was beating in his ears. “What’s your deal?” Margret asked, her voice gave off that she was a little hurt by Thomas’ actions. “You can’t keep sneaking up on me like that.” The girl rolled her big green eyes and flashed a friendly smile on her full lips, “Whatever.” The sound of footsteps ascending the stairs interrupted whatever Thomas was going to say next. Margret smiled in excitement, but Thomas felt another wave of fear flash through him. They had pissed off the ghosts of this house somehow and now they were coming to get them. “We have to hide,” Thomas whispered sharply. “Now!” “What? Why?” Margret whispered back. He didn’t reply. As quietly as he could, Thomas snuck into the bedroom’s closet in the far wall and held the door long enough for a reluctant Margret to enter. The footsteps had reached the top of the stairs and the whispered voices of at least three individuals could be heard. Thomas balled himself into a corner of the small closet, he could feel assorted strands of cobwebs brush against his ears and neck as he sat there. His hands shook uncontrollably as he held his knees to his chest. He couldn’t see Margret or hear her next to him, but he attributed that to fear. The mass of footsteps had reached the master bedroom. “You sure he’s here?” A voice whispered. It was one of the most sinister voices Thomas had ever heard. “He is, you can see his footsteps in the dust in the floor,” another whisper replied. “In the closet,” the third one said. A loud alarm blared inside Thomas’ head, it was almost loud enough to make his ears bleed. He looked around, “Margret! Where are you?” he mouthed with a slight voice behind. One of the demons already got her and dragged her to hell! His mind told him. The whispers were right outside of the closet door, but Thomas didn’t listen to them in his attempts to find a crawlspace or vent to crawl into, A beam of light blinded him as the closet door opened, Thomas could only see three vague figures behind the light. “No! Please don’t take me!” Thomas screamed in complete fear, “Oh Lord in heaven, save me please!” He wept and thrashed his arms about. “Tommy, Tommy, it’s us,” a male’s voice came from far away. “Tom, it’s us your friends.” “Get away from me! Margret! Where are you!” Thomas screamed back. “Oh fuck!” A voice said, “He hasn’t taken his medicine today, has he?” “No, it doesn’t appear so,” the figure in front said. “Tom. Tommy, it’s me, Jackson, with Fred and Johnny. We’ve been trying to find you all night.” Thomas remained on the floor crying, he recognized the names but knew it was just the demons or ghosts trying to give him a false sense of security, “Don’t take me,” he whimpered pathetically over and over. “Come on, let’s take him home, but be careful with him. We need to tell his mom that he got away from us during the party after not taking his pills,” the voice that identified himself as Jackson told the other two.” “We also need to tell her that he’s seeing Margret again, he hasn’t talked about her since we were like nine-years-old,” either Fred or Johnny replied. The three of them lifted the sobbing sixteen-year-old off the dusty ground of the closet and carried him out of the house and into Fred’s car. None of them say the actual ghost of Elizabeth Thomas watching over them.


When I awoke, the only thing I sensed was a dull throbbing and the cold steel of a table under me. After a few minutes, I was able to force my eyes open. Surrounding me were dozens of computer screens, all buzzing with red text. As my eyes struggled to focus I noticed a large symbol on the ceiling of the room, that appeared to be some sort of triangular tesseract. As my eyes finally adjusted to the low red light of the room, I noticed that all of the computer screens repeated the same four lines. ***5 7 5 44 5 7 5*** ***Exanimis Manibus*** ***4 7 44444 7 4*** ***Freedom is Death*** Soon after this, I heard several footsteps approaching the door of the room, which seemed to be a panel of the wall that could be opened, but had no control panels inside the room. Although I heard many people, no one seemed to enter. After a few more seconds in the dim room, I heard a quiet hissing. I noticed a thin fog started to appear in the room. My thoughts began to make less sense, and my mind grew more unclear. I felt utterly retarded, and like I couldn’t even complete a single idea in my brain. A loud buzzing noise had started that sent stabs of pains throughout my body. A few more minutes of this helpless state and my vision went completely black, and I believe I fell asleep. *The blackbird flew high above the snow-covered trees. All around it, delicate snowflakes slowly fell to the ground. It appeared to be around early evening, just before sunset, but no sun could be seen. The blackbird soared up towards the bright white clouds, and down to nearly the tips of the trees. This continued for what may have been minutes, hours, or even days. It suddenly seemed alarmed and dived down toward the trees. It found a place on the tallest branch and looked toward the forest floor. There was no life to be seen. The blackbird then noticed a small red and black object lying between two trees. As the bird swooped down towards this object, a clear panic was growing in its small body. The object was a blackbird, identical to the blackbird in flight, mauled nearly in half and covered in crimson blood. As the blackbird looked at it confusion, a buzzing was starting to grow in the forest. All of a sudden, the snow in the forest took on a different shade, of dark red. The buzzing grew to an almost unbearable volume and the bird began to shake violently. The entire forest was now dark, dark red* And I woke up shuttering from a strange dream that made no sense to me. My senses were dull, and I had no clear idea of where I was. As I opened my eyes, my retinas adjusted to the dim red light of the room I was in. All around me were large screens with four lines of text that I felt like I was slightly familiar with: ***5 7 5 44 5 7 5*** ***Exanimis Manibus*** ***4 7 44444 7 4*** ***Freedom is Death*** I started to hyperventilate, as I briefly understood(or remembered) what was happening. I was in the same room as before on the same cold steel table surrounded by the same ominous computer screens. I had not a single clue who I was, or where I was from, or even who my parents were. There was only fear to keep me company on my cold bed. I laid trembling, staring into the red screens for what felt like an eternity before anything changed. The buzzing began again. The second after I had heard it, my eyes rolled back into my head and my body went numb. Nothing made sense once again. And I soon lost consciousness. *The blackbird flew high above the snow-covered trees. All around it, delicate snowflakes slowly fell to the ground. It appeared to be around early evening, just before sunset, but no sun could be seen. The blackbird soared up towards the bright white clouds, and down to nearly the tips of the trees. This continued for what may have been minutes, hours, or even days. It suddenly seemed alarmed and dived down toward the trees. It found a place on the tallest branch and looked toward the forest floor. There was no life to be seen. The blackbird then noticed a small red and black object lying between two trees. As the bird swooped down towards this object, a clear panic was growing in its small body. The object was a blackbird, identical to the blackbird in flight, mauled nearly in half and covered in crimson blood. As the blackbird looked at it confusion, a buzzing was starting to grow in the forest. All of a sudden, the snow in the forest took on a different shade, of dark red. The buzzing grew to an almost unbearable volume and the bird began to shake violently. The entire forest was now dark, dark red* **II** *( This Chapter goes into third-person omniscient )* The man with the yellow armband enters the laboratory filled with several other people, some in lab coats and some wearing protective equipment. As soon as he is noticed, all conversation and activity in the lab stop. “Where is Dr.Thule?” the man asks the group of people. A woman in her late 40s quickly walks toward him. “I am here,c-can I help you?” she asks. “The commander wants an update on the status of your research. Now. ” he replies as he pulls out a small device that he raised toward her face. “He is listening presently.” “Well, we have learned that the pineal gland of the patient is deteriorating, after just two uses of the Temero. We have also been able to completely hijack his cerebral cortex after phase two was performed.” After waiting several moments to ensure she was done speaking, the man pressed a button on the device. “The commander wants full control of the pineal gland by Sunday. I will be back.” The man nods toward the doctor, and swiftly exits the lab. One younger lab assistant breathes a sharp sigh of relief, and they again return to their typical duties. “Status report on the subject’s memory formation.” Dr. Thule tells an older man. “We have convinced his brain that the year is 2019, and he was born in a small town outside of Monterey in the western United States. He also believes that the world is mostly at peace and that mutual-assured destruction has kept the world from war. We are now beginning to fabricate family, friends, and more details on his upbringing. His actual age and name have been released to him, so he should have much less tension in his frontal lobe.” The doctor knew this would allow for better control over the subject’s brain. “We are prepared to wake him up for trial three on your order.” another scientist says. “Alright, I want him up in five.” **III** *(Now it's back to first-person)* When I regained consciousness, I at first couldn’t open my eyes. I laid on the cold table and felt too exhausted to even comprehend what was happening to me. I thought of my friends, and my family back home and soon began to shake with the realization that I may never see them again. I had faceless captors, and I no longer could even tell I was on Earth, much less that I was anywhere near my home. Soon I realized that even though my eyes were closed, I felt as though I had a sense of what was around me, down to the finest detail. It was a feeling unlike anything that I could think of and is not something that could be described easily. From this sort of vision, I was able to tell there was still a small amount of what appeared to be a certain kind of smoke. This smoke was apparently odorless, and could only be recognized as the red light emitted from the monitors shown across it. The monitors still blared the same lines as they did when I awoke last time. I now had a better idea of what was happening, as I was convinced that I must have been abducted by some sort of advanced aliens or something of the sort. I would soon learn I was incorrect. My eyelids were finally able to be forced open, and I was surrounded by the same scene I expected to see. Once I looked into one of the monitors I felt a surge of ominous energy enter my brain. This soon was overwhelming to me, and I began to scream as information passed through my brain. I felt as if I could identify the molecular structure of everything around me, as well as the details of every single memory I had in my mind. Suddenly, I felt something dripping down my forehead, obscuring my vision. After a few milliseconds I sensed this was my blood, and as I began to identify and analyze it, my brain shut down completely. The noise had started. My vision went black and I was greeted with a familiar vision. *The blackbird flew high above the snow-covered trees. All around it, delicate snowflakes slowly fell to the ground. It appeared to be around early evening, just before sunset, but no sun could be seen. The blackbird soared up towards the bright white clouds, and down to nearly the tips of the trees. This continued for what may have been minutes, hours, or even days. It suddenly seemed alarmed and dived down toward the trees. It found a place on the tallest branch and looked toward the forest floor. There was no life to be seen. The blackbird then noticed a small red and black object lying between two trees. As the bird swooped down towards this object, a clear panic was growing in its small body. The object was a blackbird, identical to the blackbird in flight, mauled nearly in half and covered in crimson blood. As the blackbird looked at it confusion, a buzzing was starting to grow in the forest. All of a sudden, the snow in the forest took on a different shade, of dark red. The buzzing grew to an almost unbearable volume and the bird began to shake violently.


American Quarantine The first day of spring has come and gone making the snow fall even more impactful. Here in New England we’re used to being snowed in. We are all prepared for times indoors when we may rather be anywhere else. I once heard a woman here say, “do you even live in New England if you don’t have two types of heat in your home”. The quarantine is something we should be able to handle no problem. We may leave our homes if we absolutely have to but are asked to stay at least six feet away from other people. With most things already shut down there is nowhere to go anyway. Diane had already been home a week with her daughter Whitney and their two cats and one dog. Diane’s husband Jack has only been home for three days and he’s already drunk his way through the stockpiles of budweiser in their food storage. Thankfully...regretfully...both I suppose, the liquor stores are still open. Yes, the liquor stores are still open leaving all the cashiers and stock persons available for infection. The head cashier, Steve, has been to work everyday since everything started to shut down. Steve’s mother is in an expensive assisted living home and he’s really happy to be getting all this overtime. He’s certainly not lonely working all these hours. The store almost seems busier than right before the holidays. One regular, Bill, even tipped him in toilet paper. Bill is an older guy. He was a retired military man. Bill served in Vietnam and still wears something with some army green in it everyday. He loves being out and keeping in touch with his friends, especially other vets. Ever since this whole thing started he has been tipping people with toilet paper. He likes a good laugh, and this made him laugh every time. Even when he handed the pretty grocery store cashier, Jane a roll and her boyfriend Todd, who’d been waiting for her to go on break did not think it was very funny. In fact Todd had been livid. He left before Jane even got to take her break with him. She knew things would get ugly when she got home. After 5 more hours on her feet listening to customers complain about the lack of pasta and toilet paper Jane finally got to go home. Most people would be relieved, but Jane was dreading it. When she finally walked through the door she didn’t see Todd right away. She quietly turned down their little hall into the open kitchen holding tension in her shoulders and saw Todd gripping the counter top with his back turned to her. Their neighbors Tina and Lee who normally work this time of day were both home due to shutdowns. Tina heard it first, then Lee. They made eye contact and in an instant understood so much about their sweet quiet neighbor and her charismatic husband. Tina picked up her phone and called 911. Lee paced nervously but couldn’t take the helpless feeling. She marched barefoot out of the apartment door and started banging and yelling “the police are on their way you fucking son of a bitch!!!” Tina, still holding her phone, ran out to pull Lee away. Her timing impeccable as Todd ran out the door and down the back stairs of the building. Tina and Lee sat with a crumpled sobbing Jane as they waiting for EMS. This was Grace’s one year anniversary serving as an EMT. All her trips in and out of the hospital for emergencies lately have been haunted by ED waiting rooms full of people who think they have the virus. Grace couldn’t help but wonder what would happen to people like Jane and little kids with broken arms and old ladies who fall at home. Will there be room for them? Grace couldn’t think of that now. Her shift had barely started. Once they got Jane inside she told her partner to give her a second and grabbed some Cheez-its from the vending machine right by the door. Grace could always rely on that machine for some good stress eating. Phil, the vending machine operator for that machine and lot more in town, had just been there this morning. He had tried that week to fill everyone up that he could. At the moment his route was shrinking since so many places were closed. The hospital would always need him at least. Phil’s favorite stop has always been and will always be the big office building off of Industrial. The ladies there were the prettiest and the nicest on the route. Phil was wishing he could go again today but he’d just been there two days ago. Phil could never resist stopping at the desk there and trying to charm the women by kissing them on the hand. Lisa was one of only about a dozen people left working in the building. Two days earlier Lisa saw Phil coming up the parking lot from the front desk. She groaned internally preparing herself for his attempts at flirting. Lisa hated people being too close to begin with but now she was even more uncomfortable. Hoping, at the very least, Phil wouldn’t try to kiss her hand, she greeted him cheerfully. Lisa’s stomach turned as Phil went for her hand. She hestitated a millisecond too long to regain possession of her own hand and it was too late. Yuck. Lisa waiting for him to walk away before she poured a generous amount of sanitizer over her hands. She could still feel the warm point of contact and decided to go scrub up at the sink. Lisa saw her co-worker Pat in the ladies scrubbing away as well. Pat chuckled commiseratingly and apologized to Lisa as they stood shoulder to shoulder at the sinks. Even though Lisa hadn’t realized it, Pat also saw Phil coming and had ducked into the back before he saw her. Pat had mixed feelings about still being at the office while almost everyone else was working from home. She promised herself since she had to be out anyway, she’d stop at the liquor store and pick up some nice daiquiri ingredients for this weekend. Diane, Whitney, Jack, Steve, Bill, Jane, Todd, Tina, Lee, Grace, Phil, Lisa and Pat all led very different lives but in the end they all had one thing in common.


The fire at the Cascade Arms in Roseland was a five alarm blaze that reduced the place to rubble. I was working the swing shift at Advocate Trinity Hospital when the ambulances brought in a half dozen of the residents suffering from smoke inhalation. The neighborhood around Cascade Arms is predominantly black and poor. Known to most folks as Section Eight Housing. I don’t live far from there and I am all of those things, too. During my senior year, I became part of a special program where I receive training as a medical aide for a future career in the medical field. I hate to brag, but this is a much better outcome than a lot of my classmates from Buchanan High School, because half of the student body is serving their first prison term for possession. Assigned to the swing shift from 4 pm to midnight, I sometimes get to see first hand the damage being done by people facing the worst demons of addiction. “Brecker, give me a hand with this one.” Slim Walton called out as they wheeled this octogenarian patient on a gurney with an oxygen tube already placed over in his nose. Slim accurately describes his physical presence. “Sure.” I hustled over to the side of the gurney. “He’s pretty feisty.” Slim warned. Slim accurately describes his physical presence. Sometimes he looks like an unlit match with his tall lean shape wrapped in his scrubs and his unruly afro shooting out from his head. Slim has been at Advocate for almost ten years and has been through just about every medical emergency you can imagine. He is my mentor who weekly signs off my training records. “I punch ya righteously.” The elderly man raised his fists just to emphasize the point. “Says his name is George Bryson.” Slim read it off the report the ambulance crew handed Slim. “Dat’s raght.” He coughed. “Take it easy old-timer.” Slim shook his head. “He’s-” “Ain’ no old timer. Doncha give me that-” He struggled to get up. “Hey, hey, lie back.” I put my hand on his emaciated sunken chest. “I ain’ gonna...” He pouted. “Feisty, right?” Slim shook his head. “Put him in Room 14 up ahead.” “How are you feeling, Mr. Bryce?” I asked as Slim turned the gurney into the room. “I’m fine. Wanna go home.” He squawked. “You don’t have a home anymore. The place went up in smoke.” I explained. “I didn’ have nuthin’ to do with it.” He poked his bony finger into my side. “Never said you did.” I put my hand out to prevent him from continuing to poke me in the side. He was a black male whose age was undetermined with a naked dome and silver hair surrounding his bald head like a halo. Slim was right in saying he was an octogenarian. Even if he wasn’t eighty years old, he was coming up to that neighborhood quickly. Slim left to assist with other patients coming in from the Cascade Arms. “Do you have any relatives we need to get a hold of, Mr. Bryce?” I asked as part of my routine questioning. “None thats wants to talk to me.” He shook his head. Nobody? Yeah, that figures. Most people who live in that part of Chicago don’t have anyone keeping tabs on them. Dr. Bolden walked in already gloved and gowned. “Who we got here Landry?” “George Bryce.” I answered. “Well Mr. Bryce, we are going to have a look at you to make sure you’re in good shape.” Dr. Bolden was a very outgoing ER doctor who made an effort to build a rapport with some of the patients who came into our ER. “I’m in good shape, lemme tell ya.” His high pitched voice rang out. “We got some patients from your apartment complex who got hurt in that fire.” Dr. Bolden looked at Mr. Bryce over his glasses. “How old are you?” “I’m old enough.” He nodded. “How ‘bout a number?” Dr. Bolden glanced over at me. “Eighty three.” He scowled. “And we want to be sure we take very good care of you.” Dr. Bolden nodded, “If you want to go, Landry, feel free. Me and Mr. Bryce are going to have a look under the hood.” Growing up, my grandpa told me about the excitement of the Cotton Club in Harlem where he worked as a busboy before the war. “Let me tell you about The Cotton Club on 142cd Street in Harlem. Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, and Bessie Smith all came to perform there. Man, those were the days.” He would tell me before he passed away from some kind of cancer mama didn’t want to talk about. I remember how my grandpa Waldo Young would tell me all kinds of stories as he sat in his chair. Mama would roll her eyes when he started telling one of his famous yarns. She would tell me how her father would liberally mix fiction in when he told one of his stories of his life. It doesn’t matter, because I still enjoyed listening to his smooth, calm voice as he told one of his stories. No one argued with him about his time in the 92cd Infantry in Italy. It was a colored unit supporting the Fifth Army as they fought their way up the peninsula. His uniform was hung proudly in his closet in his room that he occupied after grandma passed away from a heart condition. “Yeah, that was one heck of a fight back then. Hitler threw everything he had at us as we came up from Sicily. Lost some close friends.” He would say, his eyes glistening with tears. “Dad, please don’t tell him any of the stories you told me when I was a kid.” She would warn him. “I know...I know.” His voice was thick. “How is Mr. Bryce?” I asked Dr. Bolden later when I saw him at the station filling out paperwork. “He is a hard one, Landry.” He chuckled. “He told me he once played at the Cotton Club in Harlem.” “No kidding, my grandpa told me he used to work there before the war.” I shook my head. “I must say his story was pretty fantastic, but then I question some of his memories.” He sighed. “How come?” I asked. “He has evidence of advanced Altizimers.” He shrugged. “He said his stage name was Count Massey. Go figure.” Like when I listened to my grandpa, I wanted his stories to be real and while I did not know Mr. Bryce very well, I felt he deserved to have someone listen and believe in what he had to say. “Was he discharged?” I asked. “Naw, not yet.” Dr. Bolden shook his head, “And if we discharge him, he doesn’t have anywhere to go. We’re kinda stuck on this one.” I saw the dilemma. “I am not running a boarding house.” My mama told me as she stood at the bottom of the stairs with her car keys in her hand, ready to run off to work at the store in the mall. I had just asked her about George Bryce staying in the spare room until Section Eight could find him another place to live. “He’s an eighty three year old man. He needs to be in a nursing home where I should have put my own father when he got bad.” “He’s just like grandpa. He used to work at the Cotton Club.” I added hoping to improve my case. “Your grandpa never worked there, Landry.” She put her hands on her hips which meant I was not going to win this argument. “He lived in Harlem before he went off to war, but that was it.” “His stage name was Count Massey.” I shrugged. She gave me a look like she could not believe she was listening to my nonsense. “I am going to be late for work. Watch your brother until Mrs. Smith comes over to watch him.” She shook her head as she walked out the door. In a minute she was on her way to work leaving me to feel defeated. “Gangsters used to come in. I mean like Lucky Luciano.” Grandpa would tell me as he sat in his chair after watching The Price is Right . “Dad, don’t fill his head with all that nonsense.” Mama would call him from the kitchen. “Bah.” He would wave his hand, “She, she is always telling me not to do this or not to do that.” “So what did your mom say?” Slim asked on our break in the staff room as we sipped on our sodas. “No.” I pouted. “You didn’t really expect her to say yes, did you?” He laughed. “We had grandpa living there before he died and her sister with ALS until she died.” I explained. “Maybe she’s tired of hospice care.” Slim shook his head. “Yeah, funny.” “C’mon Lan, she has never met Mr. Bryce. He could be a serial killer for all she knows.” Slim said before slurping the last of his soda, “C’mon we gotta get back.” Later there were three gunshot victims and one fentanyl overdose. In between emergencies, I managed to check on Mr. Bryce. He was sleeping soundly, so I let him be. “Count Basie, Ella Fitzgerald, Fats Waller, Louis Armstrong, Dizzy Gillespie, Nat King Cole, Billie Holiday, and Ethel Waters. And Cab Calloway leading the orchestra. That Landry was the Golden Age of Jazz.” Grandpa would close his eyes as he recalled the magic of this place. “Bah-bah-bah-bah followed by four more beats then a quick change on the third measure Be-bah. Be-bah. Be-bah. Be-bah. It was magic. The arrangement made you want to move your feet. Wonderful. Wonderful. Your grandma and me would spend hours dancing to them tunes. I’ll never forget the way she’d look up at me while we was dancin.’ It was pure magic. Pure magic.” “He’s asking for you.” Dr. Bolden came into the breakroom as we were getting ready to leave. “Me?” I was confused. “Yeah. He woke up for some reason.” Dr. Bolden crossed his arms over his scrubs, “I still have no idea what they are going to do with him.” “I asked my mom and she gave me a flat no.” I shook my head. “Pull up a chair.” Mr. Bryce waved to the empty chair next to his bed. “You wanted to see me?” “I did.” His voice was clear, “I’ve been told you had a grandpa who worked at the Cotton Club.” “Yes sir.” “What did he tell you about the place?” He asked with his eyes open wide. “About the entertainers mostly.” “I was once one of them, you know.” He smiled and sat back in the bed. “I played the piano for Billie Holiday. She was so sweet, I tell ya.” He sniffed, “It was a great time to be alive. I sat and chatted with Langston Hughes one night when the music was on fire.” I sat on the edge of my chair as he nodded like these folks were right there in the room with us. “I met Groucho Marx.” He laughed, “He sat there and cracked me up with all of his one liners. He’s the one who called me a count, likes I was royalty or sumpton. Count Massey. That’s me.” He closed his eyes as tears rolled down his face, “Of course, it was a place where black folks could go and not have to worry about what they could and could not say. Back then they’d lock ya up if’n ya disrespected a white person, but in dat place, anything went. We got to be ourselves. We got to say what was on our mind. We danced the way we was meant to dance. I was the Great and Honorable Count Massey. That name came from my father. Massey. He was the man took my daddy away wearing a white hood. Next time I seen him, he be hanging from a tree.” He paused for a moment to recompose himself. I could see how troubled he was carrying that memory. “I lay in the bushes when he come riding in his buckboard. I raised up where he could see me as I pulled the trigger of the shotgun my daddy owned. I heard him cry out as he fell from his wagon. I know’d I’d have to be leaving Mississippi right then. Never even got to say goodbye to my mama. Just caught a box car to St. Louis and then hitched on a train to New York. When I needed money, I played piano for it. Things was diff’rent back then.” His voice was just a harsh rasp. He closed his eyes again and I left the room knowing he needed to rest. I had goosebumps when I walked out his room. “What did the old man say?” Dr. Bolden asked, standing behind the nurse’s station counter. “What it was like to play piano at the Cotton Club.” I answered. “Do you believe him?” He asked. “Why wouldn’t I believe him?” “Because he’s not reliable.” Dr. Bolden said. “How do you know?” I was a bit irritated. “No reason. He was just delusional earlier in the day. Well, he was talking to God when I walked into the room.” Dr. Bolden shrugged. “Prayer-” “Landry, he wasn’t praying, he was arguing with God. He was telling God a thing or two.” Dr. Bolden tilted his head, “He has been here before. He comes in for pain medication. Apparently he knows someone who will give him a handful of medication. Happens all the time. I wish I could stop it, but I know I can’t.” “Dad!” Mama cried when he was trying to get out the front door. “I needs to go home.” His voice was heavy with emotion, “Your mama needs me.” “Dad, mama’s been gone for eight years.” She told him, taking his hand. “Can’t be true, honey, can’t be.” He shook his head. “It is dad. It is.” She led him back to his chair. “I jus’ wan’s to go home, honey.” His voice was pleading. “Dad, this is your home.” She shook her head as he sat down. “No honey, I gots a home down the road. It has silk curtains and nice tapestry on the floors.” He insisted. “Take your medication.” She held the pills in her hand. “No, I won.’ Dem pills be makin’ me sicker.” He shook his head and kept his mouth closed so she could not shove them in his mouth. “Landry, if you want to keep in your program, I suggest you report to Mr. Walton, pronto.” Head Nurse Wanda Pallor snapped when she saw me sitting in a chair in the waiting room wiping up my tears. “Yes ma’am.” I stood up. “Where’s ya been, Lan?” Slim asked as he swung a mop across the floor. “I was told to find you if I wanted to keep in the program.” I was steamed. “Ah, you must’ve run into Nurse Pallor.” He smiled. “How did you know?” “She be the only one say stuff like that.” He waved his finger at me. “Hey, it’s been pretty slow tonight after all that fuss earlier. Why doncha take an early walk home?” “Won’t Nurse Pallor get mad?” “She’s already mad. Mad as a hatter.” He laughed. “So how was old Mr. Bryce?” “He told me stories about the Cotton Club.” “Yeah, we gots place along the shore that are just as famous. We got ribs and the blues. Ribs and blues. I’ll take out to one of them places.” Slim rinsed his mop in the bucket. “Alright, it’s a date...well not like that.” I laughed. “Keep it light, dude.” He winked as I turned to leave. When I got to Advocate the next day, Slim caught me in the hall. “Gotsome bad news.” His head hung low. “Wha’ up?” “Mr. Bryce managed to get on the roof. One of the security guards said he was having an argument with somebody up there.” He pointed to the ceiling, “And then he stepped off the ledge.” “Oh no.” I felt as if someone had punched me right in the gut. “Are you gonna be okay?” He asked as I collapsed into a chair. “Yeah, I’ll be fine.” I sucked in some air. “Bah-bah-bah-bah followed by four more beats then a quick change on the third measure Be-bah. Be-bah. Be-bah. Be-bah and start all over again Bah-bah-bah-bah.” “What?” Slim’s face twisted into a question mark. “It’s the blues.” “The blues?” Slim shrugged. “Yeah...” I could hear the blue notes as they fell from the stars above.


I was taking my evening constitutional through a well-kept graveyard when I saw, at a distance, the tombstone bearing my name. The Hamilton marker stood there, gaunt and gray, like a foul-smelling intruder loitering at the edge of a convivial garden party, an intruder keeping an eye on someone who owed an impossible debt. I was already in a somber mood, what with constant news of the pandemic, and my recent heart irregularities, which had led my cardiologist, Brent, to recommend this daily walk. So yes, the tombstone gave me pause. I asked myself, “What am I doing with my life?” and its shadow question: “What should I do with the time remaining?” By the end of the walk, however, I realized: the tombstone had nothing to do with me. My name is exceedingly common, and I am constantly confused with other David Hamiltons. I returned home, and all thought of the eerie coincidence vanished when my wife, Jeanne, passed along an urgent message regarding a patient whose hand I had repaired earlier that day, a fifth metacarpal fracture, commonly called the “boxer’s fracture.” The next evening, I ventured closer. “My” tombstone, made of black polished granite, stood among a dozen bearing that surname. A small curved arc on top bore the epitaph, “Loved by all who knew him,” and this irritated me. I suppose clichés are inevitable when it comes to millions of tombstones the world over, but why choose an obvious lie? Who can claim everyone who knew him loved him? Not even Mother Teresa. I know of her--yet I do not love her. Therefore it’s a lie. When I got home, Jeanne already had my slippers out and a pot of chamomile tea for us to share. I said, “I think we should start a Society for Truth in Epitaphs.” “Oh?” She brightened. “To lobby against slogans like ‘to know him was to love him’,” I said, “and ‘asleep in the arms of Jesus’.” She laughed. “Sure, let’s change ‘remembered with love’ to ‘remembered with a faint sense of puzzlement’.” *** Due to road repair, I couldn’t visit Mount Pleasant cemetery again, not until late fall, when most bushes were bare. I was walking the main circuit, the one around the grand mausoleum, and, with a start, I found myself staring at the gaunt gray intruder again. At the bottom, the year of birth was visible--and it was the same as mine. Ah well, I told myself, that’s the curse of the common name. It’s the bane of the internet search. “There are 2300+ professionals named ‘David Hamilton’,” says LinkedIn, and this obviously does not include the forests of family trees that include my name among the ancestors. Over chamomile tea, I mentioned the odd occurrence to Jeanne. “Ooh, wow,” she said. “I’m sure there’s a deliciously blood-curdling story in this.” She’s an illustrator of kid’s books, and loves to pass along story ideas to her talented clients. She began humming Twilight Zone theme music. “Of all the thousands of David Hamilton on the internet,” she said in a sepulchral voice, “twenty of whom live in this city, what is the likelihood that one of them shares your year of birth?” I chuckled. “Perhaps Brent has a new, creative way to remind his patients to keep working on their cardiac health.” “Hey, did you check the year of death?” “No, I didn’t. I wasn’t about to climb all over the--” “Oh come on, surely you checked!” She knows me too well; I had checked. “Sorry to disappoint,” I said. “It’s not filled in. Lots of dates on tombstones are still open. It’s a, you know, placeholder tombstone.” “Ah... spooky, someone’s waiting for you....” She clasped her hands to her warm mug. “Wouldn’t it be odd if it had a year of death five years ago? That would mean I was married to the undead!” “Oh, stop it, Jeanne!” She dissolved into giggles. *** As a young child, I asked my mother, “Who is my father?” “Zeus,” she answered. “When can I meet him?” “Never.” “Is he dead?” “No.” She told me she loved Papa, would always love him, and had promised to keep “their arrangement” a secret. “He is a famous man,” she told me, “but you mustn’t go telling anyone else. This is just for you and me to know. Okay?” As I grew older, I learned my mother, Dorothy Broussard, was “the other woman” in the life of a famous man, someone unable to leave his wife. Dorothy refused to give up her art and her activism. *** Things got busy at my clinic. The pandemic brought a spate of broken hands: amateurs doing home renos, acrobat-wannabes doing too many handstands, and frustrated Type As smashing their fists into walls (the aforementioned boxer’s fracture). Meanwhile, the new protocols in hospitals were elaborate and time-consuming. When we became extremely short-staffed, all hand surgeries ceased, and I was even seconded into the Covid wards for two weeks, until Brent intervened. “Although the arrhythmia is not so pronounced,” he said, “nonetheless, you have a risk factor.” So, back to orthopedics, my true passion. Repairing hands is a source of great intellectual satisfaction, like getting to solve a 3-D jigsaw puzzle every day at work. As I scrutinized X-rays and snipped rows of sutures, the notion of the gaunt and gray intruder nibbled at the edge of my consciousness. A new puzzle. A tombstone, once it is properly in use, does not belong to you, does it? This is contrary to most things--a gift, a knapsack, a university diploma--where having your name on it means it belongs to you. As a kid, I once found a ball with my name on it. I was shy and unpopular, with all the natural ease of a wind-up toy. My school chums loved soccer so much that the shiny new ball brought me instant popularity, even more so when someone recognized Rinaldo’s autograph on the leather. “Keep playing the beautiful game,” it said. When Mom saw the new ball, she said, “Oh drat, you found your birthday gift ahead of time.” I could tell it was a fib. For years I harbored the suspicion that Zeus knew I loved soccer and he had covertly left the ball where I would find it. Why did the soccer ball pop into my head just then? I was supposed to be examining a nondisplaced phalangeal fracture. *** The ball was not the only instance. Another day, after a lovely thick snowfall, we were all sent home early from school. While digging high and low in the coat closet for my snow boots, I discovered a new violin case with my name on it. Christmas was in the air, and my school orchestra was rehearsing carols. I could hardly wait to try out my new violin. I was convinced my little solo would sound better on the new violin-- if only my secretive mother would let me have the new violin. One night I slammed shut the geography text and informed her the gig was up. “I can’t believe you’d do this,” she cried. “Weeks of lying to my face!” “How about ‘Santa’,” I countered in my aggrieved twelve-year-old voice. “You’ve been lying to me for years!” “Oh, pfft , that’s Santa-wink-wink. You’ve known about him since you were five, Davey, and I know you’ve known, and we’ve just pretended to each other.” She smirked. “And didn’t we have fun with our little white lies?” “Like you’ve pretended my father is Zeus?” “Exactly. We both know that’s not his real name.” “Tell me the truth--who is he?” “I can’t tell you. I promised not to. Remember The Watchman’s Oath?” She named a movie we’d watched together and both loved, a film about a French resistance fighter who stood firm and did not betray his comrades--even while the Nazis crushed his hands, one finger at a time. *** Blame it on lockdown boredom, but Jeanne would not let the tombstone go. “I don’t get why you’re not more curious about this,” she said over our clamshells of takeout sushi. “Put it this way,” I said, “Once upon a time I used to Google my name. Ego surfing, remember that? I’ve met a few David Hamiltons in my time, all rather boring.” “Could one of them be the David Hamilton with the tombstone?” she said. “Maybe.” “Or is somebody... bwa-ha-ha-ha... vaiting for you?” She does a very good Bela Lugosi vampire accent. “You’re letting your imagination run away with you,” I said. “Pass the wasabi, please.” “Where there’s smoke, there’s fire.” “Where there’s smoke, there’s one exhausted busboy on break between shifts.” I rubbed my eyes. I was the busboy. “Where there’s smoke, there’s a crrrematorium... bwah-ha-ha-ha ... with a pine box on a conveyor crrrreaking toward a rrroaring fire.” “You are impossible.” I smiled. She tossed her mane of thick dark hair in a beguiling way. “And ze pine box has your name on it.” I caught her by the wrists and kissed her. “Mm... Let’s start a fire this weekend.” *** I may have acted as if the tombstone was nothing, but it did have positive effects. Brent praised my efforts and told me the arrhythmia seemed to have dissipated. “Steady, moderate exercise; good diet--the muscle is responding well.” Also, I took care of some things left undone. Jeanne and I updated our will. We arranged a Celebration of Life for my mother, who had died early in the pandemic. Third, we set up the Dorothy Broussard Foundation to protect endangered species, the subject of most of her artwork. *** The voice on the phone sounded old and querulous. I replied that, yes, I was Dr. David Hamilton, orthopedic surgeon, but the caller would have to go through regular channels and have his G.P. send a referral. “I have just returned from Tenerife,” the man said in his plummy Oxbridge accent. “I do not need your consultation, as excellent as it may be. I am merely replying to a message left by someone named... Jen?” I felt compelled to show age some respect, but cobwebs hung in my brain. “I’m sorry,” I said, “your name is...?” “Basil David Hamilton. I am calling about the Dorothy Broussard Foundation.” My fingers fumbled to grasp a pen. *** He lived on the entire floor of a swank apartment building nestled in the heart of Forest Hill. A dour housekeeper admitted me and took my coat and shoes. She said, “Sir Basil will see you in the conservatory.” The hall was hung with striking and original art, as was the music room. It seemed any minute a small orchestra might emerge from behind the velvet burgundy curtains and seat themselves at the grand piano, standing harp, or pick up a violin. “Please do come in,” a familiar voice said. Across the Turkish carpet I approached him, the man Zeus, as I had thought of him for so long. He sat tall and ancient in his wingback chair, his hair artificially black and glossy. He had several fine lines across his forehead, like a music score, and deep lines around his mouth and glittering eyes. I recognized him immediately as the pre-eminent composer recently knighted for outstanding cultural contributions. Jeanne had briefed me with his complete bio, so I knew Sir Basil’s legal wife had died two years ago, and his polyglot daughter, Erica, was currently overseas working in the diplomatic corps. The silence grew. I am no stranger to persons of great wealth, talent, or renown. We usually have a hand injury talk about, an icebreaker, if you will. I wished Jeanne had come along, to ease the conversation, but she had refused. “This is your Luke-meets-Darth-Vader moment,” she’d said. “Time to go mano a mano .” Her words made me uneasy, as if a confrontation was expected. A showdown. But where was the wrong? My mother had wanted to be out of the limelight. Sir Basil had consented to give me his surname--thus, acknowledging me as his own. And now, what, this stranger thought he could make up for lost time, welcome me into the fold, and “allow” me to rest my bones in the family plot? For that’s what the tombstone was, I had concluded: it was to mark my final resting place. It was a peace offering of sorts; it was to be a “gathering in” of the illustrious life of Sir Basil David Hamilton, a place where eventually he would be surrounded by distinguished forebears and extended family and, yes, even me, the lovechild who made good. The silence grew and my mind raced. I looked at a nearby painting, an early Kandinsky, and tried to come up with an opener. “Your mother, Dorothy Broussard, was a captivating woman,” Sir Basil ventured. “I still recall the first time we met...” His thoughts seemed to drift. This time, I let the silence grow. What were the attributes he had fixated upon? I waited to hear accolades of her beauty, her charm, her gift of sociability. Instead, the housekeeper wheeled in a clattering drinks cart and Sir Basil invited me to “choose my poison.” “Regarding Dorothy’s foundation,” he said gravely, “May I donate valuable articles for auction?” I said, “Of course.” To the housekeeper, I said, “green tea, please.” “Green tea! My word, you are the epitome of moderation,” he said. “Come closer, where I can see you better.... I have long wanted to meet you. I used to receive updates from your mother. Your precocious reading ... your MVP trophies in soccer... and your musical talent. However, I was dismayed to hear of your bout with mononucleosis... and your arrest for public mischief.” I reddened, remembering how Mom tore a strip off me for that. “Oh, don’t be embarrassed,” he chortled. “Simply wayward youth. You see, I was young once too. Sometimes... a man needs to test the limits.” Great, I thought, where was the loving forgiveness when I most needed it? “I have a son, too, you know,” he continued. “Although he would never have such escapades.” I was stunned. Jeanne hadn’t mentioned a son. Had I missed it in the bio she’d prepared? “Yes, born the same year. Your half-brother.” “I’m sorry, I’m a little confused,” I said, holding up my hand against the onslaught of sonorous pronouncements, like interrupting David Attenborough reading through a script. “You have another son? I’ve never heard of him. Your daughter, yes; Erica’s rumored to be the next Kissinger. But a son?” A tremor passed over Sir Basil’s face, a brief change of expression somewhere between repugnance and regret. “He’s institutionalized. Has been from very early on. We tried caring for him at home, but he was born severely compromised. Furthermore, Audrey was having... issues. And then, complications arose.” The housekeeper handed us each a thick yunomi cup of green tea. “Independently, two mothers came up with the same name for their little boys. Who was I to disagree?” Sir Basil said. “When a woman risks her life to bear a child, I don’t have the moral authority to reject the name she chooses.” “So, Nebuchadnezzar is okay?” I couldn’t resist. He blew on his tea. “Ha ha, you’re argumentative, too, I see.” He smiled, dare I say, somewhat fondly. “So you kept the existence of this other David Hamilton a secret,” I said. “Please understand. We didn’t keep it that way; there was no conscious action on our part. It just never made the news, and for Audrey, after a series of miscarriages, it was better that way.” His eyes flickered to a photo on the mantel. “She felt like an utter failure. Motherhood was her goal--she liked to say she dreamed of ‘a quartet of our own’--and she wasn’t happy until a healthy baby was born.” “And your David Hamilton is still alive?” I was seized with an urge to meet him. “Alas, no. He lives-- lived , excuse me--in a group home. Hard hit by Covid. He died some months ago.” “I am sorry for your loss,” I muttered, almost from reflex. “I’ve made space for him in the family plot. The tombstone requires updating but... supply-chain issue for the drill bits of their engraving tool. Apparently.” He looked again at Audrey’s photo, and I stared into my cup, feeling the warmth radiate into my hand. Carpal bones, metacarpal bones, phalanges... “Tell me, do you still play violin?” he asked, one black eyebrow raised. “I thought...perhaps...,” he said awkwardly, gesturing toward a music stand. I play regularly, to keep my surgeon’s hands limber. But I hesitated from sharing that with him. Somehow, for all the years he was closed off from me, from us , I couldn’t pretend this was a Hallmark reunion. He misread the doubt on my face, and instead launched himself from the wingback chair and walked, a trifle unsteadily, to the piano, where he played the first bars of a Vivaldi piano-violin duet. One that I loved, and had labored a long time to learn. “Thank you for the tea,” I said, rising. “I must go.” As I walked away, the music halted. Then I heard Chopin’s Nocturne in C-sharp minor. THE END


#Welcome to Roundtable Thursday! Writing is so much fun, but it can also be very challenging. Luckily, there are so many other writers out there going through the exact same things! We all have unique skills and areas in which we excel, as well as places we’d like to improve. So I’d like to present a brand new weekly feature. This will be a weekly thread to discuss all things writing! And... to get to know your fellow writers a bit! Each week we will provide a topic and/or a few questions to spark discussion. Feel free to chime into the discussion in the comments, talk about your experiences, ask related questions, etc. You do not have to answer all the questions, but try to stay on-topic! *** #This Week’s Roundtable Discussion Different perspectives are what make the world go round in real life and also in stories. Depending on what you are trying to achieve, your choice of point of view, can change how a story is perceived. Do you like the intimacy of first person or the broader world view of third? Are you into second person, where you can bring the reader in, in a unique way? - **What is your preferred POV?** - **How does it fit into your narrative goals?** - **If you use a lot of different ones, what influences your choices?** - **Any advice to others on using different POV?** - New to r/ShortStories or joining in the Discussion for the first time? **Introduce yourself in the comments!** What do you like to write? *** #Reminders - **Use the comments below to answer the questions and reply to others’ comments.** - **Please be civil in all your responses and discussion.** There are writers of all levels and skills here and we’re all in different places of our writing journey. Uncivil comments/discussion in any form will not be tolerated. - **Please try to stay on-topic.


The rain fell softly from the grey English sky. The sun struggled to be seen through the dark clouds, only managing to shine enough light to cast a soft shadow on the cemetery grounds. Father McCreary stood in front of an open grave. Above the grave there was a wooden casket held aloft by a platform connected to a steel belt. The rain fell on her head, but, being an English woman, she found this to be just a mild inconvenience. Only one person had attended the service, an elderly gentleman who was the brother of the deceased. Father McCreary had had her share of lonely funerals, but this was by far the loneliest. Nevertheless, as parish priest, it was her duty to honour all who died amongst her flock. “Ben was a good man,” she began (a trite but effective introduction), “He has lived in this town his entire life, receiving his schooling in the local primary and high school, before briefly attending university in London. But of course, the pull of this town was great and he soon found his way back. “It was in this town that he worked as a mailman, eventually rising to the rank of post master. It was also here that he met his wife, Lynette, and although they did not have any children, theirs was a long and loving marriage, which ended upon Lynette’s death two years ago. “Ben lived a simple life and he was well loved in this town. Nothing made him happier than to attend the local horse races and to go to the pub on a quiet Sunday afternoon. He has lived a long life, a happy and fruitful life, and before he died he said that the only thing that made him sad was that he had outlived all of his friends. “He did not want for anything, but he did have one wish. He wished to be buried with a family heirloom, the Kohinoor diamond, which belonged to an ancestor from long ago.” Father McCreary hesitated for a moment. She looked up from her notes and looked at Ben’s brother. “There is no one here but you, me and God,” she said. Ben’s brother nodded solemnly. “Benjamin Harold Williams, was born Benjamin Windsor,” Father McCreary said, “Of course, as has been tradition for several generations, he took the name Williams, after the first Norman ruler of England. “The diamond belonged to Queen Victoria, but was in fact bought from the colonies. It has been passed down through the generations, its value immeasurable. “Benjamin was not a member of the Church of England. To him, religion was not of vital importance, but he chose to be baptised a Catholic and now he will be buried a Catholic. “The realm, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, no longer exists. Benjamin has died the last king of England.” Father McCreary walked over to a briefcase. She opened it and pulled out a flag. “In days long gone the coffin would have been draped in the Union Jack. But today it will be draped in the flag of England, St. George’s Cross.” She unfurled the flag and placed it across the top of the casket. She then pushed a button and the casket was slowly lowered into the ground. Father McCreary watched as the coffin slowly disappeared. Rain fell on top of the flag. She picked up some dirt and threw it on top of the casket. “Long live the King.” She then brushed the dirt off her hands, and walked away.  Note - I wrote this for obvious reasons but it is just a story. No political motives. I'm sorry if I got any facts mixed up, I mean no offence. Also, should've called this speculative fiction.