1. where do we begin... i guess, if i had to say, it would start in my home. if home is what they say, if home is a place of comfort, then home is what it was. so i hesitate to bring it up. i am unclear as to what it means to be alive in that place. if part of me is here, i survived, while part of me will always be left behind, broken glass on torn bed frames, still it lives in there. in those crevices in my mind i don’t care to visit. that i won’t visit. if that is home, then it’s the perfect place to lay down my heart. 2. it’s a school day. i remember because mom woke me up. i am five, or four, and there is that smell of morning. i don’t smell the morning anymore. i went into the kitchen. breakfast was served: eggs with cut up hotdogs. we get ready to leave. there in the closing of the car door, i hear it. softly, at first, a hummingbird wasn’t this quite. then, at once, an eruption of sound came from behind my seat. i covered my ears as mom opened the door. “what’s wrong?” i don’t answer. i wouldn’t even know what to say. 3. i am eighteen again. eighteen and drinking shit beer with shit friends that i’ve partnered for a lifetime. these are girls. these are guys. these are the people i would kill for and lose with. we are out of town. the city limit miles behind. the sky is growing dark. i turn, stumbling over to piss. my eye sight is foggy, i can hear Mike shouting “don’t go too far!” with my dick in my zipper and my hand on a beer i start to pee into some bushes. how does it always know, when i am alone or afraid? i hear it... a soft humming of wind and voices. it’s as if all these people crammed into a room, speaking in whispers. then it shouts. one voice among them louder than hell. always in that same place. in that place right behind your peripheral vision. i turn around as fast as i can and trip with my dick still out, spilling beer and embarrassment all over my jeans. it was Mike this time. he laughed, high as a kite “you alright man, you look pale” i put myself away as he helps me up. i spook around trying to see clearly. looking all around as if nothing had just happened. 4. it was my eight grade graduation. my mom is looking proud in the audience. for a while there, i wasn’t sure i would make it. i wasn’t sure i would walk with my class. this was two years after the accident. i had developed behavioral issues and was removed from my classes due to anger management. they wrote me up this plan. this plan that would get me back on the road to success, they said. as i sat there waiting for my name to be called. a man stood in the back of the cafeteria where they hosted our event. he didn’t look like a parent. he didn’t look like a person, really, as i blinked twice before looking at him again. my name was called. i stood up to walk over to the principle to receive my certificate... the humming began. the sounds of those people faded. my mom looked so proud of me. so proud. as i screamed, he handed me my certificate. his hand was made of leathery black skin. his face was featureless. and his eyes. those empty shark gazes as we touched. my skin turned cold. i blinked twice. and he was gone. the principle stood there “good job” i looked around, the crowd of parents and teachers clapping for the next kid who stood up after me. and my mom. so proud. so pleased. 5. it was raining outside. i always loved the rain. i would get up early and chase the dog through the mud. we had a big backyard. as big could be for me, age seven or eight. i ran around barking. i loved the rain in those days. i loved the mud and the wet earth smell that crept up from the ground. the rain began to pour harder. my dog stopped and stared. “what’s wrong boy?” “why did you stop?” he began to cower. his tail coiled up under his butt as i bent down to grab him. he was whimpering. i couldn’t tell what was wrong. the rain pouring down. and even in that whitewall of water, the humming began. i looked up. and there he was. only a few feet in front of me. he didn’t look wet at all. the rain didn’t touch him. and his eyes were fixed upon me. “what do you want?” he raised his skeletal hand. black as night. black as the color of the void must feel. lifting only four or five fingers. i blinked twice. my dog found it’s voice and barked. i blinked twice before falling over into the mud and ground. i sat there and cried as the rain came to a sudden halt. 6. it was summer once again. twenty-one and in the back of a mustang with the top down. the song playing was eighties rock. for whom the bell tolls, time marches on... for whom the bell tolls. Mike was driving and Hector was in the front seat. i was waving my hands in the air. all of us singing along to the song. Hector turned to me, handing me a shooter of Jameson, before handing one to Mike. we were coming up on the big drop. the little dipper, we coined it. it was this patch of road that went up and instantly fell down. Mike was going thirty-five as he approached it. we blew past the speed marker: 25. he pressed his foot down on the gas. we jumped up to sixty in half a second. the little dipper ahead. i closed my eyes. threw my hands up after we all slammed our shots. we came up the slope and flew over the drop. time stood still. time wasn’t constant in this state of being. the music died. the car disappeared. and thats when i saw him. waiting at the bottom of the road. as if he’d been there all night. he was always there. Mike swerved. Hector flew out of the car. his body a rag doll. i grabbed on to the seat belt around my waist. we slammed into a ditch and the car made this awful noise. crunching up like a wad of tin foil. “did you see that?” “where’s Hector?” we got out of the car. shouting for Hector. “Mike, do you see it?” “see what?” i pointed. we both froze. he was standing over Hectors body on the asphalt. he leaned down and touched him. he visibly touched him with the red tint of tail lights lighting his hand. Mike ran over as i froze. “help me!” i couldn’t move. 7. i was snorting blow with these two girls i met at the bar. they were both laughing and taking bong rips as i emptied out my bag on a movie case. i cut up some lines and rolled up a twenty dollar bill. “i want next” one of the girls said before coming over to sit next to me. i snorted my line. the lions share of a line. and my nose began to burn. “who wants shots?” the other girl stood up and walked into the kitchen of this shotgun style apartment. the girl next to me took my rolled up twenty and snorted loudly over the movie case. “do you always do your blow on a weird movie case?” i looked back at the movie. and there he was. a shadow covered in white. i panicked. “we have to leave” my arms turned pale. my legs began shaking. she reached over and grabbed my leg. i blinked twice as i met her face... it wasn’t her sitting next to me anymore. 8. Hector didn’t die from the impact to the road. Hector was hurt, covered in blood that wasn’t his own. the report said he died from acute organ failure. he was still alive when we got to him that night. he looked at Mike and started to tear up. he reached over to me as i slowly walked over “it’s you...” he croaked. “it’s always been you...” 9. i shut my eyes before remembering that home. that house where time floated by and you floated along. if there was life there, it surely swam alone. i began to see it, unwillingly. i didn’t want to see. i blinked twice and there i was: twenty-six. successful. in a career. in a house under my name. with a car out front. i sat in that house alone. even though i knew, deep down, that i was never, truly, alone. it began with a frenzy. i smashed the walls with an axe and then began on the decor. i walked over to the stove. began to light everything that was remotely flammable. i entered my room. chopping the bed frame, ripping the curtains as the fire in the kitchen began to spread. with the smoke filling up behind me. i walked into the bathroom and slammed into the mirror. and as i fell to my knees, there he was on the floor... 10. the day of the accident was a mistake. i didn’t fall from the quad, no, something pushed me. i was going twenty before it swept me off. the last memory of my youth escaped me. my final moment was full of fear and regret. i was eleven or twelve. i was there and then i wasn’t. he looked at me, as my brain began to swell. internal bleeding. he looked at me and i looked at him. a creature without a face with a sharks gaze. it was hungry. and i knew it was time. i reached out and it took my hand. i fell through the world as the earth escaped from underneath. left behind. who was the man in the mask... 11. we left Hector at the front doors of St. Mary’s hospital. we left him there and ran. Mike’s uncle picked us up a block or so away. we were covered in blood and he didn’t ask why. Mike cried. he looked at me “why did you tell me to leave him there?” i couldn’t respond. i had no words. i began to cry harder. the alcohol fueling a bursted rage. a fury locked up in my throat. my eyes stinging. my nose backed up with snot. we left him there on that concrete slab just outside the automatic doors. i forced Mike to listen. Hector was gone and the faceless man took him. Mike didn’t believe me. even after the funeral. that was the last time we ever stood in the same place. Hector was gone. only his tombstone remained. 12. you can run from it all your life. you can run away and graduate and have a family and kids. but his surviving words still read: a beloved son. and the days taste stale. the food is always dry. and the faceless man is there... watching. waiting. i need only look in a mirror. 13. end.


In a world of superheroes the final bomb dropped, bringing destruction upon all whether hero or villain. Citizen or criminal, man or woman, adult or child. Not one was spared from the terrible weapons of destruction, crafted by those who didn’t realize that they created doom for not only their sworn enemies but for themselves too. No hero was strong enough, none were smart enough, but only one was fast enough. He was fast enough to save himself but not one other person. Fast enough to run and run until he noticed no more flares of destruction. Until the only thing he could notice was not the piercing sounds of yelling and crying, but the deafening silence of pure nothingness, a world that lay waiting for something to inhabit it. Not unlike the feeling one gets from seeing a once bustling street become empty at night. He was simply a blur, unable to cope that there was absolutely no one left. However, the blur thought if he could not save anyone, help anyone, or avenge anyone. Why not become everyone? The blur has become even faster now, storming through every library possible, learning how to do everything possible. First, he rebuilt every bridge, building, school, and skyscraper possible. He forgot no building from the tallest skyscraper to the secluded farmhouse across the world. He had to keep himself busy, if he wasn’t busy than he was thinking. If he was thinking he was thinking of what he failed to do, his failure as a hero. He was even faster now. As he kept running and repairing, he still felt empty inside. Everything looked fine on the outside, why was he not feeling better? The blur realized it, how could he forget? Every nice house needs decorations inside, things that tell you about who lived there and what they liked. So he started to decorate, paintings, trinkets, and other things. He ran and ran across the world decorating the inside of every building. Giving each one a personality he saw fit. What would once take him a month only took a few days, he was even faster now. Soon he was finished, everything had been fixed and decorated. It was like nothing bad had ever happened. But eventually he started to think once more, “I decorated and designed how I saw fit”. The rural farmer would not have a painting of a cityscape on his wall. It would be impossible to figure out the interests of every single person on Earth and what they would want in their homes. There just wasn’t enough time to do it. But for the blur this wasn’t an issue, he had all the time in the world and all the speed to do it. He started inspecting the belongings in every single house, deducing what they liked, their interests, and their dislikes. So he began, carefully taking in the consideration of everyone to have lived. Zipping across each street, house to house, bedroom to bedroom. He decorated in a way that they would have liked it, in a way that would not have told you it was the work of man losing himself. As he finished he thought to himself what more could he do? Everything looked better now, what more was he missing? As fast as the blur was, his thoughts started catching up to him. He could no longer keep himself busy with mindless work that would not please anyone except him. No matter how powerful one may be, every human needs companionship. He started a fruitless search around the world, there had to be at least ONE person left. He searched and searched, shelters, houses, schools, valleys, mountains, deserts. Every nook and cranny he searched, all he found were corpses. The blur then had his next idea “If I couldn’t save them in life, than I could honor them in death.” He began digging, he used a shovel at first but eventually realized it would be faster to just use his hands. As quickly as he bloodied his hands crudely thrusting them into the ground, they healed even quicker. In minutes he had buried dozens of people, a pile of dirt from the graves he had dug out began to rise. Another minute goes by, and soon a hill has taken shape. After a few minutes thousands had been buried, he was even faster now. A mountain started to form, eventually it began to tower over the tallest buildings. Hours had passed, everyone had been laid to rest. A mountain that put any skyscraper, mountain, or cloud to shame with its height had formed. It was a monument, a monument to not just the blur’s failure. But to the failure of humanity, a failure to realize to bring doom upon their enemies, that they had also brought doom upon those undeserving of it. The blur was left running, running to find something that wasn’t there. Whether it was purpose, companionship, or a way to undo it all. He was left running at speeds thought impossible. He was losing his grip, as for every day, hour, minute, and even second that had gone by. He had began to lose himself Even Faster Now.


Jane leaned across the arm of my deck chair and whispered something dirty. Kurt squealed on my lap, gasping as the fireworks exploded over our heads. The reflection of the kaleidoscopic colours on Lake Whitemer looked like an identical firework was going off not so far from where we sat, I’m sure Kurt believed that was really the case. He couldn’t talk, but on the off chance he chose this moment to spit out his first word, Jane did not want to chance him drawing a selection from the pool of what she was saying now. “What do you think?” she asked, fluttering her eyelids. “I think whoever’s putting on the big show across the water had better cut it so I can get you to bed,” I replied. “It’s the fourth of July,” she pointed out. “The Americans will keep at it until the sun comes up.” I pulled myself out of the deck chair and passed Kurt to his mother. He made a happy little hiccupping noise as he moved through the air. “Bed time,” Jane said, cradling him. “I’m afraid it’s past both of our bedtimes. Your father is going to spank me if I don’t get to bed soon.” She looked at me when I didn’t answer, half amused and annoyed. “That was the perfect set up. You’re supposed to say, ‘I’ll do it anyways’, or ‘too late’. Something like that.” “Sorry.” I was distracted. I heard something moving around against the kitchen window behind us. A mouse? No, larger than a mouse, maybe a raccoon. When I turned and peered through the window, it was empty. “Miles?” “Hmm?” I turned. The light of the fireworks dyed Jane’s hair green, then white, then the bright cherry red of a fire truck. “Is everything alright?” she asked. “Yeah. I thought maybe I heard an animal inside. Wait out here a second, I’ll check it out.” “I told you, we should’ve had someone come and clean the cottage in May. This is what happens when you’re only here for three months of the year. Something else moves in.” “Yes dear,” I joked. I opened the screen door and it whined on its hinges. I tensed, ready to hear our scuffling guest streaking for the doorway and my unprotected bare feet, or the obnoxious clanging of a pot knocked onto the floor. I heard nothing. “Hurry up,” Jane said in a low whisper. “I’ll be back to deal with you in a minute,” I said, stepping into the kitchen. I groped blindly at the wall to my left, then turned on the light switch. The kitchen was just as we’d left it. If we had a furry house guest, it had abstained from chowing down on the leftover hot dog from dinner. I walked through the kitchen, past the TV in the back half of the open space, and down the hallway. The basement door was shut. Nothing had run down there to hide, and if the mice living down there were hungry, they had not come up into the kitchen. “Coast is clear,” I said over my shoulder, but Jane was already in my ear. “Good. Get in bed.” “Yes ma’am.” \*\*\*\*\*\* I woke up the next morning feeling more rested than I had since I started managing the corporate accounts at BD. I rose carefully from bed, not wanting to wake Jane, and tiptoed across the room to peer into Kurt’s crib. He was sleeping with a stuffed teal elephant tucked under his arm. His little chest rose and fell with hypnotic regular ease, and he barely stirred when I kissed his forehead. Our parents and friends had warned us, in that half joking but *no seriously we know best* way that seasoned parents often employ. They love to council mothers and fathers to be. Loved to warn that we would be getting next to zero sleep once the baby came into our lives. I knew this was a rule, but Kurt was a pleasant and surprising exception. He was good for six or seven hours every night, even when fireworks were exploding like cannon fire across the lake. I tiptoed out of the room and after cleaning up the mess from last night’s dinner, I broke four eggs into one pan and fried bacon on another. Last night’s hot dog was untouched, further proof that I had been imagining whatever it was that I thought I’d heard, and in an unpredicted bout of madness I threw it out the open window into the loose forest outside for some squirrel or other thing. Probably a dumb thing to do, feeding the animals was a surefire way to get them coming back, but I was filled to burst with sunshine and summer air. “Breakfast,” I said when Jane wandered out of our bedroom rubbing her eyes. One of my XL t-shirts hung over her waist like a dress, making me question whether she was wearing underwear. I decided to find out after breakfast. “Morning sweetness,” she said. “How’s Kurt?” “Kid’s a champion,” I said. “Still asleep. I don’t even think he woke up during last night's commotion, and I don’t mean the fireworks.” Jane stopped rubbing her eyes. She frowned. For some reason, she glanced at the couch and the armchair sitting across from the flat screen, then back to me. “What do you mean?” she asked. “Looks like I’m not the only one who fumbles at innuendos.” “No, not that. Where’s Kurt?” My heart dropped, but just a hair. “He’s in his crib.” “No he’s not,” Jane said, with a tone suggesting I cut out whatever bad joke I was making. “You brought him out here when you woke up, right?” “No,” I said, already moving past her back into the bedroom. “Look, he’s right he- “ The crib was empty. I dropped to my knees and looked under the crib, then spun and checked under the bed. No Kurt. I stood and walked across the room to check the closet. Jane was entering the room behind me. She stuck her hands under the flat blanket in the crib and tossed it aside, as if Kurt might have hidden underneath it. “Kurt?” she called across the cottage. She was using her mommy voice but there was an edge to it that I didn’t like. “He couldn’t have gone far,” I said, closing the closet. No Kurt in there either. “He was right there when I woke up.” “How long ago was that?” Jane asked. She was back tracking my trail, opening and closing the closet for herself. “Ten minutes? Fifteen tops.” She left the room and I followed. “Kurt?” she called again. I didn’t really start to worry until we knew for sure that he wasn’t in our bedroom, the unused spare, the kitchen, or the bathroom. Jane had pulled every pot and pan out of the bottom row of kitchen cupboards and was crawling in herself to get a better look when I returned to the kitchen. “I’m going to check outside,” I said, striding past her. She said something about the basement, but I didn’t catch most of it. In a moment I was outside, and the closing screen door snatched her words out of the air. I sprinted to the edge of the lake and scanned the surface. I had a horrible frantic fear that I would spot him, a white lump floating calmly across the water, and I would have to splash my way to collect his drowned corpse. The only thing worse would be having to tell Jane, having to show her. For a second, I saw him there and my blood turned into ice. There he was, my dead son on the water. I blinked. It wasn’t Kurt at all, it was driftwood. The log I had mistaken for my dead child was two or three times as wide around as Kurt, and it’s bark was the deep brown colour of soaked wood, not the pale milk white of drowning. *Keep it together,* I told myself. After a lap around the property, calling out a name that my son could not even say himself never mind respond to, I was about as sure as I ever would be that Kurt hadn’t wandered outside. “Any luck Jane?” I asked returning to the kitchen. I knew she hadn’t found him. She would’ve shouted for me. Jane didn’t answer. She wasn’t in the kitchen. She wasn’t in the bedroom or the bathroom either. “Jane?” I called out, panic rising like a cork up into my throat. *The basement*. She had mentioned she was going to look for Kurt down there. I flew through the basement door, and down the cement staircase. “Jane?” I brushed a spider web out of my hair and watched the owner throw itself across the room to get out of my warpath. “Kurt?” No one answered me, but I could tell Jane was down here. A single tired lightbulb was glowing beside a mountain of old cardboard boxes leaning against the back wall. Jane hated wasting electricity. We both made six figures a year but growing up poor had branded a deep hatred for waste into her skin. “Jane?” I had never properly investigated the basement, even when the cottage belonged to my parents, when my brothers and I had the time and energy to explore. It was dark and dusty down here and spider webs clung to every wall. The basement was for storage; not a fun place to be when the shining lake and boundless woods beckoned outside. I approached the ominous mountain of cardboard. Normally the summit was buried beneath a snowy layer of dust, but there were footprints on the top of a few boxes. Jane had climbed over the pile. Looking closely, I observed that she had pushed boxes aside to clear a path to the back wall. I followed her prints. The tops of the old cardboard gave a little under my weight, but they held. When I reached the back wall, I looked down. A passage had been hiding behind these boxes for god knew how long, but Jane had spotted it in the search for her infant son. The hole in the floor opened to a black staircase, leading to a level below the basement. I wondered what had possessed her to go into the foreboding darkened hall, when I spotted it. Kurt’s teal elephant, shrouded in dust and shadows, lay comatose at the bottom of the steps. “Jane?” I shouted. There was no answer. “Hold up a second Jane, I’m coming.” I ran back to the kitchen to grab a flashlight, and when I returned I took the black steps two at a time. The beam of my flashlight and the barest hint of Jane’s shoes in the dust led the way. I left the elephant to watch my back. There were even more spider webs on this level. They hung off the old dark stone in sticky curtains, the bold shadows cast by my light reminded me of tennis rackets. A few of the webs lay broken along the trail. Jane must have torn them loose on her way. There were spiders hanging in the middle of some of the webs. They had fat brown and orange bodies about as large as quarters, and they scurried into cracks in the stone walls when I aimed the light at them. I wondered what the spiders could possibly be catching and eating down here. The path hooked right. I was beyond the walls of the house now, and I judged the path was carrying me under the lake. I started thinking that maybe I had made a mistake. My family wasn’t down here. What I had mistaken for foot prints had been nothing more than a trick of the light. Kurt had tossed the elephant down the mysterious black staircase, but of course he hadn’t come this far in the dark by himself. Jane was probably in the kitchen right now with Kurt in her arms, wondering where *I* had gotten off to. I was just about to turn back when my flashlight landed on Kurt’s sock. I bent and peeled the sock off the black stone floor. It was light blue with white spaceships soaring across the yarn, hand knitted by Jane’s mother. “Jane!” I shouted. “Kurt!” Something moved up ahead. Jane’s shoe scuffing against stone. I wanted to run down the path towards the sound, but it was hard to find courage in the bowels of the earth, so I walked. I was forced to stop when I came to a wall of spider webs. There was a host in each of them the size of a dollar. They scurried away when the beam of the flashlight burned their blind eyes, and I realized that the path was not blocked by the webbing after all. I was staring at another wall. It was a dead end. I nearly turned back again, but my flashlight happened to drop, revealing a battered old trap door with a cast iron handle. It looked like the sort of thing that would prove to be heavier than first guess. The trapdoor was shut, but it was clear that Jane had been through it. There was a single ginger hair caught on the nearest corner. It was catching the beam and flickering it back at me, ushering me down. I pulled the hair and twisted it between my fingers. The length and colour were a perfect match. Definitely one of Jane’s. The trapdoor opened with a screech that could wake the dead. It was heavy, too heavy for Kurt to get through on his own, and yet Jane had passed this way. Had it been opened up when my son came crawling? Had Jane picked him up and carried him farther into the darkness? I could not fathom what possible reason she could have for doing this, but it was the only plausible explanation for what I was seeing. I peered inside, and my flashlight revealed the top of a ladder. It stretched down into a void of utter darkness. My beam of light ran down the length of the ladder, and I saw that if I had walked blindly forward I would have fallen at least twenty feet into yet another basement level. I shuddered. It was cold down there, and a rotting odour was wafting up through the trapdoor. The walls in the deeper level were made from cracked and moss-covered cobble, and the floor was mud. There were small pools of water scattered here and there, and some of them had clumps of grey algae floating on the surface. The lake was finding its way into the chamber somehow, turning the chasm below me into a shallow swamp. I noticed thin white and yellow mushrooms sprouting from the walls and the mud, and I made a mental note to myself to avoid them at all costs. Spider bites were annoying but poisonous fungus could give you a serious infection. “Jane!” I shouted down. “Jane are you down there?” There was no answer. “Jane? Jane can you hear me?” When no one answered I took a deep breath and climbed down the ladder. I kept the flashlight clenched tight beneath my teeth. There was a huge bang the second after my shoes hit the mud. I looked up and the bottom of the trapdoor greeted me. I had leaned it up against the wall, I was sure, but someone or something had knocked it down. Kurt maybe? Had I missed him in the dark? There was a sound that reminded me of a canoe brushing against dirt and rocks as it approaches shore. Someone was pushing a heavy object over the lid of the trapdoor. Definitely not Kurt. “Hey!” I shouted. My cry echoed a thousand times down the grimy trail ahead of me. *“Hey hey hey hey ey ey ey ey”.* I carried on down the path, shouting for Jane. I did not want to push against the top of the trapdoor and discover I could not get out. I was worried enough as it was. I would cross that bridge when I came to it. “Jane!” I shouted. “*Jane Jane Jane Jane ane ane ane ane ne ne,*” said the walls. My boot brushed against one of the mushrooms. I had not noticed the fungus on my first passover with the flashlight, and the beam was pointed ahead of me, not straight down. With terrible speed, the cap flopped onto my boot and stuck there. It did not come free no matter how hard I shook my foot. “Son of a bitch!” A tapping noise behind me answered. Something was walking through the puddles. Something big with a lot of legs. I spun, and my beam of light just kissed one spider leg as it disappeared into the darkness. The thing was as large as a housecat. I shivered. Good thing I had thought to grab the flash light. “Jane!” “*Jane Jane Jane Jane ane ane ane ane ne ne*.” I continued. The minutes seemed to stretch on and on. “Jane!” I called again. “Miles?” That was her, and not too far ahead. Her voice was quieter than a whisper and it was tough to discern my own name over the layers of echoes, but it was Jane’s voice. That was what mattered. “Jane! Stop, I’m coming!” I ran to her. Light burst from my hand and danced across the mud and stone walls. The trail turned sharply left, and when I was ten feet away, Jane stepped out from around the corner. Her skin was eggshell white. Her green eyes were clouded, and a swirling fog was reflecting on them instead of my own scared face. She looked like a ghost. “Jane are you alright?” “Miles,” she said. “Go back. One got me. I’m done for.” I approached. I had to lower the flash light because she kept flinching away from the light whenever it brushed her skin. “Jane! What are you talking about? What do you mean something got you? Where’s Kurt?” I put my hands on her shoulders and she pushed me off, taking a step back into the blackness. “No time Miles. No time. You have to... run. They got me. It got me.” “What got you Jane? What go -” but I never finished asking my question. In the same instant that I noticed the clear rope growing from the back of her head, it was yanked backward. Jane cried out as she was pulled head first into the darkness. She screamed, it sounded like shattering glass, and then the scream was severed. It cut out all at once, like she was on the phone with me and someone had hung up on her end. Her screaming was replaced by horrible crunching and slobbering sounds, and I brought up my flashlight, my only means of protection. The beam flickered, the battery inside warning me to get back to safety. A spider bigger than a grizzly bear filled the hall in front of me. I watched my wife’s waist, then legs, then the heels of her shoes disappear into its squashing mouth, pushed inside by two hairy tarantula legs. They were four feet long at least. I screamed when the strobing flashlight found the spider’s blind glistening eyes. It scuttled backwards, but as it went, eight pinprick pupils with a lingering shred of awareness found me. They marked me, and gooseflesh burst across my skin. Then the spider was gone, hurrying through pools of stagnant water until it was out of the light. I spun and ran as fast as I could back towards the ladder. I discovered with horror that a cluster of spiders had crowded behind me, had been creeping up soundlessly while my back was turned. Discovered, they dove out of my way and the path ahead was clear. Spiders as large as cats and small dogs hurried out of the light’s dying glare. I was reminded of the scene in the second Harry Potter movie with all of the spiders. Those ones did not look quite so mean, did not have those hateful pink eyes. One creature as large as a great Dane stepped to the side of the path. Instead of fleeing from the light, it was content to step aside and watch me run by. I felt its horrible eyes as I rushed past. I knew it could not see me, those eyes had been burned out by the darkness a long time ago, but it knew about light, and it knew when the light was gone it would be time to feed. Something was coming behind me, something huge. Not the great Dane spider, maybe not even the grizzly bear that had eaten Jane. The thing behind me was titanic. It was afraid of the light, but it was also ravenously hungry. The light was dying, disappearing into nothingness and flicking back to life in the next moment. Each time it came back a little later than the stammer of power before. Eventually, the light would flicker out like a candle and would not come back on. The ladder was just ahead of me. I hurtled on to the first rung and climbed for my life. My worst fear was confirmed when I pushed my flat palm against the top of the trapdoor. It budged, but only slightly. Something was on top of it weighing it down, maybe a fat spider. I shoved again. The door opened and inch, then crashed back down. I shoved with my shoulder, stepping up another rung to put as much force as I could into the hit. I almost got the lid up, but the trapdoor clattered back down after opening maybe a foot. I lost my balance, recovered it, but the flashlight slipped out of my hands. I grabbed for it as it fell, got a few fingers around the plastic stem, fumbled it, and watched my only lifeboat sink to the floor below. It seemed to spiral in slow motion. It exploded into a thousand pieces when it hit the ground, but before it did I got a glimpse of the monster following me. It was a spider the size of an elephant. Its wrinkled skin was the same aggravated purple as a flaring bruise, and it was totally bald. I had a sense that it was older by far than the cottage above it, maybe older than the lake. The creature had been lurking nearly out of sight, not wanting to come too close to the waving flashlight while I tried to escape. Before the flashlight burst, I saw its eyes were locked on me. It was slobbering venom and saliva. It could not wait to have me. Through the darkness, I heard it coming tentatively forward through the puddles, perhaps wary I would produce another light. The ladder shook a bit with each of its gargantuan steps. I was out of time. I felt one of its legs prodding the bottom of the ladder. It did not have the courage to come at me yet, but it would soon. I shoved as hard as I possibly could against the top of the trapdoor, driving it upwards with everything I had. It clacked open at last, flinging all of the way back and staying open. The spider who had been holding it down ran back the way it had come and out of sight. I got my arms over the lip of the cavern and prepared to lift myself onto the higher floor. The ladder gave way. I had managed to haul enough of myself over the edge so that I was able to hold on, and my swinging feet kicked the top of the ladder while it went down. The old spider made a horrible titter noise, like a demon giggling. Thunder boomed from the depths as the purple monstrosity pounced on the ladder. The wood cracked in the beast’s mouth. It had been expecting to find me still attached to the ladder, would be furious when it realized it had been cheated it out of a meal. A scent of rotting fish came up through my nostrils and I knew I was smelling the spider’s innards. I was sweating profusely. I wore a t-shirt, and my slicked-up forearms made it almost impossible to hoist myself up. I pushed straight up on my hands, like an olympic gymnast on the hanging rings. My belly button rubbed against the threshold between cold basement and the purple spider’s domain, and I leaned forward. I brought one leg up, pushed it against the back of the trapdoor, and my knees went from open air to rubbing painfully against the black stone. Then I was on my knees. My feet were hanging over the edge of the chasm and I pulled them back quickly. I was aching with sadness for Kurt and Jane, but the glow of relief was there too. I was alive. Broken, maybe mentally fucked up for the rest of my life, but alive. I scrambled to my feet and ran. I made it a few steps, but something caught my shoe in midair, nearly throwing me face first into the ground. I looked down. A hauntingly familiar white rope was trailing from the bottom of my shoe, the one with the fungus still attached, all the way back to the trapdoor. The spider on the other end of the sticky silk rope pulled once, investigating, and I was jerked backwards onto my ass. A cry of pain shot out of my throat before I could catch it and hold it back. Then I was gliding slowly back down the path, being towed like a fish on the end of a line, towards the open trapdoor. I fumbled with my shoe, trying to pull it off, but my hand brushed the mushroom stuck there and pain seared through my hand like it had been impaled on a spear. The fungus squirmed in joy, and when I yanked my hand away, it spread like a gluey paste across my shoelaces. The chunk on my hand did not let go. The pain was transcendent. I felt the fungus melting through my shoelace, beginning to burn my foot, all while I slid towards my doom. I tried to kick off the shoe my using my other foot to press against the heel, but that only brought on more pain. The fungus stretching from my hand down to my shoe had melded itself to my foot, so that when I pressed I felt a rocket of hot pain shoot up through my foot, all the way up to my hand. It was like a stick of boiling chewing gum, but it was binding my foot and hand together instead of my hair. Then I was at the trapdoor. I screamed. I tried to dig in my feet, but it was no good. I felt my foot being pulled over the edge into the abyss, then my legs and then the rest of me. I was falling, howling, and in the last moments before the spider’s maw cut through my leg, and before its legs stuffed the rest of me into its belly, I heard the demonic giggling one more time. I wonder if I will see Jane and Kurt again in the afterlife, or inside of the monster’s stomach.


“You will bring peace to the earth,” my dad said. “So start acting like it.” I hated it when my parents lectured me like that. They firmly believed that I would make world peace someday. On the day I was born, my dad took me to go get my future foretold. The fortune-teller told him about a prophecy that said I would bring world peace. The prophecy said that on January 23, a child would be born. That child would immediately go to get his fortune told. They would have the power to heal themselves. It also described how the child looked, and he looked exactly like me. This child was supposed to save the world and make it flawless. So now, ever since then, they’ve always wanted me to be perfect. Every time I messed up, they would always give me the same lecture about how I was supposed to bring peace to the world and that I should act like it. I wasn’t even sure if I believed it anyway. Why me of all people. I thought that there was no way I could bring peace to the world. I didn’t stand out at all. I wasn’t any stronger, faster, or smarter than anyone else. I was just an ordinary person. If that fortune was true, then it would’ve been for someone else. My sister’s voice snapped me back into reality. “Fufu, come play with me,” she called. I sighed. My little sister refused to leave me alone. Every day she would ask me to play. I used to try to ignore her, but eventually, I gave in. I walked over to her room. I saw her in there, sitting on the floor with her dolls. She had fair skin. Her hair was light brown and went all the way down her back. She was pretty short. My sister had amber eyes that sparkled in the sun. “What do you want to play today?” I asked her, wanting to hurry up and get this over with. “Today we’re going on vacation to the beach,” she said. I picked up the doll that I always used. My sister picked up her doll and we both pretended to build sandcastles and swim in the ocean. We played for a long time until it was time for dinner. “Dinner time!” my mom called from downstairs. My sister and I descended the stairs and into the kitchen. We sat down at the kitchen table. “Tonight we’re having meatloaf, mashed potatoes, and cauliflower.” I was disgusted. I hated cauliflower and my parents knew it. No matter how many times I told them that, they would always insist that I eat it because I needed to be healthy to bring world peace. That didn’t even make much sense in my opinion, but I just went along with it. At dinner that night, we talked about how everyone’s day was. It was boring because my parents, as usual, got sidetracked and somehow ended up talking about politics. My sister and I sat there in silence until we eventually got into a conversation ourselves. “Guess what?” my sister Melody said. “What?” I asked. “Tomorrow is the end-of-the-year party!” I had forgotten that I was about two weeks behind my sister. We hadn’t even started the end of the year testing. We were going to start tomorrow and keep testing for a whole week. All we got was an end of the year lunch which was a cupcake and juice, one each. That was basically what we got if it was someone’s birthday. On the other hand, Melody got pizza, hot dogs, and burgers. And there was dessert too! I wasn’t too surprised about this because Melody’s class always got more or better stuff than mine. Everything was normal in my life for a while. Until my dad told me something. “Today’s the day,” he said dramatically. I just stood there, confused. “Today’s the day for what?” “Today you have to prove yourself. There is something in the prophecy that I’ve never told you about. We were always pretty certain that you were the prophetic child, but we were never sure. The prophecy states that to be sure of your future, you have to go through a few tests to prove yourself.” “What kind of tests?” I asked him. “The tests were listed in the prophecy. There’s a test of knowledge, strength, honesty, courage, and virtue. You must pass all these tests.” “Which one is first?” “The first one is the test of knowledge.” “How do I take the test?” “You must go back to the person who told you about your future. She will guide you from there. Get in the car. I’ll take you to her.” My dad grabbed his keys and put his shoes on. I slipped my shoes on and got in the car. My dad sat in the driver’s seat and I sat in the passenger seat. He turned the key, buckled his seatbelt, and started to pull out the driveway. We sat in silence for about fifteen minutes until we made it. We parked at a fortune-telling booth. Then my father wished me luck and sent me inside. I walked into the booth. “Hello? Anyone here?” I asked. Someone came out of the shadows. “So, you’re the boy from the prophecy. I remember seeing you as a baby,” said the person. I looked at her. Her face looked only a teensy bit familiar. “Follow me.” She led me to a back room. This room contained many things. There were many items that I didn’t recognize. There was also a crystal ball and what appeared to be a mirror under a sheet. She yanked the sheet off and I figured out that it was not a mirror. I had no idea what it was. It looked like some sort of portal, but I wasn’t sure. It was a big rectangle made out of something purple. The inside was red and looked swirly, as if it were spinning. She gestured for me to go in. I walked through the portal and the whole room started to spin. When I made it through to the other side, I saw something magnificent. I appeared to be in a bookstore. Suddenly, a loud voice started talking. “Are you Fuleusochenfu Kyo?”ok “I am,” I said. “Who are you?” “That is for me to know and for you to find out. Or maybe not find out at all if you fail this test.” “What kind of test is this? What will I be doing?” I asked. “You will be trying to escape.” I was a little confused. What did he mean by escape? Escape from what? The bookstore started to fill with sand. I panicked. “What’s going on? What am I supposed to do?” I shouted. “I told you, you must escape,” said the voice. “But how?” The voice went away. The room was filling at a rapid rate. I looked around for a way out. I saw that there was a door to the left of me. I ran towards it. I tried to open it but there was sand blocking it. The sand was way too heavy. I pushed the sand away but it just kept falling. There was no way I could get out through that door. I saw a window but it was too high for me to reach. Luckily there was a large pile of sand in front of it. I stood on the sand and tried to go through the window, but the pile of sand collapsed under me. I had no idea how I was going to escape. When I had almost given up hope, the voice came back. “There are two ways to escape. You can either find a way to get out or answer this question.” “What’s the question?” I asked, eager to escape. “The question is more of a riddle actually. You measure my life in hours and I serve you by expiring. I’m quick when I’m thin and slow when I’m fat. The wind is my enemy. What am I?” I was stumped. I had no idea what the answer to his riddle was but I needed to figure it out fast. I thought as hard as I could but the answer evaded me. The sand was rising higher. It was almost to my neck at this point. I could barely move through all this sand. I kept thinking. Then I got an idea. I looked around the bookstore for anything that might help me answer the riddle. I saw books with various different pictures on the covers, but none of them could answer the riddle. Then I saw one. A book with a picture of a candle on it. I immediately knew that this was the answer. “The answer is a caaannnlll,” I said. My speech came out muffled because the sand was nearly covering my entire mouth. I tried again. “The answer is a candle,” I said. This time my speech was a lot clearer. “That is correct,” said the voice. The sand stopped coming in. A hole appeared in the wall and the sand started to go through there. “You have passed the test,” the voice boomed. “Thanks, but you still never told me your name.” “I am known as the Guardian of Knowledge. On your next test, you will meet the Guardian of Virtue.” “When does the test start?” I asked. “The next test starts right now.” The floor opened up and I fell. I seemed to be falling for so long. It almost seemed like a bottomless pit. I started gaining speed as I was falling. Eventually, I started to stop slowly. I started to float in midair. I wondered what was going on. Then another voice started talking. This one sounded different. “Are you ready for this test?” asked the voice. “I’m ready,” I answered boldly. “Then let the test begin!” I blinked. When I opened my eyes, my surroundings were completely different. I was in a city and there was crime everywhere. Everywhere I looked I saw people robbing each other. I was right beside a hospital. “In that hospital, there is the equipment that your grandpa needs to live,” said the voice. I was amazed. My grandpa had been sick for about three months and if he didn’t get special treatment, he would die. My family couldn’t afford the treatment. I debated stealing the equipment. Why shouldn’t I? Everyone around me was stealing so it wouldn’t make much of a difference if I did too. I went into the hospital to steal it. Then I thought about something. Maybe this was the test. It was a test of virtue after all. The test could be to see if I was going to steal it or not. I tried to shake those thoughts away. Even if that was the test, why should I care? This was for my grandpa and I would choose him over a test any day. I didn’t want to steal because I knew it wasn’t the right thing to do. If my grandpa knew that I had stolen the equipment, he would be mad at me. My grandpa wouldn’t want to live by using stolen equipment. I decided that I wouldn’t do it. “I won’t do it!” I yelled at the voice. “Wise decision.” I braced myself, expecting to fall through the floor again. But this time, something else happened. Instead of falling, I started floating. I wasn’t expecting this. I floated up and to the right until I made it to another room. It wasn’t really a room though. I was standing in the middle of some train tracks. Other people were standing there too. I heard a train coming. I knew I had to get these people to safety. I grabbed a few children and rushed them off of the train tracks. “Everybody move!” I shouted. “Everyone get off the train tracks!” Most of them started to run away, but a few of them kept standing there, shocked. “Come on people! Move it!” I tried again. Some of them still didn’t move. I continued to push people out of the way. The train had almost reached us. I knew I couldn’t get everyone out of the way in time. I stood in front of the train and braced myself for impact. The train hit me at full force. I was knocked back, off of the train tracks. I slid across the dirt. When I recovered, I looked at myself. I had many bruises and I was bleeding pretty badly on my back. My guess was that I slid over something sharp. My head hurt very badly and at this rate, I was going to bleed out. I needed to do something. I couldn’t die. I had too much to live for. I didn’t know if I believed my fortune at first, but now I do. It was my destiny to save the world. I couldn’t die yet. All of a sudden, I started to float. I looked around and saw that I was emitting a bluish glow. I was like a floating orb. My body started to feel better. The ache started to go away. I was healing myself. I stayed in the air for a little while, about five minutes. Then I fell to the ground. Luckily, I wasn’t floating that high. The voice started to talk. “You are the boy! The prophecy states that only the hero is able to heal himself. No one else. You don’t have to take the rest of the tests.” Someone came out of the shadows. This person had gray skin and pointed eyes, kind of like an elf. He was very short. He had tussled white hair. When he saw me, he bowed. “I am the Guardian of Courage.” More people who looked like him walked in. They stated their names and bowed to me too. “We’re at your service,” they said, still bowing. It was official. I was the hero that was supposed to unite the world. I haven’t done it yet though. Every time I try, it doesn’t work. No one believes in me. I try to make peace, but no one listens. Someday they will listen though. And that will be the day I fulfill my destiny.


OH MY GOD ITS MORNING I GET TO DO STUFF AGAIN!!! I SHOULD GO WAKE UP MY PERSON!! HE’S THE BEST CAUSE HE FEEDS ME TAKES CARE OF ME AND TAKES ME ON WALKS. SOMETIMES HE EVEN GIVES ME FOOD JUST FOR PUTTING MY BUTT ON THE FLOOR HE CALLS THIS “Sit”. Oh, I’m so sorry where are my manners, my names Daisy and I’m a poodle, I live here with my person. OH MY GOD MY PERSON I NEED TO GET HIM UP. I WANNA DO STUFF WITH HIM...I need to use one of the trees for some “doggy business too” I charge up to his bed and launch myself on it. I start to give him good morning kisses which I know is definitely his favorite way to get up and I start telling him to get up. HEY GET UP WAKE UP I MISSED YOU WHEN I WAS SLEEPING WAKE UPPP!! I should tell you a little bit about him. He’s about 400 paws tall and has grey hair, grey skin, and wears a lot of grey clothes. I guess it his favorite so its my favorite too. He starts to sit up and I’m so excited to see him but I NEED TO USE THE BATHROOM. I run out of his room and down to the door so I can go outside. I start asking him to open the door and scratch at it so that he knows which door I wanna go out of. He walks over and lets me out so naturally I bolt out the door. YAY OUTSIDE!!! I LOVE IT!! I start running around as fast as I can in a circle just to show him how fast I am. HEY LOOK HOW FAST I AM LOOK AT ME LOOK HOW FAST I AM. OH MY GOD I NEED TO USE THE BATHROOM RIGHT NOW!! I squat down and start to go to the bathroom but I was going to fast and I kinda flip over myself paws over tail. I get up and keep on going to the bathroom I look to my left and there's my person looking gray as all heck just watching me making sure I’m safe while I’m defending our property from the squirrels, chipmunks, and other animals that think they can just come here and free load off of us. After defending the perimeter and marking my territory I decided it was time to go back inside. I run up to my grey friend at the door and just start to jump up onto him so he knows how much I missed him while I was protecting us. “Daisy you want some Breakfast?” He asks and I’m just like, BREAKFAST YOU MEAN MORNING FOOD RIGHT AWWEEE HECK YEAH I’M HUNGRY. I just hope that he switches up my food one of these days I’m pretty tired of eating the same thing twice a day for the Past 63 years but I’m just happy that my person feeds me everyd-SQUIRREL!!! GET OUT OF HERE HES ON THE WINDOW LET ME GET HIM LET ME OUT I’LL GET HIM. COME ON LEMME GET HIM. OOOHH FOOD YUM. I start chowing down it's a little dry to be honest but I’ve never gone hungry so I guess I really can’t complain. I finish my breakfast and decide to post up on the couch and wait to see what’s going on today. My person sits down next to me and starts scratching behind my ears which is THE BEST. “Who’s a good girl?” He asks. I AM I AM I’M A GOOD GIRL YES I AM I’M THE GOODEST OF ALL THE GIRLS I PROMISE. “Daisy come on let’s go for a walk.” DID HE JUST SAY WALK!! I launch myself off of the couch, pull my leash off of its holder and plop my butt down right by the door. HEY HURRY UP I WANNA WALK LET’S GOOOO. He comes up shoes on and grabs my leash and hooks me up. We start strolling around the neighborhood and we’re keeping up a nice little pace I could do this for hours. I see one of the other people that live near us and I want to say hi but I don’t want to leave my person because I don’t want him getting jealous of anyon-SQUIRREL!!!! Anyone because he’s my favorite and I want to make sure that he knows. We get back to the house and we play fetch down the hill with a frisbee. It’s so much fun but I don’t always like giving it back to him but he doesn’t seem to mind. After a little bit my person is laying down in this big hammock I jump up and start to cuddle with him. He has a couple friends come over and he feeds me. We sit outside all night laying in the Hammock right next to the crackling fire and just cuddle up to one another all night. Eventually I fall asleep right next to him. He wakes me up the fire is out and his friends have all left. He picks me up and cradles me in his arms I gently give him kisses in my half asleep state. We make our way inside and he lays me down on his bed gives me a kiss and he walks into the bathroom to brush his teeth. I can feel myself starting to doze off again. All I can think about is what adventures we have instore for us tomorrow, all i know is that I can’t wait.


Walter shaved. Then he walked to his room and vacuumed the floor for a while, until it was time to leave for the doctor’s appointment. He stepped into the sunny streets, feeling that he’d been there before. He didn’t look at the people passing by and kept his head low as he walked down the street. There was a green bottle top on the ground, a curled up rubber band and a purple glue on nail. They reminded him that he had been there before. Walter was nervous about the appointment. Afraid it was going to be too intense for him. He hadn’t been outside in a while. ‘Never heard of that,’ the doctor said. ‘Well, you see, this keeps happening to me. I encounter a situation, and when it’s over, or while I’m still in it, I get this strange feeling that this exact situation has already happened before. In the exact same way,’ Walter said. ‘And I have that feeling all the time, doctor.’ ‘All the time, you say? So right now as well?’ the doctor asked. ‘Yes.’ The doctor leaned back. He gazed at the ceiling fan for a while. ‘Well, I can assure you, this is the first time we’re having this conversation.’ ‘I believe you. But it feels as if I had been here before, and the longer we sit here and the longer we talk, the more I feel that way. It’s very unpleasant. And I don’t know how to escape it.’ The doctor grabbed a pen from the table and tapped it against his finger. ‘You see that?! The way you took the pen and play with it. It’s like that was bound to happen.’ The doctor put down the pen.‘What exactly is so troubling about your condition?’ ‘Don’t you understand? Whenever I get into such a situation, it’s as if I am put there, out of nowhere. This feeling, it’s as if it’s reminding me, that no matter what I do, it has happened before in the exact same way. And look. If it is true and it has already happened, then it’s like going in circles. That’s really what it feels like. Going in circles, without progress. It’s driving me insane.’ The doctor had a puzzled look on his face. Walter was getting twitchier and twitchier. The situation had become very intense now and he felt like leaving. He shoved around in his chair, while the doctor waited and smartly gazed around the office some more. ‘Well,’ he said finally, ‘I’ll prescribe diazepam for your condition. Take it once a day and you should be fine in a week or two.’ Walter left the office then. He should have known the doctor wasn’t gonna be able to do any good. He walked down the steps, deliberately deciding where to step. He skipped one step, then no step, then three, then one and then none for the rest of the rest of the staircase. But it didn’t change his feeling and no matter where he put his foot, with every step, he felt he was following a predefined path. As if he had walked down these steps just a week ago and was put here again now. So when he reached the second to last step, Walter suddenly stopped and jumped over the two steps, trying to surprise himself. He landed. Then he dashed left, clapped his hands twice and whistled, deciding it all so quickly and spontaneously, hoping to trick himself and the feeling. But it didn’t work. It never worked. As if it had always been known that he was going to jump the last two steps in that particular moment. On his way home, he stopped trying to surprise it and just ignored the feeling. He didn’t wanna make a scene. The people were giving him enough strange looks already. He avoided them and kept his head low exposing himself to as little visual input as possible. In front of his door, he closed his left eye, so he wouldn’t see the bay next to the door. Unlocked the door and went in. Inside he closed both of his eyes, which sometimes made it easier. He was mad about the doctor’s appointment. It had been too intense, like a complete reset, showing him that all the times he had thought he had tricked the feeling successfully prior to the appointment, were useless and just part of another bigger frame. Like a checkpoint he returned back to. So there was his room, the black windows shut and the tiled floor with the black and white tiles empty and clean. Just as he had left it and just like it always was. The vacuum cleaner was still plugged in next to the door frame. He looked around and felt that he’d been in this moment before. He was still following the track of the doctor’s appointment. Going in circles like a scratched record. Walter closed his eyes again and left the room keeping them closed. He had to do something. Surprise himself with something sporadic and unexpected that came from within him. Something to throw him off the track. So he decided to go outside. It was night and dark and nobody was around. He walked down the street, passing the alleys. Maybe he could climb something. A car or phone booth or something. He walked a few blocks. Then he reached an intersection. And as he crossed the street, Walter spotted three cops walking up the street his way. He walked on but turned to see where they were headed. The street was empty. But then suddenly a man fell out of the nearest doorway. Smacked right to the ground, his body completely relaxed and his pants down to his ankles. He didn’t move. The three cops rushed right over to him. And Walter snapped. What a coincidence. Oh what a fucking coincidence. He felt like puking. He stomped his foot on the ground multiple times, then ran a few steps ahead, stopped abruptly, swirled around, clicking his tongue and dropped to the ground. Trying to get away from the moment as fast as he could. He rolled sideways along the pavement, beating his fists on the ground, then quickly popped back to his feet again, shaking his left arm through the air and spinning around, continuing his spastic dance. Then he tried to calm himself down. What a ridiculous coincidence. Had he crossed the alley two seconds later, he wouldn’t have seen the man fall. He threw up once. Then he wiped his mouth and began to walk back. ‘Excuse me, sir! Are you alright?’ Walter swirled around. One of the cops had come over. His face twitched as he reached for his flashlight. ‘Sir, are you alright?’ he held the flashlight into Walter’s face. ‘You were having a seizure.’ ‘I’m fine. It wasn’t a seizure. I have a condition, it’s alright. Please leave me alone. Unexpected events trip me out like hell, as you’ve just witnessed. And this is another unexpected event to me.’ ‘Are you intoxicated, sir?’‘No sir. Like I said, I have a condition. It’s psychological.’ ‘What kind of condition?’ ‘Well, I always have the feeling that everything that’s happening to me has happened before. Like Déjà vu.’ ‘Hm. Well, this hasn’t happened before,’ the wiseass cop said, totally missing the fucking point. ‘Yo Rick,’ one of the other cops called then, ‘quit talking to the alien, and lend us a fucking hand here!’ ‘Watch out, yeah!’ Rick said to Walter and lowered the flashlight. Of course it hasn’t happened before. That was the point. It didn’t matter what was happening. He felt this way no matter what happened. And if he had stepped into the alley two seconds later he would’ve seen the man with his smacked head lying on the ground, and it would have freaked him out just the same. Turned inside out Walter walked home. Back in his room he was exhausted. The tube lights were on and the vacuum cleaner was still plugged in. He started it and began to vacuum the room. He started in the right corner of the room and went up the tiles towards the black windows. Then he turned and went down the next row. Keeping his gaze on the tiles. He breathed calmly and tried to think of nothing. He cleaned the entire room. Then he pushed the vacuum cleaner to the right corner again and started over. In the morning he woke up, lying on his back. He folded the blanket back to a perfect rectangle next to him, swung his legs off the edge of the bed and walked to the bathroom. His left foot stepping on the white tiles, his right one on the black ones. He was already naked. He stepped in the shower. It was a floor level shower. There was no shower curtain, no mirror, and nothing that could move. His razor was lying in its spot next to the drain, where it always was, aligned with a tile. Walter sat down on the tiles. His back and ass feeling the cold stone. Then he picked up the razor and began to shave his legs. From the bottom up. Ankle to knee. He knew where to start and stop each line. The hairs weren’t long at all. Hardly visible, black dots. But he still shaved every inch of his legs. Then his crotch. One slice across the ass, then his upper body, then the lower and upper back. He was getting cold now, but didn’t mind. He shaved his arms and his already bald head. And at last his face. Chin and cheeks and his eyebrows. Not cutting himself once. He placed the razor back where it belonged, stood up straight against the wall, closed his eyes and turned on the water. Washing away the hair dust. The tube lights in his room were on. Walter turned on the vacuum cleaner and began vacuuming the tiles. He started in the right corner and went up alongside the wall towards the two black windows. He vacuumed the whole room like that. Up and down the rows of tiles. The windows where taped shut with black cardboard, so no light came through. Because otherwise the light would be different on a sunny or rainy day, or at night. That’s why he had taped them shut. The light always had to be the same. No surprises. He vacuumed, tile after tile, like he always did. He finished, went to the starting square and started over. Keeping his stare on the next tile, trying to get it right. It didn’t make the feeling go away. But this way at least it made sense, because he really had been there before, in the exact same moment. Thousands and thousands of times. After another round Walter got hungry. He turned off the vacuum cleaner, left it plugged in and went to the kitchen cupboard. With his eyes closed he reached in and got a can of baked beans. He got baked beans delivered to his room once a week. They were dropped off in the bay next to his door. Usually Tuesdays. But he never dared to get them before Thursday, as he feared they might not be there and that would be unexpected. He didn’t heat the beans. He ate them with his eyes closed and immediately washed the spoon and put it back in the drawer. Blind. He only had one spoon. Then he returned to vacuuming his room until he got hungry again or tired. The next morning he woke up, folded the blanket to the side and went in the shower. He shaved his entire body like he always did. Not cutting himself once. Then he went on to vacuuming his room. Sometimes he felt like he was going too fast or too slow. And sometimes a wheel of the vacuum cleaner got caught in a groove or the cord. But he just continued up and down the tiles. Trying to get it right. He knew this way, it was all going to be over soon.


*This story contains themes of sexual/physical violence, mental health, and other traumas. Please be advised before reading.* *Also please excuse any formatting errors, for whatever reason this site never keeps my indents in place when I paste over the story* Anti remembers falling out of her bed, her face caked with blood. She remembers crawling to the kitchen, pulling herself along the tile floor. Anti remembers closing barriers around the memory of her trauma. She remembers forcing it out of her brain and down her neck. She remembers the feeling as it traveled from her shoulder, down her arm, and into her hand. She remembers passing the memory into the butter knife held firmly in her hand. Then she remembers relief. The knife has lost its stainless-steel shine in the years since it was impregnated with experience. But even without a metallic glare, Anti can always feel it. The closer she is to it, the sharper the pain. She normally keeps it in a lock box. But not today. Today she needs it. She wakes from a dreamless sleep and rolls out of bed in a fluid motion. She dresses plainly and ties her curly locks in a high bun. The scar under the curve of her right eye catches her attention. The tug of the knife on her nightstand grows stronger. A smear of foundation hides the scar. The handkerchief that she wraps the knife in lies next to it in a crumpled ball. She reaches for it clumsily and accidentally touches the blade’s hilt. The memory strikes her like a bullet. All at once she is overcome with trauma as if every moment of it were happening at once. It lasts hours and seconds. She jerks her finger away from it like a child from a hot stove. She hasn’t been so absentminded as to touch the knife in months. Perhaps the significance of the day is getting to her. Because today she excises her trauma for good. The streets of Brooklyn are quieter than normal. Or maybe the sound isn’t registering in Anti’s ears. She walks mindlessly down the streets, working toward her destination on instinct alone. Every person she nears is given an uncomfortable amount of space. The wrapped knife is safely in her hand, where it won’t inadvertently hurt someone. Her sleeve has slipped down over it, to hide the blade from passersby. She spent the last several years trying to stop herself from feeling crazy, but today she can’t help it. Eyes follow her down the street and she can’t help but speed up as they do. The world is cruel to people who’ve been through what she has. Reality seems to bend itself out of shape to throw her trauma back in her face. Her feet stop in front of a dusty, stone stoop. A steep set of stairs lead to a large wooden door scarred with the markings of children. Vines climb the red brick walls and cover now useless windows. A teapot-shaped elderly woman is crouched at the top of the steps with her hands resting on the head of a ceramic dog statue. Her eyes are closed but a smile bends the corners of her lips upwards. “Hi Grandma Nellie,” says Anti, the fog finally lifted from her mind. Nellie’s eyes snap open at the sound of her granddaughter’s voice. She waddles down the steps as fast as she can, her hips made heavy by a long life. Anti meets her halfway and embraces her in a warm hug. “Antimony, my beautiful girl!” says Nellie. “It’s so good to see you!” “When were you?” Anti asks, gesturing towards the statue. “I was visiting your grandfather on the day we brought home Buster. You remember Buster, don’t you?” “Of course.” Nellie’s smile widens as her granddaughter reminisces. She turns towards the door and beckons Anti to follow. “I have his collar inside, you should visit. I love that memory.” Nellie lives in a large house that feels intensely small. Boxes of clutter line the walls. Stacks of old newspapers cover the couch. Every space is littered with knick-knacks, old silverware, clothes, and other pieces of junk. The objects themselves are useless to Nellie, but she can’t live without what’s stored inside them. As soon as she passes through the door, Anti’s senses are overwhelmed by memories. Her grandmother’s home is more like an outdoor farmer’s market on a busy Saturday than it is a quiet place of living. She can smell Christmas, Thanksgiving, and Sunday dinners coming from a tower of plates in the kitchen sink. Old conversations echo from a line of empty picture frames on the mantle. She can even feel the warmth of the hearth when she’s near the fireplace, even though it hasn’t been lit in years. Nellie’s home has become a museum of memories and Anti understands why. It’s hard to feel alone in a house full of ghosts. The only open seating found in the entire house sits at the center of Nellie’s small kitchen. A waist-level circular table is surrounded by two chairs with worn seat cushions. When Anti returns to her grandma’s side, she is digging through a box of old dog toys and leashes on the table. Nellie rummages through the box slowly, holding each item before putting it to the side. Looking up at her grandmother’s face, Anti realizes that her eyes are closed. For the stout elderly woman, it is easier to search for a memory, than for an object. Nellie’s eyes open as her fingers wrap around a stretch-marked collar of blue leather. She pulls it from the box and holds it out to Anti. “Here. Take this, sweetheart,” she says softly. As soon as Anti’s hands touch the collar, she becomes enveloped in the memory. The summer breeze of a home without air conditioning hits her first. She’s on her knees. No, this is Nellie’s memory so she’s just several inches shorter. She sees the cobalt blue walls of her grandmother’s kitchen. The murmur of television hums behind her. In it, she can recognize John Madden’s iconic voice. It’s Sunday. Her grandfather is watching football. The flow of memory pulls her down. Her field of view shifts to the ground where Buster is laying on his stomach. Her arms extend towards him. Her fingers sink into his fur, a thick clump between each of her digits. It’s been so long since she’s petted a dog. Why has it been so long? Why...? Why is her stomach sinking? Where is this fear coming from? No, not fear. Terror. Darkness settles into the scene like a fog. Anti can feel that she’s crouched over Buster, but now the sensation of lying on her back is taking over. And there’s weight. So much weight. She’s suffocating. There’s a hand around her throat. Buster bleeds away and now Anti’s fingers are digging into the skin of a man. A man on top of her. She’s in her freshman-year dorm room. She was just in the kitchen. How did she get here? There’s blood flowing from a cut under her eye. Her vision is going red. He’s on top of her again. How did this happen? He’s pressing down now with everything he has. He’s going to kill her. He’s... Anti collapses as she’s snapped out of the memory. For a few harrowing moments, the afterimages of her trauma hover over her vision. She’s back in the kitchen. But not in the blue one, the cluttered one. Her head is on Nellie’s lap. The collar is on the floor and so is the knife. “A memory that strong will overpower any other, even if you’re not touching it. How long have been carrying that thing around for?” Nellie asks sternly. Anti doesn’t answer. Her recovering mind cannot produce words right now. “Can you speak, honey?” Nellie asks. “Y...Yes,” Anti stammers. “I’ve heard of people losing themselves to memories like that. Becoming slaves to their own pain. But not you. Not my Antimony.” “I’m not strong. That thing terrifies me,” Anti says. “Who told you that strength was the lack of fear? The strongest people I’ve known were terrified during the most important moments of their life. Fear is what pushes us to be strong.” “I wasn’t even thinking when I made it,” Anti says looking at the knife. “I just wanted the pain to be gone. I didn’t want it in me, so I put it there. I just want it to be gone. It’s too much. I want to...” Anti cuts herself off, ashamed of her intentions. “You want to give it back to him, don’t you?” Nellie asks. “I heard he was getting out tomorrow. I knew they wouldn’t keep a pretty boy like him in jail for long. And I knew that the day he got out, you would need me.” “He deserves it. He deserves to feel everything I felt. Not to become a better person. Not so he can get forgiveness. Just so he can hurt. Just so he can hurt like I did. Like I do,” Anti cries. “I know. I know.” “No, you don’t know. No one knows. You can’t. Not unless you touch that thing. And I won’t let you. I won’t let anyone. Only him. He’s gonna feel it deep in his gut after I stab him with it. It’s only fair! He’s gonna ask me why and I’m not gonna give him the satisfaction of a reason. He should know. Everyone should know. I shouldn’t have to justify it! I shouldn’t have to think about it!” The rant consumes the rest of Anti’s energy. Nellie holds her tightly, her hand rubbing the base of Anti’s neck. She wants to be strong for her granddaughter, but there is no helping the tears that begin flowing down her wrinkled cheeks. For the first time in a long time, she is completely present. Nellie moves the newspapers from the couch to the bathroom so Anti has somewhere comfortable to sit. She is wrapped in the only blanket not laden with memory. A washcloth soaked with warm water lies across the back of her neck. The rhythm of her breathing is still ragged, but it has slowed. Nellie returns to the room with a cup of tea. White tea, Anti’s favorite from childhood. “Do you like it?” Nellie asks. Anti nods still enamored in nostalgia. “I haven’t made it in so long, I was worried it wouldn’t be as good.” “It’s perfect, Grandma. Thank you,” Anti responds between sips. Nellie leaves the room and returns with an object wrapped in thick layers of dinner napkins. Anti’s heart accelerates at its presence. Nellie holds it in her hands like the leash of a wild dog. She’s not going to let it hurt anyone. “This memory is strong. Stronger than anything I’ve ever seen. It still holds all the emotion from the actual event, so if you do what you want to...He’ll feel everything.” Anti is relieved at these words. She doesn’t want to give the man who assaulted her anything less than what he gave her. If the memory wasn’t whole, she’d just be stabbing him. “Good,” she replies. Nellie shakes her head, pulling the knife closer. “Don’t do it,” Nellie says. “Why shouldn’t I?” Anti asks, getting to her feet. “This memory is still whole,” she says. “It’s still yours. You’ll be giving it to him. Don’t give him any more of you than he already has.” “Then what the hell am I supposed to do with that thing,” Anti yells, pointing at the bundle of napkins. “Take the memory back from it. While it’s still whole. While it’s still yours. Make it just a knife again.” Anti is taken aback. Does Nellie know what that would feel like? What that would do to her? “Are you kidding me? Why would you want me to go through that?” “It’s the only way to process it. To deal with it and move on.” “No! It’s my knife. It’s my memory and I’m going to do what I want with it!” Anti steps up to Nellie and puts her hands on the bundle. She pulls it from her grandmother’s hands. Anger and fear paint her face as she makes her way to the door. “I’m sorry. I’ve waited too long for this. I’m not giving it up now.” “I’m sorry too. Be careful.” Anti walks out the door toward a choice that will define her life. Nellie falls into a couch she hasn’t sat on in three years. She picks up Anti’s teacup, still warm and steaming. She can feel the memory of their fight slipping out of her mind, but she fights back against it. This one will be hers. Anti pulls into the prison’s parking lot and parks facing the gate. Beside her, in the passenger seat, is a large, leather purse. Inside the purse is a bundle of napkins wrapping the knife. The chain-link gate is one hundred yards from the lot where Anti’s car is parked. Her eyes are locked on it, waiting for any signs of life. He should be coming soon. Her concentration is broken by the soft chiming of her phone. It’s Nellie. The ringtone is her favorite song. “You are my sunshine My only sunshine You make me happy When skies are gray” She peers down at the screen and winces at the image pixelated onto it. It’s Nellie, holding her as a baby. Anti’s puffy arms reach up towards her grandma’s nose and Nellie smiles down at her. Her hair was only just starting to gray. She was still hiding her wrinkles under makeup. Anti wonders where her grandma has this memory stored. The faintest hint of that day is nestled at the back of her mind. It’s mostly bright sunlight, the feeling of being held, and the smell of Nellie’s perfume. She can’t tell if any of it is real, but even though she knows it may not be, it’s still the most treasured memory she has. “You’ll never know dear. How much I love you Please don’t take My sunshine away.” The phone goes black, and Anti is met with her own reflection. She can see some of Nellie’s features on her own face. Her nose. Her eyebrows. Her lips. But her eyes... Her eyes are cold, whereas Nellie’s are warm. Her eyes take in light and give none back to the world. There is something missing. A piece of her cut away. A loud ringing sound pulls Anti’s eyes from the phone. It’s the sound of the front gate opening. The rattle of the chain link fence shakes her soul, but Anti gathers the courage to get out of the car. In the distance she sees someone walking towards a yellow taxi. He’s in plain blue jeans and a gray shirt. He’s lost weight and his hair has begun to thin, but the tinge of the knife’s metal in her mouth confirms it. It’s him. Their eyes lock, only momentarily. He only looks up at her for half a second. There is no recognition in his eyes. She is nothing to him. “Ma’am, are you waiting for someone?” Asks one of the guards. Anti doesn’t answer. She just turns around and walks back to her car. Reality feels different now. Like she’s been raised to a higher altitude. Anti wants to start the car and drive back home, but she knows that she can’t. She can’t go back home until this is finished. Her hand plunges into the purse and pulls out the bundle. She can already feel the weight of its contents pulling her down. She unwraps the handle of the knife and stares at her reflection on its stained metal surface. She takes a deep breath and wraps her fingers around the hilt. The memory attacks her senses and takes control. But Anti doesn’t fight it this time. She meets her trauma with purpose. It tries to rip her apart but she pulls it into herself. A scream bursts from her throat as the scene starts to overwhelm her. Part of her wants to back out. Part of her wants to let go. But it’s either this or die, so she plugs forward. Finally, she cannot ignore it anymore. She looks up at the man who doesn’t even remember her face. For the first time, she realizes that he couldn’t even look at her while he raped her. She grabs his face with the points of her nails and forces his gaze down. There is nothing in it but puny fear. He is nothing but she will take him. She will take all of him, but he will get none of her. Anti pulls him into her. She pulls all of it into her. A slight prick of electricity travels from the knife to her hand. It travels up her arm and as it does the landscape begins to crumble. It reaches her shoulder, and his face implodes in on itself. It moves up her neck, into her head, and the memory blisters. Everything begins to settle. The bed becomes her driver’s seat. Sweat and brass become the smell of a faded air freshener. Heavy breathing becomes a light breeze. She’s back in her car and she’s holding a knife. Just a knife. She’s shaking and crying. The pain is not gone. Anti is not okay, but she is whole. Everything that is meant to be hers, is hers only.


Court Wizard Malagus the Fourth stood proudly before King Richard and the court. Behind him, the common rabble sat, amazed at the might of the wizard as he offered a curse worthy of the treason of the man kneeling before them. “You will never endanger this kingdom again, Margon the Black!” King Richard said and turned to Malagus. “And my court wizard will ensure it. Tell us, mighty Malagus, of the punishment you shall inflict upon this traitor.” “Yes, my King! I shall inflict the curse of eternal suffering upon him, a curse so terrible that it is only spoken of in whispers by most. But not by me, of course.” Malagus paused, waiting for cheering. There wasn’t. In fact, everyone looked... a little confused. Finally, King Richard coughed once and then spoke, “Yes, and what will this curse do?” “Why inflict eternal suffering upon this dog, great King! And then we shall place him in a coffin forged from iron, his body cast into it while the metal is still red hot! That shall be placed into an obsidian sarcophagus, and then molten lead shall be poured into the cavity to make it impossible to get to the coffin. And then a great temple complex shall be constructed around the sarcophagus, guarded by traps both mundane and magical!” “Errr...” King Richard stared at Malagus. “That is... rather more expensive than I thought. Wouldn’t it be better to just give him a small grave, perhaps let the family put flowers on it--“ “Oh no, my King! For should he ever be released, the curse of eternal suffering would then let him become an abomination, a being of pure hatred, a being capable of--“ “Getting vengeance!” Margon shouted. “Upon your children and their children!” “Hah!” Malagus laughed. “The crypt and the traps and the immortal guards that I will summon to defend it will ensure that you never--” There was a cough, and Malagus turned, getting ready to punish whatever *peasant* interrupted his speech. And the man who had coughed was a peasant. He was wearing stained and worn clothes, no doubt someone who had come to beg the court for mercy in some affair. “WHAT!” Malagus snarled. “Um, begging the court wizard’s pardon, but Your Majesty, if you think this is too expensive, I can help you.” “How, my good man?” King Richard asked. “I’m a logger, so I’ll whack his head off for a gold piece. Ain’t never seen anyone come back from that.” Malagus laughed. “Who do you think King Richard would trust? My sorcery or your ax!” He glanced up at the King. “Shall I have the laborers start on the crypt? It should only take a few months--well, building the physical structure at least, then come the traps and the magic...” King Richard stared at him. Looked back to the peasant, rubbed his chin... Then made his decision. \*\*\*\* “And they’re calling him a *headsman* now!” The former court wizard slurred out to his listener. “And the other kingdoms are also hiring them. I mean, nobody asks for a curse of disembowelment or a crown of eternal suffering anymore! They just get one of these, these, *peasants*, and whack, off goes the head!” “That’s rough, buddy,” the bartender said. “But... if you don’t have a job anymore, I’m gonna have to ask for some coins up front.” Malagus the Fourth, *former* court wizard, groaned and let his head hit the counter.


It was a night just like every night in Lothny Creek. As the sun slowly but surely lost its battle with night over the farmer's fields with swaying crops, the vibrant town was swallowed into deep darkness. The moon shed light over the beautiful town. But just because it was dark did not mean there was nothing happening, the radio in the bedroom of Jim and Jill, 5th graders at the local school, played the stations jingle. The tacky brown and cream pattern on their walls felt inviting and homely to them, warming their spirits as they talked about supposed quiz the following day. The cashier at the local Store was just picking up her hoody and locking the dated-looking rusty doors while she pondered the meaning behind the glowing blue and red curved company logo, she decided she would ask her boss at some point. The janitor for the school slowly cleaned round the final messy classroom for the day, relieved he would soon be able to spend some well deserved time with his young grandchildren after he retired. He thought for a while and realized his grandkids might also turn out to be little monsters, like the kids at the school, this worried him for a small second before he got back to cleaning. A rebellious teen prepared to run away from his home as he packed his bags and thought about how his parents didn’t understand him. He was excited to be able to have a sense of freedom, even if people did miss him. He packed a half blue and half green t-shirt with some writing in the center as he thought over his plan. The crops continued to blow in the wind under the moonlight but the silence had increased and started move and flow, the silence soared over the town and penetrated the buildings. In Jim and Jill’s room, their radio had stopped functioning normally and produced no sound, but in fact, there was nobody around to notice it because Jim and Jill’s bed had clothes in it and a crumpled duvet, but no children. The brown and cream walls suddenly looked more intimidating. The local store’s lights stayed on with a key sticking out of one of the dated looking, rusty doors and the logo of the store glowing blue and red into the darkness outside. On the ground, there was a hoody beside a pile of clothes. In the school, there was a bottle of wood cleaner lying directly on top of a student's desk and a moving storage tray rack filled with rubbish blocked the entrance. In one house there was a suitcase filled with clothes, a blue and green t-shirt left hanging out of the case, looking forgotten. Authorities still don’t know what happened, nor will anyone because the government decided to keep the incident out of the public eye to avoid more criticism. Nobody will ever fully understand or comprehend the great disappearance of Lothny Creek.


I was startled by the zip on my tent opening..After living in alley ways filled with rats, and a certain group of people less civil then the critters themselves, ive grown accustomed to being woken up randomly. But this was different, I awoke with a strange feeling that whoever was outside my half tin half tent abode, did not want to simply ask for a cigarette or spare change. "Whos out there" I said feeling around for my camplight. "My name isnt improtant, come with me now and your life will never be the same". Said the voice outside my tent, with a sense of urgency probably due to the fact that it was pouring with rain. I paused for a second realizing the chances of my life becoming worse at this point in time were near on impossible. "Let me get my coat".