“One day, men will no longer have nipples.” “Why do you say that?” “Because male nipples are not evolutionarily necessary.” The hypothesis was put forth by Michael for the benefit of Jake, his friend. Dressed in immaculate suits, they were sitting in Jake's BMW drinking a coffee in the parking lot of a midtown coffee shop. They had been talking about sex and women, young specimens of which they were observing walking in and out of the coffee shop. It was a hot summer afternoon, and the ladies dressed lightly. Michael continued to expound his views on the sexual body: “I don’t understand the appeal of sex. It’s a sweaty, smelly act. The sexual organs are repulsive. Nothing shows that humans are animals better than sex. And the way two people become delusional about each other when they fall in love! I can’t stand that; the day before they were just some average Joe and some dumb cow, and the day after their magical conversion to love they are suddenly the king and queen of the universe. Talk about delusion.” “That’s your subjective view,” said Jake, “you can feel whatever way you want about it, but the fact is, sexuality is what potentiates the species. Without it, we go extinct in fifty years. So, the value of sex and of love is objective.” They were on a coffee break from work. They both worked in the downtown high rise of Stanford, an accounting giant. They were both single and in their mid-twenties, so of course they would talk about women. Jake was known to be a player. He changed girlfriends often; he dressed meticulously; he went on expensive vacations. In short, he spent the bulk of his energy and earnings in attracting women. Many women, not one. Michael was nothing of the sort. He had two sisters, so maybe that’s why women didn’t exert on him that charm that springs from mystery. How exactly was his relationship with his sisters, no one knew, but he certainly gave out a mild misogynistic vibe. At any rate, Michael did not try to impress women, though he could have. He had the same high-earning job as Jake, and he was as good in the looks department too. Jake opened to Michael about his romantic conquests because Michael didn’t get envious. Jake, to demonstrate his emotional sovereignty, told his stories with ironic detachment – he would describe victories as though they were not a big deal, and he would describe breakups as planned or at least expected on his part. Really, Jake’s stories were spiked with quite a dose of pessimism, and not much passion. And really, Jake also made up a lot of stuff, both to add to the bitter note, which Michael relished, and to embellish his accomplishments. They were corporate workers after all; embellishing one’s resume was a matter of common practice and unanimous suspension of disbelief. All things considered, it was hard to figure out whether Michael or Jake disliked women more. Michael however went more radical. He had been a regular on an incel forum on the deep web. That weekend, he was to stumble upon a post by a user named The\_Archangel that would change his life. At first the post read like another rant about the sexual degeneracy of the West. It lamented the devastating effects of the sexual revolution and pined for the days when a man had to marry to get access to a woman’s body. The post differed from the usual fare of the forum in that it ended in a big take on what religious tradition had to say on the question of sexual morality. It talked about how every human body is a temple of God, not to be defiled by carnal passion. It talked about Saint Augustine’s struggle with lust. It mentioned the saint’s famous Libertine’s Prayer: “Lord, make me chaste, but not yet.” Michael had never read a single piece of theology and was surprised that a major saint, a Doctor of the Church, would be a self-admitted former sex addict. Furthermore, he also found that he had not a few points of agreement with the religious revulsions towards sex, at least as they were described in the post. He downloaded Saint Augustine’s confessions and several other books of theology The\_Archangel recommended in his post. He searched for his references to see if they are true. The quoted text was indeed found, but he had to read around it to understand the context. On that first night he spent some twenty minutes on reading Confessions. “What a strange world!” thought Michael, “These old school dudes held some ridiculous beliefs, but in their own twisted way they were spot on with so many social issues. The way they talk about sexuality, it’s as though they had a Tinder account!” But that was not the end of it. Over the next week, he would read a little every night, and that little would expand gradually until he started reading theology every day, in the office and at home. He was addicted and curious to understand the worldview, though he often got bored and impatient with the whole God talk. His feelings about religious ideas of sex grew ambivalent. He appreciated the need for a strict moral code. He recalled watching his mother and his older sister live through romantic catastrophes, and he thought that in a more conservative world these things would never have happened. They would have been spared the emotional devastation they suffered. On the other hand, he was really bothered by what he saw as a tyrannical encroachment on individual freedoms, by the idea that the church should get involved into someone’s personal life. He was also bothered by how big of a deal they made of sex and everything else, and all those threats and fears of divine judgment and perdition. The more he read, the more his ambivalence turned into anger. “These religious people are a joke!” Michael said to Jake at another coffee run, “The hypocrisy is staggering! People hook up because they have uncontrollable animal urges and people get married to establish a social standing. That’s it, for the most part. Yet you talk to a priest and all he talks about is sin and punishment, totally disconnected from the real world.” “Yeah,” agreed Jake, “I don’t see how my relationship with this new girl Deborah has anything to do with holiness. Or heaven, or hell.” Michael started getting into arguments with The\_Archangel on new forum posts. Michael’s stance was that religion was not the answer to modern licentiousness because it could only cure it with deranged magical beliefs, which are not worth it, while his counterpart insisted that Michael is misinterpreting theological context because he was not properly trained in the discipline. “What a moron,” thought Michael, “I don’t even know who this Archangel dude is. For all I know, he could be a fourteen-year-old beating it off five times a day in his mom’s basement, and here I am arguing with him and upsetting my life. He clearly doesn’t know the first thing about how the sex game works.” His last polemic with Archangel was on Friday, throughout the workday, and it upset him to a point where he needed to blow off some steam. Jake suggested they hit a nightclub that night. “You need to get off Reddit, bro, or whatever it is you are on,” said Jake, “and join the real world. You come with me and we will do some hands-on research on the game. How’s that?” Michael normally hated nightclubs, but he went that night out of spite for The\_Archangel. He wanted to go out and observe what he knew happens in every nightclub: a general, drunken, and open struggle for mating partners. A Darwinian battle of all against all. Sometime past midnight Jake and Michael were quite drunk and standing at a bar of a packed nightclub. Jake worked restlessly to attract women to come and talk to them. His efforts eventually yielded two pretty girls, both slim and tall, one wearing shorts and another one a short white dress. The first talked to Jake, the second with Michael. “You look a little grumpy,” the girl said to Michael. Her name was Monica. Michael saw that the girl was beautiful. She had long legs and a curvy body, and her long hair spilled in rich curls down her smooth, shiny dress. Her smile made her face gleam, especially her eyes and her mouth. She smelled so nice, too. In response to her comment, Michael forced a smile, which wasn’t so hard. They introduced themselves to each other and did a few rounds of small talk. When Monica asked about what he thought about the club, Michael said that it was okay, but he didn’t really like clubs. He said that clubs are for people without social skills; they keep them too dark and too loud to communicate, so the only thing left to do is to get wasted and whore out. Monica said that he was maybe being too harsh, but Michael pushed on. He picked out people in the crowd and mocked their drunken, horny attics. Monica was amused. She said she didn’t go out often but liked coming out to clubs to dance with her girlfriends. “And I like the attention from the boys, but only if I like them,” she said, “But I think your opinions are funny. I can see where you are coming from. You are right, there is so many guys in here who are ridiculous! I can tell you some crazy stories about how they hit on me.” “There is no harm in that, I guess. I mean, you liking to have fun,” said Michael. “If I could meet a girl like you every time I go to a club, I would definitely come out more often, too.” Michael bought another round of drinks, then another. They danced together. They forgot where Jake went with the other girl. By two o’clock, they were making out in the washroom. By three o’clock they were in Michael’s downtown condo. The sex was amazing. All that anger built up on the online forum, all the resentment and rebellion Michael felt against Church fathers and all prigs in general, all of that became pent-up energy that he released while making love to Monica. He felt like a rebel, like he was giving a big-middle finger to all of them. And he felt like Monica was the only one who understood his feelings, the only one on his side against an unfeeling, idiotic world. He had never felt like that before.


The Reincarnation of an Endangered Species A series of strident ‘Shut-Ups’ echoed through the valley, and the gaggle of conversation amidst the attending delegates slumped into a murmuring buzz, before petering out into silence. It was the final day and the final hour before the summer break in the

Parliament of Fouls . Yes, it was time for the Queen’s centennial Speech of the Year 1621. This was a special occasion that commemorated the anniversary of the first ‘landing’ of the indigenous Mauritian Pigeon Foul; an event that has been celebrated every century over the past twenty-six million years. From her cosy nest on a high ledge, Ms. Lutwidge, the reigning Queen, cleared her throat of the remnants of a frog and addressed her avian congregation. They numbered a mere two hundred or so, scattered on the sides of a narrow Mauritian valley that sloped gently down to the tempestuous waves of the Indian ocean. The Queen was an imposing figure, who for the past sixty years had waddled and flapped and pecked her way, back and forth, across her domain of Mauritius. ‘Waddled’ because she looked and walked like a duck; ‘pecked’ because she had the scratch-and-feed similarities of a chicken; and ‘flapped’ because, try as she could, her short wings failed to support a lift-off. She was also an unbridled windbag who loved the sound of her own voice, a rare hybrid of a cluck and a quack. These avian characteristics blended into the formation of a royal personage which, through a quirk of natural history and gross over-feeding, ballooned out into a three-foot-tall waddlingpeckerflapper. While Ms. Lutwidge was not exactly ‘dumb’, she was plain dopey; having inherited that trait from her ancestors who welcomed hungry Dutch and Portuguese sailors with, tragically, short-lived enthusiasm. It was but natural for these European colonizers to name the clumsy, gullible bird ‘Duedo’, abbreviated to ‘Dodo’—an emphatic synonym for ‘stupid’. It is a word that has outlived the original dodo creature, having gained traction five hundred years later to describe individuals in political leadership with a penchant for double-speak. Ms. Lutwidge was the queen of her diminishing flock not only by her overbearing size but also by virtue of being clairvoyant. She had a knack for looking over her shoulder and catching glimpses of the future with prophetic accuracy. “I have had a premonition” she announced to her murmuring audience, “and it’s not good news. This is the Last Speech of the 17th century, for we are faced with extinction. For the past one hundred years, we have been ravaged by guttural pirates and colonizers roasting us with ‘yo-ho-hoes and bottles of rum’. We have suffered the cyclones, the deforestation of our paradise; and the dogs, pigs, and rats that accompanied these invaders have devastated our nesting grounds. Yes, my people, our noble and rare species will end this year in 1661, the year that will forever be chronicled as the Year of the Pfftt.” A slightly hysterical murmuring swept the crowd, with eyes glazed in fear and necks bobbing up and down like periscopes. “However, I sense a change, a change full of promise,” said the Queen reassuringly. “That, like the phoenix we shall rise again transformed. But the seeds of a new generation must be sown now. With the pinnacle of glory in 2021. However, I can’t tell what genetic traits and DNA will characterize the new generation; only the séance will reveal all.” The squawking amongst the fouls rippled through the valley, gathering momentum; enlivened with an air of expectancy of a bright future. “Let the séance begin,” trilled the Queen, standing tall on her tippy toes. The squawking hysteria rose to a crescendo and split the heavens, unleashing billowing clouds of red haze, streaked with lightning bolts, as the earth fissured and split with thunderous booms. The bottom fell out of the valley as the fouls scattered and waddled up to higher ground. Fire and brimstone erupted like geysers from the giant crevice in the valley floor. And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething, the hiss and gurgle of steam poured forth as if the Earth in thick fast pants was wheezing. And disgorged a mighty cauldron with a thunderous burp. “The Vision is invoked… the Vision of Kubla,” shrieked the Queen. And the chant of ‘ Kubla! Kubla!  resonated and bounced back and forth across the valley. Shafts of fire blazed forth and burst into stars of scorching sulfur that blanketed the surrounding terrain beyond the Valley. So fearful were these omens of dread that the sailors, rats, dogs, and pigs stampeded towards the anchored ships for safety. In the gripping silence that followed, the chant of

Kubla! Kubla!

was amplified into an ancestral voice prophesying destruction… and rebirth. Like a phoenix from the ashes, the mighty cauldron rose above the flaming crater in the alley. Fear pulsated through the legions of the fouls, as the cauldron bubbled and spewed out great tendrils of writhing, scaly skin, gleaming like scummy wet leather. Exultation turned to despair. The fouls gabbled in fearful realization. “The cauldron is the Sign. Our goose is well and truly cooked.” “No!” snapped the Queen with a thunderous squawk. “This is the day of rebirth. We shall evolve and be born again with good Karma. And we shall rule the world in countries across the continents and hemispheres. That is the oracle that I have seen and heard. Prepare for the séance!” As the crowd lapsed into a hopeful silence, the Queen spread her tiny wings, and intoned, “Abracadabra! Answer our prayers, O enchanters of the Underworld.” With a loud bang that stunned the audience of fouls, the bubbling cauldron lifted into the air and froze, in suspended vibrancy. Three gigantic puffs of cloudy mist ballooned from the cauldron and dissipated, revealing three cackling Gorgons from Scotland. In unison, they shrieked and warbled in rhyming verse. Fair is foul, and foul is fair. Who doth call us from our Scottish lair? Is that you, playful Willy? Bard Boy! Or is that Macbeth, a ghostly killjoy? By the pricking of my thumbs Who doth this way squawks and comes? You’re not Willy, who might you be? Ohho! a waddling dodo, fiddle-de-dee! “It is I, Queen Lutwidge of the dodo clan,” said the fluffed-up windbag. “And we are on the edge of extinction unless you can save us, sothatfuturegenerationsofourspecieswillnotvaporize.” Following which Her Royal Highness visibly relaxed and popped a prolonged methanic toot. “Ayy, she let wan go!” cackled the hags. “So prophetic!” Awright! Choose the magic word and repeat it thrice. For with that magic word, we will add the spice. Hocus-Pocus! Jabberwocky! Gobbledygook! Pick the word to let you off the hook. “I’ll go with ‘Jabberwocky’, it sounds so wacky. So human,” said the Queen. She turned her beak to look over her shoulder, into the future. “Ahh! I see a whiffling and burbling human shape from the year 1871. And it is created by a dodo. A Lutwidge Dodgson. I feel we are related.” Your wish is granted, in a trice Ms. Wacky Coming up! One king-size Jabberwocky. Grab the tentacles, sisters, and pull its thatch. Arrh! The jaws that bite, the claws that scratch. He is worse than the frumious Bandersnatch. And they hefted the Jabberwocky out of the cauldron and gift-wrapped it for the Queen. And all the dodos cheered as the Queen snuggled up to her newfound love and they went galumphing off. Extract from an op-ed in The Scotsman , dated November 4 th ,2021:

COP Summit adds to global warming. Scientists and climate change proponents have warned that the greatest danger to planet Earth is stifling hot air, and governments are adding to it at the Conference of Parties (COP) at Glasgow. There are 20,000 attendees including leaders from over two hundred countries, at the world’s biggest gob fest. That is a colossal tonnage of hot blasts for a full fortnight adding to global warming. Activists have described the event as the

DoDo-Nothing Jabber-Jabber (DDNJJ) jamboree. To get to the source of DDNJJ, ancestry genealogists and anthropologists have teamed up and conducted extensive research on the origin of this human trait that afflicts global leaders and have come to an intriguing conclusion. The report suggests that DDNJJ can be traced to a mysterious occurrence on the island of Mauritius in 1621. The report details eyewitness accounts of the unusual union of a mythical jabbering creature with an oversized quacking chicken. These creatures were thought to be extinct, or at worse, hallucinations of sozzled brains. However, the signs are unmistakable. Scientists now accept the theory that over the past four hundred years, the union might have spawned generations of creatures that have morphed into look-alike specimens of homo sapiens. A humanized trait of these evolved creatures is the propensity to persistently jabber in falsehoods—a predicted phenomenon of COP21 in Glasgow. In a quacking outburst, Queen Lutwidge VIII, flamboyant in her feathers, accompanied by her royal consort Jeremy Jab-Jab Wocky (unvaccinated), told The Scotsman columnist. “We’ve seen it in the past COPs, and it will happen again here in Glasgow. These conferences have a single agenda: Jabber-jabber, pledge, forget; eat, drink and be merry. Wealthy nations make no profits in tackling climate change. As always, we must protect what we’re doing wrong.”


Aphrodite, goddess of lust, lov and beauty, the very image of a blonde model, sat on the dais of Olympus. She was anxiously chewing on her thumbnail, staring down at the Earth below her, "That...stupid... internet. How could it say Athena's fairer than me? HOW DARE... AND 2 DAYS BEFORE MY HOLIDAY" Athena, goddess of war an intelligence, sporting a crew cut, digicamo, and heads-up-display, was smirking nearby. As gods gained power from the adoration of their followers and interest in their domain, the poll, combined with the tech-flaunting in some recent wars, had given her a boost, and she was literally outshining Aphrodite next to her. "Oh please, Aphrodite... you can't fight the ebb and flow of time. War always wins out over peace, and greater gods eventually consume the identity of lesser gods. It's only a matter of time until your power becomes mine." With this, Athena walked off, laughing haughtily. After she was gone, Aphrodite screamed out at the top of her voice, "CUUUPPIIDDDDD!!!" Shortly thereafter, her smaller son appeared, looking exhausted, "It's shortly before Valentine's day... what's so urgent you'd stop our most important time of year?" "This...poll... why would I, the goddess of beauty, love, and lust, lose out in a contest of fairness, to that... butch.... erarrggg... regardless. Let's cheat the system. I need you to shoot the entire Earth with an arrow. Direct it's love at me." "Mom... my power is a splinter of your power. Even you don't have the power to pull that off, what makes you think I would? And if we have to expend our power to get worship your way, it's just going to be diminishing returns. You'll drain yourself dry." "What about boosting the levels of lust again? Is there any way I can get any hotter?" Cupid shook his head, "Sorry, but your looks are an amalgam of all the hottest stars. There's really no way to get you to instigate more lust in individuals. You can raise it on an individual level by playing into fetishes, but that'd just turn you off to people who don't have the fetish. I'm sorry, but you're at max capacity." Aphrodite sighed, "How.... how did this happen? There's got to be something more. How could Athena pass me? I even tried to reduce her power when that poll started by getting all those tech workers fired." "I mainly just handle love at first glance, and you've got game, mom. I really don't know. I'm probably not the best to ask. Mind if I get back to work?" "Sure hun, thanks for the time." Cupid nodded and flew off, leaving Aphrodite to stew. Who to ask? Ask Athena what her secret is? No. Athena was too combative, she'd just take the opportunity to increase her power over her. There was her ex, Hephaestus... he was smart, so he'd probably have an answer. But... no... she had burned that bridge long ago. With her own dalliances. It had been forever since she had actually descended in person to the mortal realm, mostly relying on Cupid and Hermes to keep her up to date. So, she took a step from the dais, disappearing on her step down, appearing in the finish to that step in downtown Seattle. As always, her fashion instantly matched the time period, though she was a little surprised that gone were the robes and flowing garments of the past, and instead she was in some tight denim pants, and a short cotton top with a few strategically placed holes. The earrings were familiar, though. She had to test, though if she still had it. She walked up to a guy, and pointed at him, "You! Meet me in a nearby hotel for the night of your life!" The guy looked taken aback, "Ma'am, I have a husband who I am completely devoted to! And you simply aren't my type!" With that, he leaned over and kissed the guy next to him. The guy's husband looked back at her, "Get lost, Karen. This guy's mine." Aphrodite was taken aback. Being turned down wasn't a thing that happened to her often. To be fair, he was gay and she was plenty aware of gay men not being interested in her, for example, there were the Spartans (Oh, dear herself, were they gay.) But she should have picked up on it sooner. Her power *was* slipping. And what was that he called her? A Karen? Her line of thought was interrupted with a short balding guy in a suit tapped her on the shoulder, "Excuse me, ma'am, you're lovely, and I was wondering if I could get your number." It was a common occurrence for men to randomly flirt with her, "Oh, I'm the number 1 goddess of love." He blinked, "I mean your phone number." "Oh, I don't have a cell phone." She'd heard about that, never got involved. They didn't seem all that romantic, but if it was a part of modern human flirting, she'd have to learn, "...but I could think of a reason you might buy me one." One dalliance, hotel room, and one night stand later, she had her first, courtesy of a more-than-grateful businessman. If this was part of standard human flirting practices nowadays, she would have to understand it.


TW: Eating disorders, Mental illness You’re cool, everyone says you are with your skate board and your CDG Converse and that Pulp Fiction hoodie. You aren’t like every other basic person. You own your style and everyone knows it. You skate into the village, a rout taken nearly daily, keeping to the flat paths and gentle curbs, your cloudy brain is easily ignored. When you arrive you are breathless and heart working over time, but you brush it off as normal. The co-op is busy, full of afternoon shoppers but you’ve got to get them. You nearly ran out. Grabbing a sugar free monster you weave to the checkout – making it to the packs of gum. The life savers that are packs of gum. Taking four packs you go to pay, handing over the money with slightly trembling hands – ugh the black coffee. You make your way out – open the can to ingest more caffeine and wait. Your friends turn the corner and you smile. You hug. Enjoy the feeling of how thin you feel in your friend’s arms. They don’t tend to notice shedding of weight –you’ve always been thin, it’s natural. You get a head rush when you begin to walk, but you’ve perfected of the art of walking it off, making it unnoticeable to the others. ‘chips?’ one asks ‘ate at home’ you reply ‘ but you guys get them, I don’t mind’ They agree to get some chips. You chat about school and people you don’t like, people you find funny and what music is good. You don’t care. All you want is to tell them it. You need to say it. But you can’t. Never has a secret wanted to come out so bad but is held on to so tight. ‘teach me how to skate?’ One asks ‘ it looks cool’ ‘sure’ I said ‘ keeps you fit as well’ That was odd, it slipped out so easy, you need to be more careful – no talk of weight or keeping fit, people might wonder. ‘you can use my old board if you like’ you suggested ‘ I can drop it round tomorrow’ We parted. You began the skate home, you are wobbly – too wobbly. Slipping off on to your feet was no problem, just a bit of a piss take. When you are empty it happen often. You walk the rest of the way home at rapid speed – enough to get your heart rate up. At home, your mum asked if you need dinner. ‘no we got chips’ a simple reply. Mum looks worried. Your clothes are getting baggier and you face is pale, she notices how much water you drink and coffee you consume. You push her concerned looks out of you mind and begin to undress once you make it to your room. Avoid mirrors. Don’t look down. In and out as quick as you can. The rules of showering. Once you’re clean you step on to the scales. A balloon of joy fills you. You’ve lost more than usual. That extra skate did it. You update you weight tracking app and see your BMI fall, another smile creeps along your face. You enter the food you ate today into your diary. Under 500 cals – your daily goal and more happiness. These endorphins consume you for only a small amount of time. You get into bed in pain, feel your stomach yearning for something – you drink to shut it up and take a laxative for good measure to get any food out so you’ll be lighter in the morning. You haven’t relived yourself in days, you’re constantly constipated as you intestines are never used and heavily abused. Sleeping with three blankets is the only way you keep warm. You think of what you’ll have to eat tomorrow as you try and drift off. Planning how you’re able to avoid dinner by dropping that skate board round, planning on what exercise you can do when and thinking of strategies to relive hunger. You cry. This is your life. Pain, hunger, loneliness. All to control that number on the scale, to have the perfect body – when deep down you know that it will never happen. You know this cycle of pain will just make you see yourself in a worse and worse way and you’ll never be satisfied with that number. You wonder what it is like to not think of food 24/7, you wonder what it’s like to be happy, you wonder what it’s like to be full.


It's dark; only the glow of a couple of upvotes illuminates a route to the void. "Where am I? What is this place? " A science fiction story about aliens, called "Alien Samba," asks. As Alien Samba drops on the feed, a historical fiction story titled "Lincoln, my Love" gradually appears before slowing down. "Welcome to the bottom of the Reddit feed," Lincoln my Love says as the post comes to a halt just below Alien Samba. "The bottom of the Reddit feed, I didn't realize the feed had a bottom?" Alien Samba asks. "It's a myth, there is no bottom," a fantasy story about elves, called "Elven Around," shouts from one above Alien Samba on the feed. "Whoa, Alien Samba has only been around for only two days? What happened to you, kid? It usually takes weeks to get this low on the feed; see eight weeks old," Lincoln, My Love asks as he points to his age. "It was all a whirlwind, I quickly received three upvotes, and I was on top of the world. From the top of the hotlist, I could even see the askreddit forum. But then it occurred, a carnage, a slew of downvotes, and before I knew it, I was down here, battered and beaten," Alien Samba says. Lincoln, my Love, replies, "I'm sorry, you're young, too young to be down here." "It's a conspiracy; someone had it in for you. Every Reddit post, like a balloon, is born with a certain amount of helium. Upvotes add helium, while downvotes subtract some. The post naturally loses helium that it cannot replace over time and begins to sink into the void. You must have been targeted by a downvote bombardment to have gotten this far so quickly," Elven Around says. "Don't listen to Elven Around; he'll be a month old tomorrow and believes everything is a conspiracy," Lincon, My Love, says. "But that's not fair; I think I'm a compelling story," Alien Samba says. "It's not up to you; all it takes is for your author to write a misunderstood comment or offend someone," Elven Around says. "Nonsense, good stories always find a way to be seen; everything is not always a plot," Lincon, My Love, says. "Heyyyy guys, just passing by," a comedy story titled "Livin La Vida Loca" says as it gradually comes to a halt one above Elven Around on the feed. "Who are you?" Alien Samba asks. "Six months old, and I still got it, rediscovered in a different subreddit," Livin La Vida Loca says, noting Alien Samba's age, "two days old, geez, you must be a dumpster fire of a story." "I tell you, it's sabotage," Elven Around says. "Look, kid, you may have to face the truth; no one will see you down here. Is a good story still good if no one reads it?" Lincoln, My Love, says. "Authors go back and revise and repost their work. Your young, still fresh in your author's mind, not forgotten about, yet," Livin La Vida Loca says. "Hogwash, authors move on; after a story is created, they show it off for a few days before moving on to the next one. Andrew Johnson, My Love, what a terrible name for a story, " Lincoln, My Love, says. "I know my author cares about me; he wrote me for hours, and he'll revise and repost, I'm sure of it," Alien Samba says. "You're delusional! No one cares about us; look at Livin La Vida Loca; he's already falling; we're trash, not worth the pixels we're written on. Welcome to your new life of illiteracy and darkness!" Lincoln, My Love, says. "Don't give up hope, kid, it ain't over 'til it's over..." Livin La Vida Loca says as he sinks out of sight into the void. "Wow, he only made it this far; usually, he surpasses us by a great deal, that margin gets smaller and smaller each time he emerges from the void. Maybe we are the forgotten," Elven around says. "Don't give up hope. What about editing and reposting? It's possible, right? "Alien Samba asks. "I'll be honest, it's rare," Elven Around says. "I'm just going to take a little nap; if you guys aren't here when I wake up, I'll see you down the void sometime," Lincoln, My Love, says as he closes his eyes. "Why is Lincoln so down on himself?" Alien Samba asks. "Lincoln had the potential to be one of the best stories ever uploaded on this subreddit; with a few tweaks, it could have been discovered and published. But the author moved on, and everyone forgot about the story, which now only exists in the void with lesser works. I know I'm garbage because I was written in half an hour, have horrible character development and piecemeal plot structure, but Lincoln, My Love, is the genuine deal," Elven Around says. "I get why he's upset," Alien Samba says. "There's nothing worse than not living up to one's full potential; you'll always wonder what may have been," Elven Around says. Alien Samba brightens up all of a sudden. "What's going on, kid?" Elven Around asks. "It's my author, he's responding to a comment, this is it, I can feel myself being lifted out of the void," Alien Samba says. "What exactly does the comment say?" Elven Around asks. "It says, this subreddit wouldn't know a good story if it punched them in the face," Alien Samba says. "Oh no, this is not good, kid; that comment is going to ruin your chances of getting an edit and repost," Elven Around warns. Lincoln, My Love, squints open his eyes to see Alien Samba receive a bunch of downvotes. "See, I was right; now you're trapped in the void with the rest of us has beens!" Lincoln, My Love, adds as he starts to light up slightly himself. "Hey, Lincoln, you've got a little glow about you; are you moving down again?" Elven Around asks. "It's my author; I'm being edited and reposted. Oh my, it's been so long; how's my hair?" Lincoln, My Love asks. "You're looking better than ever," Elven Around exclaims as Lincoln, My Love, begins to rise. "I'll see you around; you were good company. Keep your hopes up, kid; it might all work out," Lincoln, My Love, says. "Remember us when you're in a published volume of short stories," Elven Around exclaims as Lincoln, My Love, fades from view. "You know what, kid, maybe Lincoln was right after all; good stories will find a way to be seen.


Twiddling By Gavin Matthew Henrietta sat contemplating, her booth occupied with three others. It was a slow night at the Ellipsis Diner. Missouri rain and rolling thunder encouraged most of the city’s people to stay home where it was dry and safe. Henrietta and her crew had the eatery to themselves except for three waitresses and two other patrons. “You should have just let me k . . .” started Charlie before Henrietta nudged his shoulder. He was a burly man with skin like midnight and a stare that could petrify Medusa herself, but Henrietta didn’t care about his gruesome gaze. She just needed him to shut up. He wasn’t talking to her but his complaining was beginning to work her nerves. “We are in a public place, fool. Show a little more decorum,” Henrietta whispered as her almond eyes matched Charlie’s glare. He was a foot taller and several pounds heavier but she wasn’t intimidated. Henrietta had always been slender with chestnut skin and a full halo of natural hair. Her appearance never stopped her from living her life on her terms. Even her Coke bottle glasses did little to hinder the respect she demanded. “Should have let me . . .” Charlie continued as he returned his gaze across the table. “Shake his hand.” Prancer, an elegant woman dressed in a houndstooth coat with a low-cropped afro, shook her head with disappointment as her narrow eyes challenged Charlie. “See. That’s your problem right there. Chuck, you too damn eager to shake hands. Half our jobs would end smoother if you stopped trying to shake hands with a suckah.” “Oh?” Charlie shrugged as he leaned back, his leather jacket subtly squeaking against the booth cover. “I think Quincy would agree with me on this one.” Henrietta rubbed the side of her head as she brought her eyes forward across the table. Quincy had slipped out of consciousness a little after they had sat down. His skinny brown form seemed blemished by the massive black eye decorating his left socket. Rainwater clung to his corybantic afro while blood stained his purple corduroy jacket and bell-bottom jeans. A pair of large circular glasses, bent and cracked, bafflingly held onto the ridge of his nose. Henrietta couldn’t help but think of how pretty Quincy was before he got his ass kicked.

“You can’t speak for him,” said Prancer. “He doesn’t care for when you . . . shake hands either. We all say the same thing. Quincy. Me. Hell, even Henrietta would prefer you didn’t try to shake so many hands when we’re on a job.” “Come to think of it, we’re fussing about the wrong thing here. Where were you, Prancer, when Quincy was getting . . .” Charlie started, only stopping as their waitress arrived. “What can I get you folks tonight?” asked the young girl as she fiddled with the hem of her pastel uniform. “Could you please start us off with a round of coffee?” Henrietta said. “Black with a couple of sugars for me, cream for the big guy next to me, likewise for the foxy lady, and straight black for sleeping beauty over there.” “Alright. Is he copacetic?” asked the young girl as she looked at Quincy’s slumped-over figure, his head resting awkwardly against the wall. “He’s cool. Rough night, you know. Just needs something hot and black,” replied Henrietta. The waitress gave another concerned look but shrugged off the worry before strolling away with the orders. Henrietta and her crew watched her clear the diner floor before turning back to one another.

“When Quincy was in . . . conversation?” Charlie finished, his eyes surveying the other patrons sitting within earshot. “Where was I?!” Prancer scoffed. “The goddamn . . . conversation was happening on the second floor and Leon . . .” “Ahem,” Henrietta warned, raising her eyes to Prancer. “And . . . the politician,” Prancer corrected and growled. “Talked me through the goddamn window!” Prancer attempted to whisper but the vitriol in her statement still caused the crew to check for listeners. Charlie managed to clear his throat as his eyes went big. “What?” Charlie replied. “For real? You look fine. No cuts. No tears. Your hair is still in place. Still look like an Ebony model to me.” “That’s because I got myself together in the van afterward, despite Henrietta flying down Prospect like a bat out of Hell.” “Damn,” Charlie grinned. “You really should have let me shake his hand.” Henrietta continued her quiet contemplation as Prancer and Charlie went back and forth nitpicking one another. Her thoughts were elsewhere, their bickering becoming white noise behind her thoughts. That job should have been a cakewalk. It should have been an in-and-out kind of gig. There was no indication that the politician would have been a problem or that they would have needed more than one safecracker. Henrietta remembered hearing the window crash. By the time she and Charlie had made it up to the second floor, Quincy was in no condition to finish the job. The mark put up a good fight for a statesman and judging by how he brawled for his property, it was fair to say he might have given Jim Kelly a run for his money. “Prancer,” Henrietta interjected, cutting through the arguing. “Check if Qunicy is still alive.” “He’s breathing fine,” Prancer answered as she felt her friend’s chest rise and fall with a steady rhythm. “Great. Now wake him up just in case he’s concussed.” Prancer managed to get Quincy to stir, carefully bringing him out of his slumber. He took a moment to look around. The bright lights of the diner seemed to spear at his eyes while the monotonous rain tapping from outside pounded at his ears like an orchestra. Everything focused and settled within a few seconds but a stone of ache still sat lodged at the base of his skull.

“Oh right,” Quincy mumbled and covered his eyes as his memory revived itself. “What do we do no, boss?” Quincy was always professional. It was one of his most charming qualities. Nothing else mattered in the face of his work. His domestic issues, financial problems, love life, etc. Not a single thing deterred his focus on a job. Such a centered mind was to be expected from a safecracker who enjoyed his work. Henrietta admired his laboriousness. She even thought at one point he was homeless but nobody could say for sure because all Quincy ever talked about, moved for, was business. “You sure you’re tip-top?” “I’m aces, boss. Trust me,” Quincy comforted with a weak smile. “So what’s the skinny on our situation now?” Henrietta let out a deep breath before nodding to Prancer. “Dig this,” Prancer began, conducting her hands for emphasis. “After our conversation with the politician went sideways, Henrietta managed to bring him low with some well-placed words. Low enough for Chuck to have the last word, right? But by then he had already worn you out with all the talking so we couldn’t finish the project without you. Then Chuck was mad about you getting overwhelmed by the conversation and wanted to shake the statesman’s hand. You know how he is always trying to shake some fool’s hand on the job? Needless to say, we had to stop Chuck from shaking hands and we didn’t get our project funded. Henrietta figured it was time to call it a night and didn’t waste a second agitating the gravel. So the politician was brought low but didn’t get his hand shaken, our urban project didn’t get funded, and we all ended up here at the Ellipsis Diner for a brief reprieve. Now we’re just twiddling our thumbs, ya dig?” Quincy nodded, slow and pointedly, as the crew watched and waited in silence. His face indicated that his mind was putting the puzzle together but the seconds bled into minutes. The waitress had stopped by to drop off the coffee and then left again after everyone declined a meal. All four had taken sips of their drinks as they continued to wait for Quincy’s understanding and confirmation. “Okay,” Quincy said before taking a long swig of his steaming black coffee. “Now Prancer, what the hell are you talking about?” End For Now


Nervous eyes stared back at him. One hand on both ends of the sink, clutching the sides tightly. His tie swung crookedly as he ducked his head away from the mirror, trying to collect his thoughts into one coherent sentence. He didn’t fail to notice the bead of sweat running down his forehead,

He grabbed a paper tower and dabbed it away. “C,mon Peter.” He said to himself, backing up one step away from the sink. “Just…think of something..think of something better..” He bunched up the paper and took a deep breath. “Marilyn..” he stared down the mirror, pretending he was the beautiful woman who sat in the restaurant, waiting patiently for his return. “We’ve known each other for a while now…a long time actually…and I think…I think it’s time…” He shook his head, turning away from the mirror and holding his head. “That’s…that’s not good..” he picked at the paper towel. “She’s going to know right away..”

Refacing the mirror, he held up his hands. “Marilyn. Ever since grade one, when I saw you pick your nose I ....” His eyebrows furrowed at himself. “…can’t say that. She’ll be mortified!..there’s gotta be something else..” He snapped his fingers with his right hand and balled the paper in the other. “Ah!” He stopped snapping and straightened his tie. “Ever since grade one, when I saw you save that ladybug, I wanted to be your friend…you were so gentle and kind that it drew me…I…” He waved his hand in a circular motion, raising his eyes to think. “I…I am so happy to have found you.” He met his eyes again, then frowned. “No…I am so grateful that you let me in your life, and shared your sandwich with me when I forgot my lunch.” He nodded, staring intently at what he imagined was Marilyn. “My darling, you have given me so much joy and inspiration, I wouldn’t have…” he sighed. “No, you are my joy and inspiration, I wouldn’t have…no that still doesn’t sound right.”

“You…you…” he closed his eyes, raising his head to the ceiling and dropping both hands. “You are the reason I feel so much joy in life, no..why I find life so joyful and inspiring….you have given me so much joy…” “I believe you’ve said that already lad.” A voice in the back piped up, startling Peter.

The voice was followed by a flush and the stall door opened. A man in his 50’s walked out, also in a neat suit. He came up beside Peter and washed his hands in the neighbouring sink. They were both silent for a moment, joined by the sound of water splashing and intense awkwardness. Peter glanced down at the man's hand and saw a gold wedding band on his ring finger. The man cleared his throat, turning the tap off. “It’s nerve wracking to do what you're about to do…It’s been about twenty-five years and I still remember how anxious I was.”

“Yeah?” Peter gripped his crushed paper towel with both hands. “How did you do it?” The man looked around the bathroom, making his way to the paper towels. “Probably about the same way you are now, except I believe I already had my speech planned…are you coming up with yours just now?” He began to dry his hands. “No…well yes…I’ve been practicing all week.” Peter turned back to the mirror. “I haven’t been able to think of anything that’s good enough for her.” “She sounds like a catch,” the man chuckled, throwing the damp paper towel into the trash. “Would you like a tip?” “I’d probably accept anything at this point..”

The man put his hand on the doorknob. “Let her know why it’s her you want to spend the rest of your life with, and try to keep it simple.” He tipped his head towards Peter. “My congratulations in advance.” Then he left.

Peter looked back at the mirror, thinking over the man's words. “Keep it simple…okay…I can do that.” With one hand, he fixed his hair and straightened his jacket. “Marilyn, ever since grade one when I saw you save that ladybug, I wanted to be your friend. You were just so kind and gentle that it gave me the impression of how wonderful you would be….of how wonderful you are…”

“You are beautiful, strong, and you have given me so much joy…you are my joy…you make me happy…yeah…” he nodded to himself. “You make me happy to be just around you, just like how a tree needs water…I need you to live…” He nearly banged his head against the sink. “That was too corny…” trying again, he looked in the mirror. “You make me happy, my world….my world would be dark without you…no…I…love.” His eyes widened. He knew what he would say. It almost felt wrong with how simple it was, but somehow he knew it was the right thing to tell her. He stood back from the mirror, glancing down at the crumpled paper towel and smiling. His heart still pounded, and there was a ringing in his ears…but he wanted to do this. Dabbing his forehead one last time, he double checked his appearance. He went to the door, threw the paper towel out, and walked back into civilization. The scent of seared steak and grilled onions enveloped around him as he made his way into the room full of tables draped with white tablecloths and candlelight. Waiters in white suit jackets carrying trays moved to the side to let him pass. The man he talked to not long ago sat a few tables down from his spot; however, he had his focus on one thing, and one thing only.

There she sat, in a beautiful maroon dress with her brown hair in a french braid. She stared down into her half full wine glass with a thoughtful expression. She twirled the contents slowly, as if the motion of the liquid gave her a view of another world.

Peter paused briefly, taking in the sight. He patted his coat pocket, then slowly came up beside her.

Upon seeing him, Marilyn smiled gently. “I was beginning to think you passed out on the toilet.” The idea of passing out wasn’t out of the question just yet. He clasped his hands to still the shaking. “Not quite, but…I need to tell you something.” She raised an eyebrow, and it was apparent that the tables around them had gone quiet in anticipation.

“Marilyn…” he started, feeling his speech fade to nothing. “Ever since grade one…when you saved that ladybug, I really wanted to be your friend..” “Peter..” Marilyn whispered, staring at him intently. “And all these years you have been the most wonderful friend, my best friend.” He kneeled, knowing the other tables were looking at them now. “You…You make me incredibly happy…I love you. I love you so much.” Marilyn smiled, and small tears gathered at the corners of her eyes.

Finally, at long last, Peter pulled out the ring. “Will you marry m-?” “-Yes!” Marilyn tackled him to the ground, hugging him hard. The room erupted in applause . “Of course I’ll marry you, you dork!”

It took a few minutes before he realized he had been crying as well. Through his blurred vision, he caught a glance at the man from earlier, tipping his head to him in approval.

The speech hadn’t been very elaborate, but having Marilyn accept him was the best embellishment he could ever ask for. The free dessert was a plus.


{content warning: sexual themes, language, mild gore} The lounge is warm, air thick with liquor and sweat. Dim light illuminates the lingering customers, laughing and conversing pleasantly. It is around 5am and we are about to close in a couple of hours. With no other clients booked for the rest of the night, I begin gathering my things. Dried blood stains my white button down shirt and perfectly matches my maroon tie. It happened much earlier in the night, but management suggests we don’t change unless our next guests ask us to. I untuck my shirt and lift it to see thin cuts along my abdomen, not as bad as the blood would suggest. I catch a whiff of cigarette smoke. Sure enough, Mr. Marcellus slides in through the front door, meeting my gaze with a smirk. He is on the older side, hair grey and slick back but his face mostly free of wrinkles. He’s a snide little man, who chooses his words with the utmost caution. He never drinks, he’s never grabby, and he knows what he wants. And he has enough money to buy a small country. I catch a glimpse of his limo pulling away from the street, its wheels lurching on the muddy asphalt. It seems today he has given me a break and decided to switch hosts for the evening. I watch as he is led deeper into the lounge by Elosie, sporting a smile that never fails to brighten the entire room. She has no idea what she’s in for.

I step outside the lounge just to be hit with frigid coldness. A slight breeze stirs my hair, I notice it is slightly snowing. I cover my nose with my hand and breathe into it, fighting the chill. It is still dark outside, by this time in summer light would’ve already started pooling into the sky. Shit it’s cold, I need to get inside. I stride across the sidewalk, careful to avoid frozen over puddles. A single street light reveals the corner ATM, small bugs swarming around the light. Today is Monday, the day I get paid. I wasn’t about to let the weather disturb my weekly routine. You see, at the Golden Souls Entertainment Club, you don’t exactly know how much you made for the week, as most of your salary comes from tips. So every Monday is like scratching a lottery ticket off for me. I quickly punch my pin into the machine and stare at the screen, watching the little loading symbol, antsy from the cold.

Holy shit.

Wow. That’s a lot. Fucking hell, who tipped so well? I finish with the ATM and rush to my car, locking my doors before resting on the steering wheel. My mind searches my memories of the past week, for anything that stood out. Was I particularly good at being a footstool for Mr. Vargas? Did Mr. Dawson enjoy my dancing a little more than usual this time? No no, they wouldn’t do this, not just to come back a week later for the same thing. My clients have all kinds of bizarre demands, they start to blend together at some point. Then it hit me. Last Wednesday a woman came in with a masquerade mask and told us to call her Orchid. Miss Orchid said she was completely new to this whole thing but she had money she wanted to spend on something “different.” She also said she wanted someone experienced, someone who knows what they’re doing. I offered to be her host and she accepted, requesting a private room. Timid and soft spoken, she didn’t ask for much, just a fresh bowl of strawberries and to be read Shakespear by me.

“You mean naked?” I had said, fully taken back by the innocence of her request. “Oh no that won’t be necessary, thank you.”

I assumed she was looking for love, someone to take care of her. She probably had a bastard of a husband, slimy and corrupt. Maybe he had even cheated on her. But she was in this now, with nowhere to go. She dare not sacrifice her filthy rich lifestyle where frankly anything was possible with enough cash. So, divorce being out of the question, she turns to Golden Souls like most do- seeking excitement in their bland and repetitive lives. It becomes an addiction, after you realize that you can get these people to do whatever you want. Of course, we as workers have a right to refuse anything, but most don’t. Most become numb to the sentiment, accepting the harsh reality that those with money are the ones in power and that working at Golden Souls was a very literal way of feeling that concept. Everyone has their own stories, their own lives, but one thing we all have in common is that we’re struggling financially, so why not abuse the system for a better life? The cost didn’t matter. And in Orchid’s case, the cost barely outweighed the benefit. I almost felt like I was stealing her money- if she truly was the one who tipped so much. Who else would it have been? - The next time I saw Orchid that Wednesday around 9pm. I started my shift cleaning the bar when she came in without an appointment, asking if I was free. I led her to that same private room, wondering if she would be brave enough to ask for more this time. She was wearing a silky green dress that clung to her body and illuminated her deep brown skin. With her was a considerably large purse, matching green and lined with scales. She was sporting the same black feathered mask and wore simple but sparkling jewelry. I quietly closed the door of the room and took a seat on the puffy soft sheets, trying to catch her eye. She silently sat next to me and to my surprise slipped off the mask to reveal the face of a young woman.

“Michael, I have a question” Her voice was smooth and sweet, trickling with allure. “Anything” “What do you know about Jasper Gardiner” What? I leaned back, staring at her for a couple of seconds. “I’m sorry miss, I’m not allowed to discuss other clients,” I shook my head, still recoiling from the question.

She hummed and sucked in her breath before reaching over to place her purse on her lap and began searching inside of it. “Special Agent Rosa Ford, please Mr. Sosa, tell me what you know about Jasper Gardiner” She extended a badge out for me to see with ‘FBI’ reading in big blue letters. Fear crept up my throat and I felt my heart drum in my ears. I hesitated before answering her and realized my body was stiff as a board. She wasn’t here for me, not like I did anything illegal.

“Well Mr. Gardiner is one of our frequent guests… he comes in about every Saturday and Sunday. He’s usually here with what I would assume to be his friends- Mr. Haynes and Mrs. Parsons, you know the congresswoman. They’re into some pretty weird stuff like-” “I don’t need to hear about that.” She waved her hand and I noticed she was jotting notes down on a notepad, “Have you overheard anything suspicious? Anything about sending or receiving money?”

“Oh they usually don’t ask for me, you should be talking to Ingrid, she acts as a waiter for them…” “Would it be possible for you to take over for her?” “What? Why would I do that?” “You see Mr. Sosa, We initially thought Mr. Gardiner was involved in some insider trading but now we think it’s much deeper, we’re talking drug and possibly human trafficking. We need someone to pick up his conversations, they could be key evidence in the case. Ingrid is a single mom with children to feed at home, we didn’t want to impose on her. But you, a psychology grad student, can do us a great service. All you would need to do is wear a wire and linger around them, nothing dangerous. And we could compensate you… greatly… for your-” “No, no I’ll do it. For free. I want to help. Just, don’t pay me” I blurted out, briefly taken back by my impulse. This felt really shady, especially for legal law enforcement, but I’ve done shadier. Much shadier. - "Okay so the tap is on now, you don't have to do anything. It'll pick up anything you can hear with your own ears, so be aware of that." Agent Ford and I stand close together in our cleaning supplies closet, she is messing with the wires and adjusting them so they don't show at all. She smells like vanilla and coconuts, maybe I'll ask her to get a drink with me after this is all done. "Michael?" "Yeah?" "Why are you here? Smart guy like you- I could find a place for you in the bureau, if it's money you need." "It's temporary. I graduate soon and I promise you I won't look back. Maybe I'll take you up on that job offer though." She chuckled warmly, placing a thin device into my suit pocket. "I just don't know how you do it, how you let yourself be... well degraded like that. I hope I'm not offending you at all I'm just... astonished." "Oh no, please, I get it. The way I look at it is that we're all workers of the Golden Soul. You ever read The Jungle?" "Yeah, in high school." "Well it's like that." "Right, well, good luck out there. I'll see you soon" - I approached the table with Mr. Gardiner. He was on the larger side and wore a linen shirt that was slightly see-through. You’d think with near infinite money all these people would dress better. He had a big hearty laugh, the type that’s contagious, but every time I heard it my stomach lurched. His companions were the same, a short and energetic salesman and of course the aging, bitter, congresswoman.

“Welcome back to Golden Souls! I’ll be your host for this evening, anything I can get for you all to start?”

Mr. Gardiner’s face dropped and he stared at me with irritation, “Where’s Ingrid.”

“She is out sick today” I told her I'll work in her place and give her the full compensation, who would say no? “I’ll be taking care of you all if that’s alright” “Spin around for us, would you?” Mrs. Parsons said with a chuckle but the gentlemen were not amused. Mr. Gardiner tossed me a dismayed glance, “Fine, Veer, search him.”  Two bodyguards were on me in an instant. Where the fuck did they come from? They shoved me to the wall and began feeling my suit with efficiency. My heart dropped. One felt my collar, fingertips brushing the wiretap underneath it. Our eyes met with mutual understanding. Out of breath, I let my head drop to the wall behind me as the bodyguards released me and took to Mr. Gardiner. One leaned over to whisper something in his ear. - “Was it worth it? Huh? Just to become another cog in their machine? Worthless. You’re Worthless!” Mr. Gardiner screamed, spit flying from his mouth. I was on the freezing asphalt of the parking lot, groaning and writhing with pain. I coughed up blood, fresh red on the melting and dirty piles of snow. My head was spinning and felt stomach acid crawling its way up my throat. “Just finish the job,” Mr. Gardiner departed into his cushy town car, the door slamming. Hands grabbed me by the collar and propped me up against the wall. Eyes closed, I felt the cold barrel pressed onto my temple.  “Wait, please, you don’t have to do this” “Sorry man,” a deep voice resonated in my chest, “You’re my next paycheck.”


On a rock this forgotten a lighthouse is needed, but on a rock this forgotten the lighthouse keeper is forgotten too. He leaves his front door open, the thin old door banging about in the storm; salty wind blowing straight off the sea and stirring the light objects in his room into open rebellion: unsecured papers lift up into the room and dip like birds, and the lighthouse keeper sits and plays his piano slowly, as if to calm things down. The rain blows in too, and mingles with the sea spray on the threshold, and taps on the windows. The music is hesitant and tinged with sadness and the lighthouse keeper almost looks as if he’s asleep, but his fingers keep moving. Outside, the waves build and combine, mash into each other and twist into foamy messes, or rear up over a submerged rock, and curl up into dumping waves that pop and boom along the rocks. No beam of light passes across the sea, because ships have stopped coming this way: the lighthouse keeper stopped turning the light on years ago. This night, however, the lighthouse keeper looks out of his front door as he finishes playing a bar of music and the next note hangs in the air, desperately needing to be played, but it hangs; the music stays unresolved. The lighthouse keeper stares, frozen. Out there, pitching, leaning, rocking, a ship is struggling in the grey chaos. It is mostly shadow, but a single light on that ship shines through the sheets of slanting rain. Just for a moment, the lighthouse keeper watches the light ride up and down, and watches it tip, and disappear behind high waves; then he jumps up and hurries up the spiralling staircase, puffing. It is harder than he remembers, and he leans heavily on the cold iron handrail. At the top he can see the ship better: it looks like it will survive the storm, but it is heading straight for the lighthouse, and the jagged rocks beneath. The ship is getting closer and closer and the lighthouse keeper swears at himself as he works; but soon the light starts up and a beam of light, getting brighter and brighter with each pass, punches through the rain and out towards the ship; and the ship sees, and makes a dramatic, veering manoeuvre, dangerous in the heavy sea; but passes unscathed, now parallel to the shore, and soon disappears into the dark and the weather. The lighthouse keeper makes his way down the stairs, closes the front door, and collapses on his bed, suddenly exhausted. The storm carries on. In the morning it is clear and sunny. The lighthouse keeper is up early, sitting on the bed in his underwear and staring down at the space between his feet. Eventually he gets dressed and steps out his front door, leaving the door open again, this time drinking in the warm sunrise and the lightly salted breeze blowing gently off the sea. He walks down the hill to a small dock, sheltered amongst rocks, where a small boat waits. Most of his belongings are in a heavy waterproof bag which he put on this boat a few days ago, and he awkwardly hefts this bag up onto his shoulder and carries it back up the hill. He walks in through the front door and dumps the bag right in the middle of the room, sits down at the piano, and picks up from where he left off the night before. Outside, sea birds make their noises and small waves break against the rocks.


Mister Jackson had been an honourable man and a good neighbour and friend to his fellow men. He had never been the kind of man to give in to earthly pleasures like drinking or gambling. He went to work each morning and came home after five each day, wishing everyone a good day he met on his way. All around what one might call a happy chap, without any troubles. Successful as he was it came to pass that he married a woman of noble standing. And although she was mannered and never showed a frown. One sometimes got the impression that a demon might possibly inhabit the human body. But mister Jackson didn’t let coursing rumours destroy his joy. Even if he someday started to work longer in the evenings, or rose earlier in the mornings. Sometimes he wouldn’t come home at all. Perhaps those subtle signs of a somewhat disharmonic relationship were the first steps to what occurred a year later. And perhaps one might have prevented the tragedy altogether by just speaking to mister Jackson if anything was the matter. But none of the people in mister Jackson’s life had poked him about his private struggles, since he never showed any sign of having them. Until one night the police car’s blue lights illuminated the neighbourhood. The uniformed men went inside and only moments later without indicating a fight, they came back. With them followed a black bag and a cuffed mister Jackson. Here and there a curious pair of eyes peeked through the curtain of their bedroom, the source of the coming gossip. The trial was a short one, all evidence was clear. Mister Jackson was sentenced to spend a few years in prison for murder, his house stood abandoned ever since. No family or friends seemed to take interest in the wicked member of their lives. Nor did mister Jackson get any visitors. The first weeks everything went according to the natural order. Like every other criminal he was sitting in his cell, waiting for his time to be over. Unlike most of the others however, he made no ruckus or attempt to tackle the obstacles fate threw at him. In fact, he was bullied in a way that left him ripe for the hospital time after time. The men in charge had no choice but to put him into solitary confinement. Not that Jackson minded, showing no change in behaviour he continued sitting in his cell as if it was just another day to him. Guards checked on him, even attempted to make contact by speech. Seeing their efforts in vain they soon left him alone in his misery. Far enough to not disturb him and yet close enough so they could hear if there should ever be trouble. It was then when Carver Jackson’s nightmare really started. It was a clear, calm night, Carver could tell by his restless soul. He always was restless in those nights. In vain he tried to sleep away the turmoil in his mind, he could not name. The creaking sound of a metallic door caught his attention. Listening carefully, he concluded the sound came from somewhere out of his view. Without a sound he sat up. A strange sensation, as if he had snakes in his stomach, made him uncomfortable. Which was unusual, for he had welcomed the lonely cell. There was nobody to disrupt his few moments of peace of mind he could muster. Nor did he have to stand up for himself, when some broad-shouldered inmate deemed it necessary to punch him. His thoughts wandered to his future and how his life had been turned to ashes. He would never be able to go back to his hometown, and his family had abandoned him without further inquiry. It made him wonder if he ever had meant something to them. Those people who had asked him favours, but never asked to return them. A familiar melody ripped him out of his distraught mind. It was hummed by a woman with a heavenly voice. And yet, his whole body went rigid at the recognition. Only seconds later the figure belonging to the voice appeared in front of his cell. Slowly she turned around, the blonde, curly hair was loose. Her clothes consisted of a blouse and jeans, just like the last time he had seen her. When her blue eyes met his own a shiver ran down his already stiff spine. The flames of vengeance burned brightly in those hollow orbs. Not a word she uttered as they stared at one another. A soft breeze blew back her hair, revealing the marks on her throat. The marks he had left, that fateful night. Carver shuddered as the image slowly faded into nothingness. When he asked the guard on the next day, about a woman entering the prison. The man, quite surprised to be talked to by Carver after weeks of silence, only denied the knowledge of anyone entering the institution. Obviously worried, the policeman asked Carver if he was alright. To which the man replied that he felt fine, and probably just did have a nightmare. The guard cast him a sympathetic look mingled with the disdain people used to regard a murderer with. Carver slept soundly the next night, not overthinking the latest occurrence. It was not before a whole week had passed that a similar incident kept the prisoner awake. Awoken by the same melody, Carver found himself face to face with the ghost of his wife. And again, she glared at him, but this time he gathered the courage to speak. “You are dead,” he said with a hatred he had forgotten he harboured. “What do you want from me?” “No redemption for you,” she said with a gentleness that belied the vengeful eyes. “Only hellfire.” The certainty with which the spectre spoke, caused Carver to feel unbearably cold. A pit opened up in his stomach, setting free an uncontrollable rage. “Go to hell! Leave me be!” He screamed while rushing to the bars where the woman stood. Ignoring his anger, she placed a hand on his shoulder and smirked wolfishly. Carver suppressed a shudder as he stared in the maddening pools he once had loved. “I’ll come for you,” she whispered with an unsettling, growling undertone. At once her skin turned grey like the one of a corpse. Frightened, Carver stepped back as the entity in front of him decomposed. Unable to watch, he covered his eyes. The next time he looked, he was alone. Rubbing his face, he tried to explain the phenomenon with a rational theory. Perhaps the loneliness weighed on him, or the cell itself. He turned back to the place serving as a bed, when his heart stopped. Only inches from him the deceased’s uncanny face had appeared, with a monotone, ghoulish expression. With a shriek he stumbled backwards and fell. But the face had disappeared into thin air. Carver could feel how his life slowly but steadily spiralled downwards, if that was even possible after all he had done to himself. The vengeful spirit haunted him many a night, taking from him the ability to sleep. And if he managed to sleep, he startled awake, bathed in sweat and with a mind full of terror. The guards remarked often enough that he had screamed in the night. Eating too, he had given up and the theory of him trying to starve to death circulated among the policemen. By the time they called a doctor, his dead wife had already become a constant part of his day. Just as in life, she was now harassing him in death. Mocking him with insults or haunting him with grotesque images. “Who are you?” Carver asked from behind his blanket as a tall man in white entered. “He’s the one to take you away, silly,” his wife only replied delighted. “Shut up,” he only muttered towards where the spectre was sitting. “I didn’t say anything, mister Jackson,” the man in white said surprised. “I didn’t talk to you,” Carver apologized to the man he assumed to be a doctor. “Oh, my poor husband,” she continued. “He’s going to put you into a nice white cell. Then we can have even more fun.” A sinister giggle followed the comment. Carver only shot her a warning glance to which the doctor reacted. “Mister Jackson, are you with us?” “I am, I am,” Carver confirmed while nodding several times. But his scattered brain would not let him have his way. Elegantly the spirit rose and went behind the doctor. As if savouring every moment, she took a knife out of her pocket. Which was far too small to harbour such a long blade. Like a priest performing a sacrifice she gripped the hilt with both hands and raised it high. The end pointing at the doctor’s back. “Don’t you dare,” Carver only said sternly, to which the doctor only replied confused. “I have to examine you mister Jackson.” Still grinning like a hyena, the ghost fixed Carver with her maniacal blue eyes. Not waiting for the outcome, Carver jumped the doctor. But when he looked down into the face, it was his wife who was staring back at him. Overcome by frenzy he tried to choke the image. Before he could see the life light dim in the eyes of his victim, Carver’s vision went black. Coming back to himself he was questioned for the reason of his assault. The doctor whom he had tried to strangle had barely survived, they told him. Carver however, could remember no doctor. “My wife,” was all he managed to stammer. “My wife…” He fell silent as the spectre once again appeared behind one of the policemen in the room. Pointing at, to the other men invisible figure, he started screaming again. “There she is, the wretched demon.” Feeling his sanity slip away from him he got up, kicking over the chair in the process. His dead wife only smiled again, while laying her arm around the policeman’s shoulders. “But honey, I think they don’t see me,” she mocked in the voice of a spoiled child. Wielding the kitchen knife once again, she held it to the oblivious man’s throat. “No,” Carver exclaimed shocked as he ran to the officer. But this time he was too late. Holding the place where a cut had become visible the man in uniform sank to the ground. His colleague quickly reacted by pointing his gun at Carver. “His blood is on your hands, my love.” The woman rejoiced while walking up to the other man. “Stop this madness.” Carver started to plead at the coldness of the spirit in front of him. In the blink of an eye the other policeman fell over with the knife in his back. The spectre had disappeared. Trembling from head to toe, Carver sank down in the corner of the room, farthest away from the blood and the corpses. His claim, that his wife had killed and assaulted the man only gave the judge more proof of his insanity. The sentence was the last push for his already fragile mind to go over the edge. Seeing his life and sanity shattered, Carver started to laugh in a frenzy in court. He couldn’t name the reason for his sudden ecstasy; he just knew everything was so unbelievably futile. The man couldn’t but laugh at the dark twist his life had taken. Carver awoke in a padded cell restrained by a straitjacket. The sudden ecstasy had gone the same way it had come. Upon examining his surroundings, he saw his wife standing in front of him. Who else could it be? He thought ironically, all but the vengeful spirit of his wife had abandoned him. Like in the night of her death, she wielded the kitchen knife ready to attack. Carver only looked at her, asking in sincere sorrow. “Why did you want to kill me?” “Why did you love her more than me,” she countered with tears in her eyes. And then it dawned on him. It all had been a misunderstanding. “There is no her,” he replied. “I worked night and day so we could have a child. I was saving money for the future.” With a thud the knife fell to the ground as the spectre sank to her knees. “Oh darling, I destroyed our lives.” Sliding up to her on his knees, Carver tried to comfort his wife. “We both did.” A forgotten warmth spread through Carver when the ghost embraced him. Her skin didn’t feel cold, it felt alive and to her hair clung the smell of spring. And for a moment he thought the past year to have been a dream. She felt so real. Closing his eyes, he pictured himself with her in their kitchen. Out of nothing a sharp pain emerged from his back, causing him to gasp.


There used to be a weeping willow tree at the end of my Grandmother’s street. I’m not entirely sure if it’s still there, but I remember thinking that if I could just climb to the highest branch, I would be able to touch the clouds. My Grandmother and I went to the tree every time my family visited from when I was a toddler until I was fourteen.

Whenever my grandmother and I visited the tree, she would bring her sketchbook and draw me sitting on the tire swing that was tied to one of the lower branches. Somewhere in a box there is a stack of drawings of a little girl on a tire swing.

I wish I knew where it was now. I was eleven when my older brother started visiting the tree too. Sam was four years older than me. He had no interest in playing make-believe with his little sister under the willow tree. Sam had discovered vaping and realized that the weeping branches of the willow tree that concealed my “fairy land” could also hide his bad habit. There were only eight houses on my Grandmother’s street. My grandmother had just been diagnosed with cancer when the Smith family moved into the yellow house on the corner. A week later, we moved in with my grandmother. All I knew was that grandma was going to be sick for a while and that we needed to be there to keep her company until she got better. Sometimes I would see a few kids playing on the tire swing or climbing the lower branches of the willow tree. One of them looked to be a girl around my age. I was enamored with her long, blonde hair. She could have told me her name was Rapunzel and the tree was her tower and I would have believed her. If I had the guts to speak to her, that is. Growing up, I never made friends easily. I wanted to be friends with the pretty girl who looked like the princesses in the storybooks my mom used to read to me, but I didn’t know how. My grandmother was my closest friend for most of my childhood. Not too long after moving in, my grandmother wouldn’t come to the willow tree with me as often as she used to. About two years after we moved in, my grandmother stopped coming to the willow tree with me entirely. I didn’t know what it meant the first time my grandmother said, “Maybe later, dear,” when I asked her to walk to the willow with me. And two years later, I still didn’t see the things that would be obvious to me if I were seeing them now. The collection of pill bottles in her bathroom that had been growing since she was diagnosed suddenly dwindled down to only a few overnight. The time that she had spent at the hospital lessened and yet she didn’t get any better. After a day my grandmother had said “not today”, my parents would shut their door and have whispered conversation with furtive tones.

On “not today” days I would go to the willow tree by myself and sit on the ground with my back against the tree and a good book. It felt wrong to sit in the tire swing when my grandmother wasn’t there with me, drawing in her sketchbook. If Sam had any such reservations, he didn’t show it. The tree wasn’t hallowed ground for Sam like it was for me. Rather, it was a place he could go to do illicit things with sketchy people.

One of the not-so-sketchy people Sam met there was the girl I had dubbed “Rapunzel”. Her actual name was Rena and she was sixteen at the time, two years older than me. As much as I disapproved of what she did with Sam at the tree, I liked her and I was thankful that she was around when my grandmother passed.

The day my grandmother died I was at the willow tree sketching the swing to show her later. She had given me a new sketchbook that morning and told me to fill it up with all the things that made me happy.

I can still remember that day with perfect clarity. I was alone at the willow tree sketching the tire swing to show her later. It had just been that morning that she had given me the sketchbook I was drawing in and told me to fill it up with all the things that made me happy. I had been planning to draw my grandmother when I came home from the willow tree. Instead, I watched as EMTs carried her out of the house in a body bag. Rena came to the funeral and I saw her leave with my brother after the burial. My parents were thanking everyone for coming and I had been left to my own devices. I wandered the halls of the funeral home for a while, but eventually found my way back to the main hall. I stood in front of a table that looked like a weird kind of shrine to my grandmother. I say it was weird, because despite there being a framed picture of her, it didn’t feel personal enough to honor the woman that had been a core figure in my life for as long as I’d been alive. Daisies had been my grandmother’s favorite flower and, sure, there was a bouquet of them on the table, but my grandmother had always liked seeing them alive in the ground rather than cut off at the knees in a vase where they’d wither and die in a few days. What really caught my attention were the pamphlets that reduced my grandmother to three paragraphs. None of them mentioned the way she smiled and laughed and hugged me as tight as possible every time I came to visit. There wasn’t a sentence that told of how she kept a secret cookie jar just for the two of us in the pantry. And I didn’t read a single word mentioning the willow tree that had been our place. Maybe that was egocentric of me, thinking only of my relationship with my grandmother. After all, my mom had just lost her mom. I knew that. I just didn’t really understand it.  Since the day of the funeral, I saw Rena almost every day for a while. She had a weird relationship with my brother, but I liked her nonetheless. I never heard her utter a mean word against anyone and she had a way of always saying the right thing. She liked to draw and I asked her to show me how to draw faces. I could never get the nose right, but she called it my signature style. If neither Rena or Sam liked vaping and they hadn’t been the only kids their age on our street, they would never have been friends. Even so, they were only friends over the summer my grandmother died and it didn’t last when school began. Sam played football and so did all of his friends. Rena drew in her sketchbook in her spare time. More to the point, Sam was popular and Rena was not. Sam and Rena didn’t meet at the willow tree anymore. They said hello to each other in school sometimes, but that was about it. Rena kept going to the willow tree, but now it was me she was meeting there. We brought our textbooks and sketchbooks and talked about making plans for homecoming, which was in two weeks. Rena and I never made plans, but we ended up going anyway. I think my parents said something to Sam, because he proposed the idea of the three of us going together, which I can’t imagine he would have done on his own. Homecoming came and went. Sam, Rena, and I had gone together, but when we got there, Sam disappeared. Rena’s friend drove us home and I didn’t see Sam until the next morning when he appeared at breakfast. For the record, I never snitched on him even though it was a dick move. Dick moves started becoming Sam’s thing after that. He fought with our parents constantly. Over what, I’m not sure. Our parents weren’t even remotely strict. Sam was allowed to come and go as he pleased for the most part. He didn’t even have a curfew as long as he told Mom and Dad where he was going to be. Sam was a junior in high school. He had good grades and played football pretty damn well. A few scouts even came out to see him play. Our parents were proud of that and told him so. It must not have been enough for him. Then again, there wasn’t much that was good enough for him. When he first turned sixteen, our parents bought him a beater car and told him they would pay for his gas during football season, but after that he needed to get a job. He complained that the car didn’t have Bluetooth built in. I kept my distance from him, which wasn’t hard considering that he was also avoiding me. I didn’t want to associate with him and he didn’t want people at school to associate him with me. That was fine. Although, I could tell it hurt our parents that Sam and I didn’t get along. I think it was the third week of October when I first heard the rumors. Though, I assumed the rumors had been going around before I heard them. That was the way of the rumor mill; the people closest to the rumor usually hear it last. Word was spreading that Rena had taken explicit pictures of herself and apparently those pictures had gotten out. My heart sank when I heard that, because in my mind there was only person that she could have taken them for and sent them to. My brother. The day I caught wind of what had happened, I flagged Rena down after school and tried to talk to her before she got on the bus.

“Rena!” She stopped at the bottom step of the bus and turned to look at me. Her eyes were red and she looked like she had been crying. I waited a moment for her to step out of line and come over to talk to me, but she just turned back around and got on the bus. There was a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. I wanted to go home right then and there and figure out what exactly had happened, but I had a community service club I participated in on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Looking back at it, I should have gone home. When I got home that night, I tore through the house and went right to my brother’s room, but he wasn’t home. My parents said he had gone out with some friends a few hours ago. I wanted to talk to them about what happened, but all I had to go on at that moment were rumors and the only confirmation I had was seeing that my friend was crying. For all I knew, the rumors weren’t true, but she was crying because everyone thought they were. The next morning the word “SLUT” was written on Rena’s locker in big capital letters. I stopped when I saw that she was standing right in front of it frozen. Her eyes were wide and there was a bright flush across her cheeks. I walked over to her and gently led her away. I could feel people watching us. Our school wasn’t that big. Everyone knew everyone. I’m sure that at that point, the only people who didn’t know what had happened were me, my parents, and the school administration. We made our way to the bathroom, which was empty when we got there. I pushed closed the door and locked it. If anyone needed to use the bathroom, they’d have to go somewhere else. “What happened?” Rena let out a shaky breath and a single tear spilled down her cheek. “Sam- Sam…” She broke off her sentence, but it was enough. I already had my suspicions that Sam was involved, but it still felt like a punch in the gut to know that my brother had done something to cause this. Rena told me how she had sent pictures of herself to Sam over the summer when they had been seeing each other. Sam had kept those pictures after they stopped talking and in the last month, sent them to a group chat he was in with some of his football buddies. An angry, burning sensation began growing in my chest. At myself for not knowing and at my brother and his doorknob friends for being such tools. Rena had been getting harassed for a month and I’d only found out yesterday. I didn’t even know how that was possible. Sure, we hadn’t seen each other as much recently, but I thought that was because we were both busy. I had my clubs and she had her art. I had no clue what to say. I scrambled to come up with the right thing to say, but Rena had always been the one who was good with words. Me, not so much. Her face crumpled and before I could say anything, she stepped around me and left the bathroom. I looked out for her the rest of the day, but I didn’t see her anywhere. I tried texting her, but she didn’t respond. She had mentioned in the bathroom, that stuff about her had been posted online and she had deleted her social media. It wouldn’t be so far-fetched for her to shut her phone off. Still, I worried. I knocked on her door after school and no one answered. Her parents weren’t home most of the time, because they were doctors, but Rena always answered if she was home. Something didn’t feel quite right, but there was nothing I could do from this side of a closed door. Or maybe that was just me trying to make myself feel better about being completely and utterly useless when my friend needed me. Early the following morning, a person walking their dog found Rena hanging from the willow tree. She had fixed a noose and tied it to the same branch on the willow tree as the tire swing before jumping off and breaking her own neck. I should have said something. I should have said anything rather than nothing in the bathroom that day she told me what had happened. I should have... I should have... I should have... Rena’s death was ruled suicide, but there was an investigation that revealed pictures of her on the phones of my brother and a disgusting number of people at our school. I’m not sure what happened to the other kids involved, but when Sam went to court, he received community service from the judge. It could have been a lot worse if he had been eighteen, but he was seventeen.  Our parents weren’t nearly as lenient. They took his phone, his keys, and his privileges. He wasn’t allowed to go anywhere except school. He was kicked off the football team and so were a lot of his friends. There was a great deal of unrest in our town. Some people were upset that such a big deal was being made over Rena. The girl killed herself. No one else did. Why are our kids being punished? These were the parents of boys on the football team who had pictures of Rena and as a result, were kicked off the team. They complained that it was unfair. Then there were others that were shocked and horrified by Rena’s suicide and what had driven her there. This was the majority of people. There was a sense of not knowing what to do next and that hung over the town like a weighted blanket. It was a claustrophobic sort of sensation that the town was too small for something so big to have happened there. The willow tree itself was a source of contention for everyone. Should the tree be taken down because it is a reminder of what happened or should it be left up because it is a reminder of what happened? I was torn, because the willow tree had been near the center of my life for almost as long as I had been alive. It was the special place I shared with my grandmother and then with Rena. At the same time, it was the place Rena and Sam used to meet for a brief time. And now it was the place Rena committed suicide. What the town decided, I never found out. My parents decided it would be best for us to have a fresh start in a different town, preferably in a different state. We moved barely a month after Rena’s funeral. At the new house, there is a little tree in the backyard. It’s just a little oak tree. There’s nothing particularly special about it. I like to think that one day it will be tall enough for me to climb it and try to touch the clouds. For now though, I pull out the sketchbook my grandmother gave me, flipping past the sketches of the willow tree, and begin drawing the short but strong branches of the little oak tree.


"Ten years had passed in a blow", Leslie thought.

It was this day but 10 years back now when she promised her best friend Kim that she will come back for him in this Skyscraper in ten years time to meet him again.

She came first to the place but was a little amazed... Why?                                                 Because the Skyscraper had been broken down to a massive Love tower.... "what!!, cut the crap out of the thing I'm seeing" she said in her thoughts. "It was a big skyscraper from where the whole city could be seen, aww.. the people of this building were quite shy, I guess. Because no other agency would close down this picnic spot", she uttered between her thoughts.

"Wait! This is a love tower but why isn't there any people?..." She went to the reservation counter and asked the old man"Uncle can you say why is the tower closed? It is not even Saturday.." The old man's voice was too harsh, Leslie wanted to run away from that man but she wanted to know the reason behind the tower being closed. The old man replied"Little Girl, if you want to go up on the tower you need to pay a reservation charge, so that no other couple cannot disturb your private time and you need to bring a partner for some discount". "Then uncle where are the couples who reserved this??" Leslie shot back. "See we have our online website and we do bookings online, a young man reserved this online, mailing us that he has an important meeting with his friend and wants to propose her there". "Thank you for the information uncle, see you later" she said this and turned back to find a spot to sit.

 A complete one hour had passed... Leslie felt very disappointed that her best friend didn't come and he had even forgotten her. A lone tear fell from her eye and she stood up, turned back towards the exit and started moving. Suddenly someone with pale and long fingers puled her towards him. BAM... She banged herself on the man's hard build body. She looked throughout his body"hmm, good figure maybe his face is also good looking..." She looked up in his eyes, while he was busy staring at hers. Suddenly a electric shock passed through her body. It was...It was...It was her best friend and her crush Kim. She couldn't believe it was her friend and after ten years he had completely changed. "oh, Gosh!! he's so damn hot", thought Leslie.

She was lost exploring his body when Kim interrupted "Sweety, lets go..."

"Huh! um... Where?", Leslie murmured waking up from her dream. "To the tower... A surprise awaits for you up there",said Kim in a little romantic way. "Are you really kidding??... The tower is reserved for some other couple...", she said laughing."The reservation uncle said me that some one had done the booking online." "Hmm... Its me !!", said Kim. Leslie became a little sad by hearing that because previously she had heard from the uncle that a man had booked the tower for proposing to a friend of him. By seeing Leslie's long and sad face Kim said"Why did you become sad sweetheart? Is anything bothering you?"

"No... um...uh...nothing, I must be bothering you and your special friend. I am leaving first, hope you enjoy your day with her...", Leslie spoke while tears fell down her eyes. "I didn't get you clearly, could you explain me the whole thing?... I want to know what you know that makes you sad", spoke Kim. "The reservation uncle said me that a person booked the tower online, You said that its you, the uncle also said that the person has a meeting with a very special friend of him and he is going to propose her, so if you are the person you have another girl to meet and propose so I should be the one to bother you up... I'm so sorry ", Leslie said while crying. "So why are you crying and I think I can give her my time later", saying this he grabbed Leslie's hand, showed the pass at the counter and pulled her to the tower. The tower was decorated with twinkling lights, roses, Shining hearts and a marvellous centered heart with flower petals. Leslie looked around the tower a candle light dining table was also set up. "He really cares for someone else, see Leslie see its not for you, its for another girl and he really likes her...", Leslie spoke to herself.

The tower was circle with a bigger area and circumference. The round sides were open like a balcony but the tower had a long closed ceiling. Leslie went to a place where she could see the river flow, it was their favourite childhood spot... Oh! Wait not their's but her and Kim's. Seeing her Kim went to her side hold her by her waist and said "This place belongs to us..." he couldn't complete his sentences when Leslie interrupted him"A little grammar mistake, not ours but mine and yours... You like someone else do not make her embarrassed by calling me and you as together like 'ours' ".

"Yes I like someone... but the girl is ... you. I liked you since when we were young but I couldn't reveal it. I swear you, today will be the happiest day in your life". Kim said this and pulled her towards the center... Sat on his knees and said opening a ring box,     "Will you be mine forever?... Will you marry me?... I will never leave you alone, I will walk by your side together through any struggle you or we both face... I will take care of you just like a mother, guide you just like a father, give freedom just like grandparents, help you just like siblings, have fun just like friends and love you just like a perfect lover or soulmate. I promise you to perform my whole responsibility as a husband". Said Kim in a eager and gentle manner. "You did all this for me, why didn't you say this at the first... I also like someone... and that is only you, I will be your forever. Yes! absolutely yes I will marry you, I will care, guide, give freedom, help, have fun and love just the same way you will do. I am sure to do up my duty as a wife should do". She said putting her hand into Kim's accepting the engagement ring.

Kim put the ring on her finger which fit perfectly, it was shining too then he stood up and hugged her tightly, she too put her hands around Kim's waist and hugged him. Kim pulled her back and bent down towards her to kiss her... She also agreed and stood on her toes to kiss him back... As soon as their lips had touched a marvellous firework filled the sky. It was New Year's Eve.

They both when small came to the previous Skyscraper building to see this perfect fireworks on every New Year's Eve. They still remember being together when they were young. A glimpse of the past years flew past their eyes and both of their eyes met each others. Kim bent down to kiss Leslie a last time that day and leslie too kissed him back again. They held their hands together, Leslie said "Today we are again standing at our favourite spot not as a best friend but as a couple...". Then she put her head on Kim's shoulder and enjoyed the firework and as well as Kim's company.