In the gutter of an old street, in an old district, on the outskirts of an old city sat a young man wasting his days away. The poor and lonely pauper spent his many empty days hunting down scrap wood pieces discarded by carpenters and scavenging driftwood down by the dock. He would gather up only that which was discarded and begin to carve away, shaving after shaving, until all that remained were beautifully crafted small figures and sculptures. The pauper would often try to sell or trade his works for food or water, though much of his effort was in vain as those who passed him by on the busy street often scarce gave him a glance, let alone their attention. Every night the pauper would gather up his sculptures and his only possession, a razor-sharp tin carving tool, and make his way down to the cathedral at the heart of the city. His journey was long and rough on his bare feet, yet familiar and always soothing; especially when the rain would pour or the winds would howl, his daily trudge kept his spirits high and his soul at peace. As he neared the cathedral one day, his heart all aflutter, screams, and cries for help were heard from a nearby alley. Cautiously, the pauper stepped closer and closer to the alley peering down through the fog and gloom. He saw a small group of large men, Thieves, beating and robbing an innocent man as he cried in agony for aid. Without thought or hesitation, the pauper sprinted down the alley, no plan nor idea of what he would do once he reaches the end. As the pauper ran, he grabbed an empty bottle from the ground and tossed it high over the group of thieves, landing with a loud SMASH at the other end of the alley. Distracted, the pauper dove behind a pile of rags next to a fire pit as the thugs searched for the source of the clatter. Dousing a large ragged sheet in fuel and setting it alight, the pauper threw the cloak of fire onto one of the thieves, sending the brutes off screaming into the streets of the quiet city. As the echoes slowly faded into the night, the pauper hastily scurried over to the unfortunate man lay strewn out within the alley. The man was alive, horribly beaten but still drawing breath. His face was beaten to a pulp, barely recognizable to those who might know him. The pauper could tell the injured man was affluent, perhaps a merchant or successful trader. His fine clothes, now tattered and blood-soaked, peering through a thick wool robe. The pauper thought he must have been on his own way to the cathedral, an easy target for brutes and highwaymen. As he tried to speak, spurts of crimson blood gurgled out of his mouth and onto his face and chest; the pauper could barely understand him but listened patiently as he spoke, “T-thank you for saving me,” the injured man muttered between breaths. “Sir you need a doctor, it is they who will save you.” the pauper replied. Slowly, the injured man pulled an ornate golden ring off his finger, blood-covered yet still immaculate, and hands it to the boy. “If I move I will die,” the injured man slowly murmured, “Take this to my personal physician, an Italian who answers to Medicio. He lives by the Holovny Mict Bridge. Show him the ring and he will understand.” With that, the injured man fell unconscious, exhausted by his few words. The Pauper clutched the ring in his hand and ran for the bridge with the speed as though being chased by the devil himself. As he ran, block by block, street by street, all began to fade away as his mind focused harder on his destination. As he turned a corner, he accidentally crashed into a member of the night watchmen of the city guard. The pauper was relieved to find someone to help him. “Watch where you’re going you blind bastard!” the night guardsman shouted. Between breaths, the pauper did his best to explain, “I'm sorry sir, a man was beaten and robbed down by the cathedral. I’m fetching a doctor for him. There’s not much time.” “ A robbery you say, what have you got in your hand?” asked the guard. The pauper opened his clenched hand to show the lawman the gold ring, “The man gave me this to show to the doctor, he said the doctor would understand. Would you go look over him while I search for the doctor?” “Clever story, thief; you steal from a dead man, run into me while making your escape, then lie and try and convince me he’s still alive while you run off!” The guard grabs ahold of the pauper’s wrist and began pulling him back down the street, “I’m taking you to the jailer, I imagine he should have a cell perfect for you.” “Wait, I’ve done nothing wrong. I have to fetch the doctor!” The pauper pleaded and pleaded with the guard as he was dragged away in his firm grip. The pauper reached into his pocket and grabbed his carving tool, and with a swift lunge, planted the tool into the guard’s hand releasing his grasp. As the pauper regained his freedom he turned and fled from the guard as he gave chase. Ducking down alleys, turning street corners, it seemed nothing could stifle the guard’s pursuit. Soon the pauper’s legs became weary, his chest became sore, he knew he could not keep up this escape for long. Then, as if waiting upon the horizon, the pauper saw the Holovny Mict stand proudly over the rushing current below. With new life in his lungs, the pauper ran down the street screaming as loud as he could “MEDICIO! MEDICIO!”. He ran door to door, pounding his fists into the wood, still screaming for Medicio. Finally, on the last door before the bridge, someone answered to his call. “Who calls for Medicio?” asked a tall man, well dressed and thin. The pauper ran over to the man in the open doorway “I am! I must know where to find him.” cried the pauper between gasps of air. “Well you have found him, why do you seek the physician Medicio?” he asked, but before the pauper could answer the night guardsman ran up to him, grabbing him by the collar and throwing him to the street. “What is the meaning of this?” exclaimed Medicio. “I’m sorry to disturb you sir, but this scum has robbed from the dead, he attacked and maimed me while trying to escape. Now he has a date with the jailer,” the guardsman explained. “That’s a lie,” called the pauper, “a man was beaten and robbed, he sent me to fetch you.” The guard turned and gave the pauper a swift kick in the gut, “Quiet thief!” Medicio too turned his attention to the pauper, “Who was it that sent you?” The pauper opened his fist and held out the ring, still firmly clenched in his hand. Medicio peered closer, his eyes widened in shock as he saw the golden ring was marked with the stamp of the Holy Papal Cross. The doctor, with a swift single movement, grabbed his coat and bag and ran out the door. “Where is he? You must take me to him, Quickly!”. “But sir, this man is a thief. He must pay for his crimes.” stated the guardsman. As Medicio helped the pauper to his feet he answered, “The only crime this man is a part of was not being seen as an equal in the eyes of the law. Now if you help us, we may still save an innocent man’s life, if your ignorance and stupidity have not yet doomed him.” The guard, physician, and pauper all returned to the alley in haste where they found the injured man still lay strewn about. Within the hour, the injured man was brought back to the house of Medicio and was treated and cared for by the doctor. The pauper, content that the injured man was safe, resumed his journey back to the cathedral. Now with nothing to his name, the pauper had nowhere else to go and stayed by the cathedral day and night, coddled in the shadow of the grand steeple. As the days past, and his hunger began to grow, his mouth ran dry, the pauper knew his days were numbered. One night as he lay huddled in the cold street, delirious from thirst and exhausted from hunger, he watched as a tall dark figure approached him. The pauper knew it was death, come to take his soul; he was not scared, he did not scream, he had nothing left to fear to leave behind. He closed his eyes and waited for death’s cold embrace. The next morning he awoke in a warm bed, clean, wearing white linen, with a bowl of stew waiting for him on the table next to him. He heard a commotion coming from outside the window, the pauper thought to himself, ‘This can't be heaven, it’s far too loud’. The door slowly swayed open and to the pauper's surprise, Medicio stepped in to greet him. “Ah, good to see you’re awake. I was afraid you wouldn't last the night in your condition, but he told me I was wrong.” “Who...” the pauper began to ask, as the once injured man stepped through the doorway as well, leaning on a walking stick, and dressed in white robes, a mozzetta, and zucchetto. His Holiness, Pope Pius limped over to the bed and sat as Medicio left them to discuss. The pauper, only breaking free from shock, bows his head as he was approached. “Rise, my son, for it is I who am gracious to you,” His Holiness continued, “I expect you did not recognize me that night, which makes your actions even more spectacular. I was in disguise so that I may go do as Christ did, I did not even make it down a single alleyway before I was confronted by those men. But you came to my aid and saved my life even while being persecuted by the law.” Pius pulled out a large pouch of coins from his robes and gives it to the pauper. “I owe you my life, but please you accept this, for now, a mere token of my respects.” The pauper gazed at the purse longingly but refused the immense wealth. “ I have never been one to accept charity,” the pauper explained, “For I can not abide others forcing to go without, even if it means I must have nothing. All I’ve ever received, I have fairly earned or gained by trade.” “Then tell me so my soul may be at ease as well, what may I do for you to show my graciousness?” The pauper thought long on what he may ask for what he may ask in return, before finally returning his attention to his holiness and telling him “All I could ever ask for is a means to do what I love while helping those who need it. That is all I have done, and it is what I wish to continue to do.” “Well then my son, it seems though you require a vocation,” beamed his holiness as he returned the purse to his robes. As he stood again, the pontiff slowly pulled one of the pauper's small carved idols out from his robes and spun it thrice in hand. “The spirit of Christ is strong within you my child. Would you be willing to part with this?” “Of course your holiness.” said the pauper. “Ah, but then I would be a victim to your charity once again. How about a trade?” asked Pius, not waiting for an answer. His holiness lifted his hand, though bandaged, heavily adorned with various rings covered in many gems and precious metals. Pius pulled off one of the rings, a solid silver band with three gold crosses etched into the exterior, and slid it onto the ring finger of the pauper’s right hand. As he turned to leave, he looked back to the young man in bed and gave him a final blessing; and then he was gone. The kind pope kept his word, as the pauper had kept his. Not a week later and the pauper was a carpenters apprentice for a craftsman hired by the Vatican. The pauper was a pauper no more, he worked hard, lived within his means, and still walked to the cathedral every night. As time passed he found many things in life, love, respect, admiration, joy, as well as grief, despair, and anguish; through everything that happened, the ring never left his finger. It had been many years since the pauper had received the ring, many years since he lived on the street. He now lived with his lovely wife, the daughter of the carpenter to whom he had trained him. He lived in a large manor, was a caring father, a devoted husband, and a successful man of business. One night he approached the familiar and welcoming sight of the grand cathedral, only to be stopped dead in his tracks once again by a troubling sound. A faint whimpering could be heard coming from the mouth of the alley where he had found the pontiff beaten and bloodied. He looks down at his right hand to see the same ring still wrapped around his finger. As he peered down the dark corridor, he spied a young boy, dressed in tatters, softly crying by the mouth of the alley. He approached the boy, kneeling down in front of him. As he looked down, he saw a dog laying thin and lifeless beside the boy, and 9 newborn puppies suckling on the dead bitches teats. “What’s wrong, child?” he asked, expecting no response from the grieving boy. “My dog. She was old, hungry, but always kind; my only friend. She left her puppies. They need their mother, without her they won't last the week. I can't feed them, and I don't want to watch them die...” the boy said before beginning to sob once again. He looked back to the puppies, eyes still closed and cuddling up to their mother’s corpse. “Don’t worry, boy, I will take them. They will be warm, fed, and always happy with me and my family,” he said, trying to comfort the boy. He lifted his hand, now also covered in ornate and beautiful rings, the silver and gold remained as it always has. Sliding off a simple gold band adorned with a beautiful crimson ruby, he placed it into the poor child’s hand. The boy tried to stand but faltered from exhaustion and shock, tears still streaming down his face. “Don't worry, child. You’re not losing them, I could never imagine breaking up a family. I need someone to train and care for these puppies properly, there's far too many for my wife and daughters to manage. Can I count on you to care for and train them?” he asked as he began settling the puppies in an old blanket. Placing the blanket in the boy’s arms, he then lifted the boy in his arms and began on his way home. “T-thank you sir. What have I done to deserve this kindness?” asked the boy as he was being carried to his new home. He answered, “It’s not about what you did, but what you must be willing to do for others; to do what it is right because you know it is right.” **The End** \*A Pauper's Ring is any ring or band worn on the ring finger of the right hand, opposite a wedding band. Much like a wedding ring represents a promise to your spouse, the Paupers Ring represents a promise to yourself. Given to someone at their lowest point, it represents the want and needs to seek a better place in life. Once that point is reached, it serves as a reminder of where you once were, and everything sacrificed and accomplished for you to reach the point you stand today.


“517th Parachute Infantry. Dropped just shy of midnight near Manhay, Belgium. From that high up, looked like we were landing on the moon. Dark and grey. Full of craters and mostly rubble. We were looking to get the jump on a few bunkers in the outlying forest. We stumbled around in the dark for a while before we found one like Washington found the Hessians, cozy and warm sipping a little of the kirschwasser halfway through a game of Skat. They were so far gone they practically asked us to sit and play a hand. Some of us did. By this time, after the jump, the hike, and the miracle ambush of the Fuhrer’s finest, my bladder was ready to bust. So, as soon as we’d disarmed the few Krauts in the bunk, I slunk off to treeline to relieve myself. My time in Europe was a series of dismal missions ending in death and retreat, so this was a real divine moment for me. The ease. The fraternity between parties. It was a gift. I beamed like we’d just taken Berlin, so much so that I missed the German cadet laying a steamer in the latrine trench not but 20 yards away. He must’ve been 18 or 19 years old, still shedding baby fat, shivering from the cold, and totally unaware of my approach and the fact we’d just captured his comrades. Just a constipated kid trying to avoid dropping a log in his NAZI fatigues. I finally noticed him, his backside to me, when he let out a few grunts. I didn’t even realize I had my rifle trained on him until it went off. The report of my weapon echoed through the woods like some unnatural thunderclap. The next sound I heard was the Captain calling my name. His soft voice appeared at my side. “What the hell did you do, son?” The kid had dropped his log in the back of his fatigues and I had blown the back of his head into the trees. My rifle fell to the dirt. I’d killed, to the best of my understanding, five men before that. But those were different. I’d seen those men eye to eye, and met them in the heat of battle.This wasn’t warfare, this was a boy taking a shit in the woods. There was shouting in German. The once jovial drunk soldiers from the bunker now demanded to see their comrade. If we knew more German maybe we could have stopped it, but the best we could say was nachlassen — or relax. When they’d finally realized what had happened, one of them smashed a glass bottle against the side of the Captain’s head. They grabbed his weapon and in the rush we lost 2 men. A single sweep of the Thompson put an end to the madness. A few minutes later, our guys picked up the game of Skat left on the small table of the bunker. And soon after that, the Captain laughed as he pulled the glass splinters from his face. I didn't feel like playing or laughing, but stumbled off to find a new place to piss.


Reddit. First site of my day. Unlock my screen. Fucking password..... My grubby fingers slight over the screen leaving tracks of fat an residue from my thumb like a snail creeping over the pavement. Finally. I know where the icon of this little white alien in front of the orange-red circle is by heart. Loading. My consciousness manifests - a reversed explosion. What do I want to do? Nothing! Let me just float on the stream of information for a while. Following my impulses I click on everything sparking my interest: r/wallstreetbets. Damn these crazy bastards really holdin. What about that? Probably the most boring and yet gripping Wallstreet-Thriller I've witnessed. Alright maybe r/memes gets my blood pumping to give me the needed push out of my sheets. Whats the first thing I spy with my little eyes. Something righteous about sexism. I would be interested in the discussion if it wasn't for midnight silk. Fuck it! Maybe r/WritingPrompts sparks the embers. What's that? "\[WP\] You read this prompt. Read it. Read it. Read it. Don't read the black pixels! Read the white ones!" I frown. What's that? I read it again. Shaking my head I scroll further, but my brain can't escape the itch. What if? I scroll back up. The post disappeared! What? Where did it go? I swear I did see it just now. I sit up. Now I'm invested. Where is the damn post?! I switch from "Hot" to "New". I scroll for 15 minutes. No luck! I get up. "Whatever man! Must be my imagination!" I make myself breakfast. Some cereals and milk. I switch on the TV. Some cartoons might distract me. I take my spoon and choke. Milk went bad. I run through the flat in search of a sink or bin with a plastic bag in it. I spit the cereals in the sink. I open my eyes and there it is! The crunched and munched up cereals form letters and the white milk lies opaque over the silver of my tin sink. "\[WP\] You read this prompt. Read it. Read it. Read it. Don't read the black pixels! Focus on the white ones!" Something's not a hundred percent right. I pull out my phone and type the sentences in as a post on reddit r/WritingPrompts. I focus on the white pixels. I stare at them. Suddenly they split into colours. First I see green. Then red. Lastly I see blue. The blue reminds me of Yves Klein's blue. I remember seeing a blue canvas made by him in the Brandhorst museum of modern art in Munich. I remember the undertow it had on me. It was like I could fall right into it just to be encompassed by a womb made of calming blue. I get lost in my thoughts and before I notice it I get sucked in to my screen.  "CNN news is at the scene. Jake, what do you have for us?" - "It was a quite morning here in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, when the neighbours of 24 year old Tim Rheiner heard a weird noise from their neighbour's flat. According to police it could only be described as an engine rapidly accelerating and then exploding. When the police arrived there was nothing to be found in the rather messy flat. A switched on phone was found on the floor of the kitchen showing the infamous internet page reddit which recently became a major news story regarding the skyrocketing prices of the Gamestop share. No one seems to know about the remains of Mr Rheiner and police is looking for any information. Call .....


He pushed her gently against the wall and kissed her.  Sunshine streamed in the window; an orange butterfly danced along its frame.  Her mind was filled with his heady sandalwood scent and her skin tingled where he held her arms. Enya sighed, first contented by the kiss, then frustrated at being dragged back to the world by a lorry beeping outside.  She picked herself up from where she had half-slumped against the wall and sat back down at her desk.  He stroked her hair. --- On the other side of the country, a flame-coloured butterfly pulled itself out of an unfortunately misplaced cocoon.  It flitted across a dark basement room, briefly taking a break on a leather jacket slung across the back of a chair, before fluttering upwards in a vague attempt to get back outside where it belonged. --- She told him all about her shadowed past, so carefully hidden from so many, on the bus into town.  He listened carefully, as of course he always did.  He occasionally offered intelligent insights into her drug-addled father or her disappearing, reappearing mother.  With these, he was always scintillatingly correct.  It was as if he knew her life inside out; better than she did,  She felt quite talked out by the time she arrived at her appointment, reluctantly kissing him goodbye. The chill of the office made her shudder, after the warmth of the air outside and him.  The faux-cosy, carefully placed, scatter cushions made her long for institutional coldness; at least that would have been honest. "How much time would you say you spend on the fantasies, these days?" asked the therapist, the perfect cool stereotype of her profession. Fantasies.  What a deplorable word.  It made her little world sound tawdry, cheap, perverted.  She preferred daydreams - and wasn't that what this Expert had called it a few months ago, anyway?  Maladaptive daydreaming. "An hour?" Enya said, not to pin herself down to any particular answer. "An hour a day?  Week?  Month?" (He rolled his eyes when she told him, later.) "Are you sleeping any more?" quizzed Ms Profession. "I can't be bothered." she replied. --- Samir sighed. "What's up, mate?" "Just not with it today.  I feel kind of drained.  The heat, maybe."  He tried to open a window; it just rattled. "Nah.  That is called a hangover." They both laughed, but it was true that he was a little paler than usual. He didn't sleep that night.  He felt weak, somehow too tired to pass out.  It was too hot, that was for sure.  Thank god the window of his bedroom did open.  A strangely pretty moth took advantage of this, flying straight through his dark room and into the hall, on a foolhardy mission to reach the moon of its light. --- She held his hand in bed.  It was too warm for proper snuggling up; she almost missed the weather of April or May at night.  He squeezed.  She squeezed back.  Much better than the tedium of her dreams. She lay awake all night, firstly just rejoicing in his presence, then horrified by the intrusion of a moth.  She hated moths.  Christ alone knew how it had got in.  There must be a space somewhere.  Disgusting. Naturally, he awoke at her first hiss of distress.  He kissed her cheek when he returned to bed after chasing it out the window.  He would never kill something, unlike her. --- Samir was getting sicker.  Everyone said he'd lost weight, but where was he burning the calories?  He barely got out of bed.  They insisted he see several doctors, but they all came to the same conclusion: Nothing Physically Wrong.  Stress, maybe.  He was sure he hadn't been stressed before all this started.  And always so hot, like some flame was tearing away just beneath his skin. When was the last time he'd been well?  Maybe three months ago.  They'd been out.  He'd met a girl, liked her actually, but never got round to getting in touch.  What would the point be now? One scorched night he dreamt of her.  They were back in the bar they'd met in, laughing and chatting.  He woke in fits and starts.  Sometimes she was in front of him, smiling; glowing.  Sometimes he was alone in his dark room. Enya.  In his fever, he loved her. --- Enya was never alone.  He was always with her.  Sometimes they stayed up all night, talking.  They argued only one or twice, little things.  Every day he seemed more beautiful to her; radiant, alight.  His scent filled her home.  He massaged her shoulders at the end of the day. They walked in the park; they lay in bed and ate ice cream.  She stopped going to see the psychiatrist.  Why pay someone to tell you things you didn't want to know?  He told her it was the right decision. --- The funeral was on a Tuesday.  He was cremated, and his loved ones scattered his ashes in a river, though he'd been the furtherest thing from religious.  It seemed the right thing to do.  His parents had passed away themselves; there was no-one to consult. --- "FRIENDS MOURN MYSTERIOUS DEATH OF YOUNG MAN" screeched the news notification on her phone.  It was from a national tabloid she never read, but for some reason she pressed it. The 32-year-old had hardly been ill in his life, until suddenly, inexplicably, unbelievably beginning to fade away around four months ago.  The article was punctuated with disbelieving social media comments from friends and admirers.  She felt sorry for them; what would happen to her if Samir left?  She shuddered. She recovered from this unpleasant vision and kept scrolling and skimming until confronted with...Samir.  She was startled to find his face staring out at her; she looked over at him, then back at his likeness in the photo, then back.  It was the same handsome face, the same thick hair, the same slighly too-pointy nose, just to stop him being too perfect.  Yes, it was. "Samir." "Hmmm?" You're dead." she suggested tentatively. He smiled.  "Only to them."


Some of the train cars had been here so long their wheels had rusted stiff. Here on Old Track 29, was where unclaimed and discarded boxcars went to die. Benjamin Samskowski always got the Glenn Miller tune stuck in his head when he was here, but up here in the Catskills of New York, they were a long way from Chattanooga. It was hard to believe that with such large amounts of merchandise at stake, that anyone would abandon such a vast array of assets, but the truth was it happened all the time. People died, companies went bankrupt, things got lost in the shuffle, and just like the tens of thousands of storage facilities and containers that dotted America, these ones just happened to have bogies fastened to their bottoms. It was time for the once a year, spring cleaning auction, by which the railroad management got rid of all the excess stuff that had made its way to their facility, and remained unclaimed. They would sell what they could, dispose of the rest and then either enter the cars back into service, or scrap them for metal. Either way, this was the proverbial end of the line.

Ben was coming up on his 25th anniversary working for the Railroad Company, ironically named, at least in his mind, BFF. They certainly weren’t “best friends forever”, as the name had actually came from the founders Bueno, Frost and Forrester back in the 1930s. They weren’t horrible employers, by any means, but always seemed to skate by with just the bare minimum required to stave off revolt. Sure they’d probably give him a $100 watch and a gift certificate to take his grandkids to Chucky Cheese, but that was hardly a reward for 25 years of impeccable attendance and undying loyalty. He had given them the best years of his life, and would never get them back. But the perks were never why he joined in the first place; It was his unequivocal love of trains. It all started when he was just a kid and his parents had bought him an S scale Santa Fe set for Christmas. That and the upstate New York hillsides which were littered with thousands of miles of tracks, that in his youthful mind’s eye connected him to anywhere in the world, much like books did in vast libraries.

Most of the cars turned out to be empty. It was merely a statistical thing. Chinese companies, buying Japanese ones who then sold them to the highest bidder. Also with all the foreign investment, it was often easier for these multi-billion conglomerates to simply discard these assets, rather than pay for costly storage, inventory and maintenance upkeep. The same thing happened in the shipping industry. But on rare occasion, the findings would provide a treasure trove. Once, even, back in 1969, Samuel Bronson had found a full-on corpse among a pile of old tractor parts. Most likely an elderly hobo, who had died from a combination of old age and late night chills. Isolated out here in the train “boneyard”, as the locals called it, it was easy to see how that sort of thing could’ve gone overlooked for an entire snowy winter with blizzard-like conditions. Ben loved this part of the job. It appealed to his sense of adventure which had lured him to life of trains in the first place. He wasn’t allowed to indulge in the yearly activity for the entire first decade if his workmanship with BFF, but as older servicemen retired or died, he became next in the line of succession. It wasn’t like they could keep anything they came across, as it all was still Company property, but you really never knew what you would find, and that was exciting.

After a day or tagging seemingly useless inventory of discarded parts labeled in foreign languages, and pieces of machinery that were probably extremely specific to archaic industries, the luster of finding anything interesting began to wear off. Ben only had 2 cars left in his long line of 53, so the odds of him finding anything of interest, were forever against him. But then in car number 52, behind a mountain of old palettes and boxes of old merchandise marked “Herpolsheimer’s” he found it.

An old wooden desk, with years of slick-downed surfaces touched by human fingerprints, looked like something Herman Melville might have written “Moby Dick” on. It was wrapped in a thin layer of plastic that had yellowed, and thinned out, over its time stuck in the purgatory of train cars. But wedged into the far corner of its third level of shelving was a photograph, which had November 1978 inscribed on the back of it. On the front of the polaroid was a man dressed in all brown, leaning up against an old Pontiac Bonneville. Ben had definitely seen the man somewhere before. He wasn’t quite celebrity status, but the face was unforgettable. He couldn’t place exactly where, but the image of the man’s visage had been ingrained in his psyche at an early age. He looked maybe ten years older, in the photo, and definitely had a few more wrinkles and grey hairs, but it was definitely the same guy. Ben racked his brain trying to place it, the way one might try to remember the name of a movie star, or the lyrics to an old song, from your developmental years. But it wouldn’t come to him. Although Ben was glad he was alone for the find, he kind of wished he had someone else to bounce the image off of, who might recognize the man. Oh well, he was keeping it. He had made up his mind, and it certainly had more value than some shitty half-plastic watch. He placed the photo into the inside of his Dickies navy work jacket, taking care first to blow the dust off and trying not to scratch its delicate surface.

Next came the task of unwrapping the desk. It would still need to be inventoried and prepped for the auction, regardless, and this boring task also fell under Ben’s purview. He slowly unraveled the tarnished plastic, wishing for once he had followed the OSHA suggestions of wearing a filtered mask under such conditions. God knows how many roach eggs and rat feces had made their way into the thick layer of dust that blanketed everything. As Benjamin was working, a subtle jolt seemed to rock the car. Almost the feeling one might get when it was coupled or uncoupled. Ben called out, but no response came back. Weird enough, but probably just his imagination. The small bounce had caused the front desk drawer to settle askew off of the inlayed track, which was meant to keep it in place. Ben noticed a flurry of paperwork poking out of its mouth like the tendrils of a swamp creature trying to resurface. He put on a pair of nitrile gloves, not remembering the last time he had a tetanus shot, and slowly edged the drawer forward. Again another nudge from an unseen coupling had jolted the car, but there was definitely no movement, and nothing but solitude and complete silence afterward. The weight of the drawers contents had shifted on their fulcrum, and the drawer and all its contents came crashing down onto the wooden baseboards of the boxcar’s floor. At first glance, it looked like more old useless paperwork. Ben had seen this a hundred times before. Old diagrams, schematics, inventories, and ghosts of business done in a former life. Now just outdated relics printed on actual physical paper, instead of digital hard drives, nonetheless. Ben picked it up and started turning the documents right-side-up to get a better look. The more he looked, the clearer a picture began to paint itself. These weren’t just any papers. They were very specific. Among them were passenger manifests, flight paths, military grad aerial maps, and blueprints for Boeing 727-51 aircraft. The ones with dates were mostly for the forth quarter of 1971, which special interest in late October and early November. There was even a placard printed with instructions for lowering the aft stairs of such an aircraft, varying types of parachute designs, and yes, even train schedules for the State of Washington.

A picture started to form in Benjamin’s head, but it was still bit foggy. There was definitely something familiar about all of this, but he still couldn’t quite place it. Nonetheless, this stuff was vintage gold. To hell with pawn shops, these kind of things would go great in his personal collection of transportation-industry memorabilia. Besides, the company would have no use for this stuff anyway. They would see this as some old man’s trash pile, all to be discarded in a dumpster, so Ben didn’t feel a single iota of guilt about keeping the stuff for himself. Then a thought crossed his mind. There was still one deep door fashioned in to the base of the desk. It was the kind that had an old keyhole lock, which traditionally were more for than aesthetics, than actual security. Besides Ben’s supervisors would never know that he had not found the desk in a condition with a broken lock, to begin with. He fished in his overalls and brought out a tarnished Leatherman; ironically his 10-year anniversary gift from the company. He used the pocketknife implement of the multi-tool to gain leverage on the aging lock, and after anchoring it, shifted his weight to apply maximum pressure. The lock gave way with a loud snap, sending a piece of green oxidized brass shrapnel mere millimeters from his left eye. That would have sucked, he thought, but in the end, it was harmless. The door gave way with the weight of it’s contents and dropped forward, but something had lodged itself between it, and the bottom of the drawer above it, prohibiting it from opening all the way. Ben reached in and fished the rather large protruding object around, until it freed itself from encumbrance. Whatever it was, was fairly big with lots of pointy angular edges, and it was definitely metallic.

Ben edged the drawer forward, finally releasing its Crackerjack prize. It was a polaroid SX-70 instant camera, in damn great condition, and presumably the one used to take the photo. Ben turned it around a few times in his hands, admiring its alternating chrome and burnt orange surfaces, before blowing dusts out of its many hidden nooks and crannies He finally gently set it down on the desktop. Ben slowly edged the large bottom desk drawer forward, and what he revealed next nearly made his heart turn180 degree somersaults inside of his rib cage. In a muddied, torn and weathered duffle bag, were stacks of twenty dollar bills, separated into bundles of one hundred bills each. Ben’s mouth dropped agape. They must have been old movie props, but if so that production designer deserved an Oscar, as these were meticulously detailed. He grabbed a stack and brought it close to his face. Underneath the small layer of filth, the money was still crisp and clean; He brought it closer still, and inhaled the unmistakable smell of minted currency… real currency. He didn’t know how much was there, but it seemed like a lot. In fact it was exactly 9,710 $20-dollar-bills minted between 1970 and 1971. “What cha got, Samskowski?!” - booming voice echoed from the door jarred open on the far end of the boxcar. Ben had been giving quite the start and had instinctively. The pitted rubber band broke with his flinch sending errant bills back into the drawer with a flutter. Ben’s hulking supervisor, Mr. Samson, wobbled his large mass over to the desk to inspect Ben’s work. The girth of his biceps were like massive python’s ready to strike. He liked to roll his sleeves up over them, in some sort of Cock-of-the-walk frail masculinity. That and his crew cut, gave him the air of a geriatric drill sergeant.

Sam stood silent, waiting for the anvil to drop. He was, in all honesty, rendered speechless. Samson leaned over him inspecting, the contents with his eyes, but from his angle he was just far enough away, that the bills couldn’t be seen. He sifted his hands through the airplane brochures and old Northwest Orient paperwork, then his eyes averted to the polaroid camera.

“Cool camera”, was all he said at first. “But really just a bunch of junk. Make sure you get all this shit cleaned out and polish up this desk a little, will ya? And Samsko, make it quick, you still got one more boxcar left, and I’d like to go home in this lifetime, if you don’t mind.” “Yes sir.”, Benjamin responded. Then as his boss reached the door and put one foot out as if to exit the train, Ben yelled back to him. “Mr. Samson?….” The bulk of a man turned on his heel. “I was just wondering if I might be able to keep the content of this desk for myself. You know, for my own personal collection.” “Sure kid.”, said the man. Just don’t come crying to me when you contract hepatitis from all that rat shit. And with that, Samson alighted the train car, along with any apprehension Benjamin had felt about invoking the “finders: keepers” rule.

As he rummaged up the bills in to the bag, being sure to hide them with the old manifests, paperwork, and the vintage camera, another polaroid freed itself from the stack. This one had the same man, but quite a bit younger. It had been taken at the entrance sign to the Seattle-Tacoma Airport of the same man, and the same Bonneville, and his shit eating ear-to-ear grim. Ben turned it over and all the inscription read was “D.B. COOPER” in quotations, and it had a hand-drawn, defiant smiley face beside it. It had been written in a shaky hand, in all caps with a felt-tip pen.

Finally the history of it all was triggered, and came flooding back to Ben. Sure, if he tried to buy a new car or a house, the FBI would probably eventually track the serial numbers, but scratch-offs and PBRs from his local Speedway should definitely go undetected. Looked like he might have a pretty great retirement after all.


Truce

By

Tim Shuman

The smell of gunpowder, death, and fresh earth fought in the air like the two armies engaged in the great civil struggle.

The slaughter was halted by Christmas. As the ranking NCO Dooley had been tasked by the Captain to inform the lieutenant that terms for the truce had been negotiated and that he was to send someone to recover the Union dead.

“Begging the Lieutenant’s pardon, but I have an important message from th—” Before Dooley could deliver the message, Lieutenant Cain burst out of the tent and lashed Dooley’s cheek with a riding crop.

Dooley punched him, dislocating his jaw.

Cain collapsed faster than the tent that the small Black girl knocked over coming out the other end as she ran, trying to rearrange her knickers. The Captain pronounced Dooley’s punishment for assaulting an officer.

Recovery detail. So it was, Dooley found himself on Christmas Eve, looking for dead Union soldiers on what had been yesterday’s battlefield.

The full moon gave a brilliant, but ghastly aspect to the landscape.

He entered a clearing, fires smoldering around the edges. Scavengers fed on the human and animal carrion and scattered at his approach.

A shattered tree sent spiked roots high into the air where a union soldier hung, impaled, the man reaching toward the moon.

In his other hand he held the bloody and mottled hair of an impaled confederate soldier, who had thrust his bayonet into the Yankee’s arm, conjoining them in a macabre minuet.

His soldier’s instinct had kept him alive during some of the war’s bloodiest days; the rifle butt hit his shoulder, and he heard the click of a hammer being cocked on a confederate weapon—behind him.

He turned, dropped to a kneeling position and struggled to get his rifle into firing position.

He looked up, staring into the barrel of a large caliber Confederate weapon.

“Yuh know ah could’a kilt yuh already.”

The soldier drawled. He nodded to the two corpses stuck on the tree roots above them. “If’n ah wanted you dead you’d be talkin’ to ‘em two and old gooseberry hisself right naow.

We both know we under a flag of truce, so why don’t you put down your rifle and we’ll reckon how we’ll get those two fools down from n’ere.” “You first.” “Yuh know Yank, for a man staring up into ole Delilah’s mouth you’re mighty demandin’. We can stand here the next 23 hours, the truce will expire, and I’ll shoot you then; or you can put down yer gun and we can do what we was sent here to do, go back to our units and celebrate Christmas, so’s we can go back to killin’ each other after the truce is over.”

Look Yank, unless yer army’s a lot different different’n mine, you must’a pissed in someone’s grits to git on this duty in the first place, so why don’t we put down the guns, do what we gotta do and git back to camp. Ah’m gonna count to three naow and we’re both gonna put down these guns.

Ready?

One-two-three . . .” The Confederate soldier lowered his weapon on an enemy for the first time since the war started and looked the man straight in his eyes. Dooley stared back and saw in the Reb’s eyes, what he had seen in his own shaving mirror every day: fatigue, doubt, morbidity and a belly-full of death.

He relaxed and let the muzzle of his rifle drop to the ground. When he looked up he saw a dirty, calloused hand extended. He held out his own grubby hand.

“Name’s Dooley.

Prefer it to Yank.” “Mine’s Immanuel, but call me Hick.”

He glanced at Dooley’s deformed hand and asked, “We do ‘at thar?” He jerked his hand loose. “Yes!

Let’s just get this done.” Each retrieved his pack mule and buckboard.

Dooley said, “I’ll climb up there and let my man down, you help me lower him to the ground, then I’ll help you do the same.” “Suits me.” He climbed the roots, ran a line under the corpse and secured it to a higher root, braced his back against the huge root-ball, and pushed on the man’s shoulders with his feet.

He felt the body move and heard the sickening, sucking sound of flesh, congealed blood and sinew pulling free from the spike of the root.

The body plummeted, dragging Dooley and the remains, crushing Hick in a tangle of arms, legs and gore.

The rifle with the fixed bayonet followed and slashed Hick’s shoulder.

Hick heaved the bodies away and stood clutching his upper arm. Dooley pulled himself out of the tangle of dead limbs and saw Hick, tearing equipment out of his pack, the blood pouring from the wound in his shoulder.

The items from his satchel piled up at his feet. Hick pulled a metal flask from the pack and took a long swig, then splashed it on the seeping gash.

Holding out the flask, he commanded Dooley, “Hold this!”

Hick struggled to wrap a bandage around his arm. Dooley capped the flask, then took the bandage from Hick and wrapped his enemy’s arm. “You’re probably going to want to keep some pressure on that.” “Ah go through two years’a fahghtin’ with nary a scratch and git wounded by a dead Reb and patched up by a damn Yankee. If that don’t beat all. Long as you got hold’a my bottle why don’t you have a little snort.

S’good fer what ails ‘ya.” Dooley took a deep swallow and coughed-gut punched.

Hick grinned and added, “N’if nuthin’ ails ‘ya, ‘s’good fer ‘at too.

Ya’anna pass that back to me?

I could stand some nummin’.”

Dooley hit the bottle again.

 “We got ‘em down aw’ight.”

Hick said as he shoved the fallen items back into his kit bag.

He scanned the clearing, rendered blue-white in the moonlight.

Hanging his head, he chuckled, “’Mine eyes have seen the glory . . . "

Dooly picked up the words, “’He  has  loosed  the  fateful lightning’ . . .’”

Hick hawked and spat.

“An he don’t seem partic’lar ‘bout who’s in the way.”

Gazing at a smoldering tree, he asked.

D’ja ever

wonder whose side God is on in all this?”

The Confederate drew long and deep from the flask, and handed it to Dooley.

Hick indicated the clearing with a nod of his head and said, “His truth is marchin’ on.” Dooley closed his eyes and drank Hick’s moonshine. “ Poor York. He was always cuttin’ up, makin’ us laugh. He was a fool. In war, it’s not a fool and his money is parted.”

Dooley fell silent. He asked Hick.

“What’d you do to wind up out here?” “They charged me with desertion.

I didn't though.

My baby was sick.

Had the ‘monia. I as’t for leave, we knew the damn Yankees, no ‘fence, was’nt close and nothin’ was gonna happen for weeks.

They brought me back an’ the bastard cap’n threatened to shoot me hisself if’n it happened again.

He’d do it too.

I got the recovery detail till some other id’jit does some dumb thang.

How ‘bout you?” “My lieutenant was . . . Having his way with a Negro woma—girl.”

As the liquor chased its way through the two men’s brains they slumped into exhaustion and stupor.

Scavengers returned to feed on the decaying flesh of the fallen, the white light of the moon cut through the leafless trees and across the field of battle, the remaining branches casting ghastly shadows across the clearing like the arms of great Titans, the top branches reaching heavenward as if to rip the moon from the sky.

Dooley once believed the words of his country’s battle hymn and saw their cause as righteous in the eyes of God. Was there reward or retribution when Christian slaughtered Christian?

“ Mine eyes have seen the glory .” Dooley wondered at the two creatures within him.

The affectionate young man who had won the heart of a girl with tender words and soft kisses.

And the other. The savage living within him, who in battle was possessed of a pagan spirit: shooting, stabbing, choking, biting, beating.

Anything to gain an edge and preserve the empty shell his body had become, to live to fight another day.

Dooley wondered which man he was?

He gazed at Hick and he knew in his warrior’s heart that the Reb had done the same or worse and would not have survived to perform the gruesome task at hand if he had not.

An odd kinship was woven in the web of war.

He understood, too, if they were to meet in battle, there would be no doubt of the outcome.

He would shoot Hick, or Hick would shoot him. A soldier frozen in indecision in a battle is no longer a soldier, but a target.

Dooley knew he wouldn’t be a target.

Not for this enemy.

Not for his friends.

Not for his love back home.

Not even to save his immortal soul.

If they met in battle he knew he would kill Hick.

He knew the beast within would prevail. There would be time enough to reclaim his soul later. Hick bumped his leg with the bottle and Dooley jumped. “Easy,” Hick reassured. “It’s conscience gnawin’ at ‘ya ain’t it?”

Hick breathed deep the night air and closed his eyes.

“Sometimes I git to hurtin’ so bad inside, I’m actually am glad when the dysentery come on, cuz’ it eases my mind of the things I done.

The pain I got on the inside, when I got the dysentery, takes away the hurt I feel, when I think about all these years of killin’.

This hooch is killin’ me, but my conscience is takin’ away my soul a day at the time. It looks like you could use it more than me. Finish it off.”

Dooley drained the flask. Hick spoke again.

“We better finish pickin’ up these bodies, or the truce’ll expire and we’ll wind up havin’ to shoot each other.” The two men gathered and loaded the bodies. When they finished their task, they exchanged hometowns, knowing the odds of surviving were minimal.

Hick and Dooley, now numb with exhaustion, cold, and bad whiskey, looked at each other in awkward silence. Turning to go, Dooley led the mule toward the Union encampment, and heard.

“Hey, cusin’” Dooley turned as Hick thrust out his hand.

“Wish me Happy Birthday.”

He said flashing a half-a-mouthful of teeth. “Wha-’”

“It’s after midnight, wish me happy birthday.” “You were born on Christmas?” “Yep.” Dooley shook his head, noticed it was starting to throb and with a snorting laugh held out his damaged hand, “Happy Birthday Reb.”

Hick pumped Dooley’s arm. “Hope I see you again.” Dooley answered, “But I pray not here.”

Dooley gazed at their fingers, stained with the same blood, the same mud caked beneath jagged fingernails, the same scars large and small which are the souvenirs of war covering their weathered skin, and he knew in that instant he had more in common with that man than anyone else on Earth.

The warrior in him was repelled and instinctively bade him let go; instead he reached over with his other hand, placed it atop Hick’s said, “Take care cousin.”

Hick laughed a real laugh for the first time, “Get the hell out of here Yank ‘afore I shoot y’ fer bein’ so sentimental.”

Dooley crossed the clearing and another branch flared.

In the flash he spied a glint of brass and bent to retrieve it.

It was a small oval leather frame with the picture of a petite, nearly chinless girl wearing a melancholy smile.

He turned it over and on the back it said in a frail scrawl, “To Immanuel . . . Come home soon . . . Love Delilah.”

He turned, but Hick had vanished in the smoke.

The truce held and the men from both the Northern and Southern camps could hear the others singing hymns on Christmas morning.

The week after Christmas passed as the armies jockeyed for position for the upcoming battle. The Rebs were exploiting the breach in the line, and the combat broke down into hand-to-hand.

Dooley found cover behind a fallen tree. Lieutenant Cain spied him and ordered him to rejoin the Union center. Amid heavy fire Dooley dashed to cover and ducked behind a tree as a .50 caliber slug smashed into the wood sending pin sized splinters into his neck and face. Dooley wiped the blood out of his eyes with his sleeve.

Cain burst into their cover and screamed, “They’re regrouping. Double time, back to the center. Go!

GO!! ” They stumbled up a hill, the crest obscured by fingers of underbrush, and straight into the muzzles of twelve surprised Confederates. The Rebs held the high ground, but the Yanks had superior numbers as they stared at each other through the tattered patch of underbrush. They stood in shocked immobility as Cain came blustering up the hill, and screamed, “Fire!”

When nothing happened, he screamed again, louder, cursing and drawing his pistol.

“FIRE!”

What paralyzed Dooley were the eyes he was staring into of the man  atop the hill.

He thought Hick had aged gravely in the days since he had seen him.

He saw Hick’s lips move and heard him speak, as a voice in his head, as his own rifle sprang to his shoulder,

“Get down!”

Shots erupted around Dooley, but he stood fixed, gazing at Hick.

Behind him he heard Cain’s infernal screaming.

“Fire!!

Dammit, I said FIRE!!”

Dooley pitched forward and heard the bedlam roar of musket-fire explode above and beside him and felt the dead weight of a body land on his back.

By the time he pulled himself from the heap of dead flesh, the Rebel line had either fallen or fled and Hick was nowhere to be seen.

He stood, ready to fire.

Dooley looked down at the corpse that had fallen on him and recognized Lieutenant Cain’s uniform, but little else. He turned away. York’s brother came panting up to Dooley, “Cain was about to shoot you in the back till you fell and that Reb shot him.” Enemy and ally were juxtaposed in the mayhem of battle. He resolved to kill no more.

He requested, and received, duty as a medical assistant in the field hospitals, a duty shunned even more than combat by most soldiers, but Dooley knew he could do some good, and he did.

At the war’s end he was discharged to go home and carry on with his life. Dooley knew he had an obligation, and as he returned home, he stopped at the post office of Murfreesboro, Tennessee.

He asked if the postmaster knew where to find a man by the name of Hick. The postmaster was understandably reluctant to give Dooley the information. Dooley showed him the picture he meant to return to Hick. The postmaster directed Dooley to a ramshackle cabin where he met a scared, gaunt woman holding a two-year-old baby.

Dooley tried to sound as deferential as possible and asked almost inaudibly. “Is Hick around?” Her fear changed to pain. She winced and said, “Hick is dead.”

Dooley replayed the encounter with Hick to her, hoping she would see everything, and spare them both the pain of him explaining how her husband’s enemy stood before her while Hick lay cold, in a lump of Georgia clay. He told her the story.

How Hick could have killed him, sharing moonshine, finding the picture and Hick’s lifesaving warning a week later. He expected an emotional thank you.

“You are a lunatic.”

Her eyes widened and flooded and she struggled to slam the door.

He jammed his foot in the way and pulled the photograph he had so carefully protected and jammed it through the opening.

He felt the resistance on the door relax as she took the picture then heard the sound of sobbing from the other side. Dooley sat on the ramshackle porch.

In a few moments she emerged, wiping her nose on her sleeve.

The baby, abdomen distended, had joined her crying and continued to squall.

She bounced him on her scrawny hip and apologized for the noise.

“What’s the baby been eating?”

She gazed at the child, “Mashed peanuts, when he’ll take ‘em.”

“I’m sorry to hear about Hick.

He was a good man.” She hung her head and bit her lip as he continued.

“He saved my life and . . .”  	“Mr. Dooley, what you say ain’t possible.

See, Hick died of dysentery three days after Christmas ‘at year, an’ you said ‘yall tangled in Jan’yary?

It ain’t makin’ sance.” Dooley stood dumbfounded, gazing into the hovel. Dooley replayed the skirmish in his mind over and over, and each time there was Hick, screaming his warning in his mind, cutting through the insane roar of musket fire. And he realized . . . she was right.

Hick had not been there.

Could not have been there.

But the part of Hick that was pure, and had shed the horrific warrior within had warned Dooley and he dove to the ground and Cain had been slain while trying to shoot him in the back.

The screaming of the starving child stopped, and calm settled over him.

He understood his obligation. He returned to the store and gave the owner a twenty-dollar gold piece.

It was half of all he owned and he gave it gladly.

“Send food and whatever they need for the girl and her baby for a month, I’ll send more as soon as I can.

They are never to starve again.” “He‘uz a good man,” The old man said.

Dooley turned back to the merchant. “The best I’ve ever known.”

He left the store, turned his face to the North and began his long journey home.


Death rides a pale horse Ensio’s Place was crowded that night. He usually didn’t get a lot of business when the weather turned foul. Having his bar on the outskirts of town had some benefits but an abundance of customers on a stormy October night wasn’t one of them. Ensio stood behind the bar, three of his regulars sat nursing drinks and murmuring amongst themselves, and two couples were playing doubles on his old green top. Add in the three ranch hands eating their dinner and Coral Harper dropping quarters into the juke box and Ensio had a crowd. Now eleven people, twelve including himself, wasn’t exactly a rave but for Ensio’s Place it was a pretty good gathering. Especially on a night like tonight. Ensio had just finished cleaning the grill, he’d made last call for food and all those eating had been served. He glanced to the clock behind his right shoulder, 9:08 pm, and figured he’d give them another hour or so before closing down. After getting a head start on the nights cleaning Ensio glanced again at the clock. It still read 9:08 pm. “Huh?” Ensio remarked to no one, “The damn clocks busted.” One of the regulars snorted drunkenly “Bad omens.” He hiccuped. Coral Harper let out a deep sigh “Shut up Hank! All you do is talk of omens and drink. In the ten years I’ve known you, you have never once been right.” Hank looked down into his beer and shrugged refusing to rise to Corals bait. Funny thought Ensio, Hank was about the only man here who hadn’t risen for Coral once or twice. Coral was the closest thing this small town had to a hussy. She used the men here to fill the void left by an absent father and addict mother. Ensio’s PA would have said “She was rode hard and put away wet.” His dad had a way with words in Ensio’s mind. Coral had once been the jewel of the county but years of drinking and smoking her sorrows, not to mention screwing every thing that moved, had put a crust over the glow she use to have. Coral moved to the dance floor swaying her hips, narrowed by years of hard use, she tried to catch the eye of the only ranch hand she hadn’t ridden yet. Ensio rolled his eyes and moved to turn off the outside sign and saw the headlights of low slung, predatory muscle car pulling up to the bar. He sighed and left the signs lights on, as long as the newcomer didn’t want to eat, he didn’t mind padding his register. Ensio made his way back to the bar to await the customers arrival. The door swung open with a sodden bang and the stranger stepped inside. He was fairly tall, but extremely thin. He wore black cowboy style boots, black jeans and a black duster over a plain white t-shirt. His hair was long for a man in this part of the country and if it hadn’t been wet, Ensio was sure it would look unwashed. The stranger looked over every patron in the bar, gaze lingering on Coral, then made his over to sit on one of the well worn stools. Ensio struggled to find his voice, this strangers colorless eyes unnerved him. “Grills off but I can get you a drink friend.” He finally stammered. The stranger didn’t respond for almost a minute, just looked through Ensio, then finally he nodded. “That will be fine, mind if I smoke?” Ensio answered with a nod and spun to get the man a drink. The stranger drew a cigarette from his pack and placed it in his lips, Coral appeared beside him with her lighter already lit. “Hello stranger, you got a name?” She stared a little to intently and her desires were obvious but the man didn’t even seem to notice. He dipped his cigarette into the flame, took a long drag and spoke on the exhale “Thanatos.” Coral beamed, clearly ignoring the strangers disinterest, “Sounds exotic,” she twittered “Where’d you get a fancy name like that?” Thanatos ground his cigarette into the ashtray, immediately lit another and finally turned to look at Coral “I’ve always had it, it’s Greek.” With out looking he reached out and took the proffered beer front Ensio’s hand pressed it to his lips and drank it down quickly. “Afraid I’ve got to be going” he murmured. As he stood to leave Coral gripped his arm, “Leaving so quickly?” she asked batting her eyelashes at him. Thanatos hesitated for a brief moment, bent and softly kissed her cheek “Every body has a time to go.” He said softly as he turned to the door. Ensio followed him out and turned off the sign as he glanced out the window he saw the stranger climb into a Shelby Mustang and a shiver ran through him. The car was ash white and as Ensio heard Coral crash to the floor behind him he spoke aloud without thought “I looked, and behold, an ashen horse; and he who sat upon it had the name Death.


“Hey, I’ve found a planet over here. I think we should take a look.” “Yeah? Which system?” “Sol 456. Milky Way. 70% water cover, carbon-based life, and incredibly rich in minerals. We give this to Corporate and that’s a nice little bonus right there.” “Go for it. The atmosphere will have to be drained, as they’ve fucked it up pretty bad, but most of the good stuff’s in the core anyway.” “Damn. There’s a message on the planet’s file: WARNING: PLANET EXEMPT FROM HARVESTING - EXPERIMENT ONGOING. CURRENT RUNTIME: 350,000 YEARS. EXPECTED COMPLETION: 6043. WARNING: DESTRUCTION OF THIS PLANET WILL RESULT IN LEGAL ACTION.” “Fucking scientists. Why do they get their hands on all the good ones?” “I know. The experiment is actually pretty interesting, though. According to the papers, the evolution of the dominant species was manipulated by fungus to spread their own spores.” “As if. So they’re like high-functioning carrier bees?” “Kind of. Except their functionality is off the charts. They’ve developed the bulk of their technology by utilising the thermodynamics of atoms. Nothing new there. But they’ve taken it to the extreme. Imagine bipedal apes, essentially smashing things together until something works, but have still managed to actually leave their planet.” “No shit. That’s a shame. Corporate usually pays extra for advanced conscious beings.” “That’s the thing. Says here psychologists are studying them too. They’re not technically conscious. They just think they are.” “Wait. Does thinking you’re conscious not make you conscious?” “That’s what they say. They’re like little self-aware robots, operating under the false assumption that they are able to act rationally. They believe they have free will, and yet every decision they make is completely deterministic and predictable.” “And how do we know that our decisions aren’t?” “Very funny. Anyway, I just thought it was worth noting. What do you want to do about it, then? Move on, or shall we pull one over on ‘em?” “That is a big bonus we’d be missing out on.” “Yeah. They are quite violent. I’m sure they could be convinced to war with each other, given a little nudge.” “And how might we do that? ” “Sow discord between them. They already have an advanced communications system, so that makes the job much easier. They call it the internet. It melds all their minds together to form a cohesive network, so if we tap into that we can make them think whatever we want.” “Would the research corporations find out?” “According to the records, they only visit every 5,000 years or so. Last time they built pyramids - concealed monitoring devices, I think - so the planet’s absence will likely go unnoticed for a while. We’d be long gone.” “Perfect. Sounds like you’ve done this before.” “Oh yeah. Why’d you think I was 5th in the employee rankings last year? For my honesty and integrity? All Corporate care about are the numbers.” “Ha! You’re not wrong. I’ll let you take the lead then, as you clearly know what you’re doing. How’d you wanna start off?” “We’ll spread disinformation. Create an ideological battle, and force them to choose sides through social pressure. They’ll be at each other like frenzied rabbits. In a few decades only dust will remain. We’ll pick up the loot, along with a fat check at the end of the year.” “Amen to that, brother.


I looked around the store to see what else I could steal before I had to make a run for it. This was the first moment I remembered being aware of after I came back to life. Carlos (the name embroidered on his shirt) was rapidly bleeding out on the floor behind the counter. “You … fuck.” he said, eloquent in his last moments. His eyes bugged out at me from his bloodless face, then he groaned and went slack on the floor.. I could still taste his blood in my mouth as I grabbed two packs of cigarettes and the pistol he’d used to shoot me. It didn’t help him a lot, but I thought it might come in useful when the cops inevitably caught up with me. Which I assumed they would, probably sooner than later. I tore open the pack of smokes and stuck one between my broken teeth. Rifling through the back of the counter, I found a box of bullets and stuck them in my coat pocket. It was the jacket I’d been buried in not that long ago, all torn up now from digging my way out of the coffin and from where Carlos shot me. Not that I blamed him, I’d been awfully hungry, living dead (you know how that is), I must have looked a fright. I went to check out my reflection in the mirror in the corner of the store. Oh. OH. Not good. Worse than I thought. I lit the cigarette sucked in smoke and blew it outta my nose like a retarded dragon. When I looked at my reflection, I realized exactly how much my clothing hadn’t held up, not to mention that I looked like a walking corpse. The jacket was filthy, my shirt had holes in it, I was covered in blood, but worst of all my pants were hardly even there. I thought about that for a second. I was dangling balls down south. I’d been Donald Ducking it when I busted in and ate Carlos. “Aw, I’m sorry Carlos. That was wrong, man.” I said, as if he’d been reading my mind. You should at least try to dress well if you’re going to kill someone, I think. It’s the little details that so many murderers overlook. “I … umm … I don’t want to kill the next guy pantless, so you don’t mind, right?” I said, unbuckling his belt. I waited for a response, half thinking he might get up and tell me to go fuck myself again. Carlos didn’t move. I took off his pants and pondered stealing his tighty whities too, but thought that might be too much. After sliding his pants on, I found his wallet and car keys. There was thirty two dollars in small bills and a credit card. Sweet. Was this a good omen? Probably not. Fuck me, right? I grabbed a crappy tourist t-shirt from the spinny rack by the door to the store. It had a picture of Devil’s Tower on it, with “Gillette, WY” written in a vaguely 80’s retro looking font. Somewhere in the back of my undead brain, I felt a memory stirring. Gillette Goddamn Wyoming. Why do I remember this place? I am pretty sure I didn’t spend much time here when I was alive, but I’m sure it was important to me for some reason. Was I buried here? Home is where you die, I guess. Fuck it, I would think about this more later. I stripped off my old jacket and shirt, marveled at how disgustingly dirty my bare torso was, and slid into the size large tourist t-shirt. I put on a windbreaker I found behind the counter, filled its pockets with my stolen items, and headed outside the store. Some asshole was pumping gas outside and waved at me. I waved back trying my best not to look like an inhuman monster as I walked quickly in the opposite direction from him. I’d noticed there was a Jeep logo on Carlos’s keys, so I headed over to a Wrangler that was parked towards the back of the little lot. I pressed the little beep-beep button on the keychain, and heard the car unlock. I got in and spent a little minute figuring out where all the controls were. I looked in the rearview mirror and saw the guy at the gas pump staring at me. “Shit.” I thought. “That looks like a guy who’s gonna call the cops the second I pull out of here.” I thought about going back to kill him and eat him, but just started the Wrangler and pulled out. Where was I gonna go now? And … how did I get here exactly? Look, reader. I gotta level with you, at that point I didn’t know. I ended up going to find my ex-girlfriend Janice. Not immediately at that point, but spoiler alert. As I’d later decide, I’m a ghoul. I drink blood to keep myself alive, mostly. So, sometimes people assume I’m a vampire. Not true. I love garlic. Much bigger dick than Bela Lugosi or that fruity Gary Oldman. No fangs. And the whole “vampire” label comes with cultural preconceptions and baggage and shit that I’d rather not deal with. If I’m really hungry sometimes I eat brains too, but fuck you if you call me a zombie. That’s just insulting. How it works is, I get my mojo from eating human life. So, the human brain or heart pack a lot of power for me. Blood, obviously. I can even just straight-up eat human flesh, but it’s more filling than you’d think and pound for pound it’s more trouble than it’s usually worth unless we’re talking about someone who really pissed me off. When you’ve been nursing a grudge there’s nothing quite like making eye contact while you devour some motherfucker alive. Oh, and in case you’re wondering … yeah, eating babies is also probably a powerhouse ghoul move but I’ve never done that no matter what anyone tells you. Oh, and sex is its own form of power, but definitely not enough to keep me living dead on its own. Back to my first moments, though. I drove away from the gas station slash country store and headed for Interstate 80 going east towards the Black Hills in South Dakota. As I was driving, I couldn’t help looking at myself in the rearview mirror. In my gut, I could feel my body absorbing the blood I’d drank from Carlos. Ghouls like me don’t have a heartbeat like a living person but we do have blood moving through our body. After feeding on an empty stomach like I’d done, it repaired my body and I quickly started looking like a living person again. The transformation was amazing to watch the first time it happened. I couldn’t focus on driving, so when I drove by a small lake I pulled over the Wrangler into a scenic lookout and got out. I stripped naked and jumped into the water, washing myself off and going for a brief swim. The water felt cold and clean on my skin, almost like it was purifying me. I turned over in the water and floated on my back, looking up at the clear blue sky. I heard the muddy rumble of a large group of poorly-tuned American made motorcycles approaching. As they got nearer, I made my way to the edge of the lake and climbed out of the water. I put my clothes back on, positioning the Wrangler between myself and their approach. I looked at myself in the rearview mirror of the truck, and noted that I looked passably normal now. By the time I was dressed, the bikers had pulled into the overlook area and were milling around. I had been awkwardly sitting behind my Jeep trying to decide whether to go talk to them when a biker nodded at me and gave me a friendly wave to come over. Well, shit, that made me feel like I had to go over and talk to them. I started walking their way. As I got close, a heavily tattooed, bearded fat dude called over to me “Hey Brother! Have you heard the word of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ?” he chuckled and smiled at me while a female biker next to him opened an ice chest full of bottles. “Come on over, and do you want a drink? We have lemonade, sodas, or water!” My emotions felt conflicted. They seemed charming enough, but proselytizing Christian bikers without beer? You heard me, WITHOUT BEER.


This time, I was really gonna launch myself off that cliff and end the life that has brought me so much pain and suffering. I was really going to do it. I walked from my house to the cliff that was only 100 feet in the distance, and sat on the rail dividing me from land and a few hundred foot drop. I probably did this once a week, usually during the late night when my depression kicked in like an intravenous drug. I never actually went through with it but tonight was the night. I had taken my mothers’ prescription xanax bottle which she had never used. 150 white alprazolam pills would end my life peacefully and quickly, as the medication slowed my respiratory system to a stop. Usually the feeling of guilt for leaving my family in the wake of my death makes me get off the rail, but tonight I had no such feeling. I only sat there thinking about all the reasons for me wanting to flatline, and there seemed to be zero cons on the list. My parents got divorced when I was 8 years old, and for good reason. My father was a conman who had gotten rich off a faked insurance accident on his business which netted him over a million dollars cash. The dirty money made him a greedy man who favored materialism over the wellbeing of his own family, as a new ferrari was more important than fixing the major plumbing issues in my room. My mother was a lazy woman who never had to work a minute in her life thanks to her well off parents who funded my dads start up. Overall, my family was a shit show of borderline malnourishment and physical abuse until they got divorced, which only worsened things. My father took me for the first 2 years, which consisted of me selling his forgotten designer clothing on ebay to keep myself afloat, while he was at social events every weekend. Finally, cpa busted him for neglect and I was turned over to my mother. I have been with her for the last 4 years and have witnessed her numerable partners treat her with the same disrespect my father had, while she continues to ignore me and make no change to her life. My parents have never appreciated me for keeping myself alive amidst their irresponsibility, and have never shown me even the slightest signs of love. Tonight was the night that I finally made them feel something towards my existence, or non\-existence I guess at this point. As my emotions boiled down I looked towards one of the only things that had kept me company during my life, a joint that I had prepared just for this night. I sparked up the crudely rolled cylinder of sharp smelling plant material and thin paper, and put it towards my lips. As I inhaled the bitter smoke my vision got brighter and my mood lightened slightly, but it was only like a hand on my shoulder when I needed an enormous embrace to get me off that rail. As I sat there smoking, looking at what seemed to be the last moments of my life, blue lights flashed behind me. I turned around and saw a police interceptor parked on the side of the road behind me. At first I panicked at the sight of police, just like any other young kid would in our day and age, but then I was only disappointed. I was disappointed that my last moments would either be spent with a cop trying to arrest me or talk me out of what I was so certain on doing. The car sat still for a while as I continued to puff on my joint, then the officer got out of the car and began to walk towards me. “What’s going on man, I got a complaint about a strong marijuana smell from the people across the street,” the cop said. “Look I don’t care about your complaint I’m ending my life tonight and I’m going to do it while enjoying a little treat, there’s nothing you can do to stop me,” I said firmly. The cop spotted my prescription bottle next to me. “What’s that,” he asked. “150 prescription xanax pills,” I stated, “they’ll kill me slow and peacefully in a matter of minutes, if I don’t die from falling impact that is.” The cop stood there behind me for a minute, and then much to my surprise, he let out a sigh and sat next to me on the cold rail. “What’s wrong with your life kid,” the cop said with empathy. “Nothing,” I confirmed, “Nothing at all.” The cop let out another sigh as I took a drag from my joint. “Look, if your about to kill yourself there’s gotta be a reason, there has to be someone you want to notice you, to hear your reasons, or you wouldn't be here right now.” I could feel the officer stare into the side of my head as I continued to look out at the water. “We both know you want someone to hear you out, that’s why you’re on this rail right now,” the cop said, “I don’t see anyone else out here with us, so you might as well tell me, right?” I could sense empathy in his voice and gave in a little “Alright, but I’m not gonna give you a big long sob story,” I said. The cop seemed pleased that I agreed to tell him, so I did. I told him my story in a nutshell, how I’ve always cared for myself and my parents were never relevant. After I finished, the cop put his hand on my back and introduced himself as Dave. “Can I see your joint,” Dave asked. “My joint,” I said alarmingly, “why do you wanna see that.” “I want to show you something,” Dave said calmly. Regrettably, I handed Dave my joint and he held it between his fingers staring at it. “You see all that ash,” Dave said as he flicked the end of my joint, sending ash swirling into the air around us. “Ash is material that has already been burnt right? Material that has already been spent.” I looked at him with surprise as Dave, the cop, seemed to be trying to make a metaphor out of my joint. “All that ash that just flew off the end represents your time spent here on earth.” I nodded understandably as he continued. “What If I stuck this joint in the sand right now, it would stop burning right? It would stop creating ash right?” Again, I nodded to show Dave that I understood his comparison. Dave then moved the joint close to the ground as if to put it out. “No!” I exclaimed, “please don’t put it out yet I’m not done with it.” “Exactly,” Dave stated, “you wouldn’t want to end this joints life because your not done with it are you?” I shook my head in agreeance. Dave sighed and handed the joint back to me as he adjusted himself to look me in the eyes. “The world isn’t done with you yet bud,” Dave said with his arm on my back, “sure, you’re parents wasted all their time which is now mostly ash, and unfortunately they wasted a little of yours too in the process, but that doesn't mean you need to base your life off of that.” Dave took a long pause as he watched his words settle into me. “Don’t waste your time kid, because before you know it, you’ll mostly be ash just like the rest of us.” Dave paused again and I looked at him and nodded. “It’s what you do while you’re still burning that counts.” I looked at him as an uncontrollable tear ran down my cheek. “I got it,” I said rather flatly, trying to hold back tears. “Now get off that rail and come give me a hug,” Dave said with a chuckle. “I’m gonna take your pills but you can keep the joint, that’s legal now. You’re ok.” Dave said as he embraced me in the middle of the street. “I’m ok,” I said calmly. *I’m ok. I’m ok.* I kept repeating in my head because I really was. I was finally ok.


“Why are you selling this house?” the realtor asked. “Well, it's a long story” I replied and launched into my narrative. “Last month Aunt Veronica died. Two weeks ago Aunt Veronica’s will was read. I didn’t attend the reading of the will because I wasn’t expecting anything to come from it. Yesterday I was informed by her attorney that I was bequeathed her house up in northern California.

Today I was presented with the keys to the house and I started making plans to view the house and see how sell-able it was. Tomorrow morning, I plan to make the 960 mile from my home in Phoenix to where Aunt Veronica once lived in the outskirts of Weaverville, CA.  I made arrangements to fly in to Sacramento and rent a car for the 200 mile drive to my final destination.

I hoped to have it all wrapped up within a week so I would not need to take any more time off from work.  The biggest surprise thus far was that Aunt Veronica remembered who I was in the first place.  It has been decades since I visited her...and my Mom was the one to drag me along when I was only five years old.  Mom and her sister seldom spoke, so I had assumed that everything Aunt Veronica owned would not be including me in the bequests.

She had no other family, but she did love animals.  I had assumed that she would leave everything to local animal charities which according to her attorney received the bulk of her estate...all except the house and the land  surrounding it. Now that manor was mine.” “The flight into Sacramento and the drive up I-5 to Weaverville were uneventful.

Since it was such a long day of travel, I checked in to a local motel for the night. It would be easier to locate the property in daylight.

The night passed peacefully and the morning found me looking up the address and plotting the trip to the manor...one that had been three decades in the making.

Something was lurking in the corner of my mind...something long forgotten, but it began pressing its way to the forefront of my mind like a persistent pest.” “After breakfast at a local cafe, I started the drive up highway 3 and towards the depths of the Trinity Alps.

After several attempts, I located the tiny side road that would lead to the manor gates.  The gates were well hidden by underbrush. Once I located them, and moved aside the brush, I unlocked and pushed them open.

I slowly drove up the unkempt driveway and eventually found the house.  Time was not kind.  It appeared to be dilapidated and run down.  If appearances were the key to selling a house, this one would need bulldozing. I took my time checking out the house.

The front porch was looking rather unstable at best. I decided not to tempt my luck with the front steps, after all, I wasn’t sure if the paramedics would be able to find this place since I had so much trouble with locating it in the first place.  I wandered off to my right, looking for another entrance to the house.

The right side was just as dilapidated as the front.  The back of the house was somewhat more hopeful...there were indications that power was coming into the house and the back entrance seemed to have been used much more than the front.  The underbrush was cleared away and there was a place to park a car without trekking through tall grasses and bushes.

The yard was better maintained than the front.  It seemed clear to me that Aunt Veronica preferred this entrance to the front one. I opened the back door and entered a spacious kitchen.

I was surprised! The interior of the house was very well maintained!

Everything was clean and in excellent condition.  I wandered from room to room.

The attorney told me that everything in the house and on the property was mine to dispose of as I saw fit.

Plans to have the estate evaluated and sold began to swirl through my brain.  I went into a parlor, music room, dining room and eventually found myself in the front hall with the seldom used front door to the manor.

I cautiously opened the front door and looked out on my parked rental car.  I closed the front door and noticed the deep walls on either side of it but thought nothing of it.  I wandered up the stairs and checked out all the bedrooms and bathrooms.

It was beginning to get dark inside and I decided that I’d had enough for today.  I started down the stairs and was planning on trying the front door exit towards my car when I heard a very eerie sound emanating from the wall just to the right of the door.

I decided not to check it out today, and cautiously made my way down the front steps to my car.  The shadows around the house were deepening, and I could have sworn that I saw movement in the vicinity of the front door. As I turned to get a better look, the movement seemed to stop.

Thinking  nothing more of it, I returned to my motel room for the night.” “Now, it’s the second day of my week in Weaverville and I’m back at Aunt Veronica’s house. This time I drove around to the back and parked my rental car.

I brought enough provisions for a few days and my luggage.  Since I owned this house, I might as well be staying in it.  I spent most of the day contacting estate brokers and real estate agencies.

I planned to sell everything.  I started inventorying what was in each room.  Finally, it was just about dinnertime, and I was in the kitchen when I heard that eerie sound again.  It was louder than before, and seemingly more persistent, too.

I followed the sound to the front hall.  In the deepening shadows that were slowly engulfing the room, I had difficulty determining where the sound was coming from.  I switched on the overhead light and noticed nothing.  I started slowly examining the area, and a puff of air escaped from the wall to the right of the front door.

I felt it just as surely as I am standing in front of you!” “I don’t doubt you” said the realtor. “Go on…” “Well, I’m standing there trying to figure out where the breeze was coming from.

I knocked on the wall in several locations to no avail.  In exasperation, I leaned against it, and it gave way!

I had fallen into the hidden passage!  I scrambled to my feet, located a flashlight, and followed the passageway.

It led down a flight of stairs across what I presume to be the basement, continued for over a hundred feet and back up another flight of stairs.

At the top of the stairs was a trap door. I opened the trap door and found myself in an old barn.” “I decided to do further research on Aunt Victoria’s house.

According to the local historical society, this house was used in the 1920’s as a speakeasy and the passage was used to smuggle liquor into the house.” “Interesting” said the realtor. “The history does add something to the value of the house.” “Now, I’m not so sure I want to sell it. I think it should be deeded over to the historical society. Maybe I will, maybe I won’t.

I think I want to think about it for a few more days.”


Teddy sat in the university auditorium with his study partner, Suman. They were psyched. Two weeks of studying together for this biology exam made them well prepared. They expected perfect scores. After all they were both ace students. Suman’s parents were both revered academics in India who had been educated in Canada at the university of Toronto and Suman was following in their footsteps. He had always been the top of his class in India and since his arrival in Toronto stood first or second in his class. His competition was Teddy. It seemed that Teddy Fox either tied or bested his score in every class or exam. At first, he could not put a face to the name, but they were accidental chemistry partners in organic chemistry labs. Accidental because everyone else was paired when they arrived. Teddy was an Inuit from the Northwest Territories. He was the first in his family to go to college and had won many scholarships because his academic excellence. He was determined to be the first Inuit doctor in his village. His drive, ambition and talents were obvious to all his teachers at an early age. They encouraged him and recommended him to various programs. He was the first Inuit to earn a scholarship to University of Toronto school for grades 7-12. As its valedictorian, he earned a full scholarship to the University of Toronto. Suman had a similar trajectory. He had excelled in grade school in Delhi. When his parents accepted positions at the Western University in Hamilton Ontario Canada, they enrolled him in Upper Canada College, a private all Boys high school in Toronto. He would live with his aunt Kirti and see his parents on the weekends. Of course, he excelled and as the valedictorian earned a full scholarship to the University of Toronto. Unlike Teddy, however, he wasn’t set on any career path. He just wanted to make his parents proud. He was also a talented sitar player and idolized Ravi Shankar. He had dreams of collaborating with a North American band or artist just like Ravi did with the Beatles, George Harrison in particular. When he was not studying, Suman practiced sitar and developed a newfound skill in the slide guitar. The instruments and music seemed incongruous to many but to Suman, they complemented each other. He dreamed of a blues Indian fusion band. In his spare time, he’d attend blues concerts. When his parents visited, he’d take them to hear Indian music. There was a large Indian community in Toronto and concerts were plentiful. Teddy also had an outside interest. He loved Lacrosse and was the star player on every school team. His scholarship to the University was both academic and athletic. He was immediately recruited to the University Lacrosse team and was an instant star. In contrast to Suman, Teddy was a specimen. He was six feet, had broad shoulders, was a muscular two hundred and forty pounds and ran like the wind. Suman was thin, six feet, bespectacled and did not have an athletic bone his body. The only things they had in common was their intelligence, academic excellence and outsider status. Still, after a few weeks as lab partners, they became fast friends and study partners. Suman attended Teddy’s games and Teddy attended concerts with Suman. They challenged each other academically and became interested in each other’s cultures. ***

As they sat at their desk side by side. They waited for the proctor to tell them to turn over their exam paper and get started. Suman’s leg shook rhythmically with anxiety, and he hummed an old Indian song. Teddy sat coolly looking around the auditorium. His eyes met those of Heather Brown’s. She gave him a shy smile. She had long black hair, high cheek bone and perfect white teeth and was the only other Indigenous student in the class. Teddy turned away and cleared his thoughts. He had to concentrate. He turned to Suman and asked: “You ready?” Suman turned to him and grinned: “You know I’m always ready, but I wish they’d get this thing started.” Teddy reached over and squeezed Suman’s arm and said: “Relax bro’. You know we got this.” Just as Teddy released Suman’s arm, a loud explosion shook the auditorium and both friends were thrown from their seats. When the dust settled, Teddy’s ears were ringing loudly and he found himself under bits and pieces of desks that had been blown across the auditorium. Teddy tested both arms and legs and found they were functional and intact. He could hear groans and muffled crying nearby. He pushed himself from under the debris and was struck by the strong odor of burned wood and flesh. It took a few  seconds to adjust to the dim light and smoke in the auditorium. He saw mangled desks and bloodied bodies slowly rising from beneath them. Heather was crying but seemed intact as she stumbled towards the exit. The lectern where the proctor had stood was in pieces and Teddy was sure he saw a severed head to the side. Teddy took a deep breath and started pulling fellow students out of the debris. Some were seriously injured and would require medical treatment. Most had survived but where was Suman? Teddy stepped over several desks and body parts in search of his buddy. He found a leg sticking out from beneath an overturned desk and recognized Suman’s loafer. He held his breath and overturned the desk. Suman was unconscious but looked intact except his right hand was missing and blood was squirting from the stump. His pulse in his neck was weak but present. The desk had probably been compressing Suman’s arm and preventing exsanguination. Teddy took off his shirt and wrapped it tightly around the stump as a tourniquet. With tears in his eyes, he lifted his buddy and carried him to the exit and into the hallway. He saw paramedics and police arriving outside the building, so he ran towards an ambulance parked at the entrance. Two medical personnel with a stretcher met him at the door and did a quick assessment. They asked Teddy questions as they whisked Suman to the ambulance. “Has he been conscious anytime since you found him? How close was he to the explosion? Did you find his severed hand?” Of course, they want his hand. Teddy berated himself for not looking for it. He was in such a hurry to save Suman, he didn’t think of looking for it. “No, I didn’t see his hand, but I’ll go back in and look for it.” The paramedic shook his head and said: “It’s probably too late and the auditorium has been declared a danger zone.” Teddy ignored the Paramedic and with a curt “I don’t care,” he rushed back into the auditorium past some bewildered injured students and back to the spot where he had found Suman. Overturning mangled desks and other debris, he found Suman’s hand. It was bluish and resembled a Halloween prop. Wrapping it in a handkerchief, he cradled it in both hands and ran it to the ambulance just as it was leaving. The driver rolled down the window and raised his eyebrows as Teddy offered the wrapped hand to him. He took the hand from Teddy but said: “Alright son. Good work but I doubt it will do any good. Let’s hope we can save your friend.” Teddy felt sick but had the presence of mind to ask: “Where are you taking him?” “Toronto General Hospital.” The driver rolled up his window, the siren blared, and the ambulance sped away.” Teddy retreated to the entrance of the auditorium which was now crowded with police and medical personnel. Reporters would arrive later. He was examined by a paramedic at the scene and cleared although there was some question of a concussion. He overheard some policewoman talking about a manifesto that had just been released to the media. A terrorist group called Indigenous Freedom Fighters or IFF had claimed responsibility for the bombing. They were protesting Canada’s long history of mistreatment of Indigenous people. Teddy actually knew some of the members but had never paid much attention to them. In theory, he agreed with some of their complaints but never their methods. There had been reports of violent rallies in different provinces but nothing of this magnitude. Teddy was ashamed. They are my people, and they did this! He knew as one of two indigenous students in the class, he’d be interrogated. It would not be the first time. With his long-braided ponytail, high cheekbones, wide face and copper skin, he was often a suspect for any nearby crime. His status as the star Lacrosse player had given him some immunity but he doubted it would last. Teddy tried to clear his mind of these thoughts and ran back to his apartment to get a shirt before running to the hospital. Suman, his friend. needed him. Did his parents know? He had their phone number somewhere. He called Suman’s aunt Kirti first and broke the news. She would call his parents and drive immediately to the hospital. He would meet her there. Teddy’s head was spinning. Was it adrenaline or concussion? He did not know what he could do for Suman. It was Suman’s guitar and sitar hand that was lost. At least he was alive and hopefully his brain was intact. “I need that mother’s competition to push me. He’s the only one that can. I was just beginning to like sitar music and his slide guitar had me hooked. Fucking IFF! Somehow, I feel my people are responsible. It’s irrational, I know, but I can’t help it. I need to find a way to make it up to him.”  Teddy’s thoughts overwhelmed him as he entered the hospital. ***

It would be two days before Suman regained consciousness. The surgeons had failed to reimplant his hand. His stump with was covered by a large white bandage. Teddy entered the room with an awkward smile and a bag full of Indian delicacies bought at Suman’s favorite Indian restaurant. “HI, you MF . You really scared me. Who’s going to prevent me from scoring the highest marks in every class if you’re not around?” Teddy needed to keep it light. Suman propped up on two pillows, smiled wanly. “How we do on the exam?” Teddy was concerned that Suman had no memory of the explosion. Did he have brain damage? He had to tread softly. “You do know there was a bomb that exploded before we even started?” “Since when did a little explosion ever stop you from completing anything?” Teddy sighed in relief. Suman had not lost his sense of humor and his brain was intact. He laughed and rebutted: “I’m surprised that you haven’t asked to complete the exam in the hospital.” Suman frowned and raised his bandaged arm and said: “I don’t write or type well with my left hand. How many one-handed sitar and guitar players, do you know?” All Teddy’s feelings of guilt and sadness came flooding back. He had to say and do something. “I promise you, we are going to find a way.” Teddy sat on the side of the bed, put his arms around Suman’s thin shoulders and gave them an affectionate squeeze. Suman nodded and said: “You know, between us, I think we can.” *** After extensive occupational therapy and use of a hand prosthesis, Suman returned to school. Both he and Teddy transferred to the school of engineering. They were determined to become robotics experts and design a life like prosthetic hand that would allow Suman to play his instruments. They worked hard on neurofeedback systems with Suman as the guinea pig. They both graduated with honors and were co-valedictorians. They formed a robotics company and were soon designing prosthetic limbs with enough neurofeedback that allowed ballerinas to dance on a prosthetic foot and musicians to play with prosthetic hands. Suman resumed his guitar and sitar playing and Teddy became a star in the Lacrosse professional league. They remained friends for the rest of their lives. Teddy married Heather and Suman married Priyanka in an arranged marriage. They bought houses next door to each other in the exclusive neighborhood of Forrest Hill in Toronto and they lived happily ever after.