I climbed over a strip of brown sandstone rocks. It was like another planet. From the top, about ten metres above the surrounding sand, I looked around the landscape. The golden waves of the desert reached as far as the horizon, where they melted into the swirling air. I looked at the compass, I had to go further west, where the end of my journey would be. A friend heard that I was hitchhiking in the south of Africa and offered me a boat. Of course, I agreed and he promised to wait for me on the coast of Namibia. I was now in the middle of the Namib Desert, and the west coast was about 50 km away, which was about a two-day walk. It was also the first time I had ever been in a sandy desert. The guides tell you to stick to your path and not make unnecessary turns, because sand is a difficult terrain and besides, the desert is dangerous in itself. I saw three people north of me. I would have really kept on my route had it not been for the bad feeling in my stomach that made me look at the three. They were about a kilometre north of me, so I went toward them. I greeted them in English, the oldest of them answered me, with a strong accent. He was probably their guide, because he had the logo of a travel agency on his shirt. When I asked him his name, he mumbled something absently. The repetition of the question made him a little upset, so I decided to let it be. The three of them sat on the hot desert sand, just swaying. I asked the guide where they were going. He yelled at me again and hissed. I figured that the volume of my voice was bothering him. So I walked closer to him and asked about their destination. He repeated, one word, "sea, sea", pointing north, where the fata morgana rippled through the air. The desert really looked like the surface of the sea, but I knew the closest shore was on the west. I tried to explain it to him, but he kept pointing north and saying, "sea, sea." As I sat next to him, I noticed an ID card pinned to a bag around his waist. The name Mateo was written there, and he was a guide to a Spanish company, Tropico Tours. The man must have been around sixty, I guessed from the wrinkled face and white wreath of gray hair around his otherwise completely bald head. His female companions couldn't be much younger. I persuaded them to put on their headgear. In vain. Their faces were without expressions and they all swayed. I looked around and found only a two-liter bottle of water, half empty, which was definitely not enough for three people, certainly not if they wanted to go to the shore. I offered them some of my supplies, but Mateo declined my offer, "Drink later, drink later," and paused again, just swaying. I sat there with them for a while, silent because they didn't seem to like me talking. Mateo looked deep into my eyes and smiled. "Do you hear that? Música.” I listened for a moment, and indeed, I thought I heard quiet choral music. I looked for the ladies and suddenly I realized why they were all swaying. The four of us were hallucinating. The music, the angelic choir grew stronger and with it a sudden peace of mind and desire to stay here. At that moment the voice of reason prevailed in my head. I realized that the music was an illusion and decided to keep walking. The ill feeling was back, I also felt the desire to save all three from certain death in the desert. I grabbed Mateo, but he pushed me away and I landed in the hot sand. I hissed in pain, but I had not given up my intention yet. I growled, “Vámonos! Vámonos!”, which means “let's go” in Spanish, it didn't work with either of them. I tried to pull them up one by one and lift them to their feet, but without any success. The angelic choir, singing a beautiful chord in C major, grew louder, but I still wanted to help them. I grabbed Mateo's hands, but he pushed me away again and asked me to be quiet. All three swayed to the music, the angels screamed at the top of their lungs, and the sun painted an arc into the cloudless sky. I realized I should drink. I had a sip of water and the angelic music was gone like that. I put the bottle to the withered lips of a 60-year-old Spanish lady and begged her to drink. "Más tarde," she muttered, pushing my bottle away. It flew out of my hand and water began to pour into the Namibian sand. In that moment, I ran out of patience. I grabbed my bottle with the rest of water that didn't spill and set off. I turned for one last time and watched the three swing into illusory music. But I suddenly had an idea, I still wanted to help them, so I drew the approximate place where I found them on my folding map. I had a rescue plan. So I went west, as I had originally intended, and I walked quite fast, not only was I delayed by this encounter, the three Spaniards were losing valuable time. I decided to walk overnight to be on the coast as soon as possible. The friend was supposed to be there today, at least in the waters of the west coast. In addition to seawater desalination equipment, the boat also had a satellite telephone on board. It occurred to me to call a helicopter to save the three lost people. I was running out of water, my eyelids were heavy, but I knew I had no choice. I pushed myself through the sand dunes with one goal in mind. I had to help them. Even in the sweatshirt, I gritted my teeth at night, but I had to keep going. I shone my headlight on the ground and regularly checked the direction of my compass. West. I had sand in my shoes. My feet were aching. My legs hurt. West. I licked my dry lips. I kept a murderously fast pace, I mustn't stop. West. The headlamp began to flicker. Angels began to sing in my head again. I looked at the compass. I couldn't stop. West. It was dawn and when I climbed on top of a large dune, I finally saw the sea. Two kilometers, I guessed. I rubbed my tired eyes and walked on. Tired after an all-night march, I slowed my walking pace and the angelic choir started to sing again. I mustn't stop, I mustn't stop, I repeated to myself. I fell into the sand. The angelic choir sang beautifully and I didn't want go anywhere anymore. It seemed to me that where I was, it was the most beautiful place in the world. There was no need to hurry anymore. The angels sang and I swayed to the rythm of that beautiful music. I fell asleep. After a while, I woke up aboard a Robinson R44 helicopter. The fear of waking up at height was replaced by the calmness of finding out that I was safe. To my right sat an african pilot in a tracksuit. When he saw that I was awake, he grinned, and wished me a good morning, he asked me to put on my headset so we wouldn't have to yell at each other. "Your friend called. He could not find you. I'm from Swakopmund.” I smiled backed and watched the landscape below us. But then I remembered the three lost Spaniards. "We have to fly back," I muttered into the headset's microphone. I searched for my things, but I didn't have a backpack with the map with me. “Backpack on the backseat. But I can't return. Only one way paid!" “You don't understand! There are three people back in the desert, Spaniards! We have to find them!” “Why they not with you?” “I wanted to help them, but they didn't want to move nor drink. They just sat and hallucinated about an angelic choir. I actually heard it too." "When?" "I met them yesterday, shortly after noon." "Too late. If you don't drink, you die." I saw the roofs of Swakopmund on the horizon and our helicopter landed on a small concrete heliport. My friend was standing there, waving. When we landed, I got out of the cockpit and Emmanuel, the pilot, handed me my backpack. I searched inside and pulled out a crumpled map of south Africa. There was a circled place in the Namib desert where I assumed I was with the Spaniards yesterday. I handed the map to Emmanuel and told him to try to find them. "Pay," Emmanuel frowned. I pulled everything I had left in my wallet after my hitchhiking adventure and looked at Johnny, my boat friend, who worked in Johannesburg as a fisherman and captain of a sightseeing boat with which, poor man, he was waiting for me on the shore, and when he couldn't find me, he paid Emmanuel to search for me. "What if I brought you my fish, free of charge, what do you say, Emmanuel?" "Okay," Emmanuel grinned, starting the helicopter. Then, Johnny and I, talked about our adventures, he talked about his fishing on near the shore and I talked about hitchhiking and my adventure in the Namib Desert. When Emmanuel returned after two hours, he climbed out of Robinson's R44 with a grim expression and handed me the IDs of the three Spaniards. "It was too late, all dead, covered with sand.


Lacey choked and sputtered as she struggled to keep her nose above the cold water. An arm like a bar of iron around her upper chest tightened. She fought against it, against the current that slid along her back and down her legs. “Stop, dammit,” a stranger’s voice rumbled from behind. “I’m trying to save you.” The words sank in. He claimed to be her savior, not a killer. She forced herself to accept that as the truth, for air flowed into her lungs as she relaxed and let him pull her through the water. But why was she here, drowning? And where was “here”? Last she knew, she was at ASU, heading for the math building. Lacey looked up at the cloudless blue sky, where the morning sun still slanted low from her right side. Not much time had passed. Perhaps she would not be too late for work. Her stomach churned as she considered how crazy those thoughts were. Voices came into her waterlogged ears, a meaningless clamor of fear and anger. Hard hands grabbed her arms, lifted her from the water. She was laid down ungently and immediately shoved onto her side. Pressure on her rib cage. Fingers prying at her mouth. She pushed them away, then slapped at the other probing hands. All she could see as the nearest would-be Samaritans pulled back was a row of feet and knees. Lacey managed to sit upright in the puddle growing larger on the smooth cement under her butt. As she attempted to piece together what had happened, her entire body began to shake. She hugged herself, clothes soaking wet, draining off her body heat. A woman demanded, “What were you trying to do?” Another woman, in a soft and warm Southern accent, said, “Nothing is so bad you should kill yourself over it.” “But I wasn’t,” Lacey protested through chattering teeth. “I couldn’t have. I must’ve just slipped and fell in.” The encircling crowd shifted, revealing the placid, glittering expanse of Tempe Town Lake. The sun shone over the Mill Avenue bridge, only a few minutes’ walk from campus. What had happened during that missing time? She had no recollection of anything since passing the high glass walls of the engineering building. Blackout? Seizure? “You walked straight into the water,” the first woman said accusingly. “Then you didn’t even try to swim. You just went under.” “Call 9-1-1,” someone suggested. “No, don’t,” Lacey said. The Southern woman said, “You have to go to the hospital. You nearly drowned.” “I’ll go. Just not in an ambulance.” She had no faith in emergency rooms. She would need to pinpoint her symptoms first, figure out what tests would lead to a diagnosis, then get a referral for anything her own doctor could not do. Lacey got to her feet. She ignored the avid, critical stares. “Where’s the man who rescued me?” Everyone looked around, but he had vanished. Tears of guilt and embarrassment stung at the back of Lacey’s eyes. She had not even thanked him. She borrowed a phone and called her boss to say she would be late. “An accident,” she offered as her excuse. In response to his questions, she said she was unhurt, simply shaken. “Take the day off,” her boss ordered. Relieved that she would not need to face her coworkers until she came up with an explanation, Lacey gave him a sincere thank-you before disconnecting and handing the phone back to its owner. She fended off well-meaning offers of assistance and walked on stiff knees toward the nearest bus stop. Once she got home, she would make a pot of sweet tea, take a shower, change clothes, turn on her computer, and figure out what was happening to her normally sharp mind, which had served her well for twenty years on the staff of the School of Mathematics. Accumulating bits of knowledge and piecing them together like a quilt always soothed her nerves. Lacey did not make it home. She came back to herself leaning out into the air high above one of ASU’s broad pedestrian malls, her back arched and arms outstretched as though to fly. The concrete below undulated like a mirage in her panicked gaze as she attempted to regain her balance, windmilling her arms, pressing her heels into the roof with every taut muscle in her legs and back, willing herself not to fall. Once she collapsed on the flat surface and could no longer see the height from which she might have plummeted to her death, she began to shake and sob. Breathing became difficult in the small gasps her tight chest allowed, the very air surrounding her thick and oppressive. Somewhere in her mind, she felt a ghostly presence. Even as she became aware of the lurking phantom, it drew away. Had it saved her? Don’t go, she thought to it, squeezing her eyes shut against the tears. Immediately it vanished, like a soap bubble carried too long on a breeze. Lacey wondered whether anything had been there—or if she was simply hallucinating. A manifestation of her own mind, perhaps, that had brought her back to awareness before she could harm herself. She crawled farther from the edge, then sank down again and rolled onto her back. She let the sun bake her skin and dry her clothing until her trembling muscles stilled. The exotic perfume of jacaranda blooms, jarringly normal, drifted past on an errant breeze. Eventually, not daring to remain longer in the sunlight, Lacey rose. She explored the rooftop until she discovered a narrow maintenance access that must have been the way she had gotten onto the roof. At the edge of the building, she hugged the shadows, reluctant to emerge into the flow of people passing along the mall. The Health Services center stood nearby, its sign proclaiming compassionate health care for students. She considered begging them for help, for she no longer trusted herself. One near-death incident was worrisome enough. Two . . . that was a disturbing trend. But she was not a student. Lacey swallowed in a vain attempt to dislodge the lump in her throat and looked around her wildly. Perhaps she could make it to the Catholic Newman Center, or the Methodist church on University Avenue, before awareness slipped away again. She felt conspicuous standing in one place so long, but the rooftop struggle had both frightened and exhausted her. Could she ask someone—anyone, a passerby, a kind stranger—to accompany her to the transit center or the hospital and hold her back from anything crazy or dangerous? She let out a half-strangled sob, realizing how that would sound. What, then? What could she do? Lacey had no idea. This time when the darkness released its grip, Lacey came back to herself with a train bearing down on her, its brakes screeching as people screamed from the passenger side of the high fence built to keep them safe. This time she was not alone. That other presence was in her mind with her, battling for control. She understood at that moment what her body had somehow known, that the phantom meant to subdue her will. No, worse, it wanted to replace Lacey, the disorderly human mind, with its own pure intellect. Her muscles, under neither her control nor that malevolent other’s, kept her frozen in front of the oncoming train. The drowning, the fall, the train, she realized dimly, were all to drive out this other mind, the one that intended to claim her physical body. Lacey tried to beat back the presence, tried to smother it, shout at it, but it kept advancing. Then her body began to act, taking a halting step toward the fence, then another, and another, passing over the low light-rail track and into the narrow space between the train and the fence. Unable to stop the physical movement toward self-preservation, even if she wanted to, Lacey found herself being collected together from the various parts of her mind. The presence—perhaps some kind of AI gone rogue—was downloading itself, she gathered from alien information swirling around her brain. Her body had been interrupting the downloads by placing itself into danger. Each time, she, Lacey, was rebooted. But the AI had learned. It would keep her fleshy envelope alive. Lacey fled to a part of the brain where she sensed the least activity. The center of emotions, she guessed. What use would an AI have for such? There she hid, compressing her consciousness into the tiniest of spaces, hoping to go unnoticed while she observed and learned, waiting for her chance to emerge and reboot her human mind.


It was a bright mid-day in Lagoon town, but for blind prince Johnson, one of the three surviving sons of King Warrior of Lagoon, it was mid-night because all he could see was darkness. But since the mind is like a window, he looked through his mind. He often sat in front of his father’s chamber, observing every movement. * From his mind, he could see the beautiful flowers in his father’s compound which he touched every morning when he woke up, and the birds which pitched on the flowers, whistling so loudly every morning. Besides this, he also saw the company of people who visited his father, the king every day either to pay homage to him, to bring a letter which was usually a notice of war from another king, or to lay complaints to the king about people who offended them. From their voices, he could distinguish if they were men or women, or if they were boys or girls; and by their footsteps, he knew if they were many or few. By experience, he had devised a means of knowing what time it was at any moment, he kept the time in his mind and therefore knew the time when every action took place. Moreover, blind Prince Johnson listened attentively whenever his father the king described lagoon and everything in the town to his guests who often visited him from other towns on certain festive days. King Warrior often boasted to his guests about how beautiful Lagoon was, the number of people in the town, the rich cultural heritage of the people, the positive attributes they had, their beautiful tourist sights, the natural resources found there, and every other thing they needed to know about lagoon town and blind Prince Johnson, having heard this description over and over again, created a picture of lagoon town in his mind. Though he was blind, he saw lagoon through his mind’s eyes! The townspeople often got amazed whenever the blind prince described the town of lagoon to them accurately as though he had seen it before. They only knew that his eyes were closed but never knew that his mind was open! * Five years later, King Warrior fell sick and died. The entire town of lagoon was in deep sorrow, they hardly believed that their great king was dead. The king’s family was not left out, though the king died at a good old age, yet they expected him to live a little longer at least to have the few black hairs on his head turn white like the rest. However, they were consoled because as his name implied, he fought many battles and won them. He restored many properties belonging to Lagoon town which was forcefully taken by their enemies who fought and overcame the kings who reigned before him. * After the king’s burial, there was an urgent need for a new king and according to the law of Lagoon town, the new king must be one of the sons of the former king, and whichever of them that would be crowned king must be proven to know the town very well in every sense of it and must be proven to possess enough wisdom to rule the people. So the elders of the land and the kingmakers appointed a day in which to invite the sons of the late King Warrior for an interview to appoint a new king among them. * On the day appointed, the three sons of the King Warrior, Prince Edmond, Prince Walker, and the blind Prince Johnson took turns to stand before the kingmakers who asked them questions concerning Lagoon town and concerning the vision they had for the town if they finally became king. The first to be interviewed was Prince Edmond, the first son of the late king. When asked about the history of Lagoon town, the kingmakers were stunned to see that he knew nothing about Lagoon town. He had lived abroad all his life and only managed to visit home once in a while and then flew back overseas. Concerning his vision for the town, he said he was going to rule the people from abroad and replace Lagoon’s rich cultural heritage with that of the western world. Upon hearing this, the kingmakers laughed him to scorn and immediately disqualified him. The next in line was Prince Walker, the second son of the late king. He was able to give an accurate history of Lagoon town and also described the town accurately. But concerning his vision for the people, he said he will return all the properties his late father took from their enemies back to them as a way to make peace with those towns. Then all the kingmakers laughed again and disqualified him. At this point, everyone had given up, though they knew that one person was still left but what can a blind man see when even those who had their sights could see nothing? However, they proceeded to interview the blind Prince Johnson just to fulfill all righteousness, but they started changing their minds when Prince Johnson started giving the history of Lagoon town and also described the town and everything in it beyond the normal. His understanding of the town and everything about it was exceptional and the wisdom he exhibited was top-notch. No one believed he was blind. He proved that he knew the town even more than those who had seen it physically, however, he only saw it through his mind! Finally, when asked about his vision for Lagoon town, he behaved like a wise man by simply saying the opposite of the things his brothers had said that disqualified them. He started by promising to live fully in Lagoon town and work with able-bodied men to carry out the things he had in mind which were to improve Lagoon’s rich cultural heritage and make it among the best in the world and to fight all the remaining enemies of Lagoon town just like his late father did, and to bring home even more properties than his father brought to the town. These sayings pleased the kingmakers, this was certainly what they wanted to hear. They were most impressed by blind Prince Johnson’s boldness which showed that he was brave, as well as the deep wisdom that accompanied his words. He never spoke like he was blind and the manner with which he spoke was evidential that he could see, irrespective of where he was seeing from. So the kingmakers straight away took late King Warrior’s crown and placed it on blind Prince Johnson’s head, together with the king’s robe and beads, and crowned him the new king of Lagoon kingdom! They also gave an order that no one should refer to him anymore as being blind rather, he should be referred to as ‘The Visionary King of Lagoon!’ The entire town was already waiting outside with shouts of jubilation and all manner of musical instruments, singing and dancing as they waited for their new king to be presented to them. The celebration increased greatly when King Johnson stepped out majestically to see his people. They all went and bowed before the king and the king cheerfully received their accolades. * In less than two years of reigning in Lagoon, King Johnson succeeded in bringing the picture of Lagoon which he had in mind to reality, and it turned out to be that the picture he had in mind was far more beautiful and excellent than what Lagoon looked like before he became king. He sent and cut down the trees and bushes which surrounded the town and made it look primitive. Then he created new roads in some parts of the town, planted beautiful flowers everywhere, and reconstructed the markets in the town. He trained thousands of warriors who fought and conquered all their enemies and brought back their enemies as slaves, together with their cattle, silver, gold, and farm produce. These slaves were used to till the ground and plant all manner of crops in large farmlands across Lagoon town. In a short while, Lagoon was known as one of the greatest exporters of agricultural products in the area. They were also respected for their highly trained intelligent and brave warriors who never lost a battle and who have left all their enemies and neighbors alike in deep fear. At this point, it was very clear that King Johnson had positively transformed Lagoon beyond recognition. This transformation drew the attention of the government to the town. The government built modern schools, hospitals, companies, and firms in the town and other investors also came and invested in Lagoon. If only King Johnson’s eyes had opened even if it was for a minute to see what his mind had done! However, there was no need for his eyes to open because his mind was already open and had seen everything his eyes should see and God had helped him to achieve them. * On the day the government was to commission the projects, the governor expressed shock over the rapid development that took place in the town since the emergence of King Johnson as king of Lagoon, he further stated that he was most surprised by the fact that King Johnson was physical blind and was expected to underperform but rather, he did more exploits than all the previous kings of Lagoon who all had their physical sights. He, therefore, noted that physical blindness is better than mental blindness because, those who are physically blind can still see, but those whose minds are blind are blind indeed! King Johnson was given an award of excellence by the government and he ruled Lagoon for many years and did more exploits to the amazement of all the people.


They hadn’t really spoken in years beyond the neutral, ‘Pass the butter?’ or ‘Seen the remote?’ You know, just the facts, Ma’am. Remote indeed. Imagined slights had met stern challenges and the marriage slid downhill from there. The smoldering tangle of ancient wounds and recriminations defied restoration to simple civility. An un-squelched, unashamed sharing of thoughts and opinions could not happen. A guarded truce remained. Gone were the days of affectionate banter. Oh, for a wry story or an ironic observation. Over years, unresolved anger and long term resentment had calcified into unmoving trench warfare. Who knew faces could actually freeze like that? It defied belief they’d raised two more-or-less sane kids to adulthood. At this late date, attempts to ‘have it out’ threatened to dredge up remains of battles best left submerged. Neither remembered how or why it turned sour. They’d found a balance. Maybe not a happy one, but it worked for the most part. The calendar’s pages kept turning. It hadn’t always been so. They’d had fun. They’d played. Had Bill pulled away? Had he wearied of feeling rejected? Had Angie sought other’s affections after sensing his disinterest? That no longer mattered. Thankfully, the slog from morning coffee to lights out had replaced those exhausting early struggles for ‘who’s on first.’ Each carried wounds. Each bore scarred emotional. Each elected for less drama over risking the shards of peace talks gone south. And, after all, they knew each other. Does anyone expect that the new face with better moves doesn’t also wield a mean right hook? ~ They rode to the airport in pre-dawn silence. Safety motivated the silence that ruled their lives. Why was she was going? It was expected. She hated flying. He knew that. It wouldn’t look right, her not being at his work conference. So there she would be. When he announced the trip, he said she’d have her time. He’d be busy. He wouldn’t be in her way. As if ‘her way’ was the consideration. She would show her face and withdraw, presumably to socialize with the other wives. Did the other wives live lives like hers? Surely, the husbands, like interchangeable Lego blocks, shared much in common. At the airport, Bill parked the car and pulled the carry-ons from the trunk. He preceded her through security. Angie found him reading the paper in an end seat at the terminal. She parked herself near-by. They were early. They didn’t talk. She left. He paid no mind. Shops were opening. Magazines begged for attention. Coffee beckoned. It would be a long flight strapped in a seat. She needed to walk. At the kiosk, ahead of her, a family offered a peek into another life. The youngsters made random orbits around their parents who bantered the nutritional advantages of pumpkin-spice vs. caramel flavored coffee. It felt like a bad Hallmark TV movie. Yet Angie didn’t think they were acting. Angie ordered hers black with a splash of half-n-half. Cappuccino for Bill. The line crept. What if they boarded before she returned? Would he notice? Or wait? Carrying her coffees she headed back to the terminal where Bill read his paper. Feeling overwhelmed, she sat and watched the steady stream of travelers pass. ‘ Just for a moment ,’ she thought. ‘ Where does everyone go in such a rush? ’ She realized they actually knew their destinations. She was the clueless one. She couldn’t fathom how she got there today. Not to the airport, but her whole life. Had she sleep-walked for the last twenty years? And awakened to this? She returned to the terminal. When she handed Bill his coffee, he smiled. “Thanks, Ange. I thought you’d flown the coop.” “And here I doubted you even knew I’d left.” “Oh, I know. I always know.” They got in line for boarding. Bill sipped coffee and stared in silence. Angie wondered that so many can be herded through hours of mind-numbing tedium with nary a peep of protest. “It astounds me how millions of travelers actually reach their destinations. They munch handfuls of pills to quell their anxiety, so they can spend hours in line after line. All to strap themselves into sardine cans for hours more.” Bill murmured a vague agreement. She continued, “It’s insane to worry. I’m sick of it.” Bill stowed the carry-ons overhead. They steeled themselves for the long flight. The commotion died and everyone found their seats. The plane taxied onto the tarmac. Announcements were made. Soon, they were airborne. The flight went as expected. Bill watched the clouds drift by. Passengers distracted themselves with snacks or videos. No place for the claustrophobic. Angie dozed. Turbulence jarred Angie out of her stupor. Bill noticed her stirring. “Point of no return…” “What?” “Terminology… We’re closer to our destination than to the starting point.” She tried to make sense of this. ‘ What an ominous name for such a mundane concept. ’ She looked about. A stewardess made her way down the aisle collecting trash. Another jolt sent the stewardess into passenger’s laps. Screams erupted. A sickening groan from the fuselage matched the yaw in the plane’s axis. More screams. A passenger sailed over heads, hit the bulkhead and fell. Lights flickered into darkness. More screams. Oxygen masks dangled. The Captain’s voice on the intercom broke up in static. Chaos bred chaos. The plane shook like it would come apart. Lights flickered. Now smoke. No place to hide. The plane leveled. The vibration subsided. The lights returned. The intercom crackled. Groans replaced screams. A baby squalled. Angie grabbed him. Their eyes met. She’d never seen him afraid. Shouting through the hysteria, she gestured. “You called it, Bill. No turning back. Don’t leave me alone. Cling to me. Not the past. Share the future we have… seconds? Minutes?  Can we do that? This is us. Here and now. Be kind. Be kind! Our lives depend on this. Reclaim us. Each moment is lost. But we’re not lost. We’re together.” She lost her voice. Bill looked at her tenderly. “Of course.” She rasped, “Promise?” He covered her hand with his and nodded. Things were calming. The smoke began clearing. She looked about in amazement. Would they be okay? A smatter of applause passed through the cabin. She leaned in. “I swear Bill, if you go back on your word, I’ll see you in hell.” He looked her in the eye and said, “Not if I see you first.” They fell into embrace, laughing until tears flowed and kissed as if it were their first.


Mission Control looks just like it does in the movies. Lines of desks aimed at giant screens, scores of scientists and engineers chatting excitedly in front of their own smaller monitors. Across the room from me, Carlo Costa leads a gaggle of excited VIPs from workstation to workstation, waxing lyrical about the Nautilus Probe and the billions of dollars he’s spent on all this. ‘Remember, Darsha,’ my boss whispers in my ear, ‘we need the pH and any dissolved minerals as soon as the raw data arrives.’ It’s the fourth time he’s reminded me in as many minutes. ‘Got it,’ I answer, not quite managing to keep the irritation from my voice. I was brought in two days ago to replace an oceanographer Costa fired and my boss is still terrified I’ll screw up. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, may I have your attention please.’ Mission Control falls silent as Costa speaks from the centre of the room. ‘We didn’t find evidence of life on Mars,’ he begins, in what is clearly his big rehearsed moment, ‘but Saturn’s moon Enceladus and its subterranean ocean was the next best bet. ‘And so it became my dream to go there and see what we might discover, and that dream is about to become a reality. We should receive the Nautilus Probe’s transmission any moment now, and then we will make history as the first humans to ever peer into the depths of an alien ocean.’ A round of jubilant applause follows, even the trio of stoic military guys in the corner clap. As the applause dies down, all attention turns to the biggest screen at the front of the room. There are audible gasps as the word *Searching…* turns to *Receiving Data,* and then excited yelps as a shaky image forms. I see the tech guys at the front of the room working furiously to clean it up. ‘That’s the view from the Nautilus’s camera,’ Costa exclaims, as the image sharpens. ‘It’s filming the bottom of the borehole, it should leave the ice and descend into the ocean any second now.’ A few moments, a lot of bubbles and the Nautilus Probe is finally submerged. Slowly, it moves through the water, filming everything its searchlight illuminates. The first one is a shadow, a murky shape in the water at the extreme of the camera’s reach. No one dares speak as the Nautilus inches towards the object, but all that changes once its searchlight illuminates her pale, contorted face. A woman’s face. A human woman wearing a flowery summer dress. ‘What the hell?’ one of the VIPs beside Costa cries. ‘Look,’ someone else shouts, ‘there are more.’ And he’s right. The probe’s camera is panning now, and there are others; men, more women, even children. All of them floating lifelessly in an alien ocean 750 million miles away. ‘Is this some kind of sick joke, Costa?’ a musclebound VIP demands. For once, Costa is speechless. None of the scientists know what to do either, most of them are just staring open-mouthed at the screen. ‘Look at that one,’ one of the tech guys shouts. The probe’s camera has taken aim at a man. A man wearing a tunic, cloak and sword belt. If it wasn’t so utterly impossible, I’d say I was looking at a dead Roman soldier. ‘Cut the feed!’ The three military guys are storming towards the middle of the room. ‘Cut the feed now!’ The screen goes black as the trio reaches Costa. ‘I’m General Fraser,’ the oldest of the trio announces, ‘and I’m retroactively declaring everything you all witnessed on that screen as Strictly Confidential.’ ‘But … the media,’ a shell-shocked Costa manages to whimper, ‘they’re waiting to see what the Nautilus filmed.’ Before he answers, General Fraser nods to one of his subordinates. The younger man heads towards the door. ‘The press will be informed that the mission failed due to technical difficulties,’ Fraser declares to the room at large. Then he says something about risking nationwide hysteria to Costa, shutting him up. As Fraser speaks, I notice his subordinate take up a position by the door. He’s blocking it. Blocking it so we can’t get out and tell anyone what we saw. Before I really know what I’m doing, I stand. ‘People need to be made aware of this discovery, General Fraser,’ I contest, my boss looking horrified below me. ‘Surely you can’t be insinuating that we cover it up?’ ‘Young lady,’ Fraser responds, ‘please return to your seat. This is now a matter of national security.’ ‘What we just saw goes way beyond one nation,’ I say. ‘Everyone on the planet needs to know about this.’ ‘She’s right,’ a VIP I recognise as a TV talk show host says. ‘I started out as a journalist, there’s no way I can sit on something like this.’ ‘May I remind you all,’ General Fraser booms, over the growing murmur of the room, ‘that you all signed a legally-binding agreement. It explicitly prohibits—’ ‘Screw some piece of paper,’ I snap, as I sense the room beginning to side with me, ‘the world needs to know that there are a bunch of dead people floating around in an ocean humans have supposedly never visited before. However this happened, it changes everything.’ ‘The girl’s right,’ the TV host says. ‘I’m calling my old newsroom right now.’ As she pulls her phone from her pocket, General Fraser nods at his other subordinate, the one still standing beside him. In an instant, he unholsters his sidearm and puts a bullet in the TV host’s head. Her body crumples to the floor and the room is stunned into silence. ‘Anybody else keen to speak to the media?’ the general asks.


“So close. So fucking close.” Jerry looks up at me. “We’ve talked about this, Lucy.” He sighs. “Right,” I chuckle. He picks up a cigarette and twirls it between his fingers. “We should have known the second they come up with this contraption,” Jerry says evenly. “What? That was a masterpiece!” I exclaim,” They took their already short life and made it even shorter!” “Of course that would make you happy,” Jerry sighs. I wheel my creaky chair over to him. “I’m sorry for suggesting the plague.” Jerry’s eyes bore into mine. Finally, he makes a sort of half-smile. “It was a good idea. Can’t expect it to work too many times though.” Jerry and I are something of an enigma. We had to have come from somewhere; but the truth is, neither of us remembers. I guess we’ve just been around too long. The first thing I remember is watching our ball of dirt get hit by another ball of dirt to break off a third ball of dirt. All we know is we don’t want to be alone. You have no idea how hard it was, watching this dull globe rotate around a glowing globe for eons. Sometimes, we wandered on the surface of the desolate planet, just to break the monotony. One particularly gloomy day on the shores of a long-forgotten ocean, Jerry had a stroke of genius. “You might like this,” he told me. Then he sent a lightning bolt to hit a tide pool. I burst out laughing. “How’s that any better than the meteor shower two rotations ago that didn’t even have the decency to hit us?” Jerry sighed. “You’ll be eating your words soon.” And eat them I did. Only later did I realize that Jerry, my soft-spoken, stoic complement in this dark void, had created life. He’d given us companions and, more importantly, hope. Or at least a way to make some. The first organisms we coaxed out of Jerry’s organic tide pool were little more than moving dust. Slowly, we helped them join together and work as one, and before long we had our very own aquarium. Satisfied, we sat back and watched our planet ripple with life. Jerry looked over at me, amused. “Now we have pets.” For a while, it was captivating to see our creations roam around their cage until the sweet release of death. But, eventually, we grew bored with these creatures. Spending their days eating and making more creatures, they were no better than the dust they came from. What does it matter if they choose to eat and procreate? Debris still absorbs other debris and makes new debris. I rapped my fingers on the railing, falling ever deeper into the abyss of loneliness. We had hoped for a cure, but hope is a fickle creature. What little purpose it gives, it can easily take away. Leaving you with nothing but the memory of better times. “Jerry, can we try again?” He looked over at me questioningly. “We can do better than this,” I stated, gesturing towards our creatures. “What’s the use?” Jerry sighed, exasperated. “It’s not like we can make another one of us.” “How do you know, Jerry? Maybe we just haven’t tried hard enough. Maybe we’re just one step away from our salvation?” He shrugged. “Yeah, sure. Not much else to do here anyway. Let’s go evolve some sea creatures.” And so the dinosaurs began to walk our world. Oh, how I loved our creations. Sure they had the same flaws as their ancestors, but they felt alive. Looking into their eyes was like looking into Jerry’s. They had emotions and desires, playing and fighting just as we did. Finally, I felt we had made something real. But even then, I felt boredom encroaching on me. Our scaly companions did the same thing over and over. They didn’t seem to live like we did. What was it that made us different? Made us want to have something more? I stood up. “I’m done,” I growled. Grabbing the nearest chunk of space flotsam, I sent it hurtling down. “NO!” Jerry cried out. But the crater had already appeared on the surface. Jerry grabbed my shoulders and shook me hard. “What did you do! We spent ages building our world!” I shoved him away. “And for what! So you can feel important? Feel like you did something good for us?” I pointed at the dying planet. “That was nothing to us. Nothing. We’ve been lying to ourselves.” At that moment, I saw fire in Jerry’s eyes, harsher than the burning world below us. “You might be lying to yourself. But I still hope for better.” He left me there, watching the fires burn out. He didn’t come back. But the planet refused to die. The skies eventually cleared of smoke. Seedlings sprouted from the ashes. Eventually, I even saw small mammals, curious creatures Jerry and I had left to their own devices, scamper through the saplings. I saw Jerry playing with them, tossing sticks and feeding berries. They looked happy. Somehow, I had an inkling that they enjoyed living. Something about them felt different. At that moment, I saw fire. I felt such hatred for these mammals. Why? I thought to myself. I shook my head and growled. I don't care why. I remembered playing around with ice in my early days, a pastime of mine in the days before life. Reaching into my rage, I covered Jerry’s precious land in ice. But Jerry didn’t budge. Furry mammals began to roam the world, defying the freezing curse. I countered by sending relatives of our first creation, vile specks I liked to call disease. But even then, Jerry’s animals thrived. And back and forth we went, killing, creating, killing, creating, killing, creating, until one day Jerry came to me carrying two wooden containers. He sat down in front of me. “Please sit.” I snorted and began to leave. “Please, Lucy.” I heard something in his voice, something that made me want to stay. I sat down. “What do you want, Jerry?” He offered me one of his boxes, which was filled with frozen slush. “I call it ice cream. Try it, it’s good.” I took his offering. “So is this why you’re here? You found a new recipe?” He smiled, infuriatingly happy and at ease. “It’s made of one of my plants, an iris flower.” I stabbed at the ice cream. To my surprise, it tasted amazing. “This isn’t bad,” I grudgingly admitted. Jerry smiled, bringing a spoonful to his mouth. For a while, we ate in silence. I set down his gift, polished clean. “Just to be clear, I’m not stopping because of your frozen flower stuff.” He laughed, a pure sound I hadn't heard in centuries. “That’s not why I’m here.” “Then why are you here?” He pursed his lips. “Lucy, how do you think your antics are affecting this planet?” “I imagine they’re causing you a lot of trouble.” Jerry grinned, leaning back on his hands. “Actually, it’s kind of helping me.” I stared at him, utterly confused. Jerry laughed. “You are definitely troublesome. Yet, I’ve found your disasters to be quite useful in ironing out the kinks.” “What do you mean?” “Well, every calamity kills many, that’s true. But, that’s taught me to create variety. Then I find the best traits and incorporate that in my work.” “So I’ve been… helping you?” Jerry stood up. “That’s why I’m here. I’ve been working on this species. They’re incredible, solving problems like nothing I’ve seen before. They even look like us. I need you to help me make them better. They have potential, I can feel it. Will you join me?” He extended his hand out. I slapped it away. “Are you joking? Why would I help you? I hate your creatures. Insignificant and useless, all of them. You can’t possibly believe you’re doing any good for us. At the end of the day, they’re false hope. Can’t you see how bad it is to cling to hope when it's so clearly hurting you?” He put his hand on my shoulder. “I know you. You’re lonely. I’m lonely too. But, I really believe in them. Why are you resigned to be alone? We can do it, you and I. I know we can. Just give this a chance.” I felt that emotion again in his voice. The one that made my eyes water. Hope, I realized. How did he still hope? I remembered feeling hope for the first time, staring at that tide pool long ago. That hope had turned to anger and rage during my deadly game with Jerry. But, I began to feel that rush, that passion again. His hope was infectious. And so began the story of humanity. Jerry and I had a grand time with this species. Boredom was a thing of the past. Before long, we had created societies, filled with humans going about their existence with just as much vigor as us. We walked among them, loving every moment of our creation. Humanity held the rage we felt. They fought viciously, like Jerry and I. Every once in a while, the humans needed a check. That's where I came in. I sent every manner of disaster: plague, earthquakes, drought. Jerry took the pieces and put them back together better than ever. We didn’t always succeed in our goals, but humanity had a way of adapting to anything. Maybe that came from us too. Which brings us back to the present, looking down on a slowly self-destructing world. It looked like humanity was on its last legs. I sigh. “We may have to start over.” Jerry shakes his head. “No, they’ll be fine. We have to hope,” he says, his voice trembling. It’s incredible that Jerry and I still held out hope in our pathetic creatures. We’d watched them commit unspeakably heinous atrocities and impossibly shortsighted blunders. But, then again, in this bleak void what else is there but hope? I tried filling it with hatred, but hope seemed to be the only thing that works. “It seems that's all we live for. Hope. Hope for a better future. In all the time we’ve lived, the only constant has been hope.” Jerry’s lips quiver. “I can’t,” he says shakily, “I just can’t hope anymore.” I turn to him. “Jerry, I didn’t mean it like that-” “Then what did you mean!” He yells. “Jerry don’t-” “Even humans know it! Existence is suffering… oh Siddhartha, my child, you don't know the half of it.” Crying, he looks up at me. “Who are we to inflict the suffering of existence?” “Jerry-” “Why do you think so many take their own lives? They feel the void eating away at them. Loneliness and pain, that’s all there is. Humans think their creators are gods, but we’re just as human.” “Jerry that’s enough. Was this suffering? Making humanity, making life?” He just looks at me, hopelessness filling his eyes as his tears trickle out. “Jerry, we’re alive. Before all this, we were just existing. You’re right, that’s suffering. When all that exists is the void, there’s nothing but suffering. But we made something out of the void. We don’t just exist. We choose to live. We choose to hope.” He closes his eyes, tears spilling between his eyelids. “Our precious humans know this too. They make their own existence worth living. They hope for a better future, and then try their damndest to make it so.” His tears do not stop. “Do you know what makes our humans different from the floating dust we started with? It's the desire for more. The desire to do more than just exist. They choose to hope for more. I need you to do the same” I took his head in my hands. “We don’t just exist. We live,” I repeat, “We hope. Don't give up on them just yet.” His eyes finally open, cloudy with moisture. Wiping away his tears, he looks me in the eyes. He smiles slowly at me, like he was trying for the first time. “Alright then. Thank you. Lets try this again.


The afternoon was fresh and dry. A new smell of vitality and growth seeped from the forest around him. It was a very welcome change from the week of rain that Fred and Wylma had endured. A week of persistent drizzle that soaked to the bone and gave no chances to dry anything out. Everything he owned was in various states of saturation. Bitter experience had taught Fred to protect at all cost his sleeping bag, but it had also succumbed to the persistent rain and now felt clammy to the touch. Of course Wylma, his 2 wheeled companion, his accomplice on this around the world epic, did not care a wit. The leaden sky continued to threaten rain, but optimistically Fred laid out a pair of socks and two pairs of underwear on top of his panniers in the hopes of drying them in the last kilometres before finally making camp. It was the first chance to do so in what felt like an eternity. The cool wind cooperated, but made Fred shiver with each gust, eventually compelling him to fish out his windbreaker. Summer in Scandinavia was not for the warm blooded. The trail Fred was following was not often used. The grass in the wheel ruts, and lack of any fresh tire tracks made that obvious. He guessed he could camp anywhere here without being discovered. Just as he began to scope out potential camping spots, a single trail split off from this path. He spontaneously took it. The trail wound invitingly amongst the trees deeper into the forest. Suddenly it ended at a small clearing at the foot of a low cliff. The cliff faced east and was blanketed in shadowy secrecy. The forest obscured most of it’s face, but Fred could vaguely make out a darker patch on the rock wall. Now off the bike, he scoped out the site more carefully. The clearing was muddy and wet making Fred ruefully expect yet another night on sloppy ground. As if clairvoyant, the clouds began to release their first tiny drops of rain again. We're going to have a wet night again, he thought. Fred turned his attention to the cliff. Perhaps an overhang may offer some respite. This is when Fred discovered the cave mouth in the cliff wall. Hardly much higher than Fred was tall, but wide enough to drive a car through, the cave promised a night of respite from the rain. For all his bushcraft skills, he didn't know much about caves. This gave him pause. As if embittered by his discovery, the clouds redoubled their efforts and the rain became more substantial. Fred pulled Wylma, and his now wet laundry into the darkness of the cave. The darkness was oppressive till Fred donned his head lamp. The vestibule of the cave offered an ideal space to camp with level ground and space enough for a small fire. But the rear of the cave vanished into murky darkness that the torch could not penetrate. Fred let out a yelp as a casual call to any other occupants. The sound slowly echoed back to him from the bowels of the earth, hinting at the cave’s unseen depths. A tingle of trepidation ran down Fred’s spine. He put the darker thoughts from his mind as he set up for the night. Fred was proud of his own self reliance and fortitude. That pack of hungry Hyenas in Senegal, nor the visit from a curious lion in Tanzania were sufficient to perturb him, so he was adamant a mysterious cave in Finland was not going to get under his skin. He set up a clothes drying line between his tent and Wylma near the warmth of the fire. Soaking socks, wet underwear and a saturated fleece got prime sites near the heat. Once Fred was satisfied with the setup, he ventured out to collect more dead wood for the fire. Now back and settled in, he admired the camp which was ideal despite the slight smokiness. He sat back to begin dinner. As he peeled an onion, Fred noticed the dancing flames were being played by a faint breeze. Air was being sucked into the cave ever so gently. The smokiness somewhat dissipated, but it stirred his dark imagination again. He pushed the congealing dread out of his mind. He came up with a dozen logical explanations to mollify his imagination. The breeze intensified culminating in a short gust, accompanied by a deep rumble emanating from somewhere deep underground - then stillness. Again Fred paused and struggled for calm. After a few silent minutes he resumed his meal preparations. Fred had become quite the camp gourmet. Tonight his favourite tuna mornay was on the menu, with the obligatory surprise ingredient, usually whatever came to hand on the road, this time it was some delicious mushrooms he found in the forest that morning. Now sated, he sat back and lit a cigarette. This was the only vice he carried with him from his previous life. A solitary cigarette, as a desert of sorts, he told himself. Sitting in the stillness, Fred noticed the floating smoke emanating from his lit cigarette was heading for the cave opening. It was too faint to detect otherwise but just as his thought concluded, he could then feel the breeze, ever so gentle. It carried a strange odour. Both earthy and rancid. Not enough to be intolerable, but unpleasant nonetheless. The dying flames of the campfire were now being whipped up by the rapidly strengthening draft. Fred’s tent and laundry now whipped about in it. He began to collect the washing up from his dinner as the wind became a gale whistling toward the cave mouth. Fred’s clothes were now off the line and the tent pitched upward catching the draft. He tried to hold it all together till he lost his footing leaning into the powerful tempest. His tent and clothes were all now gone. Whisked away in a whirl of wind. Wylma was being sucked out as well while Fred hung on to the rock wall leaning against the tempest. The wind palpitated in strength a few times then vanished. He stood there panting from his excursions and beginning to take stock when the reversal began. The wind began to howl in through the cave opening and down into the dark unknown depths. Fred reversed his grip on his rock and held on for dear life. The gale kept intensifying. He could feel his grip starting to give and the power of the rushing air was magnifying. Fred’s hold finally gave way and he was sucked into the inky depths. *** Fred was sucked into the very earth. There was no chance to catch a handhold to arrest his progress. There was no fighting the sheer power and violence of the moving air as it dragged him deeper. The whirlwind began to lose its potency as Fred managed to grab onto a protuberance. His hand had found a hold but it was not solid rock, it was more like hard rubber coated with slime. He didn't have a great purchase on it, but soon the wind completely vanished. Fred was bracing for another reversal but it did not come. The odour was stronger here and the air was warmer and more humid. Fred stood up and thanked his luck when he found the headlamp hanging around his neck. Now he could see, but what he saw shocked him. The cave was close to round in shape. The walls were covered in lumps and pustules all covered with wet slime of various colours. Some were oozing yet more ugly goo. Fred knew from whence he had come but after some steps, the tunnel had split off in wildly different directions. There was no way to be sure of the path out. This is when he noticed the first oddity. The ground was not solid. It felt underfoot like the canvas of a boxing ring. Fred checked his pockets. Half a packet of cigarettes, a lighter, and his spoon is all he had. There was nothing he could use to mark his path. A curiosity took him and before he thought it through, he scraped the wall with his spoon. The surface gave way like the skin of an overripe peach exposing a gelatinous body laced with white stringy chords and muddy red tissue. The momentary calm was broken when the entire tunnel shuddered, then the air began moving rapidly inward again. Fred threw himself to the ground, searching for purchase in preparation for the next tempest. It did not come though. It was at this point that he noticed the pain. The palms of his hands began to tingle uncomfortably. He wiped them on his pants but the irritation intensified. A similar hot stinging sensation was beginning to spread on one side of his neck. Fred felt the skin and noticed it was covered with the mucus. He began rubbing it off with a mild panic as the pain gradually grew. He began to walk. He took the left tunnel, then the right, then left again, then he stopped. It all looked the same. Fred admitted to himself that he was thoroughly lost down here. After a few minutes of wandering the familiar breeze reappeared. He braced himself again but it was not as turbulent as before. He kept moving. Moving felt like progress, no matter the direction. An ominous theory began to germinate in his mind about the nature of this cave. All his logic told him that he had somehow found himself inside something that,... is alive. With each passing step, he saw things that corroborated his theory till he could no longer think of any other plausible explanation. The paths he took all seemed to go downwards. Even when he backtracked, that sensation of descending remained. It all added to his disquiet. The slime had worked its way onto his flip flops caking his soles and making each step treacherous. He took a tunnel which suddenly dropped precipitously. Fred slipped and slid a long way down the bumpy slick tunnel till it levelled out again. It proved impossible to climb back up that tunnel. His panic was bubbling, but still contained. On he went, deeper and deeper. The tunnel opened into a chamber not much larger than a garage. It was shaped like a bubble with a puddle of gunk collected in the bottom. The surface pulsated in slow motion. It was at this point Fred became certain about his theory, He was inside some terrestrial leviathan. A dark despondence descended upon him. A sense that he may not live to tell this tale. The air was hard to breathe here. Heavy, and wet. Fred suddenly felt very tired and slumped down against the sticky wall and concentrated on taking some deep inhalations, but no matter how he tried, he could not catch a satisfying breath. A funk descended upon him fogging his mind, thickening, until he was no longer sure of where he was. *** Huge powerful limbs, too many to count, grasped, tugged and pushed at the earth, the rock, and the roots all around him. He slid his body through the sticky wet ground. It offered a strange resistance. He was not tunnelling in the earth, but rather moving through it, or it moved through him. A very strange sensation. He stopped. Quiet. A dim low rumbled modulated from somewhere far away. An earthquake, or a movement of a large mass. Grinding over rock and rubble. But there was meaning in the sound. “Ayagom, I feel you”. Fred knew what the sound meant but he did not know how he knew. He drew into himself and shuddered. A strange pattern of rumbling sounds emanate from him.

“Ugora, my friend, I hear you” Fred answered, but without intention. Did I say that? he thought to himself As happens in those rare moments when you become aware you are dreaming, Fred knew he had somehow become psychically absorbed by some other entity. An immensely old being. He could sense a memory spanning back millennia and more. Spans too fantastic to comprehend. Back to the age of the scaled monsters, and warm oceans. Ugora was close by, by Ayagoms reckoning anyway, but this was still hundreds of kilometres away. Fred did not like it. Not one bit at all. He was powerless, but conscious. Looking upward, but not with eyes, he saw a low canopy of tangled roots from countless trees spreading out in all directions. Pulsing and communicating. A hum of intelligent exchange, like a busy Chinese restaurant. Moods and emotions, both brilliant and bleak in constant flux. He was under this cobweb ceiling, in a serene cocoon of dirt. This was not Fred’s world and he knew he had to fight to return to his own, but he lacked the vitality to act. I need to wake up from this , he said to his dreaming self. He tried to move, but he was just a silent passenger enveloped by this colossus. He tried again and felt a tear in his mind. A rend that he now pushed against. He felt a slow disorienting topple ending with a suffocating sensation. *** This brought Fred back. He was lying face down at the bottom of the chamber now, drowning in the slime. He jerked his head back and spat out the goo and gasped for air. He strained at the lack of oxygen, and fought back the drowsiness. He then reached into his pocket, drew out the spoon and with the sharp end, stabbed the floor, over and over again. The membrane gave way and the shank sunk deep into the flesh with satisfaction. The tunnel shuddered, and a gust picked up threatening violence again. The air freshened and Fred finally got a gratifying breath into his lungs. Immediately energised he stumbled up toward the chamber entrance, Fred was out of the now strengthening wind and noticed the chamber expanding. The wind tapered off and the chamber could grow no larger. Fred chose his moment and stepped out of its entrance into the main tunnel and braced himself. The reversal was shockingly powerful. It hit him like a solid thing. Fred became immediately airborne flying through the tubes, bumping and skidding off the sides. The speed was terrific. He slid past a section of the cave wall that was now harder and sharper. Then with a loud popping sound he exited the cave mouth and flew through cool night air, clipping a branch and finally landing heavily in a muddy puddle. He was in the clearing outside the cave now. The sky was showing the first light of dawn but the rain still held sway. In the dying light of his headlamp, Fred spotted his tent tangled in some bushes and Wylma caught in a tree branch. Other debris from his campsite littered the immediate area. On hands and knees, he turned and looked at the cliff face. In the steady rain, it was just a black band, and black backdrop behind the forest cover, preventing the first rays of dawn to penetrate. Fred’s disorientation was dissipating at the same time the burning sting on his face, neck, arms and feet reasserted itself. He wiped at the sticky gelatinous gunk with muddy waters but it resisted his efforts reminding him of slug slime. He looked down at his hands that were covered in it and saw the skin had turned a very dark colour. He pushed an enquiring finger of one hand through the slime to the skin of the back of his other hand. It was rough, and hard. Like… rock! Something was growing on him. He studied his hands again and with concern and noticed his fingers lengthening, in fact his hands were growing. Still on all fours, He looked down and the ground was moving away from him. The trees and bushes were shrinking. Wylma, still stuck in the tree, was now at the scale of a toy. The ground under his knees and hands felt soft and spongy. He picked up a clump and squeezed. The earth melded with him, some of it leaking out from between hard unyielding claws. His fingernails now looked like power shovel buckets. With childish curiosity, he scooped out a hole in the wet earth the size of a refrigerator, and held it aloft effortlessly. He dropped it and then with fingers extended like a spike, he drove his arm into the earth. His arm descended into the ground with a delightful satisfaction. The dawn was brightening, Fred could seem more of the cliff face, and the cave entrance. But this was no cliff, this was Ayagom, the resolute. One of the great Mokit. Stewards of this planet. Slayers of the Gkruts, the destroyers of life. Fred was surprised by the overwhelming feeling he now felt - it was pride. Fred then realised Ayagom was speaking to him: “Ufrot, you are me. I am you, join us.” At this, Fred looked at the earth under him in a new light. A light of comprehension. He then noticed a buzzing hum of background chatter. It was like hearing a poolside conversation while submerged underwater. Fred knew what he must do next. His arm was still buried. He balled his fist, taking a grip of the very earth itself and drove his head and other arm into the ground. His body slid fluently into the ground. He could now hear the conversations clearly and was gratified he was not alone. It was a gentle melodic ebb and flow of the Mokit hivemind. It was hypnotic. The turmoil and tribulations of life were now profoundly changed. Fred glanced one last time upward to see Wylma, alone, caught in the tree branch. He wondered if he would ever see her again. “I see you Ayagom!” Fred said, embracing his new reality.


“I can't do this anymore,” Carly said “I need to get out of this room. How do you people live in this heat? It´s too bloody hot, it’s unbearable.  46c it says on my phone today.  I swear I have never been this hot in my life. I can't breathe, I can't sleep. The sweat is pouring off me. Last night the aircon went off, there was a mosquito in the room – bastard bit me. I got up at 4am and had a cold shower – I still couldn't get back to sleep. I thought you lot had money, why am I in this shitty motel anyway, there are tons of swanky hotels on the Strip with decent aircon and room service?” Kevin looked across the room at Carly. “It´s July, its Vegas what do you expect? We are in the desert. You get used to it. Just be glad you are not in Louisiana where I grew up. There it´s 37c but 80% humidity. At least here the humidity is 10%, so cool when you get out of the sun. And in answer to your question. Hotels are dangerous. People see things. Most staff are on low wages, easy to bribe. Lots of entrances and exits. You've seen the movies where people dress up as maids and steal key cards. This is crappy but its anonymous, as long as you pay for the room no one bothers you. Anyway, we have one or two more days here and then that´'s it.” “Where are we going then,” Carly said. “I don't know exactly, Petra is organising it. I should know tomorrow when she calls me.” Carly lay back on the bed and got out her phone. She was scrolling through it and he could hear music and laughter. Probably some stupid cat videos people were always sharing. Kevin tried not to think about Louisiana and his upbringing. As soon as he could he joined the police force and went to the big city. He hated the bayou and the small minded people in his town.  Firstly, he worked in Baton Rouge and then, as a result of an exchange organised by the federal government, ended up in Washington – where he had been for 7 years. He loved the city. The drug busts and gang warfare didn’t faze him a bit. He liked putting bad guys behind bars, he felt like he was making a difference. Then he worked undercover. He liked that a lot. More flexible but more dangerous. These villains were off the scale. A stark contrast to Baton Rouge, where the villains were mostly good ol’ boys who had too many bottles of bud and decided to go out in an air boat on the bayou and shoot themselves a few gators for dinner. Sadly, a lot of the time they ended up as the meat, as they were so drunk they fell overboard, and the police had to pick up the pieces, literally. He smiled to himself at the memory, as Carly looked up from her phone and said: “I’m hungry, can we eat something?”

“Sure, what do you fancy, - Italian, Asian. There is a great pizza place on the strip; they have a wood fired oven. I will go out.” “I’m so fed up being cooped up here; can I go with you, just this one time?” She pleaded. “Carly, you know that’s not possible, not yet, it´s not much longer. Once you have the op you will have more freedom, but for now it’s not safe. They are out there and they know what you look like.” “I don’t want to have a nose job,” she said “My nose is fine just as it is, can’t I get an extension or something to change the shape without surgery.” “Because it works, changing your nose shape changes the rest of your face. You will be amazed what a new nose and new hair style can do. You will have a choice, the surgeon we use is very good, and he will listen to you.” “I’m scared,” she said, “what if it goes wrong, what if there are complications? I don't want to be sick and I don't want to be looking over my shoulder for the rest of my life!” He wanted to say, “Surely you thought this through before you did it. You knew it would be hard. These people don't just walk away. You are a target and they are after you. They have a lot of resources and a long reach. You may not make it.”

But instead he said “I had a client once. He squealed on a Colombian cocaine gang. After surgery he was reborn in Toronto where he ran a small bookshop. A few years later we checked in on him. He was happy, smoking a pipe with a goatee beard looking very bookish. He had a wife and 3 children and the Colombians never had a clue. It´s a big world out there, hiding is not that difficult.”  He felt a pang of compassion for her. All alone in a strange country, running for her life. No one to trust – or at least she probably felt that way now, after what had happened in Florida. Petite and dark haired she was not his type, but she was vulnerable and it was his job to protect her. “Carly, I have been doing this for a while. It’s not a risky operation with a good surgeon and good aftercare. You will be out the same day. We will find you somewhere nice to recuperate, I promise.” “Petra said she had been doing it for a while also, and look what happened there.” “That’s why we are going down the surgery route. It will give you more freedom, more chance of making this a success.” “I don’t have a choice, do I?” she said, finally. “Pepperoni pizza it is then” he said, swiftly changing the subject. “Lock the door and don’t answer it for anybody. I will swing by reception also and report the aircon unit.  You know where the gun is. Use it if you have to. I will phone you when I am standing outside.” She felt like saying she wasn’t hungry anymore but in an instant he was gone. # # # # # # # # The door slammed behind him and she ran to the curtains to watch him get in the car and drive off. Kevin was tall, with dark hair, broad shouldered with deep brown eyes. Even wearing jeans he didn’t look scruffy. He worked out, no doubt about it. You could see his chest muscles through the tight white t-shirt and his thigh muscles pushing through his jeans. The way he spoke, that southern drawl, was really sexy, and she was sure he must have had a hard time of it in Washington, where they would have viewed him as a hillbilly. Still, he had stuck it out for 7 years according to Petra. Must be good at his job. Maybe it wasn’t so bad being “babysat” by Kevin after all. Nothing in her life had turned out the way she had hoped it would. She had a good job that she enjoyed, with great career opportunities, until that fateful day. The future that she had planned out, career, family a couple of children, was now a melancholy memory. Her life had taken a different turn, now she had to take one day at a time. The previous episode in Florida had shaken everyone up. Petra was at a loss to know what had happened to blow her cover. The Feds concluded that someone working for the airline had tipped them off, no other explanation. She had been identified and followed. Investigations were ongoing, but meanwhile she was in Nevada, just south of Las Vegas trying to start her new life AGAIN! She switched on the tv and flicked channels until she found an old episode of “Colombo” the scruffy detective from the 70’s, who is actually a whizz at solving murders and bringing the bad guys to justice. The ads kicked in after only 5 minutes, just when you were getting in to the story - it was the same on every channel. She would just have to learn to live with it. So many things here were different, not just the tv. But, it was in her interest to adapt, and adapt she would, her life depended on it. Her phone rang. It was Kevin. “I’m outside, look through the curtains, then let me in.” She did that and saw him standing there with 2 enormous pizza boxes and a giant bottle of coca cola. She opened the door and closed it quickly. There was a draught of air; it was like someone had aimed a hairdryer at her. The pizzas smelt delicious, her hunger pangs returned. “You don't want to be out there. It´s brutal. Worse bit is the heat wave is going to continue for a few more days. It's the hottest day of the year so far - we just have to hang in here!”

There were beads of sweat on his forehead, he wiped them with the back of his hand. She watched him as he opened the boxes and brought out napkins. No cutlery, or plates, she forgot that Americans ate pizza right out of the box. He poured her a glass of coke with ice and sat back in the chair; looking right at her he scooped up an enormous slice and shoved it in his mouth. She watched him eating it. He managed not to spill a drop on his pristine white t-shirt, she knew she wouldn’t be able to do that. Especially when she was nervous. This was their third night together, their third meal. They were still sizing each other up, trying to establish boundaries. Her heartbeat had accelerated but she tried to keep calm and helped herself to a slice. It was pepperoni with slices of onion topped with paprika and chilli peppers. She didn’t want coca cola but drank it anyway. It was cool and took the heat away. She already had feelings for him and hated it. She didn’t want those feelings, especially not now. Not when her life was in utter chaos. They demolished the pizza. “So tell me,” he said, wiping his chin, still no stains on his t-shirt “why did you do it. Why testify, you didn’t need to, you could have just gotten on with your life?” “Didn't you read the file?” she said, picking up a bit of pizza with her fingers that had fallen into her lap and was making a greasy stain on her jeans. “It’s all there.” “Yes, but I wanted to hear it from you. They don't put everything in the file, what was your motivation for doing it?” She sighed. “At the time I was angry, I wasn’t thinking clearly. They out of the door with the jewellery trays but then one of them turned round and came back. We were all lying face down on the floor. He went over to Mr Cohen and shot him in the back of the head. He didn’t need to do that, they were escaping and it held them up, but he did it anyway.  I looked up and he had taken off his hood so I saw his face. He didn’t need to kill him. It was so unfair. Mr Cohen was a good man – she started to sob – he gave me a break, I was training to be a jewellery designer, not just a shop assistant, he gave me a break. I decided then and there that they wouldn’t get away with it.” Kevin thought for a minute. “Was Cohen wearing a kippah, the small head cover that Jews wear?” “Yes, he always wore it, why?” “We think the shooter was a Palestinian who grew up in Beirut. Lebanese father American mother. He used to work for us but then he was turned. He works for terrorists now as a gun for hire. Mostly the PLO. The money from the heist would have gone to them.” “I thought it was odd that the FBI would be interested in a jewellery heist gone wrong in London. They were at Scotland Yard during my first interview.” “We had to neutralise him, he was becoming a real problem. He knew far too much. But these people are vicious and vengeful, but nothing we can't handle.  What about your family, they must have had something to say?” “To be honest, I wasn't that close to my parents. My dad was dead so Cohen was a father figure, and my mum and I were always arguing, so no love lost there; but I will miss my brother and sister terribly, we were very close. They tried to talk me out of it, but I am stubborn I suppose and wouldn'´t listen. I think they have some mad idea about coming to join me in the future, when things have settled down a bit.” “Won't happen, sorry. Don't get your hopes up. It's got to be a clean break.” He said. “I knew it would be hard and tried to visualise myself in my new life but it different when it happens, it’s much harder to come to terms with. Everything is so different now and I can never go back.” Her voice was starting to break. He put his hand on her shoulder to steady her as she was sobbing. He gave her his handkerchief and she made a lot of noise blowing her nose and wiping her eyes. “Coffee?” he said. She nodded. He grabbed the empty boxes and went into the kitchenette. “I got more ice, and more drinks. In the fridge if you need them. When I speak to Petra we will get the date for the surgery. We won’t be coming back to this motel after; we will go somewhere else, closer to Vegas. Everyone is having surgery in Vegas, you won't look out of place with a bandaged nose.” He tilted his head to one side and smiled at her. She couldn’t resist smiling back through her tears. “Oh and one other thing, we really have to work on that accent!” 2,397 words


We stepped off the boat and headed up the jetty towards the island. Immediately we saw two guards straight ahead. My feet stuck to the ground, the air chilling around my limbs. “What do we do?” I whispered. “Act calm. See what happens,” Alessia responded. We walked up to them, waiting to be questioned. However, as we passed they merely nodded and smiled. Now that we were on the island the restrictions of movement no longer applied. Instead, we were free to explore. We picked up our pace and scurried past the few rows of trees lest the guards change their passivity. We quickly found ourselves on a street lined with tall brick buildings on either side. Ahead of us, a few hundred metres away, we could see the prisoner being led through the town, the guards accompanying her. “We should keep our distance,” I said. “No shit.” Alessia rolled her eyes. We began slowly following them; our eyes pointed to the buildings around us, but the prisoner and the procession kept in our peripheral vision. “I thought you were against these little adventures anyway,” I said, raising an eyebrow. “I am when they’re just for fun. But, I don’t like being tricked, and I don’t want to go back to Runar without any idea of what they’re up to. We need to have something on him.” As we walked through the town, I was struck by how similar everything seemed to Tima Voreef. The elegant buildings with their large glass windows loomed over the street, the electric lights illuminating the gravel path below. I passed a building with a picture just like the ones I had seen affixed to the walls on Tima Voreef. A picture of a hand holding a spanner stood above bold red text. *Keep the wheels turning. Industry is vital for Ruthogrey Landfall.* Our walk felt like a dream. As though everything around us was just the smallest bit different, slightly out of place, and at any moment reality might shift back and we’d land back on Tima Voreef. I assumed during the day the streets would be as filled as they had been back on Tima Voreef. However, with the daylight gone, the bustle had left. Instead, pedestrians slowly wandered down the streets in ones or twos. Some enjoying a warmer than expected evening with a loved one, others slowly dragging their bodies home after pulling an extra long shift at whatever job they had. The street curved gently before opening out on a large square, where three wide streets met at a public courtyard - our own, one opposite, and one to our right. On the fourth side of the square, to my left, a lofty stone building stood watch over the three streets. The top and lowest floors of the building had windows, but between there was solid grey surface with a mural painted on top. Four electric lights, one at each corner, shone onto the mural. On it, was a painting of who I assumed to be Philomena Rubio, the president of Ruthogrey Landfall. In the corner of the mural, I could see the same signature that was on our paper. She gave a stern, maternal smile to the citizens in the courtyard. Long, blonde drapes fell down her back, contrasting her bronzed skin. Written next to her were the words “We will prosper from your efforts.” Even the murals contained an odd mirroring: Joan Moreno’s brown curls replaced with the golden straight lines of Philemona Rubio; a thank you for efforts made replaced with a thanks for efforts to come. But the ideas were the same. Alessia tapped me on the arm and nodded ahead. Off in the distance, the guards and prisoner stopped outside a large white building. Heavy wooden doors opened, and they stepped inside, disappearing from view. The doors shut once more, a thud echoing down the street. We could follow no further. We traced their route until we could see more of the building. It appeared to be some kind of a compound. Thick metal bars guarded the windows of the four-storey building. A wall at waist height ran along the roof, and I could see two guards observing the movements below. “Well, we’re not getting in there,” I said. Alyssia scrunched her face and looked around. She scanned her surroundings, until stopping on a building just before and opposite our target. It was an office block with glass windows stretching up four storeys. In the artificial streetlights, the building reflected back a stained version of the white compound. “Come on.” Alessia tugged on my arm. “I have an idea.” She pulled me towards the building, her quick footsteps scraping across the gravel road. She walked up to the door and pulled on the handle. It was locked. “You were planning on going in there?” I whispered, looking around in case anyone noticed us. “Uh huh,” she replied, reaching into her pocket, her hands held close by the handle. There was the muffled sound of the door jamming in the lock before the metal clicked and the entrance swung open. Alyssia walked through. “You coming?” I made one final check of our surroundings, before scampering after her inside. “You can pick locks?” “Not well. That lock’s more broken than picked now. But, I know a bit.” Alessia squinted in the gloom before heading for a staircase at the back of the building. “Where’d you pick that up?” I asked, struggling to keep her pace up the stairs. “My dad taught me when I was a teenager. Passed the time when bored on a boat.” “Any other skills I don’t know about yet?” “You’ll find out when you find out.” Alessia turned to face me, a wry smile on her lips before she disappeared up the next flight. As we climbed, less and less light penetrated the stairwell and we ascended into hastening dusk. As we reached the seventh flight of stairs, I could feel my thighs aching with each clamber. I had never been in a building as high as this one, and although I had walked up many hills, the steep ascent of the stairs quickly exhausted my energy. We reached the top floor and Alessia walked through to the front of the building. Grey light crept through the wide windows, giving just enough illumination for us to navigate our way past the desks and chairs to the exterior, where we could look out over the street. I moved hesitantly towards the window, before I remembered the view outside. Thanks to the bright electric lights, we could see out from the darkness, but those looking out at us could only see their own reflection. We were invisible. We watched for a while. On top, the two guards continued to half-heartedly monitor their surroundings. Occasionally, they stopped to walk along the top, cross paths, and stand where the other had been stationed. We waited, counting as the guards made their slow back-and-forth, lingering for some change in the pattern. Tired of standing, I sat cross-legged on the floor, my eyes ready for something, but being unsure of what. Then a light in one of the top-floor windows came on. I could see into a small office. There was a desk. On one side, a luxurious leather-bound chair, and on the opposite three smaller, but still comfortable-looking seats. A woman and a man walked in. The woman wore smart black trousers and a matching blazer. She had smooth olive skin, and long, curled, brown hair. I was struck by the odd familiarity of her face, as though I knew here, even if I couldn’t give her a name. I couldn’t make out what they were saying, only see their movements. The man gestured to a cabinet at one side of the room, the woman nodded. He walked over and took out a bottle and two glasses, pouring a clear liquid into them both. He pushed it across the table as the woman sat down on the comfier side of the desk. The man sat down opposite her and they spoke while the woman rummaged through the drawers in her desk. She found what she was looking for and left it open. Then, without breaking in conversation, she lifted her hands to her head, and removed the wig of brown hair, revealing a perfectly bald scalp beneath. My breathing paused and my eyes narrowed, my sights transfixed by the beautiful skin of her head. The man was unphased, and he continued talking, as the woman reached down to her desk and pulled up a long, straight blonde wig. Then it clicked. “No fucking way,” I said. “What?” Alessia said turning to me. “No. Surely…” I cut myself off, the words unable to keep up with the swimming thoughts. “What?” Alessia repeated, louder. I stood up as quickly as I could. “I need to check something. To be certain.” Alessia followed me as I marched out of the room and down the stairwell. “Do you want to tell me what’s happening?” Alessia called out, four or five steps behind. “In a minute. I just need to be sure.” I walked outside into the street. The cool night air bit against my flustered cheeks as I marched back up the road from where we’d come. My fists clenched, angry frightened blood creeping to the surface, turning my palms red. I leant into the stiff breeze, ignoring the frigid air stinging my eyes, until till I was back at the town square. I stopped and looked up. The large mural of Philomena Rubio stood before me. The olive skin. The long-blonde hair. The same woman who was in the office. The same woman who minutes before had been Joan Moreno, president of Ruthogrey Landfall’s sworn enemy. “It’s her.” “Wait. No?” Alessia said, beginning to catch up. “Yes. They’re the same woman. The two islands are run by the same people. We didn’t transport a prisoner. We just smuggled in the president of Tima Voreef.” “But why?” Alessia said, tilting her head, looking at the portrait. “Why fake the standoff?” “Have you seen these islands? Everything they’ve built? That war is what built all of it.” A sudden instinctual rage flooded my veins. I closed my eyes, suppressing it until I could locate exactly where it came from. “It’s Kadear all over again. A fake promise that galvanizes everyone. Just a different lie. It’s the same fucking con.” I let out a frustrated groan as my head tilted back to the sky. Alessia walked up to me and placed a hand on my arm. “We should get out of here. Back to the boat.” She pulled on my arm to shift me away from the mural. Slowly my legs complied, and we began heading back to the boat, Alessia still pulling me by the sleeve. “This whole place is built on the same lie,” I said. I looked up to the great buildings. Suddenly a fit of laughter overcame me, and I burst out into a snigger. All that intimidation, all the grandeur, now seemed strangely comical, like a child putting on a deeper, meaner voice. The curtain had been pulled back. That tension that weighed in the air had dissipated, and now I felt giddy. “Will you keep quiet? They haven’t been suspicious of us yet, but I’d like for them to not be.” “There is no war,” I said, unsure of my own smile. “Yes. But their guns are still very real,” Alessia replied through gritted teeth. She yanked on my shirt sleeve. The jolt forcing an exhale, and my laughter disappearing with it. We walked the rest of the way in silence until we were back on the boat “Well, we have our leverage,” Alessia said. I didn’t respond. Instead I headed to the nearest crate I could find, sat down, and buried my head in my hands. “You okay?” Alesia said, sitting on the side of the ship. I leaned back, returning my gaze to the stars for answers. “It’s a little close to home. These two islands. All these people. They’re living the exact same life I did before I found out the truth.” “Kadear is a long, long sail from here. This isn’t Kadear.” Alessia said, folding her arms. “I know it isn’t. But… it feels the same. The trick. I’m just repeating it. Alessia nodded. “What do you want to do now?” “Sail. Get out to sea. Away from this.” Alessia pulled herself back off the side of the boat. “We should probably check in with the Deer Drum lot anyway. Can you get the front?” I forced a smiled and pulled myself to my feet. I walked over to the rope at the front of the boat and untethered us from the island. As the currents pulled us slowly out to the sea I looked back on Ruthogrey Landfall and the buildings that dotted my view. I wondered how many people lived on the island, and how many of them ever had a sleepless night frightened, afraid of the coming war that would never arrive. \ Next chapter 2nd September (nb.


The decrepit vagrant limps into the gas station and the three customers in line immediately recoil from the stench. They leave a wide berth and avoid eye contact, as if she is Medusa, her long, greasy blond hair really a nest of snakes. Perhaps they simply don’t wish to acknowledge the gaunt woman, for doing so would also acknowledge unpleasant truths. She stands at the door for some time, taking in the store and its patrons. No one bothers to calculate exactly how long she stands there; no one risks meeting her gaze. After a half minute or incalculable eons, Medusa takes her place at the end of the line. Hands in the pockets of her stained and tattered jeans, she waits patiently until it’s her turn to approach the world-weary man behind the grimy, sticky counter. He makes a point to not sully his hands by coming in contact with the residue of a thousand different people that sits on the surface in front of him. While empires rise and fall, the second-hand of the clock above the register makes a full rotation, and it’s finally her turn. “Can I help you?” the queasy clerk asks, as politely as one can with a fetid snake nest barely two feet away. Medusa frowns while her right hand fumbles in the pocket of her ragged hoodie. The clerk begins to repeat his question, but is cut off by the barrel of a Colt M1911 pointed directly at his mouth. The dead-eyed Medusa plainly states her desires: “Give me all the money in the register.” She follows this with an incentive for the petrified cashier: “Or you’ll die.” It is only now that the customers behind her pay her any mind. A man lets out a loud gasp; a woman utters expletives to no one in particular; others remain still in shocked silence. All except for a man coming out of the bathroom, the roar of the fan deafening him to the occurrence on the sales floor. It takes a single eternity for him to assess the situation and, tickled that his wife’s usual protests about “that thing” were demonstrably moot, removes his concealed Beretta M9 from the inside of his jacket. He’s been waiting for a moment like this all his life, and he relishes it as he carefully aims at Medusa’s head and bellows out his own request and motivation, “Drop the goddamn gun or I swear to God I’ll shoot!” Medusa jumps, clearly startled, and begins to turn herself to the unexpected counter-offer. She absentmindedly keeps the gun aloft as she does so, and doesn’t have time to realise her mistake. In no more than a few seconds, two loud pops break the tension, and Medusa’s face receives two new holes. She crumples to the ground, her hair now clearly snake-free. The veritable Perseus rockets himself over to the body to secure the wretch’s weapon, but freezes after picking it up. A small but significant detail, one unknowable to anyone not brandishing it, jumps out at him: her weapon lacked the heft of an actual M1911. No, he realises, this was just an airsoft gun, the barrel tip painted to complete the illusion of fatal danger. Several more details come to his attention: the half-rotted left foot and its assault on the nose; the dirt and grime of the street which covers her body like a second layer of skin; the desperation and sadness in her now lifeless eyes. The Perseus recalls the stories he’s heard of homeless people committing crimes, severe legally but petty in reality, looking to go to prison so they can get medical treatment, or a bed, or even just a meal. The realisation hits him like a bullet.


The Night Mare comes with the fog. I’d heard the story all my life, we all did. “Best be sleeping when the Night Mare comes. Just one glimpse and she’ll steal your soul and carry you to the mists!” So the Elders used to say by the hearth’s fading fire to scare wee ones to bed. As a child, I’d sometimes hear a horse squeal in the night, but I couldn’t tell you if it was one of ours or The Night Mare. Not until morning broke and some poor soul from the village lay dead in their bed. Everyone feared her until we became the elders scolding wee ones by firelight. After all, she was no more than a story. I coughed hard, my chest aching something fierce. The deep rattle had been my companion since last winter, one that worsened in the damp. “…will be… the death of me,” I laughed to Ulfrik, my youngest son. “This blasted weather.” He smiled but a twinkle of fear lay in his eyes. My cough, a wretched sound, must keep him awake at night but he was never one to complain. Like his father, a stoic thing. Comfortable grief massaged my heart. “You should get to finding a wife,” my frequent reminder coaxed a sigh from my son. “I won’t be for this world forever.” Ulfric frowned. “I think you’ll be with us for a while yet.” “What of Ragna? She’s handsome enough if a bit dim.” He tried to suppress his smirk. “There’s Ingun. A set of hips on her!” “Mother!” Ulfrik scowled but his lip dared to tremble with a laugh. “Lost your chance with that girl from Holmslond. Pretty one… what was her name?” My son focused on the fire, prodding it to keep from answering. “Grelod? Greiland?” “Gyrid,” he said softly with what only a mother could recognize as regret. “That’s it, Gyrid. Lovely girl, but I am glad to be spared her *dreadful* laugh. Like twigs snapping - *Hack hack hack!*” He could hide his guilty grin no more while I wore mine wide and proud. “You’ve better things to worry on than who I might take for a wife,” he said. “Like myself? Bah.” The girls haunting rattle-laugh found friends in my chest. The company of them made my breaths ragged. “You’re a good son, Ulfrik, to care for a mother so sour.” He stood from his stool by the hearth and passed me a warm blanket. “Gladder still that you’ve noticed my plight.” We laughed, lightly, and I coughed again. For a time, he held my hand as it was, wrinkled weather thing in his strong grip. The chill air slipped in through cracks unseen and cooled the room. Ulfrik took to bed easily while I lingered by the fading fire. A fearsome neigh cracked the air like a whip. For all my years, I had heard the Mare’s cries in the night but always turned back to my sheets and slept restlessly. I did not this night. With the blanket about my shoulders, I opened the door. The fog rolled from the trees urged by a chilling wind. From its waves, she danced in and out of the shadows, her shape glistening in the moonlight. A beast too tall for a man to break, she seemed like the night itself; powerful, brisk, and inevitable. She trotted in place and I felt bidden forth, leaving blanket and hearth at my back. Strange, though, for I did not feel the cold. With her steps, she wheeled the fog forward, her head high and proud. She nodded and knelt before me and my eager fingers slid into her silken mane softer than any fur. “It is my time then,” I whispered without fear and, as though she understood, the Night Mare snorted. At my age, it was no small thing to climb atop her bareback, but I somehow found the strength. As the Mare righted, the thick mists coiled around us and I breathed my first easy breath in almost a year. “He is a good son, my Ulfrik. He deserves a good wife,” I told her as we trotted from the hearth and light. “I just hope he finds one that’s just a wee bit sour.” The Night Mare whinnied as a laugh and retreated for the trees. With us, so followed the fog.