Glen was up to bat. The final inning. The score was tied. He gripped the bat tightly. A bead of sweat went down his forehead. He looked over at the other players. If he can get just one of his teammates back home, they win. He starred the pitcher down. He knew his strategy. Curveball. Glen knew he would do it. Glen also knew he might trick him. It was fifty-fifty. The pitcher was ready to throw. Glen’s heart raced. He could feel it in his chest. He took a deep breath as the pitcher pulled his arm back. He started the throw. Glen could see the ball leave his hand. It was like slow motion. The ball flew towards him. Not yet, not yet, not yet. He said to himself. The hairs on his arm stood up. NOW!. He swung the bat. The ball went right past him.

“Stike one.” The umpire shouted.

The pitcher shook his fist in a small cheer. He was taunting Glen. They have had their issues in the past but to Glen, this was personal. Glen took another deep breath. A raindrop landed on his nose. He looked up to see the dark clouds above him. Nothing to worry about. He got himself ready again. This time he will hit it. The rain started to pick up. The pitcher tossed the ball again. Glen swung the bat. This time the bat made contact with the ball. The loud smack roared through the field. Glen dropped the bat. He took his first step and ran for first base. The ball soared through the air. Just as the ball reached its maximum height. A strike of lightning hit the ball. The thunder followed immediately. Glen stepped on first base not knowing about the lightning strike. He made his way to second. The crowd was in disbelief over the event that was happening in front of them. No one had ever seen something like it before. Glen rounded second base. Nothing was stopping him. Third base was the only thing in sight. The mud sloshed under his feet. He made contact with third base “Run it home.” He said to himself. Just a few feet away from home base, Glen lunged himself and slid the last few feet. He stood up and cheered. The coach walked over to him and Glen wrapped his arms around him.

“Glen stop.” The coach said. “We won, why should I stop?” “The ball is gone. It was struck by lightning.”

“Oh. So, now what?” “The refs decided that the last inning is going to be played at another stadium.

“When do we leave?” The next morning, Glen sat in traffic. The cars were moving slowly. Glen kept checking the time. The flight was leaving in an hour. He looked over at the car next to him and saw Chuck. The pitcher for the other team. He was also on his way to the same airport to catch the same plane. It was unusual for two teams to take the same plane but with last-minute flights to the same city, it was all they could get. Chuck kept trying to get in front of Glen but Glen was not letting him in. He tried to ignore Chuck for the rest of the ride to the airport.

When they arrived they had just missed the flight. Chuck was the first one out of the terminal and over to the car rental place while Glen tried to get on the next flight to the other stadium. The next flight was leaving in three days—the day after the game. He was quick to run to the rental agency but when he got there all the cars were rented out.

“This is like some bad comedy movie,” Glen said to the cashier. He walked back outside and tried to call a taxi. As he walked toward the curb, he tripped and stumbled into the road, and a car backed into him. The driver got out and helped him up to his feet. “Are you alright mister?” The driver asked.

Glen stood up and replied. “Yeah, I am fine. Just kind of annoyed that I can’t get to…” He looked at the driver and saw it was Chuck. They made eye contact.

“Look let me make it up to you. Hop in.” “Alright, but don’t think just because we're traveling together means I am going to take it easy on you at the game.” “Ditto.” They got in the car and started driving. Glen looked at the map and planned out places where they could stop for food or rest. The first place they stopped at was a diner. They walked inside and sat at the counter. They sat apart with three seats between them. The waitress walked over and took their orders. Another patron kept looking back and forth at them. “Yall want to sit together? I can move.” Glen took a sip of coffee. “No,” Chuck replied. “You sure? Aren’t you buddies?” The man asked. “Do you know who we are?” Glen asked as he looked at the man. “We’re baseball players for opposite teams. We ain’t buddies.” Chuck shook his head in disappointment. The man looked back and forth at the two. “I can give one ya a ride. I’m headed back to the city today.”

Glen perked up. “Yes, I would. I just have to grab my stuff from the car and I will be ready to leave when you are.” “Well alrighty then. Let’s get to it.” Glen walked outside and grabbed his suitcase. He went to put it in the bed of the pickup but the man stopped him. “Oh, I am sorry there ain’t any room back there. You can put that in the back seats.” The man said. “By the way, names’ Tom.” He stuck his hand out to shake hands with Glen. Glen shook Tom’s hand. Chuck watched them leave before he climbed back in his car. He turned on the radio and started listening to the news. “Police are searching for a man named Tom Clipper. A serial killer on the run. He picks up hitchhikers or will offer rides to strangers. He was last seen driving a blue pickup truck. He is also a known drug smuggler. Do not engage with the suspect.” “Of course,” Chuck said. He stepped on the gas pedal and started following Tom and Glen. When he saw the back of the truck he called the police. “I have a visual on the truck of Tom. You need to hurry because he has a passenger with him right now.” “Okay, the police are ten minutes out. Try not to look suspicious and keep us updated on the location.” The dispatcher replied. Tom looked in the mirror and saw Chuck on the phone. He slammed the brakes. Chuck swerved out of the way. “What are you doing?” Glen asked as he looked behind them. He saw Chuck in the car as he swerved off the road. He then looked in the bed of the truck and saw some bags of weed. He slowly looked up at Tom. He had a gun pointed at him. “Okay, let’s just take this easy.” Chuck caught up with them again. He was parallel with Tom on his driver's side. Chuck pulled his steering wheel over and crashed into the truck. Both vehicles went off the road. The truck rolled over twice before coming to a stop. The weed in the bed busted open and spread everywhere. Glen got out and walked around the truck and saw Chuck. Chuck stepped out of the car and waved for him to come over. Glen grabbed his suitcase and walked over. He looked around at the weed falling to the ground. “It’s like a Ganga Christmas.” He climbed in the passenger side and Chuck sped off. They looked in the mirror and saw the cops arriving at the scene.

They continued to drive through the night. The sun started to rise the next morning. Glen had taken over driving so Chuck could sleep. Chuck started to wake up and sat up in his seat. He looked out the window and the sunrise. “Big game is tomorrow, how much further do we have to drive?” Chuck asked. “Couple more hours.” Chuck looked at his phone. His coach texted him that they had an extra day while they waited for them to arrive. “So we do have a problem. We’re almost out of gas.” Glen stated as he side-eyed Chuck to see his reaction.

Chuck looked at the GPS on his phone and saw that they were over twenty miles away from a gas station. “How much do we have?” “About sixteen miles worth.” “We can push it the rest of the way if we have to,” Chuck said.

They continued to drive until the car stopped from the lack of gas. They pushed the car to the gas station. Chuck walked in to pay for the gas. Glen went to the side to use the restroom. Chuck looked at the snacks and drinks. Glen came back and held the door open for someone. The man put on a ski mask and pointed it at the cashier. Glen ran back behind the shelves. He made eye contact with Chuck who was holding an apple. Glen picked up a novelty plastic cup that was two feet long. Chuck pitched the apple and Glen swung the cup like a bat. He was able to hit the apple and it hit the robber knocking him out. Chuck walked out the door holding some snacks and drinks. Glen placed some money on the counter. “Keep the change.” They got back in the car and drove off.

The rest of the trip they sang together to the radio. After a few hours, they arrived at the hotel. They grabbed their suitcases and parted ways. The day of the game arrived. The crowd watched in anticipation. Chuck took his spot at the pitcher's mound. Glen was gripping his bat tightly. As he looked at Chuck he had some flashback memories about the last two days.

Glen opened his eyes and took a deep breath. Chuck pulled his arm back and pitched the baseball. Glen swung and hit the ball. The ball soared across the field. When the ball reached the top of the arch it was struck by lightning. Glen’s coach threw his hat on the ground in anger. Glen started to run but stopped when the ball was struck. He looked at Chuck. Simultaneously they shouted “Road trip!”


Rat-a-tap-tap. “Psst!”

I look up from my homework towards the source of the noise: my window.     “Psst!” The stranger at the window began to knock loudly.     Squinting my eyes, I could barely make out a silhouette of a head in the dark night outside. Why did I keep my windows open even if I knew I wasn’t going to sleep soon?     “Shhh! I’m coming but stop making such a ruckus! I’m not supposed to be awake!” Slowly and cautiously, I made my way from my desk over to the window on the other side of my room. As I was walking over to the window, I caught a glimpse of the time: 12:18 AM. Dang, I thought. What could anyone want from me at this hour? Maybe someone caught me being awake. My first instinct at that thought was to quickly shut the window and go to sleep. But another part of me suggested that there could be someone in serious trouble, and it nagged me to go and at least check up on that person. “Can you please hurry up? I’m trying to keep myself from falling, I have the tiniest grip on your windowsill and no place to keep my legs since I’m TWO STORIES off the ground!” It sounded like a male voice, and not like my father’s, so it probably wasn’t someone who had caught me. Picking up my pace, I cranked my window further open and took the hands of the person outside. I immediately noticed that they were sweaty and callused, implying that either this guy had spent a lot of effort trying to me, or was in trouble and was attempting to escape. Either way, I knew that I had to help him. The first thing though, would be to get him out of the position he was in right now. I just wasn’t sure whether to bring him inside our house or sneak out and talk to him on the driveway. “Thank goodness you came! I was not sure how much longer I could hold on. I need you to help me. Come outside and follow me.” The tone of his voice seemed more of an order than a request. I was scared to disobey him, mostly because he seemed older than me. That wasn’t unlikely because I was only in 6 th grade and this stranger’s tone seemed gruffer and deeper, sounding like they had already matured. Hesitantly, I replied. “Ummm, sure. I guess I’ll go with you.” In my head, I had planned to ask him some questions and trying to get an idea of where I was going to be taken, but my tongue tied when it was the opportunity to do so. Before I could say anything else, he wriggled his sweaty hands out of my grip (which wasn’t too hard because they were very hard to hold onto) and landed on the grass along the ground adjacent to my house. “You gonna come? I haven’t got all night here,” I heard him say. I could see him just enough through the scarce light our outdoor light provided. I cranked my window open as far as it could go so that I could slide my body through it. I wasn’t that big, so by putting my legs through and sitting on the windowsill, I was able to jump down. I guess I forgot to think about my landing until it was too late though. I must have gotten too much momentum in my jump, because I landed further than he did and ended up on the concrete. Fortunately, I didn’t seem to have any injuries except for a slightly skimmed palm and knee. He came over to me and pulled me up onto my feet. That’s when I got a good look at him. He didn’t seem to be much older than I did, and he had gorgeous blue eyes and the perfect shade of brown hair. He seemed to be very athletic and sincere. Everyone always told me that looks don’t matter, but I knew that I probably wouldn’t be as willing to help someone if they didn’t look as cute as he did. Somehow, he must’ve thought I looked cute too. “I love your dazzling green eyes and your smile. After this is over, we should hang out sometime. That is, if you want to. By the way, you can call me Andy.” Oh. My. God. I could not believe he said that. “Of course, Andy! Oh, I almost forgot, my name is Ali,” I replied, my cheeks blushing. I was so glad it was nighttime, and he couldn’t see my cheeks. “I would love to hang out with you. But first, let me help you with what you need help with.” Suddenly, he started chuckling and muttered something under his breath. It sounded something similar to “ aww, you’re so cute. I kind of feel bad for you.” Even though I was confused on what he meant, I shook it off and started walking out. That’s when it hit me. I was sneaking out. For the first time. My parents weren’t the strictest, but they were definitely not people to let it slide if they found out that their “perfect” daughter was sneaking out, talking to a stranger, and staying up for hours past her bedtime.     I must have gotten very wrapped up in my own thoughts, because I abruptly heard a small van pull up to our driveway. I felt an arm rest on my shoulder, and I looked up to see it was Andy smiling down at me.     But it wasn’t the friendly, caring smile I had seen earlier. This smile had a tone of mischief as though Andy were going to do something evil. Creeped out, I ducked my shoulder out from underneath him and tried to get some distance between me, but before I could, he grabbed my hand and squeezed it. I tried wriggling away from him, but he used the magical soothing voice of his to calm me down and convince me that everything was okay.     “Come with me. I’ll lead you to where I need help. Okay?”     “Alright. Will we be back soon though?”     “I’m not sure. I might have to steal you, you’re super cute,” he replied, winking.     I giggled and let him guide me away from my house and onto the sidewalk. We headed towards the van. I assumed that the van must be a coincidence and he would be taking us past it.     However, we stopped right in front of the black van. The doors were automatic and slid open. These two big men with giant beards stepped out of the car. They appeared as though they were drunk and aggressive. I looked up at Andy, silently pleading to him out of fear. Maybe he would know about all this. But maybe he was as unsuspecting as I was.     That thought was quickly squashed though as Andy let go of my hand, and in return, each of the big men took one of my hands. They laughed.     “You made a good choice, son. She’ll be perfect for this.” With that, they gave Andy a pat on his back, easily lifted me into the van, hopped in behind me, and closed the door.     I looked at Andy’s face once more, hoping he knew what was going on and would be able to save us. Then realized that it was all just makeup. He wasn’t as pretty as I thought he was. He wasn’t as young as I thought he was. He wasn’t at all who I thought he was.     And worst of all, he didn’t really need help. But now I really did.


The light fades in and I see the tide. It touches the shore again and again, in a reassuring manner. The hot, humid clouds waft in the sky and they are stained by the coral sun. It is both warm and cool; the sun bombards the earth around me with no mercy, and the ocean breeze comes in, rehabilitating me, like a nurse in a warzone. I look in the faint distance and I can see a vague outline, an island. I have been there, once. I glance to the right and I see a pier, a boardwalk of sorts. It extends hundreds of feet into the sea and at its end is a diner, a bright, happy and glowing place. It attracted patrons left and right. I remember people used to walk here, on this shore, on this pier, now it all sits, lingering, awaiting it’s next admirer; abandoned but maintained. Down the highway are power plants, extruding their white gases into the atmosphere, before them are patches of nature. Water flows into them and out to the deeps. Grass grows in this sand, like nowhere else. It grows tall and high and mighty, as if resilient against the power plants that tower above them. Birds and animals take sanctuary in these patches. The men from the power plants don’t bulldoze the patches because they are told so, because the birds and animals live there. I step out onto the sand and it burns for a second and then soothes my souls. I step and my feet slip but I keep stepping. I reach the wet sand and my feet sink. I look out at the coral sun and I am thankful. Down the road is a trail. I have walked that trail, from time to time. It tracks under the road, and back up again. It follows the river and into the sea. On the other side of the river is another patch of nature, the largest one. Here, large birds, like herons, thrive, yet they too are towered over. Not by power plants but by homes. The birds see no problem and they continue. I move further, into the water. The water soothes my sunburned legs. I feel my feet travel but I stay put. I see waves coming in, some no taller than my knees and some are up to my waist. One waist high wave sails in and I try to run but the sand seems not to give and the water holds me down. The wave crashes down on my legs as I scantily make it. I laugh, as this must’ve looked amusing. I gaze at the horizon, thinking of all that’s over it. All of Asia is over that horizon, and all of Europe is over that as well, and over that is right back here. In some sense, I was looking at myself, by leering over the horizon, by staring at the reflection on the water, by thinking too much. I wish I could be there again, in the water, by the sand, on the shore, by the highway. Instead, I am elsewhere. The nostalgic longing calls me, but I am put, hundreds of miles from any coast in the near center of a continent. Most days I never hear the call, and some days it rings and rings, so I answer, but as I do so, the line is cut, and again I am put. Recently it has been calling, and calling, over and over again, and even if I could answer, I am more stuck than before. I have all but one piece of that shore; a jar, filled with damp sand. Sometimes I grab it, and smell it, and it transports me to that place. I remember that any place is better than no place at all, and I remember that it is good to have the privilege to be stuck, to be put, because to have no place is as good as dead. I think of the coral sun and I am thankful.


“Accounting tells me you haven’t docketed any pro bono hours,” the Partner said. He was one of the law firm’s most senior partners, and he occupied a vast corner office down the hall from the shitty cubicle where I worked. The Partner only summoned me to his office when I’d done something wrong or pissed someone off. I spent a lot of time in the corner office, getting chewed out by the Partner. “Do I get any credit for all the dockets that my boss deletes? Those have to count for something, at least.” My boss, a three-year associate, docketed more time than any other junior at the firm, and I docketed the least, mainly because my boss deleted my dockets, and re-entered the time as his own. I’d complained about this before, but no one cared. I was a nobody, but my boss wore bespoke suits from Surmesur and shoes from Leone. He golfed with the partners at a private club and ate with them in places too expensive for me to even order an appetizer. So far as the firm was concerned, my boss owned me and my dockets, and could dispose of either as he saw fit. “Your sarcasm isn’t doing you any favors,” he said. For a moment I thought I’d pushed the Partner into one of his meltdowns, but he’d decided that I wasn’t worth yelling at. I wasn’t a keeper. “Do you have any pro bono files for me?” I thought I might as well try; my boss wasn’t giving me any. “Ask your boss. You only need to docket four hours. How hard can that be? You draft an agreement, or give an opinion. It’s not hard, Calledinthe90s.” I started to ask a question, but then the Partner’s phone rang. He waved a hand at me. “That’ll be from a new client we’ve unboarding. Talk to me later. Or better yet, don’t talk to me. Talk to your boss.” I slunk back to my desk and returned to the stack of work that always awaited me. It didn’t help that I did more than my share of court appearances. I was doing three or four motions a week, spending a lot of time in court, and then working late at night to catch up. When I sat down at my desk, I saw there was a piece of paper on top of one of the stacks that hadn’t been there earlier that morning. I picked up the paper, and then my phone rang. It was the firm’s bookkeeper slash office manager. “You haven’t docketed for any pro bono work,” she said. “That’s true,” I said. “I left a form on your desk. You can’t docket any pro bono work unless a partner signs off on the work you did. So do the work, fill out the form, get a Partner’s signature, and then hand it in.” She hung up before I could reply. The office manager didn’t like me very much; she blamed me for the fun people made of her after the office Christmas party. She’d been the butt of some jokes, jokes that I’d told. I looked at the Pro Bono Work Assessment and Docketing Permission form with its various boxes and lines and questions and bullshit. I had nothing to put on that form. I’d asked my boss for some pro bono work, many times, but he had no pro bono work for me. The firm had a few charities run by this or that spouse of a partner, and the juniors competed to do whatever pro bono work was available. I didn’t even get a nibble. But I had to try. “You gotta give me some pro bono files,” I said to my boss again a few minutes later, “I’m getting heat from the Partner.” “Please fuck off,” my boss said. He didn’t use those exact words, of course. What he actually said was “yeah, ok, sure, I’ll find something.” But in downtown law firm speak, his words meant “please fuck off,” so I headed back to my desk, glad that for a change I had no court that day, so that I could catch up on stacks of files that grew like mushrooms on all the flat surfaces of the shitty little cubicle where I worked. I opened one at random, and started to work on a routine motion. I had been at it for less than ten minutes when I got interrupted. “I forgot to mention that I need you to go to court for me,” my boss said, standing over me. “For what?” “Refusals motion. I just don’t have time today.” He tossed the motion record on my desk, and walked away. I grabbed the papers and my jacket and headed out almost at a run. I made it to court just in time to sign in. The list wasn’t too bad that day, and I sat in the body of the court as the judge vetted the list. I listened as he granted or refused adjournments, tossed a motion for lack of jurisdiction, and another for citing the wrong rule. I was listening with half an ear, reading my boss’s motion record, trying to make sense of my boss’s shitty drafting, when I heard the voice of a young woman. “I need an adjournment, Your Honour,” she said, “I need more time to find a lawyer.” “It’s a simple debt collection case,” her opponent said, “and it’s already been adjourned twice.” I looked up. The lawyer I ignored, but the young woman was different. She was not someone that could be ignored. The only thing about her that was average, was her height. In a room full of dark suited lawyers, she stood out like a bright jewel. “It’s hard to find a lawyer I can afford,” she said, “and the legal aid clinic downstairs won’t take it on.” “The clinic can only give advice,” the judge said, “they can’t argue a case for you. If they won’t do it pro bono, you’ll have to argue it yourself.” “How am I going to argue a case?” she said, “I don’t make enough to pay a lawyer, but I make too much for legal aid, and I can’t get someone to do it pro bono.” I sensed an opportunity. “I’ll do it pro bono,” I said. “Really?” said the young woman, and the judge, and opposing counsel all at the same time. “Sure,” I said, “but I’ll need an adjournment, just a short adjournment. A week at most, just to read the file--” “No adjournment,” said the judge, “but I’ll take you up on that pro bono offer.” “But--” “That was very generous of you to offer,” continued the judge as I started to sweat, “very generous indeed.” I sat there feeling like an idiot. I felt my face turning red, certain that I’d embarrassed myself, and I was sure that I would embarrass myself even more when I argued the case. It got even more embarrassing when the case my boss sent me on got adjourned, because my boss had forgotten to file his legal argument. I stepped outside, and gestured to the young woman to follow me. “I saw your case isn’t going ahead,” the young woman said in the hallway, “and if you want to go, I won’t hold you to helping me out.” “Too late,” I said, “now I gotta do it.” Judging from her expression, I sensed that this perhaps wasn’t quite the right thing to say to the woman that was to become the love of my life. This was more than thirty years ago, and I still say the wrong thing around her sometimes, or rather, a lot of times. I asked to see the paperwork for the court case she had that day. “I’m getting sued on a credit card,” she said. I nodded. “I’m being sued by a bank,” she added. I nodded again. I’d learned that at a glance. She was being sued by Evil Bank, a lender that was so subprime, that it was barely above payday loan level. They had a big book of business, and it was growing. They were the go to card for people with bad credit, so I had one of their cards, too. I heard their ads all the time on the radio. I hardly ever listen to the radio now, but back then, back in the 90s when everything was shit because we had no internet, we listened to the radio a lot. We watched a lot of shitty t.v., too. It sucked back in those days, before the internet. “How do I say your name,” I said. Her name was on the papers before me, spelled out in black and white, but her first and last names had so many syllables that I didn’t even want to guess how to say it. “Just call me Angela. That’s what everyone calls me.” Her English was perfect, a native speaker’s English, but the sounds came with the tint of her home country, a slight and beautiful lilt. I was attracted to her from the start, but it was her voice that I fell in love with. She continued to talk, just like clients always do, explaining all about her case, and I mm-hmm’ed and h-huh’ed and nodded, the polite part of my brain maintaining the pretense of a conversation, while my fledgling lawyer brain read the file. “Are you even listening to me?” Angela said. “Yes,” I said. “Then what did I tell you?” she said, wanting proof. You’d think she was the one doing me a favor, by letting me work for free. She was even worse than my firm. At least my firm paid me. “You said that upon the bank's lending you money at a high interest rate, you defaulted when you failed to manage your money properly, and--” “It’s not my fault a cheque bounced!” “--and then the bank pursued legal action against you. You offered the arrears, but Evil Bank declined reinstatement and refused to engage in settlement negotiations. Instead, the bank unilaterally chose to increase the interest rate and imposed additional fees, charges, and expenses." “Oh. I guess you were listening.” She sounded apologetic. But I hadn’t been listening to her words, only the sound of her voice, and what I told her was info that I’d easily gleaned from Evil Bank’s claim against her. “Can you negotiate a deal for me?” She spoke in a tone of entreaty, and looked up at me like she needed rescue. “Just one sec,” I said, as I flipped through the affidavit from an Evil Bank employee. I stood up. “Gotta go to the library.” “Should I wait here?” “You can come along,” I said, and she did. I headed for the law library at my usual pace, striding along, the young woman’s shoes clack clacking behind me, but before long she said, “Can you slow down? I’m in heels.” I looked at her shoes, and saw the high heels, and realized that she wasn’t of average height, not without heels to help her. “Sorry,” I said. I slowed down to what for me was a slow crawl, and eventually we reached the law library. I walked up to the librarian. “I’m in a rush,” I said, “where’s the Criminal Code?” The librarian pointed, and I took off. Angela tugged at my sleeve. “Slow down” she said again, and I did, but by then we were in the stacks, and I reached out my hand for the bible, for the holiest of holy legal writ: Martin’s Annotated Canadian Criminal Code, a book I first read when I was fifteen years old. It had been a constant companion since then, but I never needed it for work, because our firm only did civil cases, not criminal. I gently pulled the book from the shelves, slowly and with reverence. I carried it with me to a table. “Have a seat,” I said, and Angela sat, while I opened Martin’s and started flipping the pages. “Am I in trouble?” she said. “I thought I was only being sued. Could I go to jail?” “What?” She pointed at the book. “You’re reading a criminal law book,” she said. She spoke loudly, and heads turned. The librarian issued a low ‘sshhhhh’. “I just needed to check something,” I said. It wasn’t the statute itself that I needed to read; I knew the Code inside out. But it was the annotations I had to double check, and as Angela sat there looking beautiful and a bit confused, my eyes scanned the book's annotations, each of them a tiny summary of a legal case, explaining how judges had interpreted the words of the Code. “You don’t happen to have a calculator, do you?” I said. She looked at me like I was an idiot. Nowadays, everyone has a smartphone, and smartphones always have a calculator, but that was another thing that sucked back in the nineties, not always having a calculator on you when you needed one. “S’ok,” I said. I pulled a pad and pen from my briefcase, and the Pro Bono Work Assessment and Docketing Permission fell out. I’d snatched it up with the court papers when I ran out of the office. I shoved it back into my briefcase, and then opened the motion record, and went again to the affidavit sworn by Evil Bank’s employee, setting out the interest rate they’d charged, and which they’d increased after default, and the fees they’d added and the expenses they claimed. When I’d read the numbers the first time back in the courtroom, I’d given them a quick run through in my head, but I needed to double check. I wrote out some numbers on the pad. “First you start looking in criminal books, and now you’re doing math. Are you like an actual lawyer? Is this going to help me?” It was something that my boss might say, but my boss didn’t look like Angela. “We gotta get back to court,” I said, picking up my note and my briefcase and the bible, the holy of holy writs, Martin's Annotated Criminal Code. “You’re walking too fast again,” Angela said as we headed back to the courtroom. I slowed, and explained to her why I’d been looking at the Criminal Code, and why I’d been doing math. “No way,” she said. “Yes way,” I said. “No way,” she said again. “Just watch.” “You’re gonna embarrass me. I just know it. I come to court to throw myself on the judge’s mercy, to try to catch a break--” “You can still try that,” I said. Angela’s looks could get her only so far, and I was starting to get pissed off. “You can try throwing yourself on the mercy of Evil Bank, too.” “I already tried that,” she said, “but it didn’t work.” “Then let me do my job.” We were outside the courtroom, and I looked through the small window. I saw a lawyer on her feet arguing a case, so we still had some time. “Have you ever argued a case like this before?” “Nope.” “Well, at least it will be interesting to watch,” she said. \* \* \* “I need an adjournment,” I said, not needing an adjournment, not wanting one. I was just baiting the hook. “I have an argument I want to make, something that I think is a good argument, but I just need a little time to--” Opposing counsel was on his feet in an instant, but before he could open his mouth, the judge shut him down. “No adjournment,” the judge said, “I already ruled on that. This case is going ahead, no matter what.” The lawyer for Evil Bank, a junior lawyer like myself, smiled with satisfaction and sat down, and he smiled even more at the judge’s next words. “Mr. Calledinthe90s, I have to tell you that I’ve read Evil Bank’s materials, and your client has filed nothing in reply. It’s good of you to take this case on at the last minute, but there’s not much you can do here, so if you have trump, you’d better lead it.” I got to my feet, and I led trump. “Evil Bank is charging an illegal rate of interest,” I said, pulling Martin’s Annotated Criminal Code out of my briefcase. I pulled the book out slowly, and watched Evil Bank’s lawyer from the corner of my eye. He started at the book, taking in its title. He sensed trouble, and stood up. “The defendant never raised an issue about the interest rate before now,” he said. “I’ll hear it,” the judge said, “ex turpi causa and all that. Go on, counsel,” he said, motioning me to continue. “The maximum interest on a loan is sixty percent,” I said, “and when the loan default, the interest popped. It jumped to four percent a month--.” “That’s only forty-eight percent,” my opponent said. “--and to that we add the fees and charges and expenses,” I said, setting them out for the judge, slowly so that he could write them down, and Evil Bank’s lawyer did the same. There was an extension fee and a default charge, and a charge for this and a fee for that, and it took a while before I finished. When I finished, Evil Bank’s lawyer stood. “Counsel’s numbers don’t add up to more than sixty percent,” he said, “I added them up while he was talking, and they reach” “Fifty-nine point nine nine percent,” the judge said, “at least, that’s what I got.” Evil Bank’s lawyer’s head bobbed up and down gratefully. He looked at me angrily, annoyed at the bad scare I’d given. “Sorry, counsel,” the judge said to me, “I know you did your best, and I wish I could help. I really do. The interest rate is horrible, rapacious really, but unfortunately it’s still legal.” He reached for a pen to write his decision on the back of the motion record, but I stopped him. “There’s one more thing,” I said. The judge’s pen stopped moving, and opposing counsel looked up again. The fear was back in his face. “The interest rate is compounding,” I said. “Compounding?” the judge said. “Compounding,” I said, “as in Evil Bank is charging interest on overdue interest. It says so right in the contract. Each month it adds the overdue interest to the principle, and charges interest on the new balance.” “But that hardly makes any difference,” said Evil Bank’s lawyer. “It makes enough of a difference to put the rate over sixty percent,” I said, explaining that four percent a month compounded was not forty-eight percent per year, but instead, but just a fraction more than that, which together with all the fees and charges and expenses and bullshit, was just enough to-- “I need an adjournment,” Evil Bank’s lawyer said, “I need to speak to the client, or the partner. I need to speak to someone about this. I need to speak to someone about the numbers, about the math, about how everything’s calculated.” The judge looked down at him from the bench, and grinned. “You can add, just like I can, and the interest rate is over sixty percent.” “Only by a tiny fraction of a percent,” he said. “It’s either over the legal limit, or it’s not,” I said. “De minimis,” Evil Bank’s lawyer said, but it was a desperate argument, and I could see from the judge’s face that I didn’t need to respond. The judge told us to sit down while he wrote his reasons, and we sat in the silence of an almost empty courtroom and listened to the judge’s pen as it scratched across the back of the motion record, which is where judges in those days wrote their decisions back in those days, in hand. He flipped over the page, and wrote some more, and then to the back of another page, and continued writing. He wrote, and wrote, and the longer he wrote, the worse Evil Bank’s lawyer looked. If the judge had been writing a decision in his favor, it would have taken him only a few strokes of the pen to write a decision granting judgment on a credit card debt. But a lengthy decision meant that bad tidings were coming Evil Bank’s way, and the lawyer looked like he was a prisoner awaiting execution, which the judge soon delivered, reading his decision out for us. We listened as the judge talked about the contract, and set out my arguments, and quoted the Criminal Code, and mentioned the evils of usury, and the importance of protecting the public from rapacious, unsavory lenders. “The debt is uncollectible,” he concluded, “not just the interest and fees and charges, but I have the discretion to disallow the principal as well, and I do disallow it. Ex turpi causa non oritur actio,” meaning that Evil Bank’s case was dishonorable, and that the court would not hear their complaint, due to the whole breaking the Criminal Code thing, committing a crime when they gave my client a credit card with illegal interest attached to it. The judge stood, and so did counsel. “That was an excellent argument,” he said to me. He asked who my principal was. I gave him the partner’s name. “He’s lucky to have you,” he said, and then he exited the courtroom. The clerk gave me a copy of the decision, and another to Evil Bank’s lawyer. His face was white and he looked crushed when he took the document into his hands. If the boss he reported to was anything like mine, he was in for a serious talking to. I pitied him, actually. But me? I was heading back to the office with a big win, a win I could brag about. Sure, it was only a little credit card case, but to me, it felt like I’d hit a home run and scored a touchdown at the same time. I’d really stuck it to Evil Bank, plus I’d hit my pro bono quote as well. My boss would be pleased. The bookkeeper would be off my back. And the Partner would be impressed. I stepped out of the courtroom with Angela, and we watched Evil Bank’s lawyer slink off into the sunset. She started to thank me, but my brain got in the way. “My pro bono sheet!” I opened up my briefcase and pulled out the Pro Bono Work Assessment and Docketing Permission Form. It was creased and crumpled. I straightened it out. “You were amazing,” Angela said. She was beautiful and grateful and impressed and happy, but my brain had temporarily become attached to another task. “You gotta sign my pro bono sheet,” I said. “What?” “I need to get credit for this,” I said, “you gotta sign my sheet.” I passed her the crinkled paper, and a pen. I pointed to where she was to sign. She looked at me strangely, took the pen, and signed. “Thanks,” she said. She turned, and started to walk away. “But--” She didn’t look grateful or impressed any more. She didn’t look happy either. Instead, she looked a bit disappointed. But she still looked beautiful, and I was beginning to realize that I’d said the wrong thing, or looked the wrong way or done something stupid. “But,” I said. She kept on walking. I walked after her, and caught up with her as she reached the elevator. She pushed the button, then turned, and said, “I signed your form.” Then the doors opened and the elevator took her away. \* \* \* I walked back to the office feeling down. It was the same thing that always seemed to happen whenever I got a good result. I always said or did something that ruined the win, that turned it into a loss, and I was feeling like the biggest loser on earth when I got back to the office. I’m pretty good with numbers, but women were another thing altogether. I’d been wrong to mention the pro bono thing to Angela. Angela had wanted me to win the case not for me, but for her. It wasn’t just the result Angela cared about; it was my motive. Angela had liked me, and I’d pissed her off. But at least I’d done well in court. I still had that. I’d done well; the judge had said so himself. My firm was lucky to have me, the judge said, the first words of praise I’d heard since the firm had hired me. The elevator opened to the office where I worked but before I could get to my desk I heard a door down the hall burst open. “Calledinthe90s, get your ass in here,” the Partner cried from his corner office. I’d heard him angry before, but he was at a whole new level of mad. I got my ass down to his office in a hurry. “Just what the fucking fuck were you doing in court today?” he said. He was seated behind his enormous mahogany desk. I was facing him, standing, because he had not invited me to sit. “I was doing a refusals motion for my boss,” I said. “And anything else?” he said. “A pro bono case, just a little pro bono case. I even have the Pro Bono Work Assessment and Docketing Permission Form.” I pulled the ragged paper from my briefcase. I started to hand it to him, and he snatched it from my hand. He read the form, with the names of the parties and the nature of the case and Angela’s signature at the bottom. “Evil Bank,” he said, “just like the judge said.” He looked up at me, his face a mask of rage. “The judge?” “He called me to say what a great job you’d done, what a wonderful thing you did.” That sounded good, and I didn’t understand why the Partner was so angry. “You idiot,” he shouted, “the firm spent months trying to land Evil Bank. We wined them and dined and schmoozed them. We golfed with them and got them hockey tickets. We bought them booze and laughed at their jokes, and we signed them today, at lunch, a couple of hours after you left my office.” “But I didn’t know--” “And what did you do? You fucked them. You fucked them, Calledinthe90s, that’s what you did.” “It’s only one case,” I said, and then he really exploded. “You destroyed their standard agreement,” he said, “a contract that hundreds of thousands of their customers have signed. This case is going to be reported. It will be in the DLRs. Do you have any idea what will happen, once the word gets out?” I was starting to get the idea, but I shook my head as if I didn’t understand. “Everyone with an Evil Bank credit card is going to refuse to pay them back, if they have half a brain in their head. A superior court judge has ruled that their contract is unenforceable, and that their paper is worthless.” I opened my mouth to say something, but he ordered me out of his office. That night when I got home, I opened my briefcase and called a phone number. Angela picked up. “I need to give back your legal papers,” I said. “You can keep them,” she said. “They’re originals. You need the originals.” “You can mail them to me. Maybe you can claim pro bono time for that, too.” “I’m sorry about that,” I said. That's the thing about beautiful women; you do them a favor, and they still get pissed off, and then you have to apologize. Or maybe that’s just Angela. “Can I buy you dinner?” There was a long pause, and for a change I had the sense to keep my mouth shut. “It better be a nice place,” she said. “It will, I promise,” I said. I was going to take her to the most expensive place I could find. I had an Evil Bank credit card, too, and I would not be paying the balance on that card. Evil Bank would be paying for the dinner, and that made me feel good. “Ok,” she said, and when I heard her say that, I didn't care about my boss or the Partner or the firm that paid me badly while treating me like shit. Everything had turned out just fine in the end.


*Trigger Warning: Cancer, Suspenseful* “Breathe, Harley! Breathe!” He begged. She gasped for air as he wrapped his arms around her gently, his body tense and his mind racing with questions that needed answers. It felt as if the taxi driver didn’t care that his best friend was dying. “Breathe, damnit!” He pleaded, rubbing her back as they flew past the walking pedestrians and the wait signs. He had paid the taxi driver extra to hurry and get them to the hospital. “Just relax, we’re almost there.” He told her. Her small frame was tense and she was shaking like jello, practically gasping for air as she inhales, pierced her lungs with the pain of a thousand needles. “Breathe, Harley,” He told her. He couldn’t lose her, they had been through everything together. School, awkward socializing, panic attacks, family divorces, rehab. Everything he had ever gone through, she was right by his side. They were pals to the end, yet this truly felt as if it was the end. As the screeching tires of the Taxi pulled into the drop off lane of the hospital, He got out first, then picked Harley up bridal style as he hurriedly carried her inside, out of the rain. He ran up to the front desk. “We need a doctor, now! She can’t breathe!” He demanded, his voice more shaky and aggressive than he had ever used it before. The front desk lady nodded and called for a stretcher. While waiting, all he could do was hold her close and whisper that everything was gonna be ok. “You’re gonna be fine, Harley, I promise, just breathe…” He directed her. She gripped his wet jacket tightly, her weak body begging for air. A group of nurses, a doctor, and a stretcher came running into the waiting room. He laid her down as the nurses put an oxygen mask over her nose and mouth. She reached out longingly for him. A male nurse held him back as they took her away. “No! She needs me! I need her! Let me go with her!” He begged. As the stretcher was quickly rolled away, all she could do was reach out for him, her hand shaking with pain and dizziness. All she could say before losing consciousness was… “Carter…” ~1 Hour Ago~ “Wait, are you serious?” Harley asked with a giggle. Carter laughed and nodded. Harley flopped down on her bed, holding her phone up enough to where her best friend could see her face. Thank god for facetime. Besides, she liked knowing Carter was safe as he walked to her house. It was a long walk and, knowing him and his luck, something bad would happen to him. “How did you hear that? Is she really pregnant?”

“Yep! She’s 19 weeks pregnant. She posted it on her Instapic account,” Carter explained. “Arg! I hate the rain! Why does it always have to be rainy in the fall?” Harley could only smile a response to her friend. “Hey, did your chest ever stop hurting? You told me it was Costochondritis, but I’m still worried about you.” He asked her. Harley shrugged. “It’s a little worse today than it has been, but it’s really nothing bad,” Harley replied as she fiddled with a lock of her slightly wavy, red hair. She was a redhead with blue eyes and tan skin, though lately, Carter had noticed that she was getting paler and more tired. “I told you not to worry about me. It’s fine.” She snapped in a silly tone. Carter chuckled and looked around before glancing back down at his phone. “Yeah, yeah, I know, I know,” He chuckled through his sentence. Harley cleared her throat and sighed. “Hey, is your front door unlocked? I’m almost there.” He asked. Harley nodded and coughed slightly. She inhaled slightly before coughing again. “Hey, are you ok?” Carter asked, turning his full attention to the girl on his screen. “Hey, answer me,” He demanded in a gentle voice. Harley nodded and coughed, the cough growing harsher and harsher. “Hey, what’s wrong? Can you even breathe, dude?” Carter asked with a nervous chuckle leaving his lips. Harley shook her head and coughed, sitting up from her bed. “I-i can’t… I can’t breathe!” She told him as she coughed again. Carter could feel his face go pale as he began sprinting as hard as he could toward her house. He didn’t know what was going on, but whatever it was, it was bad. He listened to her cough get worse and worse as he got closer and closer to her house. “C-carter, I can’t breathe…” Harley repeated as she gasped for air. Carter ran up to the front door of her house and jiggled the doorknob.

"You said your door was unlocked!" Carter criticized. There was no response from Harley. He ran to the side of the house and climbed over the fence, running for the back door. He slid the door open and ran through the house, down the hall, and barging into Harley's room. "Harley!" ~The Present Moment~ Harley slowly opened her eyes as the beep of the heart monitor woke her. She felt sick and dizzy. She could feel her heartbeat in her chest. Harley could smell hand sanitizer, cloth linen, and lavender Scentsy light. She couldn’t help but yawn, though she just woke up. Harley slowly sat up, looking around at her surroundings. She could feel an oxygen tube wrapped around her neck and attached to her nose, but she wasn’t complaining. It definitely was helping her breathe. She looked toward the door when she heard the knock, yet couldn’t make out words to invite them in. As the door opened, Harley could see that it was her friend, Carter, with a small bouquet of flowers and a get well card. He smiled when he saw her as he walked over to her bedside. “How are you doing?” He asked her, his tone soft and gentle. She could barely remember anything that had happened. Last she remembered she was talking to Carter on the phone… or… fighting with her parents… “Where am I?” She asked him, completely sitting up and taking a deep, pained breath. Carter sighed softly as he put the flowers next to her bed, then sat in a chair by the foot of the bed.

“You're in the hospital,” Carter replied. Harley flinched as she finally understood why her bedroom decor changed. “Two days ago you had trouble breathing. I rushed you here. The doctors took x-rays and…” He trailed off. Harley looked at him. She could see that he had been crying about something. He sighed deeply before continuing. “The doctors diagnosed you with Stage 3 Lung Cancer.” Carter finally explained. Harley just seemed to… freeze. This couldn’t be happening to her. She was only 15, turning 16 in a few weeks. She just got a scholarship from one of the best Colleges in her state. She just became the head photographer for her school yearbook club. Stage 3 Lung Cancer… this couldn’t be happening… “Did anyone tell my parents?” She asked, her voice now soft. Carter shook his head and looked down. “I tried calling both of them but… no answer.” He told her. Harley nodded. Her relationship with her parents was always rocky, having its ups and downs, never really looking right from the left. It was her stepmom's fault. Harley always knew that she wasn’t the right woman for her daddy. She sniffed and looked at the flowers on the bedside table, right next to all the tubes and wires and the heart monitor machine. Harley took another deep breath before nodding and looking at Carter.

“Then, I guess I’ll start Chemo and they can pay for it later.” She confirmed. Carter looked at her and smiled, nodding in agreement. “After all, how hard could it be?” ~1 Year Later~ It was hard. Really, really hard. The first week of Chemo wasn’t the worst, it was the weeks following that really rocked Harley off. She’d get sick all the time, lose energy, and miss school days because of chemo sessions. Her 16th birthday was spent at home with Carter, staying up late and watching movies with popcorn. They both ended up falling asleep by 10:30, Harley’s head resting on Carter's lap as Carter fell asleep listening to Harley breathe.

Due to missing so much school, Harley had to give up her position as head photographer for the school yearbook. That really devastated her, so Carter decided to throw an “at home fashion show”, so Harley could experience the high school crazy outfits. It helped Harley a little bit, but it wasn’t the real thing. Carter started staying long weekends at Harley's house. It wasn’t like her parents cared, all they were doing was paying for the Chemo and grumbling about how much it cost them. It helped Harley’s mental state for Carter to be there for her every day, all day. Carter adjusted his classes at school that way he could have the same schedule as Harley. He was always safe with Harley at school. If there was someone with a cold, Carter would make Harley stay as far away from them as possible. Needless to say that during the flu and cold season, they ate lunch in a Teacher Conference room once they got permission. There were good and bad days, some being a lot worse than others. The days that Harley struggled, Carter was always right by her side, getting water or holding her hair back as she threw up or simply just reading to her until she fell asleep when her medications kicked in. He hated that this was happening to her. He missed going out and walking around the mall or ice skating or looking at cute boys and girls downtown as they walked past. But there was nothing, nothing that could compare to his worry for Harley. All he wanted was for her to get better, to be healthy… She was like a baby sister to him… It was at the doctor's office that they found out it had spread. Leukemia was added to the picture. Carter held Harley’s hand through the entire doctor's visit. More medications were prescribed, heavier Chemo was administered, and worst of all: The doctor told Harley that she had to stop going to school. With the flu and cold season this year being so severe, he didn’t want Harley to risk getting worse. Harley agreed, of course, but cried the entire way home. Carter couldn’t say anything. He was so afraid of losing his baby sister, his best friend, his one companion. Nothing could compare to the fear he had. Harley started sleeping a lot more, getting much more tired easier, and betting dizzy after standing for long periods of time. “Carter?” Harley asked one night as they sat in her room, Carter reading “Great Expectations” to her in a soft tone. He looked down at her and smiled. “Yeah?”

“If I don’t get better,” She started. “Now stop,” He interrupted. Harley stared up at him. “You’re gonna get better. Everything’s gonna turn out ok, sis. I promise,” Carter reassured, though he couldn’t really reassure himself. It was hard always smiling and saying that it would be ok when it was simply only getting worse. “You're my baby sister, I can’t lose you.” He told her as he held her close, the beanie on her shiny head slowly sliding off. Harley nodded as she closed her eyes. “Thanks, bro…” Carter chuckled softly as he closed the book in his hands and set it on the floor, turning off the lamp on her bedside table. “No problem sis.” January 1, 2021. Carter stared down at the large, blackish tombstone, umbrella over his head protecting him from the rain. He stared down at the flowers planted at the grave, knowing that this isn’t how this should’ve ended. He sighed softly as several tears rolled down his reddened cheeks. She had so much more fight in her, yet she stopped. Her body was too tired to go on, yet her mind was prepared for anything. Carter closed his eyes, remembering all the things that he was told before she passed. “Love you, bro!” “Happy birthday Bro!” “Stop crying. It’ll be ok, bro.” “Wait, bro, say hi to the teachers for me!” He opened his eyes when he felt the cold hand on his shoulder. His mother smiled warmly down at him. Carter sighed softly as he read her grave one more time before turning away.

Harley Rayne Johnson 16 and a Half July 4th, 2005 - December 25th, 2020 Beloved Daughter, Best Friend, and Sister. Carter swallowed as he mumbled softly, “See you on the other side, sis…” *A/N: This short story is based on real life. On January 1st, my sister passed away of Stage 4 Cancer in the blood, lungs, and brain. In this story, I used a different name, yet it’ll always be dedicated to the same person. Enjoy!*


Jake the master chef “Aww, Jakey. Mummy loves you matey, just remember that. Yeah..?’ “Yes Mummy.” “Now Hun, don’t answer the door to anyone and Mummy won’t be long. I…just need some time to me self, you know to relax.” “Yes mummy.” “Did you get the dinner I left on the table?’. “Yes Mummy … Mummy can you come home soon?” “Aww Jakey, I won’t be long”. There is laughing in the background and clinking glass, it sounds like she’s at the pub again. “Mum, are you at the pub again?” “No, no, nooo matey. Just ran into some old friends with Aunty Rebecca. You remember Gordo and Stimps?’ I nod on the phone; they were the two blokes that used to come to tea all the time, just before Dad took all his stuff and left. Mum keeps talking I don’t really have to say anything. She’s not listening anyway, I just continue to nod.  I’m not sure whether she’s talking to me or to someone else. “We’re just catching up and we’ll be home soon.” “Hey Nadine, we’re going for a smoke,” someone yells above all the other voices. “Jakey, I gotta go! I’ll be home soon! Awww love ya maate.” Then the phone goes dead. I look at the chicken schnitzel and vegies in a box on the table, I always get one of those on pay day. I take it out of the box, poke the fork through the plastic three times for luck and put it in the microwave for three minutes. It’s still a bit cold from the shop but not frozen so it doesn’t take that much time to cook. I love cooking. Mum showed me how to scramble eggs last week. She reckons I make the best toast ever and lets me get us breakfast every morning. Sometimes I come home from school and her toast is still on the table and she’s asleep on the couch. That’s the days she feels really sick. The light in the microwave is a buttery gold; I reckon that’s why it cooks my tea really nice and warm. Just as the bell on the microwave dings, the doorbell goes and there’s a knock at the door. “Jake, Jake, are ya there mate?”

Really! I get so excited, “Dad is that you?”

“Yeah mate, can ya let me in?” Dad sounds tired and I hear him lean onto the wall next to the door, both the wall and Dad give a soft groan. I want to ask him if he is Ok but I have to let him know what Mum said. “Mum…Mum…Mum said…” “Aww Jakey, it’s ya old man – you can let me in; besides Nadine was expecting me. She said she’d pay me back today. It’s pay day today isn’t it Jakey?” “Yeah, I got me schnitzel dinner for tea! Hang on Dad; I’ve got to get me tea out of the microwave. I’m cooking it. Do you want some?’ “Aww. Jakey, you’ve made tea for ya old man. You’d better let me in eh? What sort of schnitzel are we havin? Bet you can cook up a treat yeah?” I love seeing Dad; I wish he wouldn’t fight with Mum so much and maybe he could come round more often. I open the door and he’s standing there with his arms open. I give him a hug and he stumbles back a bit.  “Easy mate, you don’t know your own strength. Gees, least she’s feedin ya right.” I take dad by the hand and start telling him about school. How Mrs Jenkins reckons I could go to cooking school one day where they teach you stuff like on Master Chef. Dad uses the wall a bit to help himself into the kitchen. His eyesight is a bit bad at night. He smells of beer and wee. He must have forgotten they were yesterday’s pants when he put them on. Dad slumps into a kitchen chair and reaches into his top pocket for a smoke. As he lights the smoke I drag the ashtray over to him and find a clean plate. I look for another one as I begin to cut up dinner and share it between the plate and the cooking tray. I’ll just use the tray now, then I’ll do some of the dishes in the sink till I find a plate. Gee, it will be just like going out for tea. I tell him about how sharing something in two becomes two halves and that if mum and Shantell were here we could share it in four and it would be one quarter. Dad looks at me and starts to say something like he’s really upset, when there’s a loud bang at the front door. “You arsehole! What you doing here?” Mum yells as she flies down the passage. “Jakey, didn’t I tell you not to let anyone in?” She looks cold and angry at Dad, “I guess you tricked him, didn’t ya?” she spits the words out as she glares at Dad. In a flash she picks up the plate of tea I just put out for dad and throws it across the room. My tea! If I don’t grab it now, she’ll throw it. I grab my half of the schnitzel and vegies on the tray and hug it as I race to the back door. The back door kicks back at me as I try to get through and knocks the tray as if trying to wrestle it from my arms, spilling peas, carrot and potato pieces over the back step and pieces of board I put there last week to make a bridge over the puddles. I really wanted to put it on a plate so Dad and I could sit and eat it like we were eating out. I’m glad I didn’t or I would have smashed my dinner as well.  I had enough time to pick up the potato and some carrot, and almost cry with relief; least the good bits still in the tray, the yummy meat and thick gravy spread on top of the crumb coat.  I feel the potato burning my hand but it’s not as bad as the tears burning my eyes and that really sore lump in my throat.

Clutching my tea as carefully as I can, I run down the backyard. It’s just starting to get dark and everything is starting to look like a black and white photo. I slip into the fold in the base of the trunk of the old fir tree that seemed to be urging me forward so he could grab me, hug me and carefully sit me in his safe care. That’s why I call this tree Gramps, he makes me feel safe. This is my spot – I don’t need a cushion. The pine needles are soft and always smell like Christmas. I know this because Nan and Pop have a real Christmas tree every year; a tiny, tiny one, not like Gramps, my tree, they smell the same though. You can only see the top of Gramps from down the street and our front yard, from the back yard; he just goes on for ever. I sit down and can’t stop the tears soaking my face and soaking my shirt. I put my vegies carefully back into the tray – I’ll eat it soon. I…. I’ve just got to relax. I can hear Mum and Dad yelling, and then it all goes quiet. It’s OK. I pick up my tea and start to eat. I forgot I was so hungry. Part of tummy feels good after the food but part of it still feels empty, like there’s a hidden pocket in it. I rub my tummy and think about how good the chicken tasted and it eases the bits that still feel empty. Oh good, I hear laughter from the kitchen. The empty feeling flows away. I knew the food would find its way there. Mum must have got some smoke, that’s the laugh she has when she has, “Happy Smoke”. It’s her special medicine to help her cope. Maybe Dad will stay this time. We could go and get his things tomorrow and maybe we could go and get Shantell from the family she is staying with. My tea settles in my tummy and works out the knots and hidden pockets of emptiness, spreading a warmth that mingles with the tinkling of mum’s laugh. Maybe… maybe we could have tea out tomorrow, all of us.


“Do you ever feel like you’re looking out of your eyeholes?” He said. “What?” She replied. Sometimes David would just talk. Not talk in the sense that he couldn’t stop moving his lips and making sounds, but talk in the way that he would just say…things. Things that were on his mind. Things he thought about when nobody else was around or when everyone was. He thought often. In fact, he thought so much that sometimes he couldn’t stop thinking. It had quickly become a problem. “Honey?” His wife said again. “Sometimes I feel like I’m looking out of my eyeholes.” “What a funny thing to say. We all look out of our eye holes, dear.” “Yes, but we don’t feel it. I feel it.” His wife had borrowed the look she used when trying to tell him about that song she’d heard on the radio earlier that day. She used to listen to it all the time when she was a teenager. It went a certain way, like this, she said, and had kissed her lips together for some doos and dees and dahs. All around the world, he remembered. Simon and Garfunkel. No, just Simon. “I’m not sure what you mean,” she said. “I know.” As of late, David had a tendency to feel trapped. Trapped in his own head. He wanted to fall onto his hands and knees and crawl like he did when he was a baby. In her old age, his mother liked to watch the videos she’d taken when he and his sister were little. His wife leaned over and gave him a kiss on the cheek. The bedside light clicked on and the overhead light clicked off. The VCR continued to whirr inside his mind. She used to wear a satin dressing gown with red flowers on and her house smelled like microwaved milk. “Do you see that?” David was looking out the window toward a great dappling of chalky, sallow smoke arising from his neighbour’s garden. The achromatic plumes of pencil were being drawn towards the heavens, trying to escape the circles of fire from below with wind as their Virgil. Prometheus had bought us this, he thought, and he had paid the price. “I think the neighbours are having a bonfire. Either that or a very large barbecue!” She laughed and looked back at her husband. The right corner of his lip faintly heaved upward and she glanced back toward her hands like a window had been opened in her heart. Everybody sees the wind blow. “Honey? What did you mean by ‘I know’?” “I know things.” “Yes, I know that, honey.” “But I know a lot of things.” “I know that, too.” She didn’t. “I know things that you don’t know and others don’t know and even I don’t know.” “Are you worried about how smart you are?” “I can’t tell if I’m smart or if I’m cursed.” “Cursed?” “With knowledge.” “How can you be cursed with knowledge, dear?” He met her eyes with his. “Do you ever know things that you wish you didn’t?” “Well, just last week Amanda told me how Harriet’s husband had an affair a few years ago. How am I supposed to talk to him now?” “Harriet’s husband had an affair?” “Yes, a few years ago.” “You would never have guessed if you saw them.” “Well, you can’t tell much from the outside.” She thought back to the song she’d heard on the radio earlier. Paul Simon. Graceland. David continued turning the pages of his book without looking at them as his eyes were seduced into a black abyss before him. There was a vortex there that he couldn’t see, drawing him in and covering him in grey. Not silver, grey. It clung to him like cling film, wrapping him up as a cellophane mummy. “Why don’t we take a trip?” She interjected. “Just me and you. This weekend.” “Where to?” “I don’t know. Where would you like to go?” He felt dense and heavy as he washed across the universe, discovering the insensate, deafening torment of corporeal and ethereal mortality. He wanted to go to sleep. “The Cotswolds?” “That sounds lovely. We can go hiking and exploring.” “Can you call it exploring if someone’s already found it?” “We haven’t found it.” “That’s true.” He felt so large and yet, so informally empty. The waxy candle of fiction had been snuffed by the frozen candour of existence. “Just because someone’s been somewhere before us doesn’t mean it’s any less exciting for us nor does it make it any less difficult to get through.” He frowned. “Why would it be difficult to get through the Cotswolds?” His wife still had the lyrics rattling around her head. But I’ve reason to believe, we will all be received in Graceland. “Sorry, honey, I was thinking about something else.” He nodded as if he understood. “I like that song you showed me earlier.” “The Paul Simon one?” “Yes.” “So do I. I used to listen to it all the time when I was a teenager but I had no clue what it was about.” “I guess sometimes music doesn’t need a meaning to be enjoyable,” he said, letting the words wash out from his mouth. His eyes opened as wide as they could in order to let the light steal his heart. He smiled and suddenly felt the weight of himself against the bed. Watching her now he saw her looking irreplaceably identical at 18 and 80. The paralysing Elysium of memory and vision crafted a pool in the crevasse of his eye. An escaping droplet lay against his forearm as a feather upon the floor of spring. The light of the lamp felt like it could burn forever, and she felt it on her shoulders and in her chest. The warmth enveloped her from all sides and melted them into one. Together and alone they had lived. Together and alone they were ample. The radio that day had played Bridge Over Troubled Water by Simon and Garfunkel. The notes of the piano escaped from their mind and embosomed the room as the two continued to hold hands even after the light of the lamp had surrendered. It was in this moment, and the next, that the iridescence was sculpted into one complete, fulfilled eternity.


“… so, what I am saying is, by observing ants closely, you’ll see they don’t do anything stupid, they always walk in orderly lines, carrying leaves and twigs back to the nest.”“Well, not always, they sometimes fall off branches,” Anna interjected, looking left and right, “that doesn’t seem too clever.”“Okay, I suppose, but a fall doesn’t kill an ant, does it? You could drop an ant from the roof of a house and the fall would not prove fatal.”“I don’t know, I’ve never carried out an experiment. Have you ever thrown an ant off from the top of a building?”“No, I haven’t Anna.”Anna pulled away from the junction, her fingers located the heating control to make a minor adjustment.“I guess you’d need at least two people present; one to throw the ant off the building and the other to monitor and record the outcome at ground level.” Anna's mind drifted, imagining herself wearing a researcher’s white laboratory coat, cradling a clipboard, peering up through black horn-rimmed glasses to the roof of a typical family home. Her friend seen ready and in position, holds tweezers in one hand and a glass beaker in the other. “It’d be really hard to keep track of an ant as it was falling from a roof, even if you shouted a warning.”“What, like - I am releasing the ant, now!” said Phoebe.“You could tie a piece of brightly coloured cotton thread around the ant, to help.”“No Anna.”“Why not, because it would interfere with the experiment? You anticipate the ant struggling, getting tangled up in the thread? I suppose one might wrongly assume the ant had died on impact, whereas it may have been due to mid air strangulation.”“Look, I am just saying, ant society is structured and co-supportive. There are no stupid ants, they understand the role they fulfil for the common good of ant society. And, there are certainly no evil ants.”Immediately ahead, traffic lights switched from green to amber and then to red. Anna braked, coming to a stop, front tyres coming to rest upon a faded white line on the road.“Why did you stop?”“The light turned red.”“It hadn’t, it had just changed to amber, you could have gone through.”“No Phoebe, it was red.”The morning rush hour traffic crawled along bumper to bumper, backed up in both directions. Pedestrians made better progress, cyclists appeared travelling at supersonic speed in comparison to the cars, vans and lorries sharing the road space.“Soldier ants are evil.” Squinting under the sun visor, Anna watched for the traffic lights to change. “Did you ever read those books in the school library, the one’s about unusual phenomena around the world? Giant sink holes, the Loch Ness monster, UFOs, spontaneous human combustion, piranha attacks.”“And army ants?”“Yes, that’s right, army ants. They’d be a photograph too, showing a thin, cross-eyed man with a thick moustache stripped to the waist with lots of stings all over his face and body.” Anna’s eyes widened, her grip tightened around the steering wheel. “What were those books ever doing in a school library? They used to scare the shit out of me!”“Yes, they were pretty grim, stuffed full of nightmares.”“I’m sure I saw films too, with ants attacking people, crawling all over them.” Anna shuddered and thumbed an itch on her shoulder, her head and the side of her nose.The traffic lights changed colour, signalling hope for progress. Morning road-users continued in slow monotony. Anna flashed her lights and waved an encouraging hand to a driver to pull out of a side road and join the queued traffic.“What are you doing?” Phoebe asked sharply.“I'm letting her out.”“Why?”“Well, that guy on the other side let her through." Anna continued motioning her hand. "Yes - yes, you! Go on, go then!” She let out a sigh, “I’ve noticed you barely ever let people out. Why is that?”“Simple, because if a motorcyclist slammed into the side of her now, you’d be culpable and your insurance policy doesn't cover being an idiot.”Silence stretched out a temporary distance between the two friends, time enough for the queues of traffic to resume uniformity.


It was dark. The wind blew through the house like a low menacing growl. The walls crawled with the dark strings of grief and sorrow. The cold air weighed heavily in the house reminding its occupants of its emptiness. His cute giggles still resonated through the house yet he was not here. The sun seemed to have taken its leave. The sky a jagged slate. It had been months yet it felt like yesterday. The sobs did not stop but they only got quieter. Tears engraved their trail so deep into their faces yet the outside couldn’t see them. The strident screams echo through the walls every night as memories of the little boy accompany her. Each day was worse. Her sanity slowly slipped from her grasp with every passing minute. Face as pale as the first morning snow. We no longer had our heartfelt conversations. Grousing about taking care of children. There was nothing left to say. I couldn’t relate. I didn’t know how it felt for a billionaire to lose their only child. I couldn’t even imagine. At least that’s what Mary told me. The only sentence she spoke to me after I told her I knew how it felt to lose a child . “It’s the constant reminder with us always in the spotlight” . Even after years, paparazzi still probe and prod on the matter just to write a juicy story. Maybe it is different for the rest of us behind the scenes. After a few months everybody has forgotten and you’re the only clinging to the tenebrous days. And nobody is willing to pull you out of the darkness. Nobody is willing to help but everybody is wishing you would just move on already. I had been their maid for seven years and had watched the young boy, Felix, grow out of his diapers. I knew him inside out. He adored his parents with every fiber in his being and cherished the time he spent with them. He was a child who loved with no limit and no regret. It was disheartening to see him lay lifeless and unmoving on the road. Struck down by a speeding car. The incision on his head was prominent as the carmine liquid inundated the road. Arms outstretched at an odd angle as if he was begging for mercy. The funeral was supposed to be short as to not draw unwanted attention but his mother held onto him like he was her last piece of life and letting him go would make all to come crushing down. Her tears cascaded down her cheeks and poured down on the bunched up creases of the black crisp suit that embraced him, hoping that maybe the fairytales were true. That he would feel her warmth, her magic, and her love seep into him and raise him out of the smothering four foot box. My melancholy heart ached in pain as a tear escaped me while I stood at the far end of the tent. Watching as her husband wretched her away from the peacefully sleeping boy, eyes red and tired.

A sharp pain wedge itself into my chest as anamneses of my late daughter tore through my mind. Holding her close to my chest hoping for a miracle that I knew deep down would not happen. Despite Mary denying it, we were cognate in so many ways. Yet society classified our grief to be of different levels even if the underlying factor was the same. I knew exactly how it felt to be ripped apart, to be stripped of what one loves and left exposed to pain and suffering. To lament for someone so long your heart can’t take any more. The nightmares that haunt you taunting that you could have done better even when it has already been done. For the following months, people from various walks of life came to give their condolences. And for months they barely spoke. Their eyes were a never ending abyss of stygian blackness weighing you down with languish every time you gaze upon them. The words of visitors falling upon death ears as they single handedly delivered a long discourse on how things will be alright in time and how they should be strong. But how is one supposed to be strong when they are in pain. I wondered whether people learnt how to console someone at the same place. It is never nothing new. The same words ringing in your head day in day out but no one really helping. It is the constant reminder that torments a grieving person. From Mary’s side it was different from my own. For her, everybody knew the tragic incident and didn’t bother to ask whilst for me, not everyone was aware. “How is your little girl, Emily?” “Uh… uh she… passed on” “I’m so sorry! My condolences” “Where is Emily?” “She … passed on a couple of months ago” “I’m sorry I didn’t know” It is having to repeat that statement over and over again like a mantra until it finally knocks me into the reality that she was indeed gone. I didn’t want to assimilate myself to my boss, I was way pass that. But her words buzzed through my head. You don’t know how it feels for a billionaire to lose their only child. I didn’t know whether she was being frank with me, condescending me for my financial state, pointing out that I had other children so it hurt way less or she uttered the words out of grief and she felt like no one understood her pain. It had come to me that she had tried to equate us, seeing who had gone through the most suffering and seeing who is at an advantage just like how society had taught her to do. The rich people’s emotions hold more value than your own because they can pay for ways to express them and for people to listen to them. My grandmother had once told me so and now I had finally witnessed it. Nobody took heed of the people in the backstage even if you were bleeding your guts out they would only notice after the show is over.


#Welcome to Micro Monday Hello writers and welcome to Micro Monday! It’s time to sharpen those micro-fic skills. What is micro-fic, you ask? Micro-fiction is generally defined as a complete story (hook, plot, conflict, and some type of resolution) written in 300 words or less. For this exercise, it needs to be at least 100 words (no poetry). However, less words doesn’t mean less of a story. The key to micro-fic is to make careful word and phrase choices so that you can paint a vivid picture for your reader. Less words means each word does more! Each week, I provide a simple constraint or jumping-off point to get your minds working. This rotates between simple prompts, sentences, images, songs, and themes. You’re free to interpret the weekly constraints how you like as long as you follow the post and subreddit rules. **Please read the entire post before submitting.**   *** #This week’s challenge: *“Sometimes you will never know the value of a moment until it becomes a memory.” - Dr. Seuss* - **Theme: Memories** / - **Bonus Constraint (10 pts):** A photograph and/or photographer plays a *key role* in the story. With the holidays around the corner, it’s got me thinking about memories and the role they play in our lives. This week, I want you to write a story inspired by the theme of memories. I’ve provided a quote and two images for additional inspiration (you are not obligated to use them). You may use the theme as creatively as you wish as long as the connection is clear and you follow all post and subreddit rules. The bonus constraint is encouraged but not required (it is worth points). Note: We have returned to the standard 300-word max for stories. You can check out previous Micro Mondays .   *** #How To Participate - **Submit a story between 100-300 words in the comments below (no poetry) inspired by the prompt.** You have until **Sunday at 11:59pm EST**. Use to check your wordcount. - **Leave feedback on at least one other story by 2pm EST next Monday.** Only **actionable feedback** will be awarded points. See the ranking scale below for a breakdown on points. - **Nominate your favorite stories at the end of the week .** You have until **2pm EST** next Monday. *(Note: The form doesn’t open until Monday morning.)* ###Additional Rules - **No pre-written content allowed.** Submitted stories should be written for this post. Micro serials are acceptable, but please keep in mind that each installment should be able to stand on its own and be understood without leaning on previous installments. - **Please follow all subreddit rules and be respectful and civil in all feedback and discussion.** We welcome writers of all skill levels and experience here; we’re all here to improve and sharpen our skills. You can find a list of . - **And most of all, be creative and have fun!** If you have any questions, feel free to ask them on the *stickied comment* on this thread or through modmail.   *** #Campfire - On **Mondays at 12pm EST,** I host a Campfire on our server. We read the stories aloud and provide live feedback for those who are present. Come join us to read your own story and/or listen to the others! Everyone is welcome and we’d like to have you, we absolutely love new friends!   *** #How Rankings are Tallied **Note: As of Oct 16, there has been a change to the crit caps and points!** **TASK** | **POINTS** | **ADDITIONAL NOTES** |:--:|:--:|:--:|:--:|:--:|:--:| | **Use of the Main Prompt/Constraint** | up to **50** pts | Requirements always provided with the weekly challenge | **Use of Bonus Constraint** | **10 - 15** pts | (unless otherwise noted) | ***Actionable* Feedback** (one crit required) | up to **10** pts each (30 pt. max) | You’re always welcome to provide more crit, but points are capped at 30 | **Nominations your story receives** | **20** pts each | No cap | **Voting for others** | **10** pts | Don’t forget to vote before 2pm EST every week! *Note: Interacting with a story is not the same as feedback.*   *** #Rankings for Just one winner this week! - u/wileycourage *** ###Subreddit News - Join to chat with authors, prompters, and readers! We hold several weekly Campfires, monthly Worldbuilding interviews, and other fun events! - Experiment with tropes and different genres with the brand new feature on r/WritingPrompts! - Explore your self-established world every week on ! - You can also post serials to r/Shortstories, outside of Serial Sunday.


Mikel stood on the rooftop, chest heaving as he realized there was nowhere else to go. Overhead, the fireworks lit the sky up in a series of magnificent colors. Shades of blue and red and green seemed to add millions of sparkling new stars to the sky. Past the celebration, Mikel could hear the screams and mad rush of people as the city panicked. Listening further, he could hear the pounding feet of his assailants as they raced up the stairs after him. Any minute now and they’d be upon him. For the hundredth time Mikel pondered if he had done the right thing. He wracked his brain for all the possible choices and all the potential outcomes. Maybe he should have said something. Maybe he should have told Darius he knew where the blast would come from. Maybe then the Baron would still be alive, and the city wouldn’t be burning while it celebrated. The pounding was closer now. Any second Darius himself would be up those stairs, Kull and Sarina flanking him. Bartholomew would come soon after. Mikel would try to explain it to them, that he believed he made the right choice. He doubted they would hear him though. Blood had been spilt, and some things aren’t so easily forgiven. So Mikel prepared for a fight. He drew his sword with his right hand and concentrated his magic through the rune symbols etched on his left. His last rune mark began to glow just as they arrived. Darius was first, followed by Kull and Sarina. They were panting from hunting him across the city. Blades had been drawn a long time ago, their rune arms primed and enchanted. All of them were killers and fighters who knew the business well. Mikel considered trying to strike before they could catch their breath. In the end he decided against it, needing them to try and listen. He thought about his choice again. He needed it to be the right one. Darius and Mikel locked eyes, Darius’s own glowing bright like the moon. Mikel saw fury there, but also to his surprise a deep sadness likely stemming from betrayal. Mikel tried to steel himself from it. He couldn’t block it all though, and Mikel’s heart grew heavier still. Mikel started to open his mouth but found it drier than anticipated. He tried to clear his throat so he could speak, but before he could get a word out Darius beat him to it. “How long did you know?” He leveled the question with venom, not caring to mince words. “Does it matter?” Mikel asked. Darius glared his answer, and Mikel sighed heavily. “Since last week.” Darius fumed. He gripped his sword tighter. “Why? Why let that bomb go off?” The silence stretched for an eternity. Mikel found himself asking that same question, wondering why he’d let everything change. He decided to go with the simple answer. “He was a tyrant Darius.” “HE WAS KEEPING THE PEACE!” Darius bellowed as a massive firework brought a red dragon to life in the sky. Only Darius seemed more bristled with rage. “He needed to die.” Mikel said the words softly, seeming to almost be trying to convince himself as much as the three in front of him. “And my brother…did he need to die?” Sarina leveled the question with a cold fury poorly hidden behind chopped purple hair. Mikel had never seen her angry before. Now he saw nothing but hate in her eyes, and it made him shudder. “I tried to warn Daniel. I tried to tell him to get away before-” “But you didn’t.” She cut him off, not wanting to hear anymore. “He’s dead.” Mikel paused, his face failing to mask the pain and guilt he felt. “I’m sorry Sarina. I really am.” “Sorry doesn’t bring him back.” There was nothing for a long moment other than their furious stares. Fireworks exploded overhead. They painted the rooftop in celebratory colors before fading and becoming washed with the dark. City lights extended long shadows, Mikel’s being the longest of all. “You ready?” Darius growled. Mikel met the gaze of his once dear friend with red rimmed eyes. He was already so tired in every facet of the word. He thought again, as he would for his remainder, if he should have said something, should have stopped the Red Sons from killing the Baron and all his men. He could have saved Daniel. He would still be able to call those in front of him his companions, his family. But it was too late, and now he could only hope that there would be some better future from the chaos and flames below. Another firework. Another brilliant flash. Mikel’s runes glowed. “No. But let’s do this anyway,” He muttered sadly. His three assailants’ runes glowed ready. Their feet pivoted and tensed. A barrage of distant screams signaled the start of the show’s finale. And then they were off. The trio burned towards Mikel faster than possible. Mikel was faster. A flash of purple and a flick of his rune arm sent needle crystals so dark they were almost night itself towards the three killers. Darius turned them to dust and Kull slid under. Sarina was not as quick, and caught several to her side. Her veins glowed purple all the way to her eyes, and she crumbled to the ground. Darius heard her screams all the way to Mikel. Their blades moved so fast it could be lost in the mirage of colors exploding in the sky. They were perfectly matched, even with Darius’s moon eyes seeing everything and predicting Mikel’s every move. Neither were better enough to score a blow.

The fireball from Kull threw Mikel off enough for Darius to land the first cut to Mikel’s cheek. Mikel recovered a second later only for Kull to continue his barrage. The masked, silent man whipped knives at Mikel so fast they streaked beams of light behind them as they went. Mikel knocked Darius back with a gust of wind and parried all but the last knife, which sunk deep into his side. He had time to flinch, but nothing more. A half second later Kull was on Mikel, swinging with precision and fighting like a rabid dog. More than anyone on that roof Kull was a killer, hallow dark eyes staring unblinking from behind a crudely painted skull mask. Kull whipped his short sword with an expert ruggedness. He had no proper training, no real finesse, and yet Mikel still struggled all the same. Kull even used his magic crudely. An icicle formed in his rune hand, aimed for Mikel’s throat. Mikel side stepped roughly back, so Kull whipped the icicle at blinding speed low to Mikel’s calf. Mikel shifted his leg just in time to avoid being impaled. He barely righted himself before Kull and Darius were on him again. Swords swung and magic slanged at desperate speed, each of the men trying their utmost best to kill one another.

As Mikel back stepped, Darius made his first off footed move with an overextended thrust. He tried to correct, but it was too late. Mikel slashed Darius’s left arm’s outer tendon, and his sword clattered to the ground. Kull tried to correct the loss, throwing fire at close range. But Mikel deflected, and the fire swung onto Darius’s face. Darius howled in pain. The left half of his face instantly blistered, one glowing eye already damaged to a crisp as it was lost to the inferno. Mikel focused all his energy on Kull whose dark eyes continued to remain ever stagnant. Kull slung more ice and fire Mikel’s way, but the shifting purple field around Mikel’s runes consumed it all. Their blades danced a moment longer until Mikel threw the field like a net, catching and paralyzing Kull’s left side. A few swipes later, and Kull’s sword lay on the ground and he was on his knees with a slash across his chest. There was a measure of stillness just before Kull collapsed bleeding onto the rooftop. Those dark eyes never betrayed a thing, and he didn’t make a sound as he lay dying. Mikel turned when he felt something slash his back and his whole body screamed misery. He found Sarina free of the crystals and whipping a purple tendril at him for a second time. It connected and Mikel’s shoulder exploded in pain. He barely got his rune hand up in time to block the third strike as Darius barreled into him from the side and knocked Mikel to the ground. Howling like a mad man, Darius began to beat Mikel. Blow after blow came to Mikel’s head and body, and his world began to fade to black. Darius only paused when Sarina arrived to take Mikel’s head. She hefted her sword. For a moment Mikel thought this was fate. He deserved to die. He was a traitor. He’d allowed many to die. He’d killed many more with his own hands. He knew Sarina deserved her revenge. And still his guilt piled higher as his rune hand glowed and his paralyzing aura expanded and launched Darius and Sarina back with a furious yell. The fireworks were gone. Mikel lay there crying while the other two just lay still, frozen by the pain of the magic. Mikel was so spent and so tired, but he knew he had to keep moving. He crawled to a rise, hobbling over to his sword and stooping to pick it up while his thundering head clouded the world. Mikel looked at the two assailants struggling to untangle themselves from the magic. He knew he’d have to kill them. The road he now walked deemed it so. He tried to convince himself he could let them live, but in his mind he knew it couldn’t be. Maybe in another life , he concluded. Mikel took three steps toward his a dark fate, and that’s when Bartholomew crashed down from the sky. Mikel turned as the roof shook, trying to stand as tall as he could against the imposing figure before him. Bartholomew’s snow white wings folded back behind his midnight black garb. He stared Mikel down, golden spear in hand. Then Bartholomew looked past Mikel to his fallen companions, and a calm fury rested in his eyes. “All this blood…was it worth it Mikel?” “I didn’t want this part. I didn’t want to fight them.” “And yet here we are and here they lie.” The roof was silent aside from a slight gust of the wind and the distant sounds of the riots below. “Did you not think this chaos would happen?” Bartholomew accused rather than asked. “I saw it as necessary.” Bartholomew leveled a hard look. “Necessary? Daniel is dead. The Baron is dead. People are savaging each other in this chaos.” Mikel tried to level a hard look. “I did what I had to.” Bartholomew for a moment revealed a pensive sadness before hiding himself before Mikel. “Then those deaths and the ones happening now are on you.” Mikel grew into a rage at the arrogance of the words, of the judgement Bartholomew leveled down from his high seat heading the Agency. Mikel’s rune hand pulsed, and with a roar he tossed a mass of chaotic magic at his former mentor and friend. Bartholomew caught it as easy as if it were a child’s toy. The magic that had so easily bound and tortured Mikel’s other three assailants slid gently off Bartholomew’s hand and fell to the ground were it burned with a purple haze. As he watched in a mixture of sadness and horror, Mikel finally accepted he was going to die. The spear came so fast that even if Mikel had tried to react it would have been fruitless. The force was so great it carried him over the roof and he began to fall to the ground below, spear pushing him the whole way. He thought for the thousandth time if he’d made the right choice not telling Darius of the Red Sons’ plot. A single tear came to his eye as he began to grasp all the death he had caused to end one life. He wasn’t sure if he could lie to himself anymore. He hoped he would be forgiven. He knew deep down he would not. Bartholomew got to edge of the roof to see Mikel impaled on the ground below. All around him people fought and looted and burned the city to the ground. The Duke was dead and the Red Sons had gotten what they wanted. Now it was Bartholomew’s turn to wonder what could have been different. Maybe he could have prepared Mikel better, could have guarded the boy’s heart further. He sighed deep and choked back the well of emotions. Now wasn’t the time. There was no going back. He looked to his other students as they slowly unwound the magic from their bodies. Then Bartholomew spread his wings and descended into the abyss.