Having packed some supplies from Alessia’s boat, we began climbing over the hills and troughs of Stetguttot Heath. The trek was arduous from the start. Paths rose between gorse and thistles, weaving their way up steep gradients. Then, at the top of a hill, you could see across the valleys ahead of you, before you descended down into the basin below and began the process again. Though the northern spring air was cool, the constant climbing on uneven dirt paths was tiring - the cool breeze icing my face while my thighs became caked in sweat. “What do you make of this place?” Alessia asked as we crested our third hill of the day. “About what?” I said, panting. I couldn’t help but feel a minor frustration at how much calmer Alessia’s breathing was than my own. She let out a small chuckle. “I meant about this guy apparently being some idiot.” “Doesn’t add up. They went from being a miner to suddenly having enough funds to buy an army. Then they want murder and books about history,” I said, taking a few deep breaths before we began clambering down the hillside. “Any chance that whoever did it gave a fake name and island to Tima Voreef?” “Sure. In theory. But then why use the real name of someone from another island? Just jumble together some letters and call it a day.” Alessia shook her head. “Probably the same guy, but you’re right. Something’s off.” “This whole island’s off,” I replied, as I stepped over a large rock blocking our path. “The islands are more spaced apart up here. Means fewer traders, and that means pirates, and that means even fewer traders. But there should be someone coming up this far. Yet, I’ve never once been sent here on a trading run or even heard of anyone coming here.” “Well, hopefully we’ll find out after another…” I looked up at the climbs that awaited us. “...few thousand hills,” I sighed. It was tempting to cut across, away from the paths, and trek in a more direct route, but any shortcut always looked blocked. Thick thistle bushes grew from uneven cracks in the ground; rigid branches that crept up to waist height ladened with spikes. Even if you dared to wade through the vegetation, the bushes blocked out sight of the ground, and uneven rocks and ditches promised to twist an ankle or break a bone. Elsewhere, the hills were simply too steep. The heathland would give way to a sudden, sharp cliff. Stones that protruded from the wild grass offered the only warning of a quick ten metre drop to the floor below. We could shave off a few seconds, cut the odd corner, but the reality was that our journey across Stetguttot Heath would be slow. A great deal of effort, with little mileage covered. I woke the next day with stiff legs, my knees creaking with movement, as the pain in my thighs refused to evaporate entirely. We were unsure of how far we had even walked. There were now some valleys behind us, but the number in front still seemed endless. However, a cool breeze and a good sleep helped invigorate us as we resumed our walk. After a couple of hours we stopped for a drink. I pulled off my satchel and laid it on the ground. I opened it up, took out a canister of water. The path here was wider. Two parallel lines of dirt - fit for two cart wheels - traced up the hill, a thin strip of weeds poking out between the worn ground. Beneath us, the path continued with a series of gradual switchbacks that snaked into the gorge. It was a more pleasant path to take than those we had been on, but at the same time I was aware that a smoother and easier descent meant even slower progress towards our eventual goal. Above us, grey clouds hung oppressively, smothering us, giving the air a claustrophobic taste. Around the edges of the smog, halos of yellow gave promise to the sun behind, but failed to penetrate, leaving the ground shadowless. Without the sun to guide us in the constant twists and turns of the mountains it was easy to get disorientated. “How much further do you reckon it is?” I asked. Alessia rolled her shoulders. “I’m just assuming we’ll get there sometime tomorrow.” I laughed. “Are you even certain we’re heading the right way?” “I think,” she paused. “Probably,” she paused again. “Fairly sure.” Out of my peripheral vision I saw a figure contrast against the sky as they walked over the summit of the hill behind us. “Maybe they can confirm?” I asked. “You’re not trusting my directions all of a sudden. You know I’ve navigated weeks on the ocean right?” “Yeah, but we’re not at sea,” I said, taking another sip of my drink. As the figure walked closer, I could see they were a young man, most likely still in his teens. His tall lanky frame seemed disproportionate to his pale boyish face. On his back, he carried a rucksack that seemed a size too small, and it gripped tightly at the shoulders, pinching his collar. “Excuse me, can you confirm if this is the correct way for Section F?” I asked as they approached. “Uh, yeah, eventually.” The man’s pace was unchanged, and he continued walking towards us as his eyes darted around, scanning his surroundings. “Thanks,” I replied, an unidentified uneasiness creeping up on me. “Do you know if the path is like this most the way?” “I think so,” the man said, now only a few metres from us. “Great, we’re just-” The man ran forward, bent down, and grabbed the satchel by my feet, charging past me down the hill. I let out a delayed yelp of anger as he sprinted away, plumes of dust kicking up from his heels. “Get him!” Alessia said, in an irritated tone as she quickly repacked her own bag. I gave chase after the man. His young, gangly frame skipped across the dirt path as he pulled the satchel over his shoulder. My feet took long leaps between each step, the gradient making each pace a fraction longer than expected. Slowly, I was catching up. As we reached one of the switchbacks in the path, the man took to the outside of the curve, my outstretched fingers just brushing the edge of his shirt as he went by me in the opposite direction. But as I rounded the bend, I looked up to see Alessia running down the higher parallel section. She looked over the edge and spotted the man below. She turned sharply, leaping off the steep embankment. Her feet landed mere centimeters from her target, and with her outstretched arms she caught the man, as her momentum sent them both into a tumble. They came to a stop at the edge of the path. Another roll would likely have taken them both further down the hillside. The man coughed loudly as he lay on his back, arms sprawled out. I caught up and stood next to him, leering down. “Don’t even try and move,” I said, my voice artificially gruff. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” the man said, his voice younger than it had been. Alessia stood up and quickly checked herself over for any cuts and grazes. “We’ll be taking this back,” she said, as she pulled up the stolen satchel. “You can have it. I’m sorry. Just. Let me go. I didn’t want to cause any trouble.” “Don’t worry. We ain’t gonna hurt you,” Alessia said. “Might as well see what’s in here though.” She yanked the rucksack from beneath the prone man’s arm. “Hey. You can’t take that from me. That’s mine,” he protested meekly. “Uh huh. So was the satchel a couple of minutes ago,” Alessia hummed as she undid the clasps on the bag. “Look. Take your own bag back. And I’ll pay you some more if you want, just give me back the rucksack.” The man’s voice was becoming increasingly frenetic. He pulled himself off the floor, sitting on the dirt, his hands reaching out pleadingly towards the bag. “Why? Whatcha got in here?” Alessia opened the flap and looked inside. “Nothing. Nothing that would interest you, I promise.” Alessia reached in and pulled out a large book. It had thick, hard covers, with what must have been a thousand pages of content held between. Alessia turned it over to read the cover. “Medea’s TBU Preparation Guide, volume 23” The man looked to the side, but he remained silent. “What is that?” I asked. “Nothing important. Honestly. If you just give it back-” “You’re a terrible liar, kid,” Alessia said. “Now this book ain’t worth anything to us, but I’m guessing you want it back with good reason.” The man leaned forward, resting his hands on his knees. “Honestly, it’s just some book. It’s not worth anything.” “So you won’t care if I start ripping pages out of it one-by-one?” Alessia opened the book, holding a sheet of paper tightly in her grasp. The man closed his eyes. “Please don’t” “Okay, so then stop speaking crap,” Alessia said walking towards him. “What’s your name?” “Cameron” “And, *Cameron*, why do you want this book so bad?” Cameron paused, his tongue stuck at the edge of his mouth. “I stole it. I’ve been trying to work out a way to steal it for like a year and I finally succeeded.” “And then you tried to steal from us?” Alessia chortled. “Yeah. Seemed like an easy target.” “No one ever tell you to do one dumb thing at a time?” Alessia said, rolling her eyes. “So what’s so important about this book anyway?” Cameron very slowly pulled himself to his feet. Alessia took a couple of steps backwards, tightening her grip around the book. Cameron let out a self-loathing sigh. “You’re not from the island are you?” “No,” I replied. “Why?” “Because if you were, you’d know what that book is,” he said to me, before turning to Alessia. “It’s a guidebook, to the test that every person on the island takes. A small group of people who are involved in creating the tests also produce a book that contains all you need to know to take it.” “It gives you the answers?” “No. It teaches you. It’s a study guide. You still got to work - be smart. But, it helps you prepare,” Cameron said. “The problem is they only make a handful of copies. They get bought by the teachers in the richest sectors, so those schools get a head start.” He paused, before pointing with a straightened arm at the book. “Teachers will pay a lot of money for that book, which is why I have been trying to find a way to steal a copy for a whole year”. Alessia slowly started putting the book back in the bag, treating it with care. “And so your plan is to go give it to some other school. Take the knowledge from one school and give it to another.” “Yeah. Stole it from the rich bastards in section B and taking it to F. And yeah, I’m gonna sell it to them. It’s not charity. But, still helps spread the word.” “Well, I appreciate you telling us the truth, Cameron,” Alessia said. “So how about we strike a deal.” Cameron let out a long bellowed huff. “What?” “You know these hills pretty well by the sounds of it. And I’m guessing you know a bit about Section F and the people there. You take us there, introduce us to people, get us the information we need, and we’ll give you your book back.” “And if I just grab the bag off you right now?” Cameron replied, squaring his shoulders. “Then I put my knife in your gut,” Alessia said, calmly. Cameron thought for a second. “Fine. But I swear you had better give it back.” “We will,” Alessia said. “But meanwhile,” she outstretched an arm pointing down the slope of the hill,. “lead the way.


THE MAN WAS tired, and alone. He was the last of his group, and as far as he knew, his species. He was realistic about his life expectancy, but had the habit of survival. He foraged through ruined buildings, moving slowly, frequently stopping to listen. The naked girl was too clean, too attractive, too unlikely to exist in this post-invasion world. She could only be bait. Her leg appeared to be pinned under collapsed ceiling rubble. She was wide-eyed and terrified. "Oh, thank God! Can you get me out?" He stopped moving and sniffed the air, expecting human spoor. Cephalopods didn't really have a detectable scent. He smelled dust and mold, and himself, but nothing else. Not even the girl. No sign of a trap, because he'd be able to smell any sufficiently large group of people to man a trap, and the Invader-modified mutants never worked with humans. Confusing. Unless the girl was really stuck as she appeared to be. The man remained still and considered circumstances. He looked at the girl again, and it seemed that she shook her head very slightly. There was something wrong here. The hair stood up on the back of his neck. He retreated a slow, measured step and quietly drew his katana shaped sword. A collectible he had looted from an abandoned house in the suburbs, it was a cheap knockoff made from crap steel that wouldn't hold an edge. With frequent sharpening it was just barely sufficient for slicing mollusks. The guns he carried were for dealing with humans. Half a dozen chunks of concrete rubble flickered and it was suddenly obvious they had been cuttlefish the whole time. The girl screamed and they leapt, flashing colors in ripples that were intended to dazzle his senses and confuse his mind. He sliced and diced, carving pieces from his attackers. Several were able to get their arms on his limbs and torso, but the man was wearing paper armor made from old magazines. The suckers could attach to the outer sheets, but unless they wrapped all the way around he could jerk them off at the expense of a few pages. One cuttlefish grabbed his forearm and took a divot from the fleshy part of his palm with its beak before he shook it off. Dismembered arms, still fighting, managed to attach to his face and scalp and draw blood, but they were more annoyance than dire threat. A couple of piles of dirt turned into octopuses and scurried towards his feet. He sliced one open but the other was able to wrap arms around his left knee and began to squeeze and twist. The man felt a ligament tear as his knee torqued, and began desperately hacking at his assailant until he finally cut its mantle in two. An octopus is hard to kill with its three hearts and nine brains, but cut into pieces it fights with less coordination. The man staggered but kept moving and swinging his sword. The girl screamed, "Behind you!" and he spun on his good leg. A colossal squid was hanging from the ceiling with 8 arms and reaching for him with eight meter feeding tentacles. He chopped one of the tentacles off but the other wrapped around his waist and planted hooks that extended through paper and pierced his skin. The man howled in pain and drew a handgun, firing shot after shot into where he perceived its giant eye to be. The hooks loosened a bit and, gasping and panting, he chopped at the tentacle, finally pulling it free along with chunks of his own flesh. The squid pulled itself through a hole in the ceiling, trailing severed limbs that spilled gouts of blue blood. He took a couple of clumsy steps, blood dripping from his scalp and face, and pouring down his legs. He looked for more threats, but apart from writhing arm sections, there weren't any enemies left. Suddenly dizzy, he sat down hard. He wanted to reach the girl before losing conciousness, in case they came back while he was out, and crawled toward her while he could. HE WOKE UP an indeterminate time later, lying against a dusty wall. He wasn't wearing his paper or pants, though he still had his underwear and shirt on. The rags he used to secure the armor were tied around his knee, and someone had made an attempt to clean off some of the blood he had been covered in. The girl was wearing his other shirt like a poncho and sitting cross-legged with her back to him, cooking pieces of octopus and cuttlefish on sticks over a small fire. He could see her leg that had been pinned was bruised and scraped bloody, presumably from pulling it out in desperation once the attack had begun. She had two of his handguns in shirt pockets. The man quietly drew a dagger from the sheath between his shoulders, and lunged forward, putting an arm around her and the blade to her neck. She froze and said, "Calm down, mister. I borrowed your guns so we'd be safe while you were out. You take them back now, ok?" He didn't say anything. "Look, mister. If I wanted to hurt you I could have done it before you woke up." Keeping his arm around her chest and the knife in his hands he retrieved his firearms and felt down her body until he was sure she didn't have any other weapons in her possession. Then he released her and leaned back against the wall. "Can I turn around now?" The man grunted and pushed her with a foot. She turned around slowly and met his gaze. "Want your shirt back?" He stared at her until she became uncomfortable. "What, you don't talk?" When he did speak, his voice was a rough growl. He had to clear his throat and swallow to be understood. "Used to. Been a long time since I had anyone to talk to." His throat was dry and his lips stuck together in the corners. He looked around for his water bottle. Moving slowly she reached to her side and picked it up, and handed it to him. It was a one liter soda bottle and it was full of a murky liquid, which he drank carefully. Water. He capped it and set it down, then continued staring at her in silence. "I wish you would say something. You're making me nervous. Why are you staring like that?" Eventually he decided to answer. "You don't make sense. I'm trying to figure out what you are." She smiled slightly. "If I give you your shirt back, you'll see what I am." He shook his head in irritation. "Where did you come from? How can you be so healthy and well fed? Where are your scars?" He held out an arm covered with sucker marks, hook lines, and healed bites. "Why aren't you dead?" He repeated himself. "You don't make sense." She sighed and took a deep breath. "I'll try to explain." "Go ahead then." She appeared to take some time to figure out where to start. "Ok, you know what these things that attacked you are, right?" "Mutated cephalopods. Uplifted by the Invaders. Given a new way of breathing so they can live on land and intelligence so they can work together to hunt us." She nodded. "That's pretty much true. But how do you know this?" "I don't. It's what people say." "For once, people are mostly right." She started to turn back to the fire but stopped and asked permission. "I think the food is ready. Can I check it?" Now that she mentioned it he could smell the cooking meat and his mouth flooded with saliva. He jerked his head in assent. She turned her back to him and did something over the fire. After a minute she turned back with skewers of meat set on a relatively clean sheet of plywood, which she placed between them. He greedily grabbed one and started ripping octopus off the skewer with his teeth. He hadn't eaten in days. "Can I?" She pointed at the trencher. He grunted assent and took another stick for himself. She took one as well, and began eating, almost dainty compared to the way he wolfed his down. They ate in relative silence for a while. He had finished five sticks of meat and she two before she spoke again. "What do people say about why they did it?" He swallowed and wondered if he should save the last few skewers for later. With his knee he wouldn't be able to hunt for a while. If she tried to hunt she'd never make it back. "A bunch of crap. Guesses. Maybe they didn't like us eating calamari." She made a soft noise that he didn't recognize as laughter right away. He hadn't heard anyone laugh in so long that he couldn't remember it ever happening. "What's your guess?" "That they're evil bastards who want us dead. What fucking difference does it make? We're almost all dead anyway." She shook her head. "What you need to understand is, it's not about you. They didn't really even think about humans. You were just in the way." She spoke quietly. He stared at her for a long moment and placed his hand on the pistol in his lap. "You're going to have to explain how you know that." She nodded. "I'll explain everything." Again she thought for a while. "The Invaders are very intelligent, in a way that you, with your single brain, can't really understand. I'm not talking about their technology, the genetic engineering and faster than light drive. Humans could develop as much in time. They can control multiple limbs more precisely than you can control your hand. They can be any color or shape they choose. An Invader, any cephalopod, has abilities that humans can't even conceive. Even pre-Invasion cuttlefish and octopuses can do things you can't imagine." He thought about what she was saying. "We always suspected the Invaders were cephalopods. No one has ever seen them, though." "Some have." She paused. "I have." She waited for him to say something but he remained quiet. "They're not just cephalopods. They're directly related to the terrestrial species genetically." "You mean Panspermia." She looked surprised. He smiled bitterly. "I've neglected my academic studies somewhat since the Invasion, but I remember things. There was even a theory that cephalopods had extraterrestrial origin." His voice sounded more cultured and less brutish than it had previously. "I … I didn't expect that you'd be educated." "Lot of fucking good that's done." When he didn't go on, she said, "So, you have to understand that, to the Invaders, humans didn't even seem sentient, at least not as they knew it. All intelligent life in the galaxy is like them. Of course it is. They seeded it." Again she waited for him to respond. When he didn't she went on. "Humans seem more like automa that can perform clever tricks. Like you would think of a virus. By the time they realised their error it was almost too late." "Almost." "Once they realised that humans were more than they thought, they decided to study us. To learn about us. Before we were all gone." He looked at her, suddenly intense. "Now we're getting to what you are." "I was an experiment. Raised by Invaders and exposed to captured humans, in the hope that I could form a bridge between the two. Able to understand both species." "Do I want to know what happened to those captured humans?" She looked away. "No." After a while, he asked her, "What are your plans for me?" "Why do you think I have plans for you? I could have escaped them." "Could you have? You would seem to be a valuable tool for them to lose track of. And our meeting sure seems to be a perfect set-up. You in distress, me your rescuer? You sympathetic and warning me of danger, then after, you my nurse and caretaker? Maybe I'll tell you about the Resistance?" When she didn't speak, he went on. "That attack should have killed me. They gave up pretty easily, didn't they? Leaving me crippled and unable to get away, stuck here with you. So I'd have to listen to your story, and then what? What do you want from me?" She reached out a hand and placed it on his good knee. "There aren't many of us left. We may be the last ones." He laughed bitterly. "I'm supposed to ask if you mean we'd be like Adam and Eve, right? Except we can't be, can we?" She stared at him, saying nothing. Then, "Why not?" "Because you're not human, are you? You're an Invader. You put on a good show, though." She looked at him, choosing her next move, and then just gave up. "What tipped you off?" "Your skin flickered a bit when you were trying to sell me. Your scraped leg is still wet." She looked at her leg and it scabbed over. "You've been watching my reactions and adjusting your appearance to suit me. You've been getting more and more beautiful the longer we've talked." "Eventually I'd be your perfect woman. I could make you happy." "Your happy slave, you mean." "Is that so bad? You'd still be happy." "I think I'll pass on the role of 'Slave to Alien Conquerors,' thank you." She leaned into him and he drew back. "It's not like you really have a choice, you know." Her limbs began to separate and become tentacles. He raised his pistol and she said, "You must know that won't do anything to me." He said, "It's not for you." He put the pistol in his mouth and pulled the trigger. He had the habit of survival, but he had secrets.


I actually just emptied out my refrigerator and fried every ingredient in butter, even the milk carton. It smelled horrible. It was toxic,nasty. I have to keep away the bad things. I fried these things because there are two monsters in my closet, and they demand that I do certain things. Most of the time, they want me to burn something, but sometimes they get weird with it, and make me fry or melt certain objects. Today it was the contents of the entire refrigerator. My husband is at work, and I don’t think he’ll be too happy with what I have done, when he gets home. I have always kept my monsters a secret from him, and it has been fairly easy because the monsters have, up until this point, asked me to destroy small items. A single piece of broccoli. A plastic figurine. An earring. But this will be impossible to hide! It must have been, what, two-hundred and fifty dollars worth of groceries completely obliterated! The house smells of burnt plastic (I had to fry tupperware), and also fried meats and vegetables. They won’t let me keep the things I burn or fry, so even though there is some great cooked chicken, steak, and asparagus which I would otherwise store back in the fridge, they cannot stay in the house. They all must go in the woods. There is a dense woods in our backyard. I have to go about fifty feet in, and put it in the same pile as I put the other things. I am going to lug it all out there now. It’ll take twenty minutes because I have to make multiple trips. Okay. I just got back. I’m sweating. The pile is getting really rancid and I hope no one finds it. I hope a large animal comes and finds it, and eats all of the contents. Pigs eat everything, don’t they? Maybe a wild pig. If a wild pig doesn’t come by and eat all of my evidence in the next couple weeks, I’ll have to buy one, and set it free. All while my husband is at work, of course. I went to our bedroom to check and see if the monsters were doing okay. One of them is green and fuzzy; your typical, run-of-the-mill monster. The other is tall and thin, and he changes colors all the time. I told them that I had fried everything in the refrigerator, and may I please have the rest of the day off. They said yes. I knew I needed to go to the grocery store and re-stock. But I was so tired. They have me doing things that take up so much energy and time. I don’t feel like I am even living my own life anymore. I am their slave. They told me that if I don’t do what they say, they will come out and introduce themselves to my husband, and then he wouldn’t want to be with me anymore because of all the hassle. Its so much easier to be married to a woman who doesn’t have monsters following her wherever she goes. I agree that he’d be pretty pissed off. So I laid down and took a nap. He’s going to be home any minute. I love him so much. I’d do anything to keep him. He’s my best friend. What if I burn the house down? Would that destroy the monsters? I’m going to consider it, for now. My husband is my rock. I love him with all my heart. I’m going to put on some lipstick and kiss him, tenderly, the minute he walks in the door.


The August heat remained heavy and oppressive well past sunset, but John found himself light on his feet as he waltzed up the drive, and against all odds, he was humming. It was a jaunty tune that wasn’t recognizable to him, but he continued on, discovering the song as he went. The date with Wendy had gone quite well.  He hadn’t expected much - he rarely did - but she was such a goofball, comfortable in her own skin, and the way she held his gaze sent his stomach fluttering. Sure, she isn’t the biggest hiker and she couldn’t tell you the difference between her phone camera and a DSLR, but hobbies seemed less important than whatever connection they found tonight. He took out his phone and spent the last few minutes of his walk flipping through the pictures they’d taken by the river. It was hardly necessary, though, as Wendy’s carefree smile was already engraved in his mind. John unlocked his door, walked in, and dropped the keys in a pewter tray nearby. He paused, then reached in to pick up his wedding band. He’d taken it off a few times when he left the house for dates, and quickly slipped it back on where it found a familiar groove. He absently fingered the gold ring as his thoughts settled and he returned to ground level. As he turned over thoughts about the date in his head, they took a turn, and small doubts bubbled up: She really didn’t care for his hobbies. Was she really that charming, or was she just pretty. She laughed at that joke a little too hard.  His shoulders sagged, and he reached down to the pewter tray again. There was another ring lying next to the keys, gold and studded with small diamonds. It was his wife’s, and it hadn’t been worn in almost two years. He scooped it up and stared at it cupped in his palm. So…Not too bad, I hope? The voice in his head cut in. “Hmm,” John stirred out of his meditation. “Oh, yeah it was fine. She was fine.” So you hated it? John rocked off of the sofa and made his way to the dimly lit kitchen, “No, I mean we had a good time. Just feels a bit weird, ya know.” He shuffled over to a small ceramic bowl on the counter and dropped her ring in with a clink, watching it settled next to the words “Love you, always.” Well, it might take a few more tries. I’m sure it’ll come back to you soon enough. The light from the kitchen spilled out across the hallway and John followed it to the gallery of pictures hanging on the wall. They were all of him and Beth. Some he’d taken of her with his full kit, attempting to capture all her wonderful facets, and some were just for fun. He settled into the padded chair he’d placed in the hall a few months ago, and began his nightly ritual. He took in deep breaths and looked slowly over the photos hung on the wall. Each frame held a strong memory for him, and he’d lost countless hours reminiscing on the physical projection of his past, letting his mind hop from scene to scene. It sometimes brought him joy to remember what life had been with Beth, but sadness always burrowed its way in before the night was through. Fitting for tonight, John was particularly focused on one of his favorites – His first date with Beth. They took a cheesy selfie, walking out by the river, waffle cones dripping with ice cream and wide grins covering their faces. “I knew even then. You were fun and free,” he said. Oh, I knew you knew. I don’t think you stopped smiling the whole time. Loser. After a beat, the voice settled back into a more serious tone. And, Wendy? What did you guys do tonight? “Uh well we went by the river, grabbed some ice cream from –“ “John!” The voice cut in sharp and very much not in his head. John twisted around awkwardly and stumbled backwards into the wall of pictures, sending some crashing to the floor. He scrambled to sit upright, keeping his wide eyes fixed on the floating visage of Beth. She was glowing and translucent with tendrils of white dancing around her like tall grass. The pale gold dress from their first date hung loose around her, blown by a nonexistent wind. “Beth, you – what,” he smacked his palm into his forehead a few times and looked back upwards. Still there. “You did not,” She yelled down at him, punctuating every word. “You are making this impossible!” “I – I’m not,” he stuttered out. “It just seemed like a good idea. It was hot today and she lives right there,” he shook his head. “Wait, what is happening,” His head swam with dozens of questions: how is this happening, what are you, are you real, but he settled on just one, “Why are you here?” The specter of Beth floated down into a crouch next to John, “I’m here because you need me to be. You’re stuck on me…on us.” She pointed up to the remaining pictures clinging to the wall, her glowing hand like an accusatory beacon. “But how are you here,” he asked, questions spilling out of him now. “And I’m not stuck.” “Not stuck? You’ve been staring at us every day and you’ve gone on the exact same first date three times now.” She took a moment, her furious, luminous eyes softening a bit. “All this,” she gestured up to the gallery. “This was us. It was great and lovely and us. You aren’t going to make that happen again. And this,” she said spinning in a morose circle before settling back to the floor, “this is me now. You won’t let me leave. I need to rest, and you need to live.” John looked over Beth more completely now. Her misty form sprouted wisps of spectral energy that reached out to him, wrapped around the center of his chest, and pulsed with a glowing light alongside his heart. “See,” she said. “You’re holding on, and we’re both trapped here until you decide to let go.” “Well, if I can’t find another you, then why try? That’s all I wanted. Its all I want still.” John’s eyes welled up and a few tears spilled down his cheeks. “It’s not fair what happened.” He curled up beside her, aware of the empty space her ghost left. Her perfect face stirred up knots in his stomach and a strain in his throat. Pain and emptiness pulled at him as he saw his wife, knowing it wasn’t her returned to him. “I didn’t know I was holding you prisoner,” he admitted, whispering now under shaky breaths. She rose above him and strands of delicate thread swam to cover her. They gave off a radiance and fell away to show her in a blue flannel shirt, muddy hiking boots, and an Osprey backpack – a copy from their trip to Banff. John found the photo he took of her among the mountains, scattered among the smashed frames on the floor beside him. “Remember when you said the mountain river was clean enough to drink? A pure source, straight from the ice.” She flashed finger quotes and a broad smile for the last bit. “Yeah,” He smirked, sitting back upright, “and then I puked in your back seat all the way down the mountain.” A little warmer now, John stood and followed her past the wall she floated through and into the kitchen. “Will you listen to me this time, then? The water you’re drinking isn’t safe. You’re letting the memories of our past cloud your mind and your judgement. Are you going to waste away in front of your pictures every night, clutching those rings and holding me prisoner to watch you suffer? I loved you, John, but I would never have wished you to be a slave to grieving over me in death. It’s okay to go on.” John let her talk, and he let the silence follow. He knew she was right. He was wallowing in self-pity and his increasingly baggy shirts let him know he was wasting away by the day. When the quiet stretched on for a few minutes with her form hovering in front of him, he took a leap. “I’m scared.” He let the emotion sink in, “scared of finding someone that means something to me.” “But John, that’s exactly what you need. Someone to –“ “I don’t want to lose you. If I love them, how could I keep you?” “Look at me,” said Beth, rising over him. “This is what I am now. I’m a ghost – not real. I am not Beth. I’m the memory of her, and memories won’t get burned away the moment you find someone else.” The words ran hot and tired from her mouth. Her anguish, for a second, bubbled over into rage, so she forced herself to pause. “I’m sure I can bring you comfort sometimes, but leaning on this every day just sours into pain.” “How can I just move on?” He was standing now, eyes eager for some deliverance and hands held out and passing through her translucent arms. “How do I let you go?” “I’m already gone,” she whispered, “but you won’t be forgetting me. You’re making room for new life to be lived.” She looked over his shoulder into the hall again, addressing the pictures. “These memories you’re keeping are perfect days, and they make you cling to all the bright spots of us. We weren’t perfect, and I know you know that, but you can’t expect our best days to happen on first dates. You have to chase someone who makes you happy and see where they can take you.” Beth’s ghost transformed again, this time wearing a simple t-shirt and sweats. “Keep the memories, but let go of those notions of me and how faultless our love was.” She sailed over to the gallery wall, covering it with her hazy form. “This was me every day. Not dressed up, having adventures and posing for your photoshoots. Not your perfect image of me. This was me when we sang our goofy songs and cooked new dinners and stayed up too late watching true crime. This was me when we were building our real relationship and living . Remember this and what it took to get here, but don’t try to remake our life.” John nodded silently and strode away with purpose. He returned with a plastic box, kneeling to the floor to pick up the broken frames. He picked up each photo, admired it, and placed it gently in the box. He looked to Beth, feeling as though he were betraying her still, but she too was looking at each picture with a soft smile. They recounted the stories behind each, and laughed like they used to. Within an hour, all the pictures and curios in the hall were neatly and purposefully stowed away. Beth motioned for John to rise, “come,” she said. “One last thing.” He followed her dimming spirit to the kitchen where she hovered over the ceramic bowl he’d dropped her ring in. “its time,” she pointed to his own ring and then back to hers. Tears ran down John’s cheeks and pattered onto the counter. He kept his head low, not wanting to look her in the eyes. “It still hurts,” he said. “Why does it still hurt?” Silence hung in the air at that, so he twisted off his own ring and he set it in the bowl beside hers. Both rested nicely beside “Love you, always.” He crinkled some parchment paper around the bowl to protect it and held on tightly with both hands. “It hurts because it meant something,” said Beth. “Now, though, we both need rest.” Her eyes shone with tears. “Can you do this for us?” “Yeah,” he managed. “I’ll always love you.” John padded over to his storage box and placed the ring bowl right at the top. He sealed it up and walked it up to the attic. He returned to an empty room save for a few shards of glass he would have to clean up. For now, though, he just wanted sleep. John shut his eyes, letting and the warm glow of Beth ease him into sleep. … He awoke in a mess of blankets and pillows in his bed with salt clinging to his cheeks. A flood of sadness, anger, and confused hope battered him as he turned over the visit from Beth last night. I know I know he thought to himself, and himself only. John rolled to a sit and pulled up his phone. The black screen stared back at him for a moment while he decided whether he was ready, but Beth’s voice echoed in his head to let go and he gave way to it. He mouthed as he typed out, “Hey Wendy, had a great time last night. Any plans today?” The minutes passed as he blankly stared at the text he sent, feeling regret wash over. To push the thought of rejection from his mind, he pushed out of bed and got himself ready for the day. He walked through the now empty hallway and smiled at the pictureless wall. The scene stirred him, and he hurried back to his room to grab his camera gear. He finished packing up his camera bag when a ping sounded from his phone, plastering a smile to his face. “No plans,” read the text. “Want to grab lunch?”


   We are lost in an action film, the sounds of pounding feet, shouts and breaking glass are the musical score and the smoke and heat blanketing the street are the special effects. This insanity has to be fiction, real people aren’t monsters that destroy property, raze neighborhoods and attack and kill others! But as I sit in the middle of Main Street cradling my dying sister in my arms, I know this is my reality, not a high budget action film.

  Tears make long furrows down her soot stained cheeks and blood trickles from the corner of her mouth unto my sleeve.

“I love you, Munchie.” She softly whispers. “I’m so sorry, Kara. You were right we shouldn’t have come tonight.” I sobbed leaning my head against hers.  “Not your fault, I thought it was for Henry, but it wasn’t….. these people are.......only out here for the chaos……they are creating.  Tell Mom and Dad I am….sorry.” Her lashes flutter as her once lustrous eyes fade, her lids close slowly, never to open again.  “Kara! Kara! No don’t leave me, I’m so sorry, so sorry……  “Young man, let me help you get her out of here.”

I look up into kind eyes, filled with compassion; his face is haunted by the tragedy that is swirling around us. He leans down and gently lifts Kara into his arms and signals to another officer that he is taking us somewhere safer. As he takes us behind the barrier, I see the looks of pity and sorrow these officers give me. I had thought, no I’d been told that they were the enemy, but what I see is a group of men and women just trying to help stop the violence and chaos that has ensued because of one despicable person, that never should have been in uniform in the first place.            * * * * * *  * * * * * * * * * * * *

12 hours earlier  “I cannot believe this crap, another mayor suspending an officer for tasering a suspect who was resisting arrest! It’s incredible.” His Dad growled into the news paper.  “Honey, we’re eating breakfast, can we discuss this later?  “No Mom! We need to talk about this now.” Keith demanded.  “Cops are attacking the black community, and they need to be punished.”  “What happened to Henry Marvel was horrific, nobody and I mean NOBODY is denying that. But that was a rogue cop, he’s been arrested and charged. He will be tried and prosecuted. The whole police force should not be condemned because of the crimes of one.” His Dad told him. “That’s not enough, look at what you just read to us, cops tasering people!  That’s not okay!” Keith argued. “Those people had committed a crime and were resisting arrest, they have to be held accountable for what they do and police have to be able to do their jobs, to keep the community safe.” His Dad explained.  “And who holds the cops accountable!” Keith shouted as he jumped up from his seat.   “The federal government, other officers, society. If it didn’t work then the ‘cop’ who killed Henry Marvel, wouldn’t be in custody now, he has not got away with what he did! That is what being held accountable looks like.”

“There are lots of others.” Keith said adamantly.   “Who? Please be specific.”

  “I don’t know their names off the top of my head.”   “How can you or I prove your right or wrong without any specifics?”

  “Your racists just like the cops!” “Keith! …. Have I ever taught you to look down at a person because of the color of their skin?” “No.” “Have I not taught you that every man is equal, that no one is better than the other, and that we are all brothers and sisters in Gods eye.”  “Yes, but the media says…..”  “I care what God says, not the media, politicians or celebrities.” I taught you to use your brain, to study up on things that are happening, not to blindly follow the masses into hysteria or worse.” “I know, but…..”

“But what? Why did you call me racist? Was it because I didn’t agree with what you were saying? That is exactly what the media does, if they can't substantiate their point they cry racism. I taught you better than that!” “ But on the social media site I was on they said that 85% of cops attack innocent blacks, it’s an epidemic!” “Keith, open your eyes, those sites are meant to enflame people, they lie and twist what is really happening to fit their agenda.” Keith glared at his Dad, he didn’t believe that, it wouldn’t be on the news if it wasn’t facts. “What happened to that poor man, is not a race issue. It is a human rights issue, an issue of a police officer, thinking he is above the laws he’s meant to uphold, it’s about one sick human being refusing to care about the sanctity of life.  Son there will always be some narrow minded bigots that are racist, white, black, brown, it’s not exclusive. You need to realize that most people are not like that. Think about the people you see everyday at the store or at school or at the fast food restaurant, they are the same as you and me.   Are they looking down on you? Are you looking down on them? Or are you just going about your day, seeing people going about their everyday lives, no conflict, no strife. Until you have an horrific incident happen and instead seeing a sick individual that needs to be put in prison for his crime and a family that has lost a loved one, we have people deflecting it to scream about racism and police brutality.” His dad told him. “Well I want to go the the protest tonight, to show that I know what happened was wrong!” “I’m glad your becoming a young man of strong convictions, but you are not going to that protest, what is happening at these gatherings is way beyond Henry Marvel or any equality protest.” Keith grudgingly nodded to his Dad and left the room, with his sister trailing behind him.

“I don’t care what Dad said, I’m going to the protest tonight to make my voice heard…..Come with me Kara, it’ll be fun.”

“I don’t know, I’ve seen some of the protests turn violent.” Kara frowned thinking of the images she’d seen. “That’s only because the cops harass the protestors.” “But what are we protesting against? I haven’t heard a single person try to defend that cop who did this, everyone from the president and other police officers to joe blow on the street, thinks it was horrific and wrong.”

“We are protesting the cops who use brutality against black people!”  Keith shouted at her, then got real quiet hoping his parents weren’t listening. “I think the whole population of the United States is on the same page regarding police brutality, its wrong against anyone, that’s why they arrest those who commit it, Munchie.” Keith popped a cheez ball in his mouth and he rolled his eyes at her use of his nick name.

“Don’t you feel bad for Henry Marvel?” “Of course I do! What happened to him should never happen to a human being.” Kara cried. “Then go for that, if nothing else.” “Okay I’ll go with you.” “I’m going to make a sign to take, just make sure you don’t let Mom or Dad know, we’ll sneak out after they leave for bowling.” Kara agreed and went to her room to make her own sign.   After their parents had left Kara came down stairs with her sign, it said;

                  STOP THE VIOLENCE                SKIN COLOR IS JUST THE                                 WRAPPING                     WE ARE ALL THE SAME                                     INSIDE  “Really Kara! That’s all you could come up with!” Keith scowled at her.  “What’s wrong with my sign? You told me, you’re going tonight to make your voice heard, that’s what I’m trying to do. I believe we are all God’s children, no matter our skin color. And ALL the violence needs to stop.

 What does your sign say?” Keith turned his sign around for his sister.                          AN EYE FOR AN EYE                         JUSTICE FOR HENRY!  She scowled at his sign, but didn’t say anything.  “What do you think?” he prodded her.  “You really want to know?”  “Of course I do, why, you don’t like it?” Keith started getting angry.  “I just think you could have picked a more peaceful message is all.” She told her brother.  “That cop needs to pay, so do all others like him!”  “Don’t we have a judicial system for that? Who are you now Judge, Jury and executioner?” “Just stay home; I don’t want you with me with your kumbaya attitude.” “I thought we were going to pay our respects to Henry and show we don’t want something like this to happen ever again. What is this about for you, justice or revenge?” “I’m leaving, you sound just like Dad, and I’m sick of it. I keep up with

Social media, I know what’s happening, you can stick your head in the sand if you want but I’m going to demand justice.” With that he grabbed his sign and slammed out the door. Kara sighed and followed her brother out into the night.

 Keith knew Kara was about 25 feet behind him but he refused to wait or speak to her. They still had a couple of blocks to go before they got to the meeting place for the protest. A car pulled up beside him,  “Hey Dude, here’s some material for the protest.” The guy handed him a couple of bricks, laughing as he drove away.  What the heck was that about, Keith thought with disgust. He was glad Kara was aways behind him, because he could just imagine what she would have said about that. He dropped the bricks and listened, he could hear people chanting. He glanced behind and saw Kara was still following him and soon he was absorbed into the mass of people.

“Justice for Henry”  “Stop the slaughter.” Was the battle cry and Keith joined the chorus, but soon the tone changed,

“Death to the cops” someone shouted then others echoed the yell.  Keith watched as a group of teens threw bricks through the window of Mr. Carlson’s Barber shop. Mr. Carlson was a kind elderly black man, who always had a smile on his face and candy for the kids. He and his Dad had been getting haircuts there since before he could walk. Why would they do that to his business? Next they vandalized the Mikes market, Keith watched as people ran in and came out with arms full of cigarettes and food, a couple of guys dragged out the clerk. They pushed him into the street and started beating him with a skateboard. Flames erupted a few feet away from Keith when someone threw a Molotov cocktail into a vehicle that had been parked on the street. Keith was shocked, why were they destroying things and attacking people, he had believed all the stories of violence and destruction had been just propaganda to stop the protests. At least that's what they said on the news and social media platforms. He saw the guy that had given him the bricks earlier, he had a baseball bat and was hitting anybody who was unfortunate enough to get close. What did any of this have to do with Henry Marvel? What did it have to do with police brutality against blacks?  Keith saw black, white and brown people being attacked and businesses being destroyed by whites, browns and blacks alike. There was unity in the destruction, meaning no one and nothing was safe. Kara! He had to find her. He dropped his sign and turned and ran. He frantically looked for his sister but chaos had taken over the streets. There were two types of people now, those seeking refuge from the violence and destruction and those who were causing the violence and destruction.  He saw people carrying TV’s, computers and phones out of an electronics shop. And people trashing the bakery, but he didn’t see his sister. He heard someone behind him yell ‘Cops’ then people scattered as he heard loud popping sounds going off.  Smoke billowed and filled the street as more businesses caught fire.   Finally he spotted his sister about 15 feet ahead of him; the fire highlighted her profile like a giant spotlight. He screamed her name but she didn’t hear him, she was struggling against a tall man who was gripping her arm. Keith ran as fast as he could to get to her, he screamed her name with every step. When she heard him call her name their eyes met, his urgent, hers filled with fear. Time froze when he saw the flash of a blade, the fire illuminated it as it swung downward and was buried in his sister’s chest. He reached her only seconds after; he sank to his knees and gently gathered her into his arms. He cradled her to his chest fearing it was too late. Why? Why?  Keith cried for help as people streamed around them, some stopped to film them with their phones, but none of them offered any help. Insanity ruled the night. “Young man, let me help you…………

     * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Satan snickered as he watched the chaos and suffering from afar. Humans were so easy to manipulate.


The wind was cold as snowflakes whipped through the air like frozen razors. A blizzard was blowing in, and could be seen on the horizon across the icy tundra. Great, white clouds flowed from the northern scene, soon to blanket the red-stained terrain and cold bodies in the storm’s path. The sea to the north was sloshing with icebergs, and the wind crashed great chunks of ice against each other which cracked and shattered as loud as thunder. A figure moved through the knee-high snow across the tundra, away from a blood-soaked battlefield. The only survivor of the brutal fighting. In his own wake, he left a trail of crimson snow, courtesy of the wound on his torso. He saw the blizzard in the distance, and knew that it would be his death. His only salvation would be the mountain to the west of the battle. If he couldn’t climb high enough to avoid the worst of the snowfall, perhaps he could find a cave to shelter in, he thought. Skjold was his name. A name that was given to him by his mother, in hopes that one day he would become a great warrior worthy of a name that meant “shield”. But the blood pouring from his waist made him feel undeserving of it. As many in the harsh northern lands were pressed into service by the numerous warlords, he was made to believe he would return a conquering hero. Instead, fate seemed fit to let him die in the cold tundra. Due to this, a question repeated itself in his mind. Why did he press on? He was hopeless, wounded, near death. He shook off the doubt. Succumbing to despair would kill him faster than the cold. If he was not to survive, he would make every effort to spite fate. As Skjold stepped onto the foot of the mountain, the winds picked up whilst he traversed the shallow incline. The softer snow was more difficult to walk on, and the battle had already exhausted him. Above the gray clouds that hanged low in the sky, the sun was already beginning to set. It was still light enough to keep the wolves confined to their lairs, but the light would not last long. As the walk took him further up the mountain, his sweat began to freeze to his face and under his jack as well as inside his socks. His feet were numb. What few chin-hairs he had were beginning to form glassy beads that melted as fast as they froze. Skjold pulled the hood of his thick woolen cloak further down over his head and lifted the collar of his shirt over his nose. His breath thawed his face, even if his posture had to remain awkward as he climbed. It was a grueling hour of walking as the incline slowly increased. The blizzard drew ever closer, but his salvation was within sight. With shivering hands, he crawled up a small outcropping and found himself at the mouth of a small icy cavern. At last! Desperately, Skjold ran into the shelter and collapsed, finally free of the chilling winds. He would have seen fit to curl into a ball and wait out the blizzard, warmth finally returning to his hands and feet. But he felt eyes on his back before he could strip off his boots. Deeper inside the cave, he heard a low, quiet growl. Startled, he turned to see a pair of golden eyes in the cave behind him. Beneath the eyes, in the dim shadow of the cave and the waning illumination provided by the darkening sky outside, he saw the white shapes of fangs glistening with saliva. Instinctively, Skjold reached for the axe in his belt and held it high above his head, threateningly. He shouted and growled at the wolf in a vain attempt to scare it away, he was in no shape to fight the predator. Undeterred, it stalked closer to him and pounced, jaws gnashing towards his face. It knocked him onto his back, and Skjold wrestled with the creature. In a moment of desperation, he recalled a technique his father told him of. Curling his hand into a fist, he thrusted a punch into the wolf’s mouth and forced his hand into the back of its throat. The animal thrashed and made gagging noises, but he kept his hand in its maw as he struggled to free his axe from the wolf’s weight pinning it to his chest. The wolf stamped its claws onto his wound more than once, and pain shot through Skjold’s body each time. The predator’s breath warmed his hand, and with the return of feeling came pain as he felt its teeth rip the skin from his flesh. Finally, he pulled his axe free and slammed the blunt against his foe’s head. It yelped, and he freed his bloody fist from the wolf’s throat. Taking the axe in both hands, he bludgeoned the creature in the eye, and it went limp atop him. Skjold pushed the unconscious animal off of his body, breathing heavily. He stood, sucking enough air into his tired lungs to release a weak cry of victory. The instant it left his lips, he heard more growls deeper within the tunnel. His stomach sank with dread as he saw more wolves appear from the darkness. In a moment of panic, he yelled at the creatures and threw his axe-- his only weapon-- at the pack. The wolves scurried aside the weapon, giving Skjold enough time to throw himself back out into the snowy mountainside. The cold washed over him, and in an adrenaline-fueled frenzy he clawed and tore his way up the sheer rock outcropping the cave led into. When he finally summitted the crag, he fell onto his back as his muscles screamed in pain. His left hand was slicked with blood. More of his precious life flowed from it and froze to his skin. The corners of his vision blurred as the snow continued to fall onto his slowly dying body. With great effort, he pushed himself to his feet. Immediately, the wind whipped into a howl and snow began to batter him. He was too late; the blizzard had arrived. He couldn’t return to the cavern, not unarmed. The sky grew yet darker. It was night, and what light could be salvaged from the moon was snuffed by the massive clouds overhead. Following the incline of the mountain, Skjold continued further up. He clung to no distant childhood memory to keep himself motivated. He had no young sweetheart in his village to keep his aching legs moving. Even the spark of fury in his soul had died out, he felt no motive to spite the gods, or fate. In truth, he did not know why he marched on. An hour later, his vision was blinded by the haze of snowfall. His ears were deafened by the howling of the wind. Darkness of the night shrouded what little he could see. But with the darkness, he was able to see something through the snow. A golden glow, hidden amongst the trees and much further up the mountain than he could walk. A camp? A cabin? He did not know, but the spark of hope burned brightest in his heart. He couldn’t die here, not so close to safety! With his muscles burning yet numb at the same time, he shot towards the light as fast as the thick snow could permit him to move. He pulled himself up the incline using tree branches and exposed stones for handholds, but his vision blurred more as he came closer. He saw that the light was a lantern, sitting on the porch of a cabin. With a strained cry of effort, Skjold sprinted uphill and tripped on a stone. He fell face-first into a snow bank, and felt a rush of warmth in his body. Rather than relief, this sensation brought him fear. It meant he was succumbing to the cold. He found no strength in his arms to bring himself to his feet. With his last ounce of will, he crawled through the snow and barely reached the stairs to the porch of the cabin. His will gone, Skjold rested his head onto the stairs of the porch and passed out from the exhaustion of his climb.


The old man sits upon his throne of cracked beige leather that has gone sour and musty with the years he no longer cares to count. Splinters of white daylight seep through the half-drawn faux wood blinds and striate across his face, the cleansing light twinkling on his bald head and round-rimmed glasses. Squinting against it his pallid blue-veined lids go red with heat. He turns his head to the clock on the side table which is also home to a smorgasbord of pill bottles. It reads 11:59 am. He takes three of the bottles, pops the lids and shakes a capsule from each into his hand like candy and downs them with a glass of stale water. He sits expectantly, hands at his knees and still as a mouse among blind cats. The clock strikes twelve. His rotary phone shakes and rattles its piercing banshee wail with a jarring suddenness in the silence that if he were not expecting it, he might have jumped. He lets it ring a moment and takes a deep breath before picking up the receiver. “Hello?” The voice on the other end sweet as honey and gentle as an evening breeze in the summer makes his heart race every time. “Hi, Dad.” “Hi, Frannie.” “Are you ready to come visit?” “Maybe, my girl.” the words spill from his mouth almost ritualistically, but still he trembles at them. “This is the last time I’m going to call, Dad. I just wanted to let you know that.” He freezes, wanting to say something, but can’t find the words, the guilt and shame a lump in his throat so big that if he were to cough it up, he’d stomp it to a mess of red pulp and phlegm and curse it. “Dad?” “I’m here, sweetie.” “Okay, I have to go now.” “Can we talk about—” Dial tone slices through his head like an acquiescent killer, lonely and implacable. He sits listening to it, feeling it necessary to torture himself. The word “yes” escapes his lips, although too late. For twenty years he has been trapped in the purgatory of maybe, forced to walk the lonesome valley between yes and no. A groan of age escapes his lungs as he pries himself from the chair, the leather crackling and popping as his bare arms separate themselves. He shuffles across the laminate towards the bathroom, past the photos hung above the fireplace of children frozen in years they’ve long surpassed and sepia tintypes of family forgotten, most cracked with age as if made of glass - some even of himself in times he was alive. Past the windows where behind lies a sky so blue it might be of paper with a hole burned through with a bright yellow flame. He walks into the bathroom and flicks on the light switch. The cold fluorescent sputters to life, painting the room an unnatural, sterile white. He steps in front of the mirror and stares at the deflated visage before him, his bald head vitreous with sweat and sunken eyes like the heads of white snails in shells of wrinkled flesh ready to slink back into their holes. At the crown of his head he notices a single hair protruding like the shoot of some strange root vegetable. Yesterday there were two and the day before there were three. Grabbing it with his thumb and forefinger, he gives it a good tug. The hair comes out with what to anyone else might sound like a gentle pop, but to him sounds like a church bell has been rung in the seemingly empty, dusty hall of his skull. It rings on in an endless reverberation, bouncing around his head until his body goes limp and he lies crumpled and empty on the bathroom floor, the cold linoleum burning his skin. Lying like a dog half dead and whimpering, he sleeps. In dreams he sees the sun bright and full, its rays spreading out in a golden fan across a town through which people pass and wave hello. Houses line the streets like a checkerboard and among them, his own sits steady and unexceptional. Around the house a manicured green yard lies placid like a calm ocean and bees buzz about the flowers in the garden like frenzied satellites in orbit. On the dull grey stoop before the door to the house he sits and watches his daughter and granddaughter he’s yet to meet walk towards him on the concrete path that bisects the yard. They all smile and the granddaughter breaks free of her mothers grasp and runs towards him. He wakes cold and coated in a thin film of sweat. Relief crashes over him like a tidal wave as if something has been found - or lost - within. He’s not sure which. Pulling himself back up with the sink, he looks in the mirror one last time and runs a hand over his snowy white bristled jaw and removes his glasses. He no longer wishes to look at old things. Breathing heavy, he crosses back across the living room, taking care not to look at the photos again, the evening sun beating through the blinds and sketching onto the wall an aureate harp. He opens the front door and looks down and sees only clouds like a field of blinding white cotton candy separating him and whatever lies below. The scent of them one he hasn’t smelled in years and one that can’t be described. From his pocket he takes out a quarter and drops it. It falls soundlessly through the cloud that seals itself back up as soon as it passes. Hanging onto the doorknob, he stretches a leg out and brushes the top of the cloud with his foot. He’d pray to God not to fall if he didn’t already live where he’s said to rule. Atop the clouds there are no anachronistic castles of crystal or fountains of marble or gates of gold. No cities built with architecture of the angels or holy men in white. Only white emptiness unplumbed by man save himself. The tides of extrication brush gently at his feet and fill the spaces between his toes and he can taste its saliferous air salty on his tongue. Today will be the day. No more tomorrows or laters. A strange wind blows him back into the house and he saunters over to his bedroom. He tears the sheets off of his bed and tosses them into the living room. His legs feel like they’re going to give as he walks through the kitchen and into the laundry room, but he continues on. He grabs every sheet and blanket from the laundry bin and goes to toss it into the living room. Finally, he grabs the quilt from the sofa that his daughter had sewn for him as a child and places it on the pile and gets to work. Sitting on his knees, back hunched over, he ties the corners of each sheet and blanket to the other in a grid of colour, his daughter’s quilt in the middle. As a boy his mother had taught him to sew his own clothes after tearing them apart playing, but with his memory not being what it was, can only try his best. The needle dips and dives between each sheet like an ungraceful dolphin leaping through the air from a sea of strange colours, binding them together in an ugly patchwork Frankenstein creature. After an hour of impatient and hurried sewing, the sun waning, he finishes and looks down upon his work, face gleaming with sweat. What to anyone else would be thrown in the trash without second thought, he looks upon with a newfound jubilation, ready to finally be divested of all he has been. He grabs opposite corners of the sheet and swings it back over his head and walks towards the door. Taking a deep breath he turns the knob and pushes it open and looks down at the infinite white before him, his heart beating so hard it feels like there’s a little person inside trying to burst through his chest with a mallet. Glancing back he gets one last look at the house he’s spent his life and feels something well up in his throat. Time carries on, and so too will the house, but only for so long. A speck of dust waiting to be brushed off by the hands of a clock. But home isn’t a house, not a person, not a place. Home is in your bones. He turns back around, swings the sheet above his head, and without looking down, jumps into the unknown.


My meeting with God went quite well actually. I partook in the usual small talk, asking about his son, how his sister-in-law was doing, what his friend, Nick, was up to, etc. etc. etc. Then the Jew came in and droned on and on about our numbers and figures and how we need to work harder before she finally left to go play online poker in her office. You get the picture. A normal Tuesday meeting. At approximately half past three, everything went to hell. You see, when God, an Atheist, and a Jew walk into a conference room, not much happens. But when you throw Satan into the mix, things get, shall we say, interesting. At approximately half past three on that otherwise uneventful Tuesday afternoon, Satan appeared in the conference room. It was supposed to be his day off, but as everyone already knows, Satan is not one to follow a schedule. The amount of times I’ve seen that man forget what time it is and work until 4 in the morning is astounding. And of course our boss, the Jew, goes on and on about how great Satan is and how much work he gets done and how we should all improve our work ethic to be like Satan and blah blah blah. And obviously God tries to suck up to our boss and he works a bit overtime, maybe until 10 or 11, but at some point even he just gets too tired. I go home at 5. I ain’t losing sleep for this hell-hole of a company. Where was I? Oh right, so Satan walked into the conference room. Now, a little thing to know about Satan. Basically he has this small but extremely inconvenient habit whereby anything he touches spontaneously combusts. We work at a paper company. Half of the reason I leave on time is because I’m not wasting my energy on a paper company. The other half is because I can’t bear to stand and watch in second hand embarrassment as the firefighters come in for the sixth time that day to hose the building down. The town has built a second fire station right next door to our building after we had 66 fires in six days. Anyway, Satan walked into the conference room, looking red as ever, half of him hidden underneath an unnecessarily long cloak. “How are you doing, Satan?” God asked. “Well… I uh… someone left some paper out… and I couldn’t find my gloves… and now –“ The smell of burning paper started to fill the room. “God damn you Satan!” I yelled, flashing a quick apologetic look at God. “Is that money I smell burning away?” Oh crap, our boss can smell it too. “No just the carpet!” we exclaimed in unison. Our boss’s voice grew louder: “If I open this door and see my merchandise on fire again, I swear to you Satan, I’m throwing you out!” Immediately, God grabbed his water bottle and sprinted out the conference room, throwing water over the burning papers. Just as the last flame died out, our boss swung open her door. “Satan! I hate to do this to you, but I swear to God, if you ––” She took a moment to look around the soggy room. “Where’s the fire?” “No fire, ma’am,” God replied, “Just spilled some water is all.” After taking another quick glance at all of our faces, the boss shut her door and continued playing her online poker game. I can’t stand to spend another 90 minutes with these people. About an hour later the fire department arrived for the fifth time that day. I decided to finish work early, partially because I was tired, partially because my boss fired me for throwing a lit match at one of her employees.


We held hands that night, lying in bed together and crying. Both of us felt it. We felt each other’s heartache, heartache so intense it felt like we were dying. Dying there in that bed together, but also birthing something newer and better.

Once upon a time we were laughing together and consumed by our then romantic relationships. Fortunately for us, the men were best friends just like we were. It couldn’t have been more perfect! Except, it wasn’t.

What made us swoon slowly became the stuff of nightmares. I woke up from mine, but you just weren’t ready yet. He left you still feeling exhilarated, but I could see behind the mask. I could feel the coldness. I could see the marks he left. You couldn’t see them, but your body betrayed you.

As I proceeded to travel on beside your dimming light, I met another soulmate. He was different. I was sure of it. He readily-filled the lonely places, and he dazzled me with new light. The same light you were experiencing, but yours smelled like gas. I came to realize that mine did too. Time went on, and our happy times together were less and less. My recollection was an unraveling so fast it made my head spin. The distance between us grew larger and larger until we stood on either side of an abyss. We couldn’t see each other anymore. I couldn’t risk falling in to save you, and you couldn’t even risk throwing me a frayed rope.

Eventually we parted. I think I knew it had to happen, but the pain—oh my god—the pain was so intense. I missed you with every fiber of my being. I thought about you every single day. I was in anguish knowing you were being deceived and hurt in ways I didn’t want to imagine, ways that I saw sometimes reflected back in my own mirror. As time passed, I threw myself into my new relationship. He knew just what to say. He encouraged the distancing with you. In fact, he encouraged the distancing with anyone close to me. He controlled my every movement, which I saw as him being my Savior, my protector. I couldn’t see what was going on, even as I obsessed over why you couldn’t see it in your own relationship.

I heard of your grandmother’s passing: the nurturer of your childhood. I was filled with dread for you and your already dismal state of mind. Of course I had your number memorized, so I texted you a cryptic message of my condolences. You didn’t know my number and questioned, but I knew you knew it was me. I should’ve thought it through though: it probably caused you trouble at home. The thought now makes me cringe.

My own journey was a struggle and I found myself wading through a murky swamp of despair, lonely and sad to my core. I often thought about how you would’ve helped me pull myself out of the dirty water. You were once a life preserver to me, but now you were hanging on for your own life. My soul hurt. Then one day I felt your return. You reached out. Your pain so palpable, I could taste it. Your bruises so visible, they hurt my eyes. His evil so intense, I feared for your life. Your desperation heartbreaking, but your courage mounting. Your story unfolded into my lap. You finally got away. You did your best, and your best was good enough. You made it through to the other side, only to hit another wall. He couldn’t let you go without a fight. The fear you felt, I felt. I finally had my best friend back, but would I be able to hold onto you? Your life was in constant turmoil, and you didn’t know if this day would be your last. We both looked over our shoulders together. I was right beside you. Your fight now became my fight. I watched as you endured endless battles with the devil himself. I watched myself turn into a protective momma bear as we fought against a system that doesn’t hold water for battered women. It brought us both to our knees. Day after day brought on new attacks against your life. I witnessed them alongside you. Even then, you listened to me and started to question whether your biggest supporter wasn’t in a battle for her own life. You gave me what was left in you to help me fight as well, knowing I had to come full circle just as you had. Our friendship was rekindled. It was like the old days, like no time had passed. You sang at my wedding and held my new baby in your arms. Ours was a story of friendship renewed and refreshed. Unfortunately, you also watched as my devil emotionally impaired me for what may be the rest of my life. You watched as I sank into a depression so deep, you were sure it swallowed me whole. The rope. You threw it this time, but I couldn’t quite grasp it. My Big Bang came with a betrayal that shook my core. All that was left was a shell. I didn’t have visible bruises, but you helped dress them just the same. You helped me find the girl you always saw with YOUR eyes. She was just as courageous as you had been. We felt each other so deeply, it went without saying that we were the best of friends. As we soothed each other in the dark that night, crying and laughing, I realized that we were more than just those two girls who met in college. Long days ahead lied in wait for me as I came full circle; longer nights for you reliving your hell in your dreams. We were warriors, fighting life’s battles together, each one a soldier who would carry the other one on her back out of the trenches if necessary.

And when I told you it was me on the phone, you said you knew it was me all along. You felt it. You felt it like you would if I was your sister.  Soul sisters. Written for my real life soul sister—Sabrina.


Ophi wasn’t sure what to do with this new information. It had certainly changed his view on things. Some of the things. It gnawed on the back of Ophi’s head just enough to irritate him. Once again, he felt the pressure to warn everyone. Ophi limped out of his den. The spines sheathed under his skin still felt awkward. Ophi scanned the bushes. As much as the bushes made a tight circle around his den, their branches did a poor job filling themselves in, and the gray sand so visible beyond them made everything look ghostly, and to top it all off, nothing could be heard except for the slight whistling of the wind. That was just too much. Ophi missed the days when this place was busier. The bushes outside Ophi’s immediate circle rustled. Ophi clambered out to have a better look. He could see a candy red ear sticking out of a bush. Ophi walked past the bush and flashed a smile. It was Heidi, with her sprite in the form of a deer. Classic Heidi, happily fulfilling her role in the Internet as a browser. She may have grown a few fangs, but that was all that changed. Ophi muttered a greeting. None of his friends liked to start the conversation. Heidi turned and stood there. Ophi felt his spines slide out a little. Now he hesitated. Ophi cocked his head to the side. Heidi tapped her foot against the ground. She only stumbled, right?

Wait, no. Heidi lowered her head. “It seems my family was struck with a curse! First my mother, now my sister!” Ophi fell silent and paid more attention to the slight tickling in his mind. While Heidi talked and talked, Ophi realized he knew just what she needed to hear. “Things haven’t been so great for me either,” The user said. His pores tightened around the newfound spines.

“as I’ve overheard the park rangers talk about using darts on us...”

It was easier to let them slip out. The more Ophi said, the more he got excited. Heidi’s outline blurred and buzzed in Ophi’s vision. Ophi’s eyes bulged out of his head and his heart raced in forced thuds. Ophi just kept talking and talking until he felt his pores rip open. That’s what got Ophi to stop and look at his flanks. The crimson spikes were out, but none seem to be missing.

Ophi noticed the still air. “Heidi?” Even the distant ads fell silent. After a moment, Ophi heard branches crashing and caught a glimpse of a large animal scampering away. Ophi felt the quills droop. He crept back into the rotting log framing his den. The fire inside him burned with shame.

Ophi made his way out into the clearing and spotted Heidi. She was sitting in a sagebrush so that only her head could be seen. Ophi felt the urge to tear out his quills. He didn't have them for very long and he's already threatened his friend's life. Ophi’s heart pounded in his chest. “I’m… really sorry about what happened last night.” Heidi froze in place. “It’s fine.” Ophi continued. “I didn’t mean to hurt you. It was a stupid thing I did and I have no excuse for it.” Heidi made no movements whatsoever. “No hard feelings.” Ophi sputtered, and searched the bush with his eyes. He couldn’t see if Heidi was injured. “Is there anything I can help you with?” Heidi kept the same wooden posture. “We already made our decisions.” Ophi fell silent. The knot in his stomach grew more and more with Heidi’s behavior. The red deer kept her nose pointed at her friend like it was a gun. The little fangs looked more like boar teeth. Ophi turned with shaky knees. Trotting out of the bushes, he felt he should spend the day elsewhere. That one day turned into one week, that week into a month. It had got to the point where Ophi had to dash out of his den before the thorns on his bushes could close in on him. The dips in the sand made scowling faces and so many ads have ceased their chirping. Worst of all was Heidi. She still made her way near Ophi’s home, only to stare everything down. Ophi felt a growing emptiness during this miserable time.

When on the verge of despair, Ophi would strike a conversation with Heidi. She only shot words like bullets. “I’m fine.” “Okay.” “Nothing important.” And it never lasted long, for Heidi would dart away suddenly.

Then came the shadows. One stiff ghost would stand in the bushes with Heidi, and then another, and another. Those beady eyes came at Ophi like a rogue wave. He would have drowned if he had not shut the den hole in time. Ophi pushed himself against the splintering wood blocking the hole and strained against his ribs to breathe, but alas, he spotted the white dots on the bark lining the den walls. Ophi just laid there, curled in a ball. He was worried about his new spiny skin beforehand but he never thought it would lead to him being shut off from the rest of the world. Ophi then began to think. If someone else knew about his crime, they’d expect Ophi to ditch the spines.

Ophi remembered.

One year, a user took on the form of a lionfish, and made the same mistake as Ophi. Once the crowd surrounded the user and demanded he ditch the spines, he complied. Alas, the crowd still painted a target on his back and their victim was last seen getting butchered by hackers. Those axe-wielding maniacs showed no mercy. A streak of bright white stopped Ophi’s train of thought, with the jagged edges cutting the streak off reminding Ophi it was his makeshift mirror. He could see the squiggly white spots in his own eyes. Doe eyes on a hideous pin cushion? Five users were attacked for that in the last year alone. No explanation was enough to fend off the mob. When Ophi wasn’t lost in the waves of torpor, he lay dazed with more such examples keeping him stunned. The more and more Ophi mulled over this, the more and more he swelled with anxiety. He was not the sharpest creature in the scrubland, but he knew anything that looked wrong, they could punish him for it. “What kind of monstrosity has a hellish body and tearful eyes? He must be a sly, corrupt beast! We can’t trust anything he says!” Ophi felt an intense tingling all over. He could barely move his limbs. That was all Ophi remembered before the heat did him in. A chunk of wood jabbed Ophi in his side, ending his dream. The first thing Ophi noticed were the intense cramps in several points of his body. He couldn’t see anything aside from the faint lines in the wood shoved against his face.

A harsh chop broke further into Ophi’s prison.

That was enough to set him off. Ophi blasted out and roared with all his might. He could see the hacker running away, like a tiny thug. Ophi reared up and lunged at the intruder. Both brutes slammed into a huge stump. Everything roiled under the impact. Ophi chomped on the dry stump and used his new coils to crush it until the hacker pinned under him stopped moving. Crunching branches alerted Ophi to two rangers running into his field of vision. Another threat! The rangers pointed their guns. Ophi hissed and bristled his quills. The rangers fired anyway, and Ophi threw himself at them. When Ophi’s vision cleared, he saw the rangers sidling around him. Ophi snorted and allowed his eyes to follow the smaller one. Ophi reared up and brandished his cumbersome fangs. The targeted ranger was now flinging themselves at the landscape like a pinball. Ophi jolted and jerked, slamming his huge teeth at anything that resembled a dark leather jacket. The last yell stopped short and Ophi slowed, satisfied. He looked around to survey the area, whose bushes and other plant life were reduced to sticks lying on cold grey sand. The new monster turned to the path leading to the rest of the park and saw users walking out from the connectrees. Ophi sneered at them but only a few fled.

In fact, one led a group charging toward him, and this one was bright red!

Ophi shook his head in disgust. “She just couldn’t stop coming back, could she?”

Ophi rammed through bushes, slithering with new fury. The last bush gave way and Ophi could finally see the group, with Heidi leading them. Ophi kept pressing forward. And so did Heidi! She slammed her hooves and galloped harder. Ophi lunged for the huge branches covering the broken fence. The branches burning under him expelled a peppery scent, which only made him cry harder. He just couldn’t do it. Not after all that he and Heidi had been through. Heidi was the only one that followed Ophi out of the thickets of their youth. Ophi’s eyes followed the ripples in the sand, only to watch them get erased by the incoming raindrops. Ophi could only hope by sparing Heidi, she would understand. She always had.


“I’ve been having nightmares about my wife lately… I’m just… Well maybe I should tell you about them?” Alan said hesitantly. “Yes, that would probably be a good place to start. There is no wrong way to have a therapy session.” Collin replied. Collin was legally blind, he couldn’t see Alan but he could see shapes that were probably Alan. Clients had told him that it was off-putting that he couldn’t look at them or meet their gaze. Other clients had said that it felt reassuring. Collin couldn’t really control it so he didn’t let the criticism or critiques affect him. “Well, I mean, there are probably SOME wrong ways.” “Ok, that is fair, I just meant in the broad sense, I guess. Get back to these dreams though, don’t try to distract yourself.” “Oh, yeah… Let’s see… Alright, the first one then. My wife and were in the bedroom, not intimately but not whatever the opposite of that is either. It was just… Two married people, a couple living, you know? I don’t think we were really doing anything, dreams are weird like that sometimes. It isn’t always exactly clear what is happening until something big happens. She started itching her back, in a frenzy sort of. Really going at it. So I offered to help her. I told her to turn around and she did, she lifted up the back of her shirt for me to scratch against the skin. Get a better scratch, right? So she lifted up her shirt and I saw her back, it is covered in these little pimples, a serious outbreak. She doesn’t like to scratch my back because my back is kind of gross, in all fairness, she doesn’t like the feeling of stuff coming off under her nails. You know the stuff, little back pimples or blackheads or whatever and I have that stuff. She doesn’t so much, her back is normally smooth but I wasn’t going to, you know, I wasn’t going to complain about it. I started itching her back and I brushed over the first pimple and it burst under my fingers. I had scratched the head clean off, not on purpose but it happened and I kept going. I went over a few more, the same thing, but I started to notice something and I started to feel something. The stuff under my nails, like she said, but it was moving. I looked down and saw that her back was covered in these little worms with these little heads like the pimples, and they were crawling all over her back. I jumped back away from her and cried out, ‘Laura your back! Worms!’ and I was freaking out. I pushed her towards our bathroom across the hall and grabbed a towel to start wiping those things off her back. I started trying to catch them all under the towel and wipe them into the shower drain but then she started laughing. ‘Don’t be silly baby, those are just the glut-worms!’ She kind of giggled it out, even. One jumped from her back to try to get me and I caught it out of the air between two fingers, like plucking a grape. I smashed it between my fingers and my opposing hand’s palm, trying to work the strength of two arms at the same time. You know, an overwhelming display of force. So I pulled my fingers away from my hand to find that I had pressed too hard, cut myself. In my desperation to crush this thing I had sliced into my own palm. And I hadn’t even killed the dang thing! I could see it start burrowing into the cut in my palm, this little green worm with a white head like a pimple! I started digging into my palm to try to stop it, and it started hurting. I could hear her, Laura, telling me to not worry about it while I am trying to get a grip on this thing and pull it out of my hand. But yeah, I can’t get a grip and that was when I woke up. I woke up digging into my own palm with my finger nails for some imaginary worm that wasn’t there.” Alan and Collin sat there for a moment in silence. Collin staring at the far wall past Alan while Alan looked down at his own feet. “You mentioned that you’ve had multiple nightmares? What was the next one?” “You… Uh… You really want to know?” Alan asked cautiously. “Yeah, well, not if it has more bugs but yeah, maybe.” Collin replied. “Okay…. Well, this next one is shorter. So yeah, nightmare number two I guess. I don’t remember how this one started… I actually… the whole thing gets kind of shaky… Even the end is a little confusing maybe but it starts with me looking out my window and it is winter up to the gills outside. I know, y’know, we’re in the dead heat of July and I’m dreaming about snow so deep in my backyard that you could practically swim in it. But yeah. So I looked out my rear kitchen window that overlooks my back yard. And huddled at the far end of my fence was what looks like a big white dog, laying in the snow facing away from me. Shaggy as hell, fur longer than corn husks maybe. I looked back behind me to call my wife. ‘Laura!’ I called out to her, you know, ‘You have to check this out!’ So she got up out of the bed, I guess that we had been watching television in the bedroom before or something, and she came in to the kitchen. I turned around to point out of the kitchen window but the dog was gone. It had completely vanished. ‘I don’t see anything.’ She said before turning back around. ‘It’s gone now but I swear that the BIGGEST dog was just outside in the backyard!’ But she wasn’t listening, she had already started walking to the bedroom. After a couple of minutes I followed her back. The dream gets fuzzy again, I don’t know what happens until the next part but I know what happens next. I was standing at my bathroom window, I had opened it up, and I was looking out into my backyard again. Back in my backyard again, my eyes land on that dog. He was much closer this time though, maybe only ten feet away. I hissed Laura’s name, real low. “What?” she called back, annoyed but also low and I thought that she understood what was going on. She walked up behind me, quietly and she saw what I was looking at. I heard a sharp intake of breath and I’m still not entirely sure if it was her that gasped or me because it started to move. It slowly lumbered its great neck around, pointing its face at us, and the face that it had was not a dog’s face. It was the face of a man, pale and sick looking, eyes dead almost but it looked right at us. It snarled its face and snapped its teeth at the window in the blink of an eye. But me... I was already moving. I screamed and pulled Laura away from the window with me a bit but let go as I rushed into the bedroom to get my gun...” Alan trailed off for a moment. “You still have your gun?” Collin asked, leaning forward into the silence. He hadn’t realized how intense the story had been until just this moment. “Yeah… Should I… Should I not?” “We’ll get to that after, sorry, just a question, keep telling the story.” Collin waved his hand. “Ok… Yeah… So I was in the bedroom. And I keep my gun locked up, I know that isn’t great during emergencies but it feels safer that way. So I was fumbling with the locked cased, trying to get it open and I heard Laura call out to me. “Hurry!” She yelled, I guess that she had walked back to the window like some kind of maniac with a deathwish. “Its going around the house to the next window!” I got the gun and a handful of bullets and I was putting them into the cylinder while I was walking. I opened the door to the bedroom adjacent to the bathroom and I looked out through the windows but the thing was gone… It was already gone. And I guess that was when I woke up that time.” Alan said, letting out a long sigh at the end. “Geez, this kind of exhausting. Do I gotta tell you more of these? They are all like the last two.” “Like the last two? How?” “Well… So I told Laura about them and you know what she said? She said, ‘It sounds like I’m an oblivious idiot in all of these dreams, huh?’ you know? Like that… They’re all like that, where she doesn’t really get what's wrong until something bad is already happening and sometimes not even then. C’mon man, you’re the therapist, you should be noticing this stuff!” “Look, Alan, I’m not great at analyzing the themes of stories, I work with people, I’m good at people. But yeah, now that you point it out, I guess that those dreams do seem to be connected to that point… I guess my question for you is this, and I bet I already know the answer, has your wife still not talked to you about your attempted suicide? I mean, you’re even still keeping the gun?” “She… I think she blames herself… And so I haven’t brought it up and she has kind of ignored it too. Y’know, I’ve been out of the hospital for two months now and things are going… Well they’re going smoothly between us. I don’t know if I want to disrupt that just yet and she probably doesn’t either…” “Al, I’m just your therapist but I think you should talk to your wife.” “I’m afraid that she’s not going to see whats wrong.