Sulley was introverted, non-compliant and non-conformist, he was pretty orderly and organised as compared to most people his age.

Since his early childhood years he had never as much as liked large companies of friends, or even smaller groups of people. He stuck with his own ideas and appeared to be conceited to people, but in reality, he was just shy and awkward in social situations, and so it registered in his mind that he was better off being reclusive. Sulley was a teenager who loved technology, he would often watch videos on philosophy and bits of psychology, he enjoyed those because he loved new knowledge and he also fancied variety when it came to music. Since Sulley's childhood he performed fairly well in school, but he knew within himself that he was far better than the grades he scored on tests and in examinations but he just couldn't put his finger to what exactly made him underperform.

In his last teenage year, at age 19 he started watching some videos on YouTube that inspired him to think more and helped him to understand his younger self better. He soon understood that his studies weren't as effective as a child because he was always taught in large class sizes (which were uncomfortable to him), also he preferred doing individualist work as compared to group assignments that they often did in basic school. He realised also that he preferred intellectually stimulating conversations and deep conversations to small talk.

It happened that on his nineteenth birthday, he started watching this clinical psychologist on YouTube , by this time he had one friend who he could talk to, one who deeply understood his introversion. His name was Tom. Sulley spoke with Tom about anything that bothered him, and so he decided to let him know about an issue he was having with his mind lately, he wasn't sure if he had a mental issue or if it was entirely or partially normal, but he was worried . Sulley suddenly got up from his seat one day when he had Tom over after school and asked Tom " hey, do you think I'm going psycho?... um... uh ... I've been listening to this clinician on YouTube for a while now and I really admired him... but uhh ... mmhh ... lately I dont seem to have a conscience of my own like I used to anymore..." Tom interrupted " wait , wait... how long has this been?". "Well I started listening to him last year, but the voice in my head uh ... it started like last uumm.. maybe two weeks ago... it tells me things like 'clean up your room' or 'lay your bed' and 'pick up a responsibility and shoulder the responsibility of adulthood' ... you know the voice doesn't necessarily say any bad things, it actually helps me to stay productive..." Sulley said. Tom looked on a bit confused, scratching the top of his head , while Sulley continued " but the problem is that... I hate it because I feel like I don't really have a conscience of my own anymore, like I know that voice isn't the Holy Spirit that my sister spoke of , because the voice sounds exactly like the clinician from YouTube" Tom didn't think it was much of a problem, so he quickly replied " I think it's a normal phenomenon and happens to several people and you uhh might... you shouldn't overthink it maybe... yeah?" Sully tried hard not to frown, he wasn't satisfied with Tom's response but decided to keep the rest of his talk to himself, besides, he enjoyed his little moments of soliloquy alone in his room, asking himself questions and switching between alter egos , pretending to interview himself and all that. So Sulley decided he needed time alone so he turned to Tom again and said " well , Tom, you know what?... I don't think I want to talk much anymore, I think I need some alone time to recharge... so maybe you should go home, I'll see you tomorrow" Sulley tried not to make it sound awkward but that only made lt worse. It was always awkward and abrupt the way that Sulley would often call it a day, but Tom was used to all of that and just nodded and shrugged and said " well , okay, and please don't overthink the whole new voice of your conscience... it may come in handy... who knows?" Tom just smiled and waved at Sulley who never even bothered to escort him out of the room to the door leading outside. Once Tom was out , the voice started to instruct Sulley to complete tasks he had left undone, Sulley did it in such a little space of time that he surprised himself. He then reflected and realised that he could have never finished it so soon even if Tom helped out. Besides, Tom just like everyone else was fond of following socially accepted rules for doing things, which for Sulley, was a poor reflection on any human's creativity. Sulley sat a while and thought about things he had to do that he hadn't yet done , he remembered he hadn't done the economics assignment in class that their tutor gave because it was so hard to do, and even with the help of his sitting partner who he obviously struggled to communicate with, it was still near impossible to finish it. The voice of his conscience interrupted "don't reschedule resposiblities when you can do them now" Sulley nodded and agreed, after all, Tom mentioned that it wasn't a big deal that the voice of his conscious seemed to sound like someone else apart from himself , and that it may come in handy ,so he decided to do the assignment that minute. As he started, his thoughts felt lighter, he felt like a more intelligent person, and within five minutes he was halfway through. The clinical psychologist's voice in his head egged him on. Finally he finished it all up and was satisfied. He questioned how he was unable to do it in class but finished it almost effortlessly while at home and on his own. He reflected and introspected and came to a conclusion that he worked way better away from so much noise and that he was more productive being individualistic than as one working in a team. It was obvious to him now that he was one to work in silence. He was excited to find out about this new part of him, which he realised was obvious all along but not didn't have much attention paid to it. As the years went by, Sulley grew to know more about himself. He would often stay indoors, he didn't care whether or not he was invited to parties, he walked through the streets on weekends at the least busy hours in a hoody with his face pointing downwards and loud classical music playing in his ears. He was the type to change routes in a supermarket just to avoid a school colleague and he often did his serious work at midnight in the dark with dead silence and no one around or awake while chewing on a snack like tortilla chips. In school, he took up whole class group project works by himself and presented it on behalf of the team and scored brilliantly on them. He often finished up the work himself and would brief group members on his findings to keep them abreast with what they needed to know concerning the project. He was soon realised to be one who was independent. Sulley sooner than he thought became a young man in his mid twenties, by this time he was out of school and out of touch and contact with many of his peers because of his natural disposition of introversion. Even Tom barely heard from him now. They had begun to work and Sulley really didn't have the time to be hanging out with people. He had grown into a conscientious young man. He was disciplined to a fault and he still had that voice in his conscience spurring him on to do all he needed to. It so happened that his nation came to a state of emergency where government data had been hacked and citizens were at risk of having their personal data fished and misused and their bank accounts being emptied. The newspapers and television news aired the news with headlines like " your personal data may now be public information". Tensions were rising , as personal information of the president had already began to be attacked by this unknown hacker. Everyone was in a frenzy and tensed up, the government called for professional IT personnel to help resolve and reverse the situation but there were no experts found who believed that this could be solved. Sulley was in his room at 12 midnight at his serious thinking and work hours eating snacks, the voice in his conscience hinted that it was about time he stopped with snacks and ate some real food. Sulley sighed and put the snacks away. Sulley hadn't used social media for close to seven years, as he got tired of it and saw it to be a waste of time. He also didn't have much of his data online either. In fact he had almost a hidden identity on the web. He logged on to a news website and saw the national emergency. He sighed, and locked his phone's screen. The voice of his conscience seemed to vibrate in his head, "this could be the adventure of your life, take it up..." for once Sulley was about to shut the voice of his conscience, but the voice kept on " don't run away from things that seem big, start them with small incremental steps, you could get somewhere,... who knows? Life is an adventure, take it and see what happens" Sulley pondered for minutes on end. At 1:45 a.m he decided to tackle the situation. Sulley over the years had in silence and on his own learnt a lot about coding, information technology and cybersecurity during his active midnight hours and was ready to put it to use in an undercover adventure now. Sulley decided to help one of his favourite top IT companies to solve the national issue, so he decided to start sending them emails and post mails anonymously. The first email was a request to help solve the national emergency. The follow up e-mails were step by step solutions on recovery of all the lost and misplaced personal information of citizens on the web. The company was called "weTech" , they agreed to receive his help and asked for his identity, but Sulley insisted on staying anonymous and having no share in any profits made after the recovery was done. WeTech made a public announcement that it was ready to solve the crisis, the president gave the go ahead and stated a huge cash prize to be won , public tensions began to ease as they were assured that the situation would be solved within the month. Meanwhile, Sulley found the hacker online through a series of simulations and checks and witty efforts he made online. He sent e-mails signed with a pseudonym "working in silence". He signed off every letter to weTech and to the hacker with "working in silence" , weTech finally decided to make this strange anonymous guy called "working in silence" a headline by falsely claiming him to be a top secret worker in their organisation . Before long after many nights up, Sulley had worked out the whole puzzle of the hack and weTech was announcing to the public that it was in the final stages of retrieving all the data they needed. Sulley finally sent some mails to the hacker telling him to restore the bank money he drained from accounts or otherwise be turned in to the police. The hacker wrote back saying the money had been used and it would take some time to restore, so Sulley gave him the benefit of the doubt and allowed him time to get back the monies. By the end of the week, all the newspapers and Television news stations were buzzing with headlines like " top secret IT agent AKA "working in silence" solves national emergency" . Sulley saw it all over the news and just sat in his room, meanwhile WeTech had profited from Sulley's effort.

The company decided to mail his anonymous email account to have him to receive a job there and be paid. The voice of his conscience came up again " try this and see what adventure may come out of it" but for once , Sulley came against the voice of conscience and said out loud to himself " not this time, I'd rather work in silence... so its back to my life until another emergency" Sulley decided that this midnight could be taken lightly and maybe he should sleep , but before that he decided to use a real email account to mail the hacker , as he realised that he was just a man trying to make ends meet. It happened on one day in that week he suggested they met (he and the hacker) , the hacker agreed , and they met at a coffee shop. Sulley found that he too (the hacker) was introverted and very much like him , he suggested he came to stay over at his place in separate rooms while Sulley helped him clear the debt (without revealing that he was the one who uncovered the hacker's identity). Sulley helped him in various ways and from then onward they both worked separately in silence and met once in a while on the rooftop of their new shared apartment with snacks to talk about their unconventional thoughts at midnight . Sulley then one day said "what do you think about that national hero who they call "working in silence" " the hacker (who was called Shane) replied "well, I think he truly is a hero and considerate, I think he may be just like the two of us" Sulley smiled and said "well, yeah, I guess we are all working in silence" they both laughed and slouched in their chairs and went back to eating their snacks and gazing into the stars in silence. Sulley's phone suddenly rang. He ignored the call since he didn't know who it was that was calling, it rang again and he ignored once more, not long after , a text came through reading " hi, man, it's Tom... following the news lately about this mystery guy called working in silence made me think of you in your childhood days..." Sulley read on and smiled , then got up and threw his phone far and down and said to Shane "it turns out some people know us way too well" he took his chair and attracted making his way back into the house downstairs and said " I'm going to bed now, I hope I dream of new adventures working in silence haha"


They say that about twenty minutes walk from the village, deep out in the moor, there is a house where no one is supposed to go. The house is tiny, so small that every time it storms, someone brave goes up after to stand at a safe distance and see if it is still standing. It’s almost like a house made by a child for a doll; a construction of mud and straw that looks enough like a house but is, in truth, too cramped and unstable for anything to dwell there. The walls are short and the roof sags low and no one could live there.

And yet- Something does.

Something sweeps the house’s creaking porch, something keeps the yard neat and tidy, something chops wood and stacks it by the door and then takes it inside to burn. Whatever is inside that house, it always has a fire going. You cannot see the house from the village- it is very likely that no one would live there if you could- but you can sometimes see the thin, gray line of smoke, slithering through the chimney like an impossibly long snake leaving its hole.

The townspeople might forget about the house if it weren't for the smoke. They’d leave it there, a ghost story in the heather, and let it be consumed by the land. The foundation would sink into the earth, and the porch with it’s stack of firewood would rot. Birds would build nests in a collapsed roof. Small animals would scurry across the floor, and it would be as if the thing that lived in the house never existed.

But people see the smoke, and people know the house is there.

And because they weren’t supposed to go there, they went.

+++ The house looks different than Isla had expected. She had been prepared for a skeleton of a house, something small and rotting and swaying in the wind.

Instead, it’s just a house. Small and hard to make out in the dark, yes, but so unassuming that she could pass it in the village and think nothing of it. There are no howling spirits, and the air doesn’t smell of death and bloodshed. The air smells of nothing but soil and the afternoon’s rain.

Perhaps the normalcy is meant to put her at ease, but it just winds Isla tighter. She knows why she has come, the dark, looming nature of it, and she has never cared much for tricks.

With one last deep breath, Isla starts across the field and closer to the house, drawing her shawl tighter around her shoulders even though she didn’t really need to. Spring nights are either gentle or alive with storms, and the worst to fear tonight was a strong wind. The sky above her is resplendent with stars. The heather sways in gentle waves. As she moves closer to the house, she notices wild flowers growing close to the porch, beautiful even only in silhouette.

The porch doesn’t creak under her feet so much as it moans, low and wounded-sounded. The wood feels fragile beneath her feet, and she thinks one wrong step will send her crashing through the old boards, so Isla tries to step carefully. There are no candles or lanterns lit on the porch, no light or sound. There is only the ever-smoking chimney, and a low sense of dread burning in her gut. Her skin crawls and her stomach churns. She wants to turn and run, run back to the village, away from the village, anywhere that is not this strange, wounded-animal house.

Instead, she knocks on the door once. The door is hard, solid wood, just as her’s is. She strains her ears, trying to listen for movement inside the house, but she hears none.

“I seek a boon,” She tells the door, her voice so quiet it is nearly lost in the breeze. She doesn’t think that will be a problem. The thing in the house probably speaks the same language the wind does. She reaches to her neck, and fingers the necklace hanging from her neck.

The necklace is poor payment, little more than a stone wrapped in a leather thong. It isn’t even an expensive stone. It’s about as valuable as a river rock, though it looks a stunning shade of green in the right light.

It is the most precious thing Isla owns, and though she should unclasp it to present it to the keyhole or the shuttered windows, she only clutches the stone tight enough that the leather threatens to break, letting the blunt shape press an imprint of itself into her palm.

“I can pay,” She says, a little louder this time.

For a moment, the house is silent, and it is not a peaceable silence. No one appears, but Isla gets the distinct impression that she is being judged.

And then, still judging her, the thing in the house speaks.

“That is something of a given. Everyone comes thinking they can pay.”

The door does not creak when it opens, and Isla almost doesn’t notice. A sliver of a face is just suddenly peering out at her through the crack between the door and the doorframe, and she takes a step backwards so suddenly she almost trips.

The eye -the very human, very brown eye- crinkles with amusement, and Isla feels a fear so sharp she wants to cry out.

No tricks , she wants to beg, no tricks, just take it and be done with it. Let me do this in peace.

Instead, she says nothing, and the door opens the rest of the way. The thing that lives in the house is already moving away from her, further back into it’s glamoured home. Again, Isla debates turning and escaping into the heather fields.

“Come inside, and close the door behind you,” The thing calls, and with shaking hands, Isla does.

Inside, the house’s front room is even smaller than she expected. The fireplace roaring away at the back is barely even a fireplace at all, just a tiny square no bigger than a breadbox, though it warms the room so intensely that Isla wants to take off her shawl. She doesn’t, because it’s a very nice shawl and she would like to keep it.

This, at least, doesn’t look like a normal room. It’s a good enough imitation- the floorboards seem to be swept, and the things burning in the fireplace look more like spits of wood than human bones. But even so, it is not quite right.

The floor is almost too well swept, Isla thinks. It takes nearly an hour to sweep every floor in her house, and as much time as she devotes to the dull work, she still misses spots and corners.

On this floor, there is no dust in the corners, no missed patches. The floorboards are all pristine. But the front room is easily half the size it should be, so perhaps it shouldn’t be all that strange. It wouldn’t be, if not for the state of the walls.

Every wall in the room is lined with over-full shelves, cluttered with bits and pieces of other people’s lives. Children’s toys and rosaries, figurines carved from stone and wood, bracelets and necklaces, hair ties and cloaks, strands of beads and yellowing sheaths of paper and jars full of indiscriminate sludge, swords and knives and a rag caked with something that had dried a reddish-brown. Isla knows what they are the minute she sees them.

They are the offerings of other people come to see the thing in the house, thrown up on these shelves and left to molder. None of them seem valuable, but they are all deeply precious. There is no rhyme or reason to their organization. A thick slice of abalone shell leans against a handful of dried-up dandelions. They’re all thick with dust, some of them spotted with mold. The shelves themselves look dirty too- the thing in the house has collected all these momentos, all these precious keepsakes, and it never touches them.

The floor beneath the forsaken shelves, though, is gleaming and immaculate.

Something that burns and spits with anger comes to life in Isla's gut, but she smothers it as quickly as it came. She doesn’t want the thing’s anger. She is only here to make a trade. What does it matter what the thing does with it’s payment, so long as it accepts it?

But when the thing in the house finishes tending to the fire and returns to her side, Isla struggles to look at it. Instead, she stares past it, into the shelves.

“There aren’t this many people in the village,” She says at last. Her village is tiny, little more than a handful of houses clustered together behind a hill. If every person in the village came up and made a trade here, she doesn’t think they could fill one shelf, let alone over a dozen.

The thing in the house shrugs. It looks surprisingly normal, for what it is. It wears the face of a woman, weak-chinned and about as tall as Isla herself. But it doesn’t quite fit right. Something about the woman- the look in her eye, or the shape of her smile, or something else- itched at Isla, like the gnawing of a rat.

“You would be surprised, how much people are willing to give. Besides, it’s only natural for stories about a house with a wish-granting demon in it to spread.”

“We don’t have a house with a demon in it,” Isla says, trying to cut through the thing’s strange net of lies and false pleasantries, “You were here before the churches. You’re one of the Old Folk.”

“True,” The thing says, “But a demon sounds so much more exciting. Tea?”

Isla still refuses to look the thing in the face, but she feels it’s gaze the way she might feel a cut, or a bite from a stinging insect. Her skin prickles with gooseflesh. Some long-buried, prey instinct kicks to life in her gut and screams at her to run.

Very deliberately, Isla sticks her chin out and stares into the depths of the shelves. Her gaze keeps wandering back to a small horse carved from wood, no taller than three fingers’ breadth and painted what might once have been a cheery shade of red, beneath all the dust.

She thinks of her river-rock necklace, what it will look like on the shelf with the leather rotting, and the offering suddenly feels very heavy around her neck.

“No thank you,” Isla says, forcing herself to sound polite, “I would discuss the bargain with you.”

“The bargain, the bargain .” Isla has the rather distinct impression that the thing is rolling its eyes. “It’s always about the bargain, no one ever wants to chat. I have heard your plea a dozen times but no one will make conversation. Go on, though, go on.”

Something draws Isla’s gaze to the thing’s face, even though she would rather never look at it the whole time she’s here. The thing has changed it’s face. Gone is the pleasant-faced woman of the dull brown eyes and hair, and in her place is a man barely old enough to be called that, with a sharply hooked nose and a spatter of youthful freckles. Strangest, though, is it’s expression. She expects the thing in the house to look pleased, or hungry, or maybe just some unnamed, vaguely sinister emotion.

She does not expect it to look bored.

Her hands shake as she reaches up to draw the necklace off her neck. She holds it out, the stone swaying gently as it dangles. The motion is calming, and she focuses on that instead of the thing in the house. Something ice-cold washes through her, steeling her nerves and freezing her anger. She makes her proposal with a strange sort of detachment. The thing in the house will accept the necklace, and leave it on it’s shelves, and she will have her life back.

“This is a necklace my husband made me when we were children. He froze to death last Winter, and we didn’t find his body until the Spring. It is my most prized possession. Give him back to me.”

The thing in the house remains unchanged, unmoved by her plea. Something about the set of it’s expression makes her wish she’d brought a knife to offer it, instead. She could sink it into the thing’s ribs when they make the trade.

“It is fascinating how many prized possessions you people seem to have. You understand, of course, that I take the memory with the trade as well?” Isla nods, resolute. She knows no one who traded with the thing that lived in the house, and so she has no personal details, but she had examined the stories close enough to glean a few things.

The thing tilts it’s boyish head to the side, considering. “A well enough trade, a memory for a man. It is acceptable.” Something strange and unidentifiable flits across the thing’s face. It is not a feeling, exactly, but something like it. A cousin, maybe. A distant one. “But I will not take it.” Isla’s hold on the necklace goes slack. The stone makes an unimpressive clunking sound when it hits the floor.

“What?”

“I will not take it.” It flicks one hand at her dismissively. “You may go now.” “It is no different than your other prizes. You said yourself that the trade was acceptable.” “Exactly.” “You must take it.” Isla had been determined not to show any weaknesses that the thing might prey upon, but she can’t stop her voice from cracking.

The thing in the house stares through her dispassionately.

“No. I have heard this story too many times, and I tire of it. Go home to your house. Think no more of me.”

Isla can hardly hear over the roar of blood in her ears. She sees, in her mind’s eye, the way her husband had looked when the snow had finally melted and a hunter had brought his body in; the gray skin and the glassy eyes and the stiff claws his fingers had frozen into.

She cannot fail. She cannot go back to her own little house, cold and empty as it is, and bake bread for one person and do the washing for one person and sweep up the dust tracked in by one person.

“I’ll give you something else,” She hears herself say.

“No.”

“A different memory.” “I don’t want anymore of your memories.”

“Take my right hand. That is precious.” “No, that is grotesque.” Between one blink and the next, the thing changes its face again. There is the boy with the hooked nose and then there is the weak-chinned woman again. “Please, take my face,” Isla wheedles, only distantly aware of the way her voice shakes. “You like having faces, don’t you?”

“I already have it.” “Take my life!” Isla isn’t sure when she came so close to the thing in the house, but she is near enough to lunge at it. She clutches at it’s shoulders, screaming loud enough that she feels it grating against her throat.

The thing in the house looks very tired, suddenly.

“I could not take that, even if I wanted to.”

Isla’s mind races, searching for something else to offer up, something enticing enough to make the thing in the house rescind all it’s strange games and give her her heart back, but she finds nothing. It’s all nonsense. The thing in the house, and the strange refusals to every offer, and the way she can stare into the woman’s face long enough and almost recognize it from reflections.

Nonsense, all of it.

“Why,” Isla chokes out instead. Her voice sounds a wreck even to her own ears. Her throat feels like raw meat. Something cold and wet drips off her chin, and she wonders how long she’s been crying.

The thing in the house sighs, as if this is all a very tedious obstacle between it and it’s nightly rest.

“Your husband did not die in the snowdrifts, not at first. I think you went out for a walk with your brother. The blizzard was unexpected. Your husband came to me, a little while after, and he offered me a toy he had made for your son, before you knew he would be a stillborn. And I gave you back. “But death needs a trade as well. That’s why it likes you people so much. All the senseless bargaining. So you died again, in the Spring, when a sickness swept your village. And he came again. And then he died, instead, and you came. And he came, and you came, and he gave me his name and you gave me your face. You two have been giving me names and lives and souls and memories for nearly a year, now. I am exhausted.”

Something pulls in Isla’s chest, like a very large knot slowly unraveling.

“I don’t have a brother,” She says, eventually. It is small and insignificant, but it is also the only thing she can bring herself to say.

“No,” The thing wearing her face said, “You gave his memory to me a few visits ago.” “Why don’t I remember?” “I am a creature that feeds on memories. No one remembers me.”

“And the dying?” Isla says.

“Traded away.”

Isla looks away from the thing, crumpling in on itself with misery and exhaustion, and looks again at the cluttered, dusty shelves.

“...Does everyone come back to you?”

“Without fail. Tampering with fate only makes it that much more interested in you. Please, go away. I am so very tired of this game. Let us both rest.”

Isla looks at her offering, discarded on the floor.

“How many times have you begged me like this?”

“Several.” “...Do I ever heed you?” “No,” It says, hollowly, “No, no one ever does.”


The man up in the pulpit embodied what a true intellectual looked like in Ana's mind. He did so because of his undoubtable ability in rhetoric, how he conveyed perfectly his ideas as if there was no distance between his mind and his lips and how he did it with immense ease. The Professor was hardly a decade older than her, he went to the same college as she did not that many years ago, and sometimes spoke of certain professors still with the reverence only a student would have. His face was nearly unwrinkled, not handsome and yet charming, full of a vivacity that Ana was sure was the same that fueled his speeches. It was not similarity of values that attracted her to his intellect, but the confidence and the seemingly outstanding capacity of reasoning he had; even in ideas she disagreed with she found interest, if he was the one to propose them. The Professor was, in perhaps a strange way, what she wanted to be. He spoke of the role of the Administration according to the Constitution and ignored the chair of the pulpit, which had stayed untouched since the beginning of the class, prefering to roam back and forth casually as if they were having a conversation - him and each of the students. Then something caught his eye. The screen of his phone lit up on top of his desk and he stopped his pacing, grabbed the phone and, after a second, excused himself. "I gotta take this," He said. Ana sighed, looked around the classroom for the first time since the Professor began to speak. "Have you got a crush or what?" Ana heard a chuckle by her side. It was Lina. She wasn't really Ana's friend, but she pertained to that peculiar group of people that, by either lack of tact or some forced wit, thought it was daring in an endearing way to take a little bit more liberty than one allowed her. Lina liked to show Ana that she knew a lot about everyone, that she obtained some sort of secret knowledge as an insider in the social world of the university. Ana glanced at her and stretched her lips over her teeth upon the sight of her classmate crossing her slender legs and leaning in, as if Ana was going to answer her prying with a confession. "No, I just like his class." "I can't see him the same way now. Y'know, after I heard he's a swinger." She whispered. "He and Matilda, they go to those key parties and do that whole pinnaple thing". Matilda was his girlfriend, another professor. Ana knew her from the hallways, a stubby woman that walked always like she had something urgent to do. "Oh." Ana said. Lina didn't find the lack of response discouraging. "Yeah. Anyway, after the picture, I don't doubt it. Have you seen it?" Lina seemed to read a negative answer in Ana's face and pulled her phone out of her bag. She didn't have to browse much before secretively sliding it to Ana. The screen showed an image of the stubby professor, topless, in what seemed to be a fitting room. She looked pretty and relaxed, whatever urgent matter she hurried to in the hallways must've been resolved, and she held her camera to the mirror, proudly taking the photo. Behind her was the Professor, significantly taller, grabbing her breasts and smiling at the camera. He cupped them greedily, with some sense of ownership, and his face showed a daring satisfaction of one who's truly comfortable. "Jesus, Lina." Ana looked away, for the first time actually showing annoyance towards her classmate's behavior. "I didn't need to see that." Lina squinted her eyes, her playful look still there but mixed with something else. "I was just trying to fill you in, sheesh." She turned the other way, annoyed. Ana could swear she heard Lina muttering ' holier than thou bitch' and a warmth, of shame or annoyance, rose to her face. Ana looked down at her hands - they looked so far away-, her mind weirdly bothered. Shortly after, the professor returned. His presence silenced the room and he easily and hastily picked up his train of thought, again pacing back and forth, as if he was winding up his argument with movement. Ana switched her weight on the chair, crossed her legs in discomfort. She felt a quaint feeling she had felt a handful of times before. Corporeity had invaded reason, his ability was irretrievably tainted by the inescapable sin of his humanity. The face of that man, serious, scholarly, gave way to a lewd grin of satisfaction in Ana's mind. I'm a man, I'm a man, said his voice, she saw the buldge on his pants while he walked, she saw the fingers on his gesturing hand sinking into the soft, warm flesh of that smiling woman, she took in the slow shift of brain into flesh and she watched that metamorphosis with horror. He must know that the picture is out there, he must know we all have seen it, and yet look how he paces so confidently, she thought, not sure if with admiration or disapproval. Ana wasn't a prude, no, she liked to consider herself quite accepting, actually. She prouded herself of talking of taboo topics without restraint in her tongue or in her mind, she despised how sexual jargon still made so many giggle like middleschoolers. That couple of academics had been the victim of a leaked picture, or perhaps they leaked it themselves and there was no victim in the story, what would be the matter with that, they're both adults and they teach adults, perhaps it wasn't the most adequate thing to do but they had the right to do it, you never know what people get their kicks out of. And yet she still had that queasy feeling in the pit of her stomach. It wasn't of intrusion, as if she had seen something she wasn't meant to see. It was deeper than that, sillier than that. What bothered her was that that scenario of intimacy happened on the first place, as if she had a dogma that was just deadly struck by that Professor's hands in his girlfriend's breasts. He rambled still about the Constitution, but Ana didn't pay attention to his words. He paced from one side of the pulpit to the other, a man and a mind, two grabbing hands, a sharp tongue that spoke and licked with equal passion. I'm a man, I'm a man, it said, and it said it calmingly, accepting, freeingly.  She looked down to her own hands again. She noticed how far away they seemed from her, galaxies away, even though they rested on her thighs. Then, lifting her eyes to the Professor, she suddenly envied the fact that, for him, the distance between his mind and his hands must've been just the length of his arms.


It’s not them, it’s you You can pass the blame and cry boo-hoo Nothing good will it do For the one who hurts you most is always you Blair thought about her 14-year-old niece’s poem now that the flashing of the cameras stung her retinas, reminding her of the topic of the poem — hurt. She’d read it and felt proud. Sure, it was a little rough around the edges, certainly no Emily Dickinson, but there was a refreshing sense of accountability to it, maturity, wisdom. She’d promised her niece she’d frame it, but it was still sitting on her dining table, sans frame. She made a mental note to get that taken care of the next thing tomorrow morning.

“Next question, please,” the moderator called. Blair snapped back to the present. There was nothing like the screams and stares of a roomful of people fixed on her to do that. She cleared her throat and pointed randomly at the sea of raised hands. “Yes, um, gentleman in a blue suit.”

The owner of the suit in question stood up from one of the white plastic chairs provided to the press and adjusted his tie. “Will Farris, Pulse Chronicles,” he said in his deep bass. Blair gave a nod and a tight smile.

Will Farris spoke into a microphone with a logo of a magazine Blair didn’t recognize. “You’ve said that this ‘Timeless Minds Collide’ thing is, and I quote, ‘a cutting-edge time traveling project designed to offer perspective and healing to its users and the humankind as a whole,’ but be honest, isn’t that just code for ego stroke? I mean, to me your project looks like nothing more than the plaything of yet another spoiled billionaire who watched too much Quantum Leap as a kid and has now decided to make her childhood fantasy come alive all the while playing God for a day.”

The cameras flashed again. Blair leaned in closer to her microphone. “Please, Will, tell me what you really think,” she said and the room erupted into laughter.

Will Farris laughed, too. “Are you saying that you didn’t watch too much Quantum Leap as a kid?” he said. “I’m saying that there’s no such thing as watching too much Quantum Leap, Will. The show is objectively incredible,” Blair said, eliciting another round of laughter from her audience. Then she took on a more serious tone. “Well, I certainly can’t deny that the show was an inspiration for this project. After all, the idea is to have our travelers ‘leap’ into the body of another individual in the past. But unlike Quantum Leap, these are protected time lines. No past events can be modified in any significant way, and we have mods surveying the safety of the traveler and the host alike, so if ever one of them feels like spontaneously screaming ‘Geronimo’ and jumping off the roof of a skyscraper, they will be stopped in their tracks. I assure you, Will, there’s no playing God involved here.” “Next question, please,” the moderator called and almost as if choreographed, hands all around the room shot up in the air.

Blair pointed at a stocky gentleman in the first row, who promptly stood up. “Taylor Williams, the Aurora Atlas,” he introduced himself. “You claim that one of the key aspects of this project is the commitment to provide alternative care for people with mental health concerns. But I can’t help but wonder if assuming another person’s identity poses more risks than benefits to one’s mental well-being. What kind of testing are you doing and who is the poor sucker you roped into being your guinea pig?” Blair smiled. She had expected this question. “That sucker would be me,” she said. “I couldn’t in good conscience ask anybody else to test a project that has my name on it. My first trial is in two days, when, for the duration of three hours, I will be transported into the body of Franz, a solitary shepherd in 1800’s Austria. A gentle man, I hope. I finally get to live out my Sound of Music fantasy, so I have high expectations.” “And will Franz the Shepherd know about this?” Taylor Williams asked. “Well, we figured telling the hosts that we are from the future and would like to inhabit their bodies for a few hours or days might not go over so well…” Laughter. “… so we decided against telling them. But Franz and all other hosts will remember everything they did that day, they just sort of take a backseat—” “They go to the sunken place?” Taylor Williams quipped and the audience laughed. Blair laughed with them. “More like they’ll be on autopilot,” she explained. “Kind of like you for the majority of your life, Taylor.”

More laughter. “Next question,” the moderator called, but Blair stopped her. “Grace, if you don’t mind…” she said gently. “One thing I would like to address before we go to the next question is Taylor’s comment about this project offering alternative mental health care to those who haven’t been able to find it through traditional methods.” She leaned forward and the audience quieted down. She’d noticed that she had that effect. She was able to make them listen. “I know I haven’t been upfront about this in the media before but, believe it or not, I’m not always this delightful bright and shiny creature sitting in front of you right now. Throughout most of my adult life, I have had pretty severe bouts of depression.” A buzz broke into the room and cameras started flashing. Blair closed her eyes. She could picture the headlines of tomorrow’s papers – “Billionaire Blair LaCroix admits to suffering from depression” – along with some awful picture of her with her eyes half-way closed, but oh well. She opened her eyes. “Of course, I can’t speak for other people suffering from mental health issues, but I know that when I’m going through my dark days, I just want to not exist, not be me for a while. But what if I could be someone else?

“Now, I know what you must be thinking. If she wants to escape so much, why doesn’t she just take an expensive vacation somewhere else, change the scenery? She certainly can afford it. Well, wherever I go, I take myself with me. People know me. I cannot be anyone but myself. But to walk in someone else’s shoes for a day, someone who is no longer with us… what’s the harm?

“And yes, maybe it is escapism, maybe it is running from your problems, but when therapy, medication and everything else in-between fails, don’t we owe it to ourselves to do whatever we can to take care of ourselves? To be happy? And who knows, maybe walking in someone else’s shoes will give us the perspective we need, the breather from our own lives we need. Maybe walking in someone else’s shoes is just what we need. So what do you say, will you walk with me?”

The reporters were shouting, hands shot up in the air again and the cameras were flashing.

Two days to go until the first trial… Blair thought. Two more days.

*** Peter put down the morning’s newspaper, which featured the headline: “‘Will you walk with me?’ — Billionaire Blair LaCroix opens up about her mental health struggles at the press conference for new ‘Quantum Leap’ project,” and then stirred his coffee. He had watched his wife live on TV yesterday along with the rest of the world. He had smiled proudly witnessing the reporters eat from the palm of her hand, hang onto her every word like a holy gospel. She had always had a way with words, a way with people. And that’s how he saw her — witty, playful, charming, magnetic. But today she was faced with another Blair — the Shadow Blair. He’d known it from the first second he’d woken up and put his arm around his wife. “Good morning,” he had said but instead of answering, his wife had muttered something unintelligible and recoiled at his touch. He hated these days, Blair’s “dark days.” And, even though he would never admit it to her, he hated this Blair. This wasn’t his wife. This woman, cold, closed-off and disengaged, was nothing but a stranger who visited every once in a while, and he prayed to any deity who would listen that she’d keep the visit short.

He watched her walk to the dining table. The poem from her niece lay flat on it. She was supposed to get it framed today, but now she just eyed the piece of paper up and down and finally crumpled it up and walked away.

Internally, Peter sighed. He knew that she would come to regret doing that. She loved her niece and had been so proud of her and her poem, but he also knew this was not the time to remind her of it. So he just smoothed out the paper, folded it neatly in half, and slipped it surreptitiously into Blair’s jacket pocket hanging on the coat rack, so that when she was feeling better again and was out and about, she could get it framed.

He glanced at her, idly staring out the window, and felt the knot around his gut tighten. Tomorrow was the first trial of Blair’s “Timeless Minds Collide,” which the media had affectionately named the “Quantum Leap Project.” He crossed his fingers that this thing — unorthodox as it might have been — could do what therapy and medication had failed at and make his Blair happy again.

*** Dr. DeMarcus Shaw adjusted the band around Blair’s forehead and lowered her backrest, so that the big screen behind him came into her line of vision. She studied it. The colors swimming across the screen that represented her thoughts were shockingly bright and shiny, not at all how She had pictured the thoughts of a depressed individual to look like, but then again, she was excited about today.

A nurse approached with a syringe, and Blair squeezed the armrests of her chair with both her hands until she felt her nails dig into the fabric. “Are you okay with needles, Mrs. LaCroix?” the doctor asked, looking at the screen where her thoughts had turned murky red. Blair smiled. She knew that he already knew the answer. “As long as I don’t have to look at them much. And it’s Blair, DeMarcus. Please, I beg of you. You’re literally reading my thoughts, so I think we’re past formalities at this point.” The doctor gave a shy chuckle and the nurse, with his syringe, settled by her left side.

“You’ll just feel a little prick,” he said as Blair’s head swung to the opposite direction of the syringe, her gaze landing on the heavy led door to her right. She knew it was impossible to open this door from the outside, but regardless of that and the fact that everybody involved in this project had signed ironclad NDA’s, swearing to secrecy when it came to the location of the first trial of “Timeless Minds Collide,” Blair half-expected the press to barge into the room and ruin her travel.

And she couldn’t have that.

Yesterday she’d had one of her dark days. Usually these spells lasted longer, but today she felt better, and the only reason she could think of was the promise of the bucolic scene, the baaing of the sheep, and the rugged mountains of 1800’s Austria waiting for her on the other side. She couldn’t wait to get started.

The drug flowing through her veins was taking effect and she felt her eyelids get heavier. DeMarcus’s face appeared above her. “Count backwards from 10 for me, Blair. In just a few seconds you’ll be the first person ever to have traveled to the past,” he said, and Blair felt a pleasant burst of butterflies in her stomach. She started counting, “10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4…” She felt herself doze off with images of sheep and faraway lands swimming in her head. She imagined looking at her reflection in a pond for the first time, experiencing life as Franz the Shepherd, feeling the coarse wool of sheep under her fingertips, breathing in the fresh mountain air. She imagined the feeling of running down a hill, screaming at the top of her lungs, with no one near to hear, other than the sheep. She felt free.

But when she opened her eyes, she didn’t see sheep or mountains. Instead, she saw DeMarcus’ confused face staring at the bright and shiny representation of her thoughts on the screen, his face furrowed in a deep frown, nurses scurrying around him. “This can’t be right…” he was muttering. Blair cleared her throat. “DeMarcus,” she said, her voice groggy, and the doctor’s head spun in her direction. “What’s happening?” DeMarcus looked from her to the screen to her again. “I— I’m so sorry, Mrs. La— I mean, Blair,” he said. “I’m afraid the first trial was unsuccessful.” Blair got into a sitting position on the chair, the band around her head weighing heavily like a crown. A crown or a fool’s cap. “Yup, the lack of sheep was a dead giveaway,” she said, trying to lighten the mood. “Any idea what went wrong?” “Well…” DeMarcus hesitated. “Yes,” he admitted at last. “To do the first trial, this would have to be the first time you’ve ever time traveled. But it appears… you’re already a user.” There was a short silence. Blair chuckled, but it came out as a bark. “But this is the first time anybody’s used this device, DeMarcus. Also, I think I would know if I’d traveled to the past before. It’s kind of a hard thing to forget.” The doctor didn’t look up at her. Blair could see his Adam's apple bob up and down as he swallowed. “Blair, you’re not a user in the capacity of a traveler,” he said quietly. “You are… well… you’re a host.” Another silence, only broken by the beeping of the vital signs monitor. “A host?” Blair managed at last. “But that’s even more ridic—”

She stopped talking. There was something tugging at the edges of her memory. A piece that seemed so irrelevant she wanted to ignore it. “They go to the sunken place?” Those had been the words Taylor Williams had used at the press conference when she was asked about what happens to Franz the Shepherd and other hosts. Everybody had laughed. Her included. Because it was ridiculous.

She heard DeMarcus talking about how, if there was a past, it was likely there would also be a future, and if there was a future, their present time had to be somebody else’s past, but she wasn’t listening.

She cut him off. “When was the last time I was used as a host?”

Her mouth felt dry, her hands trembled as she awaited the answer.

DeMarcus shifted his startled gaze from her to the screen. “Um, there was one time last December,” he said, “one on March 12th, and the latest one was—” “Yesterday,” she breathed. DeMarcus looked at her surprised. “Yes, a short 24-hour trip,” he said. “How did you know?”

“I…” Blair felt her head spinning and tears prickling behind her eyes. “Excuse me,” she mumbled and stuck her hand in her jacket pocket to retrieve a Kleenex but came back with a folded piece of paper instead. With a frown, she unfolded it. It’s not them, it’s you You can pass the blame and cry boo-hoo Nothing good will it do For the one who hurts you most is always you “Blair?” DeMarcus said, snapping her back to the present. “Is everything all right?” Blair wiped off the tears that were now rolling down her cheeks.

“Yes,” she managed after a while, her gaze fixed on the poem. “It really is.”

She turned to him now, and realized to her own surprise that she was smiling. “DeMarcus,” she said. “It's time we shut this project down.”


. And suddenly the village of Reddit was alive with the sounds of hysteria and muffled concern, as townsfolk emerged from their cottage homes, out into the streets and gathered in its centre. Then, almost as soon as it began, the feverish crowd hushed. Footsteps on cobblestone gave way to a gap in the crowd which snaked along; a distraught priest dressed in black robes carried the body of a naked woman, a trail of restrained gasps following him. Somebody cried out, "Murder!" Another, yelled, "Witch!" When he got to the gallows which sat in the town centre, the priest lay the body down on the cold stone and closed its eyes. A smartly-dressed fat man in a top hat was pushing through the swarm of townsfolk, shouting, "Let me through, let me through!" He approached the naked girl until he was looking down at her face. Then his face shone red and began to pulsate. "Alright," he shouted into the crowd, breathing through his nose, "Which one of you degenerates did this?" Nobody answered. He pointed to a random bystander with a judgemental finger: "Was it you?" Then he paraded over to a young peasant boy and grabbed him by the scruff: "Was it you? You filthy peasant, I'll kill y-" "It could be anyone." An intelligent male voice spoke from behind him. Everything fell silent again as the mayor lay off the boy and slowly turned around to face the speaker. It was the town's doctor. He walked up and rested his hand on the gallows, looking up at it with reverence, as though it were judging him and everyone else. "You see these people around you? It could be *any* *one of them*. This town ain't safe no more, mayor." He began to circle the gallows along the ring of the crowd, making eye contact with random people as he spoke. "You wanna know what it is?... You think it's a witch?" He stopped and made claw gestures with his hands: "Or even a werewolf?" Then started walking again. "Hell, maybe it's the Devil himself?" "Mountain troll, probably. Came down from the snowy lands to feast on man's juiciest flesh." The priest muttered to himself loud enough that the fat mayor heard it, who immediately turned and started strangling him. "It was you, wasn't it?" "We don't know *who* it is yet," the doctor resumes, "but I think I just might know *what* it is." Trembling silence. "If it were a mountain troll, well then there wouldn't be nothin' left. Trolls eat to stay alive. We're food to them. Likewise with a werewolf, they kill to eat most of the time, and even when they don't, they leave a nasty bite. With a witch, you get a hex on the back or the forehead. No. Ladies and gentleman, what we're dealing with is far more perverse than that. Whatever killed Jenny, whatever killed Rose, it did it without ever touching them. It pulled their souls from their bodies and dragged them into hell, and it enjoyed it. Now it's gonna do the same to all of us. We could strangle every man and woman in this town and we'd still never know. All *I* know is that we have two young girls dead with no imbalance of humors and no cause of death." He continues: "This thing hides among us. It is your best friend. Your mother. Your son. Your daughter. Your wife. It could be your cobbler, or that baker from down the road. What we got here is a Downvoter." The crowd gasps in terror and a baby starts crying. A woman faints, shortly followed by a man who also faints. A small girl vomits on her younger sister and a bunch of peasants kneel down in prayer. The mayor lets go of the priest's neck and turns toward the doctor; his face, flushed of red and ghostly-absent: "A-a Downvoter? A-are you sure?" A naive peasant boy steps out from the crowd and speaks with squeaky innocence: "What's a downvo'er?" The doctor walks over to the boy and crouches opposite him, as members of the crowd whimper in dread. He puts a sympathetic hand on the boy's shoulder and looks him firmly in the eyes. "Downvoters are snakemen. Some call them skinwalkers. They look just like you and me, but they ain't no man. If the moon shines a certain way, his eyeballs turn to diamonds, and 'is tongue turns green and spiky like a two-pronged fork. Some say they come from over the mountains, in the forest, to steal away our dreams and our souls." Now the mayor is pacing up and down like a madman: "*It's happening again. It's happening again. It's happening again. It's happening again*." An old lady announces to the crowd: "We're all screwed!" And a pandemonium of noisy concern breaks out: "Who's gonna protect us?" "I don't feel safe anymore!" "Wiiiiiiitch!" "What about the children? Won't somebody *please* think of the children!" "My leg!" The mayor pipes up: "QUIET. Quiet down!" When the uproar settles to a murmur, the doctor begins speaking again. "This thing thrives on fear and it revels in chaos. It learns through what we say, and what we do. It's probably watching us right now. If I'm right and it is indeed a Downvoter we're dealing with, then the best thing we can do is all go back to our homes and pray God have mercy on us. Lock the doors, close your shutters. Stay in your rooms and don't answer to anyone, not even your mother's voice. If we can last the night and get some good sleep, we'll be in proper form tomorrow to deal with the situation better under light of day. That's all we can hope for." He pauses and looks around at the crowd as if he's searching for someone he knows, then the mayor echoes the doctor's instructions to go back to their homes. The crowd quickly disperses in a paranoid race to their respective front doors. Shutters slam closed like dominos falling one after the other. Door locks clank shut. Just as the mayor steps off in the direction of his house, the doctor taps him on the shoulder. "Do you mind if I have a word with you?" "I'm tired and scared." He replied grumpily. "What is it?" "I was wondering if we might discuss the matter at hand over a cup of tea at my cottage, or we could go to your house. It makes no difference to me." The mayor grunts a sigh. "Alright then. We better had do, hadn't we?" "Yesssss." "What did you say?" "Er, um: yes. Yes we had." The doctor put his arm around the mayor and they both walk into the darkness.


The Transporter Museum, a forgotten relic, is inconveniently located on a deserted side street two turns off a dead-end alley. You might never find it, even by accident, but if you do, you’ll always remember its immaculate displays and its eccentric proprietor, Frans Messerschmitt. Every day precisely at nine, the little old man illuminated the neon sign, flipped the placard to open, and made his way behind the counter, prepared for customers who rarely came. It was already late in the day when the door opened, surprising both Frans and the visitors. “Hello, is anybody there?” The question startled Frans, interrupting his terminal boredom. “Yes. Yes, please come in,” he answered, moving forward to greet his guests. The unexpected voice belonged to a handsome lad sporting sweatpants and a football jersey, followed closely by a pretty young coed in a letterman’s jacket. “It’s almost impossible to find this place," the boy mentioned, all the while looking at the meticulously cared-for exhibits. “Are we in time for the guided tour?” The question struck Frans as funny. It had been months since his last visitor, so the tours relied on guests, not the other way around. “Of course, my good man,” he answered, sauntering from behind the counter. “My name is Frans and I'm the owner and resident historian. I’d be glad to give you the nickel tour, and I won’t even charge you the nickel.” “Fan-damn-tastic! My name is Billy, and this is Connie. We’ve really been looking forward to this. Where do we start?” “I’m glad you asked,” Frans replied, beckoning the couple to follow. “You’ve lived your whole lives in a time where teleportation from one side of the world to another was the norm—in fact, there’s about to be an app for that!” Frans turned their attention towards a smartphone sitting on display. “Before the end of the year, the new ZapApp will be available, offering skin-touch technology for the first time. All you’ll need to do is enter the desired coordinates, activate the app, and, in seconds—Voila!” “Wow,” Billy exclaimed, reaching for the phone. “Please don’t,” Frans cautioned. “These are replicas and can be easily damaged.” “I hear ya, Gramps,” Billy responded, “Oh, I’m sorry. No disrespect intended, sir.” “Not at all,” Frans replied. “I’ve always wanted a nickname. I like the sound of Gramps. Now if you follow me, I’ll lead you both back in time.” The next display contained a full-length mirror attached to the wall. “I’m sure you two know what this is,” Frans said, stepping aside and allowing Billy and Connie to see. “These teleportation devices are still the most commonly used today. They were part of a trend to make teleportation more accessible and less obtrusive. They were also the first devices that didn’t require an exit portal. Until the Mirror 360, you could only travel to locations with paired devices. Needless to say, it was revolutionary.” “That’s just like yours,” Connie whispered to Billy, punctuating her remark with a kiss on his cheek. “What’s next, Mr. Frans?” “ Gramps ,” Frans corrected her with a chuckle. “Next we see the machine that started it all, The Marie.” “I’ve heard of that,” Billy said. “Wow, it’s huge!” “I know,” Frans agreed. “When the technology was new, we hadn’t yet perfected the art of miniaturization. There were no personal teleportation devices. The only people who had access were scientists, investors, and celebrities. In fact, the first transporters were more gimmicky than useful. They were incredibly expensive, required an entrance and exit port, and were so inefficient that it took a full day’s charge to send someone from one place to another. There’s no doubt we’ve come a long way since then.” “What about that one?” Billy asked, pointing to a machine partially hidden by a curtain. “Oh, that one,” Frans sighed. “That’s the prototype. The first teleportation device.” “That's the original?" Billy asked, moving closer to get a better look. "Is the legend true?” “I'm afraid it is,” Frans replied. “The machine was the brainchild of a pair of scientists not much older than the two of you. They were the first to prove light was a particle and that we could use it as a mechanism for distance teleportation. The early tests were extremely successful. There were no issues when sending inanimate objects or small animals from one pod to another. The problem occurred when they tried transporting a human. Marie begged to be first and, after winning a game of Rochambeau, she stepped into the entrance pod and disappeared on cue. But when her partner activated the exit pod, everything went terribly wrong. Marie never fully rematerialized. Her translucent hand simply reached forward, and she mouthed the word help . Then she faded away.” “Oh my God!” Connie gasped. "Did he save her?” Frans turned away from the question, paused, then finally answered. “No, he didn’t. You see, molecular displacement teleportation in its infancy was like sending something through a tunnel at light speed. Once entering a pod, the subject can only exit from the paired terminal port.” "That's tragic," Connie said, wiping away a tear. “And ironic.” Frans replied. “How so?” “After the colossal mishap, her partner spent the better part of twenty years trying to find a way to release Marie from her tunnel. He became obsessed with correcting his mistake. His research and technological breakthroughs are directly responsible for almost every advancement in teleportation technology. That first awful outcome is why molecular transportation is so incredibly safe today. It’s why you have a Mirror 360 hanging on the wall in your home.” “But Marie—what happened to her?” Connie asked. “All of her partner’s research and all of his calculations never changed Marie’s fate.” “She’s trapped forever?” “She would be, unless he destroyed the machine and released her molecules into the atmosphere, never to be reassembled again.” “What did he…” “It’s almost closing time,” Frans said, interrupting Connie before she could finish the question. “Thanks for coming. You two made an old man very happy today.” “This has been the best tour ever, Gramps.” Billy proclaimed. “What do I owe you?” “Nothing,” Frans answered, shaking Billy's hand. “Just promise to send your friends.” “It’s a deal,” he said, leading Connie out the door. “I’m sure we’ll be back soon.” “You’re always welcome.” Frans watched as the couple walked away. Then, being that it was precisely five, he locked the door, changed the placard to closed, and turned off the neon sign. Alone once again, Frans returned to the machine behind the curtain, flipped a few switches, and watched as Marie’s translucent figure, forever young, appeared before him. “Frans, are you there?” Marie mouthed, silently. “I'm here, my love. I’ll always be here.” “I’m so afraid,” she responded. “Please let me go.” “I can’t,” Frans replied, ashamed of his weakness. Marie’s eyes grew red, but she summoned the strength to place her hand on her heart and mouth the words I love you. Then, as quickly as she had appeared, she was gone. Heartbroken, Frans turned to walk upstairs, counting the minutes until he could see his love again, if only for a moment, the next day at the exact same time.


“You don’t get it, do you?” she asked. Of course, I get it. She wanted to break up. She said that she’s tired with all of these. She said that all these times, she hasn’t healed yet. She said that she’s hurt more than enough, that there are no more tears to cry. Yes, I made a mistake. Been saving porn images and entertained myself alone. She didn’t like that, and she got angry and mad. She also got mad at me, because I chatted with a girl I had a crush with many years ago. I only asked from that girl what I can do for her to help her with her problems. I didn’t and has no intentions with that girl. But when she knew, so she got mad. Very mad. She said that I cheated. Did I? I didn’t argue – I just made myself better and did all the right things she sees as good. I followed everything she says, just to make her happy and to show I changed. But she still complains from time to time that she’s tired. I get it, she’s still hurt. That’s why I’ve been making myself better. Made myself a better, clean man. Blocked the “other girl” so that no communication would happen anymore. I did and am doing and will be doing everything that I can just to make things better, because I really plan on spending my life with her. But no, all these things aren’t enough. I have no more words to say than to agree that I’m the scumbag. That no matter how hard I try, the scars would not go away and they still keep hurting. I remind myself every day of the lessons and the hurt that were made. From the time I wake up, to the moment I sleep, I always pray that things will get better. Then again, I’m still the scumbag. I should not be allowed to talk, nor say to others what is happening between us, because it’s between us. She doesn’t trust me anymore, because I broke her trust. She trusts more her male friends than I, and ask them for advices to make our relationship better. But I should stay silent and not be told what’s wrong with whoever I know. “You will not change – you will still do it. Because you’re a man, and you do things like those because you’re a man.” I just accept it, because I’m the scumbag. And because I’m a man – plain boring, no fun, and a great liar who don’t know how to change. “I hope that whoever you’ll be with in the future, you’ll be better and more mature. I’m hurt, very much hurt.” I asked, “Did I do something recently to hurt you? Did I recently trouble you?” “Nothing, you did none of those. I’m just tired of you and very much hurt with what you did.” “That’s why I’m doing my best to make up for all of those. I want to be a better man for you because I love you.” But then, I realized: she has scars, and she opens the wounds every now and then, while I wound myself every day. Then she looked at me to say something. “You don’t get it, do you?” she asked.


The Lamplighter Carol Ann Martin “Well, that was very nice, I must say.” Ethel Hardy pulled the pins out of her best velour hat and laid it gently as a baby on the parlour table. “I think they did Dad proud.” “Bloody think so,” grunted Arthur. “How many years has he given ‘em? Sixty, is it?” “Well, he seems happy anyway,” Ethel smiled fondly at the old man who shuffled into the room behind them.

 It was only the second time that any of them had seen Albie in his suit, the first time being at his wife’s funeral twenty years ago. What it had lacked then, but boldly sported now, was the heavy gold watch chain looped across the waistcoat. Albie was certainly aware of the added splendour and his sunken gums chomped with pride as he yet again pulled a large, shiny watch out of his fob pocket and gazed at the face. “Keeps good time,” he observed, not for the first time in the last two hours. Young Freddy also sported a suit, borrowed for the occasion from a cousin and quite a nice tweed, but two sizes too small. The matching cap, borrowed from another cousin, was also quite smart, but a size too large. He dragged off both cap and jacket, kicked the fire back into life with his boot, grabbed his book and pulled an armchair up to the crackling coals. “We won’t want much dinner, will we?” said Ethel. “Not after all that sponge cake.” She winked at her husband. “Anybody got the time?” Her question fell on deaf ears, literally. Albie eased himself into his chair on the other side of the hearth. “I’m touched, I am,” he informed his family. “I never knew they thought so highly of me.” He tapped the watch, now snugly back in its pocket. “But they know as they can depend on me for a good few years yet.” Ethel sighed and rolled her eyes. “You said he knew,” she hissed at Arthur. “You said he understood.”  “I’ve told him,” said Arthur. “I’ve taken him and showed him the new lamp posts. What more can I do?” Albie, in a reflective mood after so much cake, praise and generosity, gazed at Freddy and mused, “Well, young feller, with your poor father gone, it’s going to be you following after me. I might even take you out with me tonight.” Ethel looked at Arthur again; a glance heavy with significance. There was more than one reason her father had been benevolently but firmly pushed into retirement. More than one reason they’d persuaded him to move from his solitary lodgings in Sackville Street to come and live with them.  “Dad,” she informed him slowly and loudly. “Arthur’s not dead. You’re thinking of our Bert. He was Freddy’s uncle, not his father.” Then, with patience, “And I’ve told you, Freddy’s not going to be a lamplighter. Freddy’s a scholar. He’s got a scholarship and he’s going to high school.” “Perhaps not tonight,” said Albie, “But tomorrow night.” Arthur leaned over and tugged the book out of Freddy’s hands. “You tell him,” he said. “He listens to you.” “Only when he wants to,” said Freddy. “Now gimme me book back.” “Tell your grand-dad again,” said Arthur, “And I’ll think about it.” Muttering irritably under his breath, Freddy got up and went over to the old man. He bent down and yelled in Albie’s better ear. “Grand-dad, there’s neither of us going to be lamplighters any more. That’s why you got the tea party and the watch. The council’s putting the electricity on. The street lamps are going to be electric.” He put his hand on the old man’s shoulder. “You’re retired now, Grand-dad, and that’s just dandy, ‘cos the job’s well-nigh finished anyhow. Sam Watson’s going to do your round for the last bit.” Albie pondered that piece of information as if it was the first time he’d heard it – which it may well have been. His better ear wasn’t always that good. “But they’re still going to need me, aren’t they.” It was a statement, not a question. “The bloody things won’t light they bloody selves.” Ethel’s face glowed gently with pride as her son’s education came into play. “Yes, they will, Grand-dad!” Freddy bellowed in a voice that made the china spaniels on the mantelpiece rattle. “They’ve worked out this timing thing. The lamps’ll go on at dusk every night, all by themselves.” They all gazed at Albie for some indication that he had both heard and understood. But the old man was occupied with getting himself up out of his chair. “I’d better get cracking then,” he said. “No good going to work in my funeral suit.” Twenty minutes later, Ethel pulled the parlour curtain aside and watched her father limping down the street in his baggy old corduroys and jacket, with his ladder and pole over his shoulder. “Poor old bugger,” she sighed. Sixty years. Sixty springs, summers, autumns, winters. Heat, cold, wind, rain, sleet, snow. Sun setting and then rising again. Lamps lit and lamps snuffed out. Ethel’s was no poet’s soul, but there were things she could feel. Albie moved with the rhythm of a long-familiar dance. Straight past the new lamp posts because for him they didn’t exist. Pause underneath the gas lamp, prop the ladder against its bars. Box of vestas from out of his jacket. Scrape and cup the tiny flame in his hands. Light the spirit lamp atop his pole. Climb the ladder, open the glass pane. Reach up with the hook on his pole, pull the chain to turn on the gas. Lift the spirit lamp to each mantle, sweet gas scent, spluttering jet and then a steady lamplight glow. Close the glass and slowly back down the ladder. Every dusk for sixty years.  “Poor old bugger,” said Ethel again. She was about to drop the curtain when another figure appeared in the half-light. Same ladder, same pole, same spirit lamp. “Evenin’ Albie,” said Sam. “What you doing up here?” Albie asked. “Just strollin’” said Sam and walked on. He passed the window where Ethel was watching, smiled at her and shrugged. Ethel smiled back. For such a young bloke, Sam Watson had a sound head on him. She watched again as Albie trudged on to the next lamp. Sam turned round and started to follow him. The winter weeks went on. Every morning, while the lamps were still lit, Arthur tramped down Kelly’s Steps to the Peacock jam factory in Salamanca Place. Nailing together packing cases was monotonous work, but it was a lot warmer than packing fish. Only slightly later, Freddy set off for school, his head too full of learning to notice the cold. As soon as Ethel was out the back at the washtub or in the kitchen baking, Albie would be out the front door and off. He always moved as though he had a purpose, even if he’d forgotten it. Tradesmen making deliveries, women scouring their sandstone steps, everyone he met would receive a tip of his cap and a g’day. Sometimes he just sat in Arthur Circle and watched the kids play with their clay marbles. Once or twice he was looking for his wife, Flora. Then he was agitated, wondering how she’d got herself lost between their house and Ethel’s. He often got lost himself. Ethel didn’t have to worry when her dad didn’t bring himself home because somebody else would. Everybody in the neighbourhood, even down Montpelier and the wharf, knew where Albie lived.    Most afternoons Albie was content to sit by the parlour fire. When Freddy got home they’d have Ethel’s warm scones with Arthur’s jam. As daylight faded, Ethel would draw the curtains and talk non-stop while Sam lit the lamps outside. It should have been the winter of the Hardy’s content. But some nights, often the bitterest or foggiest of nights, Albie would pull out his watch, frown at the face and say, “Well, I’d better get cracking. Them lamps won’t light they bloody selves.” All Ethel had to do was make sure the old man had his coat, his muffler and his cap. Sam would be out there and her dad would be all right with him. She thanked the Lord that these night-time activities took so much out of Albie that he slept late and forgot that the lamps also needed to be put out. One morning Ethel saw Sam at the Hampden Road shops. “We’re grateful,” she told him. “Ever so grateful. You letting Dad light the lamps on your round. We keep telling him, but it won’t sink in.” “Not to worry, Mrs H. I still get me pay and Albie thinks he’s teaching me the job. We’re both ‘appy’. He added cautiously, as if he weren’t sure that he should. “Sometimes he calls me Bert. He thinks it’s his son he’s teaching. I didn’t know you had a brother, Mrs Hardy.” “He’s dead,” said Ethel. “Diphtheria. He was your age.” It might have been the searing wind, but Sam’s eyes watered. “What’ll we do when the electric comes on?” asked Ethel, anxious to know. “Dunno,” said Sam. “Dunno what I’ll do meself yet. But I’ve got me name down at Peacock’s so here’s ‘opin’” The official switching on of the electric street lamps was another occasion for Ethel’s velour hat. The Governor, Sir William Ellison-MacCartney, no less, was going to make a speech out the front of Government House and all who cared to go along were welcome. Ethel was determined to take Albie. If he saw the crowds and heard the speech – but most of all, saw the lights go on – it might be enough to get through to his befuddled brain. She hoped so. Freddy refused to wear the tight suit, but agreed to the cap. It created a rather manly image that was in keeping with the scientific aspects of the occasion. It was Arthur’s task to make sure that Albie was suitably dressed and ready to go. At twenty past five, Arthur came out of Albie’s little room in the lean-to shaking his head. “He knows, and he’s taking it hard,” he informed them. “Says he’s not going,” Ethel knew when to give up. “Best we just leave him be,” she said. “He’s going to fret for a while, but perhaps he’ll forget this like he forgets everything else.” So they left the old man to his grieving and caught the tram into town. Thousands had turned up to the Grand Opening of the Electrification of the Street Lights. They stood row after row on the lawns of Government House and gazed up at the Governor, flanked by the Premier and a whole lot more swanky toffs. He made a long speech about the march of progress and the dawn of a new age of science that was going to make all their lives longer, better and brighter – starting with the new, fully automatic electric street lighting. Patiently they listened, eyes sneaking to watches, as the hour hand slowly slid round to six o’clock.  “The moment is here!” proclaimed Sir William at the top of his voice. “Let there be light!” Albie and Sam stood together high on the hill at the top of the street, beneath the first of the new electric lights. Through the dusk, they heard the town hall clock begin to chime. Albie squinted at the large round watch-face in the palm of his hand. “Keeps good time,” he murmured. There was no bar for his ladder to rest on, so he just had to do the best he could. His fingers were trembling so much that Sam had to strike the vesta and light the spirit lamp. Albie lifted his pole high above his head. Not being of a scientific mind like Freddy, he couldn’t be sure how this new-fangled thing was supposed to work. All he could do was poke the flame all around the glass of the street light and hope it would connect. A second later, the light blazed out with a brilliance that neither he nor Sam had ever seen. One, two, three, four, a whole string of lights flashed along the street, down the sweeping slopes to the wharf, around Sullivan’s Cove and all the way across to the town. Every man woman and child who hadn’t gone to the Grand Opening came out onto their doorstep to look. Pride and joy swelled in Albie’s heart as he looked out at the twinkling glory spread out before his eyes. And it was all down to him. “I told ‘em!” he said with the satisfaction of one proven undeniably right. “Electrickery or no electrickery, them bloody lights aren’t going to light they bloody selves!’


The first time I saw myself I screamed so loud the mirror shattered. Death had turned me into its personal jack-o-lantern, carving until there was nothing left. My pale, white skin rotten to the bone. My hair limp against my face, dirty and matted like some kinda eldritch terror. This was me now; trapped in five feet and 4 inches of decomposing flesh. Missing all the things that once made me so beautiful. So happy. I was stuck on the outside of my own life, watching someone else live it. Like peering through a two-way mirror, no one the wiser. I thought something would be different when I was gone. But everything was the same. The world just kept on turning. Apate, as she called herself, looked like me now—the real me. She stood in *my* place, in *my* body, smiling, with her arm draped around *my* father. She was taking up *my* space, with *my* family, sucking up *my* air. Like she belonged there. Like she always belonged there. The perfect daughter. Cameras snapped and laughter rang out as I watched this cherished moment carry on without me. My father nodding at the not-me, his eyes filled with pride. My mother standing beside him, wondering where the years went. My sister stealing glances from the couch, pretending to be unimpressed. And the not-me, eating it up, and basking in her winnings. Another deal with another stupid human, wanting something they didn’t have—or deserve. Most people weren’t greedy enough to summon evil to their doorstep to get it. And most didn’t have to pay for their mistakes with their lives. Or their families. When the front door opened, a wave of relief washed over me. Even if my own family hadn’t noticed, Terry would, surely. Maybe it would be the slight hiss in Apate’s voice. The careless clomp of her feet. The black void in her eyes. Or the way she stood just a little too close. He’d see right through her. “You look beautiful today,” Terry said, his lips brushing her cheek. “Y’think?” She twirled around in the dress my mother had hand-stitched for me. “I’m not sure it’s my color.” This was the moment he’d know. I’d picked this fabric specifically for its lavender color. He ran a finger through her hair—hair that wasn’t even the right shade. “Of course. You just like to hear me say that.” “I guess I do.” Apate giggled, waving her hand. Then she turned to me and winked. My skin crawled. The anger rose within me like a raging fire, begging to be fed. That hiss. How could they not hear it? And I never did that with my hand. But they all just stood there like puppets. Gawking at the monster wearing *my* dress. Going to *my* Homecoming with *my* boyfriend. *Living **my** fucking life.* And no one noticed. I screamed and cried until I hit the floor. I was ready to let the void swallow me up, forever. Then I saw it. The faint flicker. A flash of the not-me’s true form. Her own eye sockets were empty, carved out like a pumpkin. Black hair swimming atop her head, tentacles with sharp yellow eyes and razor tongues. Skin and bone protruding through peeling flesh. The putrid smell of rot seeping into the air. Apate froze, trying so hard to hide her panic. My emotions were draining her power. I wailed like a banshee in the night. The anger surging within me descended upon her like dancing red flames. Each one alive and hungry, ready to devour. I let it all out; the regret, the sadness, the despair. The fear that I’d never again know my father’s pride or my mother’s love, or see my sister’s stolen glances. Or feel my boyfriend’s fingers brush the side of my face. My feelings took on a life of their own. I screamed and yelled; I banged against the invisible boundary that separated me from them. “You can’t have my life!” I said, my voice hoarse. The wall between us fell. The surge of energy hit me and I fell to my knees before my terrified family. Eyes darted between me and the not-me, who stood in her ugly truth, naked and raw. For a few moments, Apate and I stared into one another. The room fell away and it was just us. Two very different versions of the same thing. The same *person*. A before and after image. “You think you’re a clever girl,” she said. “No, I don’t. I just want my life back.” Silence fell upon us. Apate’s empty eyes filled with sadness as her gaze fell to the floor. The creature who was once so tough and powerful, now stood before me, limp and defeated. Her imposing form was nothing but another mask. “You don’t deserve them,” she said. “What? They are *my* family… you… you tricked me!” “Yes.” “Yes? That’s all you have to say? You tried to steal my… my life!” “I tricked you and I broke the deal. I just—I wanted to—” Her voice trailed off, but I understood. I understood all the things she could not say. Her despair, her loneliness, her broken spirit. The pain she’d carried for so long. She wanted what I wanted: to be seen, heard, loved. Deeply and truly. We weren’t so different in the end. Apate stepped forward. “I don’t think I’ve ever felt… real love. But you, you have everything. And live as if it is nothing. As if you deserve something better. You only cared once I took it from you.” Her words were like daggers, slicing straight into my soul. “That’s not true.” But it was, mostly. I loved my family, I did. But despite having everything I ever needed, I felt so alone. Alone in a crowded room. Like I was watching everything happen from a distance. “I would give anything to have what you do. You only had a taste of what I have felt for over a thousand years.” She continued to tell me her story, from the family she never had, to the hardships she endured, all the way to the curse the Gods had placed on her. And her years spent in dark solitude, watching the world go by, but powerless to interact with it. Longing to feel something—anything—that wasn’t painful. “Why did they curse you?” I asked. She thought for a moment, eyeing me carefully. “I trusted someone I shouldn’t have. I wanted more than I had.” Just like me. The longer we talked, the more I understood, and the closer we became. Two women trying to find love, trying to find their place in the world. She never did tell me the specifics of why she was cursed; she kept that secret close and guarded it carefully. But that was okay, I understood that. She had given me so much in the end. The greatest gifts one could ask for; the ones I truly needed. My family. Love. *Myself*. Even friendship. So, I gave her a gift in return. But there was only one thing she wanted. Now, once a year, on the eve of Halloween, Apate walks the Earth again, in my body. She wears my face and uses my voice. For twenty-four hours, she lives my life. We’ve been doing this for five years. No one has noticed—which has been no surprise. But something was different this last time. I can’t quite put my finger on it, but I don’t completely feel like myself. There’s a darkness hanging over me, an unfamiliarity in my movements. Like maybe—just maybe—this body isn’t mine. And maybe I’ve been tricked once again. *** *** - Thanks so much for reading! This was an rewrite and extended version of a piece I wrote for r/WritingPrompts on Theme Thursday: Punishment. - Feedback is welcome.


The bloody hellish sky screamed releasing a cascade upon us; summoned by the looming crimson moon itself. I suppose it made sense, a vision of tidings to come. Mud; it splashed in our boots, wet our clothes, made hands slippery, caked and coated armor. We marched to bring forth a downpour of our own design, a wash with which we would stain the earth this night. Exhausted, he lurched forth, disenchanted and disturbed with the knowledge of what he must do in the hours ahead. He always felt tired before a fight, drained, as if his mind felt the weight of what is to come before his body. Or was it fear? no, not fear, he was no coward, he had seen fear before and what it does to men. That wasn't what he felt now; he wasn't looking for an escape, for a way out; he was simply consumed by an acute awareness of the challenge ahead. Every warrior carries a beast within; and a wise monster knows to rest before rising to play its game. He was comforted at that notion, a hungry creature that craved the fruits that he detested. Thirsting for blood beneath his flesh, gripping the handle of his blade for him. There was no bloodlust in his heart, no desire for killing, plunder, or savagery. Yet it wasn't his intention to end up the product of someone else's. For this he was grateful, he thanked the monster. It helped him to imagine there was someone else swinging the blade... some-thing else. Something else's feet marching into the fold, bleeding from his wounds, something else spitting and pissing and pissing at the mulched remains of the ones who dared stand before him. Yes, reveling in the spilt blood wasn't his pleasure; but then why did it happen. It was hard to recall, the more he thought about it, the lapses. A moment of preparation, the seething, the chill in his spine and then, nothing; nothing, besides a forward march across piles of dripping mass that could be vaguely described as once human. Clumps of bone and blood mashed together like a clay sculpture; an art critique may call it avant-garde, hailed as a masterpiece for challenging contemporary taste. But he was no artist, but not a killer either; at least he didn't feel like one, or didn't wish to. However, no matter how cleverly one sneaks upon a mirror, it will always look you dead in the eye. The lens through which we see ourselves is cloudy, misinterpreted, and filled with lies. Who we really are can only be seen by a vantage point, to which we, unfortunately can never deceive. "I am a soldier" he told himself, "And a soldier does as he's commanded, there's no pleasure, and no wrong in it." Why then the guilt, the shame; why did it feel so good to take life? When his blade spilt blood it seemed to fill the pit inside him; and it was intoxicating, satisfying in ways that he desperately wanted his ordinary life to be. In truth it was pale, colorless to cast his net and reel in his provisions day to day. The sound of his children's laughter and the passion in his beloved's eyes; these were paltry reprieves in an otherwise tedious and unsatisfactory life. Perhaps it was more than a metaphor, more than something he told himself to steel before battle. There was a demon inside him, calling; a voice from a cold, empty place. A place that peacetime could not fill; not with joy or pleasure, not laughter or love. These were deep stony halls, laden with the corpses of fallen adversaries; feed for the pacing beast roaming inside. It terrified him to realize it, to shatter the façade he saw in himself. But this was war; and I suppose there is no better time to meet the killer inside you. It could be only real friend you have, the only thing that keeps you alive, the only thing that staves away the madness.