“Gentlemen, The Flop.” With a glint in his eye, The Dealer deftly flipped 3 cards upright before us. I glanced around the ornate poker table at my new friends to study their faces, but the bourbon had rendered their tells nigh unreadable. “Jorge, the bet is to you.” Jorge, the amiable thirty-something to my left, squinted at the cards face-up on the table: The nine of clubs, three of clubs, and queen of spades squinted back at him. “Check,” he said with a sheepish grin, “Gotta pace myself tonight with you cutthroats!” He looked to his left at Hector, the stoic forty-something with a baseball cap. He seemed to be pleasant enough, though “friendly” wasn’t exactly a word I’d ascribe to him. “Check,” he said with a grunt. Even through the bourbonic haze, it was evident that no one was thrilled with the cards on the table. Except, of course, the quiet fellow across from me. The one I’d followed here. “Ten dollars,” he said, placing a red chip in front of him. A mix of chuckles and groans rose through the thick cigar smoke in the dimly lit parlor. “Call,” said the next man, placing his chip in front of him. He was a big man with broad shoulders and a faint European accent. I couldn’t quite place it; Austrian, perhaps? He appeared to be trying overly hard to disguise it. Chips bounced and slid onto the table as each man called the bet. I glanced at my cards, a Four and a Jack, both of clubs, keeping my attention on the quiet man. He’d made his rounds at various poker dens, though none of them as posh as this. Old house, Tudor style on a large property in the hills, expensive whiskey. We were seated in the house’s great room with a large fire crackling in the hearth. The room was dimly lit, with the primary light source directly over the ornate gaming table. The only other light came from the hearth, casting long shadows across the wall nearest us. The rest of the room was veiled in shadow, with tall ceilings and a wide floor plan, making it difficult to truly make out the scale of the space. It was a far cry from the tobacco-stained folding card tables in the basement apartments that he frequented. I’d certainly gathered enough information to confirm his gambling habit to his wife. But this evening cracked open another case of questions. What else are you involved in? The eyes of The Dealer moved to me. “Call,” I said, placing my chip in front of me. His eyes rested on me for a second longer, piercing blue and full of discernment, before he flipped another card onto the table. “The Turn, gentlemen.” He slid the Ten of Spades into the center. The quiet man’s countenance remained the same. Whatever was in his hand was good. Even a rookie could tell he probably already had a straight in the bank. And I’m no rookie. Another round of betting ensued. Of the five of us, the quiet man, Paul was his name, had the largest pile of chips. He was having a good night. The next in the ranking was, unfortunately, me. I hated drawing the attention to myself, but I couldn’t help it if the rest of these knuckleheads were trash poker players. Besides, I’m there, I might as well play like I’m there to win. It’d be suspicious not to. Glancing down at the Jack of Diamonds in my hand, I weighed my options. I could fold now and cut my losses or stay in to see what the final card was. If it was a king, I’d have a straight and good odds of winning the hand. It was a risky move, but I had to keep up appearances. Besides, the money didn’t matter this evening. I decided to hold out for the straight and tossed my chips in while the European folded. The betting concluded and The Dealer made another glance around the table before flipping the final card. “The River, Gentlemen.” The hair stood up on my neck as The Dealer’s eyes rested on me again. They seemed old, much older than the man himself appeared to be. Who was this guy? Did he run this gig or was he just a hired hand for tonight? No amount of sleuthing had uncovered any information about this operation. I don’t normally go in so blind, however this was too intriguing to pass up. But...I was starting to feel unsettled about the whole thing. I was sorely tempted to start in on the bourbon with the others to calm my nerves. Jorge let out a little giggle. “Ah screw it,” he said, pushing his last 5 chips in, “I’m not diggin’ myself outta this hole. Better to go down swingin’!” “Idiot,” grunted Hector as he folded. Paul, of course, matched the bet with a quiet smirk. I didn’t have to think too hard about my decision. The King the dealer had flipped onto the table gave me the straight that I was waiting for – I matched the bet as well. “Gentlemen, reveal your hand,” came the command from The Dealer. He seemed amused, as if he already knew what the results would be. Jorge shrugged with a drunk grin as he revealed his hand. The nine he was holding gave him a pair with the nine on the table. A horrible hand to go all in with; but at this point in the evening the bourbon was doing the betting for him. Paul smiled as he turned over his hand, revealing a Jack and a King, giving him a straight. Called it. The Dealer’s penetrating eyes moved to me once again as I revealed my cards, a Four and a Jack; another straight of equal value. Paul’s eyes darkened as The Dealer announced that we’d be splitting the pot, kicking half the chips my way. I may have been a bit too bold there. Jorge let out an exaggerated yawn. “Well, looks like I’m out, folks!” “Indeed,” replied The Dealer with a cold smile. There was a sudden change in his eyes. A look that was almost... Hungry. A whoosh from my left immediately caught my attention. I snapped my eyes toward it just in time to catch a glimpse of a tall, dark, hooded figure gliding out of the shadows and latching onto Jorge. Inhuman claws peeked out from the dark cloak as the creature yanked the screaming man into the shadows and out of sight. In seconds we were left with nothing but the sound of the rain pattering against the window and a growing dread in our bellies. The Dealer smiled. “To hell with this,” said Hector, hands and voice shaking as he stood up from the table, “I don’t know what kind of sick joke this is but I’m out!” “Mr. Rodriguez,” The Dealer’s cold voice asked, “are you forfeiting your place at the table?” “Yes. I’m leaving,” he snapped as he headed for the door. “Very well,” replied The Dealer with a grin. Hector was halfway to the door when it burst open and another of those cloaked creatures flew through it, tackling him to the ground. “No!” he yelled as he kicked and squirmed against the horrible thing dragging him out the door and into the night. His protests were abruptly cut off as the door slammed of its own accord. “Would anyone else like to forfeit?” asked The Dealer with a wry smile. No one said a word. “In that case,” he said, “we will continue to the next hand. I’m sure you’ve all grasped the true nature of the stakes this evening.” Not even a little bit. I reached for the bourbon and gave myself a pour. The Dealer paused, those eyes drifting back to me. “My, your first drink in 3 years, Mr. Philips,” he commented, smiling. How the hell could he have known that? “Seems appropriate for the situation,” I replied. “Indeed,” he said, dealing two cards to the remaining three of us. Guess the money does mean something tonight . Picking up my two cards, my eyes glanced around the table. The European was visibly sweating; understandable, considering his dwindling pile of chips. Paul was calm and collected. He seemed to be the only one who was not surprised by the evening’s latest development. Dammit, man, what the HELL are you up to? “The Flop, gentlemen,” came The Dealer’s voice, interrupting my train of thought. He flipped three cards out on the table. A Nine of Spades, a Two of Hearts, and an Eight of Hearts. I checked the cards in my hand. An Ace of Clubs and a Ten of Diamonds. Not much I can do with that . The European hesitantly placed a white chip in front of him. “Five dollars,” he croaked. “Fold,” I said, placing my cards down in front of me and looking to Paul. The man’s analytical eyes were examining the European like a cat of the Sahara. He was about to thin out the competition. “Raise,” he said, first placing a white five dollar chip and then a green twenty-five dollar chip, “Thirty dollars.” The European’s face flushed, looking down at his three remaining chips, two red and one white. Exactly twenty-five dollars left. The sonofabitch was calling him all-in. The European’s eyes flitted from his cards to his chips, hand quivering over the table, unsure where to go. Pressure makes men do strange things . With a resigned sigh, the European pushed his remaining chips into the center. “Very well,” said The Dealer. With one of two players all-in, The Dealer revealed the final two cards in quick succession: a Four of Diamonds and a Three of Clubs. Glad I stayed out of this mess. “Reveal your cards,” instructed The Dealer. The European timidly placed his cards face-up on the table: an Eight of Spades and a Ten of Hearts. With that Eight he at least had a pair with the Eight in the middle. Not a horrible hand, but maybe not one to bet your immortal soul on. But again, pressure is a funny thing. Makes men’s gears jam up. Paul was resolute as he revealed his two cards: a Two of Spades and a Nine of Hearts. With the Two and the Nine in the middle, that gave him Two Pair. The European went white as a sheet. Another whoosh and rustling of fabric from the shadows. “Who are you?” The European asked The Dealer. “You’ll find out soon enough,” came The Dealer’s reply with that same sinister smile. A SHRIEK broke the silence as another cloaked creature swooped from the ceiling and knocked the poor man from his seat. The figure turned on a dime in the air, maneuvering back toward the European. To my surprise, he didn’t scream. In fact, the big man nimbly stood and swung his chair at the thing as it advanced on him. The chair smashed against the creature, breaking to pieces and sending the ghoul sailing into the darkness. The big man stood tense, brandishing the leg of the chair, waiting for his assailant’s return. When silence greeted his challenge, he exhaled and turned back toward The Dealer. “I’ll be le-“ I felt the thud in my chest as the creature soared out of the shadows and slammed into the big man’s back, knocking him to the floor. The European grabbed fruitlessly at the legs of the poker table as the thing clamped onto his leg with one of those hideous claws and yanked him across the floor and into the shadows. Silence returned. “Gentlemen,” said The Dealer, breaking the silence, “shall we resume?” “Why not,” I said, trying to keep the shiver out of my voice. The Dealer simply chuckled and began shuffling the deck of cards. “Why have you been following me?” I looked at Paul as he spoke candidly for the first time this evening. “That’s what’s on your mind right now?” “I’ve seen you before. Why did you follow me here tonight?” “Why the hell are you here tonight?” “Who hired you?” “You know I can’t tell you that.” “ Who hired you?” I looked toward The Dealer, but the man just sat peacefully observing. Clearly he was in no rush. I sighed and returned my gaze to Paul. His stern eyes demanded an answer. “Someone who cares about you very much,” I replied, “Someone who sees the desperation in your heart, your desire to provide, and the crushing weight of the debts you hold.” Paul’s jaw clenched. “She loves you, Paul,” I continued, “and she wants to tackle these problems with you.” The man’s eyes dropped to the table. “You can’t do this on your own, son.” “It’s too late, now,” he replied, meeting my gaze, “but if I beat you tonight, I can fix everything.” I looked to The Dealer. “What have you promised this man?” I asked him. “The same promise I made to the others,” he replied, “The opportunity of a lifetime – the chance to be granted their greatest desires. A game with the highest stakes possible.” “Who are you?” “I’m certain you’ve already guessed my name,” he said with a grin, “Pleased to meet you.” My stomach churned at that. I looked back to Paul. “My poor friend, you’re not the only man at this table with a family,” I said, “and I am not going to lay down and willingly die for your mistakes. But promise me this: if you walk away from this table tonight, do not accept whatever this man offers you.” Paul made no reply, but the resolve in his eyes told me everything I needed to know. His course was set. The Dealer slid our cards to us. “Mr. Philips,” he said, “the bet is to you.” “Check,” I said. “You’re not even going to look at your cards?” “I said ‘Check’.” The Dealer looked to Paul. “Check,” the man replied. With that, The Dealer revealed The Flop: Three cards up in the middle. Three sixes. “Mr. Philips?” said The Dealer. “Check,” I said, resolute. “There’s no use in dragging this out,” Paul said, “One of us is going to walk away from this table, and one of us is going to die. Let’s end it right now.” Don’t do it. “I’m all in,” he said, pushing his entire pile of chips into the center. I had no choice but to call his bet. I nudged my pile forward as well. “Well met,” said The Dealer. Since there was no more betting possible, The Dealer swiftly revealed the last two cards in the middle, both of them Aces. “Gentlemen, the grand finale,” The Dealer said with delight in his eyes. Paul revealed his cards first. He was holding a six. Four of a kind. He smiled. I sighed and flipped my cards over. Paul’s smile vanished as terror flooded his face. I looked down at my cards. Two Aces. I too had Four of a Kind. And mine was higher. Paul’s ashen face blurred in my vision as tears filled my eyes. I squeezed them shut as I heard the rippling of fabric from the darkness. The sound of wood scraping on wood echoed throughout the big room. I kept my eyes closed for what felt like an hour. When I opened them, Paul and his chair were gone, skid marks trailing off into the darkness. The Dealer stood. “Congratulations,” he said with that same sinister smile. I didn’t answer. Didn’t move. “I don’t suppose you want to hear anything that I have to offer,” The Dealer continued. I shook my head. “Very well,” he said, “You’re free to go.” -- The wait for the cab was excruciating. When it finally arrived, I gave the driver a start as I scrambled into the back and urged him to floor it. “Man, I don’t blame you for wanting to get outta here quick,” he said as we sped toward the gate, “This place gives me the creeps.” I nodded and turned to look out the back window. The house was dark save for two windows on opposite sides of the second floor that were lit. A figure stood silhouetted in the frame on the right. And I could feel its blue eyes watching me.


       Salvation looked like hell. So it was exactly as Iris Danes remembered it. She steered her Jeep around a jagged crack in the asphalt just ahead of the faded sign that read Welcome to Salvation! Posted beneath the cheery welcome message was another, more ominous sign.

For your safety: Turn on the radio Keep your windows rolled up Do not feed the monsters        “Good to be back,” Iris muttered, syncing her Bluetooth and cranking up the volume as she drove past the sign. Stevie Nicks’s voice blasted from her speakers, singing about white winged doves. The sky over Salvation was always dark; the foreboding black clouds hadn’t receded once in the last twenty years. In the five since Iris had been gone, they seemed to have gotten even darker. Jagged bolts of purple and red lightning forked through them like spears from time to time. And below the clouds, the southwestern desert sprawled out in every direction. Cacti stood like kings overseeing their otherworldly domain; sage brushes and the occasional tumbleweed serving as their sentinels.

       Iris tapped her fingers against the steering wheel, humming along to the song. Out of the corner of her eye, Iris saw movement. She turned up the volume on the radio and pushed the gas pedal a little harder. She didn’t turn her head, keeping the monster in her periphery until it dropped out of sight altogether. She turned and drove the Jeep up to a large black gate strung with barbed wire and overgrown ivy.

      Iris simply sat there, halfway wondering if the gate would just remain closed. After all, she’d been the one to walk through it and not look back, until now. After a couple of minutes the gate swung open and she drove through. She put the Jeep in park and stared at the house, at once as familiar to her as her own face and as foreign as a stranger. She’d been gone for five years but it felt like a lifetime. The garage door opened and she pulled inside. Once the garage was closed, she made herself get out of the car and walk inside the house. Her father had built the garage, and it was soundproof.

       But as soon as she stepped inside, she was engulfed in noise. It wrapped around her like a safety blanket. She was in the kitchen, which was full of white noise machines. She could faintly hear the tinkling of half a dozen

wind chimes outside the window. Her mother had loved wind chimes, and they had each hung a set out front like a shrine. Iris had left the next day.        She moved out of the kitchen, the sound of wind chimes and the memories of her mom making Sunday dinners trailing after her like ghostly sighs. Her feet walked the familiar path down the hall to the living room, the corner of which was occupied by a large monitor that showed the camera feeds from around the property. And seated in front of the screens was her father.        “Hi, Daddy,” Iris said. Her voice was loud though the words were quiet; she spoke them almost like a question. Or maybe a plea. Teddy Danes was a hard man to read, but he rose from his chair and studied her face.        “You came back.”        His voice settled on her like a weight, but then he hugged her, and she didn’t crumple under the burden of her grief and her guilt. She hugged him tightly, savoring the feel of his flannel shirt against her cheek. She had hoped to return home with some dignity but tears pooled in her eyes as soon as her father kissed the top of her head. She felt like a little girl again, nursing a scraped knee and needing Teddy to make it better.

       “I’m sorry I left,” she said, her voice thick around the lump in her throat. “I guess I thought I had to leave Salvation in order to find it.”        Teddy’s chuckle rumbled through her since she still had her face pressed to his chest. He gently pulled her away, looking at her face again before squeezing her shoulders.        “You look even more like your mom than the last time I saw you,” he remarked and Iris knew that in the language of Teddy Danes, that meant “welcome home.” She wiped at her eyes and offered a watery smile. She glanced toward the hallway again, where the stairs led up to the bedrooms. A jumble of noise spilled down from up there, but she could tell the sounds apart. Grams was listening to Sinatra; Luck Be a Lady. There were strains of Beethoven, which conjured the image of her brother Simon. Cameron was the one with an action movie playing at full volume, and Jamie was wailing on an electric guitar. And of course, Teddy had Bobbie Gentry and Tammy Wynette keeping him company in the living room.

       This was the soundtrack to Iris’s life. Her house had never not been full of noise, except for that night when the power had gone out and the monsters had stolen her mother in the moments of silence. These monsters didn’t hunt in the traditional sense. They slithered into people’s minds, using voices like snapping jaws to trap them. They made people do things. Terrible things. They forced their prey to do the killing and then feasted on the corpses left behind. Scavengers of fear. You had to surround yourself in noise to block them out, to prevent their projected voices from digging into your brain like a burrowing parasite.

       Iris’s mother had been awake, downstairs in the kitchen when the power went out. The voices had taken her, urging her to grab a knife from the drawer and walk outside. The rest of them had been startled awake by the deafening hush, and Iris had spotted her mother from the window. She screamed for Teddy and the power had stuttered back to life, filling the house with noise again. But Laura Danes was caught up in the whispers weaving through her mind, and the music blaring from the house and even the anguished shout of her husband as he’d tried to reach her wasn’t enough to break the spell. Laura had slashed the blade across her own throat. Iris had run down the stairs after her father and watched from the back door as her mother’s body fell, graceful but limp and blood-stained; like a fallen angel.

       A week later, Iris left home. She’d been nineteen and her heart had become a shredded piece of raw meat in her chest. She’d felt as if she’d been buried alive, the house crowded with noise and memories a sealed crypt that she needed to escape. She had craved silence. A place where when people spoke of their grief, they could do it in whispers instead of shouting the pain to be heard over the clatter of unending sound. She’d just wanted to be able to scream and actually hear the echo of her own pain instead of it being absorbed by everyone else’s noise.

       “Are you ready to see the others?” Teddy asked. Iris didn’t think they were ready to see her but she nodded anyway, wiping her eyes again. Teddy went upstairs to bang on bedroom doors. Footsteps pounded on the stairs and Jamie rounded the corner, stopping short when he saw her. He laughed.        “Holy shit, I thought Dad was messing with us. You’re really back.”

       Jamie was across the room in two quick strides of his long legs, embracing her in a bear hug that lifted her clean off her feet and almost broke her back. He set her back down and promptly tousled her hair in that affectionate but annoying big brother way. Iris scowled and swatted his hand away.        “Leave my hair alone,” she complained, trying to fix her now messy ponytail. Jamie grinned.        “Picking up where we left off. It’s like you never left,” he said.        “But you did leave.”

       Simon had appeared in the doorway, emotions flickering wildly behind his glasses. Iris took one hesitant step toward him, like he was a horse that might spook and run from her.        “I did,” she agreed. “But I won’t do it again. I missed you.”        Simon pursed his lips into a hard line but he was forced closer to her on the tide that was Cameron and Grams and Teddy.        “Oh, baby girl,” Grams said. She came forward and pinched Iris’s arm.        “Ow!” Iris yelped. “Grams, what the hell?”        “That was for leaving, Iris Katherine Danes,” Grams said sternly. “You worried this family half to death.” Then she wrapped Iris in a hug. “And this is for coming back.”        “Are you back for good?” Cameron asked, and Iris nodded.        “I’m not leaving again,” she said. “I promise. I shouldn’t have left in the first place, but at the time it felt like it hurt more to stay. Everything reminded me of Mom and I kept forgetting she was gone and then I’d remember again and I just…I couldn’t breathe. I wanted some peace and quiet so I ran. It was selfish and unfair. I’m so sorry.”

       “Did you find it?” Simon asked. “Peace and quiet?”        “I found quiet. And I realized that silence isn’t always golden,” Iris said dryly. “And I realized too that the only place I’m going to find peace, if it even exists, is at home. Even if that home is filled with obnoxious, weird looking creatures. Not to mention the monsters.”        Teddy’s lips twitched and Jamie laughed. To Iris’s relief, the laughter spread and Cameron came forward to hug her. Simon tried to hold out but he finally cracked when Cameron suddenly held Iris in place so Jamie could mess up her hair again. Heaving a long-suffering sigh, Simon came over and they all nearly group-hugged her to death.

       “Can I pinch her for leaving, too?” Simon asked. “Grams got to.”        “No, you may not pinch your sister,” Teddy said. Simon did it anyway and Iris elbowed him in the ribs.        “So what made you decide to come home?” Jamie asked.        “I had a dream about Mom. I think she was trying to warn me.”        “Warn you about what?”

       The world knew about the monsters, in a, “far away problem” kind of way. They had even become something of a tourist attraction for the thrill seekers and the dumbasses; hence the town’s welcome sign. The monsters had never left Kettle County. Twenty years ago a chunk of meteor landed in the desert not far from the town, and it brought the monsters with it. They seemed content to terrorize Salvation and the other few small towns that were scattered across this small stretch of desert. But Iris suspected that was about to change.

       “I think the monsters are going to start spreading,” she explained. “I think they’re going to destroy Salvation, and then they’re going to finally move on. To the entire world, maybe. We’re the line of defense. I wanted to be here, to help. I am the best shot in the family, after all.”        “Wow, that five year sabbatical really humbled you,” Jamie quipped.        “And if the world is going to possibly end, I want to be home. With all of you.”        “Depressing, but kind of sweet,” Simon said.

       Iris was home for three days when her prediction about the monsters proved to be true. She moved through the house as if on eggshells, still plagued with the guilt of leaving. It was a dark fortress built inside her chest, the rough stones scraping her bloody and weighing on her heart. But every moment she spent in the company of her family chipped away at the stones, wearing the fortress away to ruins. No one dismissed her dream or her warning, and on her fourth day home they found a monster lurking at the front gate.

       It was rare to see one right in front of you; they usually preferred to exist in the shadows and the corners of your eye. A long body on four legs; the hind legs were considerably longer than the front and they ended in feet that looked like a cross between human and raccoon hands. The six toes were long and bony. Its skin was the same, slightly nauseating shade of gray that appeared on spoiled meat. The head was small and seemed vaguely featureless aside from the impossibly long mouth full of tiny teeth that never quite closed. It looked like the edge of a saw blade. But the very worst part was the tongue. It was long and bloated and tapered to a narrow point. It unfurled itself from the mouth and flicked through the air like a snake’s.

       “Never seen one just standing out there like that,” Jamie commented. As the day wore on more monsters appeared at the fence. By sundown there were ten of them.       “Christ, how many do you think there are out in town?” Cameron asked. Grams whacked his arm.        “Language,” she scolded. But her gaze was locked on the monsters. They were all gathered in the living room, locked in a staring contest with the demons at the gate. Twenty minutes passed in silence, aside from the wind chimes and the noise machines and the speakers.        “What the fuck do they want?” Jamie said, his voice the closest to a whisper that Iris had ever heard it. Normally Grams would scold him but she said nothing. She was incredibly still, face almost pressed up against the glass. Abruptly she reared back and then smashed her head against the window. Iris jumped two feet in the air.

      “Mom!” Teddy yanked her away before she could head butt the glass again. She thrashed a little in his grip as he dragged her away from the window and closer to the speakers, which were currently blaring Patsy Cline at high volume. He cranked the dial up higher, yelling at Grams to snap out of it. The blank stare on her face morphed into confusion.

       “What happened?” she asked, touching her forehead.

       “They almost got you, is what happened,” Teddy said. “Simon, get a towel for your Grams.”        “That’s why there are so many,” Iris said, glancing back out the window with her heart pounding. “They’re trying to overpower the noise.”

       “Why don’t we get even louder, then?” Cameron suggested. Soon they had the walls vibrating with the volume of the music. Metallica and Johnny Cash and Dean Martin and Kansas and Mozart all overlapped with each other, creating a discordant mess of noise. But it may as well have been a choir of angels with those stretched, ugly creatures outside. Their bruise purple tongues kept reaching out to test the air; Iris wondered if that’s what they looked like when they were “talking;” planting violent compulsions inside people’s brains.        “They’re climbing each other,” Simon said. “They’re trying to come over the fence.”         “Then let’s make sure they have a welcoming committee,” Teddy said. It was ordinarily difficult to put down a monster. They didn’t usually show themselves so blatantly, and if they did it usually meant you were already dead. But the Danes were armed and prepared all the same. Teddy popped open the safe and distributed weapons like Santa handing out presents.

       “As soon as any are in range, shoot it,” he ordered. “We hold our ground until they’re all dead or we are, understood?”        They moved as a unit out onto the porch. One monster had managed to get over the gate, its feet trailing blood from the barbed wire. The Danes raised their rifles almost in unison. Iris fired a shot that ripped through the creature’s head. Its body fell, twitching, but another was already scaling the fence. Jamie glanced at her and grinned.

       “Welcome home, Iris.”


Content warning: references to suicide and death ----------- She scrolled past image after square image of happy mothers, fathers, children with their toothy smiles, all appearing candidly full of joy and wonder. This specific photography account she began following a few days ago was becoming one of her favorites. The photographer had a distinct talent at capturing families at their most perfect, their most beautiful. Of course, she knew that photos like these weren’t always real life, but as she looked at a young mother cradling her newborn son on her bed, her husband’s arms wrapped tightly around her waist as he looked adoringly into the baby’s sleepy eyes, she could tell that this wasn’t fake. They really did love each other in that special way that made people forget there was a camera pointed at them. Some people might say that an 11-year-old having a social media account on Instagram was a bad parenting choice. It probably was. Violet’s mother wasn’t exactly on her way to win a Mother-Of-The-Year award. Violet supposed she could download porn and watch it on full volume and her mother wouldn’t come out of her Ambien-induced stupor to put a stop to it. In fact, Violet had done just that last night, seated in the floral upholstered chair not ten feet away from her mother, who was snoozing on the couch, a tumbler of whiskey balancing precariously on her stomach. Violet had turned up the volume on her phone as high as it would go, the moans of two women reverberating off the tall ceilings in their living room. She wasn’t even interested in watching these adults have sex, only in getting her mother’s attention, which was sorely lacking these days. She continued scrolling through the photos until she stumbled upon a face that looked familiar, though it was hard to tell due to the photo being taken at a distance; a playful family scene on a pebbled beach in which a mother was holding her daughter’s hand and the father was tossing a small boy into the air. Their smiles were rapturous. She pinched her screen, zooming in on the woman’s face. It was Mrs. Kessler (or Rachel, as her mother called her), their neighbor a few doors down. She supposed the man in the photo was Mr. Kessler, though Violet had never met him despite having had at least five play dates over at the Kessler family home. They had a 2-year-old son named Carson and a 9-year-old daughter, Annie, who Violet would play with occasionally, seeing as how their neighborhood was made up of mostly retired couples. She didn’t particularly enjoy Annie’s company – she only wanted to play with Legos while Violet much preferred spending time in the kitchen, baking something with Mrs. Kessler – but it was an excuse to get out of her house and away from her mother. Violet saved the photo of the family so she could look at it again when the mood struck. She stood up from her seat at the kitchen table – where she’d once again found herself alone after pouring a bowl of Frosted Flakes for dinner – and went to her mother’s bedroom. Her mom was zonked out on her bed, fully clothed, and flanked by Eddie and Reggie, their other cockapoo. Eddie growled as Violet approached. He had never taken to her, and Violet always wondered why her parents had adopted him when the shelter had explicitly stated that he didn’t like children. Her mother was sure she could change his ways and encourage him to love Violet, who was then just a toddler. He never did. Old dogs and all that. She held the photo in her mother’s face, careful to keep her distance from Eddie. “Why aren’t we like them?” she said out loud, knowing full well that her mother couldn’t hear her and wouldn’t respond. She pulled the phone down by her side. “Why are you the way that you are? I hate you. Did you know that? That I hate you?” It was at that moment that Eddie lunged for her, but she backed away in time. He continued to growl from his perch at the edge of the bed, but Violet could only laugh. “Stupid dog,” she mumbled on her way out, heading to her own bedroom where she would inevitably fall asleep, scrolling through Instagram. ----------- It wasn’t that Violet’s mom was afraid to leave the house. She didn’t have agoraphobia, according to the Google research Violet had done. She would occasionally leave to go to the pharmacy for her Ambien pills. Sometimes she would take the dogs on walks - though most days she just let them out into the backyard to do their business. On her better days, she might walk to the corner pizzeria and bring home Violet’s favorite, Hawaiian pizza. But most days, she just slept or stared blankly at the TV while HGTV jumped from show to show. The internet called it depression. One quiz that Violet took on behalf of her mother said it could be posttraumatic stress disorder. Regardless, it was serious. Violet tried to convince her mom to get help, showing her the WebMD articles she had found, imploring her to “talk to her doctor” as the articles suggested. But her mom just shrugged her off, telling her to leave her alone, to “go play or something”. It had started a year ago when Violet found her father in the unfinished basement of their old home, hanging from an electrical cord that was looped around a wooden beam that ran the length of the room. His face was drained of color and his neck was bent at an unusual angle, but otherwise, he looked like he was just sleeping. Violet didn’t yell or scream; she suddenly couldn’t remember how, even though her mom always joked that she had “solid pipes” on her when she was an infant. She fell to the cement floor and hugged her knees. She stayed like that for an hour until her mom returned home from work. Her mom screamed when she found them. She remembered how. Since then, Violet’s mother had been out of work, relying solely on the considerable savings the family accumulated over the years. Violet ordered groceries using her mother’s credit card. She set her own alarms for school. She packed her own lunches and laundered her clothes. These things, she didn’t mind doing herself. It was the lack of attention that angered her. All of her grandparents were deceased. Her father was an only child and her mother hadn’t spoken to her sister in over a decade (apparently, Aunt Teresa had tried to “make a move” on Violet’s dad). Violet wasn’t even sure whether or not her aunt knew she existed. There had been a few coworkers of her parents’ who stopped by in the first few weeks with sad faces and even sadder casseroles. But even those visits petered out once her mother stopped returning calls and texts. Violet’s mother hadn’t been perfect, but she used to read her stories before bed. She used to kiss her forehead when she dropped her off at school. She used to take her to the local pool in the summer and sledding in the winter. Now her mother was a ghost of her former self. And Violet had had enough. ----------- That Saturday afternoon, while her mom was sleeping off the sleeping pill and wine combo from last night, Violet put on her pink coat and laced up her boots. She trudged through the newly fallen snow down to the Kessler’s house and rang the doorbell. Carson came to the small, narrow windows beside the door and stuck his face on the glass. Violet shook her head at the absurdity of it. When the door opened and she saw Mrs. Kessler’s kind eyes and honey-blonde hair, she perked up, a smile working its way onto her face. “Hi there, Violet! Carson, look! It’s our friend Violet. Can you say hi?” Carson ran off in the other direction, seemingly uninterested in the family’s visitor. “He’s been a little shy lately,” Mrs. Kessler said. “What are you doing here, sweetie? How’s your mom doing?” She asked a lot of questions, but Violet liked it. Mrs. Kessler seemed genuinely interested in her. “She’s fine! My aunt’s visiting next week, so she’s doing a lot of cleaning,” Violet lied. “I’m kind of bored at home and my mom said I should see if Annie wanted to play.” “Oh, I’m sure she’d love to, but she’s actually with her dad today. They went ice-skating. Rob used to play hockey in school, so he’s been wanting to show her the ropes for a little bit!” Violet’s face deflated and she knew that Mrs. Kessler could tell, because a look of pity swept across her face and she cocked her head to the side in that way that so many people had done in the last year when they encountered Violet or her mother. “Oh...okay. Well, thanks.” Violet waved and started to step down off the porch. It wasn’t slippery with ice like their porch was. It was carefully salted to avoid any accidents. “Would you like to come inside with us? I know a 2-year-old isn’t the best company, but we’ve got Frozen II booted up on the TV and some donut holes and hot cocoa. How’s that sound?” It sounded perfect. Mrs. Kessler was making the hot cocoa on the stove from scratch and the smell filled the room with a heavenly scent. Carson came over and grabbed onto Violet’s hand, sticky in that way that most toddlers hands always are. He led her over to the couch where their giant Newfoundland, Jack, was already sprawled out. As she sat down, Jack scooted over to sniff her and then proceeded to plop his giant head in her lap. She kept her hands at her sides. She didn’t know what to do with a dog that didn’t want to murder her. Carson seemed to notice her hesitation and squealed, “pet, pet!” over and over while guiding her hand across Jack’s head and ears. He was soft and warm. Was everything about this place soft and warm? “He’s such a loverboy,” Mrs. Kessler said as she appeared with two mugs of cocoa and a plate of donut holes balanced atop one. Violet helped her by setting down the plate, at which point Carson grabbed a tiny toddler fistful of donut holes, but before he could shove them in his mouth, his mother grabbed them out of his hands and ripped them into smaller, bite-sized pieces. It made Violet wonder if her mother would do the same or if she’d be content to let her toddler choke. As Frozen II played in the background, Mrs. Kessler seated in between the two children, Violet took in her surroundings with new eyes. Sure, she’d been to this house half a dozen times, but most of it was spent with Annie in her room among her hoard of mismatched Lego pieces. The house was a little messy, as most homes with toddlers are on a weekend, but was otherwise homey and well-decorated. A candle burned from its place on the mantel and a Christmas tree sat in the corner. The scent of vanilla and pine filled the room, mingling with the chocolatey smell of the cocoa. Carson fell asleep a mere 20 minutes into the movie and Mrs. Kessler picked him up and carried him off to what she assumed was his room. “I’m actually surprised he went down so quickly,” she said when she got back, smiling. “Normally nap time is much trickier than that. Maybe you’re my good luck charm!” “Maybe!” Violet returned the smile in kind. “So how have you been, Miss Violet? I know it’s probably been a tough time for you.” Understatement of the year. Before Violet even realized what was happening, she was crying. Salty tears rolled down her cheeks and onto her sweater. Then a thought formed in her head: she wasn’t sure if they were genuine tears or if she simply wanted to get a reaction out of this woman. That reaction didn’t take long to form, and only seconds later, Mrs. Kessler had her arms wrapped tightly around Violet. Violet hung on. She smiled as she laid her head on this kind woman’s shoulder and the tears petered out. However, she continued to make a whimpering sound so Mrs. Kessler wouldn’t let go. ----------- What felt like hours later, Violet awoke to the sound of heavy snow boots hitting the wood floor. She was covered in a warm, fleece blanket. The candle continued to burn. She could hear Annie and her dad talking loudly in the kitchen. Annie’s voice was a shrill thing, full of whines and complaints. Violet turned around and peeked at them over the back of the couch. “I don’t want to do it anymore,” she cried to her parents as she quickly shrugged out of her coat, throwing it on the ground in a tantrum. “I hate it!” “Honey, when you’re first learning to skate, you’re going to have a couple of falls,” her father tried reasoning with her. “You’ll get better if you just--” “NO!” Annie screamed, storming up the stairs to her room. Mr. Kessler - Rob - sighed loudly, clearly exasperated after a day spent with Annie. Mrs. Kessler cocked her head in that pitying way and hugged her husband, whispering what Violet could only assume were words of encouragement. Violet thought Annie was a bitch. What kind of spoiled brat gets mad when their doting father takes them ice-skating? An image of her lifeless father flashed before her eyes and she shook it away. “Do you want to stay for dinner, sweetie?” Mrs. Kessler said from the kitchen, pulling items out of the fridge and placing them on the giant kitchen island. “Want me to call your mom and ask? I’m sure we exchanged numbers a couple of years ago--” “Oh, I can text her! I don’t mind!” The last thing she wanted was her mom ruining what was an otherwise perfect day. “Okay, hun! Let her know she’s welcome to come over. It’s taco night!” Violet pretended to type out a text and waited a few minutes before saying, “She said she can’t come - she has a headache from all of the cleaning - but said that I could stay!” Violet was nothing if not an experienced liar. Why, for a whole year, she’d been pretending that everything at home was just peachy. “Okay, well, why don’t you go on upstairs and see if Annie wants to play?” Mrs. Kessler suggested. She really didn’t want to do that, but knew it would look strange if she didn’t at least play with Annie for a little bit. After all, that was supposed to be the reason why she came over in the first place. She smiled and uncurled herself from the blanket and Jack’s body, which had been draped over her the whole time. Annie was angrily breaking apart a Lego contraption that Violet guessed was supposed to be a ship, but looked nothing like it in reality. “Do you want some help with that?” Violet offered as she got down on her knees. “No, I don’t need any help.” Annie’s voice was harsh. Violet wanted to take the toy from Annie’s rude, ungrateful hands and throw it at the wall. “What are you doing here anyways?” Annie asked. “I told you last time I didn’t want to play with you anymore. You only want to hang out with my stupid mom and bake stupid cookies like losers.” “Your mom isn’t stupid. You’re lucky she’s your mom.” Violet knew she hated Annie right then. “Just because your family sucks and your dad killed himself doesn’t mean you can have my family. I wish you’d just leave and never come back.” Something inside Violet snapped. She grabbed a blue, rectangular Lego piece with one hand and the back of Annie’s head with her other. She shoved it inside Annie’s mouth, which was wide open in surprise. She pushed it far down her throat and then smoothly pulled her damp hand back out, watching Annie’s eyes bulge as she realized what was happening. She began to choke. Violet looked on in curiosity. She hadn’t seen her dad die and always wondered what it had looked like. She waited a few moments before screaming for help. Annie’s parents tore up the stairs, their faces horrified at the sight of their only daughter choking to death. Mr. Kessler quickly began attempting the Heimlich, while Mrs. Kessler shouted and spluttered into her phone, crying to a 911 operator. “What happened, Violet!?” She yelled, grabbing onto Violet’s shoulders firmly. Violet had already begun producing tears long before they entered the room and she managed to get out, “Sh-she was trying t-t-to take a piece off of her ship, b-but it was stuck, so she tried to g-g-get it with her teeth!” The color began to drain from Annie’s face and Violet saw her father. She saw her mother, drooling in her bed, her tongue stained red from the wine. She hated them. She grabbed onto Mrs. Kessler’s waist and she wrapped her arms around Violet in return, wanting something to hold onto as her husband failed miserably in reviving their daughter. Violet wanted to smile, but held it back. She felt her heart flutter with something she hadn’t felt in a long time. It was love. She finally had a family. And nothing was going to get in her way.


Life is funny in the moments that it doesn’t hurt. It has that sense of humor that isn’t supposed to be funny, but somehow it is, and you laugh. It was her birthday. All day she had been calling me with plans, but I just wasn’t in the mood to party. I would celebrate with her tomorrow, but I still listened to her voicemail. “Let’s drink.” Is all I could make of it. Well, all I decided to make of it. I rolled over and looked at my book shelf. I needed a new book to get lost in. I wonder if she would read with me. I had fallen asleep before I could think of an answer or pick a book. By the time I had woken up, it was dark outside. Although it was that time of year where it got dark at around 5 p.m. and your body reacted to it by being tired all the time, my clock read 9:15 p.m. Below the time on my phone was a notification of a missed call and a voicemail. She had decided to go out without me. I was okay with it. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to celebrate her birthday with her. That day I just didn’t want to be anywhere but by myself. I had pushed all the errands I had to run off, making the next day the only day I had to get them done. I just wanted to relax. I decided to walk to the store for some snacks, given that I had put off grocery shopping, I had no good fattening foods. This was a walk that she usually accompanied me on. I usually never walked by myself at night, but the store was so close I was sure I would be okay. However, as soon as I hit the street my anxiety decided to kick in. When I got closer to the gas station, police cars were lining the street. Something happened, and I wanted to get home before getting asked questions that I didn’t know the answers to. Just as I started to pick up my pace, she called again. “You know I never got to tell you how much of a good friend you are,” she began. A greeting I had never heard before. She continued before I could ask if she was alright. “it’s like sometimes we forget that the greatest things are in people, and before you know it, we’ve forgotten to tell them just how much great shit they added to us.” I was focused on a man walking a black dog as I listened to her words. She was most likely drunk. “You must be walking to the store,” she said. I assumed that she heard the wind or something in my background. “You getting candy?” she asked. “Uhm, yeah,” my eyes shifted to a street light as I avoided the police cars across the street. I was still thinking about her greeting. “Where are you? Are you okay?” Even drunken her had never told me those things. We were alike in that sense. We could read each other’s eyes, making words unnecessary in most instances. Our strong-point usually included us saying everything by saying nothing at all. “I’m okay.” Was the last thing I heard her say before the line faded out. I hung up and imagined how she would recap her night to me tomorrow. I made it into the store and retreated straight to the candy and snack aisle. I would change these habits one day. I picked my poison and placed it onto the counter. 3 Milky Ways. I asked the cashier to hold on before I ran over to the “Slim Jim’s”. I decided against it. When I returned to the counter the cashier handed the candy over to me. “That guy paid for you.” She said. She then began attending to the next customer, barely allowing me enough time to move out of the way. I turned around to thank the good Samaritan. He was cute, and looked to be no more than 20 years old. I gave my thanks to him and walked out of the store. I wish I would have said more. I adjusted my coat while wondering why he paid for my things. My phone ringing interrupted my thoughts as I unwrapped one of my candy bars. It was my dad. I clicked the green button before putting the phone to my ear. “What you doing?” another weird greeting. The phone line faded out again before I could process my confusion. I decided to call him back later, along with Sprint to discuss their sucky coverage. \*\*\*\*\*\*\* The next morning, I woke up expecting a conversation to take place about how her birthday went. It didn’t happen. Instead, everywhere I went, people kept handing me flowers that had magenta ribbons tied to the stems. But it wasn’t the odd gesture that concerned me, it was the sorrowful looks on their faces. People I had never seen before had somehow seen me, and for some reason, they were sad for me. I could feel it. At this point, I called her. I was wondering if people were handing her small bouquets as well. The phone rang until it got to the point where everyone knows to hang up. I decided to walk back to the store that I went to last night. Maybe we would bump into each other. As soon as I got to the curb, two women greeted me. They both handed me flowers wrapped in a magenta ribbon. But this time, one of them spoke to me. “Sorry about your friend.” She then dropped her head and walked away. “Hey! What the fuck does this mean?” I called after them, raising the flowers into the air to seal my question. They kept walking. I turned on my heels to cross the parking lot. It was then that I seen the boy again. This time he was on the ground, being cradled in the arms of a much older woman. I suspected that it was his mother. The scene made me uncomfortable, like it was supposed to take place in their home, behind closed doors. Not in the middle of a gas station parking lot, with people surrounding them. My feet walked toward the woman as my mind protested it. The boy laid lifeless, obviously dead. My mind went back to how he paid for my candy. A man walked up, and laid flowers wrapped in a magenta ribbon at her feet before walking away. I seemed to be the only one close enough to actually talk to her. “What happened?” I managed to ask. “Magenta days.” Was all she could muster up to say through her tears. I got up quickly and went inside of the store, trying to escape the chaos from outside. The same cashier from the night before was working again. She didn’t seem to notice the commotion going on just outside of the store’s doors. I walked up to her in a panic. “What happened here?” I asked, desperately searching her blank face for answers. “A boy committed suicide. He stayed out there all night before somebody discovered him inside of his car. I suppose his mother got here before the police did,” she said through pops of gum while peering out of the window from the register. “I’m stayin’ out of it.” I looked at her and was offended by her mannerisms and comments. It may have stemmed from the boy’s kind act from the night before. She noticed me staring at her and looked down at the flowers that I still had gripped in my hand. Her expression changed. “Sorry about your friend.” She said while nodding at the flowers. “He’s not my friend. I didn’t even know him.” I responded through a sigh. My eyes were closed and I was massaging my temples. “Not him, the girl. The one I always see you with.” She said matter-factly. I’m surprised she didn’t add a “duh” to her statement. “What are you talking about? And what is with everybody and these damn flowers?” I began to get angry because I was still processing the stranger’s death. “Your friend was murdered last night,” her face told me that she was surprised that I didn’t know. “Right outside of here.” She said while pointing to the parking lot. I recalled the police cars from last night silently in my head. My heart began to beat faster, and I couldn’t take my eyes off of the flowers in my hand. “Wh- what time did this happen?” I stuttered, still staring at the flowers. I still don’t know if I believed her when she said it. “Around 9. About thirty minutes before you came last night.” Her voice was quieter now and I could tell that she regretted talking, not prepared to accept the fact that she was the one who was breaking the news to me. I shook my head, a bit relieved. “That’s impossible,” I dropped the flowers on the counter. “I was talking to her on the phone right before I walked in here last night.” I said, unknowingly talking much louder than when the conversation began. She gave me the look that everyone gives when they know that someone is in denial. That look of pity with a touch of fear. She was afraid to say anything else. “Are you sure it’s her?” I asked, while blinking heavily. My anger was turning into annoyance. And what was with those stupid ass flowers? Magenta days? I was so lost in my thoughts that I hadn’t noticed the cashier turn on a small TV behind the register. She kept her head down as I looked at what was on the screen. It was her. My best friend. The picture of her that I had taken not too long ago was plastered on the news. Below it, a headline. She was murdered. Last night. Around 9. Prepare for magenta days. Magenta. Universal love at its highest level. Compassion that ignites harmony and balance. My eyes went back up to her picture. I had forgotten I was standing in the gas station. Seeing that picture and word combination on the TV screen caused something to break inside of me. I drew the connections in my head. I had heard of connections from beyond the grave before, but it just didn’t seem real until now. That’s when I began to laugh. A big, hardy, belly-filled laugh. The cashier looked taken aback and looked at me with her eyebrows furrowed. She was the one offended now. But despite her judgement, I could not stop laughing. I recalled her greeting in my mind. *“You know I never got to tell you how much of a good friend you are.”* My laugh turned into a big, ugly cry. I clinched onto the flowers and fell to my knees, staring at the ribbon. The flowers comforted me in a weird way. I began to think about the boy, and I stopped crying. I thought of his mother and stood up, wiping my tears and steadying myself. The cashier was still staring at me. I was relieved that no one else was in the store when I looked around. I made sure that the flowers were in my hand as I made my way to the door and walked out. Outside was still in a frenzy, but I found the boy’s mother through all of the people and flowers. She was talking to police officers now. The boy was no longer in her arms. I slowly walked over to her and handed her the flowers wrapped in ribbon that were given to me. I still don’t entirely know what they mean, but I know how they made me feel. “He paid for my candy last night, and I didn’t even know him,” I said, looking at the flowers that were now in her hands. “Sometimes we forget that the greatest things are in people.” I walked away remembering my friend’s words, and all the people that handed me flowers. I crossed the street with two things on my mind: my dad and magenta ribbons.


Once I came upon a girl swinging in the park near my house. The late summer trees surrounded the playground like a cradle of leaves and the moon was half full. She wasn’t swinging very hard. She just swayed a bit to and fro over the ground, her feet tapping the wooden plank underneath that had been put there to obstruct the mud. Tap, tap, her feet went as she swung back and forth. She was smiling, her head slightly lowered, her eyes gazing at something on the ground. I climbed onto the swing next to her and said, “Hello.” “Hi,” she said, not looking at me. “Why are you smiling?” I asked her. “I don’t know.” “It’s kind of creepy,” I said. She shrugged. “I like being creepy.” “Why?” “It’s happy, but not proper happy,” she said. “Oh,” I said, confused. I turned my attention to the swing and concentrated on moving back and forth, my legs going up, and down, until my mind was empty and content. Then when I was done, I scraped my shoes against the ground until I was still. I got up. “Goodbye,” I said. “Bye,” she said. Days went by, and the leaves fell until the ground was a brilliant orange, and the branches were bare against the lamplit sky. Sometimes I’d pass and she wouldn’t be there. But sometimes, she’d be there, still smiling, a soft smile. I’d get on the swing next to her and we’d swing, not talking, just silently moving back and forth. Sometimes when I got into the feeling of it it would feel like time had stopped, or never existed, and I didn’t exist either. I was just a pendulum hanging from the metal rod above, separate from reality. One day I felt particularly bad but I still said “hello” to her as usual, and got onto my swing. I felt grumpy, and lonely. Why did she never talk? Why didn’t she ask me about my day? I was always here for her, wasn’t I? I suddenly felt frustrated by her quietness and her empty smile. “Stop smiling,” I said. “Why?” she said. “Stop it,” I said louder. “Why,” she said. “STOP SMILING,” I shouted, and like a crack on a cup of porcelain, her smile shivered and broke, and the tap, tapping of her feet on the wooden plank stopped. She stood up from the swing, her mouth opened ajar, her eyes unblinking, and the wooden plank under her feet creaked open like a door into the ground. A moaning began in her throat, low and unearthly, until it bellowed in my ears like the moaning of the wind. I didn’t like the sound. “Stop it,” I said. “Stop that at once.” “Daddy,” she said, “I’m sorry I broke it I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry–” “Be quiet,” I said. “--sorry sorry sorry sorry” “Close your mouth,” I said, and wrapped my hands around her face, and tightened them to muffle the sound. When I opened my hands, I saw nothing but scraps of a cafeteria lunch fall onto the floor, and walls wherever I looked.


To visit a real oasis was number forty-nine on Kelly’s bucket list. This was an obtainable goal. She was pleased that she thought of putting it down. She didn’t write down pipe dream items, such as going to space or the moon. Sure, she would love to go but she wanted to achieve her goals and as many of them as possible in the short time she has left. “Sixty-one,” Kelly thought, “is that young or old?” She certainly feels young, especially when she plays doubles on the tennis courts. The sport makes her feel like she did in middle school; it keeps her young. Fifty-five is when one enters the senior demographic. Sixty-two is considered early retirement age and a senior citizen. Kelly retired at fifty-eight. In five months, she will be a full-fledge senior citizen. Now that is old. Kelly never did decide on answer her question as to whether sixty-one is young or old; it is unimportant. The important thing is to know time is valuable. The dream of seeing Earth from space is a fantasy, a time waster for her. A real desert oasis is manageable. Cottonwood Spring is a natural oasis in Twentynine Palms, California. Of course, it is almost two-thousand miles away from sunny Florida. Cottonwood Spring is in Riverside County. Kelly has an old friend Paul who lives there. He has his own law office. She is proud of him because she knew him when he was a car mechanic. He beat the statistics and made a good living for himself.

She remembered him with fond memories. He had a great sense of humor and a big smile. He seemed to love just messing with people, just to mess with them. He had done it to her too. She wasn’t a cook. She followed recipes to the tee and could still mess up. There was a silly pizza recipe that called for the pepperoni to be placed under the cheese. Naturally, Paul insisted that he wanted his pepperoni on top of the cheese. Kelly didn’t understand. The recipe said under the cheese. Paul got the kids involved and they too wanted their pepperoni on top. Everyone had thought it was funny to mess with Kelly because she was such a stickler for the recipe. Those were some great times. Kelly so wished Liz and Paul had stayed together. Kelly wondered if Paul would see her, after all the years had gone by? Not because of him being a big shot lawyer but because she had done him wrong. He blamed the split with his wife Liz on her. Kelly had helped Liz move out. It had been a “Catch 22” situation for Kelly. Divorces are nasty, even when they are not nasty. Pick a side: her or him. Kelly had loved both, but Liz was her best friend. At times, Paul seemed to understand; then there were others when the hurt pained him so bad that he didn’t want to understand. Does time indeed heal old wounds? Kelly wanted to find out. For sure, the visit to see the oasis would include a visit to Paul’s law office. She wouldn’t try to see him at home with his new family. She had heard the new wife was insecure and jealous. The last thing Kelly would want to do is to cause problems for them. In addition, Kelly knew if she dropped in at his office, she could go through his secretary. It would give Paul the option of making time for her or not. Kelly wondered how Paul would receive Garret. It had been Kelly and Bob forever. Sadly, Bob passed away seven years ago. Garret and Bob’s personalities are completely different. Bob was fun and funny with everyone. He would joke and tease with a perfect stranger. Garret is more reserved until he knows you well. Going without Garret wasn’t option. He was her man now. Acceptance of him was a must. In addition, Garret had never even seen a desert much less an oasis. Kelly had been to the desert many times in her travels. However, she had never taken the time to see an oasis. Yes, Garret and her would go. For the bucket list trip, she wanted to experience the oasis. She didn’t want to do the touristy thing and just visit the visitors center where there should be sign declaring this is the “Cottonwood Spring Oasis.” She wanted to walk through the desert and build up a thirst. She wanted it to be night-time and let the sounds and lights of the oasis guide her there. She understood there were some dangers to walking through the dessert at night. Coyotes, bobcats, snakes, and scorpions to name a few of the threatening wildlife she could encounter. Dehydration could be a factor too. The little bit of fear excited her. Number forty-nine: oasis would have to wait another two years for Garret to retire. His dream was to buy a large camper and a heavy-duty pickup truck and see the country. Kelly loved this idea. She had traveled a lot for work but not vacationed as much as she had wanted. Her life had been lived in the fast lane. It was time to slow down, take in, and reflect on the world. As Kelly continued to dream, she added a fiftieth entry into the Bucket List book. It was to become a published author.  Then she thought the entry was too vague. Anyone with the Internet can publish. She was reminded of a Denzel Washington YouTube video of a commencement speech, where he called for people to dream big. She erased “become a published author” and wrote, “become an author on the New York Times’ best-selling list.” Finally, she returned to her unanswered question: is sixty-one young or old?  She thought about many of the witty quotes on age that were designed more to make one smile than think. She quickly discounted them. She moved on to think about space and time. Einstein said, “Space and time were inextricably linked.” Her question should be, “Is she contracting or expanding?” Just like the universe, she knew without a doubt that she was expansion stage of life. Kelly was joyful. “Funny,” she thought, “she felt larger than she ever had before.” Kelly closed the Bucket List book and headed to bed for the night.


Some other days they all thought it was over. Some other weeks any chance to reunite seemed invisible, impossible and unthinkable.

Black! Dark! Black and dark was his heart. Red! Red but not like wine was her heart; because she was bleeding. She was bleeding pain from inside. Not many people knew, but she missed him every second, every minute and every eternity spent in a single day.

He loves her; the first girl he ever knew. She loves him the first boy she ever loved so hard. They both remember how beautiful it was back then, how they use to fight and laugh. They probably never knew how strong the tie was, but they felt deep in them that the tie would hold them together for life. His sister. Her brother.

He was far from her, she missed him. Two continents! See the ocean separated one form another’s love. Funny fact: [what they cried is even bigger than that ocean.]

But they never lost hope even if sometimes they pushed it away. Just too normal for people of flesh. As the day always comes back after the night it was meant for them to meet again, to touch again, to hug again, to smile again, and hold hands again after a long time apart. Almost ten long and hard years. What a painful separation. Here they are, trying to understand what they have missed, she sees how bigger and taller than her he has become. She left when he was so small, so young as she said, he was just a little brother. He sees how small his sister seems as she was way bigger than him back then before they separated. She tries to understand how her brother’s face has got beard on his cheeks and chin; he understands that his sister is a mother now and he is then an uncle.

What a big difference ten years can be in a lifetime!

They promised to brother and sister’s love that life will not do them apart again. Yes, Life will not do us apart again sister.

<<I hated every single minute away from you>> She said.

<<Men are not allowed to cry but I did when I could not hold the pain that it was>> he said.

As they are sitting, facing each other, trying to get to recognize the faces that they see now, she cries. But this time she is happy, driven by thousands of emotions that she feels at that particular moment. He says she will be fine.

Him : Can we even catch back on ten long years? Impossible right?

Her: I don’t know but I sure know I will do my best to make this seem like we never went apart.

Him: If bodies are far but love from hearts is still, we are never too far from one another. In the unseen universe, we were still holding hands. Me holding my big sister’s hand.

Her: I love you!

Him: I love you too yaya ( yaya means big sister/brother, from where they come from ).

Time to get new habits, life behind the phone is over, no more video calls, now they are face to face. He forgot how good she cooked, so he tastes her food again, and again, and again as he finds back in her way of cooking, the making of their mother. How beautiful!

Family! All we need, all we have to handle as well.

She is not that easy of a sister, she likes to tease him. Even if he is twenty three years old now and she's twenty six, they are still the same old brother and sister’s couple that was seven and ten. She fights him when he is bored. She wants to know who got his heart. She asks him every time “where is your girlfriend?” He looks at her, he smiles and he says “chill, I will present her to you when it is time”. Then she adds “You always say that then we never see her. You hide too much of your life from me. I am your sister I need to know who you are dating or seeing”. He smiles again as he doesn’t talk a lot.

She is proud, you can see it, you can feel it. As if she is learning to love her brother again like when he was born. The love of a sister, is there anything truer than that except the one from a mother? We are yet to find. And not even every mother love their own kids (reference: Veronique Courjault).

She gets familiar with his writing, she loves his movies, she loves to watch them and see him acting, she goes to his game to see him play football. Football from where they are from. When people meet her in the streets, she says, with a great smile: this is my brother.

But what happened for them to separate? Life happened. When you are born in a country, in a continent that is house of struggle, where corruption kills talents, opportunities and possibilities of a bright future, your best way to succeed is to get out of there. She had to leave her country and family to rejoin her father in Europe. I could have said half sister but they never called themselves half. They fully love each other, completely. She went when she was so young. He stayed! Time went by until it was his time to leave. But not going to see his sister, not in Europe as her but in the U.S. His big faith in God made him go. As he was told by God himself, that he shall go. Both of them too far, experienced difficulties of getting papers and right to travel again, struggling to be accepted as migrants in countries they never thought they would live in someday. How could they make it easy to reunite if it is not by making it rich? So he worked! He worked hard, he duplicated himself as a picture in your gallery to do everything he could possibly do. Each part of him handling at least two things. But his trust in God and God's promises mixed, made a way to success. He made it as we say. And he flew to go see his mom, his sister, his nephew and his little brother.

They held hands once, then love held them until they held hands again.


MY FIRST CRUSH EVER was on this girl named "Jane Lastname". I was only about ten years old when I first met her. Her older brother played goalie for my older brother's hockey team. They played together for a few seasons, and Jane would be at every game. Over time, her and my younger sister became pretty good friends. She was a couple years older than my sister though, and that put her closer in age to me. So, over time, I became friends with her too. And I liked her. I remember pretending that I didn't like her, and teasing her, and doing all the dumb things that little boys do when they first start developing feelings that they don't understand...but I liked her. Alas, after years of friendship, when I was about twelve and a half, the time came for our brothers to move on and play for separate teams. And that was it. I never saw Jane again. Until... JANE FROM FOREVER AGO A Love Story I was seventeen years old. I had just begun my senior year in high school. I was unjustifiably confident, sorta cute in an awkward way, perpetually stoned, and just basically happy. It was Friday night. My friend, Rob, had just picked me up to head out to a party. The party was at a house in the big city, which was about a thirty minute drive from our small town. I didn't really know the person having the party, but Rob was going there to meet up with some chick, and he had asked me go with him. I had agreed because I liked parties. We arrived at the house. It was on a quiet street in a pretty nice neighborhood. However, as soon as we walked inside; we were met with chaos. The place was packed. That song, Mr. Brightside by The Killers, was blasting super loud, and kids were dancing everywhere. Rob and I quickly found a couple of drinks, met a few people, and started having a pretty good time. Eventually, Rob met up with his girl, and they sorta disappeared on me. It was cool though. I had started playing a drinking game with some dudes, and I hardly noticed he was gone. After the game, a few guys invited me to get high, and I followed them outback. There was a bonfire going on, and we all sat down around it. As we were smoking, a couple more groups of people came out and joined us by the fire. I figured I should introduce myself to some of these new people, so I stood up and said, "Hey guys, I'm...." "IAN!!" I spun around to see who had somehow successfully guessed my name. That's when I saw her. It had been years, but I still instantly recognized her. It was Jane Lastname, my old childhood crush. She was standing there, smiling ear to ear. And she looked absolutely amazing. She had grown up to become super, super hot. Before I even had a chance to say anything, she ran right up to me and gave me a giant hug. I was practically in a state of shock and could only manage to utter a simple, "Hey." "Oh my god! Ian! You probably don't even remember me! My name's Jane Lastname! Our brothers used to play hockey together. I had the biggest crush on you growing up!" I didn't know what to say. Of course I remembered her. I hadn't thought about her in forever, but I certainly hadn't forgotten about her. She was the first girl I had ever like-liked. She was the first girl I had ever tried to look nice for. She was the first girl I had ever wanted to do mouth stuff with. And now here she was, looking just unbelievably beautiful, and saying she used to have a crush on me too. This was officially the highlight of my life up until this point. I decided to just do my best to try and play things cool. "Oh, wow, Jane Lastname. Of course I remember you. How have ya been?" "I've been great! How have you been? How's your sister?!" "I've been good. She’s good. How's your brother, Jason? Is he still playing hockey?" "No, he gave that up a long time ago. He's actually going to school to become a vet." "Oh. That's weird. I thought you had to go to war to become a vet." Jane laughed. "No, silly. A veterinarian." "Oooh. That makes more sense. I just don't get why you didn't say kitty doctor." Jane laughed again. We sat down next to the bonfire and continued catching up. We talked about all the fun we used to have together at the hockey rink. We talked about all that had changed in our lives over the last five or so years. We talked about our families, and our friends, and our pets. We talked about everything. The minutes turned to hours with the two of us just lost in conversation. This crazy ass party kept going on around us, but it was like we were off in our own little world. I really liked talking to her too. She was funny, but even more importantly; she really seemed to find me funny. And I really liked making her laugh. She'd flash this little smile every time she started laughing, and it was just like the prettiest thing ever. It would send fireworks shooting around inside of me every time I saw it. We had been talking for over two hours straight when we were finally interrupted by one of Jane's friends. She stumbled over to us and started complaining to Jane about having to pee. Jane admitted she had to go to the bathroom as well, and told her friend she'd accompany her inside. But before she got up; she leaned over and kissed me on the cheek. Then she whispered in my ear, "Don't move. I'll be right back." My heart was racing as I watched Jane and her friend head into the house. It really felt like there was something magical between us. A dude sitting on the other side of me tapped me on the shoulder to offer me a joint. I accepted it; and I started looking around at this giant party I had been ignoring. There were now an insane amount of kids there. And then, all of a sudden, out of like completely nowhere, about half of them shouted, "CCCOOOPPPPSSSSSS!!!!!" Sirens and flashing lights filled the air while kids scrambled in every direction. I just momentarily froze next to the fire with the joint in my mouth. Finally, my brain caught up to what was happening, and I decided that I should probably fucking run. So I jumped up and took off. I ran through at least two neighboring yards and then finally leapt behind a little bush. From where I hid, I could still see the back of the party house. And I watched as the cops chased around the unlucky kids. I sat behind my trusty little bush, watching and waiting for the cops to leave. Then, suddenly, I heard something much scarier than the sound of a siren. I heard a small rustling of leaves. It was coming from inside my trusty little bush. I looked closer. Then I spotted two little eyes staring back at me. And I FREAKED THE FUCK OUT! Once again, I was up and running. Only this time, I wasn't fearing some dumb underage drinking ticket. I was fearing being murdered by a horrifying, bloodthirsty, bush-dwelling creature. So the running didn't stop. I just kept on going. I probably ran for a good twenty minutes through random yards until I was positive there were no monsters chasing me. I eventually did force myself to stop running. Kinda because I knew I was being a giant pussy, and kinda because I was just completely out of breath. It was at this point that I realized two things: The first, was that I somehow still had that joint in my mouth. I had apparently neglected to ditch it during my entire chaotic escape. And that was pretty cool. But the second thing I realized, was that I had no idea where I was, no idea how far I'd just run, and no idea how to get back to the party. And that was significantly less cool. I took a brief moment to survey my surroundings. I deduced that my panicked sprinting had luckily maintained somewhat of a straight line. So it didn't take me too long to make it back out to the road that I was positive the party was on. It was pretty late by this point, and there were no cars to be seen in either direction. So I figured I'd just follow the road until I made it back. I lit my joint back up and began walking down the dark and lonely street. I prayed Rob hadn't left the party yet since he was my only ride home. But even more so; I prayed Jane would still be there. I wasn't ready for our reunion to be cut short like this. I really wanted to see where things might be going between us. I kept thinking about her as I continued my surprisingly long walk underneath the stars. I had always believed in that silly notion of "true love". That there was like one perfect person out there for everybody. A "soulmate". And now, I'm not saying that I thought Jane was my soulmate or anything. That'd be crazy. This was the first time I had seen her in forever. But still, I just had this weird feeling that maybe she COULD be my soulmate. I mean, who knows, right? I had been walking now for quite some time, but I still hadn't made it back to the party. Just then, I noticed a set of headlights approaching in the distance. I quickly tossed my everlasting joint fearing that it may be one of the cops that initially caused this whole mess. However, as the vehicle came closer, it began flashing its headlights, and I realized it wasn't a cop car. It was a Rob car. And the Rob inside looked super fucking pissed. He pulled over and immediately began shouting at me through his lowered window. "DUDE! WHERE THE FUCK HAVE YOU BEEN ALL NIGHT?!?!" "Oh, hey, man. Umm. There was an incident with a monster." "What?! What the fuck are you talking about? How stoned are you? Get in the god damn car!" I climbed in and began to explain to Rob about being by the bonfire when the cops showed up, and then hiding in the neighbor's yard, and then encountering a mysterious beast, and then running like a madman throughout the neighborhood. I continued to explain that we now had to return to the party so that I could meet back up with Jane... And that's when my heart broke. Rob explained that, not only was the party on a "completely different fucking road", but also that everybody there had been forced to leave. And that he'd been driving around trying to find me because some dude said I stole his joint and took off running when the cops arrived. And lastly, that there had been a girl looking everywhere for me as the party emptied out. But she had eventually given up and left. I was devastated. I tried getting Rob to drive back just to be certain Jane was gone, but he assured me that he had watched her leave. He said she had asked him and a bunch of other people if any of them knew where I was; but nobody did. So, she got into a car and left with her friends. He then made a comment about her being super, super hot. And I just felt like crying. The rest of the ride home from that party was brutal. I kept going over everything that had happened in my head. My old childhood crush had suddenly walked back into my life; only to then walk right back out of it even faster. And worst of all, I apparently still really liked her. And I think she really liked me too. But now none of that mattered. Because I was afraid of monsters. And she was gone forever. Or so I thought.


“Hold on, Karla.” The woman stood back as her colleagues filed out of the status meeting. “Sit,” Roger said. “Goodbye, Jamie!” He waved at the smiling face on the television that vanished at the click of a button. Karla sat quietly. Roger wiped up a few water rings on the table and joined her at its head. “This isn’t working out.” Karla felt her mouth fall open, but no reply was forthcoming. “I’ve given this a lot of thought. I really think you and the company should part ways. This will be your last day.” “You’re not going to offer me any chance to improve?” she asked. “This is totally out of the blue. You only had glowing things to say in my performance review!” Roger straightened the tray of succulents. “That was ten months ago. If I had to do your next review today, things would be much different. You’ve picked up some bad… habits.” Karla pushed back her chair and stood up, wagging a finger in her boss’ face. “WHAT IS IT? WHY ARE YOU MAD AT ME ALL OF A SUDDEN? I BROUGHT IN MORE BUSINESS THIS QUARTER THAN ANYONE, AND YOU’VE GOT A PROBLEM WITH ME AND NOT THAT LOUDMOUTH, DYLAN?” “Please sit down,” Roger said, unphased, “or I’ll call security, and this conversation will be over.” Karla slumped into her chair. “Thank you. That outburst is only the most recent example of your anger management issues.” She awkwardly fought to roll her chair closer to Roger. “YOU WANT TO SEE ANGER?” “No. Anger is not a professional behavior. You are one of our best salespeople, but your attitude is devastating to morale.” Karla raised another accusatory finger. “Karla….” Roger adjusted his tone to that of lion tamer. “Let me finish. In the meeting just now, you said disparaging things about four of your teammates. Jerome was hurt so deeply, he had to excuse himself.” “So, why didn’t YOU call me out?” Karla asked, seething. “Help me learn right then instead of keeping me after class like a kid who stole someone’s crayons?” “My preference is to hold coaching conversations in private.” “Coaching? You’re FIRING me!” “Coaches kick players off teams all the time. Before we go any further, I’m willing to give you a second chance, but I need to know two things. First, are you willing to get help?” “Yeah, sure. Whatever.” Roger shook his head. “That’s less than encouraging, Karla. Second, I’d like to know where things went wrong. Why the sudden change? We have resources available to help our employees overcome all sorts of obstacles, be it addiction resources, mental health counseling, or general therapy.” Karla’s eyes wandered to her wrist. She was twisting a bracelet obsessively. “You really want to know?” “Yes,” Roger said. Her attention turned to the table. “It’s because SNITCHES LIKE JAMIE KEEP LURKING ON CONFERENCE CALLS, SO THEY CAN GET ALL THE GOSSIP. NEXT THING YOU KNOW, SHE’S SHOOTING OUT THE NEWS OF THE DAY TO A LISTSERV THAT’S GOT TWO HUNDRED SUBSCRIBERS!” Karla picked up the half-dead succulents and hurled them across the room, missing the television but hitting the camera. She leaned toward the microphone on the table. “YEAH, JAMIE! I KNOW ABOUT YOUR LITTLE SECRET. HALEY FORWARDED WHAT YOU SAID ABOUT ME. WE ALL KNOW YOU’RE ‘JILLYJILLY.’ THE PHONE NEVER BLOOPED.


Would you offer your throat to the wolf. These were the words that formed the written part of the Crest which was displayed above the entrance to the, well what could be seen as a castle but Nick maintained it was just the families country residence. It is always with trepidation that you meet your new love interests parents and family. Lucy had been dating Nick a little over two months and things had been going so well. Lucy had been on a girls break in Aberdeenshire at a spa and they had taken an evening off from the healthy and decided to try out the local pub which was just down in the village. The wolf and prey such a sweet endearing name she thought to herself. Despite the morbid name it was in fact a nice friendly place with a great fun atmosphere. Lucy was just sitting with the girls when Nick came in through the door. He had the most beautiful auburn eyes she had ever seen and a mop of dark brown curls which fell around his shoulders. His eyes she thought almost seemed red when the light caught them. She caught his eye as he walked past and smiled and to her amazement he smiled back at her. "Oh my god" exclaimed katy, not even quietly Lucy thought. "He is lush Lucy ,I saw you checking him out". Lucy wanted the floor to open up she saw him looking around as Katy spoke. "What are you doing he might have heard you?". "It's fine you worry to much". And so they continued their conversation and Lucy was was watching him as he went to the bar and he turned and caught her looking at him and started to move towards the group of girls. And the rest as they say is is history. She was nervous about meeting his family although he was very down to earth and yet had a very fierce and raw side to him he loved being outdoors and especially loved evenings under the stars and they had many late night picnics, which she also enjoyed as she was quite a night time person so it was a joint passion. When they entered the "castle" she was amazed at how unkempt it was almost as though it had been in the family for hundreds of years but not been changed one bit in all the time. Nick's parents met her as they walked in with open arms and an endearing attitude. "It is wonderful to meet you at, we do not always have the pleasure of meeting Nick's young ladies we hear about them and then they tend to disappear from sight, so we are very happy to meet you". His mother said with a smile and the a hug. "Its my pleasure to meet you as well". Lucy smiled as she shook their hands. After a tour of the beautiful and gothic  home they sat to eat and then had drinks buy the beautiful stone fireplace it was so romantic she thought to herself. It was Autumn and that was her favourite time of the year, the beautiful golden trees and the blanket of gold leaves embellished the ground and that discernible smell at this time of the year that was always in the air. The wood fires burning,  it moved her so much and of course the always beautiful harvest moon, which always seemed bigger and more present. "Shall we take a walk tomorrow it is the full harvest moon and I can show you all the grounds, the lake and the family crypt if you like, it is a bit creepy and at the same time quite beautiful ". Nick asked her. "I would love" that she explained. "I honestly think that I am something of a goth at heart it is amazing how much I am drawn to the eerie side of life". "Perfect that is tomorrow evening sorted". "I do hope we get to see you after your walk, don't disappear on us" Nick's father asked jokingly. Lucy thought how different these people and this place were to her own crazy family. Nick came down to meet them first before meeting his family. Her father was very open and friendly he was so called man if the house but not at all in a misogynistic way but her mother ran everything and was a very strong protective character especially where Lucy was concerned she was fiercely protective of her daughter and there were only certain sorts of boys she would entertain as being "good enough " for her daughter. She said she had a nickname for Lucy, "Lupus" it was it had a deep meaning that only she understood. But as things were her mother totally approved of Nick making him very welcome and to Lucy's horror one night claimed he would make a good mate. So the next day Lucy and Nick spent the day at his parents castle and come the evening of the harvest moon they got set to take the walk of the grounds .The kitchen staff enquired to his parents what should they put together for the picnic. Lucy said anything that had meant in she loved her meat although she was never quite ok with how animals were treated In the process she lived her meat. And so they set off around the grounds it was a beautiful place somewhat haunting and misty. As the evening went on she felt that Nick was becoming a little edgy and uncomfortable as the harvest moon was rising and they were walking around the crypt. "Is everything ok Nick?". She asked concerned at his irritability. "Yes I'm am fine just feeling a bit on edge tonight not many of my lady friends share this with me I do hope your not to scared or freaked out by this place?." "Not at all I love it and the moon is almost at its highest it is so beautiful and bright tonight." He sat her on a stone wall that ran along the outside of the crypt, would you just wait here I have something to reveal to you?" he said "and I do hope it will not scare you away from me." "Of course not a problem don't be long  I am so hungry right now?." "Me too". He smiled and disappeared into the crypt. "When he returned Lucy was not where he had left her, the food was open from the picnic and torn up and dispersed all over the floor, he shouted for her but there was no reply  and he started to panic as to what might of happened to her Then he heard a low growl coming from behind the crypt he thought there maybe an animal of some sort but there were some foxes around therse parts and deer but no wolves to his knowledge. Then the growling became louder and deeper and as he turned he was standing in front of the biggest wolf he had ever seen mostly because it was standing upon its hind feet. He cowered back and fell against the wall where he had left Lucy and as the creature stood over him drooling and bearing its yellow teeth he called out Lucy's name as if to reassure himself she was still alive. Then to his horror the creature spoke. "I am here Nick". Nick's parents received a letter say he was moving down south with Lucy and he would be in touch but not to worry everything was fine . At the back of Lucy's garden there were several kennels and as she walked down to the biggest  and newest cage she knelt down and said good morning Nick as rubbed the nose of the newest arrival. A big husky looking dog that was as big as a wolf.


Today's tale is one of importance. Alikast as beautiful and adventure filled as it may be is not unrealistic. There are many problems that go on in this w orld that go unseen by many. Turin was dealing with the hurricane that devastated part of their coast and Breter. preparing for war against its neighbor region Artis. This tale of change takes place in Artis. A large village within this region called Esterville is the home to many. Those who live in this village are ruled under a noble. Though the region they are inhabiting is preparing for war. Esterville is going through a massive controversy over their partly beloved noble. This noble being a beautiful young female who just recently came to rule over Esterville. A few months after she took the place as noble of this village she announced something that would change this town and possibly the continent forever. This girl's name was Taliah. "Trev- I mean uh Taliah!" a voice said shaking the young Taliah awake. Taliah was of fair skin and beautiful long brunette hair. Hearing her name being shouted while she was sleeping wasn't a surprise to her anymore since it's been her daily life since forever. Though this morning she had a smile on her face when awoke. She slowly got up from her bed to look at her caretaker. A middle aged woman named Elaine. She's been Taliah's caretaker since the day she was born and loved doing her job. "Good morning Elaine" Taliah said still with a smile. Her and Elaine had a wonderful relationship and quite enjoyed each other's company. Though sometimes they get on each other's nerves because Taliah is a teenager and sometimes acts recklessly. Elaine tries her best to keep Taliah in check from her wild and eccentric habits but when she can't she scolds the young noble. After saying good morning Taliah got out of bed and went instantly downstairs. Her daily routine was getting up and going straight to the kitchen for her breakfast. It was her favorite meal of the day because she got to spend her time eating with her mother and of course Elaine. Though recently ever since she had made her announcement Taliah's mother no longer came to eat breakfast with her. She never came to eat any meals anymore. Now it was just her and Elaine. A sad sight to see for the other workers in the house. Though Taliah tried to keep it out of her thoughts everyone could tell it was slowly causing Taliah's heart to break. She was a noble though. Keeping up her facade of faint happiness was something she was good at. Taliah sat down at the table and her breakfast was already in front of her. The family chef makes it every morning right before her daily wake up that way she can eat it right away. All the workers were quite fond of Taliah. She was a sweet girl who cared about everyone and everything and wouldn't ever let something get in the way of what she thought was right. They've had trouble adjusting after the announcement but they're trying their best. Taliah appreciates all the effort they've put in to making her the happiest she can be. Being a noble is hard though. The work given is a lot and recently people don't really seem to be coming to the noble for the help they need instead are trying to fix it on their own which is causing more issues within this village. People have started to move and some have even threatened riots. Taliah's mother though not throwing a fit was definitely not supportive of her daughter as of late and left. "Young MIstress, you need to see this” Elaine called out from the other room. Taliah hearing this rushed to eat her food and darted to the foyer of the manor. As she ran in she saw her lovely caretaker holding an envelope. An envelope from her mother it would seem. On the front hastily scribbled read out “*Dear Trevor*.” Seeing this the young noble lost all the joy she had from this morning. Her face went neutral. She opened up the letter. Being the rebellious teenager that she is and trying to make some sort of statement she read the letter aloud. *Dear Trevor,* *It is in my best interest to leave Esterville for good. I do not approve of you being a female especially when you are not one. Most of the townsfolk do not seem to approve of this either. For that reason I will be taking my leave and heading elsewhere. I would also like for you to know that I no longer think of you as family and will not be returning unless this phase of yours ends. Good luck with Esterville.* *Goodbye.* Tears started flowing down Lady Taliah's face. Her mother didn't accept her for who she was and didn't want anything to do with her. So much so she denounced herself as being her mother. A fate which none had hoped for had come to life. Elaine hearing this rushed and pulled the young noble into her arms. This hurt for both of them. Elaine couldn't stand seeing her young mistress cry and Taliah had lost the only family she had left. After a few moments Taliah pulled back and wiped the tears from her face. She walked to her guards in the front of her manor and told them to request an audience at 1p.m. at the front of her balcony. Doing so the two left in a hurry to gather the whole town for another announcement. Then running upstairs she grabbed a pen and paper and started writing furiously. She had so much to say to so many people and she was going to. Hours had gone by when the time had finally come. The audience she had requested are in front of her balcony waiting for her approach. Some didn't show but most did. Those who had accepted her from the very start were excited to see what direction she was going to take the village. Those who didn't were hoping that she would say that this entire thing was a joke or a misunderstanding of some sort. Either way people were there and that's all she needed. Walking out onto the balcony she stared down at the citizens of her town. A population of 19,912. There were immense numbers of people staring up at her. All chatting and wondering what was going on. At which point the young noble spoke up. "Citizens of Esterville! First and foremost I would like to talk about the other day" Taliah started off her speech. She went on this long rant about who she was and how she was good enough and didn't need to be accepted by those who didn't like it. She was happy with who she was. This was not going to stop her. Many had smiles on their faces seeing this. Some of which decided to talk about who they were even if who they were wasn't widely accepted. Those who didn't accept this started to yell and raise their fists. Taliah however wasn't done. "Secondly! A new law will be passing, discrimination against others is something that is going to happen! But here in Esterville you are free to be whoever you like!" Taliah went on about the law and how it would affect this village. People started to get increasingly angry but the guards were all on Taliah's side and were handling any sort of mob that was starting to form. It was a happy day for Esterville. A day were discrimination though it wouldn't end would hopefully start to decrease. Taliah pulled out her last piece of paper from the bottom of the pile and read it to the citizens. "Lastly! I, Taliah Remming will be stepping down as noble of this village and will be declaring Miss Elaine as the head of this manor" She put the paper down and looked softly at her caretaker. Her caretaker at this point crying and trying not to implode from all these different emotions hugs the young noble. The two wave at the citizens of Esterville and then Taliah walks back inside. She packs her bags and writes a final note to everyone *Dear Everyone* *Thank you for everything. I'm going to go for a while. It's time to finally find my father. Take care.* *Love, Taliah.* Leaving the note behind with a little heart on the front of it she leaves from the back of the manor on an adventure to find her father and change the world.