If you were to ask me who I am, I would be inclined to lead you astray. Not necessarily for the sake of maleficence, but rather for the joy of mischievousness. You see, I must deceive in order to achieve my objective. It is my inclination and my delight. I mean no harm, and you will take no offense, so long as you are capable of laughing at yourself. But, woe to the one who takes offense. For if you cannot get along with me, you will most certainly learn how to get along without me, unwittingly banishing hope in the process. To forsake the very nature of me is to forsake merriment. Many a men have done that very thing, and almost all have lived to regret it.

There is, however, one such tragedy which ended quite happily, and the tale ‘tis my favorite of them to recount. It all started on a country road in the foothills of the Tennessee mountains. Provos often took great pleasure in gliding around the sleek twists and turns of the roads carved into the solid sheets of bedrock abutting his property. He spent hours on sunny days winding through the terrain, letting the thrill of the ride purge his soul and center his spirit. During one such ride, Provos found himself stranded on a back road as the result of engine failure. After several futile attempts to start the engine, he surrendered in a flustered and swift motion which combined swatting his kickstand and dismounting his bike.

Provos spent a few minutes trying to diagnose the problem, but he admittedly knew little about the inner workings of machines, preferring instead to simply enjoy their utility, so within minutes he resigned himself to the circumstance. Not wanting to leave his bike out in the open where others might be tempted to steal it, but seeing no wisdom in trying to tote it along on his unforeseeable trek toward help, he wheeled it to a clearing which had a cluster of trees in the middle of it and used several downed branches to camouflage his bike until he could return to it. Provos then began the journey toward the direction he thought was most likely the easiest access to the assistance he needed. It was at least a couple of hour’s walk, but there was a decent chance that he would pass someone along the way who would offer help and make the journey shorter.

As it happened, I was traveling that same road, and was slated to the fated encounter the very same hour, so when we crossed paths, the event had already been on my radar for quite a few months, though the charade was of course, unknown to him altogether. “Hello, friend! Can I be of service? Is it that you perhaps need a lift?” I asked with an air of eagerness. “Hey man, yeah. My bike gave out on me a few miles back. Can you give me a lift into town?” His reply was cool and even. “Hop in!” I responded, rather coolly myself (in direct imitation, as is my nature.) I was sure to enjoy this fellow. He had pride oozing out of every orifice of his body.  It was only a matter of time before I began to dismantle him and claim what remained. Oh what fun awaited me! We drove in silence for a few minutes. What a relief it was to not have to make much small talk. Such trifles can be taxing. However, my anticipation mounted as I awaited, somewhat impatiently, for him to speak. While small talk is useless, it is transitory, and necessary. He finally broke the silence and asked me what kind of engine my vehicle contained. I was amused by his question since I knew that he would fain to engage in such trivialities without any real inclination toward the topic. He was pleased by my uneducated response, which made him confident that he knew more than I about machines. The cockwomble was completely oblivious to my own vast expertise of machinations, and so, we continued happily, each with his own budding agenda. After several such strokes to his overly-inflated ego, my groundwork was laid.

I immediately set to work, calculatedly retaliating against his latest statements. I spoke with vastly more knowledge in the area that he claimed to be so astutely studied in, and so to save face, he quickly retreated and back peddled. He did not handle it well. His offense of me was thick and obvious, but being in his vulnerable position of receiving help at my hands, he, of course, predictably repressed himself. It was such a rookie mistake; so contrived, and yet somehow still ingenuous. He was enigmatic, for his predictability was tapered by an intrusive je ne sais quoi. There was something about him that lingered; something that cut through the obvious facade and managed to project a quality almost resembling sincerity. To be quite frank, it surprised me, and unnerved me, and I’m not in the habit of either. So when I received this impression from him, I caught myself contemplating the nature of my prank. For, my follies are only ever and always enjoyable because they are directed toward those who would do likewise, had the power been granted to them, and all such creatures are without compassion. They are indeed quite incapable of the emotion. It is the lack of such a quality that makes it sensible for me to attain enjoyment from it all. Though Provos proved to be a conundrum, yet still, his pride was strong, his ego was heavy, and his weariness was great, therefore, I proceeded without hesitation. “Tell me Provos, what shall you do when you return to your bike and find it gone? The clearing is far enough off the road, and the branches did quite help conceal it, but nonetheless, it was evident the moment we saw you that you would abandon your otherwise beloved machine on account of the hardship of towing it.” It took him a moment to register that I knew his name. It took him a bit longer to process the rest of my words, but in mere seconds, his face paled a few shades and he turned and looked at me with an incredulity and a suspicious and guarded air.

“What the hell are you talking about, man? How in the hell do you know my name? You been following me?” I replied as coolly as before. “Oh yes, quite. I’ve been following you for months now. I’ve seen the roads you take, and when you take them, and why. I’ve seen the arguments you’ve had with the people in your life and your selfishness for always seeing your own point of view and rarely, if ever, stepping into another’s. It’s quite entertaining. I’ve seen the decline of your soul, which has contributed to the decline of your life, and all the hopelessness that has ensued on account of it. However, I know enough about you to also disclose that you believe that you have no soul, and so then it should be of no consequence to you that I am about to offer to purchase it from you. What say you to this?” The joy of the words in these moments were always the catharsis that propelled me forward in the mire of humanity. To infringe upon the constructs of the ignorant mind who insists otherwise is the construct of my own device and the height of my own hubris. To challenge these mortals and beat them at their own game gave me great pleasure. It imparted the same euphoria to me that they extracted from their own victims in their miserable existence. Befitting, wouldn‘t you agree? These worker bees spend their whole lives collecting superiority as though it were pollen, all to serve their queen, or their prince, as it were, to their own demise. Ah, the ignorance of fools is delicious! My pleasure was somewhat thwarted in this moment, however, as Provos did something contrary to the nature of narcissism. Indeed, he did something that only someone touched by true love would be capable of doing. He broke the power of the illusion by humbling himself to truth. “Hey listen, man. I don’t know who you are or how you know all these things, but, it’s obvious that you’ve got my number. What exactly is it that you plan to do?” Provos was calmer than a man should be in his position. I had to think quickly. “Oh, such a simple exchange. You love things and you use people. I admire that trait and wish to purchase the soul that you don’t believe you have anyway. In exchange, I can offer you a fleet of motorcycles. None of them will ever get a scratch on them. Regardless of how much you ride them, they will remain immaculate. I know how much inner turmoil you suffer on account of those minor flaws in your paint detail. I know how you can’t sleep at night without obsessing for hours over them. I know how much time you spend meticulously poring over every inch of your bike in fine detail, in natural light, in your garage’s light, and with your work lamp, as well. Provos, tsk tsk, it’s a consuming illness. It steals your ride time, it steals the time you spend with others and it steals your focus to care about their problems. You have no room in your life for anything else. This will solve all of your problems. You need only to sign on the line my fellow, and all will be yours.” It was so simple. Collecting souls. Finding the weak link and then exploiting it. If you can convince them that the answer to their problems exists outside of themselves and their own selfish psychosis, then they’ll sign away the rights to their soul, because the selfish are short-sighted. They never invest in the idea of eternity. It’s the perfect crime. However, Provos hesitated. It was uncommon. Indeed, in my line of work, it was almost unheard of. I had to fill the silence. “I see you’re a man of wisdom. I shall sweeten the deal. I’ll throw in the deed to your house and property as well as an unending reserve of gasoline. Think of the benefit to that, my fellow!” Hook, line, and sinker!!! ...or so I had imagined. But still, Provos hesitated. He did not speak. I gave him time for his silence now, as I thought surely that he would come to see the beauty of my deal and decide for it. But, there is a limit to my own vision. I am bound by time, like the rest of you lot. Only once has this caused a hindrance for me, and it was upon this occasion. For what I had not anticipated was that Provos had recently met his true love, Kryptos. I had not known of it for he had concealed the matter even from himself, having been terrified of the prospect and having done all he could to sabotage the match, she’d all but disappeared from his life. But, ‘twas true love. And true love casts prints on a soul that change it. The seed plants itself inconspicuously and seemingly inauspiciously, and yet, a single ray of light and a single droplet of water will cause it to sprout and grow until it completely encompasses that which surrounds it.

I had come too late. The seed had sprouted, even in that very moment. Provos spoke the words that vanquished me.

“I’m not sure whether or not I have a soul. But, if I do, then it would be foolish to sell it to you. And if I don’t, then I don’t see why you’d be so eager to purchase it. So, no, I will not take your deal. Now what happens?” But as I stated, those words vanquished me, and so the construct of illusion quickly deteriorated and Provos found himself back on his bike, enjoying the roads he loved to drive so much, none the wiser to our encounter, but with the new thought of reconciliation in his mind, reconciliation with Kryptos, despite the humility it would require of him. He remembered nothing of the encounter with me, only the idea that his love for Kryptos must be real, for being willing to humble oneself is the pinnacle of love.

And so, despite my best efforts, true love triumphed over me, my one sworn enemy. If you were to ask me who I am, I would be inclined to lead you astray, for I am fallibility.


I never knew pain until the day the earth caught fire. I watched as oceans fell and the mysteries of the deep revealed themselves. I saw the sun become a merciless killer. It surfaced turned red. Giant balls of fire turned cities into ashes. There was no rain. No relief from our mother. The terrains we once traversed had become desolate. Haunted by the ghosts of those souls we used to hunt. Emergency broadcast systems ran for weeks until the power grids collapsed. There was no food for the humans to consume so they turned on each other. I watched as man ate his neighbor. Mothers butchered strangers to feed their younglings. My clan found shelter in an abandoned mine. The nights above had grown shorter as the sun burned towards a luminous climax. My clan was hungry. It had been weeks since we fed on the blood of a human. Today we laid our sister Morwenna to rest. Her pale skin had the look of rot wood. There was no beauty in death. Only the foul stench of something that no longer belonged on this cursed earth. Wolfe and Cassius were the strongest of us. The two clawed out a grave for Morwenna in the dirt. The women in the clan – Effie, Wren, and Imogen – kneeled beside her and prayed. Crow was equal to my age and the more spirited member of the clan. But unlike our older sisters, religion did not take to her. I felt it my duty to keep the word of our kind alive. The Scriptures of Delphi were filled with prophecies, visions, and stories as told by the Oracles. The Vampire Bible was one of those stories and I kept it close to my heart. It was in these moments, these quiet moments of death that I looked to the scripture for guidance. Thorne was our leader but even he found it hard to keep faith. The eldest of us was Blackwell. He required the aid of a walking stick and his back was hunched. He was closer to death than the rest of us. If he did not feed soon, he would be joining Morwenna in the afterlife. Thorne stood over our sister and with the crackle of his voice he spoke these words: *We pray to our God Ambrogio to watch over and guide our sister in the underworld*. Ambrogio was the first of our kind. Our guiding light amid all that was dark. He had been cursed into the darkness by Apollo and blessed into the pantheon of legends by Artemis. Night had fallen. It was as if the stars had died. I missed tracing the constellations in the sky. The moon itself had disappeared altogether. The night sky’s flashlight. We had to rely on our failing senses to guide us. Thorne led us across a misty, ravaged farmland. Fossilized tractors. Barns burned to ruins. Barrels of hay now literal dusts in the wind. Wolfe and Cassius kept a close watch of Blackwell as he struggled to keep up with the clan. We had to move swiftly before the sun appeared again. We had to find food. Then the mist took shape and formed into ghosts. Farmhands trapped in a never-ending time loop of hard labor and cattle raising. A farmer stuck in a perpetual state of shock as blood ran from the necks of his wife and child’s ghosts. The ghosts in this world were like recorded holograms unaware of their surroundings. Crow spun around the farmhands like a ghastly black swan. I stood and watched the farmer. I became transfixed on the terror in his ghostly eyes. I pitied him. Not for his death. But for his weakness. He lacked the strength to survive in this world. The growls in my stomach became nauseating. I fantasized soaking myself in the blood of his wife. My tongue was beginning to forget the taste of blood. We made our way up a hill where to our surprise Thorne had spotted a lone human down below. The human was covered in filth. Its hair straggly. Its teeth yellow and rot. It appeared impaired, inebriated even as it stumbled towards a low burning fire pit where a **human leg roasted**. The human sliced off the meaty parts of the limb and gorged on the tendons and tissue. A pig in the trough. Then it became irritable, stomping on the dirt beneath its feet. It laid next to the fire pit. Its body tremored. This human was sick. I’ve seen it happen to others once they began to taste the flesh of its own kind. If it was really bad off, then its blood would be poisoned. But the hunger outweighed the risk. Before Thorne had decided, Blackwell had already plodded his way down to the human. He raised his walking stick high up to the heavens and struck it down into the human’s beating heart. Blackwell fell to the ground as the human flopped about like a suffocating fish. Thorne signaled for the rest of the clan to join him. Wolfe mercifully snapped the human’s neck. Thorne and Imogen helped Blackwell over to the human’s neck. He would feed first. The dull edges of his teeth clung to the arteries in the neck for dear life. I saw the sense of relief and elation in his amber eyes as the ichor flowed through the pulsating veins in his cold body. Imogen took the other side of the neck. Wren and Effie bit into the human’s wrist. I, Wolfe, Cassius, and Crow took the legs. Thorne grabbed what was left of the roasted, severed leg and sipped what little droplets of blood it had to offer. In mere minutes we had drained every ounce of blood from the human’s body. But our hunger had not been satisfied. In a panic Blackwell licked up the blood the human had gargled from its mouth and unto the ground when he stabbed it. Throne was too ashamed to watch. Wolfe and Cassius went to help the old vampire up, but Effie waved them off. I read through the scriptures as we shuffled on across the dead earth. Hoping to find something uplifting. Something that could help guide us. Then I heard a familiar howl in the night that gave us all pause. It was the howl of a wolf… We had just emerged from a tunnel deep beneath a ruined city. Thorne had caught the scent of a couple seeking shelter and food in an old strip mall. I remembered the embers that fell from the sky. Ashes of snow littered across the ground. Crow was fascinated with the small burning coals of fire and allowed drops to singe her flesh. Morwenna had been sick for quite some time and had trouble keeping up with the rest of the clan. Wren and Effie flanked and shielded her with scraps of metal from the raining embers. Blackwell had no hunch then and walked without assistance. Wolfe and Cassius were the first to enter the dilapidated building. Blackwell was right on their heels. Imogen was the first to sense something was off. She had always been intuitive. Then I smelled it too. The smell of wet fur. It all happened so fast. Blackwell went down first. The flesh of his back torn apart by the razor-sharp claws of a gray wolf. Then four more attacked. All rabid and ravenous. The wolves had claimed the humans as their prey. Thorne wrestled the first wolf off the back of Blackwell. I watched as he beheaded the creature with his long, massive hands. Wolfe and Cassius tackled two of the grays. Wren guarded me and Crow. We being the youngest, they felt it their duty to protect us. Imogen and Effie had their hands full wrestling the alpha female of the pack. Thorne stalked the leader – the alpha male. The alpha watched Thorne’s movements. Calculating. The alpha then lunged forward with its salivating tongue and long, keen teeth. Thorne side stepped the beast and snatched it by its tail. He swung and launch the alpha into a wall with a thunderous clatter. Imogen and Effie pulled and ripped the alpha female in half. Cassius delivered blow after blow to the head of his gray until it laid motionless. Wolfe bit into the neck of the other gray and drenched himself in its blood splatter. The wounded alpha limped away. Wolfe wanted to purse it, but Thorne called him back. Effie sauntered over to the human couple that was huddled behind a desk. The male was deceased. His corpse mutilated. The female was in a state of shock and rocked back and forth. Effie gently stroked her face and gave her a false sense of comfort. She snapped the female’s neck in one quick motion. That was the last time we fed before tonight. The howling grew closer as we watched a lone gray wolf limp forward in the shadows. It was the alpha male that Thorne had crippled. Thorne left us and marched towards the dying gray. It had been looking for death but could not find it. It wanted to be relieved of its pain. Thorne offered his enemy mercy as he hugged his arms tight around the gray’s neck. He squeezed tighter and tighter until there was no more life left in the creature. We continued our hunt further into the night. Crow hummed a familiar tune to lift our spirits. The rest of the women joined her until the humming drowned out the dreadful silence. I threw in a couple of ad-libs that I remembered from the jazz era. I even got old Blackwell to smile for a moment. Just one moment where he didn’t have to face his own mortality. Then a strange light from over the horizon interrupted our song. Thorne feared the worst, but it was too soon. Yes, the nights had grown shorter but never did the sun find us this fast. The light became brighter as it rose across the hemisphere. Thorne yelled for us to run! But there were no tunnels or abandoned mines in the vicinity. No old homes or buildings. Just miles and miles of nothingness. I spotted a rock formation with a small pocket and made haste. A few others spotted old planks of wood. I slid into the rock formation with Crow and Effie. Wolfe clawed into the earth hoping to dig himself a grave. Imogen and Wren found a small, shaded area under a hill and smashed close together. Cassius grabbed the old planks of wood and covered himself and Blackwell. But Thorne stood and greeted the sun as it took its seat at the throne in the sky. The skin on his flesh erupted into flames. I watched his eyes in those final moments and pitied him. Our leader had lost all faith and left us to fend for ourselves. The hours passed. Wolfe’s charred remains slowly broke apart and fell into the hole he hadn’t’ finished digging. Imogen and Wren huddled close together under the shade of the hill. The tips of their toes barely escaping the sun’s rays. Cassius’s arms trembled as he struggled to hold up the old planks of wood over him and Blackwell. His hands smoldered. He cried out to us, “Ambrogio has abandoned us. Forgive me brothers and sisters”. He nodded to Blackwell who had long ago accepted his faith. The old planks of wood fell to the ground. The two vampires embraced each other as they went up in flames. I shouted, “Keep faith! Ambrogio will deliver us from this wickedness”! I watched as the light faded from Crow’s eyes. She inched out into the sun. I grabbed her arm and yanked her back. She looked at me with sadness. She too wanted an end to this suffering. But I was not ready to lose one more. I was awakened by the sound of loud voices. Wren, Imogen, and Effie stood under the darkened sky shouting at one another. Crow was still asleep, and I felt a need to keep her that way. At least until the yelling subsided. The clan, if you could still call it that, was at its wits end. I offered up a prayer, but before I could open the scriptures Crow snuck up from behind him, grabbed them, and tossed them into the dark void. She like the others had had enough. But who are we without our faith but mere savages? Imogen said that we were on our own. There is no more food. No shelter. No salvation. No Ambrogio. When the sun came up again, we would die. But I was not ready to be greeted by death. I needed to come up with a plan and quick. I closed my eyes and prayed for the final time. That’s when the first bite came. Crow bit into the neck of Effie. She never saw it coming. Never imagined such a twist of fate. Then it was as if Crow’s madness became contagious. I watched as Wren and Imogen attacked one another. I stood in disbelief as the last of our clan descended into cannibalism. Crow fed on the blood of Effie. Imogen the stronger of the two, fed on Wren. It was as if the taste of the blood of their kin drove them insane, the same way it did the humans. I didn’t even recognize my sisters anymore. Crow and Imogen eventually turned on each other. Two voracious beasts ripping and tearing into each other’s flesh. Imogen fell to her knees and reached out to me. Crow punched through Imogen’s chest cavity and wrenched out her heart. She licked the bloody organ and squeezed it like an orange. I knew Crow would come for me next. I knew that this would be the end. It was as if I were in a dream. The rapacious monster that now possessed my poor sister’s soul showed no mercy as it lunged towards to me. I fought back tears as I grappled with her. Two soulless creatures fighting for a chance to live at least one more day. Was it worth fighting the inevitable? I tried not to let such thoughts pollute my mind as I clawed at her skin. I would not let my faith waiver. I screamed as her teeth pierced my neck. I could feel the life being sucked from out of me. I noticed a piece of the old wood plank within my reach. I grabbed hold of it and thrusted it into her skull. She released me from her jaws and fell over. I hammered the old plank of wood into her skull until it was crushed to dust. I hid in the old rock formation for one more day as the sun berated the surface. When night fell, I walked to what felt like the edge of the earth. It was as if the night dragged or maybe I had just gone delirious. I swore I saw the ghosts of my elders. Cassius and Wolfe wrestling in the dirt. The sisters crocheting each other’s long dark hair. Thorne meditating. The old vampire Blackwell shuffling about. Crow prancing around under the midnight sky trying to will the moon to come out and play. I missed my family. I was alone and afraid. The sun was approaching when I reached what had once been the ocean shore. That’s when I saw a strange sight. Surely I could no longer trust my eyes. What laid ahead of me was a ship. A ship that must have crashed from the sea long ago. My fingers glided across the words etched on ship’s wooden hull – *D E M E T E R* A stray dog bolted from out of the ship and startled me. I climbed aboard the main deck. That’s when I saw the bodies. Corpses that had been rotted for quite some time. The odor was unbearable. I counted at least a dozen. Their skin had ashen. I bit into the arm of one. There was no blood. No blood left in any of them. I could see the red giant beginning to scare away the darkness. I crept below the deck. I would be safe here until the night called again. There were boxes. Large boxes. Too many to count. I satisfied my curiosity and opened every last one of them. Inside was earth. Soil too fresh to be old. But its what I saw in the back of the ship that gave me chills. There rested a cadaver with a captain’s hat. Nestled in his hand was a crucifix. Next to the dead captain was a coffin made of black walnut. Dark. Hard. Dense. I opened the coffin and saw the most immaculate creature that I had ever laid my eyes on. A vampire with hair as dark as night. Its face appeared to have been sculpted by the great Michelangelo. Its icy pale skin had more life in it than a thousand stars. I then heard a voice in my head. It was deep and soothing. My prayers had been answered. His name was Dracula. If Ambrogio was God then Dracula was his son. His eyes opened and met mine as it filled with tears. I was no longer alone. I was no longer afraid.


“This is unbelievable!” Francis exclaimed as he held my self-portrait in his hands, “It looks just like you!” Francis “Franky” Cullins is my best friend, and he holds in his hands what I hoped to be the beginning of my illustrious career as an artist. I smile at him – a humble, gentle smile – as I contain the bubbling anxiety within the pit of my stomach. “Do you really think so?” I asked in what I hoped to be a tone that indicated only mild curiosity, and not that of a child seeking validation.            Franky looked from the painting and up to me with blazed excitement in his eyes. “This is no joke, Mort; what I have in my hands here is pure, uncut talent!” He lightly shook the painting in his hands as he said so, but abruptly stopped when he realized he was doing so, as if worrying he could ruin it. “As a matter of fact,” Franky continued, “I’d like to post this on your page and talk about the process of how you painted this if you’re all right with that.”            Honestly, I was taken aback by this offer. “What, like you want to be my manager or something?” I sarcastically asked him this as I chuckled, but Franky’s face remained sincere. His response to me felt so genuine, so lacking in the raillery I expected, that it took me some time to register it. “Why not? I’ve always believed in your work, Mort, even when no one else did. But with this…” he trailed off as he looked back down at my painting. Finally, he continued, “This was seriously all freehand?”            I nodded, “Yes, it really was. But, Franky, would you really want to be my manager? I don’t even know what that job would involve.” He waved his hand dismissively at me and smirked. “Exactly why you need one! Let me handle all the details, but this – you just need to worry about making more of this!” His smirk had grown into a wide grin as his eyes welled with moisturized droplets. I was stupefied at my friend's eagerness to want to work for me after seeing this latest piece of my work. I knew of course that this painting, and all others that followed, would be different, but to have this sort of hypnotic effect was entirely unexpected. “Yeah, okay,” I hesitantly agreed, “Go ahead and post it, then.”            Franky’s eyes widened in a somewhat disturbing display of ecstasy. “Perfect! I’ll get on that right now, and you do what you gotta do for your process and you get another painting out A-S-A-P! I promise you, Mort, this is going to be huge!”            Before I could even open my mouth to respond Franky had already darted out of my studio – which was just my room in our shared apartment – and into his room across the hall as I heard his door slam behind him in an eager swing. I stood silently amidst the canvases on easels which all displayed different degrees of blankness to what had the appearance of being worked on for several minutes of brush strokes, then forgotten. They stood around the room in a way that formed a labyrinth to the bed, one which only I knew the right way through. I looked at all of these unfinished and unbegun paintings and vowed they would not stay this way for long. Things were different now.            I got most of the way through a new painting I was working on, I believe I will title “Green Singers,” when I noticed I was at it for almost ten hours straight – no food, water, or bathroom breaks. I got myself into bed. I lay there for an unknowable amount of time as sleep eluded me, and I found myself thinking back to a conversation I’d had with an alluring stranger.            It was last week on a Thursday when I was at my favorite art exhibition in town which thankfully had a small coffee shop near the entrance. As I sipped at my caramel macchiato I was scrolling through the reactions (or lack thereof) one of my paintings received. It had been posted for approximately 72 hours and had garnered seven likes, while most of the comments were uninspired at best and rude at worst. One of them even said something along the lines of, “This is motel art at best. You look too scared to put any real expression into your work. Don’t quit your day job for this. Hope this helps.” What the hell was that even supposed to mean?            I dropped my phone on the table in such a frustrated way that my coffee trembled and nearly spilled. Not that I cared. I threw my hands over my face and exhaled in an admittedly overdramatic, defeated way. There I buried my face as I gathered myself when I heard someone sit down in the chair across from me. I looked up, expecting to see Franky. Instead, it was a man who I had never seen before – I recall little from his physical appearance, but I remember he was wearing an expensive-looking suit. And his eyes, those piercing emerald-green eyes with an intense and aged sheen the likes of which I had never seen before. “Can I help you?” I asked, making sure the irritated tone hinting at please-go-away was noticeable in my inflection.            The stranger gave me a smile that was warm and comforting, and I felt my disappointment in myself, and the world melt away from my chest. I know it’s weird to say, but I instantly felt comfortable with this man here. “I’m a fan of your work,” he said to me. His voice was velvety and sweet, “I wanted to meet you in person. But I have to say, there is room for improvement.” Of course, I thought to myself, another critic who thinks they can tell me how to paint. “Oh, yeah?” I said with the irritation back in force. I took another sip from my coffee.            “Oh, yes,” the man said, “but that’s not a bad thing – every great artist knows there is always room for improvement; it’s the knowledge that one would never achieve perfection, yet their pursuit for it is endless.” I rolled my eyes at him, though I guessed he did have a point. “Maybe you’re right. And I’m guessing you have the solution for that?” This was obviously a rhetorical question, yet the man kept his gaze locked in mine and he said, “It so happens, I do. What would you say if your paintings would become the epitome of perfection? That through your great works, your name would be immortalized, etched into the framework of history alongside Monet, Van Gogh, Michelangelo, and so many others.”            I laughed dryly at him, “For that –,” I paused, peering searchingly into my cup of coffee, now at room temperature. “For that – I would give everything.” That statement came out of me so much more sincerely than I would have expected from myself. Realizing this, I laughed at myself, raised my coffee, and gulped the rest of it down. I was feeling this odd sense of anticipation I could not explain, like the feeling a kid at a theme park gets when they are near the end of the line for a ride on one of the attractions. The man with the green eyes raised an eyebrow at me as he said, “While I admire the enthusiasm, I wouldn’t ask you for everything. If I were to perfect your art, I would ask for very little in return, in fact.”            Now it was my turn to raise my eyebrows, but in a more incredulous, disbelieving sort of way. “Wait you’re… Are you serious right now?” the man said nothing. He only kept that cool, soothing smile. I pressed on. “So, you could make me one of the greatest artists of all time and you would want, what, my soul? That’s what this is, right? Some low-budget Twilight Zone episode where you grant me my biggest dream, and all I give in return is my soul?” Now the man leaned forward in his chair, closer to me. I could smell him now; it was a scent that felt so refreshing as it ignited nostalgic feelings for events of my life that I could not recall ever happening. It soon dawned on me that the feelings of nostalgia his scent gave me were not like smelling freshly mowed grass and remembering a magical summer from childhood; this was a sense of longing for events in my life I had not yet lived.            “No, you don’t have to worry about that,” he said in a reserved timbre. “Despite what certain media would tell you, I don’t barter for souls.” I considered this, then asked him, “Well, then what do you want from me?”            “Two things,” he said, “If I immortalize you and your art, I need you to paint something for me – I will tell you what at a time of my choosing. Second, I need you, Jack Mortimer, to say five little words to me to endorse our contract.”            I was practically vibrating in my seat now with anticipation as if a colony of butterflies had birthed within me all at once. He didn’t need to tell me what those five words were that he needed as I could feel them on the tip of my tongue, ready to burst. I stood up and eagerly reached my hand out to shake his. He did the same. I fervently told him what he needed to hear, “I see you, Mr. Green.” ***            Three months had passed since I painted that self-portrait, which I allowed Franky to keep. He keeps it proudly hung in his new office where he works around the clock to get me new exhibits for my paintings. “Green Singers” had been a phenomenal success, and there had been twelve others so far after. He even got me a spot to talk on the Late-Night Show, which to be fair, didn’t seem too hard as they had reached out to him and practically begged for me to make an appearance.            But what I found most astonishing from this whole experience was that the scenes I painted seemed to come to life not long after they were finished. When I painted my hometown with a clearly visible view of the Andromeda Galaxy in the night sky, the next evening the miraculous anomaly was reported across the states which led astronomers stumped as to how it had suddenly become so bright to make it so visible to the naked eye. I painted snow in southern California, and the next day there was a blanket of almost twelve inches in Los Angeles. That’s what made it exceptionally convenient when, out of the millions of supporters and admirers across the globe, I discovered one truly bitter, ignorant critic.            His name was Elijah Quill, better known by his Reddit username as ElQt69 – a truly tasteless name to choose for one such as him. It didn’t take long for me to find a picture of him, as people like him are always so self-absorbed that their photos are aplenty and public to pair with their highly opinionated views. But Eli should’ve thought to be more careful which what he does with photos of himself on the internet.            After I had memorized his face, his body type, and what style he wears, it was almost too easy to paint his liking as I saw fit. Elijah Quill, in my depiction, was seen in a dark alley somewhere, having been beaten to death – the folds inside his pocket turned out to indicate he had been robbed after the fact. I kept this painting to myself, of course, but couldn’t resist the urge to google the news in the city I found that he lived in. There he was, the egotistical bastard, making the top headline. Good for him.            A few days after the oh-so-tragic passing of ElQt69, Franky came to see me. We no longer lived in that small apartment together as I had found a nice condo in the city. I buzzed him in, and he came in with that adoring, eager grin. That suck-up smile was starting to get on my nerves.            “Hey, Mort!” he said cheerfully. My God, he’s practically skipping towards me, I thought exasperatedly. “Listen, I got a new opening for you downtown. And if you’re okay with it, I’m thinking somewhere around five we can –” I held a hand to stop him, which he did instantly. “Hang on a second, Franky. There’s something I got to tell you.” Something I should’ve told you a long time ago.            He cocked his head to the side as he asked me, “Sure, what’s up?” I looked him into those weirdly adoring eyes as he waited. “I’m going to have to let you go, Franky.”            The look Franky gave me was as if I had just kicked a puppy across the room. “W-what?” he stammered.            I blinked, and said, “You’re fired, Franky. I’m sorry but, the truth is I don’t need you anymore. You can expect your last check in the mail.” Franky backed away, his legs trembling. His eyes darted about the room in disbelief. “I can’t believe this… I thought we was friends, Mort?” tears had already begun to roll down his face.            “We were, but let’s face it Franky – I’ve outgrown you. I'm sure you understand.”            Franky’s face turned beet-red as he exclaimed, “You can’t do this - we were a team!” I watched him begin to storm away and back to my front door, as he yelled over his shoulder, “You’ll regret this, Mort! It was both of us – together!” the door slammed. “Well, that was dramatic,” I said to no one. ***            That night, I awoke with a start. I was having some horrendous dreams, though I can’t remember the details. Now awake, I found that I was standing in my new studio, painting. The unfinished work before me showed horrid images that were difficult for the human mind to comprehend; hulking beasts of otherworldly proportions as they crowded and swarmed an unnamed city. People stacked haphazardly on pyres as they burned in a green, hellish inferno. The more I looked into this accursed piece, the more I felt my sanity quickly escaping me. I thought I heard voices chanting around me in some long-forgotten tongue, whispering names I had not heard nor possessed the power to pronounce. Summoning every ounce of my mental fortitude and strength, I managed to tear my gaze from the canvas as I knocked it to the floor. That’s when I saw behind it was another easel, and displayed on it was my painting of the murdered Elijah Quill, whose disproportionately crooked neck had upturned his face to look directly into my eyes. That one should not be there, I thought incredulously, it was hidden away.            “Come now, Mr. Mortimer. Such a beauty should never be kept hidden.” That voice, behind me. It was his voice. I spun around and saw the man – this Mr. Green – smiling at me. “You,” I said as I pointed an accusing finger at him, “You’re what made me paint that… that nightmare, aren’t you?!”            Mr. Green looked at the unfinished painting on the floor, then back to me. “That was our deal, Mort. One painting of my choosing, when I wish it. It would be in your best interest to uphold your end, and finish it.”            “No,” I muttered, “No. I will not bring that hell into being. The deal is off! You can take away this power – I've already gotten enough out of it anyway.” Mr. Green sighed at me, but coolly said, “I would have to agree. Thanks to your admirable work with Mr. Quill.”            I was taken aback by this. “What do you mean by that?” I demanded.            Mr. Green’s smile vanished. He sneered at me as he explained, “I told you when we first met that I do not barter for souls. I don’t have to, as your kind are always so eager to place it in the palm of my hand. For just the smallest taste of power and ultimate adoration, you burned yourself on the very pyre that you built.”            My jaw dropped open. “I... No…” But what could I say? What could I do?            “I go now,” Mr. Green continued with a returning smile - now sinister as a dealer in a rigged game of poker, “to prepare a place for you.” And with those parting words, he faded from view until all that was left were two floating orbs of emerald glaring at me until they, too, were gone.            alone again in the darkness of my condo, I began to see visions - things that were not of my home - of a similar layout to the one I used to live, in the apartment with Franky. On a table, I saw a mostly empty bottle of Jack Daniels. I turned and saw on the edge of the bed was Franky. He still lived in that tiny apartment, and here he was, drunk beyond all reason with tears flooding his face and snot oozing from a sniffling nose. I saw in his hands he held that self-portrait, the first of my paintings after that deal. “Damn you, Mort,” he whimpered. He produced a pocket lighter and set the flame to the bottom corner of my self-portrait.            “No, Franky, wait!” I screamed at him, but he didn’t appear to hear me. The flames ate up the canvas as they crept from the torso to the painted face. “Damn you to Hell, Mort,” Franky began to sob. The images of Franky's room vanished, and my own dwellings had returned. “This is unbelievable!” I cried as the last image of Franky disappeared. Standing here in the dark of my own vanity, I felt the effects of Franky’s actions with that damned painting. The fire started at my feet and quickly licked and raced up my legs, soon engulfing my body. I yelled, swatting at the flames, yet the inferno continued to spread all around me, and only me, as I raised my hands to my face and screamed.


With a mix of panic and desperation, I rushed to apply pressure to the wound. But hope quickly fled as I looked up to see a man made of only bones, standing 7 feet tall, with a scythe that radiated power and a cloak that was darker than the void itself. as he extended his hand, I inched away only to back into a tree. "please I don't want to die" I begged, but despite my pleading, the man cloaked in shadows still approached. With adrenaline coursing through me like the blood on my shirt, I grabbed the nearest tree branch and crashed it over his head. I honestly didn't expect anything to happen but to my surprise, I saw the scythe-wielding specter fall to the ground and groan in pain. knowing that this was my only chance at life, I immediately ran the other way. clutching the wound in a feeble attempt to stop the bleeding, I formulated a plan as I made my escape. The only idea that came to mind was to run home and find something to defend myself with, so that's what I did. Looking back was a luxury that I couldn't afford so instead I said a prayer while trying my best to dodge the trees ahead of me. my house came into view and it started to feel like I could actually cheat death. While unlocking the door I fought the urge to collapse from exhaustion and finally took the chance to look behind me. no one was there? I knew I lucked out but I didn't think I'd be this far ahead of the guy. I let out a sigh of relief as I opened my door to see the grim reaper sitting on a chair with his arms crossed. I was at a loss for words, except for one. "fuck" The reaper wagged his finger in disappointment while he met my gaze with cold, empty eye sockets. "Let me show you something, Eric." I followed him into the bathroom, unsure of what was next but confident in the ending. "look in the mirror Eric" I did as instructed and saw myself as a rotting corpse. bits of skin hung off my face like ropes from a tree and flies buzzed around my still-bleeding wound, hungry for what little I had left. "I was like you once, alive. I don't remember when though, when you're like me time is like a comet. too fast to keep up with, always flying forwards until it one-day crashes. The first time I crashed it was from a heart attack at the ripe age of 60 and when I saw the reaper at my door, I hid. I started to rot, just like you and the stench was so unbearable I passed out. When I woke up, this is what I looked like. nothing but bones. That'll be you too one day Eric, just a black bag of bones holding a scythe wandering the earth harvesting souls that taste just like yours. Is that what you want?" I held my own gaze in the mirror as I watched my left eye start to liquidate. "no, it's not" The reaper tapped his scythe on my chest and felt something indescribable as the earth itself cut to black.


The first day I walked into the Shop for my apprenticeship, I was nervous. Not a normal nervous. A nervous that made your stomach roll and your head spin. I was beginning a journey that I was sure would change my perspective of my entire life. And it did, in a manner of speaking.

As the bell on the door finished ringing and the door smacked against its casing, I felt myself liquify. Sitting behind a counter, looking at all kinds of badass I felt I would never be able to pull off, was my new mentor. She had given me the task of writing a few essays on influential people in the piercing community as well as the history of body modification in general and the different types of jewelry companies. I had learned a lot in a very short amount of time and I felt ready to take on the world. Then she handed me the mop.

I know, I know. ‘Earn your keep” and all that but I felt my heart sink a little before I plastered a smile on my face, just happy I could be in the same space, I supposed. This was my dream, after all. It’s all I had wanted to do for years. It was a deep, burning passion that kept me sweeping and mopping the floors, emptying the trash, and scrubbing the baseboards and the toilets for months. When she finally let me hold the jewelry, I was so excited I couldn’t stop smiling. She’d given me ‘throw-away’ jewelry that wasn’t good enough to be put in the high-end collection we carried. It was homework. I was slowly learning the different sizes and closure styles.

I regularly visit the website of the Association of Professional Piercers and the board members' social media. To the point of near stalking probably. It didn’t matter, though, because I was finally starting to feel a sense of belonging. Right? Even when I started being told to go fetch cigarettes at the gas station, I still showed up.

And when I was regularly reprimanded for having to leave to go to a job that paid my gas money and rent, I apologized. When I was alone in the shop for hours or whole days at a time, learning nothing other than people really don’t like someone not showing up to perform a piercing when they had scheduled it in advance, I smiled and made excuses for her.

Because that’s what you do, right? That’s what you suck up and allow to happen to you when you’re chasing a dream.

I was always there early and left late. I made sure everything was spotless and that the inventory was accounted for. Never once did I complain about her not bothering to come in to teach me or explain how I felt my time and energy were being wasted. I didn’t tell anyone how she would berate me and belittle me for small mistakes - I now know that they were small, having the knowledge of several years of experience. It felt like a betrayal to her, the woman I felt I owed so much for allowing me the opportunity to learn a craft that had been so coveted and felt so secretive. She had allowed me to walk past the velvet rope and enter into a whole new life.  So I continued.

She offered to make me a manager to which I beamed. She let me perform changeouts but only if they were fully healed. (I definitely changed out some unfinished healing holes.) And she asked me to help set up another business that she had, unrelated to piercing entirely, which I gleefully did, even giving her ideas to use. Even offering my partner’s woodworking skills to her. (Later, after everything was over, he would tell me I had never been good enough but that’s another story altogether.)

I met her boyfriend who who she said was a skinhead. He had been only nice to her and regularly gave me the creeps. But that could’ve me just being young and untried in social situations like that. I met her parents who owned a massive business that allowed her freedom to do as she pleased. But did I really know that or did I just assume that they let her have money from the stories she’d told?

I met her dog who I think about every time I listen to Coheed and Cambria.

I met a woman who became who would eventually be my second mentor - still not great, but considering she had grown up with my first one, who’s shocked? I certainly was.

I got the chance to cultivate my love for the craft. I missed out on the chance to go to Vegas with her. A trip that I’m sure I would have regretted. That fire of anxiety or misguided passion that had always kept me quiet against the abuse I was receiving from her and other people in my life was wavering. Flickering and slowly but surely fading as I got older and stronger. I had always been observant and smart but I was a constant blockade to the intuitive message in my gut. I had been told too many times by others that I was wrong. But when she offered me the chance to go to the conference free of charge - I was suspicious.

I took the opportunity but I started questioning things. I asked people and listened to her conversations with people. I started realizing that my mentor, the person that I held up so high, was a shitbag. I found out she had been planning to get me drunk in the hotel room so I could ‘network’ with other piercers. It shattered my world.

Nothing could go back to the way things were after that.

But the thing is, I don’t hate her. I couldn’t. Even with the things I know and the things she did.

She was my mentor and the first person to ever say, “You've got this.” No matter if it was followed by some passive-aggressive sentence. So now, when I look back at the old handwash log I had saved in my phone or the emails of my essays left in the sent box of my email, I still feel a slice of that same person who walked into that shop and asked for an apprenticeship.


The concept of "free will". Wherein a creature can take an action that is so totally out of character that it would be all but impossible to predict has been a plague upon proper implementation of holistic predictive models. However, despite this stipulation, there are a finite number of things an opponent can do in any given situation, which can be broadly categorised. For example, you and your opponent are sat down to play a game of chess. Your opponent is playing white. You are playing black. There are eight pawns, each pawn can be moved one or two spaces, therefore you can categorise your opponent's next move between two possibilities: The one where your opponent moves a pawn one space. And one where your opponent moves a pawn two spaces. But you can always look "backwards" from any situation. Right now, we've gone down a path wherein your opponent is playing by the rules. Take a step back and you can broadly categorise things again: One category of reality where you play the game and one category of reality where you don't. By taking more and more of these steps backwards, you can therefore reach a level where anything your opponent can do has been broken down into a binary option of A or B. Do, or do not. And with those two options in mind, the concept of free will is made irrelevant; the prediction is so broad that simply reacting to your opponent's movements is sufficient. Those milliseconds between your absolute ability to deduce your opponent's attack and when that attack will land are *crucial*. Your ability to react being far more important than how far into the future you can be certain of, because the latter just gives you more subjective time to understand just how slow you are. However, when two such practitioners of this style engage against one another, the feedback loop is the closest thing to pure entropy as exists in this universe until, one second later, one is victorious, the other lies dead on the ground. The problem is that because there are an infinite number of steps forward you can take, there are also an infinite number of steps *backwards* too. Eventually, sheer muscle memory kicks in as the limited mind attempts to comprehend the unlimited, leading to a completely random, completely autonomous attack. It is under *this* scenario that a slower, but more long-term predictive practitioner, is preferred as you can more accurately deduce when entropy kicks in and the half-life of some random isotope in the enemy's right hand will cause it to vanish triggering a cascade reaction leading the opponent to making the first, easily counterable move. Of course, true masters of this art have the sheer force of will to enforce their very nervous system to switch between the two modes, meaning both practitioners of this art and non-practitioners alike are easy prey. They do have one fatal flaw, however. If you can deduce the septo-second moment the nervous system is switching from one type to the other, you can catch them in the only moment they are ever truly off-guard. You can catch them in the only moment you will ever have to kill them. Predict that moment, that singular slice of space/time, a chance so slight, that to express it as a number would require more time than exists before the heat death of the universe, that to explain the myriad hyper-subatomic coincidences that led to this particular incarnation of this existence in time would require words for concepts that don't even exist, a chance that will never come again. Kill them. In that one moment. Kill them. Or else nothing you've ever done in your life mattered. May fortune guide you. Make your prediction.


“The world is ending.” “You always say that.” A dark cloud hangs over the lake. It looks heavy. Slightly green. That’s no regular storm. We’re in your car. The seat heaters are on. I can feel my legs humming as the warmth seeps into my clothes, my skin. I hug my backpack tightly to my chest. “I mean it this time,” I say. You flip through radio channels. All you get is static. You used to say you could hear voices in the white noise. Isn’t that how people communicate with ghosts? Mother. Winter. Rotten. Home. You strung them together, as if there was a coherent sentence amongst the fractured words. Sometimes I heard them, too. You always loved a puzzle. Love a puzzle. I keep forgetting that right now you love puzzles. The lightning cracking over the lake, the way we see it parked at the top of the hill, the waves crashing under our tires hundreds of feet below, reminds me of one of your favourite puzzles. A thousand pieces. You’d slap my hand away whenever I’d try to help, said you hated it when I hovered because I always hovered. A raindrop smacks against the window shield, big and hard like it couldn’t wait to burst. “How will a thunderstorm kill us all?” you ask, annoyed but trying to mask it. “It’s not a thunderstorm.” “How do you know?” “I don’t. I just… I have a feeling that something’s wrong.” You try not to laugh but I can see the cracks around your lips deepening. I don’t know why you stayed with me for so long. Everything I said started an argument. Maybe you just liked to scream. I know I did. Crying makes me feel weak when it doesn’t have a purpose. Sometimes I think I egged you on so you would yell at me and I could feel that release. But tonight you don’t push me. The rain is coming down now. It’s bleeding into the car. Water pools at my feet. I can feel my toes pruning. “What would you do if you died?” I ask. “Right now.” The water’s up to our waists. You look at me, long and steady. Maybe this is how you wanted to go. It’s up to our chins, filling our mouths. Before I drown I feel along the sides of the leather seat. I find a dime. “I don’t think I could do anything if I died.” “What?” “You asked what I would do if I died. I’d be dead. I think the point is that I couldn’t do anything anymore.” We’re in my room lying on my bed. The grey faux fur blanket you got me for my birthday is underneath us, my legs gliding over it every so often to feel its softness. You hate that I never wash it, but I tell you all the time that I don’t know how and I don’t want to ruin it. The fur will get all matted, I’ll probably find clumps of my own hair embedded into the fabric, it’ll never feel as good as it does right now. “But what if you become a ghost?” I ask. “Or, when your soul is leaving your body, God comes out of nowhere and gives you the choice to start your life over? And if you don’t then you just cease to exist. Your spirit, your mind, everything. Gone.” I roll the dime between my fingers as I look at you. The dim lights in my room barely catch your delicate features, your eyes appear like empty sockets, your hair is indistinguishable from the blanket. The only thing I can clearly see is your teeth. A werewolf brought out by the moon. “I don’t want to live forever,” you reply. I want to ask if you’ll take me with you into oblivion but I know you won’t respond. If you do choose to say anything at all, I know you’ll tell me I sound like a John Green book. Sometimes I wish I never told you all the things I liked as a teenager. For some reason you think I’m incapable of outgrowing Teen Wolf and Justin Bieber. I jokingly said I was regressing and you said it’s not regression if I’m already perpetually thirteen so I told you that you were being mean and then I felt bad for talking like a child. You listened to Bon Iver before they had a song with Taylor Swift so I guess that makes you more mature than me. I didn’t even know Bon Iver was a band and not the name of one guy. “I think being possessed by a demon would be the worst way to go,” I say. I watch the man in the corner of my room while I speak. He’s always there. He’s followed me from home to home. He used to run up and down the stairs at night while I was sleeping. I’d wake up my parents and make them check the house from basement to attic, call the police if they must, because he’s here and he’s going to get me. My mom would rock me back and forth. My dad would tell me I was right. Somehow I always ended back in my own bed, the man still on the loose. I created an escape plan from my room—out the window, onto the roof of the porch, climb down the lattice into the backyard, make a break for the corner store at the top of the street. Hope he isn’t faster than me. If taking the screen off the window was too noisy I could always hide in the closet. But what if, in his rampage, he couldn’t find me, and he killed my family instead? I’d have to listen to the whole thing. I’ve resigned myself to self-sacrifice. I may be personally haunted but your house is, too. I told you this when I first saw it. Tall trees with knotted and wrinkled trunks dug their claws into the dry earth. Shutters encased windows in a death grip but couldn’t fully conceal the yellow glow. Words spoken in whispers, with lips to ears, need hiding don’t they? Sometimes the air in the house felt claustrophobic, like I was choking on conversations that weren’t meant for me. I think the secrets gave me tinnitus. I read an article in Cosmopolitan about a famous priest who performed exorcisms. He said that demons loved negative energy. Unhappy bodies were easier to claim. I think we’re both breeding grounds for monsters. At least I acknowledge what plagues me. At least I’ll be ready for it when it happens. “I think it would be embarrassing to have something evil inside of you and you don’t even know it and it makes you do terrible things,” I continue. “Even if you’re not conscious and even if it kills you after, everyone would have seen you while you were possessed. What if that’s the last thing your mom remembers about you? What if it makes you murder people? What if it lets you go, you don’t even die, and now you have to live with all the destruction it caused?” “You watch too many movies,” you say. “People make movies out of real life experiences, you know.” “You sound like your dad.” I hate that. I love my mom. I don’t mind being my mom. I don’t want to be my dad. I showed you the tinfoil hats Dad made when he thought the rapture was coming. He had the whole thing planned: we’d get in the van, drive to a commune in the mountains—I think they were somewhere in British Columbia—and wear our hats so the alien beams couldn’t scramble our brains. Or was it radiation from microwaves? I can’t remember. Dad still thinks cellphones can give you brain cancer, so maybe it had something to do with telephone poles and wires. He made the hats when we were really young and technology wasn’t as good as it is now. Mom only told us about it when we were older, said she didn’t want to complicate our childhoods. She held onto the hats, maybe to prove that she wasn’t lying, because isn’t saying “tinfoil hats” just a way to express that someone believes in conspiracy theories? That’s what you asked me, at least. I just wanted to point out the irony in my dad being an anti-communist who wants to live on a commune. You took the hats. I still love you here. The moon, the man, my room. You bare your teeth. I wrap myself around you. Your claws dig into my back. If you had ripped my throat out I wouldn’t have minded. I don’t know why. I don’t have a reason. I was small in your company. I put the dime in your pocket. “You sound like your mom,” I say. I know this will get under your skin the way you get under mine. We’re at a concert but still find ways to argue over the haunting music. I thought it was funny that when we watched Lady Bird you related to it more than I did. You loved your mother but she was cruel. I think we both liked chasing unrequited love. “We’re bad people,” you reply. I look at you. Your puckered face is illuminated by the red and blue stage lights. Don’t red and blue make purple? Your laundry smelled of lilac. Your birth stone was amethyst. Like an Aquarius, you were aloof and distant. Your feelings were buried under a sheath of irony. I wish I had eroded your iron. You told me horoscopes were nonsense but asked me to read you yours every week. I still read yours before mine out of habit. It’s the only way I can feel like I know what’s happening to you. What happened to you. Because this is the last time I saw you. Guitars swell. Symbols crash. You sing along, your raspy cry an eerie suspension over the oppressive crowd. You turn to me. The lines of your expression are soft, your fangs shaven. The faces around us start melting. The music putters and disintegrates. Bodies drop to the ground. You smile at me. I think about the birthmark on your scalp. I think about your little sister. Was she with us? Sometimes it felt like we were raising her together. I know I like to get ahead of myself. I create realities that don’t exist. We both decided pills couldn’t fix our corroded brain chemistries. You still hated my fantasies, but I knew a small part of you believed them. I think about the first time you showed me your room. I’m not ready to let you go. You’re walking backwards. The first time you hurt my feelings. The second time, when you hurt them on purpose. Please tell me where you’re going. Lights flicker and fall from the ceiling. Wires spark at your feet. I wanted to keep this memory intact but you’re taking it away from me. Please tell me where you went. I chase after you. You are consumed by shadows. Please. I don’t want to forget this one. “There’s a pain in my stomach.” I’m sitting in a hospital bed. You’re sitting in my garden. “I thought it was your ribs,” you say. “It’s my gallbladder,” I reply. “It’s your kidney stones.” You take a bite of an apple. You lie on your back, face to the sun. Glowing. Angelic. “I think I have internal bleeding.” It starts to rain. You hold out your tongue to catch the drops. The water makes the colour of the grass leak from their blades. It dyes your skin green. Serpentine. “You should sleep it off.” “But I’ll die.” “This apple is rotten.” You throw it to the ground. It rolls under your car seat as you sit with your feet on the pedals. We’re parked at the edge of the cliff, but you’re still ready to slam down on the gas before I can jump out of the car. “I mean it this time,” I say. No, no, no. We’ve been here before. The storm is coming in. “If I had to die,” you say, “I’d want a tornado to take me. People always talk about tornados picking up houses and cows and cars and they get lost forever. They’re probably not lost, just thrown to the ground miles away, splattered, splintered, unrecognizable. I like to think that it would take me somewhere, though. If I’m going to die, I at least want to see something nobody else has. And then I’ll meet the earth again and break apart and nobody will know that it’s me.” I don’t remember this. Were you ever vulnerable with me? Your voice is gentle. Maybe this is just the way I always wished your voice would sound. A cyclone whips into form over the lake. “You know how you said you could conjure things by writing them down?” you ask. “I think I can do that, too.” Wind rattles the car, rips the doors off their hinges. You kiss me. You taste like metal. In my mouth— —a dime. I wake up with water in my lungs. Facedown in the pool, pretending to be dead, waiting for you to notice me. You limply kick my bloated corpse but make no move to rescue me. You jump in the water, knees to your chest. I’m tossed away by your wake. You got bored of my game. “Who killed you this time?” you tease. I wonder if you regret saying that now. I wonder if you regret anything.  I lift my head up. The night air feels good in my aching lungs. I think I held my breath for ten minutes. I don’t know if that’s possible. “I told you,” I respond. “We’re all dying.” “There is no apocalypse.” “Yes there is. It’s in my room.” A light turns on. We look up at my window, illuminated. Everything is ordinary. “How does it start?” “I watch a scary commercial,” I say. “Something about a movie where a babysitter gets murdered by a big man and he calls the house a lot. It came out on my birthday. That’s when I knew I was cursed.” The TV flicks on in my room. It’s all static. “Where do I fit into all this?” you ask. “Instigator. Collateral damage.” We tread water silently for a moment. “I’m sorry,” you say. This, I know, is all me. The air becomes loud. It’s something more than insects and owls and rats. Maybe it’s a plane. Maybe it’s my tinnitus. A beam of light shoots across the sky. It looks like the call of a lighthouse. It’s beckoning. “Did you see that?” I ask. “I miss you.” Me again. What did you really say? “Something’s wrong.” “I’m sorry.” “We should go.” “I miss you.” You weren’t kind but I remember you kindly. My ears are screaming. My stomach drops. Something has shifted. A ray of sun begins opening over your head. Maybe I was the unkind one. I never went to therapy. I was needy. But you punished me. You are swallowed in a white light. All I see are your eyes. They look like moons. We weren’t so different. That scared you. I look away. I know what’s happening. I told you so. I hate to say that I told you so but I did. You don’t reach out for me. I hear the TV in my room explode. It’s quiet. Trees have stopped moving. I am floating on my back. You’ve disappeared. You didn’t take me with you. If I cried right now, would you be ashamed of me? I look down at the bottom of the pool. It is covered in dimes.


Gia was only 15

years old when she looked into the eyes of Cody for the first time. It took less than a minute for her soul to recognize him. Then without saying a word he turned and walked away from her. The sharp sting her heart felt never went away although he did. One day he just didn’t come to school. Someone told her that he had moved away suddenly. She regretted not speaking to him.

Gia married Henry Jackson Broussard in the summer after she graduated from college. She had plans to become a teacher but her plans changed after she married Henry and had three kids in almost as many years. She spent the next 20 years raising kids and raising Henry. She had no regrets though. Raising her kids was the best job she could have had but raising Henry was a different story. Most days after work Henry would sit in his chair in the living room and read a book about fishing or some other sport. He would barely even look at her as she raced around the house doing things for the kids and trying to cook dinner for everyone. He would moan and groan when one of the kids would ask him for something and direct them back to her for their needs and wants. Gia would cook and clean and put the kids to bed all while Henry read his books, and mumbled a few words to her here and there during

the evening. It went on like this for over 40 years.

Henry passed away after

43 years of marriage. Gia had a small memorial service for him as he requested. Small was all she could have since Henry only had few friends and fewer relatives. People gathered at the church said a few words and gave Gia and her kids their condolences and that was the end. Gia went back home and sorted out the knitting she could never finish while Henry was alive. She was just about to start when she got a knock on the door. Henry’s lawyer was standing there with a large manila envelope. He held it out for Gia to take and she did. “What’s this?” She asked. “Henry wanted me to give it to you after the service. I think it is very private so you might want to open it after the people from the service leave the house.” He answered. “No worries there. There aren’t any people here. They all went home after the service.” Gia took the envelope and closed the door. She studied the envelope which only had her name on the front written in Henry’s sloppy handwriting. She really didn’t want to open it since Henry was not a man of nice words or many words. What could he possibly want her to read and should she even bother reading it. You didn’t have to read something from a dead person right? Gia tossed the envelope on the coffee table in front of the sofa. She picked up her knitting needles and proceeded to try to finish knitting the scarf she had started months ago for her oldest son.

The envelope was a distraction though. She gazed at it a few times while knitting and decided to pick it up again. Perhaps it was a

letter thanking her for over 40 years of cleaning, cooking, raising kids, waiting on him hand and foot, giving up her dreams for his. Maybe it said that he appreciated everything she had done over all those years and how much he truly loved her and the kids. Maybe it said all the stuff he never told her in life and now he was telling her in death.

She picked up the envelope and looked at it once more unopened and she opened it. It was pages and pages of Henry’s sloppy handwriting. She didn’t know what he would have to say in all these pages but she was about to find out. My dearest Gia, If you are reading this I am probably dead and buried. I told my lawyer, Steve, not to give this to you until both of those things had taken place. Now, my dear, I can tell you what I could not tell you in life. I am going to tell you something that will shake you and I can only hope that you forgive me. I tried to tell you several times when I was here with you but I just couldn’t find the words. How could I tell you something that would bring you so much pain and so much anger? I could not. I made a promise to you father that I would never tell you. Yes, dear, he also knew this secret. He was the one who actually started this whole chain of events over 40 years ago. I am not sure even now how to tell you. But, Gia, please find a quiet spot in the house when you finish reading this, away from everyone. If the kids are there please wait until they leave. If anyone is there please wait untl they are gone. After you read this until the end your reaction will not be good and you will not want to have anyone around you. Trust and believe that.

My love, it all started the summer before I met you. I was working for your father in his law office. I was still in law school at the time and was trying to get a mentor, someone to show me the ropes so to say. As you know your father was a strong willed man and wanted the best for you and all of his kids. He rarely took no for an answer and it was his way or the highway. I was working there for about 6 months before he even said one word to me. He was a watcher. He watched me all those months. He wanted to know how I handled myself in all kinds of situations and he tested me without me knowing. Than one day he came over to my desk and he asked me what my goals were in life. I told him that I wanted to be a successful lawyer like he was. I told him eventually I wanted a wife and kids and to live in the suburbs in a house I owned. He grilled me further about my family, my character, my religion, everything he could think of.

We talked that day for hours and the next day after for months. I didn’t know why at the time. I didn’t understand all the questions. I just thought well, maybe he wanted to know me better. Maybe he took a liking to me.

Both of those things were true but that was not the real reason.

He told me about you. He said he had an older daughter who wanted to be a teacher. He told me your name was Gia and you were like him

more than his other children. You were ambitious like him and were a no nonsense type of person. He said that I would make the right husband for you. I was speechless. I didn’t know what to say. I asked him if you shouldn’t be the one to choose your husband and not him. He looked at me with a fire in his eyes, a fire I have never seen before in anyone’s eyes since and he told me in no uncertain terms that he was the head of his family and he knew what was best for you. And what was not best for you was that boy as he called him. He said that he came from the wrong side of the tracks and that he hated his tattoo of that stupid lady bug that he had on his arm. Every time he looked at that thing it made him sick.

I was shaken with fear. I didn’t know what to do next so I just sat there waiting for him to say something or to dismiss me like a school boy. I had the feeling that nobody was really good enough for you in his world but I would do.

He later told me more about that boy that he thought you were infatuated with. He never used the word love when he talked about him. He kept saying that he would never be good enough for his daughter and that you being 15 when you met him was reason enough for him breaking up that relationship before it started. He knew that boy was going to be trouble. I wasn’t sure what kind of trouble he met or trouble for whom. But, I got the feeling he was talking about himself as much as he was talking about you.

When I met you I thought you were just like your father described you to me. You were very pretty, ambitious, outgoing and didn’t take anything from anyone and you had the most steely blue eyes I had ever seen. I was amazed that you liked me too. For years I thought that you would see right through me and the lie I held secret all these years. I thought you would find out that me and your father manipulated  you into marrying me. That the love of your life was still out there probably just as confused as you were as to what happened, why he had to move in the middle of the school year and not tell you or anyone else.

But, I tried to give you a happy life. I know that when I got older I was a miserable old man. I wanted to tell you when I found out this miserable old man was dying. I kept that a secret too. I didn’t want you to fuss over me any more than you already did. I wanted to at least give you that. I feel so badly about taking the love of your life or the potential of love from you.

I know that you never got the chance to find out if he was the one for you. I know that it was wrong and I know that I should not have gone along with your father’s plans. But, I was a kid at the time. I wanted to practice law more than I wanted to breathe it seemed. He told me that if I didn’t go along with his plans for me and you to marry that he would make sure I never practiced law anywhere in the world. And you know he had the power to make that happen.

I am so sorry. I know that saying sorry is not enough. Reading the words isn't enough. I can imagine the pain in your heart right now and I am sorry that I am the one who caused it. Please forgive me. I hope that you will over time. Please know that I did

love and respect you and I thank you for all the years you stood by me as my wife and my partner in life.

I love and adore you more than words can ever say. Your Husband, Henry Gia put the letter back in the envelope and put it on the coffee table. She didn’t know what to think or even what to feel. She was numb. She sat there on the couch in her same spot that she had sat for many years. The same spot across from Henry while he read his books. She looked at Henry’s chair and the imprint of his head in the fabric and worn seat and for a brief moment she could have sworn she saw Henry sitting there reading his books like he always did. She shook her head at the ghostly image. “Henry, you old fool. If you only knew how much I loved you too and that I had figured out that secret a long time ago. Father did in fact ruin that potential relationship but he didn’t know that he gave me so much more. I was sure at 15 Cody was my soul but when I met you I was sure that you were my soul and the sabotage that my father did worked not against me but for me. Rest in Peace

Henry until we meet again.”


The sun timidly peeked through the curtains as Mira prepared for another day at the office. While sipping from her favorite coffee mug, she glanced at her computer screen, checking for new emails from her manager. After closing her mail application, when she was about to shut down her laptop and head to her car, an unusual file appeared on her computer's screen with the name "open if you dare." Noticing this, Mira started to shiver, indecisive about whether to open the file or leave it be. A few minutes later, curiosity had got the best of Mira, and she decided to open the file, eager to discover its origin and contents. With a hesitant click, Mira opened the file. A short prompt appeared: "Type 'continue' to start a journey beyond the known world." With her heart racing, Mira typed as prompted and watched the screen change colors before her eyes. Scared yet intrigued, she waited to see what would happen next. When the screen turned yellow and remained for a few seconds, a new message popped up: "Please, note that once the journey has started, you will not have the option to give up. Click 'cancel' to give up now, or click 'accept' to start the journey to the unknown world." Excitedly, Mira sent a text message to her manager, Mr. Regis, letting him know that she would be running late due to an urgent matter that required her attention. As soon as the message showed a blue double-tick, indicating it was read, Mira clicked 'accept' on her laptop. Suddenly, she found herself in a room filled with all kinds of flowers emitting charming scents, her laptop still with her. She began to smell each flower, starting with lavenders, her favorites. After a few minutes of exploration, a new message appeared: "This is your safe zone in the Unknown. Your journey continues outside. Draw the curtains and see what lies beyond." Outside, the sky was a sickly shade of gray, and the roads were dusty. Mira saw children carrying 15-liter containers of water, evidently fetching it from kilometers away. In her world, children would have been in school at that time, and every household had access to water; she had never experienced water shortage in her life. Mira was surprised to see the children smiling at her when she waved at them. How could children living in such conditions smile, she wondered. Feeling a mix of disbelief and curiosity, Mira stepped outside to further explore. She could hear babies crying and feel the scorching sun that made them cry. With a heavy heart, she wished to return home, but then she remembered she had committed to completing the journey. She proceeded to the next station, where she encountered sick women lying on woven grass mats, sweating and shivering concurrently. Their families sat nearby, preparing herbal remedies to help them recover. Mira realized that these women did not have access to the modern healthcare she was accustomed to. Approaching the women, Mira wished them a quick recovery before engaging in conversation. One woman, Maria, was kind enough to answer all the silly questions Mira was asking. -Mira: Do you know what year it is? -Maria: I know we're in the long dry season. Isn't that enough? -Mira: What herbs are you mixing for the sick women? Are you sure they're not toxic? In high school, I learned that people can be allergic to certain herbs. I think it would be better if you had access to a nearby hospital. I'm afraid the disease may be contagious. -Maria: You don't need to worry, young lady. We're used to this disease and have been using the same herbal remedy passed down from our ancestors for over a century. We've never experienced toxicity or allergic reactions. Look, this is sage, our ancestors have been using it to treat different infections, I will mix it with rosemary. The seeds you see over there are called coriander, and they are meant to trigger the immune system. With this mixture, the ladies will be strong enough to work in the yard within 3 days. As for hospital, that's a luxury we don't have. We rely on what we know works for us. Mira was amazed by Maria's words. She kept on asking her more about the herbs, with a willingness to know all their health benefits. She had never encountered such a way of life before. She realized that she had been living in a bubble where everything seemed perfect, never considering that there might be a different reality somewhere else on the Earth. Realizing the vastness of the world and its myriad forms of life, Mira didn't know where to begin. She was aware that there was still a lot to be explored, so she decided that she would travel to some parts of the world during the upcoming Christmas holidays. As Mira waited with the women, expecting to be teleported to the next station of the journey, she eventually decided to return to the safe zone room after two hours of no response. She bid farewell to Maria, the woman who had touched her heart, and walked to the room, anticipating to find some new commands on the laptop screen. Upon entering the room, Mira found that her laptop was still there, with a message displayed: "Congratulations, you have reached the end of the journey. You may type 'leave' to return to your world. The aim of this journey was to reveal to you a reality you had never seen, the known unknown to you. Now that you have decided to travel the world and explore more on your own, I would like to free you". Tears filled Mira's eyes as she read the final message. She was now aware of a different facet of the world and had learned from the women that even in the darkest times, there was still hope for life. She typed in 'leave' and was immediately teleported back to her house, her laptop returning to normal without the strange file.


Stuck in the Middle with You Thunder rumbled among the dark clouds that made the daytime sky look like night, and then a streak of lightning tore through the clouds splitting them apart, jagged, like the shell of a cracked egg. The light it produced was blinding, and I couldn't help but turn my head away and blink several times to regain my sight from the momentary blindness that it caused me. I knew better than to look, but like a moth to a flame, I did anyway.

I knew what followed next. The weather man had been predicting it for a day or two now, and by the way the sky looked, it seemed, for a change, he may be spot on; a torrential rain; baseball size hail; conditions right for a tornado. Hopefully, the latter two would be wrong. Visions of my car being beaten to a pulp by hail would send my bank account into a tailspin, and thoughts of my 15th floor apartment being whisked away to Oz by a tornado wasn't appealing to me either. However, the weather was perfect for my mood--I was storming internally. A few moments later, I heard a voice shout after me.

"Tabby, please, wait up!" shouted my no good, egg sucking dog of a cheating boyfriend.

"Why should I, Chase?" I shouted back and picked up my pace from a fast, angry walk to a run in order to catch the walk signal and cross the busy street before Chase caught up to me. Fortunately, I caught it just in time, leaving a rush of cars between me and Chase. I didn't want to talk to him.

Earlier, my flight had been grounded for weather reasons, so the flight attendants, which was my profession, had been sent home for the day. After changing out of my uniform, I decided to walk to Chase's apartment, since it was only two blocks away, to surprise him. I had visions of the two of us snuggling up together by a warm fire while we waited out the storm. A month earlier, as a sign of his commitment to me, he had given me a key to his apartment. I'd never used it--until today. I wish I hadn't. I knew he'd be home, since he worked a night shift at the fire department, so I quietly slipped my key into the lock, turned it and opened the door. The smile on my face immediately drooped, and my brow instinctively scrunched up like a prune. I couldn't believe my eyes. Chase was in a passionate embrace with a hot-looking brunette who was wearing a short red skirt and a halter top to match. Her bare stomach was pressed against his. I stormed out. For now, I was too angry to cry, and I suppose I would flood my apartment with tears once I got there. A few moments later, Chase was in pursuit.

I had hoped I would have made it home before the downpour, but no such luck. It didn't start as a sprinkle of rain, but the swollen clouds burst and let loose a blinding rain instantly. Two minutes later, I opened the door to my apartment building, went to the elevator and pressed the call button several times hoping it would get here before Chase did. The lights in the foyer flickered, and I know I should have taken the stairs, but I didn't relish the thought of walking up fifteen stories in my angry, hurt and half-drowned condition.

Finally, the elevator door opened and I stepped in. I saw Chase enter the building a moment later, so I frantically hit the close button for the elevator door. He had slipped his hand between the doors just before they closed.

"Please, Tabby, we need to talk. What you saw wasn't what it looked like."

I folded my arms and glared at him. "Seriously! Well, to me, it looked like a full-blown lip lock with your arms wrapped around her pressing her to your body. If I hadn't surprised you, the two of you would probably have been stripped naked on the floor."

Chase was about to respond, when suddenly, the elevator jerked to a halt between the seventh and eighth floor. I had been watching the floor panel box, wishing the elevator would go faster, just before the lights went out. I was stuck in a 7 x 6 box with someone I didn't want to be with. However, I consider myself fortunate that it was pitch black and I couldn't see him. "Just lovely!" I exclaimed. "I should have taken the stairs."

"Don't your elevators have emergency lights?" Chase asked.

"Of course, they do. But somethings in this building aren't reliable--just like a certain, now, ex-boyfriend! Do me a favor; just don't talk so I can pretend you're not here." I felt my way to a corner and sat on the floor to wait for the elevator to restart.

"On the contrary, a stranded elevator gives us a perfect chance to talk. I need you to hear me out," he said. "So, you may as well have a seat."

"I already have, and what do you mean, here you out. What's to explain? You were kissing another woman, Chase. Pure and simple. You can't deny it."

"No, I can't. I was kissing a beautiful woman. I have every right to kiss her because she's my wife and I'm not...."

"Wife!" I interrupted. "You're married to boot! If I could see you, I'd smack the shit out of you!"

"Well, it's unfortunate that you can't see me, because as I was about to say, before you interrupted me, I'm not Chase."

I couldn't help but laugh at his idiotic declaration. "What do you mean, you're not Chase? Just like the old saying, if it looks like a duck and sounds like a duck, it's probably a duck."

"But some ducks look alike," he replied. "I'm Jason. Chase's twin brother. You saw me kissing my wife Mandy. We were visiting with Chase and spent the night."

Now I wish I could see his face to fathom the outrageous story. "Funny, if, as you say, your Chase's twin brother, how come he's never mentioned you? I've also met your sister and parents. They said nothing about you either."

"Because they couldn't. I've been living off the grid for years under a witness protection program. Now that the person I was testifying against was found guilty, put in prison and then subsequently murdered while there, my wife and I are finally able to come out of the closet, so to speak."

I laughed. "And you expect me to believe that! That sounds like something from a movie."

"Some movies are based on facts."

Suddenly, we felt the elevator shake and rattle. "Oh, shit! What now!" I exclaimed.

"Earthquake?!" Chase or perhaps Jason, exclaimed.

"Or tornado!" I added. "That's all we need!"

The elevator lurched again and it felt like it dropped an inch or two.

"We've got to get out of here," my companion said. "By chance, you wouldn't have a lighter or cellphone on you?"

"If I did, I'd have it out by now. My phone is on charge in my apartment. You're not afraid of the dark, are you?" I chided.

"No, silly. I want to see if there's a trap door so we can get out," he replied.

"And then what?" I replied. "Climb into a dark shaft in a shaking building! Are you crazy?"

"No, I'm being logical. If the elevator cable snaps, we could plummet to our deaths," he replied. "So, do you know if there is a panel in the ceiling where, at least, I can get out?"

I thought about his suggestion for a moment. Though most of us don't show it, flight attendants always have that slight twinge of fear in the back of our minds about crashing during a turbulent flight. I couldn't help but chuckle a bit.

"I don't find our situation funny. Why are you laughing?"

"Irony," I replied. "I can see the headlines. Flight attendant, Tabitha Jacobson, dies in an elevator crash."

"Hmm," I heard him say.

"What?" I asked.

"I'm surprised you're not climbing the walls in this situation. My wife, Mandy, would be petrified. She hates storms and is probably sequestered in the bathtub covered by blankets and pillows about now. It bothers me that I'm not there with her."

"Well, Jason, if that's who you are, Chase should be there to keep her company."

"Afraid not," he replied. "He called earlier. He's had to pull a double shift at the fire department due to the weather. So, back to the subject, is there an access panel in the ceiling?"

"Yes, it's in the middle of the ceiling. But how do you propose to reach it, if you could even see it?"

"Easily," he replied. "I'd pick you up on my shoulders, you could feel around till you found the panel and then push it open."

I thought about it for a moment, and then with the next shake of the elevator, I decided to cooperate. "Okay, I'm game."

"Great! Now inch your way over to me. I'm in a squatting position so you can climb onto my shoulders."

I did as he suggested, felt my way to him until I felt his back and then his neck. I stood and took a step forward to "mount up" as it were, and then I heard, "Ouch!"

"What!" I exclaimed.

"You stepped on my hand! Be care not to kick me in the head when get on my shoulders."

"Sorry," I replied. "But in the back of my mind, I really wasn't.

When I was situated on his shoulders, he wrapped his arms around my legs and stood as I walked my hands up the back wall until I felt the ceiling. "Walk to the middle," I said. As he did, I felt for the panel and a moment later, I announced, "Found it."

"Can you push it open?"

"We'll see." I gave the panel a push, but it didn't budge. "It's stuck. Hang on tight, I'm going to give it a harder shove."

"Go for it!" he said.

When I did, the panel gave way, but so did my mount. He tumbled backward, but luckily our fall was prevented by the wall of the elevator. The good thing in this effort, we now had some light. Apparently, there were emergency lights in the elevator shaft--go figure.

I dismounted and gave my companion a good, hard look. The man looked exactly like Chase; same build, eye color and even hair style. "And you say you're not Chase?"

"I can prove it, now that we have light."

"Okay, prove it. Let me see your driver's license."

"Well, that's back at Chase's apartment. But I can still prove it."

"How?"

"I assume you are familiar with Chase's body?"

"You would assume correctly."

"Does he have any tattoos?"

"No."

"Well, I do!"

He then started to unbuckle his belt. "What the hell are you doing?"

"Showing you my tat."

He then turned his back and exposed his butt cheek. There was a large, fancy, red heart with the words, Jason and Mandy Forever written within it in gold lettering. "That was my valentine's present to my wife. She has a matching one on her butt cheek as well."

I turned my back and hid a smile. "You could have had that done yesterday as far as I know."

"Geez, Tabby, what will it take to convince you?" he exclaimed, as he pulled his pants back up.

I then laughed with relief, turned and gave him a smile. "Just kidding. I believe you. Chase is petrified of needles. He'd pass out at the sight of one."

"That's the truth. He can run into a burning building with no fear, but when it comes to the needle, he's pretty much a wimp."

Once again, the elevator shook. "What do you say we get out of this box before it falls?" Jason asked.

"Agreed!"

I climbed onto Jason's shoulders once more, grabbed the edge of the opening and pulled myself up. It was a good thing that I worked out regularly and my arms were strong enough to pull me up. A moment later, I was on top of the elevator. I may have been able to pull my weight up, but if I'd tried to pull Jason up, I would have been back in the elevator. Jason handed me his belt, and I attached it to a pipe near the opening so he would have something to grasp and pulled himself up as well.

I'd seen movies before with adventures climbing elevator shafts. Never in a million years would I think I'd be doing that very thing. But our climb would be fairly easy. There was a built-in ladder in the shaft which we grabbed on to. In examining the elevator cables, they looked okay from this vantage point, but we didn't know what it looked like higher up, so we ventured on the ladder to the next floor where we found an emergency release handle to open the door. We stepped out onto an empty hall way and made our way to the stairway. It was lined with tenants, which was a logical place to hold up during the storm.

Jason and I weaved our way among the tenets and headed up to my apartment. He wanted to use my phone to call and check on Mandy. When we reached my floor and opened the stairway door, we were met by Chase and Mandy.

"Tabby!" Chase exclaimed, as he wrapped me in his arms. "I was worried to death about you. The building next door got touched by a tornado and part of it collapsed against this one."

"I'm fine, Chase," I replied. "Jason and I got stuck in the elevator."

Mandy then approached me. "I'm sorry you saw what you saw. I wish you'd stuck around for us to explain."

"It was a shock, I admit, but upon closer examination of Jason"--I then cleared my throat-- "He proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that he wasn't Chase."

Mandy then folded her arms and looked at Jason from the corner of her eye. "And how did you do that, since your wallet is at Chase's?"

Jason grinned, put his arms around her and said, "I just proved to her that you were my heart and soul." He then kissed her.

Suddenly, the lights came back on. We went to my apartment and looked out the window to see a bright, sunshiny sky. Jason and I sat down with Chase and Mandy and told them of our adventures in the elevator and had somewhat of a good laugh about the situation. However, I think, for a while, anyway, I'll be taking the stairs.