You can’t choose your family, and I lost the family lottery big time. I doubt anyone ever wins big, not unless they are gifted a very limited number of family members who have mastered the art of not inflicting themselves upon family members. There is supposed to be a compensating strategy to make up for family and it has something to do with friends. Apparently, you can choose your friends, but that all falls down because it’s not like you can form a cadre of friends who you take with you wherever you go to protect you from family and the occasional crafty mugger.

You certainly can’t take your friends to the annual assault course which is Thanksgiving. That’s one of the unwritten family rules. The Thanksgiving rules seem to be that you have to be present at all times and you have to take anything and everything that is thrown at you. It seems that my role is as the family punchbag, and punchbags can never hit back.

Funny isn’t it? You know how some things will go so you don’t even try them. If I was to defend myself from the insults and injuries that I receive during Thanksgiving, then this would be seen as the worst kind of attack and everyone would suddenly find a way of uniting and pulling together in order to put me back in my place. That’s the only way I could unite my family, a temporary set of uneasy alliances formed to secure my demise. Now, I could endure and survive Thanksgiving if it was atypical of the way my family is for the rest of the year. The truth is that each and every member of my family is broken and the sad truth of it is that the family broke all of them. The Clark Clan has been doing this for a very long time now and they’ve got really good at it. This family is a sausage factory. They mince their young up and squeeze them painfully into the straightjacket of their skin. There’s no defence against something like that, and there’s no stopping it. There’s no stopping it because you don’t know it’s happening to you until it’s already happened and by then it’s too late. The fascinating thing is that my family looks like all the other families. This broken and spiteful set of warring peoples somehow manage to look like a unit. They seem to conform and never do they set any alarms off, nor do red flags get hoisted up the flag pole in the front garden.

People see what they want to see though and they keep themselves to themselves. Even the really nosey people. That lot are on the hunt for juicy snippets that accord with their world view and for some strange reason they skip over my family. We’re not invisible, but we are unremarkable.

And yet, we’re all weird and we do stand out. I know we do. I can see the reaction we provoke, but somehow we’re passed by each and every time. I watch people you see. I’ve watched them for a long time. Studied them. I think I wanted to know them a little more so I could figure out how to fit in, but somewhere along the path that all changed. Change has happened to me all along the path I have stumbled and hobbled along. It’s happened so relentlessly that I now loathe it. I loathe a lot of things. If I wrote a list I would run out of ink and then I’d run out of paper. Right now, I loathe the prospect of Thanksgiving, and Thanksgiving is already happening to me. Again. This time I have a different plan. I’ve always had plans, but they never work out. You see, there’s only one me and there are seven of them. The odds have never been in my favour. But this time I’m going to approach it in an entirely different way. “You’re quiet George.”

This is my gran and this is her opening gambit. It seems innocuous enough, but to engage gran in any sort of conversation is to open yourself up for a spot of verbal flogging. Her tongue is so sharp that she could flay someone alive in the space of five minutes. To say she is not pleasant is the closest you can get to being complimentary about her. I whisper my reply, “I’m being overwhelmed with the wonderful company at the table.” “Pardon?” she says archly. “I’m sad that Betty couldn’t make it,” I tell her at normal volume. “Yes,” says gran, turning on my father, “where is Betty?” “Dunno,” he says, “she said she was going to come.” And of course she did. We’d all rather remove our eyeballs with rusty spoons than come to gran’s for Thanksgiving, but the consequences of non-attendance don’t bear thinking about, so no one has ever defied gran and not turned up.

Until now. “She better have a good excuse,” gran growls. I whisper again, “oh she does.” “You what?” gran growls again, “what is it with you and your whispering you rude girl!” I’m twenty eight and don’t consider myself to be a girl anymore. I doubt I ever was thanks to this awful matriarch, “I’m sure she’s here in spirit, gran.” Gran is not placated. Gran would never allow herself to be placated by another human being. That cannot happen because she is at the top of the pecking order and that is all there is to it. “How’s the new job, George?” this is Aunt Francis. She’s alright on the face of it and that has always bugged me. I don’t see how she can be alright in this toxic environment and so I harbour suspicions that she is the worst of us all.

If I have any doubt about Aunt Francis’s bad credentials, all I have to do is look at her two children. They are about as shitty as shitty can be. Spoiled, but in the same way that food spoils when it is not eaten in time. They fizz and they smell and I can’t bear to look at them.

“It pays the bills,” I tell her. I hate my job and even saying those four words about it boils my urine and makes me hate her just a little more. “You’re still existing in that backward town then?” asks gran. “Surviving,” I nod. There’s no point in pushing back. She’s looking for that. Anything that will give her more ammunition to wound me with. I glance across at granddad. I think I saw him react to her question, but cannot be sure. I’m never sure when it comes to him. Granddad has been on death’s door for all of my formative life. He barely says a word. Barely does a thing other than breathe. Some of his food will disappear from his plate, but I won’t see him eat it and it’s never enough to fuel a human being.

There was a time when I thought gran was poisoning him. The husbands and wives that marry into our family don’t last long. Long enough to make the next generation of losers and then they’re off, ignorant of what they have actually done. Too busy licking their wounds and wondering what the hell happened back there. They never once think about the abandonment of their children. Somehow they don’t see it like that. People see what they want to see. We make our way through the main course, slings and arrows thrown my way, mostly by gran, but father joins in too. Francis’s kids smirk at me, adding to the hostile ambience. I take it. I take it all, just as I always have and I watch them as they eat. A tradition of our Thanksgiving is that we all bring at least one dish. This year, I brought the pigs in blankets. Gran was derogatory as soon as she saw them, but I see she has polished them all off. In fact, my side dish has been quite the hit. The plate is now empty. The empty plate is my cue. “I see you enjoyed the Betty in blankets,” I say to gran. I’ve stopped eating and have my elbows on the table. I make a cradle with my fingers and rest my chin on it. This is guaranteed to rile the old bag. On my plate are all the bacon wrapped sausages I took from the serving plate. I haven’t eaten a single one. Their presence there makes a point. “What did you say?” gran hisses. I hear Francis gasp. “That’s not funny,” father says. I never take my eyes from gran, but in my peripheral vision I can see Francis’s kids and they are not grinning. I don’t think they’ll ever grin again. “I find it amusing,” I say in a dull monotone, “Betty was always a bit of a pig.” “You’re a horrid little girl,” growls gran, “always have been, always will be.” I smile in reply. Then the tension of the present interaction is broken by a far too loud ringtone. Francis blushes bright red as she reaches into her bag for her phone. The ringtone louder as she retrieves it. The tune catchy, but not recognisable. “Hello?” she says into the phone. When her red face goes very pale I know what the call is about. I’d hoped it would play out like this. I smile as an optional part of my plan comes into play. She isn’t on the phone for long, but it’s long enough to see her transformed. Her transformation will not stop there though. Not by a long chalk. “What is it girl?” gran asks bluntly as Francis ends the call. Francis does her best not to cry. Crying in front of gran would not go well, “my house. It’s on fire…” Gran tuts. She tuts like Francis’s house being on fire is an avoidable inconvenience. That tut makes it clear that Francis is misbehaving and that this is not acceptable. Not here and now during Thanksgiving. Francis gets up. “Where do you think you’re going!?” barks gran. “Home!” shouts Francis. And just for a moment, I think I might have got Francis wrong. That moment passes though. They all do. In the face of gran’s chagrin, Francis leaves. She leaves under the darkest of clouds and she takes her two grown up but still childish children with her. They scowl at me as they leave.

I also get up. “What do you think you’re doing,

girl? ” asks gran. I smile my smile, “seeing them off.” “Sit down right now!” she screams as I turn my back on her and leave the room. I am in time to see Francis reverse at speed from the driveway and I wince at the sight of it. Composing myself, I return to a dispassionate state as Francis accelerates away and disappears down the hill. She didn’t see me in the doorway, but her two smarmy offspring did. They turned to look at me and gave me the bird in a well-choreographed move.

Drawing a deep breath in I savour the crisp smell of the approaching Winter. Some smells enliven a person. This is one of them and I am smiling in an approximation of happiness. I flinch just once as I hear the car crash. Francis was driving far too fast. There was no way she was going to stop in time. Not without any brakes she wasn’t. The sight of the fireball warms and emboldens me. I sniff once again at the air and fancy I catch a whiff of an unseasonal barbeque. Smiling once more, I walk back inside, leaving the door open. Another small victory that will annoy gran.

My coat is hanging in the hall and from my coat pocket I pull gloves. I am putting them on as I return to the dining room. Gran shakes her head at me, “gloves? You are as odd as they come. A constant disappointment to me and your weak father. It’s his fault. Far too weak. Let you get away with far too much…” No one asks me about the noise of a car crash and explosion. They don’t care. She’s still talking as I pick up the carving knife and carve a second mouth into my father’s neck. The knife is nice and sharp, I sharpened the blade earlier.

I can’t help but ignore gran and inspect my handiwork. Father’s eyes are dumb with surprise. He just sits there, but there is a moment of inexplicable beauty as his new mouth gapes open and for the first time ever, he smiles at me. Then the blood comes. I had read about this part, but never experienced it. I had toyed with practicing with Betty, but instead I despatched her in a far less theatrical manner. The Thanksgiving dinner table is painted red, but somehow gran remains her usual granite-like self. I note only three small and disrespectful spots of blood. I grin at the thought of father remaining so scared of his mother that even in his death throes he avoided getting any of his life blood on her. But I’m grinning. I can’t help but grin.

This has to be the best Thanksgiving ever! “You bitch!” gran snarls at me, “how dare you ruin Thanksgiving!” That’s what she says to me. They are her words in the aftermath of the slaying of her son, and the death of her daughter and grandchildren. They are her words after I’ve told her that she’s just eaten some of her granddaughter. These are her words as I walk around the table and place the carving knife in her bony little hand. A hand that seems birdlike and too small for such an evil woman and such a huge, dominating presence in all of our lives. She looks at the knife and then at me and for one magical moment, I think she is going to stab me in the guts. I can picture it and almost feel the knife entering my midriff. She would twist it and disembowel me. That is what she would do. That is how she is built. “You’ve made your point love,” granddad is nodding at me, then his eyes go to the door telling me in no uncertain terms that I should leave now. Not wanting gran to end me with that life.

Get out. Get out while you can! Why didn’t he say this earlier? Why didn’t he say something when it would have counted? Too little. Too late. “Oh shut up you ridiculous man!” My gran spits these words out even as she turns on him and plunges the point of the wickedly sharp knife through the old and helpless man’s eye. Such is the force of the thrust that the knife goes almost all the way to the handle.

I laugh. I can’t help myself but laugh.

I’ve just heard the punchline for this year’s Thanksgiving and it’s a humdinger. “Why are you laughing!?” my gran screams. Why are you laughing?! Why are you laughing?! Why are you laughing?! I tell her once I have gotten over my fit of the giggles. I lean in and whisper it in her ear. Then I step back and in a loud voice I pronounce, “Oh gran! What have you done!?” As she looks at me with a contorted expression of shock and rage, I call the police and I play the part of innocent and traumatised granddaughter very well. I play it better than anyone ever could, and I find myself looking forward to being there at gran’s trial. I’ll be there every day and I’ll look her in the eye as she faces the music. I’ll relish the summing up. That part will be delicious. As the judge name calls and she winces with every word that lands. They won’t see it of course. None of them will. Gran will be wearing her very best mask. But I’ll see it. And I’ll know, and that will be enough. That and the prospect of no more Thanksgiving Dinners with that bunch of broken and messed up assholes.

Good riddance to bad rubbish as far as I’m concerned.


Phil Connors rubbed his palms across his face and placed them on the back of his head while he slowly leaned back in his chair and contemplated his next move. He never thought he’d be the type of person to sit behind a desk. Funny how things change. Shortly after high school, he worked as an intern at a small marketing firm and hated it with every fiber of his being. Then one day during his lunch break he saw an ad in the classifieds from the Bricklayers Union seeking people for an apprenticeship, and didn’t hesitate for a second to make a career change. So, he traded in his penny loafers for a pair of work boots and abandoned his leisurely job for a lifetime of lower back pain and calloused hands. Forty-two years, he’s been in construction. Forty-two long, arduous years. First as an apprentice, then as a journeyman, then a foreman and for the last 6 years as the Area Manager. A promotion he was more than grateful for. The raise in pay afforded his wife an early retirement and the work wasn’t nearly as physically taxing which did wonders for preserving his body. But with the big bucks, came bigger responsibilities, more stress and worse headaches. And when difficult decisions needed to be made, Phil often missed the grunt work, especially on a day like today when he had bad news to deliver. There was a knock on the door. His visitor had arrived. Phil sighed. This wasn’t going to be easy. “Come in,” said Phil. “It’s-a me! Mario!” Mario excitedly declared. “Yes, Mario. I know it’s you. I’ve been expecting you. Please, sit down,” Phil said while motioning toward the empty chair in front of his desk. Boing! In an impressive display of athleticism Mario leapt from the doorway to the chair. Phil deeply exhaled, “Look, I’ll be Frank.” “Okie Dokie, Frank. I’ll be Mario!” Phil couldn’t help but to chuckle. He had to give it to him. The little fucker was funny. “Mario, do you remember the last meeting we had three weeks ago?” Mario shrugged. “Ok, let me refresh your memory. You were working with Walters and his crew at the KFC remodel on 5th street, when for no apparent reason, you picked up a turtle and threw him at the wall as hard as you could. Do you remember that?” Mario nodded. “And I had to put you on probation. Remember that? Mario nodded again. “You know, Mario, PETA was right across the street protesting that day. Can you imagine the shit storm we would’ve been under had one of them seen you? Not to mention, it’s a fucking psychotic thing to do. I mean, seriously, who the hell throws a turtle?” “It-a was trying to kill-a me!” “I highly doubt that, Mario,” Phil leaned back in his chair and folded his arms. “Look man, I like you. I really do. Walters says you’re the best brick mason he’s ever worked with, and I might have to agree. Your work ethic is unparalleled. But you’re a loose cannon. Some of the other guys are afraid of you, Mario. You make them uneasy. There have been many complaints. But so far I’ve managed to look the other way. We would have to hire two people to replace you. You’re too good of a worker....” “Oh, thats-a kind of you to say!” Mario interrupted. Phil smacked his desk with a clenched fist. “Dammit Mario! Let me finish. You know I wouldn’t have believed it were even possible had Davis not taken a video of it. But after that stunt you pulled today, I’m afraid there’s no way we can keep you.” “Oh no, but-a why?” “You punched a brick chimney right off of a house, Mario! Absolutely demolished it with your bare hands. How the hell are you that strong, anyway? Mike Tyson can’t punch through bricks. You’re 4’3” and weigh 90 pounds. It makes no sense. It should be physically impossible. I don’t know how you did it. But I do know why you did it. Davis tells me...” Phil sighed before continuing. “...I can’t believe I’m even saying this. Davis tells me you thought there was money inside?” “I had to get-a the coins, so I can save-a the princess!” Phil leaned forward, pinched the bridge of his nose with two fingers and deeply exhaled. “Which brings me to your excessive drug use. I’m not here to narc people out, Mario. That’s not my intent. I know many of the guys here have their own way of unwinding after a long day. Hell, I’ve been known to indulge myself every now and then. But smoking a joint at your house after your shift is over is one thing. Using hallucinogenics on the clock is another and I can no longer turn a blind eye towards it. Mario, mushrooms aren’t meant for daily consumption. They’re more of an every once in a while kind of drug, understand? They’re the type of drug you take on a camping trip in the middle of the woods to get in touch with nature. You’re not supposed to pop them on a Tuesday afternoon while you’re at work. I need you focused, Mario. I can’t have you out there tripping balls on the job site, climbing flag poles and playing with fire! Walters told me the other day you raced in twenty minutes late, and your whole body was shimmering like a strobe light. Said it freaked him the fuck out. You care to explain that?” “Yes, I ate-a a star!” “You ate a star?” Phil said in a puzzled tone. “You know what. I don’t even want to know what that’s slang for. Honestly, the less I know the better. Mario, you leave me no choice, pal. I have to fire you.” “Oh-No! You make-a me sad!” “I’m sorry, buddy. The good news is I may have found you a new gig. An old acquantice of mine owns a plumbing company and is always looking for help. He’s a crazy fucker. Kinda reminds me of you. He pays well. And it’s under the table too, no taxes. There’s one catch. It’s extremely unflattering work. He only takes on the tough jobs. The ones no one else wants to take. But the money is good. Last time I heard from him, he was looking for two guys. So, he could take on you and your autistic brother, Luigi. His name is Bowser. I’d be willing to give you a recommendation. How’s that sound?” Boing “Let’s-a-go!” Mario shouted while exiting the room in one hop. Phil connors picked up the phone, dialed, and chuckled to himself. “Mario. That little fucker is a lunatic.


He got engaged the same day I moved out. Whatever. Fair enough. No skin off my nose. Forget the skin off my knees. I found out later that he’d married her on my birthday. You try to think of these things as coincidences. Who knows? I’ve been moving around fairly randomly since then. Not a problem. No big thing. It’s just seeing what fits. The big round global dressing room. I’ve tried a lot of jobs, but learning to work a tap and getting an ESL certificate made me instantly employable all over the world.

People always ask me what’s my favourite place I’ve been, and I never know what to tell them. I’ve tried to explain that I don’t rate things or attach them to a scale, but that tends to get me blank looks. It seems that everything should be judged in thumbs and stars.

I saw him again when I was visiting my parents, doing some shopping for them, to get some fresh air. An excuse to borrow their car, really. Getting out of the house has always been a priority. I had just come into the mall when he came out of Starbucks and almost walked into me, followed by a double take and a look of utter surprise. All of which seemed a little over the top and suspect.

We talked a while, catching up on this and that. He looked like himself as I’d known him, in fancy dress as his dad. I didn’t mention this. I noticed that he was deflecting questions about his wife and kids. His voice would sink in both tone and volume and his eyes would shift downwards, before coming back to me with a new topic. I didn’t mention this either.

He told me he was thinking of taking a trip, maybe to Vietnam. He always used to talk like this, I remembered. Big, grand plans that sounded exciting, especially in company, and then zero follow up. “Which part of Vietnam?” I asked.         He seemed excited to expound. “I’m thinking probably Ho Chi Minh. I’ve heard it’s the best place to visit. More authentic.”         “Really?” I asked. “Where did you hear that?”         He seemed puzzled by this and stumbled a little.

“I was in Vietnam for just over a year,” I told him. “Ho Chi Minh was nice, but I think I preferred Hanoi overall.”         “Is that right?” he said, kind of slow and vague. “Maybe I’ll think about that then. Maybe.”         “Have you been to Asia before?” I asked.

        He shook his head. “Not yet,” he said quietly. “Soon though.”         This led on to talk about my travels. He seemed to be taking an interest in what I had to say, rather than in his own words. He asked me a lot of questions, and I did my best to answer them honestly. It’s difficult sometimes though. The things people want to know throw me sometimes. When they ask what I’ve been doing, I tend to draw a blank.

        I tried though, and I talked about Chiang Mai and Sukhothai, but he wanted to know about Phuket and Bangkok. I told him my favourite cities were Kuala Lumpur and Hanoi, but he wanted to stick to Thailand. He didn’t seem at all interested in South America, except to make predictable comments about illegal substances.

“I never realised you were so wild,” he told me.

        “What do you mean?” I asked.         He stood back and looked me up and down. “Look at you,” he said with a sweeping arm gesture.         “What do you mean?” I asked.         I mean, I know I look different from the last time we saw each other, but then so does he. It had been, what? A little over ten years. My hair’s grown a bit, I’ve bought new clothes. I could see him eyeing the tattoos.

“Can we meet up and have a proper catch up?” he asked.         He touched my arm as he said this, between the shoulder and the elbow. One of his fingers was under my sleeve. When I looked down, I could see his wedding band. “What do you mean?” I asked again.         I was finding I didn’t want to ask him anything else.

        “You know,” he said. “We haven’t seen each other for a long time.”         He was standing close to me.

        “You seem different,” he said.

        “I don’t think so,” I told him.         I didn’t either. Iwas and I am just me. Nothing’s changed.         “It’s true,” he told me. “You do.”         “Ok.”         I didn’t know what else to say to that. We stood there, neither of us saying anything. He touched my arm again and ran one of his fingers down it, over the elbow. I tried to keep eye contact, because I didn’t want to be the first to break it, but I kept glancing down.

        I took a step backwards. “I’ve got some things to do,” I told him.         “Ok,” he said. “Sure. I can come with you.”         I shook my head.

        “It’s not a problem,” he told me. “I have the time.”         “I’ve got to get these things and get back to my parents,” I told him.         “Oh,” he said. “Too bad.”         After that, he asked for my number and I strung together eleven numbers that were close to my real one, but not close enough. I walked away from him, into the mall, and took the nearest escalator down towards the supermarket. I walked quickly through the crowd on the lower ground floor and to the escalators at the back and went down into the car park.

When I was teaching English, in Asia mainly, different countries and different age groups, I felt the most myself and also the most lost. Often, I’d be the only native speaker at a school or a language centre. Not always though. I preferred being the only one. If there were others, they tended to expect me to spend lots of time with them. It was like we were in some kind of club.         I don’t like clubs.

        I enjoy walking on my own. I enjoy looking at things and thinking about them. I enjoy being me.         It’s true.

Every time I had a new class, whether I walked into the room with them already there and waiting for me, or I watched them filing in from my place by the board or the computer or or desk or whatever was there, I used to have minor panic attacks. Every time. I’d struggle to breathe, feel the tightness across my chest, the itching in my palms. I’d worry that I didn’t know what I was supposed to do next, even if I’d been there a long time.

        I have a complex relationship with the new.

But there’s not much you can do at that point. You have to power through it. I think it was good for me. Having to deal.

I don’t think any of the students would have even noticed, except maybe that I would rub my hands together and drink a lot of water. They were always focused on other things. I don’t think they believed me when they asked for my Facebook or Instagram or whatever and I told them I didn’t have one though. Maybe I’m old fashioned. So be it.         The main thing was, after that first day of trauma, everything would generally roll along smoothly until the end of term, when everything reset.

I enjoy teaching. I didn’t think I would, but I do. I fell into it, more or less, which is a long and boring story, and I tried to resist for some time.         The one place I struggled in was Delhi. I knew I’d made a mistake from the start. There was simply no escape. Everything was everywhere. Dense and overpowering. But it taught me what to avoid, as well as what to seek.         Speaking of which, I’ve been checking flights and maps and websites. It’s good to be home. It’s good not to be too. I got back to my parents’ house without any shopping. They asked about it and I told them I hadn’t been able to get it. Dad looked at mum and she shrugged and then turned to me and smiled, as if she knew what was going on. Some things never change.

        I went upstairs and I got into the shower. The water was only lukewarm, but that was fine. That was the temperature of home. I stood there with my hands hanging limp by my side, my hair stuck to my face, my shoulders, my back, and I turned on the spot. Slowly. Three hundred and sixty degrees. And again. Tiles. A small frosted window. Green and white plastic curtains. And again. Tiles. A small frosted window. Green and white…         I kept on turning and I didn’t speed up. I could keep going like that forever. I would never get dizzy.


7:00pm EST  Good evening, America.  I know the media has been climbing all over each other for a statement from the Presidential office regarding our current health crisis, but I wanted to have as much information as possible before addressing the American people. Were times not so dire and the need for action so immediate, I would still be waiting for more information to address the nation. Unfortunately, America, that is not the case. The bald truth is this: more is unknown about this epidemic than is known. Medical professionals around the world are working tirelessly to provide answers, but as of right now, no cure or preventative mediation have shown long-term effectiveness.  Known by different names around the country – Creeping Flu, Bellows, Influenza M – the infection is spread through direct disease transmission. Simply being touched by an infected person does not cause transmission of the disease from one person to another, but an exchange of bodily fluids will. This can come from being bitten by an infected person, ingesting fluids from an infected person, or sexual contact with an infected person. I must stress… simply touching an infected person will not transmit the disease. Forced quarantine upon medical professionals based on this misinformation will only lead to further infection and unnecessary condemnation, not to mention the loss of valuable personnel.  The speed of infection appears to increase with every new generation. Because of this, providing an accurate timeline for symptom progression is impossible. What we can do is provide a concrete, concise list of symptoms. Before we address this, however, it is important to note that one or two symptoms does not necessarily indicate infection. With so much confusion, stress, and exposure to new drugs, it absolutely makes sense that people would be getting sick with perfectly normal diseases. This is not the Wild West and we are not horses: a bullet is not the cure for a broken leg, nor is it the cure for the average flu. Even now, when the infection can potentially spread so quickly throughout the body, we must be sure of our decisions.  That being said, the symptoms, in order, are as follows:  1. General fatigue/weakness 2. Cluster headaches: sharp, burning pain behind the left eye 3. Burst blood vessels in left eye 4. Quickly onset fever of above 106 degrees Fahrenheit 5. Vomiting/diarrhea 6. Hallucinations 7. Paralysis 8. Death 9. Reanimation  Symptoms will appear in the order shown. No variation of symptom order has been observed, though personal susceptibility to individual symptoms may accelerate the onset of specific steps. Again, I must stress that individual symptoms do not indicate an overall infection.  Finally, it is with a heavy heart I inform America that its military will be unable to assist at this time. Were this an invading foreign power at our nations door, the United States Armed Forces would be fully prepared to stand and defend her people. As it is, we have been found shamefully unprepared to address an epidemic of this strength and nature. For the foreseeable future, the American people will need to rely on their own grit and perseverance in order to weather this storm. This will not be the first time the mettle of the American people was tested, nor will it be the second, nor the third. America is a nation born of independence and ingenuity. A nation of adaptation and spirit. This is a fight we will win, my fellow Americans, but one that will take a heavy toll.  Doubt is a rot in the heart of mankind which is easily planted by fear – one that must not be allowed to take root.  It has been an honor serving you, America. Thank you, good luck, and god speed.


I can hear the engine turn over in the parking lot as the bell on the glass door rings, and this is all so familiar. I let the door swing shut behind me and I am remembering how we used to do this all the time, a hundred years ago—you waiting in the truck with the air conditioning on to relieve you from the mid-July heat, me paying for our gas and slushies.

“Hey there!” I try not to feel too annoyed as the kid at the counter comes around to ask me how I’m doing, but we are in a hurry and it’s like he’s never even heard the words “personal space” before. “Oh, I love blue raspberry,” he informs me as I try to fit a medium lid on your large slushie. “Here,” he says, handing me the right size.

I don’t look at him; my blond hair hangs in my eyes, freshly dried from the rain that fell two hours ago. “Thanks.” “No problem.”

His skinny arms are folded across the chest of his dark uniform, which hangs loosely about him, and he is still smiling at our blue slushies as I fit the lids on.

“My mom used to hate these things,” he says. “She still does, actually. I love them, but she’s always like, ‘Blue raspberry? Why don’t they just call it sour blueberry or something? Don’t they know there’s no such thing—’” I am pulling a hundred and fifty dollars out of my jeans and dropping it at his feet because I cannot afford patience right now.

“Oh. Uh… sorry,” he mutters as the bell on the door rings again. He is scraping the bills off of the white tile floor, and people like him need to learn to be less comfortable. He clearly hasn’t been hit or pushed or told to back the hell off enough times in his life. He’s the sort of person to get into the front seat of an Uber, although I’m sure he has a pair of soft-hearted parents who drive him to work every morning and kiss him on the cheek, so he doesn’t have to worry about that.

“Hey,” you say.

I smile and you are smiling too. We sip our slushies as we merge onto the highway, resuming our journey to paradise.

The day our world fell apart was yesterday.

At least, that’s the way it seems. I can remember it all in perfect detail, the tears in your viridian eyes and the annihilating sensation of true love being torn away from you.

When I picked you up for dinner that night, you were happier than you are now. You were wearing a perfect red sundress covered in flowers, vibrant petals of yellow and pink and white, and your face was fresh and beautiful, even with the makeup you think you have to wear, and there were three rings on your left hand.

I had a ring too, the same one I am wearing now as we hold hands across the centre console. The ring is wrought in the shape of a silver flower, and you gave it to me after I told you how much I loved it, exactly one week before I picked you up in your red dress. “Jake, will you wear rings with me?” “Of course I’ll wear rings with you.” “Really?” “Yes. Give me the flower one.” And so the flower ring was mine, and I wear it everywhere now. If anyone judges me, I’ll just show them a picture of you and tell them, “she gave it to me,” and what will they say to that? You’re the most gorgeous girl in the world, my dear Aleta Colley.

The others were already at the restaurant when we arrived: my cousin, Jamie, and your best friend, Gabby, were by the doors, laughing about something on Jamie’s phone, while Jamie’s friend Ryan stood leaning against the dark windows to their left. Ryan was dressed in a plain white button-down that he had clearly spent an hour ironing and some brand new jeans and a pair of freshly polished white vans and his face. His face, I could imagine the way it dropped when he realized Jamie was coming.

“Don’t feel bad,” Jamie told me earlier that day. “He’ll feel awkward for a while and maybe he’ll hate me, but it’s fine. Hopefully he’ll leave Gabby alone after tonight.” A part of me did feel bad, though. A little. Another part of me knew that some people know how to find beautiful love, and some don’t. I spent months wanting you, remember, and I wanted you quietly. I waited, I was patient, and Ryan was like the overeager kid in the gas station. He was chasing the wrong girl, and he had to slow himself down.

The two girls working the front desk informed us they were full, but they could have a table for five ready in about twenty minutes, and isn’t that just the saddest thing you’ve ever heard? A table for five. I could almost taste the blood in Ryan’s face. After dinner, we bid our friends goodbye—Ryan practically sighed with relief once the bills were paid—and I drove you to our favorite cafe downtown. We sat in a booth, my arms around you in the corner, our bags in the other seat across the table, two chocolate milkshakes waiting on the mahogany surface.

“Jake,” you said.

“Aleta.” “I love you.” “And I love you.” “And I’ve been missing you.” I kissed your ear until you pushed me away, giggling, and I told you, “Being alone is so weird, Aleta. I always have my hands in my pockets when I’m at the store or something, and I’m so used to having them in yours.” “Aww, Jake.” “But I know I’m only without you physically. And this is growth.” We’d been spending less time with each other lately, and the time we did have was beautiful. We cherished it, because we knew it mattered now. We would both be starting university in the fall, and we would need time to focus and study, to work hard.

“Because I don’t want to enjoy you while you last, Jake. I just want to enjoy you. Forever.” “So do I, Aleta.” You sat a little straighter in the booth and held my face between your hands. “I’m really proud of us.” I held your wrists, our noses touching. “Me, too.” “We’re a lot stronger than we were a small time ago. We’re better at being apart—we’re doing things that seemed impossible a few months ago, and I feel way more ready to talk to my parents about it all. I’m still nervous about what they’ll say, and… I don’t know. I know we should’ve told them way earlier, but—” And then your mother was settling down in the cushioned seat across the table from us, the metallic sound of change in her purse, the brushing of her wool sweater as she propped her elbows on the table and clasped her hands together.

“We need to talk.” Do you remember the tulips I bought for you on your birthday, in December? I mean, everything about that is artificial—everything except for my love, of course. But tulips in December? What a fragile, short-lived gesture. You accepted them gratefully, but the tulips, of course, did not come naturally. They were either grown somewhere far away, or in a massive, corporate sized greenhouse here in Canada. In December. They were grown for the sole purpose of marketability and, as soon as they were beautiful, ready to sell, began to die.

We are like those tulips, you and I. Love has never looked so desperate as us on the 17th of July, five hours before your plane was scheduled to leave the airport and deliver you to Switzerland, forever away from me. You had family there, and your dad had found a new job overseas, and— And I doubted you. This was desperate, it was mad, and as I sat in my truck at the end of your street at five o’clock in the morning, the sun cresting the horizon, my body trembling with anticipation, I began to tell myself that you were not coming after all. Surely, you had realized how crazy this was, how much saner you’d be to just get on that plane and start your new life in Switzerland and forget about Jake Devland, the dream of a boy you lived in for a while. Your dad would start his new job in a few short days and you wouldn’t have to sleep on couches or in hotel rooms with me, and— But there you were, easing the front door shut behind you, hopping quickly and quietly down the concrete steps you’d been climbing for years, refusing to even glance at the windows you’d been gazing out of every day of your life. No looking back now.

We didn’t start driving for a while. You threw your duffel bag in the back seat and we just sat there, leant over the centre console, holding each other. I let you cry and shudder and kiss me with your wet lips, telling me you love me.

And then we left.

At six o’clock in the morning, the quarry is a dreamscape of emptiness. I have never seen a place so tranquil and pristine, so fit for the setting of not a goodbye but a tragic hello, a hello to a new beginning.

“Jake,” you say as we walk, hand in hand down the winding roads of pale sand. And then you are shuddering in my arms. “I’m scared.” “It’s okay,” I say, but maybe this was a mistake. Maybe… but no. No, because when I imagine going to sleep at night, knowing you are across the world forgetting about me, knowing I found you only to lose you, it kills me inside. I need you, and we are exactly where we are meant to be, here on the ghostly shores of paradise.

You are kissing my bare chest, my arms, and I am staring over your head at the cliffs above, where the train tracks stretch for miles in either direction. The air is still in this isolated place and the water is calm and constant, a single, seductive eye. I will be constant like that to you. I am calm and strong and it is such a wonderful feeling, to be so certain about someone. We’ve helped each other grow and I am ready to care for you, and so I know we will be okay. We are going to be something to remember, you and I.

We lay together on our towels, silent for a time with our hands intertwined, and every time we squeeze, it is like saying all of the words in our young, terrified hearts without actually saying them, like eating without eating, infusing the words into our veins through silver needles.

After some minutes, I prop myself on my elbow and bring your chin up with my two fingers, so our foreheads are together. “How do you feel?” You smirk, and until this moment I had thought smirking sadly was impossible. “I feel like a criminal,” you say, drawing pensively in the sand, and suddenly you are crying again. “I don’t know if I’m doing the right thing.” “I know,” I say, and I am wishing you’d stop crying, but I understand.

“I feel like everyone we know would say we’re stupid,” you cry. “There’s no one in my life who would respect me if they knew I was doing this.” Your skin was bronze, your hair silk, and your eyes two seas as deep and wet and clear as the open water before us as you gazed across its waveless surface. “It isn’t too late,” I say, and I am praying that you won’t make me bring you back and say goodbye to you.

You take a quivering breath and release my hands. “We both know that’s not true.” You are hugging your knees to your chest, and neither of us have a chance to say anything more before we realize that is, in fact, not too late, because there is a voice calling from the railroad tracks above.

Your body tenses as your head whips around and you gasp, “What the f—? Dad? ” On one of my last nights at home, a few days before I moved here and fell in love with you, I fell asleep at the top of the big red slide at Callander Park. I stayed there until morning, comatose, because I didn’t want to see the end of the night. I was moving away in two days and I tried to convince Harrison, who had to work early the next morning, to stay with me.

“Just drink a few coffees before your shift,” I said. “I’m moving soon, you’ll regret it if you don’t stay.” But it was just the two of us, no girls or any real excitement, just us and our drugs on the playground, and he left me there. “You sure you don’t want a ride?” “Nah, I wanna stay here a bit longer. I can walk.” So I stayed there, and I was alone when I woke up because I am always striving to make the good times last longer than they should. I’ve always had a hard time accepting that the golden moments are not meant to be forever, and that’s what got us into this mess in the first place. And this is where we end. We know this, both of us, as I hold you fiercely, your parents descending the rocky slope, bringing the awful truths of reality with them.

There are a lot of things we should have done differently, a lot of mistakes we’ve made together, but none of it matters anymore. What matters are your tears on my skin and your lips on mine as they watch, because this is the last time. “Please don’t fight them,” I say. My voice feels choked and distant. “It’s okay, Aleta.” “How can you say that?” “Because it is. It’s okay.” We could never run away. No, we were never going to make it. We are seventeen years old with a total of maybe 16 grand to our names, no plan, no jobs, no— No. I know you need a life with your family. I know you will need a wedding they can attend, one they approve of. You need guidance and safety and nights of peace where you fall asleep knowing that, yes, you are safe. Maybe you would settle for less, for me, but I no longer want that.

I want the most for you, which is why I am watching you cry from afar for the first time, something I am not used to doing because, until now, I have always been there to hold you while your tears fall.

You don’t look back, and I wait until you are over the hill before I collapse to my knees and let my own tears fall. I dig my nails into the dirt and I am shuddering, but I feel sure that we have done the right thing. We will have some time between us now, a few thousand miles, but that’s the beautiful thing about love. I need you, Aleta, and I know you need me too, and so, of course, if God appears to tell me that I have to wait five or six or a hundred years to see you again, I will hate Him for it.

But I will be here waiting.


Author's Note: Hello! This story has been a bit of a whirlwind. I just joined Reedsy two days before this is due. I wrote over two thousand words, but somehow half of it didn't save, so I has to re-write the majority of the story. It may be rushed, and it may be of poor quality, but I think I learned from this experience. Enjoy! Trigger Warnings: Minor Mentions of Alcohol abuse, subjective dialogue, etc. Lulu Stadnik, the little girl with the little bow flopping up and down in her black sea of hair. But now, little Lulu is left in the dull-lit room with her dull hair, in contrast to her bright bow and the bright lights that flickered on and off over her head. The lights flickered and blinked with a dying energy, the girls overactive mind pictured teensy little googly eyes and mouths on each tiny bulb, gasping for air, there last breaths. Until they die out. Because the Party is over, and little Lulu is left to clean up the big teenager’s mess. The girl with the dashed and freckled face, with flowing Black hair billowing downward in unorthodox spirals hugging closely to her cheekbones. Little Lulu with her lopsided jaw and stubby legs. Lulu and her puffy lips and perking ears and chipping nails. That's why Lulu was left out of the big kid party, with the 16's and 17's and even a few 20 somethings. In a house with two older siblings, Priscilla, and Derik. Ugly names, but proportional faces. Cool kids. She was a dork, a geek, for lack of a better term. But stubby legged, short, freckle faced Lulu was dull enough in the head just like her hair to think that a lack of an invitation was due to her age. Young Lulu, not freckle face, or even the U word. U g l y Someone with a house so clustered and crowded between smoky breath and parties every other night wouldn't be as lonely as little Lulu? But she was alone, left alone to clean up the big kid’s mess. Well, to say she was alone would be a fabrication of the truth, and who wants that? Ben, "Benny" Tangent, the tall, fellow freckle faced basement dweller, with bony limbs and a slanted facial shape. Shaggy blonde hair and Hazel eyes, a plain lime green polo tucked into tan khakis. He, along with Lulu, thought they were guest to the prestigious Big Kid Party, Lulu even wore a hand-me-down dress from her aunt. A murky white dress, more like a crooked weaving of rags with a thick coating of dust, and a shredded edge remaining in dangling strands. But, nonetheless, the two pals were met with a finger pointing to the basement door, exiling them to the deep depths of boredom. "The trash bag is, pretty full..." Benny bellowed across the room. He heaved a white garbage bag, packed to the absolute brim with crumbled cups, with splashes of an 'unknown liquid', shattered glass, LED Lights, and chipped edges or corners of furniture that is no more. "Pass me another one will ya?" He called. "Yeppers- lemme see... Yeesh, we've already gone through a whole box! Party must have been..." "Wild?" He pressed his foot onto the bottom of the bag, and sharply jerked the two ties of the bag upwards and pulled them into a tight bow. "Pretty much, well. The basement was fine, at least we got-ta hang for a bit, ya know?" "Yeah, where's your crazy siblings at?" He asked curiously. But Lulu simply shrugged in response, eyes darting upwards to an upper layer of LED Lights, strung in a transverse wave like pattern and held up with duct tape. She crossed her brows and pinned her fist to her hips. "Stupid tall people..." "What?" "Oh! Nothing." She glanced over at her tall friend, but little Lulu was stubborn. She extended her arms upwards and hopped, like a baby birdie who just, couldn't fly. Yet she mistook her stubbornness for persistence, a frequent delusion for the youngster, and she indeed persisted. "You need help with tha-?" Benny started, but abruptly Lulu shook her head. She furrowed her brows and stretched upwards again. The dull haired girl and her dull brain couldn't comprehend her surroundings, the obvious hints to just, give up. She refused to acknowledge the existence of chairs, scattered across the room, that she could simply prop against the wall and step atop. She neglected the existence of her friend Benny, tall Benny. Decent Benny. Benny with his blonde hair and hazel eyes, and his top test scores and his gaming victories and... "Dude, come on. Just let me-" "no-No-NO!" Lulu stomped her foot down and pursed her lip. She looked like a child, throwing a tantrum. But she wasn't a child, she knew that. She needed, to know that. The girl flung her arms upwards and hopped up and down, her fingers extending upwards and tightly clutching the air. She made a few audible squeals, her curls danced around her face violently as she gritted her teeth. Her face turned red after a few moments, a mix of frustration and embarrassment. She swung her arms up as the lights twinkled and shook above her. She leaped up, legs thrusting back and forth. “Alright…” Benny pulled a few stray locks of hair away from his eyes, tucked behind his pointy ears. He leaned down and snatched another white plastic bag from the small pile, perched against the back of a wooden chair. The bag swished as it spread apart, and he started to toss some empty party cups and pressed a couple dozen shards of glass scattered across the marble floor into a pile. His eyes darted back to Lulu, flapping her arms up and down and squirming midair. “Pfft- ya look like flappy bird.” Benny was town proclaimed, ‘King of the Arcade”. The boy could click and crank those chipping pastel buttons and levers as if it was witchcraft. At the top of all those notorious leaderboard screens, his name was plastered in white bubble font with tacky flash animations lining the edges. Little Lulu with her dull hair and dull brains had stubby little fingers that couldn’t twitch and turn like Benny’s could. Little Lulu didn’t have her name between flashing and flickering animations in bright letters. “Well- I’ve almost got it…” She murmured to herself, her face now inflated and pulsing red. Little Lulu with her short tempter, all over an insignificant strand of LED lights, dangling above her, taunting her in abstract loops and curves. Little Lulu who couldn’t even clean up after her big sibling’s party. Even though the two couldn’t clean up after themselves, and the two made it apparent not to tell Aunt Marge, meaning Lulu couldn’t tell Aunt Marge, not that she would believe her. Lulu had to clean up the mess, otherwise the crumbled cups and smashed furniture would be somehow blamed on her… and her aunt would be returning home in less than an hour. “Dude, it’s almost 7- your Aunt’s gonna be home, just go help me with the rug spill and I’ll do the LED lights later….” Benny started but was met with a piercing gaze. “No. I’m-getting these lights down…” She said with an abnormal raspy tone. Lulu had always felt equal to Benny, even though he was smarter. And looked better, even with his slanted grin and long, dangling limbs. But Benny was a fellow basement dweller, he liked wacky cartoons and having mature conversations around subject matter in books and satire and dorky little comic books and movies. But yet, Benny was taller, he had a solid 4.0 while Lulu was hanging with low C’s in most classes. “Come on, let me just…” “no-No-NO!” Lulu shouted, panting, fingers clutched into fist as she stomped up and down like a child. Her hair flung around in a spiraling whirlwind, black locks whipping her eyes and lower cheeks. She paused, realizing she was throwing a fit, like a toddler who lost her favorite toy. She wasn’t a child, not like everyone said she was, a whiney brat. After a moment, she exhaled and released the tension in her limbs, looking back to Benny with a pursed frown. She glanced up at the LED lights, but rather then try and reach them in a desperate hop, she knelt down and felt her limbs collapse to a sudden relaxed prediction. She slowly tucked her knees into her chest and pinned her back to the sandy tan painted wall. “Gee- Lu, it’s just some lights, what’s the big deal?” Benny crossed his brows, stepping over to Lulu and slid down into a crisscrossed pose. When Lulu gave no response, other than burying her cheeks in the palms of her hands. “This is, about more then, the lights, isn’t it?” “No… yes, I dunno. I guess first it was just about, not being able to reach them… but you can reach them.” “So? It’s not a big deal.” “To you maybe! Because you’re Benny! Perfect Benny!” “Wha-?” “Stupid Benny with your stupid smooth blonde hair and, and smart brain and… stupid games! And your- uh… I dunno…” Lulu felt a short flash of guilt at what she just spat out to her best friend. She switched shades from red to pale white, until she shook her head and perched her head on top her kneecaps. “I-I didn’t mean it…” “I know you didn’t.” Benny said with a slight shrug, fiddling with his foot and smacking his lips to ease the tense silence. “I, I guess I feel kinda, worthless, compared to you.” “No-No don’t say that. Were both geeks, it’s how we…” “But your like, king of geeks! Good at games! Good grades! And your stupidly perfect! Stupid Benny with his stupid… You pry have like, all the records at the Arcade! And me? I’ve got nothing… all I can do is throw myself an unwarranted pity party…” Benny tensed up, unsure of how to reply. After a few moments of a swelling silence, he exhaled slowly and pressed his lips together. “Stupid Lulu.” “Huh?” Lulu pulled her smooth black curls out of her face and crossed her brows. “Stupid Lulu! Stupid Lulu, whose always able to wake up with a smile on her face!” “That’s not an accompli- I know what you’re doing.” “And her stupid curls that she can always iron like, perfectly! And her stupid feistiness! She’s like, the best one on the debate team!” Lulu blushed, “I was kinda great last trial.” “Yeah you were! I don’t care if you struggle in school! Who cares! I mean, whoever cares, and says something about it! I’ll punch them with my, really weak arm.” He smiled, a wide, goofy smile, like one sloppily painted in bright red on an exaggerated emoji. Lulu giggled, and glanced back up at the lights, they looked less taunting, more cheerful, like gentle flickers in the plain tan room. “I’ll stay here all night until you get them down if I have to. Cause you can do it-…” “Nope.” Lulu smiled upwards at the twinkling shades of the rainbow. “Keep them there, I’ll keep them there.” She smirked and pushed herself to a standing. “Let’s clean that rug.” Benny nodded and snatched a wet rag and tossed the other to Lulu. The stared at the large ‘juice’ stain on the floor, grinning with crooked and sloppy smiles. Little Lulu, and tall Benny, with there freckled faces and goofy grins, cleaning up the imperfections of the room. And it was perfect.


In 2001, I bought a bag of magic mushrooms in Shibuya. They were legal at the time and could either be bought at designated mushroom shops with big neon mushroom advertising, or on the street where they were displayed on top of makeshift wooden tables. Stringy shriveled dry things in transparent bags for 2000 yen. I bought a bag, put the contents in my mouth and chased them down with an Asahi beer to quash the taste, then walked up the hill to a free trance party in Yoyogi park to dance with the freaks. Mushroom drapes hung off a nearby pedestrian bridge and a small pop-up bar sold tequila. In amongst all the twisted and exalted faces that danced around was a fire-sprite named Kayo. She had frizzy dyed-brown mid-length hair that glowed in the sun and a mischievous pretty face. She lay under the sound system in Cleopatran gold attire, clothes that looked like she’d made them in art college, and I couldn’t take my eyes off her. The World Cup was fast approaching and the Mayor was beginning to sweat. Hordes of drunk football tourists and foreign media would soon arrive, and the whole planet would be watching. So the Mayor decided to clean the city in order to create a good impression. He closed down the trance parties in Yoyogi Park and got rid of the rock bands that played alongside the main park road every weekend. He outlawed magic mushrooms and painted over the street art. He banished the punks, rockers, metal heads, freaks and snuffed out all the colour. The World Cup arrived and the city was clean! Sparkling new concrete everywhere, but a few smudges remained. The Mayor hadn’t gotten the cleaning brush into all the corners. One evening, a buddy and I walked through one of said smudges - an ill-lit backstreet in Kabukicho district with rats scurrying around in it, and lined with yakuza-run strip joints and fuck parlours. A ponytailed man in his 30s with cheap sunglasses and alligator skin shoes stood in the dark behind a portable wooden table and ushered us over to inspect his wares. On the table were bags of different kinds of dried mushrooms, twisted and dry cunning things, and some little bottles and vials too. After some back-and-forth with the seller about what everything did, he sold us two little pipette bottles of 2-CI for 2000 yen each which we uncapped, swallowed and washed down with beer. The 2-CI had a battery-acid taste the beer couldn’t hide and it wasn’t long before we were bent and twisted. We slithered on foot from Shinjuku to Roppongi which is quite an odd thing to do if you know the layout of the Tokyo subway. On arrival in Roppongi, we were greeted by a large swaying green wall of horribly drunk Irish football fans in heavy song standing along the stairs of the Dubliners and facing off with a line of riot police. In the middle of that impenetrable green wall was a solitary round red and white thing that bounced around at a different pace to everything else around it. It looked like a rubber ball vibrating and fragmenting. Riding the 2-CI peak we were! Ireland won that night. England did too, 3-0 against Denmark, although you would never have known it looking at that speedy red and white ball-thing which I later came to realize, once the drugs had levelled off, was a solo Dane with his face painted with the Danish flag celebrating manically amongst the Irish. The 2002 WC circus came and went. Fast forward to 2020 and the current mayor is up to the same tricks.


“A sharp inhale with pursed lips.” My father randomly said that during one of the many silences we shared. It’s how he said a beer sounded when you opened it. He had a bunch of phrases and quotes that stuck with me. “You’re not a drunk if you’ve never been genuinely dejected by the words, ‘Alcohol Free’ on a bottle of mouthwash.” “Everything is, or isn’t, Ice Cream.” “Fuck is the most versatile word in the English language.” He had a point. Verb, Noun, Adverb, Interjection, it’s like the swiss army-knife of swear words.   He’d tell stories, too. Like the time he got drunk while on leave in the Army and accidentally invaded Jordan. I can barely picture it. Two dudes, a stolen dingy, and a megaphone hurtling toward the Jordanian Coast Guard while screaming, “Give us all your pita bread!” A lot different from who I knew. Sure the man drank, but quietly.   This was the drunkest I ever saw him: a couch between him and I while the TV was blaring. Red was screaming at Blue about something neither of us cared about. He sipped on almost a full bottle of tequila that night, and a point came where he made one of those old man noises. He was only 40 or so, I’m not sure anymore, but he made the noises—the gurgle grump throat rumble noise, and stood up, but when his legs went straight, they wobbled. He tilted forward a bit, and then back. “I’m going to bed,” he said, and then he did. That was the drunkest I ever saw him.   “Don’t make me parent.” Something else he always said. Odd thing to say to your kid, but I got what he meant eventually. During one of those tedious parent teacher conferences he was told of my “test taking difficulty,” how I would hand in half blank scantrons or simply walk away in the middle of one. I thought he was upset because he was gonna have to parent. Rather, he explained how he was the same way as a kid. His head would get all fuzzy and his chest would get tight during a test or when a teacher called on him.   “It’s not a big deal,” he said. “Whenever you think your nerves are gonna get bad and you feel you gotta run, don’t be a bitch. Just say, ‘Fuck it’, and get your shit done.” That was half of his philosophy. Get your shit done, and don’t be a dick. “Don’t be a dick is second because sometimes you have to be to get your shit done,” he explained.   He’d be the first to tell you that he wasn’t good with kids. Too often he would speak to them as adults and expect them to figure it out. It’s why he wasn’t mad when he was called down to the principal’s office the next week for his ten-year-old son randomly screaming, “Fuck it!” in the back of a classroom to calm himself down. He laughed his ass off and called me an idiot, but he wasn’t mad. Fuck ups and stupidity were a part of the process. He only got mad when I lied, or was lazy. Even then, he never used his hands when his words would do. Sure, when I was being a dickhead he would slap me in the back of the head and tell me to shut up, but he never beat me, or anything like that. He did throw me into a brick wall once, but it was for pushing my baby sister so it doesn’t really count. Last time I saw him he reminded me about that. And the milk story. That was always his favorite.   I was helping him unload groceries one day, where I climbed into the truck bed to hand him bags as he walked them inside. The last two items were two, one-gallon jugs of milk. I picked up both of them thinking I was the shit and walked to the end of the truck bed. The gap between the bed and the floor was as tall as me, so I just stood there staring down, sincerely perplexed as to how I was going to descend without putting the jugs down. He watched me do half, one legged squats for a few minutes until I realized my legs weren’t long enough to reach the ground. When I finally noticed he was there, this idiot little boy looked up with the most serious face and said, “Dad. I did not think this through.”   “That’s when I knew,” he told me, “That’s when I knew you were gonna be okay.   \*\*\*   Last June I woke up with a broken hand and an anvil on my chest, crying. I rolled over and hacked what was left of my lungs, coughed until my eyes watered and when I was done, they were flooded. Part of me loved it. I thought to myself, *It’s like a weight being lifted off my shoulders*, and then I was furious at how fucking cliché that sounded so I decided to shut it down. Started off small with the classic, *Don’t be a pussy*, but then came, *Fuck, that’s a cliché too*, and then I was feeling more guilty than I already was. Small thinking failed so onto the macro. A quick little, *You have nothing to cry about*, and I was wondering why I’m not thought of as the deplorables. “They’re not sending their best,” they say, as if the best are already here. I am part of “the best.” White, middle class, educated. I have never raped, nor have I murdered, and according to Red these be the sole criteria of what makes someone a good person, as if that’s all there is to it. That’s what they see when they look at me.   I wonder what they would say if they knew part of me comes from a “shithole,” that 25% of me had the gall to slither its way into this country to study its practices and heal its citizens, mixing with what it found. Only about half of them even notice, usually along the lines of, “so what else are you,” which begets questions. Does this make me one of them? If I tell Red will they send 25% of me back? If I tell people from my 25% will they protect me? Hell, would they believe me? Or would they correct me and say I didn’t do any of that so I should just shut the fuck up? Would make sense to me if they did. 25% isn’t big enough to place in the pockets of understanding.   I don’t know how to combat that feeling. Guilty over something I have no control over, yet immensely benefit from. What should I do? Post a black square on Instagram? Retweet something else someone else said? Virtue signal to the world so I can look myself in the mirror and call myself an ally? As if it’s up to me. I’m as clueless as when I was as a child whenever a white lady would ask me if my father was actually my father. Certainty this stern-faced brown man with what they assumed to be a scared little freckled white boy was something that needed to be stopped. That’s what they saw. I looked up and saw Dad. I hate that white lady now, the sort of person who only thinks of humanity and its ails to distract her from her own... Fuck.   \*\*\*   A kiss on the cheek shouldn’t be as commonplace as it is. It should be an indicator that someone is so in love, they can’t wait to get to another’s lips. That energy is anything but. The energy of a thousand little red ants crawling over a thousand more to build a bridge, climbing one over the other, one over the other, like a spear flying in slow motion. A bright red spear of a thousand little red ants climbing on top of a thousand little red ants—a kiss on the cheek. Sometimes a hole in the wall. Or a pan thrown at your face. A burger on the floor.   I didn’t say anything to Mia at first. I did sing along to “Lovebug,” by the Jonas brothers. Quietly, of course. Didn’t want to make things worse. Just loud enough for her to laugh at how horrible I am at singing. Took an intermission when we pulled up to the drive thru so I could tell the underpaid teenager her order. No tomatoes and no onions. I had already eaten. Didn’t think I was gonna see her that night. I told her I was busy, but really I had been avoiding her for the last few days out of fear. Never made it this far with anyone else, and my head had been telling me to run. Yet, when she called, I didn’t think at all. Just brushed my teeth, sniffed my balls, drove over there, and started singing. After we got the food, I parked the car a little ways away so she could start eating. That’s what I wish happened. That she just sat there and ate the damn burger. Everything was okay until she started talking.   “Five years ago,” she said, sobbing. “Five years ago today my best friend, Emily, died in a hit and run accident. She was walking home from my house when a drunk driver hit her crossing the street and just kept on going.”   I had seen people talk about death before, but never like this. She was feeling everything she was saying as she was saying it.   “She was alive for a while, too. Just bleeding in the street alone. I should have walked her home. Or told her to stay a little longer so my dad could drive her. I didn’t think anything of it.”   I was thinking.   “Our favorite band was the Jonas Brothers,” she continued.   What the fuck was I thinking for thinking?   “Lovebug was her favorite song, actually. We had this jar in my room to save up for tickets. We were so close to making it that year, too.”   I left the car then. Told her I had to go to the bathroom. I walked back to the restaurant, where I pulled out my phone and searched, *drunk driver kills teenage girl june 2014 Santa Ana*, *santa ana hit and run dead june 2014*, *emily dead santa ana 2014*, and every other variation of it. When I got back to the car I didn’t speak right away. She didn’t either. She was too busy leading me down those streets that T.S. Eliot talked about.   “I just wish I could’ve told her—" “I don’t believe you,” I said. “I think you’re lying.” “That’s a fucked up thing to say.” “I know,” I said. “Tell me I’m wrong. Please.”   I thought I hated being wrong. I’m so stubborn that I would jokingly tell her that I’m always right and she would point out every time I was wrong. Turned into a little game we played where we would keep score, and the loser had to do something the other hated. If she had won I would have had to do something like go on a ferris wheel. If I had one I would have made her just eat the damn burger.   It was the first time I hated being right. It was the first time I saw her afraid and the first time she saw me angry. First time I broke an air conditioner vent with my fist, or took a cheeseburger out of someone’s lap and threw it on the ground, and the first time I left someone in a parking lot alone at night.   My friend got a new pair of shoes, though. He’s very religious, when he’s not fucking other men, and occasionally hangs out with other people who are very religious. I was at his house a few days later, surrounded by people whose only vices were tea and video games. They asked me if I was sleeping with anyone, had I ever done drugs, what it was like being drunk. They looked at me like I had knowledge of this secret world that they’d only seen on TV. That’s what they thought. That my life was an episode of Entourage where I could drink forever without getting drunk and fuck anyone I wanted. They didn’t understand that after one drink I would start to feel drunk. That the volume of consumption was not to reach a threshold but to maintain one. Or that, devoid of an orgasm, sex is nothing more than two uncomfortable people trying their best not to be.   Then they asked me about my hand and I told them all I remember was trying to stand on some grass next to a lake and the next thing I knew, I woke up with a broken hand and an anvil on my chest. My friend filled in the blanks.   “Mia called me, worried about you. Vanessa was busy, so I tracked you down and took you to the lake to sober up. Where you tried to fight a pole. That’s how you broke your hand. Said it was trying to fuck with you. But that was after the lake. One of the times you tried to stand up you fell back down and just sort of lied there for a bit. A duck walked up towards you and you mumbled something about it staring at you. So you snatched it with both hands and puked all over it. Its wings were flapping the vomit everywhere, all over me.” “I puked on a duck?” “You puked on a duck,” he said.   I puked on a duck.   Mia paid for his shoes to say sorry and that was that. For a while. Eventually I would ask another question. At least my friend got a new pair of shoes out of it.   \*\*\*   My mother once slapped me across the face once when I asked if she needed help doing the dishes. I’m talking a proper, Grant Theft Auto type of backhand with the rings and everything. Said I was being sarcastic. Can’t blame her. She was drunk. That wasn’t odd. The odd came from the fact that I was too young to know what sarcasm was, and once I did, it made even less sense. She always got mad when I told her she was a drunk like her mother or that if I were her father, I would have left sooner, not when I was joking. To be fair, her mom is a fucking nightmare, but I can see how that could be considered rude, now. Doesn’t mean it’s not true. It’s not like he abandoned them for poverty, no matter how much she tries to convince you otherwise. Her dad was a nightmare too, the type of guy that gets pissed off when you tell him the soup tastes like shit as he washes his fingers in it. Though, to his credit, if you’re going to abandon your wife and three children, his was a solid way. He left them on Father’s day, with his wife’s best friend, right after taking his company public. He threw twelve million at them and fucked off. Dick move, absolutely, but the man committed. I’d only like to kick him in the balls respectfully, like a President or a Priest.   When I was fourteen I didn’t do math homework for three days in a row and she told me, “I give up. I’m just waiting for you to die now.” I didn’t bring it up for years, until one day she was giving me shit for ditching school. “I thought you were just waiting for me die?” I said so she kicked me out of the house. Didn’t really make a difference to me. I was halfway moved out as is, so I never looked back. Already had a key, a toothbrush, and a parking spot at a friend’s apartment. Officially, it was just him and his mom, Lisa, that lived there. Unofficially, there were about nine to ten different people coming and going out of that place. Immediate friend group along with whomever we thought we loved at the time.   Lisa let us get away with murder in that place, but that’s not why I loved her. There were plenty of other reasons. Hands down, makes the best cookies in the world. She used to make these caramel, snickerdoodle shits and they’re better than comfortable sex. Me and her ate a whole tray of those once watching the Bravo channel and those shitty Lifetime movies. Lisa made you feel like being there was what you were supposed to be doing, which made me feel guilty for taking advantage of that whenever I could. Especially since her son treated her like shit. Never cleaned up after himself, constantly asked her for money when she was barely affording rent, blamed her for the divorce. It pissed me off to no end. I tried cleaning whenever I could, or tackling the seemingly endless mountain of dishes. But if I’m being honest, I did more harm to that place than help. I could’ve done more. Chipped in for groceries, maybe. Hell I was there so much I probably should have paid rent. Fuck, I miss her.   When I showed up at her house with a garbage bag full of clothes all she asked me was if I knew how to open a bottle of wine. I told her I taught myself how to when I was a six so I could empty it into the sink after my mother passed out. Told her how it never made sense to me, how they got that cork in there yet no one can ever get it back in, the foil around it all. I didn’t understand why they made it so difficult to get to. I didn’t understand a lot of things back then. Why the couch cushions got flipped around a lot. Why some nights Mom was quiet and stable and others she was loud and clumsy. Just thought she was unlucky. Always spilling and dropping everything. It made sense to pour it out. Save the couch, a ton of would be shattered glass and ceramic, and make it quiet again so the refs could hear us during Lakers games. It didn’t take her long to figure out it was me and not just her drinking more than she thought she had. I told Lisa how I learned not to do that again and that’s when I stopped watching Lakers games. I told Lisa everything. Slapping for sarcasm, pans thrown at my head, and waiting to die, but she didn’t hug me. She hugged me the first time I met her but not then. She didn’t tell me she was sorry to hear that because she had heard that too many times about her ex. She didn’t do anything that normal people would do.   “Why are you friends with these guys, my son,” she said. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but you don’t exactly fit in.” That’s the kindest thing anyone has ever told me.   \*\*\*   For seventeen years I looked out my window and stared at a bench tucked away in the backyard, pressed against a fence I shared with a neighbor I never knew. Its back legs rested on a pile of rocks that were lower than the cement the front legs rested on. It tilted upward towards the sun over the years and the wood lost its color. What was once a strong, hickory brown became an ashy grey, dry to the touch, covered in cracks and splinters. It withered for years as I stared at it. That decrepit, ashy grey, splintery bench.   I got sick of looking at the fucking thing, so about a year before I broke my hand I dragged it out from the rocks away from my window to the center of the yard. I took sandpaper that I found in the garage, different grains and colors and sizes, some full sheets, others oddly shaped scraps leftover from when they were cut. I took all of them and I started grinding away, not realizing just how much work sanding a bench is by hand. After about an hour of me sanding the same spot over and over again, Dad peeked his head out from the side yard and I was ready to go. The man always had a way of doing things that rendered everyone else’s entirely wrong. I was ready to tell him to fuck off and leave me alone, but then he left. Returned a few minutes with a mask, a yellow can, a blue tarp, a paint brush, and a paddle with a razor on the end of it.   “Step back,” he said. The smell of whatever was in that can nearly knocked me on my ass. It was still burning my nostrils even after the thirty minutes he told me to wait. I took the paddle and sliced off the wet, ashy grey strips with ease, and they fell down to the blue tarp. By the time I was done Mom had shown up with sheets of fresh sandpaper and a bucket of varnish.   I spent the rest of the weekend sanding. Every time I took a breath, I would choke on dust. I went over every plank and corner twice, revealing a swirl of colors—yellow, red, brown, orange—all mixed together and breathing comfortably. When I was finished that bench was smoother than anything. No cracks, no splinters, no ash. Like if Don Draper, Shaft, and the Dos Equis guy all had a baby that somehow didn’t get the misogyny gene, type of smooth. I was proud, and didn’t bother hiding it. Thought I found something I was finally good at, too. Mom was excited because it would be nice enough to be put in the front yard again and Dad liked the fact his son had done something without being told.   Mia didn’t give a shit. Told me it would have been more impressive if I built it. I loved her as soon as she said that. We were both dating other people at the time. Her a nice boy who opened doors and asked her how she felt. Me, someone who tried her absolute best to support me in every way imaginable. It was a horribly boring time. They were both good people, but Mia and I had common interests. Like fucking each other in the bathroom while our respective partners are downstairs, rejoining the party and pretending that nothing happened. Watching her come up with excuses on the spot and her swallowing Plan B an hour later are the two sexiest things I have ever seen. We lasted longer than I thought it would. The lying and the sneaking around lost its appeal and we each did the mature thing. Broke up with our partners and lied to them about why.   Then it was just us two. It stopped being exciting and started getting serious. That bench was where I told her we should stop. That we were doomed to end in a big, beautiful, angry way. A burger on the floor and her alone in a parking lot. She didn’t agree. Told me it was fate. Talked about time being dead and sound freezing when my lips were pressed against hers. How we could say things to each other on this bench that no one else could hear.   “People who die skydiving,” she would say, “kinda have it coming.” “My favorite thing,” I said, “is watching a kid eat shit on a skateboard.”   Everything we said was met with enthusiasm and relief, and slowly but surely the little red ants climbed. A bright red spear of a thousand little red ants climbing on top of a thousand little red ants—I missed and kissed her on the cheek.   \*\*\*   I think about that bench all the time, now that I have the time. The guy behind the glass at the gas station was excited to see me because he hadn’t since last June. He told me how crazy it all is, asked if I still had my job, blah blah blah. I wasn’t listening, really. Kind of hard to hear behind the masks. As loud as the world is to us, we are more muffled to each other than ever before.   Nothing registered until he said, “I don’t know when this is gonna end,” like a sack of potatoes. He added a sincere “stay safe,” and I gave him a nod then walked away. Couldn’t even dignify the man with a response. I stared down at the pack of cigarettes and thought that if this was a movie, I would throw them away. One of those people that you see on a daily basis but never bother to ask anything else, the man who pours your coffee, the woman who takes your order. One of those familiar strangers shows me compassion and my character would decide to be someone else because he realized we can still connect with people, even if it is from six feet away. I haven’t decided who I want to be yet.   I find myself thinking about Dad more. Mainly about all the funny little quotes he would’ve made, what he would’ve thought of everything. I like to think Mother Nature got sick of us screaming at each other so she put everyone in time-out. Gave us all something to share again. I think about Mia too, about how fucked up it would be if the hospital made a person like her work through this shit. Her asthma hasn’t been a problem for a while, but still, I can’t help but think the worst. Speaking of which, I hope Mom is okay too. Haven’t called her since it all started. I made sure she stocked up on all the essentials and my sister drops off groceries weekly, armored in makeshift masks and gloves she stole from the restaurant where she works. I wonder what that bench looks like now, too.   Then another day comes and I’m glad my father’s dead. He would’ve gone stir crazy, anyways. I’ll think that Mother Nature wants to tear us apart for good. I’ll text Mia but only to ask if she’s still alive. She tries to tell me about how the hospital let her go so her and Pops are barely hanging on. I want to give a shit but I also don’t know if she’s telling the truth. “Just don’t die,” I tell her. My mother, on the other hand, can go ahead and croak. Better just to rip the band-aid off now and get it over with. Then I could finally go back and get rid of that goddamn bench. I’m not sure. I notice myself going back and forth and I hate it.   I notice the backwardness of a cruel April and a warm winter, as I flip through the notes and read the likes of Baudelaire and Marvell, Dante, of pearl eyes and the lyrics of love. *Perfer et obdura, dolor hic tibi proderit olim*, he tells me. But how can I have patience as the ground splits beneath my feet? As I go back and forth? I do not want to be screaming across a chasm, nor drown between two, or forget the other existed. I want one foot in four facets like I’m a monument. I want the TV to shut off and flood with Purple, for the ones and zeros to go fuck themselves so we can write eight billion new algorithms for eight billion new people. I want to be a son, a lover, a craftsman, a friend, and a dishwasher. I want words like “ally” and “woke” to become obsolete so words like “Me Too” and “Mass Shooting” can surprise me again. I want this to not sound as ridiculous as it does. I want to care enough to do more than just notice things.   Instead, I open another one. A sharp inhale with pursed lips slices the air and I think to myself, that when I woke up last June, with a broken hand and an anvil on my chest, I should’ve taken a bat to that fucking bench, instead of running and kissing her on the cheek. I wish I could feel the sawdust and planks slapping me across the face as I stare down at the ashy grey pile of splinters and cracks, so I’ll never have to wake up and think of this shit ever again.


*Note: I transcribed this from an audio recording someone made on their phone. Video doesn't exist on the website.* //transcript// Good afternoon. My name is Roland Myr. I’m an aerospace engineer, soon-to-be former employee of NASA, and welcome to my TED Talk, *Success in Science: Space Careers*. Except— I'm not gonna talk about that. What I’m about to do instead is turn off my phone [garbled] *so they can’t explode my fucking brain*, and talk to you about aliens. [whispers] And not just aliens. Alien invasion. [gasps] No, don’t worry. It’s not going to happen... There’s one simple reason— (No, that’s OK. You can walk out. We’ll see who’s “fucking crazy”.) —for that: It’s already happened. They’re already fucking here. (Go ahead. Record me. That’s the way this message gets out. What, you think they’ll keep this on the TEd Talks List?) Tell me: you ever notice, sometimes, subtle movements—out of the corner of your eye? Movements *where nothing is*. That's them. That's the peripherals. They exist on the edge of our sensations. Not just sight, but hearing—that ringing in your ears in dead silence; and touch—the chill on your skin when the air is still and warm, and the windows are all closed; and smell—that hideous burning scent clinging to your nostrils… We all sense them. They hide, but imperfectly. (How am I not real? *I'm right here!* You can't Google me because they're scrubbing me off the internet.) I don't know how long they've been here. Twenty years. Thirty. They're what's raising the Earth's temperature. They emit heat. Multiply. Do you smell the burning now? The trick is not to focus on it. [commotion] They exist on the periphery of knowledge too, of consciousness. (I *am* awake. Are you?) Question: Do you have trouble concentrating? Lose interest quickly? Does your attention drift? We used to read books. *As a species, we read fucking books.* Now we can barely follow a headline. You came here to listen to a lecture— No! You came to consume a fucking soundbite. Wanna blame social media? Think YouTube has somehow gutted your mind? It's—them! They're siphoning off your concentration, your attention span. Distributed-goddamn-cognition. *You're thinking for them.* (None of us have a future. That's the point!) Your focus is shrinking. Your peripheries are expanding. They feast. Humans used to have a wider range. ("Of what?") Of everything! Sight, hearing. (What do *you* see? Your fucking phone screen.) All you hear is bass. *Thump-thump-thump.* They're remaking you to colonise you. They want you to specialise—to narrow your focus so they can expand their environment. You're letting them. (You think this is funny? It amuses you, you cockroach?) You're letting them take us over! [music] The invasion isn't happening! It's already happened! They're already here! ["We are experiencing technical difficulties. The presentation is temporarily suspended—"] (Suspended? You wanna suspend something—) Get your dirty hands off me! (—suspend your fucking disbelief!) ["—and will resume shortly. We thank you for your patience.


“What is the color of your soul?” — Hh…?! A voice called to him. He turned his head toward it, yet a sharp nothingness filled the room once more; a deep quiet, a silence almost cold. In the quiet, he sat there, at his desk, head looking as if to somewhere far away, as he waited for the voice once more— for that clear, bright, melodious voice of a young girl; so clear, so beautiful, it was almost sad… But no matter how long he waited in the silence— her voice resounded no more… He was alone in the classroom, sitting at the only desk in the middle of the room; wearing his black, junior high-school uniform, his hair slightly unkempt. There was nothing else in the classroom, it was all empty— the blackboard clean, yet seeming dusty; the boards clear, without a note or anything pasted on it; and every desk and chair except his vanished from the floor, including the teacher’s desk in front. It was just him, and him alone— and there, his head turned to his left, gazed upward… The cold sun glowing pale over him— he stayed there. Waiting… “Um, Morita…?” “… Hm? ” A voice called him. A different voice. It was softer, with an air of shyness curled into her little chest; and, just hearing it… it filled him with a sense of warmth, a sense of closeness and comfort, of familiarity… His vision flickered— as if rippling blue— as a blue butterfly crossed his sight… But just then— “Morita?” She called again. “ Huh? ” He’d just woken up… Glancing around, he saw that the desks and chairs had all returned, lined up in fine rows, front to back; the teacher’s desk was in front, and gathering near it was a group of girl, laughing, gossiping— as the sun, a deep, warm orange and gold, colored the room even through the still curtains… “Ah, Morita. You’re awake.” As if just noticing her, he turned to her— but, looking up at her; he couldn’t see her face… It was as if it were just too dark… as a shadow hung over her features… He tried concentrating, but her features remained hidden; the girls in front were the same… All he could see were their lips… Just then, the girl in front of her parted her lips and spoke, “It’s late. Come on, let’s go home.” And, with just that, she turned away and walked toward the door. Blinking, shaking his head— he stood up from his seat and grabbed his bag. Then, pushing his chair in, he went after her out the door… Had he been dreaming…? He wondered so, yet couldn’t find an answer. He simply didn’t know. He tried going through his memories— yet his mind was blank; it’s as if the concept of ‘memories’ itself had ceased to exist— no, it’s as if the concept had simply never existed in the first place… He didn’t know what happened before, nor did he know anything else. All he knew was that his name’s Morita… Even then, it was because that girl had called him so; though he didn’t know her or who she is… The furthest extent of his knowledge of her was that she knew his name, and that’s it; besides that, he could only assume that she was a shy person from the sound of her voice… Just then— her voice returned to him… And, at once, he remembered her words and froze in his steps as it sounded through his mind once more. What is the color of your soul…? In his mind, it sounded blurrier, sounding as if muffled in the folds of his ‘memory.’ But one thing that truly came through was that feeling… It was as if some distant bell had sounded— its weight reverberating in the air, feeling like a cold wave sending shudders up his back… Even now, he could still feel it even in his feet… The moving, soul-bending effect of her voice… resounding, like metal, of emotion… Of feeling… “Morita?” “Ah-” Returning to reality, he looked up and saw her standing there, meters away from him, turned toward him… founding him there, frozen still… “Come on.” “Ahh… yeah…” Feeling a cold sigh escape his chest, he shook his head and went on after her. Walking behind her, he couldn’t help but gaze at her back— at the movement and gentle sway of her black hair, left and right, as she walked; at the hem of her skirt, quietly tinged in the soft glow of the sun; and at the quiet, little sway of her hips to every step. Somehow, here, painted against the light, against the unknown— she felt moving, as if just looking at her were enough to sway his heart… It was, in a way, like watching a strip of film move through a projector, seeing each still frame move into the light; he didn’t know what the film looked like and he wouldn’t know unless he looked up to the screen, and yet he kept looking on at the moving pictures speeding through, frame after frame, as if he were bound in its spell and mystery, in its movement. And, somehow, he liked it that way… It was like watching the world move round… Still, he didn’t know who this girl was— her name, her person, her family: nothing, he still didn’t know a thing. And yet, even so, he was looking at her— looking as if, just by observing her alone, he would soon, somehow, piece together the whole of who she was… But just then, in a blink— she turned a faint, scarlet red… And disappeared into the light… And before he knew it— — Hh-?? He was back in that class; everything empty, everything quiet… And somehow, he felt as if he had lost a part of himself somewhere in a distant world he didn’t know nor could reach… What happened…? Had it all been just a dream…? Eyes blank, unfocused— he seemed to be about to pass out, as his skin, quickly, turned pale… But just then, he hears that voice once more… “ What is the color of your soul…? ” His vision blurred and faded— everything turning blue; along with his pupils… A bright, azure blue… But at that very moment— everything turned black… as a distant sound pierced his mind… Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiing——!!!! “ Hh—?!? ” Waking up, Morita found himself in bed, cold sweat all over his forehead, as he hid his face in his palm and shook his head…