"Why did you give Gertrude the Baker a bat as a familiar?" Esmeralda asked, placing her pointed hat on her desk and leaning back in her chair. Her silvery curls spilled out, framing her sharply featured face. I shrugged and gave her my winning smile. "It was her arms," I said. "They were the flabbiest I'd ever seen and she wouldn't stop waving them around and shrieking in excitement. Boom. Bat familiar, perfect match." A column of swirling smoke rose from her pipe as she held it between her teeth. "It seems you didn't think about the fact that she is in the free-range child business, did you?" She said. "With that giant bat flopping all around it's scaring the kids away. She's only been able to lure two kids into her shack since then and they've been goth kids. Do you know how much extra work they require to prepare, removing all the piercings and so on?" "I'm sorry Miss Esmeralda," I murmured. "Next time I'll consider a puppy, or a predatory balloon." "By Hecate, I swear!" she replied, sparks flying from her pipe to mirror her frustration. "Puppies turn to slavering dogs, Float-a-chokes would eat her supply of brats. Last month you give nearly blind sorcerer a snake as a companion. He mistook it for his wand and got bit a week later." "Everyone makes mistakes," I said. "He had a problem with rats eating his potion ingredients. I thought it would help." " He died , Oswald," she snapped. "Familiars and Friends has been in business for over a thousand years, and this is the first time we've ever been sued. If I lose the company my grandfather founded, I'll banish you to one of Neptune's moons, I swear it! Now go clean the kennels before the next client comes in." I lowered my gaze and slunk out of her office. Okay, so maybe

some  of my matches have resulted in fires, businesses going under, and the occasional death - they all seemed like good ideas at the time. Perhaps they would have been better matches if it were not for the familiars being used in spells and their dark workings. They were seen as tools, little more. Maybe if they spent the time to become friends and communicate, things would turn out a little differently. Maybe that entire suburb wouldn't have been shifted into another dimension. With bucket and mop in hand I made my way through the stone and mortar halls, scrubbing down the pens and taking ample time to scratch a black cat behind the ears and dispense treats to the otherwise squirmy and neglected sorts. Through my patrols and scouring I finally came across a large door - the largest and heaviest of the lot. Runes of warning were carved into it, flashing red, and four massive locks kept it held shut. Even the faded streaks of blood and desperate claw marks pulling into it would frighten off most. But I couldn't help but smile as I entered, and before I could even put my keys away I was met with a deep and thunderous snarl like the coming of a great storm, a snarl that seemed to echo with the dark and ominous incantations. "Muckle!" I said throwing my arms wide. "Good to see you too!" The hellbeast crouched in the corner of the room, with a coat as black as coal and a single eye on the right side that smoldered red like the heart of flame itself. The other eye had been lost when he had eaten his first handler, and the next few didn't last so well either. But he and I always seemed to get along well enough. Cleaning up after Muckle, however, was about as easy as you would expect for a ravenous, strictly carnivorous, dog almost as large as a horse. He came to Familiars and Friends when he was just a puppy, and was thought to be some street mutt. It wasn't until he made a meal of Jasper the Beastmaster that they became suspicious of his true nature. Strangely enough, the scent of sulfur didn't give him away sooner. Muckle picked up a gnawed fragment of a ribcage and plodded over to me and dropped his offering at my feet, unleashing a gale of fetid breath as he tried to lick me. "Who didja bring me here," I asked. "Is that a bit of... old Samuel? How sweet of you, sharing with me." I gave him a good scratch behind the ears and rested my head against his muzzle. He was a gentle enough spirit once you got to know him, and put aside his history of devouring those who displeased him - and my love for him wasn't feigned. I think he knew it, too, with affectionate snarling and snapping when I drew near. I felt like he understood me, almost as much as I understood him. A sudden crackling filled the air, and a nasally voice spilled from the wooden speaker in the corner of the room. "Oswald, a new client has entered admissions," said Janice the secretary. "I'll be back soon," I said to muckle, giving him a pat on the snout before rushing out the door. I stashed my mop and bucket in the closest and paused by the window which opened into a room enchanted to look like a meadow where our bunnies hopped joyfully. We in the business called it the rabbitat. Okay, maybe only I called it that, but I couldn't deny my own cleverness. I focused more on my reflection in the window and made myself presentable before rushing off towards the entrance. I staggered in, winded, and finding a young lady sitting at the table. She seemed lost in her thoughts, absently twirling a lock of her long, saphire hair around her fingers. "Pleasure to meet you," I said, introducing myself. She stood and gave a faint curtsy, keeping her eyes down. "My name is Misty," he spoke softly. "I'm hoping you can help me find a proper familiar." "Tell me what it is that you do, and we'll find you what you need!" I said in my usual spiel. "well, I am an apprentice botanist, I spend a lot of time outdoors to find ingredients for potions for my masters," she said. "Anything that could help would be nice." I tapped by finger to my chin and nodded a few times as ideas flitted about my head like moths hypnotized by a lamp. "Well then," I said confident in my conclusions - as I always was. "Let's go on and find you a familiar!" I led Misty through the warrens and introduced her to a number of our more outdoorsy and mild familiars. "Meet Sir Stetchen! He's covered in dangerous needles, can burrow, and loves nature," I said, holding out a small hedgehog in cupped hands. "This one was bred for the spines to be venomous!" Her eyes soften and a faint smile pulled at her lips, which was the most of a reaction that I had gotten from her. I had thought for sure that the swarm of carnivorous butterflies would have been a good match - clearing away any insects from the herbs she thought, as well as handling any ungentlemanly gentlemen or enemies she may have earned. But instead, she sighed and moved along. If Sir Stetchen could get a reaction, however, maybe one of the other rodents could catch her attention. "How do you feel about... Bunnies?" I asked. Part of me felt as though it would be a poor choice, considering they might eat the plants she sought but surely he wouldn't be responsible for burning down a library this time. Damn, bunnies were too flammable for such little things, and some warlocks used far too many candles in their rituals. Misty shrugged. "It wouldn't hurt to meet them." "Excellent," I said as I lead her down the hall I had been cleaning earlier. "Maestro Llipa can turn into multiple rabbits when frightened, but always pulls back together after a few moments. Great amusement, but the cleanup can... can." I found the words knotting up in my throat as my eyes traced the pawprints that were sunk into the stone, leading to the splintered door that led into the rabbit. I looked through the window to find Muckle sitting there among the illusionary daisies, a tatter of white fluff hanging from his mouth, a contrast of his ebon coat. He let out one of his snarls and the glass of the window rattled and quaked as if it could break at any moment. "Let's ah... go back over there shall we?" I said with concerned joviality, but Misty stood planted firmly at the window. "He's... perfect," she said, her amber eyes growing wide. "I would have never guessed you to have a black shuck in your possession, considering... well, you know." I nodded knowingly because I did indeed know. I knew better than old Samuel and so many others who met their fate in Muckle's maw. Misty turned to me, brimming with excitement. It was the most emotion she had shown since they had met. "Bring the paperwork," she said, then crooked a beckoning finger towards Muckle, who bounded out of the door with such force that he slammed against the opposing wall, which brought a bright peal of laughter from Misty. "Come with me," I said, swallowing hard as I led them back towards the office. My quill swung back and forth, sending little flecks of black ink all hither and thither as I nervously eyed Muckle who had resigned himself to sitting in the corner, growling and staring straight ahead with his glaring red eye as he typically did in his kennel. He always seemed to favor corners. "Alright," I said as I pushed the vellum forward. "Sign and date here, here and... initials here... rune of binding and drop of blood there... Alright, by the power vested in me by Zavrael the Bitter Lord, I pronounce you Witch and Familiar." Misty craned her head back and beamed a smile at Muckle, who let out a snarl that would curdle milk. I could have warned her about that, maybe it would have changed her mind. But with my luck, it would turn out that she preferred her milk curdled, or devils forbid, was lactose intolerant. I didn't know if my sadness was because I knew that she was inevitably going to be eaten by the beast, or because Muckle was leaving. I had watched him grow from a small sulfurous whelp to the magnificent young shuck that he was now. Mop, feed, scoop the poop, mop, repeat. Unfortunately, none of the furry friends - or their poops - were as interesting as my dear friend. It felt like just yesterday he spilled out of the crate filled with straw and a deer carcass. The smell never quite improved, but our bond flourished. The familiar sound of static filled the air, and I picked up the bucket in preparation to head to admissions. But instead of Janice expected droning, Esmerelda's voice boomed overhead, taking me off guard. "Oswald to my office -

NOW !" I dropped my bucket in a strike of fear, and slowly made my way up the stairs, dread boiling in my guts like a cauldron full of poison. Esmerelda sat at her desk, pipe held so tightly in her teeth it seemed like she would bite through it as she sat blowing a column of sparkling red smoke. "The demon-damned

Black Shuck ?!" She snapped through her clenched teeth. "I thought that I had that thing put to sleep. You thought it was a brilliant idea to sign it off as a familiar? You're more of a fool than I thought." "She was fully aware of what Muckle is," I said defiantly. "He seemed to take quite a liking to her." Esmeralda rolled her eyes. "Of course he did. He was trying to get her guard down so he could eat her, no doubt!" I wrung my hands and furtively looked around her desk for a report. "Did he eat her?" I asked, not finding any such indication that he had. "Not yet, but it's only a matter of time! We'll have to close our doors for good when it happens." She reached into her desk and slammed a small bag of coins on the table with such force that a few bounced free and rolled across the floor. "Take this, it's your last pay. Get out of here before you do any more damage." I stared at the coin purse, taken by chill despite the warmth of my blushing cheeks. I had never felt so shamed, failing despite my best efforts. Everything felt I did felt like the right thing to do. Unable to find the proper words, I took my pay and tried to not look too pitiful as I reached for the escaped coins and left. She was right. It was a bad decision to sign Muckle up as a familiar. I walked the busy streets, bundles of parchments detailing my history and talents tucked under my arm. It was difficult to find work in the line of matchmaking and beast tending. Even more so when you left a swath of destruction in your wake. Screams roused me from my grousing, and I looked up to see a crowd of frantic faces as the people charged towards me with little disregard for the fact that they knocked me square on my back. Before I could even right myself, a massive presence bounded upon me. It's sharply clawed paws pinned my shoulders down and all I could see was a great maw of dagger like fangs opening before me. Sulfurous breath choked me, and I was fairly certain I could see the decaying remnants of a hand in the back of its throat. I always knew my death would involve getting eaten by a beast or monster, but I always suspected it would be in the line of duty, not being ripped apart in the streets. But the maw of fangs did not close around me. I craned my head around to see a solitary red eye glaring at me menacingly. "Muckle?" I asked incredulously. "Is that really you?" The beast let out a strange snarl that echoed with thunder and familiar incantations. I laughed and reached up to run my fingers through his coarse black fur. "It's lovely to see you, too!" "Sir? Sir, are you still alive?" asked a young woman running up to where I lay pinned. "Oh, I know you, you're the gentleman who helped me meet Muckle!" "Naturally," I said, beaming a smile at Misty who extended her hand to help me onto my feet. "He's been better at going after people, but I knew something was important when he bounded through the streets towards you. He didn't even stop to torment the children as he loves to do," She gave Muckle a pat on the back and returned my smile. "I can't thank you enough. With him as my familiar, I've gone about a change career." "I fear that has culminated in quite the same for me," I replied offhand. "But it brings me joy that he is helping you." Muckle let out a snarl and nuzzled Misty. "I've come to think of him more as my emotional support monster than a familiar," she said. "And then it made me realize, why don't I start a home for misplaced monsters and those who need them?" I looked at the two of them, Muckle seeming happier than I'd ever known, and Misty who moved and spoke with a newfound passion, rather than the haunting distance she kept before. "The only thing is that they tend to frighten and scare people away. It's been rather hard finding good help," she continued. My eyes grew wide and I looked around for my resume, finding a copy on the ground I lifted it up. It had gotten sullied and a little worse for wear from Muckle's tackle. However, it bore his pawprint in the middle. I handed the parchment to Misty, who chuckled. "It looks like you have quite the mark of recommendation," she said with a twinkle in her amber eyes. "Let's get started, I have some unhatched terrorantula eggs that will need a lot of care patience - and a loving parent once they hatch."


The clock on the mantel struck 4:50 A.M. His eyes fixated on the clock as he clenched his blood soaked chest. Frantically he begins to scan the oddly disheveled room. He started leaving bloodied fingerprints against the hall wall leading out of the entrance way. "Not again," the man muttered. He began to slowly shuffle his feet. There's no sign of his wife, or children. The house is eerily quiet, and seemingly empty. A loud clicking could be heard pacing the wooden floors. Click. Click. Click. Click. Holding his breath he slowly makes his way through the first floor of the two story farmhouse. In the kitchen broken glass is strewn about, cabinet doors are partially ajar, and the open fridge was slightly scooted forward. "What on God's green Earth is happening," the panicked man began to scream as he collapsed on the bottom step of the main stairway. All of a sudden there was a violent shaking of the ground beneath his feet. Everything started clinging, and clattering as it was being strewn about. The clicking was becoming faster and louder as it rushed towards him. Without warning there was a tiny blood soaked canine that appeared in the doorway. "Oh, my goodness you poor thing," he sputtered as he picked up the dog to examine it. It wasn't seriously injured. There were some tiny cuts and scrapes, but otherwise he was unscathed. The man plopped the tiny creature back onto the floor. "Honey?! Kids? Is anyone home?," the man called out. The dog began barking uncontrollably. He petted his head and started speaking to it as though it were human. The dog would shuffle about and walk in a complete circle. It was obviously as distressed as the man appeared to be. The clock on the mantel once again made a loud clanging noise. It sounded as if there was metal banging against the wooden frame. He rushed to the clock only to find to his horror that the hands on the clock were missing. The distraught man managed to make his way upstairs only to find his own body slumped over on a desk in a nearby room. "No. No. No. No. Please, no," he sputtered as he made his way over to his body. There was a knife protruding from his chest as he examined his own body. Beneath him was a bloodied note that read 'Times Up' in bold print. With a sudden jolt he felt as if he was being sucked back into his own body. Waking up soaked in sweat he began feeling his chest. He frantically reached for the alarm clock on a nearby nightstand. The clock hands had completely disappeared, and blood began dripping down the face of the clock. Screaming he swats at the alarm clock. He had then woken from a nightmare within a nightmare. He noticed a pain in his hand realising he had swatted his clock in real life as well as his dream. There were subtle purplish bruises, but nothing major. "Honey, when you get time can you fix the clock on the mantle. I think it's broken," his wife yelled from downstairs. The man got up and got dressed. Then made his way down the stairs and into the entryway. He glared at the clock. His heart started to beat faster, and he felt as if his stomach was doing flips. One of the clock hands had been dislodged. The second hang loosely down over the 6. His wife rushed his two daughters out of the door quickly. They were running late for school this morning and missed the bus. Their mom was to drop them off before work. She slammed the door behind her. By doing so she jostled the second hand loose. There were now no hands on the clock. The man began to panic. He flipped the clock face down before grabbing his wallet and keys. The door locked shut behind him as he made his way to his vehicle. The man turned just turned on the radio when all of a sudden the radio started rapidly flipping through channels on its on. The clock on radio went from 7:30 A.M to 6:30 A.M and kept counting down. There was a loud static noise that pierced the air. The radio began flashing, but all it was showing was 30. He kept fumbling with the radio as he drove down the highway towards work. While stopping briefly at the stop light he noticed that the car was now acting more peculiar. The blinker kept clicking and the wipers would come on. He looked to his left only to see a giant clock displayed on the front of a building. There we no hands. He suddenly began to panic as he continued to creep near the building. There was a slight traffic jam leaving his stuck face to face with the handless clock. There was a loud cracking sound as the facing of the building crumbled. The clock slowly loosened and fell to the ground bellow. It rolled out towards traffic. People began panicking and retreating from their vehicles. The man tried to open his door but the door handle broke. That is when he franticly began to kick the drivers side window. He heard a loud beeping. Distracted he looked down to the floorboard and lying there was a broken watch. It's hands had been jostled free and it's glass cracked. There was a loud whooshing noise that made him look up abruptly, but by then it was too late. The giant clock ornament had crushed his vehicle with him trapped inside. Rescue workers arrived on scene and desperately began trying to free him. Unfortunately, the efforts were futile as the found the man split in half. One worker rushed to the side to hurl. The other stared in disbelief. That is when he heard a loud ticking noise. That is when the rescue worker discovered the broken watch clasped in the man's bloody hand. Tick Tock. Tick Tock. Tick. Tick. Tick. Tock.


People go missing whenever Dad’s around. I can’t explain it. They just disappear. Mum disappeared. Greg disappeared. And now Stephanie has disappeared. \*\*\* What’s the latest caper? I’ve not been out of prison one week and I am sitting in the back of his car and he’s handing me an envelope with a map inside. It’s one of those safe storage centres. There’s a few brands around: **Big Yellow Storage** – the print out said. He tells me that he knows someone that made off with all these precious First Edition Books in a murder/house-robbery and he’s got them stored in one of those big storage centres. “Books?” I say, “you can’t even read.” Never learned how to read. Never saw the need to. That’s why I was holding the map to the storage centre. “Someone tells me you get these books, they’re classics, almost 90 years old. They sell for about twenty thousand pounds a copy – that’s one book. You know Deacon? He managed to get inside a bookseller’s house. Made off with all these precious books. Only thing is, he’s kept them in a storage centre because there’s too much heat on it at the moment. Dumb fuck gave me the information before he went inside.” Deacon’s another sadist. Been put away fifteen to life because he set a pub landlord on fire. So, we planned a heist for some books. I got Stephanie involved. Asked her to drive the getaway car that’s going to be parked round the back. Dad doesn’t attend the actual robbery. He just demanded 40% because it was his idea and he’s waiting back at the apartment for us. It’s me and Greg. Ski-masks, Kevlar and hunting rifles (traditionally used for clay pigeon shooting). We asked the guy behind the till for the number and keys to Deacon’s storage unit. Only thing is that the guy played dumb. Said he doesn’t know any Deacon McGregor. I didn’t expect it but Greg pulls out a pair of garden shears and cuts his index finger off. Finger falls on the front desk and bobbles to the ground. It worked: **Deacon McGregor – UNIT #75.** When we get in the unit there’s all kinds of shit from previous heists. There’s gym equipment, watches, books and there in a leather bound case – a stone. A diamond stone. A stone about the size of a Clementine. Greg didn’t notice it. I did. Greg doesn’t notice anything. “Fuck the watches and shit. Just take the books.” I said. I don’t tell him about the stone and I slowly slip that shit in my pocket. I feel the hard bounce off the cloth of my trousers. We come out of there with a suitcase full of books. First editions. Dad has a buyer. Guy will pay £50,000 cash for the bulk of them. He initially said it’s twenty per book and now we are selling all for fifty. But he tells me what with the heat and the fact it’s cash up front it’s not a bad deal and we got to just take what we can (criminal economy and all). As we come back down the stairs we see the guy at reception – still bound and gagged. Only this time he’s dead. Didn’t expect it at all but his finger bled out and his body must’ve gone into shock. He’s white as fuck and still as a dollhouse. I gave him a kick – more of a nudge. Then I gave him a hard boot. He’s dead. “You killed him.” I told Greg. “Fuck.” He said. “You’ve turned simple larceny into a murder.” I said. “Fucking heat.” He said. “Everything turns into a fucking murder.” I said. Back at the apartment. I only told Stephanie about the diamond. I don’t tell Dad. I don’t tell Greg. I tell Stephanie because I want out. I don’t want to go prison. I don’t want to be a part of this anymore. Carrying dead bodies from behind a reception desk and into a locked storage unit – I don’t want to do stuff like that ever again. I told her I don’t want to go back inside. I can’t go back inside. Not now, not ever again. She understands. She wants to come too. We take the diamond and split. We find a buyer first. We take our cut from the books and we split. She told me she loved me. Nobody had ever told me that before. I can’t muster the courage to say it back. A couple weeks later and we’ve been paid £8,000 for the books. I don’t quite get how Dad has worked it out but he’s given us our cut. Only problem now is that Greg is on the front of every newspaper in the country. They matched his DNA to the finger. Somehow, they found a stray hair on top of the finger. Don’t ever tell me the fucking odds. Police National Crime computer linked the hair to a fucking drunk driving charge Greg got when he was 19. Now he’s fugitive number one for first degree murder and robbery. Greg’s got links to us all and he isn’t the type to not throw us under the wheels at the first spot of bother. “Let me take care of Greg.” Dad said. “We can’t have another body connected to these fucking books.” I told him. “I’m taking care of it.” Dad said. “Fucking national manhunt and for what. Eight thousand fucking pounds.” I said. My Dad cut me one of those looks. It’s a look that you don’t argue with. You do what he says, when he says. My Dad. The man that forced me into shoving a rifle into some desk clerk’s face one week after I’d left prison. The man that makes people and money disappear. My Dad. Greg is missing. We don’t ask questions. We don’t want details. The less we know, the less implication for us there is. We just know that Greg is now gone. My last conversation with Greg. “You know you really fucked up cutting that guy’s finger off.” I said. “You have a better idea on how to get to the storage unit.” He replied defensively. Greg, always fucking defensive. “Yeah.” I said, “break his nose.” I think back to when my mother first disappeared. I was only sixteen. My Dad had been running some contraband import/export business with a group of Georgians importing it all in from Azerbaijan. My mum didn’t like it. She didn’t like large amounts of heroin sitting in her garage. She’d yell. She’d throw things. She took it a step too far when she said she’d go to the police if that shit wasn’t gone out of her house by *tomorrow.* I came home. I asked Dad where Mum is. He shook his head. That was the last of it. I never asked again. I knew not to ask again. Now with Greg. All I know is he’s gone. My Dad sat there reading his newspaper with his bifocals on. Looks up at me – *that look –* I know that it’s just like Mum. Don’t ask. I’d known Greg since I was eleven years old. Fucking bifocals. Like a gentle old-man. The kind that would slip you a Werthers Original and ask you how your math classes are going. Stephanie tells me she found a buyer for the stone. The stone could be worth millions, but again in a criminal economy you got to take what you can – it’s hard cash after all. They will buy it for £50,000.00. That and the book sales makes £58,000.00. Buy a camper van for ten. Line the inside of the van with the cash and drive to Spain – once in Spain arrange some Western Union transfer to your guys in the Caribbean. Don’t tell Dad. Don’t tell anyone. Do it quickly before Brexit has been finalised. Less need for visas and background checks. Just get out. Stay out. Take a new name. Take a new life. I’m going to start calling myself Joseph Brooks. She told me she loved me again. I still couldn’t say it back. I don’t know how to say it. Stephanie is now gone. My Dad calls me. Asks me about the stone. He found out... . I hear it in his voice. I don’t ask. Once again; I don’t ask. I just know. Stephanie is gone. “Oh. The stone.” I said. “That’s right. The stone.” Dad said. Stephanie is gone... An inflexion can tell me so much. “Dad...” *Where’s Mum.* *Where’s Greg.* *Where’s Stephanie...* “Meet me and I’ll give you the stone.” I said. We met at a cafe. A London cafe. A busy one... With lots of people. I don’t have the stone. Stephanie had it. Whatever happened, she died and didn’t give it up. I don’t know where the fucking thing is. And now I’m done caring. I still have my £8,000. It can take me somewhere. God knows where but out of here. “Where’s the stone.” He asked. He’s talking heists and murder and throwing ketchup on his plate like it’s a pleasant father/son lunch. “Hidden. Too much heat.” I said. “Where?” He asked. “I’ll take you there.” I said. “You lied to me son. You kept from me and you lied.” He said with fatherly righteousness. “From this day out. No more lies.” I promised. I meant it too. We drove out to where I told him the stone was. It’s a vacant warehouse in Romford. It’s Sunday. All warehouses are vacant on a Sunday but this one is especially vacant. There’s nobody around. It is deathly quiet. This lot has been vacant for years. It’s all boarded up and rusted. Greg used to stash his shit here when he was peddling. It never got taken. Nothing ever gets taken from here. I crowbar one of the boards and we go inside. “I hear that stone was worth a lot of money?” Dad asked. *She never gave it up.* “Hmm.” I said. It’s always about money. That’s the game. That’s why we do this. I tell him it’s stashed in the rusted, derelict sink – he’s got to bend down to look. Remove the porcelain base and it’s in there. As he crouched down and gently starts to slip out the base, I finally decided to ask. “Dad. Where’s mum?” I’m holding the crowbar still. They’re all in the same place. It’s Epping Forest. A couple miles in. Dumb c remembered the co-ordinates all this time. I’m driving there now. It’s nearly midnight. In the boot I got a flash light. I got a shovel. I got spare clothes. And I’ve got two graves to dig up and one grave to dig out. It’s going to be a long night. It wasn’t an easy decision to make. Nobody wants to have bury their own Dad. Let alone burying them alive. But I want to give him time to think. Think long and hard while he’s under there. I finally say it. I loved them all. I loved mum. I loved Stephanie. I loved Dad. **The End.


Dark, wet stones are beveled from the age and erosion that they suffered from years past. Droplets of water drip from the ceiling to the weathered ground below. *Plip… plip… plip… plip…* As each drop falls, footsteps could be heard falling upon the stones in disharmonic time with the water droplets. Crimson robed figures walked with a brisk pace only seen in these men. Their pacing did not make sense. It was slow, blurred and choppy as if filmed through a smudged and malfunctioning Super 8 camera. But it was not filmed. It was not staged or scripted. What one’s eyes saw was reality. These enshrouded figures clad in crimson velvet cloaks, they were out of touch. They were not in time with the natural harmony of the universe. Each footfall taken was a shattering step that seemed to shake and bubble the reality in the eroded hallway. Their movement defies explanation and defies known reasoning. Each step taken was like a sickly palpitation in an otherwise healthy body. As these figures traversed down the hallway, green torches bound by otherworldly tendril-like clasps upon a dark material of an odd, rotting and nearly fleshy appearance. With every passing shadow, a wraith-like wisp of smoke reached out from between the cracks of the old stones and grasped at the passing figures. The figures paid the malevolent smoke no attention. The sound of the droplet was almost deafening. It felt as though it got increasingly louder with each passing second. And with each passing second, the seconds seemed to grow longer. Each tick of each microsecond felt like an agonizing eternity. The figures entered a round stone chamber that housed a large-gilded statue of two rings within each other with eyes along the inside bearing many wings. Light seemed to radiate from the statue, basking the area in a low, golden radiance. The figures walked upon the stone pathways that lead around the statue. From the spaces in between the stones their discordant feet walked upon, black, viscous liquid started to seep through and form into puddles on the floor of the stone chamber. It made low squelching sounds as it creeped across the floor, following and conforming to each little crevice and crack in the stone. As the hooded figures started to encircle the statue, sounds were heard. Ungodly sounds, like those from the depths of the non-divine and formless void. Rumbling echoed through these ancient stone walls. The sound wet, slobbery flesh being dragged on wet stone. The robed figures started to shake as if they were being controlled by some force that was beyond their own will. One of the figures reached up a gloved hand and stood silently as the leather glove split and shredded from inside, revealing grey-green pustules of the black viscosity that had seeped through the ground. Silently the hooded figure started to rip and tear at his robe, as if it were covered in insects. He ripped off the velvet shell to reveal more black pustules growing at a horrifying rate. His skin had now started to grow bone-like protrusions. Piercing through his flesh and spearing inches out from his deteriorating flesh. He started violently scratching at his flesh all over his now naked body, creating deep gashes that bled profusely. All this happened while his other robed companions stood idly, looking straight into the amber light of the statue. Soon after the man started scratching, the other robed figures started to show similar symptoms. Black pustules filled with black, viscous puss and protrusions, followed by violent scratching. The bone like protrusions had started to inflict deep cuts and gashes with every small bit of movement, inflicting more agonizing trauma upon the tormented bodies. Eventually, the once robed figures started to tear pieces of flesh off to rid themselves of the deathly ailment. The sickly sound of shredding flesh echoed in the silent room. Crimson blood poured from the deep holes that the men were inflicting upon themselves. One of the men had gotten to his ribs and started to break off individual ribs and bones that were covered in the black pustules and the ever-increasing number of cancer-like protrusions. Another had grabbed scratched so much at his exposed skull that his fingernails had broken and cracked, causing more blood to spill forth from his shredded digits. With each piece of flesh discarded, more pustules showed up in the place of the flesh. Eyes were being ripped from sockets in futile attempt to rid themselves of this disease. Intestines were ripped and grasped at from their place of rest. Countless feet of fleshy, bloody rope had fallen onto the clean stone floor, painting it the morbid color of the men’s life force. Then, one by one, the men fell to the ground, splashing down in pools of blood and piles of self-mutilated viscera. Shredded and bloody genitalia and split muscles littered the bloodied stone floor as the last man struggled against the affliction before finally grasping his head by the jaw and his crown and sharply yanked it in a clockwise motion. A sickening crunch resounded through the chamber before silence took over. The room was now devoid of life. Blood covered the floor. The carcasses were completely devoid of pustules and bone cancers and no black puss was in sight. Only the stinking of freshly butchered flesh remained. The silence of the gallery of butchered viscera was cut short by a low warbling resonating from the statue. The statue began to become misshapen, contorted and dull. The golden luster of the statue turned to a writhing, seething mass of festering maggots and worms. The grotesque mass of detritovoric worms fell to the ground, spilling the thousands of flesh-eating worms down and onto the viscera. The maggots and worms started to feast upon the deceased carcass-flesh of the dead corpses, using their tiny mouths to rip bits of flesh off and digest it in their tiny body, making it come out of their anuses as putrid excrement. Hours pass as the worm’s fester and feast upon the rotting and putrefying flesh of the once living men. Then as the last bit of flesh gets devoured by the man-eating worms, the low warbling returns, pulling all the worms back to the center of the room, molding them back into the shape they were once before. The unsettling texture and sound of thousands of wriggling worms disappears as the golden luster fades back into view, leaving nothing but the sound of water droplets dripping from the wet corridor. *Plip… plip… plip… plip…* The sound of disharmonic footsteps can be heard clashing with the steady beat of the water droplets.


TW, Child abuse, physical and psychological violence, mental health and sexual violence. “Okay class! Pop quiz” The man shouts above the cries, and we all listen, glued to our desk, like flies buzzing in and never leaving a cheap fly trap. I can see the entire class from my vantage in the back, and I choke back the bile rising in my throat, from the smell of rank piss all over the room. Pools of it surround the flooring underneath, making misshapen puddles where the kids are sitting. I’m shocked when I see Billy Thorn, who has been a thorn in my side this year, has also pissed himself. A swell of something I don’t recognize churns inside my stomach. I wanna thank the man for bringing even Billy thorn down a notch, but I immediately see Mr. Cooper slumped inside that chair, specs of red dotted behind him, and think that I am no different from the rest of the hostages. “I want everyone to think of me as a friend, that today is just a free day.” He says, as if he’s just another substitute, filling in. I wanna reach for my phone, but remember that he has collected all our electronics, and they sit in the front of the room, alongside Mr. Coopers limp body. Like anyone in our positions were holding out for hope, but know none is coming, our phones aren’t buzzing, and there’s no outraged parents outside, praying their children will get out safely. “So, here’s what we are going to do kids, y’all are what” he looks over to the big yellow lettering by the front door. “6 th  grade, man I remember when I was your age. We are going to hear each other out, ya know? Show and tell, tell us about each other, and I’ll determine if I like you or not.” I specifically eye the man for his age because it’s indeterminate. He looks younger than my father, but older than my older brother, who is in the 11 th  grade. I wanna doubt that he remembers his time at all, and he’s just making conversation. I start to wonder if I’ll remember today when I’m also older, but a broken sob and hiccup commences beside me, and I wonder if they all want to cry like the girls in the class, I don’t want to cry, not for this batch of kids, they’re so unlike me, but I also can’t help but fear the man upfront. We don’t know him, or why he’s done what he’s done, but we do know that he is very capable of being violent. Mr. Cooper is slumped on his desk, and in the man’s, hand is the hammer that has smashed into his head in. The hammer is like the one my dad lets me keep inside my room. I study it, hoping that it isn’t the exact one from my room, because I don’t want this to be my fault, I don’t want them to know that I gave this man the weapon used to bludgeon our teacher to death. My mind keeps slipping back to my room, where the hammer is tucked under my bed, and can’t help but see the man upfront, searching and scouring my bedroom, finding out about me, knowing me better than I know myself. I feel he knows my secret and that’s why he’s here today, not for Mr. Cooper, but for me. “So, let’s start with you.” The man points to Laura Jean, a grade B student, she doesn’t necessarily fall into Billy’s crowd, but she laughs with them, so she is all the same to me, and I feel like the man knows her, just like he knows me. I want to slam my hands on the desk, like my father does when he’s upset, to distract the man, while one of the braver students take him down, but I know this isn’t wise, this man is capable of more than we might know. Laura Jean falters, tears staining her face, right now she looks like my mother after a slam of my father’s hands, her face crumpled up and wet, her words slurring with a continuous cry. She tells the man her name, and one thing about herself, and the man makes us react to this, like today is a normal day. “And do you have anything to show us miss Jean?” The man says, planting both elbow on the desk, and cupping his face, but this time we don’t laugh with the teacher, we just stare at the man and Laura Jean shaking, her head trying to keep from looking into his eyes. She shakes her head no, and the man slams his fist on the desk, scaring half the classroom as the other half silently weep trying to not garner more attention from the man. “Not good Miss Jean, we always need something to SHOW, or else how can we TELL who you are.” He emphasizes the show and tell words of the sentence, practically spitting it right Into her face, so the rest of us know not to bullshit around. He regroups himself, pointing to another student, this one behind Laura Jean and for the first time I realize I’m three students away from exposing my true self. I think back to a lesson Mr. Cooper taught me, when he held me after the bell, not saying it, but writing it in a letter, telling me we had to talk. So, I stayed back and listened to what he had to tell me, which was. “Peter, so how are you getting on?” I remember hating this question, he knew how I was getting on, but I nodded, shrugging my shoulders. Then he asked, “read any new books?” I had wanted to tell him of all the new books I had read over the week, which was one a day. I had no one to talk about books with, besides my baby sister, who couldn’t even talk yet. I didn’t wanna admit that it gotten this bad. I just nodded telling him some kids books that I had checked out from the library. He smiled, thinking he had gotten through to me, then said something that not even now, I could forget. “You know you’re my favorite.” I looked up with wide eyed shock, wondering if he was lying or just trying to make me feel better. He raised his eyebrows, “now don’t go telling anybody I told you that, but you remember our first assignment?” I nodded, my head feeling like it would fall off it I hadn’t stopped when I did. “You were the only one who answered honestly, from the soul.” He said dragging the word ‘soul’ out, like it was too cool for school. He continued, “the others were just boasting, but you Peter, you said it with passion, I respected that.” I was in shock, I had never been anyone’s favorite, nor my mother’s or dad’s. Mr. Cooper patted me on the shoulder and told me, “it does get better, life I mean, and it’s pretty rad being an adult, you can practically do whatever you want.” I wondered at that time what I would be like as an adult. “M-my da-dads the sheriff, and h-he’ll kill you if you harm any of us.” The shaking voice brought me back to reality. It was Billy thorn, two seats ahead of me, and the next person to present themselves, I had completely missed what happened to Clyde’s presentation, if he did one. He was crying face in his hands, while Billy tried to berate the man, so I assumed it hadn’t worked out for him. “Sheriff thorn? You mean” the man said, gently guiding the hammer down Billy’s full puffed out cheeks and under his burly double chin. The hammers silvery handle, slicked with dried blood was a different shade of red, than Billy’s cheeks, which were full blown cherry color, the same shade of Mr. Coopers car, the one he took me in near the start of fall break last year. “let me guess” He said pulling the hammer from Billy’s chins, then mined it like one of those old cartoons where they hit their head over and over to remember something lost. Then in a fake sprout of eureka, he followed with. “the apple does not fall far from the tree?” Billy’s hands were visibly shaking, and a part of me was relieved to see this monstrous child be so downtrodden, but still he was a child like me, he didn’t deserve to be berated, like I never wanted to be. From behind them I could tell the act Billy was putting on was a façade, and not a very good one, he was trying to act tough, like his father would, or at least that’s what my father said, ‘whole line of rotten egg headed bullies’ I laughed and felt renewed when he had told me, but that never lasted, the relentlessness that was Billy overcame even my spirit. But, seeing him like this, I was conflicted, my heart wanted to feel for him, like I had wanted him to feel for me, but I yearned to see him get put in his place, just not like this, no one deserved this. “So, you think daddy would want to know what a piss baby you were today? Should we send him pictures of it?” Billy’s face reddened more than a tomato, his face looking like it would burst, a sausage overheated, heat pouring out its overheated creases. I followed the man’s eyes down beneath Billy’s chair, where a pool of piss sat stagnant and glistening off in the morning light. Billy’s whole façade cracked, and he started to sob, like the rest. I looked to the front door, hoping for another teacher to come in and see us, or even another student, but this was one of the classrooms out in the open, for anyone to come in and invade, a trailer by itself, two classrooms used by one class, and it was us. The rest of the students sat still in their seats; their eyes glued on us. “So, Mister Thorn, what do you have for us today?” “S-screw you” Billy shouted, his voice mixed in with sobs, the other whimpers of those around us. The man sighed and waved the hammer around, like a magical wand, then brought it down with so much force, that we all flinched, like thunder crashing after a bright lightning flash. The hammer didn’t hit what we initially thought, it only crashed against Billy’s desk. Smacking against it in such a rough manner that the middle of the desk had a faint black, maybe red, scuff to it now. Billy fainted, which caused some of the girls to scream, thinking that Billy was either taken out or injured. As if a reflect to the mild scream, the man whipped around, pointing his hammer towards them all. “The best way to keep a prisoner from escaping is to make sure he never knows he’s in prison” the man poetically spewed this out.

We all watched as he walked back to the teacher’s desk, and grabbed ahold of Mr. Coopers limp hand, parading it around like a hand puppet. “Howdy students, you know today’s lesson of the day. Let’s get to know each other. Hyuck hyuck” he laughed outrageously loud, then moved the hair out of his face, like he was enjoying himself, then he pointed out. “Who’s next?” I tightened my fist and stared on, it was my turn soon, and I still hadn’t figured what I would say, I didn’t wanna do it, but if I did it and got it over with maybe I could blend in, have him not bother with someone like me at all, maybe he wouldn’t discover my secret at all, maybe it would all just end. The man was now sitting on the desk, his hammer pointed out like a talk show hosts microphone. “So, what’s your name, and talent?” He said pointing the mic to the student right in front of me.

Gary was a quiet kid like me, but unlike me in a lot of ways, he wasn’t weird, nor the smelly weird kid. He was just Gary who they all copied homework and test questions. “I- I’m Gary Allen an-and I wa-wanna be the president.” He finally spit out, his nerves shredded, and most likely his spirit too. This is what Gary always spouted off about, being the president of the whole United States, he’d always say that his mom and dad were grooming him to be successful. “Oh ho, those are some big aspirations Gary, but can I ask, of what?” Gary’s barely audible huh only reached me because the man said. “CMON GARE PRESIDENT OF WHAT?” Mr. Cooper once asked me did If I knew how lethal a gun was? I said I had, because my father was huge on them, and he even showed me how to use them, shoot them and clean them. I wasn’t fond of weapons, but I was fond of spending time with my father. So, when I was over and he showed me a collection of weapons he had similar to my father’s, I acted amazed, even though all I wanted was someone to talk to too. We talked about more than weapons, we talked about past lessons, and myself, along with my family life. He’d told me that I was the only student he’d ever let see his collection, and rode in his car. I was his special student, different from the rest, and I needed to keep this a secret, us meeting like this, because it could never be known that I was given special treatment. I think of that yellow couch, the smell of lemon drops, and the cold feeling of the fan blowing against my skin. I think of grasping the gun he showed me that day, holding it and taking aim. “So, who do I have the pleasure of talking to today?” The man asked, right up to my face, invading what I had thought was a safe spot away from it all. He had his hammer in my face, a makeshift microphone once again. I was snapped back to reality, listening to the cries of my classmates, as this man stood in front of me. “Oh” he said, focusing his eyes on me. “Oh, ho I think we’ve got a winner.” His voice was choked and loud, almost inaudible, if I wasn’t right there. The rest of my class stared at us in horror, probably thinking, good take him away and be done with the rest of us, he deserves it, we don’t, please just go. Then the man did something I hadn’t expected, he hugged me, whispering something in my ear. “He did huh?” he said after coming back up. I hadn’t heard him; I was so focused on the rest of the class and the strong smell of alcohol coming out of his breath. “You’re his type, I mean, I can tell, you’re just like me” he said singing it lackadaisically, the hammer still in his hand swinging around loosely as he talked. “Let me guess, special, one of a kind, different from the rest? Car rides to fast food joints?” I didn’t nod nor acknowledge what he was saying, I was spinning in my own head. I had known I wasn’t the only one, I saw it when he had fallen asleep, the name tags of previous students, before me. “So, Mister, just like me, What’s your name and what’s his secret?” He said pointing back to Mr. Cooper. Ferocity in his voice, a danger I hadn’t sensed earlier. My eye darted to my bag beside me, which held the present I had got for Mr. Cooper, the one that I would never be able to give him, because this man took him away from me. He took what I wanted away. Then it became clear, I had the perfect chance to end it all here, I didn’t care if my secret came out in the end, as long as I could save this classroom, who had never saved me, I wonder what they’ll say. Brave child saves the day, or revenge slayings end brutally, the cycle never ending. I had wondered when he told me he was like me, which name he was in that pile, but I know it doesn’t matter, because a victim is a victim. “My name is Peter Hamm” a name I had been poked fun about since I was born, oh what a ham hock, oh the little piggy, take it you pig.  A curse brought onto me by my own existence. “I do have something to show today, it’s a present from my father, that I wanted to show.” I don’t know what kind of face I was making, or if I was making one or not, but I do think I was smiling. The man’s surprise and welcome didn’t shock me, he was just like me, so he would welcome what I had and what was coming to him. He crossed his arms expecting something great from me. So, I reached into my backpack and grabbed the surprise I had in store, not for my classmates, but for Mr. Copper himself, but now that he’s no longer here, I have to gift it to the man whose taken away my grief, maybe that’s not the right word, my way to deal with my own pain. Feeling around, I reach inside and grab the Glock 21c in the bottom of my bag, my father’s precious child, the one he proudly shows out in cupboard, which he leaves drunkenly open. I switch the safety off, and I survive.


As if running a gauntlet, a night train speeds on gravity tracks between crumbling high-rises. Flame scarred brick apartment buildings stand like forgotten tombstones. Rubble spills onto wet black streets, a dream-like sheen. Graffiti streaks by spelling out bloated warnings, the train moving too fast to decipher the message. With rhythmic shudders, the train slows and enters a tunnel beneath the Hudson. Soon, a landing platform appears in stark white lights. The train breaks to a stop, the Grand Central Complex. A young man and woman de-board along with a throng of hundreds of rush hour commuters. The men wear well-kept leather brown shoes, slick blue suits, hold leather briefcases; the women are in gray pinstripe or simple black Armani, many carry Louis Vuitton handbags. Joining everyone else at the entrance to a low ceiling corridor of white marble, the couple cues up on a moving walkway. As they’re pulled forward, the walls diffuse into scenes of hologram projections: water falls behind white teethed tour guides hawking the excitement of Machu Picchu tours in lush rainforests; Danube river cruise with proud castles floats by; lithe teenagers hawk Ozempic, Semaglutide, delivery guaranteed. Behind everyone, the walls change back once the motion passes. No one talks. As they exit the marble corridor, a cathedral-like space opens up and the throng of commuters raise their eyes to a monolithic dome. A god-like fresco covers the ceiling of a grand hall. At the top, scaffolded men lie prone, painting a religious scene emulated on Leonardo da Vinci. *** Earlier that day, a boy with the tired eyes of an old man, a pain beyond reach in deep pools of dull brown, lays out his tools in the dimness of a shed set apart from a ramshackle house. Black tarpaper, a crumbling walkway, where his mom and little sister live. Their dad? Long gone, he died in the resistance. The boy’s workbench displays his supplies, the tools of his trade: pliers in a variety of sizes, a soldering gun, duct tape, a doorbell mechanism, a half-empty gallon can of solvent, an empty nearby. The boy’s hands shake as he mixes solvent into a putty-like texture similar to modeling clay. He, while packing c4 into twenty canvas eight-inch tubes, sweats, an icy trickle down his spine, burns his eyes. He does not blink. When he presses on the pliable brown and white clay-like material, pushing the explosive into the bags with his thumbs, the plastic feels moist, smells like black engine oil, cool on his fingers in the moist heat. To keep the grease out of his long red hair, he pushes his bangs away with the back of his hand. His eyes concentrate, he thinks of a clockmaker. Wasn’t it his great grandfather who was a clockmaker? No, his grandfather’s brother. But they’re all dead so he can’t ask. There’s no one to ask. After tying the twenty tubes together with flexible wire, he lifts the cylinders around his waist, adjusting them much like a vest. As if modeling for a fresh shirt to start school, he examines the assembly in front of a mirror placed against a plank wall. But he doesn’t have the right shirt, or a school. He would have to do something or security might question him, he thinks, hell, not the right shirt . After taking off the vest, he places it in the bottom cabinet underneath the workbench. Calling from the kitchen, his mom insists. “Frederick, it’s dinner!” She knows it’s best not to come to his shed. He’d made that clear. The family of three, himself at fifteen, his mother, and his younger sister, join together every night for whatever food they have. His mother will soon leave for her second job. She says she’s lucky to have it. Bears fascinate his little sister. “When the cubs split from the mom, the momma bear will protect the little bears,” she says. “You better not get in the way. You’ll get ate.” Her head barely clears the table as she’s small, even for her age, six.

“What happens when the mother bear gets attacked?” he asks. My god, where does she come up with bears? “The momma bear saves the cubs, silly. The cubs can’t save the family.” “What about when the cub gets big enough?” His mother interrupts. “Enough about bears.” As his mother leaves for work, he tells her he will be working late downtown. “Working?” she says. “You don’t work, if you did, what for?” Later, he packs the c4 explosives into a backpack and meets Michael at the street. Michael’s got soldier eyes, a professional, and he’s steady like he’s been here before. He holds his face close to Frederick’s ear and whispers, “You’re doing the right thing.” Frederick turns back for one last look, and like a lost kitten, his sister is on the front stoop with her bare knees drawn up under a pink and blue thin dress. “You take care of your mom, Ellie.” “What do you mean?” she asks. “Life will be a whole lot better, and soon. I promise you girl.” *** In the bright Grand Central Station the young couple wait for a table at Maxines. The woman takes time to admire the tiled expanse which spreads out around the two of them. “Grand Central. I barely remember the old one,” she says. They soon have a lavish dining table, linen, a single purple orchid, English bone china with a gold rim. Hundreds of voices echo evenly around them, hollow acoustics, the air settling safely. The woman has in front of her what looks like a filleted fish with the bones removed. She doesn’t eat. “How is your food,” asks the man. “You should have something. Can I get you something else? You’ll feel better.” “Nice of you to say.” “I want you to stay strong. It’s your health I’m thinking about. The fish is bad, do you think?” “The fish is fine. I just don’t want it.” She plays with her food and the man eats. The woman is staring at the far wall. “There used to be a café down at that end. Do you remember? Strange how I miss New York. There is no other city quite like it.” She folds her white linen napkin just so in her lap. He reaches out and gently covers the woman’s hand with his own. “We don’t have long. Please have something.” She picks at her fish with a heavy silver fork. “This fish does look excellent. The shape they form them is ideal, don’t you think? They make these things perfect now.” She pushes her plate away. He sets his wineglass down, a red Bordeaux. “I would love to get you something else. What would you like? I’ll have them fix you a new fish.” “It’s not the fixing I have a problem with. It’s way beyond just fixing, isn’t it?” For the first time, she looks at her husband. “I used to come here with my grandmother. She’d take me on the train and I remember how tight she held my hand. She had arthritis and she walked with a cane. But she still wore these red high heels. There’s no way she was giving up the heels. Her eyes were blue, she’d describe them as a lapis blue, and she said the color came from Norway, the Vikings. The Vikings. Can you believe it? Anyway, she told me the story of how her great-grandparents came over on the boat to Ellis Island—but they must have lived much later—so it was generations before. As I washed her hair, she’d tell the story over and over.” After leaning in front of her, the man quickly begins to cut the fish into bite-size pieces. “The Phillips had a boy just two weeks ago, you know. They say he’s going to be a music prodigy. A prodigy like Mozart. Anyway, I’ve known George since Oxford. You may remember I’ve talked about him, but I didn’t know he was a pianist. I found out one day when he needed help to move his piano. It was a beast of a thing to move. But he insisted we move it to clear the view to the Hudson and he didn’t play much anymore. He said he just wasn’t wired for it, you know?” The woman laughs. “Maybe I will have another fish. The kitchen probably has a whole goddamn freezer of fish.” “This might surprise you, but I just want you to be happy. It’s a painless procedure. You’ll see.” “And you don’t think I’m happy now?” “Of course you are. We both are. It’s just that we can be more happy.” “And you think this will make us more happy?” The man looks at his watch. “We don’t have time for this. If we miss our slot we may not get another.” “Our slot, of course, but—” “When you think about it, there’s no choice.” “I’m sure you’re right, but I can’t help thinking my grandmother used to say she loved her husband because he was sensitive about his being short. ‘Napoleon was short, dammit,’ he’d say. Then he’d growl, ‘See? So there,’ like he’d won the argument. She laughed about his having these two-inch lifts in his shoes that hurt his feet like hell. Her words, like hell. He refused to say anything, she said, but she knew he could barely stand it, and he always wore the lifts and he worked his tail off and he was vulnerable and that’s why she loved him.” *** Frederick waits in the cold storage room of the kitchen. His friend Michael holds both palms of his hands in front of him. You need to hide, the hands say. I’ll tell you when we’re ready. So he hides, scrunched down behind stacked pallets of single ribeye steaks, each portion in vacuum pack. The labels say, ‘food product’. He puts his fisted hands, trembling, against the bottom of his chin, closes his eyes, tight. When Michael tells him the time is now he straps on the c4 vest and puts on the white apron he’s been given. *** The man takes out his credit card and puts it on the table. “When this is over you’ll see this is for us. I don’t blame you for being nervous.” With her fingers, the woman examines the frayed edge of her linen napkin. “You’re just nervous,” he says. She doesn’t take her eyes off the napkin as she feels the loose threads. “There’s no great story about how fish get their eye color is there? It’s just color.” The couple sits for a long time and neither speaks. Finally, the man says, “We can’t just go home, even if we wanted to, can we?” The woman tosses her linen napkin on the table, it falls crumpling to the floor. She quickly rises out of her chair and she is beautiful with a mole on her cheek. “Let’s go or we’ll miss the train.” “Excuse me. We’ll take the check,” the man calls to the waiter. “We’ll have to make a run for it.” When they near the marble tunnel exit the man stops, and she turns back. “You said run. So run.” Standing tall on the tile floor, her husband says, “Maybe we can go home.” With her face breaking soft, the woman flicks her eyes back to the restaurant. He smiles. “Sure, let’s get a bottle, you and I.” Back at the restaurant, they see their table is not yet cleared, they sit down together. Pulling her close with his hand on the back of her neck, the man kisses his wife. “Waiter? We decided to stay.” As the waiter approaches he’s different, red hair, very young, and his white apron falls from around his waist. He’s sweating. The waiter grabs the apron with his left hand to pull it back up. The man sees an array of brown and white canvass tubes surrounding the waiter’s torso, tied down with straps, red and blue wires. In the waiter’s hand is a button that makes the man think of a white knobbed doorbell. For an instant, the man questions himself why the server has a doorbell.


Allan Richards sat in the driver’s seat of his parked rundown sedan as he checked the copy of the invitation he had printed out earlier that morning, verifying that "Community First United Church of Christ" was indeed the appointed location. For a long moment, he considered hitting the key in the ignition and coming up with some kind of explanation of why he couldn't make it, but eventually he instead removed it from the console and, with a heavy sigh, swung the door open. He walked toward the front of the venue, catching sight of signs declaring today to be claimed for the wedding he had been invited to. He was just beginning to squirm awkwardly in his not-too-well-fitting rented suit when a voice barged its way across the parking lot toward him, "Allan! Hold up brother." He turned around to meet the forceful greeting head on, his gaze lighting on the shape of a face that would look familiar if not for the layer of beard fur that clung smartly around the contours of its mouth. "Michael?" he offered up a query in place of a greeting. The broad-grinning bear of a man removed the hat that hadn't changed since high-school from his head and—giving Allan a short, performative bow—placed it over his heart. "The one and only," he confirmed his identity. Allan couldn't help but grin, the familiar antics of high school serving to abate his nerves somewhat, "I'm pretty sure there's more than one Michael." His friend took on an expression of mock horror, "Where? Point them out to me, and I will beat them up for daring to use my name." Then, the moment of silliness-as-handshake passed, and Michael gathered up a more serious presence. "It's great to see you, Allan; how long has it been?" "Graduation; haven't seen any of you since graduation, except Jenny." "Really? Damn. Well, you look..." he trailed off, and Allan could almost see the working of his brain as he took in his old friend's disheveled appearance, "Good'," he finished, erring on the side of a polite falsehood.  "Thanks," Allan accepted the words of kindness and absolving Michael of the white lie, "You're looking fine yourself.” Michael seemed almost poised to say something further when another voice called out to them from the front door, "Oi, what're you two blockheads dawdling out in the parking lot for? The wedding's not gonna wait for you, y'know?" "He's right, let's get inside," Michael said, motioning his arms as if to sweep the two of them toward the entrance. Inside the hall, Allan cast his gaze around the assembled attendees, finding no one that he recognized, save for a pair of men with bright orange hair even after all these years. "Well get over here," the one who had stayed thin after high school called over to Michael and Allan. "We’re coming, we're coming; keep your tits on Charlie," Michael called back as he led their way over to the fiery-haired pair. Upon closing the distance to a more socially acceptable speaking range, he declared, “Good to see you too, Sam," and the other man received the greeting with a polite tug or the corner of his glasses’ frames for want of a hat to tip. Allan was amazed at how different the "twins" now looked; Charlie looked almost the same as ever, the only evidence that he hadn't simply teleported to the current date from graduation being the presence of a moustache that ought disqualify him from ever setting foot on an elementary school campus, while Samuel looked almost middle-aged already, his clean shaven-ness doing little to counter-act the effect of carrying around an extra fifty or so pounds. "0l' bookworm here was just telling me about the research he's been doing for his master's thesis," Charlie pointed to Samuel while miming a yawn. "Oh, how's that going?" Michael asked with polite curiosity. The man with the academic's physique responded with a good-humored snort, "Fine, I guess," he swilled his drink in front of them as if to say the liquor was the source of his claim, "Can I get you two a Drink?" "Sure, I'd take some liquid courage, " Michael responded. Allan stared at Samuel’s drink for a moment. "No, I really shouldn't.” His reply drew worried stares from the rest of the group for a moment, until Samuel simply nodded. "Okay, one wet one dry, then," he said as left the huddled friends. Michael quietly drew Allan toward the nearby corner, taking on the fatherly affect he had sometimes worn back when they were in high school, and Charlie politely turned his attention onto a program on the nearby table. "What's wrong?" Michael thrust the question directly at Allan once they were sequestered away from everything else, "You care to talk about it?" Allan held the question at arm’s length first, an emotional dagger threatening his heart, but Michael's piercing, care worn stare eventually won cut, and the corners of his eyes let a subtle stream of tears slip out, "It's just… seeing how well you've all done for yourselves these past few years, and all I've managed to do since high school has been dropping out of college and pissing away my health..." he trailed off into a fit of quiet sobbing. Michael put his hands on Allan's shoulders in lieu of a hug. "Hey now, easy does it," he cooed in reassurance. When Allan had managed to calm down, he asked "Okay, now, how have you really been?" Allan took a deep breath to gather himself up. "After mom passed, I... I fell apart. Took to drinking and didn't stop, not until a few months ago," he finally confessed. Michael looked into his friend for a moment before turning away, his brow furrowed with guilt. When Allan's single mother had passed away, Michael and all of the others had been busy studying or traveling, so Allan had been left attending bis mother’s funeral alone. "We really have been shitty friends, haven't we?" Allan reluctantly nodded. "I'm going to do better, WE’RE going to do better by you going forward, but you can't keep keeping your struggles to yourself, okay?" Allan paused for a moment, then nodded again, more assuredly this time. "Right. Now, today belongs to our friend Jenny; you ready to get back in there?" Allan nodded once more, finally with a sense of confident forcefulness. With Allan's emotional state seemingly stitched together well enough to proceed with the evening, Michael pulled them away from the corner and led the way back to where they had left their friends.  "You know, I always though Jenny was gay, but turns out she was a girl,” Charlie mused to Samuel. Samuel took a sip from his drink, "I won't lie, I was kinda shocked when she transitioned, but you gotta admit, she sure looks a lot happier now then she ever did as a guy." He idly looked around and caught sight of the pair returning from their emotional sidebar, causing him to give Charlie a quick nudge in the ribs. "Is everything good, you two?" he asked, directing the question more at Michael. "Yeah," Allan interceded in answer, "good to go." Samuel accepted Allan's answer with a firm, almost congratulatory nod, then handed the second drink he was holding over to Michael. Michael accepted the drink but—glancing over at Allan—refrained from taking a sip. Instead, he cast his gaze down at the picture on the table announcing the marriage of Jenny and Frederick Condran. "When we promised to be the best men at each other’s weddings, I guess we didn't consider that the first of us to get married would be doing so in a dress." Charlie had a sheepish grin creep across his lace, "Well, Jenny's technically not the first of us to get married." When the other three looked at him with simultaneous expressions of incredulous inquisition, he began, "So are you guys familiar with the annulment process, by chance?" *                      *                      * The ceremony went off without much fuss, the proceedings being relatively stripped down in accordance with Jenny and Frederick’s more pragmatic sensibilities. The "I do's" were declared, the cake was cut, and eventually the festivities progressed to dancing, freeing the attendees to spread out less formally, leading Allan to work his way to the edge of the party, hoping to slink off without causing any grief to Jenny or their friends. He had almost made it to the door when Jenny came trotting over, her dress heels making a conspicuous clopping sound as she went. “Going so soon?” she asked once she was close enough to not have to shout. Allan turned halfway around, a bit too ashamed to meet her face on. “Uh, yeah. I think I better go.” They stood there together, a pregnant pause enveloping them in awkward tension. “Okay,” she finally accepted, “but could you maybe stay for just a few more minutes? I really wanted to get a picture with my bros.” Jenny had playfully allowed her voice to dip into a masculine register for ‘with my bros,’ forcing Allan to hold back a short burst of laughter. Turned around fully, meeting his old friend in the mascara-burdened eyes. “Alright; I can do that.” She pulled him into an embrace before he had a chance to protest. “Thank you,” she whispered into the crook of his shoulder as she held their bodies together. After a long moment, Allan relaxed and committed to reciprocating the hug; shortly thereafter, the embrace ended. “And thank you for coming; I really appreciate it.” “Wouldn’t have missed it for the world,” he replied with a confidence that would have surprised the man he had been of that morning, for now he knew he was truly glad to be there, with and for his friends. Jenny smiled, then took him by the hand, leading the two of them back into the party in search of their friends and a photographer.


She was always my friend, and I always hers. I sat out on the pale yellow sand, watching her dance. She delivered to me everything: leather boots, seaweed, shells, unmoving fish. These acts of kindness were unbeknownst to me outside of her shore, and I returned them to her in full with other exotic gifts. Her water was beautiful, teeming with grey and blue and white, and she sang a song of lulling waves. The sun glistened off her rolling surface and when the sun left, moonlight flooded in. She would try to climb up the beach towards me, then retreat backwards, too afraid to venture far from her abode. Every day she would invite me to swim in her infinite depths, to travel out far where the waves were mountains and the froth was snow, and every day I would swim farther and farther out before she worried about my despairing limbs and pushed me back to shore, and then we laughed about it for hours upon hours. Home was not where I belonged, the academy was not where I belonged. In fact, the whole town was infested with a looming sense of despair. Its buildings were uneven and their bricks were stained black. The windows formed hollow eyes, observing passers-by. Following the dark smoke of the chimneys upwards, the eye would reach the foreboding Manor that towered over the crooked rooftops. It sat atop a hill that forms a cliff face over the ocean as if part of the hill had been chopped off and sunk beneath the waves. The academy was an unhappy place crammed into the town’s centre. The ceilings loomed far above and teemed with cobwebs and the stained glass windows refused to let all but the most awful of light in. As I walked the dark passages of the old and horrible school, I questioned how one could ever be happy there. I observed everybody’s smiling faces, but nobody ever saw mine. I nodded to every person I walked past, and they turned their heads from me, not seeing me, I was too short, too skinny, too ghost-like in comparison to the brutes whose bodies attracted the most beautiful forms. My hand was thrown upwards all the time in classes, but I may as well have been throwing up spider silk, never seen by the professors. My home was empty, my mother had died giving birth to me and my father had been sent far away for cracking open the skull of my sister, leaving me all alone at the top of a hill in a birch forest just beyond the town, in a crooked, squalid and mouldy hut. When my loneliness overwhelmed me, I would run to my Ocean and weep. Once, I asked her to speak of her own creation. She told me the Sky was her mother and Death her father. It came as no surprise to me that such a wondrous being was made from the addition of two magnificent others. I stopped with the school nonsense and spent my time with my Ocean, where I was doing something worthwhile, bringing happiness to something so grand and beautiful. On a cold afternoon with wind biting at flesh and wave, she surprised me by visiting in her mortal form. I saw her standing on the pier, and immediately recognised her as my Ocean. Blue eyes, hair as golden as the sand, that familiar scent of salt that she radiated. Every word she spoke reverberated around my head, every step she took glided with the grace of a dolphin yet felt like a whale on my chest, every smile would summon light into the room, banishing all forces of misery and anguish. Each night, she would head to the beach and walk along the shore, staring at the sparkling water under the moonlight, and each night I would sit in the sand dunes and watch her from afar, observing her elegance. Of course, happiness never lasts. She, just as everyone else, had seemed to forget me. She became infatuated with others at school and as the days grew on she became more and more empty. Leaving her sandy home, she had become shallow. I lost her, and she was losing herself. One night, I left the safety of the sand dunes and I approached her, armed with a rope and a syringe filled with seawater, so that I could reintroduce the sea back into her body. She was staring at the sea as she walked, her lips curled into a wistful smile and her white dress billowing in the wind. As my feet crunched the sand beneath, her head snapped from the ocean to me. My eyes locked onto hers and the world seemed stationary for a brief eternity. “I have to take you back,” I told her. “Do I know you?” She stammered. “Once, I suppose.” I could see her jaw twitching. She turned and began quickly walking the other way. I followed, feet crunching the shells beneath me. She broke into a run. Her human form was weak and her legs moved frantically, slowly, ridiculously. I had caught her in an instant, knocking her to the ground. She began kicking, so I picked up a handful of sand and cast it down her throat and into her eyes. Her scream cracked out as a dry cough, sending up dust into the air. She writhed under me, but I had pinned her down. I brought the vial of seawater to her neck and penetrated her with the needle. Her body contorted, twisting and turning like an eddying whirlpool. She stopped moving. I dragged her body to the water and let the waves take her out. I followed, feet kicking at the rocky and dark surface. Now was the time that I should join my beautiful ocean. I had no means of living with her while still in my own fleshy husk. Maybe, instead, her creators could turn me into an immortal being so that I could spend an eternity with her. The Sky was far too high up to hear me and Death was too abstract to convene with. But maybe he wasn’t… No, in fact, he was right here in front of me. I cast myself into the ocean, knowing she would no longer push me back, not while she was recovering. The water filled my throat, nostrils, eyes, seeping through my body as I sunk further and further. Never had I been this deep. I felt my lungs tighten, like tentacles had wrapped around me and contracted. No light penetrated this place. Gone I would be soon. And gone I was; blood stopped visiting my brain, my eyes closed their doors and my heart quit its job. The dark night was filled with the putrid stench of rotting fish. I hated it. Death had ignored my plea to join him and I had washed up on the shore, my heart resuming its morbid task. I went back to my hut, my rotten abode that sat upon that godforsaken hill. The morning came and I was greeted with gloved fists pounding on my door that shook the windows in their sills, yells calling for me to quit my place and admit my guilt. “Even death ignores me” I thought to myself as I moaned on my bed. How rude of Death, to bar entry to those who wish to meet him yet take in those who do not. … My bones were frail, my form shrunk, my skin stretched thin, I wept in my gloomy cage over the roaring ocean. A perpetual storm lashed at my beautiful ocean, which fought back with white nails of froth. Tears rolled down my grey cheeks as they joined their salty brethren below. Through the teary haze, I spotted a white dress on the ocean surface, encasing a whiter-still body. It was disgusting. A tremendous wave crushed the thing and it was gone. The Ocean was silent. It was just me. Only me.


The wine makes my head spin, cheap stuff, cleanskins. I can feel it roiling in my stomach, the TV makes my mind curl onto itself, sleep an impossibility. The voices from around the room collide into a sea of noise that hurls itself against me as if to knock me off balance. Chas sit next to me, a warm anchor. She chats to someone, and they chat back. I nod along whenever they talk to me. I finish my drink, the warm white-wine tasting like feral grapes, gone bad in the sun. But I don’t say anything, the wine was Jono’s shout, and he’s unemployed. So am I, I guess. Drifting from job to job, retail and other bullshit. ‘Adam, you okay?’ Chas leans round to look at me, her eyebrows knitting together. I smile dreamily at her and say, ‘yeah, just a little fuzzy headed.’ She smiles, as if that’s an acceptable answer. ‘I’ll go fetch you another, okay? Hold tight.’ I nod and grasp the couch. She laughs. In her absence, the girl left next to me keeps talking to me. She asks me how my degree is going. I inwardly cringe and say, “yeah, it’s alright, I guess. Haven’t failed yet”. At least, that’s what I think I say. Sometimes words get jumbled and don’t come out as I intend. At any rate, she laughs, almost as if to say it’s some kind of grand joke that every twenty-something and under in the room is in on. They all know my struggle. At least, I think they do. At least, they think they do. ‘Just have the second when you’ve finished that one, right?’ Chas smiles, places two cups on the coffee table in front of the couch. The first one is black and bubbly, coke and something. Probably, I know how Chas thinks. Normally it comes down to a narcotic, with her. I think the other one’s water. Isn’t it? The conversation continues, I drink and drink and half-listen as I stare around at the people passing. Chas still sitting between the other girl and me. She’s holding my arm now, keeping me afloat. We’re in the garden now, cold spring air stopping me from feeling my toes. I don’t know how we got here. There’re a few other couples out her, swaying to music. I can’t really tell what it is. My mind stops me from comprehending. Or is that the grog? ‘Smoke?’ Chas pulls out a Mentos tin and flips open the top. Inside are home-rolled cigarettes. Irregular lumps running up and down the white-sticks, which in a perfect world would be utterly smooth. ‘I...uh,’ she shakes the tin at me and I fumble thoughts and words out of my mouth. I can’t make heads or tails. Some small part of my brain, drowned in fermented liquid screams at me not to. To not partake in it. ‘Yeah, that’d be good,’ I say. Then, she lights us up. The acrid smell of smoke hits me. I cough and splutter at the first drag and Chas snickers at me. ‘You’ll get there eventually, love.’ She turns around and leans her back against my chest. I put my arm against her midriff and sway back and forth. Whether to the music, or to something else, I can’t really tell. I watch he bring the cigarette to her lips and pull in a breath of smoky air. I do the same. ‘How we getting home?’ I ask. ‘Dunno, she says.’ She cranes her head backwards at stairs up at me, then scratches at my stubble. ‘Thought you knew.’ I shrug, and look at the moon. ‘We’ll get there. Eventually.’ We’re in her share house now, the transition from the garden to her, is even blurrier. I think it involved half a bottle of Jack that Chas got from someone or other. The smoke still tickles the top of my esophagus, and swirls around my molars. Its long since passed, but I can still feel it there. Lingering, grasping at my tonsils. ‘You got a condom?’ ‘Yeah,’ I say. I can almost hear her house-mates groan. Her room’s still a mess, but I don’t really give a shit. Was like that at her parents as well, before she moved out. Never really stopped us then, either. ‘Come on, Adam, time to close it out, yeah?’ ‘Yeah,’ I mumble. Clothes fall off, then we fall into bed. Then, as half of our nights seem, we fuck like animals. Short, quick and messy. Nothing really fun about it, if I’m honest with myself. It’s just what we do. She falls asleep first, softly snoring. Then I stare at the ceiling for half an hour before following. When I wake in the morning, my head hurts, my throat hurts, and for some reason that I can’t quite piece together, my toe feels like it’s gone through a wood chipper. Chas is still asleep. I get dressed, find my keys after then minutes of searching and stop by the kitchen. I nod downwardly at Chas’s house-mate. He nods back, but doesn’t say anything. Pound a glass of water, check my phone for battery, find it’s still on twenty percent, and fumble my way out the door. On the six kilometer walk to my car, however many streets over, I tell myself that I won’t do it all over again the next weekend. Then I try to figure out what I did that was worse for my health. Then, I put it out of my mind, because I have a six kilometer walk. I also swear at some nearby magpies because I don’t have my fucking headphones, because I told myself that I’d bring them this time. In short, I’m a fucking idiot.


Logike was a deeply unsettling boy to look at. At only 16, he was 6’ 7” tall, and he loomed over most people. But at 140 pounds, he was dangerously underweight. His skin was pale, there were dark circles under his eyes, and a constantly displeased grumble to his voice. He wore nothing of note. A plain white T shirt, plain blue jeans. No tattoos, no piercings, no decor of any kind. His head was buzzed fairly short. It was clear he cut his own hair, as it was uneven, and too long in the back. He exuded an aura of aggression and disinterest. He sat on the red leather therapy couch, but didn’t rest lying down. Instead he sat forward, hunched over, his neck craned forward awkwardly. His long fingernails absentmindedly raked across a patch of psoriasis on his forehead until it bled into his eye. He didn’t blink, and let the blood drip into his open eye. "The hardest thing about being a sociopath, is the lack of guilt." Logike monologued. "It's not hard for me, per se, but it's frustrating for the people around me. They can't stand it. If I do a "bad" thing, they glare at me. They're waiting for me to show remorse for whatever I did. Big or small, they want me to act like I feel bad for what I did. But I don't. I can't feel bad. And that's out of my control. Did I intentionally skip the event you invited me to? Yes. Baptism? Not coming. Wedding? Not a chance. Birthday? What are you, five? Do I care that I skipped the event? No. If I wanted to go, I'd've gone. Do I care that I hurt your feelings? No, literally can't. Do I understand how it made you feel? No. I have no idea. But if you were really my friend, you would've known me well enough not to invite me in the first place. Did I do something careless, and it resulted in someone getting hurt? Maybe. Do I care? No. I can't. And shaming me will only annoy me. No amount of scolding will make me show guilt. See, the thing is, everyone thinks I'm an apathetic asshole. Maybe I am. But I'd honestly rather not be. If I could just fake emotion, it would make my life easier. That's what makes it a condition. This is literally out of my control. And I'm not just saying this to get you to feel bad for me. Fuck your pity. And don't you dare call it empathy. And even if it's genuine empathy, don't tell me. I don't understand how that feels, and I don't care. All I'm really trying to say, is leave me the hell alone. And if you don't, I won't feel bad about anything I do in retribution." Doctor Infigo was a short, fit, studious man, wearing a contoured white suit. His white rimmed glasses were the same shade as his suit. At 4’ 11” tall, he was nearly a dwarf, but with none of the telltale signs of a disproportionate body. His shoulder length dreads, only a single shade of black darker than his skin, were kept tied into a ponytail with a single dreadlock. He paced from side to side, actively scribbling in his notebook. "You're in therapy to better improve your own behavior." Dr Infigo said. "But it sounds like you'd rather manipulate everyone else's behavior instead." "I'm perfectly fine with my mentality, other people are the problem." "Well I can't teach you how to manipulate people." "Then this was a waste of my time. Good day." Logike stood up, and headed for the door. "This is court mandated therapy, Logike. Sit down." "Nah." Logike said, opening the door. "I will call the police, and they will send you back to prison. I don’t care if your a minor, and neither do the courts. You don’t get to assault your teacher with a scissors and get away without consequences. So, what's less inconvenient? Therapy, or prison?" Logike stood in the middle of the doorway for a long time, weighing his options. "Do they have internet access in prison?" Logike asked. "Yes." Dr Infigo said. “But it is highly limited, and strictly supervised.” Logike still hovered in the doorway. "And the food is terrible." Dr Infigo added. Logike turned around and shut the door. "That sounds too inconvenient." Logike said. "Prison usually is.” Dr Infigo said. “That's kinda the whole point." "Why do you care if I go to prison?" "I don't. But I get paid to help assholes like you, and I like to eat and pay rent." "Makes sense." Logike said, taking a seat. "Well then, therapist. Therapy away." "I want you to look sad." "I want you to jump off a bridge. But we can't all get what we want." "I'm serious, this has a purpose. Try to look sad." "But I don't feel sad. I'm not an actor." "Put your face in your hands." Logike put his hands over his face, and looked through the gaps in his fingers. "Don't be an idiot, you've seen sad people before.” Dr Infigo growled. “Weep you uncooperative bastard!" Logike hunched over, his face buried in his hands. He moaned like he was dying. There was a knock on the door. "Come in." Infigo said just slightly quieter than a shout. A police officer in a stab-resistant vest came in, his baton at the ready. He looked nervous. He saw Logike appearing to sob, and lowered his guard. "Holy shit.” the officer said, a surprised expression on his face. “Did you actually get through to that creep?" "It's my job." Dr Infigo said. "Holy shit." "Could you give us a moment, we're having a breakthrough." "Take all the time you need." The officer left with pep in his step. As soon as the officer was out of earshot, Dr Infigo’s eyes narrowed. "Alright you little shit, I'm gonna teach you how to act." Dr Infigo said. "I'm not an actor." Logike complained. "Acting is just lying with body language, and you're a very good liar." “Lying is easy when you don’t give a fuck what the truth is.” “Then acting should be just as easy for you.” “Why are you teaching me how to act?” “People are more likely to respond positively if they think you can empathize with them. So we are going to fake it ‘till you make it. You’re going to pretend to give a shit, even though you don’t.” “Why teach me how to lie? Doesn’t that go against your job description?” “If you act like a reformed criminal, it’ll make me look good.” “See, there’s the ulterior motive. Now you’re speaking logically.” “I don’t think you’d listen to me if I didn’t have a selfish motive.” Logike’s eyebrows narrowed in suspicion “Are you pretending to be selfish to help me?” Logike asked in an accusatory tone. “That would imply I’m trying to help you out of the goodness of my heart. Do you believe anyone is really capable of altruism?” “Of course not.” “Then you’ve answered your own question.” Logike mulled the situation over in his mind, chewing over the details. “Alright.” Logike said, holding out his hand for a shake. “I’ll let you teach me how to lie.” “Only if you make me look good.” Dr Infigo said, accepting the handshake.


I'm an attractive woman but want nothing to do with the guys that I work with. They brag about women that they have scored with and I find this behavior to be juvenile and more like a frat party environment than a work place. This one guy Mark bet his friends that he would score with me and I thought to myself, wait till he meets my great uncle Charles who is a retired marine. He will not think about it after meeting him. We agreed to meet at Orlando Springs which is the local swimming hole and have lunch. He has no idea that 30 family members are showing up to meet him. They will position themselves, so he can't easily leave or quietly slip away. Right as we are sitting down to eat lunch, the family arrives. Mark puts his hand on my arm and my Uncle Charles taps him on the shoulder and says, "Don't even think about it." Mark turns around rather surprised. I introduce him to my Uncle who says laughs and says he's kidding. "Nice to meet you. When Maxine goes on a date, it's a tradition in our family for everyone to meet her date and to see if he's a suitable partner for marriage. " Uncle Charles rings a bell and yells, "Come meet Maxine's date." I know that Mark wants to escape, to leave, get out but he can't because family is everywhere. I introduce him to my 3 older brothers, one of whom is a professional wrestler and the other two are built like football players. We have lunch that my Aunt Clara made. She hugs him and says, "Welcome to the family." I see him cringe when she hugs him and I laugh. There were several picnic tables that the family sat at and Mark well, he's trying to figure out a way to leave but he can't. He's basically stuck with 30 of my family members. This wasn't his idea of a date. He basically has no interest in what they are saying. It's all I can do not to laugh. After lunch, several family members follow us down to the swimming area and watched as I got into the water and swam around. Mark had no interest in swimming, especially with everyone around watching his every move. He wanted to make his moves on me in the swimming area earlier but now I can see that he has wasn't a happy camper. Oh well. He didn't go into the water. After 2 hours, he may up some excuse and when he left, my brothers followed him back to his car chattering away. He wasn't listening to them as he was ticked. What was he going to tell his buddies at work. He forgot that he had put the phone on recording, so all his buddies saw that he didn't get lucky. When he left, my family burst into laughter. I had friended one of the girlfriends of one of the guys that I worked with. I also recorded the event. I could hear Mark saying some choice words to his friends and co-workers who were laughing about the date. He was so angry that he started yelling and cursing at them. I just laughed. It was so funny. This happened on a Saturday. It was a joke in our family that if you wanted to get rid of a date, sent the family to go on the date and have them show up later. They saved me this time. This was the only time that I did this. I went back to work and Mark barely talked to me after that. None of the guys talked to me after that unless it was worked related. That how I want it. I've written short stories but haven't written a humorous story. Any feedback would be welcomed.