A great man once said, “if you claim to know everything about Quantum Physics, then you know nothing about Quantum Physics.” I remember as a kid I was sitting in the driveway outside my house after my father had driven off to work. The car was leaking oil and left a little puddle where the car was parked not five minutes before. It was the summer holidays and the sun was beaming down. I was only six, but by that age, my fascination with numbers was beginning to become apparent. I was counting the numbers of drops the leaking car made back to the oil slick. When a glistening spectrum of rainbow colours in the oil slick caught my eye. I remember being mesmerised by the colours and what could have been causing it. It wasn't until I was ten that I figured out that the thickness of the oil is similar to the wavelength of visible light. Different colours of light have different wavelengths. Depending on the exact thickness of the oil some colours don't reflect back due to destructive interference and some do reflect back due to constructive interference, so some colours are reflected strongly and others are not reflected, so the oil appears coloured. As the thickness varies different colours are reflected, so the colour appears to change. The teachers knew I was different. But they never encouraged me. They were scared of me because I was smarter than them. This became a pattern throughout my school years. Teachers were either intimidated by me or they flat out hated me. It didn't help that I would constantly point out inconsistencies in their math, or completely disprove a theory they had been working on their entire professional lives. We all had our heroes growing up and mine was Richard Feynman. Even though he had died two years before I was born. I felt like I knew him. I remember the first time I saw the Feynman Diagrams. To some people, they might seem random or chaotic. But where there is chaotic randomness, there is a pattern. It jumped out at me, as soon as I saw them. The probable nature of a particle didn't matter anymore. Have you ever looked at the vines that travel up walls and wonder how they know to hold on? Defying the laws of gravity, by just holding on, to get the best position for survival. What gives plants a sense of survival. Most will say evolution. But for me, evolution is just a fancy word for a very long time. If after a very long time a plant develops the means to protect itself. Then it learned to protect itself, over time. That's a level of intelligence only attributed to sentient beings. I always asked the questions that never got asked. Only to find no one had the Answers. This fascination with the deeper, underlying mysteries of reality, led me on a journey to find the true meaning of life. Like how the remnants of dead stars reverberate around our bodies. You could, in fact, say that the dead stars are our ancestors. And like with everything else in nature, they die and become reborn again in another form. I was reading a recent paper on the nature of light and the wave-particle duality of photons When something jumped out at me. What if the wave that carries the photon, carries the information of the particle and can become the particle whenever it needs to. What if the wave carries with it, the whole history of that particle, past, future and present. That way it appears to be in more than one place at a time. It soon became perfectly clear to me that the atoms that make up everything in nature are conscious. I was on the brink of the most amazing scientific discovery in the history of mankind. So I thought. It was when I was in my lab. I was testing a theory. I heard of a group of scientists that were struggling with the mechanics of teleportation. They could send the information from one location to the next, but they couldn't make the object rematerialise. So to help read the infinite states of data and rearrange the information, I built my own special kind of quantum computer. It was the only working Quantum computer, known only by me to exist. It helped revolutionise my thinking. It allowed me to put my theories into real practice. I had figured out a way to use it to read the information that made up a wave-particle. And what I discovered in the infinite stream of data was that the wave carried its past, present and future state. That meant, along with my Quantum computer I was able to build a machine to teleport an object from one place to another. I was all set to go, to make history. To bring the world to a better state of being. I had acquired a live subject for testing my theory. A small macaque. He was a lively little monkey who would do anything for a banana. Everything was set up to go. I turned on the machine. The monkey dematerialised as I had hoped. But it was when it was being transmitted from one pod to the next I noticed my Quantum computer not only scrambling the data that made up the monkey. It was loading data unrelated to the monkey also. The process was slow but once it finished the door to the pod opened. As the smoke began to clear to my absolute delight the monkey came running out of the pod. But it wasn't the same monkey. It looked like a younger version of what I had put in the machine. The machine managed to read the past data of the monkey and teleported a past version of itself. It was truly an astonishing mishap. But what happened to the original version. I edged myself closer to the pod as the smoke cleared I cautiously looked inside. Brushing aside the last of the smoke. I was horrified to see another monkey in the pod. It was on the floor clearly in distress. It appeared to be deformed. But on closer inspection parts of his body was in different stages of decay. Limbs weren't fully formed or they had formed and died. I picked him up and brought him over to the table and laid him down. It began to howl. It seemed to be in immense pain. So I decided to put it out of its misery. As I administered a strong sedative to the monkey. The pod that the monkey had appeared in, started back up. But this time it was drawing a lot more power, from some unknown place. As the machine surged to the point it was glowing my Quantum computer started recording data being sent from the pod. An endless stream of data filled my computer screen. At first, it appeared random, but then words began jumping out at me. Something was communicating with me, something was talking to me. As I put the words together they seemed incoherent. But amongst the rabble was a message. WE KNOW, YOU SEE THE EYES DOES SEE, THE EYES DOES SEE. WE ARE THE MIND WE, WE ARE THE SOUL, SOUL, SOUL. IMPERFECT, IMPERFECT, YOU ARE THE IMPERFECT. WE HAVE CREATED AND NOW WE DESTROY. As the words destroy repeated itself the surge in energy shortcutted all my equipment blowing out the power to the lab. It was about a week after the accident. I was sitting at home when I got a message on my phone. It was from a close astronomer friend of mine. It was an urgent message to fly to California to NASA’s Optical Communications Telescope Laboratory. As I read over the rest of the message my heart began to race. As I read the last sentence the blood drained from my body. “Space, as we know it appears to have stopped expanding and planets in the night's sky are starting to disappear.” As I Packed my bag the words destroy repeated itself over and over again in my head. I never believed in God. But now I think I pissed him off. I certainly pissed something off.


By the time I stepped outside, the leaves were on fire, and I stopped in my tracks. I was confused. There were people in the neighborhood who were still going on their daily morning jogs, and walks, and cars driving by on the road. I closed my eyes, and counted to three, but when I opened them back up, it’s like the fire got even bigger. I thought to myself, not again. What was happening? My eyes were deceiving me, and I felt trapped in my own mind. I heard the front door open, looked back and it was my older brother leaving to go to work. I turned back around, and I didn’t see the fire anymore, but I could still feel the heat coming from it. My brother told me bye, hopped in his car, and drove away. It was a brisk Saturday, and I decided to get up early to get some fresh air. I haven’t been able to sleep lately. My nightmares were turning into night terrors, and I couldn’t shake this feeling of dread. As I began to walk, I got deep into my thoughts, and it felt like everything around me was a part of my imagination. It was fall. The leaves were turning colors, and the moon was taking over the sky. My mother owned a healing shop in the city where people who needed healing, and protection would go to her for help, and guidance. I didn’t realize how far I had walked, until I came upon the street my grandmother lives on. I shrugged and told myself why not and walked into her neighborhood. I haven’t told anybody about my dreams, or visions I have been seeing, because I knew it sounded crazy, and didn’t want my mother and grandmother to worry. My phone began to ring, and the caller ID was my grandmother. What a coincidence. When I answered, she said she left the back gate open for me and then hung up the phone. How does she do that? I never knew. I always thought it was just an intuition thing, I have that feeling too. I finally made it to her house, and the dread I had suddenly went away. Grandmothers do bring comfort. I opened the gate to the backyard and saw my grandmother watering her flowers. She had a very pretty garden, and always kept it up. I never saw a plant or flower loose its life. We greeted each other, and I helped her water the rest of the garden. Before I could say anything, she asked me how I’d been sleeping lately, and I didn’t lie. I told her the truth about my nightmares and the hallucinations I’ve been having while asleep and awake. She asked me how long this has been going on and I told her three months. My grandmother then grabbed my hand and rushed me inside. We went into her office, which was filled with books, journals, incense, sage, jewelry boxes, stones, and crystals, and I sat down on the couch near the window. I looked outside, and it really was a beautiful day. My grandmother had her glasses on, and was picking out books from her bookcase, handing me each one to put on her desk. Once she was done, she placed her hand on my forehead and began to pray. It wasn’t strange for her to do that. Prayer was something we did in my family every day, all day. There was never a bad time to pray. She closed the office door and began to sage the room. My family and I were deep into spirituality and were always aware of the company we kept around our souls and in our home. For that reason, my mother never allowed me to bring home just anybody because she said some people have demons in them, but don’t know it, and next thing you know there is a bad spirit wandering in our house, looking for its next vessel. Both my mother and grandmother had red brick clay at the front and back doors of the house for protection from evil spirits and negative energy. My body began to tingle, and I felt tense, as my grandmother was still cleansing the room. I closed my eyes and counted to five, and I started to hear voices. When I opened my eyes, there was a candle floating in the middle of the room. The sort of candle you find at the front altar in a church. It wasn’t lit, but the voices were coming from inside of it. I got up from the couch and walked to the middle of the room and looked inside the candle. There were three tiny creatures dressed in white robes, dancing around in a circle humming to a hymn. I smiled and then they abruptly stopped, and slowly turned to look at me. My smile turned into a frown, and one by one each creature disappeared, and the candle ignited with fire, blowing up in my face. I panicked and called for my grandmother, who I didn’t see in the room anymore, but I wasn’t scared. I started to feel that sense of dread again and became light headed. I walked back over to the couch, laid down and fell asleep. When I woke up, my mother, grandmother, and brother were all in the room looking at me. My grandmother was looking through one of her books, my mother was stirring a cup of tea, and my brother was shaving down a red brick over a pot. My grandmother asked me what I had saw, and I told her what happened, and the reoccurrence of fire in my visions. My mother handed me the cup of tea, kissed me on the check, and told me that everything was going to be okay. Honestly, I just wanted to know what was going on. “Oneiromancy”, Grandma Sadie said, while she sat back in the chair at her desk. “I’m sorry, what?”, Niani, replied back, removing the tea cup away from her mouth. “Hoodoo”, Sarah, Niani’s mom declared. I looked at my brother to see if he was hearing what I was hearing. “It’s real”, Nasir, my brother said to me. I was mind boggled to say the least. I have heard my grandmother and mother talk about it, but I didn’t know they were affirmed believers who participated in it. As I finished my tea, and sat up on the couch, my grandmother told me that we all have gifts, and that it’s up to us to decide if want to embrace it or not. Oneiromancy is one of the several forms of divination in hoodoo, which meant the interpretation of dreams in order to foretell the future. My mother said my gift is being a seer. She said my brother went through this phase too when he was my age, but that my visions are stronger, and hold more power. My grandmother told me that the time has come for her to start training me to control my visions and to use my dreams to help people. I wasn’t opposed to it; I was actually excited. I finally felt like I had a purpose in life; a reason to live. Nasir began to tell me that dad had the same gift but was killed because of it. No one likes people who have special gifts, because they see them as a threat to normal ideologies. My grandmother told me that there are people who want to steal our magic and have always gone after our family, to either lock them up in a mental institution or kill them, taking their souls. I wasn’t asking many questions because they were answering them before I could even think about it. Boo Hag is who they told me we had to be aware of. Boo Hag is an evil spirit who torments the living, while also sending other demons to take possession of those who are weak and vulnerable. However, before my mother could finish telling me about our family secrets, we all became overwhelmed with dread and heartache. We quickly went into the living room and turned on the television, and that’s when we saw it. There was an explosion in the downtown area at a church, during a youth service program, killing three small children, who were performing a dance ritual in their white robes. My heart dropped and I fainted. I was in the kitchen, the sink was running water, and there was a bowl on the dining room table spinning. It began to spin faster, spurring fire, and then the water cut off. Signs. I took a deep breath in and a deep breath out. I looked around the room, which was getting smaller each second, and a crystal appeared in the fire. I grabbed the crystal and woke up. I was in the car. My brother was driving, my mother was in the front seat, and my grandmother was next to me holding my hand. My grandmother demanded that I tell her everything I just saw. She told me to listen to my heart, and I told Nasir to drive to the library in town. “What did you pull out of your vision?”, Sarah asked. I opened my hand and it was the crystal that was in my dream in the bowl of fire. When we pulled up in front of the library, there were police cars, fire trucks, and an ambulance in the parking lot. We got out the car, and there was smoke coming from the building. The police were trying to keep people back, and there were firemen carrying people from out of the building. My grandmother told me to go to the front line and tell the firemen where to look. I went up to the front of the line, and told one of the police to tell the firefighters to go down in the basement, near the windows that are shaped like bowls, because there is a pregnant mother stuck down there and she cant get out, but there is still time left to save her. The cop looked at me like I was crazy, but I pleaded. He rolled his eyes at me and turned his head. I grabbed the cops hand with a tight grip, and looked at him deep in his eyes, showing him what would happen to him if he didn’t help me save the pregnant woman. I let go of his hand, he stumbled back, and ran to the nearest fireman to tell him about the woman stuck in the basement. The fireman looked at me, grabbed his partner, and then they went inside. Five minutes later they came out with the pregnant woman, she was unharmed and still breathing. Seconds later the library collapsed. I walked away from the front line, and went back to my family, who hugged me. I looked at my grandmother, and she told me that I had the gift of seeing, and showing, but the showing could become a dangerous thing if I let it take control over me. I liked the showing. Just to think that this day ended how it did because of leaves on fire.


For the first time in years, my leg didn’t hurt. You see, I have a slight kink in my lower spine that causes a constant low-level pain. I have mostly learned to live with the pain but on that day, I was especially grateful for a reprieve. It was on a Friday in September 1970 when I walked along a narrow, little-used trail that wound through a dense forest in northwest Pennsylvania. I was on a quest to find something, anything that would help me understand what happened to my father during the war. As a child, our relationship was wonderful. He called me Davey and taught me to throw, catch, and hit a baseball. ‘Joltin’ Joe DiMaggio was his favorite player and almost every day in the summer, we listened to Yankee games on WJZ radio out of New York City. Did you know that WJZ eventually came WABC radio which is still operating to this day? I was about seven years old when Dad was drafted into the Army and eventually deployed to Korea. He served on a mortar team in active combat. Mom and I initially received regular letters from him, but these tapered off to the occasional one-side-of-one-page note eventually to no communications at all. Since we had not received the visit that every military family dreads, we believed he was alive. Dad returned after two years a changed man. Our relationship was terrible after the war, and we often argued. He was angry and abused my mom; mostly with words, but he occasionally punctuated his words with his hands. He never touched me, but I hated him for what he did to mom. He would not talk about the war except for the occasional funny story involving his army buddies. Dad would sometimes show me photographs pulled from an old shoe box he kept on a closet shelf and belly laugh while talking about something crazy someone did in Korea. I loved hearing him and I laughed too until his smile receded into a distant stare. I figured he remembered something that wasn’t funny, so I would quickly leave the room whenever that happened, which was often. Dad’s anger subsided in late 1962 and things really started to get better. We didn’t know why, but we relished the change in him and didn’t ask any questions. Together we planned a family camping trip, a visit to Niagara Falls, and best of all, tickets to a Yankees game in New York City! A double-header! I couldn’t wait to see Mickey Mantle play! We were happy and our days were full and bright until one day in early spring 1963, he suddenly died of a heart attack. We were devastated. About a month after Dad’s funeral, I decided to look through his shoe box of keepsakes hoping to find some clues to his time in the war. The box held what you might expect: photographs, pins, receipts, patches, and various other things. There was nothing unusual except a cryptic letter to my dad from someone named John in D Company. It read: August 1962 Jacob, Enough time has passed that we should be safe. We have information that you need to hear. Meet us at Akko Bridge on September 24th, 4 PM. John, D Co After reading the letter, I really wanted to find Akko Bridge, but mom and I were mourning and, at the same time, busy trying to figure out our future. So, I kept the letter determined to one day find the place. But as they say, life goes on, which it did, and I totally forgot about Akko Bridge for about seven years. Then, one day in the fall of 1970, the old letter dropped from a stack of papers onto the floor, and I knew that it was time to start the quest. In an old book in our town’s library, I discovered that Akko Bridge crossed a river of the same name near the small town of Kaylor, Pennsylvania. I lived in near Pittsburgh at the time which is about an hour drive from Kaylor.

I travelled to Kaylor one Friday determined to find the bridge. I stopped first at the town post office. The young clerk had not heard of Akko Bridge but directed me to the hotel suggesting I speak with a man named Judd Miller. More than 90 years old at the time, Miller was a life-long resident of Kaylor and the clerk thought that if anyone knew of such a place, he would. Everyday, Mr. Miller sat on the porch, reading a newspaper and greeting visitors to the aging hotel. As I approached the slightly sagging porch, I saw a man with a shiny head, that apparently hadn’t supported hair for quite some time, reading a newspaper. This must be old Judd, I thought. His crisp copy of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review swayed in harmony with the movement of his rocking chair. “Mr. Miller?” I asked. He lowered his newspaper, looked at me and smiled. “Welcome to our hotel, young man. May I help you?” “I hope so, sir. My name is Dave and the lady at the Post Office suggested I talk to you. I am looking for a place called Akko Bridge. Do you know of it?” “Hello, Dave. Yes, I know Akko Bridge. I haven’t been there in, good Lord, must be twenty years now. Why do you ask?” he said. “I’m retracing steps of my father. He passed away earlier this year, and I believe he spent some time there with his army buddies. Probably camping.” “I’m sorry to hear of your loss,” said Miller. He reflected for a few seconds then said, “I wonder if that old bridge still crosses the river? It was in poor shape the last time I was there. Built in the early 1920s, I believe. Here, let me draw you a map. It’s deep in the woods.” Mr. Miller sketched a rough map on part of his Tribune-Review, carefully tore the map from newspaper, and handed it to me. “I believe the road leading to the bridge is no longer passable, so you will need to take an old trail that I knew like the back of my hand as a child,” he said.

We talked a while longer, I thanked him, and resumed my journey. I drove to the trailhead, parked, and began the hike. About a mile in, the forest tightly hugged the trail and I suddenly heard voices carried on the wind. Rattled, I paused and listened for a few moments, but all I heard was the irregular crackling and rustling of a dense forest. If you have ever been alone in the woods, you know they are alive with the sounds and movements of branches, leaves, small animals, birds, and even the occasional deer. As the trail rose toward higher ground, I was even more grateful for a pain-free leg. Maybe it went on a permanent vacation? One could only hope! I eventually approached what appeared to be the top of the rise and heard a loud waterfall. Mr. Miller had told me that the bridge crossed a narrow gorge that the Akko River cut into the sandstone of western Pennsylvania over countless years. He also said that the sandstone beneath Pittsburgh is some three miles thick. I had no idea! When I finally reached the top of the rise, it was getting dark, but I could see a rusted steel truss bridge crossing the river gorge. It certainly had seen better days but didn’t appear in danger of collapse, and the roads leading to and from the bridge were not at all overgrown. I felt sure that I had found the Akko Bridge but wondered why Mr. Miller directed me to the trail instead of the road; although I was not in pain, it would have been much quicker to drive here. I stopped and looked around the area. There was nothing much to see but trees, rocks, and of course the old bridge, but to my right, I saw light dancing on the lower branches of the trees as if from a campfire. I could not hear anything above the sound of the waterfall but decided to make my way towards the flickering light.

Creeping quite a way into the woods, I stopped within ten feet or so of a campfire. I could see four men seated on felled logs within a small clearing. Judging by the look on the three men’s faces that I

could  see, they were discussing something serious. A man in a red and black checked hunting jacket with his back to me spoke… “OK, John, why are we here?” “Take it easy Jacob. We must be careful.” Jacob? I thought, that is my dad’s name! “Why John? Careful of what? It’s 1962. It’s been over ten years, for Christ’s sake!” “Jacob, you weren't responsible,” said another man. “Don’t give me that, Ted. You were there.” “You were set up Jacob,” said Ted. “What??” said Jacob. “What do you mean?” I was shocked. The man Jacob was, in fact, my father and somehow, I was at the meeting mentioned in letter. If it really was 1962, either I was a time traveler or someone was playing a very sick joke on me. “You remember Bill Sells from Charlie Company. He went to work for The Agency after the armistice was signed,” said John. “Sells? No, I don’t remember him. The Agency?” asked my dad. “CIA,” said John. “He eventually received security clearance for classified war files, and it took more than a year, but he discovered a coverup on the civilian deaths you were blamed for.” “What??” said my dad. “That’s right, Jacob,” said a man who hadn’t yet spoken. “I’m Bill Sells. A secret unit operating across the border screwed up and mistakenly killed more than a dozen civilians. To avoid escalation of the war, your mortar team was deemed incompetent and blamed for the incident. The very high-level talks apparently worked and your team were scapegoated.” “What??” exclaimed my dad. He lowered his head into his hands and was silent, I assume he was trying to understand what he had just heard. The men were quiet for several minutes, until my dad raised his head and spoke. “Scapegoat?…I…I…have carried that weight for so long. The incident destroyed my marriage and my family. My son Davey… he hates me. My wife… I have treated her terribly.” My dad looked at the ground and cried heavy tears. The three men gathered around him, and each placed a hand his shoulders. I sat down on an old tree stump, head in hands, and cried too. I had no idea what he had gone through in the war. I don’t know how long I stayed in that position, but when I raised my head, the clearing was covered with brush. There was no campfire, no felled logs, and no men. I sat for a while trying to absorb what I had seen and heard. I eventually stood and walked towards the bridge; even in the dark I could see it was in very poor condition. The steel superstructure was damaged and heavily rusted. The bridge deck had large holes in it and the connecting roads were completely overgrown, just as Judd Miller said. I guess it would be hard for most, but I believed what I saw and heard that day. I viewed my dad in a new way and while I am still sickened by his abusive actions, I forgave him. I better understood what he had experienced and how it had affected him. Forgiveness removed a massive weight from me. I wiped the remaining tears from my eyes and started back down the narrow trail towards my car, glad that I brought a good flashlight. I will never forget what I experienced at Akko Bridge, and I hope wherever my dad is now, he knows that he is forgiven.

Oh, in case you’re wondering, my leg is still pain free!


As I recall, we weren't really there. Our veins were being flooded with wine, beer and unnamed spirits that were named at the time, but I don't remember them. Despite that, everything had slowed down to an even pace. The sun stayed up forever, blinding us from being able to make eye contact across the beer garden table. We only found respite from the glare when we looked down at the black table-top to stub-out our cigarettes into the ashtrays. The flood of booze was raging, but it felt slow. Time limped away. Hours in minutes, it seemed. We were there for a good while, though. Four hours, I think. We had witnessed the rise and fall of strange men pounding flashing buttons on the bandit. We saw them lose £50 in the space of mere seconds, and we were infuriated. What a waste, we would think. I was annoyed at you, too. At the first sign of a dwindling conversation you took your phone out of your pocket, pretending to text people. Checking the news. The latest status update. Anything to stop you from talking to me. Outside, with the sun still punishing us, our silences were filled by sniggering at the drunks, already too drunk for this time of day, but we both knew we were no better. You asked to borrow a ciagrette, and then another, and then another, and then you would sigh when I told you I had none left. I wasn't lying, you know. I really didn't have any left. And it was because of you that I didn't. I stumbled to the shop to buy more cigarettes. One of the strangest feelings in the world is walking around a busy town centre at two in the afternoon drunk, when you know for a fact that every single person around you is sober. They are doing their shopping, taking their kids to the local park, mooching. But your vision is swirling. It's really strange but also kind of liberating. When you see a teenager doing something stupid you feel like you can walk up to him and starting a fight. When you see a police officer you feel like you can approach them and start swearing at them. But you never do. You don't have the spine, or more, your own brain reins you in, telling you you shouldn't. And that's fine, because knowing that you can do if you want, is good enough. I bought the wrong brand of cigs but that doesn't matter. They're cigs. Besides, they were for you, not me. This is a weird kind of drunk. Being drunk in the day time is different. It's like you're floating everywhere and not walking. There's a strong sense of independence. The spirits and whatever else running through me is probably why I didn't notice the homeless man at first. I took a double-take and walked backwards, back to him. He was on the floor, legs crossed as though he was doing street yoga. He had at least five layers on and a beanie hat despite the temperature reaching twenty. He must have been boiling. Or cold. The homeless man asked for change. I smiled, but I was careful not to make it a pitiful smile. I gave him a £5 note but in my stupor I would only later realise that I gave him a £20 note instead. But I don't feel bad for that. Money is paper. Paper means a lot to the homeless. I walked off but he whistled after me. For a second time now, I went back to him. He gestured for me to sit with him, and I did. I don't know why. I thought that I shouldn't because I knew you were waiting for me in the beer garden. Well, waiting for my cigarettes, not waiting for me. So I thought, sod you, you can wait. And you did, but I don't know how long for. The homeless person began rambling. I know it's a stereotype, but he did. He spoke of war, then tigers, then bread. I thought he was mad, but you can't blame him. Who wouldn't be? He spoke of hostels and free beds, but he couldn't stay at them any more. He was banned. Imagine, a homeless person banned from homeless shelters. Where can he go? And that's when he said it: He wanted to die. He could easily do it, but it would only be easy from a literal sense. After all, it isn't hard to kill yourself. What's hard is finding the backbone to go through with it. That's when I pulled my packet of cigarettes out and shared them with him and I thought, I'm not going to share these with my friend when I get back to the beer garden. It might have been the heat. It might have been the alcohol. It might have been a mixture of the two, which is more likely. Whatever it was, I had an idea. I offered to kill him. That way, he would die like he wanted, but he wouldn't need the backbone to do it. He agreed, but he asked me for another cigarette first. I gave him one, why wouldn't I? It's kind of like his last meal. He told me that he didn't want to know how he was going to die, so I assured him it would be a surprise. I struggled to my feet, the heat was far too intense. I felt the panic of the moment when you realise you're sobering-up, so I went to the shop and bought a large bottle of cider and a small can of vodka and coke. I drank the can really quickly. It nearly came out of my nose. I lit a cigarette and went back to the homeless guy. I told him the cider was for him and he smiled like it was Christmas to a child. He asked me how I was going to kill him. I told him I already did. He looked annoyed but that's okay, he probably knew what I meant deep down. You know what weird feeling when you're drunk in the middle of the day time and everyone else seems to be sober and the whole thing starts twisting? It's liberating. It's like a weird feeling of independence. On my way back to the pub to get back to you (you must have been waiting forever), I noticed a teenager chasing pigeons and making them fly into the faces of tutting old people. So I ran over to him and punched him square in the face. I felt one my knuckles slice open from a tooth, but I didn't feel the pain of it. The police officer I mentioned was still there, you know. He came over after hearing the commotion and when his eyes locked onto mine, you know what I said to him? I told him to go fuck himself. I laughed, probably a little too loudly, and then looked-up to the sky. The sun was blazing. Not a cloud to be seen. It was the middle of the day and I felt like I was the only person in the town centre who was drunk. It feels weird, but in a good way. Liberating. Then I was on the ground, kissing the concrete. I felt my hands being tied together and the cold metal hugging my wrists. Then I thought of you, and you know what I did? I laughed and thought 'You can wait in the beer garden all day you son of a bitch. You aren't having my cigarettes.


         “…no man can ever feel his own identity aright except his eyes be closed;               as if darkness were indeed the proper element of our essences…”

Moby Dick                                                                   Herman Melville

3:13 a.m. I smell smoke. It isn’t Marlboro smoke. It’s acrid, tart, grasping. Not like the cigarette smoke that I enjoy so much. Beautiful smoke, filling my leathered lungs with smooth, substantial, toxic vapors, tickling my chest, calming my ever-active mind. Tendrilled wisps of white fairies curling toward the ceiling or the sky, dancing erotically until they disappear, dissipate, disengage from this earthly realm. I open my eyes, horrified at what I see: thick, white smoke entering unbidden under the bedroom door. A crackle enters my consciousness, and I know it for what it is. Two thoughts cross my mind as I jump up and slip on my trousers and sandals, both thoughts warring with each other for supremacy. My house is well and truly on fire. I am probably going to die.                                                     **************

3:14 a.m. The hallway leading to the kitchen is filled with white smoke. My eyes burn, but my lungs are surprisingly unaffected. I reflect that smoking cigarettes prepared my lungs for this assault, and I laugh out loud. Take that, Linda! Maybe I’m going crazy, like my ex-wife always said I would. Maybe the smoke is causing me to hallucinate, for I swear I hear her voice, chiding me for smoking too much, drinking too much, and eating too little. My fingers trace the left wall of the hallway, searching for the kitchen entrance. Peeling paint flakes off and becomes embedded under my fingernails, sending bolts of pain through my hand and arm. I should have repainted the house long ago. When Linda left me, I just kind of gave up on house maintenance. Now I’m paying for it. I knock a picture off the wall. I know which one: a photo of Linda and me, when things were still good between us. The tinkling sound of glass breaking comingled with the sound of something crashing. It sounds like the armoire in the old master bedroom. It hasn’t been used since Linda left. I wonder if Linda still remembers those beautiful nights in our bedroom. I can’t sleep there any longer. Linda didn’t want the armoire. Said I should give it to one of my girlfriends. That hurt. I bend down to pick up the photo, folding it up and stuffing it in my back pocket. It’s effectively ruined now, but I don’t care. If I’m going to die, I want what Linda and I once had to be with me. I remember where we were in that photo. Lake Bowie. I had won a writing contest, and I was happy and feeling generous. All of this was before I became full of myself. The cabin was nice enough, but Linda spotted a scorpion. She refused to set foot in the cabin until I had cleared it out. I spent three hours checking everything for scorpions. I didn’t find any, but I did kill a few spiders and tossed out the carcass of a dead mouse. I didn’t tell her about that. We had a hell of a good weekend in that cabin. Our souls twinned and twined and twirled and twisted, only to become unraveled somewhere along the way. The door jamb leading to the kitchen interrupts my musings. My pulse, already sending blood to my body at warp speed, quickens even more. My face feels hot, like it did one long-ago week when I had a severe bout of flu. Linda took care of me then. Gentle touches, cool rags to the forehead, soothing murmurs. Linda was at her best when someone needed her. I never got that until years after the divorce. I asked her once when she thought I was at my best. Sleeping, she said. I pretended it was a joke. I turn left, seeing the kitchen in my mind. My hip rams into the kitchen island. I curse, but not much. My lungs are beginning to rebel. They feel achy and heavy, like I had run a 100-meter dash after smoking a pack of Marlboro Reds. I’m gasping for air now, and I feel dizzy. Panic can’t be far behind. The dining room table accosts me next, but not badly. I run the palm of my right hand along its contours, feeling for the end so that I could take – I think – three medium steps to the living area. Is it three? Or four? I can’t remember. My mind won’t focus, won’t see what it has always seen for the past twenty-three years. My hand finds a rubber spoon, but in my effort to grab it, I knock it off the edge of the table. I hear myself whimper in frustration, surprised that I do so. Me? Whimper? Well, yes. I need that little rubber spoon. It was Janice’s spoon when she was little. Still is hers, I suppose. She was so cute, trying to use that spoon. For a few moments, she was successful, but frustration would set in. The spoon would be abandoned for fingers. I can still see her food-smeared face as she shoved in mouthfuls of buttered macaroni and sweet potato. I would wipe her mouth, which she hated. The divorce hit her hard. We shared custody, but that ended when she went to college. Linda used to come over often during those early years after the divorce. We would have meals together, watch Janice play, and reflect on where it all went wrong. It was always a short discussion. We both know what went wrong. Linda doesn’t visit me any longer, but the spoon is my constant companion, along with my guilt. Janice, like her mom, chides me for such things. It’s cute when she does it. Not so cute when her mom does it. I fall to the floor and scrabble around, almost desperate to feel the soft rubber in my hands again. I don’t much care if I die right now, as long as I have the spoon with me. Janice. At least I didn’t screw her up. She rebelled against me, though, going for a STEM degree instead of following her path to literary glory. She has the skills. And the pedigree. But she’s great at math and chemistry. I suddenly get the irony. Chemistry. I was more interested in chemicals and chasing skirts than developing a strong relationship with her mother. Fort tents. Pizza for breakfast. Loud arguments with Linda on such matters. She accused me of not being a parent and I accused her of being a tyrant. I find the spoon and cradle it against my chest. I wish it were Janice, but the small, rough, piece of rubber will have to do. Maybe I’ll just stay here and think about Janice as the smoke suffocates me. I can feel it getting stronger. I close my eyes because they burn so much. My chest constricts. Breathing is a chore now. I wheeze, cough, spit up phlegm that tastes weird, like cream gravy seasoned with gunpowder. Linda let me have the spoon as long as I let her have the Elmo. God, that thing is so ragged! Linda washed it, sewed it up, took care of it after the divorce, but it still looks old and tired. Like Linda does now. I see her from time to time, usually in the supermarket. She looks worn out, hard, frayed. Metal fatigue. I chuckle at the thought, and then I start crying at the thought. I know in my heart that I’m responsible for that. The sparkle in her eyes are gone, replaced by something dull and muted, a sort of pale fire. Her smile is not as genuine; it’s more like she’s trying on a new and uncomfortable dress and can’t decide on how to feel about it. I don’t ever touch her when I see her. She might break, and cleaning up the pieces would be something I’m not equipped to do.                                                     **************

3:16 a.m. I crawl toward what I think is the opening that leads to the front room, and freedom. I find the opening and pull myself up. The smoke is thicker, but I can’t crawl much because of my knees. Every time a knee encounters the floor, it feels like a sledgehammer blow to them. The pain reverberates though my body, leaving me quivering and shaking. Getting old sucks. I take three steps and stumble over a bookcase that has fallen. So, it wasn’t the armoire. I feel for a way around the bookcase and the books, regretting – for the first time, mind you – my profession. The books I read, the books I write, hell, they might just be my undoing. That’s where the trouble started. I became famous. A popular author that everyone wanted a piece of. Lectures, book signings, talk shows. I still mentally kick myself when I think of sleeping with all those women in all those cities. Starstruck college girls intent on living out a fantasy. Middle-aged Literature professors wanting to screw a real-life author instead of lecturing on dead ones. The occasional bar hookup. The less occasional hooker. Linda, I know, suspected, but she never said anything, never confronted me. I think she blamed herself, thought that she was lacking in some fundamental way. My expectations of her were unrealistic. I wanted her to be a dutiful wife during the day and a dirty whore in bed at night. It all came crashing down one October night. My agent came to our house, drunk and disheveled and generally looking like hell. She yelled out that she couldn’t live without me, that our love-making was transcendental, blah, blah, blah. Linda took it like a champ, and then she took herself and Janice away. The woman has class, though. She never denied me visits with our daughter, even going so far as to allow joint custody. The pizza for breakfast thing still bothers her. I don’t get that. I stumble over books. So many books! Why the hell do I have so many copies of my own books? I lean against a wall, despite feeling the heat that’s there, the heat that increases, telling me that the fire will soon break through to this area. I put my ear to the wall I had been leaning on. I can hear the pop of flames, their tongues licking at the walls like a slavering beast, ready to devour. I think of all those women I slept with. I wonder who the beast was, them or me. I open my eyes again and see white. Nothing but white. It seems impenetrable. Like love. Like hate. More monsters to overcome, or give in to. I remain undecided on which action to take.                                                      **************

3:17 a.m. I claw at the front door, doing a poor job of unbolting locks and unsliding chains. The door isn’t hot, thankfully, but it’s white and insurmountable and implacable. Like the smoke. Like everything. I’m knocked backwards by a tremendous force, skidding on my butt across the floor until I’m stopped by the bookcase. A dim figure strides in, lifts me up, carries me outside. An oxygen mask is put over my face and a blanket is wrapped around me. It’s cold as hell out here. Firemen are spraying great quantities of water on my house. The fire doesn’t seem to abate. Smoke pours out of the shattered front door, white plumes billowing out with increasing fervor. I cough up more of the gunpowder gravy and I spit it out, and then I replace the mask. Droplets of condensation form inside the mask. My lungs feel good now, and I want a cigarette, just so they don’t get too comfortable. Linda drives up and jumps out of her car. She rushes to me and suddenly stops, not knowing what to do now that she sees that I’m alive and ok. But I know what to do. I stand and hug her. It’s the least I can do, I know. The very least.                                                        **************

5:10 a.m. The fire is out, but smoke continues to make its presence felt. The firemen douse the embers, and even the smoke decides to give up in the face of several hundred gallons of water. I watch all of this with Linda. She holds my hand. It isn’t as soft as it used to be. She drives me to her house. Classy, like I said before. She had moved after Janice graduated high school to be nearer her work. All the way across town. A long drive, alone with a woman who should hate me, and with thoughts that I hate to think. “You can sleep in Janice’s room until you find a place,” Linda said. Her voice was strained. Not indifferent or angry or loving. As if it were being filtered through all the years of dealing with the shit I handed her. “Thanks. I’ll be out in less than a week. Promise.” Jesus! I just used the “p” word! I bet she’s wondering how I have the gall to use that word after I had broken practically every promise I ever made to her. I’d feel better if she would reach over and slap me. She doesn’t. I’m a little disappointed. Another mile goes by before she speaks again. “How did you get out?” A simple question. A complicated answer is needed, but I don’t supply her with the truth. I lie. “Just felt my way through the smoke.” “God! I saw that smoke! It never seemed to stop.” She’s not wrong. I never want to see that much white again in my life. “I didn’t think I could overcome it, but I did, somehow.” I fiddle with the rubber spoon before stuffing it in my front pocket. The house was gone, but I had a rumpled photo and a rubber spoon. Linda laughs lightly. A different kind of laugh. Like she used to laugh. “Well, you did better than Ahab. He never could beat the great white beast.” I nod, impressed by Linda’s reference. She never evinced a great interest in classic literature when we were married. I wonder if “Moby Dick” was a recent thing, or had she always liked the book and I never listened to her? You know what? I don’t want to know the answer because either one would hurt, and I’ve had enough hurt for one night. Not the physical kind, mind you. The other kind. The kind that stays but doesn’t leave a visible scar. You know what I mean. Linda makes me eat a sandwich before I take a shower and go to bed. I make myself drink three whiskey-and-sodas. She doesn’t say anything about that. Not tonight. Not after the fire. I fall into Janice’s bed and stare at her old posters. Jimi Hendrix. Jimmy Page. Jim Morrison. She always had a thing for musicians named “Jim.” I leave a lamp on. I check to make sure I can get out of the window without falling over something, and I implore Linda to do the same. She sits on the side of the bed and strokes my hand. She used to do this to Janice when Janice had a nightmare. Just sit with her and stroke her hand. Something so simple but it always worked with Janice. I’m starting to realize what a genius my ex-wife is. “Do you think we still have a chance?” I ask her this because a) I’m still not thinking straight and, b) the whiskey-and-sodas were very strong. More like I waved some soda over the whiskey glass. Yeah, it was all whiskey and no soda. Might as well confess. It’s that kind of night. Linda laughs and smiles at me, but the smile is sad and grim. Her fingers stop stroking my hand. Instead, she clasps it with both of hers. They’re hot and rough and, somehow, unemotional. I don’t feel Linda. I feel a stranger that is familiar to me. “Our ship is the Pequod . It sank. There are no survivors.” I know exactly what she means. She walks away and shuts the irritatingly white door.


           The door was waiting for him. Already open for a quick entrance into the inconspicuous car. Tony ran as fast as he could, chucking the duffle bags full of money into the back as he more or less dove into the passenger seat.        “Drive!” Tony screamed at Jackie, “Drive, goddamn it-

drive! ”        Jackie Scaletta did not need to be told. Before Tony had even entered the vehicle, he had popped the clutch into DRIVE. Before the passenger door was even closed he tore down the road like a bat out of hell.        Tires screeched like a woman getting murdered as the unnoticeable but powerful car growled down Lexington Street. A traffic light had just turned red as the car ran through it, narrowly avoiding collision with an expensive luxury vehicle.        The driver honked loudly, laying on the horn in shock in frustration but neither Jackie nor Tony D’Amato gave it much notice. They were too fixed on the wailing of police car sirens already going off in the distance. Coming after them.        “We did it, Jackie!” Tony screamed more than said, “We just robbed Lexington Bank, the cream of the crop! We are gold, my friend.”        Jackie only nodded in reply. He was too busy focusing on the road, maneuvering cars, hopping onto the sidewalk and the wrong side of the roads to say anything. Tony was shaking and excited as a child who had just scored the game-winning touchdown in a Peewee football game, but Jackie was calm and collected. A professional getaway driver if there ever was one.        “just a little bit further we’ll be over state lines- then after that, on our way to Mexico to live like kings, Jackie. We did-

whoah look out! ”        A wall of police cruisers was creating a blockade to the entrance of the interstate. Tony grew nervous immediately, visions of himself and Jackie being torn up by a barrage of Tommy Gun fire flashed through his mind. Torn apart by bullets as they did to Bonnie and Clyde. However, Jackie had prepared for this. He knew what to do.        “Hold onto something,” Jackie said with the coolness of an ice-cold killer. His face was determined, his eyes focused.        “Hold on?” Tony shouted. “Hold onto wha-“        He reacted just in time as Jackie popped the wheels on the shoulder of the entrance, scraping the passenger side of the car against the cement barriers that blocked cars from falling down the steep hill.        “Fuck! Fuck!

Fuck !” Tony shouted. Sparks flew like crazy fireworks off his side of the vehicle, he noticed with wide eyes.        The getaway car had attacked the weak spot of the barricade. Cops dove out of the way in fear as the driver side of the car clipped a police cruiser in the rear bumper, the collision was hard enough to knock the law enforcement car on its side. Gunshots fired harmlessly as the getaway car merged with the interstate traffic. The road to freedom.        “We made it! Holy shit, Jackie, you old sonuvabitch! We made it!” Tony hollered. He was shaking in excitement and fear. A bit of shock had also clouded his mind- he vomited quickly but violently out the window.        “Calm, down,

paisan ,” Jackie said calmly, “we aren’t free yet. Look behind us.”        Tony swore when he turned his head to see black and white cop cars following behind. Traffic had pulled over to the sides of the road to allow a path for the police to drive through. Tony had visions of Moses parting the Red Sea upon seeing this.        “What do we do?” Tony asked horrified again.        “You let me do my job,” Jackie told his childhood friend calmly. “You did your part, now it’s my time to shine.” He gunned the accelerator once again, the engine of the car growled like a lion on the attack, except they were the antelope and the police the lions. The rear windshield imploded with a sharp

snap!  as glass fell to the floor of the car.        “They’re shooting at us!” Tony yelped, another bullet hit the metal of the car’s exterior with a loud knocking sound.        “Well,” Jackie told Tony like a father teaching his son a lesson, “fire back.”        Tony reached between his legs for the weapon. A Thompson Machine gun with a 50 round drum loaded. He racked the first shot into the chamber, aimed intently at the leading cop car, and squeezed the trigger.        The gun went off, sounding like a barrage of drums, vibrating off the walls. The car Tony had been aiming at lost control and collided with a semi-truck that was pulled over.

One down, how many more to go ? Tony asked himself in his mind.        “Good job,” Jackie said calmly, still focusing on winding through the traffic on the highway, most drivers had gotten the message and pulled off where they could, but a few stubborn ones kept on going like nothing was happening.

Great, now we have a cop murder to add to our list,  Jackie’s mind told him. He shook his head to clear the thought away.        The car stank of burnt gunpowder and a ringing accompanied the ears of both men as Tony loaded another drum into the rifle.        “Don’t shoot unless they shoot first,” Jackie spoke, “Or if they get too close, even still, try aiming for the tires.”        “Don’t worry, I don’t intend on killing anybody unless I have to,” Tony replied. Jackie was thankful for this sentence from his friend. They weren’t murderers. There was no one else Jackie would aid robbing a bank with.”        A bullet shattered a small hole in the windshield. It narrowly missed Jackie’s throat. His blood went cold as he felt the ripple of air pass by his skin. A second one ripped another spot through the windshield- this one hitting its mark.        “Fuck,” Tony yelped, throwing his right hand onto his left arm. Blood stained his fingers. Another barricade stood ahead- this one three rows deep with paddy wagons and cruisers blocking the interstate.        “Tony!” Jackie shouted, momentarily taking his eyes off the path to look at his friend, “Are you okay?”        “Yeah,” Tony spoke through gritted teeth. “Just took some muscle and skin- missed the bone.”        “I need you to lay some covering fire when I say,” Jackie told him.        “What are we gonna do, buddy?” Tony asked, his pain was- at the moment- dulled by the fear that their escape had come to an end. No Mexico. The bullet would have to be extracted from his arm.        “Just wait,” Jackie replied, his voice getting lower and lower as he repeated, “Wait. Wait. Wait… Okay, now!

Fire!”

Jackie screamed, Tony leaned out the window and sprayed a barrage of bullets out of the end of the machine gun- aiming over the cops’ heads.        It was enough to scare the uniformed men to duck behind their vehicles as Jackie screamed the car over the grassy area between the lanes of the interstate, straightening on the wrong side as family cruisers and semi-trucks came dangerously close to head-on collisions with them. He rolled back onto the right side of the road once they had cleared the barricade, passing a sign that happily welcomed the two into the next state.        “We made it!” Tony shouted, “Holy Christ, Jackie! You did it we are clear!

Bravo paisano! ”        They had made it into the next state. Tomorrow morning, they would ditch the vehicle and get into another one to make the drive into Mexico. They were not safe yet. There was still the worry of a nation-wide manhunt or getting stopped at the border, but for now, Jackie Scaletta and Tony D’Amato were safe. They continued down the interstate.


Her bladder nearly let go with the boom and searing flash of light. Another peal of thunder came close on its heels rumbling and crackling across the sky, and then the torrential downpour kicked in. Tiffany was going to get wet one way or another.

Fortunately, the relentless lightning lit up a stone bridge thirty feet in front of her. She sprinted as best she could to the abutment leading down. Scrambling, she lost her footing and slid on her backside in the mud, hoping all the while to be able to stop before reaching the wettest thing of all, the river. She grabbed onto a passing branch threatening to spear her to pivot to a stop under the bridge. Hailstones peppering the water added to the banging and sizzling and rocks being moved around by the rushing stream. She listened, bent over, holding her sides and catching her breath. The house was not very far at all, but she needed to wait out Mother Nature’s snit. Tiffany dozed for a while, but then a movement caught her eye - a white something disappearing around the other side of the bridge. It wasn’t her dear sweet white terrier Oggie who refused to leave his nap. She hoped the something was too small to be dangerous but could not control her curiosity and found herself following it around the corner.

There Tiffany stepped into the dark and a much more vicious slide than last time but mercifully away from the river. This one had rocks and branches covered in a slick carpet of moss. She twisted and bounced, anticipating a broken arm or leg, or sprained wrist from the passing limbs and vines. Then she arrived with a thump, did a half cartwheel and stopped, her breath in little swirling clouds.

A voice from the cave or wherever she was said “I trust you have an invitation.” Tiffany rubbed her eyes to adjust to the dim light of one candle and found herself staring at an illustration from her book, complete with chequered waistcoat and folded umbrella. She blurted “If you are who I think you are, you’re a fictional character that does not exist in real life.” The white rabbit responded “Why do I have to be who you think I am? I could be anybody. You could try asking me a question to eliminate who I’m not… I’m not you, for instance.” “Of course you’re not me,” she responds “You’re a rabbit and I’m a girl. That’s not going to get us anywhere. If you are who I think you are, then… where is your watch?” “What watch?” “Your pocket watch?” “Oh that old thing. That was years ago. How do you know about that? Now I have this to keep the time,” and he removed a cell phone from his waistcoat pocket. “Look! This keeps perfect time! And the calendar reminds me of when I have to go.” Hardly had he finished speaking when a loud marimba tune rang out. “Oh dear, oh dear, it’s six o’clock!” The rabbit disappeared. Tiffany picked up the candle to illuminate a small door and followed the rabbit scurrying through the wood. Arriving, she found him seating himself at a table with a tablecloth, cups and saucers, a mouse that appeared to be asleep in a cup, a short odd-looking man wearing a top hat with a price tag in its hat band, and a hare with straw on its head. The hare jumped up, glaring at the rabbit and asked angrily “What’s this you’ve brought with you?” “Not what, who .” Tiffany responded huffily. “Why don’t you ask me who I am? I should know.” “Yes, you should know, but do you?” the hatted man responded. “That’s the real test.” “I didn’t come here for tests, I came to get out of the dreadful thunderstorm, and you’re not being very welcoming. My name is Tiffany, and if I remember correctly your names are White Rabbit, Dormouse, Mad Hatter and March Hare.” “See, you said if you remember correctly, which throws it all up in the air. In fact, you’re just about as wrong as anyone can be. In fact you are so wrong, you’re almost right!” “That does not make sense! Nothing makes sense here. You’re not real characters. You’re illustrations from a work of fiction!” “We should know what our names are just as much as you don’t,” the hatter snapped. “You’re very uneducated. It’s impolite. I go by IM, pronounced eye em for Irrational Milliner; this is the June Hare as time stands still for no-one not even you, and this, he poked the mouse who opened one sleepy eye, is Hazel.” The hatter stood. “It’s time to move around the table. Move!” “Mr. I.M.? I'm impolite? You haven’t asked me to sit down yet, let alone have tea.”

“Tea? Someone’s out of touch. Of course, you can help yourself to a latte and biscotti…” But before Tiffany could point out there wasn’t any such thing to be had on the table, another loud marimba tune rang out and the White Rabbit startled. “Come on! She’s going to be furious if the game’s already started!’ “Who’s she?” “The Blue Queen! Quick. Follow me!” Blue Queen? Curiouser and even more curious. No, that wasn’t quite right . Tiffany and the rabbit traversed alternating black and white squares with weeds growing between them to arrive at a pickleball court surrounded by courtiers standing to attention. A woman wearing a crown with a scepter and a bejeweled blue gown, appeared about to serve to soldiers dressed in full uniform wearing ceremonial hats with long tassels that obscured their eyes clanking around with swords at their sides and one hand tied beyond their backs. ”Ah, there you are!” the Blue Queen stopped and shouted out. “Come here at once!” The rabbit scurried. Tiffany followed at a walking place as a show of defiance.

Arriving on court Tiffany noted that the blue queen was identical to the red one except for her color; the massive head and bad mood dominating all around her. The queen handed her a rolled up hedgehog, its little black nose and dark eyes sticking out. “Your turn to serve for me!” Tiffany trembled. “But your majesty, I’ve never played. I don’t know the rules…” “Nonsense, girl. Just remember the flibberty gibbet bounces once in the kitchen, and don't thripe!” The White Rabbit frowned nervously and nodded to Tiffany to get on with it. Tiffany punted the hedgehog over the net as gently as she could. A silence suddenly reigned. “Off with her head!” screamed the Blue Queen. Just to be on the safe side, Tiffany decided to run.


“How dare you insult me like this?” Thomas St. Clair yelled in the middle of the busy restaurant. He was perched on a velvet-upholstered chair. His towering red pompadour was beautiful and intimidating like a peacock spreading its feathers. Gin and tonic dripped from his chin after he involuntarily spat out the drink, showering the Pan-Seared Sea Bass and Truffle Risotto. A woman sat directly across the table. She leaned forward and cupped her hands to her mouth, trying to screen her words from curious onlookers. “What is wrong with you?” she demanded. “I just want the banana cream pie.” Thomas brought his fist down on the table. The crash of dinnerware was akin to a car accident; everyone in the vicinity turned to view the wreckage. “Bananas be damned,” Thomas hollered. “Those yellow sacks of garbage need to go back to whatever country they came from. They’re all the same, soft and juiceless.” The growing murmurs from restaurant patrons were like applause to Thomas. He stood up, reveling in the spotlight, and continued, “Apples are the far superior fruit. As heir to the St. Clair Cider Company, you’ve proven unworthy with these banana shenanigans. We’re through.” A black, gloopy mixture of salt water and mascara streamed down the woman’s cheeks as she sprinted towards the front door. Thomas stopped short of bowing to his audience but smiled and returned to his Sea Bass. An older gentleman with slicked-back hair and a perfectly tailored suit took the empty seat. He spoke in a solemn tone, “Do my ears deceive me? Did you break up with someone over pie?”

Thomas’s smile stretched wider. “Chauncey, this is one hell of a fish you make here.” “Every week you bring a new woman to my restaurant,” Chauncey continued. “Every week they leave here crying. It’s not good for business, what’s the matter with you?” Thomas laughed and arrogance radiated off him like heat waves from a barbecue. “I’m a very wealthy man Chauncey, and highly respected in the beverage industry. I demand nothing less than perfection from any lady I date.” “I don’t appreciate you disrupting my customers.” “Relax. For the trouble, add a ‘K’ to my bill.” “A ‘kay’?” Chauncey asked. “Yeah! One K. One grand. One thousand bucks, whatever you want to call it. I'm good for it." Chauncey made a come-here motion with his finger and began to whisper, “I'll admit you have spent a lot of money in my restaurant, so I’ll let you in on a little secret. I’m currently in possession of a magic genie. You may talk to him… BUT ONLY if you promise to wish for a woman who satisfies all your needs.” Without hesitation, Thomas pushed his plate away, wiped his mouth, and nodded in acceptance. Chauncey pointed to a dimly lit hallway lined with silk plants. “Goes past the washrooms, third door on the left. The passcode is 3909 .” Thomas punched the numbers onto the electronic keypad. Beeps were followed by the low drone of a motor retracting a deadbolt. The door was solid metal and heavy, like an old bank vault. It opened to a bright, windowless room. White floor tiles. White walls. White ceiling panels. Thomas felt like he was inside a marshmallow. In the back corner was a baby lamb nestled on a small pile of hay. The animal shook off bits of straw from its fleece and trotted towards Thomas, its tail wagging like a dog’s. Having never been around barnyard animals, Thomas took a defensive stance, “Are you the magic genie?” The lamb began to brush up against Thomas’s leg. He tried to shoo away the fluffball by shaking it, but the lamb became agitated and emitted a horrific maaaaa sound before bending over and sticking its rear end in the air. Thomas was knocked backward by an explosion of blue light and a hurricane-like wind. Through a cloud of smoke emerged a floating cross-legged man. He wore tight jean shorts and a beer belly spilled out of a Led Zeppelin t-shirt. The figure brushed long greasy black hair from his eyes and boomed, “I am the genie of the lamb.” “The lamb?” Thomas questioned. “Shouldn’t it be lamp?” After a brief pause, the genie lowered its head and talked in a laid-back stoner voice, “I kinda cheated my way through Genie School. You pretty much have to when ya got Visual Dyslexia. Lamp. Lamb. They both look the same on paper. But a big difference when it comes to smell. I may have accidentally picked an untraditional genie dwelling, but I’m still authorized to grant you one wish.” “Can you use those genie powers to find me a gentle, caring wife?” Thomas asked. “One metal pairing knife coming up.” “WHAT,” Thomas yelled. “I said caring wife.” “Busted! I’m also a tad deaf, so you’re gonna have to speak up and please be specific.” Thomas began to formulate the perfect woman in his mind, cycling through the annoying flaws that caused previous break-ups. One woman was taller than him, one walked too fast, one ate like the Cookie Monster, one put mustard on French fries, one smelled like the pine tree air freshener from his car, and there was the one named Isabella. The Hispanic beauty was nearly perfect, but sharing the same name as his mother, Thomas found it difficult to dirty talk or scream her name in bed. Thomas locked eyes with the genie and proclaimed in a loud, clear voice. “I wish for the perfect woman who will love and adore me. I want her to be from South America. I want her to be petite and slim with smooth skin and delicious curves. I want her to be rich, loaded with K. And she must be sweet on the inside and have appeal on the outside.” The genie’s fingers moved to his temples, and his eyes shut tight in deep concentration. His head began to shake violently. Then a ding, reminiscent of a toaster oven bell, echoed through the room. “Your wish has been granted,” the genie said and opened his eyes. “She’s waiting for you at the restaurant table.” The genie turned transparent, shrunk, and returned to his home inside the lambs' rear end. From across the dining room, Thomas saw two empty chairs at the table. He twisted and strained his neck as he navigated the busy restaurant floor looking for a woman that matched his description. Nothing. He plopped into his chair disappointed. “Is that you Thomas?” said a woman’s voice with a Spanish accent. “I’ve missed you so much.” Thomas perked up and scanned his surroundings, but there was no sign of a woman. However, movement on the other side of the table caught his eye. Sitting on a velvet seat cushion was a banana. A banana with oversized cartoonish eyes that were smoky and supported lashes that reached for the ceiling. Pouty lips of ruby red. Stubby human-like arms and legs protruded from its yellow skin. The chest area was slightly peeled, showing off lumps of soft white flesh like some Red-Light district whore.

“Let’s get out of here,” the banana purred. “I want to be inside you.” “What the hell is this?” Thomas said. “Where’s my curvy South American sweetie?” The banana licked a finger and ran it down the yellow curve of its skin, then pointed to a sticker that clearly said Ecuador. “My name is Chiquita.” Violent thoughts began to invade Thomas’s mind. A blender whirling the banana to a creamy death. A frying pan slammed down on its yellow jacket and pulp oozing out like a popped zit. Instead of implicating himself in a bizarre mash and dash, Thomas excused himself from the table, headed for the third door on the left, and furiously shook the lamb. Its tail lifted into the air, and like steam from a kettle, a bulky figure began to materialize. “Sorry dude, one wish per person,” the genie said. “For further assistance, may I direct you to a shooting star, birthday candle, or that fountain in the middle of the mall.” Thomas leaned into the genie's face, like a baseball manager arguing with an umpire. “A banana! I wish for the perfect woman, and you give me a talking banana?” The genie wiped specks of saliva off his face, then put on a pair of half-rim reading glasses and removed a two-foot-long till receipt from his jean shorts. He began to read, “One wish issued to St. Clair, Thomas. A woman with the following qualities. Loves and adores him. Petite, slim, delicious, curves, from South America, and rich in K—which, we all know is the periodic table symbol for potassium. Sweet on the inside and has a peel.” “Not a peel you idiot. Appeal, as in sex appeal. How am I supposed to love and take care of a banana?” With a puff of smoke, a laptop appeared in the genie’s hand and his fingers rapidly tapped the keys. “Says here you can wrap her up in aluminum foil. Also, keep her away from ethylene gas. And, if you’re into some freaky bedroom stuff, you can hang her from a hook.” ****** Inside Thomas's apartment, he sat on the couch in silence, the banana beside him. Thomas counted 382 ticks from the grandfather clock before he swiveled toward the window at the distant wailing of an ambulance. Chiquita spoke, “I saw the way you looked at the chocolate cake on that dessert cart. You’re in love with her, aren’t you? Is it because that hussy-bitch has a cream-filled centre?” “I’m not in love with any food,” Thomas snapped. “Especially dirt-cheap fruit that wasn’t grown in this country. Bananas are evil.” Thomas froze and his eyes wandered off as he began to unlock a memory buried deep in his mind. Thomas was seven years old exploring the family apple orchard one evening. The sputtering of a small engine wasn’t out of the ordinary, it was the subsequent aggressive buzzing that fanned the flames of terror. A rhythmic roaring danced off the trees, forcing robins and sparrows to flee the area. In the distance, Thomas could see his father, dressed in a banana costume, wine bottle in one hand and a running chainsaw in the other. He chanted, “See my peel, feel the fright, this banana will get you tonight.” His father chased Thomas yelling anti-banana propaganda, stopping only to take swigs out of the bottle. The red wine ran down his mouth and across the costume, giving the appearance of a wild animal feasting on a fresh kill. Thomas hid underneath a rusted Ford pickup truck until the chainsaw ran out of gas sometime after midnight. “What are you thinking about?” Chiquita asked. “I’ve never been this close to a banana before,” Thomas replied. “I don’t understand, you’re not some bloodthirsty monster hellbent on killing me. In fact, you’re not so different from an apple. You might be different colors on the outside, but on the inside, white flesh and fructose run through your veins.” Thomas shook his head in shame and lowered his defensive wall. “How could I be so blind? Those silly stories about horrible yellow creatures stealing our money and our jobs. It was all my family talked about. Did you come from a large family, Chiquita?” “Yes, there was a bunch. But I recently lost my grandpa to crown rot.” Thomas slowly replied, “My grandpa recently died of a blood clot.” Their eyes connected and an electric charge filled the room. Chiquita’s breath quickened and in a husky voice declared, “I may be green around the edges but want you to manhandle me like a starving monkey.” Her peel began to moisten, like a mirror after a hot shower. She didn’t have time to wipe away the mist before Thomas wrapped his fingers around her and smooth yellow skin slid in and out of his mouth like a popsicle. The steady rhythm caused Chiquita to moan in ecstasy and a warm tropical aroma filled the air. Thomas ripped off his shirt exposing his gorilla-like chest hair. Chiquita’s pull tab quivered at the sight. Thomas began to explore every inch of her peel. His fingers glided down the shaft, then he laid her on the couch and turned her into a banana split. ****** The next several days were the most joyous in Thomas’s life. Dinners, movies, and cuddling in a large bowl with various other fruits. He didn’t care about being seen with a banana, Thomas didn’t notice red or green or yellow or orange, he saw what was on the inside, a sweet sugary pulp. It was a Friday morning; Chiquita had felt unwell the night before and went to bed early. Thomas, not wanting to disturb her, slept on the couch a left the apartment early to get coffee. When he returned and pushed open the bedroom door, a pungent odor struck his nostrils. A sweet fermentation hung in the air. It was the smell of overripe fruit. Chiquita laid on top of the covers, her bright yellow skin had darkened and now looked like a school bus that drove through a puddle of ink. The sickly black spots made it difficult to know if she was firm or mush. Thomas dropped his coffee and ran to her side. “I don’t have much time,” Chiquita said weakly. “Don’t leave me,” Thomas cried. “I love you. I’m a better person with you.” “Promise you’ll cremate me. Can you do that Thomas? Mix me with some flour and sugar and butter and eggs. Bake at 350 degrees for an hour.” Hot tears rolled down Thomas’s face as the last word escaped her mouth, followed by her final breath. He fulfilled the request and baked a fantastic banana bread. Thomas scattered the crumbs around the park at sunrise. Then, feeling lost, he aimlessly roamed the city until he found himself on a busy downtown street, near the restaurant he had first met Chiquita. A familiar sound pulled Thomas from his somber state. “Bananas,” said a woman with a Spanish accent. “Who wants to get bananas?” Outside of a smoothie shop stood a petite, slim woman wearing a curvy banana costume. Thomas immediately approached her and introduced himself. “Wonderful to meet you,” she said. “My name is Bonita. I just moved here from Ecuador.”


Dan kicks the vending machine and curses. It had eaten his money *again*. “Damn thing,” he mutters. “Never gives out. It’s conspiring against me.” The break room’s lights flicker, then cut out. A strange wind whips up. There’s a flash of turquoise. The rustle of a shell suit. “Did somebody say conspiracy?” A voice enquires. “It’s just eaten my money, s’all.” Dan says, peering into the machine, more interested in the dangling confectionary than what had just transpired. But something makes him look. He double takes. Dan finds a portly middle-aged man, standing with his fists on his hips. His first impression being that to rock a shell suit is a brave choice. But to combine it with a cape even more so. “Having some trouble?” Conspiracy Man enquires. “Yeah,” Dan says, giving the machine a shake. “It’s eaten my money.” “Vending machines,” Conspiracy Man sneers, then spits on the ground. “Agents of the illuminati.” “I thought facilities management brought them in?” Conspiracy Man chuckles. “That’s what they want you to think.” “Well, whoever it was, I just want to get some chocolate.” “Don’t get sucked in. That’s what they want you to do! Open your eyes. Question the narrative.” “Which is?” “Chocolate is an agent of the illuminati.” “I thought that was vending machines?” “They both are. It’s a web within a web. Another way to keep the average man ignorant of their devious plan.” “Which is?” “To get you buying chocolate.” Dan scratches his head. “But I want to have some chocolate.” “Oh dear,” Conspiracy Man says, placing an arm around Dan’s shoulder. “Look around and tell me what you see.” Dan looks for a moment. “The break room: A vending machine. A water cooler. Coffee machine.” “Do you know what I see?” Dan shrugs. “The weaponry of the illuminati.” “I thought they were agents?” “Tomato, tomarto.” Conspiracy Man says and spins from Dan’s shoulder. “Take the coffee machine. Do you know what coffee is?” “An agent of the illuminati?” Dan offers. “Exactly!” Conspiracy Man exclaims. “Now you’re getting it. It’s another tool to get you coming back. Sinking your hard earned money into it. Keeping you working and obedient whilst the 1% sit back and laugh.” “But it’s a free coffee machine.” “Yes,” Conspiracy Man stutters. “That’s why they have the vending machine, too. That’s not free.” Dan nods. Whether it was linked to his low blood sugar, this was making a strange kind of sense. “So, tell me. What do you think of this is?” Conspiracy Man says, moving behind the water cooler. “Easy. Another agent of the illuminati.” “No. It’s just a water cooler. We need water to live, Dan. Some things are just needed.” After kicking himself at this schoolboy error, Dan has a moment of clarity. He’s still no further in getting his snack. “Sorry, is this all heading somewhere?” “I’m here to help Dan. I’m here to free your mind. I can open the door, but you need to walk through.” “So, are you’re not going to help me get my chocolate?” “Not at all.” “Because it’s an agent of the illuminati?” “No. That thing is stuck.” Conspiracy Man says, giving the vending machine a good shake. “Nothing is getting that thing out.” Just then, a man in overalls wheeling a sack truck enters the break room and inspects the vending machine. After jotting some details on a clipboard, he moves behind it, turns it off and begins positioning himself to move it. “Excuse me,” Dan begins. “What are you doing?” “Taking it away.” The workman replies. “A faults been reported, so it needs to be taken away for repair.” “Ah, you see what this is?” Conspiracy Man asks, becoming very animated. “Censorship. He’s here to cover up what’s going on. Taking away the evidence before it can be documented.” “Huh?” “Don’t mind him.” Dan says. “It swallowed my money. Is there anything I can do?” “Call this number.” The workman says, handing Dan a card. “They can sort you out.” “Cheers. That’s great.” Dan says with a smile, as the workman edges the machine onto the sack truck before wheeling it from the room. “I told you we’d stick it to the man. Didn’t I?” “You’ve done literally nothing.” Conspiracy Man edges from the room. “Have I Dan? Have I?” But before Dan can answer, the lights go out. They come on again in an instant, but Conspiracy Man is gone. Gone to Facebook or wherever someone needs to know how covid *really* started.


Timothy sat under the bus stop cover, checking his watch every few seconds. He was already late, as was the bus. "Pardon me, young man, do you have the time?" Timothy looked up to see an older women, hunched over and looking particularly sickly. Her hair was gray and knotted. Her face was wrinkled, her eyes carried heavy bags and snot was coming down her nose. Her friendly smile revealed rotting, discolored teeth. Timothy did his best to smile back. "It's a quarter till, ma'am." "A quarter till what?" the woman asked, smiling widely. "Apologies. A quarter till 8." Timothy felt a bit queasy as her breath was not very pleasant. Still, politeness dictated he smile. "Would you like my seat while we wait for the bus? It should be here shortly." Timothy stood up from the bench. "Well, yes. That would be lovely. Thank you, dear." the woman said as Timothy helped to the seat. "Young man, I'm going to close my eyes for a minute. Would you mind waking me when the bus arrives?" she asked of Timothy. "Certainly." Timothy replied, "And you can call me Timothy, if you'd like." "Timothy.. Timothy.. Timothy..." the old woman repeated to herself as she drifted off. A few moment later, Timothy saw the bus coming from down the street and said to the woman "Ma'am, the bus is arriving." She didn't respond. Timothy cleared his throat and spoke a bit louder, "Ma'am, the bus will be here shortly." Still, she didn't respond. Timothy leaned in to nudge the woman as the bus pulled up to the stop. The old woman didn't move. The driver opened the door. "Are you getting on?" "Yeah! One second!" Timothy replied. He nudged the woman again and she slumped over. Timothy's heart dropped. "Come on! I'm already late!" the bus driver called to Timothy. Timothy turned to the driver with a bit of a panicked look "I think something's wrong! Can you call an aide car?" "Not my problem! This bus is leaving with or without you!" the bus driver yelled back. Timothy thought for a moment. "Without!" he said to the driver. He turned back towards the woman as the bus closed it's door and headed toward the intersection. He tried to check her pulse. "BOOM!" Timothy jumped up and turned around to see a truck had rammed into the side of the bus. He watched as the two vehicles tumbled, the glass shattered, shouts and screams ripped across the sky. His heart nearly stopped when he felt the grip of boney fingers tightly wrap around his arm, his attention shot back to the old woman who was sitting upright and smiling. "Thanks for waiting with me, Timothy." she said as she stood to her feet. "If you'll excuse me, now. I have a bus to catch." Timothy looked back towards the carnage on the street and was about to run towards it to help. "Don't bother, young man." The woman said. "That bus is mine." She pulled her hood over head. Timothy watched as her cane transformed into a scythe. The old woman's pace picked up into a run and in an instant, he saw a flash of light leave the bus as the woman leapt into the sky. After a moment, Timothy's legs began to thaw. He tried to run toward the bus but, tripped hard over the curb and knocked himself unconscious. When he awoke, medical staff were tending to him. "Did anyone make it?" Timothy asked, pointing to the wreck. "Sorry, son. It doesn't look that way." the medic responded.


A car was approaching. I stood beside the road with my thumb out and turned my head as the car rolled past me and pulled over about 50 yards away. My belongings, such as they were, I kept in a small trunk of rough pine I had stolen from a barn some weeks past. I picked up my trunk and hobbled over to the car. It was a very old car with not one part of its surface free from rust. I placed my trunk down and stood upon it to see into the car. A naked man with a great beard that pooled into his lap and a cape of hair that went further sat at the wheel. A dog slept on a large mattress where the back seats used to be. “How old is your dog?” I asked. “Not mine. Where you tryin’ to get?” “North and or west.” The man said nothing but leaned across and opened the passenger door. “Where shall I put my trunk?” “On the mattress, but don’t wake Javier. He needs his rest.” I very carefully placed the trunk behind my seat and sat back as the man pulled back onto the road. There was a messy pile of empty plastic bottles beneath my feet and the air smelled sourly of sweat and a nameless mixture of odours no doubt relating to the dog’s presence. “Where is Javier’s master?” I asked. “He ain’t got no master nor never will.” “How come he to be named Javier?” “That were his name when the others introduced him.” No-one spoke for a long while. I decided to cough. “I don’t want any sickness,” the man said. “Oh, I assure you I am very healthy. There was a lot of dust.” “I can’t help the way the dust works. Don’t you have a mask? A cloth of some kind?” “Would that I had a beard like yours to protect me!” The man said nothing and shut his eyes and frowned. He shook his head in brief bursts for a while, still frowning. The beard slithered like some mystic python. I flushed in shame at my apparent faux pas, cursing myself inwardly. I could not afford to make such errors, not a man like me, not in this neck of the woods. “God damn beautiful country isn’t it?” I said. The man sighed a long sigh. Could I do nothing right? “A blasphemer…” he said. “Forgive me,” I said. We drove on in silence for perhaps half an hour. We had entered one of the world’s great arboreal regions that continued unabated past the hilly horizon. The dog slept on, snoring heavily. Finally, I mustered the courage to say: “I apologise about my reference to your beard, I assure you it was of a wholly complimentary intention. And I assure you also, I avow that I have the fear of God within me or let Him smite me down in this vehicle.” “There’s no good in apologising. Just a waste of words. What is said is said.” I noted his hypocrisy silently. I wished to write of it in my notebook, which I fetched from my trunk. I fumbled through the various objects and found the notepad under my copy of Survivalism in the Nuclear Age, on top of which sat my sustenance, an apple. The dog, Javier, stirred with a great snort and the man groaned weakly and squinted. I raised a conciliatory hand and the man nodded once, seemingly appeased. I pulled my pencil from my ear and very faintly noted the man’s hypocrisy in the notebook in a loose cursive scribble, almost, even certainly, unreadable, but serving as a memory trigger for this most abominable social lapse. My memory often fails me, you understand, so I must have some technique to augment it, if only in the form of scratchings and marks. A disturbance in the white of the paper that will allow me to re-live, or at least, re-feel the experience for which it stood. “You’re not one of them filth-sketchers are you?” the man asked. “Come again?” The man sighed and gave me a dismissive wave. “I am no sketcher. Alas, I was born with few talents. I merely like to scribble. The feel of it calms me,” I said. “What’s there to be not calm about?” “Many things. But sometimes it is what is not there which is dis-calming,” I said. “I suppose my scribbles fill that gap.” The man nodded. We drove on through the trees. Javier snored breathily. “If my nakedness dis-calms you, why did you get in the car?” I had forgotten that the man was naked. I don’t think it would be correct to describe him as naked, for his immense beard and hair covered him better than many of today’s garments. Truthfully though, when I thought of it, his nakedness did disturb me somewhat, but I was in no position to be denying rides at that time. “I hadn’t even noticed,” I said, “Why, you’re veritably jacketed-” I winced. The man squeezed his face tightly. He exhaled in a long wheeze. Again he shook his head. “Pass one of them bottles at your feet.” They were beyond my reach. “One moment,” I said. I turned around to my trunk and carefully slid free a children’s toy gripping claw that I had found in a garbage dump at another time in my life. It was very useful to a man like me, and quite possibly my most treasured possession. I held the claw out over a bottle and gripped the lever to clamp the bottle and raised it up and grabbed it with my free hand. “Sorry, I forgot-” the man said. “No, it is fine,” I said as I passed him the bottle. I carefully returned my claw to the trunk and fetched back my notebook to etch into my memory this second case of hypocrisy. The man took the bottle and plunged it deep into his beard and urinated for a long time. I sat frozen and stared straight ahead. Let him do his filthy business, I cannot afford to be left behind, I thought. “I’m gonna need a second bottle.” he said. He began winding the window down with one hand, holding the bottle in place with the other hand and the steering wheel with his knees. “Quickly,” he croaked. I turned back to the trunk and snatched the claw and in doing so hit Javier on the snout. The man appeared not to notice and I pincered a bottle and passed it over to him using the claw. He plunged the new bottle into his beard to continue his improper deed and at the same time poured the other bottle out the window, the foul liquid spraying in the wind onto the side of the car, spattering on the rear window. He passed the empty bottle back to me which I took with the claw and then he poured the second bottle out and returned it too. “I usually need three bottles. All this talk is dehydrating. There should be a bottle of liquids down there. Pass that.” I picked through the pile of bottles with the claw and found one at the bottom that was full of water, presumably, and holding my tool with two hands transferred the liquid over to the man. He glugged it all in one attempt and threw it down aimlessly into the pile. We drove on in silence. “Lemme see that claw,” said the man. I turned around to my trunk and saw the yellow eyes of a dog looking at me. Javier was awake and lay with his head down. “Um,” I said. “Come on now.” I turned back and reluctantly handed the man my claw and he examined it with what I am sure was feigned indifference. He pulled the lever twice. “Huh, is that so,” he said. He reached over with the claw into my footwell and clamped a bottle and brought it up and then released it. “That’ll do,” he said. He laid the claw down on the centre console between us. When I took it back I hid my concern and anxiety behind a face of stoic resolve. “I could use that there claw,” the man said. “It is very useful, especially for a man like me.” “Save me riskin’ mine and Javier’s life” “I’m sorry?” “Keep my eyes on the road better with that there claw” I turned to place the claw back in my trunk but the man put his hand on it. “Let’s keep it out here just in case.” The sounds of clattering objects and moist eating filled the air from behind. “What’s he doing? Did you wake him?” said the man. “He doesn’t wake this early, ever. What did you do to Javier?” “Um…” The eating sounds turned to a gagging, gasping sound. “Help him God damn it!” yelled the man. I am an avowed animal lover, a trait you might find strange for a man like me, and as such I am embarrassed to admit that my first thought in this moment of action was not of animal rescue but of this accursed man’s continued hypocrisy and then secondly my regret at having to delay its recording to lay my hands upon a foul beast. I turned around and saw Javier with his head in my trunk, which in a moment of rushed urinary assistance I had forgotten to close. My apple! How dare that vile hound sink his slobbering fangs into my lunch! In a moment of rage I lunged at Javier and pulled him from the trunk. The two of us tumbled over the mattress intertwined like lovers as I pulled at his jaws, not to free his air passages but rather to get back my apple. A man could go days in those parts without seeing a town so if I had to eat regurgitated apple I would. “What the hell are you doing to him?” cried the man, stealing glances behind him as he drove. I worked my hands into Javier’s slobbering mouth, pulling bits of apple out as he choked and snorted. His tonge was soft and slick like raw chicken and his breath smelled worse and was hot on my face. Suddenly Javier went limp and the choking noises stopped. The man braked hard and pulled over. “Javier?” cried the man. “Javier? Is he alright?” I turned back to the man with a look of unconcealable shock, my face and hands covered in dog saliva and bits of apple. The man looked past me to Javier’s stillness. “I don’t-” I said, not sure of what to say. I stepped towards my trunk and reached for it but felt myself yanked backwards. I just managed to grab one handle of the trunk and held onto it as I was pulled through the car by the man and tossed through his urine sprayed window and landed on the road, my trunk clattering after me spilling my possessions. I could hear the man howling from the car before he sped off down the road at an unconscionable speed. I gathered my belongings and limped from the road. After gathering my breath, I noticed that I was in fact very hungry. I looked about me so as to appear to any observers that my next act was not performed without seeking alternatives. I was very hungry. I pulled the two pieces of slobbery apple from my face and put them in my mouth and chewed. It is important to release the juices, see, it improves nutrient absorption. I read that in Survivalism in the Nuclear Age and it hasn’t failed me. No less than two hours would have passed without a single vehicle passing. My stomach was pining for sustenance and I was growing weak. I figured I would spend the remains of the day to seek out some food, perhaps some fruit or if He so gifted me, some fresh roadkill. But of course, there must be cars to kill the animals for me. I walked for a time up the road dragging my trunk behind me. I did not wish to stray far from the road but I spied a small pond through the trees nearby. Water leads to life, and so on. I reached the pond and looked about, spying atop a rock formation what seemed like a fruit tree. When I reached the rocks, I saw above me my salvation! A cherry shrub, bursting with hundreds of sweet red balls. I bent down to open my trunk to fetch my- “Noooooo!” I cried. That filthy naked man had stolen my claw. How had I not taken it with me? I was sure if I had seen it, I would have grabbed it. I last saw it on the centre console but when I was dragged out it was gone. Where could it have-? I realised then that the man had hidden my precious claw in his accursed beard as his dog choked to death.


I was in the middle of my regular practice. I was so focused on my forms and positions and transitioning between them as flawlessly and fluidly as possible that I probably wasn't paying as much attention as I should have. My practice routine is one of the reasons why my coworkers think I am really weird. I was in the pose of a menacing standing knight, preparing to transition into a lurking chimera, when I noticed some suspicious noises coming from the hallway. A distant moaning and flapping sounds, a clear sign of zombies trying to run, with the occasional louder smacking as one of them lost its balance and slammed its rotting face into the floor. Quiet, but quick and sure footsteps approaching. A click of a trap being triggered, followed by a clang as the spikes crashed violently into a wall. I immediately went back to my place in a dark corner of the chamber and froze in my usual pose, stiff as a board. This might be interesting, I thought. And it was. She had a beautifully athletic body, clad only in thin leather, and man, she did know how to move. She noticed the traps at the entrance to the chamber and leapt gracefully over the pressure plates. I've tried to imprint that image in my mind: a graceful woman in leather jumping over the deadly traps. I decided to try that as my next painting project. I still suck at trying to draw figures in motion. She landed in a crouch and took a quick look around. The zombies were coming closer, though they were obviously slowing down, afraid of the traps. But there was a distant clatter, which meant that one of the armored skeletons had been awakened by the commotion and had joined the hunt for the thief. With her mind already made up, she took a quick step toward what she thought was safety. When she realized that the door on the other side of the chamber only led to a small alcove, she became visibly nervous. She turned back, looked around the half-empty chamber again, and then stared into the corner. She realized she was trapped in a dead end. She had a belt with two long daggers, but she looked like the kind of hero who prefers to avoid direct confrontation. She made a decision that I expected. She ran to a large, battered cupboard in the corner, opened it, peered cautiously inside, and then hid there. She crouched down and shut the door. I heard her trying to breathe slowly and deeply to calm herself. She was crouching, daggers at the ready, peering out through a narrow crack. She watched as the first zombie shambled into the chamber, stepping on a trigger plate at the entrance. A huge spike shot through the zombie and pinned it to the wall. The moans and grunts of the other zombies took on an amused tone, but they ignored their struggling friend and looked around carefully, trying to spot their prey. And trigger plates for more traps. Not all zombies are completely stupid, just the vast majority of them. When the loud clatter announced the arrival of the skeleton knight, the zombies stepped aside. The undead have a strict hierarchy, with fresh zombies being the lowest on the corporate ladder. The skeleton knight quickly checked the chamber and then looked in my direction, with a suspicious look in the magic fire that served as his eyes. But he shrugged and began to chase the zombies away, back to their posts. The thief breathed a sigh of relief and slowly sheathed her daggers. When the clatter of knights' armor and the smacking sounds of rotten feet from the corridor died down, I decided to give it a try. I whispered: "Do you know any good jokes?" She froze. Then she tried to break down my door. She tried to pull out her daggers. I sighed and squeezed her as hard as I could. I guess she didn't know any good ones. Too bad. If she had, maybe I would have risked it and let her go. Maybe. But it is hard to find a good job for an old mimic of my size, and I was quite happy with my current one, even though all my co-workers thought I was a weirdo and a creep.