Annabelle . The name catches in the corner of my conscious and jerks me to attention. I scan my surroundings, searching for the source of the simple word; the voice that brought it to life. The mother stands several feet in front of me, her hand clasped around her daughter’s arm, pulling her away from a colorful display of candy bars. Her long pink fingernails dig into the child’s flesh leaving tiny marks resembling a shark bite. Don’t touch that, she says. She glances in my direction and then pulls her child into a different aisle. I wonder what a small girl like that is doing out so late at night. Surely most eight-year-olds are in bed by now. The tired sting behind my eyes tells me that it is well past midnight. I nudge my empty cart down the aisle, past boxes and bags and bright stickers advertising big savings. I don’t need the cart. Don’t need anything in this store. Don’t really know why I’m here. Perhaps for nostalgia’s sake. You used to drag me out to the store once a week, and you would never go before ten. Said there were less crowds at that hour. I told you I was being deprived of sleep. You slapped my arm. You didn’t know how hard sleep was for me back then. The shapes in front of me begin to register and I wonder how I have managed to wander into the cereal aisle. Perhaps driven by hunger. But I am not hungry. And you made me stop eating cereal a long time ago. Too much sugar , you said. It’s bad for you. You were always telling me to stop doing things. I keep moving forward because it is the only thing I know how to do. Put one foot in front of the other until I reach my destination, even if I don’t yet know what that is. But I remember now. I came here to get you a gift. Tomorrow is your anniversary. One year ago you married Freddy, ran off to South Africa, and left me in LA. I lift my gaze toward the blinding overhead lights and blink against the stabbing brightness, searching the signs swinging from the ends of the aisles for what I need. I start toward the office supplies department. It was always your favorite place in this store. I know just what I will get you. I will not get Freddy anything. He already has the one thing I value most in life: you. But I cannot blame you for this. It would have happened eventually, with or without him. Our lives were not meant to be spent side by side forever. But I’ve never been able to keep a friend as long as I’d kept you. Just last year, we were all we had. I will never forget those memories. We never went to parties, or dances, or joined sororities. We holed up in our dorm room all year; you wrote stories for every publication imaginable, and I worked on my novel. When you got the scholarship for the semester abroad and I didn’t, you went without me. Which was logical. I’m glad you did. Now you are a journalist in Cape Town, and I am a waitress in LA. My feet move across the scarred linoleum tiles with purpose now. The back left wheel of my cart squeaks loudly. A few people glance up. I do not look at them. I focus on the red office supplies sign in front of me; a guiding beacon to my wandering body. Then I see them. If you were here, I never would have spotted them. You would have told a funny joke, or pointed out something else; anything to distract me. But you are not here. Haven’t been here for a long time. So I take a tiny box from the rack and toss it into my cart. You were always trying to get me to quit smoking. Hated the smell of it in our dorm. It’s not good for you, you said. I don’t care. You will when you get lung cancer. I might be dead before that happens. You might not. I don’t care. But after you left, I did care. I thought if I could clean up and make something of myself, you would come back for me. I was stupid. Am stupid. But stupid got me clean for eight months. That ends tonight. I want to feel the harsh cloud in my lungs again. Want to breathe away your memory with the hot tendrils of bitter fire. I take my time going down each aisle, trying to examine each pen and notebook with the enthusiasm you used to. You used to see the potential in everything. Maybe that’s why you were my friend. You saw the potential in me, and when nothing came from it, you bailed. I take notice of a small leather journal on one of the bottom racks and reach down to touch it’s smooth surface. Clutch it, turning the dark glossy book over and over in my hands, fingering the heavy pages and giving the pen loop a good stretch. I think I start to see what you might have seen. I drop it in the cart. You will have it filled in less than a month. Probably a dozen stories will be born in it’s ivory pages. And then it will be forgotten. Just like I was forgotten. I decide I need a card next. It would be the polite thing to send, despite the fact that I will always view this anniversary as the day you left me, forgot me, and not the day you got married. To the photographer who stole your heart. Who made your stories come to life with images, flew away with you to Cape Town, gave you something more than friendship. More than I ever could. It is the anniversary of when I lost my friend. I’m not sure what I hope to gain by sending you a journal and card. Perhaps it is a last desperate plea that you remember me. Tell your children about me one day. About our friendship, however brief, however imperfect. Perhaps I hope that it will cause you to remember me. To reach out after nearly a year of silence that has stretched between us, pushing us further from each other than physical distance ever could. But I don’t need you anymore, and you don’t need me. We used to, though. There is no shortage of anniversary cards to choose from. I reach for one with two animated pears on the front, smiles like they’ve just won the lottery, mustache and bow identifying the genders. You’re the perfect pear, it says. It’s perfect for Freddy. You would hate it. You never bought into that kind of cheesy, over-the-top clichè. I return the card to it’s slot. I settle for a plain white card with a swirl of pink hearts across the front and an all too cheerful Happy Anniversary! I toss it into the cart. It’s one thirty in the morning. I drag myself to the front of the store, eyes stinging harder now from lack of sleep. I blink rapidly to stay awake. An unenthusiastic cashier with dark circles under his eyes is ringing up the mother with the pink nails. Her small daughter watches me; the girl who shares your name. I wonder if she will turn out anything like you. Like my Annabelle. I stare at her. She stares at me. What do you want? I want to ask. To scream. As if she’s read my mind she points a confident finger at my near empty cart. Those are not good for you, you know, she says. I follow the line of her finger to the box of cigarettes. I know. Why are you buying them? The little girl’s mother is finished paying now and she shushes her daughter, pulling her away from me. She shoots me the same judgmental glance you used to give me all the time when you caught me smoking. They leave the store. I buy the card and journal. I don’t buy the cigarettes.


A blinding light shot across a small portion of the milky way, but we would never have known, not in this lifetime, or the thousands after that. What we did not see was the death and supernova of one Kepler-47A, and the forceful deconstruction repositioning of its planets and its partner star Kepler-47B. It wouldn’t be visible for us for another 3,442 lightyears, and a few hundred lightyears later, our solar system would be visited by all the shrapnel of the only non-gas planet Kepler-47b. Like the pellets from a shotgun, most of the shreds of Kepler-47b would fly way off into the galaxy and beyond, never to be seen again, or never be seen at all; however, some would find their way in the rings around a planet, or incinerated in an atom-crushing star, or smack dab in the middle of the Atlantic ocean. This is usually not an issue, asteroids fall onto the earth and into the oceans daily. Unfortunately, this asteroid was the same size as the ocean. When the people of the future had heard about this, many wanted to save the planet that had nurtured them and their race, but they knew nothing could be done. Most abandoned the planet, moving to the classic colonies Mars, or the floating cities on Titan, some even testing their luck on Europa or a Jupiter gas rig. Of course, there are always the ignorant who will go down with their skepticism, or those who feel like this is where they want their story to end, where they came from. In the final moments, when the gravity of what remained of Kepler-47b started to tug away at earth’s orbit, and nearly one hundred billion watched in silence from all over our solar system, one final transmission came from the pale blue dot: \[8/27/12012-18:37\] - Unknown\_Signal - “This is Paul Topson, anyone still checking for messages from us?” \[8/27/12012-18:37\] - ODS\_URSA - “This is the O.D.S. Ursa, in Martian orbit. Is this a rescue call?” At this time, Kepler-47b-1 had passed the Asteroid belt. \[8/27/12012-18:38\] - Unknown\_Signal - “No, no. everyone here wants to be here, for different reasons. But I didn’t want this to be so…. Sad…. y’know? I’m old as is, loved the earth rather than the stars. Lived my life to the fullest. I’m content.“ At this time, Kepler-47b-1 had passed Mars’s orbit. \[8/27/12012-18:41\] - Unknown\_Signal - “But still, there is an obvious gloom here. So I thought ‘What the hell, why do my and so may other last moments have to be sad ones?’” \[8/27/12012-18:42\] - ODS\_URSA - “I’m afraid I don’t understand. What are you talking about?” At this time, Kepler-47b-1 Is halfway between Mars and Earth. \[8/27/12012-18:44\] - Unknown\_Signal - “For a while now, we couldn’t believe the world was gonna end. We couldn’t get it. We couldn’t fathom it. All of it gone? That’s crazy talk. We just didn’t get why the temperature was changing so drastically, or why the big space rock was getting bigger and bigger-” Kepler-47b-1 Is seconds from impact. The Solar system sits still. \-But then it hit us!” \[Lost signal\] Kepler-47b-1 and Earth are both annihilated in one blinding fireball. It’s a Tragedy. August 27th, 6:44 is recognized as the universal moment of silence for the homeworld. However, though the loss and sadness, there is one thing all people are able to laugh at, together, unified by the ultimate loss: The last transmission from our pale blue dot was a perfect dad joke. ‘Then it hit us’ Gets me every time.


I've had this feeling for a while now. Like something is plainly wrong. No there’s no monster chasing after me, no stalker. It’s as something in my world is straight up missing. I wake up and see my room. All my stuff is there, but it’s accompanied by a strange void. You can’t see or hear it, but I can definitely sense it. There’s no better way to explain it than a pure lack of existence. At first it was a couple of seconds at the time, similar to spacing out. Like daydreaming without the dream part. I thought it was normal, I mean everyone gets lost in their thoughts sometimes, but then it began to happen more and more often. Maybe I should explain it a bit better. Although the void itself is always there these lost moments (as I started to call them) are what I would describe as getting sucked in it. I can feel everything, but I’m not really in control of myself. I don’t act crazy, of course, it just feels like someone else is pulling the strings. As if I’m a guest in my own life. As I said the first couple of times it was very short, maybe a minute at most. Lately it’s been a lot longer, a few hours and on rare occasions days. That’s when I became scared. I had no idea when the lost moment is going to hit or where I’ll be when it happens. I missed family dinners, meetings with friends, holiday celebrations, important business meetings and so on. But worst of all is the fact that I missed my son’s fourth birthday. That devastated me. His other mommy recently left us and it really took a toll on him. He’s only four, but sometimes it feels like a lot more than that. He cried so much during that time, so the birthday was a light at the end of the tunnel. I missed her too, of course, but I did my best to smile through it and organize a good birthday party. The day finally came, and just as guests started to gather, I felt the void slowly coming over me. I’m not even going to try to describe the helplessness I felt at that moment. I was gone for the whole day. No one noticed a thing. I doubt I would have done anything different if I was in control, but I can’t help than feel guilty. I wasn’t there for my son when he needed me the most. Since then it’s been happening every day. I don’t know how much I can take anymore. More and more of my life is passing by me and I can’t do anything about it. I didn’t try telling anyone, they’d think I went crazy after losing her. I tried to keep this as short as possible but if someone knows anything about my condition please help. I don’t want to be a viewer in my own life. Please.


Adrian Freak. Monster. Demon. That's what I was. I mean, who could blame them? Nobody wanted a super freak like me in their family. "You're a disgrace to us!" The slap was as loud as a clap and it stung my face. It had been an open-handed smack and it had left a red welt behind. Just below my eye was a small cut where the ring had caught me. I staggered backward, clutching my face, eyes watering. "You have brought nothing more than shame in this household." I looked at the corner through my blurred vision only to see my mother crying as she holds my little sister in her arms, my sister weeps as she holds onto my mother tightly looking away from me. "Look at me you little piece of shit!" My father whipped me with a belt and I fell onto my knees in agony, my little sister's sobs became louder with every strike of the belt hitting against my skin, "Stand up!" I choked up as I stared at the man who I no longer recognize as my father, "You're hurting me." "I said stand up!" He bellowed. With all the strength left within me, I stood up. In the far corner of my eye, I could see my mother caressing my sister trying to calm her down, "I don't know what's wrong with me!" he whipped me again. "You, Adrian!" he barked, and slapped me again, "You've ruined this family!" My breathing was short, and my mind was in a whirlpool of emotions, with every whip, and with every word I could feel something boiling within me. "I wish you were never born!" It's like something sparked within me and in a flash, everything blacked out. My vision was fuzzy the moment I woke up, my head was throbbing and my ears were ringing. I tried looking around only to smell fire. I blinked my eyes repeatedly and when they finally regained their focus, I was met with an egregious sight. Before me, laid my father whose face was completely burnt. Horror filled my insides as I turned my gaze to my mother and sister. My heart broke as I saw in my sister's hand, the pendant that I have gifted her on her birthday, I collapsed to the floor, tears staining my face. They were right, I am a monster .

*** I walked around town, with my head hanged low. People were scurrying about trying to get out of the rain, I continued to walk in silence whilst being drenched in the rain. As I was passing by the town's bar I heard the news reporter on TV. "Good evening. My name is Natalia Waters reporting for tonight's News." I stopped in my tracks and slowly wandered my gaze to the TV, "This is just in, a fire explosion has broken out in the Suburb part of the city, unfortunately, the family who lived there didn't survive." Images of the place I once considered my home appeared on the screen. "The cause of the explosion is yet to be explored." I closed my eyes, not wanting to hear anymore and walked away. Tears threatened to escape my eyes but I held them back as I made my way to the bar's alleyway. "I'm a monster," I whispered to myself as I looked down at my palms, "I don't deserve to live." Tears stung my eyes, as I punched the wall, "What is wrong with me?!" I chanted as I punch the wall multiple times, that bruises started to form on my knuckles. I slumped down, my forehead against the wet, rocky wall, and cried. The more I wail, the harder the rains were, the night was cold and I was famished. Everything I have loved became everything I lost. What's the point of living when I have nothing else to live for? "I should kill myself," I sneered, "Maybe then, the pain will be gone." I looked around the old alleyway and something glistened near the dumpster, it was a shard of broken glass. It felt like my body was in a trance as I picked up the shard of glass. My thumb traced the edge of the sharp glass, the demons in my head were whispering to me "There's no point in living anymore, after all, you are a murderer..."

"You're worthless." "You're a freak." "No one would accept you." "Just die already!" With shaky hands, I positioned the glass close to my heart. I closed my eyes and just before I pierce the glass through my heart a shadow from the dark spoke. "I wouldn't do that if I were you." My eyes flew open to the sound of the voice, I scanned the area only to find a dark figure standing there with a black umbrella above her head, "Who are you?" my voice came out raspy due to the lack of water intake. "I'm Ruby Hopkins," The shadow figure emerged from the darkness only to reveal a female whose hair was as black as the night sky and eyes as clear as the seas, she wore a gray business casual suit and she had a kind smile plastered on her face. "Trust me," She began to speak, "Nothing good comes out when you end your life." I snickered as I pointed the shard to her, "What do you know?" I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand, "You don't know anything about me or my life!" Her eyes saddened seeing me in the state I am, "I know you're hurting." She ambled her way towards me, "I may not know what you've been through but you should know that suicide is not an option." "Don't come any closer," I warned her, she had a questioning look on her face. Her eyes started to roam around my body, examining the bruises that my deceased father gave me. "But you're hurt." "It doesn't matter!" I tighten my grip on the shard that I feel it slicing through my flesh, "I'm a monster." The dim light in the alleyway began to flicker as the rain became heavier, "I deserve to die anyway." "You're no monster," I looked up through my long lashes as she proceeded to come closer to me. "Believe me, I am." She continued to walk, her heels splashing against the pavement, "I can kill you, you know." She stopped, "You wouldn't." I snorted as I look down at my palms then back to her, "How are you so sure?" "Because you're scared." She held my gaze, "You're scared and alone, and you want to end your life because you feel like no one understands you." I lowered my gaze to the shard, I could see that there was already a mark formed on my palm. It hurts, but not as much as the emotions that I'm feeling. "It doesn't have to end like this, I can help you." She crouched in front of me, and she held my hands, "You just have to trust me." I met her gaze, they say the eyes are the window to your soul, you can see everything. But for some odd reason, as I gazed into her eyes it's like she saw the goodness in me and that I could trust her. I loosened my grip on the shard and she tossed it aside making the whole alley echo. She smiled at me warmly, "Don't worry, you're safe with me now." She hovered the umbrella over our heads, and that's when I started bawling all of my emotions. She hugged me gently as I held onto her for dear life, she caressed my head as I continued to cry all the emotions that I bottled up earlier. She was so patient with me and her gestures were warm, I've never experienced this kind of feeling before, not even with my family. My family never treated me with this much kindness as this woman has. A small smile crept on my lips, this woman was not like the others. *** "What is this place?" We entered a place that I've never seen before, it was enormous and bright. People in gray suits were working here and there and children around my age were running around the place laughing. "It's a place for kids like you." She smiled as she continued to walk down the hallway, with me padding behind her, "It's a place where kids can understand themselves better." I raised an eyebrow, "What do you mean-" Just then something zoomed passed by us making me lose my balance, "What was that?" I asked in astonishment as I regained my balance. Ruby chuckled, "Come see for yourself," I excitedly trailed after her. The more we walked down the hall, the more I was amazed by what I saw. In some groups, there were people teaching children how to transfigurate material things into plants, some were talking to animals, some had telekinesis, and some were even flying! "Wow..." "So which one are you?" I turned my head towards Ruby as she peered down to me, "Which category do you fall in?" I stared at my palms, "Pyrokinesis." "Fire, huh," I looked at her only to see a smile on her face. "I think I know just the person who can help you." She leads me to one of the vacant glass rooms across the facility, she softly knocks on the door twice, and soon after a figure revealed itself. It was a young man who had ash gray hair and amber eyes, he glanced my way and sent me a goofy grin and he returned his gaze to Ruby, "Newcomer?" she nodded, "Well, come in, come in," he ushered us inside. In the middle of the room sat a black table, "So, what's your name and what type of firepower do you have?" "I'm Adrian," I timidly said, " and I have pyrokinesis." The man looked at Ruby as she stepped aside, I eyed the two of them. He smirked at me and suddenly he was on fire and he disappeared. My eyes widened as I searched around the room, "Pretty cool, isn't it?" I whipped around only to find him leaning against the wall with arms folded, "You're like me?" I asked, bewildered. "In a way, but not entirely." I tilted my head, and he chuckled seeing my inquisitive state, "I have Pyroportation," he explained, "I can teleport and move through fire." I looked at him in amazement and turned back to Ruby who had her hands shoved deep in her pockets, "Do you have firepowers too?" "Oh, honey no," She tittered, "I don't have powers," she said, "I'm just a social worker here helping kids to understand themselves better." I nodded my head in silence, "So, what do you say kiddo?" I returned my attention to the guy, "Are you ready to become a superhero?" I averted my gaze, "I'm no superhero." The room fell silent, memories of my deceased family flashed through my mind, I thought I was about to lose control when I felt a hand on top of my head. "You can be your own superhero," I gaze up to Ruby and she grins while ruffling my hair, "Maybe you can't change the world, but you can change someone's life." I furrowed my eyebrows and she crouched down to my level and faces me, "We all have the capacity to be a superhero." She begins, "In order to become one, you have to find your unique power or ability and exploit it for the greater good. The cape and the mask are optional accessories," she chortles, "But a kind heart is essential." "You really think so?" She grabs my hands, "I know so," She ruffled my hair one more time and stood up, "Alright Chris, you can take care of him from here." "Alright, let's get to work, kiddo." "Aren't you coming along?" I asked Ruby, as Chris takes my hand, she stood there as she wears a sad smile. "I can't, I have some work to do," hearing that made me sad, "But I'll see you around after I'm done." She waved at me and exited the room. "Where is she going?" I angled my head to Chris, he smiled and gaze at Ruby's retreating form. "She's got some saving to do." I followed his gaze as I watched Ruby's figure disappear, I recalled the events from earlier and smile appeared on my face. If it wasn't for her I'd probably be dead by now. "Are you okay, kiddo?" He peered down at me, I looked back at him and nodded. "I just hope I'll get to see her soon." "You will," He spoke, "After all, she is your superhero." I smiled at that thought. Now, I realized what she meant by saving someone's life. My smile grew wider as I recalled what she said, indeed, she is my superhero. An original story by Atraeu Kirsten Corpus


Nothing was supposed to have happened. His hands touch at the rug, its fraying pattern. His mind touches the words. Matra. Proverb. Nothing was supposed to have happened. One. A party. the smell of frosting on hands, the rims of cups. The hidden magic, a drugged brownie drizzled in tinfoil chocolate lies. A cup of water weighed down in red plastic and smiles, invisible illusions blooming. One drop- a single bite- The spiraling magician would wave his wand. Nothing was supposed to have happened. There was the party, there was the girl. The way she stumbled onto the stage, all loosened eyes and blurring curls. Clutching a microphone and giving crowds incoherent giggles instead of the lyrics splayed behind her. Nothing was supposed to have happened. Him. There. In the crowd. Him, watching the girl. Him seeing- his house, his living room couch used as her platform, his money spent on cups and magic, his hands typing the invitations, His eyes, watching as she fell- Hit the ground. The stain of red is a bit like magic, inviting in its own special way. another magic trick. Another white rabbit and shrinking cookie and buzzing wonderland. The stain of red in the fraying pattern of the rug. "You didn't have to invite me." A memory. An afterthought. The boy is on the ground even as his mind stays on the then. The walking bodies and then the running bodies as the party drew its line of blood and the girl was left on the other end. No more loosened eyes, dirty curls focused and lifeless. "You didn't have to invite me" Her voice is sharp. A blade cutting through the air. He takes a breath, a wonderous thing, truly, How can something made of magic turn into a blade? The raw of his words, "I didn't have to invite you" She laughs and he wants to take the sound, take it from her transparent skin and place it back into those eyes. The ones connected to the microphone. The ones open, alive , so so alive. Announcing her name and then the song she would never sing, the way she fell... "I didn't have to invite you." His fingers touch the carpet. pattern. stain. there's no one here, he knows this, not the dead girl on the ground, not the red sneakers abandoned by the fireplace, he hears those who have abandoned him, he hears those who never will. He hears her. "You didn't think, did you?" she shifts on the couch, hand fingering an abandoned napkin, a crumbling cookie. It smells too sweet for this room, he thinks, the copper outweighs it. "I didn't think" "They never think, not when they start to bring out the magic tricks. not when they peel open your lips and stuff your throat and let you lose your mind," she laughs, a sound made of blown balloons and children's birthdays, "You're losing your mind when you take it. You lose your life as you try and clean it up." .....Nothing was supposed to have happened. She shakes her head, skin fading, "But something did happen" Ignoring. His eyes turning from her silhouette. One hand on the body on the floor. One hand now scrubbing, scrubbing with every piece of magic left in him. Scrubbing the carpet until the pattern disappears, the blood disappears. "I didn't have to invite you" His words are scrubbed raw, " I didn't have to invite you. " I didn't have to invite you. I didn't have to invite you. Nothing was supposed to happen. "Something happened" the girl's voice fades, watching him, watching her body on the ground. New form leaning against the couch. The couch she fell from. The sound of sirens coming through the open door, open window, the one life home. "I can't get it out" Please. Please, he begs. "I can't get it out I can't get it out I can't-" "It's not coming out" Her laugh is gone, her eyes gone pale. Skin molding to the bone, hollowing cheeks. Black rimmed eyes deeper and deeper. Every drop of magic and its bled into her brain. Every drop of magic as its bleached the color from her hair. Dug into cells and nerve collapsing, collapsing, a medicine you can't clean up, a hangover you can't get rid of, even when the parties over.... "I lost everything to it" Her words are whistful, he scrubs harder, he scrubs even as the sirens come to close, he scrubs even as the voices outside knocks against his door, he scrubs with closed eyes and regret. You took a pill, you took a drink, it contained magic but not the fun bounce house and top hats kind. Not the sparkles and music. This is the kind of magic that lets you realize how truly far Alice had to fall down the rabbit hole... "I lost my mind" She's lost her mind. "I just wanted to have fun" She just wanted to have fun. The boy stops his mumblings. He stops his scrubbing if only for a moment. If only for the length of a pill as it dissolves into a system. It's not fair, what we're doing to ourselves. It's not fair the people we've lost to it. The innocent souls and beautiful students who never were able to bloom for all the pesticides they carpeted against their bones. It's not fair, the image. The thinking of- it's only one bite. It's only one drop, sip, one party. One. One. One can end your forever, one can lead you to this world. Knees and carpet and ghosts speaking to you in her own sermon. You wish you had gone to church, not this party. studied for the test instead of cleaning the red. He frowns, it's too small a gesture, "Nothing was supposed to happen" Her smile holds no magic, no life, "that's the funny thing.... nothing Is ever supposed to happen" The door opens. The grieving families will soon come. Nothing was supposed to happen. Something happened. Now, Her ghost watches him scrub the carpet. Nothing was supposed to happen. He'll never scrub out the magic stain of blood.


A villain is what? Who determines what a villain is? Why does there have to be a villain? When did the conflict between superimposed figures of good and evil come into play? And how long has it been since I was forsaken by my own world, shunted into this path of supposed darkness in which I have no choice but to partake in? *You know better than to ask such questions in the face of this world, Commander...* Perhaps I do, but after all this time, all these ages that have passed. Worlds built and destroyed. You and I, side by side, with no determination of what is wrong or right aside from our own perspectives. After all that, I have no other words left to speak. For what choice do I have? They have put this mantle before me, and ordered me to step upon it, in such a means to create a great evil to put down. And for what? This fake? This twisted glory? Are they so desperate to find themselves that they don’t even see that they are lost? *The battle approaches. I trust that you shall put away your words and fight?* ...Yes, I shall. For as I have said, what choice do I have? *There is no choice, just the illusion of one, Commander.* Then I tire of this collection of smoke and mirrors. I believe not in what we do, up here on this pedestal of lies and mysterias. Our path is one of a self-fulfilling prophecy. But it is not one we created, merely the one we live in. *I must prepare our troops, Commander… But, as parting words… I must say, it was an honor to fight by your side. I hope that you do not carry guilt into the next world.* Guilt and shame is all I feel, Lieutenant… And I hope that you may pass over in the blaze of glory you have always wanted to. Now, go. And carry the burden of my own unwilling will. *Goodbye, Commander.* Goodbye, Lieutenant. >*A noise is heard as the Lieutenant departs the observatory for the very last time, to die in a battle, their name never known. History would be quick to erase the happenings of the conflict between this Commander, doomed forever to be a Villain, and the Heroes, who knew nothing of the truth. There would be no grave for those who fell today. But the Villain would not lose. The Villain was forbidden from failure. Condemned for actions that were not theirs. What good was it to fight a Villain so against their own Villainy that they would seek to sabotage their own actions? The answer would not be found today. The Heroes forced their way through the Villains forces, only to find the Villain having awaited them, their head low with shame and regret, and a hollow determination. Today, like many other days, would be just another movement that aligned with the lost cause that was the governments that had knowingly installed a Villain to take the fall. There was no hope, and no despair. Just the illusion of choice.* > >*And so, to the Heroes, the Villain had but two words, empty as all else in this farce was:* > >*“Release me.


He had not meant it to be this way. He adjusted his makeshift pillow, taking care to not get any sand onto the mattress he was sitting on. After much shuffling, he rested his head again, still uncomfortable. He wrinkled his toes in the cold sand, feeling the soft particles slide through the gaps and finding refuge under the nails. A fact he read the other day - something about the human finger being able to feel the difference between a car and a house if it were as big as the Earth. A sharp northerly wind cut across his face. Quickly, he fixed his hair. A futile effort, of course, but in such grey weather, it seems that even fixing one's hair can be addictive. One of the girls made a start to get up now. She didn't fix her hair. It was flowing behind her like the Star-Spangled Banner flying on Iwo Jima, feeding on the wind, growing curls as she manoeuvred her body into a kneeling position. Her slender figure blocked out much of the sky, and it was difficult for him to look away. He got up suddenly. He tried to find something to justify his movement and picked up a frisbee disc. Holding the prop, he looked up and smiled at the girl. Cue line. "Wanna play?" He asked with a shine in his voice. "Sure," she replied, smiling a brilliant smile without looking at him. She had a tendency to milk every drop of each vowel, collecting it all in a bucket and dumping it on the other side of the conversation with a splash. They found a perfect space on the beach and the dance began. As they threw the disc back and forth, he was acutely aware of the rhythm of everything: his swinging arms, her shapely legs, and the disc - gliding and crashing. He scoured anxiously for the next cue, running his mind through every crease and ridge, clawing through the void for something that might anchor him, but he found nothing. It was all too smooth, too flat, too even to be anything. The set piece fell, the audience gasped, and the fourth wall was broken. He jumped for the disc and caught it with one hand. The waves were getting closer. As he threw the disc he saw her fixing her hair. He had not meant it to be this way.


I hugged her. I hated her. The girl with tears streaming down her face sat crumpled on the floor before me, dejected. She was supposed to be my best friend. I hated her. It had been an emotional night. Thinking back, I couldn’t remember what had triggered her emotional outburst. I couldn’t remember exactly how the threads of conversation had twisted and turned until the knot of emotion in this girl’s heart had been revealed. Maybe it had been a joke that had hit too close to home. I don’t know whether it was my personality, my sense of humor, or just the twisted sense of satisfaction I got when I made people squirm, but I had always been good at making jokes that hit a bit too close to home. Jokes that would make people laugh in the moment, then lay awake at night wondering just how much truth there was to it. Jokes about the very things that kept me up at night. It didn’t matter what had led us to this point, all that mattered was that we were here. And I hated it. Hated her. I held her in my arms a moment longer before finally letting go. It should have been the other way around. I should have been the one being held. If only she weren’t so weak, it would have been me. She had said the same thing herself; that she was weak, that she was embarrassed, that she didn’t want to be seen this way. She wiped tears from her eyes, undoubtedly trying to erase the memories of the last few hours, from both her mind and ours. There was another girl there, though only a year older than me and my “best friend,” she was a motherly figure. Mature. Wise. It was impossible to imagine that she had ever gone through the same troubles that had brought the other girl to tears. Though, of course, she had. They all had. Still were. Some problems you never really get over. I was the same, of course. Still am. I put on a mask, but inside I was no different than the others. All humans are the same; scared. Scared of being alone. Scared of the unknown. Scared of the dark. We try so hard to live our lives in the light, sheltered. We hide. We hide behind our parents. We hide behind our friends. We hide behind our teachers, bosses, government. We do anything we can to hide behind labels and conceal others under the same. Anything to avoid seeing the truth. The truth is dark. My “friend” was getting hugged again, this time by the motherly figure. She was speaking to her again, with that firm but loving voice that I so longed to hear. My face concealed the hatred I felt. I felt like I had spent my whole life walking a lit path in the darkness. There was nothing but inky blackness all around me, no stars, no fires, no man-made lights. I pressed on, not through any desire of my own, but because it was what I was expected to do. As soon as I passed a bit of path, whatever ethereal, unseen light source that had kept it lit winked out, and I was left slowly fleeing from an ever-encroaching darkness. I wasn’t alone on the path, on occasion I would pass another, on occasion another would pass me. Sometimes they walked off into the darkness, never to be seen again. Most of the time they just pressed on in the same monotonous slog that I was trapped in. One girl had traveled with me longer than anyone else, neither passing nor being passed. She still knelt on the floor before me. Eventually we reached the end of the path. Darkness stretched out before and behind us. To the sides as well. Only the small square we stood on remained lit. It winked out. We both knew what we had to do. I stepped forward, intending to proceed as I always had. She, surprising me, jumped. When I was young I had feared the dark. I would make my parents leave my bedroom door open at night, with a light on in the hallway. I made them get me a night light. Eventually it got so bad that after they had tucked me into bed I would get up and turn the light back on. I got really good at sleeping with the light on. After that had gone on a long time my father sat me down and told me that people don’t fear the dark, not really. They fear what lurks in the dark. He told me that it was okay, though, because if there was nothing there in the light then there would be nothing there in the dark. The words that had comforted me as a child terrified me as an adult because, in that last moment before the light had winked out and I had been forced to step into darkness, I had looked around and seen exactly what I had most feared. Nothing. I fell. I tried to scream in the darkness, but it was pointless. In this void there was no air, nothing that I could fashion into a scream. I looked up and saw a tiny pinprick of light. My “friend’s” jump had been successful, she now stood on a newly lit platform just a few feet forward and a few inches higher from where the last one had ended. And I hated her for it. I kept falling and soon that pinprick of light had completely faded. All was dark. If only I had the strength to cry.


“If you don’t do it then you can’t hang out with us anymore.” “What? You're kidding.” “No, I’m not. If you don’t complete the dare then you’ll die.” … “Fine.” * * * 8 hours earlier * * * “Hey, Josh!”

“Hey?” “We’re having a little get-together later tonight, I was wondering if maybe you wanted to join us?” “Wow, really? I can probably come, who, where, and when?” “Does it matter? I’ll be there… But it’s at Daniels house around seven.” “Oh, Daniel’s house… Okay, I’ll have to ask my mom. Do you think I could bring Sam?” “I think Daniel said only one more person, and I chose you. Also, It’s a sleepover .” “Uh, okay… I’ll let you know what my mom says.” “Okay! See you later, Josh.” That was Julia, one of the popular girls. She’s got dark hair and hazel eyes, like me, and a beautiful smile, not so much like me. She’s friends with the 8th-grade guys here at Hickory Grove Middle School. We used to be close in elementary school, but when we got to middle school she started hanging out with the older kids which made her very popular among our grade.

Anyways, I’m Josh, if you couldn’t tell. I’m in seventh grade and would not consider myself popular. I hang out with the “nerds” who don’t actually do anything except play video games, but I love video games too. That Sam kid I mentioned is my best friend. He’s pretty shy and has a weird sense of humor, other than that I think he’s awesome.

“What was that about?” “She was asking if I wanted to go to a party with her.” “Actually? What’d you say?” “Well, I said I had to check with my mom first, which reminds me.” I pull out my phone and text my mom, “going to a friend's house for a sleepover tonight, be home in the am. <3” “Dude, if we can go to this, do you know how popular we’ll be?” “Oh, Sam, I forgot to tell you, I asked if you could come and she said there was only room for one more.” Sam pauses his excitement for a moment. “Well, that’s alright. I can just stay home and play Dragon Slayer 3, which I think I’d rather do anyway.” “What do you mean? You don’t want to go?” “Well, I do, but I’ve heard things about 8th-grade parties… They do stuff.” “What kind of ‘stuff’?” “Ya know, like the kind of stuff you can’t tell your parents about.” “Just tell me already.” “Like…” Sam looks around to make sure no one is listening and then whispers, “alcohol.” “Sam, I can always just say no.” “I’m not too sure it works like that, Josh.” The bell rings. “Oh shoot, you made me late for class! Mrs. Wertz is gonna kill me.” Sam starts running away, “I’ll catch ya later, and if I don’t, then you’re telling me all about tonight over some games tomorrow.”

“Okay, see ya!” What the hell does Sam mean by, “I’m not too sure it works like that?” Of course it works like that, I choose what I do. I look down at my phone and see two messages; “okay, have fun, love you” from Mom, and “Come in through the back door tonight ;)” from Julia. *** I throw down my kickstand and leave my helmet on the handlebar. I catch a glimpse of a shiny blue something in the bushes next to me. I start to peek inside the bush when I hear someone harshly whisper my name. “Josh!” I snap my head to where the voice came from. It’s Julia peering around the corner of the house, waving her hand, signaling for me to come over to her. I look back at the bush, but she calls for me again. “C’mon!” “Okay, okay,” I whisper back to her and run across the yard. “What are you doing out here?” “I was… huh, I don’t remember. Come on inside!” She opened the door to the basement. There were a lot of people, and by a lot, I mean at most twelve of us. Everyone was just hanging out on the couch, except for the two boys playing ping-pong, Tyler and Peter. “Heyyy, what’s up John?” says Daniel, walking over to me. He holds out his hand, I reach out to meet it and grasp it firmly.

“It’s Josh, but nothin’ much, is this everyone?” “Nah, we have like four more coming.” “Alright.” “You want something to drink?” “Uh, sure, what do you have?” “Oh that reminds me!” says Julia, waving her hand before bringing it to a fist, “Damnit, I’ll be right back.” She bolted back out the door.

“We have some sodas if you want to get one, they’re in that fridge over there.” Daniel points over to a small refrigerator in the corner of the basement. “Okay, thanks.” I walk over to the fridge, open it up, and grab a coke. As I’m cracking it open, Julia comes back in through the door carrying a large blue crystalline bottle. “So that’s what I saw,” I say under my breath.

“I got it!” “Yesss Julia! Bring it here.”

Julia walks across the room, all eyes crowding on her as she hands it to Daniel. He takes it and unscrews the cap. “Jack, could you grab me a cup?” he says, turning to me. “Name’s still Josh, but sure.” I grab a red solo cup off the table and hand it to him. “Now this is where the party begins!” Daniel yells, he pours some of it into his cup and then takes a sip. “Here Jake, have some.” “No, it’s Josh.” “Whatever, take a sip, I dare you.” “I’m fine, thanks.” As I finish saying this, the people around me all gasp. “Josh, you can’t back down from a dare,” Julia piped in. “What do you mean? Sure I can.” “It’s just water,” Daniel continues. “Oi, I’m not an idiot.” “Oh right, you’re a nerd.” “No, I’m not.” “Prove it, take a sip. If you don’t do it then you can’t hang out with us anymore.”

“What? You're kidding.” “No, I’m not. If you don’t complete the dare then you’ll die.” I sit and stare at the bottle. The group bursts out laughing. I look up at Julia who now has tears in her eyes, laughing at me. “He’s joking Josh. You’re not gonna die,” she says. “Fine. I’ll do it.”


I chose to write this story because the author of World War Z states that zombies can survive underwater for a long time, but doesn't say anything about what was done to clear them up. Yes, there are references to other famous books/movies in here too, I hope you will enjoy it :) Deep Sea One part of the Z war, or World War Z, as some like to call it, that rarely gets mentioned in history books is the cleanup of the seas. When the war was long won on land and humanity was mopping up the last remnants of zombified human remains, a silent war was still raging under the seas, a war that few ever heard of and whose soldiers are forgotten, relegated to the annals as "cleanup crews". Giorgio Pellizzari led one of these crews, the Poseidon #8, in charge of "disposal, removal and elimination of human remains". Now retired, the imposing Italian man still sports a fierce white beard that contours his sun-baked face. His blue eyes, specks in the midst of gnarled rough skin have a lively, unbowed look about them. "The first thing you have to understand about our work is that the sea covers 71% of the planet, and with man being a land animal and all, it is naturally difficult to make any sort of impact on such an immense, untamed body. Think of navies in the past, of the Spanish Armada in the 16th century, not all of the king's cannon could do a thing to prevent the sea from taking them all.” “ I think it was the first prerogative of our job, even before the heathen ones, we respected the sea itself. Whenever we submerged we were completely at it's mercy." Sitting in his living room, by a warm fireplace, it's hard to believe that this man has come from the coldest hell on earth. Following his exploits in the Atlantic, Pellizzari became somewhat of a legend in the diving community and is credited with having paved the way for the reclaiming of the seas. With the solid education he received while in the COMSUBIN (Italian Navy's special forces) and his technical know-how of diving equipment, Pellizzari was the ideal choice to lead the "Poseidons", as they came to be known. Something about the naval decor of the room, or maybe the set of crossed iron spears that loom over the fireplace hint that this man was something more than a mere cleanup guy. He speaks with a deep voice, accented by his Tuscan origins. "Of course, a few divers could do little against the millions and millions of heathen ones that found themselves at the bottom of the sea. If even we fought every day for the rest of our lives we would never be able to finish off all of them, that's why we relied on the tugboats, before the divers...The tugboats were regular fishing vessels, at first we used the modern diesel-powered ones, but you see, today diesel is a luxury, and the little we got was used to operate the machinery. I've got to say, the sea offers all the propulsion you need, for free. We took to converting them to sail, or we found what sail ships we could outright.” “Three or four tugboats would lower their nets into the ocean, preferably where the seabed was flat and sandy and start dredging the seabed, back and forth, scooping up all the heathen ones they could. When the nets were well full, they would be hoisted up by a mechanical crane and lowered directly into the firebreather, a barge with a large rectangular incinerator on top. The abominations, with their disgusting bloated bodies would tumble down into to the fire and their ashes would be thrown to the sea. We would scrub the nets and repeat, over and over until the last monster was fished out of the water. When the nets would stop bringing them up, we would send a small detachment of divers to scout the area and pick off any lucky survivors with their spears.” “Now you will say, well, that's pretty easy! And I would say you are right! It was a joy to see those horrible creatures get consumed by the tonnage, my boys even drew a large dragon on the side of the firebreather and when we let them burn they would shout, holler and cheer." The image of a fiery barge incinerating zombies is sure spectacular, yet I feel the urge to enquire as to the actual fighting the divers had to do. Giorgio nods, he knows what I'm about to ask. "The thing is, not all of the seabed is flat, or sand. In fact, most areas are full of rocks, wrecks and all sorts of deathtraps for a net. Those were quite precious commodities so we avoided wasting them and only lowered them when we were sure they wouldn't snag onto anything. When they couldn't lower the nets, that's when we were truly called upon, that's when they asked to deploy us, the Poseidons." Before trying to understand the way in which zombies were fought underwater, it is important to ascertain how they interacted with the ocean's floors. Although zombies are immune to the lack of air, their sense of smell and hearing are mostly rendered useless at the bottom of the ocean. While on earth a Z could hear a man from half a mile away, underwater they were nothing more than bloated mobile masses, walking endlessly in a slow motion, sappy fever dream. Although this made them easier to kill, it is also a testament to their resilience, a Z could walk alone for years under the sea, marine life completely avoided them, even sharks dare not approach them. A standard Poseidon formation as it came to be known after the war quickly became the accepted method of effectively fighting Z under the water. The formation was composed of "Heavy" and "Light" units, acting in unison to bring down the threat. The first ones to submerge would be the "heavies". These were deep sea divers completely clad in a massive bronze and aluminum diving suit with a large copper helmet enveloping their head. On each side of the helmet each heavy had a "Ulixes" torch, a model that could light up even the most deep recess of the abyss.Their weaponry consisted of a large bronze shield and an inox iron spear, resembling that of an Ancient Greek hoplite or a Roman legionnaire. For backup, every heavy was armed with a 10 inch diving knife, one edge serrated to cut through netting and obstacles, or on occasion Z himself. While the heavy was slow, he could stay submerged for up to a day thanks to his carbon-scrubbing rebreather and was almost completely immune to bites, scratches and whatever the Z's could throw at them. After having made contact with the seabed, the heavies would gather into serrated ranks, their shields held in front of them and the spears poking out, forming an impenetrable phalanx. Following the heavies, the "light" units would submerge. Unlike their invulnerable brethren, the light divers only wore a neoprene diving wetsuit, which depending on the climate could be switched out for a hermetic one. Most "lights" sported a handheld torch, which they used to find Z and signal the heavies, together with a short spear or an axe. They had GAV inflatable jackets and lead-weighed belts to enable them to sink or float at will. Under most circumstances they looked exactly like a modern scuba diver, complete with fins, air tanks and diving torches. The light divers traded armor for mobility and were therefore the skirmishes of the formation, fanning out and attacking Z at will, harassing him and retreating, luring him toward the grinder of the waiting heavies. Giorgio was one of them. "Once the lights would gather enough Z's they would start luring them towards us". He explains; “In an ideal scenario we would have a good visibility and we could see them approaching and prepare our phalanx to face them. Still, as I've already told you, the sea makes her own rules to the games that people play. One moment we would have visibility as clear as day, the other a current of plankton would envelop us, making them impossible to see even if they were an inch from our nose. What guided us was mostly the torches of the light ones. They would signal to us where the heathen ones were and from where they would be approaching. It was important to have our phalanx always facing them because if the demons found our unshielded side it could often spell disaster. Many men I lost to an unseen bastard who crawled into our side. If the lights did their job good though, that often wouldn't be the case and we could face all of the fiends upfront... That's when the fighting began. The lights would scatter, either floating up and beginning their ascent or retreating behind our ranks, most of the time they would float above us, illuminating the zombies from above with their torches. Then the wall of dead would be upon us. It felt like a train smashing head on against our shields, we would hold fast, our lead-laced boots digging into the ground, our shield protecting us from their rotten teeth. The funny thing is, this was nothing like the combat you see on land, it was all in slow motion, slow but continuous, fluid movements both ours and Z's. It was a deadly struggle and yet there were no screams, no gunfire it was silent as night down there. Once Z had been stopped in his tracks we would raise our shields and start stabbing at their head with our long spears, killing them rank after rank putting them down into the seabed where they're supposed to be. What our spears couldn't finish we did with our knives, our boots or even our bare hands. Once I saw Morotz, one of my biggest lads, crush the head of a Z in his ironclad fist." Although the Poseidons were unrivaled fighting machines, losing only 15 of their 300-strong unit in the whole war, operating at depths of up to 2000 meters under the sea demanded quite a complicated logistics system to keep them alive at that depth and to make their fighting force effective. That's something I ask Giorgio, who indeed seems to be well-versed on the subject. "Due to the slow nature of the fighting that took place down there, it often took days to clear an area of heathens, which is why we set up "camp" a few hundred meters under the surface. Now "camp", is nothing as you imagine it. It's intended as a pressurized hyperbaric chamber, suspended by cable to one of our tugboats. When the fighting was over for the day, we would all ascend to "camp" where we could decompress, lose the nitrogen in our system and make preparations for the following day." Decompression is necessary to every diver, from the deep sea heavies to a recreational scuba. When a person is submerged for a certain amount of time little bubbles of nitrogen start forming in the bloodstream and if one was to emerge suddenly, these would expand owing to the reduced pressure and obstruct vessels and veins, risking to kill the person. An experienced diver knows this sickness very well. "We took decompression religiously. I would have rather left one of my guys behind and have one less heavy than risk a decompression sickness on my hands. It's a horrible way to go and it would spell the end of whatever operation we were conducting, not to mention kill the morale of my guys. Sometimes, when an operation was over we had to decompress for days, these were pretty boring and most of us stashed all manners of books and magazines in the hold. It was a down time to our work, we trained to kill but all we had to kill in there was time. It did give me time to think however, as it's in here that I thought up the phalanx, the light and heavies and all that was our fighting doctrine, every time I emerged in the chamber I had ample time to learn from the mistakes we made and perfect our tactics. In the end, a ship is only as good as it's crew and I could use this time to deal with my men on a personal level. I could see who was in a good mood, who wasn't and why, I tried my best to keep their morale high, that's when they fought best." I now move on to another topic. I feel like I've explored the past enough and I'm sure it must have been quite taxing for Pellizzari. I ask him about the future and what he sees of it. Considering the Poseidons have now been disbanded, replaced by professional Navy units. "I was assigned mostly ex Navy guys myself, or whatever deep sea divers had survived the Z war, cable repairmen, ship technicians, even the occasional recreational diver, they were all welcome in my crew...Now that our job is mostly done they all moved on to other pursuits, there are many damaged oil rigs out there, still broken and leaking, cables tore to pieces by the undead.They're wherever mankind needs them to be honestly, and I think it's all for the best. Today I look at my son Giorgio and I hope he grows up in a world that is more than thrusting spears at things. I hope he will develop a culture and master the arts, I hope he will find a job that has nothing to do with the heathen ones at all. Should they rise again, I warn them, while many shall kill them on land, I shall hunt them to the deepest abyss down to the pit of hell itself if necessary. I’m about to leave, Pellizzari has given me all that I needed and a very significant piece of history, not to mention a lesson learned shall the Z’s decide to infect humanity again. Before I go I have one last question, something unrelated that has always fascinated me. I ask Pellizzari if he’s ever seen things down there, things that no one has ever seen before. I was half expecting a sardonic remark, something sarcastic or funny, but the man gave me a look that was all the opposite. He seemed to pause on this one and then, almost by surprise gives me an answer I was not expecting. “Once, and only once. We were at 5,000 meters down and I wouldn’t be surprised if it was a hallucination caused by the nitrogen in our blood, but I’m pretty sure we all saw it. It’s eye was as big as one of our shields, tentacles, numerous and thick as a tree, they must have been longer than one of our tugboats. It came close, I think it was just curious. We poked at it with our spears and one of my guys pierced it’s eye. It left in a flurry, an abomination never to be seen again. Never forget, that to this day we know more about the surface of the moon than we do what lies at the bottom of the sea.


She played the notes again. This time with her eyes closed. Her right pinky extended, it hovers, then lightly taps the black F#. After a moment’s pause, her left thumb signals the rest of her slender fingers to cascade down on the keys. They rapidly unleash like gorgeously falling raindrops, one after the next. The piano radiates out the emotions she held in, as she strikes the keys harder and harder, faster and faster. Notes swirl and fall like a storm. She pauses a moment after the song has finished and takes a breath. Her wrists linger and float over the black and white ivories. She was about to begin again when her phone pings. “Are you almost here?” Reads a message from her mother. Amelia stands up from the piano and walks up the wooden stairs to her old bedroom. The bright lilac paint and cheerful photos covering the walls make it feel more foreign than ever. She examines herself in a full-length mirror. Her straight black, no-nonsense hair is sharply clipped at her jawline, the edges giving a slight curl. A furious pink has invaded and surrounded her deep brown eyes. The lids had been swollen for days. She barely recognizes herself. She smooths her hands over her dress. “Is this too racy to wear to your father’s funeral?” she wonders aloud to herself. It was the only black dress she packed, but now she was second-guessing the way it clings to her curves. She noticed the way her body had softened after the divorce, giving her more ample hills all around. She wasn’t unhappy about her more voluptuous figure, but today was not the day to show it off. Amelia felt foolish but it was too late to change. Grey cat hair sticks to her thighs like a magnet, no matter how many times her palms brush it away. She smacks her forehead gently. Her dad had hated cats. Now she looks like a wannabe jezebel covered in cat hair. I am absolutely ridiculous , she thought. Amelia doesn’t want to go. She wants to keep playing the song she played for him at her recital when she was thirteen. Before she quit piano forever because she got boobs and Jason from the basketball team wanted to spend Saturdays with her.

Thinking back, she was embarrassed that she had been so cheap with her time. Jason hadn’t been worthy of it; she knew then as she did now. Her Dad would make casual mention of it, as fathers do. And Amelia would ignore it, as young girls do. Now, she felt as ashamed of giving up on piano as she was of the feline coat smothering accidentally sexy dress. I have been—and continue to be—ridiculous. She tapped her foot anxiously because knew she could miss the speeches if she didn’t leave immediately. Amelia finally had to face reality and so she walked out the door. It was a sunny day, which pissed her off. It felt like the weather wasn’t taking his death seriously. It was mocking her as if it were just any other day. Wasn’t it supposed to be gloomy and raining in honor of him and the grief that has collectively overcome the world? It is just another day for most of the world , she considered with another sting. The wake was at the local funeral home where she had been many times before. She felt numb knowing it was her turn to stand at the front to give out hug after hug, handshake after handshake, and repeat, “Thank you for coming.” She stood in her place alongside her grandfather, mother, and older sister, which all felt a bit monarchical. It was like being in a trance, with a song she didn’t like echoing over and over. A sly, but comforting smile broke her daze as Amelia made eye contact with her father’s friend, David. He was devastatingly handsome, even now in his sixties she thought. Speckled charcoal and ash hair matched bristle along his jaw. Amelia had an innocent crush on him when she was younger. He was one of the fun adults. A family friend that took time to listen to what she and her sister had to say and would crack jokes that she didn’t have to pretend to laugh at. She watched him in line as she was robotically hugging, handshaking, and thanking. As David approached, he didn’t offer the usual, “So sorry for your loss,” but instead he gently turned his head and in a heartfelt way said, “This sucks.” He opened both arms for a hug and Amelia all but collapsed into them. She was as surprised as he was, but she didn’t hold back. His embrace was strong, and his fresh-cut grass smell made her feel safe. Tears poured down her cheeks as she tried to breathe through sobs. He stroked her hair gently and gave a soothing “It’s okay,” after a few moments. As she felt herself becoming a spectacle, they pulled apart. He kindly pretended not to notice the smear of tears and snot left on his shirt as he moved on to offer condolences to the rest of the family. Amelia’s eyes lingered on David as he moved through the crowd. She wanted him to come back and to hold her. She hadn’t seen him in almost a decade, probably not since her wedding. So much had changed since then. But his broad chest was the only place she had felt comfort in the three days since her father had hit the ground after his stroke. Her sister, Kate, nudged her as she realized the calling hours were coming to an end and the priest had begun the closing prayer. She hadn’t been a practicing Catholic in years and felt out of place as they did the archaic singsong prayer, “And he will be with you for-ever and ev-errrrr,” the priest chanted in a monk-like, monotone voice. Suddenly the group moved in unison and began walking in a circle. Amelia was caught in the middle of this whirlpool of Catholicism and wanted to laugh and cry at the same time. She clasped her hands and angled her head downward, imitating everyone else. She moved her feet in slow motion with the crowd, feeling like a barracuda hiding amongst a beautiful, well-rehearsed, school of fish. No one else seemed to notice her awkwardness besides David, who gave her a warm smirk from afar. Finally, the wake ended, and friends and family headed to Hal’s Place, as was the usual custom in the town. Hal’s was a dive bar that brought solace served via burgers, fried fish, and a few other greasy but delectable dishes. Metal back chairs sat around wobbly tables and tour posters featuring bands like The Who and Led Zeppelin adorned the walls. It was homey and offered a comforting familiarity that came from having the same bartender crack your beer cap off in an identical motion for half a century. Her father’s brother, the jovial Uncle Sammy, ordered a round of Budweiser in her dad’s honor. After a few toasts and favorite memories were shared, Amelia found herself standing at the bar next to David. He lightly clinked the bottom of their bottles together. “Hang in there, ‘Melia,” he said as they sipped their beer. She gave a half-hearted nod and drank another mouthful. She didn’t know what else to say but knew she didn’t want him to walk away. “Let’s go outside,” she suggested boldly. She led the way through the narrow tables as they went out the side door to the alleyway. He stood stiffly as she leaned with one shoulder pressed into the brick. Acutely aware that this was the first time she’d ever been alone with David, she found herself wishing that one of them smoked so they had something to do. However, she was too relieved to be away from the crowd to overthink it. She looked at him in anticipation. As the elder of the two, she expected him to say something to make it better. He made a serious face she wasn’t used to, creasing his forehead in four parallel lines as he looked up. “So… I lost my Dad when I was twenty-five. Heart attack. It was hard then, and it’s hard even now. But it gets a little easier to function every day,” he started. Amelia didn’t give any indication that she heard him. But she shifted her eyes from his to a place just over his shoulder, where it seemed like she was settling them in to listen. He took this as a sign to go on: “I think part of what’s so hard when a family member dies is simply knowing that there is one less person out there in the world who loves you. It can already be such a lonely place, and it’s like a big piece of that love—the best unconditional love—has been taken away...” David could see water forming in her eyes and was starting to regret sharing. He wasn’t great at this type of sentimental talk, but he was trying for her. “But their love is not gone. Not at all. It’s been immortalized,” he said with ripples forming around his mouth, as he gave an isn’t-that-cool? smile. She felt as if he was sharing a proven theory that had taken years to test and come up with. Maybe he was. “That love still exists, it’s just being sent from a different place... All your times together; your moments, big and small. All the things he taught you… they live on forever in the universe and who you are. You bring them with you every day... Every time you come to Hal’s and order a mediocre fish sandwich.” He added trying to make the conversation feel lighter. Amelia put her hand on his shoulder and brought her lips close to his. Instead of meeting her mouth, he gently turned his cheek and maneuvered her head into his shoulder for a hug. She was humiliated and angry, but only for a moment. Amelia started to laugh at how ridiculous she felt, covering her eyes with one hand, but after a moment it turned into a cry. He held her in the least scandalous way he could manage and let her weep. After a few minutes, David gave her a pat on her back, and she slowed her sobs and wiped her face. “Listen, your dad was amazing and so are you. You’ve got a bright future ahead. I can feel it. You’ve just been through a rough time lately,” he paused, letting the silence fill in everything unsaid. “But it’s going to get better,” he finished with one corner of his mouth turned up. Others had said this before, but Amelia decided to believe his words. She gave a nod and muttered, “Sorry about before.” “Don’t think twice about it,” he objected with a wink. He placed his hand on Amelia’s back to usher her back in. Inside Hal’s, they rejoined the rest of the merry mourners who were now singing collectively.

Next week, there would probably be another grief-stricken group here, piping out different songs and toasting with another lager, but that made their time no less sincere. Her mom caught her eye and pulled her into the group next to her sister. If her mother could find a way to smile, so could Amelia. Even if it was just for the night. She joined in feebly at first but soon sang as loud as anyone. Through bleary eyes and broken hearts, her father’s friends and family wrapped their arms tightly around each other and belted out his favorite songs. It was one of her dad’s favorite performances she ever gave.


The view from my penthouse pales in comparison to the breathtaking majesty of the Italian countryside. God’s country. Gréve, Italy.

Abundant grapes line the countryside, defining infinite rows.

Lush hillsides roll, lazily, climbing to the clouds, where lanky, emerald firs reach towards Heaven.

Clumps of dry, brown earth peek through a green carpet, lightly dust my feet, powdering the cracks between my toes.

Only my sleek, Bruno Magli’s hint of my fast-paced lifestyle back home.

Soon, I’ll leave all traces of my City life behind, maybe except for the time before I met Collette and Noah -- that past defines my very existence.

Now, I’m teetering between New York City minutes and Gréve’s state of grace.

Balance. I need balance. Italy restores the delicacy of the dance.

It always does. The night Collette stumbled over me in the gutter altered my reality.

Not because she and her boyfriend ripped me from my nightmarish haze, but because she apologized.

Her life changed, too, because she saw me through her soulful eyes.

They were kind, nonjudgmental eyes - different.

After all, I was just another homeless vagrant who interrupted the click of her Jimmy Choos

on the New York City street.

No…

The sounds of her clacks and taps made music on the pavement, even in their pause – a rest written into what would become the symphony of my new life.

Even her companion, Noah, stopped to help, instead of hurrying her along towards expected bliss.

Another interval amidst the crescendo of my chaos.

“I’m so sorry – I didn’t see...

Noah - ” Collette requested. “I know.

Let’s help her up.

What is your name?” His sturdy six-foot frame towered over my frail and crumpled body.

His touch, gentle and so foreign to my desecrated skin, contradicted my filth, my own revulsion for myself.

“Collette, I don’t know if she can speak.

She must be freezing. It’s below zero tonight.” His clear, green eyes sparkled with emotion in the moonlight. “We’re only two blocks away from the hotel-

Listen, miss, can you walk with us?

Let us help you.”

Collette’s words seemed unreal to me; after all, this couple seemed to be just like every other young, wealthy twosome, walking through midtown after an evening of $100 filet mignons and $20 martinis.

Of course I could speak, but the shock of their kindness prevented any words from forming.

Were they really talking to me?

I had always been so alone with my thoughts.

Resolutely determining things would be different soon.

************************************************************ Thwarted by melancholy.

Dejected.

Alone.

Only Collette’s faith restored my strength.

After all, my desire to flirt with happiness eluded me for so long, until her kindness and Noah’s respect for life provided me comfort. They took me to their lodging for the evening as if I were their prodigal best friend.

I allowed myself to anticipate long forgotten riches while we walked – cleanliness, a soft bed, crisp sheets, heat - treasures that most people take for granted in their commonplace.

Could the possibility of returned simplicity, of mundane moments, ever heal my soul?

The crackling fire warmed my freezing body that night in their hotel room. This same body almost claimed by winter’s breath tempting me towards a better hell than life on the streets.

Noah’s gentle wisdom replaced my not so naïve disappointment.

His compassion fed my spirit. Collette’s humanity restored my sense of self and promised me hope.

The strangers’ eyes touched my heart.

************************************************************ “I’m Collette, and this is Noah, my fiancé.

Can you tell us your name?”

Understandably, Collette was still convinced of my muteness. It seemed strange to me, how Collette spoke to me as if I were the same as she. I was usually lucky if people stepped over me instead of on me.

But apparently, Collette was one of a kind, radiant in her beauty. Everything about my interactions with Collette and Noah were different.

“My name is Kalaya. Kalaya Jacquelynn Lavery.” I finally responded. “Wow - What a striking name.”

She continued to speak to me as if we were long, lost friends. “Thanks. But it’s no more striking than the fact that you brought me here.

That’s pretty unusual, you know, for people to take an interest in a vagabond.” I tried to stop the sarcasm from seeping through my words. Immediately, her dark eyes turned away in sadness.

“Sorry, that sounded all wrong. You’ve been very kind.” “Don’t worry about it.

It probably is kind of weird that we brought you here, but I couldn’t leave you out there.

It’s bitter outside.

I don’t want to get too personal, but do you mind if I ask if you have anyone to help you?”

Innocently asked. My initial response was to scream at her. To say, yes, sure - my family lives in a mansion on a hill, but I chose this high life, instead, just to see how the other side lives, for kicks.

But I caught my words before they carelessly tumbled from my mouth.

If for no other reason than the fact that although I did not consciously decide to become homeless, I didn’t do anything to prevent it.

Collette did not deserve my terse response. “No.

My family is gone, and since I’m not exactly inviting anyone over for dinner parties, I haven’t kept in touch with any long lost friends.”

This time, I couldn’t avoid my biting tone.

“Listen, I appreciate your interest in trying to help me, but I don’t belong here.”

The truth was, that I did not belong anywhere.

How could I explain to these nice people that at one point in my life, not too long ago, I was just like both of them?

That I am educated, well, at least by most standards?

How could I describe the agony of my life with Luke until Amelia became my purpose, only to suffer the loss of them, too?

But perhaps the most difficult to justify to Collette and Noah, complete strangers, was the fact that I discarded my own Self in hopelessness.

Dejection claimed my resilience until my very own will was starved. “Well, that settles it.

You’ll have to stay here, at least for tonight.

Noah and I are in town for a trade show, and we’ve reserved several rooms for our employees.

One of our co-workers decided to commute from Jersey, so there happens to be an extra room.

We were planning on canceling it after dinner, but now, we don’t have to.” Was she for real?

“I can’t accept such a generous offer.

You’ve already been kind enough.

A room here is too much and I can clearly never repay the debt.

Thank you, but I’ll be fine.”

My refusal sounded so resolute, but in my mind, I already accepted the possibility of actually sleeping on something other than concrete and waste, if only for just one night.

“Don’t be ridiculous.

We get to write the rooms off as a business expense anyway, so it really isn’t a problem at all.

Please, let us do this small thing for you.”

Collette’s request seemed so sincere, and did it really matter?

She offered, and I would have been a fool not to accept.

So, I did.

And that night changed the course of my life. ************************************************************ Living on the streets taught me many lessons, to say the least.

Sleeping through abnormally loud noise, even chaos, remains one of the most useful tricks.

Eventually, a muffled, but persistent knocking awakened me from the deepest, most peaceful slumber I had had in three years. “Excuse me, miss.”

Knock, knock.

“Miss?

Room service here.

Miss?

Are you in there?”

Reluctantly, I cracked the door and peered out, “I’m sorry.

I didn’t order room service.”

“I know.

Miss Collette took the liberty of ordering for you.

She also asked me to deliver this note.

Good day, miss.” Miss Collette?

How often does she stay here?

Swimming in confusion, I read Collette’s letter: Dear Kalaya,

I hope you slept well last night. I had to be at the show early  this morning, but I wanted to invite you to lunch today.

Please, don’t feel obligated, but if you’d like, meet me at

noon on the corner of 11th Avenue and 34th Street.

I’ll wait

for you until 12:15. I have a proposition for you.

If you

choose not to come, I understand, and I wish you much

health and safety.

Cheers, Collette

Really, the whole situation was bizarre. I was homeless and here was this fairy godmother?

Not likely.

But still, here I slept, in this posh hotel, accepting free breakfast in bed from a beautiful, sleek, dark eyed stranger. Experience taught me that nothing in life is free, but if for nothing other than curiosity, I decided to meet Collette; but not before drenching myself in the hottest, most glorious shower I could remember. When I arrived at 11th and 34th,

Collette was already there waiting for me. “Hi, Collette.”

“Hey!

You came! I’m so glad - let’s go.

We can talk over lunch.

I’m starved.” Her rhythmic stride started to echo again in my ears.

“Wait.

Listen – this is all just not right.

I can’t -

You don’t even know me.

I’m a homeless street person, for God’s sake. I shouldn’t have come.

You should have just left me alone last night.

- I just wanted to say thank you.” “You’re welcome.

I know.

This has been out of the ordinary for me, too, but maybe it’s kismet.

Just come to lunch.

Then, you can decide never to talk to me again if you want.

I promise.” *********************************************** “What are you grinning about, Kalaya?” Collette asked with a smirk. The car ride gave us time to talk. “Was I grinning?” “Like a rockstar.” “Hmm, I didn’t realize that I had any expression at all.

I was thinking about the first night I met you and Noah.

I guess it always involuntarily makes me smile.

When I think of how short my life might have been if you and Noah hadn’t rescued me – I was ready to give up.

After three years on the streets, I had no fight left inside, but then you came along.

I’m just constantly grateful.

Everyone’s life flickers in such a brief flame – some brighter than others, but every life, every moment, incendiary.” “Noah and I didn’t do anything but offer you the opportunity that was so unfairly confiscated from your past.

You did the hard stuff.

You resurrected yourself from hell and put yourself back together.” “Great.

A real, live Humpty Dumpty.”

“You are ridiculous, Kalaya..

But actually, your feistiness and sarcasm made me see your strength of mind.

Your raw disdain tugged at my heartstrings.

Besides, after all this, I’ve decided we’re kindred spirits.

Sometimes, people just click, and it’s up to each of us to help one another.

I was just doing my part.” “Noah is a lucky man to have such a bleeding heart for a wife.

You two together will change this world, do you know that Collette?

In fact, you already have.

You saved me, after all. I used to be unable to wear my heart on my sleeve. Expressions of homeless people have to be blank, because otherwise, the fear would consume us, and make us targets for people who lost their souls.

I guess I subconsciously avoided dealing with life at all. Replacing instinct with any luxury of feeling allowed me to survive for three years.” “I can’t believe you lived on the streets of New York City for three years.” “Neither can I.

But more amazing is the fact that you and Noah never ask me questions about why.” “We always figured you’d talk when you were ready.

I asked you an adequate amount during lunch the second day we met.

Besides, you did the hard stuff – I only offered you a job.” “We sat for only twenty minutes.

All you asked me then was why I didn’t already have a home or a job.” “Your answer sufficed. You said that you had been hurt; your family was gone; and you lost your desire to come back from it all.

I saw the pain on your face and the sincerity in your eyes.

Everyone deserves a second chance, right?

I figured Noah and I would be yours. I had nothing to lose.

You told me that you finished your first year of college in 1993. You just needed another chance to make a new life. It was our privilege to give that to you.” ************************************************************ The memories flood back every time I close my eyes.

I have learned to steal rest between ungodly hours of the night and the wee hours of the morning, just before getting up for work, but I’m always tired.

If I’m not careful, they can consume me again – the memories -

tossing me back into the tempest of my past. That’s why I came to love Gréve.

It calms me.

The pain of transcending one life into the next weaves itself tightly with the fear of what could be and what was.

Light. Hope. Endings. Beginnings.

The perfectly blended rainbow transformed the blandness of my days past to reinvention.