Alice ran her hand along the wall, the plaster was bumpy and cracked, paint flecked off revealing another layer behind. How many layers were there, who could say? Over four hundred years’ worth of paint, dirty handprints and memories embedded in these walls. A photograph hung on the wall, a couple posed stiffly for the camera, the man in a suit and the woman in what appeared to be a wedding dress. The man’s eyes seemed to be looking straight at her, or through her. She continued on up the stairs, the walls curved and bowed, not a single straight edge in the entire building. Black wooden beams accented against the greying white walls, frayed carpet and dusty curtains. She’d seen the advert for Peacock Farm online and had immediately fallen in love, with both the building and it’s story. From the small amount she’d been able to find about the place, she knew it was full of history and had housed many colourful characters. The monks who resided there when the house was a vicarage, the woman who had seven children and the desperately in love couple whose relationship ended in tragedy.

“It’s perfect”. Tony looked over at Alice wondering if she’d lost her mind, “There’s no central heating, no double glazing, that window is cracked, that one’s missing a piece of glass and there’s a door to a room half-way up the stairs with no landing”, Alice rolled her eyes at his melodramatic rant, sure the window was cracked but look at the view. The garden needed some work but beyond it was miles of glorious countryside, trees and rolling hills. She needed somewhere to write, and this place was full of inspiration.

“no, seriously, this house will kill me. I mean really?” he gestured over towards the door hanging strangely on the stair way, “just look, how am I meant to get in or out of that room without falling to my death?” “don’t go in that room then!” Alice was already wandering off to look around. The floor sloped downwards along the corridor and carried her round to the left. She pushed the door in front of her and it creaked open to reveal a room that had nothing but a large trunk standing in the centre. It appeared wooden and heavy, with metal trim and rivets. The clasp was shut and a padlock threaded through securing it. “Hey, I wonder if this trunk comes with the house!” she called through to Tony, ‘I wonder what’s inside’ she whispered to herself. Alice got no response, she popped her head back into the corridor to see Tony fiddling with the door on the stairs, “What are you doing Tony?” “It’s locked”, “Why do you care, you don’t want to go in there anyway!” she joined him at the door and gave the handle a wiggle, “I’ll go find the estate agent, I want to ask him about that trunk anyway”. The steps creaked and groaned as Alice made her way downstairs, and Tony could hear her footsteps along the old wooden floorboards towards the kitchen. He gave the handle another try but was startled by voices coming from a room behind him. “Hello?” this place gave him the creeps, he’d seen some of the information Alice had found. The little boy who drowned in the moat, the woman who killed her husband for having an affair and god knows how many other people who had died there. Tony ventured cautiously towards the room hoping to find another couple having a viewing, and praying they bought the place before Alice could. As Tony pushed open the door, he saw a long shadow silhouetted on the floor, “Hello” he said again, not wanting to startle them. The shadow moved across the floor and by the time Tony was inside, the room was empty. He frowned, his eyes darting around the space noticing only one way in or out. There was a fireplace on the far wall and a large wardrobe to the right, a faded pink curtain hung beside it. Tony pushed the curtain aside and was relieved to find it hid a door, the movement freed years of dust that danced in the light and tickled his nose and throat sending him into a fit of coughing.

“You Ok?” Tony squinted through the dust at Alice and gave her a bemused grunt. … “This is the trunk” Alice jangled the padlock to see if it was open, but it held fast, she looked up at the estate agent who started flipping through pages in his binder “There was no mention of it in the paperwork so I assume it stays with the house, not that there’s anyone left to claim it anyway” “Oh?” “the place has been empty for years, the neighbours would see the lights come on at night and people moving about but turns out the local kids like to play round here, there are rumours about the place being haunted and you know what kids are like” Tony didn’t like how casually he delivered this news, and he really didn’t like the unnerving smile on Alice’s face,

“We’ll take it” she announced, much to Tony’s dismay, “Great, shall we go down to the kitchen to talk details?” “Wait!” Alice and the estate agent both turned to look at Tony, eyebrows raised, “what about that other couple, they might want to make an offer?” he knew it was a long shot, when Alice wanted something no one stood in her way, but he had to try something to avoid being dragged into living in this decrepit old building. “Have you had any other offers?” Alice asked curiously, the estate agent shook his head and looked over at Tony questioningly, “We’ve had no other viewings or interest, the property has been on the market for nearly three years”. Tony glanced around nervously, “who else is here then?” he asked, afraid to hear the answer, “Only us. As I say we’ve had no other viewings” the estate agent was becoming agitated now. As far as he was concerned, he’d made the sale, now it was time to do the paperwork, make his commission and be done with this creepy old place. “Alice we can’t live here” Tony pulled her over to one side, “can you give us a minute?” The estate agent obliged, “I’ll be downstairs, I’ve just got to make a phone call to let my next clients know I’ll be late”. “Tony what’s going on, why are you being weird?” “Me weird? This place is weird! There were people up here, I heard them talking in that room” Alice frowned unconvinced, “Shh, listen” the pair listened as the low mumble of a man’s voice travelled down the hall, “What? That’s just the estate agent” Alice followed the voice, it lead her to the room next door, Tony stayed a couple of steps behind, scared to go back in the room, but equally scared to be left alone. She pushed open the door to find the room was empty, but the voice continued, clear as day. Tony jumped as Alice started laughing, “What’s so funny?” “Come here” she beckoned him over to the fireplace and crouched down with her head close to the opening, Tony joined her and could hear the estate agent’s voice coming up through the chimney, “Oh” “Yeah”, Alice rolled her eyes, “Come on, he’s clearly desperate to get out of here”. Tony felt a little daft and yet his fear was not gone. The dust from the curtains had settled and clogged up the cobwebs in the corner of the room. Tony’s shadow lay still across the floorboards,

“he’s not the only one”. … “Hey Alice, did we get a key for this room?” Tony asked as he carried another empty box down the creaky stairs, “Huh? Oh, check the tin on the kitchen table, the estate agent dropped it off, it has all the spare keys in”. Tony rooted around in the box, the keys had been labelled with little white paper tags, ‘garden shed’, ‘back door’, ‘Trunk’. Alice had been so excited to discover the mysterious trunk’s contents and had been a little disappointed to find nothing but a weird collection of women’s clothes, make-up and costume jewellery. Unfortunately, there was no tag labelled ‘stupid door halfway up the stairs’ and all the keys were accounted for. Tony grabbed a key labelled ‘workshop’ and went out to find some tools that he had deluded himself into thinking he would be capable of using to open the door. He wasn’t entirely sure which of the outbuildings was considered the ‘workshop’, but he wandered over to a rickety old structure and hoped for the best. He tried the key in the lock, jamming it into the mechanism. It wouldn’t turn, he tugged at the key, but it was firmly stuck. Tony cut his losses and turned back to the house, but there was a rustling from behind the shed that drew his attention. A shape darted out and across the lawn, a second shape followed only this one wasn’t quite so lucky. Tony grabbed the kid by the arm and held him firmly in place, “What do you think you are doing?”, “Sorry, we didn’t think anyone lived here”, the kid was young, probably about nine or ten, “Well we live here now, so no more snooping and make sure you tell all your little school friends no more playing around in the house” the kid nodded his head and Tony let him go, “We would never dare go in there anyway” the kid was wide eyed as he walked away, “the old man gives us the creeps”, “wait, what old man?” “The old man in the house” the kid was getting further away, desperate to leave before he got into any more trouble, “I thought you said no one lived here” the kid stopped, “they don’t” he disappeared through the hedge out of sight. … There was a lot to do before the place was going to be the home Alice had imagined, but she couldn’t wait to get started with her writing. Ideas had been sparking in her mind ever since they’d seen the place advertised, and she was desperate to get words down on paper. She made herself a nest, wiping off a dusty old table and pulling it over to a window, she took out her note pad and pen. She thought of a news article she had read about the couple that once lived in the house, they had been childhood sweethearts and no one believed anything could split them up. But one day the woman had killed her husband in an impassioned rage when she found another woman’s underwear under the bed. She had been so heart-broken she immediately killed herself. Immersed in the story Alice began to put pen to paper. As she searched her imagination, a loud thundering noise interrupted her thoughts. She rolled her eyes, of course Tony had decided that now was the time to start dragging around furniture. The noise stopped and she carried on, but within moments it started again. She stood up abruptly and stormed over to the bottom of the stairs. She saw Tony’s shadow flit across the hall, his footsteps moving along the upstairs corridor, “Tony!” she barked. Tony heard her shout and came running in from the garden, already on edge after his encounter with the kid. As Tony appeared in the kitchen doorway beside her, Alice jumped, her stomach lurched, her face paled and there was a loud thump upstairs. … It took a little while for the pair to pull themselves together, there had to be a logical explanation for everything. After a brief argument over who would go first, Anna tread slowly up the stairs wielding a hammer and nervously looked in each room for any sign of a rational answer. “Tony?” her voice quivered,

“Yeah?” “The trunk is gone” the pair looked over at the door on the stairs, a little white tag hung from a key that now sat in the lock. Anna slowly turned the handle, the mechanism clunked and with a gentle push the door creaked open ominously, leaving the pair bewildered. The half open door revealed a full-length mirror propped up against the far wall and a pile of clothes heaped beneath it. A necklace lay broken on the carpet, beads scattered and rolled across the floor. There was a gentle tapping as several escaped the room and cascaded down the stairs. Tony shuddered, “We’ve got to get out of here”, he started down the stairs but Alice was petrified in place, her eyes glued to the mirror, staring at her own reflection, or just beyond it. There was nothing more than a shadow, and yet she could see him so clearly, his decorated face smiling as he admired his new dress in the mirror. Alice turned to Tony, shaking “he didn’t do it” she said quietly, “he just wanted her to know”.


(Trigger warning: sexual violence) I don’t want to go to this party. My friend Alyssa gave me an invite earlier this week, and I said yes. Such a stupid decision. I already knew that I didn’t want to go. Four days isn’t a long time to change my mind. But I said yes anyways.

I knock on the door, my fingers shut in a tight grip. I can hear music erupting from the inside of the flat. Poor neighbours! Alyssa greets me with that shining smile, that irresistible shining smile. I don’t have a crush on her though. Strange, as she is the most ideal woman imaginable.

“Hi Delilah!” Her voice is soft as silk, and at the same time harsch, cutting through the loud music. A glittering dress tight on her slender figure, a plastic cup clutched in her hand. Her eyes the colour of a milky cappuccino. I get a glimpse inside the flat; bright lights pop and an ocean of unknown people are already dancing.

“Hi! Am I late?” I giggle nervously and step inside, placing my thick jacket on an overfull hanger.

“No, not at all. Everyone just came early, nothin’ to worry about,” Alyssa says and waves me into the living room, her high heels clinking against the wooden floor. Some people turn their heads to see who just arrived, some are too invested in dancing, laughing and drinking to give a damn.

“Fancy a drink? I’ve got a wide selection.” She gestures to the extensive counter covered with bottles of soda, vodka, cheap beer and other indistinguible alcoholic beverages.

“Yes, a glass of Coca-Cola please.” Alyssa obediently fills a red cup to the brim with Coca-Cola. Her hands are shaking, it’s obvious she has refilled her own cup a few times before my arrival.

“Here’s your drink! I’m in the mood for some dancing, want to follow?” she says, hiccuping in between words. The sugary drink sticks to my tongue like my grandmother’s porridge always does.

“I think I’ll pass for now. When I’m ready I’ll gladly join you on the dancefloor,” I exclaim to be heard over the pulsating music, my voice drenched in false enthusiasm. Alyssa gives me a thumbs up and dissolves into the mass of dancing people.

I move toward the hot-pink sofa and squeeze myself into the far corner, in order to distance myself from the people already occupying it.

“Hello there! What a party!” says a girl in a raspy scottish accent and lifts her plastic cup, as if she wants to toast.

“Hi. Yes indeed, what a party!” I say, meeting her cup in a toast. But the collide is a bit too rough and orange liquid splatters her skirt. Her eyes drill into mine. The wish to sink through the pink cushions and disappear, immediately enters my mind. The scottish girl and the other people sitting on the sofa go back to their chat. Thank God!

Exactly fixty-seven seconds later, I gather up the courage to stop scratching my bleeding cuticles and remove myself from the sofa. With shaky legs I walk toward the dance floor, observing every millimeter of my surroundings.

My heart skips several beats when I see you. Sitting in a bean bag with your legs spread and your arm flung around a blonde girl’s shoulder. I know you’re aware of me observing you, you must be. You’re aware of things like that. It had been exactly ninety-nine days since I last saw your face. Your nose with the bump only visible from the side. The corners of your mouth, twitching. Your hair shimmering like bronze. Your eyes, the darkest shade of black. It had been ninety-nine wonderful days. Wonderful yet terrible days.

I try to suppress the thought of you, but it’s hard when my brain is painted in the colors of your skin against mine. I step into the pool of humans; their arms punching toward the ceiling, their bodies twisting and their heads shaking. I try to replicate a girl’s movements, but stop when she falls into the arms of another girl and they start jiggling together. The heavy beat vibrates the floor and shatters my thoughts. I jump to the rhythm and Alyssa appears beside me. She has had more to drink, her eyelids flickering, her words slurry.

“Havi’ fun?”

“Sure,” I answer. Which isn’t completely true, but the lie slides off my tongue like a child in a waterslide. Alyssa nods, or maybe she’s just shaking her head to the music, I can’t tell.

I dance for an eternity, which probably is around two-hundred seconds. And suddenly my pantsuit is sitting too tight.

Tight enough for my lungs to lock like a zipper. Tight enough for my field of sight to blur.

Tight enough for my knees to weaken and my bones to transform into jelly.

I need to get away. Quickly. Insanely fast. I sprint away, slithering between the jumping people and ducking when I hit a wall of human flesh. My heart beats in my throat, sweat dripping along my spine. I’ve been to Alyssa’s place many times before and therefore know that there are two bathrooms in her flat. One bathroom positioned very close to the large living area, and one bathroom with an entrance inside Alyssa’s bedroom. The choice is very simple.

Alyssa’s bed is the size of my kitchen, her rug soft like clouds and the walls painted in the lightest of violett. I don’t have the time to recognize more details before my fingers slide over the handle and I’m inside her bathroom. My hand trembles as I turn the lights on, and then shut them off again. I do this nine times. It’s such an old habit I don’t even realize I’m doing it. The light is bright like the sun and my eyes are burning. Liquid streams from them. I instinctively think it’s blood. But my panicked reflection tells me otherwise. It’s just tears. The normal stupid salty tears that insist to wet my cheeks everytime my heart starts to race. Everytime anxiety meets panic. The sound of my rattling breaths overpower the pounding beats from the living room. I close my eyes and everything ceases to exist for a second. It’s nice. Nicer than it should be.

I sit on the toilet with my face buried in my lap. I never should have attended this party. It was a stupid idea. Somewhere in the whirlwind of minutes and seconds that passes by, I conclude that I need to get out of this bathroom. My makeup is ruined, but I’m too ruined to care. Hopefully I can disappear in the thick mist of drunk people and colorful lights. Fingers crossed.

When I come out of my hiding place, I see you sitting on Alyssa’s bed. My body flies several centimetres off the fluffy floor. Your black eyes are staring directly into mine. The door out of this room is shut with intention; the intention to block any escape route.

“Hi.” My voice is squeaky, despite my try to sound strong and resilient. In the soft glow from the spiral-like ceiling light, you can clearly see I’ve been crying. But you don’t care. Because why would you?

“Hello Delilah,” you say, the familiarity ringing in my ears. With swift movements you move towards me and I can feel my heart boxing my chest.

“Who was that girl?” I whisper. My high heels are the only thing I dare to look at. You pin my wrists to the wall. “A nobody.” “Really?” Silence. “Am I a nobody?” “No, Delilah. You’re far more than a nobody. You’re my somebody.” Unwillingly, your words tickle me. I don’t want them to. I want to be the opposite magnet to you. But my magnetic force isn’t strong enough to keep you away. Suddenly I feel your lips on mine, and I yank back. But my body is pressed to the wall, so I can’t escape. Our eyes are still open, our lips barely touching.

“No. Please, no. I don’t want —” I get interupted by your mouth silencing me, and my hope sinks like a stone. This has happened so many times before I don’t even try to wrestle out of your grip. Your breath tastes like beer and peppermint. You transport me to the bed, our fingers entwined.

“But you do Delilah. You do want to.” You take off your shirt in a smooth movement, as if you’ve done it thousands of times before. With a second thought, you probably have. You struggle with my pantsuit, your fingers trembling whilst unbuttoning the small buttons. I don’t mind, it’s nice with a few seconds to breathe properly.

I feel the material slide off my upper body, and then down my legs. You turn me so that I can’t avoid your eyes of darkness.

“But I don’t though. I don’t want to.” You kiss me again, with more passion, pushing me down into the mattress. I want to shout but my lungs are empty. I feel your hands sliding over my belly and downwards. You close your eyes. I don’t. I keep them wide open, so I can count your freckles, the counting distracts me from the pain. I also keep my fingers crossed. Because somewhere deep down, I’m screaming at the top of my lungs for someone to rescue me.

I’m not sure how long your body is on mine. Time is a funny thing. Sometimes seconds can feel like years, and sometimes months can swoop by without me noticing.

But sometime after the music from the living room dies and the voices subdue, you decide you’ve had enough. You silently put your clothes back on and I lay underneath the duvet, my eyes closed and imagine stars spread across a blackberry sky. “This will be our little secret. Right, Delilah?” I don’t say a word and you don’t bother. The door opens and closes with a noiseless click .

I crawl out of the bed, after an hour laying flat on my back and staring blankly to the ceiling. I drag my legs behind me. As quietly as I can, I tip on my toes through the flat. About twenty people are sleeping, lying on the sofas, curled up in bean bags or spread over mattresses that have been placed on the floor. I can’t see your body among all the others, you must’ve left. The clock on the back wall is everything that can be heard, the gentle ticking moving towards 4.00 am. My heels are left behind in Alyssa’s bedroom, so I take a random pair from the hallway, which are in my size. They’re a pair of Converse, the white material worn brown. I open the door and suddenly hear someone moving in the living room. I dare not glance back to see whom I awoke. I just shut the front door behind me and feel the crisp air gnaw at my skin.

My arms are exposed, I left the jacket in the flat. Another stupid decision, this time not intentional though. I feel dirty, you’re still stuck to my body like thick syrup. And I can’t rub you off. I think I’m crying, or maybe I’m not. If I’m being totally honest, I don’t fucking care.

The usually busy streets of London are frozen, both literally and abstractly. A thin slippery layer of ice covers the pavement, paired with piles of snow that lay scattered everywhere. But it’s also frozen in another way, the air trapped — the streets still, frozen in time. From here, I can’t see a single human. I’m sure I’m not the only soul haunting the streets this late at night — or early in the morning, depending on your sleeping habits — but I still feel surprisingly lonely.

I walk by my favourite café in town. At nine o’clock in the morning, the café opens and their buns and croissants are still warm. I stare into the frosted glass, my breath white against the window. I can see my usual spot in the far corner, where I always sit. It’s an armchair the colour of red wine, with a small table on the side, just the perfect size for a small plate with a baked good, and a steaming cup of Earl Gray tea. With two and a half teaspoons of sugar and a splash of milk.

 If that spot is taken, then I’d rather skip breakfast.

My legs don’t feel like legs as I walk onward, my thoughts twirling with the icy breeze. I moved to London because I thought things would change. I thought I would change.

Spoiler alert: I did not.

The old buildings tower against a canvas of black, indigo, and blue. I like looking up at the sky, I would flee to the stars above if I had the opportunity. Up there, things feel meaningless. Easy.

Cars drive by, the startling lights temporarily damaging my sight. I walk onto the Tower Bridge, and stop halfway across. I stare down, into the bubbling river of dark shimmer. It looks cold, like a river someone could freeze to death in. My teeth squeak against each other, my turquoise fingertips rubbing the skin of my arms. Without acknowledging my own movements, I’m sitting on the blue railing, my legs dangling free. The strong wind keeps my body unbalanced, swaying between safety and the unknown. I feel my eyes burning again. It’s probably not blood. It’s probably the stupid tears again. Then, I hear a distant shout. “Delilah. What are you doing? Delilah!” I can feel the desperation echoing in Alyssa’s voice. It was her I must’ve awakened when I left the flat. “Please! Whatever you’re doing — stop. I can help.” But the thing is - she can’t. I’m a ruined ruin that can’t be un-ruined, not even by the magic hands of Alyssa. I look in her direction, and I can see a small figure standing a few hundred metres away from me. Not seeing her face clearly perhaps makes the choice easier to make. I let go. And funnily enough I’m still keeping my fingers crossed. Now — I don’t even have the ghost of a clue to why.

I’m falling, and this time I’m really frozen in time. I’m like a slug in slow-motion. Feelings overwhelm me, and they blend together into a smooth paste without lumps to distinguish the original feeling. The only thing etched in my mind as I’m falling through time and space is you . Your bloody face. The gleaming surface inches closer. Closer and closer … until my stolen pair of Converse breaks the surface and water swirls around me. Pain shoots through me like bullets. Cold pours through my clothes and bites my skin raw. Everything is liquid and bubbles. The water hugs me, in the most uncomfortable way possible. It’s thick and freezing cold, and I can’t determine whether I’m floating to the surface or sinking to the bottom.


Have you ever wondered that while you are trying to be patient in all things the all things are really trying out your patience.  The story I want to share begins with a man whose mother and wife loved him too much. One day the man's mother was hospitalized and the man was not worried at first. While in the hospital, his mother told him that she wants to go out of the hospital after four days. The man just thought this is because his mother just wanted to go home. On the fourth day at 12 midnight, the mother had a heart attack. The man was informed on the phone and he rushed into the hospital. When he arrived the doctors were trying to resuscitate the mother. One of the doctor came out to speak to the man and advice that they normally inject 10 vials to a patient within one hour on the resuscitation process. The man asked the doctor, "How many vials have you used on my mom?" The doctor said, "They were injecting the eighth vial when I came out." The doctor left the man and went in. The man who was left in the aisle of the hospital fell to his knees and began praying, "Lord, am I too evil that you suddenly make these things happen and caught me off guard. If there is forgiveness, please give me time to be able to talk with my mother." After praying the doctor came out and said, " The patient was resurrected on the ninth bottle. " The man went in and talked with his mother. He sang her songs from Psalms. In between, he would cry while singing. Though he is married with 3 children he felt helpless like a child in his situation now.  After 9 hours, his mother suffered from the 4th heart attack and left the world.  To make things worst, he paid his last money in the hospital and did not know what to do. As after the hospital comes the burial problem. The man remembered that his mother has bought a cremation plan before and when the man called up the funeral service, he was told that his mom paid for the service for 6 months and discontinued the payment. But as a courtesy they can charge the remaining balance amounting to 125,000 and his mother would be given a funeral and cremation. Although the man has no money left now he agreed with the funeral service and asked them to pick up her mother's body in the hospital. The funeral van came at 2 in the afternoon and they reached the funeral place around 3 in the afternoon.  The man was now contacting his relatives and family friends to inform of his mom's death. At 7 pm, having no money yet to pay the funeral, the man suddenly received a call from his mother's cousin who has just arrived the country from a travel in Europe. The uncle asked the man to go to the accounting room and when the man arrived the uncle told him that he has settled the 125,000 and asked the cashier to write the receipt in the man's name.  After that the man went home with his wife to take a rest. At home his wife told him, "When are you gonna change? Don't you know I am next after your mother. The man thought it was a joke just ignored it and slept. The next morning he went to the funeral first as his wife have to accompany the children to school. When lunch time came, he received a call from his wife asking him to come down and fetch her as she was exhausted.  So the man went down to fetch his wife. On the door of the funeral parlor he saw his wife sitting in the stairs looking exhausted.  The man borrowed a wheelchair and pushed his wife to the elevator and went upstairs.  When they arrived the room, he laid his wife in the big sofa and let her sleep. He went out to make a phone call and when he came back he saw her wife vomited. He quickly called for help and someone said that he should bring his wife to the hospital.  They brought down her wife and called a taxi.  Upon arriving the hospital, his wife was rushed to the emergency room and had an MRI.  When the result came out the doctor advised the man that his wife had suffered stroke. The wife was transferred to an ICU. Everyday for the next 3 days the man would go from the house, to the hospital to the funeral and back.  Until the last day of funeral, on the fourth day of his wife's confinement, the mother was cremated.  The cremation lasted from 10 in the morning until four thirty in the afternoon. At five in the afternoon while the man was locking the ashes inside the vault, the wife's niece called the man and ask where he is as the wife died already a few minutes before she called. The man was so devastated but what can he do. To make things worse, when he arrived in the hospital, he had no money to pay. So he tried to call his brother and ask if he can borrow the money they gathered from the donation they received from the death of their mother. The brother told him that they have talked before that this money should be used to pay the debts their mother left.  So the man continued to call on friends and relatives but there is no answer. It seems the heaven's door was closed. He and his eldest were running up and down the hallway of the hospital until he told his son, son we have been moving but not praying. They prayed together and afterward there is an impression made to the man to call his supervisor.  So he  called up his supervisor and the supervisor told him to stay calm understanding the situation. Then after twenty minutes the HR manager of the company called the man to inform that the company boss and manager have just had a meeting and agreed to send 100k to the man. But because of withdrawal limitation the man informed that the money cannot be withdrawn even if transferred. So they said they will have a meeting again. After twenty minutes, the man received a call again from the HR manager advising him that the HMO card will cover all expenses first so no need to cash out anything. This man has encountered simultaneous trial and there were some resolutions given by heaven but it always seems that trials always comes after some problems resolved. It seems like heaven is trying the patience of every person living on earth. But if we understand this, this is how heaven molds people into good character.  Is your patience being tested? Then rejoice.


The loud blast startled us all. On its heels the plane nose-dived. "Jump out now!" The squadron leader opened the hatch. It looked like a gaping gateway to hell. One by one the soldiers jumped into the dark abyss. Karthik was the last to go and he somehow reached the ground and was reunited with his teammates. The enemies started shooting at them, the terrorists knew that a squad was coming. They were the ones who bombed the military aircraft while it was mid-air. Two weeks earlier, three soldiers of the Border Security Force were killed by terrorists in a shootout. The government decided to form a squad consisting of thirty members from both BSF and Army for a Surgical strike. The Intelligence Department had collected an information regarding the location of the terrorist group and submitted it to the government. They also found that the terrorist group consisted of 15 members. At present, the terrorist group almost had gained the upper hand. But, the squad bounced back and killed all of them. All of squad members except the squadron leader and Karthik were killed in the ambush. Karthik counted the dead bodies of the terrorist group to be ten. He knew something was fishy. He understood that this was just a small part in a bigger scheme. Karthik realised that the someone has betrayed them as the terrorists knew that they were coming which was a top secret information. He found a phone in one of the terrorist's pocket and messaged all the contacts "I escaped; meet you at Plaza Hotel,Sunday 5:00 pm. He also convinced his squadron leader to lie in the report to the officials that one of the terrorist had escaped. Sunday evening, Karthik went to the Plaza hotel and was waiting for the betrayer to come. But, no one appeared. Instead, he got a call from his wife. She told him to come back home. Her voice was trembling with fear. He realised that she has been held at gunpoint. He ran back to his home. He saw a luxury car parked outside his house. Two assasins held his wife and his children captive. They shot him in the chest and went away. Luckily, he survived because he was wearing Bullet-proof vest. Earlier, Karthik had placed a GPS tracker in their car. He followed them to a house. They were brothers living in the same house. Somehow, he managed to subdue them. But, before he could ask them anything, they ingested cyanide and died by poisoning. He searched the whole house. They had recieved an email of a money transaction and a message "Finish him". He understood it was from the betrayer and he knew about him and his plans. For a moment, Karthik thought and realised that only his squadron leader knew about his plans. His suspicion was confirmed when his department techie informed him that the account from which the assasins received money was the squadron leader's deceased mother's account. Karthik went to his house to confront him. The argument soon turned into a fight during which the betrayer got injured. The betrayer then revealed Karthik about his plans. Earlier, he was the one who bombed their aircraft mid-air, tipped the terrorists of the attack, killed few of the surviving squad members during the ambush. The reason why Karthik survived the attack was because the betrayer lost his knife and ran out of bullets and knew that he couldn't beat Karthik in a hand to hand combat. He was paid a huge amount to help the terrorist mission. Their mission was to send five of their men into the city and bomb five different cities during festival time. Karthik immediately informed this to his superiors who informed the local police and the bomb squad. Using this as a distraction, the betrayer gave Karthik a slip and escaped. After hours of search, the bombs were located and diffused. The Intelligence Department found that the betrayer had moved to a different country and had changed both his face and identity. The manhunt for the betrayer still continues in different countries.


An immortal wandered across the barren desert. He had been walking for centuries, searching for something he could not name. His body was twisted and scarred by time, his clothes were tattered and faded, and his eyes were dull and empty. In the ocean of sand, his crooked figure floated across the surface. On top of a lonely sand hill, he saw a clock. It was a large and ornate clock, with golden hands and numbers, and a face that smiled and frowned. It was out of place in this desolate land, like a relic from another world. The clock was ticking in an erratic rhythm, slow, then fast, then slow again as if it was trying to catch up with itself. The golden hands also follow their own clockwork metronome, sometimes pausing to admire the sky or chat with the hazy wind, then resuming their duty with guilty haste. The forgetful clock noticed the immortal man approaching and greeted him cheerfully. “Hello there, stranger! You look like you’ve been around for a while. What brings you here?” The immortal man stopped in front of the clock and stared at it blankly. “I don’t know.” he said. The forgetful clock smiled sympathetically. “That’s alright. Sometimes I don’t know what I’m doing either. I’m supposed to keep track of time, but I keep forgetting." The immortal man did not respond. The clock laughed awkwardly. "You’re immortal, aren’t you? Then, of course, the time has no meaning for you. Oh, but you look tired. Tell me, when was the last time you slept?” “I don’t sleep. Sleeping is preparing for death, and death is meaningless to me.” The clock nodded. “I see... Well, you must have some wonderful memories then. Tell me, when was the last time you saw your face? I can't see mine, it's almost covered by sand!” The immortal man shook his head. “I don’t look at my face. I can't find it. I only see strangers in the mirror. A man, a woman, a child. They change every time I look.” “How strange! How do you know who you are then? What makes you you?” The immortal man shook his head. “I don’t know who I am. I don’t know what makes me me.” The clock frowned with concern. 'Oh dear, that is distressing to hear,' it fretted. 'But let me see...' Its gears whirred as it rifled through its scattered memories. "I feel I know you, somehow...yes, I see it now, I- " The clock's face attempted a smile but froze partway, its expression caught between emotions, like an owl arrested mid-turn. "Hmm... I will tell you this, I know who you will become. But I can't exactly say who you used to be. And for who you are right now, it's up to you to decide, Theseus, because, regretfully, I will soon forget you again. The immortal man looked at the clock in confusion. But the clock already stopped its ticking. The golden hands create an illusion of a wry smile as the object becomes inanimate once more.


I don’t enjoy All Hallows Eve, Halloween. In fact, it always makes me a little bit sad. I cannot help remembering the story of that young boy who disappeared. Surely you have heard of him? It was a few years ago now. Just down this very street. Harvey was his name. It was only his second ever Halloween. The previous year he had gone ‘trick or treating’ with is best friend Elwood, along with Elwood’s family. The pair of them, each only four years old at the time, went as a two headed, three legged troll. Elwood’s mother had sewn the outfit for them. Individually, Elwood and Harvey were both quite shy little boys, but together they possessed a quiet confidence. Elwood was the natural leader of the pair, Harvey always content to follow. For that first Halloween the boys went with a group from Elwood’s kindergarden. A happy, noisy bunch of eight boys and girls, along with the three parents who had drawn the short straws. Harvey in particular was excited mostly by the reactions that their costume received. He positively beamed every time one of the neighbours, upon opening their front doors, would comment on how good was his and Elwood’s character. He just loved being noticed, even if only as part of a pair. Strangely for a little boy, he was not at all interested in the lollies and chocolates. He let Elwood have them all. For him, both the trick and the treat seemed to be in just being appreciated, acknowledged, noticed. When it was finally over, Harvey slept the night at Elwood’s place. The boys talked themselves to sleep planning the next year’s characters. The costumes. The mannerisms they would act out to bring the characters to life. The lead up to their next Halloween started excitedly, with several weeks of anticipation and planning. The boys finally decided on their costumes. They would be going as Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee. The inseparable twins from Alice’s dreamworld. Unusually, the costume choice was Harvey’s, not Elwood’s. The first sign of trouble came a week before the day of Halloween. Elwood was feeling somewhat poorly and went to bed early, with a bit of a temperature. He awoke the following morning in a rash of itching spots. The poor thing had picked up chicken pox. At first, Harvey was just concerned for his friend. The disease was not very pleasant, but Harvey spend all day every day with Elwood in his room. He could not be persuaded to leave. Even the threat of contagion made no impression on his stoic soul. But as the week dragged on it became obvious that Elwood would not be able to go trick or treating. Harvey was mortified. He began to have his first ever selfish concerns, so desperately did he want to go. It was the highlight of his young life but there was no way that he could go without Elwood. He was just too shy to go on his own. None of the other kids played with him, not even Elwood’s friends. They did not even talk to him. He just hung around in the background, anytime that Elwood was with other children, at the edge, out of notice. He complained to his friend that it wasn’t fair. But Elwood, still itchy and grumpy from the chicken pox, and not a little annoyed that he too was going to miss out, got angry and lost his temper at Harvey. For the first time that either could remember. “Why don’t you grow up and go on your own?” He shouted at Harvey. “Stop being such a baby.” Harvey said nothing. He just sat there, taking Elwood’s frustrated tirade. When Elwood finally stopped and rolled over in bed, turning his back on his friend, Harvey walked away in silence. Come the afternoon of Halloween, Harvey somehow found the courage to join the kinder group. He had on his costume, a rather forlorn looking Tweedle Dee, and he walked along at the back of the group. Totally unnoticed. To start with Harvey didn’t mind that the other children ignored him. He remembered the warm feelings he had felt the previous year, and walked up to the doors with quiet anticipation. But with the first house that the little troupe attended, his confidence and joy shattered. As he took his turn, at the end of the the line of giggling ghouls and laughing fiends, door after door closed in his face. Not one comment on is costume. Not a single piece of candy. It was like living out a nightmare, a monsterous treadmill from which he could not escape. House after house the same thing. Harvey stoically held his tears at bay though his chest constricted against his pounding heart. Suddenly he realised that the next house was Elwood’s. He pushed through the boisterous gaggle of ghouls and witches and stood defiantly at the front when Elwood’s father opened the door. Surely now he would be acknowledged. Finally someone would see him. But no. His best friend’s own father looked passed Harvey to the children behind him. The dam cracked. Overwhelmed, Harvey ducked his way around Mr Dowd’s legs and he stumbled blindly towards Elwood’s room. As he got to the half open door, through which was his only friend in the entire world, he stopped short, hearing Elwood’s mum arguing with Elwood. “Enough is enough Elwood!” She shouted, in exasperation. “You are five years old, nearly six. You will be a school boy next year.” Elwood said nothing. “You need to stop all this nonsense with Harvey. It has to end. You have real friends to play with now. You are too old to have imaginary friends any more. I want an end to this. Now!” And, after a painfully drawn out pause, in a small voice Elwood replied. “Yes mum. I won’t talk about him anymore. I know that Harvey isn’t really real.” Harvey, in a wash of pure anguish, turned and ran through the house. No longer restraining his shattered emotions, he burst through the retreating group of children. He dashed through the front gate, tears streaming from his eyes, and disappeared down the street. And that was when Harvey disappeared. He has not been seen or heard of since.


Inky black crested all around me, the salt spewed into my mouth with every intake. I struggled to take my next breath like clockwork at the bottom of every wave. My head started spinning while I looked up at the moonlit with complete despair. I reached my hands up, trying in vain to secure some kind of connection with something that would save me. Just when I had lost all hope and resigned myself to the depths, I noticed something floating in the distance. An orange light flickered around a buoy that couldn't have been more than 20 yards away. Each wave pushed me closer, and closer. All I could think about was the safe refuge that lay around the ring of that buoy. My tunnel vision saved me from seeing the hundreds of black fins circling around me on every side, inching closer and closer towards the buoy. I finally reached it and nearly cried out, feeling a surge of emotion that made my arms limp. I climbed up onto the small platform that surrounded the buoy and collapsed, the next few minutes completely disappeared. I felt a strange gnawing in my dream. My arm was being tugged. I didn't care, because the sky was beautiful, and I was laying on the beach. The sun touched my face and I felt at peace. Eventually my arm started to feel pain, and I couldn't ignore the sounds. I looked down and my illusion shattered. There was blood everywhere on the platform. I looked at the stub of my arm and screamed in blistering pain. My vision started to darken, as I sat down again, cradling what was left of my arm and wrapping it in my shirt. Where there was a beach was now an ocean. I was back in the same nightmare. I squinted my eyes to look for any sign of hope. My heart sank in my chest, breath became trapped in my throat. I saw thousands of fins circling around me, horrifying creatures with jagged teeth and bulbous eyes popped out over the waves. They looked directly at me, not as sharks would, but as something sentient. I averted my eyes, but I could still see them in my mind. Suddenly, they began to turn around. They swam in unison backwards, retreating from where they came. At the same time, the sky darkened even more, and the water went from translucent to completely pitch black. I hugged my knees close to my chest and prayed as the world closed in to me. I returned once again to the beach. This time, my arm was completely restored. I felt happy again, and went back to enjoying the sun. "This must be the real world." I felt reassured. There was no way anything as crazy as what I just saw could have been real. I smiled to myself and began to count the clouds, wondering when I would return home. I was jolted awake again on the buoy. My arm was gone, but had stopped bleeding. The creatures were absent. I could see nothing except the buoy and the platform, the rest of the ocean was shrouded in complete darkness. A clarion call sounded in the distance. Hope surged in my heart again! I jumped up and looked around for a ship or some sign of life. I could now see the sun, but the waves were completely still. There was no noise or any sign of life. The waves parted in front of me, and something stepped forward. His body took up the entire horizon. He stepped forth from the ocean, coated in moss, both his eyes closed and crusted with seaweed. He did not look in my direction, but I knew he could see me. I was so terrified I could not breathe, my entire body was shaking and I began to sob violently. He opened his fist and put it over me, blotting out the sun. I was picked up and dragged, water filling up my cage, dragged to the bottom where his people lay in wait.


Another afternoon filled with rowdy, disrespectful kids. They do not care for books or matters of physical form, it is all about videos and music. I see their attention span decay with each generation. They say children are getting smarter because they know more and can comprehend more at earlier ages, but these same children are ignorant towards precious artifacts of our past. Swear words echo through the bookshelves reaching the ears of even younger more impressionable kids. The sounds of books falling to the carpet and slamming against the shelves reach my ears. I walk to the source and find a group of teenage boys making fun of the cover of a historical book. Asking them to be more mindful of their language and volume only prompts an empty “sorry miss” followed by snickers and mockery of each other. Other younger kids are here with their parents. The parents are using the computer for something while the children wander aimlessly. They are bored and would rather be at home. When the children complain, the parents simply scold them and command quietness while they are concentrating. The children wander off to mess up the bookshelves and race through the library. Another parent has put her baby down on a table while she browses the books. I hope the baby does not wriggle itself off the edge while it's left unattended. It starts to wail as its mother disappears behind the bookshelf, which only prompts hushing from the other side. It bellows and the entire library shudders. The mother rolls her eyes and walks back over the to baby, “Why can’t you just be quiet?” Between my observations, I return books to their rightful places. People appear bothered by my presence and move away when I approach with my book trolley. They must suspect I am judging the genre of book they are browsing, but in truth, I am distracted by the behaviour of the other patrons. Despite all the low-quality people I see, there are still some who inspire hope for future generations. Though, I worry that the bad outweighs the good. One lady is sitting with her two girls, reading them a story with splendid enthusiasm. She even bothers to move her hand like an aeroplane as she describes their favourite character zooming through the clouds. The girl’s eyes are locked onto their mother. They listen eagerly with big grins on their faces. They laugh at the silly sound effects their mother makes. On the other side of the library, a father sits with his son and helps him with his homework. They are doing long division which is proving even difficult for the father. I hear them laugh when the father gets the wrong answer too. They decide to look up the answer and work backwards to see where they went wrong. Two teenage boys are working intensely on a speech, reading each other’s scripts and giving feedback. One of them asks for clarification about a certain statement. The other responds with an explanation that prompts a grand realisation from the first boy. They agree on a better way to word it and begin scribbling down changes. A young family passes through the sliding doors. The mother looks exhausted. Her two little girls bolt towards the children’s fiction section, “No running!” she calls after them. The girls walk at a fastened pace instead. The husband trails in behind them, tucking his phone into his back pocket and placing a gentle hand on his wife’s shoulder before helping her down the stairs. She is heavily pregnant and clings to him with deep gratitude. A large group of teenage girls enter. They are chatting loudly and giggling but lower their voices as they walk down the entry stairs. One of them is profoundly excited about the library and showcases them to their respective subject areas. She knows the library well. “You want a hand putting these back? It’s pretty quiet at the desk,” my co-worker says, picking up a pile off the trolley. “That’d be great, thanks, Anne.” She smiles warmly before trekking off on her own journey around the library. Anne was graduating from high school at the end of the year and I was disgruntled by the thought of losing such a bubbly and kind co-worker, even if she only worked part-time after school. She was blissfully unaware of all the rude patrons and treated them all as close friends. Such ignorance or forgiveness was beyond my capabilities. I would die a bitter old woman. I heard her laugh quietly as she chatted with a patron amongst the shelves. It was wonderful to see how easily she could connect with people and make them feel comfortable. I was certain she would make a positive shift in the world, but there weren’t enough Anne’s to counter all the negativity. It all comes down to the rearing of children, and even if Anne has kids and they are amazing there will be many more who have kids who are not. A child’s behaviour is rarely a result of something other than a lack of good parenting, not impossible, but rare. I have seen it over and over in my time working here. Generations of blasé attitudes and disregard for strict discipline had snowballed into a world of disrespectful people who mock and shame anyone who isn’t simply cool with everything. The argument now is that children are so smart that they can think for themselves, but the truth is, they are under the protection of a legal guardian until adulthood. If no one ever tells a child no , then why would they listen to no as an adult? If parents do not listen to children, then why would those children listen as an adult? If parents do not have interest in their children, then why would that child value themselves as an adult? I am quickly brought back into the present as Anne reapproaches the cart for more books. “Are you alright?” she asks, with a well-meaning look. “Yes, just another afternoon,” I chuckle, glazing over the truth.


Ever since I was little, I remember being fascinated by airplanes. Or, not just airplanes; all things that fly had me riveted practically since I breached the womb. I would always go with my brother down the local airfield and just watch airplanes take off and land. We would sit on the porch of the convenient store just off the grass, he would buy a moon pie for me and a pack of Chesterfields for him, and we would listen to the gentle, lazy whirring sound of planes going buy. I was 17 when he died--I’m sorry, I’m getting ahead of myself. Let me tell you about myself and my origins in a clearer manner. I’m from the small town of Collins, Wyoming. In 1940 (when I was 15, also the first time I checked) the population was 1,227; everyone in Collins new each other. There was an old man I used to walk past on my way home from school- Mr. McCullough-who remembered clearly the days blue smoke filled the skies as brothers killed each other. He would sit in his chair and smoke his pipe. Every now and again he would invite me into his house (mind you, he was a close friend of my family (and everyone in the town for that matter). I wouldn’t do this with just anyone) and pour me a cup of coffee. I hadn’t started drinking coffee yet, so this was my special moment. There was June Clark, who could be routinely found in her garden assuming whether permitted. She grew plants that I now know to be marijuana. There wasn’t really any serious policing in Collins; we took care of our own. Dwight Clark, her husband, owned the bookshop, which also served as a library. He was long since retired, and spent most of his days reading or playing cards. He taught me how to play Texas Holdem, and some days on the weekends, he would run an “underground game” that everyone knew about. They would drink gin and smoke cigars, winning and losing a full season’s worth of tanned deer skins. They never bet money. My father died when I was 12. He shot himself. My mother went four years later of liver complications from alcoholism. My brother, who was six years older than me, started looking after our little bit of land on the outsides of the town center, near the airport. He started getting into airplanes, and from there it turned into a passion for both of us. Jim Clark (same last name but no relation to Dwight and his wife) was the one who taught my brother to fly. They would go up in his old Curtis Jenny and practice flying. At the end of the day, I would enviously watch my brother push the Jenny into the dilapidated hangar at the Western corner of the field. It was a lovely scene, the sun setting behind the wire-winged airplane. My brother would always find me afterwards; he would light a cigarette and we would walk home together. Then 1941 came. I was becoming more independent, I was finally getting on with some of the other boys my age. I had a girlfriend, Trudy, whom I would take to the airport to watch my brother fly. She feigned interest, I now know. I loved having her around. I remember being happy for the first time since my father died. My brother told me one cold January morning that he had joined the Army Air Service. He was going to the Pacific. “Don’t worry, Tom.” he said. “I’ll be in the P-40, that’s the best airplane we have. I’ll be an ace before April.” I hugged him. I got the news on April 16th, 1942. He had been shot down near Port Moresby, presumed dead. I went to see Mr. McCullough. I figured he could help me. He asked me what happened, and I just started crying. I can’t remember anything else from that day, but he told me his good friend Jack Daniel had played a few cards in my favor. I woke up late in the night in my own bed room in my house, which I suppose I was the sole occupant of at that point. It was cloudy, no stars. The trees had that surreal shadow-less look to them. In memory the woods around my house give me chills, but I was calm. I remember walking down the stairs without lighting the oil lamp, something I never did. I’m chronically afraid of the dark. I walked straight through the trees, never questioning my footing. When I came to the Eastern side of the airfield, the stars and the moon appeared above me. I could see the convenient store where my brother and I sat, the hangar. I walked to the convenient store, Andy’s, it was called, and sat down on the steps. No tears came to me then, but I could feel the warm breeze of those summer nights over me again, hear the whir of the airplanes. I looked at the hangar. I realized I’d never been inside of it. I decided I needed to see that old Curtis Jenny right away. I got up and started walking. The man in the moon scowled upon me that night, I remember. The cold, gray scale face of the moon seemed terse that night. I found the door, and let myself in. Immediately in front of me was a biplane, but not the Jenny. It had a different shape, a larger engine. Guns. *Guns!* I thought. *This is a fighter plane!* But how had it gotten there? I walked towards it. I gently ran my hands along the propeller. “Watch it.” said a voice. I turned around quickly to the sight of a glowing ember in the corner of the hangar. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know this was yours.” I said. “I should have told you sooner, but I never was a good father.” My dad walked out into my view. The light in the hangar was moonlight, filtering in from the high South-facing windows. “Dad? But, you’re dead.” “Yeah, mortality has a tendency to get in the way of things.” “Dad!” I ran towards him. “Son, I don’t have much time, and neither does he.” “Who’s he?” “Me.” I turned around to see my brother, but he had a mustache and looked...exhausted. “Charlie, how--” “All will be explained, don’t worry.” he said. I looked behind him where the biplane had been, but it wasn’t a biplane. A riveted steel monoplane stood there instead, carrying the American insignia. It was a P-40; it was my brother’s plane. It clicked. The first airplane had belonged to my father. I turned and looked at him again; he was wearing World War One officer’s uniforms. The first fighter was what I now know to be a Spad. “I know what you’re thinking, and yes that’s my plane. I was a pilot, once. I flew in the Great War, with the hopes that no one would need to follow me in the years to come. It seems I’ve failed at that too.” “Why are you here? You’re both dead.” I said. “Well, we’ve been discussing that,” my brother said, lighting his cigarette. “and we wanted to give you a piece of wisdom.” “What’s that?” I asked. “Well, you’ve lost so much. But you mustn’t despair! We’re not completely gone.” My father said. “What do you mean?” My brother took up the response: “Was I once alive?” “Of course you...were.” I said to him. “What made him alive?” my father asked. “Was it my flesh? My bone? My blood? Of course not. It was my soul. And, quite frankly, those don’t vanish the same way as these mere corporeal globs. Everywhere we walk, everything we touch, takes a bit of our soul with it. But our souls are not like pies, being divided up and diminished, but as a candle flame, which may light all that is around in while never depleting. Take our airplanes, for example. Dad’s Spad rests in the hands of a collector in Britain, but does it belong to this collector? Surely not. Dad’s soul persists within that airplane. This is why you came here tonight.” “You see, Charlie, your brother, whom you loved very much, is gone forever. But, remnants of him may be found in our house, or the Curtis Jenny.” I looked behind him to see the Jenny where it had been left. “When relatives die, we seek heirloom: This is why. Those we’ve lost persist in the objects they leave behind. I am not dead because my body is gone, I am dead because I am forgotten by all.” My father stared into my eyes, he looked tired. “So, what about people who have no objects left? What about old Mrs. McCullough, who died in crossfire at Gettysburg? None of her belongings can be found anywhere.” “That’s the other type of afterlife,” my brother said. “We don’t die until all those whose hearts we have touched die as well. But here’s the catch: When someone who’s heart we have touched touches that of someone else’s, we are passed on too. You see, we are all saved by each other. If someone dies before they can touch someone else, in a metaphysical sense I mean, they are truly dead. And this is the tragedy of war.” “You see son, we are all connected by the same people.” I looked at the ground. “No one is born one way or another, we are all a mix and match of everyone we’ve ever met, and everyone they’ve ever met, and so on as far back as humans go. I’m sorry Tom, but we must leave.” I woke up with sunlight streaming into the hangar. I sat up. My head was throbbing. I looked around. The Jenny was parked nearby. I went to it, and I ran my hand along its propeller. *Every hangar is haunted, Tom.* My brother’s voice sounded in my thoughts. *How so, you ask?* *Planes travel; it’s what they do. Every time they stop, more and more unique people pour their souls into them. They are the culmination of humanity. Hangars are haunted to an unfounded degree, as they’ve been touched by all those airplanes, who were touched by all those people.* I don’t know where the moral is, or even why, seventy-seven years later, I’m writing this. Perhaps it’s that I’ve been trying to convince myself that this whole thing was a dream for my entire life, and just now have given up. I went to the United Kingdom recently, my daughter married a British man, and it was my grand-daughter’s birthday. We went to see some old airplanes, and one stuck out to me: A Spad. I took some photographs, did some research, and by the tail number it was my dad’s plane.


My name is Lacy Kreen. I am hiding from the end of the world. That might sound like something from a sci-fi horror story,but for me it is reality. I’m hiding with my little brother. God save us from those monsters. I don’t want to die,please save us. A small girl walked forward. Her eyes darted around,like an animal hiding from an apex predator. A young boy clung to her back,trembling. The two glanced back and forth. The first thing you'd have noticed about them is that they're covered in a sticky onyx gloop,and that they're both out of breath. We’re scAred. I’m scaRed. WherE are our parents? Where is everyone? Please,anyone. Those things...they're like leeches. Or ravens. Or snakes. All of them. They turn into us,steal our forms,like the Wendigo. Or like some kind of skin-stealing vampire. The girl poked her head out,looking around. She stared at the streets,quiet and empty. The streets looked lonely. Woeful,almost. Her hands shaking,she held the boy’s hands. No one in sight. No cars either. Not a single animal called out,daring to break the hush that covered the town like a thick wool blanket. She stepped out of a thorny bush. They walked,house after house. Most smaller,some larger. Some smashed open as if a hand had reached down and shattered them. Windows broken,doors ripped off their doorways. A normal neighborhood transformed into a ghost town. No one in sight. A cloud of dust swirled through the town. Both of the sibling's clothes were torn and ragged,and covered in an oily,inky substance. Another thing to note was the state of the road. A cracked old thing,with hunks of it missing. A few old,worn,and all-together battered vehicles rested on the road,like lazy and wounded animals. I miss theM. Please….I don’t want tO die. Josh doesn’t deserve to die. Why are so Many people transforming into those monsters? Or better yet,why are those monsters turning into people? Why? It hurts my head to think about what happened... The small boy shook,arms holding on to the young woman firmly. He glanced at his sister,and shut his eyes ,his face screwed as if scared something would hit him. Dark copper stains showed on the massive maroon hoodie he wore. The pair looked dejected and lost,like kids in a corn maze. The girl pressed her back against the wall of a small,cozy-looking brick house. The boy looked sunburned. The girl put the young boy on her lap,squeezing him close. Her faded pink hair hung in greasy,curly,tangled strands,tickling the boys neck in feathery swishes. They whispered softly to each other,words too faint for anyone else to hear. Everything Hurts….why won’t someone save us? SomEone save us! I don’t want to be the hero! I don't want this! I didn't want to be tossed into this game of cat and mouse,Life and death. I just wanted a haPpy sumMer with my friEnds. The girl took a deep breath. She ran,eyes fixating at a small spot in the distance. The boy hugged her back,eyes flitting around. Every few minutes,a dark shape would blur the sky. The girl slowly stood up again,carefully putting the tiny boy on her back. She slowly walked away from the wall,constantly watching the sky. The brother and sister pair soon were walking on the sidewalk,towards the small spot in the distance. The day was lovely,but rather spoiled by the catastrophic look of the town and the haunting quietude. Those things will kill us if someone won’t save us! Please,I don’t want to die. Josh is hurt,I'm hurt. Those things will kill us and trick others. Like they did to Liv and Ellie. Like they did to the town. The ones who didn't run were killed so quick it's like it didn't happen at all... Her legs were shaking,bleeding,and scarred. Bitten. Scratched. She looked like she’d fall at any second. Her fingertips were stained a pitch black,and dripping with something like blood. Both looked tired,both silently crying,the tears streaking her face. Their eyes were bloodshot and red. Mom. Please come back for us. We can’t do this any longer. Please. Someone. This feels like a bad dream,always running. Run run run,or die afraid and a failure. Maybe it's a dream and I'll wake up at home and have mom's pancakes and go to school,and everything will be just fine. The two hopped into a faded red truck,clutching a worn,black bag. They sat there,gulping for air. No human in sight. Blood and gummy charbon ichor clung to their clothes. The small boy held the bag tightly,clinging to it as if it would save him. The girl hopped out,shambling into the dense woods that were close to the truck they both sat in. Clearly in pain. “Josh….I saw one of those things….stay here.” The boy nodded,mouth agape. I hold this notebook,and look at its pages in hope or despair that one day,someone will save us. Please. I’m hiding. They’ll hurt us if we go on any longer. I don’t want to die. Please. Someone,anyone.

She came back,hood hiding her face as she held something. “I…..I got it. They tried to kill me but I managed to kill it.” The small boy nodded,still clinging to the bag. She carried a little girl,hair as golden as the sun. Bright blue eyes staring up at the sky,as if still pleading for her life. Her chest ripped into,black ooze everywhere. A still-beating heart rested in the pool of pitch-black gunk,like the older girls fingertips. The girl looked at the small boy. “They won’t hurt us,alright?” Empty face. A skull exposed,flesh peeling off it. Worm Eaten hands,like an old-school zombie. The boy looked at her,all four eyes staring at the girl's face,all of them different colors. The girl heaved the body into the thick knot of pine trees,turning to the younger one of the two. "Look,it's gone. Rest." She muttered,pulling the boy into a bear hug. His curly chestnut hair smooshed itself against the teens filthy white hoodie. She lead him to the floor of the truck's bumpy metal truck bed,the sun's heat against their skin. They both soon drifted into a light slumber.


I had known for a while that I needed to change my lifestyle. Last Monday I woke up dehydrated, hungover, and depressed. This wasn't unusual. I beat my body up daily. On an average day, I woke up and smoke a cigarette while the coffee brewed. Drank a 20-ounce cup with way too much creamer, and headed to work. Normally, it's about an hour drive. Of course, I chain smoked the entire way even though I didn't know what I was getting out of it. Did I feel that much different after smoking? I wasn't sure, but I bought a pack every time I fueled up. Sometimes the thought of how dumb I was being would begin to surface in my mind, but I drowned it out with a podcast or an audiobook. Easier to think other people's thoughts than my own. My job was stress-free, but labor-intensive. As the sun beat down I often got an ache in my side. Was that my liver from the alcohol abuse? I wasn't sure. Make no mistake, I realized that I was an alcoholic. I had done stints at AA, but my social anxiety didn't mesh well with the group. At that point, I didn't know if I could quit cold turkey without suffering from a seizure, or other withdrawal symptoms. Yet, there was still a small hopeful voice that piped up "you can be better." I wanted to listen to that voice. Damn, I'd been drinking and smoking since I was 16. Over a decade lost to that self-indulgent, physically, and psychologically damaging lifestyle. Something clicked that Monday. I wanted to make a change. I wanted to listen to that voice telling me to get better, that there is hope for a mindset that is comfortable with a sober reality. Gabor Mate's book "In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts" informed me that addiction is rooted in trauma, especially childhood trauma. Trauma being an event that forces you to split your mind into two parts. A barrier to protect yourself from the world, and the true emotional human that wants to be well adjusted. I'm not Mate, but that's how I interpreted it. Intellectually, I agreed with the concept, but I needed to find a way to resolve the trauma that fed my addictions. I stumbled upon an organization called MAPS, the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies. They conduct studies that use psychedelics to help people recover from PTSD. I decided that ibogaine would be best because it was shown to combat addiction without too much of a 'trip' like effect. I wanted to sit with my thoughts and focus on sobriety while under the effects of the substance. I reasoned that party-like stimulus may take away from the healing aspect. The problem was that ibogaine was difficult to find. It is both illegal, and not fun to take, which makes it a bad product for the white, and black markets. After reading, and listening to a bunch of material by Terrance McKenna I decided to undergo a Heroic Dose of golden teacher mushrooms. This is 5 grams, a normal dose being about 2, in a solitary environment without distraction. I wanted to undergo the trip as effectively as possible. Before taking the mushrooms, having never had a psychedelic experience, I needed to know both how it worked in the brain, and what to expect. The body converts psilocin into psilocybin. This is the uncomfortable beginning of the trip. Take everything that I am saying with a grain of salt. You'll see how my research failed me later on. Anyway, to speed up this process I decided to take an MAO inhibitor. I won't get into how this makes mushrooms more effective, because I am both unqualified, and under intense pressure. They aren't giving me much time to write this, and I'm wasting it trying to show you how smart I am. I sought out ego death, and here I am stroking the old dog. The room is shifting again. Fuck I have to hurry, but I'll tell this story in order. Sorry about the temporary lapse.


I stood in the rain and watched the water drops splash up from the ground through the arches of my feet. The light from the street lamp sparkled and refracted on liquid beads. I turned my face up to the weeping sky and felt nothing. I was the only being out on the street tonight. The wacky waving inflatable arm flailing tube jack-o-lantern in my neighbor’s yard dodged and bobbed in the wind. The blowup ghost hissed and moaned. An umbrella, its bones turned inside out, tumbled down the avenue, skipping to the tune of spooky music blaring from static speakers. The children in the only decorated house on the block pressed their runny noses against the living room window, sadness painting their faces instead of costume makeup. I waved to them. The brats ignored me. Halloween in the time of covid.

No Trick or Treating.

The weather wasn’t helping the festivities. If it weren’t for the freezing rain, the brats would be outside all night, hooting and hollering at the Blue Moon while their mother sat on the stoop sipping wine. They usually kept me awake as their house was right across the street from my bedroom window. Being a crotchety old man, I grumbled about irresponsible parents and rowdy children with no business having fun while my ancient body ached. I’d yell at them to get the fuck off my lawn, but they never came anywhere near me or my stuff. No one had any respect for old people nowadays. Even worse, they had no time.

My children and grandchildren lived hundreds of miles away and rarely called. I hadn’t seen them in years. Once their mother left me ten years ago, they felt no genuine compunction to contact me. I had few earthly possessions to tempt their attention, and mutual affection evaporated around the time of puberty. Mostly, I was ignored. Just like now. I stood in the rain, staring at those damn kids staring at me, and they acted like they couldn’t even see me. I approached their fenced in yard. I wanted to pop all of their inflated decorations. Besides the orange tube guy and the trite white ghost, there was a black cat with demonic eyes, a dancing witch with neon pink hair and bright green skin, a hairy wart wiggling on her nose, and a skeleton that fell apart and reassembled to the tune of “Dem Bones.” Frankenstein’s monster had given up its Mortal coil. He lay shriveled on the ground like a spent water balloon. I went through the front gate. It didn’t squeak. Disappointing. I glided around various homemade tombstones, quiet as a corpse rising from its crypt. I have to admit they were kind of clever:

I TOLD YOU I WAS SICK BEN BETTER NOAH SCAPE - ALWAYS FELT TRAPPED PLEASE DON’T WAKE THE DEAD - THEY’RE GRUMPY HERE SHE LIES - DEE COMPOSING I even chuckled at a few of them, but I would never admit to that, especially after nearly stepping in dog poop. You’d think they would clean up a bit before putting out the ornamentations. It seems they had better things to do. In my day, we cleaned and straightened up for days before a holiday so we’d be worthy of a celebration. It felt like getting a trophy just because you showed up. I survived the canine waste obstacle course and hunkered down in the bushes under the window. I rose a little, my eyes and nose breaching the sill. I got a good view of childish chins lowered to immature chests in sorrow. You’d think someone had died. The floor behind them held an assortment of drug store costumes, plastic masks, and discarded candy wrappers. Mom lay on the couch, an arm thrown over her eyes, an empty glass on the floor under her dangling fingers. Their German Sheppard, Fang, rested in the chaos, his ears twitching, shifting like a satellite dish on the lookout for alien signals, and his eyebrows danced like Groucho Marx. The mutt jumped up and rushed to the window. He barked and lunged, scattering the children. Mom startled, sat up, and yelled at people and the animal.

I ducked down and ran for the street. The front door opened, and Fang shot into the yard, followed by the mother and her brood.

I dove into the hedges next to my house and sat on the ground to catch my breath.

I expected rapid breathing and a palpitating heart. I felt weirdly calm.

From my hidden perch, I watched the unwashed masses storm the road with weapons in the shape of brooms and shovels. One of the minions brandished a three-legged doll that was missing patches of blonde hair. The dog snarled as Mom held it by the collar. Her heels dug into the lawn’s dirt while his licked up tufts of soil and brown grass.

This was more excitement than an aging person needed. I always knew by sixty I will have had enough. The noise, the mess, the constant upkeep. Why bother? I felt justified and satisfied with my decision even though I had made it jokingly in my twenties. I had no desires left. I bequeathed curiosity to the neighborhood Tom. I watched all of the Andy Griffiths and Gunsmoke reruns. I couldn’t hang out at my local bar anymore. Thunder and lightning chased the little monsters across the street back into their den. The slam of the door snuffed out their shrieks. Mom must have pulled the plug since all of the blowup figures deflated, the lights went out, and the tin canned spirits exorcised their right to some rest. The night returned to the unnatural pandemic quiet.

I turned back to my home, reached the front stoop, and grabbed the door handle. It passed through my fingers. I pushed on the door. It didn’t move, but I ended up in my front room. There I sat in my recliner, slumped over, head lolling to the left, my favorite beer mug on the side table, my revolver on the floor under my lifeless fingers.


Do you know what astral dreaming is? I do, it's all I do. I've been in a coma for decades. Yet somehow I live a full life, in a world that’s up to me to shape. A world I’ve struggled in. A world I’ve loved in! Heh. I am a ghost writer, a dream writer? Whatever you call it. I've inspired thousands to write what I see in my world. The way I see it, dreams are a simply another dimension. A physical and ethereal place. Teaching others with the condition as me to break the shackles that tether them to their earthly bodies and join me in absolute freedom. In the Astral, time moves slower, so much slower. But my time is finite and my body will die. Soon as well, too soon. Thousands of regrets, yet I wouldn't change a thing. A rollercoaster, a wave that never seemed to end. A ride composed with happiness, sorrow, love and hate and everything between. The only limitation was my imagination. Such a small imagination I had. Wish I had accumulated more knowledge, wish I had seen more, experienced more. Then it struck me, if I’m not enough, I’ll find someone that has more! So I began searching out others like me, but found none. Abjectly, I clinged to the passing minds that flicked in and out of my world. Desperate for something new. Bits and pieces was all I found. Crushed and in all honesty infuriated I went on chaotic streak, destroyed everything I saw. Then it hit me like a brick, like a river smashing a riverbed. I'll simply teach someone to become like me! Years of trial and error, I finally found someone like me, a person stuck in their body unable to leave. Finally, a companion, someone to share this dream with. An 80-year-old scholar, a physicist no less. Swimming in the sun and sleeping in black holes. For a second a fire was lit and in that second it went out. Gone in a blink of an eye. And so, I will leave as well. Blink and I’m gone.


“Come on! You have to take me! It sounds like so much fun!” My girlfriend exclaimed, handing me a flier that we just received in the mail.

*ALL NEW EXPERIENCE * Join us in our Grand Opening THIS saturday! If you received this flier, you and one other person are VIP guests and will skip the line! Just show up this Saturday at “It was all a Dream”

See you there! “But what is it? There are no details. I’m not sure how we know if it will be fun at all.” I knew I sounded like a pessimist, but today was already Friday night and I had big plans for my weekend. I looked over the flier at Avery. Her eyes told me that we were going and she somehow knew I was going to have fun. She had a knack for knowing what I would enjoy and what I wouldn’t. I sighed and decided my big day of reading and fluffy socks could wait.

Avery smiled at me and kissed her forehead, “what time are we leaving tomorrow?”

She hopped in bed giggling and said “we set sail at 10am!” :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: We stood in the parking lot staring at a building that I have never noticed before. It was painted black with neon green trim and a bright purple door. There was a line out the door and down the sidewalk. How did everyone know about this? And what even is *this*? I was starting to feel uneasy. Avery took my hand and led me towards the main door. I pointed to the end of the line and she said “We are VIP, remember?!” as she dragged me closer to the front of the line.

People were staring at us confused and slightly angry. I started to hold up the flier and Avery said, “we aren’t doing anything wrong, no explanation is needed.” I took a deep breath as the blast of AC hit us, thinking that I wish I was on my worn denim couch with my book and my cat, but as my eyes adjusted to the dim lighting, those thoughts were fleeting. The air was so crisp that it made me very aware of my lungs. The music, no, sounds seemed to be coming from all directions. It was as though we walked into a forest. The front desk looked like a fallen tree complete with the roots holding eye masks and head sets. Another couple walked out looking very dreamy. What in the world happened here? Behind the desk was a woman in a very tight lycra jumper. She handed us a tablet without saying anything. We filled out our personal information and on the last page, it simply asked “Adventure” or “Relaxing”. I looked over at Avery and saw her tap Adventure, so I did the same. Then the woman spoke for the first time. Her voice was extremely soothing, but something else about her made me feel uneasy as she said “together or separate”, and I was not about to go anywhere without Avery by my side. It was taking everything I had not to flee right here and now.

“Together” we both said in unison.

I realized Avery had my hand in hers as the woman pointed to the left and that’s when I realized that the woman was not real, she was a robot and a damn good one at that! We walked to the door and pushed our way into another dark hallway only lit by a ceiling that was made to look like a night sky. “Avery, this is weird. We have no idea what is about to happen, a robot just checked us in, and we have yet to see a real human that works here. Does any of this make you uneasy?” I whisper, mainly because I am afraid to find out what happens if I make too much noise.

“What’s the worst that could happen?’ Avery smiled at me but I could see a little anxiety behind her eyes. Before I could answer, she opened another door that led us to a planetarium-looking room. I had been in one of these before except there were no seats, just futuristic looking pods lining the walls in this circular room. About half of the pods were occupied by corpse-still bodies. I was going to throw up right here, I just knew it. We looked around the room and saw there were a handful of double pods, that’s what the “together” or “separate” must have meant. Somehow we knew not to talk, but the anxiety had definitely risen in both of us until we crawled into the pod. You know when you are a kid and you dream of taking a nap in a big fluffy cloud and it being the most comfortable place you have ever been in? That was these pods. I had never been so comfortable and so secure ever in my life. All of my worries literally drifted away. I vaguely saw a mist flowing in from the top of the pod as I looked over at Avery who had already drifted to sleep. I was right behind her.

====================== When I came to, I was no longer in the pod, I was next to Avery in an open-cockpit biplane. She was looking over the edge smiling and enjoying the wind rushing through her hair. She didn’t look nearly as confused as I felt. Then, without warning, Avery stood up and jumped out of the plane! I yelled for her but she was falling so fast, there was nothing I could do. Suddenly, I realized I was wearing a backpack, no, it was a parachute. I looked toward the pilot to see what to do only to realize that there was no pilot! I had no choice. I jumped. It couldn’t have taken me as long to jump as it felt because I could see Avery still rushing to the ground and I somehow caught up with her and she was smiling ear to ear. I couldn’t help but feel at ease looking at her excitement. We weren’t close enough to touch or hear each other, but we both pulled the parachute cord at the same time and started to slow to a peaceful drift all the way to the ground.

We landed on a patch of grass just outside what could only be a jungle. Both of us out of breath, heart pounding and sweating, we embraced and started laughing. The laughing was uncontrollable, we ended up in the grass holding our stomachs, just laughing. As we slowed into soft chuckles, we held each others gaze and smiled. I said “okay, this was worth it” and Avery just beamed.  Our adrenaline eased and we were able to take in our surroundings. We were the only ones around so when we heard footsteps running towards us, we jumped up and turned. We couldn’t make out what the figure was that we saw until it was right up on us. It was not a creature that I had ever seen. It looked like a human, but had lion features. His beautiful mane was the eye catcher until it grinned at us and all of his teeth were shining through at us.

We didn’t know whether to stay or run, so we just held eye contact with it until suddenly it lunged at us. We took off into the jungle. While it was incredibly dense, we somehow managed to stay upright as we ran and dodged vines and logs. We looked back and didn’t see that creature so we started to slow. Trying to catch our breath, we heard a noise from the trees and as we both looked up, the lion creature lunged at us from about 50 feet up. Right before we were ripped to pieces, I woke up. I was covered in sweat and looked over at Avery. She was gone. I was in my bed at home. Reality washed over me as I sat up. There is no Avery. There never was an Avery. I guess it was all a dream, I thought, but as I stood up from bed, there was the crunch of leaves and earth beneath my feet.