There is a scene, in a film of recent fame, during which our antagonist shines a teasing light on the origin of his malaise (incidentally, an incumbent desire to rule the known world). The madman opens his bruised heart to reveal that his father used to go about making “outrageous claims - like he invented the question mark”; he offers a biography that suggests a man not easily impressed, and perhaps not adept at discerning, even, between impressive and ridiculous. It is left to the viewer to determine how softly one might weigh this revelation against the dark balance of our madman’s considerable accounts. The point, at least for one Dory H. Scott, is that we cannot really ever understand the actual nature of cause and effect. Nor, for that matter, can we be trusted to ascertain the importance of any single action - not even with the advantage of time, or hindsight, as we call it. The human mind, for all its deft and incalculable workings, is easily confused and led astray. Truly, it is a common human propensity that we often attribute significance where it is unnecessary, or undeserved, while happenings of great import, on the other hand, elude our recognition. It is equally true that while we cling to the illusions of self-direction and manifest destiny, our lives are always on the brink of hazard - only a short series of unknowable formulae removed from chaos. Great thinkers of past and present have wrestled with this conundrum; it has been attached countless explication: notably, the American sociologist Robert K. Merton, rising to prominence in the 1950s, developed his theory of unintended consequences, in which he outlined the phenomena of unexpected benefits and unexpected drawbacks. Merton’s work borrowed heavily from the ideas put forth first by the Scotsman Adam Smith, and the later-born, but no less illumined John Locke, in an effort to describe what some now flippantly lament as Murphy’s Law (this notion that when it matters most, when it is absolutely inconvenient, even the best-laid plans will face unforeseen disaster). But it is Merton’s third category of unintended consequences - perverse results - that brings us to Dory H. Scott’s fantastic story. But before we delve into the lurid details of Dory’s final moments, let us take pause to reflect on the man himself, lest we appear curious only of the grim and shocking minutia of his end. For, as it happens, Dory was a man quite like most other men; his existence was defined alternately by careful routine and moderate abandon - the pendulum of most temperaments, really; he had friends, people for whom he cared, and who, in turn, cared for him; he had few enemies, and fewer still of cunning or guile, so he persisted with them, largely untroubled. In short, Dory H. Scott put his proverbial pants on one leg at a time, as they say.

In light of the rather common aspects of this biography, the sensible reader might be forgiven for inclining toward doubt regarding the veracity of this particular story’s subject. But let me assure even the most sensible among you, this account is free of invention, and unmarked by exaggeration - both of these being as unnecessary to this story as a hat might be to a goose. It would be a mistake, similarly, to try and attribute moral significance to Dory’s case. More and more this narrator has noticed eruptions of karmic subscription to explain the occurrence of especially good things happening for people, or especially bad things befalling them. This narrator’s own spiritual aesthetic aside, (there is simply no place for it in this story), the recent popularization of ancient Eastern processes - of reciprocity and comeuppance, for example - seem rather too glibly attached to any act, whether wholly breathtaking, utterly menacing, or plainly drab. If, as it turns out, we are being held to account, and in some remote corner of an ethereal office-space the ledger clacks incessantly without mercy or malice, well then, in that case, we will have to reconsider Dory’s case entirely. Until then, however, we must forgo the present urge to see Dory’s shocking finale as anything more or less than a bit of bad luck. On this note, it may interest the curious reader to know that Dory considered himself to be luckier than most. This opinion was afforded considerable sway by enduring personal habits, such as rescuing even the most diminutive of currencies from a fate of utter irrelevancy - see a penny, pick it up…you get the idea. (Incidentally, Dory eschewed contributing his found wealth toward his at large allowance, being of the opinion that one could make available from found tender either the good fortune, figuratively, or the comparatively meagre fortune, literally, but not both. Had he happened to have come across a Brinks truck, abandoned and awaiting his claim, presumably he would have recalibrated this distinction - but he did not, and so amongst Dory’s properties upon his death was a Peek Freans biscuit-tin stuffed with unspent good fortune, in the amount of two hundred and thirty-six dollars, twelve cents.) In the same vein of superstition, finding himself at the business end of a black cat’s path, Dory would announce the innocence of his intentions, and politely wait for the cat to make up its own mind about things. It is a seldom advertised fact about black cats in general that they honour the same right of way protocols that govern traffic roundabouts in most major European city-centres - a fact that escaped Dory’s observance, and a small irony, given the sensational nature of his demise. Nevertheless, the fact remains that Dory was a man of enduring habit - a truth that did little, sadly, to prolong his life, but that perhaps does further pique our appetite for not altogether inadmissible biographical bric-a-brac. For the truth is that well before he succumbed to the great bodily insult that put his name, however briefly, on the lips and in the ears of the rubbernecking crowd, Dory had long laboured under the impression that while things were inarguably happening to him, precious few things were happening because of him. Accordingly, what Dory desired more than anything was a modicum of control. All around him Dory saw grand and important people doing grand and important things - the very fabric of time and space seemed to part obligingly as they moved through the world, and they cast a shimmering ripple in their wake. Buy, sell, keep, change - these, and many more, were the verbs of men and women of action. These people went about saying “look what I have done”, in the off-chance that one had yet to notice. Dory recognized that he was not one of these people. Of course, he ought not to have been so sure - his penultimate act, if nothing else, could easily be construed as a superb triumph of will.

Finally, I will take the precursive step of answering to the charges of misdiagnosis and misinformation that will surely come from those readers who find themselves interminably unable to accept the occurrence of spectacular rarities. (Charles Dickens, distinguished and admired as he was, found himself employed in precisely this defense, famously (read: scandalously) rebutting against accusations of sensationalism, and worse. The watchdogs of The Academy charged that the Master of English Literature was pandering to a comparably low denomination, eliciting fear and worry over the possibility that this same manner of death attributed to his character - fictional though he was - might actually constitute a legitimate worry for any one of the good, real people of nineteenth-century England. In support of his creative liberty, Dickens produced a litany of documented cases - the most recent describing an unfortunate ne’er-do-well from County Cork, whose remains were eventually discovered by neighbours, many of whom admitted to having been lured to the dead man’s simple dwelling under the spell of a not at all unpleasant, if heady, aroma. One can only imagine the ghastly reactions, and self-loathing, once the gory truth was laid bare. Were the Great Author alive today, he would surely take no small vindication in the continuing evidence of his fiction.) This is all very interesting, you say, but what of Dory H.Scott? What of his fate? (And if only Dory had grasped the inescapable, true nature of fate, perhaps…well, he didn’t, so it remains for us to recount the grisly consequence.) On a rather ordinary Friday afternoon, having yet shaken the ill smog of another thankless work week that shadowed nearly behind him, Dory found himself at a desperately familiar crossroads. Traffic, both pedestrian and mechanical, moved blithely past him. It seemed to Dory, again, that the people around him were travelling with purpose, while he was simply undertaking the requisite steps that would deliver him from Point A - of which he despaired - to Point B - of which he was coming to despair more and more. This narrator could hypothesize at length (as indeed he has, in private) on the precise complaint that drove Dory to invoke such a drastic measure of rebellion on a day that was very much like any other, but there is little evidence, in fact, of the proverbial, back-breaking straw.

Witnesses, of which there were a great many - it being at the peak of commuter delirium - recall that Dory did not respond to the green light (an invitation to exercise the relative safety of the cross-walk that he would certainly have been intimate with after so many years of urban navigation). Some admitted to pushing brusquely past him, even issuing brief but pointed condemnations over their shoulders at the inconvenience of his remaining prone in the midst of their urgent transit. Others, more imaginatively recounted that Dory was murmuring breathlessly in a strange, rapid tongue. Rumours of terrorism quickly gained traction with the eager press; even less savoury, suggestions of satanism and Dory’s clandestine dedication to the Black Arts abounded in the tabloids for weeks afterward. But these reports were specious and self-serving, and only indict a society become insensate to slander and slight. What we do know, is that on the corner of Granville and 12th, precisely five minutes before six o’clock on a warm, but not hot, early evening, Dory H. Scott burst into flames, to the horror and threat of many in his immediate proximity, and I am sad to report, to the inconvenience of still others, who were heard to remark that “some idiot” had lit himself on fire and brought an already irritable homeward hoard to a standstill. It bears noting that of the 81 mobile devices employed during the first frantic moments of Dory’s combustion, no fewer than 79 of these served no greater purpose than to record the terrible spectacle through 1080p hi-definition video capture. A scant two good samaritans thought it more appropriate - the incident seeming of adequate concern to Dory’s welfare, at the very least - that they exercised their capacity to immediately contact the relevant authorities. The social commentary that abounded post-haste missed the mark entirely. Dory had sought control where there was none to be had - an entirely too metaphysical explanation for such a visceral happening. Of course, the suggestion that Dory purposefully willed incineration at his own hand - unless we are quite mistaken about his person - is absurd. Yet the subsequent inquests discerned no accelerants, and precious little informed conjecture surfaced as to the actual cause of this perverse result. This narrator, impartial though he is, cannot help but wonder whether the truth has been hushed from the public record, for surely it speaks to a dramatic occasion of utter extremity - either of defiance or despair - and of a man who lost his place in the world, never to find it back.


The Chief Inspector glared at the man across from him, a ridiculous caricature of a tourist, so perfectly nondescript that he was absurdly easy to describe. And then there was that sweater. For some reason he found it all insulting. “Where is she, Wally?” he snapped. “I haven’t gone by that name in a long time,” the man replied as he sipped some of the steaming liquid from his cup. He sat comfortably and spoke calmly, as though he had invited a squad of police men into his home for a chat. “But it is your name! No matter how you change it you cannot escape your past. Except, you don’t want to. Look at you, the same as ever. She! She is a master of disguise and escape. She eludes even the finest minds in the finest forces in all the world,” the Inspector turned. “But you dress like a buffoon and parade around the world in plain view. You clearly want to be found.” “If you say so, Chief Inspector.” The policeman wheeled back to his captive. “Then let me help you! I can free you from her influence, from her scorn and abuse. What could she possibly see in you except a stooge to leave behind. Just tell me where she is!” The man smiled warmly but did not speak. In the silence, the Chief Inspector heard a sound he had missed over his own ranting and the tumult of the festival crowd only a few blocks away. “A helicopter?” he cried in alarm. His eyes cast about the studio with ignited interest. A disheveled bed. A warm fire. A setting of tea and treats, with one cup in the man’s hands and another on the table, steam rising from the brim. “She’s here!” the Inspector cried. “On the roof! She’s getting away!” “If you hurry, you can still catch her!” The laughter in the man’s voice peeled at the Inspector’s composure as he and his men fumbled the window open and scrambled out into the night and up the fire escape. Too late. By the time they clamored onto the roof an ultralight helicopter was thumping away, a carmine figure propped on the strut, looking back at him. He ran to the edge and clung to it as he watched his quarry escape. For a moment, before the helicopter tipped out of sight, he thought he saw her wave. Biting back a cry of frustration he moved to turn away, but a bright movement on the street below drew his gaze. The man strode out of the entrance, a pack on his back overloaded with ludicrous camping gear in the middle of one of the world’s most urbane cities. “No one stayed to watch him?” he shouted. His men wore expressions of stunned apprehension. “Get after him! He can’t get far!” They surged down the fire escape and into the street. Up ahead, he spotted the tall man’s hat bobbing up and down in the crowd, where it then turned down an alley. “He’s heading for the festival!” The inspector pushed and shoved through the crowd until he finally reached the alley, but he spotted no sign of the man. In a rush, he cajoled his way past drunken cavorters, pissing homeless and rancid garbage and burst into the square. Exactly as he did, he was deafened by the sound of a great gong ringing not more than a few yards from him. Instantly, the air was filled with color. Within seconds the Inspector was covered with rainbow powder. Everyone in the square was gleefully pelting one another with chalk of every hue imaginable. In the crowded furor, no one, even the Inspector and his men, weren’t covered from head to boot. “Spread out and find him!” he barked, his heart already sinking. They would look, but somehow the Inspector knew the man would not be found. In an alley only a few dozen yards away the man once called Wally finished his business and zipped his pants. He checked the collar of his plain brown jacket, turned up to his cheeks against cold and prying eyes. His pack was nearby, propped between the building and a dingy garbage can, but he left it there as he turned and headed for the train station. He’d find another. His hat, though, was tucked into his pocket with the tassel hanging out. Visible, as something always was. Just in case she was watching.


You may see me now and wonder who I am and what I am doing. Well, I wish I knew. My life depends on what I decide here. What am I to do about it? What will I decide? I am about to graduate and I have to choose my path. The decision deadline is approaching quite quickly. Most of my peers are exploring the path that they chose. How could someone have already made up their mind? It seems impossible. Some are looking for the path they like. Not me. Maybe it is a path, with so many options how am I supposed to know which path is mine, and what makes a path? So I am pondering all my life decisions. I will tell you that right now I am sitting on a swing. Some may even laugh because I’m too big to sit on the swing right. I decided I would do as I so pleased, after all the swing was empty when I got here, and I would occupy it until I had to leave. To me, it did not matter what my path looked like. I knew I would probably end up sitting here thinking, pondering, and wondering all day. My path could be anywhere from finding love to cleaning houses. I knew my mother was right when she had told me not to leave it till the last minute, but I had not done this. I had been thinking about it all the time, it even kept me up at night. I had great memories here, mixed with a couple of scars. Other peers are forging their paths with friends. Thinking that the world is full of new adventures, of this I am not so sure. Has not everything interesting been done by someone? Besides, I have been a loner most of my life, so why change now? My luck would run out as soon as I trusted anyone so I avoided trusting relationships. What evidence do I have that it will change anytime soon? Overall if you saw me, you would ridicule me. That is the theme of most people anyway, not that I would blame you. If I saw someone doing what I am, I probably would scoff. Anyway this innocent little girl, Lilly asked what I was doing. I didn’t want to bore her so I told her I was trying to swing high enough to reach heaven. Luckily she did not realize that it was a lie. This intrigued her so she stayed with me. She asked if that was why I didn’t sit on it correctly. I laughed and said I guess so. She said well I came here because my sister is hurting. She asked me if I were to ever reach heaven would I ask God to come and help her sister. I told her I would relay the message. I think that she intrigued me more than she was with me. I watched the little girl run as fast as she could into the woods. She yells to her sister that she shouldn’t worry because God was coming to help. Lilly had complete faith that I would reach the heavens. I thought that this little girl was special, and if she needed help, I would give it to her. I knew I had to run after Lilly to help her. When I caught up with Lilly she was with her sister. Her sister was crying and she was covered in scrapes and bruises. I did not take the time to ask her what had happened to her. It was not important. I knew that in an instant when I could hear her pain. No one should be hurt at all, but no one deserved to be hurt so severely. My heart broke for her, even though I had never met her. I scooped her up and told Lilly to follow me. As I carried her away, I wondered who could have done that to such a sweet innocent girl. I stole a glance at Lilly and realized that she had been hurt too. My heart was shattered. After being examined, the doctors asked if I had hurt them. I was taken back. "I could never", I explained how I had just met Lilly on the playground. The doctors almost did not believe me to be on the swing set, and Lilly rushed in and told the doctors she wanted to say something to me. " Man, heaven must not have been that high! I can not believe how you got all the way up there, talked to God, and came back down and still was able to rush to our rescue!" Her sweetness overcame me, and her innocence moved the doctors. Their parents were going to be investigated. If they were found to be guilty of hurting these poor girls, I would be able to foster them, if I wanted to. I found my path today. Who knew that I would find it when not looking for it? My path was to be these little girls daddy and to vow to always protect them. I know that they have to be provided for, so I am going to work a full-time job, go to school to be a lawyer, and eventually buy a house. Lilly's sister, Jora would prove vital in their battle. She would show strength and determination. She was going to win in her mind no matter the cost. Lilly was by her side. I thought that the girls had admirable personalities, and I was quite proud. Lilly and Jora won, they would never be hurt again. Not as long as I had any say in the matter. I took them home, and we celebrated. I finished law school quickly. I wanted to be helping people. Protecting them. My mother was very proud of me. Before I would know it Jora would be quickly approaching the point of her decision, luckily she knows what she wants to do.  I find it is amazing how your path can find you when you can not find it.


Part 1 Jean Davis In a raging swath of flame mankind—those who turned away from the One Truth—burned. This emptiness took hold from inside them suddenly, and they cried out as one—finally one—and their pain and terror of knowing in their last moments that they were too late to change, that they had thrown away their final chance at salvation, struck me as I watched atop a great hill of black and gold. The Visitor was beside me, scorching me with his radiance. Larger than I could comprehend, but who hovered beside me not much taller than I was. A thousand rings of golden flames churned around him—a light brighter and hotter than the sun circling within it. Then the Visitor laughed. The Conference—that’s the name we called it, at least—was sterile and made from hard, concrete angles. A government building. My shoes tapped the waxed slab floor as I walked in, florescent tube lights buzzing above me every few yards, and the walls just white enough I was forced to squint. The man slowing his pace to keep in line with mine was going on about where everything was, pointing down this hallway and that, describing in abundant detail the corridor naming system in place to help visitors not get lost. “Just visitors?” There was a groan in my voice and an even deeper sarcasm. I didn’t have to look at him to know how he squirmed. The CIA must not teach its lackeys how to process sarcastic teenage girls. I snorted, then glanced down a passing hallway—they all looked the exact same and by this point I had no idea where I was or where exactly I was going. I slowed just enough for Oliver to get half a step in front of me. “Your room is located in hallway F,” Oliver said, “along with the other women. The men are all located in hallway B.” “Where do we eat?” Oliver frowned. “Like I said, it’s down this way, then a right, follow hallway B all the way down, take a left, then another right down hallway C, go all the way to the end before taking another left, then—“ “I’ll find it myself.” I toyed with my necklace, twisting it in my fingers. The rose quartz stone was confined in a round aluminum cage, bound by a simple black string around my neck. I squeezed it tightly as the buzz of hundreds of voices rattled my bones. We turned the corner and came to the doors of the Chamber. Oliver pushed open the doors and went in first, and I followed, met with a flare of anxiety at the sea of people before me. The Chamber was like a theater, tables and seats lining well over fifty—maybe even more—rows, gradually working itself down to the far end of the room where a stage rose back up, topped with a long table and even more chairs. The floor was that cheap government carpet, and the walls were carved out like a giant ribcage. For all the chairs the room had, no one was seated. I could tell Oliver was nervous, too, postured a little too straight in his grey suit, as I followed him down the main steps towards the front. All around me I was swallowed by a sea of people—all different races, all speaking different languages, and all very heated. “Oh my God.” My voice was a whisper and drowned in the raging sea of others. I realized in that moment that this was all actually happening—and what this was for had been real. The Visitation. I was halfway down the Chamber when I stopped and actually took a moment to listen. An Indian woman, well dressed, probably in her mid-fifties, stood before a Muslim man whose back was towards me. He yelled and pointed a harsh finger at her, although she took it all with the slightest possible smile, one that could be seen as either confident or arrogant. I was enthralled, before the corners of my vision began to fuzz, and a wave of nausea smacked me like a rock on the coast. I could understand these people. All of them. And they were speaking languages I had no ability to understand. Some weren’t even ones I recognized, coming from cultures I wouldn’t be able to find on a map if I was given all the time in the world to do so. The Indian woman took note of me stumbling into a chair and brushed the man aside. He stormed off as she approached and laid a hand on my shoulder. “All a bit of a shock once you realize it, huh?” I looked up at her. She had a kind face, well-used features, a round nose, and black hair wound in a tight braid reaching over her shoulder and down to her waist. “Yet another gift from the Visitation.” As if triggered by the word, fire and death leaped across my vision. I clenched my eyes closed and groaned, hoping that would relay exactly what I thought about the Visitation’s “gifts”. The woman brushed some of my hair from my face with the care of a mother but with the look of someone who had a lot of pain within herself. Conveniently, a pitcher of water and an empty glass were beside me on the table, like a dozen were on all of the tables. She poured me a glass and handed it to me. “If the nausea persists, come find me later. I’ll give you some medicine.” By the time I opened my eyes from chugging the water, my head brimming with cool clarity, she was gone, melded back into the throng. My heart leaped as I realized Oliver had abandoned me, too. I stood, feeling predatory eyes on me from a group of four men, all with dark skin and white robes native to the Middle East. One of those men I recognized as the one who had been arguing with the Indian woman. His hair was black and coarse beneath a brimless hat matching his outfit. His brow was angular and bound in the middle, beneath resting the black eyes of a killer. I pushed my way further down the Chamber, away from them. Oliver’s voice came from the stage, stiff and rehearsed, and the noise died to a low hum. “As I’m sure everyone has discovered the commonality between you, I’ll get right to it. Everyone here has been Visited. One person from every walk of life, culture, and country from around the world. We simply want to know why. Why not Visit world leaders or religious leaders? Why instead choose doctors, teachers, convicts, and children? “In this completely safe, highly monitored facility, we want you all to compare your stories, your theories, and your pasts to try and find the common links between you. Maybe then we can understand why you were the ones Visited and work to communicate with the Visitors further.” “He forgets to mention the armed goons waiting for us on the outside.” I perked up at the sound of English and an American accent. Close to me stood a black man not much older than me with cornrows, a hard brow, and a clenched jaw. Tattoos covered almost every inch of his skin. He spoke to anyone who’d listen as Oliver continued to drone on. “Be on point when this shit’s over or we may not be making it back home.” “You think they’ll kill us?” “You think when the government’s gotten what they want from us, they won’t? They’ll just let us all waltz outta here and go back home?” No one said anything else after that, but just turned their focus back to Oliver and listened with distraught expressions—the kind of look that makes men dangerous, like they’re caged animals looking for an escape and will kill to get it. I continued to walk down the steps, listening to Oliver. He was rambling on about the cafeteria schedule and how the Chamber would always be opened as a central place of discourse and how we were highly encouraged to seek each other out and learn things about everyone so we could “solve this puzzle together”, although we were the ones who were stuck here. “It is a great show of friendship and faith that we have delegates here from all around the world,” he continued. “Please keep that in mind and show each other respect.” I found myself frowning at his tone and word choice. A glance at those immediately surrounding me revealed that only some had the same reaction, the majority of the delegates taking his words at face value. His subtext gave a whole other message; watch your back, because not all of us are here for the same reason. It took me forty-five minutes before I found my room. The plaque on my door read “Jean Davis”, so everyone and their brother would know exactly who they’d find inside. That made me uneasy. Hundreds of strangers knew exactly where I slept. “Doctors, teachers, convicts, and children.” I wondered if Oliver was referring to me with that last remark. I hadn’t seen any children since I arrived. Convicts, though… I thought back to the man with a killer’s eyes and those who surrounded him. How their eyes clawed at my clothes, praying to their god to get me alone. A trembling shudder and the feeling of being watched made me slam the door and lock it behind me, leaving me in a humming white light. It only took me two steps to bump my bed, still staring at the door, clutching my necklace. My knuckles were white as I sat on the bed’s edge and slowly unlaced my high-tops. My room was more of a closet with a bed, nightstand, and a small dresser. The bathroom was communal and located a few doors down. Easing myself further into bed, I tried to fall asleep but found myself staring at the sliver of light bursting in from underneath the door. Only a few times did shadows move across it, breaking the streak before moving on, opening and closing doors of their own further down the hall. Fire raged in my vision, and I opened my eyes to find the ceiling, but no Visitor. My grip around my necklace was so tight it hurt. I didn’t want to be Visited again. It was haunting and painful, forcing thoughts into my head that I wanted nothing to do with. I was perfectly fine with how I was and needed no one or nothing else. That was a lie, and it stung as soon as I thought it. I cursed the Visitor. He was the one who made me this way, taking away the freedom of my own thoughts and forcing me to constantly confront the lies I told myself. But again, I knew that was a lie. The Visitor had no control over how I had been made. Only one did. The One. I found myself drifting off again into a black sleep, and after a momentary struggle, I let it take me. My dad stood before me, a handsome man in his mid-thirties with thick stubble, short black hair, dripping a puddle of water onto the floor and clutching a towel around his waist. My backpack was on the floor, today’s homework spilled out. I stared at him, trembling as he tried to explain himself, the woman dressing hurriedly behind him. A year later, I could feel my mom’s eyes on me, scolding me with silence, then averting when I looked at her. She hadn’t spoken to me for three days since I had finally told her that her husband was a traitor. I suddenly found myself alone, sitting on the floor, back to the couch, numbing my mind with the fluttering glow of the TV. She was out somewhere—she never told me where—and I was home. The house was dark. It was the way I liked it when I was alone. I had never been afraid of the dark but found solace in it; I found that I could melt into the darkness and become nothing. Lose the skin of Jean Davis and walk naked and incorporeal. It would help with some of the pain, some of the guilt—both for not telling her sooner and telling her at all. But not all of it would leave with my body as I strode high through the blackness, toes sinking into the carpet. A lot of it would remain clung to me, digging claws into my back and not letting me go. Tonight was the night that would change. Tonight was the night that would end. I sank slowly into the bathtub, cringing as the water burned, but continuing down until I was submerged to my throat. Even that pain was nothing to the tightness in my chest, my constant shame. I thought back to earlier that evening when I found my mom sitting numb, sucking a cigarette and clutching a wine glass, only a thin maroon ring remaining inside. “Mom?” I was stupid to talk to her when she was like that, but I wanted to tell her the amazing fucking news. Her head tilted my way to let me know she was listening. “I’m going to be a sister.” I thought maybe I should’ve left a note, but I didn’t think anyone would care to read it. Mom wouldn’t. She’d probably laugh and go have another drink. Misery was her solace now, and she’d want to keep that comfort. And dad… He had a new family now. There was no need for me. He was married to someone younger and prettier, someone still enchanted by his Sauvé, and would soon have a son—the one he always wanted—and would be happy. He wanted me to be happy, too. Happy for him and his new family. He called me and told me the news and I heard genuine excitement in his voice, the kind that was always foreign to me. In a messed-up kind of way, I did feel happy for him. Maybe he wouldn’t be so disappointed anymore, with me and with mom. Maybe now he had what he had always wanted and wouldn’t ruin this family, too. I pictured this new kid—my little brother—and my dad playing catch and riding bikes and laughing and hoped that he would be a good dad to him. That this kid wouldn’t turn out like me. A failure. Tears streaked my cheeks and my pillow was soaked through. It took me twenty minutes to stop hyperventilating enough to get dressed and open my door to the blaring light of the hallway. A dull throb beat above my left eye as I brushed my teeth, and I wondered if that woman from yesterday was around. I didn’t know her name, so I had no idea which door to knock on. I decided to just bite through it and make my way to the cafeteria. I blinked back one last splash of water, watching beads run down my face like tears. I had bags under my eyes and my hair was a mess. I felt out of place, out of my skin, like I shouldn’t be here, like I shouldn’t be anywhere. There was this strong pull to go home, but not my home. It was an eternal place, somewhere I had never been nor dreamed of going. I wiped off my face, ran my hands through my hair, fluffing it up in a more kempt way, then left the bathroom. Instinctively I glanced down the hall before turning towards the direction of the cafeteria and stopped. I turned back to find a young Asian man coming from one of the bedrooms about five yards away. I frowned, he spotted me, and I got an unnerving urge to turn and run. He stared at me for a moment too long, then turned and walked the other direction, disappearing around a corner. Before I knew what I was doing, my legs took me to the room the man had come from. The plaque read “Naya Ravel”, the door was unlocked, and the room itself was empty. Unlike the movies, it wasn’t ransacked, either. It was pristine, as if nothing had been touched at all, and I wondered what he could’ve been doing here. I stood in the midst of a cafeteria trembling with voices and motion, my tray light with a couple pieces of toast, a cup of oatmeal, and a coffee. I scanned the room, the tables, and those sitting at them. My throat was dry, and my head was pounding. I’d just go back to my room. Turning towards the exit, I was met by the Indian woman’s eyes on me. She sat at a table by herself, smiled, and waved me over. I approached reluctantly. “Feeling better?” “A little.” I remained standing at the edge of the table, not committing myself to sitting. The woman arched a brow at that, then offered me the seat. “I promise I don’t bite. I’m Dr. Naya Ravel.” The bench was plastic and uncomfortable as I sat across from Naya. Did I tell her about the man I saw coming from her room? Did she know? What would she do? What did she have to hide? Oliver’s hidden message to the delegates played back in my head. “Watch your back because not all of us are here for the same reason.” A gasp caught in my throat as the Visitor appeared suddenly behind her, churning its rings in a metallic screech, the ball of light upon me like a great eye, seeing my thoughts, my shame, my longing. I screamed.


The fire in winter I wish you tasted as good as you smelled. You decive me every time i press my lips against you and out comes the burning sensation of coal and fire. Bitterness. The taste of actual dirt. As if someone just put soil in my cup and mixed it with water. Coffee. I have always loved the smell of coffee but i never knew what to do with it. I never knew the secret method to make this fantastic smell taste as good as i want it too. My earliest memory of coffee was waking up early morning and seeing my dad make a cup of coffee before work. He was a grizzly trucker man who loved the bitterness of just black coffee. He never added anything to it and the smell filled up the kitchen. It was beautiful and mocked me for never consuming it. I asked my dad for a taste and he laughed because he knew i would not enjoy it. I guess he knows it can taste better but bitter was his choice. When i tried it for the first time, my tounge was on fire and my mouth tasted like i ate a chunk of dirt. This was so confusing to me. I couldn't comprehend how something that smells so good can taste so bad. In a way i did like the deception because it was a hard feeling to express. I knew it could be possible to like this, i thought i wasn't old enough yet so i just enjoyed the smell and never bothered to try it again. My second experience with coffee was on a cold saturday. I was staying with some family in an R.V out of town. There was six of us in that mobile home and no one bothered to check the weather for that weekend. When i woke up my parents have already showered so i decided to jump in real quick. I didn't stay too long because i knew i would just get cold again after so the false sense of warmth i felt from the water was short felt. When i got dressed and opened the bathroom door. My nose was greeted with a familiar smell. The aroma of heavens delight was waiting for me on the counter near the sink. My cousin had went to a corner store near us and grabbed a coffee for us all. I held onto it just to make my hands warm. I studied my cousin as she opened the lid of her cup and added sugar and cream. Two packets of sugar and two cups of cream. I fallowed her recipe exactly and stirred it all together. I half expected it to taste the same as when i was a kid but when i drank. My insides were starting to warm up and i stopped shaking from the cold. This was better then what i ever could have imagined. It was love in a cup and i was floating. All six of us just chatted for the next hour even after our drinks went dry. My breath had a funny taste and i imagine this is what people smell from another coffee drinkers mouth. I liked it.


The group was sitting around a bond fire. They had all gathered at Ryan’s house after senior prom. With graduation early the next morning, most of the friends had left for bed, or to hook up somewhere else. Only five kids remained, sitting in beach chairs as the fire slowly died down. Leslie was sitting on Ryan’s lap, affectionately twirling her fingers in his hair. Lucas and Cindy were sitting, holding hands and whispering to each other quietly. Jacob was laying with his seat reclined, staring at the stars, with a bud light can dangling in his hands. He was the only one who had really drank that night, Ryan and Lesly preferring weed, and Cindy had been carefully watching Lucas to makes sure he wouldn’t be hungover for graduation.            Truthfully, the two couples were secretly hoping Jacob would go to bed, but he was sleeping over at Ryan’s and would probably be staying up as late as everyone else was. Jacob stood up and walked over to the cooler Ryan’s dad had brought down. Mr. Notley had filled it up with Gatorade’s and water, but Jacob and some of their other friends had filled it up with Bud Light and White Claw’s. Jacob turned to friends, “Anyone need a beer?” he asked.            “Nah, but can you get me a water?” Ryan asked.            “You’re such a pussy, dude.” Jacob responded, but he tossed a water to his friend nonetheless.”            “Bro, I cannot drink right now. I would get way too crossfaded.” Ryan responded as he caught the water bottle. “I also got really bad cotton mouth. Low key, I’ve been dying of thirst but I didn’t want to say anything.”            “Ryan, why didn’t you say something? I would have gotten up!” Leslie said.            “Idk, man. Thought you guys would be weirded out, or something.” Ryan responded.            “Dude, did you really just say ‘IDK’ instead of ‘I don’t know.’ How high are?” Lucas said.            Ryan burst out laughing and nearly choked as he said, “Pretty fuckin high, dude.”            Everybody laughed. Something about the way Ryan laughed was contagious. His mom liked to boast to her friends that he had an “infectious smile” and she was right. He was a kid who got along with everyone, and was quick to welcome anybody to join in whatever he was doing. In fact, he had annoyed his friends when he invited Gabe, a quiet kid who never really talked to anyone, to his house after prom. Gabe had come, and sat quietly by the fire pretending to drink a beer. He didn’t talk to anyone until Ryan had asked everyone to go around the fire and share their favorite memory from high school (Ryan was a camp counselor, and had a habit of forcing everyone to do things around the fire.) One by one, the group shared their memories, things like winning the Lacrosse champion ship junior year, or pep rally senior year were common answers. When it was Gabe’s turn he was hesitant, at first saying “I pass.”            But Ryan nicely implored him to speak, saying “Come on man, you gotta have a favorite memory. When you look back at high school, what’s the one thing you’ll remember.”            Gabe looked around at everybody, blushing. He wasn’t used to having so many people listening to him. He looked at Ryan and softly said, “I’ll remember tonight. I think it’s the best night of my life.”            The group was silent, unsure how to react to this confession that this stupid after prom party was so meaningful to this kid that they barely knew. In the hands of a different person, that may have turned into an awkward moment. Ryan handled it like a pro, giving a high five to Gabe and saying “Me too, man, me too” and raising his drink to give a toast to the night.            All of this is to say, it is easy to understand why Leslie was in love with him, and as she watched at Ryan laugh at himself for being too high, she realized that she really was in love with him. He may not really love her, they were only in high school after all, as her mom was quick to point out whenever she mentioned any future with him, but she was deeply in love with him. In fact, in her mind it was perfectly reasonable to want to spend the rest of her life with him. This was dawning on her, and as the laughter died she was staring and Ryan intently, with a slight smile on her face. Ryan noticed the look and asked “What? Is there something on my face?”            Leslie giggled, “Nope! I’m just thinking how much I’m going to miss this.”            “Miss what?” Cindy asked.            “Just…this.” Leslie gestured around the fire, “Hanging out with friends without a care in the world. Just enjoying each other’s company. After this summer, who knows what’s going to happen? We’re all going to different colleges, different paths in life. It’s kind of sad.”            “Alright, shut up with the sad talk!” Jacob said as he stood out of his seat. “We can deal with all of that nonsense at the end of the summer. Tonight? We rage!”            Leslie and Cindy rolled their eyes as Lucas and Ryan laughed at their drunk friend. “Yeah buddy, this is a rager all right.” Lucas said with a smile.            “Raging is about mindset, not about the number of people.” Jacob responded as he grabbed another beer from the cooler.            “Whatever you say, bro.” Ryan said.            The group grew silent. Cindy yawned and rested her head on Lucas’ shoulder. It was almost one, and they were supposed to be at the school by 7:30 the next morning for one last walk through before graduation. She was about to suggest bed, when Jacob once again broke the silence, “Let’s play a game!”            Leslie sighed, “What game?”            “I don’t know, something fun!” Jabob responded.            “How about truth or dare?” Ryan asked, “Jakey, I dare you to walk to the beach.”            “No, that’s lame, I don’t want to do that.”            “Ohhh, what are you scared?” Leslie teased.            “Big bad Jake is too scared to walk to the beach?” Lucas added in mock surprise.            The beach was only about a half mile away from Ryan’s house, in fact a lot of the people who had left the fire early had probably gone there. It was a known secret spot for couples to venture to for some alone time. There was nothing sinister or scary about this walk, it was one they had all made plenty of times. That being said, the two couples saw this as a chance to get rid of Jacob for a little and just enjoy the quietness of the fire.            “Jake, my man. If you’re too scared to walk to the beach in the dark just say so!” Ryan said, knowing the exact buttons to push in order to get Jacob to go. “I can always think of an easier dare. If you’re too chicken to walk to the beach, that is.”            Jacob stood up and chugged his beer. He stomped over to the cooler grabbed two more, the last two, and turned and stared at his friends. “Fine. I’ll walk to the fuckin beach. You happy?”            He turned and walked away. Lucas called after him “Make sure you bring back some sand, so we know you went all the way!”            Without turning around Jacob held up his middle finger. The couples laughed and then settled in comfortably. Leslie, still sitting on Ryan’s lap, draped both her arms around him, and rested her neck on his shoulder. Cindy got up and sat on the ground in front of Lucas. She laid her head back on his lap and he began to play with her hair. Within in 15 minutes, all four of them were asleep.            Ryan woke up to a bang. He slowly opened his eyes and saw that Jacob was back and was tossing wood on to the fire. He wiped at his eyes, causing Leslie to mumble something he couldn’t make out. “Jake, dude. What time is it?”            Jacob looked at him and didn’t respond. Ryan asked again, and received no answer besides another log being put on the fire. He struggled to reach his phone without bothering Leslie, and saw that it was 2:17. About an hour had passed since Jacob had left for the beach. “Jake, I don’t think we need more logs. It’s getting late.”            Lucas had been awakened by the second log toss, and now had realized what woke him up “Jacob, shut up, man”            Jacob once again looked at him with no response. “What time is it?” Lucas asked Ryan.            “Like 2:15.” Ryan responded, closing his eyes again.            “Oh shit!” Cindy said, bolting up from where she now lay on the ground, “My dad’s gunna kill me! I gotta get home.”            She stood up and walked over to Leslie, gave her a shake and said “Leslie, we gotta go!”            Leslie tried to shrug her off and nestle deeper into Ryan’s shoulder, but he began to stand up, “Cindy’s right, Les. You gotta get home. Your dad is probably pissed.”            Leslie untangled herself from Ryan and they both stood up. Lucas sighed and got up as well, “I’ll give you guys a ride.” He said. They began walking towards the car, leaving Jacob behind, until he reached out and grabbed Ryan’s shoulder. Ryan turned and asked “What?”            Before he could get an answer they heard a yell coming from the driveway, “Guys! Guys! Are you still down here?”            A person was sprinting around the corner towards the fire place. They couldn’t make out who it was until he was standing right in front of them. Everyone froze. Ryan looked at Jacob and then back at the new arrival. “What the fuck?”            The new arrival was staring at Jacob. He looked as though he was looking at a ghost. He seemed petrified with fear. As if he was seeing something unbelievable. And maybe he was. Because he was staring at himself.            Leslie screamed. Lucas stood with a dumbfounded look on his face, Ryan once again asked “What the fuck?”, and Cindy stood clinging to Lucas’s body. The Jacob that had a hold on Ryan’s shoulder smiled. He spoke. “Surprise.”


A dream A lively dream A tiny or big one To cherish in the life To shower lovely rains By washing all odd fouls Creating an eternal abode It's the magic of dream  For which heart is always craving!!! The story is for a fighter... We are all fighters. We fight for right .To achieve our dreams, at the real sights. We fight to live. We fight from day to night. The world is full of chaos, challenges. Nothing is achieved without fighting. Every seconds , every moments, every little hope is far from the sight. But if we fight, that's easily at our site. Fighting doesn't mean to blood shedding, to kill someone, to crush forward things. Want something, without making any effort; if don't get, then don't hurt for the lost .We need to make efforts. We need to fight for this. Good is always fighting overcome bad. That's the real fight, right sight; it's fight. We all are fighter, at each platform of life. To overcome, to achieve the goal; for a better life. Alan is a poor guy, belonged to a middle class family. A person in the middle class family, bearing so much responsibilities. He has no right to take a dream for his own. He should think for others. But as a human being , he has also a dream. That resides in his mind secretly. He never knows that is still litten and try to express, when the suitable time is come. Dream sings a song by his subconscious mind... Reflection of mind Life gives us so many challenges Lot of them are full of uncertainty Anything can be possible at that site Death or alive is not a concern of prime It's demanded by life Making me fulfill by your pride Dark or light that's not right I want to be illuminated by all sites At least one thing is so bright Making dream day to night The dream is blooming in the mind Sketching the best scene in that canvas Loving caring with dear ones Shining the surroundings with all strikes Creating a land of mysterious colors Not a place for any painful acts There no conflict exists within all All are friend under the same roof Is it a day dream or reflection of mind Which is always nourishing in all minds The universe is the only abode Where life is only one Don't waste it anymore Take a deep breathe to pursue the dream You have the spirit hidden itself Awakening that spiritual power To make the dream in reality Alan is smirking!!! Yes, I should pursue my dream by hook or by crooks. But that's not so easy. In his family, he has 2 little sisters. His parents are sick. They live in a shabby house. So much hardships making life so measurable, yet he never gives up. The dream is persisted in his mind. Mind is so bold to hold. He has achieved first position at the graduation. Now, searching for a job. A job, in a multinational company is founded. Within 6 months, he is promoted. His outstanding performances mesmerized all. He gets the golden chance to move to foreign. But he denied. If he went away, how can the family be survived? He must take care the family first. Lisa is his beloved. She tells –Alan, now it's time for us to marry. My family pressurize me for marriage. I tell them all about you. They want to talk with you. Are you ready for going? Alan is so surprised. How can I marry now? I have two sisters. They should be married first. A lot of responsibilities on my shoulder. I can't think about my life right now. Lisa- what do you mean by that? We together can bit the battle. What's the problem? I say no; that's not fair. It’s one kind of selfishness! “How much time do you need to take the initiative?” Alan-I don’t know that; may be 5 or 10 years. Lisa- I am surprised! Do you think my family is listening you? “I can't wait such a long time .Then you should forget me.”  I am silence. Just get up and go away. The love story is ended. My heart is broken. Dreams are shattered. But, I hide all the pains, inside itself. My thoughts myriads… Hidden pain Fiercing heart Burning soul Blank mind Blind eyes Vacant brain Blurred thoughts

All are happened

Due to hidden pain That pain Can’t talk Can’t express The sea of pain

Always wavering

Inside itself

Sometimes for a while Overflowing

Comes out As a drop of tear Hidden tears A bridge build up To walk Over the tears Still not showing

To win the open world

Only living In the hidden pain world!!! I have come back home. Father is so sick. Mother is worried. Siblings are quarrelling. There's a lot of issues. My mind is vulnerable. I go to my room. Why the life is so strange? Give so much challenges . I am ready to sacrifice all, for all of my beloved ones. The night is so scary. My love is going far away . I’m going to lose her forever . I have no choice left.

Oh God! HELP ME! The moonlight is so bright Try to talk with me Let's me share my pains Only with you The dream !!!! Never tired to come at my door. Always knock, yet the door can't open. Time is passed by this way. Year to year is passed. Now 9 years are passed . So many incidents are happened. I lost my father. My mother is in bed. Two sisters are married. I have done, all my responsibilities very sincerely. My professional life is also so enlighten . I'm settled in life.  I am very pleased after doing that all. I feel so relax. A solace!!!! At the evening, I go for a walk. Then, sit on the bench . For a while, I am lost myself. I don't know, where I was belonged. A deep breathe. I was fight at my life as a freedom fighter. My youth is faded. It reached in the verge of the life. Suddenly one day.... A little celebration is taken by the mysterious life. A poem is recited by my mind… After a long time They again meet each other

Both of them are quite surprised Today they are far apart

Once a time When they were love birds

Fate gave them a tough time

They couldn't connect

At the verge of certain platform

Fate gives them that golden chance Now they seem to be so happy Bcz their life pass alongside with lovely memories This day is a big one Just celebrate it By heart!!! My lost love is now come back in my life. I’m happy. After sufferings all, now the luck is in my hand. Both of us hold our hands. The evergreen dream of eternal love is true. We are going to create the divine in this earth. The universe of our eternal love!


I'd been pondering on loads of options to cope with the terrible breakup that took place a couple of weeks ago. I didn't feel like talking to the jerk, David who chose to ditch me for my best friend! Well, EX best friend. I mean seriously, could it be any worse? I still couldn't believe Nina actually double faced me the whole time she entertained that jerk to cheat on me. What could I possibly think then? Whatever happened, happened in reality. Anyway, among all the potential coping mechanisms I'd scavenged so far, the one suggested by my cousin, Casey seemed to be more appropriate and lesser aggressive than the other ones. So, basically the task I was to perform was simply writing down messages by pouring out all the rages and curses that had been terribly brewing inside my heart. Then instead of sending them to the jerk, I needed to leave it in the note app of my phone. But interestingly, I came across the mysterious story of Mark Twain and his unsent letters more or less around the same time. In the case of Twain, he used to write down letters addressing to particular people, then tore them down without sending to those addressed. The interesting part was, he still got letters from those people answering the questions he asked or talking about topics he mentioned in his unsent letters. Never mind! I was just another girl who got dumped by the one she thought the love of her life, for the one she thought to be her best friend. No magic, no psychic power involved whatsoever. So, I aggressively typed out a whole Essay-length message trying my best to let out all the entrapped anger intending to the fricking cheater. Heaving out a deep, heavy breath, I gave it a read. Wow! My mind was quite murderous at that point! "Choking the life out of him on his own car seat… Banging his head constantly against the metallic body of his favorite minivan until the head becomes a heap of blood and flesh... Making his sweetheart, Nina regret doing what she did so much so that she'd be possessed terribly by the self-loathing which would make her hang herself...." Woah! Only if I could make these happen! However, writing them down definitely helped to ease the weight on my shoulders. That was Thursday when I left the message unsent locking it down inside the note app.

Friday... Saturday... Sunday... Monday...Tuesday... Wednesday had passed just like that. Of course, nothing would happen! I was just a regular girl...

As a whole week passed without any fuss, I chose not to sweat my head over it. "Lily! Did you hear what happened?" Mom's voice filled with shock and anxiety.

"No, why? What is it?" "David had an accident an hour back, and they couldn't save him. Gosh! The boy died; I still can't believe!" O wow! David died? Must be some coincidence, and not anything related to my message!

"How's that happened? I mean, the accident?"

"He was found in his car, head like a distorted heap of blood and flesh! He was heading towards this way, inside our locality. The weirdest thing is, he told his mom he's gonna have to meet you ASAP before leaving the house. Didn't you guys break up? Don't wanna get nosy but was it anything important between you to talk about?" "Uh-huh" I indistinctly uttered. Now Mom's words cut through my numb brain like a flash of lightening. Is it really happening? God! I can be dead aggressive in writing notes on my phone but I don't have the heart to murder someone. Still there was a flicker of possibility that it was a mere coincidence.

Mom took her purse before ducking out of the house, "I'm going to Brenda's place, she must be devastated after losing the only son. Poor thing! Oh! Casey asked me to tell you something else, um… Some girl from your class, Nina hanged herself this morning. God bless the young generation! Why would you guys die at this age!" she exhaled a deep sigh.

 How could I keep living with the guilt of a murderer! Being a murderer without even attempting to murder... Being under the "magickal" force when the whole time, I longed my life to be "magical"! I was a regular girl until... I was not anymore.

The story could end right there. But did it? Nope. I woke up from the nightmare panting heavily. Cold sweat started rolling down my temples. I looked up at the ceiling for a while before clambering down the bed to drink water. The kitchen light was on which seemed a little weird cos it was almost 3 in the morning. Maybe mom forgot to turn it off after being done with the huge workloads her boss shoves at her every day. I pour a glass of water when I heard the sound. Instantly my heart leapt up to my throat. And again! "What is happening over there? What's this sound?" gulping hard I look over my shoulder. I was almost paralyzed with fear when a shadow seemed to move around the corner of the stairs. Shakily, I move towards the kitchen door.

"Lily? You there?" Dad's voice filled with fear and something else I didn't quite comprehend.

"Dad? What is it? Why are you up this late?" "It's your mom... She, she hanged herself." "You kidding, right? Why would she do that?" "It's not her! It can't be her... She acted like a total possessed... I tried to stop her but she just shoved me away. She seemed so strong and I failed to save her, Lily!" his eyes tearing up.

Now! How would I describe it? Did I bring the curse on my own mother by writing down a silly text?

"Dad, wait up. You shouldn't go outside now. Please, no..." Before I could finish my words, dad was already outside the house. He actually could've just called 911 but he went out himself instead. Why? To become a heap of blood and flesh? My limbs stiffened and I kept standing right there thinking about everything and nothing at the same time. I really was a regular girl until... I was not ANYMORE.


It was pitch black on that back country road that night, the car was almost out of gas, and a baby who he knew would never know fame nor success nor love was crying in the passenger seat. You wouldn’t have known it at first sight – at one year old, she already sprouted a mass of jet black curls that spilled down her head and a tendency to grasp, squirm, experiment, escape and cause trouble that you would not have known would alienate and drive away any adult that would have otherwise helped her in life, were you not told. The politically wise would have guessed the truth at the sight of the caramel-colored skin that would, in no small part, mark her fate. You’d have really known it as you saw her claw at him. He’d have been sick of her shit a long time ago if it wasn’t for the job. And of course, he’d have to pick *this* road. A grand total of forty-five miles away from anybody else, the shoulders overrun with weeds and grass and brush, and the only illumination at his disposal of course being the fucking moon, *this* was the safest route, and the tank was running on empty. He couldn’t even risk turning on his emergency headlights for fear of discovery, even out here. He pulled down a wooded dirt road and stopped the car. And it was there, shielded from the harsh cold light of the moon by silhouettes of maples and oaks, enveloped and wrapped in the thick lush growth of early summer, that the fucking baby finally, *finally* stopped crying. The lone pink barrette donning her hair had come loose; the other one was lost in the aftermath of her fit. Her black, rhinestone-endowed tee was soaked in drool and sweat and tears. He was fairly certain she had soiled her pants. With each tiny breath, she turned to and fro, examining her surroundings with the kind of trepidation you would normally expect to see in someone decades her senior. He could see her body shaking – feel her tiny fingernails pinching his flesh, even still – and was thankful that at least for now, she was quiet. Each second of the first attempt in her life to regain her composure was followed with a hiccup, or a sniffle. She pushed her mop of curls away from her face with hands that in three decades' time he knew would kill millions. And she looked up at him with large, soft, puffy dark eyes that he knew, had she been born in better days, would have melted hearts. Her cheeks were slick with her tears. Her grip was loosening. His hands were slick with his sweat, and with blood. He wouldn’t be able to deal with her like this. He wouldn’t even be able to hold the knife. Actually getting a hold of the kid in the first place had been a fucking nightmare. Her father was every bit as monstrously violent and ruthless as she alluded to in her final writing now dubbed The Last Manifesto. His neck still hurt from her father’s stubby, steely grip – he understood now why she hated the motherfucker so much. And speaking of mothers, it was strange to him how despite clearly knowing what he had come to do, that the baby’s mother didn’t do anything to stop him. She had cowered, and she had begged, and she had cried, sure, but her actions, her every moment up to her last, were consumed by this grey, tepid resignation that he was certain was the root of her apathy as described in The Last Manifesto. It was in those ten decisive minutes that led up to this that he discovered for himself why it was his boss made him read the fucking thing over and over again, not just to memorize it but to truly absorb it, to embrace it. He looked at the baby – material and social conditions at this point in the past really were just as bizarre and horrifying as she had described. And for all of the pure shadowed night and clean air and lush growth around them, he couldn’t understand why. That house of theirs was fucking loaded. What had possessed her parents to become such monsters? The Last Manifesto had briefly mentioned a brother and spoke at length about a sister of hers who played an integral role in her path to vengeance, domination and destruction. He supposed he – and his knife – had managed to get to them before the sibling's conception. He saw no sign of the elder brother when he infiltrated the house. Four years old, and blonde, and completely unmanageable from what he could gather from historical records, her brother would likely spend his life marked by the trauma that would guarantee everyone else a lengthy and prosperous existence, as miserable as it may be for him personally. And that was the only comfort he could take as he pushed down his seat, shook his hand away and dug around the back, looking first for a cloth to wipe his hands and then for the knife. It was only when he pushed the seat back up two minutes later that he had noticed her watching him and she had started whimpering. Her earlier attempts to dig into his flesh stung throughout his hand, his arm really. Little droplets of blood trailed down his pale, hairy skin. It didn’t matter though; he’d just patch himself up after the job was done, but in the present moment, there was nothing he could do to stop that *whimpering.* It was a helpless, squealing, pathetic equivalent of begging from the baby, begging that his boss and his people had yearned, struggled, and spent years fighting to hear, yet now, in a moment that for anyone else from his time would have been a cathartic and magnanimous triumph, he just felt so… hollow. Unsteady. Not right. The inside of the car was hot, stiflingly so. It was only now that he had noticed the thick pocket of air his faded fatigues were holding in. The thick heat in the air sat heavy in his lungs with every breath. He flexed his toes – they were squished tight in his worn black boots and the laces were tied so tight that he could feel a very particular cramp from his left ring toe start to flare up. He could feel his M9 poking at his backside. His grip on his Ontario MK3 Navy issued knife was slick, not with the blood from the first half of the job, but with his sweat. The air in this car was like home, too much like home. In his time, the average temperature ranged from around 65F in the wintertime, if they were lucky, to on average 115F in the summer, and this was up in the mountains. The humidity permeated the air so utterly and completely that it would leave his skin clammy and glistening during training exercises. His boss, a tiny, steely woman with obsidian eyes would give you a look that would pierce you in very particular and very nasty ways if she caught you buckling even slightly under the burning weight of the air. She purposefully trained him for this mission in that shit, in her own words, to make him appreciate. He fucking hated it. He fucking hated every inch of her short, scrawny, bronze-skinned little ass every time she would make him do it. But the first thing he noticed when he stepped through the portal at the start of the mission was the soothing cool breeze in the evening air, and that was when he realized why she did that. He’d never known the wind to bring relief. In his time, it brought destruction and radiation and misery, all thanks to the tiny baby sitting next to him, whimpering. The first loving, icy lick of the stuff already had him addicted. That was what he was here to fight for. To kill for. The job was supposed to be simple, a quick in-and-out. Portal jump to June 15 1987 7:04 PM, capture the target, eliminate any and all witnesses, eliminate the target, meet at rendezvous point at exactly 11:24 PM, portal jump back home, and hopefully reappear in a better time where all he would be is a stranger to the people he saved. A time where the land was still green and pure and not seared black and grey by plasma blasts and nuclear fire. A time that the baby sitting next to him, whimpering, would never get to see or enjoy or appreciate, because of the actions of the maniacs in that house with her, and the choices she would make in kind. She was a cute little thing, or as cute as a terrified, traumatized, stinking, whimpering pile of fat and curls and flesh could possibly be, and it was at that moment that the weight of his knife pulled his hand downward. He rolled down the driver’s side window. His neck was lovingly kissed and stroked by a breeze the other grunts back home would never get to feel, and the little bits of it that made it past his large and imposing frame made the kid sigh a soft sigh of, relief, he guessed? At least now she finally shut up, if only for a second. Now came the fucking cooing. He hung his head down and an exasperated sigh pushed past his lips. His boss would’ve been ashamed of him to see him like this. He could already imagine her putting a hand to her greyed, thick hair and shaking her head – and then glaring at him. On September 15th 2026, the baby cooing next to him would make the world burn in nuclear fire, and according to his boss and The Last Manifesto, that burning was only about 53% as intense and all-consuming as the burning she felt every day as a result of the irreversible psychological damage brought upon her by her family and by the New American Empire that subjugated her. His boss made him read The Last Manifesto over and over and over again, not to memorize it, but to truly *absorb* it, to *embrace* it. It was only as he looked upon the baby as she played with her tiny blood-stained sneakers, that he realized that his boss didn’t just do this to prime his mind against the inevitable guilt of murdering an entire family that would have hung on his mind regardless of the good it would do. It was something particular about the baby’s big, soft, dark eyes – maybe it was the full moon shining from the roof window downward, he didn’t know – but the light sparked a hint of sharpness in them, a hint of obsidian. And the boss’s greyed, thick hair, though perpetually tied in a bun as per Coalition of Humanity regs, would sometimes betray the barest hint of a curl. Per his training, he was required to study the history of the New American Empire and the height of American civilization from the 1980s, to the start of it’s downfall in the early 2000s, and the rampage started in the early 2020s by the little baby next to him, who had some-fucking-how managed to unlock her seat-belt, that would consign humanity to a fate as horrific as it was indelible – at least until his boss managed to rise in the ranks. Some-fucking-how, that bitch had managed to rise from lowly grunt to petty officer to chief scientist in the space of only three years, and in the twenty-five years since the destruction of the biosphere from the nuclear fire, she had managed to somehow, some way, build a fucking time machine. A portal, she had called it. It was she who proposed its construction as the only way to undo the massive influx of radiation and irreversible runaway climate change triggered by the rampage that would otherwise doom all of humanity to extinction. It was she who had proposed changing the past, and undoing the bearer of all of this destruction, before she could undo everyone else. It was she who had purposefully chosen *him* for the most sensitive and most important mission in all of human history – and it was *she* who had forced him to read The Last Fucking Manifesto over and over and over again – sometimes forcefully, sometimes balefully – not just to memorize it but to truly *absorb* it, to *embrace* it. And now he understood why. The baby was crawling into his lap now, using his thigh as a stepping stool as she tried, in her own haphazard infantile way, to grab his wife-beater and pull herself up. The baby was likely already deeply traumatized. The baby was an orphan now. The baby was filthy. But he’d be damned if he’d let his boss down, and he’d be damned if he’d let her grow up to bring about the end of all life on this planet. What he didn’t know was whether his boss had actually anticipated him doing what he did next. He took hold of the baby and popped the car door open. He stepped out into the deliciously cool night air, and as the baby snuggled into his chest, he wondered how much of that was due to the chill air and how much of it was due to the fact that she was likely unused to gentle treatment given in earnest. He checked the watch on his wrist his boss was reaching for as he started walking. It was already 11:15 PM. There was no way in hell he’d make it to the rendezvous point, but he didn’t care. He knew there would be a better time – he’d make sure of it. And he’d live out that better time with his boss now, not just to experience it but to truly *absorb* it. To *embrace* it. And he’d make sure his boss could, too.


Fenix hit the atmosphere hard. He felt the Lady Gray shudder in protest as the air outside thickened, fighting against the ungainly bulk of the ship forcing its way towards the surface through the night sky. He imagined the dull pitted gray of the ship’s underbelly slowly began to turn a deep orange and then a white hot, as the ablative plating was slowly burnt away. That would need replacing, he sighed to himself. Safely nestled in the cockpit and buckled down into the acceleration couch, Fenix scanned the readings being thrown across his lenses and display screens. It was hot and stuffy in the cabin. The stale air being recycled continuously by the oxygenator did nothing to pull the rank smell of his unwashed body from the air. It had been weeks since he had been able to do anything more than cursory wipe down with antibacterial towels. He tortured himself once more with the thought of the bath he would take when this job was over, trying to calculate how much of his profit he could afford to spend on the water allowance needed for such a luxury. A small incessant chirping from his nearest display was demanding attention. As he pulled the screen closer, dragging his thumb across the small angry looking notification in the top most corner. A spew of data slid past his eyes, listing levels and temperatures in the various tanks and equipment throughout the ship. The rear starboard side fuel tank was reporting a slow loss in pressure again. Slightly worrying, but it had been reporting that for weeks now and nothing he did seemed to fix the issue. He had even resorted to shouting and threatening it but to no avail. He muted the warning and added it to the list of things to investigate when he was next able to afford a full service. The flight information for his current descent was running as a constant feed in his lenses. He absorbed most of the incoming information on a subconscious level while his main focus was fixed on the feed from the hull cameras. He scanned through the clouds and highlighted his destination, a small outcropping of islands off the south coast of England. He’d made this trip dozens of times now, and so far he'd had no major issues. Which somewhat troubled his superstitious mind. Too many good runs in a row was never a good sign. But then neither were too many bad runs, he mused. You couldn’t really call these things until something happened. But he had the feeling something was bound to catch up with him sooner rather than later. He could feel the fatigue of the past weeks starting to make itself felt, its delicate tendrils creeping into his mind and limbs. Whispering into his ear to sleep. He dialed in an order for the ship to administer his preferred concoction of stimulants and analgesics to fight off the need for rest. After a brief pause, two small capsules were spat out of the dispenser to his right, which he snached up and swallowed dry. As he waited for them to kick in, he checked and then rechecked his entry coordinates and those of his destination, making the habitual scan for the tell-tale pings that would indicate his craft was being monitored. Everything seemed to be in order. The overlapping satellites and sentry drones that monitored the upper atmosphere had the occasional hole appear in their coverage that he was able to take advantage of and slip through. Still, it was hard to hide a ship hurtling from the sky in a fireball of its own making. Smuggling was no one's first choice for work, but the pay was good and he was desperate. What made it slightly easier these days was the exponential increase of traffic to and from the colonies scattered across the edge of the solar system, who were exploiting the mineral rich asteroids of the outer belt. And exploiting them had become the new gold rush as companies and individuals fought to grab a share of the market. Fenix was just one more trying to make ends meet. The shaking reverberating through the ship had reached its peak. Fenix was almost unable to hear himself think over the noise of the interior rattling. Things began coming loose in the cabin. Photos had fallen and a number of his trinkets had been sent scattering across the small cramped space. It was coming up to his least favorite part of the reentry. He was waiting until the very last second to deploy his thrusters to slow the ship, as local authorities would be suspicious if their scans caught the sudden ignition of the engines anywhere over 1000 meters. He fired off a quick prayer to whatever deity was looking down on him this time and, a little under his target altitude, hit the thrusters. The couch swelled and cushioned his body as the forces on his fragile body multiplied while his organs tried to escape out of his throat. The ship slowed from its free fall descent and he switched to atmospheric flight. Short stubby wings angled out from the body of the hull allowing him to steer the craft towards a small cove below. Landing belly down in the slowly churning surf, the cold sea water rapidly cooled the ship’s battered and scorched plating. He unbuckled himself from the couch and stood unsteadily, having to stoop due to the confines of the interior. He peered out of the front view port to see a group of small boats making their way towards him from the beach. Their outboard motors kicking up white tails as they cut through the dark water. He caught his reflection in the port side window as he moved about the small space. He didn’t strike an imposing figure. Skinny and malnourished from his time spent in zero gravity environments. His coveralls hung from his body, sagging, in odd places as he hadn't been able to afford the full body modifications to fully adapt to long term space travel. His greasy black hair, which was swept back from his face revealed deep craggy lines across his forehead and cheeks, while the three week growth of scraggly beard did nothing to hide his hollow cheeks. It turns out a diet of narcotics and cheap coffee can only get you so far, he thought wryly to himself. “Oh well”, he said out loud, to the empty cabin. “Looks like this intrepid space traveler will have to do for now”. He reached up and unfasted the heavy locks holding the hatch closed and heaved himself up and out into the cold night air to meet the party coming to collect the contraband he had stashed in the hold.


Hi, I’m Dave. Cutting to the chase, the apocalypse happened and now I’m a zombie. I don’t really remember how it happened (memory tends to get a little hazy when there’s a hole in your skull), but I do know it was sudden, unexpected, and generally all the interesting stuff was over and done with pretty early. I was one of those people that always thought they’d make it to the end, y’know? Never occurred to me to think there isn’t an end cause it already happened. Those guys in their parents basement who had a hand-me-down pocket knife and watched every movie so thought they’d survive, find a base, get the girl, and ride off into the sunset. Yeah, kinda cringe with the benefit of undead hindsight. I mean, I didn’t even find a girl at all before getting bit! Well, there is this one girl, but we’ll get to that. Anyway, being dead isn’t all that bad. I’m not tired anymore, I don’t get hurt if I bump into the corner of a table, I get to travel a lot, and I have a bunch of new friends to hang out with. I don’t really know their names, but I could pick them out of a crowd. There’s Blue, I call him that because of his hoodie. Basically my best friend now, even if we can’t shoot the shit over beers or have game night. Really, he’s just been walking next to me for about half a year now. Cool dude. The only bad thing I really can think of is that I’m like, really hungry all the time. It doesn’t bother you, I guess, no pain remember, but you always remember it’s there, especially when you get a whiff of people. Don’t know how it works now since I don’t breathe, but I can smell people from like, half a mile away. I don’t really know how to describe it, but it’s kinda like smelling your favourite food from growing up multiplied by eleven. When we catch that smell, we all shrug over in that direction and keep up our usual pace. My favourite direction we go in is to the left, because when we do I can just catch a glimpse of Green. Green probably isn’t, or I guess wasn’t, her name, but I gotta make do and so I call her that from the blood stained T-shirt she has on. I’ve never seen her face completely, but I can tell from the still intact cheek I can see when we all turn she really is beautiful. The rot never really took her face, and her hair still has that small bit of graceful bounce it had when she was still alive. Every time we do turn left, and I can just steal a glance, Blue always notices and intentionally bumps his whole body into mine. I know he’s trying to get me to make a move because I can see his exposed facial muscles approximate a smirk. I never do though, always telling myself I should stay in my place so we can keep up. Damn, I wish I had the willpower to push through the crowd to see her. There’s times when the people we’re looking for find us first, those are the bad days. They gun down some of us, or lead us off into some other direction where we lose the scent, or we catch them and we all have a nice bite. Those are the good days. Contrary to what I thought when I was alive, and I guess what the living still think, we undead aren’t assholes. When we get someone down, we hand chunks around so that we all can at least get something. Of course the ones who made the kill get more but that’s understandable. Afterwards, we help the guy up if there’s enough of him left to walk and we welcome him like family. Green was one of those people, joined us about two months ago. I remember when she got back up, the whole crowd seemed to get a new spring in their step. We all kinda, y’know, felt a bit more alive I guess. Even now, we all seem to move at her pace. She is at the front of the crowd, so it makes sense, but nobody passes her or turns without her doing so first. She must have been a really influential person in life, a natural born and died leader. Just the other day, I guess Blue got fed up with my rottenness and haphazardly whacked me with the remnants of his arm. He then let out a noise that I guess was an attempt at encouragement and tilted his head forward. Since then, I’ve been working up the guts, or lack there of, to finally move up that measly five meters that may as well be a thousand miles with a wall in between. I’ve decided I’m gonna, I just don’t know what to do when I get up next to her. Say hi? Can’t, throats perforated. Hold her hand? Nope, seems needy. All I can do, and all I really want to do, is just see her face. Before I can even notice what I’m doing, my usual slow trudge picks up a bit of energy. Blue rasps out a death rattle that must have been a laugh. I press by Suit (some guy who must have been a businessman), by Richard (I could see his name tag on his torn shirt from behind), and manage to settle in a place just next to the most beautiful corpse in the world. If I still had the parts of my bladder needed, I’d probably be pissing myself with nervousness right now. I’m right next to the perfectly sculpted cheek I’ve been admiring from so close yet so far for months now, and I can see her eye and nose too are the kind you could only see on the covers of magazines. Green notices I’m next to her, and turns her neck with only a few muscles torn and I am truly in awe. Even with the other half of her face torn and shredded, she really had the face of a fallen angel. While all of us had dirt and grime caked to our flaking skin, soil seemed to retreat from the surfaces of her face, leaving only the pale porcelain skin exposed. Her hair which was obviously still taken care of after the apocalypse never seemed to go dark from decay and part of it partly concealed the devoured half of her visage. Even her teeth, though exposed to the harsh sun and biting wind from the hanging jawbone, still glinted like bloodstained pearls in the light. Green kept her haunting gaze at me. I have no idea what to do. I’m panicking. What do I say? Do I tell a joke? A pickup line? Wait, that’s right, I can’t. I know it’s corny, and honestly if I saw anyone else do it I’d roll my eyes right out of their sockets, but I reach up into my rib cage and pull out my heart. With a gesture, I hold it up for her to see, hoping I at least got my message across. She sees it. So far so good. She places her hand on my heart and presses it back and into my chest. Did I just get rejected? Did I fail? I never should have listened to Blue! Honestly, I’m just feeling a little defeated. I’m trying to slink back to my place next to Blue, head held low, but her grip on my hand doesn’t ease up. I look back up at her and she’s still looking at me. Her hand drops limply back to her side with mine still held. I’m probably the luckiest cadaver in the world right now, and I have no idea what I’m doing. Green looks back forward just as the scent of people washes over the crowd. We all lurch to the right as, hand in hand, I get to take Green to a dinner date.


In a cottage at the edge of town, an acclaimed artist awoke from sleep screaming. She had experienced an illusion shattering premonition in a dream. She had seen a vision foretelling what was ahead for the people. In the dream, she saw a great gathering of people looking adoringly at the King giving him their rapt attention and becoming increasingly agitated as he spoke. When he finished speaking, he raised his fist and pointed toward the iconic building where all laws of the land originated. The people were poisoned in their minds and hearts by the multitude of lies the King had told them during the last four years, which had resulted in a toxic ocean of fear and hate. in her dream, that toxicity was obvious and rampant amongst the people at the gathering . She awoke screaming because she had seen the horrible consequences of all those lies. The dream had culminated in violence and blood. Most of the people of the land were frightened about their future. Four years under the previously elected Executive’s rule had brought little to the tables of the common folk and a lot to the tables of the King, as he preferred to be called, and his minions. The King had a bad habit of lying about things both great and small. He had been lying to the people for so long that most of them had lost their ability, and in some cases, even their desire to discriminate between fact and fiction. When he was a business tycoon, the King had lied and once he gained political power through an election, his lying had taken on a greater scope. However, though frightened, the people followed him because he repeatedly told them that only he could fix everything that was broken. Fueled by their fears and desperation, they believed him and embraced his lies as truth. Greater problems arose when the time came for the King's reelection because a plague ravaged the land revealing flaws that needed to be addressed in the public health system. Sadly, these flaws were not addressed. The King declared with a wave of his hands that the pestilence would disappear magically. It didn’t. Many people died of the plague. In fact, most of the things he had promised to fix or build were not fixed or built by the end of his elected term, and he lost the  election to a fellow with lots of experience in sorting out problems in government. The King refused to acknowledge he had lost. He traveled around the land for two months prior to the Inauguration of the newly elected Executive gaining support for his biggest lies of all. The King claimed he had not lost the election. He had won. The election was stolen from him. He repeatedly pushed the story-trap of “us v. them.” Such a narrative had not ended well when that same story-trap had ensnared the people’s ancestors in ages past, but his followers had forgotten their own history. The King expanded his claim to overturn the results of the election through multiple court cases, which he lost. This infuriated him, so on the day the newly elected Executive was to be officially certified as the winner, the King called upon his supporters to gather one more time outside the Great House, home to the top elected official of the land. The invitation to the gathering went out two weeks in advance using the chit chat online option. Many people saw it and made their plans to come to this gathering that the King promised would be wild. The King was very excited about this gathering and wanted to have a majestic new suit of clothes to wear for the gathering. He decided to have a contest and sent out his minions to find fashion designers to enter the contest. “Design for the King! Win a prize!” This caused quite a stir among authentic designers, and others who wanted to try for the unnamed prize. Many designers came and went presenting drawings and obsequiously appealing to the King’s vanity, which was immense. All to no avail. The King was not pleased at all. The date of the gathering was drawing near. RSVPs were pouring in from all over the land. The King was becoming desperate and continuously obsessed over what he would wear to the gathering. Finally, one day, two young, enterprising designers well versed in the art of sycophancy, arrived at the Great House. They praised the King and complimented him assiduously while measuring him always proclaiming what a fine figure of a man he was. A few days later, they arrived with many boxes. They opened a box and described its contents of pants, shirt, jacket, amidst an ongoing patter about how fine these clothes would look on him, making him more handsome than ever and thus more believable than ever. Grinning with anticipation, the King stood ready. The designers shooed everyone else from the room, and they dressed the King. He stood proudly in his new clothes. Various Great House workers were brought in one at a time to view the King in his new attire. Because they desired to please him and not incur his wrath, they all said how fine he looked in his new attire. The King was delighted. So, he finally looked in his special mirror, which always reflected what he wanted to see not reality, and so he saw what he wanted to see, himself dressed in splendid attire. Yet, he had a nagging feeling that something was missing. “Where’s my tie?” growled the King. “Right here,” bespoke one of the designers and brought forth from his pocket a bright red tie which he looped around the King’s neck and stepped back. “Ah, perfect!” exclaimed the King, patting the tie. Meanwhile, after awakening from her dream, the acclaimed artist felt obligated to warn the people about her premonition, whether they believed her warning, or not, she had to try. She was an intuitive but admittedly didn’t always know how something would actually play out in real time. Nevertheless, she felt it was urgent for the health and well-being of the people that she try to warn them. There were three days left before the gathering at the Great House was scheduled to happen. She spent the first day furiously painting words on multiple large cardboards that said such things as:         -THE TRUTH SHALL SET YOU FREE!         -WHEN YOU ARE FREE TO SEE TRUTH, YOU WILL REJECT LIES. -AFTER REJECTING LIES, YOU WILL SING AND DANCE AND BE THE BEST YOU CAN BE…ALL OF YOU! -BE KIND. -LOVE EACH OTHER. -CARE FOR EACH OTHER. -LOVE LIGHTS THE WAY TO TRUTH. Around midnight, she fell into a deep and dreamless sleep. On the second day, she mounted the cardboards on the outside of her retired school bus that she used for her traveling art shows. She drove all around the neighborhoods surrounding the Great House. The ever-alert journalists that covered the Great House filmed clips and the clips began to attract attention on the nightly news shows, especially the late-night comedians. On the third day before the gathering, she was interviewed on national television by a well-known cable news journalist. The journalist asked her why she was sending out her message. She patiently told the story of her dream and the premonition of violence resulting from the continued lies from the King. She said she felt it was her duty as a citizen to warn the people. Most people thought she was a religious or political crackpot and ignored the warning. In reality, she was neither. She was simply a citizen who cared about Truth. The last words she uttered in the interview were, “Change is coming. I do not claim to know what form it will take. I do know that in my dream there was blood and violence.” Then, the network producers abruptly ended her interview with a disclaimer on a black screen disavowing endorsement of the content of the interview. The Great House staff issued a statement saying the artist was in the hospital being treated for mental instability. This was a lie. The word on the street was, “Ah, just another crazy artist.” The people who had been planning to go to the gathering ignored the warning and went. More people also went who were intrigued by the warning, even if they didn’t actually believe in it. In the end, attendance in-person at the gathering the next day tripled what was expected. Men, women, and children streamed into the park near the Great House, where the gathering was taking place. Most were excited to see the King’s new attire which had been publicized by the Great House media team for a week before the gathering. Media coverage was massive and millions tuned it to watch. The day of the gathering began with a military parade escorting the becloaked King to the stage where the microphone awaited him. He had declined a podium because he wanted his new attire to be in full view of the people. The King waved, and then with great drama, shed his cloak to show off his newly designed attire. He preened before the crowd. Everyone clapped. That is, all except one child who stared and stared without clapping, even when her mother nudged her to do so. She just continued to stare at the King. Then, the King stepped up to the microphone to speak. The crowd quieted in anticipation. From the back of the crowd, the acclaimed artist watched in horror as the familiar shower of lies was again presented as facts. The King vociferously claimed, “Only I can save you from the perils posed by the forces against me, which means anyone who isn’t with me. Are you with me?” The crowd roared with glee. He continued, “I really won the recent election, not the other fellow. There was massive voter fraud. The election was stolen. I am your true King and always will be.” The crowd roared again with glee. At this point in his speech, the King paused to take a sip of water with both hands from a filled glass on a small nearby table. The crowd was silent, waiting for him to continue when suddenly a child’s voice rose into the air. “Look, Mommy, the King has nothing on but that red tie! He looks so funny…” the child said and exploded into a fit of giggles. The child’s giggles started a chain reaction in the crowd. Laughter rippled through the crowd and as the laughter spread from person to person, that laughter opened the people’s eyes and hearts, and they saw the truth. Their king was standing naked on the stage but for the red tie. The King didn’t know why they were laughing since he thought laughter wasn’t warranted given the beauty of his new attire and the beauty of himself. Thus, the laughter angered him. He slammed down the glass of water and raised his hand in the power salute all knew only too well. He started to speak but before he could utter another word, he began to sputter and gag, choking uncontrollably. He grabbed at his tie as if it were a lifeline, but the gagging only got worse. Many people thought he was just trying to be funny, as he sometimes did, and laughed louder to show their appreciation of his joke. However, each laugh only meant more people were awakened to see the truth that the King was naked. Greater laughter rose from the crowd. With each laughing voice, the King’s gagging grew worse. Minions rushed onto the stage to try to help, but he waved them off. Seconds passed. They stood and watched along with all the people at the gathering and those watching everywhere on media as the King turned shades of blue and then a deep royal purple and keeled over face first onto the stage. Dead. From her vantage point in the crowd, the acclaimed artist who had heeded her premonition and tried to warn the people, smiled. She understood immediately. The King had choked on his own lies fueled by the words of truth spoken by a child and the people’s laughter. She was grateful that her premonition of violence and blood had not come to be that day; the Light of Truth had been rekindled. She turned and left the gathering. Pandemonium broke loose in her wake. Each giggle, chortle, and laugh escaping the lips of the people was now accompanied by shouts and mutterings from the people as their awakening progressed, and they emerged from the illusory web of the King’s lies that had entrapped them for years. Now, he who was once their king lay naked and dead on the stage before the eyes of the world. Myth-makers, corrupted politicians, and Great House doctors tried to spin what happened by saying the King had choked on water, but that last big lie didn’t take hold in the minds of the people. Everyone knew he died choking on his many lies when his nakedness was revealed by a child. Everyone knew the people’s hearts and minds had opened to truth that day when they had laughed together as one at the naked King in his red tie. Laughter opened the way for the Light of Truth to shine, and shine it did on and on and on.