Somewhere, in the vast Acathian deserts, where men go crazy under the screaming sun, lays the forgotten city of Cal’Haldron, sifting through the golden dunes, lost in time. Under the constant erosion from the waves of sand and the blazing wind, the cyclopean city had fallen into a state of decay as it descended further into new layers of fine glitter. But intriguingly enough, no matter how ancient, how fragile the crumbling city was, there seemed to be a wisp of force holding onto it. A force just barely strong enough to encase the city in unalterable time, keeping it’s destruction at bay, as if it were a wounded kraken, waiting to reemerge from the depths once the perfect storm has been brewed. Occasionally, when the heat is high enough and the season is right, the eastern winds pick up, conjuring flash sand storms that whip hard enough to rip through the hides of a desert beast. And ironically, the destruction of such a volatile sandstorm will bring about a new different perspective in the bleakness, changing the surfaces of the sand, transforming the face of the desert. As these flash storms being to slow down, settling the dust in the air, if there is a right amount of trembling at an exact rhythm from the earth below, the marble tips of Cal’Haldron will begin to resurface, catching a quick breath of fresh air from the cleansing skies, and all those in its vicinity will be lucky enough to at most glance at it for a few moments before losing it again to the sands. Many men, both gallant and tough, have ventured into the deserts of Acathia, and marched through the long days and the brief nights, in search of the whereabouts of Hal’Caldron. They had hoped to not only be the first men to uncover the sandstone pillars last touched by those from generations beyond, but also to be the men who uncovered this treasure of fame and glory that awaited for the first. Many men, both craven and fragile, have strayed far from their journey’s route, and lumbered through the long nights and the brief days, in search of the nearest signs of civilization. They had hoped to not only avoid being the men who forgot their names and lost their sanity, but also to avoid being the men who got covered in this wasteland of dust and wind that was indifferent to them. However, neither the gallant or craven, nor the tough or the fragile, achieved the goals they had originally set out for, with many concluding without beating hearts. Those who were unfortunate enough, succumbed to the rash cuts of the sand in the wind, and withered under the scorching sun. While most of those without the intentions of trespassing were eventually retrieved by other travelers, and those of the opposite circumstance were forever consumed by the shifting waves. Often, at the back of the tavern in a nearby desert outpost, amongst the drunken men and beyond the whores out looking for pieces of silver to earn, gathers all left in the tavern that can still pronounce their names properly. And in the center of the crowd, usually sits a survivor who has seen the dark grasps of the endless desert, accounting his perilous tale out beyond where knowledge knows. He will talk about his week long struggle to cling onto his own very life, and the crowd will murmur in awe. He will recall the last few gasps of air he takes before waking up in the rescue of a caravan, and the crowd will sigh in relief. And finally, he will describe the sight in the distance he saw in which he firmly believes was the lost city of Cal’Haldron, earning the disbelief and the attention of those who still bother to pay attention. While many men claim to have seen the white marble of Cal’Haldron off in the distance, and many more claiming to have spot a glimmering light off into the distance where no civilization lies, none could ever certify their claims with any firm evidence. But the arbitrary events of an unlucky, but well-built sheep farmer travelling to sell his stock in the capital to the west landed him in the wrong place at just the right time. Without a proper map due to his negligence the farmer strayed off his journey’s course, and found himself trudging in the sands through the long days and the brief nights. He felt the heat rise beyond its usual bounds, and witnessed the brewing of a flash sandstorm. Barely making it to the cover of a nearby plateau, and just whisking his life away from the death grasp of the cutting winds, he set tent in hopes to outlast the winds of the east. But no sooner had the winds begin to drop, did his unfortunate soul run into a seasonal earthquake that shook the plateau from below. And as he scrambled out of the falling cliffs and dodged through the rising rocks, he mistook one step and fell sideways and down into the shifting dunes. But when he came to a halt at the bottom of the dune, he no longer felt the heat on his neck, and the shaking from beneath had stopped. Slowly, carefully, he looked up, and found himself, at the gates, of Cal’Haldron. As the sand seethed through the cracks in the stone, and while the pillars began to slightly crumble under its own weight, the sheep farmer, so inquisitively, lifted himself up, leveling with a sculptured jackal. Lifting a hand up close to the jackal’s face, and as if drawn to it, he reached out instinctively, and touched it. The beige sandstone and the smooth surfaces seemed to distract his attention from the menacing glare and the sharpened teeth of the statue, as if it simultaneously welcomed and warded off the city to strangers seeking its fortune. The round edges of the jackal were the roughest, and the cornered sides were the smoothest. The sandstone that stood guard under direct sunlight felt cool and calm, but the base and neck of the jackal that remained in the shadows radiated with heat and energy. He could feel the integrity of the inanimate stone and its foundation; he could feel the life that swirled within the sculpture, within the city. Oblivious to his surroundings and current predicament, the sheep farmer, mesmerized by the energy and force that he felt within the lost city, detached from the statue, delved into the citadel that loomed over him. The bright sun that warmed both sand and stone around him glimmered off the golden arches, reflecting off the still settling sand, sparkling in his nearby vicinity. The silent alleyways that were strung across the city in no organized matter gave off a mysterious aura that lured his mind and body in, leading him through a string of abandoned sectors of the city that lay barren. As he exited the outskirts of the massive city and entered the inner rings, giant monuments that worship the old forgotten gods towered over him, casting long shadows that stretched further than expected. The hollowness of the parade ground before him looked a bit darker than it had from afar, and suddenly a cool breeze swept across the field, prompting the farmer to tug tighter on his robes, so he urged on further into the depths of the city center. At the end of the opposite field, cemented firmly into the ground, was a large temple built with blackened sandstone that featured obsidian figurines that seemed to keep a constant watch on the farmer. By then, there had been a noticeable change in the atmosphere that shrouded the sheep farmer. While the sun still stood bright directly overhead, he no longer felt any warmth from it. The winds that orchestrated the desert did not pick to even the slightest whisper, and the sand that had originally struck bright with its golden light were now a few shades darker, absorbing the brightness around it. Though the farmer began to feel the corrupting power that rose from beneath the ground, he no longer had the ability to muster his will and head back out of the darkness. Compelled by the bleak energy, he trudged, one step, at a time, up the stair of the ziggurat, and at the top of it was a set of trapdoors that slid open without command, revealing a dark descent into what lies beneath. On his very first step down into a crypt of insanity, the farmer, aware of his vulnerable mortality towards the malevolent energy but incapable of doing anything about it, was overwhelmed almost instantaneously by everything all at once. His past, present, and future flooded his memories. He felt afraid, confident, ecstatic, depressed, all at once. Every single bit of movement in the entire city was relayed through his head, every tick of sound that crept in the city rang in his ear, and every ray of light which shone in the city blinded his eyes. And within a second, all the chaos around and within the farmer ended, and the void of the temple opened itself up, consuming the collapsed farmer into its abyss. When he came around to his senses, the farmer found himself in a cavernous room with pillars supporting the slanted ceiling. The trapdoor above had long ceiled itself off, and the stairway leading down had retracted back into the walls. As he tried to lift himself up, he found himself unable to do so. His limbs were immobilized by an unknown force, and his soul was shackled to the energy that filled the room. Like the harbinger of insanity, time dripped into the farmer’s mind. Slowly, it drained into his pristine chalice of mental state, corrupting him while he gripped at what left of his clear thoughts he still had. Dazed with his back leaned against a marble pillar, he couldn’t rid of the clamorous silence that wouldn’t stop buzzing at his hears, and would regularly release a feeble whimper of pain and struggle. And it what could have been an eternity, the calmness that drove the farmer mad was disturbed by a rising tremble, breaking the silence and the stillness in the room. Out of the peripheral vision in his fading vision, he saw the swirling of physical energy that came together and formed a vague humanoid being off in the distance. Fear forcibly struck through his heart, the farmer, with his last bit of personal will, called out and questioned his own sanity whether he was seeing things or not. The figure, upon hearing his sound, dispersed into the air, and the farmer suddenly encountered a steadily rising feeling of anger and hatred. Without anymore will nor life, under the corruption and control of a split mind, he closed his eyes for the last time, and in the distance he heard the rumble from the ground. “Your time is up, farmer, but mine is about to begin.


“Everything is changing, I really mean it this time.” She was looking at me with that spark in her eyes she always had when she assumed a new persona. This time, it was some sort of 80’s glam metal retro look. She’d grown out her hair like Bon Jovi and started wearing a ratty torn-up white muscle shirt that showed off those goddamn biceps I could never break free from.

“From now on, everything will be about you, babe,” She had a pleading, hopeful tone to her voice. She really believed in herself. Then again, she always did. I just smiled and looked away, thinking about how many times she’d said that. all superstars are like that I suppose. Always changing, adapting, evolving. I think the one thing that never changes is that they never stay the same.

“You mean everything, Ava?” “I’m past giving up on you. I need you more than anything, and I’m not throwing our love away this time. Please baby,” She reached in to grab my hand, her rough calloused fingers weaving their way around mine. “Stay with me.” Damn it, why is she so good at this? I fall for it every time, but god when she talks like that, it’s like I can see her heart. I can feel how genuine she is, and all I want is to reach in and touch her again. It’s like I’m her fucking dog, always coming back whenever she says my name. But I just can't help it. Jesus Christ, if she were an ocean, I’d drown in her every day she graced the shore.

“I’ve never left,” I bit my lip, my stomach filling with the nervous pit it always did when I came back to her. At this point, it's more fear than excitement. But still, I hope. Still, I feel like she’s changed this time, that she's gonna make good this time. Her blue eyes spark even brighter, and she shone that smile that consumed your entire being in a flood of euphoria.

“You’ve always known how to make me the happiest girl on earth,” she said, practically wrapping my heart in linen lace, and binding me even closer to her. “You’d better get out there,” I told her. “They're expecting you” She fell into a nervous frenzy as she looked down at the watch on her wrist. “Shit! Your right,” she grabbed the letterman jacket she had laying on her table and ran over to give me a deep, intense kiss before pulling back. “I love you more than anything, Cathy” “I know you do, sweetheart,” I said with a laugh, “I know you do.” She lingered in the doorway for a second, doing a quick scan of me before smiling and running out to the soundcheck.

What the hell did I just rope myself into? Sure, those flirty little expressions of hers are fun now, but things will just fall apart. They always somehow fall apart again. I walk over to the little mini fridge in the corner of the room and look inside. There are a couple of bottles of chardonnay that probably cost a couple hundred a pop. I find a glass in a cupboard in the room, and sit back down on the leather couch that I was on earlier She used to drink shit like this all the time. When she had first gotten big, she’d wear these nice, tailored suits. She’d slick back her hair, and go for a real refined butch look. Even on stage, she’d be sipping chardonnay from an ornate crystal glass, which she’d keep perched on the piano.

That was the first time she’d cheated on me. To be fair, she had no idea how to handle all the stress of actually keeping up with her image. She was refined on stage, but behind the scenes, she was falling apart. Backstage, she didn’t even bother with the chardonnay, just downing vodka and popping Adderall to try and calm and energize herself, desperately looking for some sort of balance. And so I guess when the piano player tried to reach out to her, and bring her out of that solitude, it was only natural to start spiraling into more intimate ways of comforting each other.

It was the piano player who told me the morning after. She was a pretty decent girl, after all. She felt I deserved to know how big of a mistake they’d made, and she was right of course. So I called up Ava and told her I knew. We came to a pretty quick agreement that the relationship wasn’t going to be able to function anymore. So we broke up She had a few phases while we were apart that first time. It was the longest we’d stayed broken up, so I honestly forget some of what they were. I think at one point she wore a lot of leather and had a lot of neon lights, and she might have gone steampunk for a bit too. But I remember what she looked like when she showed up at my door for the first time in close to a year and a half. She had on skinny jeans and a simple white blouse. Her hair was grown out long, and she’d done a full face of makeup. Honestly, she looked straight, which was a little strange to see. She said that she just wasn’t happy without me. All she wanted was to come back to me, to be mine plain and simple. She’d said something pretty similar to what she’d said tonight. That from now on, it would all be for me. Every song, album, and concert would all be to me. And after almost an hour and a half, I said yes.

That same cycle would keep repeating for years. She’d cheat on me, we’d break up, then get back together again.

I came back to the comfortable leather couch I sat on, the sweet cold taste of the wine rolling into my throat. There’s a feeling. It’s not quite a high, more of a deep contentment, that comes whenever I’m around Ava. When she’s there, every emotion stills. It feels like everything will be alright, like there's this equilibrium. But then she leaves, and you realize how unbalanced being around her is. Maybe it’s something in her cologne, or some way she moves, but she lulls me into a trance. And once she’s left, the hallucination rots away, showing the beautiful decadent world she put me into is built on garbage and rats. I get this sort of pit in my stomach, the realization that I put my all into her again, and that I'm left empty once she’s gone. I put the wine back down on the table with a sigh. I shouldn’t do this again. I’ve been through it enough to know what to expect. I’ve lost money, health, and friends on loving Ava. I need to stop it now before things get bad again. I need to start making choices that sting again, so I can do what's right for both of us. The right thing to do right now would be to leave. To block and erase her number and never see her again. Build a life somewhere else, find someone who can stay devoted to me, and focus on building a life that isn’t centered on someone else. It’s wrong for me to only feel fulfilled, to only have equilibrium when she’s near me.

Instead, I get up to go watch her. I don’t want to hurt her, so she at least deserves to hear from me that I can’t stay. After all, I need to be firm and rational, not cruel and cold. And I might as well watch her perform one last time, and enjoy being near her for just a bit longer. It’s not always heartache and pain. I make it to the front row just as the lights go down. People start cheering, and it's a big crowd. They fill out the entire 2000 seats of the theater. A voice starts to introduce the band, and then the lights turn on, illuminating them as they start in on one of their new songs, hard and fast. She’s at the front jumping and singing energetically into the mic. Then after minutes of build-up, she starts into an intense guitar solo, her fingers moving swiftly and deftly across her fender like it’s the natural thing for her to do. The song finally ends with a crash, and the crowd erupts again. She takes a minute to bask in the applause, her arms raised in triumph, that ensnaring smile plastered on her face. She egg’s them on, waving her arms to ask for more when the cheering lulls, greeted with an even louder cacophony of screaming. She’s a performer, after all, it's only natural that she’s good at this, at turning the entire room on. She gets back closer to the mic again and says: “Thank you! I love you all so, so much. But I want to take a little break, and dedicate this next one to my beautiful, kind, long-suffering girlfriend. It’s a slower song, tell me if y’all know High Enough by Damn Yankees”

A few scattered bits of cheering came from the audience as one of her bandmates starts in on a soft melody on an acoustic guitar. She starts singing, with her eyes closed and the mic next to her face like it's something holy. God damn, this is going to hurt like hell. I try to distract myself every time she looks towards me in the stands. I awkwardly try to avoid eye contact, looking at anything else other than her. But my heart drops when the music does because I know what's coming.

“ Don’t say goodnight, say your gonna stay forever…” her voice drops into an emotional quiver at that last part, and I can’t help but look back up at her. She’s staring right at me, and there's this horrific shining in her glistening blue eyes as she starts in on her guitar. “ Can you take me high enough? To fly me over, yesterday…” She starts in on the chorus, and it physically pains me to feel how much I still love her, each note sending daggers down my spine. I can’t do this again, I can’t let it happen again. She’s too inconsistent. She only relies on emotion, that's the reason I can't break free from her. I can't give in tonight, or we’ll never break this god-forsaken cycle. “ Can you take me high enough? ” it’s that second high note that unravels me. It’s such a pure, unfiltered feeling in her voice that she almost sends us all into tears. I look at her, and I don’t see any of the trouble from the past. All I see is the dorky girl I fell for all those years ago, who smoked too much and played music like the gods delivered it to her. And it was then I knew. She was the Phantom to my Christine, capturing me again in her song, leading me back down into the catacombs of our love. There was no way I could escape from her. Frankly, I didn’t know that I wanted to leave. Change can be great sometimes. But some things can never change.


I died yesterday. A bus hit me. I didn't see it. I was rushing to make it for my mother in law's birthday dinner. My family was waiting for me. My wife and two children. The driver did nothing wrong. She was not driving any faster, didn't go over a crosswalk. I must have jumped in front of her bus out of nowhere. I don't remember. The irony was that the dinner was not even ready. Nobody was anxiously waiting for me. Nobody rang on my phone. It was me that was rushing. The bus hit me on my right side. It broke most of my ribs, my legs and hit my head hard. I was bleeding in pain and agony. So many thoughts, so many moments. So many missed opportunities. The moment this happens, you think about everything that life prepares you for. And this is not part of it. Schools don't teach us how to die. Neither churches or mosques. Nobody talks about death. And it always comes as a surprise. It's the biggest surprise of them all. And it sucks. As I was trying to figure out if somebody is going to help me, one figure approached very close to me, rushing. Picked me up and started talking to me. "Can you hear me?", the person asked. I couldn't answer. My words were forming but I couldn't say them. The figure was a man, 50 or something, grey hair, strong grasp. He caught and pulled me onto the pavement. "Take it easy, an ambulance is coming", he said. People started to gather around. I slowly raised my head to see the point of the impact. There was a blood stain on the asphalt. And the front of the bus was damaged. “Is my head that strong?”. "How many fingers do you see?", the guy asked me. "Four", I tried to answer. "You see, you are doing much better", he said. "Can you try to stand up now?" I couldn't stand up. I tried to move my legs but nothing. "I cannot. Can you please call my wife", I said to the person as the air was becoming colder. "What is her number?", he asked politely. "Reach to my pocket for my phone.. I don't.. remember", I said. He took my phone. Used my finger to get in and called my wife. "Hi. This is Smoke...", he introduced and explained to her what happened. He was quite calm. He told her to come to the ER and did his best to comfort her. Who was this guy? "All good? Stay lying there.. things are gonna get better for you now.", he said. "How do you know this?", I asked. "Things always get better, don't they?", he laughed and looked towards the street. "Well not for me I guess...", I said. The pain was growing. My breath was getting slower. "Things become harder right before they get easier.", he laughed. I looked at him for a bit. He was very happy with what he was doing. "Why do you do this?", I asked. "Because we are humans and humans help each other." "Looks like you are the only one wanting to help me", I said. "I am the one that really cares, true.", he said. "But why do you care?", I asked with curiosity. He grasped over my body stronger and sat on the pavement right next to me. "Here, lay here over me, it's softer..", he said. “Don’t move your head…”. I was there. Lying on the pavement with a stranger that wanted to apparently help me. "Maybe he is an imposter? Maybe he is taking advantage of the situation and then will do something to my family?", I started thinking. "Sir, when did my wife say will come here?", I asked. "Don't worry about it, she will arrive soon...". "But sir, who are you?", I asked. "I am here to help you, don't worry.. take it easy..", he said calmly. "Well in case something happens, can you tell me who you are, for better or for worse... just in case?", I asked. "Sure, my name is Smoke. I live on the same address where you live, if all this goes well, you will find me there", he said. "Same address as me?", I asked surprised. I have never seen this person. And if I know something really good, that is my neighborhood. This guy is definitely an imposter. "What building and floor are you living on?", I asked him. He stood there quiet, still taking care of me. Still holding me not make anything stupid. "You make this more difficult for everyone, why don't you relax?", he said. "Relax?", I managed to push his hand off of my chest. "Please tell me who you are?". Smoke put his hand on his knee. "Well I am everyone you know and everything you do. All your experiences and all your knowledge. I am your mind.", he said. "I am here to make things easier for you". "This is nonsense.. to make *what* things easier?", I asked confused. "You are dying. I am your mind that presents to you as a person in an attempt to survive. We know how to interact with human beings the best. As you are dying, I am running out of ideas on how to help you, so I thought talking to someone will be easier for you...". "I am dying?", I said scared. "Come on.. isn't it obvious?", Smoke said. I raised my head again and saw an ambulance coming. The group of curious people was being broken down by the medics and the police. A body was lying in front of the bus, not moving. "Oh my god, I am dying...". My breath became fast. My thoughts became fogged, my vision turned blurry. "Help me... I am choking...", I told Smoke. "So what?", he answered nonchalantly. "I will die....", I said.. "Not more than you will die anyway", he answered. At that moment all of my fear turned into peace. All of my panic and anxiety turned into a feeling of calmness. The death destroyed all of my fears. The words of Smoke made it clear. This is happening. There is no need to be afraid. The fear will not make it stop. It's inevitable. "So why did my brain create you?", I asked. "You know when people say that when you die, you see your whole life in front of your eyes? Well that's not quite true. You see the things you choose to see. To re-experience. Your mind will go through its knowledge and memories seeking for a way to survive. The last drop of hope for it to help you. In your case, it worked wonders. It created me. So I am here now to bring you there, to your safe place.", Smoke explained. "And what is my safe place?", I asked shocked. "Your experience that you want to make through one more time before the curtains shut. Your mind is a great organ. It's unique that it can act upon your perception of time. If you choose to have your past 20 years be your safe place, your mind will make it look as if it's yet another life-time. Then you will live again those years. If you choose to have the last time you ate an ice-cream as your last experience, it's gonna be made into a complete life-time. It's like a first-class treatment from your mind. It's a classy way to say goodbye. I stood silent. I was not sure where I was. "Did you even call my wife?", I asked. "No. That was all in your head. A death-dream.", he said. "She doesn't know I will die?" "No. She doesn't. That's for the better of all I guess.". "So.. what's gonna be?", Smoke asked. "What's gonna be what?", I said. "What's your safe place?", he asked again. Things were calm. My breath was calm. I could feel its rhythm in sync with my heart beat. They were both slow. Getting even slower. I didn't try to avoid anything. Any thought that scared me. That made me sad, angry or even happy. I let it be. All I was thinking of was my family. My two angel children and my lioness wife. I wanted to see them again. "Can I mix experiences?", I asked Smoke. "You can. But not from your whole life. You can pick two experiences and I will do my best.", he answered. "My life was really great. It was complete with people and possessions. It was incomplete with time", I started. "All the way through it, I was always looking for more or less time. I was rushing to get there. I was always late. If not, I was about to be late. I was chasing situations to happen so that I can start living. I never started living now. I was waiting for 'it' to happen. And that caused lots of anxiety and stress. Made me feel scared and sad. But now things make so much sense. The fears are no more, the expectations are gone. That amount of calmness and peace was to be found only on one more place in my life: my grandma's home in summer. If I ever want to experience something again is that calmness, together with my family. I choose my safe place to be that house, in the beginning of June, where the grown-up me will go together with my wife and my kids. And my grandparents will be there and my uncle too. They will see us park our car and they will come at the front door to greet us. Then I will hug them. Feel the smell of theirs. Feel their warmth. Then I will introduce them to my family. "This is my wife, I really love. These are my children, mischiefing little piglets" I will say. They will all hug and kiss. Then we'll go inside and the smell of yogurt and cucumber mixed with freshly chopped garlic will fill in our nostrils. Kids will ask what that nice smell is. I will explain. I will give them to try the food. Then once we finish the main meal, we'll have our desert. A nice smelling watermelon. I will pick it up from the cellar. Then bring it to the table. Then we'll eat it and tell lots of jokes. The feeling would be complete, nothing more would be needed other than that small house with a small room that can suit 10 people or so. And those people inside. Then we'll announce rest-time and go upstairs to take some noon naps. The cushions will be cold and soft. The summer covers will be silky. The smell will be a mixture of the smell of old books and old furniture. After an hour we will wake up and go down to the yard. Hot summer. My grandma will be laughing seeing us. My grandpa will ask me to bring him water from the yard-fountain. Then we will sit under the house's shadow until the sun falls down. The kids will be playing in the yard, we will be talking, drinking coffee and eating my grandma's sweets. And this will be everything that we will be doing for one whole summer. Then when the summer ends, we will go. We will say our goodbyes and the hopes that we will meet again somewhere sometime. But if we don't then we can make ourselves, each-other, live into our thoughts. The one that will survive the last will carry that burden of the memory. Right before the summer ends, I will go and kiss my kids, hug them and say a few words as life advice. Then I will go and lay down my wife's lap and fall asleep there as she will be touching through my hair. It'd be the safest place for me to come to the end of the summer. And that will be my safe-place.", I said. "Ok. You got that right. That is your safe place. That is where you will wake up tomorrow. Was very interesting to be your mind, by the way. You were always onto something... and I really enjoyed your reactiveness your whole life. You could have lived a bit more, for sure, but what you lived is something many others cannot live for 100 more years. So be calm. Now close your eyes. Let your breath rest....that's it...", said Smoke. The noises disappeared. The voices went silent. A heavy curtain fell. The darkness overtook. The next morning started just like any other morning. "Are you ready?", I asked my kids. "Ready for what?", my son asked. "To meet your grand-grand parents and my uncle", I said. "We do it today? We are going there today?", my daughter asked excitedly. "Yes, we are going to visit them today. And you know what? We will stay there the whole summer”, I said. "Yeey, daddy that is so amazing!", they both exclaimed. We took the car to their house. As we approached the small street things started getting really heavy. I haven't been there for some time. We came close to my grandma's house. Then right in front of the front-door of their house. I honked. Then I started parking the car. My grandma, grandpa and uncle came in front of the door. They were cheerful and smiling. Super excited. We got out of the car. Locked it and went to them. I hugged them very strongly. All three of them. "I missed you so much", I said as tears rolled down my face. "How's it been?" "This is my wife I really love. These are my children, mischiefing little piglets", I said. All of them hugged there for a while. Then we all went inside. "This summer is going to be amazing", I thought.


(WP) Old Habits Die Hard You’re about to end it all when you are interrupted by a quiet knock on the door. The cold, silken weight of the firearm leaves your mouth, and you set it on the immaculate countertop. “I’m sorry, old friend, but you’ll have to wait for a little longer. It appears I have a guest.” The monster inside the weapon hisses, cackling with cold laughter. *Very well. I’ve waited this long; what’s a few minutes more?* Ignoring the triumph in its voice, you walk to the door, peering into the peephole. All you see is a cloud of bright, kinky curls, the color of a pink blush sunset. You open the door, frowning. “What are you doing here? I told you to stay away, far away!” “I’m worried about you,” Callie replies, pushing past you into the apartment, her dark eyes probing, searching for something, and frustration blooms in your chest, climbing up into your throat, threatening to cut off your next words. “I already told you, Callie, this isn’t your business—” “Bullshit it isn’t, Nolan! You can’t do this. You’re not all bad. We all have monsters inside of us—” “God damn it, Callie, this isn’t some philosophical discussion or a metaphor! *My* monster is something real. I’ve hurt people at its behest. And I can’t do it anymore. I’d rather be dead than to hurt someone else, accidentally or on purpose!” Your voice breaks on the last word, and your eyes sting; the room bows and sways, and you can’t help wishing that you’d bought some nice liquor for the occasion. You don’t understand why Callie is trying to talk you out of this; she barely knows you, in the first place. “I’m done, Callie. I can’t do it anymore.” “Nolan, please—” The spirit inside of the gun finally flows out of the weapon in a gout of sulfur-scented smoke, taking the form of a person with a bright, bloody red smile. *Foolish girl,* it sneers, swelling before her, almost preening in front of her. *This child has belonged to me before he even left his mother’s womb. And you think* you *can save him from his fate?* Its laughter echoes throughout the room, derisive and inescapable. “Nolan can make his own destiny!” Callie cries out, and you shake your head; you never wanted anyone involved in this, least of all a barista you made the mistake of confiding in one rainy day. “Please, Callie, I promise you, it would be better if you just left. And I could end it all. It’s safer for everyone that way.” “I’m not leaving you, Nolan, I already told you that! Please, don’t do this!” She grabs the front of your T-shirt, fingers twisted into the fabric like claws. But you don’t have a choice, regardless of Callie’s friendship. Every bone in your body is screaming with fatigue, desperate for release. You’re so exhausted, so tired of fighting for every ounce of control.


A caressing spring breeze carried the sweet aroma of the short-lived wisteria bloom through the garden patio in soft wafts, mingling with the scents of lavender and thyme and rose petal. Hummingbirds zipped in and out, flashing their red or blue or green bellies. The buzz of their tiny wings passing in loping drones over the distant laughter of children playing in the park. I sat in the cool dappled shade of the great oak, taking in deep breaths of the perfect spring day. The cubes in my iced tea tinkled against the glass like frozen raindrops as I sipped.

“Aaaaaahh!” I raised an eyebrow and turned an ear when I heard the child shriek with rage from the other side of the fence. She sounded like she was about four or five. The guardian sounded like either a young mother or an older babysitter. The child wailed; I could almost hear her fists beating against her guardian. “Give it to me! Give it to me,” the kid screamed and wailed again. “I don’t know what to tell you, honey.” “Give it to me!” the child's wail turned to a high-pitched peal.

“I don’t have it,” the guardian calmy assured. The child screamed again. “You’re lying!” “I promise. I’m not lying.” “Yes, you are! Give me forty million dollars!”

The guardian wasn’t chuckling, exactly. But I could hear her smile. “I don’t have forty million dollars.” A shriek of frustration. “Give me forty million dollars!” “Why do you think I have forty million dollars?” “Give me forty million dollars!” This time the guardian couldn’t help but chuckle, fueling the child’s rage. “Why do you need forty million dollars?” The child answered between choking sobs. “I have… to buy… things.” The guardian laughed. “What do you have to buy?” “I have to buy movies.”

“What if I buy you a movie?” The child audibly shuddered as she let the last of her cries subside. “O… k…” I finally let out a laugh. I had been holding it in even though there was no way anyone would have heard me over the child’s screams. I don’t know if the guardian heard me or not, but she laughed as well.

Martha and I sat in the den that evening, laughing for the half-a-dozenth time since I had told her the story of the forty-million-dollar kid.

She snorted, slapped her knee and shook her head. “Where do you think she even heard the phrase forty million dollars ?” “Probably from her parents.” She rolled her eyes. “Oh, yeah? Think we’ve got a lot of multi-millionaires in the neighborhood?” I shrugged and nodded in agreement. “Yeah, probably not. it's a good number, though.” “Maybe her babysitter really did have forty million dollars.” “I hear it’s a lucrative gig.” I turned to her. “You used to babysit. What did you get, two million a kid? Little more?” She snorted again and slapped at the air, only because I was out of reach and put on her little playful smile that I loved so much, her adorable dimples deepening “That was a long time ago. We didn’t get quite that much.” We chuckled together. “Who knows where she heard it. My guess is she heard it in a movie.” I flashed her my own signature smirk. “She sounded like a real cinephile.” We shared another laugh before turning our attention to the muted TV. Credits were scrolling across the screen, Martha’s cue to retire to the boudoir, and her novel, for the night.  She took a deep breath, “Well, alright,” and pushed herself up out of her seat. “Guess I’m retiring for the night.” She bent, kissed me on the forehead, and came away with a stern glance. “Don’t stay up all night, Ok?” I grumbled and waved her away. “I know. I know.” “I’ll tell you what I know; the last time you fell asleep in the den you complained about the crick in your neck for a week.” I gave her the old one-eyed squint that said, Go to bed already . “Ok. I’m just going to watch a little news and I’ll be right up behind you.” She harrumphed and narrowed a dubious appraisal on me before giving my bald head a final tousle as she left. I watched her go. Smiling as her much-heavier-than-the-day-we-were-married derriere swayed back and forth as she shuffled away. I didn’t know how it was possible, but I somehow loved her even more today than I ever had. How did I get so lucky?

I picked up the remote and unmuted the TV just in time to catch the dramatic opening theme of the nightly news. Red, white and blue graphics flashed across the screen, brighter than the anchor’s smiles as they were introduced. A mission statement from the local news team. I pushed myself out of my seat with a groan and meandered into the kitchen. I drank a beer as I slapped a quick sandwich together as quietly as I could. I grabbed another pop as I headed back into the den, the news droning. I slumped into my seat, slugged back a sip of suds and chomped a big bite of my sandwich. I leaned back and turned the volume up. … We’re asking all residents of Jack London Park to stay indoors. Again, both suspects are presumed armed and dangerous. If you see either suspect contact the authorities immediately. I eyed the sketches. They weren’t great. “You're never going to find them from those,” I muttered aloud and waved a hand. The anchor lady turned to a window in the corner of the screen. …and what do you know so far, Bill? Well, Carol, as we said before. The suspects are still at large after a violent and brazen bank robbery at Central Trust in downtown Saint Paul. The assailants are believed to have made off with over forty million dollars. I cocked my head and squinted. “Huh, what are the odds?” Again, we're asking all residents in the Jack London Park area to stay indoors. I slugged back another sip of beer. as the news segued into ads. I turned an ear. Had I heard something? I picked up the remote and nudged the volume down. Was that a rattle from the back door?


(I recently posted on r/writing prompts and I keep coming back to it. I have tweaked it a lot and hope you enjoy. Comments and criticisms are much appreciated.) "..uuughh.?" Was all I could manage upon my reemergence from unconsciousness. My brain felt like it had been the last tic-tac rattled around in its container by an obnoxious toddler. Was I blind? Did someone finally hit me hard enough to not have to witness mankind's atrocities like pineapples disgracing the face of a pizza? Or people who wear socks with their sandals? Awesome! I thought to myself trying to be optimistic until I remembered I could no longer see chicks in yoga pants or cute puppies in bowties. Great! Now I was sad again and still sparring with the swelling of my skull. How did I get blind? I was walking home and... I mean... shit happens, but.. fuck! Just then an auto-tuneish sounding voice came over a speaker saying, "You've got 30 minutes to kill them, or else..." I was beginning to wish I could see what the literal fuck was up when the lights came on and blinded that wish away *reeeaaalll* fucking quick. After the initial sting of the light, I noticed a freaked out looking dude with the specter of tears still haunting his cheeks holding a club with what could only be barbed wire wrapped around it. He was looking at an equally scared looking woman about ten feet away from me. The room? Or... bunker? Well, whatever disgusting place this was was lit by suspended fluorescent lights that obviously cast their flickery glow on countless horrors. The stains on the walls were probably not from salsa. Although, I *REAAALLLY* hoped it was salsa stains.. Oh boy. Oh boyohboyohboy. I. Did. NOT. Like this image. "You can make it dark again, please!" I half yelled while trying to change my sitting arrangement from 'finkle' position to 'dontcomeoverherebecauseimready' position, whatever that looked like. I would decide when my feet were lower than my ass.. "WHO ARE YOU PEOPLE!?" Cried Clubby-Boi, he was looking around frantically and beginning to notice there were about four of us total in this room. The woman from before seemed a middle-aged business woman still in her shoulder-padded magenta suit. There was a black guy with a button-up shirt and a really sweet fade. He must have just left the barber shop because, damn! And then there was a.. maybe not morbidly obese, but he was about two Big Macs away from riding in a rascal, white guy in maybe his mid twenties. "PLEASE! Don't hurt me, I have children!" Cried the business lady. She was wearing the clothes for power but she wasn't looking like a queen bee of business just now. "I *sniff* dont.. want to hurt anyone.." Clubby-Boi sputtered out trying and failing to not breathe life back into his tears. His cheeks were flooded again by them as he pressed on, "But... the voice commands.. *sniff* and I have to... do it.." "Hey! Whoa whoa hol'up a minute, man. I'm not about to die today. I got shit to do tomorrow." Spoke the fresh-fade dude rising to his feet and rubbing his head. "I have to agree with him, dude. I have a doggo at home, and who will explain to him how I just left my best pooch at home and never came back. His name i-.." "NO!! No fucking names, it makes it harder to do this!" "My name is Perry, then, Perry with a fucking y at the end, bro!" I said boisterously and with gusto. "I am Libby!" Shrieked the business woman also seizing the opportunity. "Also with a y, if it helps." I chuckled at that, trying to distract myself from the gravity of things. "Carlos." Said haircut man, "without a y." He said and stuffed his hands into his pockets with a defiant looking shrug. "J-J-J-John!" Said the big man. "With a j." "Th-th-th-thanks, John." I said sarcastically before I really thought about it. I always lost more and more filter when I was nervous. It got quiet for a moment and John shrank himself into a even more pitiful stance. "Sorry, it's just we had this whole 'y' thing going and you fucked it all up with your introduction, J-" "SHUT UP!" Cried the sad man with the club. His booming voice reverberated around the room like a forlorn echo demanding obedience which we readily gave considering his advantage. "You guys don't get it.. I HAVE to kill you, too. I have to do whatever he says or he will kill all of us." "How do you know that? ...What if at the end of the thirty minutes, he just opens a door and we are let free?" Libby ventured trying to reason with this scared man. "What's your name, honey?" "Henry.. *sniff* and he HAS to at the end. Why else would he say 'or else' at the end? We almost waited the whole time last time before that... BITCH went crazy on us." He said as he gazed upon the floor, but you could see he was actually looking at something far more grim than this terribly textured linoleum floor. He was seeing the last shit show this room bore witness to. "We convinced her to stay calm, and in the last minute...*sob* she started swinging on us." More tears watered the fields of his cheeks as he tried to continue, "after the other two were.. gone.. I managed to snatch this from her.. and end it.. I dont know what happens if we wait... but I can't go back to my normal life now! Ive..Ive..I've killed someone." "Sounds like self-defense to me, man. Wouldn't nobody blame you for it. Especially if you had us with you to explain what happened and all." Said Carlos diplomatically. "Ain't no need to kill anybody, man." "Y-Y-Y-Yeah! We-We could stick together and if he does come in and try to k-k-k-k-kill us. We-We could fight together." Said John straightening his posture a bit looking more confident now. "Oh yeah! Teamwork makes the dream work, Henry-boi. Don't kill us, and we won't kill you, I think is a very fair trade, an agreement we should ALL enjoy the benefits of, really." "Why dont we just put that club down and sit together to wait this out? Learn a little about each other, huh?" Libby offered in the best god-damned mom-voice ever. Just as it seemed Henry's grip was loosening on the barbed-wire club that same auto-tuned voice came back over the intercom and said, "If you guys don't kill each other until the last man is standing, I will kill all of you." I looked up and saw the intercom speaker and an array of cameras lining the walls. "Ah! Well! That puts a damper on this whole friendship I felt we were working towards huh fellas?" I said as we all started reacting in our own way. Henry gripped his club tighter and his face darkened as another tear threatened escape from its' source. A tense few seconds passed. Carlos' hands left his pockets and he looked back and forth between us all. John looked like he was about to shit himself, and Libby lowered her head and softly started weeping. My mind spun to how much I hate salsa. And questioning if I had it in me to actually *make* salsa. "I got shit to do tomorrow." Carlos stated matter-of-factly as he rushed Henry. A smacking sound reverberated the walls and three screams erupted as my thoughts drifted homeward to my puppy, Bilbo, at home. I rescued him. Fed him from a bottle. I was all he knew and all he had. My fists clenched until my nails broke skin. I gazed up at the carnage unfolding before me. I put all of my jokes aside and prepared to do whatever it took to come home to that sweet pupper. Damn the consequences. This sadistic fuck wanted a show, and like it or not, I was cast a lead role in this improv horror. "Break a leg.


The sound of the desperate wailing banshee cries of the grieving woman were broken only by the thunderous, booming clap of the rotors as the bird descended down into the sizable forest clearing, onto a makeshift landing pad, throwing up fountains of the fallen yellow red leaves as it did. A passerby hiker with no context to the events might have guessed that this was some sort of expensive private vehicle show which a pampered young billionaire had decided to hold in the local state park, for some reason. Henderson, a man in his later forties, with disheveled greying hair, wearing a worn and dirty ranger uniform had really wished it to be exactly that as he sat helpless on the trunk of a fallen tree. He looked out at the array of technology which was as if on parade in the clearing. Several ATVs had been arranged in neat little rows, each equipped with high powered lights, specialized tires and luggage attachments on the back filled with a variety of supplies. They stood next to several large canopies, the ones that you’d typically see at your local fair, under which were a tangled jungle of electronics and cables with a mountain of various assorted backpacks of the staff and volunteers lying beside it. The bird was a brightly orange colored former military “Huey” of Vietnam era fame with the words “Search and Rescue” written on it’s side in clear black paint. A strange device which at first glance may have looked like a threatening machine gun, a leftover from its war days, was in reality an expensive new thermal camera which was attached next to the side door of the helicopter. It, along with some of the ATVs, and a good portion of the volunteers were from out of state in a “Custer’s Last Stand” of sorts. Just half a week ago was it, indeed, just days ago Henderson thought, damn how long those four days had seemed since the disappearance of Jake Fulton and Catherine Helsak. They were a young teen couple, enjoying a gap year together before they were forcefully separated by destiny, he was planning to start work at a local mechanic’s shop while she had bigger plans and wanted to attend a fancy out-of-state university. Not allowing their Romeo and Juliet complex to stop them, they decided to go on a final fling before the start of school and their separation. By all accounts they had driven over to Lewiston Gap State Park at around noon on Friday, checking in at 2:00pm at the campground, and planned to leave early on Monday. When the local campground attendant saw that they were late to check out, he went down to their campsite, number 4 at 11:00pm on Monday just to find a dark, silent and most importantly empty campsite. The door to their cheap blue tent was torn open from the inside with considerable force as evidenced by the severe stretch marks on the nylon material, which in places had completely separated from the zipper. Dogs and Search and Rescue teams were first brought on site the very next morning, but still, it was nearly a day since the supposed time of disappearance. Henderson was there, every step of the way as a veteran park ranger with fifteen years of experience working at this park, he was among those first responders, and back then they still had hope. That's when things began to go wrong, right at the beginning of the search operation. The dogs combed the campsite, it was an open space of about ten by fifteen feet, just enough room for a tent, a fire pit and a nearby old, half rotten wood picnic table and a car parked in the dirt driveway leading up to it. Situated on a raised elevation of about twenty feet or so, a path led down the hillside and through a thick crown of pines which ringed the hilltop camp, down into a large open clearing nearby a sizable stream. It was a minor tributary that eventually flowed into the reservoir at the center of the park. The dogs sniffed and searched but Catherine’s scent was entirely just gone, as if she had just been picked up into the sky and right off the face of the planet. They did manage to pick up a faint scent when given some of Jake’s clothes, strangely it led away from the campsite, through the pines and dissipated into uncertainty near the sandy bank of the creek. That was where the SAR operation ground to a halt, they sent out single searchers on foot into the surrounding wilderness and divers combed the creek to find a body. Those divers seemed to be in the water for hours for the next three days, but the most that they dug up was a rusty pocket knife that somebody dropped, judging by the rust it seemed to be in there for half a year, so it definitely couldn’t have been Jake’s. Henderson was one of the searchers who were sent out on foot into the woods. There were ten of them in total, they were given a 5 mile radius of search area from the clearing, it was a huge area but they would walk through the woods and call out Jake’s and Catherine’s names but to no avail. There was no answer, just the heavy dread of the wet, mossy pines and sprawling leafy branches of the oaks high above which felt like an immense stone crushing your ribcage, pulling the air out of your lungs and not allowing you to breathe fully. It was on the third day of the initial search when it happened. They had gone out on a search in the mid-afternoon and they started only heading back when Apollo had ridden below the horizon on his golden chariot and replacing him came Selene. The darkness only compounded the feeling of unease, Henderson had to push himself, his legs were sore from the miles he had walked, and he was barely awake enough to avoid the thorny bushes on the sides of the trails, usually of an unknown species and the thick vines of poison oak which like pythons hung from the trees. That’s when he heard the scream. In the distance, he didn’t know how far away, but even then it was loud. There were no words in that scream, but Henderson didn’t need them to understand the immense feelings of fear and pain that it carried with them. He broke into a run, quickly, faster and faster, the feeling of absolute fear and the instinct of self-preservation flooded his senses, snapping him out of his tiredness and pushing his body to his limits, with torrents of sweat forming under his uniform and sliding down his skin, soaking his hair and clothing. One step, a jump to avoid a jutting out root, a dodge to avoid a thorny vine, another step, another step, everything was a blur. Henderson broke through the treeline and his boot sank ankle deep into the soft, muddy silt at the bank of the creek, he had made it into the clearing. He lost his balance and nearly collapsed face first into the dark rushing creek when a hand grabbed him and pulled him up, it was his co-worker and long time buddy, Franklin. “You alright, man?” Franklin asked in a worried tone, his voice was quivering. Looking up Henderson saw the blinding lights of handheld flashlights and camping lanterns rapidly approaching him. “Yeah, seem to be...” Henderson began before being cut off by a collective sigh of relief from the others which joined the lonely howl of the night breeze. “I ran because I heard the scream, what was that?” Franklin didn't respond at first, just looked back out into the circle of blackness which completely surrounded the lit up clearing, the trees waved in the slight wind, angrily shaking their branches in unison, as if part of one organism. “It’s Garthorn, he never made it back.” Garthorn, also Henderson’s colleague, was the only person at the park office with more experience than Henderson. A former Navy Seal, Garthorn was always a stern yet calm older gentleman who had turned 50 just this year, a secretive fellow he never told anyone much about his life, especially about the war. Nobody asked in any case, everybody could guess what happened, so silence was a sign of respect. And respect was well deserved, aside from his military service, he had earned his reputation as an expert woodsman and an amazing hunter, a crack shot with an old M1 which he always had with him in his truck. Out of anybody, Henderson didn’t expect Garthorn to encounter any trouble. Maybe it was a predator, a bear or a mountain lion perhaps, ambushing the poor man from the undergrowth? Perhaps. But, Garthorn was a “sizeable” fellow, and Henderson just couldn’t believe that a beast could’ve gotten him in one bite, he must’ve known if he was going into bear or mountain lion country, he had known these woods like the back of his hand, even in the dark. Why didn’t he fight back? He was armed, and with his history, there should have been a gunshot, or some sort of struggle... And the scream, that scream, why was it so short? “Are you sure that he isn't on his way back?” Henderson asked, “Last thing we heard from him he was heading back, was nearly here when he just cut off, we never heard a scream however, so that’s just you. We sent some guys to check it out. They found nothing, absolutely nothing. We need to get the dogs out there tomorrow morning, but now, nobody goes out there alone anymore.” Franklin solemnly but confidently stated. “We contacted the National Guard, they should be here tomorrow as well, we stay put for now.” The rest of the volunteers returned home and only Henderson, Franklin and three others stayed behind, huddled around a small fire, the flames dancing to the beat of it’s lively crackling, holding the deafening silence of the night forest at bay. The morning came to life with the roar of engines. The next day was spent circling the surrounding area far and wide for any trace of either Jake, Catherine or Garthorn, and none was found. Today with the newly arrived chopper things might be different, Henderson thought. No, he didn’t think that, he hoped for it because there was no evidence for him to base his thoughts off of. “Henderson, we're planning to go up again in ten, get ready if you want to join us.” came a yell from a man, the pilot, who groaned as he dismounted the cockpit of the Huey. The young man tore the heavy helmet off of his head, placing it haphazardly on the ground and hurried over to a large bucket of water, filled up a cup and emptied it, all in one gulp. Henderson readied himself, making sure all his gear was strapped securely to his duty belt, most importantly his treasured M9. He along with three others, climbed into the helicopter and strapped themselves into the seats, donning the headsets. A large screen which was connected to the thermal camera displayed a sea of re, orange and purple-ish blue. The pilot promptly returned, resuming his position in the cockpit and slowly, the rotors came back to life and the engines once again belched hot air, silencing the two crying women, the mothers of Jake and Catherine. The machine shuddered and before he could blink, Hendrson felt the Huey buckle and began rising into the sky. As they soared above the treetops, Henderson looked out at the screen of the thermal camera, the camera’s operator, a National Guardsman, same as the pilot, slapped the display, visibly irritated. “Classic percussive maintenance?” Henderson leaned over out of reflex and spoke into the headset. “Aye, sir, damn thing keeps displaying wrong temperature readings.” the camera operator responded before slapping the monitor again. “And why is that?” Henderson asked, puzzled, to him what the monitor showed now, aglow with colors, was no less legible than an alien’s abstract art piece. “You see this?” the operator gestured toward the screen with his gloved hand. “See what exactly?” Henderson asked. “Here,” the operator pressed a few buttons and the camera rotated a little to the left. The screen did change colors, Henderson admitted, despite being rotated to face a nearly identical patch of trees. Instead of the bluish hue previously shown, an irregular shape appeared, colored yellow orange and stretching out outside of the camera view. “And the significance of that is?” Henderson inquired. “Usually, trees would show up as usually somewhere around 50-55 Farenheit, that's the blue purple coloration, but this trash here is telling me that a patch of ground and the trees on it, right around the campsite about 2 miles by 2 miles has the same temperature as a human body, 98 Farenheit.” the operator explained matter of factly. The Huey jerked to one side, flying erratically. The thermal camera operator was nearly thrown from his seat, the web of straps creaking but holding him in place. “What the hell!” Henderson heard through the headset. “Turbulence? At this altitude?” Henderson murmured to none in particular. He looked out to see a pine tree, to extend, grow an additional 15 feet, nearly swatting the Huey. Another treetop, an oak, flashed just outside the open door. Problem is they were 150 feet high. Suddenly Henderson’s whole world shook and began to turn 50 degrees to the side. The last thing he remembered was a blurry orange glow of flames on the left engine, and the chopper careening into a sea of trees. Then darkness... “A strange smell...” “Pain?” “Pain in my leg?” Henderson’s thoughts flashed before his closed eyes. Another jolt of excruciating pain tore through his leg, he couldn’t move it. At least he was alive, alive, yes, it seemed he wasn’t dead yet. Carefully he opened his eyes, with leaves and mold meeting his gaze, he was lying face first in the soft, wet and mossy ground of the forest floor. Carefully he tried to lift himself up and turn around. However he found that he was still strapped into his seat. Carefully reaching with his hand he pressed the button on the buckle, releasing him. He tried to turn now, his attempt was only partially successful, only managing to turn onto his side without causing another jolt of pain. He looked down at his hurting leg, a shard of bone had pierced his lower right leg, almost slicing completely through his calf muscle, and soaking his pant leg with blood. Similarly with his left, he couldn’t move it either, both his legs were broken. Unable to do much about it now, Henderson gasped, his brow wet with cold sweat and looked around some more. His pained gaze darted over the twisted fuselage of the Huey which was suspended several feet in the air, held aloft by a tree trunk which directly impaled the cockpit, as well as the metallic bacon that had once been the tail of the helicopter, wrapping around the lower branches of another tree. Two bodies still hung lifelessly in the hull of the crashed chopper, the blunt force trauma of the intense whiplash killing them instantly. The pilot was most surely dead as well, judging by the blood dripping from the broken windshield where the tree trunk had impaled it. That only left him, and, and the thermal camera operator, Henderson remembered the only other person who was in the helicopter with them. He scanned around and saw the man lying nearby, just fifteen feet away, but he couldn’t tell if he was dead or not. “I have to call for help, somebody is bound to hear me!” Henderson thought out loud. “There! I hear it, the rumble of an engine!” A deep rumble was indeed audible, just with one tiny gimmick. It wasn’t coming from the north, south, east or west, as if those words meant anything to Henderson. Nor did it come from the sky, but instead, and it took a minute for this reality to register inside of Henderson’s head, it came from *below* him, from the ground. The rumble continued, growing louder but not by much, then the ground began to vibrate, and more than that, Henderson could’ve sworn that he felt something large *move* underneath him, up and down as if the ground was breathing, disturbing the earth all around. But nothing could’ve prepared him for what he saw next, the trees which held the wreck of the Huey up, simply *shifted* to the side. The helicopter wreck fell to the forest floor which in the span of about a minute had seemed to completely come to life, shaking as if in an earthquake, a plausible explanation if Henderson couldn’t have seen the ground 300 feet away, which was completely still. Still shaking, and getting more intense by the second, the soil around the Huey began to liquify, as the wreck sank into the dirt. Within another two minutes, everything stabilized and returned to normal, the birds were chirping and the ground wasn’t moving, but Henderson’s eyes were transfixed to the spot where the helicopter *was*, now there was nothing there, nothing at all, not even a tiny scrap of wreckage. He didn’t know what to do, what was there to do? He yelled and screamed, he unholstered his M9 and fired into the air three times, no response. He lay there for hours, the sun began to dip, and then the rumble came again. This time the ground opened up around the motionless thermal camera operator. Henderson could see a glimpse of something under the ground, something fleshy. He began shooting at whatever it was. One of the bullets hit a nearby tree which began to ooze not amber sap, but deep red blood. Then, the man was pulled under the earth as the ground turned into what was effectively muddy water, he was gone in five seconds. That left only Henderson, he knew he was next. He didn’t have to wait long. As the ground began to shake again beneath him, but he was ready. He racked the slide of his M9 one last time, the last round in the magazine was now in the chamber. He felt something, wet, slimey, pulsating with muscle, flesh and saliva and very much alive as he began to sink down into the earth. One single tear rolled down his cheek, he raised the gun to his temple and pulled the trigger. No one was there to hear the gunshot, except the birds, the insects and Mother Earth.


Sean the Squirrel looked down into his small paws at the big ripe chestnut clasped between them, a proud cheeky grin spreading across his face pushing his cheeks up and making his eyes crescent moons. Placing the nut on the pile of other nuts stacked in a corner of his home Sean felt satisfaction spread through him. Winter could come now. As if hearing this a pattering started outside, thick drops of rain falling to the ground in a heightening tempo. The Squirrel walked over to the opening of his cave and pushed one of the big leaves away with his front paw looking out, he shivered as a cold wind blew, through raindrops blasting in his face making him drop his ears and scowl before promptly putting the leaf back in place and with harrumph shaking himself to be rid of the wetness covering his fur . He then preceded to illuminate the cave by giving the in a wood container held fireflies a deceased snake as incentive. Thus, casting the small cave almost completely filled with chestnuts in a greenish warm light and causing a soft humming noise to appear in the background. Sean was about begin his winter rest feeling sated. Laying down Infront of his pile of chestnuts he rolled up in a baseball like form, folding his fluffy tail around himself. Just as his eyes began to flutter close ha let out a mighty yawn showing his big front teeth. Just as he was slipping from a soft daze into a deep slumber, he heard a loud knock on his front leaves. A loud voice muffled by the winding weather outside was heard, “Heloooooouuu anyouuune at houuuumeeeee?”. Sean’s eye popped open at this before he indignantly turned around, so that his back was facing his leaf door and whichever rude visitor which did not know to leave a squirrel to its winter slumber.

Once more a knock appeared shortly followed by the voice calling “Helllooouuuu , I said, I said Hellllooouuuuuu?”. Once more Sean purposely ignored the intruder and with his paws pulled his small ears down as to muffle the penetrating shrill voice of however desired entrance to his abode. The next time the voice called and his ears did not survey as ear muffler he also put his feet over his hand holding his ears, by the fourth time he had buried himself into his chestnuts and wished upon sleep so that he might ignore whoever was rapping so rudely at his leaf. Here there was a prolonged silence in which Sean made himself confutable amidst the chestnuts and once more closed his eyes in order for slumber to endow itself upon him. When suddenly once more the loud shrill voice calls out “Helloouuuuuuuuu, its couuulllld´, I said, yes I said Its couuuulllllddddd” The startled squirrel shot upright forgetting that he was borrowed in a pile of chestnuts, making resounding Bonks ring out in the small cave as chestnut after chestnut fell upon his head. Sean’s before widened eyes promptly narrowed to slits, a small crease forming between his eyebrows, a livid frown contouring his face into a grim countenance. Puffing out his chest and clenching his small paws into round fists he stalked towards the Leaf being knocked against. Opening the door wide he bellowed “Whaaat?” Sean yelled in a mocking tone “What, What What?” he continued. The squirrel standing outside his cave drenched in rain, left paw still raised to once more knock looked at him in surprise before catching himself and asking in a rather timid voice “IT´s cold, I said, yes I said It´s cold...? Can I not come, yes, I asked Can’t I come in? Just till the rain stoops I said just till the rain stops?”. Sean, taking in the lanky big squirrel Infront of him, figured he didn’t look ice he would die so he plainly stated “no” before swiftly slamming the leaf back in place pivoting around on his feet made his way back to his former resting place. When he once more looked back at the front leaf, he saw the dark silhouette of the squirrel curled together from the cold now shivering, the rain must have seeped through his coat thought Sean, he felt a pang of sympathy before hastily pushing it to the side, thinking the godamn squirrel should have just built a lair in the summer, then he would not have to annoy innocent, hardworking tree civilians such as himself, he certainly did not malnourished or sick, as such he could take care of himself. With these thoughts in mind, he made to go back to sleep in his comfy tree cave. Shortly, once more before his mind could drift into slumber, there was a sneeze, snapping both eyes, a vein could be seen pulsing above his eyebrow’s, he shot up stalked over to the leaf ripped it open and yelled “come in come in make yourself at fucking home”. The drenched squirrel outside walked in with a happy, “Why thank you kind sir- I say kind sir” and quickly stomped over on its small paws to the fire burning in a corner chimney. Now that the stranger of a squirrel was illuminated, Sean could see him more clearly. Full cheeks and wrinkle free squished doe like eyes made for a round youthful face sitting on a rather scrawny body, with too big, clumsy looking paws connected to stick like arms and legs, wet fur hugging the squirrel’s thin frame. A nuisance Sean deduced in conclusion, as he stood rather hostile near his chestnuts, you never knew after all…

After the foreign squirrel had warmed up a bit and his fur had begun to fritz, he turned to Sean with a gleeful smile Eyes squishing up even more before widening in apparent want at the stack of chestnuts behind Sean. “NO absolutely not” declared Sean, “I let you into my home, no more”. “Please I said Please kind sir just one it has been so awfully long day, so awfully long I said” begged the squirrel putting his hands together in mock prayer. Looking at the pitiful being before him even old Sean felt a semblance of empathy, after some back and forth between his conscience and his frugal self he compromised by giving the scrawny squirrel half a chestnut. He himself of course ate the other half. The strange Squirrel had of course taken the half of a chestnut with great gratitude, opting to sit down near the fire and start munching, Sean opted to once more sit Infront of his pile of chestnuts and after a few distrusting glances started slowly eating his piece of the chestnut in a much more dignified manner. After having eaten for some time the Stranger of a squirrel, who Sean had now dubbed balloon head, due to his gravely mismatched proportions, started talking… a lot. Sean being a squirrel of little words did his best to ignore this, in his opinion great annoyance, happily chatting away. After a while there was a penetrating question that kept popping up at the forefront of his mind, so interrupting the yapping balloon head he questioned, “why do you always repeat what you said?”. The strange squirrel looked at him in astound silence for a minute before cheerfully answering: “Ma Mama birthed a full litter you see, so I had a lot of siblings- a lot of siblings I said, as a middle child you got to say everything thrice- everything thrice I said. Just to be heard, yep, just to be heard”. Sean after hearing this in a more annoyed manner rather stated than said: “If you have so many siblings why could you not stay at one of their home´s?” and get on their nerves he added in his mind. The question, as the older squirrel came to notice he would very much regret asking, as Balloon head now started into a whole, obviously over- exaggerated story about how he was chased by a fox, almost got eaten, then got lost, barely avoided becoming a living ice cubicle and lastly had found Sean’s house in an old tree. “Thought no one was home, I did-I said yes, I did, was about to give up till you opened the door, I said till you opened the door” the scrawny squirrel stated in-between munches of the chestnut. Great, thought Sean, had I just waited a tad bit longer, deciding he had conversed quite enough with this foreign squirrel he left to return to bed and resume his well-deserved sleep. As he was about to lay down, the younger squirrel still sitting next to the fire, empty half of a chestnut next to him carefully asked: “do you not have any Family sir, I as- Sean interrupted him with a sharp “no” breaching the topic no further he laid down, back to the stranger an closed his eyes, ready to sleep. “Sorry, I said I said I´m sorry” came a sullen reply. Ignoring the stranger lying 3 meters away, Sean tried to desperately fall asleep. But in the wake of old repressed memories, he found sleep did not wish to grant him passage into the thick, dark, out of- reach oblivion of his dreams. Perhaps it was the warm enclave of his home lit by the comfortably crackling fire in correlation with the rough storm waging war on mother earth outside. Or maybe it was the fact that he for the first time in years had held a, if not very one sided, conversation with another living being for more than a few seconds. Perhaps it was none of the above an in a moment of forgotten rationality followed by intense emotions he, said very quietly “I do not have any living relatives”. The younger squirrels’ eyes popped open at the voice of his reluctant host. Happy that he was finally talking to him he sat upright looking at the back his companion he mindfully asked, “How? I asked How?”.  “Winter” was all Sean said before once more trying to close his eyes, knowing that even a naïve squirrel such as balloon head, would understand the threat of a cold, cruel winter after all he himself had almost fallen victim to it. When the storm passed and the cold winter sun, shone on the white snowy forest ground, early in the muddy morning the scrawny, young squirrel left the home he had resided in for a night. Of course, not before leaving a note scribbled in the empty shell of half a chestnut announcing that he was to retrieve his stuff from his sibling home before coming back and moving in, haven chosen Sean as his new roommate. Sean none the wiser slept for tree day and nights having been deprived from his sleep on that stormy night, and when he woke up, he woke up to the sound of knocking on his door followed by a sing song voice yelling, “I´m baaackkk, I said-I saiddddd, I´m backkkkk”


What about power? Isn’t it the most wonderful of concepts? Power. POWER. It rolls right off the tongue, doesn’t it? Power. It’s never quite enough. We get a job; it gives us power. We go to school; it gives us power. We get money; it definitely gives us power. What? You’re going to say that’s not why we go to school or get a job. We do it because we have to. We do it because we need to survive, to live, to strive. Live for what? Strive towards what? Survive what? Most of us lead miserable lives. We’re just waking up, stretching midst the piles of shit the world is made out of, and what’s our need? To survive? Survive what? Power, that’s what. Other people’s power. Their need to identify themselves beyond their mere mortal condition. Their need to be beyond want, fear, doubt. That’s why you go to school and get a job. Because it’s a race. No, nobody cares if you don’t need to run alongside them. That’s not the point. You need to do it; you need to be there; you need to believe you have a choice. That’s what makes it so exciting, the belief you can win, the smell of your own power, the feel of freedom and escape. Just one more day, just one more dollar, just a bit more effort. And then? Well… who knows? We can’t really predict the future. But imagine if we could. Imagine how it would be to understand exactly where the line should be drawn. When enough would be enough. Not only to see that we finish the race, but how we finish it. To wake up one morning and immediately feel that today would be different. Today would be the day when we would finally understand who we are, feel that all your efforts would finally come to fruition. But no. Think further than that. You would wake up a century from that day, and you would get to learn that your struggle has paid off and see the ripples across time. Feel your power propagate and shape the world. Would you be able to notice it right away? Of course! What am I even asking here? We all know that feeling, that delicate elation when power comes within our grasp. That yearning. A morning such as that would be no different from any other, with the exception that from the moment we would open our eyes, we would feel complete. Effervescent. That’s how I would describe this morning. From the first breath of light, I know that today is the day. Today I will finally understand. What do I need to understand, though? This question has always racked by brain, stuck like a burr somewhere in my subconscious, floating just out of reach like a will-o’-the-wisp. It has guided me, molding me, fueling me, and now I finally feel as if it is no longer beyond my senses. Today. Today will be special. I get up at 7.00 AM and take a quick shower. I like to feel the splatter of the warm water over my body as the first thing of the day. The sensation keeps me rooted in my self, digging out the feelings of the previous night. This way, all the thoughts, all the dreams that I had borne throughout the night, get a final chance to sink in. Shedding their light and secrets as I bathe. I wash my teeth and eat something quickly. It’s not like I’m not a fan of breakfast, it’s that, how can I explain this. Food doesn’t do it for me anymore. I’ve tasted so much, so many times, flavor, well, there’s nothing new there or complex enough to get me started. I eat only what’s necessary. I love coffee, though. It’s hard to say why, but I do. If we go beyond the taste and its properties, I think there’s something beyond that which draws me in every morning. A freshness, an alertness, it’s like a distant friend’s handshake. It fills you up, makes you smile, even though he doesn’t say much. He’s just there. Today is a good day. I get dressed, grey slim-fit dress pants with a light blue shirt, also slim fit. A pair of dark blue Oxfords and a navy blue tunic to wrap everything up, and I’m off. The moment I step out through the front door, the feeling of completeness evaporates, a sort of anxiousness stepping in. I’m not worried. I knew this would happen eventually, feels somewhat romantic that it does the moment I walk away from the safety of my home. The dull grey of the lobby stares back at me. It’s such a lovely color, limited, silent. Normally, a driver would come and pick me up in the morning and take me to the office. Today I decide against it, well, I lie. I’ve decided against this last night, when I canceled the appointment. I feel like walking. I want to soak in the city as much as I can. It felt as if it would be one of my last chances to do this. It reminds me of my childhood honestly. Walking. I used to go to the central park or the central market square and sit somewhere and stare at people. Well, not stare. I would look at them, study them. Try to understand where they came from and where they went. I liked to imagine that I was a famous detective and looked for little clues about their lives. A piece of lint, a crease, a mark, anything. I didn’t notice them as much as I could, but I did get pretty good at reading people. Understanding them. Could this have been the understanding that I had been seeking all this time? Hmm, I don’t really see how this fits in. Why would everything change today? No. It’s got to be something else. Something that has touched me, but I’m still to touch it back. The elevator is rather busy in the morning. Today it jumps up at me from the shadows. I never heard it open. I’m glad I took the time to walk to the office today. It feels symbolic somehow. The apartment complex is in the city’s heart and its heartbeat makes itself known as soon as the elevator doors open. A healthy buzz of life and need, a static that presses and pulls and squeezes and rips. I love that first glimpse of… ‘What the fuck?!’ Where the fuck am I?! Everywhere I look, grey figures stare back at me as they step quietly on dark passageways. Higher up, what look like hovering cars hum back and forth incessantly. A man steps up to me and grabs me by the arm, and pulls me to the side. My body feels limp, so I let myself be pulled quietly. He lets go of my arm and walks away. I’m dumbfounded. I don’t understand what’s going on, but that’s not the issue. The real issue is, I don’t feel like needing to understand anymore. As if an existence was wiped out of me in the blink of an eye. The man took me to the left of the building entrance and I don’t feel the need to move from this spot. It feels safe. Is this why he dropped me here? Was I in his way? That’s some really strange behavior on his part. Socially conscious, though. The stream of people does not ebb. It has a steady rhythm to it, soothing and soft. What should I do? Am I dreaming? This hasn’t happened in quite some time. I’ve always had a sort of love-hate relationship with my subconscious. It never felt as if it were truly mine and yet, the only moments of care and tenderness I have ever experienced were the ones that it imprinted upon me. It felt as if I had a stern father within me. Sleep was something that always brought me closer to it, dreams especially, training me and nurturing me in the man I grew up to become, but I can’t really remember when I last had a lucid dream. I’m safe, I know I’m safe. This world that I’m having the privilege to witness mesmerizes me. Its precision, it feels as a finely tuned recorder, its sounds monotonous and dependent. What should I do? Normally, I would’ve turned right at the entrance in order to get to the office. I don’t have anything against this, so I find my place within the stream and step lively. Hmm. It feels so strange to fit in here like I do. My steps fall briskly on the metal floorboards and their echoes get sucked in. It’s as if I’m walking on linen. Comforting somehow in its unnatural way. The world sucks me in fully. I feel completely at peace. Even though the world in itself is strange and new, it’s not different from the one back home. The buildings are pretty much the same, more organized and neat, softer on the eye, but definitely the same. The passageways are easy to follow and there are guidance markers everywhere. My office is in the Central Square, and the path towards it is clearly marked. I have no issues getting there. The square is as magnificent as ever. The passageways are running along the edges of an empty square made of a black metal material. Having learned my lesson, I follow the path to one of the corners of the square and step off. Looking at it closer, it feels as if it’s not metal, but velvet; soft and inviting. An urge to touch the material comes over me and I begin to hunch down when a soft sensation prickles my scalp. I straighten and reach out an inquiring hand. The prickles flow through the tips of my fingers. Some sort of force field? Weird. From within the square, a ball of light gently shoots up, leaving behind a feathery trail. Upon reaching its climax, it floats for a second and then begins hovering with a slight delta. The feathery trail intensifies, sparks of light reach out every which way in unison with the hovering central light. The mute image feels soothing and welcoming. I explore the view from my corner and find my office building a little way off. It’s bigger than I remember it. Two banners hang from the sides of the building, furnishing the party’s colors: a black and white feather on a red background. Sublime! I truly think it is. If only I could see this in real life. I step on the path once more and approach the building. A large gateway bars my path and I step to the side to take it all in. To the left and right of the gateway, there is a security guard. As I stand there and look, several people approach and use an access pad, swiping a key card against it. A green light flickers, and the air clears within the entrance. The person steps in and then the following person approaches the access pad. Once the green light doesn’t show up and one of the guards gently escorts the person to a cubicle to the far left. When there are no more people waiting to enter, I go to one of the guards. ‘Good morning!’ ‘Good morning, Sir.’ ‘Would you be able to help me with some questions?’ ‘Yes, please.’ ‘I work here, but I don’t have my key card. Could you please tell me what I need to do?’ ‘Please go to the receptacle to your right and request a temporary pass.’ I look around for the place in question and quickly locate it; a small booth off the beaten trail getting here. ‘Thank you!’ I walk back to the main pathway and approach the booth. Several people had already queued up in front of it. I get in line and take the time to look at my colleagues. I don’t recognize any of them. They’re all wearing slim grey uniforms, zipped up just below the chin. I find the uniforms to be quite soothing to the eye, elegant too. There are only two more people in front of me and I can see the station in front of me. Although I can’t make out all the details, it seems to be some sort of scanning station. A crystalline voice makes itself heard: ‘I feel contempt.’ The person at the scanning station picks something up from a slot and makes its way back up the line. A quiet smile floats lavishly across its face. The person in front of me steps towards the station and inserts a key card. Ten seconds later I hear that voice again: ‘I feel contempt.’ The person picks up its key card and walks past me. I stare at the station and step towards it. Besides the slot to the right, there are two buttons leveled with my chest. One is labeled: “Scan” and the other “Temporary”. I press the one marked with temporary and the slot closes up. A couple seconds later, the “Scan” button lights up. I press it gently and feel a slight tingle in the middle of my forehead. ‘I feel empty,’ makes itself heard. The slot shoots out a key card and I pick it up. What does that mean? I make my way towards the front gate and scan my key card. The light doesn’t flicker green. The security guard approaches me and asks me to come with them. He escorts me to the cubicle located at the left of the building, the same cubicle that he had escorted the other individual towards. Inside the cubicle, a thin woman waits for me. She has close cropped hair and an easygoing smile. ‘Hello!’ ‘Hello,’ I reply. ‘State your name, please.’ ‘Jason Blumm.’ ‘Blumm? Are you sure?’ ‘Yes, Mám.’ ‘Like the father, do you find that odd?’ ‘Why would I find it odd? It’s my name.’ ‘Hmm. I see here that your empathy scan registered a deficit. We will now go through reprocessing in order to fix that.’ ‘Reprocessing?’ ‘Yes. There will be a series of questions meant to identify your mental state. Could you please attach these sensors on each side of your head?’ Why did she find it odd when I mentioned my name? ‘Because you share the name of our nation’s father, Mr. Blumm.’ What the… she can read my mind. ‘Impulses are registered through the sensors I’ve given you and the AI translates those impulses into a basic query. For example, it shows that you’re questioning your identity at the moment. I can only assume this is regarding my earlier reaction to your name.’ ‘Fascinating.’ ‘Indeed, is this why you’ve been feeling empty, Mr. Blumm. Does sharing the name of our father exact a pressure upon your being?’ ‘I’m sorry, but what do you mean through: Father.’ ‘Jason Blumm, head of state and creator of the wellness doctrine over a century ago. You were heading towards the administration building, weren’t you?’ ‘I was.’ ‘What were you intending to do there, Mr. Blumm?’ ‘I don’t know. I didn’t know where else to go.’ ‘I see. And the building’s significance drew you in?’ ‘I guess. I work here, if that counts.’ ‘What do you do here, Mr. Blumm?’ ‘Senior party executive of the Futurist Party.’ ‘Hmm. I understand. Mr. Blumm do you know what year this is?’ ‘2031?’ ‘Aha, that explains it. Reprocessing is complete now, Mr. Blumm.’ ‘Is it?’ ‘Yes, you’ve got nothing to worry about. You’re most likely suffering from fatigue brought on by the pressure of your name. Like I said, there’s nothing to worry about. You have been reassigned as an archivist in the administrative building, starting tomorrow. Please take these pills and report back to the scanner tomorrow.’ ‘But…’ ‘Here’s your new access key. Now, Mr. Blumm, the pills, should take effect immediately. Do you need help getting home?’ ‘No. Thank you,’ and I hand her the sensors. She tucks them away and dismisses me with a smile. She is right. The pills kick in as soon as I leave the cubicle. My thoughts get muddied, but they don’t impede my judgment or motor skills. The light show is still playing in the center of the square. Its velvety appearance as soothing as before, yet not as enticing. I wait for the feeling to pass and follow the pathways towards my apartment. I feel overwhelmed. I spend the rest of my day caught in a sort of reverie. I feel the presence of this place and the rightness of it. Is this the future that I seek, its understanding, its safety? Why would I not?! Outside my window I see the flow of life as it grinds to a halt in the evening, flickers of light shooting up from everywhere around the city shortly after. Life knows a peace and tranquility here hard to understand. The lack of need, of want. Could this be the future I imagined? Could I be this blessed? I fall asleep cradling these dear thoughts in my mind, and they nurture my sleep. Next day, I show up at the receptacle outside the administration building. I insert the access key in its designated slot and press the “Scan” button. The tingle feels familiar now, and a crystalline voice welcomes me into its world. I am content. Are you?! No? Could’ve fooled me. Peace.


I began, at 7 AM, by placing the mirrors I bought on the dewy grass in front of our little yellow house, and stomping on each one with the heel of my boot, one after the other, trying each time to get a perfectly symmetrical spiderweb-shatter, failing worse with each attempt. 7:04 AM to 9 AM was spent picking mirror shards out of wet grass so that the neighbor kids didn’t step on them with their bare feet. I spent 9 AM to noon purchasing a black cat on Craigslist, bringing it home, then patting its bottom lightly with my hands, gently encouraging it to cross my path as many times as possible. It got fed up with me after about 40 path-crossings, so I gave it a little milk and let it rest in our bed. Then I went to our kitchen and dumped a few saltshakers out onto our floor, making sure not to throw any over my shoulder. I left the pile on the linoleum. I spent the afternoon with an A-frame ladder open in our living room, walking back and forth through its legs again and again, an opened umbrella in my hands, the waterproof fabric getting loudly pinched by the ladder every time I walked underneath. I did this for about three hours, following the same path, wearing deep grooves into the thick, cream-colored carpeting. I escalated from there, down in our unfinished basement with grey concrete walls and floor and foam soundproofing on the doors and windows. I had ordered quite a few religious symbols--crucifixes, statues of Jesus and Buddha and the saints, bibles, Qur’ans, copies of the Vedas, the Torah, everything sacred I could get my hands on--and on the evening of that day, around 6 PM, I loaded my (licensed) handgun, put on noise-cancelling headphones, and unloaded every round I owned into the holy texts and symbols of most major world cultures. I then took off my headphones, laid my weapon on the ground (safety on) and proceeded to jump up and down on the religious items with my aforementioned boots, then set fire to them with gasoline and a lighter. I watched to make sure the fire didn’t spread, spit on the ashes until I was certain my salivary glands were tapped out, then went upstairs, leaving the pile there. It was 8 PM. The sun was almost finished setting and the neighborhood dogs were barking to each other in their sweet, faux-aggressive way. The sound of crickets intermingled with soft voices, drifting in through our open windows from the neighbors’ front porch where they smoked Pall Malls and watched the sun’s slow downward retreat, the horizon turning a grey-purple. I finished my work of nailing the number 13 in place of our old house number (78) and went inside, making sure to leave our door unlocked. I noticed there was a raven sitting on our driveway and silently cheered. I went to our bed and checked on the cat, who was still fast asleep, then kneeled down, lifted up the sheet, and retrieved a baker’s dozen of identical boxes from underneath the bed. I brought the boxes to the living room, the stack teetering in my arms, then gently opened each one and set up their contents in a circle around me. The sun was down now, but I had not turned on any lights. I sat in my dark living room, the only light from the streetlights outside and the full moon, which shimmered over the horizon, perfectly placed so that from where I was sitting it looked like a beach ball, balancing on the chimney of the house across the street. It was 8:30 PM. I reached out and touched the planchette of the Ouija board directly in front of me, hoping the power of the other 12 in the circle would flow through it, and me. I felt the day’s bad luck, cursed actions, and general terrible vibes that I had so methodically gathered running through my veins. Confident in the evil and misfortune I had accrued, I reached deep into my diaphragm and began to speak the words that I had spoken, every night, at 8:30, for the past 391 days. “Hi, honey. If you’re out there--just know--I’ve been really awful today. I’ve broken mirrors, crossed paths with black cats, burned bibles, spit on the spirits--13 Ouija boards, I--I changed our house number--and… if anyone deserves to get haunted, it’s me. I would hate so much for you to come and throw around plates and appear in dark mirrors behind me and whisper evil things in my ear while I sleep and punish me for my transgressions against the spirit world--but I deserve it. I must be the most sacrilegious, evil person alive. I know how much you hated people who disrespect the religious, and how superstitious you were…” I waited. There was only silence. “I shot eight bibles today, hun. With a pistol. And I stomped on them.” Silence. I looked at the planchette in my hands and waited for it to move. Then I looked around at all the other Ouija boards, surrounding me, and looked for any tiny movement, anything. The silence only grew louder. “If you’re here, make a noise.” The icemaker in the kitchen gurgled a little. “Another. Please. I need to know it wasn’t just a fluke.” Silence came, this time pointed and thick, like she was doing it on purpose. “Please, baby--it’s a full moon tonight. I won’t be this unlucky for another month. Just haunt me. Please. Break something. Make the walls bleed. Make me bleed. Anything.” I closed my eyes as tight as they could go and kept my fingers distinctly uncrossed and thought about the number 13 and 17 and 39 and every culturally unlucky number I could think of, and I listened with everything in me for even the slightest noise in our little yellow house, and then I imagined Jesus being eaten by an anaconda, and then I slammed my fists on the Ouija board and begged for my wife to come back and haunt me in terms that are too pathetic to repeat here. Then I sat and listened to the silence for so long that I could hear my heart beating and the fluid circulating through my skull. I packed up all the Ouija boards without moving the planchette to ‘Goodbye’, slid them under my bed, and gave my new black cat a little kiss on the forehead. It was 9:30 PM. Slowly I lumbered into the computer room and sat down. For a split second I saw my reflection in the hazy black of my monitor. My eyes were worn and ragged, my beard patchy, my veins pronounced from the mental exertion of trying to will her ghost into existence. I focused on the gap behind me in my reflection, over my shoulder, hoping she would appear with black pointed teeth and red eyes and talons she would sink into my throat and use to drag me down to hell with her, or wherever she resided. Or maybe she would just walk in through the front door, somehow returned in perfect condition, and I could tell her about all my efforts to get her to haunt me through superstition and desecration for the past year since she passed, and she could laugh and laugh, and know deep in her heart that I loved her more than anything. Then my hand hit my mouse, the monitor flared to life, and the white light of the Amazon home screen obliterated my reflection and my thoughts. Slowly I moved the mouse, transferring my consciousness to my cursor. I forgot my body and my face and let autopilot take merciful control. It was 9:38 PM. I ordered mirrors, and salt, and ammunition, and religious artifacts, and bibles, and Quar’ans, and some cat food for next week. It wouldn’t be a full moon. I wouldn’t be as cursed. But I’d just have to try anyway.