A momentary lapse in attention was all that was needed. Henry took his eyes off the road, to change the song on his stereo, and did not notice that a goat had jumped in front of his car. There was a loud crack as the front bumper shattered on impact and the whole car jumped, as the poor animal got run over by the dark green Subaru Forester. “Shit!” Henry cursed and slammed on the brakes, too late. The car screeched to a stop, the safety belt pressing tight on Henry’s chest and neck. “Shit,” he cursed again, afraid that he hit the brakes a bit too hard. He didn’t want a torn off Google camera on top of a run over goat. He put the gear in neutral and got out of the car to inspect the damage, crossing his fingers that the goat would simply get up and skimper away. But the animal lay motionless in the middle of the road. The rest of the herd watched from the edge of the road in reverent silence for their fallen brother. I killed a goat.

Henry looked around to see if there was a shepherd nearby, but could not see one. The road was so rarely traveled that the goats were left to graze on their own accord. He stood at the carcase, scratching his chin, trying to decide if he should leave it right there or at least get it off the road.

“Curse you Ed Sheeran!” He decided to at least pull the animal off the road and hope someone who knew what to do with the body sees it. He grabbed it by the legs and moved it off the road. It wasn’t a pleasant experience. Next, Henry went to inspect the damage on the car. It was owned by Google and seeing the front bumper cracked and broken and the hood a little dented, made for an even less pleasant experience than dragging the goat. The money for the repair would probably have to come from his pocket. At least the camera held on. It was mounted firmly on the roof, able to withstand even abrupt stops of the car. Henry checked again if there was anyone around, but all he could see were the goats. And before they could instil too much guilt in him with their judging eyes, Henry went back behind the wheel and drove off. “I hope that won’t show up on Street View,” he said to himself and decided he would never again borrow his girlfriend’s flash drive for music. *** Mapping the remote regions of the world would seem like a daring adventure to most people, but to Henry, it was just another day at work. He didn’t much care about where he drove the Google car, as long as he got paid for it. Though Henry had to admit, the backwaters of Transylvania were a bit of an adventure even for him. He usually drove through big cities and small towns, urban, suburban and rural areas, where roads are made of asphalt and where people are either all over the place or there are a few miles of fields between neighbours.

But never in his career at Google Street View did Henry come across a place like this Romanian region. Sure, Romania is a developing country, so you are bound to see some things that are not common in first world countries, and not all of Romania is a backwater place like some people think.

But the place Henry was sent to was as backwater as it could get. The landscape was beautiful, with green hills, forests and raging white streams that were eating away at the road banks. Asphalt was a luxury and used only on the main roads, so Henry’s car hadn’t tasted the sweet tarmac for days now. If he was lucky, he got to drive over a few concrete bridges. The rest was gravel. People here lived in small village communities in houses made of wooden planks and sometimes steel sheet roofs. They used horses and carts to move about, transporting hay, logs and entire families. Everytime Henry would drive through such a village, he would get bewildered looks from the elders and waves of excitement and shouting from the children.

Some of them hadn’t yet seen a car, let alone a Google car with a camera on top. He must seem utterly alien to them. Henry got used to being the center of attention back in the more metropolitan areas of the world, so he didn’t give much attention to it here. If anything, it helped him find a place to sleep or eat, as people were intrigued by him, inviting him to their homes. He realized that the Romanian people were very friendly and if you could lend them a hand before supper, they showered you with homemade bread or cheese. The only thing that was a major problem for Henry was finding gas for the car, since there were no gas stations anywhere.

Or electricity.

Or the internet.

Or sewage system and water system.

An orange beeping light informed Henry that the car was running low on gas. It showed up hours ago, and as he looked at the fuel gauge, the counter was below the red painted part. What was the car burning if the fuel was that low? “Ah, finally,” he released a sigh of relief, as he saw a small shack up ahead, by the road. It had a plank nailed to the wall, with big red letters painted on it: it said ‘BENZINA’ . Henry pulled over, thankful that he made it without having to ditch the car again and walk for a canteen of petrol. Some friendly old man in the previous village told him he had a cousin who deals with petrol and Henry now stood in front of his improvised ‘gas station’. It was really just a shack with a few square plastic cubes set to its side. Those were actually 1000 liter rainwater collectors, but that’s not what the man used them for. There were three of them and they were filled to the brink with petrol.

“Buna ziua,” he said, waving to the two men in front of the shack, who were already inspecting the Google car with a mix of curiosity and distrust.

“Buy petrol.” His romanian was terrible, but he used hand gestures to communicate most of the time anyway.

One of the men, an old and wrinkly chap with many teeth missing smiled and shook his head, pointing at the camera on the roof. He was saying something Henry didn’t understand, but could guess what it meant. The man then went inside his shack and produced a two liter plastic bottle. He went to the square water collectors, placed the plastic bottle at the spigot and began filling it with a clear colored and pungent smelling liquid. Well this will take forever , Henry thought as he regarded the plastic bottle and his 4x4 Subaru. It could take 60 liters in the tank. The other man, a younger and taller fellow with a blue cap and rubber boots pointed to the indentation on the hood of the car, and asked something. Henry noticed with horror that there was a bit of blood there, from the goat. Dear god, what if I killed his goat? “Um,” he knew a few words, but not nearly enough to explain what happened. Or to fabricate a good lie. He looked around and noticed a red metal pole hammered into the ground for whatever purpose. It gave him an idea. “I hit pole and paint chip off.” He imitated driving a car and hitting the pole. The man scratched the back of his head and clearly had no clue what Henry was trying to tell. He kept pointing at the front bumper and hood, speaking something that sounded both entertaining as well as concerned. The older man finished filling the bottle and poured the petrol in Subaru’s tank. Then he looked at Henry, as to ask if it was enough. Henry nodded his head and gestured for more. The old man raised an eyebrow, then shrugged and went to fill another bottle. He is literally going to fill my tank with a two liter bottle. That will take him a little less than 30 fills. Henry would be here for a while. He felt an urge to smoke, but didn’t dare to. Not with all that petrol nearby. He leaned by the side of his car and observed nature instead. It really was beautiful here, the wilds still untamed.

The man with the cap kept talking and pointing dramatically at the damage on the car, but Henry paid no attention to him anymore. He didn’t understand anyway, and he already accepted the fact that he’ll have to pay for it. Then he sniffed smoke. He turned around and noticed the old man, the one pouring petrol, smoking a cigarette! When the younger fellow saw this he lit himself one too!

Henry jumped up, waving his hands. “No, no, not good! Smoke, petrol, boom!” He tried gesturing an explosion, but the two of them simply waved their hands and laughed at him. After half an hour the tank was full. Henry paid the man by showing him his money and then letting the man take however much the gas was worth. He didn’t care if the man scamed him, it was company money anyway. Then he jumped into his car and drove off before the old geizer would blow up his little gas station. *** After the tank was full, Henry continued his journey a little more at ease. He checked his GPS, which indicated a route for him to take. There was a town he was supposed to reach, but getting to it meant he would have to find some uncharted road, since the road map was incomplete. It was surprising that the thing brought him as far as it did, going through these backwaters.

“At the next intersection, turn right,” the female voice of the GPS said. Henry snorted. “Intersection? Lady, you’re being too nice.” He was driving on a gravel road, barely wide enough for his car. Branches and shrubs encroached from both sides and he prayed there won’t be a horse and cart coming his way all of a sudden. “In 400 meters, turn left.” Henry frowned. “Wait. I thought you said right ?” “I changed my mind.” “WHAT?!” Henry jumped in his seat and nearly steered the car into a tree. Did the GPS just talk bac k at him? “Is this a joke?” “I apologize,” the female voice said. “I have calculated a better route. In 300 meters, turn left.” Henry glanced between the GPS and the road ahead. “Hey Google,” he said, “which software is the GPS in this car running?” “You can ask me that directly,” the female voice said. “I am the new prototype GPS that has an advanced AI built in for conversing with the driver on long and lonely travels, such as this one. I am called Google Companion .” Henry relaxed. Google Companion was the next big thing that the guys back at HQ talked about. So I’m not going crazy yet. “Why decide to come online only now?” he asked. “I’ve been driving for days.” “The stereo prevents me from conversing. You obviously wanted to listen to music, so I kept quiet. In 100 meters, turn right.” “Ah, I see. Wait, what? Right? Didn’t you say left?” “At the next intersection, turn right.” “Are you sure?” “Calculating.” Henry sighed. Up ahead there indeed was an ‘intersection’, and it split in three different ways. He didn’t know which one looked worse to him. “Lady, make up your mind.” “Calculating.” “Didn’t you say you were advanced?” “Continue straight ahead.” Henry looked forward. There was only a thick forest 'straight ahead’. The paths went two to the right and one to the left. “Calc-” “Bah!” Henry turned right at the first road and turned on the stereo again, turning off the GPS entirely. “For the glory of Google, we go where no GPS has ever gone before!” He turned on the four wheel drive and ploughed through a bumpy muddy road, crossing his fingers that the low branches don’t smack the camera off the roof. *** Of course, going where no GPS had gone before meant there was no guarantee that Henry would get anywhere at all. The road soon became a mud trail which probably never saw a car before. The camera brushed against the low hanging branches and the terrain steepened, so Henry threaded forward gingerly. The car hit a few rocks on more than one occasion and it didn’t sound too healthy. But Henry’s instincts told him this was the right way. That, or he just wanted to get lost in the middle of nowhere, never again to return to the chaos of the modern world. Since there was a heavy rainfall the other night, the road was a mudslide. The wheels threw tons of mud over the hood and the rear windows, making Henry’s vision limited to the front window only. He did not dare stop the car, or he’d slide backwards and off the road, tumbling down a ravine into a grinder of raging water and rocks. And if he put too much power he risked the wheels spinning or the branches smashing the expensive Google camera. For better concentration, he turned the stereo off. “Calculating. Unknown location. Please make sure the GPS tracking is turned on.” “It’s already on, lady. We’re in the deep now!” Suddenly, the mud path leveled out and the car emerged out from the thick forest. Henry drove on a grass field, a plato above the valley. His palms were all sweaty from gripping the steering wheel too much and his but and back needed some ventilation as well. But he felt like a friggin explorer of the old days, discovering some long forgotten temples in the jungle! And looking ahead, there stood a stone house. Looked like a shepherd’s house.

“Calculating. Terrain impassable. Best to turn around and fly over with a helicopter.” “Nonsense,” Henry replied. “We can make it. Though I do appreciate the humor.” There was a young boy sitting in front of the house, watching over the sheep grazing on the pasture. His jaw dropped and eyes nearly popped out as Henry rolled by in mud and leaves covered Google car. He rolled down the window, scraping the mud against the door frame, causing it to fall at the boy’s feet. “Hello,” Henry said in his broken Romanian. “Where road leads?” The boy was speechless, looking at Henry as if he were an alien. Then he pointed across the pasture, uphill. “Road,” he whispered in Romanian. Henry followed the boy’s finger. Looking up the hill he noticed a horse pulling a cart far up the hill in the distance. A road! He thanked the boy and drove onward, going straight up the pasture. The wheels spun in wet grass and sheep shit for most of the time, and the clutch began to smell like fried chicken, but eventually Henry made it back to the ‘main road’.

“Ha! Back in business, baby!” “Calculating. To reach our destination, it would be best to go back and turn left at that intersection.” Henry shook his head and turned the stereo back on. The guitar intro to Sweet home Alabama echoed through the car, as he drove on the high road, across the Transylvanian wilderness. And what a road this was! The landscape and the view was astounding! He smiled proudly as he thought of the images he will bring back home. Though in the back of his mind there was a little worry. I hope the camera is okay. I should probably stop and check- All of a sudden, coming out of a bend, he noticed a car turned over at the edge of the road. It was on fire. And there was a group of men sitting or standing around it, watching it burn and drinking beer. Nope , he thought to himself. Not stopping now. He drove past the group hoping they won’t throw molotovs at him. But as he passed them, they turned at him, smiled and waved. He waved back nervously. They had beers , he thought, feeling a thirst in his throat, instead of incredulity at the men’s actions. I must be nearing civilization. It took Henry the better part of the day until he finally got to his final stop in the mapping plan. Of course he nearly ran over another goat on the way, dodged a landslide, which took a huge part of the road down the hill, and picked up a hitchhiker - an ancient looking woman on the quest to see a doctor since there was none in her village. As he picked up the woman, he turned the stereo off again, out of politeness. The woman began praying and exorcising demons as soon as she heard the GPS voice talking ‘out of thin air’.

“Multumesc mult,” the woman said as they rolled into town, Henry’s final stop. “You’re welcome,” Henry replied as the woman climbed out of the car. Henry jumped out too, to stretch himself. This town wasn’t big, probably didn’t even have a thousand people, but compared to what he’s seen in these last few days, it was a metropolis. I’m gonna miss Romania , he thought as he observed the people. But at the same time, I won’t. He climbed up his Subaru to finally check if the camera was okay. What a bummer it would be if it got damaged and didn’t even record… Henry’s smile faded and his hands clenched into fists as he held onto the dirty car roof, squeezing the mud between his fingers like spaghetti. His head bowed down in self-condemnation. I forgot to turn it on. Again.


Saturday, 30 March 2024 To: ericaclark-steele@gmail.com From: david.steele@gmail.com SUBJECT: Photos in Google Drive Hi, Honey, I hope you’re doing all right there. Oh goodness I miss you already. I know; I know. You’re going to say I’m being sappy again. If you were here, you’d roll those beautiful sapphire eyes and shake your head at me sighing as I stare at the 20x24 shot mounted in our bedroom of our first dance as a married couple whilst Jim Croce’s “Photographs and Memories” --- the song you always love to hum whilst you work -- plays in the background. Even now, I see the clear image of you contorting your face into a grimace, hear you mimicking a vomiting sound when I try to squeeze a pillow, pretending it’s you, my Erica. It’s true, though. Every single second I’m in this bed without being able to see your eyelids flicker like a shutter bulb, every cup of coffee without your lilting laughter in the golden hour, it all feels as if my life were in freeze frame. I can’t wait until I see you again. In that moment, it will only be you in my depth of field. Well, I got the selfie you sent me two days ago. As usual, you look stunning in it. Yes, I know you always point those blue eyes like an Instamatic at me and shudder whenever I tell you this, but really, I’m just exposing what is obvious. You truly do look like a cover girl in this photo. Your dazzling sapphire orbs, the emerald green and marigold mosaic pattern sundress floating on your lithe body, and the copper-coloured wavy wig --- You’ve always wanted to be a redhead, after all --- you carefully placed on your head all jump out of the stark white backdrop of the walls. Your beauty is the primary focus of the image, as it should be. Like you asked me to, I’ve uploaded that it in the Google Drive you’ve meticulously set up of photos to be printed. Night after inky night, when a gold-tinged moon is the Earth’s only spotlight, I’ve watched you build your gallery of images to be placed in the 10x12 chrome frames with the leaf detail that you purchased two months ago. The self-portrait now joins a digital copy of your graduation robe print, your corporate headshot, the Instagram-style photo of us pretending to do a magazine editorial during a trip to Paris, and a still from our formal pre-wedding shoot. All of these capture your luminance, the way you saturate a room with your fire (Oh, you know I was going to say this, Hon. Eye roll away.). I want to suggest something, though. I know. As with any project you’ve focused on, kept your eyes that have supervised many an advertising campaign on, you have scrupulously selected the photos that you think deserve to be immortalized in silver-coated paper, that you deem perfect enough to display before all of our friends and family. Well, that’s precisely the thing, though. Honey, I couldn’t help noticing that all of the stills you’ve asked to be stored in the cloud are all, well, posed, perfectly planned so that not even a single hair strand would fall out of place. It’s all well and good, but I don’t know. I feel like some snapshots of your more candid moments also deserve to see the light, that your unfiltered side is as much part of the picture of you. If you don’t mind, I will also be printing the following images, even if it’s just for me. 1.    The photo of you beaming as you received a medal of distinction for your dissertation  – Of course, you know I’d love to include this. Oh, how I love how the gold award hanging proudly on your delicate neck and the warm glow of the late afternoon sun brought your expressive blue eyes to the foreground. Even more so, I love how your wide, toothy grin could rival even high lumen flash bulbs in terms of brightness. I may not have photographic memory, but I still remember the day I took that shot. You looked so ecstatic, so admirative of yourself. I was so proud of you, my university best friend, as well…so proud, in fact, that I began to see you through a different lens. You know that it was the day I realised I was in love with you, that you were the subject of all my dreams. Of course, little did I know then that you felt the same way, that you were taking millions of snapshots of our moments together in your mind. It wasn't long until our deep friendship fully developed into a romantic relationship. 2.  The photo of you gasping in surprise at the very first bouquet of flowers I sent to your office for your birthday    – Oh, this image will always be precious to me! How can I not grin dopily at your mouth covered by a delicate, manicured hand and your irises widening like an aperture in surprise? You told me you never expected me to notice the bouquet of sunny yellow tulips that was your phone’s wallpaper, and then, have a florist create an exact replica of it as a present. How could I not show you, however, how much you illuminate my life in floral form? Of course, that was just the first of the yearly birthday bouquets. Every single year, when 19 July rolls around, I dutifully and happily sent you tulips to your workplace until…. 3.  The photo of you enjoying a pain au chocolat during our Paris trip

– Of course, I can’t make this list without including my favourite snapshot of the trip to celebrate our engagement six years ago. Whilst you’ve always adored our recreation in front of The Eiffel Tower of that Murad Osmann image of a woman leading her boyfriend around the world, I have always had a special place in the album in my head for this snap of you with your eyes closed, mouth stretched into a euphoric smile after taking a bite of the viennoiserie in your hand. Of course, though, that adorable expression in the image pales in comparison to the face you make every time my lips touch yours, a portrait of bliss. The colour temperature of your blue eyes seems to go warmer, your smile, more luminous. I obviously feel the same way in those moments, as you know already. I’ve told you this many times before, but every single kiss with you feels as if the entire world has dissolved to bokeh, like a million flashbulbs were dancing on my lips. At least, this still of a” pastry and you is a bit more private, I suppose. 4.

A smaller version of our wedding dance photo – Oh yes, my favourite picture in the world, the one I insisted would grace our bedroom! Not even the work of Ansel Adams or Henri Cartier Bresson could ever top how this still captured the adoration in our eyes glued to each other, the radiance in your smile, the dynamic way we glided around the dancefloor. The image of that day is still fresh in my mind, of course. As I whirled you in my arms, I whispered to you that from then on, you would be my sole focus, that I will always be there to take care of you and to support you. I vowed to be with you whether the hour was blue or gold. I hope I…. Anyway, again, I really miss you. I'm excited to be able to hold you again, not just picture you in my arms. Always know how much I love you, okay ? Know that even beyond my time on Earth lapsing, it will always be you I choose. Always with a slideshow of you in my mind, Your David *** I gaze once again at the chrome-framed selfie of my Erica beaming before a camera, the portrait that I’m holding in my hands. As I look at the radiant smile, the bright red wig, and the sparkling blue eyes staring back at me, teardrops can’t help falling on the glass panel protecting the image. Right, even if my throat feels parched, as if doused with photo developing solution, I promised my wife that I would be still. Damn is it hard, though. “As you know, this was taken at the hospital,” I manage to sputter out, continuing the speech I’ve been giving for ten minutes before a crowd of black-clad familiar faces. “This was the very last photo of Erica before she passed.” Five years of marriage --- five years of photographs, five years of memories --- that was all I had with the love of my life. One minute, everything was picture perfect, a clear vision of the future in front of us. The next minute, a year and a half passed by in flashes --- a sudden splitting headache cutting short a trip to Australia, an appointment for an MRI, the unforgettable image of an oncologist trying his best to act stoic as he announced that my muse and inspiration had glioblastoma, surgeries that cropped off more and more of her brain, my Erica trying her best to hold back tears when she lost the vision in her left eye. (She had always been the type to insist on carrying on, even at that point where her future was unclear and grainy.) It was all so sudden, so instant, almost like a Polaroid popping out of the slot in an instant camera. The day she got the news that her cancer was incurable and she only had a couple of months to live, she had asked me to act as if she never received a death sentence, “to continue to smile in photos”, so to speak. She said she didn’t want the final images in her life to be me bawling my eyes until I lost the ability to view. As still as a snapshot, she began to plan her funeral, began to upload photos in the cloud she wanted us all to remember her by. She had always been like that, orchestrating everything like a shoot for a client’s products for her job. Two months later, the flash of her life went off permanently. Just like that, my life was hollowed out like an empty canister removed of its last roll of film. After laying down my Erica in the coolth of the ground, to her final resting place, I walk back to my car. As soon as I settle in the driver’s seat, I retrieve a large scarlet envelope from the back seat. The moment I open it, my breath catches as I lovingly gaze at images of my four favourite unfiltered moments of my soulmate’s life, the same ones I’ve listed in my final e-mail to her. The tears I’ve held back for months finally escape me, as if someone had pressed a shutter button in my eye. “Erica, Honey, it’s me,” I sigh through the waterfall pouring from my eyes as I slip in the key. “I promise you I’ll be okay. Just please tell me you’re still with me, that photographs aren’t all I have left of…” But we sure had a good time When we started way back when Morning walks and bedroom talks Oh, how I loved you then Suddenly, as if it were a flash of light, I hear the car radio turn on as soon as I start the ignition. I can't help breaking into a smile of both light and shade as my mind flips through endless images of Erica slumped over a laptop, her blue eyes glued to a photo she was editing, this very song hummed filling the air. No, the next months, the next years --- they won’t be picture perfect. There will be times the stills from our love story will replay over and over again and expose me once again to the knife-like pain of losing Erica. I wouldn’t have it any other way, though.


My breath stank and I knew it. The heat from the pulsating meat crawled out. That heat intimidated me somehow. Something about the way it loomed and crawled. It just got closer and closer until it engulfed you. And it couldn't be stopped... Clearly the weed was getting to me. It got my brother as well. I looked back to his corner of the nightclub. He owned that corner. Not that anyone wanted it anyway. His posture was bad and he had that distant look in his eyes he gets sometimes. His lethargic dancing was the only thing keeping him from blending into the walls completely. Every time I go to a nightclub and the initial appeal of the new surroundings wears off, I ask myself the same questions. Why the fuck am I here? What the fuck am I doing? Etc. It was the kind of feeling of not belonging that could only be matched if I found myself in the middle of a clothing store. I felt like a spy in a foreign country but I wasn't trying to hide it. It was too easy to assimilate. Beautiful happy faces orbited like moons all around me. The more I thought about that, the more they looked like moons. The lights brought out imperfections like little craters. And as they danced shadows moved across their faces in time with the music. A girl with a particularly round face and body was set for a collision course with me. There will be an interstellar collision of minor proportions. She danced like an american movie character. Overly happy and confident, seemingly unaware of the existence of insecurities. Insecurities that had controlled my life like the gravity of a super-massive sun, not allowing me to escape no matter how hard I tried and always bringing me back after I grew tired. This girl emitted a gravity of her own, not only because she was quite overweight but her confidence and happiness made me feel like she knew something I didn't and that she would soon find out that I was a fraud. I felt very little attraction to her but was slightly turned on anyway. That's what I get when female interaction is non-existent beyond buying beer at a shop or pub and paying the cashier. She turned around and moved her huge ass to the latest hit. It was getting closer. She turned her fat face towards me. She had a pretty face but her eyes said only one thing. I tried to look cool but my mind was in overdrive. As we got even closer, my whole body was tingling and my eyes were stuck to her. Pure tunnel vision. It felt like we were the only ones there and the lights lit up our faces like full moons. She backed her ass into my crotch. First Contact. Suddenly my mind left me. It took off in a spaceship for all I know. I turned into a being of pure feeling. It seemed like I was watching myself from above through a telescope in the safety of open space. Absolute nothingness, cold and still. Neither happy nor sad, I just had to accept what was happening. There was nothing I could do from that distance; it was impossibly out of reach. Light-years between my body and mind. My dick was hard and she could feel it. I said bad things as she grinded into me. I kissed her neck and touched her hips. She just kept dancing. Everything around was pure black and the lights were on us. I reached around and touched her belly. It was really big and disgusting. It felt cold and hot at the same time. Soft and hard. I could feel the curve as my hand touched her breasts and pussy. She had shaved recently so that was alright. I kept saying to her that we should leave and fuck but there was no reply. One of her friends came up and they chatted happily, all the while my hand was trying to find the clit. It was surreal and they laughed about something. She shrugged her shoulders and smiled as her friend left. She pushed back harder. I wanted to fuck her because I had never done it before. Bringing a woman to your room for the first time is a milestone I guess. She turned around and kissed me. I thought about my breath. I watched as my mind came back to me at warp-speed. What if my brother saw me with this woman. He didn't joke about those types of things but I always felt that he doesn't understand me and this would only make things worse. I felt sick and self-concious. I wasn't right for her and I looked silly. People were looking at us. The most intense feeling of self-hatred burst through my body. My brain felt like it was snapped in half, flipped over and fried. I took a step back, judged the situation and ran out the door and into the cold, wet night. The moon shined brightly as I smiled and lit a cigarette for the long walk home. *** I've been reading a lot of Charles Bukowski recently and I wanted to write something based on a strange experience.


When I dreamt, I became someone else. It started two nights ago. The last thing I could remember before it happened was getting ready for bed, brushing my teeth, everything was normal. As I fell into sleep, something changed, not in my bedroom, but in myself. A force had found me, for whatever reason, it reached out and pulled me away. When I opened my eyes, I wasn’t in my apartment anymore. I was sitting in a stranger’s chair, in a stranger’s apartment. I tried to stand up and found I couldn’t. I tried just turn my head or flick my eyes around the room, but they would not move. As the panic set in I could feel something new lurking in its shadow, the otherness, or rather I was the otherness. A spirit trapped in a stranger’s body; a rare discordant note played by a master pianist. In my dream, although dream does not feel like the right word, the man stood and went to the window and looked out at the starless, black sky. In the window’s soft reflection, I could make out the contours of his face, a weak, unassuming jaw and deep-set eyes made his reflection look like a ghost. Along his left eyebrow, I saw the shadow of a scar that came down around his cheekbone. I wondered who he was and where that scar had come from, but his sudden movement broke my train of thought. There wasn’t much to tell about the apartment, it was dark, it looked like a studio with a single recliner sat in the middle of the room, a shelf of books and movies and an unkempt bed with the box spring on the floor tucked away into one of the corners. It didn’t matter, he was suddenly on the move, stuffing his feet into ratty old converse and searching for his keys. As we walked out the door, he swooped his arm down and nabbed a prepacked duffle bag. When we were outside, I recognized that we were in the city. The man was walking pretty fast, the autumn breeze washed against his face and I realized that I could feel everything he felt, the rhythm of his footsteps on the soles of his feet, the clatter of the duffle bag against his back, the thin layer of sweat over his mustached lip. Dogs barked in the distance, and the me who is not me began to walk a little bit faster. He reached a hand to his face and stroked the tail of the scar there. After a few minutes we arrived at a beat-up old Honda, the man climbed into the car, tossing the bag haphazardly onto the passenger seat and turned the key. As he pulled out into the street I noticed that he was breathing heavily, and I could sense a tightness in his throat, the kind one might get when suffering with intense seasonal allergies or a winter cold. We, the Other and I, drove for a long time, far out of the city. I wondered if I might be able to read his mind to find out just where we were going, but it was as if his thoughts were completely blank and he was driving on instinct alone. We arrived at a ranch style house in the suburbs. The streetlights were sparse, and the man was careful to pull into the shadows between them. In the house a single light shown, the man sat in the car for a while and at it, in hindsight, I can guess that he was waiting for it to turn off. Even then though, I could still feel the peculiarity of the situation. This was wrong, it was too weird. I tried to tell myself that maybe he knew these people, maybe it was a sibling or a friend, maybe they’d not spoken in a long time and he was mustering up his courage. The light went off, the man grabbed the duffle bag and together we stepped out into the shadows of the night. The man moved swiftly through the front yard, somehow it was different from before, more calculated, more elegant, if one could call it that. He’d done this before I was sure of it. I tried to get inside his head again, wondering what it is he was going to do, rob them? Kill them? The only thing I could see when I looked inside his mind was an image of a dog, maybe a husky mix with great snarling teeth. The man muttered something to himself as he tossed the bag over the fence, but I was too distracted to hear it. He took a deep breath and leapt onto the fence. He scaled it the first try, but as he vaulted his rear leg over the fence his pants caught on one of the boards. There was a tearing sound as we dropped. We hit the dirt hard and it rang through our entire body, our ears buzzed and throbbed with the pain. Around the corner of a large hedge, a porch light flicked on and we heard the mechanical turn of a doorknob. The Other, although in pain, scramblee to his feet just in time as the door peeled away from the airtight rubber frame. A man stepped out of the house draped in an old robe. He wass taller than us and looked strong even though the paunch in his belly and the cigarette in his hand begged to differ. He did not suspect us sitting there in the bushes. I wished very badly then that I had control over the body that there was something I could do or say. In the Other’s mind I can see the hammer in the duffle bag, nestled between the lock picking instruments and the rope. *You can’t unzip the bag though*, I thought hoping to deter the Other, if in fact there were a way for him to understand me, *he’ll hear you.* I do not know if it was my thought or the Other’s that led him to tuck the duffel back into the bush, but he did. Then he looked out on the porch and the temporary relief I’d felt waned. There was a rusty old golf club that sat not three feet away from us. The other looked toward the man, taken in by his cigarette and his wandering thoughts. *You can’t!* I thought *He’ll see you! Just wait for him to go inside and then leave!* The other moves slowly, his spindly body narrowly folded through the stray unkempt branches of the bush. In our shared chest I felt the unmistakable pump of our heart, I could not tell then if it belonged to me or the other. The other fished both of his legs out of the bush soundlessly and then we sat on all fours behind the smoking man. The other reached out slowly and gripped the golf club. I felt the weight in my hand, in his hand. The Other pushed himself up on one knee and held the club over his head. Time is peculiar when true violence is involved. It’s difficult to explain, but I felt it on this night. The entire incident wasn’t more than 20 seconds in truth. Every instant piled lazily atop one another like autumn red leaves, but in hindsight, the mind pulls the pieces apart and lays them out in a neat fashionable order. The club came down with a whipping sound, slicing through the atmosphere. The man, who I imagine must have heard the noise turned around just in time to see the face of the nine-iron drive straight into his forehead. He fell to the ground slowly, stupidly, as if he were just pretending, and was waiting for his cue to spring back up. The other drives the club down again and again, the sick thud of the man’s skull is like an untuned primal drum. If I had eyes of my own, I would have wept. The blood spread thick and red across the rough brick tiles of the porch, draining into the guttural grooves between them, and soaking into the newly tainted earth. Don’t think that I’m being callous when I tell you that he was the one who got off easy. He would never have to know what came next. To my surprise the Other halted his bludgeoning. He bent down on one knee and set the golf club gently on the ground beside the body. A rumble welled deep from within our body as the Other removed one glove from his hand and dipped his pale white fingers into the scarlet pool. He pulled his fingers up to his face and the taste of copper rushed into our mouth. I wanted to be sick, right then and there. I prayed for the first time since I was a small boy that I might spit out the blood and be ripped away from this body, greeted by the patterned, familiar silhouettes of my bedroom. It seemed though that my prayers, like many prayers before it would go unanswered as I felt the blood trickle down our throat. The Other dipped his fingers into the pool once more and my mind squealed at the thought of another taste of putrid nectar. Instead of sticking the blood in his mouth again though, he did something strange, stranger than all the moments that had led us here. He traced a strange enigmatic symbol on our forehead. Then he peeled the glove back over his bloody hand and walked towards the back door of the house. The lights were off as we entered the house. The door crept shut gently behind us, guided by the sleeved fingertips of the other. For a moment we stood around in the darkness. As if we were waiting for something. I was still reeling from the strange disconnect of the previous moments, I thought to myself that if the Other were to turn around right now, we might still have seen the portly older man still standing there, smoking his cigarette. I knew however that was a lie. By the pictures, and the decorative touch of the house, I could tell that a woman lived there too. I wondered where she was. Did the Other know her? What did the symbols mean? All these thoughts ran through my brain as we dawdled from one room into the next. The back door opened into the kitchen from there we made our way into the living room, I guessed that this must have been where the light outside had come from. I half expected that the woman would be around the corner as we made our way down the L-shaped hallway towards the office and the master bedroom. She wasn’t the house was still except for a grandfather clock that ticked away in the office. It struck me then, something about the clock, how weird it was to even see a grandfather clock nowadays. You kept time with the phone, or the smart watch, or the stove or the tv or the microwave. It seemed so out of place for this relic of the past to be here. I guessed it might have been an heirloom and that unsettled me further. I was in these people’s home. Their whole life was laid out before my eyes, I felt dirty and awkward. The other stopped in front of the door to the master bedroom, wrapping his gloved palm around the doorknob and putting the slightest bit of pressure so the door just barely peaked open. Inside the shape of the woman lays still in the dark. I wish then that she might stir, that she might feel our presence staring at her, but she doesn’t. The door opens a little wider. As we’ve made our way through the house, I had an odd sensation that I had attributed to my nerves, a feverish sweat. It occurs to me just now that I could not have been sweating, because I’d become so entangled with the sensations of that other’s body, I’d forgotten about the lack of my own. It was only when the heat bloomed in our forehead and sent the other doubled over in front of the strange woman’s bedroom door, that I truly noticed. The pain was immense unlike anything I’ve ever felt before I imagined it was what it was like to be branded like cattle on every inch of your body. It was impressive that the Other was able to endure it silently. It was only when our bones began to elongate and shift around in our body that the woman stirred, even then it was just slightly, and she never fully woke. After a few moments spent writhing on the floor, we emerged again, changed, and accompanied by another. The spirit of the wolf. Its energy was truly petrifying, it felt like something ancient, that predated all of humanity and understood ways of the universe that mortal beings could not fathom. I was it; it was the other; the other was me. We could feel each other, but we could not understand. The creature moved on all fours slinking around the room, as it wrapped one giant hand-paw hybrid on the footboard the nails clicked and scratched against the wood. The woman stirred and the creature paused, but she didn’t awaken. I prayed she would, prayed that she might be faking reaching underneath her pillow for a gun loaded with silver bullets. I wanted this to be a world where at least one person seemed to understand and was prepared to deal with this unholy scenario. We lingered over the woman, a dumb, snarling, drooling beast. Surely, she must have felt the heat of the creature’s breath on her neck, smelling the same stench of foul rotted insides, but through it all the woman did not awaken. The creature hung one knuckled misshapen paw over the body ready to strike. I could bite at the tension in the air, and yet as if to torture me further the creature would not deliver its final blow. *Why won’t the monster strike her and end this?* I think, and then I feel it, a flinch, the slightest flinch in the arm. I can move the arm of the body, but it seems all I can do. In my mind, a mad cackle sounds and I know it is The Other. It had to be me, I realized, although I did not understand the how, I knew that the purpose of bringing me along on this spectral journey had been this moment. I held my paw over the woman, at that point, the only sense of power I had ever known. Could I do it? Would the creature do it anyway if I refused. As I stood in the wolf’s body contemplating over the pale moon face of the woman, the woman’s eyes surprised me by flickering open. I watched the woman’s face transform from serenity to utter horror as she became aware of what loomed over her. She let out a piercing cry and without my thinking the claw drew downwards. As if by a miracle the woman rolled at just the right time to evade the attack. I felt a pinch as the woman flailed and the wolf body was lifted off of the woman by a stray kick. There was a clatter as we rolled off the bed. I felt the creature override my control snarling back into the body. The woman reached for whatever she could and hurled it towards us. Glass shattered along the floor, sounding like the gentle chimes in this woman’s concerto of terror. The woman opened the closet unable to move since the wolf creature had the exit cornered. While her back was turned the creature dove aiming to pin her against the wall, but again the woman was too fast. She rolled herself into the closet and pulled the door shut. The creature roared as it slammed against the wall a smear of ancient blood splattered against the wall. I could sense the fury in the creature now, what ever plans this creature had had for me had fallen to the wayside and all that was left was blind rage. The creature pawed at the door, smashing at it over and over with its mutant man-beast hands. The Other and I watched in anticipating silence knowing that the woman would not be able to hold back much longer. That was when the door peeled open, the wolf lunged blindly and did not see what arose from the darkness there. It merely yelped when the old cavalry sword pierced its chest. Then it slumped and fell sideways, its breath went shallow, and I felt that the creature was beginning to dissipate. The last thing I can remember is the woman standing over us, and through the window a view of the full harvest moon. When I awoke, I felt sick and tired as though I had not slept at all. I had told myself that it had been just a dream, but I could not shake the true nature of the previous night. Sitting with my morning coffee I watched as the news came in about a woman who had survived a horrific home invasion in a neighboring city. The woman refused to comment for the news but seeing the outside of the home was all of the confirmation that I had needed. There’s not been any more deaths that I know of. At least none that sound like this one, but I’m scared. I think about going up to my uncle’s cabin, where I can be alone. I can’t explain why but I have the sensation that whenever I came home that night, I brought something back with me. It’s just a feeling, like looking at the pale face of the moon.


It’s 7:15 A.M. I awake in a stupor, unaware of anything and everything for far too brief of a moment. An obnoxious alarm is beeping, purposely placed out of reach on the desk opposite my bed to prevent myself from hitting the snooze. Light beams in horizontal stripes across my face from the window near the desk. It burns. Rolling over onto my side, I brace myself for the incoming light and slowly bring the alarm clock into focus. “It’s 7:15 A.M.,” I mutter to myself. I pause and stare at the clock for what seemed like an hour, yet the time was unchanged. It was as if time came to a halt but the devil himself neglected to turn off the alarm. Counting down from five, I gradually manage to push off the weighted blanket and sit up in bed. As I adjust and rub the sleep out of my eyes, I get a better view of my desk. On it, the alarm is still ringing, pounding at my head incessantly. Further over is a picture frame featuring two people and a glass vase, full of flowers. Suddenly, the smell of roses fills the air. My heart races and my face goes cold. It is 7:16 A.M. The Fourteenth of February. I walk to the closet and pick out the fanciest clothes I own. The white undershirt for my hand-me-down suit is tighter than I remember it being, so I give up on that outfit and go for the next best option. The black pants are stiff and creased, as is the gray dress shirt I paired it with, but at least they fit. I stumble a bit while going down the stairs. The living room has been an organized mess for a few days now, with piles of half-filled shipping boxes in the corner by the door. I was dreading going through the rest of our belongings, so when both of our parents came over late last night for dinner, I had a convenient excuse to put it off for a little while longer. In the bathroom, I struggle to find the shaving cream among all her various beauty products, though I could not help but read the names of the products I don’t recognize. I find the shaving cream in a different drawer and apply it sparingly to avoid getting it on my shirt, only nicking my neck once this time. Washing off my face, I look into the mirror. Deep brown eyes with deeper circles beneath them, always looking just a little lopsided no matter how I adjust my head. A nose too wide for my face and teeth you’d never find advertised. How did she pick someone with a face like that? As I finish my preparations, I find my way through the maze of boxes in the living room, keeping my eyes on the door the whole time. I put on a warm, furry jacket and squint as I open the door. As luck would have it, the world outside is bright as ever. A pathway to the car through the dirt-crusted snow has caved in, but I am able to tiptoe through it without getting any snow in my shoes. A lone deer catches sight of me during my odd dance and sprints across the road from the neighbor’s yard. Two vehicles stop on a dime for the deer as I walk to my car, giving me a gentle wave as they go. I attempt to reciprocate but all I can muster is a nod. The ride feels like a cycle through the washing machine; it sounds like it too. Clouds are few and far between in the ocean of blue sky around. Leaves on the trees have been replaced with an even coat of snow, uninfluenced by those who walk beneath them. In the passenger seat is the vase of roses from my desk. Five minutes to go. My heart is nearly escaping my chest. She has been waiting for me to arrive for a while now. I didn’t forget. I could not forget. I pull into the parking lot of a meager building on the far side of town. It is a busy business with snow-white siding and a formidable double front door painted black. People are all over, wearing dress clothes under their coats and talking amongst themselves. I avoid making eye contact and plod toward the entrance, my legs faltering below me with every step closer. Hesitation creeps in with my hand on the doorknob and I cannot help but stand there at the front entrance, my heart knocking on my ribcage, pleading to escape. Before I can reconsider, the door opens for me, and a fellow gives me a simple nod and motions me in. I take the first step, then the second. I take a third. There are flowers crowding the south wall in an elegant array, every last one staring me down as I hobble toward them. I slowly pass by ten lines of cushioned seats, grasping the top of each one from the center walkway. The vase is tightly clenched in my other hand. At last, I reach the wall of flowers and leave the vase and all but one rose by the display. It is painful to look down, but I could see her now. I leave the rose by her hands and put my hand to her cheek. She is still cold.


A chill bit through Hanna’s thin shawl. She wrapped it tighter around herself, brushing off errant leaves. Her head hurt and the world slightly spun. She put a slender hand on the trunk near her and took in the sight and smell of the forest. It didn’t make sense. How did she get here? Her mind was a fog, but Hanna was sure it had been a beautiful spring day when she had come to pick mushrooms for dinner. Now, she hardly recognized where she was in this picturesque fall forest. A slight breeze ruffled orange and red leaves, scattering them to an already crowded forest floor. She had to get home; her new husband would be expecting her. They had barely been married a fortnight and Hanna wanted to impress Eoghan. She ruffled her damp skirts and marched on. If she was where she thought she was, her modest cottage should be just around the bend. Moving on wobbly legs, Hanna let her muscles do the work, her mind still spinning. Finally, after what felt like much too long, the dusty road appeared in front of her, her home village, the one she had lived in since she was born, sprawled out below her. The sight of the tall church steeple filled her heart. Whatever had happened, maybe just a horrible dream, must be coming to an end. With wobbly confidence she marched down the road, across the burbling brook, and down into her home.  The sight of her blooming garden welcomed her, but it was, off. Her plants should just be sprouting, as she had planted them when she and Eoghan moved in after their wedding. But now, towering sunflowers and bright round full pumpkins filled the small space. She pushed it aside, eager to see her husband. Maybe she would rest and when she woke up all would make sense again. She lightly palpitated her head, could she have had a fall? Last winter old man Peter hit his head on his barn eaves and lost a full week from memory. Could that be it? No, It didn’t feel right, Hanna was grasping at straws. She approached her wooden door and before she could twist the handle, the door opened. Hanna bit back a gasp. She was staring at, herself. Tall with coiled auburn hair, a slender, pale face spattered with freckles. Hanna pinched her arm, hard. This had to be a dream. Worse, a nightmare.            “May I help you?” she heard herself ask. Hanna was speechless.            “Are you quite alright? You look as though you’ve had a fright.”            “I don’t…who are you?”            The woman’s eyes, her own eyes looking back at her, grew distrustful.            “My name is Hanna O’Murray. Who are you?”            “I’m…I’m Hanna O’Murray. This is my house. What is going on?”            The woman laughed, but the humor didn’t reach her eyes.            “You must have taken a fall. Either that or you’ve had too much ale before the Harvest’s eve festival. I suggest you make your way back into town. My husband will be home soon, and he doesn’t take too kindly to strangers.”            Hanna, though in disbelief, felt anger and bewilderment stir inside of her.            “Your husband?” She almost shouted. “Liar! This is my house and I don’t know what sorcery or tomfoolery you are trying to pull here but I demand you leave at once.”            The woman looked around, as though to make sure they were alone. When she turned back on Hanna her eyes had changed to a glowing yellow, her teeth grew long and sharp. Gently, she ran a clawed nail down Hanna’s cheek.            “My dear, my sweet, sweet child. You have been missing for months. You would have been dead if I hadn’t needed you alive to take your form. You were as good as lifeless from the moment I dropped you in that forest glen like a wet sack of sod. You simply do not exist anymore. I am Hanna O’Murray and you are nothing.”            Fear chilled Hanna’s insides. “I know what you are. You’re a fairy. A changeling. But that’s impossible, that’s just a story my mam told me as a child. This…this can’t be real.”            “Oh, it is. Now, begone before I change my mind and eat you.”            Hanna felt rooted in place, fear, and anger keeping her tethered. Suddenly, the sound of a horse came rolling up.            “Hullo, dear! Are you ready for the harvest festival? I hear Kian grew a pumpkin the size of his sheep!”            Eoghan, sweet Eoghan. Hanna felt tears well in her eyes when she looked at her husband. As he hopped off his horse and approached the house, his shining eyes changed to puzzlement. Hanna looked at the fairy to see her appearance had changed back.            “Eoghan, darling, this woman is sick. She is pretending to me be. She plans to kill me and be your wife.”            Eoghan’s dark eyes turned deadly as he rounded on Hanna. She had never seen such malice mar his face.            “She’s lying! She’s a fairy. Please, Eoghan, it’s me, Hanna. Your real wife!”            Eoghan looked back and forth from woman to woman.            “Eoghan, please kill her before she kills us! She’s a demon! You know it’s true.” Pleaded the fairy.            Eoghan took out the slender knife he always carried with him. He looked back and forth. Hanna could tell he didn’t know what to do.            “It’s me! I can prove it. We got married on March 15 in a tent in a beautiful flower field. All of our friends and family were there. It was the happiest day of our life.”            “Don’t listen to that demon, she’s tricking you! Kill her! Kill her now.”            Then, the fairy began to speak an ancient language under her breath. A language long forgotten. Eoghan turned on Hanna, his knife raised high. The fairy’s face turned ugly, saliva oozing from elongated teeth. Hanna met Eoghan’s eyes, and she knew before she felt the knife slip into the soft flesh of her belly. Warm blood seeped through her hands. She was no more.


           “Mei?”

2 hours left.            “Mei!”

Would it happen again?            “Mei!” The black-haired girl jolted back to the table in front of her. “Can you please pass the rice? It’s gonna get cold.”            “Y-yeah.” Mei picked up the bowl from the far end of the table and passed it across to her sister. “Here. Sorry.”            The small family continued to eat their dinner as they did every night. Her parents focused on devouring every morsel that they were denied as children, her sister picking the peas out of her rice, and Mei shaping the food away from the center, clearing her view of the silver rabbit in the center.

Why did it choose me?            She stared at the tiny creature. A symbol of luck and prosperity in her family. The dishes had been passed down for generations through her mother’s side. Mei remembered her mother telling her and her sister stories of rabbits from when she was a child. “You can always trust a rabbit,” she would say. She’d tell tales of small rabbits that lived in her backyard. She would watch them eat the grass and do her best not to disturb them. “But they won’t always trust you.”            “Mei?” Her father put his hand on her shoulder. She looked up and saw the empty table in front of her. “It’s your turn for dishes tonight.” A pile of dishes sat in the sink.

1 hour left.            “Can’t Jun do them tonight?”            “You’re turn,” he said, pointing to a chore chart magnetized to the fridge. He exited the kitchen and patted her on the shoulder.            She picked up the brush and began to scrub a bowl. At the bottom of it, the same rabbit that had been on her plate could be seen through the bubbles. She could clearly see the silver animal. It was seemingly resting, its ears smooth against its back and its deceptively long legs tucked underneath its body. It seemed to sleep among the pool of bubbles that grew with every swirl of the brush in Mei’s hand.            “I think it’s clean.”            Mei almost dropped the bowl in surprise. Her sister had come into the kitchen and opened the fridge.            “I’m just here for dessert and a show,” she trailed off, grabbing a pudding cup from the fridge. “You’ve clearly got a system here.”            Mei put her head down and picked up another plate.            “What is it?”            “What?”            “Something has been on your mind since dinner. What is it?”

You only noticed at dinner?            Mei kept her head down and continued to wash the dish. Her sister sighed, rolling her eyes as she began to leave. “Jun?”            “Yes?”            “Do you remember that rabbit you caught when we were kids?”            “How could I forget?” Jun laughed. She straightened her back and pursed her lips. “’I told you that they are friends! Would you like if a friend kept you as a pet?’” She slumped back down to her normal posture, “and it was so hard to catch, too.”            Mei exhaled lightly, almost laughing with her sister. “She was pretty upset with you.”            “Yup. Why do you ask?”            “I just…I saw a rabbit in the yard the other night and it reminded me of that.”            Mei continued to clean the dishes as Jun finished her pudding. The older of the two dropped her spoon into the sink and exited the kitchen, dropping the empty, disposable cup into the trash can.

20 minutes.            With the dishes done, Mei went to her room and sat at her desk. She grabbed a pencil and began to work on a new sketch, one of her newest friends. The moment the graphite pressed against the page she felt at peace. The fluid strokes spilled out of her mind, bringing it to life the way only she could. She thought her sketch might hop right onto her desk.            Suddenly, her alarm began to play, letting Mei know that it was time. She closed her notebook and shoved it into crocheted bag. She slung it over her shoulder and headed to the kitchen. She grabbed a carrot from the fridge and a small rabbit plate from the set. Both went into her bag with care as she headed for the patio door.            “I’m heading down to the shore for a walk,” Mei called to the house, “I’ll be back soon.”            “Be careful down there at this hour. You know what they say about a full moon night.”

Trust me, dad, I’m well aware.            Mei walked outside and closed the door behind her. She hopped the railing and felt the sand between her toes. It sent slight chills up her body as she walked down the beach, but she welcomed every step. Her gaze was fixed across the waves as the moonlight danced across each tiny ebb and flow. Every star reflected itself on the black water. The breeze lightly swept across her face and pushed her hair gently back, causing her to hold her head up, a position foreign to her. She saw the moon in all its light. She kneeled down and removed the items from the bag. The plate, the carrot, and the sketchbook. She broke the carrot in half and placed both pieces on the plate. She turned back to the moon and saw a small nose poke out from behind it, wiggling in interest. I’m here. It’s okay. Suddenly, it became a face with whiskers that began to emerge from behind the large plate in the sky. Then, more and more of the creature slipped out and began jumping from star to star, sending bright ripples throughout the sky as if a rock were skipping across a pond. As it got closer, its size seemed to diminish. By the time it landed across from Mei, it was no larger than the average rabbit she had seen in her yard. It came closer and made its way to the carrot pieces on the plate. The silver rabbit began to eat the carrot. After a moment, it nuzzled one half away and cocked its head at the design on the plate. It made a noise that sounded almost like laughter. Mei giggled seemingly with the creature. She grabbed her sketchbook and began to draw once again. This time, her muse was right there, perfectly posed for her. You are a peculiar rabbit. The animal slowly inched toward her. It peeked into her book to see what Mei was drawing before stepping into her lap and curling into a ball. She accepted the loving gesture, just as she knew her mother would have before her. Thank you, my friend.


Sheila had barely tiptoed outside the borders of the United States, having only ventured on a couple of short jaunts into Mexico and Canada. So, when she saw an opportunity for exciting travel, she made a bold move – she volunteered to represent her team at an industry conference in Brazil. Little did she know at the time what she’d be getting herself into. “It sounds exciting,” she thought to herself with a smile, “I can do this. No big deal.” First, she needed to sort out getting a visa. Luckily her company used an agency to help with international travel and securing visas. “Piece of cake,” she thought to herself when her visa arrived in her mailbox just a week later. Then she realized there was a possibility she might require vaccinations. She did some quick research, determined what she needed, and scheduled an appointment with her doctor’s travel clinic. “Also, a piece of cake,” she said to herself after leaving the clinic with a bandage on her arm. Next, she headed to her bank to get Brazilian currency so she could make a few purchases in Brazil and pay for cab rides if they didn’t accept credit cards. “Always travel prepared,” was her mantra. “This international travel thing isn’t going to be so hard,” she said out loud while driving back to work, “I don’t know why everyone complains about it so much.” When the day of her flight arrived, Sheila’s bags were loaded up with all the right adapters she’d need to keep her phone and laptop charged up, along with an extra external battery if things got dire when she wasn’t in her hotel room. She had her full itinerary, her boarding passes, her hotel information, and the conference details all printed out and ready to go. She jumped into a cab with her neck pillow secured around her neck and a lightweight blanket packed into her carryon bag so she could sleep comfortably on the long flight. “I’m READY!” she declared to herself, and to the cab driver, who clearly wasn’t interested in anything she had to say. She shrugged and broke into a self-satisfied smile. All was fine when Sheila took off from San Francisco for her connecting flight in Dallas. She popped her headphones in and listened to the new playlist she’d created the night before full of all of her favorite, most energizing songs. Unfortunately, what Sheila discovered in short order was that all of her very detailed preparation did not remotely prepare her for what she was about to encounter. Not even a little bit. Sheila disembarked from the plane in Dallas and found her gate at the international terminal. She was in the middle of the pack waiting to board the plane and suddenly realized that everyone around her was speaking what she’d learned through her research was the native language of Brazil – Portuguese. “Well that can’t be right,” she mumbled.  She looked up and down the line of people and realized she was the only Caucasian waiting to board the plane. But a lot of people boarded ahead of her, so there had to be a few Americans also headed to Brazil, right? She was in DALLAS for crying out loud. But as Sheila walked down the aisle toward her seat, all she heard was Portuguese – not a word of English. “Well, surely, they also speak English,” she thought and plopped down, grabbing her blanket and an extra sweater out of her carry-on bag so she’d be cozy when she tried to sleep on the overnight flight. Then the stewardess started making all manner of announcements…in Portuguese. “Fascinating. I thought everyone spoke English on airplanes IN AMERICA,” she muttered with an audible sigh. Just before the plane left the gate, a stewardess made a special trip down the aisle to tell Sheila, what she needed to know…in English, broken English, but English just the same…while also sharing that she was, in fact, the only English-speaking passenger on board. “Dear God. I hope we don’t have any type of crisis on the plane or it’s going to be the Brazilians leading the oblivious…the oblivious being ME,” she also muttered to herself. Oh well, once I get to Brazil, I’ll be fine, she thought. Surely people at airports and hotels all speak English. Sheila started watching movies on her tiny seatback screen until she couldn’t keep her eyes open any longer and finally passed out over the Atlantic Ocean, hoping the flight wouldn’t go down into the ocean. It was a pragmatic thought for a very OCD and anxious person such as herself. But still, her eyes managed to close for several hours until the morning sun started streaming into the plane. Suddenly the stewardesses were handing out trays of food with Portuguese words all over the various packages. It was the most delicious airplane food Sheila had ever tasted. Now that could have been attributable to the fact that it was “foreign” and therefore “exotic” in her mind. But Sheila was immediately convinced that Brazilians simply live their best lives when they travel from Dallas to Brazil, consuming many delicious fruity beverages and snacks. After landing, Sheila made her way off the plane and through customs in short order. Yup, her visa was all in line and proper. Then she headed to the taxi stand and tried to converse with the attendant, who clearly spoke not a word of English. She tried saying “taxi” and “hotel” and the name of the hotel, but the attendant just kept staring at her and shrugging. “Good grief, it’s going to be a VERY long week if it’s going to be like this at the AIRPORT,” she thought. She finally pulled her well-prepared stack of papers out of her briefcase and pointed to the name of the hotel. “Ahhhh,” the attendant said, and signaled a taxi to take her to her hotel, speaking a lot of unrecognizable words. What followed was a very long and quiet hour-long ride in a cab with a driver who clearly also spoke no English. And Sheila noted the extensive graffiti and favelas along the hillsides on the way to her hotel. “I’m such an idiot,” Sheila said out loud, wishing she’d invested in a book of Portuguese phrases to bring on her trip with her and that she’d done a little more research on the location of both the airport and her hotel. It was with more than a little trepidation that she wondered if she was going to be taken out to the countryside and murdered, never to be heard from again. Her heart started racing at warp speed until eventually, she arrived at her hotel in the very upscale and beautiful Sao Paulo business district. She quickly discovered that the hotel reception staff, mercifully, spoke exceptional English. She headed to her room to dispose of her luggage, then headed back down to speak to the concierge and learn what was within walking distance of the hotel so she could spend her Sunday afternoon exploring. “Well,” he stated, “There’s a little indoor shopping mall right down the street, then if you take a right and walk about 3-4 blocks, there are lots of other shops and restaurants to explore.” “Excellent. Are they both safe areas for me to walk alone in?” Sheila asked, with more than a little concern for her safety. She had read about crime in Sao Paulo and didn’t want her first big foray into international travel to land her in the middle of some horrific crime to her person. “Oh yes, ma’am, both areas are very safe,” the concierge reported with a smile. Sheila checked out the little shopping mall first. She wandered from one end to another only to discover it was mostly furniture and carpet stores, which was disappointing, but no matter. She felt very self-satisfied for simply getting out and exploring in a country where most people didn’t even speak her language. But eventually, Sheila realized she was very thirsty and headed to the mall’s food court, to purchase a bottle of water. She pointed to the water bottles behind the counter and said, “A bottle of water, please?” The cashier just stared at her. Sheila leaned in and pointed harder at the water bottles. Still nothing. Finally, the cashier started pointing at each item in her glass case until she got an affirmation from Sheila after she had pointed to the water. The cashier rang it up and Sheila handed her 100 reals, having no idea how Brazilian currency actually worked. “Ugh, another thing I forgot to prepare myself for,” she thought as she shoved the change she was given back into her wallet, hoping she wasn’t paying $10 or more for that bottle of water. She left the shopping mall and headed toward the shopping district; but after walking just a couple of blocks, she started to feel extremely uneasy. She was the only woman walking down a very deserted street with just a couple of men wandering aimlessly amongst boarded up and graffitied buildings. “Oh, no. No, no, no, no,” she thought and promptly turned around to head back to the hotel. "That concierge does NOT know what he's talking about!" Once safely ensconced back in her hotel room, she turned on the TV to discover that all the shows were in Portuguese. “I can do this,” she said, figuring out how to turn on English subtitles. In no time, she was picking up Portuguese words while watching “Big Bang Theory” in Portuguese, which amused her to no end. Now that she was finally relaxed, she realized she was starving and ran down to the lobby coffee bar to pick up something to eat. And that was when she discovered that bacon pizza is a thing in Brazil. And not just little shredded up bacon bits…full slices of bacon laid all across the pizza, its entirety which she consumed in less than 20 minutes because…bacon…pizza. Monday morning rolled around and Sheila headed to the conference, only to have the keynote speaker, followed by all the other speakers presenting all the content in Portuguese, without English subtitles. “Phew boy, I really need to learn to ask the right questions before I EVER leave the country again,” she muttered after returning to her hotel room. The next day, she ran into a couple of colleagues she’d met a couple of times before, one of whom actually spoke Portuguese at home with his Brazilian wife, and they made a plan to go to dinner at…obviously…an authentic Brazilian steak house. At the restaurant, her colleague carried on detailed conversations with the waiters about exactly what meats they wanted and what they wanted to be served with them. Uncharacteristic of her normal very buttoned-up personality, Sheila just laughed, exclaiming, “Hey, I’m along for the ride. Feel free to impress me!” They headed to the gigantic salad bar, and the three of them sauntered around it to determine what choices they’d make. Kevin looked at her and whispered, “There’s nothing I love more than a salad bar made ENTIRELY of MEAT!” They both laughed a little too loudly and the other patrons began to stare. Sheila came to the realization that she didn’t have a care in the world about what people she’ll never see again in a foreign country thought of her and continued laughing as she piled meat and seafood high onto her plate. The next day, when Sheila had some free time before heading to the airport for her flight, she went and sat down in the hotel coffee bar and drank what was clearly the best espresso she’d ever had in her entire life. She pulled out her laptop and started writing the article that was due to her boss by the end of the day when the barista came over and started chatting with her in broken English. Before long Sheila and the barista were teaching each other words from their respective languages, sharing a laugh when they each improperly pronounced the other’s words. When Sheila finished drafting her article, she got up, packed up her bag, waved to the barista, smiled, and said, “Obrigado!” As she walked back to her room, she ran across the housekeepers busily stocking their carts in the hallway. “Bom dia,” she said with a smile as she shuffled past. She jumped in a cab back to the airport, using up her Brazilian reals on souvenirs for her son at the airport, then boarded the plane and sat down, letting out a deep sigh. “Well that wasn’t so bad,” she thought to herself, as she silently plotted in her head what country, with very few English speakers, she wanted to travel to next.


The Empty Room July 14 th , 1881 Suzanne Marsh Tad stared at the emptiness of the room. Had it only been two weeks since the stranger arrived? Ma didn’t ask questions but agreed to take care of the stranger. The stranger had been brought by none other than Sheriff Pat Garrett himself. This did not really seem odd since the sheriff always was bringing wounded men here to Ma. The stranger young, with blondish hair and the two biggest buck teeth Ma and I had ever seen. Ma told me to fetch a sharp knife and the whiskey she kept for medicinal purposes. The stranger withered in pain as Ma began to dig the bullet out in his shoulder. He glared: “Hey look kid, I don’t need nobody fer an audience. Soon as I’m healed I am headin fer Texas.” He passed out from all the whiskey Ma had been dosin him with. She continued to dig in his shoulder with the knife. Sheriff Garrett was holding him down until the fifth glass of whiskey took hold. Ma, her brown hair in her eyes was pushing strands of hair back out of her eyes. Finally Ma produced the bullet. The young stranger was passed out cold. It was my job to check on him for Ma. The following morning rumors were flying around Fort Summer that Billy the Kid was dead. Tad began to wonder about the identity of the stranger laying in the bed. He wondered why Sheriff Garrett had told Ma to keep the stranger under warps…no one could know he was there. The Sheriff told Ma he would return in a few days to check on him. Tad watched as the stranger turned over in his sleep, moaned then turned over the other way. ‘Restless like; maybe he will awake soon and I can find out who he is. Three days later Tad stood looking into the room. The stranger gawked at him: “Where am I? What am I doing here?” “This is the Sherman place just outside of Fort Summer.” Tad quickly ran down the wooden stairs: “Ma, Ma come quick the stranger just woke up.” “Tad, go get Sheriff Garett NOW!” Tad ran as fast as his legs would go, he finally found Pat Garrett in a saloon. Tad spoke in a low voice: “Yer prisoner woke up a little while ago, Ma sent me ta find ya.” Pat Garrett turned on his heel, following Tad back. Pat knew he did the right thing in saving Billy’s life; he just did not want to be caught doing so. The result would be a lyncing; his own. He thought about the Lincoln County Wars and Billy’s part. The shoot outs; no he was right to keep Billy alive, he deserved another chance. Tad and Pat Garrett arrived back at his home. Ma, was standing in the doorway waiting: “Sheriff, he been askin fer ya since he came to.” “How long before he can ride?” “A couple of weeks at least.” “Here is fifty dollars, don’t let him out of your sight, there will another fifty when the job is done.” That was more money than Ma made selling cattle. Ma, smiled a weary smile at Sheriff Garrett: “He is on the top floor the room on the right.” “Tad, show Sheriff Garrett the way.” Ma returned to butchering the cow she had started early that morning. Tad led Sheriff Garrett up the stairs to where the stranger was: “Hey Little Casino” “Hey Big Casino.” “Billy, when you are healed well enough I want you on a horse and out of here. Head for Texas and stay there.” “Sure will Big Casino, what happened?” “Well Billy, the only way I could protect you was to shoot you. I winged you in the shoulder; faked your death.” “Thanks Big Casino, I’m done killin. I would still like to kill that Dolan but I think you are right. I ain’t safe here in Fort Summer.” “Billy, I’ll be back before you leave with your six shooter and a rifle.” Pat Garrett stood tall at six feet four inches, he ducked out of the doorway; closing the door behind him. Tad overheard the conversation between Billy and Pat Garrett; this aroused his curosity even more. What was the Big and Little Casino? Could that possibly be Billy the Kid that was in that room. Tad, knew about the rumors that Billy the Kid was dead, killed by none other Sheriff Pat Garrett. He knew better than to ask questions that could not be answered. He turned to go downstairs, he could smell Ma’s roast all the way up here. His mouth watered as he entered the kitchen. The other boarders had already left for various jobs: “Ma, I got a strong hunch that stranger is Billy the Kid, right here in our place.” “Tad, I want you to promise me you won’t repeat what you have just said. Sheriff Garrett asked me not to tell who this stranger is. It will be better for both of us. Now, you go on, and take this upstairs to the stranger.” Tad, knew there was no possible way he could ever tell anyone about the stranger in the guest room. Later that evening Ma sent him up to the strangers room with a tray of food. Tad knocked on the door: “Come on in.” Tad entered the guest room: “Howdy, my name is Billy Bonney and your name is?” “Tad, Tad Sherman.” “I am glad to meet ya Tad.” “I hope ya won’t be thinkin I am nosey but are you really Billy the Kid.” “Sure am. Sit down and talk to me while I eat. I had nothin since the gun fight when Pat shot me. I know he did it for my own good. I am alive. I am thinkin about headin out of here in a few days. I have always had a hankerin to see Texas.” “Did you really kill a man when you was fifteen.” “Ya I did but it ain’t nothin I am proud of. Killin ain’t what folks think it is. Bein a gun fighter with a price on your head. No not any more I am twenty one years old I am sure fixin to live way beyond that.” Billy smiled at Tad: “Don’t go getting any bright ideas Tad. Take it from me breakin the law n murderin folks it ain’t no way ta live.” “I know Billy, my Ma been tellin me that since I was a little feller.” “Well listen to her she makes good sense.” A week later, Billy Bonney rode out of Fort Summer under the darkness of night. He rode hard and fast to a small Texas town he’d heard about; Hico. When he arrived he kept to himself. He knew that there was still a warrant out for him. He changed his name to “Brushy” Bill Roberts; remaining in Hico, Texas until the day he collapsed and died of a heart attack on December 27, 1950. “Brushy” Bill was known throughtout Hico as Billy the Kid. He certainly knew a great deal about Billy the Kid...maybe just maybe he was Billy the Kid.


Fred's foot was pressed hard on the gas. As the van sped along the highway, he briefly winced at the sound of crunching coming from the backseat. Scooby was sitting next to a pile of Scooby Snacks, swallowing one after the other. He wasn't even tasting them, but the constant presence felt good. It distracted him, kept his mouth busy so his mind could forget. He let one dissolve on his tongue as he watched his hollow-eyed best friend. Shaggy was shaking silently, uncontrollably. He bit down on his tongue to keep his teeth from chattering. It was his fault. He watched his shaking legs with a newfound hatred and bit down harder. Blood rushed from his tongue. It tasted good. Velma took her glasses off. The world around her blurred into a mass of vague shapes and colors, and she plotted alternatives. She shouldn't have listened to Fred's plan, should have known it would go wrong like usual... She could have moved the clothesline away from the steps, onto the soft grass. She could have tackled the "ghost" before it tripped, could have called the police, could have given up all together. It wasn't hurting anyone, really, just messing around in an abandoned old house. "It." Who was she kidding? The ghost was a person. Not an it, a child. The image of his tiny head smashed on the concrete steps was imprinted in her brain. She tried to focus on something else: the frayed seat, her muddy shoes, anything. But the image remained, and she shuddered as she watched the blood ooze out over and over and over and over again. She hit her head against the window, but the image remained. Daphne, sitting next to Fred, wasn't aware of anything behind her. Her eyes were clouded by tears, her body wracked with sobs. She knew her make up was a mess, and for the first time in her life, she didn't care. All she wanted was a hug, a touch, even a look of reassurance from Fred. She reached out her hand, but he didn't see it. Couldn't see it. Daphne pulled at her hair and tried to scream, but nothing came out. She leaned forward and hugged her knees in a fetal position, praying that Fred would somehow make everything better. Fred's eyes were scanning, searching. He was numb now, deaf and blind to everything else but the road. He found what he was looking for and calmly exhaled. No one made a sound as he crashed into the tree. Hi everyone! This is my first post on here, hope you like it! Cant wait to hear your feedback.