      It was a bitter winter that year, 1954. The coldest that century, they said, and fifteen-year-old Ernie Remsen was freezing; the layers of sweaters underneath his blue cotton mechanic’s jacket, a “Texaco” patch on the breast, couldn’t keep out the chill. Sal was the name embroidered over the left pocket. Ernie didn’t know Sal but was grateful he’d donated it to the church rummage sale. It was almost better than nothing.            Still, Ernie had stolen a kid’s coat, a real winter coat, hanging from a hook outside the gym’s locker room. Ernie was either stupid enough or cold enough to wear it around school. The coat didn’t even fit.  Had its rightful owner, a boy named Sokol, gone up to him and said it was his, Ernie would have given it back then and there. He wasn’t a bully; he just wanted a warm coat and there it was. Sokol wasn’t about to confront Ernie, though. Ernie Remsen wasn’t a kid you confronted. Avoided was more like it. You don’t mess with kids who never smile. You don’t mess with kids who mumble to themselves. You don’t mess with a kid who once came to school with a black eye.            It was Principal O’Brien’s call to make; suspension or community service. Ernie was half hoping for suspension because time out of school was as good as time in school. But his mother would have a fit and if his father came back this time, Ernie would end up with another black eye and that was only because he’d grown too big for a belt.            He choked up when he offered an apology, saying he didn’t mean any harm and just needed a warm coat. He hated himself for that and choked up some more.            The principal told Ernie to stay seated and not touch anything. He scrounged in a closet that housed the lost-and-found until he found a coat too large for most kids, a dark plaid thing that had been turned in after a football game.            “Here,” said O’Brien. “No one’s claimed it. Anyway, it’s yours so you don’t need to borrow one from a kid half your size.”            Ernie looked up through reddened eyes and mumbled, “Thanks.”            “Now, Mr. Remsen, what to do with you?”            Ernie chewed on the ragged end of a well-chewed thumbnail while staring at his feet. He hesitated before saying, “I don’t know,” his stock response to questions in school even when he knew the answer. The principal was looking at papers on his desk, not at Ernie. The question, Ernie now knew, was rhetorical.            “Ernie, do you know what ‘intimidating’ means?”            Ernie nodded.            “Has anyone ever told you that you look a bit scary?”            Ernie was about to answer no but stopped. He hadn’t been told he was scary; no one would dare. No one ever said much to him, unless there was a problem.            “When something goes wrong, everyone kind of thinks I did it. Like when a window gets broken or when the woods caught fire that time. It was like, ‘Ernie, did you do it?’ I guess I look that way.”            The principal looked at Ernie for a long while. Ernie looked out the window. What else, it would be suspension. That wouldn’t be so bad. Ernie had that term paper on his mind: “A Brush with History.” The idea was to write about something in his life that brought him close to the past. So far he’d come up empty except to blame his father’s behavior on three years as a POW, though his mother had said he’d been a jerk long before that. Maybe he’d go hang out at the town’s library, figure something out, if he could ignore the scowl from the librarian who would ask him why he wasn’t in school. Or if she didn’t kick him out.            “It’s not fair, is it?”            Ernie nodded in agreement. “You know what they say.”            “What’s that Ernie?”            “Don’t judge a book by its cover. I guess I have a bad cover. I needed a coat. I was going to give it back at some point. I think.”            The principal smiled for the first time that morning.            “Well you don’t need a coat now. Nor do you need a suspension. I’ve got community service in mind unless you insist on suspension. Which will it be?”            Ernie didn’t expect a choice. He said, “Community service.”            The principal smiled again. “Good choice.”            Thaddeus Seymour, age 96, lived alone in a house he built in 1897. He’d lost his wife in the Spanish Flu Epidemic. Their daughter, too. The son, an engineer, was killed exploring a mine in Colorado. Their spouses had remarried and moved on with the grandchildren to parts unknown. His friends had gone, too. The best was a dog who died when Seymour was 90. Fifteen-years old that dog. Seymour couldn’t go through that again. Hell, he could barely take care of himself these days.            Seymour didn’t drive, not anymore, even if he wanted to. His license with a rare three-digit number had expired years before. And it was doubtful his Ford Model A would start assuming he had the strength to work the crank. So, he’d would walk to town to shop, get his haircut, get out of the house, get moving. If he had more than one bag of groceries, he’d make multiple trips that would take up his entire day. He’d amble down the road, waving off people offering a ride and eventually make it to wherever he was going. Mike Abernathy, the local police sergeant, once asked him if he wouldn’t rather get there sooner. Seymour groused that then he’d have nothing to do but go for a walk anyway.            “You ever hear the story about the tortoise and the hare?” Seymour said. “Speed only gets you nowhere sooner.” He didn’t wait for a response. He looked at the time on his pocket watch, adjusted his tie, swung his cane, and continued on his way. It would have been a treacherous walk for anyone that day. Powdery snow hid ice under which roots had lifted the cracked sidewalk into a series of little random ridges, valleys, and glaciers. But it was Wednesday, and every other Wednesday he went for a haircut. It had been a routine etched into his life for 50 years always at the same barbershop, though the original owner was long gone. His grandson, Joe, no spring chicken, ran it now. Joe offered to come to Seymour’s home, especially in rough weather. Seymour would have none of it. “And would you bring the rest of your ugly customers with you? How about those girly magazines? No? Then I’ll come to you.”            Before and after his haircut, Seymour would sit in the shop—outside if the weather was fine—and talk to anyone who bothered to listen or listen to anyone who bothered to talk. If no one was talking, he’d read magazines like the Police Gazette, Esquire, or Argosy. And if it wasn’t one of those every-other-Wednesdays, it didn’t matter; it was a place to spend time haircut or not.            The snow had dulled the sheen on his cracked leather brogues. Maybe he’d get a shine if the boy was in the shop. Next time he’d wear the brown shoes and get these resoled again; they needed it. He could use new laces, too. He was thinking about that when the tip of his cane found a narrow crack in the sidewalk that wouldn’t let go. Seymour held onto the cane a moment too long. The cane held fast. Seymour tripped over a root that had grown through a crack, his arms splayed out in surprise. His face met the snowy pavement shattering his wire-rimmed glasses. He was lucky he hit the snow. The only damage was a badly twisted ankle. He recovered the cane and managed to get on his feet. It took him an hour to dodder home.            The doctor making house calls told Seymour to ice his leg and keep off of it. Seymour smirked. He rose and limped to the kitchen returning with a glass of bourbon on the rocks. “See Doc? It’s got ice. I’ll deliver it internally.”            Members of the Ladies Auxiliary from the Methodist church brought over meals and did some cleaning. It was always the same, chicken pot pie. “Easy to chew, easy to stomach and, damn good,” was what he’d say.            Seymour was sitting back in his armchair, bouncing one foot on the floor and alternatively tapping the armrests with his hands. He was staring at the four walls, complaining to infrequent visitors that he’d be climbing them if not for his “damn leg.” The church women thought they were doing him a favor by leaving copies of the Saturday Evening Post and worn editions of Reader’s Digest. Seymour could have cared less for any of those even if he could read them, which he couldn’t without his old glasses. The new ones wouldn’t arrive for a couple of weeks.            “He needs a helper, someone to read to him. He likes history,” said Joan Wright, Chair of the Women’s Auxiliary, to Principal O’Brien. “And, let me be frank, he could use some help with, I don’t mean to be rude, the toilet. You understand? It should be a young man. I thought you might have a student, perhaps a scout working on a merit badge. Someone who could use a little money. We’re offering $5 a week.”            O’Brien was delighted.            “I have just the fellow.” Ernie made his way up the walk to the porch and knocked on the door. A voice called out, “It’s open. Wipe your feet”            He did as instructed and closed the door behind him.            “Umm, hi. I’m, uhm, Ernie Remsen and—”            “I know who you are and don’t mumble. Come over so I can get a look at you.”            Ernie wiped his feet again and stood before Thaddeus Seymour. “My eyesight, you know. They’re working on new glasses. Take a seat. Now tell me, do you know what day it is?”            Ernie shrugged, “Wednesday.” It came out more as a question than an answer.            “Wednesday, right. That’s why I look handsome. Got a haircut. And a shave. Joe came over from the shop. Did me the honors. I don’t want to look like some ragamuffin for those church ladies, do I? “            Seymour pointed to a stack of magazines. “He left those.”            “Magazines,” said Ernie.            “You might as well start your job. Choose one. I don’t care which.”            For the next two hours Ernie read to Thaddeus Seymour with two breaks to help the old man onto the toilet, discretely standing outside the room until called, and another break for a trip to the kitchen where a plate of cookies had been left by the ladies of the Methodist Auxiliary.            “Take one for yourself. Hell, take two. I can’t eat ‘em all,” said Seymour.            Ernie had hoped Mr. Seymour would fall asleep so he could get to that term paper; he was struggling with his particular brush with history. Seymour wouldn’t cooperate. As Ernie read, Seymour would interrupt constantly. On an article about Teddy Roosevelt’s Sagamore Hill being turned over to the family trust as a museum, Seymour said, “Voted for the man. Twice. But that Rough Rider stuff? Waste of time. That Hearst fellow just wanted a war to sell his papers.”

           Ernie read a Life Magazine piece on the Supreme Court’s ruling on school segregation. Seymour piped in. “’Bout time, too. Colored kids just the same as you, only darker.” He giggled at that. “Get it?”

           Then Seymour started to nod his head.            “I saw a lynching once.”            He closed his eyes, still nodding, and stopped speaking.            “Really?” said Ernie. “Was it awful?”            “I didn’t see the murder, just the boy hanging from a tree the next morning. Fifteen he was. His mother – I guess it was his mother – was trying to get his body down. A crowd stood around doing nothing. Happened right here in Maryland if you can believe it.”            Seymour picked up another magazine. “What’s this one?”            The cover had been torn off. Ernie opened to an article and read the title, “The Flight of John Wilkes Booth.”            Seymour nodded, “Go on.”            The article described Booth sneaking into Lincoln’s box, stabbing the Major who was with the President, breaking his leg when he leaped onto the stage yelling “Sic semper tyrannis,” and then limping off to make his escape. Ernie stopped reading periodically when he got caught up in the drama.            “Good story if you speak up,” said Seymour. “Truth is better than fiction if you ask me.” The story went on how Booth was killed in a tobacco barn after a 12-day manhunt. Seymour kept asking Ernie to reread parts, offering comments like, “Yup”, “Nope,” and the occasional, “Ha.”            When he’d finished, Ernie looked up to see Seymour, eyes closed, sitting back in his chair. He got up to shovel snow off the porch; part of his job was to find things to do. “I’ll just go clear outside. Need anything?” He whispered, thinking Seymour might had fallen asleep. He hadn’t.            “They always get that part wrong,” Seymour said.            “What’s that Mr. Seymour?”            His eyes remained closed. “That ‘sic semper’ nonsense. They always get that wrong. It means ‘Thus always to tyrants.’ Virginia’s state motto. Bet you didn’t know that. Booth didn’t say it. Bet you didn’t know that either.”            Ernie sat back down. “No, I didn’t.”            Seymour’s eyes opened and looked at Ernie. Maybe his eyesight was poor without his glasses, but his focus suggested he could see perfectly well.            “Well, he didn’t. I can tell you that much.”            “No?”            “No! First, he screamed. He wasn’t as loud as Mrs. Lincoln, who was screaming too, but plenty loud. What came out was ‘The south is avenged.’ Then he dragged himself away. He still had that big knife waving everywhere. They said he was trying to scare off the actors, but I think he was just trying to keep his balance. Then everyone started screaming when they figured he wasn’t part of the play.”            Ernie shook his head thinking Seymour was telling a story he once heard. When Seymour returned with slow and deep nods, Ernie had to ask, “How do you know all that?”            “It was my birthday,” he said. “April 14. Still is by the way.” He laughed to himself. “Still is.”            “Paps wanted to go,” Seymour continued. “We lived in Maryland. You could spit into Washington we were that close. I was seven, sitting in front with my parents. I didn’t pay much attention to that play, but they laughed so it must have been funny.            “Me? I was looking at the uniforms. That’s what a little boy cares about. Paps was a doctor in one of those Army hospitals. A Union man, make no mistake. He kept elbowing me, pointing to the stage, but I didn’t care. I was looking at the box, you know, where the President was. He was laughing, too. Having a grand old time.            “And I’m telling you, he caught sight of me, he did. I waved a little. Know what he did? He waved back. Gave me a smile. And winked. Imagine that. President Lincoln winking at me. Then all hell broke loose. I wasn’t 15 feet from Booth when he dropped. I saw him spit when he yelled. That’s how close I was. The things you remember. And that is the truth and I’ll swear it on a stack of bibles.”            Seymour leaned forward, his eyes never leaving Ernie, and said, “I must be the last person alive who was there. When I go, they’ll be no one to fix that sic semper nonsense. A shame, too.” Ernie hungered for details—Was he scared? What did his parents say? Where did he go after that? Did they ride in a wagon? Ernie wanted it all. Seymour’s eyes were wide open when he recalled holding his father’s belt when they carried Lincoln out. “I remember looking at the cobblestones. There was blood on them. Lincoln’s.”            He directed Ernie to a roll-top desk. In a slot meant for letters was a small folder. “Take a look,” said Seymour. Inside was a yellowed paper rectangle, the ink faded brown with age. “Ford’s Theater” was printed at the top and below, in handwritten script, the words “Washington D.C. April 14, 1865. Maj. T. C. Seymour has secured seats 29, 30 and 31 in Orchestra.”            Then Seymour started to snore. Ernie went to shovel off the porch. He only left when a stout lady wearing a thick wool coat arrived with a dinner of chicken pot pie. “If I knew you’d be here I would’ve brought two,” she said. “What about tomorrow?”            Ernie loved chicken pot pie. He came back every day for weeks, even after the county decided a live-in nurse was needed. He’d read to Seymour who didn’t mention he’d received his new glasses. If Seymour tired of Ernie’s questions, he never mentioned that, either. When the county nurse took charge, she cleared up the magazines, and shooed Ernie away. “You exhaust the old man,” she said.            Not long after that, Seymour was sitting in his chair, staring outside. He brushed his fingers through his hair and frowned. It was a Wednesday. He got himself up, cane in hand, and walked out the front door. He probably didn’t see the sheet of ice that had formed on his porch. His obituary said nothing about the night of April 14, 1865.            Ernie got a C on his paper, “The Last Witness.” His teacher thought he made most of it up. He resubmitted it as a short story to Argosy Magazine, which published it and paid him $100. The story became the basis for a Twilight Zone episode some years later.            Ernie Remsen wrote the screenplay.


There's one conversation I will always remember between my father and myself, I was only a young boy back then but his words have managed to stick with me into adulthood. One day I shall recite them to my own children, I hope to be half the man my father was. It all started when he asked me to go on a walk. “Let's go for a walk,” he said to me.

“Where to?”

“Anywhere you want.” I slipped on my red wellington boots and ran outside. “Don't forget your coat! Just because it’s sunny doesn’t mean it's not cold!” I ran back and giggled as he zipped me up, wrapped a warm, fluffy scarf around my neck and placed a blue woolly hat on my head. “Kids these days,” I heard him mumble. I set off down the gravel path and into the world. I looked back to see him smiling, his grey eyes coming to life, like they used to. It wasn’t always just me and him, I had a mum too, but she got sick. He says she’s not in heaven but all around us. She’s the brightest star in the sky, the rocks on our favourite mountain, the droplets of water that escape when I jump into a puddle. I like when he says that. It makes me feel better. I decided to go to the beach, I know he loves it just as much as I do. The sun shone bright in the sky above us, it was spring, and the flowers had begun to bloom, and I watched as they swayed in the gentle breeze. I mimicked them and held my hands up and moved them back and forth, dad let out a laugh and picked me up.

“You are so extraordinary; do you know that?”

“What does that mean?”

He thought for a moment and continued to walk, “It means that you always manage to make me smile,” he kissed my forehead an put me back down.

“Isn’t that just being happy?” I asked.

“Yes, I suppose it is. But sometimes even when people smile, they're not happy.”

“So, they’re lying?” He takes my hand and I swing it up high then take it back down, repeating the process several times until he replies.

“No, they’re just trying to show everyone else they're okay.”

“But if they’re not okay they shouldn’t fake a smile.”

“Sometimes it’s better to show the people around you that you are happy, even if you don’t believe it yourself.”

“You mean like when I talk about mummy? You always smile but are you really just sad?

“My goodness, no,” he lets out a laugh which surprises me. “I love talking about your mother, yes it makes me sad now that she isn't here but talking about her keeps her memory alive. I believe meeting your mother was my destiny, my fate if you will.”

I nod not really understanding what he meant, I went to ask but he looked so deep in thought I decide not to. We were nearly at the beach now, we just had to climb the pebbles that created a border from land to sea. I huffed and puffed my way up, crawling on all fours at some points but then I made it to the top and took in the view. The sun was sinking below the sea, and everything was beginning to go dark, in that moment the whole world was silent. The only noise I could hear were the waves and the beating of my heart. Bumbum. Bumbum. I walked along the pebbles and decided to sit on the top of the ridge instead of heading down, the tide was coming in and it was too cold to get wet. I patted a rock next to me and pulled my dad's arm to sit down. We both sat in the stillness of the world, watching quietly and making little noise. The idea of fate and destiny were still fighting each other in my mind.

“What is fate?” I questioned. He looked at me then stared back to the earth.

“It is something that can never be known. Some may choose to search for it, other might want to fight against it, to make their own future. Some never manage to find it, and some are led by it to do great or terrible things. But they all have one thing in common. None of them can change it.”

“Then what’s destiny?”

“Destiny is your future; your actions now determine what your life will become. Each person's destiny is their own to make and isn't set in stone like fate.”

“Wow...” I stared back at the ocean. “So, which one is true? Surely if you can make your own destiny then fate is wrong.”

“Who says they both aren't right? Perhaps when you make the decision to go on the other path instead of the one you were on its destiny leading you to your fate.”

“Thats... scary,” I furrowed my eyebrows.

“Remember son, no matter what you do, I will always be behind you, following you. Whatever you think I will be thinking it with you.”

“Is the world alive? That’s what I'm thinking,” I tilt my head and look upwards, one-star twinkles above us, she’s here with us.

“Of course it is. The world is so magnificent, and I want you to remember that. When things go quiet, and you begin to smile to make people believe your happy, you need to take a step back and go outside to dance or scream. When mother nature stops singing to you, you need to yell at the sky to let the music never die. But most importantly you need to listen to your heart, that is where the world is alive. Right here,” he pokes my chest and smiles. “You have to look after your soul too.”

“What’s a soul?”

“It is who you are. It is what makes you a human being. Some say that souls can continue to exist after you pass away and can even make you be reborn. Some souls know each other, like your mother’s and mine, and will continue to find each other in every lifetime. We are all born from the stars, someone us from the same one, and one day we will go back.”

“Do you know mine?”

“I do now, and I am so grateful to meet it.”

The sun had completely disappeared, and the night sky was cloudless and beautiful. In that moment I couldn’t help but think that maybe that is where our souls go after we die. That maybe if we were born from stars then that is where our true home is.


When had his knuckles gotten so knobby? They didn’t used to be this way - his knuckles. He was sure of that. There was definitely a time when the skin was smooth and taut over the joints, the lines thin and shallow. Now the bone protruded sharply beyond the fleshy parts. An old man’s hands. Deep creases wove between pink and white splotches, winding their way to his palms where they zigged and zagged, combining in places and separating in others like tributaries in an ancient river delta. On the fourth finger of his left hand, a pale depression circumscribed the area that had been occupied by his wedding ring for the past thirty-seven years. “Knobby knuckles,” he said aloud. The words came out raspy where he’d meant for them to be sing-songy. A croaky stream of hot air passing over a dried out, lethargic tongue. It sounded like the beginning of a children’s rhyme. Something that he might have sung a long time ago, perhaps while jumping rope or playing tag on some idyllic and idealized childhood playground that may or may not have ever existed. “Wobbly buckles. Cobbled hucksters. Fuckle, muckle, cuckhold, chuckle.” Waves of pressure emanated from behind his eyes. He shut them, blocking out what little light managed to squeeze between the thick hotel window curtains. The skin on his face felt flush and hot. He tried to remember the night before at the upstairs bar. To recreate what he’d said, what he’d done. Grasping at flashes, trying to piece together a coherent whole. A bead of sweat trickled down his forehead and landed on his pillow. He opened his eyes. On the nightstand next to his still-made hotel bed, the sheets tucked tightly and covered in the thick duvet, stood the evidence. Four single serving bottles of Skyy Vodka from the minibar, a tumbler with half a finger of melted ice, his phone with the little red notifications light blinking, and the fourteen karat gold ring inscribed on the inside with his and his wife’s initials and the date of their wedding. He was still dressed in the slacks and white linen shirt he’d worn the night before, his wallet and electronic keycard secured in his pants’ back and left pockets, respectively. The expensive fabrics were wrinkled and covered in the smell of perspiration and deodorant and body odor and day-old booze. He had managed to get his shoes off, at least. Those were by the door, their laces still tied. He picked up the ring and attempted to slide it over his swollen finger, twisting and turning it. He groaned slightly. A narrow beam of mid-morning light crept across the far wall. On the other side of the curtains, a glorious view of the Magnificent Mile and Lake Michigan that would have impressed him at one point. Before he had become so jaded, perhaps. Above the queen-sized bed, a painting of the Chicago skyline hung, carefully selected by a team of interior designers and consultants to be utterly neutral and inoffensive in every way. At least he knew where he was. In his three-plus decade career with Barnes Partners he had stayed in more rooms just like this than he cared to count. Senior Partner, Head of Business Development, Platinum Elite, Million Mile Club, Diamond Circle, Medallion Plus, a duplex in a pre-war building on the Upper West side, a weekend house in Bridgehampton with a two-door Porsche next to a Lexus SUV in the garage, membership at the grass court tennis club that he never went to anymore. He’d worked hard for it. He’d earned it. Beijing, New York, Rio, London. Long stints on the road in identical hotel rooms and corporate board rooms and glass towers, all decorated the same international modern industrial chic. He’d once woken up in a panic because he couldn’t for the life of him remember where in the world he was, finally calling the front desk. “Where am I?” He’d asked the confused woman on the other end of the line. Singapore, it turned out. It would be another twenty minutes, at least, until the Advil kicked in. Once it did, he’d be able to stand up, take a shower, get ready for his one o’clock flight back to La Guardia. Until then, though, he had decided he would stay where he was, face half buried in the soft down pillow dampened with his sweat. The previous night, before he started drinking, he’d gotten a call from his wife that had ended in a fight. It was something stupid and inconsequential. It usually was. Something about money, and what to do with it now that they had everything. He’d pursued his career while he and his wife became roommates with little to talk about and seemingly nothing in common now that the children were grown and no longer occupied their time and conversations. She told him she wanted to renovate the kitchen and he’d said in a not patient tone, “again?” and then, “we just renovated the damn kitchen.” They did that a lot these days. Argued over inconsequential things. She told him he drank too much, which was true, but so what? He criticized the way she cut vegetables too thick or had too many pairs of heels. She’d called him controlling, a “tyrant,” as he recalled. He’d told her that all she knew how to do anymore was spend what he earned. “You have no idea how hard I work for what we have.” In retrospect, it was probably too harsh an assessment, but he’d hung up the phone in dramatic fashion, not giving her a chance to respond. Getting the last word mattered to him these days. It was a small victory. From there, he’d gone straight to the minibar. The first drink had been an angry one. He hadn’t bothered to use a glass. Just poured it directly into his mouth and swallowed it down in one shot. He had paced back and forth in the room, rehashing the phone call, thinking of clever and cutting things that he could have said. Maybe he would call her back. He‘d picked up his phone, typed in the password, started to scroll through text messages his wife had sent him, and then put it back down. He would take the elevator to the top floor bar, he‘d decided. There was a reception to celebrate the end of the Midwestern Bankers Association Annual Conference, where he’d been a keynote speaker earlier that day. The presentation he’d given – “Asset Allocation for Pension Fund Management in a Volatile Market” – had been well received. A room full of potential new clients and leads and new lines of business. He’d go up to the top floor and pretend to take in the view. Mingle a bit. Let people flatter him. That still made him feel good, the outside affirmation of being someone who mattered, who had some authority, who was at the top of his field. He’d go up and just see what happened. There was no harm in that. Maybe he would order a steak. He’d get it rare and eat it without worrying about what it meant for his blood pressure or cholesterol levels. He had earned that too. But first, he would have a second drink. This one he’d poured into a tumbler with a cube of ice. The warmth of the vodka spread from his stomach into his chest and arms. He got into the marble-tiled shower and masturbated. He got out. He put on a fresh shirt and stood in front of the mirror buttoning and unbuttoning the second one from the top. By then, the edges were dull. The second drink had put some space between him and his anger. He‘d poured the third and drunk it quickly. Had he debated pouring the fourth, or had he just gone ahead and done it without thinking? After that, he felt good. He looked good too. He undid the second button of his fresh linen shirt. He wet his hand in the sink and parted his salt and pepper, expensively cut hair. He still wore a thirty-three-inch waist, still had some definition in his stomach and chest and arms. He liked that he hadn’t let that go, like so many other men his age. He had been disciplined. He put his keycard in his pocket and stepped out into the hallway. He stopped and put his foot in the door, checked again to make sure he had the key, and then let the door close. The throbbing in his temples was showing some initial signs of subsiding. He rolled over in bed and held his hand above his head, hoping that by allowing the blood to drain he would be able to squeeze the ring back into place. What had happened, once he’d gotten to the bar? He needed to put it back together. Fill in the blanks. He’d ordered a drink. Another vodka, this time with tonic and a lime. He’d told the bartender to put it on his room account. He could probably get it comped. He was a loyal customer. He’d earned it. He’d made a mental note that he would need to have that conversation with the person at the desk when he checked out in the morning. The room had been lively. Conversations were louder than they needed to be, the volume of people who had been drinking. He had been to enough of these things to know how they went. They were a chance to get away. To leave home in St. Louis or Indianapolis or Columbus with the kids and the spouse and the obligations behind. To let loose just a little bit.

A woman had sat down next to him at the bar and ordered a glass of red wine. She was pretty. Not drop dead gorgeous, but pretty. Julia. Or was it Juliana? He couldn’t remember for certain. Mid-thirties, he guessed. She’d tipped the bar tender and taken a long sip of wine before turning to him. “That’s better,” Julia or Juliana had said, letting out a sigh and pushing a strand of dirty blonde hair out of her eyes. She’d turned and smiled at him and told him that she’d enjoyed his presentation. He’d pretended to be humble. She was from Milwaukee. “Not too far away. Just a couple hours’ drive. But it feels like such an escape to be here. You know what I mean?” He’d nodded and said that he did. She had given him a business card. He lowered his hand and felt his breast pocket of his shirt. It was still there, her business card. He removed it, straightened the edges, and squinted at the embossed lettering. Jennifer Dovers, Regional Director, First Bank of the Great Lakes, it read. Jennifer. That was it. Was it then that he’d taken off his ring? Or had it been earlier? He couldn’t remember. She was going home first thing in the morning, she had told him. He had put his hand on the bar, making a show of his bare fingers. What then? She’d finished her wine. She’d asked whether he wanted a cocktail. “Something sweet,” she insisted, “to celebrate.” She had smiled at him and waved toward the bartender. “Have you ever had a Malibu Sunset? It’s my favorite.” And rather than be a prick about it, rather than say that that wasn’t his thing, that he preferred aged whiskey or top-shelf vodka, he’d said ‘yes’. “Just as long as I can treat you to the next one.” Her hair had fallen back across her eyes, and she'd brushed it back again, tucking it behind her ear. In his darkened room, the phone on the table buzzed with a text message alert. He tried again to slide the ring into its place. He pushed hard. It still wouldn’t budge. They’d chatted a little while. He and Jennifer. She told him she hadn’t imagined herself at Bank of the Great Lakes. She’d been a theater major. But she liked the work well enough. It paid the bills. And she was good at it. She’d been promoted recently. That was the general outline of the thing. The details were probably lost forever. They weren’t important anyway. He guessed that she was only a few years older than his daughter. She was born on a Wednesday, his daughter, and he had been back in the office the following Monday. His managers had noticed that and rewarded him for it by making him a project lead. Across from the bar, through the gaggles of inebriated coworkers telling one another things that they’d almost certainly regret the next day, there had been a floor to ceiling window that looked out over the Chicago skyline. She’d said they should go and have a look, that her own room was only on the third floor and looked directly into the wall of the neighboring building. She was excited about it, about being away. There was something unpredictable about it, an element of danger in what had become a too safe life. This was all still new to her. She hadn‘t yet become jaded. Had he said ‘yes?’ Had he tried to kiss her there by the window, the lights of the city sprawling out before them? No. He was pretty sure he hadn’t, but he couldn’t rule it out completely. He’d certainly considered it, at a minimum. Was that who he’d become? A man who tries to kiss young women in hotel bars? A sad old man with old man’s hands and the second button of his shirt unbuttoned. And then what? What had he thought would happen next? Would they have sex, he and Jennifer? Would he have lain there next to her afterward and confessed everything? Would he tell her about his wife and his children? Would he have tearfully pulled his ring out of his pocket and shown it to her and told her how he and his wife had drifted apart, how his obsession over his job had cost him the only thing in his life that had ever really mattered? How all they did now was bicker? That he regretted it all? Would he warn her not to end up like he had, to go back to theater, to get out while she still could? The Advil was doing its trick. The ache behind his forehead replaced now with foggy dullness. He gritted his teeth and pushed hard on the ring. He grunted as the ring budged slowly past his knuckle and slid into its pale-skinned depression. He held his hand to his eyes and observed it up close. The skin on his knuckles was red and raw and scraped. The light through the crack in the shades glinted off the gold of the ring. He picked up his phone from the bedside table and typed out a text message. “I’m sorry about last night,” he tapped out. And then, “you’re right about the kitchen.” He pushed send. He put the phone down. Then he picked it back up and typed out another message. “I love you.” He couldn’t remember the last time he’d told her that. He would get up and open the curtains, let the light in, appreciate the view. He would take a shower and change into some fresh clothes. He would check out of the hotel. He would pay his bill without asking for special treatment. He would go to the airport and catch his one o’clock flight to La Guardia. He would drink less. He would be less critical. He would help his wife renovate the kitchen. He would do better.


Tap, tap…tap, tap, tap. Eva rolled over in her bed and groaned. It was still dark outside, though she could see the bright light of the moon shining in through her bedroom window. Tap, tap. There it was again. That noise that awoke her. She looked up from her bed at the window. Silhouetted against the brightness of the moon was the shape of a person, standing at adult height, with one hand up, finger touching the glass, poised to lift and tap the glass again. She slowly pulled the blankets off of her body, the cold air rushing into the space left behind, raising goosebumps along her skin. She shivered and lifted her legs out of the bed and placed them onto the floor. The hardwood floor was cold and unyielding as she slowly stood and walked across her room to the window. As she looked up to the window, her gaze drifted over the picture frame of her sister. Her beautiful sister, taken from their family only a year ago when she wandered into the woods and never returned. Eva was 6 years old, only just learning how to make her way about in life, yet still felt so vulnerable. Her disability made that even more difficult – her hand having been deformed at birth. The other children didn’t understand, and for this, they mocked her. She was different and so she was the outcast from the group. It didn’t help that after a long day at school, when she returned home, her mother never looked her in the eyes and her father, when he interacted with her, resorted to violence at the slightest provocation. As she reached the window, she looked up and into the eyes of the most beautiful woman she had ever seen. The woman had long blonde hair flowing over her shoulders and down below the sill of the window. Her green eyes sparkled in the moonlight reflecting off the window and her smile was wide and warm. Eva instinctively felt the corners of her mouth turn up in a small, self-conscious smile. The woman raised her hand off the glass and gave Eva a slight wave. After a slight hesitation, she lifted her small normal hand and waved back. The woman’s smile grew softer and warmer, filling Eva with a strange sensation of happiness. She felt the emotion bubbling up from her chest and felt her smile broaden into a genuine smile, which, she thought with a pang, was the first time she had smiled in a while. She reached up and opened the window. As she did, the woman stepped back to allow it to open. “Hello!” the woman said brightly. “Um, hi,” Eva replied. “My name is Ethrael, but you can call me Ethie. Would you like to come and talk with me?” Eva hesitated at this but looked appraisingly at the woman. “It’s cold and I’m in my pyjamas. I don’t want to catch a cold.” She replied timidly. In response, Ethie nodded her head and reached out, brushing her fingertips across Eva’s cheek. Where the woman’s fingers touched her skin, Eva felt a searing, yet calming warmth flow. As it moved through her body, it banished the chill of the night air to be replaced with a heat that she had never felt before. It felt like she was standing at a bonfire, but the heat was coming from inside of her. “Now would you like to talk with me?” Ethie asked. “Yes please, but it might make Daddy angry,” she looked down, her smile evaporating as the thoughts of her father, maddened with alcohol, came unbidden to her mind. “Don’t worry, Eva, he will sleep until the morning.” Ethie sounded so sure of herself, so sure of that fact, that Eva did not question it. She felt that she could trust this woman, this Ethie. “I’ll get my coat and my shoes,” Eva responded, turning to find her clothing. “You don’t need it. We won’t be long.” “Then I’ll come to the front door.” “Very well, Eva, I will see you outside.” As Eva walked out of her bedroom and through the house, she felt excitement blossom and grow within her. In her little world, meeting someone who treated her so kindly was rare. Her teachers ignored her, her parents seemed to hate her, and her peers even more so. The thought of being able to talk to someone who might be her friend was a prospect she couldn’t pass on. Eva reached the front door and opened it. Ethie was standing outside, wearing a simple dress of white that hung to just above her ankles. “You’re not wearing shoes or a coat, either!” Eva marvelled. “No, honey, I don’t need them. Just like you don’t. You feel that warmth inside you now, don’t you?” Ethie replied. “I guess not. What did you want to talk about?” As she said this, Eva noticed the snow drifting about in flurries and piling up in banks along the forest bordering the house. The same forest that took her sister and never gave her back. She shivered at the thought. “What’s wrong, Eva?” Ethie asked. “My sister, she went into those woods one day and never came back out.” “Ah, I see. You miss her don’t you?” “Yes, I do,” Eva murmured, feeling tears pricking the corners of her eyes. “I miss her every day.” Now the tears started. Ethie bent down to her eye level. “You’re okay, it’s going to be okay. Just let it out, sweetie. Come here.” Eva rushed into the outstretched arms and embraced Ethie. She felt the same sort of warmth coming from the woman as she felt coming from herself. She buried her face in Ethie’s hair and even through her tears, noticed that her hair smelled like freshly opened flowers in the spring. Soon, her little sobs quieted, and she pulled back, turning a tear-stained face up to the woman. “I’m sorry,” she said, grief causing her voice to hitch. “Not at all,” Ethie said warmly. “Let’s talk a little, take my hand.” Eva took her hand and started walking down the little path leading from the house, through the snow. As they reached a small log lying on the side of the path, carved into a bench, Ethie said: “let’s sit down here.” Eva sat and Ethie sat beside her. There was more than enough room for both of them. “What happened after your sister died?” Ethie asked. “Everything got worse. Things were bad before. Daddy got so mad sometimes and mommy would just turn away while he yelled at her. He called her mean names and she would just cry. Leah would always take me to my bedroom and hide me in my closet. She told me that if daddy ever got angry, that I would be safe there, that she would protect me.” “And afterwards, what happened?” “Daddy started drinking his booze. That’s what he calls it. It makes him so mean and so mad. He doesn’t just yell at mommy anymore, he hits her, and sometimes he hits me.” Fresh tears welled in her eyes, and Ethie leaned over, wrapping her arms around Eva’s shoulders until her sobs quieted again. “What would you like to do when that happens?” Ethie’s look was piercing. The look didn’t make Eva uncomfortable, however, it imparted a gravity on her words that she didn’t expect from such a question. “I want to run away; I want to leave. I want to go somewhere where no one will hurt anyone again.” “Indeed,” Ethie spoke gravely. “Would you like to go to such a place with me?” “What about my mommy and daddy?” “They hurt you, didn’t they? Do you really want them coming with you?” “No, I want to be away from them. They are so mean to me.” “Would you like to go now?” Ethie asked, leaning down to look at Eva eye-to-eye. “But what about my teddy? I can’t go anywhere without him,” hope was blooming in Eva’s heart, though she tried to push it away, not wanting to believe too deeply, lest this is some sort of horrible trick. Ethie reached behind her and then drew it back, a small teddy bear in her hand. Eva looked at it in disbelief. It was missing an eye. It was her teddy. “How did you get teddy from my bed? I left him in my bed!” “It’s something I can do, just like I took the cold from your skin,” Ethie said as she took Eva’s small hand in her own, and gently lifted her to her feet. As she rose to her feet, Eva felt a rush, like chill passing through her body which was swiftly replaced by the searing warmth Ethie, had initially imparted on her. The pair started walking away. As they walked, Eva felt a moment of disquiet and turned around, looking at the small figure lying slumped on the bench, already being covered in snow, with a teddy bear in its arms. “It’s alright, Eva, you can come with me. Leah’s waiting.” Eva’s gaze turned up to the woman’s, their eyes meeting. With a slight jolt, she realised that the woman’s eyes were no longer green, but a blazing gold that seemed to softly radiate light across her face. “Let us leave this place.” “Okay,” Eva said, as the pair turned back and walked, hand in hand, into the forest.


“Do I have to do it?” Myles asks his father as they walk towards the arena, their spurs clink on the hard caliche leaving little clouds of dust in their wake. “You ain’t got to do anything,” his father says. “Walk away now if you want. But there may come a day you’ll wonder ‘what if’.” The west Texas sun begins to set and bloodred clouds reef out into the western horizon. An owl screeches from a nearby oak and it flies into the air with great wings silhouetted against the reddening sky and lightning flashes from distant black storm clouds set against the crimsoned sun like a scene from the apocalypse.  As they walk, Myles watches the sky slowly transform into a darkening violet that spreads like a bruise and he begins to mouth the lord’s prayer. They come to a small paddock where a dozen horses mill about. A young vaquero is cleaning stalls and he sees Myles and his father and he nods. “You remember your first time?” Myles asks. “I do,” his father says. “I was probably more scared than you are. I was sixteen years old, just like you.” “Did you make it eight?” “No,” his father says. “I don’t think my father or even his father before him ever made it eight on their first ride.” They turn near the stables and walk down a short path lined with dozens of round bails of hay and the smell is sweet and earthy.  A large, gray barn cat lies in the path licking his paws. Myles’ father stops and nudges the cat with his boot and when he does his right knee buckles and the man collapses to the ground, breaking his fall with his right arm. “Goddammed leg,” he says. “I hate this thing.” Myles kneels beside him, and he can see his father’s prosthetic leg is twisted at an odd angle, its straps had worked loose. He helps his father roll up his pant leg and reattach the straps that straighten the leg out. Then he helps him back to his feet. “You ok?” Myles asks. “Yeah,” his father says. “I’ll be even better after watching you ride.” “You really want me to do this?” “You were born for this,” his father says. “You’ll see.” Myles nods and looks down at his boots. His father brushes the dirt and dust from his jeans and they continue to walk down the path that leads to the arena. They come upon an old, abandoned barn made of cedar that has weathered into a sooty gray color, the gables are caved in places and the roof is threatening to fall at any moment. “That’s where we kept the bulls when I was your age,” his dad says. “My first one was named Rancid. He was about the biggest Plummer you ever saw. Seventeen hundred pounds of the rankest beast God ever created.” They turn left by the barn and come to the arena that’s about a quarter the size of a football field. Half a dozen ranch hands sit atop a wood fence, with their hats low on their brows. Five of them are young men, lean and fit with hands as tough and weathered as rawhide.  One of them is older, about sixty with thick mustaches but as fit looking as the young bucks.  The lights are already on, lighting the dirt field arena so that it’s as bright as day. The hands jump off the fence when they see Myles and his father walking up. The older man’s name is Mitch. He is tall and bow legged and he walks towards them. He wears leather chaps over his jeans and his stride is like that of a warrior with his shoulders back and upright as if ready to go into battle. He wears a black hat that is stained with the toils of his work and he smiles as he reaches them. He extends his hand to shake with Myles Father. “Good to see ya Hank,” Mitch says. He then turns to Myles. “You ready for this?” He says to the boy. The boy nods nervously. Mitch looks at the boy’s father, eyebrow raised. “He’s ready,” his father says. “You’ve seen how he handles those broncs. He’s ready to go.” Myles eyes say something different. They walk over to the gate leading to the chute where the bull will be let in from the pen. Two of the hands head over the pen where the bull is waiting. It’s a giant Charbray, his coat is a malicious combination of gray and black and he looks like he could be a guardian of hell itself. The bull stares at the boy, his eyes as black as coal. He lowers his head and charges the gate, ramming his head into the metal. Myles jumps back. “Is that the bull I’m riding?” “It is,” Mitch says. “His name is Revelation.” “Like the bible?” “The one and the same,” Mitch says. “I guess you can figure why he’s got that name.” Myles eyes widen and his mouth falls open and again Mitch looks towards the boy’s father with an eyebrow raised. Hank ignores him. Mitch looks at the boy.

“You sure you’re ready for this?” Mitch asks. “This ain’t no bronc.” “I told ya he’s ready,” Hank says. “I’m willing to bet he’ll make it eight too.  He’s got way more talent than I ever had.” One of the ranch hands rolls a barrel into the arena while two others open a series of chutes to guide the bull into the main chute and gate where Myles will get onto the bull.  The Chute is barely big enough to contain the bull which limits the range of his bucking and thrashing in the confined space. Three hands work on attaching the bull rope and another attaches the flank strap. Revelation starts raising hell when the strap is attached and he’s banging the sides of the chute trying to squeeze his way out. “You got this,” Hank says to Myles. “You got more talent than your Granddad or I ever had. Use your legs like I showed ya and you’ll be fine.” Myles nods and gulps and Mitch calls him over to the main chute. “You sure about this?” Mitch asks in a whisper. “I’ll back your old man off if you want.” “He’d fire you,” Myles says. “I think he’d disown me if I back out.” One of the other ranch hands brings over a pair of chaps and helps Myles tie the straps and Myles climbs up the fence. Hank hands him a riding glove and Myles puts in on his left hand and he tries to slow his breath down. He can smell Revelation, a combination of musky sweat and heat mixed with the manure smell of the arena. He throws his right leg over the bull’s back and settles into the middle of the giant beast and he can feel his immense strength as Revelation’s muscles contort as he tries to buck and in the confines of the chute. He puts his gloved hand under the bull rope and the ranch hands wrap it tight and Revelation bucks again, slamming against the side of the chute. Mitch slaps the bull on the ass to move him off the side of the gate. “I need you to nod your head when you’re ready,” Mitch says. “When you do that, we’ll open the gate.” Two other cowboys have come into the arena on horseback. They’ll help Myles when he comes off and also help distract the bull and round him up when the ride is finished. Myles shifts from his perch on the bull and he presses his knees hard into the bull’s back. He closes his eyes, and he prays. Mitch is beginning to think the boy is going to back out when he finally nods. One of the ranch hands holds a rope and he pulls the gate open and Revelation flies like a shot out of the gate and Myles is immediately thrown back from the acceleration and he would have fallen within the first second had his knees not had a vice like grip on the beasts back. But as quickly as Revelation flew out the gate he stops and dips his massive head and Myles feels his body shifting forward and now he uses his hips and throws his shoulders back to maintain his center of gravity behind the bull’s shoulders and then Revelation  thrusts up with such power that the bull launches like a rocket into the air and Myle’s face nearly smashes the center of the bulls head but he manages to stay on. When the bull came back down, he starts to spin to the right while bucking and Myles anticipates the move and the centrifugal force is trying to push him to the left and he adjusts and then Revelation drops his head again and kicks out his rear legs and Myles can feel himself getting ready to fly up over the bulls head but again he manages to lean back just enough to counteract the forces while maintaining his perch on the center of the bull. Revelation is angry and his bucking intensifies and now he spins to the left and Myles uses his free hand to balance himself but he’s in a rhythm now and to the amazement of the cowboys watching Myles looks like he’s in complete control.  But Revelation has one final trick. In the midst of a spin to the right the bull rears back on his hind legs then drops his head nearly to the ground while kicking straight up into the air and Myles butt actually comes up several inches from the bulls back and Myles is staring down at the ground and the only thing keeping his on is the grip from his knees but he holds on for dear life as the bull comes back down and somewhere in the back ground he hears a commotion from the cowboys watching and they’re clapping and the horsemen come to help him off the bull. He’s made it eight seconds. He dismounts with no problem and one of the riders is able to untie the flank strap and the bull immediately calms down and the riders guide him out of the arena. Hank comes into the arena and he’s smiling and laughing and he grabs his son and embraces him in a huge hug. “I knew you could do it,” Hank says. “I’m so proud of you. That was amazing.” Myles says nothing.  He dusts himself off. All the other cowboys come into the arena and they’re high fiving each other and shaking Myles hand. Mitch approaches Hank while Myles is being congratulated. “That was some kind of ride,” Mitch says. “But he don’t look too happy about it.” Myles is silent while the other cowboys pat him on the back and his face is a blank. “He’s just in shock he stayed on,” Hank says. “You sure he was mentally ready for all that?” Mitch asked. Hank grimaces. “You should mind your own business,” Hank says, turning away from Mitch and walking towards Myles. The cowboys meander their way out of the arena leaving Hank and Myles alone. “What’s the matter?” his father asks. “That ride would have won the national PBR last year.” Myle’s just stares at his father and he has a little tear in the corner of his eye. Without saying a word, he turns and walks out of the arena.


It was a raucous rooftop party in sweaty downtown Baltimore that was packed with hipsters. A sea of red cups bobbed and tipped while beards and flowered dresses jostled and milled in a cloud of skunky smoke. “Eleven!” Janie shouted, “Eleven of twenty on the goddammed assignment, just fuck that class!” Ben took a long drink of his beer and did his best to look interested in her college grades; he even heard the words coming from her lips, but she could have been reciting alien poetry, the only thing he wanted was the body that fit beneath her thin summer dress. Others around them were clearly drunk and laughing too loud or shouting themselves raw over the deafening dance music, so they didn’t notice the girl. The girl came out of nowhere. She was a blur of a whirling violet dress with matching makeup and greasy brown hair. Ben recognized her at once and stared at her, it was Lisa. Janie frowned. “Sorry, I know her, we went to high school together,” Ben said. That was a lie, they met in fourth grade--his first love, his first kiss and his first date. They broke up in high school and it tore him apart. Now she was just a spoiled rich girl from a rich family at college until they kicked her out; for now she lived in a haze of substance abuse. Her dirty bare feet danced in graceful circles, and in a zombie-trance she closed her eyes, inhaled the music then opened her blue eyes to watch her skirt spin and stare at the stars above. Ben loved her but knew that was all in the past, he was only a child back then and didn’t know any better. Janie grabbed his hand and pulled him away to dance. He liked holding her hand, if only for a moment. But suddenly the girl bounded onto the parapet and skipped on the narrow ledge, a balance beam ten stories up, the wind from below whipped her hair around violently. People gasped and the crowd fell silent. “Lisa, get off there, for fuck's sake, please!” someone shouted, but she continued, walking heel-to-toe then spinning. A gymnastics show for the crowd. Ben sensed the danger and ran to the edge, his turn to be superman. He had to rescue her, the fragile drunk maiden from her deadly dance on the ledge. He fought his way through the crowd to save the girl who stole and broke his heart. But he blinked as he saw it, as if it was slow motion. She slowly turned and smiled at him then took a step off the ledge. In an instant she was gone, he didn’t get there in time. The music stopped and a girl screamed, others started sobbing. Ben looked down and watched her dance one last time as she spun in the air as she fell, her purple dress a rag doll in a storm. He closed his eyes and started to sob. He sat on the ground and felt the tears well up in his eyes. His superman skills simply didn't work that day.


It was silent, except the steady beep of a nearby monitor. She had to pause, blinking sweat from her eyes. It wasn’t hot, but the stress of this operation was starting to get to her. It was so important that this went well. The incisions had been made, opening up the patient. She’d done this a dozen times before, but every time she was surprised by the lack of blood inside the body. She shook off the pause, reminding herself what she was supposed to be doing. “Costotome.” She muttered. Slowly, she began to cut the ribs, forcing herself to move slowly and with care. But this was a well maintained tool, and it did not take her long to finish cutting through the ribs alongside the sternum. She shifted position and began to cut along the ribs at the patient’s side. “Adjust that hose.” She murmured. The suction tube that kept the area free of blood was adjusted and she went back to her cutting. She made short work of that side as well, easing into her task now. Though sweat still beaded on her forehead. She knew how easy it was to make a mistake. There was a groan behind her, but she didn’t turn. “Quiet them down, nurse.” Nothing could distract her from her task. It was going so well, she would not be distracted until it was finished. The groan didn’t sound again, and tension eased from her shoulders. Of course, she’d given the right dosage. It was just a reflexive sound. It had to be uncomfortable sitting there like that. Carefully, she moved the ribs, placing them in a special dish beside the operation bed. Ribs for dinner sounds good, she thought to herself. Get this all squared away and then I can pop off to the shop for some marinade. I might have some in the cupboard. I’ll have to check. Finally, the lung was clear. Gently, she eased her fingers underneath the delicate organ. It was so easy to crush the lungs. She didn’t want to damage it. Even though the patient didn’t need it anymore. She let the lung rest over the patient’s side as she leaned in closer to examine how all the tubes attached. “Hose.” She said. Suction stole away the blood left in the cavity the lung had been taken from. The tubes were stretched, grossly so. She hummed to herself, taking her scalpel again and poking at the tubing with the blunt end. She had to decide how far up the trachea she would have to cut. And then sew up the hole that would be left behind. Couldn’t leave them breathing into an empty hole. She clicked her tongue. Her eyes slid over to the ribs. She was getting bored of this now. Giving a sigh, she took up her bone cutter again and crunched through the ribs on the other side. These cuts were much rougher, but she didn’t care. Snapping ribs out of the way, she pulled the other lung from its cavity, letting it sit in the air like the other. It wasn’t quite the masterpiece that she thought it would be. But she had done it from the front. Luckily she had another subject to work on. And she was getting very confident with her cutters now. She washed her hands before she tapped her phone, turning off the monitor sound. The ribs were waiting for her in the dish, and she tossed the entire thing in the furnace. Once the body went cold, she’d cut it up and burn it as well. Or maybe she’d leave him hung up on a hook for his friend to see. Turning, she gave a bright smile to the other young man that was just starting to wake. He gave a muffled scream as he saw the room he was tied up in. She giggled, deciding to leave him for a few more hours before she offered him something to eat. Humming to herself, she headed up the stairs to start making herself some ribs for dinner. The operation had given her a craving for them.


Admittedly, this wasn't great. I stared at the cobwebbed ceiling of the basement as tremendous strikes of agony coursed across my back like a pissed-off thunderstorm. I suppose it was good that I was feeling something instead of nothing. I wiggled my toes — Jesus, stupid, ah, dammit, ow — and yes, they worked, despite the pain. Perhaps I should have waited for the kids to come home before venturing into the basement that I hate with all my heart and soul and that I'm honestly terrified of. It is filled with dust, spiderwebs, and bad memories. Oh, and the serving ware. I just had to store the serving ware down here instead of optimizing my kitchen cabinets so everything could fit. I made a mental note to clean the cabinets, assuming I would walk again. The kids think I'm ridiculous for hating the basement so much. They think I just hate dark places, or that being around their dad's stuff makes me sad, but they don't know what I know — and I'm thankful for that. There's things kids shouldn't know. They laugh at me when I send them down into the basement to grab things, and I suppose I wanted to prove to them and to myself that I was just as ridiculous as they said. There's nothing down here but poorly-placed serving ware. It took me 30 minutes to gain the courage to open the basement door. It took me another ten to step onto the stairs. Then, another 15 to scurry down the steps like a frightened rat, race past my husband's old collectibles, snatch the serving ware from the cabinet, and bolt back up the stairs. It took 0.05 seconds from my foot slipping on the top step to the realization that there was nothing I could do to stop my fall, and 5 seconds for me to I tumble backwards down the steps into the cursed darkness once more. I really needed to optimize the kitchen cabinets. "Cathy?" I heard. It was a grating whisper, a voice drawn across sandpaper. I closed my eyes. *It's not real. It's not real. It's not real.* "Cathy... you're here." *Not real. Not real. Not real.* "Cathy, I'm so sorry. Please look at me." *Not real. Not real.* "Cathy, please. I'm so lonely." *Go away. Go away.* An icy breath cooled my ear, "I know you can hear me." "Leave me alone," I murmured. I kept my eyes closed. I've never looked at it, whatever "it" is. Something primal in my chest tells me it's a bad idea — the same primal knowledge that screams for me to run, flee, hide, get the hell away. My back seizes up in pain. I can't move. "I just want to go home..." The voice sounded so sad and pitiful that I almost crack. "Won't you help me go home?" it said. My maternal instincts yearned to comfort, despite the fear and agony clouding each fiber of my body. "I just need you to look at me." One look couldn't hurt, could it? "Open your eyes, Cathy." Maybe if I helped it go home, it will leave me alone forever... "MOM! Did you pick up more snacks? My friends will be over in 10 minutes!" my daughter Olivia called. The front door slammed behind her. My heart leapt. I promised to never criticize her for slamming doors ever again. "Down here!" I yelled. I heard the top of the steps creak as Olivia finally saw me. "Jesus, Mom! Are you okay?" *I am now,* I thought as I felt Olivia's warm hands on my arm, as I heard her call an ambulance. The coldness retreated to the corners of the basement, but I could feel it watching. Waiting. One day I would crack. One day I would open my eyes and look.


‘Fools all of them, simple minded fools who could not begin to understand a single percent of my geniuses,’ the supposed dead man yelled in the morgue to one in particular. He had woken up not to long ago but had already resumed his nonsensical shouting at the sky. Some thing would never change. The morgue was a rather cold place but that was alright, he had felt nothing but cold these past few weeks so he had grown accustomed to it. What he had not grown accustomed to however was the fact that he could look at his own hands again, his own body for that matter. Something what was once considered so ordinary had now become a queer phenomenon. Simply put it was unnatural. He should never again have to look at his own hands. It felt beneath him. In a fuss which made no sense and sense at the same time he crossed his arms like a three year old would after having been denied ice cream. ‘This would not do, not all.’ He proceeded to throw the nearest thing he could find against the wall. It happened to be a dismembered arm that once belonged to a poor fellow ran over by a donkey. By accident he found himself staring into a mirror. Staring at himself. How long had it been since he was able to view himself in a reflection? The stranger did not know. What he did know was that his sight should not be there. Looking in the mirror for him was like looking at a stranger you would pass by in the streets. His face was no longer his, he did not want to see it ever again. So he proceeded to commit the only logical act he could. He threw a shoe at the mirror and it shattered into a million different pieces. Pain. The way he threw the arm. Pain was found in his chest. The man rubbed his chest, the spots where the bullets hit him still hurt, he did not believe that the pain would ever stop seizing. It never did. But pain was of no importance here. The Stranger laughed. He laughed like he was insane, perhaps he was insane. Perhaps he had always been insane. Deep down everyone was a little bit insane. The man thought back to the reason he was here, the reason he was still alive. ‘Those moronic fools. ALL OF THEM!’ he cleared his throat. ‘It was so easy to get that doctor they sent on my side. All it took was a little bit of money, something I have plenty off. Humanity, nothing about it matters if one has a little bit of money. HILARIOUS!’ There was a sound. It did not come from him. Everything stopped all at once. Focus diverted to the direction said sound came from. Someone else? The coroner? Footsteps came down from the steps which lead to the outside world, to freedom. To everything that ever could be. The Coroner was coming down to see what all the ruckus was about in his morgue. The Stranger was in no rush to find a hiding place or act dead. In fact he did not such thing, he did not even bother moving a single step. The Stranger stood where he stood, no clothes on him. The Coroner had finally made his way down the steps. He looked around his morgue, nothing had been displaced nobody was there. Until he spotted the naked man smiling at him. ‘Well than what’s all this?’ The Coroner asked as his face dropped. The strange naked man did not respond to him due to the fact he did not believe the Coroner was talking to him. No one could ever talk to him ever again for that matter, only he could talk to them. But not as of now. The Coroner was staring at him, wondering why the strange naked man was in his morgue. ‘Oi! I’m talking to you there! You with your willy out and everything!’ The Coroner yelled. Realization came to the Stranger at last. The Coroner was talking to HIM? How could such a thing be possible. How in a million years could a ordinary human witness him? Then he looked at his own hands again. ‘Bugger.’ ‘Bugger?!’ The Coroner screamed. ‘Is that all you have to say? What are you doing standing all naked in my morgue!?’ The queerness of a human being seeing him again was something he did not want to grow accustomed to. It was so beneath him. ‘Do not yell at me you imbecilic. You do not have that kind of right. And if you really must know. I just woke up here you see.’ The strange man paused his sentence. He turned his head, looked around the morgue, inspecting the place. Hoping to find something which he could use as a murder weapon. Everything could be used as a murder weapon, even his hands. He could repeat strangling someone but to repeat a style of murder was so terrible dull. Life was dull enough as it was, there needed to be some magic in it, some EXCITEMENT. ‘No, no, no, no, no, NO. Murdering someone the same way as before would not do!’ The strange man yelled. ‘What are you talking about? Murder?’ ‘Yes murder you idiot, now shut up and let me think.’ The Stranger paced in circles, surely there must be some original way to murder him in here? There had to be ONE! The strange man’s head turned to the table which held all the little instruments one would need in an autopsy. Only now one of them was going to be used to end the life of a living coroner, well he wouldn’t be living for much longer. The Stranger grabbed the first thing he could, it turned out to be a hammer. More cliché then he had hoped for but beggars could not be choosers. Hammer in hand he neared the Coroner, his grin never fading no matter how close he came. Murder was about to make a reappearance. ‘Stay back I am warning you!’ ‘Warning me with what? What could a little man like you possible do against me!? HAHAHAHAHAHA.’ The Coroner wanted to utter out a reply but could not complete that action due to the fact that the Stranger crushed his throat with his own hammer, it was a rather bloody sight to witness. ‘I hope that will teach to you to talk to strangers.’ The Stranger dropped the hammer on the dying Coroner’s head. ‘Here take it back, I have no use for it anymore.' The Coroner was declared death by the Stranger. He stood over the death body of the Coroner, there was a joke in there somewhere but he was in no mood to think of one, there was too much on his mind. He needed to leave the morgue, he needed something else. A laboratory, yes a laboratory would do nicely. He looked at the steps. It was time to leave this place. The Stranger walked towards said steps. Only to pause his walking toward the exit not even ten seconds later. The beginning of this new tale had to wait, something needed to be said first. ‘DEATH SHALL HAVE ME WHEN IT HAS EARNED ME.’ The man resumed his walk, up the stairs he walked. Enough time had been wasted already. The time had come. Time for Jack Griffin to become The Invisible Man once more.


One. BANG! Willow crumples on to the flagstones. I can see her arm laid about above her head, the grey linen sleeve slowly dyeing red with blood. She decided not to jump. I’m not surprised. She was always skittish, hesitant; she didn’t have what it takes. Not like me.

Two. No bang, instead a strange, visceral scream; involuntary. Aspen jumped. Again, I could have predicted this. She was Oak’s deputy and she’d done most of the legwork for our plan; mapping routes, figuring out where we could tunnel, where we could climb and where we could run. It was Aspen who constantly reminded us that this was the likely outcome of the plan.

“It might work,” she said, leaning over the small table where we were all crowded on top of each other, sipping weak coffee. “We could go down in history as the liberators of our people, but it’s not likely.”

Her face hardened ferociously. “More likely than not, we’ll spend a week in prison while the country takes bets on which of us will be brave enough to leap from the peak and which of us won’t.” Willow whimpered when Aspen said it.

Three. BANG. Linden didn’t jump. I am surprised now. He had seemed so ardent when we were trekking through the Molling Pass, knee deep in snow. “I’ll never let them waste lead on me.”

But he did. Maybe he didn’t decide in time. You only had one second. I had been practicing. I could take three rapid breaths in one second. One to steel myself for what I was about to do, one to fuel my muscles to jump, one to make sure I was gone before they fired.

Four. No bang. Elm had jumped. All the bookies knew she would. Besides Oak, she was the one among us most favored to leap. Our faces spread over the centerfold of the newspaper in two even rows; five on top, five on the bottom. Our names, ages, hometowns, what we were arrested with; all information used by gamblers to inform their guesses about our fate.

Elm’s scream was deep, distorting as she fell further.

I listen for as long as I can, but then, Five. No bang. Oak. Our leader. The shame if he hadn’t jumped would have been unbearable for his family. People who lead rebellions but don’t jump are never spoken of, their families considered cursed. They're pushed to the edges of their villages and forced to live off of the pity of old women.

I know Aspen and Oak told us again and again that we were likely to get caught and that we weren’t likely to succeed, but Oak assured us that it was the duty of our people to try to overthrow the Helvarians; that we must ensure they never sleep peacefully for fear we might come in the night and slit their throats. We were a morality tale Helvarian mothers told their children to get them to behave: Listen to your mother for the Dendronians will come for you in the night. Put that down now or I’ll send you to the Dendronians. " And", Oak said, "Maybe this time it will work." I don’t hear Oak hit the bottom. You can never hear them hit the bottom, it’s too far away. At some point the scream just fades. That’s how the myth started among my people that revolutionaries who stay true fly; that they leap from the peak and fly away into glory.

A memory hits me hard, so strange for this to come to me now. I was six or seven, playing in the woods with my friend, Juniper.

“They don’t really fly you know. The bottom is just too far away for us to hear them hit.” He was sneering at me.

“That’s not true! They do fly. My daddy flew!” “Well my uncle met somebody on the clean up crew. He said they rappel down the side of the peak and remove stuff from the bodies like gold teeth, valuable hair, that kind of thing.”

“You’re a liar!” I yelled, throwing a pebble at him.

“Then how come no one ever sees them fly away into glory? Wouldn’t we see them flying up into the air?” I ran to my mother in hysterics.

“You told me daddy flew! You said he was a hero! Juniper told me they just smash on the rocks.” I wept so hard I couldn’t breathe.

“Don’t listen to Juniper, my sweet. He’s a silly boy. Come here.” She pulled me to her lap and brought my head to her chest. She rubbed her hand up and down my back before stopping abruptly, patting my shoulder blades, making a confused face. She pulled my tunic back and peeked down the collar.

“What are these?” She patted the space on my back between my arms once again.

I tried to turn my face around, this way and that, to look at my own back.

“What mom? What is it?” I started to frantically whack beneath my neck.

“Wing buds. I can feel them here. If the time comes and you’re very brave, your wings will pop out of here and you’ll fly right to your daddy.” “Do you mean it, mommy?” “I do.” Later on I realized, with a laugh, that she was just touching my shoulder blades, nothing more. Sometimes, when we were teenagers, my friends and I would debate whether we’d teach our children about the wings or whether we’d be cool and skeptical forever. What hung in the air like a toxic cloud in those conversations was whether we’d ever get to have children. Would we survive the Helvarians coming to the village every spring to decide who would come with them to work as ‘servants’ (slaves)? Would they find us hidden in old logs and briar bushes, where hopeful parents would sometimes hide their children from the Helvarians, usually in vain? Would we die in a rebellion? Or would we survive in place until we were twenty-five, just to watch the Helvarians come for our friends, children, grandchildren, year after year? The blood flowing from Aspen and Linden is making its way down the line now. It will be at my feet soon.

Six. BANG. Ash. She didn’t jump. What had the bookies bet on her? My time is coming so soon. What will I think about when I plunge to the ground? Maybe I’ll imagine my mother, or meeting my father. I will be happy if the last thing I see is my father’s face smiling at me. I’m so proud of you.

But now I’m imagining my first, and only, kiss. Oh no, I hope the last thing I remember isn’t Mahogany.

Damnit, I can’t remember the lineup now, who’s next?

Seven. No bang, heaving scream. Who was seven? I went through the lineup in my head a thousand times, easily, in the last few days. Aspen, Willow, Elm, Linden... no wait, it was Willow, Aspen, Linden, or was Elm next. Oak was number five. How am I forgetting? I have so little time left to remember.

Eight. BANG. I can see his torso hit the ground in my peripheral vision; Alder. He only joined us because he knew that if the Helvarian guards came for him, and they probably would, they would torture him. Better to hedge his bets with us; no one believed he would jump when the time came. I wonder why people can’t bring themselves to jump? They know they are going to die. There’s no hope either way, why not die with pride? But it’s as though some animal part of us hopes that, if we choose to stay put, our fate may be different than the fates of all our forebears, who either soared into oblivion over the peak, or else were shot.

If we move our heads they’ll shoot us, so I’m limited to moving my eyes. This is something I’ve been practicing the past week, stretching my eyes as far as I can while my head stays still; I used the reflection off of a dank puddle in the prison floor to do it. I can see, now, stretching my eyes as far left as possible, the steam rising off of Alder’s blood. Seeing the blood reminds me that seven was Spruce. All I can remember of Spruce is her eyes; grey green.

Nine. I can feel Cedar jumping; catch his dirt-covered feet leaving the ground. The blood is pumping so hard in my ears that I can’t hear his screaming. Cedar was handsome; big and tall and dark. Sometimes at night, when we were sharing some of the four blankets we had between the ten of us, I’d curl up next to Cedar and imagine I wasn’t on my way to Allhaven to try to overthrow the Helvarian government; assassinate the Magistrate, shoot the guards and kidnap the children of the Senators until they met our demands. I’d imagine that we were two lovers laying in bed together, sleeping in after a long night, legs entwined, perfectly at peace.

Ten. It comes so quickly for me I almost miss my chance. The old priest that the Helvarians had sent in to try to get us to confess and recant told us the ten seconds would feel like an eternity; something about the brain drawing out time, like in dreams. Fractal divisions . Distortion of senses . The psychology of it . He told us it would be agony, that we’d defecate ourselves or collapse weeping and disgrace ourselves, but we knew that nothing is more disgraceful for a Dendronian than capitulation. And so we all remained silent until he sprinkled us with driftwood ash and wished us a pleasant journey into the underworld. Now ten seconds felt impossibly fast, thrice as fast as I’d been counting all week.

I take the biggest breath I can muster. My brain sends the signal to my feet to jump; a burst of power from my heels to the balls of my feet, up to my knees. My thighs plunge down for leverage and the momentum is back down to the balls of my feet again, pushing back up, and off I fly.

I see my bare toes arched above me in the sky as I fall, the grey linen uniform madly flapping in the wind. Everything is a green-blue blur. I’m trying to summon my father. I want to see his face before I hit the rocks below.

“Cypress,” he says, smiling into my face. “I’m so proud of you.” And at that moment I spread out my arms, as if to embrace him, and the wings that I’d always known deep down, even in the height of my cynicism, were there, burst forth, ripping open the linen cloth. They catch a draft of air and carry me off into the golden horizon.


The smell of an earthy dark roast coffee permeates through the air, enlightening my sense of smell with pure bliss as I take the last sip. The clock strikes six forty five and I feel the sun rays creating the first beam of light through the coffee shop windows, warming the skin of my face. Just as I am in the midst of daydreaming about my future, A bolt of energy jerks me back into reality, as the sudden chatter of twenty year old’s flood through the doors. I should become a coffee shop owner, they seem to do just fine with business, and I am tired of not knowing what I want to do with my life. I wish i didn’t have to worry about the financial troubles that have wreaked havoc in my life lately, but I digress . I mouth the words as I write the name and date on my essay, “Sierra Barre - August second, twenty -twenty four.” dragging out the R under my breathe a-midst packing up for class. The hot august sun is creeping its’ way further into the blue- cloudless sky, and trickles of sweat begin to form in my hairline as I make my way across campus. I decide to take a path that diverts from my usual one as I have some time to spare, and it’s still a path nonetheless. Wildlife overcrowds the area which makes for plenty of hidden trails for miles in every direction. I take in the beauty of my surroundings and the smell of pine bares my senses, causing a flashback of mere torture. The last family Christmas I experienced, just days before I had lost my parents and little brother to a house fire. Sadness begins to take over my emotions, losing all train of thought. A sudden ding jolts me out of my sad mind and I look down to see the name Alec across my phone screen. A little message below reading; “I missed you this morning, I’ll catch you later.” I look up from my phone, I must have really dug into the trenches of my emotions as I don’t know how much time has passed. I had led myself into a dense forest, not a single beam of light making an appearance. A reminder that the depths of my mind is a dangerous place, always leading my way to consequences of sorts. A dark feeling rushes over me as there is no sign of the path I was once following. The sound of snapping twigs and an orb emitting a red aura. I decided to follow the red orb, at which, is causing my heart to pound more intensely. The twigs still snapping as if a man in boots is stomping all over the grounds. Seconds flow by as I am welcomed into a large open circle of dirt. the trees around the circle protruding through the ground with force just before they grow in abnormal directions at the trunk. I notice the trees are outlining the circle in perfect sequence where not a single bit of vegetation seems to exist. My thoughts start to fade, as I no longer remember what was overtaking my sadness, and the orb comes to a halt in the middle of the bare grounds. A rush of energy drives through my chest and a cold chill shivers through my body, The world is now lifeless of color, events of my past start flooding my mind like a movie and an eerie whisper sends chills down my spine. “Follow me.” as if the devil himself has spoken. I am stumbling over the dirt that is below my feet, struggling to move my body forward as regret is the only thing left on my mind. I am being lead into the abyss of the woods, I stop dead in my tracks shaking like a leaf, I swear I just saw a shadow run past me. “ Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the lord my soul to keep.” the nursery prayer echoes voices of children in the distance, yet I cant distinguish from what direction. “If I should die before I wake, I pray the lord my soul to take.” The voices continue eerily right as I hear rustling in the darkness of the trees. “hey!” an ethereal voice speaks out, I jolt around in pure terror, my eyes bulge from my head. It’s my little brother, Tucker. Tucker! I shout in excitement. “shh” he holds his finger up to his mouth motioning me to stay quiet. “Don’t let him hear you.” who?! Tucker runs deeper into the woods, and I chase after him, desperate to hold him in my arms again. A few minutes go by before he disappears once more, and an old abandoned cabin catches my eye in the distance. A loud drawn out squeak echoes in the silence as I slowly open the door to the cabin, so quiet, that the sound of a fly zipping through the air would send me running. The cabin looks as if it hasn’t been touched in decades and old white sheets drape over the windows. I make my way through the cabin, the floor boards releasing a creak every few steps. I round the corner of what looks to be a living room to find another door, once again releasing another drawn out squeak as I slowly open it. I glance down at the open door, with nothing, but the sound of my heart thumping. A staircase leading downwards and an even worse feeling dreads over me. It’s dark, more dark than the shadows of the night. Tucker? I whisper quietly to see him once more. I take a deep breathe in to find myself making my way down the steps. With each foot I drag in front of the other shredding my body into the most terrified I have ever been. My breathing at this point is overpowering the sound of my heart thumping. I place my foot at the last step, looking into the obsidian distance, I hear a faint cry from what sounds like Tucker, I slowly make my towards the cry. Tucker.. I place my hand on his shoulder as he turns his head around slowly. My face drains itself of every last drop of blood, freezing myself in my tracks as I notice, this is not Tucker. His face is distorted, the holes where his eyes are supposed to be are hollow. I am filled with immense terror as I sprint back up the stairs and out of the cabin so fast, sprinting my way back the way I came through the woods. I come to an abrupt stop, confused as I have been running until my feet feel like their bleeding and I am yet, still surrounded by the abyss of the dense forest. I try to bare my focus back to the present, and right when i feel myself calming down just enough. I see shadows from all around me start coming in closer to my space and faint singing of children echo in the silence, “If I should die before I wake..” I start turning in circles as my heart is once more thumping loudly, a voice emmiting from behind me “I pray the lord my soul to take.” vibrates my hearing by that murky voice. I immediately crouch down in terror, and I let out a loud shrilling cry as i cover my face. Please.. please.. take me out of this place, I plead under my breathe. Then suddenly the songs quit and the world around me goes silent, I take my hands away from eyes, to find color fills the world around me once again and just ahead is the trail I was walking along earlier. I run back up the trail and the campus ahead lights my eyes, I have never been so happy to be back to reality. I open the coffee shop doors, not caring about the class I have missed, I just need another coffee, and time to think about what the heck just happened. An earthy dark roast scent meets my senses once again. I sit at the same spot as earlier, looking right ahead of me at the large Victorian clock to find it, striking six fifty. Blood drains from my face once more, and a hand reaches out softly toward mine. “Sierra? are you okay?” I look up to find my boyfriend with a worried look in his eyes. I met him here at school, in this coffee shop to be exact. Yeah.. I’m just tired my voice strained from the crying. He sits next to me and I can feel him looking at me as I recollect my thoughts. Hey … I say warily.. has anyone ever talked about anything weird going on in the woods? “yeah, we call it the the devils doorway. I would advise to not go in there. There’s been stories about kids never coming back out. It’s Probably just some myth, but I also don’t want to take my chances.” Fear rushes through my veins. I think I’m gonna go home and take the day away from classes. “okay babe, Ill see you when I get home.” Alec says reluctantly. I lay my head on my pillow, my clock next to me emitting a red light with numbers reading seven fifteen. It is still morning, but after what I just went through I need to get some sleep. I am exhausted and after this I may need some therapy as well. Just as I enter the stages of sleep, I hear a lullaby, the same lullaby as earlier. “Now I lay me down to sleep.” My eyes bug open and fear riddles every ounce of my body. Once again the sound of the devils vibrates my insides “sleep tight.” I look up and the world around me is once again, lifeless of color.