(names have been changed to protect the innocent and guilty)

His name was Pedro. He was everything Micheal was not. Suave,exciting, and definitely a little, if not a lot, shady. I loved Micheal but our post graduation breakup had taken him back to his native England and me to Astoria, Queens where I promptly slept with my downstairs neighbor and spent my nights drunk on the N train to and from Manhattan. I met Pedro while he and I were both working in midtown at a sexy asian/mexican fusion restaurant; him being my floor manager, and myself a server. Maybe it was the power dynamic, maybe it was the countless Jameson shots we drank after work, or maybe just being 24, but I soon became powerless over my own but young intuition and convinced myself that he was indeed what I wanted. We started flirting innocently enough, but he must have been able to smell the intrigue and curiosity on me like a dog on a bounty hunt. Night after night of drinking and talking about food, wine, our co-workers, and our very different pasts created a tension that was not only palpable but blinding.

You can imagine my surprise when Micheal called a few months removed from our break up from across the pond to tell me he had found a loophole in his Visa. One that would allow him to move to NYC for a year. This statement was immediately followed with “that way we can be back together.” My heart sank. I wanted to feel elated, but I felt like this brand new and shiny appearing world had been ripped away from me. This was my new life! My new city! My new “friends” This was the excitement I had been missing from my extremely stable, only one fight ever, continual unconditional love relationship with Micheal I had had. I couldn’t go back to that… could I? Editors note: Most people would immediately say “yes, of course go back to that you fool” but not this fire sign with an affinity for running away from safety, security, and the “known”

 My relationship with Michael in Boston was one that to this day I relish as the healthiest of my life. He is perhaps, still, the love of my life. Who is now married.

We genuinely adored each other and he wanted to be with me, even after a rocky start that involved a love triangle with someone else…It was messy. But once that dust settled, I had never felt so in love and loved in return. A wonderfully talented and handsome musician, a

product of British manners and good parenting with a genuinely golden heart, Micheal saw me in all my flaws and supported and loved me so unconditionally it felt impossible to believe at times. We were best friends who could sit and watch LOST in our pajamas, eat spaghetti, play guitar together, had our inside jokes, our mutual friends, and a blissful life together. We were together for 18 months before college graduation took us separate ways. I remember the break-up conversation so clearly. Us, at our favorite restaurant, having the most adult, eloquent and respectful conversation one could have surrounding the separation of two people very much in love. I was wildly impressed with us at 24 and 22.

We tearfully yet calmly agreed to go our separate ways and life would either bring us back together or not. Now it seemed like life was bringing him back to NYC so I strapped in and decided I would ride the wave.

I picked Micheal up from LaGuardia with one of those small signs that Limo drivers hold in a half assed attempt to show him that I still loved him dearly and that I wasn’t totally infatuated with a Peruvian with a bad reputation and a penchant for innocent women. We did fall back into a rhythm and for a while I was reminded of how wonderful WE were together.

But, after a few weeks, I started feeling antsy and like I wanted out. I felt restricted, shackled to this symbol of my old life, as amazing as he was. It also didn't help that I was working with Pedro almost daily and my scent became all the more intoxicating now that I was officially unavailable. I was half relieved, half terrified of myself and what I would do when Micheal told me that he had to go back to England for six weeks for another inexplicable but real Visa situation. After he got on that flight, I might as well have tied my sneakers on and started running for the fire. A full blown affair blossomed between me and Pedro.

We stayed out late, dirty dancing, him whispering phrases in Spanish in my ear while we made out on the dirty NYC sidewalk, the time difference working in my favor for Micheal to be long asleep when I was engaging in my debauchery.

At first it felt intoxicating, fun, exciting. But that sheen wore off and when Micheal returned a few weeks later,

I was an anxious wreck. I don’t know how people carry on in affairs for years, let alone months, let alone weeks, or days of their life, but I must have lost ten pounds in those two weeks of overlap. What was wrong with me? I had one man who loved me more than himself, wanted nothing but to marry me eventually and adore me, and I couldn’t run away faster.

After two weeks of actively sneaking around, turning phones face down on tables, and shitting from anxiarrhea every minute, I broke up with Micheal. I recoil in horror at how eager I was to get him out of my apartment so I could call Pedro and tell him the news that we could actually be together. I watched Michael leave, tears streaming down his face as I texted

Pedro “the good news.” I don’t remember him being that excited.

About a week later, Pedro broke up with me. I shouldn’t have been so shocked…this is what karma is right? I knew deep down in my gut that he was not good for me, but I decided to fill my gut with booze and sex to convince myself it was right and ended up on my own for the first real time in years.

Ten years later….

Landon and I are eating Chinese in what he so affectionately calls “house pants” sweats that once are on, signal we are in for the night. And I’m fine with that.

We’ve been watching “The Presidential Series” of movies lately, “ Air Force One ” “ The American President ” and so on for a few nights, having deep, funny discussions and couch therapy. This is what we do. You’d think it was enough.

I had been trying to fall in love with my former best friend, then lover, Landon, for about a year now. After getting my heart shattered by the guy I thought I was going to marry, Landon, the guy whose shoulder I always cried on, decided timing be damned, he was going to throw his hat in the proverbial ring and confess his feelings for me. I had never looked at him, * that way* but I knew I loved being around him, and that I was perhaps the most vulnerable I had been in recent history, so we just kind of… started? I remember our first kiss. Sara Bareilles was playing, it was all very rom-com. I hate rom-coms. At first I convinced myself that I was ok. That I could magically get over the previous ex and

ride off into the sunset with my best friend. I would not run away from what I had known in the past to feel like “ safe love” I was going to be IN this damnit. How could I not want to be with my best friend? It worked for Monica and Chandler right?

However, after almost a year of sobbing jags over the ex TO Landon, and reluctance to be known as his girlfriend around others, I should have cut and run. Done the right thing. But I told myself eventually, I would fall in love and everything would just work itself out. I wouldn't run away from this sort of love again like I had in the past.

Landon wanted to put a ring on my finger. Not proverbially, but actually. He was 38, he had been single for the better part of a decade and I was his dream woman. We immediately eased into a comfort, a knowing, a feel like we had been together for years. I kept looking within us for the best part of any relationship, the beginning, but I felt like I got robbed of that part. The best part.

We jumped right into what basically felt like marriage. I was at his all the time. He was at mine all the time. We were inseparable, but not in an obnoxious “can’t be apart , madly in love way”

more in a “you’re my best friend and the only person I can be around for this long without wanting to jump in front of a moving something way”. There was a road with two paths in front of me, one leading to a life with him, one leading into the dating abyss that is Los Angeles.

The road with him felt like I could be about 60% happy, with the remaining 40% wondering what was beyond him… The desire to being single again, moving on from my ex with the same aplomb and routine that proved to eventually work in my past; sleeping with randos, drinking too much, ugly crying in the bathtub, doing whatever the FUCK I wanted to do. The other path, an unknown, risking perhaps never feeling this sort of

love again.

Enter… Travis. Travis was an affable,

tall, floppy haired, guitarist in the ‘90s band I sang in. I have historically always had a weakness for a boy with a guitar. Walking, talking, John Mayer playing sticks of kryptonite that I decide to keep in my bed. Smart. Travis and I met carpooling to a gig in San Diego. I don’t think we stopped talking the entirety of the trip. I was in love with my ex before Landon at the time so I didn’t think twice about him much until a while later during the time where I was still desperately trying to fit my square heart into Landon’s round one. I saw Travis at a rehearsal and we got a drink afterward, him regaling me with stories of his 25 year old situationship/ girlfriend and how he was bored with her, and the only thing he liked about her was her love for The Eagles (the band, not the NFL team) and me dancing around the Landon situation with the expertise of Barishnykov. Somehow portraying that I wasn’t a total shithead and that I loved this person but I wasn’t IN it. Because as I feared,

I was getting more and more into him.

I knew I was careening towards dangerous and familiar territory that I had avoided for the last decade but here I was again, feeling that tension from the spark. The energy circuiting in my body, making me want to flee again.

Over the next few weeks, we would find reasons and excuses to hang out. I was still with Landon but Travis and I were only growing more and more electric the longer that we hung out. I was once again at a place where I was turning my phone face down and staying out late with someone who wasn’t my lover. He would make jabs about Landon to me, ways of puncturing holes in what he already knew was too porous a shell. It was a game to him, he later admitted. Interested in what he thought he couldn’t have. The thing that I knew all along he would eventually get.

He kissed me one night in my kitchen. It was a sloppy kiss. My mouth filled with chips, both of us drunk. I knew right then I had to break up with Landon. At least a decade later, I wasn’t going to let an actual affair continue. Been there, done that and while this had been an emotional affair until this point, I couldn’t possibly relive that anxious hellscape once something BAD actually happened. In my head, the line hadn’t been yet crossed but with that kiss, I had just lightly jumped over and it was no longer ok .  I had made bargains with my morality up until that point. “If I don’t text him back it’s ok.” or, “ he left at 3 am instead of 4, so that’s ok “ I texted my best friend about what happened, took screenshots of the exchange and deleted the messages, just like an addict hiding the evidence.  Two days later, I was with Landon watching the Oscars when he looked over at me and said “ Do you have something you want to tell me?” I felt punched in the gut. How the fuck did he know? I foolishly pseudo lied and said something ridiculous along the lines of “ we didn’t make out, it was one kiss” like the semantics and details would somehow get me out of this. It was not good. I was in such shock that he had gone through my phone as he later admitted that I couldn’t even allow myself to be angry at the invasion of privacy. That I still deserved even as the guilty one. Both of us filled with shame, shock and anger, we broke up. This time, I left his apartment with tears in my eyes and no real elation because at the end of the day, Travis never actually said he wanted to be with me. I called Travis and told him what had happened and his reaction was slightly apologetic with a detected

hint of “ oh shit, I didn’t mean to do that. Do I owe her something now?” I had once again blown up the thing I knew was safe, secure, unconditional in exchange for the unknown thrill of something that never quite satisfies. Travis and I continued for two years in an excruciating cyclical situationship that always ended it’s “round” with me asking for more and being told he didn’t want to or couldn’t give that to me. I’m still not fully over him. Landon and I are back to friends but not without

the better half of a year of many angry conversations, emails on Christmas Eve telling me how shitty I was, tears shed and questions asked.

When I ask myself why I ran from these loves, I never have a good answer. You could essentially blame it on my youth, but that excuse wears itself thin in your late thirties. I suppose I don’t really know where it comes from. Studies will claim attachment style is childhood based.That the relationship between you and your caretaker during the formative first few years of your life somehow determine whether or not you fall for fuck bois in your twenties and

thirties but yet, here we are. I have discussed my tendencies at length with therapists and friends about why I seem to run away from the stable, sometimes boring, safe and unconditional love and instead run towards the unavailable, damaging, never quite actually love me types. All I know is that here I am at 38 years old wanting the former more than ever and feeling more and more hopeless with each late night swipe session, each boring first date, each lap I take year by year, swimming into a shallower dating pool, eventually banging my head against the ground and running out of options. I suppose one gets tired of running all the time. It’s fun when you're young, you’re being chased, you’re racing something, or trying to get from point A to point B and fast, but now, my feet and my heart are tired.


The book was stirring up memories of long ago. I hardly ever thought about it these days, but reading this book was bringing it all back again – the words seemed to talk to me and awaken my senses – allowing me to feel and smell and see everything that had gone on around me all those years ago. I didn’t usually read history books or as my friend puts it ‘deep’ books that just make you feel morbid and unhappy! I disagreed with that but could see what she meant about the ‘morbid’ feeling, although I would say melancholy and pensive – but Gloria always was a drama queen. Strictly speaking this wasn’t a book about war that I was reading but of a love story set in the time of WW2. Thankfully there wasn’t too much written about the death and destruction that took place on the battlefields but more the relationship of two people with the war going on around them, in the background so to speak. The girl in this story was so in love, just as I was. She was young and I was a bit older than she was, not much. She was one of the lucky ones whose fiancée came back to her whereas I lost my true love. He went off to the war and never came back. But that was a long time ago. I’ve been through another two loves since then, two husbands, and both of them predeceasing me – would make a good murder mystery story I expect, if it wasn’t for the fact that they both died of natural causes! The heroine of the story I was reading was from a middle class family and living in the countryside of Devon, unlike me, who at the time was from the poorer side of town and living on the outskirts of London. Her life was about to be torn apart because the love of her life had enlisted to join the army and would soon be leaving her. I could actually feel the knot in her stomach and see the perspiration on her soft pale brow as he told her. “Don’t leave me. I don’t want you to die fighting the enemy. Do you have to go? Please don’t go.” she begged him, tears sliding down her ashen cheeks. “Of course I have to go my love” the enthusiastic young man whispered to her, “But I will be back and then we can get married. It will be alright and the war might not last that long anyway. Don’t you worry about me, I’ll be ok” and he imagined what it would be like when he got there – how the enemy succumbed under attack from the mighty British soldiers. Their strength and agility too much for the German’s – he and his mates would come out the victors from the battle, laughing and hugging each other, exhausted but exhilarated. He had it all wrong. It didn’t happen like that. The tattered and torn letters that Brenda received from Jeremy on occasion told it differently. The enemy was relentless. The continual sleepless nights in cold deep muddy trenches, the incessant noise of gunfire and planes flying overhead, and the waiting, the long hours of waiting for orders to leave the shelter of the trenches to march, shaking with fear towards what could be your last day on earth. He never glorified the war; he didn’t want to be there. In his letters he spoke of his love for Brenda and what the future held if he did get back one day. He would never promise to come back, he couldn’t and they both knew it. And he didn’t come back. He got killed three months after arriving. All Brenda had to remind herself of the man she loved was the St. Christopher he wore around his neck and a letter he had written but not sent to her. She used to get the letter out and read it each day. But it got too painful to look at the dirt smudged papers, reading the thoughts he had while waiting scared in the trenches. She stopped after a while and put the letter in a plastic bag, high up on the top shelf of the attic. As the years passed by Brenda didn’t think of Jeremy as often as she used to, and she met someone else. The letter just sits in the plastic bag, but this story was reminding her of how she felt all those years ago. Brenda put the book down and sat with her hands in her lap, thinking of the people who used to live in her street, a lot of them long gone, most really, and those that were still here were either in a nursing home or couldn’t remember much anyway. She was one of the lucky ones, who for her very advanced years had a good memory. She always told people that she put it down to never having a drink and eating oats every day for breakfast! She doesn’t know if she really believed that though. Mr. Swindon was still around – he lived independently, but after talking to him last week, Brenda thought that it wouldn’t be too long before he had to be looked after. Many years ago he ran the post office not far from where she used to live and was a really cheerful man, always willing to help out if needed. Brenda would go in to send her letters to Jeremy and he would tease her about how sweet the envelope smelled from the perfume she had sprayed on it! He changed a bit thought when his brother got killed during the war. It was his only sibling and he felt guilty that because he was very deaf in one ear and colour blind he didn’t have to enlist. He remained a kind and helpful man but always slightly melancholy. He never married, saying that as Brenda was taken, it was no good looking any further! The only other people who were around at the time of the war and still here were Mr and Mrs Neilson, who were both in the dementia section of a nursing home. They didn’t even know who each other was any more. Their memories of the war and Mr Neilson coming back severely maimed after being shot down by German fighter jets were long gone. Brenda remembered how the neighbours would take turns in looking after some of the Neilson’s eight children while Mrs Neilson visited her husband in hospital each day and then when he came home to recuperate they would rally around to make some food for the family from the rations they all got. That’s when kind Mr. Swindon would talk his cousin into giving him an extra couple of coupons for the Neilson family to get some added butter and bacon. Brenda sighed and opened up the book again. She could relate to the girl in the story worrying, day in and day out about the men at war. She envisioned each time a couple of ranked officers marched up to a door, knocked and stood back, waiting to give the household bad news about a loved one far away and fighting for their country, and the feeling of relief when they got back into their army vehicle and drove off, not having to go to another house. She would shut her front door and cry a few tears in relief. Sometimes if the person lived very close you could hear the wailing of the parents or other family members in disbelief that they would never see their loved one again. Then on a very cold winter’s day in October, it was her turn. Brenda was at work when the knock at the door came - as soon as she saw her mother’s pale face at the office door, she knew. Something in the look on her mother’s face told her, suddenly filling her with a feeling of dread and anxiety and taking her breath away, and she silently mouthed the words that wouldn’t come out. Jeremy died on the front line, rifle in his hand. Most of the platoon died that day – young men with their whole lives in front of them. Their bodies were buried where they died and marked with their own bayonet. Many years later some of the bodies were exhumed – the ones found, and buried with dignity and love. Jeremy was eventually buried in the local church cemetery. After going to visit the burial site, taking flowers and just sitting and thinking for many years, it stopped and Brenda’s life moved on. “Oh I feel so tired” said Brenda to herself, shutting her book and putting it on the table next to her. “I’ll just have forty winks and then get up to do something” she mumbled as her eyes began to shut and she started to doze off. In her dream she was back on the day that the war was officially declared over. Brenda and her two best friends raced out, disbelieving, from the building where they had been working voluntarily putting together parcels for the soldiers at war. “It’s over, the war is over, we’ve defeated them” a group of boys had raced in shouting at the top of their lungs. Everyone downed whatever it was they were doing and ran outside. The air rang with the sound of people singing, loudly declaring “There’ll always be an England”. Groups of friends had all joined hands and were jumping up and down and laughing. The air around was saturated with elation and relief – the six years of hell were over. Shouts of “Let’s get the tube into London” could be heard as people raced to jump on the tube and get to the heart of a country that had been smashed to a pulp by the German bombings. It seemed as if everyone had come out to celebrate! The street was jam-packed, children had come home from school and stood with their families, laughing, joking and hugging each other tightly. Brenda told her friends to go on before her on the tube as she wanted to go home to find her parents and share the joy with them. Her elation that she shared with her mum and dad was diminished by the realization that she wouldn’t get to spend the warless years, the future, without the fear of bombs and death with the love of her life. The fact that Jeremy gave up his life so they could all enjoy this moment in time, didn’t seem fair. She sat on the front step, her head resting on her mother’s shoulder and cried, sobbed for all that could have been for her and Jeremy and never would be. Brenda woke suddenly and sat up in her chair. She wiped away tears from her eyes and off her cheeks, and then she remembered the dream. Feeling all of her age she struggled to get up and off the seat but eventually walked into the kitchen. She had picked up the book on her way through and put it in the bin. ‘That’s enough of that book. I need to brighten up! No more thinking of the past for me – I intend to enjoy whatever future I have left’.


Sean runs down the rear stairs from his small apartment, stopping at the bottom to check his shoelaces. “I’m just going for a run,” he tells himself, as though hearing the words out loud makes his intentions truthful. And in part, what he tells himself is the truth. Sean runs most Saturdays; as the saying goes, rain, hail or shine. Today, however, is different. And Sean knows it. Still, lying to himself is easier than facing the truth. Sean tightens his shoelaces. He raises his left foot, landing the heel of his trainer on the third step from the bottom. The height is right for a hamstring stretch. He extends his left arm, leans forward and touches the tip of his left shoe. Sean is proud of how fit he is. He was fat on his mother’s butter-laden mashed potatoes as a kid. Then, a crush on his high school PE teacher, Mr Shaw, saw Sean running around the school’s oval, lap after lap, day after day. Mr Shaw changed schools, but Sean, lighter on his feet and buoyed by a new confidence, kept running through high school and onto university, where he discovered literature, weight training and boys. Sean switches legs. He’s been a high school teacher for one week and knows he’s not cut out for the vocation. The job was tough; the kids tougher. Sean kidded himself (for a day) that he was moulding young minds, but the students and his fellow teachers exhausted him. The charade of being someone he wasn’t drained him; if another teacher asked if he had a girlfriend, he would scream. All Sean wants to do is write. Sean told his Year 12 teacher he would be the James Joyce of Australia. The teacher asked who that was. Still, his plans to quit teaching soonish rather than latish didn’t temper the voice in his head that nags;” Doesn’t make what you are doing right now right, does it?"  "Shut up." Sean takes down his leg and runs down the long driveway alongside his apartment block and towards the street. Sean can tell himself anything he likes, but he is running towards trouble. His heart rate rises as his shoes hit the pavement, those first jarring steps of a long run. Soon, he won't notice his body's aches as it adjusts to the pace; even the heat of a hot summer's morning won't bother him as his body limbers, and he loses himself in his thoughts. He wipes his brow with the back of his hand, smearing the sweat and grime. The day is brilliant, a bright blue sky, not a whisper of air, so warm even the birds don't sing.  Sean laughs, thinking of his first day in front of that class. Only a moment ago, it seems, he was the eager young kid raising his hand, calling out, “Sir!” Now, he was whom the seniors called out “sir” to. Sean turns 22 in May. He is lucky if he is five years older than his students. “Crazy.” He turns onto Fifth Avenue and runs towards the beachfront. He never expected to be assigned a senior class, not with the ink barely dry on his teaching diploma. Neither did Principal Harvey, who offered Sean the Year 8 English teacher position late last year. “Keep it light; nothing too serious,” he told Sean. “The kids in this school aren’t too bright, and neither are their parents. Get them to read The Hobbit or that Charlie and the Chocolate Factory book, some spelling and grammar, you know the drill.” The Hobbit it was. He turned up on his first day only to be told that Mrs Adams, the school’s English teacher of 35 years, dropped dead on Christmas Day in front of her 16 grandchildren. “So inconsiderate,” Principal Harvey shook his head. The jowls hanging under his chin wobbled like a turkey’s. “Those poor grandkids, that’s a Christmas they won’t forget quickly.” Sean agreed but protested when assigned to Mrs Adam’s Year 12 students. “Sir. I’m not experienced enough. Those kids will run circles around me.” Principal Harvey expelled a loud belly laugh. “Just be assertive from day one,” he explained. “None of this modern teacher mumbo jumbo they teach these days. Kids, especially in this area, need a firm hand and authority. Teach with an iron fist, and if anyone troubles you, send them my way for three of the best.” Sean’s eyes follow Principal Harvey’s to his bamboo cane leaning against the corner wall. A PTS chill runs down Sean’s spine. “You hear me, Kelly.” “Loud and clear, sir.” The principal pushed back in his chair. “I don’t see a wedding ring. Married Kelly?” Sean gasped. “I’m only 22, sir.” Mr Harvey looked puzzled. “A girlfriend then?” Sean sighed. “No, sir.” The principal widened his eyes and shook his head with dismay. "Deary me. Don't let those senior girls know you're a free agent. Eat a guy like you alive, they will." The principal dropped his hands and leaned forward, closing the gap between himself and Sean as if letting him in on a secret. “A couple of those girls are a right pair of moles. Do you get my drift, Kelly? Trouble.” Sean tried to conceal his shocked expression from Principal Harvey with a firm cough. The principal’s choice of language alarmed him. Sean was no stranger to church and thought Principal Harvey might be better at the pulpit, the conveyor of sin and depravity to a congregation of small minds, than the curator of young minds at an institution where those same minds came to learn.  Still standing, Principal Harvey circled Sean like a shark preying on a defenceless minnow. "Believe it or not, I once was a young, hot-blooded man like yourself." Sean tried hard not to laugh. He never expected to be the audience of such a speech. "Those girls can be tempting. Just remember Kelly. You are here to teach." He handed Sean a folded piece of paper. "The Senior Class of 1985. You'll find them in room 4B. You better be quick., class started five minutes ago." Sean snatched the piece of paper and went to turn when Principal Harvey spoke again. “Kelly?” “Yes, Sir.” Sean felt 13. “You got a nice pair of guns on you there, lad. What do you bench press?” Sean blushed, uncomfortable in the tightness of his polo shirt. “100kg on a good day.” “Good. The school needs a rugby couch.” "Sir?" Sean could not hide his frustration and began to gesture with his hands. "I know nothing about coaching rugby." “Well, that gives you something in common with every other teacher in this school. Sign-ups start next month. Kelly?” “Yes?” He answered in the voice of a defeated man. “This school hasn’t won a game since Owen Jones led the team to victory in the 1981 State School Championships.” He points at the wall to a photo of a group of begrimed boys raising their team captain high into the air. ”I’m not saying we need to go all the way, but Kelly, let’s win at least one game, shall we? Head down, shoulders slumped, Sean marched to the classroom, a condemned man. Stopping short of the door to compose himself, he rolled his shoulders back, strutted out his chest, and raised his chin. "You got this, dude," he told himself and walked into the commotion that was his senior English class.

"Right, everyone," he said, unloading a big smile. My name is Sean Kelly. You can all call me Sean, and I'm your new…" He stopped. Sitting two rows back, with his blue eyes peering out from beneath a blonde cowlick hanging across his forehead, was Dylan, the guy he had met last Saturday fishing off the pier. Surprised, Sean regained his composure despite Dylan’s friendly, welcoming smile. "I'm your, um, new English teacher." “ Alright!” boomed a girl sonically from the back of the classroom. “We’ve got Mr Hottie as our new English teacher.” Sean runs to the end of his street, where it meets Flinders Parade. The smart thing to do is to turn left and run towards Redcliffe. Instead, he turns right, following the steps he took last Saturday, the steps that led him to Dylan Jones, now his Year 12 student.  Sean moved to Sandgate from Paddington, where he shared a small worker's cottage with two older girls and a Siamese cat called Sookie. Sean wanted to be close to the school and alone. Sandgate, he discovered on that first morning, was beautiful. The northern suburb had a village-like feel, with its now redundant town hall and clock tower. Lagoons behind the town centre attracted many birds, picnickers, and nature buffs. On the other side of the main street was the beachfront, a span of waterway called Bramble Bay, part of the bigger Moreton Bay. The beachfront was no Gold Coast. The offshore islands stopped the surf and silt from the Brisbane River, and nearby mangrove swamps turned the sand flats into mud. The sea was shallow; even at high tide, it hardly splashed Sean's knees. The sea made his skin itch. Sea lice, a lady in one of the many fish and chip shops warned him. He was also told not to wade into the sea without wearing shoes. “If the stingrays don’t get you, the stonefish will,” one old-timer explained. Stonefish lived buried in the mud, and their venomous spikes could paralyse a man. Sean’s forays into the sea ended that day. Still, when the tide was high, the sun shined, and the gulls soared above, the beachfront, for all its hazards, was glorious and a far cry from Inala, where Sean grew up a “Westie” among factories and used car lots. Sandgate possessed an old-worldly charm all of its own. Sean was smitten. The tranquillity of the town suited his gentle temperament. Here, he knew could write. On the Saturday before school started on the Monday, Sean was excited and nervous. A run, he decided, would sort him out. He jogged towards the beachfront and turned right towards Shorncliffe, where a track made for cyclists took him to the top of the cliffs; here, old homes on stilts took in the expensive views of Moreton Bay. Shorncliffe was once a popular spot for holidaymakers at the turn of the century, and some of the more prominent buildings had once been hotels. Most now were boarding houses, where old men lived alone. Some sat on the verandas in the morning sun, drinking beer from tall brown bottles or tea from tin mugs. Some were missing limbs. Sean ran past and waved. They waved back. He followed the road to a small river, Cabbage Tree Creek, where a sparse fleet of trawlers moored. The bay was famous for its prawns. At the mouth of the creek was a jetty where a lone fisherman cast a line out into the sparkling sea. The sun had barely risen; the streets were quiet, and Sean felt he had the world to himself. On days like this, he felt less lonely, nature proving enough of a companion. He stopped running. Wet with sweat - Brisbane was hot in the summer, no matter the time of the day - he peeled off his shirt and walked out along the pier, stopping just shy of the young man fishing. Sean dried his sodden shirt on the wooden safety railings, peeling with white paint and exposing the grey wood beneath. From his bum bag, strapped to his waist, Sean took a squished banana and a well-worn paperback before sitting on the tallow wood decking, careful not to get a splinter in his butt. The book was Ulysses, by James Joyce. Sean began to read, shielding his eyes from the blinding sun, when the guy fishing suddenly appeared like an apparition, standing above him. His thick blonde hair fell over his face as he bowed his head to look down. The guy took his right hand and pushed his cowlick away from his face. Sean was struck. He could not tell the boy's age, whom he would learn later, was named Dylan. He was handsome, not conventionally so, but striking all the same. His head was shaped like a small hat box, topped with a tussle of sandy, sun-bleached hair, and a sprinkle of freckles fanned out across his cheeks and down his strong, angled nose. Sean stared for a long second. Dylan’s blue eyes caught the sun’s rays and sparkled like the sea. “G’day.” Dylan crouched down. Sean liked his casual confidence. “What are you reading?” Sean lowered his hand away from his eyes and the book, showing Dylan the cover. Dylan took the book and examined it, reading the back jacket before turning his attention back to Sean. Sean felt those blue eyes looking down at his bare chest and stomach. His glance warmed him like the sun. “One of the greatest novels ever written, hey? What’s it about then?” Sean struggled to find his voice. He was startled. His head spun. “Um, let’s see. It’s set in Dublin, like at the beginning of the century, and it’s a day in this guy’s life, Leopold Bloom.” Dylan held the book firmly, lifting it and feeling its weight. “All of these pages, just for one day. At least in David Copperfield, which is just as big, it spans years of his life.” “You’ve read David Copperfield?” Sean started to stand, surprised. “Yeah. You?” “Of course.” “Shit, I got a bite.” Dylan returned the book to Sean and ran towards the end of the pier, lifting his rod and pulling it back over his head—the tip of the rod bent furiously down. Dylan reeled in his catch; a large silverfish appeared below the sea’s surface. Sean, by now, stands behind him. Dylan lifts his catch onto the pier. “Wow, what is it?” “A bream. You get a lot of them around here.” He watches as Dylan removes the hook from the fish's mouth and then, to Sean's surprise, throws the fish back into the sea. "Why did you do that?" Dylan smiled- always smiling, thought Sean. “I don’t like eating them. They’re a bit fishy for me, and my Mum hates them.” He looked down the river. Now that the tide is higher, I’m going to head down to the boat ramp and see if I can catch a flathead.“ He held out his hand. “I’m Dylan.” Sean takes his hand; the smoothness of Dylan’s skin stirs him. Their eyes locked. Another smile. “Sean.” "Well, Sean, enjoy the book. See you later, hey?" And like that, he packed up his fishing gear and walked towards the end of the pier, though Sean thought he glided more than walked. He turned before he reached the end and waved back to Sean. Sean raised his hand, mesmerised. A wave seemed hardly appropriate.  In his flat, Sean tried to remember every detail: the yellow and brown board shorts he wore, the stripped T-shirt, his blonde hair, those freckles, that easy smile, the touch of his skin. He savoured him as long as he could, hoping their paths might cross again.

Sean just never expected it to be in his classroom. It’s Saturday again. The first week is done and dusted. He saw Dylan every day but kept coy. Dylan, likewise, remained aloof. However, Sean saw him stealing glances at each opportunity he could, dispersing the odd smile. When Sean walked down the aisle between desks, he imagined Dylan checking out his butt. Sean runs down to the beachfront, sweat dripping from every pore, flowing in a torrent down his legs, the back of his calves, and his feet, wet with sweat, slide inside his trainers. Sean’s pace is faster than usual. He runs with an adolescent eagerness. As he reaches the beachfront, he slows; the smell of seaweed drying on the mud flats exposed before him slaps him hard in the face. His eyes water and the back of his throat stings with salty air. It’s low tide. What would a Westie know about the tides? As futile as it seems, Sean soldiers on, hoping Dylan fished the pier regardless of the tide—his pace quickens. Sean now sees why Cabbage Tree Creek is called a creek, not a river. The tide is low—the creek was two metres wide at best. Sean thinks a long jumper could leap to the other side. Boats that bobbed up and down on the sea’s surface last week now lay stuck in the dark, sticky mud. A small flock of long-billed sea birds scour the mud for morsels of food. Dylan is not here. Sean stops and turns to follow the footpath above the creek towards where Dylan had wandered to find a place to fish. As he strolls further from the sea, the water shallows, the creek narrows, and the air carries the stench of rotten eggs.  Sean stops and squats. In truth, he has not examined what he is doing until now, and now, he feels the shame of his actions. “Am I chasing a student?” Sean makes a hard fist and smacks the side of his head, like his dad would, to knock some sense into him. He is disappointed Dylan is not standing there, his smile brightening an already sunny day. His absence makes a hollow sound. He punches himself again, harder. Sean is disgusted with himself. There is no television in Sean’s flat, no radio or stereo. Just his typewriter, a birthday present from his parents when they still did such things, before they learnt the truth about their son. There was nothing but books. Books to keep him company. In books, he found solitude. In books, he found meaning. He thought of Joyce and his line from Ulysses, “Think you’re escaping and run into yourself.” Sean thinks of Dylan and nothing else.


1st Entry: February 29th, 3001 I've finally started writing the journal I promised my therapist about back on Earth, now that we've reached Marrs. it has two r's. I don't misspell. As scientists had predicted due to weakening magnetic fields, the sun rose in the West and Earth's gravity was basically kicking us out. In a flurry of panic and disarray, humanity once more succeeded, exactly as irritably as it could get. I had been hopeful when Mars didn't work out. Until Marrs started surfing Media when I was fifteen. 'Can't quite believe I've lived a year after that. I don't exactly love to reflect but my therapist is a cunning tester who told me I should "transfer" my "thoughts to ink" to "make way for the noble mind". So, I wish the human race had ended with the sunset in the East– right then and there, no worries after departure. Things haven't changed much over here except my dad's low-paying job has turned into a no-paying job. He volunteered to help with the construction of houses for the poor. I wonder if he actually believes that anyone suffered poverty's trauma more than us. I wish he'd prioritize us over humanity sometimes; empathy over sympathy– Do I sound like Thanos? I shouldn't care. My mom has started tutoring kids and teenagers. She's done with her fifth class of the day now. The kids are pleading her to repeat her adventure tales. It's annoying how she has turned a matter of not affording to get to safety– not affording life to something worth pride. This journaling b.s is really doing a number on getting on my nerves. We need to stop wasting money on it. I'm talking to mom tomorrow. 2nd Entry : 3 0th Febr uary, 3001 Turns out, there's 30 to 31 days in February and November, and 31 to 32 days in the rest of the months here. That's approximately 376 days– if I've managed to not blunder through calculation. Nothing interesting really happened today. I've just been studying and using low-class pass in the library to understand this whole new world to get my mind off mom not caring about my opinion bregarding my own mental health and financial choices. 3rd Entry : March 1 st, 3001 The flowers on this planet are kinda weird. I haven't seen many but I like to walk around and I saw a bunch of breeds with belly-like stems, juicy petals, watery cores and there was this one bed of air-floating flowers too. The owner had caught me oggling at them so he gave me a bit of background and basics. Embarrassing, but it was almost worth the knowledge. If we had been here sooner, mom would have had studied these amazing breeds instead of the boring ones back home and actually made sales with her Botonical Bussiness Buddy book. And I would have been able to study with people at school. I keep dreaming. It frustrates me. J don't think writing's for me. 4th Entry: March 3rd, 3001 I skipped two days of journaling and got an earful from Miss Therapist. She's okay at her job, but she's annoying as hell and won't keep her nose out of my bussiness and is a sly trapping witch that knows how to lure secrets out of me. Welp, doesn't matter that I badmouthed her. She asked me to write. I wrote. 5th Entry: March 5th, 3001 Since she became my thirteenth birthday gift, till now, she's been nosy. So I don't know why I didn't see her discovery of my yesterday's journaling topic coming. A load of foolishness, I am. She gave me a list of questions to answer "at my own pace and comfort" instead of choosing unsuitable topics. And I don't care if it's childish but I'm not listening to her because she's sly, nosey, selfish and she's only ever blabbering or asking me to do so for the sake of cashing. 6th Entry: March 27th, 3001 I haven't been journaling for a while. I've been salty and I don't exactly know why but I'm choosing not to dwell on it for the sake of my sanity. I'm seventeen now. It's my birthday. Molly told me her name as a gift. Wow, saying her name's weird, she's always been Miss Therapist to me. She never gave me a gift before but said that this was her spirtual gift to me this year because she couldn't afford a concrete one. Sounds fishy to me. I've been feeling so mentally unstable that I think I heard her muttering about being stupid to waste time here when she could actually be earning somewhere else. She's weird, and she's making me weird too. It's what happens when you can't afford real therapy. Anyway! First question on the list: What are you feeling right now? Woah, wait. Waitta catch me off-guard there... I can go at my own pace and comfort. Random question: What's happiness? Answer: Joy. Bye. 52nd Entry: May 10th, 3001 A couple of skips on the journey but I can't believe I've beared it this far. Molly's still annoying but her tactics are less annoying and more eye-opening now. Swear to God, she can't squeeze this one out of me. Ew, I just imagined pride on her face. Ugly. Anyway! Question no. 46. A reason you're glad Marrs exists? The plants! And other natural stuff. It's really much more beautiful than that messed up blue ball we used to live on. And I don't really know how to be eloquent about this but the nature here is just so.. captivating and appealing to the eye... and somehow the heart too. Yeah, that's my way of putting it, I guess. 3012th Entry: May 12th, 3008 It's Molly and I's first wedding anniversary so I'm going to be gifting her this notebook to let her know of the torture she's put me through. Also, how she's helped me not want to wish to be the one comitting suicide in place of Charlie, and understanding mom and dad, and encouraging me to work towards my passion (which she guessed was botany even though it wasn't obvious, she was just sly, doesn't matter what she says) and slipping in some no-payment sources, and basically teaching me what life is. Thank you, annoying Miss Therapist. (P.s. drop in at the Senior Centre after work. Let's drop our parents some pizza-macaroons. You have to drive there yourself. I've done enough by making you suspicious of my extra working hours due to buying a restaurant for various reasons. Surprise! I know I'm still not that eliquent so excuse my form of communication xoxo)


My stomach groans with hunger and my bladder is full to the point of discomfort but I deny these things. I have decided they are not important. Instead I sit straight and attentive, my eyes attuned to the screens in front of me. “She’s good at her job,” I want my higher-ups to remark. “No, she’s great at her job,” I want someone even higher up to say, and for them to nod their head as a single unit, one giant approval.

It’s my first week of employment at Bodham’s Prison for Women and as a woman myself, I’m well aware I’m assumed to be weaker than my fellow colleagues, mostly male. I cannot allow weakness. They’ve put me in the security room to moderate the CCTV activity of the prison, to see how I fare here. I’m watching, but I’m also being watched. Russian dolls of perception. In the upper righthand corner then, a swift movement. I double click on Cell 68’s CCTV and assess. Occupant in Cell 68 is tying what appears to be a shoelace around and around her arm, for what purpose it’s unclear. Novelty? But she shouldn’t have the shoelace in the first place. I radio my superior, Randy. “Cell 68 in possession of non-lethal contraband, Cell 68 in possession of non-lethal contraband. Appears to be a shoelace of some sort.” I wait for Randy’s reply. “Copy that.” On the CCTV screen Occupant in Cell 68 is still tying the shoelace around her arm. I shift in my seat and almost wince. My bladder is at full capacity. But I refuse to be the new girl who requests coverage to go potty every few hours. We all have needs bigger than the job, but we purposefully reorganize those needs and place this job on top. Like an angel at the apex of a Christmas tree, where she belongs. I see one of my colleagues enter Cell 68 on the CCTV screen. The occupant tries to hide her shoelace. My colleague steps forward, holds out his hand. After a few beats of consideration, the occupant reluctantly hands it over. My colleague leaves, and Cell 68 is once again free of any sign of concern. I fight the urge to smile as I click to return to the full screen. Nice catch by me. Without moving my chin, I angle my eyes down to my watch. An hour and a half left. I can do this. Randy radioes me. “Scott’s walking your way, you need a 10?” “No,” I say into my walkie. “All good.” “Are you sure?” Randy sounds about as surprised as a head of prison security can be, that is, vaguely. “Positive. I’m gonna finish this one out.” “Copy.” Randy disconnects. I shift in my chair and my bladder protests again, but I decide it is irrelevant. There are more important things than expelling piss from my body in a timely manner. Most of the women are asleep. It is 4AM. My eyes land on the Occupant in Cell 10. She’s pacing. She’s paced like that three out of the four nights I’ve been here. The other night she lay curled up in a ball on her cot and didn’t move all night. She was so still I zoomed in on her CCTV a few times to make sure she was still alive, and considered radioing Randy about it. But I didn’t, and tonight, on my fourth night, she’s back to pacing. My stomach omits an ornery growl. I ignore it like a parent does an irritating child. Not now, hush. Occupant in Cell 68 has laid her head to her pillow. Occupant in Cell 17 is using the bathroom, squatting over her prison potty, her private parts blurred out by AI software. The recent developments in AI are the only reason the cameras can be placed in these women’s cells at all. Before auto-blur, CCTV could only be in public rooms. My job was a lot less important. Still the woman Occupant in Cell 10 walks back and forth in her cell. I feel the muscles in my face begin to contract into a yawn, but I stop them, and their suggestion of sleepiness. Occupant in Cell 10 slows to a stop. I watch her. She turns, slowly, and I can see her face in full on the CCTV. I watch her angle her chin up. She sets her eyes on me through the screen. I freeze.

She can’t see me. The seeing is one-directional, me to her – but her eyes seem to bore into mine. My throat feels dry. I reach for my water bottle but it’s empty, and anyway my bladder is so full– The woman’s mouth starts to move. Immediately I enable audio – another new feature. Privacy is naught. Her face appears enlarged on my screen, and I hear her voice. “I don’t want to do this.” the woman in Cell 10 says, her voice breaking. I stare at her face. She looks vaguely familiar – but how– “I don’t want to do this, Natalie,” she repeats, this time adding a name. My name. My stomach contracts on the air it holds. “I didn’t want to do this, but I heard you were working here and I just –” The woman breaks herself off and sobs into her hands. I hear Randy’s voice from my walkie. “Natalie. Everything OK?” I am frozen. I cannot answer Randy. I can only train my eyes on the woman in Cell 10. As though I am a prisoner awaiting execution. The woman wipes the snot from her nose and looks back up into the security camera. Back up at me. Her face contorts in pain and rage.  “Abel is the devil,” she sneers.

I feel as though I am falling back, backwards in my chair, although surely I remain upright and rigid to the cameras that watch me– “Natalie,” Randy says again from my walkie. “Do you need coverage.” From the CCTV, the woman leers up at me. “Your brother is the reason I’m here. But he’s the monster. And he walked free! How is that fair? HOW IS THAT FAIR?” The woman I now recognize as Serena, the mother of my estranged brother’s children, raises her pitch to a demented screech. “HOW IS THAT FAIR? NATALIE! DO YOU HEAR ME?” “We’re sending Scott to cover you,” Randy says through the walkie. “Natalie. Confirm receipt.” I watch as Serena screams up at me from her prison cell, spittle flying from her mouth. I watch as not one, but two, of my colleagues open her door and restrain her, and how much force it takes to get her down, and keep her there. I think of Abel, who I purposefully haven’t thought of in years, and what he could have done, to her or to others. I thought I’d be safe here, in the lion’s mouth. Not even here. Not even here. The door opens behind me and I hear Scott’s voice. “I’m here. Take your ten.” I feel warmth spreading beneath me, something like love, no, not like that at all. I realize there’s a wetness to the warmth. Looking down, I see that my neglected bladder has taken it upon herself to release her toxins, to find her own relief in the body of someone who denies her.


Swami rubbed at the glittery tattoo that marked the underside of her right wrist, the faintly shimmering celtic symbol iridescent in the pale morning pre-dawn light. She felt almost like a guilty teenager, yet instead of sneaking in late she was sneaking out early...the exact opposite. The irony of this was not lost on her and she found herself smirking as she silently dropped from the 2nd floor balcony, landing softly as she headed up the silent street towards the local Botanic gardens. The gardens were eerily majestic at this time of morning. The large towering trees and bushes flowering with an abundance of colourful blooms were simply dark silhouettes against the pale mauve sky. Pushing her right palm against a particularly old looking tree she allowed the rough skin of the bark to cut into her skin, the microscopic spikes piercing her as the ancient spell that was woven into the tree’s very essence recognised her. Despite having experienced it hundreds of times, her stomach still felt like it was jumping into her throat as the ground beneath her opened up and she free fell for a couple of meters before landing in the hidden room. Various colleagues muttered their greetings from large cups of still steaming coffee as Swami smiled and nodded back before heading over to a little table set up in the corner of the Earthy room to grab her own refreshment. Across the room from her a muscly, let lean woman who appeared to be in her mid twenties grinned mischievously at her. Rolling her eyes good naturedly in her direction Swami returned to her task of pouring coffee and filling up a plate with an assortment of various breakfast items. She knew Amber found it amusing the way her body reacted so intensely to such a small drop, it was a side effect of being a young and newly matured Fae.

Despite looking like she was 25, her friend was much...much older. That was the thing with Fae, once you reached your maturity around 18 you aged so slowly that the ‘Fae are immortal’ rumour was born. Amber had developed the particular secret entranceway for changelings hundreds of years prior and took great delight in watching Swami adapt to being Fae...probably because it had been so long since she was a changeling. Yawning, Swami joined her colleagues around the intricately carved table in the centre of the room as they prepared to catch up on the last couple of month;s work. It had been less than 3 months since Swami had discovered that she was a changeling, a member of the Fae...a ‘mystical race’ as the humans called them. She, like many others were placed in the human world to report back to Elaria, the Fae’s world to ensure that humanity is kept in check and to ensure that Gaia was kept healthy. There were currently hundreds of changelings all over the world who were raised as humans to help them integrate into society. In fact, most changelings didn’t know they were Fae until around their 18th birthday when the Changeling society would intervene and help the changelings as they developed into mature fae. Several factors were a little hard to hide from everyday life such as the retractable wings, the super senses and the distinctive physical characteristics such as luminant eyes and unnaturally symmetrical features...to name but a few. The special abilities and talents were on a whole new level that Swami was secretly grateful she wasn’t at yet. While the 60 odd changelings gathered in the room were only the ones in the Sydney basin, in their group, Swami had seen people with power over the elements, telepathy, empath and psychic abilities, telekinesis, invisibility and many more. The whole experience was still a little surreal for her, more surreal than having her heart jump into her throat when she free fell...she had always hated heights anyway. The meeting was quickly called to order and soon enough Swami was called upon. It was embarrassing enough to be one of the newer members, let alone be called upon in front of other changelings who knew what she was and expected her to become a productive member of the Fae changelings, their whole life was a job. As she was asked the same standard questions she always was by the higher members of the council, she found herself zoning out...her mind drifting away until a sharp tap on her shoulder had her abruptly returning to reality.

“ What?” She queried as she looked at Amber in question, the culprit to her hasty return to the present. “ It is time to test what abilities you have, or are developing in any case.” This statement alone had Swami swallowing awkwardly, her heartbeat speeding up slightly as her nerves set in. She hadn’t had any signs of any gifts...not even a glimpse. How on Earth, literally did they expect to test her gifts or even determine what her gifts were if she could barely function as a newly developed changeling...adding supernatural abilities wasn’t a good idea. You didn’t add petrol to a raging fire did you? You didn’t encourage a child to walk around with a knife? Sighing in defeat Swami allowed her eyes to close as she mentally prepared to drift into a meditative like state, a mindful state. A large part of her training had been to focus on mindfulness, on being one with the universe...on unity. It was there that her true nature came from, her true spirit and soul. It was from this place that her gifts would emerge from...eventually. Feeling her heartbeat slow and her grasp on reality slipping, Swami gave into the sensation and allowed herself to become fully immersified in the moment. It always felt a little like she was underwater when she slipped into a trance like state. While some part of her was somewhat aware of reality...for example she could still hear Amber guiding her through the meditation...yet the sound was muffled and distorted. Inhaling deeply Swami focused on her aura, on her energy. She always took advtange of these times to check up on her energy field, to try to detect any problems or disturbances. Fortunately, all 8 main chakras were happy and her aura was the clearest and strongest it had been for awhile. Yet something strange lingered within her. The normal bright white light was woven with multicoloured threads of green,red,lilac and blue. Following the threads she was surprised to feel a kind of tingling sensation in her arm to suddenly have the green thread light up in said arm like a pulse of light.

The light drifted down her arm in tiny pulses, pushing towards her hand with a rushing sensation. As she felt the energy leave her body Swami snapped out of her meditative state immediately and opened her eyes widely as they adjusted to the room’s dim lighting. Before her, a tiny almost neon green bush sat on the table. It’s energy positive and vibrant as tiny lilac flowers blossomed before her eyes. Around the table, most of the changelings smiled proudly while a few mirrored Swami’s shocked expression. “ It appears you have power over the elements Swami, congratulations.” Amber stated with a genuine smile as she clapped the younger changeling on the back. As hard as it was to adjust to being a changeling...at least work meetings were never dull.


The locket, a heart shape locket has been in the St. James family for a generation, pass down from mother to daughter on the day of their 18th birthday. Today is Hailey St. James 18th birthday, the day she will receive the most special gift that has been in her family for a generation. Hailey doesn't know the back story to the gift, she only knows the gift is pass down from mother to daughter on their 18th birthday. On this special day Hailey's mother Caroline will tell her all about the gift and what it means to receive the gift. Hailey wakes up with a smile on her face, the sun lighting up her room on her 18th birthday. Hailey takes her time picking a special dress to wear. She picks her favorite light blue dress with matching shoes, the dress her mother loves. Hailey goes to take a shower, after words she does her hair leaving it down, puts on light make up and then puts her dress on. She looks at herself in the mirror. Hailey loves the way she looks, she then goes down stairs for breakfast. Caroline is making chocolate chip pancake, Hailey's favorite. Caroline hears Hailey coming. She sets the table with the food and surprises Hailey. "Surprise. My little girl is 18." Hailey smiles. Caroline hugs Hailey. "You look beautiful." "Thanks mom." Hailey and Caroline sit and eat breakfast. They talk about many things. Hailey's hopes and dreams. What it means to turn 18 and the topic of the special gift comes up. Caroline finishes eating, she gets up from her chair, goes to her bedroom, opens the night stand and takes out a box. Caroline walks back to Hailey and sits next to her, she puts the box on the table. Caroline takes her daughters hand and tells her "This is a very special gift that has been in our family for a generation." "I know mom." Caroline smiles. "This gift has a very special story that needs to be told so you will understand the meaning of the gift and then one day you will give the gift to your daughter and tell her the story." Hailey nods. Caroline begins the story with her grandmother Poppy who began the tradition of the gift. The year was 1917 when the U.S. entered the Great War. Poppy was a young lady of 21, who was madly in love with Samuel. He went off to fight in Europe, before he left Samuel gave Poppy a heart shape locket, so she will always have his heart. Samuel told Poppy "This locket is my heart, hold it with you and remember me." With tears in her eyes Poppy says goodbye to the love of her life. Poppy laid awake night after night with the locket always remembering Samuel, remembering their love, praying he will comeback. A year and a half later on November 11th 1918 the war ended. Poppy was excited and fearful that she will never get to see Samuel. Three days later Samuel surprised Poppy and returned home to share their life together. Poppy ran to Samuel hugged and kissed him. She told Samuel. "This locket kept me alive, it gave me strength and hope you will return to me, and now that you are home with me, I will give this locket one day to our daughter on her 18th birthday and tell her the story of how this locket saved me and brought you home and so forth this tradition will continue to our future daughter and their future daughter and so on." Years later on the 18th birthday of Poppy and Samuel's daughter Elizabeth she was given the locket and told the story of how the locket kept Poppy safe and gave her hope. Poppy told Elizabeth the locket is yours and the day when you have your daughter the locket will be hers and the story will be told of the locket and what it means for our family especially our daughters. When you have your daughter and the day she turns 18 the locket will be hers and the tradition will continue with every generation of St. James women. Caroline finished the story by telling Hailey that this locket is a testament to the love we share as a family, the bond we as mothers share with our daughters and with the ones we give our heart to. Hailey looks at the box and then her mother, she tells her mother "The story is amazing and very beautiful. I will always cherish this most special gift." Caroline smiles, she hands the box to Hailey. She opens the box and sees the most beautiful locket. Inscribed on the back of the locket reads "My daughters past, present and future may love keep you strong." "Your grandmother inscribed the locket for all of us to share and of course love." Caroline helps Hailey put the locket on. The locket hangs beautifully on Hailey. "I love it." "I'm glad you love it. Your grandmother wants to talk you more about the locket." Hailey nods. The door bell rings, Caroline answers, it's her mother Elizabeth. Caroline hugs her mother and gives her a kiss on the cheek. Elizabeth asks Caroline about the locket. Caroline tells her mother she gave the locket to Hailey. Her mother smiles. Caroline calls Hailey. Hailey comes down the stairs and hugs her grandmother. She shows her the locket. "The locket looks beautiful on you." "Thanks grandma." "Have a seat my dear. I have more to tell you about the locket." Hailey sits on the couch, Elizabeth right next to her. She begins the story. "This locket belonged to my mother Poppy. My father gave it to her the day he left for France during the Great War. He told her this locket is my heart hold it with you and remember me. My mother kept the locket with her day and night praying my father will come home and he did. The locket gave her hope that my father will come home and they will be a family. My father kept that promise. When I turned 18 my mother gave me the locket you are wearing and told me the story of the locket. You know what my mother was right. The locket does bring you hope and love because the locket did for me what it did for my mother and your mother. The locket brought home the people we love and gave us hope and one day the locket will do the same for you." "I will hold the locket with me next to my heart. Thank you for the wonderful present mom, grandma and great grandmother Poppy."


"And what, pray tell, is the meaning of this emergency meeting." Spoke one woman. "Especially on a night as auspicious as this." Spoke another. "We are busy women, Maggie. Potions to brew, curses to cast and spells to place..." "And tonight is the night when all our powers are at their best." "Yes, yes. But you must have heard of about our curious mister Buquet." Maggie insisted. It was midday and the sun shone above them in the clearing where they stood. Five witches forming a pentagon drawn with chalk as it was customary. Wyrding stones were on the far ends of the cicle, forming a triangle. "Yes, yes. The historian to move into the hamlet. He's innocent soul that one Maggie." Deidre commented. Her fury red hair seem out place with her calm countenance that she kept. "Maggie may be on to something here." Spoke Linet. "He has been poking around asking about witches and warlocks. Though he says it is for his research." She had skinny frame with petite spectacles. She was the smartest of the group. "What of it, if he were suspicious or not. What would you have us do about him?" This was Pale, the youngest and most naive. Her skin was ghost white and she had silver hair and silver eyes. A unique witch to say the least. "You believe he is a hunter." Gasps came from a few, others would not believe such an accusation. Who had spoken was wisest and oldest of the group. Minerva. Maggie, with a straight face, replied solemnly. "Yes, I do." Chatter broke out among the women as many argued what this may mean. A few calling it a false assumption. But suspicions were arisen. "That's quite enough ladies, we can figure this one out quite easily. Any of you have a piece belonging to him." Linet asked. All of them shook their head regretfully. The knew this would have solved it simply. So it was they would have to turn to deduction. "Who has spoken with Buquet or watched him from afar. Anything peculiar of note or out of place." Maggie inquired. "I spotted him in the woods last week," Spoke Deidre who brushed her hair back. "He did not see me. He was inspecting common herbs we would harvest with quite the intent. Though once again I do believe he was just curious." "Anyone else." Minerva asked leaning crookedly on her cane. Her cowl covering her face. "I spoke with him at the library in the monastery three days ago." Linet said as she pushed up her glasses. "He was handsome and kind. Very inquisitive about those who lived in the hamlet. I had thought nothing of it at the time. Though now it may seem as if he was reaching for something possibly." "And you Maggie, who called this meeting. What was it that brought you to gather us here." "I have always had the sight. A foretelling sense and I could not deny the horror I felt when I saw him or was around him. When I attended Church one morning he brushed by me and I swore I smelt blood and charred flesh. I promise you I do not lie." More chatter came upon this revelation. But the women were still skeptical. To charge a man or woman of being a witch hunter was serious offense. An innocent life could be lost. Yet no witch would suffer such a creature in their midst. "Who will cast the bones." "Who will spill their blood." "Who will spit in the fire." "Who will search the soul." "Who will drink the tonic." "I will cast the bones." Maggie brought a velvet pouch. "I will spill my blood." Deidre unsheathed a dagger. "I will spit in the fire." Linet brought their pan to heat. "I will search my soul." Pale removed her cowl showing milky eyes. "And I will drink of the tonic." Minerva brought a vial. A ritual as old as time itself. It would draw the spirit of the hunter to them and they would slay it. The bones of earth will find him. The blood will bind him. The fire will burn him. And the soul searcher will slay him. The tonic will cleanse them. And then end the ritual so he may not haunt them from the Underworld. The pan was heated over a spit till it was very hot. Maggie tossed her bones into the air and watched carefully as they landed. Her face construed in confusion. "What is wrong sister?" Asked Deidre. "I cannot sense where he is. Try to bind him." Deidre slit her palm and squeezed it over the bones. Her expression too was confused. "I do not sense a tether. See if he screams with fire, Linet." She took her turn and spat into the fire setting a purple blaze upon it. And she listened closely. "No, screams...?" The three woman turned to Pale who was searching her soul. Only to find her collapsed in Minerva's arms. "Quickly Minerva, the tonic release the spell!" Horrified Maggie look to her sisters. Deidre was drawing knives and Linet had brought her potions out from a belt beneath her cloak. Maggie looked back to Minerva. Their hood was down and their standing before her was the Witch Hunter Buquet. "Afternoon ladies, hope I didn't catch you conjuring by any chance. Wouldn't want you hurting any poor souls now would we." Deidre who was ever calm gave a screeching yell as she charged at him. Neither of them had a doubt that he had slayed poor Minerva. Maggie had never seen her like this. The hunter was armed with a simple sabre and stood still. Deidre slit her wrist as she ran and from her left a doppleganger formed of her blood came upon him. The three locked in a dance as Deidre's hatred fueled her stride. Meanwhile, the Hunter was cool. He sliced open her dopplegangers cheek and smiled. "Do you feel that or isn't only she who will suffer?" He inquired curiously with a mocking grin. Angered twice fold, he was stabbed by Deidre. Then, all of a sudden, she stepped back. A potion was lobbed right into the man's chest. An explosion of greenish gas engulfed him and ate away at his leather armor, burning his skin and clothes away. "How do you like that you cocksure vagrant!" Cursed Linet as she made to lob another. But someone grab onto her arm and suddenly a sharp silver pain struck up her spine. She looked back in disbelief. "Pale?...." Maggie turned so fixated by Deidre and Buquet she didn't notice the silent Pale sneaking around behind them. "Pale why?" Linet fell to the ground her eyes open but paralyzed. Maggie fumbled for her ritual dagger. A Kris with a wavy blade. Pale looked at her with cold eyes. The moon was waning and Pale was strong in it's glow. Born on a full moon with silver hair, silver eyes and pale silver skin. She shimmered for a moment then disappeared. Maggie closed her eyes, whispering an incantation. "Acatoo veras amanu rek." She spoke with a deep undertone. She felt the blade dig into her neck. Instinctively, she tossed Pale over her shoulder with her hips. Her vision giving her fair warning of her attack. She placed a knee on Pale's stomach and brought the Kris back ready to strike. "Maggie please don't kill me." Pale begged, looking up at her. "I love him and he loves me." "Your a fool Pale, he has taken advantage of you. He has slipped a potion or some such to warp your mind." "No, we truly love each other Maggie. Can you not see." Her eyes, Maggie now noticed were bright pink, which were sure signs of a love potion affecting her thoughts. Regretfully, she elbowed her across the face knocking her out. She turned her attention back to Deidre and noticed her doppleganger had died and it was just her and the Hunter. Maggie grabbed Linet's potion belt and ran across the clearing. The Hunter realizing he was about to get double the trouble, fell back into the woods. Deidre was lagging behind, many cuts were torn in her woodland dress. "Rest here, Deidre. I will finish him." Out of breath and bleeding from the mouth she just nodded and held to herself to catch her breath. **** The forest was ominously dark. "Well, well. If it isn't Sister Maggie. How can one of the Coven be of the Covenant, I wonder." His voice seeming to echo in the woods. "Show yourself! Have you no shame." "Very little I'm afraid. Especially when it comes to ending the lives of such scum as yourself and your sisterhood of witches. God has given me, no he has blessed me with this holy task." "Well then come finish me..." "As wish, darling." A sabre flashed from behind her, but Maggies sixth sense allowed her to just barely duck beneath it. He followed it up with a triangular slash sequence from shoulder to shoulder then across the neck. Maggie backed away from the first two and guided the last over her head. Cutting some of her hair. "Close, aye." He said as continued to press the attack. "The little one was so agreeable why can't you see the beauty in my task. In me, Maggie." "Your a monster." She replied as she hid behind a tree as the sabre dug deep. He tried to pull it out but it wouldn't give. She stabbed him under the arm along his side. And pulled the sabre with her other hand spinning on her heel trying to decapitate him. But he too ducked. "Impressive, my dear. Now why don't be so kind and return me my blade." Suddenly pain erupted in her palm. She flipped the sabre caught the blade as he came in to tackle her. The hilt exploded into spikes, a clockwork mechanism of some sort, and she clubbed him in the face, impaling the spikes into his head.. He fell in a heap at her side. Breathing heavily she made her way to his body and spat on his corpse. Then tore a slip off her cloak to make a bandage where she held the blade. "Rest in peace, Buquet. May the flames of hell welcome you as a friend." She then tossed the potions onto his body exploding it in a mixture of flames and acid. For a moment she watched his corpse burn before returning to see how her sister's faired. Linet was sitting up supported by Pale. The young witch apologizing heavily to everyone. Deidre leaning on staff smiled at Maggie. "That wasn't what I was expecting to happen this Halloween..." "Ya, I wish I saw this coming..." "You can't predict everything dearies." Minerva said from behind them. All the witches were shocked to see her alive. "How?" Linet asked as gave the old lady a warm hug. "Witch hunters often underestimate the will of witch I'm afraid. Now come dearies let us go home, we have much to do besides facing foes of old. There are children to spook as well as treats and tricks to share."


“So what?” Vijay said. “It’s an eclipse. It gets dark. What’s the big deal?” Robin took a sip from her drink, trying to look anywhere but at Vijay. The taste of strawberries from her daiquiri was a welcome reprieve from this loser.

“People like it,” Robin said as politely as she could. “It brings people together, don’t you think?” Vijay shoved another handful of peanuts into his mouth. Robin watched him munch on them. She imagined kissing that salty mouth, and winced.

“I guess,” Vijay said with a shrug. “So how many of these things have you been to?”

“Two,” Robin said. It was actually six, but Vijay didn’t need to know that.

“I’m at these things every month,” Vijay said.

Robin took another sip. She glanced at the tables to her left, then her right. Where was Freda? She couldn’t find her in the ocean of evenly spaced tables around her. She had talked her into this. What a way to spend a once-in-two-decades event.

“You looking for someone?”

“No,” Robin said. “Sorry, can we start over?”

Vijay huffed and checked the clock on the table. “We don’t have long left, you know. It’s happening soon.” Robin looked up at the sky, then blinked as her eyes met the sun’s blaze.

“You shouldn’t look directly at the sun,” Vijay said.

“Thanks dude. You always full of good advice?” “Just looking out for you. Women like to feel protected.” Robin shrugged. She couldn’t disagree with that.

“That’s what my mom always said.” Robin snickered. She couldn’t believe his ability to ruin a promising turning point.

“What?” “Nothing,” she said, stifling laughter, “sorry.” “I can’t believe you’re laughing at me.” There was then a sudden movement of everyone in the tables surrounding them, as they reached for their cardboard glasses and shifted in their chairs. It was happening.

“Quick, put them on,” Vijay said, reaching for his glasses.

Robin put them on and hastily shifted her chair to the side. She looked up and saw it.

“Wow,” Vijay said in that dumb, loud voice of his.

Robin furrowed her brow and tried to ignore him. Freda might not be here, but this was a moment she wanted to capture in her mind forever. She hoped she was also with a Vijay, or someone even worse.

“You’re not looking at it right,” Vijay said.

“Shut up,” Robin said.

“Don’t look directly at it. You’ll hurt your eyes.” Robin ignored him.

“Look, I’ll show you,” he said.

Still staring up at it, she felt her glasses being torn off her head.

“What the--“ “See,” Vijay said, “you ruined it.” Robin shielded her eyes and stopped herself from snapping at this idiot. Screw politeness, she wanted to throw the table on top of him.

“Give me those, now.” “You’ll listen to me this time?” “You almost *blinded* me.”

She groped at his hands and felt cardboard on her fingertips.

“You’re being rude,” he said.

She gritted her teeth and tugged. It slipped out of his hands.

“Now look what you’ve done. That’s what you get for being *rude*.” She looked down at the torn remains of her cardboard glasses.

--- “Robin, come back!”

She couldn’t look back at him. He’d ruined it. Ruined *everything*. Now she had to wait another *twenty years*. Why had she listened to Freda? Eclipse *speed dating*? Who had ever heard of such a thing? The couples staring at her as she stormed past could go to hell.

At length she made it to the parking lot, and she heard footsteps on the crunchy gravel behind her. They were getting faster. Was he following her all the way to her car?

She turned around to find Vijay, bent over, hands on his legs as he took heaving breaths.

“I’m… sorry,” he said with difficulty.

“Don’t follow me,” she said. “We’re done.” “Didn’t you come with your friend?” “I… I didn’t think of that. I’ll wait for her in the car.” “Want me to sit with you?” “Vijay…” “You’ll be by yourself.” “I’m fine with that.” She turned around and made towards her car.

“Can you tell me what I did wrong?” She laughed louder than she meant to. Teach *him*? Where could she start?

“Vijay,” she said, “do you really want me to do that?”

“I don’t know,” he said. He had reached the car, and looked like a lost puppy. Maybe his request was genuine, and not a creepy way of getting close to her again.

“Fine,” she said with a huff. “Get in.” --- “You’re wrong,” Vijay said. “That doesn’t make any sense.” “You’re doing it again,” Robin said. “When you’re talking to a girl—or anyone, really—don’t tell them they’re wrong. Dates are about emotion, not logic.” “Oh,” he said, and then looked out of the windshield ponderously.

“And I’m not wrong. You want your date to enjoy spending time with you. You don’t want to just impress them with your job, what school you went to.” “Everything my mom taught me was wrong, then.” “Not everything. She was right about the protecting thing you said. People like a gentleman. Just don’t be condescending about it, okay?” “Oh god,” he said. “You think I’m condescending, too?” “Um…” “That means yes. Just be honest.” “Yeah. Like, *really* condescending.” “When? During our speed date?” “Yes,” she said, staring at him, stretching out the word for emphasis. “You kept telling me I was wrong about the eclipse, and then, you took my freaking glasses off my head when I was looking at the sun.” He shrugged. “You’re not supposed to look at the sun.” “We were looking at the eclipse. It’s up in the sky. Therefore, I was looking up. QED.” “QE… what?” “Never mind. Just stop thinking you know better than everyone else.” “Oh,” he said, staring out ponderously again, as if a lightbulb had flashed in his head.

“Aren’t you, like, thirty?” “Yeah? What of it?” “Never mind. Just… can’t believe this is new to you.” “I’m trying, alright? I’m sorry, I messed everything up.” She smiled. Maybe this idiot was worth spending time with, after all. He was listening, after all, and god knew that was a rare thing.

“You didn’t mess *everything* up,” she said, shaking her head. “I made a fool of myself. I stormed off. God, I got grass stains and mud on my favourite flats.” He chuckled. “Yeah, flats weren’t a great choice for outdoor speed dating.” She grinned. “Alright, alright. Whoever heard of outdoor speed dating during an eclipse?” “Hard to see the eclipse from inside a restaurant.” “Or a movie theater,” he said.

“Yeah… well, maybe we can have that fresh start I talked about.” Vijay’s face brightened up. “Really?”

She tried on her best attempt at a wry smile. “No correcting me?” “No. No way,” he said, smiling.

Seconds past as they looked at each other.

A knock on the driver’s side window shocked them both out of the moment.

Robin looked out, cringed, and wound down the window.

“Vijay, this is Freda. My best friend, and my worst enemy.” “You got something to say?” Freda said.

“I’m sorry?” Robin said, still cringing.

“Not nearly enough,” Freda said, shaking her head. One side of her mouth twisted into a half-smile. “You made up?”

“I think so?” Robin said, turning to Vijay.

“Yeah,” Vijay said. “She’s right.”


Mobius’ Freeway written by, M Price Whenever someone insists on a name for me, I use Dennis, my brother's. So yeah, call me that, if you want. I hear it and want to turn my head to look for the impossible. Used to, anyway. Now I simply compress the conscious moment as hard as I can into the fleeting nostalgia, then hold on to it for however many dwindling milliseconds still possible. Tessa disapproves. But everyone left in this world is disturbed somehow. Get by your way and leave me to mine. We’re well into our second loop along this coast-to-coast patchwork of leftover interstates and connective roads. Took us around five years to complete the first trip. For thousands of miles, the sometimes varied, yet overall prevailing collective tag of Everlasting Freeway , bears down on our consciousness. These words are typically painted in white or red - though sometimes black - and mixed with crushed glass to make them reflective. Everywhere, they stain dilapidated overpasses, rusty, unhinged truck-trailers and even the crumbly asphalt beneath us. Only when we dare to step off the path, to enter an abandoned building, shopping-center, or the more traditional wild, are we relieved of the standard visual torments of our collective plight. It’s particularly dangerous to do so on this stretch we currently travel, where overall, the paths available to us are fewer and narrower. The near ethereal crucible of the Mobius strip, so to speak. Our family entered this former office building to rest only a few hours ago. Now, with the building surrounded, we're all split up, searching for unguarded exits. The voices of cocky, trigger-happy militiamen ring out. We don't take their arrogance as opportunity to relax. Skilled and disciplined members among them, count on such folly. I enter a cluttered, box filled room, then creep steadily over to the window at its back corner. A drab, thigh-high glass table scatters waves of shadow amidst the orange, evening sunlight, itself filtered through lace-curtain. My gloved fingertips slide across its filth-spotted surface as I slow, reluctant to continue approach. I lean forward to look outside, then halt with a flinch. Red mold dust from beneath the table’s seemingly benign gray layer gouges away from beneath my glove. It swirls upward in a cloud, threatening my lungs in the now, and sanity in the future - as it did to Dennis. I jerk away, burying my face into arm and shoulder. An explosion concusses the room. The window I'd intended to press my face against, shatters inward. If not for the toxic dust we've all grown to fear, I'd be damaged. Perhaps blinded. I fumble to remove the tainted glove - rush to get my mask on. So much for the respite. Tessa's son Danny, 11, runs into the office to hug me. "Uncle Daniel, are y--" "How many times do I have to tell you? Just call me Dennis." He whines, "But yesterday you said, don't call you by your real name." "What?" Tessa arrives, placing a hand on his gaunt, cheek. "Let it be, Danny. Granny found an exit, in the room where we saw the refrigerator. The bad guys are almost here, so go. We'll be right there." His drippy nose sniffs. Tears fall. He quickly wipes them aside and spins away to obey. They spatter my hand. "Stop confusing him!" "I-- Wait." "Enough! Dan died protecting you two. Alright? During the dust storm, you gave Danny your mask to follow through." she says, shaking me by my arms. "I don't fault you! OK? But now you're-- Do you know what this is like for a boy his age? Get it together Dennis!" Enemy voices grow louder. We race to the exit. Mom smiles sadly at me from the gap in the wall she and Danny stand within. I hug Mom, squeeze Tessa's hand and kiss the top of Danny's head through his uneven, bedhead of an afro. Then I walk around, grunt and press hard to slide the refrigerator and cover their exit. "Dennis!" Was that even one millisecond? "Hurry!" I yell, tearing the stove from the wall. The sound of gas and their scuffling scramble comfort me. Minutes later, the enemy appears. I can barely keep myself conscious having breathed all this gas. The lighter grinds and clicks, but doesn't light, and I'm apprehended. *** My head's killing me. "How am I supposed to believe you aren't militia?" "See this patch that says U.N.? See how you’re alive and unbound? That's how. We chased those clowns off." says Captain Ortega. "Now who are you? You have no I.D." Hope? My family! "Was I out long?" "Half hour. Answer the question." "Daniel-- err, Dennis Folsom." I say, taking in another inspection of the camp. "Please, my family, I have to find them quickly. They're still out there!" "Good thing you didn't frag us all to pieces then, huh?" she says. "Which way?" I'm loopy while we jog back inside the office break room, nearly fall over several times. Three of us push the refrigerator. It jolts and screeches a few feet, then tips over with a slamming clang. I don’t know how I moved it by myself. I struggle to balance during our jog through the rounded walls of the tunnel. My outstretched, stiff arms point from front to back and my feet drag and kick gravel along with us. It rattles and scrapes with excessive noise within the confined space. We move into a wetter area. I lose my footing and fall onto my hands and elbows. "Jennings! Take point! This idiot's gonna get us killed." "Yes ma'am!" I roll from my belly to sit up against the curved surface. I'm Dennis. I can't lose track of that again. This has got to be hell for Tessa. I don't remember inhaling the red dust, but I must have that day. Tessa all but said I did. I'm Dennis, not Daniel. I'm-- crazy? Ortega helps me up. "Get your shit together, man. For your family!" she says, then stuffs a few bullet-clips into my pockets, forces a cold pistol into my hands and runs ahead. The sound of gunfire echoes through the tunnel, from outside. I sprint, hunched over, arms parallel behind me to catch up, my waking agility having returned with the pump of excessive adrenaline. I exit to see my family pinned down by the militia, in a ragged, lumpy, overgrown parking lot. The militia, in turn, is pinned down by Captain Ortega’s squad, behind a low concrete barrier. Amidst the chaos, I chance the fifty-meter dash to my unarmed loved ones. Though I manage to keep balance and follow through, I'm nicked on the shoulder. "Daddy!" screams Danny. The firefight lasts more than an hour. I do my best to be helpful, but also preserve ammo. The peacekeeping troops fight valiantly, tearing the militia down to quite few. But in the end, under cover of darkness, we all retreat. We to the west, the U.N. peace-keeping force to the east and the militia to the south. At the road, we load our meager supplies onto the solar-paneled, battery powered jeep, then flee into the ever darkening, moonless night. Mom drives, steadily, at about 5 miles an hour - albeit with constant twists through rubble, potholes and abandoned vehicles. The dim, night-vision-geared headlights don’t allow for faster travel, but they’re bright enough to make plain to us, many an Everlasting Freeway sign along the way. Tessa tapes gauze to the bloody, shallow gouge on my shoulder. Danny, curled up beneath my good arm, sleeps. "Sorry." I say. "At least for now, I’m fine. I'm me." Tess nods. We share a brief kiss.  "I love you." she says. "Keep trying. We need you at your strongest." ******