It is calm. Nothing else. She’s alone. Castaway on a remote island in the middle of the ocean in the middle of the world in the middle of the universe. Everything is so far away. Everything is being cradled on the waves all around her. She can’t look away. But she is not scared, no. Because all the waves break and collapse before they can touch her shores. She is at peace, watching from a safe distance. But sometimes. Sometimes she hears distant echoes, echoes on the wind and on the waves that pierce through her skull directly into her thoughts. Terrible, terrible sounds. Screeching of the past. *“It’s a completely safe and routine procedure, completely and wholly, yes. Very simple too and very effective. Yes, yes.”* *“It can’t be like this my dear. Look at yourself… Trust me, this will make you feel better.”* Oh, such horrible noises. They take her back. Back to reality. She’s looking around. White walls. White sheets. White people. It’s all white. She starts to feel uneasy. She feels lost, crushed by the overwhelming lack of colour. She doesn’t know what to do. Her muscles cramp. She is terrified. The warmth begins to trickle down her inner thighs. That’s when the white hands touch her and lay her down on the bed. *“Daddy, is this really necessary? I feel fine, I swear.”* *“No, my dear. You don’t understand. You don’t understand anything. This is not normal… You are not normal. There is no other way.”* *“Trust me, no need to worry. Completely routine procedure. And it works like a charm. Yes, yes completely routine. And wholly safe, did I mention that?”* The hands are all around her. They are pulling her upwards. She sits up on the bed. They force something into her mouth. She doesn’t want it, doesn’t want it at all, but before she can react they flush it down her throat. A thick coat of dust swallows everything in the room. Everything loses its edge. It itches. *“Daddy I’m scared.”* *“Don’t worry, my dear, don’t worry. Tomorrow it will all be over. You will feel much better, trust me. Much better.”* *“Yes, yes. Routine, completely routine. And completely safe too. We will insert the scalpel into her brain just like this and we will keep on cutting until there’s barely anything left. It’s routine. Like we always do. Completely safe and very effective. Can’t have a bad personality if you don’t have any at all.”* *“See, darling? There’s no reason to worry.”* She’s screaming. Screaming and crying. Everything is so blurry and it feels so numb. She’s choking. She can’t breathe. So she cries and screams and kicks the air but there’s just way too many hands that push her down. She tries her best but in the end she stops resisting and everything fades to black. She wakes up after a long time on her island. She is happy again, because the world is simple. Everything is far away. She is watching from a safe distance. For a while at least. As long as it’s quiet. \ H.


“You have to face facts, the system was put in place to cope with the current state of national healthcare. Let’s not put any more stress on your children, Mrs. Andrews. This is better for everyone.” The insurance specialist was practically whispering into her ear, not wanting the others to hear. Stephanie spoke louder so that they could all hear. “I can’t have that many visits to the hospital, can I? We can’t just fudge the numbers a little to give me a little more time? The last time I visited the doctors was because of stress. Should that even count as a doctor’s visit?” The insurance specialist’s nametag, “Mr. Martin,” almost hit her in the face as he took Stephanie’s temperature by scanning her forehead. “That would be fraud. A medical visit is still a medical visit. There’s no way around it. We have to get you ready for the euthanasia.“ Her family sighed at the word and moved in closer but likely knew that there was nothing they could do either. Little Abbey was too young to be seeing this but Stephanie asked that she be here, as this might be the last time she saw her alive. Russ stepped in and waited for Mr. Martin to move out of the way so he could lean down and probably say something like “this is how it’s supposed to be” or “we’ll have to endure without you.” They had their troubles in the past but she never imagined he could be so casual about this. Instead, he said, “It’ll be OK. It’ll be over soon.” Abbey and Joann had the sour taste of vinegar on their faces and held each other closely, offering pitiful moans and nothing more. But how could they speak? Seeing their mother in a hospital bed, ready to be sent to the slaughter and knowing that her mandated death would greatly improve the gene pool of future generations. She watched her daughters’ faces and could have ripped the face off of Mr. Martin as he made check marks on his tablet. He saw this subtle ire and responded. “I know this isn’t easy but you know what happens when you meet your allotted medical expenditure. This situation is no different from the others who are waiting in the euthanasia room right now. They’re waiting for you to arrive to initiate the process. Once the process starts—” She turned away and stopped listening when her son appeared in the doorway. He had a furled brow and what she had always described as “angry lips” but she could have kissed him and held him all the same. It wasn’t her fault she was in this dire situation, or at least not completely. “Adam,” she said, her voice cracking. “Hi, mom.” he pushed in through his father and Mr. Martin and grabbed the hand railing of the medical bed. “You said you’d never leave us.” “There’s nothing I can do. I should have done more for my health. I should have…” “They’re going to kill you!” Adam started shouting. “You didn’t do anything wrong! You’re getting out of here. I won’t let anyone hurt you. I’ll stop anyone who tries.” Mr. Martin grabbed him by the arm. She saw the anger rooted deep within his eyes. “Don’t be like that. Don’t be like them. You believe they’re killers. Adam, I don’t want you to have any part of this. I don’t want you to end up like they are.” He wrenched his arm away, “Like them? Like killers? Fine, I won’t have any part of this.” and stormed out. Stephanie had her hands out, attempting to calm her fleeing son, but she couldn’t and she wept for it. Mr. Martin looked at his watch and tablet, making several more check motions. “It’s time to go. Say goodbye. You will be read your last will and rights in the sleeping room.” Everything became a blur in her last few moments. The lights that were overhead and the paintings on the walls were smudged with tears. She hasn’t even been given any drugs yet. In a few seconds, or it might have been minutes, she was led into a room, a room she never thought she’d see. Muffled patients lined the wall in columns but they weren’t gagged. They were muffled from sedation and their faces appeared numb and drooping. She wondered what they were trying to say, looking into the rows of subdued patients. She didn’t care to count them. Everything seemed so pointless. The nurse had a similarly placid face. Stephanie leaned forward and whispered, “You don’t have to do this. These people…will be on your conscience.” The nurse was preparing a syringe and appeared to contemplate her words but didn’t show any other reaction. “These people will help power this facility. Without your biofuel we would have to rely on public money and that would be wasteful spending.” Stephanie nodded. Of course, their bodies, once converted to simple biomass, would provide electricity but when she saw the chutes at the end of the room, she felt her throat tighten. She barely was given time to say goodbye to her family and even less time to cope with the end of her life. The sedation fluid entered her IV, along with several other chemicals that would help break down her body once the gas was pumped into the room. She found it odd that they had medical equipment at the ready, as if they would save anyone’s life today. She rested her head on the pillow and listened to the moaning. A man next to her was writhing, his mind not yet ready to lose his body. He turned to her, and with a glistening, empathetic stare told her that this was how it had to be. That this was the right thing to do. It was either this or die of medical bills and debt. She told herself this was a blessing. But as the insurance specialist entered the room all of the patients started moaning louder. She wanted to join in the chorus of groans but she didn’t know what for. It was a symphony of final pleas and pathetic whimpers. She fought against the sedative like the others were doing but it was too strong. Her vision became a milky haze as she leaned towards the specialist as he made his way around the patients, checking their state and swiping on a tablet. He was making the final preparations. The toxin that would dissolve her internal organs was slowly creeping down the IV tube. It was like watching a clock ticking down to midnight. A clock seeping with poisonous seconds. The specialist was behind them, making his way towards the chutes. He started unlocking them and opening their doors. She could no longer feel the nausea in her stomach and she was thankful for it because it eased her into a state of emptiness and coldness. He walked past her stretcher and turned only slightly before continuing towards the door. She was too numb to reach out. The chorus of moans continued, until the door was closed and they were shut in. The lights dimmed. They no longer needed it. But the patients didn’t stop. They were screaming in agony behind paralyzed throats. She imagined what it was like to be dead. She looked at the IV tube one more time before closing her eyes. And when she did, she was rocked alert by an explosion directly beneath her. The IV bag tipped over and pulled itself from her vein. Nurses and specialists were running by the window as the ceiling lights flickered. The door swung open and a figure came rushing in. When he came to her, he was panting, kneeling on shaky knees. “Mom. I came back…I came back for you.” “Adam.” She moaned. Her son’s hands tried to nudge her awake. “We have to get you out of here. I did what I had to do.” “Did you…?” She was energized by adrenaline, and a fear for her son’s mental state. The explosion likely had injured the workers, possibly even killing them. She had lost him. Even though he was dragging her stretcher out of the room and he was beside her he felt so far away. He was speaking frantically but she couldn’t hear. She almost didn’t want to hear, or witness her own child, a boy who had so much innocence, fall from grace. His gray eyes were now filled with such hatred and retribution. He would spend the rest of his life harboring her, running and hiding from the authorities. She let out a moan, a desperate, guttural moan that peaked when he took her into the elevator. The doors closed as she became trapped in a box with her own son, a murderer and an anarchist. She couldn’t comprehend what was worse, the death of others for the sake of a better, healthier society or the death of a few to fight the system that wanted to murder thousands more. She didn’t care to know and cursed humanity for authoring this paradox in the first place.


There was a light breeze from the open window on a warm Friday afternoon, a boy with golden hair, a red race car shirt and blue shorts was playing in the small back garden as his father worked on something in his workshop. The boy was playing with a toy bird that his dad had built for him, it was almost completely yellow with some black eyes. The boy walked up to his dad's small, shed-like workshop and knocked on the door, "Dad, can I come in?" He asked his dad in a timid voice. With a small creak, his dad opened the door for him to come in. Inside the workshop were boxes and boxes of small trinkets and parts, and the wood panel floor felt relatively sturdy. Some of the half finished things in the workshop were quite spooky to the little boy, he had never been allowed in the workshop before now, and he almost started to understand why. His dad turned to him, "What a nice afternoon, don't you agree Jack?" He asked his son, who replied with a single nod of agreement as he looked around. "Curious as to what I've been working on little buddy?" His dad asked him another question, "Mhm" Jack responded with a nod and a sound of agreement. His dad opened a cabinet and took out what seemed to be a small toy robot, it was purple in colour, there were all kinds of strange markings, a strange door, yellow eyes, and it had small pipe arms with claw-like fingers. "HELLO, JACK!", the small robot said in a very robotic voice, it only stood about as high as Jack's knee, it walked towards him slowly, taking big steps as it made all sorts of mechanical sounds. Jack's eyes widened as he kneeled down to see the robot closer up, "Hello, Mr robot" Jack said excitedly to the small Machine as it turned it's head to look at him. "WOULD YOU LIKE TO PLAY?" the robot asked Jack, "Oh boy, of course!" He exclaimed, "Can I go play with the robot, dad?" Jack asked his dad, "Alright then, just don't go too far into the woods" his dad told him as he left the shed. Jack went into the woods with his robot toy and set it on the ground, he pressed a big red button on its body and it turned on, "HELLO, JACK!", It said in the exact same way as before, "Hello again Mr Robot, would you like to play?" Jack asked the small robot, "OF COURSE I WOULD, WHAT WOULD YOU LIKE TO PLAY?" the robot asked Jack, who looked at the robot's body and saw that it had 3 buttons on it that all had words on them; 'Hide & Seek', 'Catch' and 'Simon Says', Jack pressed the button that said 'Simon Says' and the robot said "OKAY THEN, FOLLOW MY MOVEMENTS AND TRY TO KEEP UP!". Jack began to follow the simple movements that the robot made while it played a short, looping chiptune song, it was as if the two were dancing together in sync with the music. After some time, Jack decided to press the 'Catch' button on the robot, the small door on the robot opened and a ball came out of it, "LET'S PLAY CATCH!" the robot said. Jack picked up the ball and threw it a short distance, then the robot went after it and after a short wait, brought it back to Jack. After a bit more playing catch, Jack grew tired of the other games the robot could play and decided to press the last button, 'Hide & Seek'. When he pressed the button, the robot's feet retracted and a pair of wheels came out from the sides, it darted off, "LET'S PLAY HIDE AND SEEK!" it said as it went, "W-Wait!" Jack shouted as the robot went away, Jack tried to chase after it but it was much faster than him, and after not much time the robot was lost. Jack panicked, *"Oh no, what am I going to do? My dad's gonna be so mad at me."* Jack thought to himself as he tried to find the robot. "MR ROBOT! WHERE ARE YOU?!" Jack shouted for his robot, going deeper into the forest in search of the robot, his steps made the small chips of wood beneath him crack as he ran through the forest, looking for his purple friend. Until he stopped for a moment and remembered what his dad said… *"don't go too far into the woods"*, Jack gulped and realized that he had done exactly that. The sky was pitch black and the moon was out, Jack began to shake, his chest felt tight, and he had the strange feeling that he was being followed, he decided to just turn back the way he came and forget about the robot. Jack walked for a while before he heard a cackling laugh from the darkness, he turned to look at the beings and saw strange, sharp teeth and eyes that appear closed, with thin lines showing that. Jack screamed at the top of his lungs as he ran away from the strange figure. The face began appearing more and more in the darkness, as if it wasn't just a singular entity, and instead was spreading, "Wh-What are you?" Jack shouted as he kept trying to run from them, the laughter began to echo as the faces began to take up more and more of the darkness, Jack's breathing started to be heavier, and he felt short of breath, he kept running but it was getting harder and harder to do so and he was beginning to slow down. After some more running, his legs grew tired, he fell onto the floor, and curled up into a ball, crying, "Please, just don't hurt me!" He cried to the beings in the darkness. Jack kept crying with his eyes closed as the laugher began to echo, he started to hum a short lullaby to himself as he rocked back and forth, and eventually he fell asleep in the woods. After sleeping in the woods, when he woke up again, the robot was right in his face, "FOUND YOU!" the robot said to him. Jack's face lit up and his eyes widened, "Mr robot! Where did you go?" He asked the robot, but it didn't respond, *"huh, weird"* Jack thought to himself as he walked home with the robot, when he got home he realized that he hadn't come home that night and that his dad was probably angry with him, he gulped again as he knocked on the door, after a few seconds the door opened, "There you are! What happened last night?! I was worried sick about you!" Jack's dad asked him as he walked through the door. After Jack explained to his dad what happened, his dad sighed and said "I'm not stupid, there was no weird figure in the shadows laughing at you, if you're going to lie at least make it believable." His dad told Jack, "Now, go to your room, you're grounded for the rest of the day." Jack's dad told him, "Okay dad" he said as he went upstairs. Later that night he was sitting in bed, thinking about the faces he saw, *"what were those things, I know I saw them, I know I did"* he thought to himself. Eventually he decided to just go to sleep, and when he did, he began hearing the same cackling laughter and seeing the faces that he saw in the woods, they felt like they were mocking him, his chest felt tight again and he started to shake, his eyes watered up, he closed his eyes tight and hummed himself the same tune as in the forest as he drifted off to sleep again. .............................................................................................


In 1998, my rap CDs started to go missing. Here's why…. My step dad was a rapper. He was a 55 year old white Italian cop at the time and I'm not sure where he went wrong or if he acquired brain damage I wasn't aware of. In 1998 he assumed the rap name of ‘Merk’ and got golden grills with pink diamonds in his mouth. He used to liberally call me the n - word around the house, for things like me not picking a pen up off of the floor or uneven grass cutting. At first he used the racial 'er' ending but quickly replaced it with n***a. Other nouns he preferred (forced) me to address him as were “sir”, “sire”, and “lord". He took his pension from the PD and launched his rap career (which wasn't much of a career at first but a reason to blast Jay Z in his car and slow down around 16 year old girls I went to school with). In 1998 he dropped his first EP 'Disco', followed by his second EP 'Disco 2′, both with only 4 tracks each. They were fucking horrible. I think the titles to the albums either referred to him being a disco dancer in the 70s or often telling me to “discoagulate” (not a real word) Dawn dish soap nozzles (picking out the hardened soap). Prior to his retirement from the force, Merk borrowed a hearse from a friend. He hired a marching band from a neighboring high school (actually, more like bribed by paying around 20 of them $200 each) to march in front of the vehicle playing the theme to 'The Godfather’ through my neighborhood with fat black strippers twerking on the roof while driving in his rapper getup, displaying a wreathed portrait of himself as a young police officer on the back windshield, emblematic of the demise of his former self, with “RIP” spray painted across both sides of the vehicle in pink. Not having established himself in the slightest, and with only mild interest from an amateur record producer from the Munhall, PA projects (a skinny half and half guy who called himself 'Step stone'), he up and disappeared. What catapulted him to his 15 minutes of fame was when he absconded with my car (a 1995 Ford Escort GT, despite owning his own Cadillac) and snuck into the 2000 Grammys behind DMX, Drag - On, and some Ruff Ryders groupies and while getting ejected from the event by the authorities, he began screaming “GLASS HOUSE, N ***A! GLASS HOUSE!” while throwing his 'Disco 2′ mixtapes into the crowd. Consequently actress Regina King passed it on to an executive at Warner Bros who sought to capitalize on the incident, allowing for $150,000 to record and release an 8 track long LP for my step dad which came out in 2002 titled 'The Derelict'. People initially thought the title was Merk referring to hinself, but I know that in reality it was a word he often called our neighbor Gene along with “neanderthal” because his bushes on the property line extended about 2 inches onto our side. In 2005, after low -end moderate record sales (he earned enough to build wooden stairs from our deck to the yard), he moved back from LA to rip on and continue to berate and oppress me (still calling me n***a and making me do useless and arduous tasks like cutting our entire front and back lawn with scissors). At the same time he changed his persona to an over sexualized character named 'Jason Stetson’ where he released album 2 titled “Appullella Cowboy” (a reference to what I found out was a non - existent street block named Appullella Square in Jersey City, NJ, contrary to his claims that this is where he grew up and gained “street credit”…. Liar). Step dad began wearing a cowboy hat and started singing in a low baritone Barry White sounding singing voice, heavily emulating Everlast. He recorded the eponymous title track to the album with Step stone and a local prostitute with a mildly good voice named Lady Lux. He was briefly signed to Interscope through one of his LA connections who found it tasteful and a “nice change up” from his pompous rap persona. His tour was cancelled when, in his first show, without permission from his agency, he sodomized a prostitute at a cerebral palsey charity concert (unfortunately). He came home in 2006 and went on a hiatus. In this time, while shooting me with a taser he had from his police days and in the other hand spraying me down with a hose while I was planting tomatoes for him that spring, he electrocuted himself when his 14 gold chains were caught in the crossfire of both at the same time. The year 2008 would be his swansong with his self - released finale 'Theft Equity'. One particular track that received praise was titled 'Summiz', where he interwove a story about young and old love, and spraying girls with a fire hydrant and the pain of loss in his youth back in Jersey. This never happened. In reality he grew up in Homestead, PA when he was a kid, where his devout Catholic mother forced him to kneel on corn kernels for saying “oh jeez". Despite some in the music community who were secret fans and were able to obtain copies of the mixtape, it made no money, and my mom and him finally divorced. He took the house and at the same time won $500,000 in the lottery, but blew it on coke, gambling, and lawnmowers. Last I knew he was having sex with a 101 year old lady from down the street. There were rumors that he'd been sleeping with Lady Lux (he came home with herpes and the crabs from time to time) and some other prostitute. In 2018 he dropped some garbage, cheap — sounding mixtape called 'Faif' (as in 'Faith’), but I've never seen or heard it.


Standing with my back to the counter I readjusted my Joe’s Easy Fill issued name tag, as I stared mindlessly at the microwave, recapping silently in my head the even less interesting things that had happened this glorious Friday evening. It wasn’t long until that state of mind changed. I heard the door ding and half turned my head before the gun was swung up and pointed right between my eyes. “The money or your life!” A rundown man with hair longer than his life expectancy, and clothes almost as warn out as he was, stood at the other end of the voice. I looked him in the eyes almost expecting it to be the same guy who robbed the place four days before. But it was just some nobody. It wasn’t a bad neighborhood or even a store with much money at all, but people make stupid decisions every day. This time I decided not to point out the bank across the street; I didn’t need to piss off those people again. He moved the gun closer as if it becomes more dangerous with an inch less air in the way to slow the bullet. “Are you deaf, I said empty the cash register!” “Well I’m not going to be a dick and point out the fact that you didn’t say that, but I will point out the fact that your wasting the power of the gun just like every movie villain.” “What?” “Oh you know, sticking it in my face. A gun is a long range weapon, and you’re using it up close, its like buying a wrist watch and hanging it on the wall as a wall clock, or buying a racecar and driving the speed limit.” “No, its nothing like that, the gun is right in your face, it doesn't get much more intimidating than that, I’m not wasting the power.” “Sure you are, it’s right in front of me, I could knock it out of your hand or somebody could sneak up behind you.” He took a step away and looked over his shoulder. I love messing with people that don’t know what their doing. “Dude if you were across the room and have a half decent shot then I would be fucked. But right in front of me, you never know if I’m about to throw hot coffee in your face or something. Across the room what would I be able to do to stop you?” He stumbled with his thoughts for a second then snapped back into action. “Hey! Hands in the air! Now I ain’t going across the room and I ain’t leaving here without my money, so fork it over!” I put my hands up for maybe a second but then they dropped almost as quickly as my jaw. “H-o-l-y shit!” “What?” Through the scruffy beard and aged skin I spotted a tiny bit of familiarity. “I know you!” “Huh? Quick stalling!” “No, you’re Tom Burk! From Maplewood High. Its me Chris Peterson!” “W..what? No, now give me my cash!” “Dude we went to high school together, freshmen year, I would go over to your house and we’d watched *Saved By The Bell.*” “Sorry wrong guy.” “No man, Tom Burk, yeah you totally puked all over the stage at graduation.” “Nope, not me.” “Yeah! Ha, they didn’t want to stop the ceremony so all the other kids had to walk across the stage, still covered in vomit, haha, and the one girl didn’t see it on the floor and totally slipped.” “Nope.” “Yeah dude that was awesome, why did we stop hanging out after freshman year?” “You fucked my sister man!” “Oh yeah! See you remember!” “You think that’s gonna help your cause? I’m the one with the gun in my hand, and you’re the one with the gun in your face.” Some people just don’t have any sense of humor. I never really slept with her I just said I did to piss him off. But shows what kind of friend he was if he still hadn’t gotten over it 15 years later “Dude you still pissed about the thing with your sister, we only did it a few times, we were young.” “You don’t sleep with a friends sister! That one of the unwritten laws. But this isn’t about that, I’m here for the damn money!” He then switched the gun to his left hand. I couldn’t imagine holding a heavy gun straight out for five minutes. “Man if a law is unwritten its unwritten for a reason. If she wasn’t your sister you totally would have gone for her.” “Dude that’s disgusting. Now this is the last time I’m gonna tell you to open the register and hand over the money!” “We’ll I just don’t see any reason to now.” “Don’t see any reason?!?!” “Yeah. Well I know who you are, so as soon as you leave I could just call the cops, you wont even get to enjoy the money.” “Did you forget about the gun?” “No but I don’t really see you shooting me over a couple hundred bucks, how much you got on you?” “On me?!?” “Yeah I figure I deserve some money to keep my mouth shut.” “You must think I’m some kind of idiot!” “No, I know you’re an idiot, but I figure your smart enough to know what’s best for you. So give me fifteen bucks and when I get off in an hour I’ll buy you a beer.” The fury in his eyes sunk away as they drifted their focus to the floor. He put his gun in the back of his belt and fumbled through his pockets. Then he pulled out a crumpled bill. “You, you got change for a twenty?” “Sure thing.” I opened the cash register and dropped it in. Grabbed him a five and put fifteen in my pocket. “Well Tom, its good doing business with you. Meet me in front in an hour and we’ll go down to the Owls Nest for some drinks and talk about old times.” “Yeah… I … I guess so man.” He walked out more disappointed than a kid leaving *Toys-R-Us* empty handed. But hey I think he was pretty lucky. If anybody else was behind the counter they would have hit the silent alarm that we had just gotten installed. He went to a bar that night instead of a jail cell. I don’t think there’s a better outcome than that.


"Hello," I say to no one in particular, not that there was anybody to hear it. No, nobody. Certainly nobody. A vast expanse of sand, and in the distance an ocean, is all that was left in front of me. It's a tricky thing to remember where I am, but most importantly it is hard to remember where I am going. I walk towards the ocean, but it seems to never get closer. I thought I saw a bird a few days ago, but it had three too many legs. It seems like a lot of things aren’t very solid now, shifting like the sand underneath my feet. You have to be careful at the sand dunes because if you roll down it is hard to get back up. The sand is all I ever see now, so I have gotten pretty good at feeling it. Sometimes you get that windy sand that seems to get kicked up like dust, other times you get the hard unmoving sand. It’s always sand though. How long have I been moving? I do not know. I do not remember, all I know is I must get to the ocean. The ocean is my destination, some days though I walk around in circles, feeling like I can’t get my legs to move straight. Those days are always so cloudy, the sun never seems to come up all the way. Hidden behind a veil. Who am I? I do not know. I do not look at myself, or if I had, I do not remember. Where am I going again? Something with… Fash? Fesh? No, it’s fish. Fish with an I. I am going to the ocean. The ocean, with birds and fish. Water too. I walk because the sand is too slippery to run on, I used to run a lot. On these weird hard things that weren’t quite sand. I remember the feeling, running until I was sick. I remember someone, someone helping me. I can’t remember the name, it’s on the top of my knee. M something, short… Then I remember other things too, like the sounds of… Where am I going again? The ocean, I am going to the ocean. The ocean, with birds and fish. Water too. Sometimes the ocean seems so far away that it feels like I’ll never reach it… Sometimes it feels like it’s right in front of me, I can hear the cackling of the birds laughing. Those damn birds. The fish never speak, which is why I prefer them over the birds. I haven’t seen them in a long time, and that suits me just fine. But, what are birds again? Small for sure, were they white? Maybe they were black with speckadoodled spots? Maybe they had four legs or eight like the spiders? “Hello,” I say to no one in particular, not that there was anyone to hear it. No, nobody. Certainly no- “Hello.” A voice answers. I'm not startled, it felt perfectly natural. There, through the sand. A monster on two legs, far more than normal. A terrible monstrous with beady eyes and a fanged face… I run. I run, and I fall down a sand dune. Not good, the edges are too steep. I couldn’t make it up even if I wanted. I see something peer over the edge of the dune, a monstrous face with beady eyes and a fanged face. Certainly something this horrifying can not be natural? No, it couldn’t be. Perhaps it is all just a hallucination, after all, I’ve never seen this monster before. Yes, that is it. It is a hallucination. I sit down and attempt to calm my nerves, but the figure doesn’t leave. If anything it grows bolder, what was once far is now close, it is merely a few feet away. I need to run- I should run now, right now, no wait there is no way up from the dunes. How can I get away can I get awa- “hello?” A voice asks me a question. “What are you?” I asked with such trepidation, perhaps I do not want to even know. “I do not know.” The voice answers, in a voice so familiar to me. “What are you?” the voice asks me, and I respond “I do not know.” Both of us frown. I think for a while, the monster just stands there… On two legs, I look down and I see two legs as well. I investigate my skin, it is the same. I feel my face and my eyes. They are similar. I understand now, “I am you” I respond to the creature. “ and I am you” the voice responds. I do not understand, this is a terrible thought to have occurred. I am me, but they are me? Impossible, I am already me therefore I cannot be them as well. I push the thoughts away, and I ask the voice “ Where are you going?” The voice responds “ The ocean, with birds and fish. Water too.” I responded, not understanding “ Me too, would you mind if I joined you?” The voice responds “ Sure, we’ll keep each other's company.


I hate the way she's colored her hair red.  She didn't always have this color in her hair. Even back when we were eleven years old, she has always had the most beautiful golden-blonde hair. I was lucky enough to meet her one day as I was riding my bicycle down our road. As I rode by 2nd street, I saw her with her head down. She was in a dirty white shirt setting on the curb with her hair over her face and she appeared to be crying. I stopped. "What's wrong?" I asked her. "Sometimes I just feel like crying." she said. I showed her I could do a wheelie with my bicycle, and for a split moment I saw a smile creep across her face, and we've been inseparable ever since. Caroline was her name. Caroline Marie Jones. Every day after school, I'd make my way to 2nd street to find Caroline and I'd always find her waiting for me. We would play and trade our Pokémon cards, and sometimes go out in the woods behind her house and play. She just made every day after school seem like the first day of summer break. It wasn't until we started going to the same high school together that I started realizing maybe I had feelings for Caroline. She was always just a friend to me, but for some reason I started viewing her and feeling for her differently. I would always be off doing some mischievous act with my friends like setting off smoke bombs in the courtyard or stink bombs in the classrooms while she was hanging out with her friends behind the school smoking cigarettes or drinking some cheap liquor someone brought to school from their parent's liquor cabinet. We would still always make time to find each other throughout the day and just hang out and be in each other's company. Until that one fateful day she dropped out and disappeared. I never stopped thinking about her and that long, beautiful blonde hair of hers that would push into my face whenever I reached in to give her a hug. She just dropped out of school and disappeared. I had a car by this time, so nearly every time after high school, I'd drive by 2nd street to see if I could see her. But she was never there. Fuck, I just needed one more hug or at least a goodbye. Caroline never left my mind. I remember it clearly. It was my fourth or fifth day in community college when I saw her. I was driving home and she was sauntering down the street. I pulled my car over, got out and faced her. "Caroline?" I questioned. She turned around with tears in her eyes and ran to hug me. "I've. I've missed you. You were that person in high school, right?" she said, holding the top of her nose and sucking air through it as if she were trying to clear her nose. That's when I noticed. Under that beautiful blonde hair of hers were sores on her skin. "Yeah, Caroline. I'm that person. Let's get you somewhere. You wanna go hang out at my house and maybe grab a soda?" She just nodded and got in my car. I skipped school that day, but we caught up with each other. Apparently she was caught that day in high school doing methamphetamine behind the school with her friends and was expelled along with being kicked out of her own house and she's been wondering the streets ever since. "Caroline, I care for you and I want to help you. Please let me help you?" I asked her. She just held her head down and started crying. "What's wrong?" I asked. "Sometimes I just feel like crying." she replied. She agreed to let me help her and I dropped out of college to get a job. Someone had to pay her for rehab because here in America, help isn't free. I could've stayed in college and had a 50/50 shot of getting a job paying over twice what I had now, but the problem is that Caroline didn't have four years to waste. After she left rehab, she was back to her beautiful self. I told her that since I already have a job and she's out of rehab, maybe we should find a little house together and we'll both go from there. She smiled and said that would be great. We looked for weeks, and we finally found a house out in the country. It wasn't the best, but it was well within our budget and we both liked it. The only problem I had with a house out in the country was what my Dad always drilled into my head. He would always say, "Living out in the country, you can't be too careful. When you're seconds away from danger, help is just minutes away." So I saved up a little money and purchased a firearm to protect my house. I never wanted to be a victim. So after careful consideration, I found myself a cheap but useable Hi-Point 45mm pistol. It was ugly, but if someone ever broke in, it would be there waiting to help me in my dresser drawer. After coming home with the pistol, Caroline was enthused with it. "You actually expect us to have stuff that robbers would want to break in and get?" She laughed. "How are you going to protect the stuff you don't have?" she said and I just laughed with her. Eventually, we'll make this house a home. Just you wait and see. Living with her and working at my dead-end job, two years just melted off of the calendar and throughout it all, I saw Caroline's smile fade faster and faster. I did everything I knew to make her happy, but some times you just can't win the audience. One day with tears in her eyes she admitted to me, "I think there's just something wrong with me." Throughout these two years, we've had birthdays and holidays together. We've partied hard, and we've worked harder. We turned this old house into a home, and we've made a life for each other. But it's just not enough for Caroline. She just can't get over being sad and I can't understand why. This isn't the $100k job and nice apartment I had planned for my life, but under the circumstances it seems as though we've done everything absolutely right. But she still wants to cry herself to sleep some nights and others, she just watches television and doesn't sleep. Caroline needs help and she gets what she needs. I was so impatient waiting by the door of the psychologist's office. It was only an hour a week, but every time it felt like I was setting in the office for a year straight. Until one day she came out with a very solemn expression on her face. In silence, we got into the car, and I drove her home. As we were pulling into the driveway she looked over at me and said, "I have major depression they said. Or that's what they are thinking." I park the car in our driveway and turn to her. As I move a lock of her hair out of the way I say, "we'll get through this. We've got through so much so far, I don't see how we can't get through this too." Fast forward to now. I guess there were some things we could never get through. I've come home from work to find you laying on the floor with that bloody Hi-Point next to you. I'll see you soon, was the last thing you said to me. I called 911 to report a suicide by gunshot to the head and they said help was just minutes away. I pick you up to hold you one last time and I see your hair is dripping wet with a shade of red. I hate the way you've colored your hair.


*Dear Diary* Oh god… today has been one of the scariest days of my entire life, at first it seemed to be just a normal day, I got up out of bed and made myself a coffee, and sat down to read the newspaper, I saw an ad for this thing called the 'House of Mirrors', it seemed fun so I called a friend and asked if they wanted to come with me after work, which they said yes to. So after I finished work we both went to this place, it seemed like a pretty shady operation and the building was in a pretty bad state of disrepair, but the concept was super cool, basically it was a maze where the walls are made of mirrors that distort your body in weird ways, and the ceiling & floor were pitch black, it was a really cool idea, but when we got to the end we saw the final mirror. It was a mirror that supposedly could show you what you'll look like in the next 24 hours, me and my friend thought it was just a joke where they put a standard mirror Because not much will probably change in a day, but when we looked into the mirror, there was no reflection, both of us were confused and the staff seemed oddly concerned, but we assumed it was still just a joke and moved on with our day. That's when it started… On the way home, we almost got killed in a car crash, my friend pointed out that maybe the mirror was actually trying to tell us something, but I dismissed the idea. After we traded insurance details with the other person, we walked the rest of the way home. On the way home we went to get something to eat, and it went relatively well. We went to this Chinese restaurant and it was really good. I got chow mein and my friend had chicken fried rice. After this I was pretty sure all the fear was done for the day… oh how wrong I was. After we split up to go our separate ways, I went back to my house only to get a text from my friend that they had been robbed at gunpoint, and that the only reason they weren't shot is because a police car happened to pass by as this happened, which was odd. This is when I started to believe something might be up. A couple of hours later I was going downstairs to get something from the kitchen, when I slipped on one of the steps and almost fell, I managed to grab the rail but if I didn't then I would have been dead for sure. Now I was starting to realize that something was definitely going on and that mirror definitely wasn't a bluff. My chest is feeling tight now, it kind of hurts, but anyway, there's more to this, I tried calling my friend later and got no response, I tried texting them, no response either, I kept trying for a few hours but nothing happened, which leads us to where I am now, writing this diary entry. My chest is getting worse, it's getting harder to breath… oh god it's bad… I think… this is it, the mirror was right, to whoever finds this, that mirror is no lie, that mirror was right. ………………………………….…………………….. (This is a shorter one than my last one, but I had the idea for the story and I really like how it turned out despite the short length, and I hope you guys do as well. And my next story will be longer than this one.


\[SF\] Tall ceilings, vast corridors, and rooms that seemed endless. Off-white, cream colored rooms, marble floors, and every entryway was topped with an arch. The ceilings were much too tall and served no purpose but to echo the silence that was within. There were people, but they did not speak, hardly moved, showed no emotion, and did not cast a shadow. They could all stand on each other's shoulders and they would not reach the ceiling, although there were hundreds if not thousands of them. The people seemed lifeless. But, to this day I knew they served a point. What point they served I could not tell you. I arrived into this place well after everyone else, and I seemed like a peaceful intruder. I am not sure what caused me to think this, but immediately I knew this was a library and a place of scholars, but no books were to be seen. No shelves, no books on the wall, no bookcases. The place still seemed like a library to me. It resonated as a place of thoughts and ideas, searching and learning, understanding the misunderstood, and questioning questions that had yet to be thought. The only sound I heard at this point was the echoes of my own footsteps walking down a spiral staircase. The path I followed was not the grand stairway, but the stairs my journey began upon without my asking. It was one of the many staircases that lined the perimeter of the beautiful place. I walked. I observed. Nothing really happened. Peace, at its finest. As I stepped through the archway at the bottom of the stairs, I was met by someone, someone who moved but did not talk. She handed me a book. This book was like no other book I’ve ever held, it simply wanted to go up. The best way i can describe this is the book was like an air bubble in the water, its desire was simply to travel up. I struggled to hold onto it and had to fight the book’s intentions to ascend, but I was able to do so. Almost like hitting play on a paused movie, everyone, who priorly was statuesque began to bustle around moving frantically. No matter which direction they moved, somehow they all convened on me. Each one faceless, but somehow individually unique in nature, all handed me book after book after book, each book like a balloon that just wanted to rise. Every single book I was given seemed determined to defy gravity and dreamed of meeting the ceiling of that lovely, but odd, place. I held them all, but they began to be too much. Or were they? Half of me wanted to hold them down because books don’t belong in the air. But, half of me wanted to let them ascend and take me with them. In the middle of this internal struggle between being grounded in the world I sort or knew, or, ascending with the books into the unknown… I woke up. It was all a dream.


#Welcome to Serial Saturday: Rebirth! To those brand new to the feature and those returning for round two, welcome! This is the perfect time for you to join in on the fun, as we re-launch Serial Saturday to better suit all of our readers and writers out there. We’ve heard your feedback, and our hope is to make this feature useful to writers of all genres, backgrounds, and skill levels. To our returning Serial Saturday participants, we hope you’ve had a wonderful break and are ready to dive back in. As we’ve made a few changes, please remember to read the entire post before submitting! *** #This week's theme is Rebirth! Rebirth can take on many meanings in literature. Will fallen heroes come back to life? Or is it as simple as rejuvenating a lost spark of desire? Maybe this week marks a great change for your characters and their world. The interpretation is completely up to you. / #How It Works: In the comments below, submit a story that is between 500 - 850 words in your own original universe, inspired by this week’s theme. (Using the theme word is welcome but not necessary.) This can be the beginning of a brand new serial or an installment in your in-progress serial. You have until 7pm EST the following Saturday to submit your story. *** #The Rules: - All top-level comments must be a story. Use the stickied comment for off-topic discussion and questions you may have. - Your story must be written for this post. Pre-written content will not be allowed. - Your story should be 500-850 words. Use to check your wordcount. - Begin your post with the name of your serial between triangle brackets (e.g. <My Awesome Serial>). You must use the same serial name for each installment of your serial. - Submissions are limited to one serial submission from each author per week. - Each author must leave a comment on at least 2 other stories during the course of the week. That comment should include at least one detail about what the author has done well. Failing to meet the 2 comment requirement will disqualify you from weekly rankings. - While content rules are more relaxed here at r/ShortStories, we’re going to roll with the loose guidelines of "vaguely family friendly" being the rule of thumb for now. If you’re ever unsure if your story would cross the line, feel free to modmail! *** #Reminders: Make sure your post on this thread also includes links to your previous installments if you have a currently in-progress serial. Those links must be direct links to the previous installment on the preceding Serial Saturday posts or to your own subreddit/profile. But an in-progress serial is not required to start. You may jump in at any time. Saturdays we will be hosting a Serial Campfire on the discord main voice lounge. Join us to read your story aloud, hear other stories, and share your own thoughts on serial writing! We start on Saturdays at 7pm EST. You can even come to just listen, if that’s more your speed. Authors who successfully finish a serial with at least 8 installments will be featured with a modpost recognizing their completion and a flair banner on the subreddit. Authors are eligible for this highlight post only if they have followed the 2 feedback comments per thread rule.


John didn't want to propose until after the baby came. It was a conversation we must have had a dozen or more times in the lead up to those most momentous events of his life to that point. "It'll look like I'm only marrying her because she's pregnant," he would say. "Well ... Aren't you?" I would ask. And John would laugh a bit or grimace a bit or get a little angry or look a little introspective. I guess it depended on his mood. Little Angelina was born two weeks premature on Valentine's day. They both took it as a sign, but of course it wasn't. There are no signs except the ones we imagine after the fact. But that's beside the point. The wedding was in mid May and the reception was at a small building in the country that I think used to be a Ukrainian community center but was now just an empty hall that got rented out about once a month to people who couldn't afford anything better. A long hall, low ceiling, faint yellow staining on the ceiling tiles from when they used to allow smoking indoors, and a vague smell that everyone recognized but no one could quite place. It was a liminal place, and I hold in the deep recesses of my mind a flash of half a memory of my parents dragging me along to some other almost identical hall for a church supper when I was a kid. But I'm getting sidetracked. Anyway ... The ceremony didn't have a priest or any sort of religious minister, just John's older brother who had been ordained online. It was his first time marrying anyone and he looked as nervous as the bride and groom. I'm almost sure I remember seeing him throwing up in the dumpster out back before the ceremony began. It wasn't a beautiful wedding or a particularly big wedding or a really special wedding when it comes down to it, and in the years that would follow I'm ashamed to say that my memories of it likely got mixed and jumbled together with many other similar weddings in similar places with similar groups of people. But in the moment, it was a lot of fun. John got as drunk as I've ever seen him and swore up and down that he'd love Laureline forever. And she'd love him right back. That's what she said, anyway. Three years and two kids later they divorced. I never got the full story. I don't think anyone cheated. I think they just weren't right for each other. Or else that they were both just too tired to keep trying to be right for each other. When Karen and I talk about marriage, as we do frighteningly often anymore, I act like it's a foregone conclusion that it'll happen. I act like I'm excited at the prospect. I act like a proposal is just around the corner. But I don't want us to be another John and Laureline and, truthfully, I'm not sure we won't be. See, everyone feels like what they have is indestructible, like their love can't be broken or changed, but it can be. Loving has to be an effort and that effort wears you out. And maybe you won't always be in love. Maybe you won't always want to be in love. But you'll say, "let's do it. Let's spend the rest of our lives together." Only you don't know how long that really is. And you can't know until you try it. And maybe it's worth all that effort, after all, John and Laureline both still love their kids a whole lot and their kids wouldn't exist without them having ended up together. But maybe it's not worth much of anything. Maybe it's all just a waste of time. For my part, I'm sure eventually I'll break down and give her the ring I bought last June. But what's the rush? Next week is as good a time as any, and so is the one after. We're both happy now. Why can't that just continue? I guess it's because people fear change, but they need it. They need to be able to divide their lives into sections. The time before and the time during and the time after. So we'll get engaged, and we'll get married, and maybe someday we'll get divorced. And our lives will be neatly chopped up into those perfectly arranged little chapters just like we need them to be. All little distinct and finite sections leading to one that goes on forever, identical to the one before all the others. And then we'll finally be at peace. And we won't need love and we won't need change and we won't need cheap weddings and drunken confessions of undying commitment. And we won't need divisions into sections and subsections. But for now, this ring is sitting heavy in my pocket and I can see the Mariachi band approaching our table behind Karen's head. She doesn't suspect a thing. Or, if she does, she's doing me a solid by playing along so we'll have a nicer story to tell later on. I drop to one knee.


I can’t sleep. The voices in my head. It hurts. Why am I like this? I try to act appropriately. I try to be good. But I can’t even finish my own god damn sentences. I’m so used to others cutting me off I started cutting myself off. I don’t deserve to finish my nonsense anyway. I can’t just speak my mind. I can’t explain my intentions because even I don't understand. My mouth dries up and my heart begins to race. I can hear it pounding so loud I forget what I am saying. Can’t they hear it too? I’ve made so many mistakes. And don’t deserve to be forgiven. I can’t even begin to count how many times I've said, “I’m sorry.” I try. I try to be clear. But my mind is so clouded. It’s a storm that never clears. The thunder drowns out any meaning. All these symbols. Can we all just stop giving things meanings like this? One object can have so many meanings to so many people. Even when there is one that has one direct meaning. A bad one. I can’t give my thoughts about it. What if this? What if that? There’s no excuse. That’s all this is, just an excuse. That’s all I am. A Disappointment A Psychopath. An Excuse. A sad excuse of human life. I can’t even hurt myself properly. I get scared, I'm so weak. I don’t want to express my hate. It’s too excessive. But, I can’t just say nothing. It gives the wrong opinion. But, I’ve spent time in the dark hiding this feeling. Hiding him. Why are the chains getting weaker? Was that all for nothing? Is this voice with me forever? Music used to help. It would drown out the voices. The beautiful stories each song on the radio hears. Ones that make you happy. Ones that make you cry. It would drown out the voices. But they have gotten louder. And I can still hear them. This is what I deserve. I usually don’t care. If I can go through life experiencing pain and misery. And others can live the perfect life. A life of peace. I would give anything for that. I don’t care about myself. Hardly anyone does. They don’t care. So why should I? I just want help, but I don’t know how to ask for it. I want to help others but how can I do that if I can’t even help myself? I don’t want to be a bother. Just like this story. It’s just nonsense. It’s just a bother. Sorry for wasting your time. Have a nice day. And just be a good person. You are loved by someone. You will be cared for. Don’t worry about me. I just want attention. I need to finish this before the voice comes back. Go on in life. And be safe. Give time to love yourself, before it’s too late. Talk to yourself every night. And say, “I love you.” Talk to others who can help. It’s ok to do that. It’s ok to ask for help. It’s ok It’s ok The clouds will go away someday.


“It just doesn’t feel like the right time to buy a planet. Sorry!” the customer said and zapped out of the holocall. Rhys pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. Another one lost. It felt like it had been ages since he’d made his last sale and peer pressure was rising, slowly but surely. He had defended his flagging sales often enough with the argument that the planet-selling business just didn’t lend itself to meeting sales targets, emphasizing that instead it was a slow dance, involving flirting with the prospects, forging relationships, building trust. It might all have come across as excuses for bombing on closing deals. But business was rarely a fertile ground for philosophy and his comrades were having none of it. He knew that their goodwill had been stretched too thin for too long. His time in the Kombinat might well be in jeopardy. He pinned his hopes on one last client for the day: an elderly oligarch and her three husbands, all of whom had shown a strong interest in Hallein 6, a moon made for extreme sports based on water. The oligarch still put her body in actual, physical danger, surfing twenty-meter waves on a gravboard. She had sent him the pictures and he had admired them in what he hoped was an adequate manner. As long as she would agree to buy the moon, he’d look at pictures of the bicentenarian in a bathing suit all day long - all week even. If this client didn’t buy, he was resolved to start looking for a new job. He didn’t want to give his comrades the pleasure of letting him go. Rhys made himself a permacoffee and stared at the countdown clock announcing her virtual arrival. He finished the last gulp of the steaming, pink liquid just as the numbers reached zero and a woman manifested in his office, followed by three markedly younger men. She had long red hair that flowed to the floor, held in place by a tiara and several clips made of some ethereal material. Her body was covered entirely by colorful tattoos and veiled by thin gauze that thickened only in strategic places. The men wore nothing but shorts, muscular arms crossed over similarly muscular, oiled chests. They might have been clones, or triplets, or something in between, Rhys had never bothered to ask. He smiled genially: “My very dear Kleomansa! How very lovely to see you! I hope the weather is fine over on Kaeppchen Gamma!” “Rhys, you old dog, you know that the weather doesn’t dare change unless I tell it to,” the woman replied, raising her hand in salute. They exchanged shallow niceties for a while, until Rhys felt the time was ripe for changing the subject. “Kleo, have you had time to check out Hallein? Isn’t it a lovely moon? And the waves I hear are especially spectacular this solar cycle. How did you find it?” The woman hesitated and, in this pause, Rhys felt his heart sink. Their last discussion had gone so smoothly; he had been so sure that Kleomansa loved the moon. Would she back out of the deal now? “Well, you know, I sent Primorius over,” she said, pointing at one of the men. “He really didn’t care for the short days…only 36 units of light and then 174 units of darkness? Come on, Rhys, who has that much time?” “But wouldn’t it be perfect to visit in the dark as well? Increase the adventure?” He heard a trace of desperation in his voice. Kleo looked at him with something like pity in her eyes. “In the darkness? And be easy fodder for the giant razor-tentacle swarms? I might be crazy, but not suicidal.” She paused. “Not yet at least. If it comes to that, I’ll get back to you. Anyway, Hallein is out of the picture.” The planet seller stifled a curse. Damn Primorius and those giant razor-tentacles! He had been so sure that he had his deal. “Kleo, I fully understand. Now that you mentioned the light and the razor-tentacles, it was stupid of me to suggest it.” Adding some more groveling, he said: “Let’s look at some alternatives. I have many more marvels in store for you.” He pulled up the image of a sphere in his office: another moon, lusciously painted in hues of green and red. “Mermaleidon 16, in orbit around Paraclestor – beautifully covered in orange seas, tiny islands, guaranteed to be uninhabited. If you wish, we can seed Rex Ornatus birds there. You can configure their genetic makeup yourself and I can walk through the process in detail. Mermaleidon is…” She interrupted him. “Don’t bother. One of my ex-husbands has a moon around Paraclestor, I really don’t want to run into him in the orbital queue. Next.” Rhys nodded understandingly and told his systems to make a note about Kleomansas husband. If he had bought one moon, he might just want to buy one next door for some more privacy and quiet. A new sphere appeared. “Zhukaria 88, orbiting Juffu. Especially interesting because of the thermal drifts that boil water on one side of the moon and freeze it on the other!” Kleomansa waved her hand impatiently. “Rhys, I want to surf and not languish in a spa. If I wanted to boil or freeze myself to death, I would call my parents. Now, my dear, please show me some real options or I may as well be on my way.” He swallowed. Not pissing off Kleomansa was paramount, and he was botching it. Rhys looked at the remaining options and quickly eliminated most of the ones suggested by the system. He should have prepared better instead of only filtering by habitability and the existence of large bodies of water. His eyes fell on one option – not a moon, a proper planet. Could he offer it? Rhys paused and put the planet at the back of the queue. But now he had barely any suitable candidates left. He decided to take a risk. “Now here’s something for a real adventurer!” he said, despite the dire options. Kleomansa turned her head, giving him hope. He launched a hologram of the moon, overriding the default display settings to make it bigger and a tad more vivid. “May I present: Calieri K! It has so far only been cartographed by drone. It might be just what you’re looking for: very generous light and dark intervals, water coverage up to 86%, average temperature always above freezing and well below boiling point!” “Interesting,” Kleomansa said. For a woman of her wealth, Rhys thought, she had a terrible poker face. He had her on a hook. Now he had to be more careful. “We have a very generous discount on moons without previous owners and ones that haven’t been…lived on or used before.” “Go on.” “Calieri K, as you can see, has the ability to support a very rich ecosystem. All the land masses are far away from the poles, which will be very supportive of any new species you choose to seed. And we can adjust the oceanic fauna as well, of course.” “And the waves?” she asked. He smiled and played his strongest card. “The waves have been observed to be as high as 35 meters!” At least, that was what his systems had inferred from the rather thin drone data. “Is it close enough to an orbital station?” “Oh yes, Foscus is merely a few jump-minutes away and another new orbital will be ready by the end of the solar cycle. From your home on Kaeppchen, the total trip time will then take less than three jump-hours.” He ignored the system’s warning on the delay in building the new orbital he had just mentioned. It might still be on time, or it might not. No need to bother his client with the details just now. He almost had her. Rhys took a deep breath and launched his final sales pitch. “I know that you have a million questions concerning the details, my lovely Kleo, and I’d be happy to answer each and every last one of them…” “No, I don’t have any. I’ll read the documents later.” She spun the globe, clearly fascinated. “But it has this energy; it speaks to me. Can’t you feel it, too? And the K in the name surely stands for Kleomansa, don’t you think?” She stopped the rotation, took a step back and looked at him. “I’ll take it.” Blood rushed to Rhys’ face. Had he just made a deal and sold the moon? He couldn’t believe that she had just made the decision. It took him a few moments to adjust. “Oh, well, ok then! Great! I’ll let the Kombinat know that they should prepare…” One of the men now actually came over and stood next to the woman. He bowed gracefully and greeted Rhys in the appropriate way, indicating his will to speak. “You said that it has the ability to support an ecosystem. When can we start using it?” he asked and Kleomansa nodded vigorously. “Yes, Rhys, when?” “Ah, let me just check that for you…” He queried the system and couldn’t believe the answer he got. An answer that shattered his dreams, an answer absolutely unsuited for his customer, for any customer really. But time was running out and he couldn’t let Kleomansa dangle for much longer. “So…your new moon, this Calieri K, it could be ready for you by the end of the 293rd solar cycle,” he said without much conviction. The man who had asked the question scoffed and turned away laughingly. Kleo held her clearly visible anger better in check but managed to turn it into cold scorn in an instant. “Rhys, Rhys, Rhys. I thought I was very clear on my requirements: it’s for me, not the distant progenies of my kids. The end of the 293rd cycle is absolutely out of the question; I will not wait for it.” “Of course, we could speed up the necessary work by providing more funding,” he said and realized his error right away. “You mean to tell me that first you present me with an unacceptable timeline and then I should pay more to hurry it along? What kind of fool do you take me for, Rhys?” Her voice couldn’t make it any clearer that this was going very poorly for him. The idea of selling anything today was fading rapidly. Pulling up the menu again, he immediately saw that he was out of options. Except – the one planet that he had skipped over earlier. It was deemed unsellable, entirely too big, too wild, too remote. And yet…Rhys felt confirmation growing in his stomach, hoping he wasn’t mistaking it for the prospect of having to look for new employment soon. “Kleo, I’m extremely sorry to have wasted your time. I haven’t appreciated that you are a woman with singular needs and wants, one that is not easily satisfied.” Her face softened slightly. “I have shown you the best selection, but I have overlooked the basics of a good relationship: it’s not about what is the best, but what is right. Please let me present one last option. If it doesn’t suit you, I will personally set up an appointment with whatever other planet agency you choose.” Luckily, Kleomansa was as quick to be charmed as to be angered. “Fine, Rhys, one last option. It better be a superstar.” “In fact, it is.” Rhys said, “It’s a planet. Now, I know that this might stretch your budget, but I assure you that we can make it quite affordable for you. It’s a little remote, I grant you that right away, as the next orbital is about 270 jump-minutes away. But remote also means quiet and private. It’s huge and stunningly diverse with several large continents and almost every climate zone you can imagine. The waves aren’t as high as elsewhere, but much more predictable.” The client spun the image of the blue and green sphere around. “What is the light cycle?” “Well, it’s a planet. It’s very stable in orbit and spins at 24 units. If you follow the pattern, you can catch a wave in light almost everywhere! And no razor-tentacles in the dark either, just some small harmless predators.” “What else?” she asked. Rhys consulted his system and skimmed over a quick note that indicated some interest from Kleo’s husbands to the planet. “Quite a lot!” he went on. “Besides waves, it has a very abundant ecosystem at the ready, one also defined by the continents. It even has a slowly evolving primate species. I see that might be of some interest for Primorius, right? Then, there is something very special – plate tectonics! You don’t see a lot of those around inhabited planets.” “What’s so special about that?” she said. He had her back to asking questions, which was always a good sign. “Plate tectonics mean huge numbers of volcanoes. Kleo, tell me: Have you ever surfed on hot lava, freshly spilled from a planet’s core?” Was this even feasible? Rhys had no idea. “And on some planets, we’ve observed those tectonics to cause giant waves, up to 60 meters! Then there are caves and deserts, forests and steppes and two entirely frozen poles. Everything ready to explore. Just imagine the possibilities!” The woman did some thoughtful imagining as she observed the globe in front of her. “And it’s ready? Available right away? What’s the catch then?” she said. “No catch, I promise. We’ve had trouble selling it because it was just too diverse for many of our clients. Who wants rain forests, deserts, volcanoes and ice? Unexplored and frankly huge, somewhat remote…it doesn’t exactly fly off the shelves.” Her face told him that she was convinced. Finally and truly convinced. She had given her word on the moon too early. Now, she made him go through the whole ordeal of feigning worry, counterarguments, uncertainties, all of it in good spirit, which went on for the better part of the evening. But Rhys didn’t care, he would have bartered the whole night if Kleo had wanted that. When he finally got her approval of the purchase and the holocall had ended, he fell into his chair and raised his hands to his face, laughing. He had managed a sales deal – and it had been one of the most difficult in company history, the planet having been in the archives for an embarrassingly long time. The projection of the blue planet still hovered in his office, spinning lazily. “Terra, third planet in orbit around Sol,” Rhys read from the display. “Let’s hope Kleomansa treats you well.


Blue, Red I wasn’t exactly sure what I was about to experience, but I had feared the worst. What else would you expect when the police give you a videotape from your best friend that they found left in their room after they had been missing for weeks? I held the tape in my hands, and a knot in my stomach. Both were heavy to me. The white strip on the front side said, “To Tim, Sorry” in his methodical handwriting. I swallowed hard and pushed the tape into the VCR. I felt another welt emerging in my throat as I head the plastic slot flapping, a sound I found kind of funny. Some sliding technological noises swam around mechanically before the TV screen turned to the empty, haunting blue bearing the ghostly white letters ‘VCR’ on the top left. I had seen it a hundred times, and it was more unsettling for every horror move I had seen, and this time, one thousand-fold for what I would soon see. The screen transitioned to static momentarily before customary, grainy lines flickered on screen signaling the beginning. Jerry stood in front of the camera on a small clearing overlooking a forest. He walked firmly forward and sat in front of the camera like he was sitting face to face with me. “I haven’t had a great time in this place, but you already knew that. We really had some great times together. Skating at the park in the day time, riding bikes at the park in the nighttime or around the track when no one was out; sitting around the campfire telling scary stories with Janice and your little sister. I remember when you were there to back me up against that asshole Jackson when he and his jackass friend wanted to pick a fight, or when you hyped me up to go tell that cute girl at the park that I liked her, telling me the skater guy look was guaranteed to wow the girls who didn’t know how to skate and sat gawking at the cool people pulling off the stunts. You said, “we’re those dudes bro!” Recently I just felt like things weren’t going anywhere once you started college and I was stuck at home helping around pop’s shop. You and I both wanted to be those insane stunt makers on TV doing death defying tricks on those giant half-pipes. I know I still wanted to. My parents said I had to stay and work with them, we couldn’t pay for college. I thought it would be fine, but things really aren’t going anywhere. Sometimes ill go to the park by myself, do some kickflips, I even learned how to grind a rail. You weren’t there to see it though. It’s just not the same without you there. The place has been replaced with kids I don’t know, didn’t wanna know em. I’m just doing the same shit everyday. What I do today is the same as tomorrow, same as yesterday. My dad’s promotions don’t keep me going, mom’s words of encouragement don’t keep me going. I’ve been keeping this a secret from my friends, from them too. I just don’t want to keep doing it. I know they’ll be sad, I know you’ll be sad too. I’m sure I’ve lived up to their approval, I can see it in dad’s eyes. I want my own approval from my own eyes when I look in the mirror, but I don’t find it. It’s all just uninteresting, my sweat feels cold.” I felt like someone’s fingers were pushing on the back of my eyeballs. I was shaking. I felt some of my own cold sweat too. He was smiling a little when he talked about how we used to hang out, about how his parents really do love him, how he remembered charlotte. But even so, he just sounded so, tired… Not the kind of tired you felt after a long day of play after school was over and you got into your fresh bed after a shower hating the next school day but knowing you were going to do it again next time. Not the kind of tired when you watched scary movies and stayed up the whole night with Jerry by your side. It was hard to tell really, maybe the kind of tired that made you want to puke. The kind of tired you felt postponing this tape because you feared what was in it. The kind of tired in a zombie movie where you watched all your friends die and you were the last one standing. Yeah… that was it I think. He kind of looked like a zombie. I hated it. The shaking, the urge to hurl, the pain in my head and eyes looking at the bright screen. For a while he would look down while he talked, the sound was a little muffled cuz of it, and I could hear some wind howling in the backround and little digital dead leaves being thrown about. Then he picked his head up and smiled brighter than before. His mouth opened a little like he was going to say something a few times, like he was trying to put into words something he felt others wouldn’t understand. Would I understand? “You know, its really weird. Its been dull, boring and grey, but I’ve kept ignoring something really interesting. Aren’t humans weird? I’ve thought about it since I got a cut as a little kid, and the more serious the skating injury I thought about it more. All this red liquid we need under our white skin. Our whole body, all the soft parts stuffed to the brim with it. It’s a wonder we don’t just explode when we get poked. I mean, sometimes when you poke the right place it busts open like a leaking pipe. We’re like these weird sacs of skin ya know? We got all the guts n’ stuff in there, hot dogs and shit turned to mush and dropping through our intestines after some fun. But where its really at is in the head. We got that dull looking brain in our head, filled with blood and some other stuff I don’t get but isn’t it crazy? How do we even think? Is there something else in us? We’re more like sac balloons I guess, the blood comes out if we popped, but so would the air. Maybe that stuff in our head would fly around when we pops.” All that talk was making me more uneasy. The images of a grisly death was in my mind. One of those science mannikins, the one without skin, showing off all the gross parts was obscenely streaking in the empty sickening blue of the TV screen before the tape loads. He was saying all this stuff while looking intently at the camera. Maybe he wanted me to get it, to push all those thoughts through the screen and into my head. I didn’t want them, but I reluctantly accepted it, I had to as his friend seeing this last moment. He looked right at the camera, I could see the intensity of his eyes, glaring with more life than I had seen in a long time. Then his head drooped down again, and he said quietly, “I’m sorry Tim, I’m gonna try and let it out.” Then the video abruptly ended. All the tension was pushing on my skin now. I dashed out my room and into the streets. I ran and ran and ran. I didn’t want these thoughts right now. I didn’t want to imagine what happened after the tape ended, so I ran. I forced air into my lungs while my blood boiled. I was getting exhausted, but I kept going until I collapsed. I couldn’t rely on anyone right now except the open sky. It was overcast and all the heat was inside me instead of the sky. For just a moment there I got to forget for a little. After laying on the ground for a while I stood up and let the wind blow on my sweaty skin. Maybe he was in that gust. Eventually my fear transitioned to anger. I used what little strength I had left to chuck some rocks out in the open. He better be sorry, because I’m gonna feel this gnawing feeling. I feel it now, I’ll feel it when I’m at my apartment, and I’ll sure feel it when I go home to see my parents soon. There’s already plenty of unanswered voicemails on my phone.


Silence is an epidemic. Even with my best efforts I am feeling it seep through the crevices of my mind - the pauses in conversation I know I must now have lest I be left alone to fend against it. Yet here I am, somehow still maintaining a dialect and ready to tell my story before the end - no one can keep talking forever. I wish I knew where it came from, what it is... I guess that’s expected though, human nature makes it so, and to be honest some things are better left unsaid. All I - or anyone - knows is when it started. Only a month ago we started to notice a change; although those few of us who remain have decided it must’ve been going on a lot longer. The ones we didn’t really notice went first - you know, the ‘recluses’ of society, the people you’d be lucky to get even a hint of recognition from, the people no one really knew because they’d never speak. It’s almost a shame and curse on us we didn’t notice, with only the occasional WANTED poster or frustrated boss wondering where the hell they were on their shift. God I wish we had seen it then, maybe it would be different and... I don’t know. No use thinking about that now. What we didn’t know is with every missing person it was getting stronger; evolving if you will. Soon enough we noticed we were hearing from close friends, family, colleagues less and less until it was eventually not at all. It was always the sweet if slightly shy and awkward ones in that phase, and just one or two days of no contact was enough for the Silence to take a hold. Marie was one of them. I had loved her since primary school though I’d never admit it. She had vibrant red hair and freckles like sunspots that tickled her button nose. She was always shy and a little nerdy but that’s what I loved. And it was what killed her. We had reconnected just last summer, meeting at a bar on the cathedral green under the watercolour sunset of British July. She was exactly as I remembered her; autumn locks rushed into a messy bun, contrasting her choux pastry skin. It only took two whiskey-cokes for me to work up the courage to work my way over to her, perched elegantly on a bar stool and tracing the martini glass with her finger. I will never understand how someone so radiant with light could be so quiet. We got talking; she was a PhD student at the local university (theoretical physics I think it was) while I was working on a thesis around the needs of human interaction to our baseline happiness and survival abroad. I’d never seen her talk so much than on that night; perhaps normal levels for you or me but to see her light up when talking about her studies, I felt I was witnessing the northern lights light up the skies of her eyes. We messaged, called and met up several times in the weeks following and I knew she was everything I would ever need. I stand by that too, even if she won’t be here to see it. Around the first disappearances I noticed her change a bit. She had told me she had anxiety and sometimes needed time to herself but this felt... different. Weeks went by and she called less and less, and when she did every word felt strained and effortful, as if the very act of communicating was eating away at her soul. And one day she just stopped. At this time the disappearances were getting more common and “mainstream” if you will so I naturally went to check on her; hearing the dull tone on the other end whenever I called had become too much for me to handle and although I wanted to give her space I couldn’t take it any more. Friends and family hadn’t heard anything and as I skimmed up to the fourth floor of her apartment block I noticed how quiet it was. It was all so eerie and surreal, like some dystopian novel. The silence lingered in the air like a heavy fog. “Hey Marie? It’s me. I know you’re probably fine and just need space but it’s been days and I-“ The sight that met me on the other side of that doorframe still makes my heart fall to a sickening knot in my stomach. She - although ‘she’ was honestly more and ‘it’ at this point - was alien to my eyes. Her sweet summer skin was now a pasty grey, her eyes faded to a husk of what they once were and her beautiful auburn locks now the colour of a south-coast sea on a dismal winter day. She didn’t speak, didn’t move, just stood there, allowing me to take in her gaunt and lifeless appearance - she was more corpse than human. I couldn’t speak and lost for words I stood in the thick smog of nothing, desperately trying to comprehend what on earth could have happened. But, as I lingered in that state I noticed myself being drawn into a different world almost. It was a trance of grey clouds and Monday mornings, the stagnant stench of silence and decay piercing yet somehow unnoticed. Staring into her eyes I felt the void of purest nothing beacon to me, I felt nothing, it was consuming my body, my mind, my soul... I ran. I ran so fast I didn’t think I’d ever run again. I knew, I knew it was bad, it was terrible, there was no saving her and I just needed to save myself. She was gone. That was 2 weeks ago. Ever since the rest of us have been trying to survive while being picked off one by one; called to that void. Keeping your mind occupied and social interaction up is the only way to stop it - it lingers in the silence between words and thoughts so keeping a noise and conversation up is the only way to prevent it consuming you. Those of us left have been talking for days now about everything and anything we can, desperately grasping at straws for new ideas to keep us occupied. But no one can talk forever.


She came every night when I was a child. I was terrified whenever my parents told me it was time to go to bed. I didn’t want to go to bed because she’d be there in the night. *Her.* The Woman in the Red Shoes. I don’t remember when I first saw her, it seems as though she had always watched me sleep. I would beg my parents to not let her get me, and they assured me that she wasn’t real, it was just my imagination and she didn’t exist. She couldn’t hurt me. I believed them because they were my parents and my parents cared about me, they’d never let anything happen to me. Right? Every night after I was put to bed I would lay awake; terrified for hours because I knew she would be coming. It would start with footsteps. Not quiet ones like someone trying to be stealthy, it sounded like high-heels on hardwood floors. Loud clicks like punctuation marks that would slowly travel down our hallway until they reached my bedroom door. That’s when the terror would really set it. I remember the shoes most because that’s what I’d see first, the tip of the red shoes showing just past the frame of the door. They would stand there for a few minutes, I tried to time it but it changed from night tonight. Sometimes I’d just see the shoes and never see the woman. Sometimes she waited a few minutes, sometimes up to an hour. I’m not sure if she did it just to scare me more, but if so, it worked. After the shoes I’d see the hem of her dress twirl into view. It reminded me of one of those old movies in all black and white, like the dress was supposed to be in color, but the shoes took too much energy with their brightness. It was white, with big gray roses on them that I swear I somehow knew were really red. I just knew it. It was fit her legs loosely and then cinched at the waist before form fitting her upper half. I tried not to look at her face, but every night she watched me until I looked her in the eyes. She just needed to know that I saw her, and that I was watching the show she was putting on for me. Her eyes were wide as if she had been surprised, but they had meanness behind them that I could feel radiating at me from the doorway. I remember pulling the blanket up over my head a few times, but the hallway light would illuminate her shadow against the thin blanket I used during the hot summer nights, projecting the horror into my memories. Her mouth was surrounded by dark gray lips, pulled back in a grim smile that never faltered, which I also knew were meant to be red, and the skin was almost the same color as the cloth of the dress, that sickly, just-off white. She would move closer slowly each night until she stood at my bedside, the night after that she’d be kneeling next to my bed. The following night was always the worst. She would slowly kneel at the bedside and lay her head on the bed and stare at me with those wide eyes and terrible smile as I cried silently. This is how it would cycle every few weeks. She would move incrementally slower until I had no choice but to look her in the eyes and she could feed on my fear. She haunted me for years, from a young child up until my senior year of high school. We moved several times during those years and she always found me. When I moved away from my childhood home, the Woman in the Red Shoes left me. I thought perhaps I *had* dreamed her, that she was just a figment of my overactive imagination. My wife says that I talk in my sleep a lot, and sometimes I mention the Woman in Red Shoes. She wants to talk about it, but I just want to let the memories fade away as The Woman did. Sometimes when I’m lying in bed at night though, I can hear the sound of heels in my hallway. I hear them wander across the doorway of my bedroom and continue until they stop at the room at the end of the hall. I don’t tell my wife about this, it would only upset her, and with the baby coming she can’t deal with any more stress. I just have to silently come to terms with the fact that The Woman in Red Shoes is already standing at the door to the nursery where my son will soon be sleeping and waiting for him.


Almost all the decisions we make in our daily lives have more to do with automatized rituals than with autonomous acts, much less with gestures of freedom. Our days are more-or-less predetermined by the voracious demands of the economic system. Since we are young, they teach us to love work and hate play, despise it, even. Anyone with a job knows what I’m saying. As you might expect, my daily ritual during work days was the stuff of nightmares one would find in a J. G. Ballard novel, a form of terror grounded on perpetual boredom and minor yet pervasive anxieties. Daily, I somehow find the strength to leave bed, eat breakfast (if time permits), and rush to catch bus 299 which leaves me two blocks away from the warehouse. I work alongside what they call mojados (undocumented immigrants), old chinese women with fragile skin, and a few aging felons under extreme heat while being submitted to increasing forms of domination. We load boxes of regional citrus fruits for a living. Our work speed is defined by the capacities of the conveyor belt that moves the fruit laboriously through such advanced technology as to give one the impression that such marvels ought to lessen the burden of work rather than raise it. After we pack a box full of grapefruits or oranges, we place it on our worn-out shoulders and carry it to the back of the warehouse, where they check the quality of our work and keep tabs of our loads. We get paid by the box, not by the hour as is legally required. If we can’t keep up with the minimum speed allowed - 6 boxes an hour, at the least - you get pushed back to the street without a paycheck or a job. “There are hundreds just like you just dying to take your place, best not forget,” the managers make sure to remind us a few times a week. At 75 cents per box, 70 boxes per day on average, 430 per week, we ended up with around $200 come pay day, after the bosses had taken their cut for providing water and rotten foodstuffs. I thought, they give us water as a trucker feeds oil to his truck, all while denying us pavilions of dreams and spaces of hope, and they charge us for it! This is why, as the worker-poet T-Bone Slim wrote, this is why workers are broke everyday but payday. The thieving bosses pay us just enough to keep us alive, for us to show up at work the next day. It’s a losers game, and fewer and fewer are winning these days. The first thing I noticed while walking into Bodega Fruta Libre was a group of five new workers who, as usual, were being given quick instructions before being thrown to the aggressive orders of the conveyor belt. It was their first day, hell even before the official start of their first day, and their faces already carried the look of doom, the look that says - I know something bad is coming, I’m not sure what it is, but it is out there, waiting for me, like a yearning leopard waiting to devour his tragically easy prey. Later I learned they were from Ethiopia. During our 20 minute lunch break, they were already complaining about the work. “This is too fast. My arm - almost gone, man!” expressed one of them. Him and his friends began to laugh about it, making jokes only they could understand in a blend of Amharic, english, and some obscure sounding language. We waited at the bus stop looking like a murder of crows, silent, bleak, and essentially harmless. Our friends from Ethiopia were visibly uncomfortable, I knew the look, but after a week of being here they would learn what it feels like to be worn slam out by the violence of the conveyor belt, at least physically speaking. I decided to introduce myself, lest they get the wrong idea about us. “Rough first day?” I asked. “Yes, friend. Rough shit indeed,” said one of them with a grin, “by the way, my name is Ife.” “I’m Segundo, see y’all tomorrow,” I said and waved hello-goodbye to the rest of them. Their young faces looked exhausted. Today had been their initiation into the American nightmare - the seemingly invisible cruelty that underlies the rhythm, flow, and quality of our lives - and they didn’t even know it, yet. I got off the bus on the corner of Elsa and Fields street and decided to walk home the rest of the way, making a pit stop at the Montes’ corner store. Then, the nightly ritual began: a few shots of whisky and a steady stream of whatever drink was at hand, today it was rum and coke. I sat down and thought of better things to come. That was the only thing that made reality pleasant. Dreamin’, that is. The intoxicating effect led me down the royal road where memories, history, and dreams converge. I saw strange snapshot images like the flashes created by fireworks: tired detectives, piles of bodies scattered like leaves in a warehouse, machines engulfed by fire, the reflection of the moon. Then, a more familiar montage of despair and hope: visions of youthful torment gave way to the gleaming spark of the cold flame that lit within me during the eventful days of yesteryear. I stumble upon crowds, a sea of enthusiastic, exalted, and enraged faces trying to find words, each other, themselves. They did it with such urgency that made you think they had never attempted to express themselves before. The crowd was debating it all - work, cities, music, jokes, buildings, poetry, love, history, and the importance of games. “What to do? Where to go? Who will join me?” wondered the multitude aloud with piercing eyes. “Let’s unbury the dead and conjure the ghosts that haunt us!” shouted someone in an attempt to win over the crowd. “The tears of the bosses are the nectar of the gods!” said another as the crowd laughed and enjoyed itself, merging and blending in unexpected ways, giving way to new forms and shapes. “Society is a carnivorous flower!” announced someone else. The crowd went on debating and throwing everything into the destructive force inherent to the critique of everyday life. A strange sound began to engulf everything. The atmosphere and our mood mutated as the blinding red and blue lights of freedom captured the night sky, the buildings, and the faces in the crowd. The sound of police sirens benumbed us and we were forced to disperse by the burning shower of rubber bullets and tear gas thrown our way. The passing of time has the effect of demolishing everything that stands in its way. People, places, my own self, were constantly changing, but nothing new or better ever seemed to replace anything. Old buildings were demolished by the city and nothing was built in their place. We live among ruins in a forgotten border town. I sat on bus 299 headed to work. Last night I dreamt of crowds and today I am immersed in them as I make my way to work. Real life crowds seem to be united by their disunity, I thought. People walk past each other daily without ever stopping to think about how much we would gain by embracing each other, which is to say ourselves.