Dr. Bishop was waiting for me on my first day of work, tapping his foot impatiently on the waxed linoleum. I was thirty minutes early. “Dr. Stiles,” Dr. Bishop intoned, his deep, gravelly voice pleasantly rumbling over my name, “please make sure you arrive at the testing booth promptly.” An intern standing a respectful distance away shot me a commiserating look and pressed a cup of espresso into my hand before quickly retreating, presumably to grab coffee for other employees. “Absolutely, sir,” I replied, taking a sip of my espresso in lieu of voicing any of the sarcastic comments that would instantly get me fired. I stopped next to the intimidating man, ignoring his militaristic posture and the displeased glint in his coal-dark eyes. In that moment, while he loomed over me even though he clearly had other things he could be doing, Dr. Bishop struck me as the unhappiest man on Earth. I almost pitied him, but thankfully the moment of sentimentality passed. “Before you head to the testing booth, I wanted to discuss some regulations with you.” Without waiting for my input, Dr. Bishop began walking toward my new office. I hastened my pace to keep up with his long, purposeful strides. “You will not disclose personal information or anyone else’s name to the participant. Both of you are to remain completely anonymous to the other. Your job is to ask questions and, once enough trust has been built, have a conversation.” “So you’re telling me I’m actually here to make friends,” I joked, elbowing Dr. Bishop in the side. His expression soured further. His harsh look melted into a sigh. “More or less, I suppose. Do your best to build a rapport with this person, and we will continue this discussion another time if you have any questions. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have some other business to take care of.” Dr. Bishop whipped around and began walking away, his lab coat billowing behind him like a cape. There was something in the broad line of his shoulders, tight with tension and stress, that made me feel a bit sympathetic. I didn’t really know a lot about what was going on, but Dr. Bishop was apparently under a lot of pressure from some government-types. Better him than me, at any rate. My testing booth was at the end of the hallway, shoved haphazardly into what was almost certainly once a broom closet. The name plaque on the door—*Dr*. Henry Stiles— made me feel a bit proud of myself; I quickly took a picture with my phone and sent it to my mom. I opened the door, which stuck and creaked against the doorframe, taking in my new “office.” The back wall had been gutted recently, replaced with a one-way mirror I couldn’t see through and a fresh coat of *almost*\-beige paint chipping around the edges. A desk rested in the center of the room, scratched up from years of use, along with an office chair that likely predated my birth. There was a thick sheath of papers stacked on the desk, sitting ominously next to a microphone. I sat down in the office chair and cringed as the metal legs shrieked under my unimpressive weight. I might have been handed fancy coffee, but it looked like my office wasn’t going to be quite as high-tech. I scanned the papers absently, waiting for my cue to begin. A soft whirring in the corner drew my attention to a single innocuous security camera, watching me dispassionately. The camera made me a little nervous, but I supposed I was being surveilled for any protocol infractions. Someone knocked on my door with more force than necessary. I sighed and read the first question with little interest, “Where are you from?” “You are new.” The voice had clearly been run through a modulator, almost past the point of coherence. I couldn’t tell if the voice belonged to a man or a woman, but there was something sweet in the tone that reminded me of Mom’s voice. I shook my head to clear my thoughts. “Yes, I am, but please answer the question. Where are you from?” “I don’t feel like talking,” they replied. I rapped my fingers on the desk thoughtfully. “Okay, that’s fine. Why don’t I talk for a little bit? I’m from Kansas, which is the kind of place I don’t think people are meant to live long-term. You shouldn’t go your whole life without seeing the ocean or a mountain or something other than wheat fields.” “I like the ocean,” the voice offered after a pause. Ah, progress. “Yeah? Me too. I used to go on beach trips as a kid. We used to look for dolphins while we made sand castles.” The stranger hummed, creating a sound so staticky and unpleasant that it made me cringe. I took the half-response as a sign to continue. “My senior year of high school, we went swimming with manatees off the coast of Florida. They’re pretty cool.” Another knock on my door interrupted me before I could continue. I ignored the sound for a moment, instead leaning closer to the microphone. “Sorry for the interruption.” “That’s okay,” the participant said, their voice calmer than before. Dr. Bishop slammed the door open, crossing the small room in a few long strides and grabbing my arm with an uncomfortably tight grip, almost like he was prepared to carry me out. “What are you doing?” he demanded, his voice low enough for the microphone to miss. I had to keep myself from laughing at the sudden realization that Dr. Bishop had a very, very faint Texan accent hidden in his deep voice. “Is something wrong, Dr. Bishop?” I asked, trying to keep my voice level. I wasn’t really sure what I’d already done, but it must have been serious. “Don’t mention my name, idiot!” Dr. Bishop hissed, pulling me out of my broom closet office and shutting the door with a forceful shove. The wood creaked against the too-small door frame, protesting the tight fit. Dr. Bishop cleared his throat awkwardly and straightened his tie. “This test is supposed to be, ah, anonymous. Our volunteer can’t know my name.” “Right. I’m sorry, sir,” I said slowly, recalling what he’d said earlier. Still, I didn’t really understand why the anonymity policy was so strict. I could see people casually trying to watch us from their own offices, looking far more interested in our discussion than in their work. I couldn’t blame them. “Dr. Stiles, I know you’re intelligent. You know we didn’t have you write up your will because this job is safe,” Dr. Bishop said, his voice almost a whisper. He looked me in the eye, and there was something so wild and desperate in his gaze that I couldn’t do anything other than stare at him. A month after earning my degree, Dr. Bishop himself had approached me and offered me the job. He’d known one of my professors, and apparently I’d made a good enough impression to land myself a recommendation. At the time, my student debt had been the only thing on my mind, and when I saw how much the job paid, I accepted without hesitation. From what I’d seen, the job itself was almost insultingly simple, but I couldn’t exactly turn down the money. Still, the too-easy, well-paying job didn’t quite sit right with my sensibilities. Something about it was too close to a free lunch. I didn’t understand what kind of danger I was in, and somehow I knew Dr. Bishop wouldn’t tell me even if I asked him. Instead of addressing the problem, I just laughed shakily, “That’s why you’re paying me the big bucks, sir.” “You aren’t sticking to the script, Dr. Stiles.” I shrugged. “The script wasn’t really working. They seemed a lot calmer when I just had a casual conversation for a bit instead of jumping directly into an interrogation.” “Do what you think is best,” Dr. Bishop said simply. He walked away, his lab coat swishing behind him. I made brief eye contact with a woman at the copier. She looked away quickly, her expression oddly sad and shuttered. I swallowed, trying to ignore the pervasive discomfort filling the hallway. My phone dinged in my back pocket. “I’m so proud of you, honey!” my mom’s reply text read. I slipped my phone away without answering. I struggled to force my office door open and sat down in my ancient office chair, trying to ignore the uneasy sense that something was very, very wrong with the person on the other side of the mirror. “Sorry about that!” The stranger was silent, but I could hear them breathing close to the microphone. Maybe it was just the modulator, but something in the noise was so inhuman that the hairs stood up on my arms. I took a deep breath, calming myself down. Hysteria solved nothing. My voice showing none of my fear, I asked them, “What do you want to talk about?” They never answered me, and I couldn’t help feeling frustrated as I sat there in silence, waiting for something to happen. I ran into a familiar intern on my way to lunch. “Oh, hey!” I called, quickly hurrying over to him. He looked up at my approach, his posture wary. “I wanted to thank you for the coffee. It hasn’t been too long since I was an intern myself, honestly, so I can always go get my own.” The intern’s expression relaxed into something far more open and friendly. “Oh, don’t worry about it. I know you’ve got a pretty important job, plus it’s got to be stressful working with Dr. Bishop.” He held out his hand, and I shook it somewhat awkwardly. “I’m William, William Davis. Call me Will.” “Henry Stiles,” I replied. “Want to get lunch together?” Will beamed, and it made me feel fluttery and nervous for some reason. “Yeah, sure! Normally I just eat something out of the vending machines, but there’s a cheap pizza place down the street that’s pretty good.” Will struck me as the kind of person who lived off peanut butter and orange juice and considered it healthy living. The pizza place in question was just one of those cheap buffet types, but Will looked so excited that I couldn’t find it in my heart to complain. We sat down across from each other in a set of red, beat-up booths, the space so tight that my knees bumped the underside of the table. My shoes, business-casual and purchased just for my new job, stuck to the floor. “What’s it like?” Will asked as soon as we settled, his voice hushed and fervent. “What’s what like?” I asked, taking the time to shower my greasy pizza in fake parmesan. Will leaned over the table, lowering his voice even further. “You know, working with *the subject.*” “I didn’t realize it was such a big deal,” I admitted. Why had they given the job to me, someone with so little experience, if it was so important? Will nodded and spoke around a mouthful of cheese, “No, it’s a huge deal. Kind of a shame, though, since the people who work with your participant never really stick around long. There was a really nice lady named Faith who worked here before you. I never really figured out what happened to her, but she used to bake stuff for everyone in the office.” “I’m not sure I can carry the mantle of baking for the whole office,” I joked, even though my thoughts were humming along as fast as they could. Why would anyone leave, with the amount I was being paid? Danger, but from what? “Will,” I said, and something in my voice must have seemed serious, because he immediately straightened in his seat. “What’s going on with this place?” Will cringed. “Dude, I’ve got no clue. I’ve been working there for about four months, and it’s creepy as hell, if I’m being honest. The work experience is good, but I’m thinking about quitting anyway. Faith, um, she was really nice, but right before she left, I just—” Will stuttered. He swallowed and collected himself. “She started getting really spacey and weird. She talked about work a lot more than usual, and I remember she started getting here before anyone else and wouldn’t leave until everyone was gone.” “Maybe something was going on at home,” I suggested, even though the words rang false to my own ears. “Maybe,” Will conceded, resting his chin on his fist and looking down at the table. “But I don’t really think that’s everything. Dr. Bishop kind of creeps me out, too, but in a different way. He’s really intense, but he wasn’t always that way, apparently. He’s always in charge of scouting new people to interview your participant, so I guess maybe he’s tired of having to hire new help so often. Still, it’s kind of weird that no one can figure out why he hires the people he does,” Will said, almost talking to himself. I sat back and let him, more enlightened than I’d been since I was hired. “Every person is completely different. Faith didn’t have a doctorate like you, and she’d never had a job like that before. Her previous job had been as a piano teacher.” “What?” I cut in. “Really?” Will nodded, tracing his initials in the condensation gathering on his drink. “Maybe it’s stupid, but I think he hires friendly people.” “You flatterer,” I deadpanned, unsure if he was kidding or not. Will snorted back a laugh. “No joke. Every person he’s hired for the job has apparently been really nice. Or good at getting people to open up, if nothing else. You’re kind of awkward in a non-judgemental way. It makes you easy to talk to.” “I wish my participant thought that way. I feel like I’m talking to a brick wall,” I muttered. I glanced at my watch and realized that my lunch break was almost over. “Hey,” Will said quietly. “Look, I know this might come out a little weird, but I’m going to say it anyway.” He swallowed and looked up at me, a crease forming in his brow. “Get out of here if things start getting...scary. I don’t know what’s going on, but I know that something is.” “You too, Will,” I replied. The conversation felt too heavy for a pizza parlor, and I shook myself mentally to clear my head. “We should have lunch again soon, and not just so I can hear office gossip.” “I think I’d like that. See you around, Henry,” Will said, giving me a bright smile like he had earlier. Despite our heavy conversation, the look on his face brightened my mood enough to shove $10 into the tip jar at the front counter. I walked back to my office, already resigned to sit in silence in front of my participant. They didn’t answer me that day or the next, but when I sat down in my office chair a week later, I heard that familiar voice in a tone so quiet I could barely catch the words. “I want to talk about my family.” I was so shocked by the sudden capitulation that I didn’t even have time to respond before the topic snowballed, their voice growing louder and more confident. “I have a large family, so large that I have trouble remembering all their names and faces. I feel like the whole world is my family, sometimes, like in some way I’m related to every person. I can’t say who I’m closest to, because when I think back, sometimes I think I was closer to my mother, but then I remember being closer to my father. I think sometimes I misremember things, or maybe my memories can’t carry the weight of so many people.” That was concerning on multiple levels, but I tried to ignore the actual content of the participant’s speech for the time being. “Well, can you remember a specific event that’s a happy memory for you? You don’t have to have a favorite person to appreciate your loved ones. You can love them equally, or you can cherish certain memories with them.” The stranger paused for a beat, mulling over my words. “I remember a family dog, or maybe more than one. I don’t know. I can’t remember. I know I loved that dog, but I can’t remember what we named it, or what happened to it.” “That’s okay, too,” I lied, even though something was wrong in a way I didn’t think I could help. Levelly, I asked them a question Dr. Bishop had been nagging me about for the past week. “Where are you from?” “I’m from many places. I travel lots. You mentioned Kansas; I remember living there once and enjoying the quiet. I remember riding down a country road and seeing cows everywhere.” “Sounds like Kansas to me,” I commented. “Kansas is pretty quiet, but I think that’s what’s nice about it. I liked to sit on my roof and watch the stars at night, when the sky was so clear and crisp it seemed like you could reach out and grab them.” “I remember the stars, too,” the stranger replied, something contemplative and melancholy in the words. “Will you be my friend, Henry Stiles?” The modulator distorted my name into something demonic. “That’s Dr. Stiles to you,” I said, my voice thin and reedy to my own ears. I knew I’d never given the stranger my name, and I knew that no one would have mentioned it, since the anonymity policy was so strict. “Besides, you have me at a disadvantage. I don’t know your name.” “That’s okay! I don’t know my name, either!” the participant chirped, cheerful for perhaps the first time. Their voice didn’t sound right in anything other than a flat, level murmur. I paused. There was something here, balanced on a knifepoint, and some primal instinct told me to choose my words carefully. “What name do you want?” “I want your name, Henry.” The stranger on the other side of the mirror trailed my name with a syllabant hiss. I got the feeling they were very close to the glass. I stared my own reflection in the eye, a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. Some part of my brain was screaming about my conversation with Will, about how Faith had changed so much in so little time. Without my permission, my mouth formed the words, “Take it.” The stranger laughed and refused to speak for the rest of the day. It gave me a lot of time to think, which was possibly a bad thing. I had so many questions, and the security clearance for none of the answers. Who was I speaking to? More importantly, why? The camera watched me intently, and for the first time I wondered why I was the one who couldn’t see through the one-sided mirror. When I left for work, Dr. Bishop met me at the door. There was something sad and lonely in his face. “Dr. Bishop,” I said, even though I had nothing to really say to the man. He looked up, because of course he did, and I shifted awkwardly for a moment. “Um, sir, have you ever worked with my participant?” Dr. Bishop stuck his hands in his pockets, looking away from my face. “No, I’ve never had the pleasure. I hear it’s an experience, but I’m not allowed. I’m...biased.” I got the feeling he was lying, mostly because he was a bad liar, but I couldn’t bring myself to call him out on it. “Biased?” I asked instead, hoping he’d elaborate, if nothing else. “Have a good evening, Dr. Stiles.” I just nodded, my throat dry. I decided to bring my mom takeout and eat with her. All I could hear in the silence was my name, whispered over and over again in that scrambled voice. I didn’t really want to be alone with my thoughts. I didn’t want to think about my participant any longer. I got lost on the way to my mother’s house, even though I’d been visiting the address for five years. After wandering in the dark, wooded roads for a good hour, I pulled my car over and sat on the hood, eating all the takeout myself and staring at the stars. It felt like home. After I finished eating, I decided to go back to work and wait until the doors unlocked. At least I’d be early, just like Dr. Bishop preferred. I shot my mom a text saying I was working late and apologized for not eating dinner with her. Before she had a chance to respond, I turned my phone off and threw it in the floorboard of my car. I couldn’t think of anyone I possibly needed to talk to, barring my job with my participant. When I walked into work the next morning, I could hear whispering all around me. I hoped it was normal gossip instead of he-just-lost-his-job gossip. Will stopped for a second when he greeted me at the door, my daily espresso clutched in one hand while the other hand worried at the hem of his shirt. “Hey,” he said quietly, his eyes roving my face for some piece of information I didn’t have. “Are you feeling okay?” I smiled, trying to ease his nerves. “I’m just tired, I think. I’ll be okay after I start working.” He handed me my drink, at which point I resisted the urge to gulp the entire thing at once. “You want to meet me for lunch today?” Will asked tentatively. “I think we should—I think we should get out of here, you know?” I winced. “Sorry, but I think I’m going to have to work through lunch today. Some other time, okay?” I didn’t stick around to see the look on his face. I slipped into my office as quietly as I could with my broken door and cleared my throat into the microphone. “Good morning. How are you feeling today?” “Did you know that Dr. Bishop has a daughter that moved far away and forgets to call? He doesn’t blame her, but he misses her a lot, especially since his wife died.” I coughed. “I’m sorry?” “Don’t be sorry. You weren’t there. He’s so scared of me. I miss our chats, but now I’m friends with you,” the stranger purred, their discordant voice slipping over the words. I opened my mouth, but nothing came out. The stranger continued speaking in an oddly clear tone. “He has nightmares of speaking to me, so he stopped. He says he doesn’t know what will happen, but that’s a lie. He knows very well, and he’s afraid.” “What’s going to happen to Dr. Bishop?” I whispered. “He thinks about me more than his dead wife, now. He’s scared, all the time. Maybe his daughter will visit him. I’m lonely, too, just like Dr. Bishop. Will you visit me, Henry?” I stood up so quickly that I knocked my office chair over. Sweat suddenly drenched my forehead, and my skin felt too tight for my body. “Please visit me. I know you’re curious. You can’t figure out who I am, and it eats at you. You have so many questions about Faith, about Dr. Bishop, about me. Why don’t you visit me, and I can answer every question you’ve ever had?” My head spinning, I picked up the office chair and pitched it through the one-way mirror. It smashed through to the other side, but I didn’t look at it. I just kept my eyes on my feet and tried to focus on my breathing. My skin prickled with anticipation. “How violent,” the stranger said, far closer than before. I looked up. The voice was not modulated, and had never been. They were every person I’d met, a face of every simultaneous thought pulsing and shifting into amorphous figures. Staring hurt, but I couldn’t tear my eyes away. Their eyes, deeper than the stars I’d felt so at home with, pushed and pulled like a kaleidoscope. When they spoke, I heard my mother on her wedding day, at her father’s funeral, the day she was born. I reached up to my own face, feeling a warm mixture of blood, tears, and spinal fluid. The blood vessels in my eyes and nose had ruptured. I didn’t want to think about where the spinal fluid was coming from. The stranger leaned forward, their countless eyes unblinking. “It’s nice to meet you, Henry Stiles. We remember that we liked our mother best.” The stranger tilted their head, and even though I was right in front of them, I couldn’t tell what their hair looked like. “We remember living in Kansas, looking up at the stars at night. We remember swimming with the manatees in Florida.” The stranger’s face flickered, their lips moving out of sync with their words. “Hello, Henry. My name is Faith, and my family dog was named Daisy. She was a poodle, and I remember teaching her to play dead. I used to work here, but now I get to live with all my friends. Does Dr. Bishop still work here, too? He doesn’t visit anymore.” “Who are you?” I rasped, my voice glued in my throat. My eyes burned, and my head was starting to throb. Even when I tried to look away, their awful face was burned into an afterimage that followed me with its eyes. “I’m you now, Henry,” the stranger replied, their voice serene and calm. It grated against my ears until they pulsed, then numbed. “You are here because you want to be, Henry. I know it’s uncomfortable now, but take our hand.” I remembered when I was nine, sitting next to my mother, eating popcorn. We were watching a marathon on conspiracy theories. I’d always liked Mothman, myself. I hoped my mother wouldn’t miss me too badly when I was gone, and I felt a momentary pang of guilt for accidentally eating her takeout. She’d be okay without me... Right? I pitched forward and let the stranger catch me, and when we righted ourselves, there was a sense of perfect equilibrium we’d never felt before. An alarm blared in the hallway, and the security camera, omniscient as always, followed our every move. We shuffled through the broken glass for the old office chair and sat down, waiting for the next participant to step into our testing booth. We had so many more friends to make before we were finished.


Move to the city for a few years and make enough money to buy a home in the country to last them a lifetime. In and out like a bank robbery. Robert taking the architecture firm he worked for, for all he could, and Shannon doing the same with the prestigious events company she worked for. They knew going in this was a decade-long plan. They were a smart, educated couple that grew up working class. They achieved where their peers floundered, giving them a shot at living better than their parents ever did. Regular vacations pinched at their savings, as did the cost of living in the city so close to their offices. They had idle plans to marry one day. Children weren’t a want or concern. If it happened, it happened. Promotions at work were on the horizon for both of them. And still neither felt committed to city life. It seemed too good to be true. Real life would come crashing in, wouldn’t it? Nights out on the town would become nights in, wouldn’t they? Diaper changes. Homemade dinners. Losing contact with friends. Vacations no more than screensavers on laptops to be idled over every few years. It had been years since they last talked about leaving city life behind. Staying had become a forgone conclusion. Both were masters at avoiding the hard questions in favour of distraction. But then…would they become the middle-agers like their employers before them? Would they become the broad faced alcoholics in denial? The ones trying to hold onto their youth by using their work influence as a means to stay close to the new blood in the companies they worked for? The new blood would become their child surrogates? And their friends too? And then one day the new blood would become the old blood too? The cycle repeating itself over and over? This was the inevitable future. It had to be. They worked far too hard to maintain what they already had to be ignorant of that. It wasn’t as if a clean break were possible. There would be leaving parties, and a transition of responsibilities, and the ever present feeling of wanting to stay after all. They knew they wouldn’t be young forever, yet they simply didn’t want to leave. They would have to wait until next year at least to even start thinking about leaving seriously. They were going to Dubai for vacation in two months, and Robert’s firm had won an exciting bid with a Chinese company with a fetish for outlandish spending. And didn’t Shannon owe it to herself to maintain her position in her company? She had worked long and hard to get out of her stuffy little cubicle, and now wasn’t it her right as a kind-of feminist to keep it? At the very least she couldn’t give her position up without serious consideration. She was a core influence in team meetings, codes of conduct, workshops and seminars and, best of all, recruitment. The company had handed her the keys to power without the messy accountability. There was always a job to be done. If there wasn’t she would dream up something knew to do to occupy her time, and consequently everyone else’s time. She honestly couldn’t ever see herself giving up this kind of power and control willingly. The greatest threat to all Shannon and Robert worked for came in the form of a viral outbreak in several far off countries. The virus was coined the ‘Bullire Virus’ by the media. The virus symptoms reminded Shannon of the bubonic plague she had learned about at school. The Bullire Virus expressed itself as a large pus-filled boil which could emerge anywhere on the head, face, or body. The boil varied in size from as small as a marble to as big as an apple. Shannon paid little heed to the growing concern over the Bullire Virus even as cases began to crop up in the city. But in two months the virus went from a fringe novelty joked about during team meetings, to a very present concern across the world. Shannon held two seminars on new work safety standards to keep safe from the virus. Despite these seminars one member of staff after another in increasing escalation was diagnosed as positive with the Bullire Virus. These members of staff were immediately sent home with their pay at a reduced, but still very much liveable rate. Shannon would have worked from home right away if not for her responsibility as role model for her co-workers and the new blood. However with just essential staff in the office Shannon found herself with very little to do besides making plans for when things would return to normal. The back of Shannon’s right calf itched something fierce. Sat in her spacious office Shannon checked her fingernails and saw there was blood beneath the nails on her right hand. Shannon looked to her calf and saw what she was sure hadn’t been there not an hour before: a bulbous bullire boil the size of a golf ball. A single line of blood leaked from the edge of the boil where Shannon had scratched and dug in deep with her nails. Shannon had been disgusted by the media images of the Bullire Virus boils, but now it was on her own skin she felt a deep revulsion. The boil itself looked tender and fragile, almost translucent with the pus visible within. Shannon knew pus was nature’s band-aid; a means to smother a possible infection in an attempt to keep it from spreading, but that didn’t make it any less upsetting to look that. For Shannon the boil was almost too big and obscene to take seriously. It looked like some special effect from a cheap horror movie. Shannon cleaned up with wet wipes and used a first aid kit bandage to cover the boil. This made the boil itch even worse than before. Shannon’s eyes watered from the effort it took to ignore the call to itch as she arranged for a cab to come pick her up outside the office. Once home Shannon ran a hot bath and sat on the edge of the bath trying to muster the courage to submerge herself, and the boil, into it. It was known the boils, though fragile looking, were actually quite tough, and very resistant to heat. Shannon felt immense pain and relief as she eased the boil beneath the hot bath water. She sat in the bath for two hours, occasionally adding more hot water and letting some drain to keep it from overflowing in the tub. She stayed until her hands and feet were pruned and she was sure staying in any longer would do more harm than good. Once she was dried and towelled off Shannon called Robert. She told him she had the Bullire Virus. “Just don’t scratch it or it will spread.” Robert told her, parroting the advice everyone now knew. Shannon asked Robert what he intended to do now she had the virus. “I’ll stay in the office for the next few days.” Robert said, then added, “There’s only a handful of us working on my floor anyway.” Over the following three days Shannon’s boil continued to itch. Shannon barely slept. She sought distraction in her work but the itching made long periods of concentration fleeting. Her usual comfort shows ceased to engage her attention. Finally Shannon turned to what always worked when she needed a distraction: drink. One glass of wine became two, and within just one evening she finished a bottle and a half of wine. Later Shannon woke on the living room couch in her pink pyjamas, with one leg draped over the covers she brought down from the bedroom. The stale smell of alcohol filled the room as Shannon remembered where she was and all she had drank. Then the itching began again. It never stopped, but Shannon was awake now to notice it. And now the itching was twice as intense as before. Shannon eased upright on the couch and felt the back of her neck where it seemed half of the call to itch resided. Shannon’s palm cupped what felt to her like a shell-less boiled egg still warm and slippery. Shannon used her phone to see what she knew was already there: a thick, pus-filled boil. Shannon looked to her right calf. The boil that was there before had popped. Dried pus residue and blood coated the back of her right leg down to the heel. Beside the gooey crater of the popped boil was a new, golf ball sized boil. Shannon ran another piping hot bath and sunk herself into it. The pain temporarily kept the itching at bay so she had time to think. Shannon wrestled with indecision over whether to call Robert. She decided against it. There wasn’t anything he could do. It was better she deal with it on her own until he returned from work. The itching only grew worse, prompting Shannon to open and drink more wine. Days passed with Shannon in a state of drunken delirium. She made sure to drink just often enough to stay drunk to handle the worst of the urge to itch, but also just sober enough not to make the mistake of scratching her boils without meaning to. There were several close calls, but the fear of having even more of these hellishly itchy boils on her skin kept her mind just sharp enough to avoid that danger. On the seventh day Shannon stirred awake on the bathroom floor, having spent much of the early morning hours vomiting into the toilet. Her throat both burned and felt parched as she reached for her phone. There still hadn’t been a single message or voicemail from Robert. Shannon climbed to her feet and slurped some tap water like she did when she was a child. She then wiped her forearm and pressed Robert’s name on her phone. The call went straight to voicemail. Shannon sent several messages throughout the afternoon into early evening. There was no response. The boils were singing their itching song; and Shannon ignored them, albeit with increasingly maddening difficulty. The creams she lathered the boils in weren’t working at all. Come seven o’clock Shannon dressed and took an expensive cab ride to Robert’s work building. As far as she could tell the cabdriver was boil free. And Shannon was thankful her own boils were easy to hide. Shannon stepped out of the cab into the empty city street. The night air was cool and crisp. It made her want to both drink and smoke. There was no security in the lobby. Shannon knew the way up to Robert’s floor. Shannon stepped out of the elevator to find the office floor with all its cubicles empty. The lights were dim. Shannon called out for Robert and received no answer. Shannon’s shoes thumped on the office carpet as she passed one cubicle after another. She reached Robert’s office at the far end of the office floor. From outside looking in she could see a lamp was lit on Robert’s desk. And she could see the glare from Robert’s computer screen. Shannon flinched: there was pornography playing silently on the computer. Shannon looked inward. ‘Not again’, she thought. Shannon felt stupid for thinking something truly ghastly could have happened to Robert. He was simply back to his old ways again. It hurt to think he would still do this to her. That he could still put his own indulgences ahead of her. But Shannon knew where her line was. Robert had never cheated. She’d forgiven him for his worst indulgences before. It wasn’t because she was a forgiving person. She wasn’t. She knew she could be downright vindictive, childish, and spiteful, even over trivial things. But she knew what was fair, and she knew that she would be a hypocrite to cry fowl play over Robert and his weaknesses, whilst he never questioned how much she smoked, and drank. Shannon wondered how she had gotten here. Standing outside an empty office. She felt like her past was nothing more than one big joke. And her future was whatever she walked into. In this moment she saw herself as little more than meat and bone in the shape of a human being. Everything was pointless, wasn’t it? Nothing happened for a reason, did it? Yet why did she feel like she was being punished? Why did she feel a kind of comfort in the sadness she felt? Did she feel she deserved this? That this humiliation was inevitable? Was this shame in some way cathartic? When had their relationship become this? When had they stopped trying to better themselves? When had they become the picture perfect couple of codependency? Shannon spotted a strip of golden light down the otherwise dark corridor to her right. The light was coming from the men’s lavatory. Shannon, sensing some trepidation in herself, made an effort to walk briskly toward it. Shannon eased open the lavatory door. She entered, and turned a sharp corner. She could now see Robert. There he was on the lavatory floor. Curled up and barely moving. He lay surrounded in a pool of yellow liquid laced with red. Like custard and strawberry jam. Robert’s body, neck, and face were coated in popped boil craters weeping pus. And there were at least a dozen new boils that she could see. Robert must have heard her enter. He looked up, clearly in pain. As soon as Shannon and Robert made eye contact, Robert began to weep like a child. Shannon didn’t let herself react to this, though she felt like there were fishhooks in the corners of her mouth tugging downward. This wasn’t the time for tears. Shannon cleaned Robert, and dressed the worst of the boil craters. She found him in just his underwear, so she had to carefully dress him back into his work clothes which she noticed he had taken the time to dress out of and hang on a coat hanger atop one of the interior toilet stall doors. The news had shown that many men and women found themselves addicted to popping their boils. The pain mixed with the pleasure, mixed with a secreted chemical from the boil proved to be a vice for those susceptible to it. Shannon wondered what it must feel like to be awake when the boil was popped. If Robert was willing in his addictive impulse to do this to himself for that pleasure, then it must feel, at least in the moment, worth the pain and regret that was sure to follow. Shannon considered taking Robert to a hospital, but on closer inspection she could see the boil wounds looked worse than they were. There was a strong risk of infection, but beyond the revolting amount of pus the blood loss was minimal as to not be a major concern. It took an hour to get Robert out of the lavatory, into and down the elevator, and out of the building. A new cab and cab driver was waiting for them. Shannon paid triple the going rate, which was already exorbitant, to bribe the cab driver into taking them home. Once they were in the cab and moving Robert sat slumped into Shannon with his head on her shoulder. The empty city and its lights passed by their window. It was a long ride home. After much thought and soul searching Shannon said softly, “We need to get out, Robert.” “Okay.” Robert said, his eyes still closed. He was exhausted from what he had done to himself, but he was lucid enough to know exactly what she meant, and he couldn’t’ve agreed more. It seemed fate, or God, or even the Bullire Virus itself had a direct hand in making the clean break for them. The Bullire Virus brought industry across the world to a crawl. Shannon and Robert handed in their resignations via email. Besides several furious calls from bosses and co-workers there was little to be said and done. Robert’s boils went away slowly over the following weeks. During this time both turned to smoking as their vice of choice. Shannon had drunk all of the wine they had in their home, and from that day on neither replenished their stock. Later they would acknowledge their unspoken agreement to give up alcohol altogether. Perhaps if either of them had acknowledged what they were doing in the moment, they might have talked themselves out of abstinence. One boil reduced in size and was gone once per week, until only one boil remained. Shannon with the boil on the back of her neck. Robert with a boil on the inside of his left thigh, which was an unfortunate spot that often chaffed. The one boil they each had left would never leave them, no matter how many weeks went by. Shannon and Robert were out in their new backyard. They could see the city from their new home far away in the country. Their days were occupied with making the most of their downsized home. They found the boils that remained didn’t itch so bad now they were away from the city. Perhaps the air was cleaner. Over dinner six months since they left the city, Robert idly brought up the question of whether they would ever move back to the city, or even visit for a day or two. They had burned many bridges, but they still had friends there, and there was always something new going on. Shannon even entertained the idea, and more than once they were on the verge of booking a ticket for a train to take them into the city. But they never did go back. \- for more from me.


There is a little island by the train tracks that Foster and Elgton find themselves on course to. At night time you can see the lights of eleven bridges, each seemingly having their own preferred pattern of colored lights hung where the girders met. In the minds of Foster and Elgton, an acquaintance was synonymous with an unpaid employee. Now, friends, they would both tell you, work for each other, an outlet to trust in a little what goes around comes around. Foster and Elgton were friends. They were going to meet an acquaintance. Magnus. Their mission objective this bridge-lit evening was to suck on cigarettes like Tyler Durden or how they do in the Billy Wilder movies. They caught Magnus smoking cigarettes behind the dumpsters between the third and fourth period and they made as they cared about the kid for long enough to matter. Magnus said he could get the two smokes, when Foster had asked he used the term “Bogies” and said there was a cool little spot down by the train station where you can see the lights of all the bridges at night. Now in years end New York a stone's throw from Christ’s “birthday” it can go from diurnal to dystopian dark during the time it takes the private-school seasoned boys to catch their end of the day relief. Foster and Elgton’s patience department was scant and threatened the restless ticks of foot-bobbing and arm movements performed above the waistline. Today they wanted the cigarettes and Magnus had them. Magnus wanted friends and Foster and Elgton had them. The destination approaches, marked by an abandoned magazine publisher’s office that for some reason, most likely due to the resemblance of spirit-tortured psychiatric hospital clad with the usual moss and mold. Rumors had circulated around the school that the thing was now infested with rats and homeless crack-heads, a paradise for cops meeting quota. There was a reason such an obvious spot was never utilized as a weed smokers Valhalla. The pot-addled mind isn’t *that* stupid. Tonight isn’t about pot. The train station demarcates a sort of spiritual end of this trip. The boys know that just over the crest of the hilled parking lot is a little patch of white sand and a couple of benches, known as the island, though in no way having the geological qualifiers for being an actual island. For some reason, every stage for illicit activity is termed after some natural formation. The one about a half-mile up the road from the school, and a short hike through the woods is the River. There is no river at the River. There are the plains at the town's other train station, hidden behind overgrowth and an “electric” fence. Along with a couple esoterically known destinations like the Canyon, the Wall and the Pillars were mythically heard in passing. To get across the train tracks you can go via tunnel or bridge, and the entrances to both are paradoxically located right next to each other. They split up, Elgton taking the overpass, Foster opting to go subterranean. The brief ablation is suggested jocularly by Foster teasing the absurdity of the structure's design. It seemed like a lot of unnecessary work for an inconsequential preference. They emerge on the other side greeted with an extra coronad figure next to the meaty, precociously mustached, scoliosically slouched, garbed in a wool trench coat which obscured his pants. He wore camel-colored Timberlands with a black leather half-crescent on the back. In fact, they all were, causing the convocation to occur two inches above their genetically disposed heights. The figure next to him is wearing only a t-shirt, plain-white but speckled with artifacts of former excursions with greasy food. Included in the outfit are mesh basketball shorts, and of course, Timberlands. The cold wind seems to disagree with Magnus’s large ears and nose both screaming a vibrant red, though the other figure looks unfazed, as if Winter doesn't exist because he doesn’t believe in it. When the faces of each party are no longer obscured by distance, Magnus and the other figure begin to approach to expedite initial contact. Foster nods his head with downturned eyebrows toward the direction of the uninvited guest. “Well it’s about time you guys showed,” Magnus says with a hint of jest, trying either to impress the boys with his nonchalance, or his brother for actually having friends close enough where he can say corny cliches like that. Foster takes his hands out of his pockets which immediately recoil and become harder to maneuver. “We’re here,” Foster says it sarcastically wide-eyed. “This is my brother, he brought us the cigarettes,” Magnus said motioning. “I’m his brother, I bought you the cigarettes.” The chemical stricken throat makes noises resembling a wheeze. Like if the crack of lightning had a novelty computer-generated text-to-speak. Foster again flashes two wide eyes sarcastically with a flat smirk, manipulating his uncertainty into irony, it’s a defensive move but he’s too immature to see it as anything but being cooler than thau. Elgton doesn’t seem to pay any mind to the redundancy. He is known amongst his friends, Foster included as disorientingly aloof. “So… are we going to smoke ‘em?” Foster asks skeptically. “Yeah, we’ll smoke ‘em, if you still want them, since you guys are young and all I’ll give you some first-hand experience from someone who made the exact mistake you guys are about to make.” “Jesus Christ I get enough PSA’s from school and my parents,” replies Foster. “Nah, yo I’m certain you haven’t heard anything like this, I’d bet my life on it.” Foster sighs, he thinks he’s heard it all before. “Whatever you say older-Magnus.” “Story starts a little while back, call it four or five years ago. I had this buddy Big Man, met him he was sitting on a hammock in a little part of the woods the older guys used to smoke at across town. This lard ass was sleeping in the hammock, with two full packs of smokes underneath. So I figure, the snoring’d indicate he’s incapacitated so I reach down for a smoke--” “What are you doing there by yourself?” Elgton asks. His way of conveying attentiveness is to interject with insubstantial questions. “I was supposed to meet a friend there to smoke a doob.” “You say doob?” Elgton asks. “An Indian buddy of mine called joints doobs, I guess I picked it up.” He took off his shoe to empty a pebble. Pebbles seem to teleport inside of Timberlands. “I swear I gestured for the cigarettes and he wakes up and looks at me with these bug eyes, bloodshot with fatigue, and mumbled something like, ‘did you touch my arm,’ I told him of course I didn’t. He turned over and I figured let me try this again, that was weird, he’s turned over and I reach for them again, I swear once I crossed into his personal radius he turns over again and goes, ‘Now you’re just fucking with me you definitely touched my arm.’ That was like the first indicator that this guy had like this connection with cigarettes like they weren’t just cigarettes to him. “Anyway, I fessed up, told him I reached for the cigarettes, he said it was weird and whatnot, he asks if I want one, I do of course, I had already been smoking for a year or two at the time, so I take one, and I shit you not, he just grabs five of ‘em and sticks ‘em in there. Couldn’t hold it between his index and middle fingers like anyone who wants to look like they been there done that. He has to make a circle with his thumb and stick ‘em all in there. "So he tells me to come meet him there, he doesn’t really have anyone to smoke with, he’s a cool guy, he’s got a hammock so I say fuck it, and I end up meeting him there ever once or twice a week. The man was a fiend occupying every orifice of the word, I mean, he had one of those ammo belts that slings over both shoulders, with packs of cigarettes from top to bottom, must’ve had twenty packs with him at all times.” As he says the number his hand slices through the air. “And he would just chain-smoke with me, no less than three at a time, but I’ve seen him go as high as twenty, a whole pack, at one time. Hold on it gets crazier.” He says in response to a glint in Elgton’s eye of reluctant belief. Foster remains cross-armed. “Didn’t he know he would get cancer?” Elgton asks. “There don’t exist a smoker who doesn’t. He used to always throw these phrases at me like, ‘I’m banking on them curing lung cancer before I get it,’ and ‘what slowly kills you makes you harder.’ Sometimes he’d even say ‘cancer schmancer’ and his eyes tell you that it’s like a subconscious response like the idea just bounces off him. What the man was truly scared of was emphysema having to carry around a tank of oxygen all the time. He developed a phobia of sorts to reliant breathing, used to go scuba diving with his dad every now and then in the Caribbean he couldn’t even do that anymore.” At this point Foster is getting impatient, he starts bobbing his heel. “Does this story have an end?” Foster asks. With both hands up in a downward swiping motion, Magnus’s brother responds, “Put a leash on your alleycat big guy, the balls in my court remember?” He jiggles the pack of blue American Spirits like dangling cheese over a mouse. “Now this is back during years of mine that I’m glad to have put behind me, and I may or may not have fed into this psychotic vice of Big Man’s. I’d film him doing smoke tricks, personal challenges, all the while his eyes develop this vapidness but I’m none the wiser. It’s only in retrospect you see how stupid you were you know? But…” He sighs, “I kept egging him on and the videos got more or more absurd.” “Can we see them?” Foster asks showcasing a curiosity fueled excitement that maturity teaches you to conceal, it’s the first time during the story he shows an ounce of enthusiasm. “Haven’t had them in a long time. Even if I did I wouldn’t show you.” He thinks the comment despicable and recoils. “This is when things get ridiculous. We, or he rather, went through this phase of trying to conquer any cigarette pertained world record. I mean speed smoking, number smoking, chain-smoking, anything, I think the craziest shit I saw that man do was smoke 161 cigarettes at once breaking the previous record of 155, then some Chinese lunatic counters with 170 cigarettes, and Big Man, well, he didn’t want to leave the opportunity for anyone to flirt with even the chance, smoking 277 cigarettes at once, and don’t even ask me how he fit them all into his mouth.” He hooks two fingers of each hand around each cheek and pulls, harder than would seem comfortable. “Yeah.” He pauses for longer than necessary if it were just to catch his breath or organize his thoughts. Foster asks thinking the end has been reached, “If you’re so scarred by the whole thing why haven’t you kicked the habit?” “You say it like it’s easy kid. You’re trying to apply logic to an illogical vice. The answer you’re looking for is a whole nother story entirely, and I wouldn’t want to encroach on your patience. Let’s just say it takes a female to quit, and a female to suck you back in.” Magnus’s brother was encouraged by Foster’s reactionary stare, unadulterated by eyes or human figures, blankly pointed at the impressionistic tide-strewn reflection of the myriad bridges in eyeshot. “Now if I could finish. A day or so after this behemoth record of his, notarized by myself, we caught up in the woods we met in, for the traditional chain smoke. He called me up early sometime before noon, I remember because I had a 12:30 blood draw, had to be out of there when the hands overlapped XII, never liked keeping time with electronics so I had an analog watch with the roman numerals. He told me he hadn’t slept the night before, looked like death per usual, wanted to social smoke to drain some energy. Even though he looked like death he kept complaining about not being able to smell, and ‘don’t get me started on what’s coming out of my asshole’ and I didn’t. At the time nothing seemed particularly off, with his type most physical ailments bypass the mental alarm. After that I didn’t hear from him for a while.” Magnus’s brother didn’t have so much as a nanosecond to even send the signal to inhale before Elgton asks, “What happened?” Foster still looks off into the distance, flickers of mental churning in the twitches of his eyes and facial muscles. Magnus draws circles in the sand with his Timberlands, they end up looking like flattened doughnuts. “I texted him--nothing, call him--nothing. Finally went by his house and his mom, not that she encouraged the return, sent me packing said he hadn’t been around since I last saw him. I’m no detective, and Big Man was no type to make finding him easy--if he wanted to escape that is. At this point I’m figuring fuck it that’s life right, might as well hop over to the OG smoking spot and reminisce for a bit. When I get there guess what I see?” “Big Man” Foster and Elgton reply at the same time though their tones out of two different area codes. “Not exactly, I see his pack of cigarettes under the hammock, which by the way I never found out if it was his or just permanently there.” Magnus’s brother cleared his throat and moved his leg as if releasing a fart although unclear even to Magnus who had the knowledge to teach a class on his brother's mannerisms. “I reach down to get me a free pack, and I see the hammock rustle. Up to this point there was no evidence there was anything in it, it just looked full of fallen leaves. All curled up and wet. I look inside and…” He holds a hand up to his face, the “and” before he trailed off had the weakened sound that words do when combined with a gag. “And I swear he was a goddamn cigarette!” “What?” Elgton asks in harmony with a what from Foster, the latter however ended with a “the fuck are you talking about.” Magnus cranes his head at the two eyes threatening to jump out of his head. “I’d show a picture of it too if I hadn’t thrown up on my phone, requiring a new one, after a second glance. It wasn’t pretty, I’m not talking cylindrical paper-wrapped tobacco. Think more mummy, though not wrapped, just paper, it was wet from the rain, the paper had ripped in more than a few locations, long cut tobacco sticking out like cotton from a torn stuffed animal--” There was evidence of a second gag. “And… bits and pieces of vital organs that were somehow hybridized to look like a wet tobacco leaf, still veiny, and fleshy, but strangely… fragrant. And mind you, leaking through these tears with the tobacco. At first, I just thought it was an attempt to create a life-sized cigarette to break a record or something, classic big man. But then squeaks out this voice, it sounded more like a wind gust shifting in speed, but I could make out, ‘cigarette… cigarette…’ So I reached into my pack to give him one, and he didn’t have eyes anymore, and ears that were in the process of transition, so I don’t know how he knew what I was doing but he said, ‘no… me.’ It took me a second to process what he was asking but I could let him sit there like that it was the most… I don’t really want to think about the image anymore. I, well, lit his backside, and stood there as he went up in smoke, slowly, methodically, from bottom to top, and he didn’t have a filter so at the end… that was it. I’ll never forget that burnt caramel smell” He looked like he would take a sip from a glass of whiskey if he had one. “Mom always said Big Man would smoke himself to death but… that wasn’t the way I interpreted it.” Magnus is still drawing circles in the sand, clearly having heard the story before and wishing to distance from it. Elgton looks like he just witnessed an extraterrestrial landing. Foster now focused on Magnus’s brother askance. A couple of moments go by and nobody has any idea what to do with their hands or tongues. Finally Foster breaks the silence, “That’s the stupidest story I’ve ever heard.” When the next train passes, four static figures puff the yellow-gray burnt caramel smoke of a freshly opened pack.


Awaken beneath I did. Beneath what? I said to myself. No word or picture could describe the feeling of that moment. Beneath was not a state of being but a state of mind. My body was under, but felt as though it was held on to by a thread. I knew I was no more, knocking on deaths door felt like home. Again like a warm summers night. When the smell of baking from inside clouds your mind. And all there is for that one moment is that smell of happiness and purity. As beneath as I was a thrust came from below. And my body felt tighter around what was now me. But what was now me? Where had I awoke. My being grew closer to my body. Not by sight, for all was dark. But then a burst of light as though the sky had split, or I had just behold an angel flying over head. I lay now on the ground. My back pressed on the cool sand in a way I had not felt since I was but a boy. My heart felt young. I felt as though I had reversed time itself as easily as one could rewind a song. My heart felt happy and young. But my heart was not whole. It felt as if I was grasping at my youth like the greedy reach for every last penny. He shall try but he shall never feel whole knowing there is always one more cent to find, one more stride to take in a race so futile. And the pain in that one instant seemed to drag me back into the sand I had risen from. But resist I did and stand I did, to behold a beach stretching onward. To where it went was beyond my mind. But not beyond my soul. For in my core I knew I was never to know where this place was or went on to be. The tide was out and the sand was wet and flat and stretched in all directions. For I could see no more than 100 yards through the Crystal white fog, and to my right, in the distance, the sea. I stood and walked toward the sound of slowly lapping waves. I knew the sea well from my hometown. It was like a bed to fall down on every night, or a friend who’s face was so long gone it was astonishing to see it was real, and not just a Dream so far and long gone. As I reached the water, I dipped in a finger. One finger so small and insignificant. I stood back and looked down. My feet were slipped into sandals made of leather, so tight and new. My chest was covered by a white shirt so soft and proper. As were my legs. After I had pondered the sea I looked to my flanks. My mind knew not what to do but my heart was like a light in the darkness. And with my right foot I began to walk. To where I was unsure but to walk was better than to stand. It was peaceful. I felt as though my legs were strong and could carry me on passed the fog and out into the beyond. But I knew there was no beyond. For I was on the edge of beyond. Beyond what? I said. And quickly I answered. “Passed all. Passed everything that is known. Passed all good and evil, passed all happiness and sadness, passed every hope and dream of every child.” But to be on the edge felt like the beginning. Like your earliest memory. Like the small space you could say you were truly happy. And each step stemmed to pull me away from who I was. My memories stayed but became like a spec of dust compared to the earth. So small and insignificant and unimportant. But like the finger I had dipped into the great sea of infinity it was all I had and all I could claim. And I realized to be at peace was to be acceptant that you were unimportant and small and that you made no difference. And that nothing you do will matter. And as quickly as the snap of a finger, I was beyond, i was passed all reality and everything I had ever believed to be true. And as I kept walking the seas started to rise but, I did not run. And slowly it took me out into the infinite sea. And before I went under but one though crossed my mind. The leap off the edge, was final and all, it made cowards, it made heroes, and it made good and evil. But to leap into the unknown is to become one. I had taken the leap, I had become One. Then the sea took me away in one quiet wave.


[MF] The Quilt The sound of the air conditioning was a soft hum and gentle breeze rolling across the skin of my cheeks as I laid in bed. Not quite powerful enough to really cover me in cool air, but not a disappointment either. My apartment is old, and the building is older. Boasting oddly narrow archways that once housed actual doors, I always found it mind blowing that this place was still standing. There’s no way it’s up to code. I close my eyes in the dark for a second, completely exhausted but unable to sleep, and reach out for the picture frame on my nightstand. It holds a picture of me and a man. Not just any man, but my love. We took it the first night we spent here, snuggled into our bed on a mattress on the floor with a flip cellphone. It’s amazing the picture even came out, those things were archaic even when they were brand new technology. My fingers trace the cool glass over the printed image of his body, and smile. Snuggled up under the thin quilt I fought to buy even though we had no money at the time, because I liked it so much. “What in gods name is so fucking great about a damn piece of fabric? I don’t get it.” “Just let me live. I can’t explain it. This needs to be on our bed. Please?” I remember flashing him my sweetest smile. He let me buy it. And it hasn’t left our bed since. Plain and soft and grey, there was just something about it. Kind of like how I felt about him. Simple but special, and so comforting. That’s the thing about a good blanket though. I would assume it’s why a lot of children opt to have one for security purposes. Something so innocuous can provide so much safety, in ways you can’t even imagine, until they come To pass. I suppose the same can be said about almost anything we develop a sentimental attachment to. I knew a girl once who had a lucky cup; took it everywhere with her. To me, it was just a cup, but to her it held liquid happiness. I’m not judging. It’s just funny what we develop attachments to. I reach down to pull it up higher as the air conditioning sends a chill down my spine. The clock reads 3:15 and I know I have to get some sleep. I put the picture back down and sink into the bedding. Languishing in it’s washed and worn cotton, it’s imaginary arms wrapped around me, and I felt my eyelids get heavy finally. Sometimes, on a good day, it still smells like him, and tonight luck is in my favor. Maybe that’s why I like it so much. I bring it firmly up to my nose, inhaling deeply, and whisper a goodnight to the other half of my bed. A bed now occupied only by me, and my quilt.


"Nanna-Meeska, I'm scared," murmured the little child, pulling the blanket on her rack up beneath her chin. Her eyes flicked from the older Valdarii to the nursery's doorway, a soft amber glow illuminating the access panel. The light indicated that the hatch was maglocked and sealed, but it did little to deaden the sounds of nearby gunfire. "I don't like that noise. I don't want to hear that noise. Can you tell them to be quiet? It's sleeping time..." Meeska smiled softly down at the girl from where she sat next to the bed. Scooting the chair a bit closer, she gently tucked the covers around Jana's shoulders. "Sleep now, little one. There's nothing to worry about..." Meeska lied, one hand brushing softly along the child's cheek. "Would you like me to play your lullaby-box?" Another burst of staccato gunfire came from the hall beyond the hatch, the weapon's type unrecognizable to the Valdarii elder. The fighting was getting closer, and it didn't sound like their token marine detachment was winning. "Please and thank you." Responded the child, her eyes big but (thankfully) calm. "Did you give thanks to the Divine Protector today?" Asked Meeshka, picking up the aged battle-rifle propped against the girl's rack and planting it in her own lap. Truthfully, she wasn't even sure if it still worked- it was a rarity that anyone even thought about the onboard weapons on their agri-ship, much less tested them. After all, it had been decades since any civilian vessel had been in contact with a hostile... The military arm of the fleet had seen to that, as they always had. "Yes, ma'am." Jana replied, squeezing her Ampersand plush toy under her arm. The toy resembled the Vindictive's mascot, an AI-driven biomechanical symbiote that was considered the 'Ships assistant.' "You are my best Shipmate!" Responded the toy enthusiastically. "It is now 2200 hours by shipboard chrono. It is time to rest so we can have more adventures tomorrow." "That's enough, Ampersand." Meeska murmured, tapping the top of the lullaby-box on the nightstand by Jana's rack. The simple gears turned, plucking out a quiet melody from within. From the hallway, another burst of weapons fire sounded, followed closely by several pairs of footsteps clattering down the corridor towards the fighting. "This is my favorite lullaby. What is your favorite song, Shipmate?" Meeska clenched her jaw momentarily, frustrated with the toy- it's extremely limited AI algorithms weren't imprinted with her voice commands, so it ignored her outright. "Let's put Amp over by the box, so he can listen better." Meeska stated, reaching for the little stuffed toy with it's micro-computer internals. "No!" Jana nearly shouted, clutching the stuffed symbiote tighter. "Ampersand always sleeps in the bed like me. He's scared to be alone." While not entirely true, the plush was fitted with a tracking device to help keep the child from dangerous parts of the vessel, and often reminded the girl that it needed to be with her because being alone was 'scary'... a hard truth for a Valdarii that was never farther than a few dozen paces from another member of the generational mega-fleet. "I love him and he loves me, too. You keep things you love safe." Ampersand-plush 18-83-196 responded to the squeeze with one of it's pre-programmed statements. "I am -so- glad you are my friend. You give the best hugs!" Meeska glanced away from the girl and her toy, her eyes watering slightly at the toy's statements. The fighting was getting closer, and she knew that the boarders wouldn't offer her or the child any quarter. She considered the weapon in her lap for a moment, before shaking her head. She would spare the child the horrors of slavery and deprivation, but only as a last resort. The Valdarii didn't give up so easily, but she couldn't allow the child to be taken away- her last act of kindness as Jana's minder would hard, but the Valdarii were hard people living a hard life among the uncaring stars. "Let's get ready to go, now. I'm going to go tell them to be quiet, while you get up, okay?" Meeska stated, lifting a hand to wipe at her eyes. She quickly shook the feeling of hopelessness, as despair had a habit of freezing one into inaction at the most inopportune times. "Warning: Deck 12 reports engagements with small arms. Please call your minder, so we can make sure we stay safe!" Replied Jana's toy, a little late on the report. Once again it ignored Meeska's statements, speaking directly to the younger girl. Its plastic visor displayed an illuminated map of the deck, with two junctions of corridor pulsing a deep crimson. A teal line traced a path to the access stairway leading to the other decks, with a small blue light flashing their current location. "Please follow the on screen instructions for safe path routing, Shipmate. Avoid the red indicators to prevent unnecessary dangers." "Nanna, Ampersand says we should leave." Murmured the girl, turning the toy towards her to eye the display. "Ampersand knows what's best. He's always right." Meeska had already stood, throwing the rifle's sling over her shoulder and allowing the firearm to hang under it's own weight. Flipping the selector from 'safe' to 'active,' she nearly jumped when the firearm whined in an almost supersonic pitch, gaussian rail system pulling power from the aging battery pack. Glancing down, she checked the power output- the numbers quickly scrolled from 100% down to 67%, an amber indicator showing two dead cells in the power pack. Better than she thought, considering the weapon was nearly 600 years old, and only a third-generation template. "Bring your emergency pack, and make sure you get Ampersand, too." Meeska said, walking towards the door. She typed a series of keystrokes on the hatch's access panel, stopping one digit away from completing the code. Glancing down at Jana, she offered a small smile to the girl. As directed, the child had strapped her escape survival pack to her back, with the Ampersand toy held in a double-armed hug in front of her. "We are going on a grand adventure! We must be careful, Shipmate. The ship is not safe, right now," intoned the toy, it's visor still displaying a map of the deck. After a moment, it added: "I am so glad you are with me! I would be very scared if you were not so brave! One day, you will make a great officer!" More Valdarii social programming and propaganda... They did, after all, start early. Jana frowned at the toy, holding it out and turning it around to face her. "Don't be scared, Ampy. The Vindictive will come and help us. It always comes and helps us, right Nanna?" Before she could respond, the toy spoke again, this time at about half-volume. "The Vindictive is approximately 145,000 kilometers distant at heading 118.3 by 6.55 by 0.5. By shipboard chrono, that is over an two hours away. That seems far, but in astronomic terms, it is almost touching-" "Shut up, Ampersand." Meeska grumbled to herself, tapping the final key to unlock the hatchway. "Minder Meeska, your comments have been logged and will be reported to your supervisor. Harsh language is not permitted around children before the age of 12." The Ampersand plush responded, almost smugly. Meeska highly doubted her supervisor would be worried about such things, in the moment. Grasping the rifle at the grip, Meeska held her hand back towards Jana, fingers splayed in a gesture of 'wait.' She activated the hatchway, which slid into the ceiling with a near-silent hiss of pneumatics. Gingerly, she poked her head into the corridor, which seemed all but deserted. The gunfire had subsided, but the crimson emergency lighting still pulsed at junctions in the hall- things were around terribly wrong on board, regardless of the silence.


The eerie silence permeating the large, tall room was possibly more disturbing than the repetitive, slightly creepy jazz music that the weird woman in the adjacent room was listening to. It wasn’t total silence, though, as it was periodically interrupted by the relentless, slow ticking of a clock high up on the wall. The room where Mr Flores had been waiting for quite a while already looked like the study of an intellectual; two tall bookshelves, spanning the whole width of the room (and probably its height, too), stood on the sides of the imposing door behind Mr Flores, lit by several soft yellow lights. They were bursting with books, yet very tidy nonetheless. In front of the bookshelf on Mr Flores’ right, quite far from him, were a few armchairs and a sofa, resting on a large, dark carpet. At about the same distance but on the opposite side was a large grand piano, with a couple of tall indoor plants around it. The walls were mostly empty, except for a few disquieting paintings of cloaked figures and skeletons visiting terrified, desperate-looking people, and the candelabra mounted symmetrically next to each of the large, Gothic windows. Nothing in that room, or the adjacent one, felt particularly normal; things looked normal (except perhaps the paintings), but that’s not the feeling they gave Mr Flores. Not even the desk—an exquisitely elegant, dark brown writing desk, clearly an antique—felt quite normal, although there was nothing strange in its appearance. Few ornaments were orderly arranged on it, dividing short rows of equally tidily arranged books, probably appointment diaries. An ancient-looking quill and an ink pot sat on the desk, right next to a few yellowish sheets written in the neatest handwriting. It looked like nothing but the fine desk of an academic, and yet, it felt as oddly ominous as the rest of the room. Nothing, though, could look more ominous than the windows—or rather, what lay beyond them. Absolutely nothing. Nothing but pure black, as though there was no world outside that could be seen. More than once, Mr Flores had been tempted to get right up from his chair in front of the desk, where he had been waiting for his mysterious, tardy host for far too long, open one of those windows, and stick a hand out to make sure they weren’t painted black. He wondered what kind of an intellectual could live there. He had to be an intellectual; the nameplate on the door clearly said he was a PhD, a doctor—but of what? With a name like that… It was very much appropriate to the vibe he got from that room, although maybe it was because of that name, not the appearance of the room, that Mr Flores got that vibe in the first place. Every now and again, Mr Flores would cast long, hopeful glances to the door all the way to his right, where he thought his host would finally come from. If this was the study where he received people, whatever lay beyond that door must have been a private room of some kind. The wait was unnerving enough as it was, and the incessant ticking of the clock didn’t make it any better, really. Mr Flores turned his gaze towards the devilish mechanical contraption hanging behind the desk, and much to his annoyance, he found that the clock was as useless as it was pestering—it had no hands to speak of, so that he couldn’t even tell how late it was getting while waiting for his host. To think that Miss Coffins, the weird woman typing away by the main entrance, had said Mr Death was waiting for him! “I apologise for the wait, Mr Flores,” said the voice coming from the right. Mr Death—the tall, slender man in a business suit who had just come out of the room Mr Flores thought to be private—jogged lightly towards him, with mild enthusiasm. “Your case needed one final touch, but not to worry—it’s ready for you now.” Mr Flores observed Mr Death in puzzled silence for a few seconds. His skeletal appearance should have terrified him, and yet, all that Mr Flores could feel was confusion. Mr Death’s empty, dark eye sockets were staring right at him, or so it looked, and his face bore a sinister and only apparently cordial grin. Not for a moment did Mr Flores think that Mr Death was endeavouring to look friendly; rather, it was as though the façade was meant to be obvious. “My… my case?” he finally ventured asking, fidgeting with the ring on his hand. “You look nervous, Mr Flores,” observed Mr Death. “Is something the matter?” “Not really,” Mr Flores stammered. “It’s only…” “Yes?” Mr Death encouraged him. “This… invitation was rather sudden,” he explained. “And unexpected.” Mr Death snorted, stifling a laugh. “If I had a nickel… Ah, you will forgive me, Mr Flores. I didn’t mean to sound disrespectful, but I get that pretty much all the time.” Mr Flores looked away from Mr Death back to those dead windows, and swallowed hard. The situation was like the weirdest dream—nightmare?—and yet, he’d never felt more awake in his life. “Perhaps I could show you around, to calm your nerves, yes?” Mr Death suggested. “I take it you are already acquainted with my study, as I kept you waiting here so unforgivably long.” Mr Flores found himself nodding silently, slowly, looking nowhere in particular. Mr Death’s proposal wasn’t particularly appealing, but he felt he did not have an option. “Excellent,” Mr Death said, looking pleased as he showed Mr Flores the way. “If you cared to follow me.” As they made it for the study entrance, Mr Flores cast a quick glance at the door that Mr Death came in from. He now had a strong feeling that he would not leave the place without being shown that room too. He had a strong feeling he would simply not leave the place. “May I ask you a question?” Mr Flores asked, as they passed in front Miss Coffins’ desk. She didn’t even lift her head up from the typewriter. “By all means,” Mr Death replied. “You talked about ‘my case’.” He took a pause. Mr Death hummed affirmatively. “Are you a solicitor?” Mr Flores asked out of sheer wishful thinking. “Not quite,” Mr Death said, “though in my profession I do deal with people’s last wills quite a bit.” “I see,” Mr Flores murmured, jolting lightly as the door to Miss Coffins’ office shut behind them. Mr Death turned around and stared right at him. “I thought you might be a solicitor, or a barrister, or something,” Mr Flores justified himself, “because of your study, you see… And I understand you’re a doctor, so… Although, you don’t go by ‘doctor’, I gather?” Mr Flores was feeling an indescribable urge to prolong the small talk. For as long as possible. “That’s right,” Mr Death confirmed. “You know, I never cared much for titles. Right. Here we are.” Mr Flores looked around. Nothing but black everywhere. As he turned around, he expected to see a huge mansion behind himself, but there was just a door. An elegant, brown door, bearing the same nameplate as the study door, and nothing else. The door stood literally in the middle of nowhere—in the middle of nothing, as though it had been planted into the ground, as Mr Flores could ascertain by circling it a few times. Somehow, despite the total blackness, he could see Mr Death and himself very clearly. The place was completely silent, except for the howling of a wind that just wasn’t there. It was as though there was no air at all. Yet, Mr Flores drew in a big breath and sighed deeply. “It’s cold,” he said. “And dark. What is this?” “This is me,” Mr Death said, somewhat pleased with himself. “I am afraid I don’t understand,” Mr Flores said, slightly shaking his head. Except he did understand, all too well. “I am sure you will,” replied Mr Death, condescendingly. He opened the door again, revealing Miss Coffins’ office. “Shall we?” Mr Flores followed Mr Death inside, all the way to the study. He’d never thought it, but he was actually glad to be back in. The study was far less disturbing than that endless black, and for that he made it a point not to look at the windows ever again. “Tell me, Mr Flores,” Mr Death asked. “Do you remember getting my ‘invitation’? Or arriving here?” “Not really,” Mr Flores said resignedly, shaking his head with a glassy look. “What is the last thing you remember?” Mr Flores made an effort to recall. “I think I was watching TV. Last night, I think it was.” “Right,” Mr Death said as he moved towards the only other door of his studio, sheepishly followed by Mr Flores. “What next?” Now that he was closer, Mr Flores could see a sign on the door. He felt shivers down his spine as he saw what it read—Collectables. “I’m not quite sure. I think I wasn’t feeling very well.” “Regrettably, my customers hardly ever do,” Mr Death interjected with palpably fake mournfulness. “At the same time,” Mr Flores went on, “I think I was rather sleepy. That tells you something about the entertainment value of programmes these days, I guess.” He chuckled lightly, and Mr Death promptly followed suit. He was hoping that an improbable exchange of pleasantries might somehow temper the feeling of dread growing inside him. “Did you recover from your ailment?” Mr Death enquired. “Well, whatever it was, I don’t feel it right now.” “That is not surprising. At any rate, you don’t seem to recall what happened next. Do you?” “I… think I might have fallen asleep?” Mr Flores said, tentatively. “Indeed,” Mr Death nodded approvingly. “You see, Mr Flores, you’re one of my lucky customers.” “Lucky?” “Why, yes. Not everyone has the good fortune of arriving here in their sleep. But I digress; it is time for you to go.” Mr Flores felt as though he was coming back to life. “I may go?” he asked, hopeful and incredulous. “I don’t mean to sound rude,” Mr Death said, as he slowly opened the door to the Collectables room, “but as a matter of fact, you must go.” Mr Flores looked at the dark chamber before him. Mr Death’s words sounded even more ominous as they echoed inside the large, dark chamber studded with a myriad of small, dim lights stretching far into the distance. His hopes vanished, as quickly as they had been raised. “But I wouldn’t know where,” he stalled, trying to conceal his despair. “Not to worry,” Mr Death reassured him, wrapping a gelid arm around his shoulders. “I’ll show you the way,” he added, as their footsteps echoed deeper and deeper into the chamber.


Alexander threw his legs over the left side of his bed with a yawn. He did so with calculated quietness as to not disturb his neighbors in the apartment below him. He was a loud yawner he'd discovered, and apparently a heavy stepper for a young man weighing only 150 pounds. He walked across the sunlight-striken bedroom to the bathroom, conscious of the gravity of his steps. After his shower, during which he resisted the familiar urge to sing his favorite songs loudly, he exited the tub, wrapped a towel around his waist and looked at his reflection in the mirror. His eyes remained low and in need of rest; he hadn't slept well. Another night of nightmares. Floating above his head, written in golden font, was his score: 1468 out of a possible 2000. It kept him in the top 10 percentage of people rated in his neighborhood. As a plus, it had unexpectedly gone up sixteen points since he laid his head to rest the night before. It was rare when it happened but always a pleasant surprise. Someone had been thinking about him fondly, and that made him happy. Ready for the day, he walked the concrete sidewalk leading to the parking lot of his complex. A warm smile - his best feature, authentic but accentuated for the sake of presentation - was on his face. His eyes tried their best to adjust to the lasting sunshine. The lawn was perfectly manicured, save for a small patch that hadn't yet been gotten to. A yellow potato chip bag was resting noticeably on an overgrown stretch of grass. Alexander, an advocate for keeping the community tidy and always looking for ways to improve his score, veered slightly from his intended path and bent to retrieve the bag from the ground with two fingers, making sure to keep his smile as he dropped it in a nearby garbage bin. A landscaper along the outer edge of the grass rode by on a lawnmower. He lifted a hand to say hello. Alexander raised one in return, his smile never wavering. The freshly cut grass irritated his allergies and made his sleepy eyes water, but he knew better than to complain. There was a friendly, familiar beep from his pocket. He fetched his phone. The score illuminated on the otherwise blank screen had gone up by 2+, putting him at 1470. Alexander couldn't say he had ever considered himself a people person before the new socially-moderated world came into effect, or even someone interested in what others thought of him. In fact, he couldn't remember much of what life had been like before this. Everything was wrapped in cloak of pleasant rather than true, and the truth, whatever that meant, didn't seem to matter. What appeared good was good, simple as that. He climbed into his car, turned the AC on blast, and pulled out of the parking lot. His watering eyes soon dried. He dabbed what remained of the moisture with a tissue at the red light of an intersection. His stomach twitched and he noticed for the first time that he was hungry. A coffee shop, one he frequented often, was only a few blocks ahead. He knew his order by heart and very much looked forward to his cream cheese blueberry bagel and cup of coffee. He finished blowing his nose just as the cars in the left lane began to trudge along. An Audi SUV sat stagnant in front of him. He looked up at the stoplight and saw it was green. From the side mirror of the car ahead, he could see a teenage girl staring blankly at her lap, her other hand distractedly gripping the steering wheel. Alexander caught his hand as it crept up to the horn. His lips pursed tightly and he tapped his fingers impatiently on his steering wheel. He did not honk, nor did the cars behind him. Their restraint, as well as his, was appreciated; Alexander knew how quickly a sensible situation could untangle. It was best if everyone behaved. He watched with quiet, building rage as the green stoplight turned first to yellow, then to red. He threw on his left turn signal, and drove into the empty adjoining lane. Several other vehicles followed suit. Maybe it was his hunger, maybe it was because of his irritated eyes, but he looked over to the SUV beside him. His smile was gone, and for the first time in a long time, he hadn't noticed or cared. The teenage girl behind the wheel felt his gaze and turned her head towards him. She was maybe sixteen, still two years exempt from the score rating that dictated the life of adults. She was noticeably delighted by the quiet irritation in his eyes and smirked. "What, stalker?" he saw her mouth from behind the raised car window. Alexander returned his attention to the road ahead. She sneakily flipped him off once his head was turned and went back to her phone. He pretended not to see it and didn't retaliate. To his relief, the light turned green and he sped away. He checked his rearview mirror after a few seconds; the Audi still hadn't move. Thankfully, neither had his score. Alexander pulled into the packed parking lot of the coffee shop, his hunger nearly forgotten. All he could see was the raised middle finger of the girl in the Audi, the black fingernail polish faded unevenly. He unconsciously swung into an open spot just as the door of a car next to him was thrown open. The distance separating a collision was less than an inch. "WATCH IT!" he was surprised to hear himself say. From the backseat of the old red car, an elderly woman emerged slowly. She raised a hand to apologize. Grumpily, he raised one in acknowledgement. The look in her hurt eyes said everything. He let out a troubled sigh as his score dropped -2 back down to 1468. Another woman exited from the vehicle's driver seat and gave him an added look of disgust as she and the other made their way to the coffee shop door. His score ticked -2 down to 1466. He rubbed his tired, red eyes and got out. Just that quickly, it felt like all his energy had left him, floated off into the wind like a helium balloon in the loose grip of a careless child. The image of the girl's black fingernail polish reemerged in his mind with startling clarity. He fought it to no avail. He just wanted coffee and a bagel. With effort, he pulled open the door of the coffee shop. The comforting scent of coffee beans and pastries were lost on him, as he wasn't able to comfortably breathe. What little smell he had left was overwhelmingly freshly cut grass. The line reached all the way to the door, and he knew it would be twenty minutes or longer before he was serviced. The other customers chattered quietly in front of him. The woman who'd exited the red car was sitting at a large round table nearby with the elderly woman and a few others. Alexander could feel his blood run cold as she leaned closely to the huddle of women at the table and gestured to him. There were four other women seated with them, and his score dropped again by -8 points as they turned in their chairs to look at the impatient man who'd shouted at their mother. That put him at 1458. He thought about offering a friendly wave, but decided that they were past that now and that it might make things worse. A few minutes passed, and the women seemed to lose interest. Alexander was grateful; he knew how quickly things could escalate. He retrieved his phone from his pocket to help distract himself, knowing it would be a while before he would leave. He had just unlocked it when a feeling of dread suddenly overcame him. He turned around and saw a gangly man standing far too closely to him. He was at least fifty and had Alexander beat by eight inches in height. The man's eyes, though focused and watchful, looked glassy with thought. Why hadn't Alexander heard him walk in? How long had he been standing there before Alexander noticed him? The man pulled his right hand out of his pocket and pointed a long, thin finger at Alexander's phone. "Had one of those just like that one," he said conversationally, his voice bassy and battered. "Got rid of it because I couldn't turn off the noise. Won't let ya." "Oh yeah?" Alexander said. He didn't comment on how closely the man stood to him, or how little he felt like talking. And he didn't admit to himself how suddenly afraid he was. The man, still seemingly lost in thought, continued. "Every waking moment, morning or evening, just chiming away. Telling you all about your blessings and your sins. Reminding you to open that door for Grandma or buy those girl scout cookies you know you won't enjoy." The man scoffed. "Like we're children. Everyone, so delicate and needing their hand held. A little negativity mixed into their paradise, and people start to lose their minds. When everyone pretends to behave, you can't see who they actually are." Alexander turned back around and pretended to search for something on his phone. The line couldn't move quickly enough. His hunger had dissipated, but the tall customer behind him was making him nervous. His eyes, while dry, started to sting again. The man gestured with his left elbow at the table of women, who had gone back to their discussion but still turned to Alexander every so often. "You piss one of them off?" "What?" Alexander asked, as though he hadn't heard. "It was nothing, just..." "That little bitch in the SUV flipped you off." Alexander caught an escaping gasp and checked his surroundings. The others in line hadn't seemed to hear the man, but was this guy insane? Using language in a crowded area like this? There were at least 30 people nearby. His score could easily drop by sixty points in a few seconds and it was only 9:30 in the morning. Wait until they told their friends. And then wait until they posted online about it. You'd lose everything. You could always lose everything, at any moment, in this place, even by association. What worried - or maybe terrified - Alexander most was the man didn't appear or sound crazy. These weren't the frantic ramblings of an untethered lunatic. The man spoke with a calm freedom that was alarming. Worse - contagious. "Say it," the man said. "I saw what happened. Sat there at that light twice because some kid couldn't focus." He took a pause. "Mighta not even been the first time today. Don't you wonder what it'd be like to react? I wonder a lot, you know. How good it would feel to just roll down the window and yell 'Fuck you!'" A few heads turned. They seemed to quickly lose interest. What was this guy's problem? He uttered a low, humorless chuckle. "I wonder what would happen if someone just rammed a crowbar through that expensive window and slapped some sense into her. Don't you ever wonder that?" He clapped Alexander on the back. His hand, though bony, was still strong. "No," Alexander lied, fighting off the image of the black fingernail polish again, and the anger that it inspired, "and I would appreciate it if you didn't talk like that. You sound crazy." For the first time, the man seemed offended; still, Alexander's score didn't budge. "Ya can't even take a piss too loudly in a bathroom stall without some sensitive asshole having his day ruined, and I sound like the crazy one? Don't you miss free will? Doing shit for the sake of doing shit?" He reached a bony hand forward and grabbed a fistful of Alexander's shirt. It was sudden but gentle. "Jesus Christ, honking your car horn? What CAN you do anymore?" Alexander pulled his shirt free. He was terrified of the man, but his peaking impatience gave him courage. "YOU can do whatever you want, okay?" Thankfully he was the next in line, and used it as an escape from the conversation. He mustered a fake smile for the cashier that felt heavy on his face and placed his order. As he paid and turned to walk to the counter at the other end, he noticed that the man was gone. Later that night, Alexander sat in front of his TV with a glass of vodka. It was not the first. His tired eyes, even redder, were now glued to the screen. Throughout the day, at odd intervals and regardless of how pleasant he was, his score had ticked down. 1458, then down to 1430. Then 1430 to 1390. The biggest and most sudden leap had happened around 2:00 pm, and took him down to 1100. He currently sat, drunk, at 978. Anything lower than 850 and his apartment complex could deem him as a hazard to the community and evict him. If he were to reach 500, he could be imprisoned without trial. Things unraveled quickly, he knew this, and it never took much. Your impact was powerful, and created waves. He watched as the news covered the murder. "Police have taken Malcolm Tate into custody, a man responsible for over a dozen charges of theft, aggravated assault, and at least one murder," the news reporter said. "The murder victim, sixteen-year-old Patricia Summers, was found dead this afternoon in her parent's SUV." They put up a picture of Patricia on the screen, smiling with a group of her friends, but all Alexander could focus on was her dark nail polish. "The parents say Patricia drove herself to school this morning, like always. After they hadn't heard from her after dismissal, they called the school and her friends to determine her location. The parents were able to use the vehicle's GPS system to locate it. Police arrived at the scene late this afternoon and discovered Patricia's body in the back seat. Police say they found several wounds on the victim's head and body, likely caused by a crowbar found lodged in the driver side window. When police inquired about a motive, Tate said, 'I met a man today who told me I could do whatever I want.' More coming as the story unfolds. This is KGTV reminding everyone, be nice. Or else.