Faeology I looked around, fascinated. There was a mix of ages, some clearly over sixty with greying hair and bright eyed smiles, some, judging by their outfits, clearly students. One girl had the shortest miniskirt I had ever seen, it was dark green and denim and was definitely more like a belt. She wore it with a black cardigan that reached nearly to her ankles and was laughing, joking and pouting with her friends as they posed for selfies. Other girl wore jeans that were more rips than whole teemed with a hectically patterned red and purple shirt. I had used to dress like that once. I looked down at myself now, I’d had another outfit planned but had chickened out. I couldn’t possibly tell anyone where I was going, would’ve had to change in the car anyway and I guess the real truth was I just wasn’t brave enough. I had settled for a black skirt and a dark blue blouse and looked like I was headed toward a board meeting. My saving grace was my jet-black hair that tumbled down my back like a waterfall of loose curls. I had started with it pinned back as I always did, but as soon as I walked through the door I knew I had the dress code wrong and had pulled my hair loose in an attempt to fit in. People were signing in and I followed the crowd to the desks – everyone was sticking labels on with their names on, before going through the swing doors to take seats in the auditorium. The morning was set aside for talks and the afternoon for socialising and stalls – a bit like a fair maybe. I had brought some of my soap and lotions with me to sell and was hoping to make enough money to buy a few more Christmas presents. I smiled at the lady behind the desk and held up my phone with my e-ticket on. “Sign in and get yourself a badge, feel free to get yourself a coffee from the machine to take in with you.” She gestured to the table behind her as I watched the girl in front of me write, ‘Raven,’ on a sticky label and press it to her blouse. I looked at the other names on the list: Storm, Deeana, Jazzindle and hesitantly wrote, ‘Pauline.’ The woman behind the desk glanced over the label and shook her head at me. “Can’t have given names here honey,” she handed me another label. “Here we go by our other names – our real ones.” I’d never told anyone my real name before. I screwed the other label up and threw it in the bin, Adiraya, I wrote and ripped the back of the sticky label off, pressing it onto my blouse, feeling my heart pounding beneath it. I passed the pen to the next person – ‘Fire’ and then followed the swell of people headed for the lecture. “First time?” a woman caught step with me. She was petite with bobbed blonde hair and a gentle voice. Her name tag told me she was called Sage – her tag was laminated with some kind of red band as a lanyard. I wondered if she was someone important. “That obvious?” “We’ve all been there,” we chose seats at the back of the auditorium. “So when did it start for you?” she asked. “You first,” I batted back, “remember I’m new to all this.” Sage smiled. “I was thirteen, taking my dog for a walk in the woods when I came across them. There were three of them and they were collecting stuff, for lotions and spells I’d supposed. I’d hidden behind a tree and watched them. I thought they were some kind of dodgy cult or something, then one of them flew. Without thinking I’d stepped out from behind my tree. “We’ve known you’ve been watching us,” the red-headed one had said, “the thing is, we’ve been watching you Sage.” I’d thought I was dreaming, and I’m pretty sure you can fill in the blanks,” she finished. “But didn’t you say anything, tell anyone?” I asked, curious. “Tell them I’d seen fairies – I don’t think so. Who would’ve believed me? I did try to tell some friends a couple of years later but they spread it round school that I thought I was a fairy and that was that. You have to admit, it does sound crazy – I thought I was crazy for a while and then I realised that there were more of us.” “Welcome to Danton,” the speaker started. He twisted his right hand as if he were turning a lightbulb and the lights dimmed. He waved his hand in a figure of eight and the screen appeared with the words, ‘Faeology’ shimmering with the definition in silver underneath – ‘the study of fairies.’ I tried my best to stop the gasp of amazement, but didn’t quite manage it. Sage looked at me knowingly and whispered, “he’s one of the best, he sees them, most of us don’t, not after the first time, but he’s got this incredible connection. He didn’t look like a man who could have an incredible connection to something mystical. He looked like your typical professor, grey, slightly wild hair and a moustache that drooped. It was his eyes that I couldn’t make out, and his aura – I wasn’t sure why but I didn’t know if I trusted him. His eyes swept the room, but he couldn’t seem to find what he was looking for. “The characteristics of a fairy?” He left space for answers – “what do we think?” One of the teenagers put her hand up, “pretty, quick witted and always ready for a party!” she laughed. I smiled to myself. That seemed fairly accurate to me. Most people in the room were either very beautiful or had this kind of inner glow that I couldn’t quite put my finger on. I wasn’t sure I was particularly beautiful and was even more certain I didn’t have any kind of inner glow, but I knew I did have a quick wit – a wit that had got me the sack from my last job after my boss heard my quips about his haircut and I certainly liked a good party. For me, the whole fairy thing started when I was seven and I had found fairies at the bottom of my garden. It sounds insane, I know, only at the time, it didn’t seem insane. I was so excited I’d seen fairies, that I told everyone and predictably, none believed me. In the end my mum had got so fed up with me talking about it, she’d banned the subject and decreed no TV for a week to stop me lying. I’d seen them three times, at seven, eleven and fourteen. They’d given me my new name, showed me some simple spells (none of which I’d been able to replicate) and showed me some pretty cool dance moves. I’d kept googling fairies on the computer, but other than legends and some ancient faeology studies I’d found nothing until my eighteenth birthday. On my eighteenth birthday, as I’d been googling, I’d found this convention. It appeared on my screen, out of nowhere, as if it had been hiding until then. Now I was twenty-four and the invitation had appeared every year around May Day. It had taken me six years to work up the courage to go, last year I had got as far as the car park but then hadn’t made it in. This year I had been determined. The professor had moved on and was now talking about magical powers. “If you’ve ever noticed some kind of odd luminescent glow around you, remember real fairies, true fairies can glow in the dark. That isn’t just a physical thing. It’s an inner thing as well. Anyone been in a situation where people can’t understand how you are strong?” My mind flashed back to the day my Grandad died. He was racked with cancer and in massive pain. He attempted to pull tubes out of his body, while my grandma, distraught, had tried to stop him. I had grabbed his hands – thinned out with agony and held them still. “How can you bear it?” my grandma had asked. “How are you so strong?” I had never dreamed of telling her it was because I was a fairy! “You can create charms and curses, “he continued, “these curses can last for hundreds of years so are not to be given lightly.” I saw Sage’s face flush and wondered who she had cursed. “and of course,” he finished, “some of us, a few of us, – can fly.” I suppressed something between a snort and a sigh. I had never seen anyone fly. The professor threw his hand as if he were throwing a ball in the air and dust scattered – like it did when I dusted the ornaments at home, and then he did it. Suddenly. Proper wings. Black with silver edges, like some kind of human butterfly. Once round the room and then the wings folded, collapsing away. I felt like I should applaud, but clearly everyone else had seen this before and it seemed to mark the end of the session. As we drifted out of the auditorium and towards the café I turned to asked Sage, “Can you fly?” Sage shook her head, “that’s more advanced magic – they say before you have to fly there are other things you have to do – like know about your name and perform certain charms.” We pulled out light brown plastic chairs to sit on. I mused to myself. One of the first things I had done was to find out the meaning of my fairy name – Adria meant powerful (which I clearly wasn’t) and the ya (a fairy ‘tag’) meant more. At first, I had loved my fairy name, but then as nothing I tried work, I had shoved it to the back of my mind, waiting for a time when someone could help me. You’d think at a fairy convention they’d have some kind of ‘magic food’ but no, not even fairy cakes – it was ‘normal’ – as normal as a fairy convention could be. We had lasagne and chips with salad, Eton Mess for pudding and then went off to set up our stalls. I laid my soap and lotions out carefully – hoping they would sell well. The honey and peach soaps sold out almost immediately and I was doing good trade when I glimpsed the professor. “Look after my stall for a minute?” I pleaded with Deeana, whose charm stone stall was next to mine and ran over to the room to try and catch the professor. “I want to fly,” I said, without preamble, “not for me – I mean, yes for me, but there’s a good reason. I can’t tell you but,” he cut me off, “I know,” he replied simply, (how?) “there is a good reason, but you need to understand the basic principle of flying,” he paused. “In order to fly, to really fly, you have to leave everything on the ground,” “I don’t understand,” I held his gaze. “Worry, pressure, possessions, jobs, people, life, they keep us firmly grounded, only when you can lose that, choose away from that, only then in that moment you can fly, but then when you land, the ground is never the same.” “But you come back again right? I mean you don’t stay in the air, it’s like an altered state you mean?” I asked. The professor sighed. “If you fly, you will find him and your answers; but if you fly you choose away from him – it’s like I said, flying is a choice.” “Buy you fly!” I replied confused, “I mean you probably fly all the time, right?” He nodded, “I do,” he cautioned, “I love to fly, I love my wings, but my ground is very different now.” I still wasn’t sure I understood him. “Just know,” he said, as he turned away from me, almost sadly, “flying changes everything.” So I guess that’s my choice - if someone has shattered your ground anyway, what happens to those pieces if you choose to fly?


Grow up, she said in her letter. Her words cut deep and upset me. I thought she was my best, my one and only friend. I thought she was the person I could turn to when I needed someone. There was nobody at work I could talk to or even wanted to talk to. Granny, Auntie, Uncle and Cousin Bob who I was living with at the time were not the conversational type and so I could not turn to them either. I felt lost and alone. I wrote to Daphne and told her I felt like a bird with a broken wing . In my mind, I imagined a Blackbird with one wing dangling limply by its side. That's how I felt. When I was younger, Dad often came home with a bird that had fallen out of its nest or that had hit the windscreen of his Jeep and we would hand rear the birds and then send them on their way. If a bird had a broken wing, then it could not fly and invariably it died no matter how hard we tried to save it. This is exactly how I was feeling—lifeless and forlorn, somehow, as if a bit of me was missing, helpless too. I was sixteen working at my first job and living with my Granny and I’d just heard that my dad had left my mum. It was a shock. The thing is, now I think about it, Granny had been acting a bit odd lately. She came into my bedroom and began making my bed. I like to make my own bed and even if someone else makes it, then I strip it and do it again myself. Don’t ask me why. I told Granny I could make my own bed. I even had to pull the covers out of her hands. She said nothing and went back downstairs. The following day she said we should send some flowers to Mum. I thought it was an odd thing to do as it was not Mum’s birthday, but went along with the idea and sent the flowers via Interflora. I asked Granny what I should put in the note with the flowers, and she said to just put, From Hastings. Hastings was Mum’s place of birth, and she loved it. I went along with this idea as well. I found out later that when Mum saw the flowers and read the note; she burst into tears because she thought the flowers were from Dad and that he wasn’t leaving her after all, and he was saying sorry. Well, that news upset me even more—sending flowers to Mum and then Mum crying over them. They were meant to make her happy. Then a few days after that, Granny was reading a letter, and she turned to me and told me Dad had left Mum. I was just about to go to work and that is all Granny said and as I could not think of anything to say back; I went to my office job at the huge departmental store on the seafront. People in the office asked me if I was all right and I said yes, I was just tired, that’s all, and maybe going down with a cold. I made excuses for how I thought I looked and never told anyone anything. I didn’t think anyone would be interested. People at work only ever spoke about—work. I did not know how to put what had happened to my parents and how I felt into words. The only words I could think of were those I used when writing to my friend Daphne. My dad has left my mum and I feel like a bird with a broken wing. Grow up. She replied in her letter. Stop feeling sorry for yourself. I never wrote back and Daphne never wrote to me again. I wasn’t feeling sorry for myself at all. I was wondering what on earth I could do to help Mum? Should I stay with Granny at Hastings and continue with my job? Should I go back to Bedford and move back in with Mum and then have to find work? The reason I had moved to Hastings in the first place was because I was able to get a job there after leaving school. I applied for many jobs back at Bedford, but nothing materialised. I felt terribly disorientated. I didn’t know how Mum was feeling. No-one told me where Dad was. I learned later that Dad had moved in with his secretary and her three children. One of whom had the same name as my brother—David. So now I had two brothers, and they were both called David. That was even more confusing. Was David my stepbrother, or did that only happen if Maria and Dad married? More muddling stuff to clutter up my already scrambled mind. I developed a permanent headache and often felt sick and dizzy. I also learned almost by chance that Dad and Maria and her three children were planning on moving to South Africa. They did eventually move there, and it would be thirty years before I saw Dad again. Soon after moving to South Africa, my brother heard that Dad and Maria had got divorced. Maria went off to Australia with her lover, leaving her three children behind in South Africa. Then Dad moved to Botswana and married a Motswana woman, who he later divorced and married another Motswana woman. I lost track, and I only heard about all this via third parties. Each year, Dad would send me a birthday card. It would arrive several weeks after my birthday and be signed, Dad. No love or kisses and no address or phone number either, so that I could write to him or telephone him. But at least it was some kind of communication and at least I knew, each year Dad was still alive. *** About five years after my parents broke up, I was travelling back to Bedford by train. I was at the railway station waiting for my connection when I noticed Daphne. I hardly recognised her. She was with a man of a similar age, and I assumed it was her boyfriend as by now I too had a boyfriend, but he was not travelling with me that day. I went over to her, and we spoke, though coldly. I asked her what she was doing at the station. Was she going on holiday? It was a lovely warm sunny day. Daphne told me she was going to London to see her newborn baby. The little girl had arrived early with all its organs in the wrong place and some on the outside of its body, and she was very sick. I told her how sorry I was at her sad news. Daphne looked and spoke like a little lost child that day. But she also spoke as if without feeling, as if she had steeled herself and was taking everything in her stride. I didn’t tell her to grow up. I didn’t tell her to stop feeling sorry for herself. In fact, I think she did not feel sorry for herself at all. I got the impression that she had no feelings whatsoever—numb. We didn’t hug. I don’t think either of us smiled at each other. Then her train came in, and we lifted our hands to wave a small goodbye. I think over those five years between receiving her condescending letter and seeing her at the railway station I had grown up and now Daphne, with her sick baby, was having to grow up fast as well.


My canoe feels like it glides through the water a little easier today. The sun is warm on my face but it’s not too hot out. All I can hear is my paddle creating ripples in the water, the hum of katydids, and the sweet songs of wood thrushes overhead. What I love most about this river is how it winds through the woods and the marshes and gives you a sense that a whole new world could be waiting around every curve. Maybe that’s what I need. A whole new world, I mean. Lunch is peanut butter and pickle sandwiches. I thought the idea of mixing peanut butter and pickles was ludicrous the first time you did it, but I gave in and tried it since you were so excited. I’ve never liked it much, I prefer jelly, but I still eat it now because it reminds me of that smile on your face. Around the next bend in the river, the woods begin to get darker. Long before they come into sight, I begin to hear the panicked cawing of crows. The sound gets louder and louder until I feel as though the sound and increasing darkness might consume me whole. With one more turn, I can see at least 50 crows lining the trees surrounding the river on both sides. They are agitated, and I can see why. One of their own lays on a rock beneath them, wings splayed, lifeless. The trees seem to be closing in around me as I approach the piece of river where the deceased crow lays, and I find myself pondering the universality of grief. Can you call it grief if you are mourning the loss of someone who still lives? It’s been almost two years since I lost you. Everything I’ve read says that I should be over you by now, but I still cry when certain songs come on the radio that I used to hear you humming in the shower. You are everywhere. I see you in the way the sunlight dances on the floor through the window when the leaves on the tree outside flutter, and I am reminded of how you always wanted to dance with me, but I rarely gave in. I see you in the way the wind rustles the grass outside when I haven’t mowed it in far too many weeks, and I am reminded of how your hair always seemed to be blowing in front of your face when the windows in the car were down. Sometimes I leave the cap off my toothpaste on purpose because I know you hated it and I can pretend, just for a second, that you are going to come in the bedroom and complain to me about it. Grief is a tricky beast. The chorus of cawing only becomes more distressed in tone as I continue to approach. The dead crow looks peaceful, blissfully unaware of the discord happening around it. I almost want to reach out and stroke its magnificent feathers. However, me simply being this close has pushed my luck too far and I am now being attacked. The first to act swoops down and just grazes the top of my head as I duck. Three more follow suit, each more aggressively scraping my head and shoulders than the last. I begin to paddle the best that I can, but I am encased in a mess of talons, beaks, and feathers. I try my best to shield my eyes as I feel the skin of my arms being torn. More and more join in on the assault against me to the point where I am nothing more than a grown man in the fetal position in the bottom of my canoe, ready to accept my unexpected fate. Then, as though a force beyond my senses beckoned the crows away, they all shot out of the trees toward the sky in a blanket of black that left nothing but the quivering of tree branches in their wake. In a state of panic, I look in all directions to determine the cause of their hasty departure. I haven’t seen you since that morning you left my apartment in tears saying “I can’t do this anymore,” but you look the exact same as I remember you. On the bank opposite to where my canoe has washed up, there you are. You’re wearing that warm welcoming grin that drew me to you in the first place and that awful yellow sweater you knit. I try to yell to you, to say hello, but you just continue to grin. You wave me over and so I push my canoe back into the river to reach you. The river wasn’t very wide to begin with, but it seems like it is getting wider with every stroke of my paddle. Your lips are moving but I can’t quite figure out what you are trying to say. “I’m coming!” I try and yell, but all I can get out is a whisper. You keep getting farther and farther away, and the current starts to speed up. I’m paddling with all of my strength, but I can’t seem to get closer. You reach out to me, and I stand and stretch as far as I can go, desperate to hear the words coming out of your mouth. I know what I need them to be. I need you to tell me that it’s me. That it’s always been me. That you just got lost along the way, but you see me now. That you’re sorry you left... You begin to look frustrated that I can’t reach you. With a huff, you turn around and begin to walk away. I still can’t scream, and I can’t reach any farther. I see one last glimpse of your hair before you disappear into the trees, and that’s the last thing I see before I hit the water. I’m sinking, and no matter how much I swing my arms and my legs, I can’t swim. The water feels frigidly cold, and the surface begins to get fuzzy. I can see the bubbles rising from my mouth, my life force leaving my body. The cold enters my chest as my lungs are filled with ice. I wake up with a gasp feeling as though I cannot breathe. I am in my bed, alone.


A Sailor on the Endless Sea of Stars “I was a sailor. I sailed the endless sea of stars, hopping from galaxy to galaxy, from star cluster to star cluster, from star system to star system, even from Universe to Universe, looking for that rarest of phenomena, self-organised matter. Matter with the capacity for metabolism, growth, reaction to stimuli, and reproduction. In short, life. And specifically, the type of life termed ‘intelligent’ life. The sort that creates civilizations and which builds cities and collects knowledge.” Nessa looked at him. She’d simply introduced herself and asked where he was from. “So, do you have a name, sir?” asked Nessa. “Name? I do not know if I had one when my story started, but many people have given me names. A name is but a label, but sometimes there is an essence, a meaning that attaches to a name and to the person who is given or adopts it, or vice versa. On this very planet, one man to whom I talked called me Azathoth. But I’m no ruler, and I’m no god. Please call me Aza.” Nessa reflected that if you gave him a sentence, you would get a paragraph back, but the man was not pompous. “Would you like a toffee apple, Aza? The fete is in support of the local chapel.” Nessa was selling toffee apples at the fair on the local green. She’d seen the young man enter the village along the road to the next town, and had decided to chat to him. “Yes, please.” “Are you religious, Aza?” Azathoth stared into space. “Not conventionally. My viewpoint is holistic. I see the smallest electron exploding the biggest star. I see the smallest wish moving the biggest mountains. I see a dream inspiring a talented child who will change the world. I see the wave of a hand or a flipper or a tentacle or a tapping beak expressing emotion and affecting the future.” “Why are you looking for intelligent life, Aza? Why are you ‘sailing the endless sea of stars’?” She wasn’t sure of him yet. He seemed a little odd, but harmless. “I don’t know,” sighed Azathoth. “I seek out the interesting people, the people of power and wisdom. Those who feel the undercurrents of the Universes. Though in some cases ‘people’ is not a good word. I’ve communed with colonies of bacteria, in some sort of limited Universe. Maybe what this world would call a Petri dish. I’ve shared gusts of elements with clouds of gas and stars and received their replies in the form of streams of plasma of their own. I’ve performed more exotic exchanges with dark matter beings at the very edge of science and magic, at the very edge of being and communication, at the very edge of life and non-life.” Somehow she believed him, or set her disbelief aside for now. “Maybe you are assembling parts of the answer, like a sort of jigsaw puzzle. Maybe when you learn enough, it will all make sense.” Azathoth laughed. “Maybe. I’m gaining knowledge all the time, it’s true. But is that progress or merely an illusion of progress? And I only have the lifetime of the Universes to work with. Maybe there is not enough time. The Big Bang to the heat death or the Big Crunch. Or whatever happens at the end. Sometimes I think that, somehow, I must transcend time in some way to determine my purpose, whatever it might be.” “You said ‘I was a sailor’. Have you stopped then, Aza?” “I’m still a sailor of the stars, and places where there are no stars. I step from place to place, at random. Or as random as I can make it. A drunkard’s walk, except that I am little affected by alcohol and what humans term drugs! I’ve stepped into atoms and sub-atomic particles, and I’ve stepped out to the wild spaces where the Universes perform something like the function of those unimaginably small particles, and to realms even further out, where those wild spaces are mere particles. I am using terms which apply in this set of Universes of course, but the analogy is pretty good. I thought that I had come across something significant when I found a Universe or space where there were dragons. There’s something special about dragons. But I was mistaken. Azathoth looked into the distance. “I have seen many places. I’ve consulted many sages. I’ve talked to the common folk. I’ve talked with gods. I’ve talked to midwives, doctors, priests, soldiers, mathematicians, and potion makers. Kings and paupers. I’ve looked under stones and in babies’ smiles. I’ve looked at the whorls on the thumbs or the equivalent of thumbs on the hands or appendages of many creatures. I’ve looked at evil and good, and found little difference between them in the long run. I still don’t know what I am looking for. I don’t even know if I am looking in the right places.” He sighed. Nessa decided to tease him. “Maybe, like the man in the legend who rolled a rock up a mountain only for it to roll down again, you are destined not to succeed. Had you thought of that?” “Yes, I’ve often thought of that. I’ve been travelling for a long time.” He scratched his ear. “Maybe forever, whatever that means. I’ve not come close to even guessing what it is that I am looking for. I was with a tribe of ants one time. I was part of the tribe or nest, and I, as part of the nest, asked the rest of the nest for their opinion. It was quite divisive, disrupting for the nest, actually. What was I looking for? The consensus was that it was impossible to know. The question didn’t really make sense. Did it not make sense in the context of the tribe, I wonder, or did it just not make sense?” He contemplated the small village fair. His eyes were dark, very dark brown, she discovered, but then he smiled and his smile warmed her heart. She handed him a toffee apple and he paid her for it. “What’s it for?” he asked, gesturing with his apple at the fair. “The chapel, I think you said.” “Books for the school. Repairs to the chapel. That sort of thing.” They wandered through the small fête, the girl selling her apples as they went. She laughed at his attempts to snare a prize with a quoit and he laughed with her. She was slim, with light brown hair and hazel eyes. She was never far away from a smile, and her smile drew smiles from everyone around her. They met the Pastor. “Yes, the fair is mainly to buy books for the school. It’s a pity that the schoolmistress is leaving to look after her ailing mother,” sighed the Pastor. “Perhaps I could teach the school for a while?” said Azathoth. “Would that help?” “Could you? That would be marvellous,” said the Pastor. So, instead of moving on, as he was so used to doing, Azathoth became the schoolmaster. The Pastor had some reservations at first, because Azathoth would not attend the services at the chapel, but over time, her concerns evaporated. Azathoth was an excellent teacher, and good with the children. He listened quietly at the back whenever the Pastor taught religion to the kids. He didn’t try to influence them one way or the other. Nessa was a believer, and she asked Azathoth what he believed in. “I don’t know,” he answered. “I’ve read the Holy Book. I’ve thought about it a lot, and it is a good guide to how to behave in your own life and in your relations with others. But something inside me won’t let me believe in it completely. I’ve had some interesting discussions with the Pastor, and she understands my position. She’s of the opinion that I will come to believe it, but I’m not so sure.” “I know that you are a deep thinker, Aza, my dear. I know that you are a good man. It would be nice if you did come to believe it, of course. But it doesn’t matter.” *** “I’m going to have a baby, Aza, my dear,” said Nessa one day. “That’s great news!” replied Azathoth. “Shall we get married? I love you, dear Nessa. Will you marry me?” Nessa laughed and hugged him. “We’d better, I suppose.” The convention was that babies came after marriage, but it wasn’t considered to be a hard and fast rule. So Azathoth and Vanessa got married and Nessa’s Mum looked after baby Marigold while Nessa and Aza earned a living. Soon Mari was joined by a brother and later by a sister. The years passed. The village grew into a small town, and a bus service now ran twice daily to a large town to the north. The tiny school had been extended twice and all three of Aza and Nessa’s children had attended it, grown up, and gone on to University. Azathoth had to employ two more teachers. Mari came home unexpectedly one day. “Mum, Dad, I’m going to have a baby.” Nessa was overjoyed. “So, when do we meet the father?” Mari scowled. “He’s no longer around. The minute we found out, he left me and ran back to his Mum. Can I come back home?” Aza experienced a burst of anger at the boy, which surprised him. “Of course you can. Erm, this boy…” “Please, Dad. Let it go. I’m better off without him.” “OK, dear. OK. If you are sure.” So Mari came home, and got a job in a nearby town. She left baby Kerigwyn with her grandparents during the day, and they loved it. “Happy?” asked Aza as they sat on the sofa, with Keri asleep in her grandmother’s arms. “Yes, of course. And you?” She was aware that Azathoth was sometimes restless. “Yes, Nessa, my dear. Very happy. Isn’t she beautiful?” Gradually their little family grew. Their other children married and had babies, Mari met a man who loved little Keri as much as she did and married him. She had two more babies. There were also cousins and nephews and nieces, uncles and aunts, and more distant relatives on Nessa’s side, but none on Aza’s side. He explained this by saying that he was an orphan and had been brought up in an orphanage. Only Nessa knew the truth, which was that he remembered nothing before happening on the village fair. *** Nessa became ill. At first she just felt unwell in the mornings, so she and Aza consulted the doctor. His face was grim when he gave them his diagnosis. Aza held her on the sofa where she sobbed for a long, long time. Eventually she dropped off and he carried her up to their bed and laid her down gently. As he moved to go downstairs again she drowsily said “Sorry, my love. I’ll be better in the morning.” The next day the doctor’s medicines had kicked in and she was much better. Aza had to push down what he knew was doomed hope. Several of their friends and relations dropped in to see Nessa, but soon Nessa became tired. Aza was terrified that the strain would harm her, so Mari stepped in and sent them off to their bedroom. Aza helped Nessa up the stairs and onto the bed. “I love you, Nessa,” he whispered. “I know. I love you too. Don’t be sad, my dear. We’ve had a good life. We’ve had marvellous kids and grand-kids. Haven’t we?” “Yes, dear. Yes. I’m not sure that I can go on without you!” “You can. You will. You have no choice, my love.” Aza looked at his wife and saw again the young girl with the toffee apples. He stroked her hair as she dropped off to sleep and he lay down beside her. He was as tired as she was and quickly dropped off to sleep as well. Nessa slowly faded away. Her family gathered around her bed, and she dozed, the oxygen mask obscuring her face. Aza was holding her hand, but seemed confused and distressed. The rest of her family talked quietly about nothing very much. Nessa roused slightly, mumbling into the mask. Aza removed it. “Nessa, my love!” “I’ve always known... that you were special, Aza. I hope you… enjoyed… our life… together. I’ve been privileged… to know you. I’ll rest now. I’ll see you again… sometime.” Her eyes had closed and she struggled to breath for a few seconds, then her breathing stopped. Aza stood up and pushed back his chair, his head in his hands. He walked out of the room and staggered into the garden. Mari appeared at his elbow. “Oh! Oh! Mari, I feel so alone! I feel that she left me, but I know that she didn’t!” Aza drank the sleeping potion from the apothecary, even though he didn’t want to sleep. In the morning he felt hollow. He talked to Nessa constantly, and people talked and nodded behind his back. But over the days, the months, the years, it got a little easier. From time to time he had mental flashes of strange realms. Gas people. Sea people. Underground people. People and realms too strange to describe. In all those flashes, Nessa was always there by his side. “What does it all mean, Nessa?” She just smiled at him. *** He came to, lying by the side of the road. Someone had put a coat over him. He tried to sit up. Someone was talking on a radio somewhere, and something was bleeping regularly. “Please stay there for now, sir. Relax,” said an authoritative voice. “What?” he said. “I’m a paramedic, sir. You collapsed by the side of the road and someone called the Ambulance Service. Stay still, please.” He was confused. Things happened around him, not really affecting him. Then Nessa appeared. “Nessa!” She smiled at him. “Not long now, my love.” Then she was gone. His daughter Marigold arrived at the hospital. “Mari! What’s happening? Why am I here?” “Hush, Dad. You collapsed. You’ve had a heart attack they think.” “I saw your Mum.” Mari looked concerned. “But Dad…” “Yes, I know. She’s been dead for years. But she’s always close to my thoughts. I sometimes see her for a second, in the corner of my eye. When someone walks like her.” He didn’t mention what she had said. Later that night he had another heart attack and the doctors were unable to save him. “I told you that it wouldn’t be long,” Nessa laughed. “Yes, my dear. It’s been so long without you!” “What about those moments before you went to sleep and you felt me beside you. When a stranger talked or laughed like me.” They were quiet, just being happy together again. “You’ve made me immortal, Aza. By loving me. Well, I will go on as long as you will, anyway.” “Are you real? Is this just a dying dream? Oh, my love!” “Is this real?” She gestured at the glowing star scape, stars from dwarfs to super-giants. Clouds of brilliant gas, and small rocky planets and large gas giants, and life everywhere. He nodded. “I have to return to my search.” “Yes, I know. But I will be…” “… just a thought away. I know.” Azathoth sighed “I was so happy. I somehow forgot or repressed my urge to look for I know not what. I aged as people normally do. I think that I was one of you. Then you died. I grieved for you. I became ill, I died, and then, without a break, I was with you again. I enjoyed it all!” “What would happen if you did find what you are looking for, Aza? If you did find out what it is that you are looking for, and you found it? What then?” “Eh?” It was one of Azathoth’s shortest utterances. He looked at Nessa in bemusement, and thought for a moment. “That’s something I’ve never been asked! In all these years and what passes for years elsewhere, I’ve never been asked that, but now it seems like an obvious question! This terrible longing would be ended. I would no longer need to be a sailor on the tides of time and space. I’d be a searcher no longer. I could… What would I do? What would be my purpose? My purpose would be fulfilled, completed. I would have no reason to be. I could end. I could stop.” “In the terms of this space or Universe, you could die. This time for ever.” “I could, couldn’t I? I could cease to exist. For ever. I could dissipate over the spaces. I could dissolve into space and time! Bliss! Sheer bliss!” “We would end, Aza, my dear. We would just let go. Together.” “Yes. Together. Am I destined to travel for ever, Nessa?” he asked as they walked down the lane and turned the corner. “In one way, yes, perhaps.” “And in another way?” “Maybe you are the essence of seeking and not a real person and yet…” “And yet… ?” “And yet, I love you. That makes you a person.” “I love you too.” They kissed and the lane was empty. ***


SORRY… I always loved reading fairy tales, sci-fic, mystery. But, here, in my village, ‘Senu’, girls are not allowed to read, write, study, do business. What girls here are allowed to do so is, entertain men (not just any men, but your husband.) to do house chores, handle kids, and teach them the manner to behave in public. And, we are allowed to wear only gowns, if we like it or not, we have to wear it, our opinions don’t matter. You must think, how come I know to write, and read…so pause there, tell your mind cells to relax, I am giving you the answer. So, I am living with my granny and pa, granny’s mum taught her to read and write, and she passed me the same environmental traits here, she taught me to read and write, and I am not allowed to tell this to anyone, or else we will be dead. We are very poor, but rich by heart. My dad knew about the traits I took from granny and he is very supportive, actually he is the one who buy books so I can read them, our neighbours think my dad is a book lover, but actually he is not. “OPEN THE DOOR NOW!” those guys were banging the door very rudely. “kiddo, do not move from your room, king has arrived here with his men’s!” “but granny, what’s the issue?” “oh, I don’t have time to explain that. Just sit here only darling, for god’s sake, do not move!” And granny locked my bedroom, and she went out. Well, let me be quick, our king is an asshole, this is his regime, and his rules, he is a dickhead (sorry for using so many abusive words, but you will come to know the reason soon!) I ran towards the door, and sticked my ears on it, Ah, I can hear them now. “Return me the payment by tomorrow, or I will take your daughter with me, she will please me every day, and will work as a maid in my court.” “Please, don’t do this, I beg you!” “My majesty, he has an only child with him, please don’t do this, we beg you!” “How dare you open your mouth in front of me, don’t you know the rules, women’s are not allowed to open their mouth in front of anyone, haven’t you taught anything to her!” “I am sorry on behalf of my mother, but please don’t be this cruel with us!” *BANG* “Tomorrow morning I will come with my men, and if I don’t get my money back, you can repay it by your daughter, time is ticking! Hahaha” *Sighs* told ya, he is an asshole, you will come to know how low he can fall. “Pa, Granny, open the door!” *cricks* “what happened, I heard some noise, granny!” she was not saying anything, I ran towards the hall and found dad, injured on ground, and our dish almirah fallen on his left hand, and he was bleeding out. “PA, YOUR HANDS!” I tried with all my efforts to push the almirah side with help of my granny. “Mom, this is the time. I love you my child, you are very strong and smart like your mom, and I want you to be safe. And ill make sure to keep you safe.” And without talking and seeing me he stood up and went out. He behaved very strangely today. Granny tugged me in her arms tightly, “granny, what’s up?” “you have read the book, ‘Hidden Kingdom’ right?!” “yes.” “Do you remember, the map given in the book?” “yes, how can I forget that!” “kiddo, you have to run away.” “What?! I didn’t get you, granny!” “The situation here is worst and complicated, I will pack everything for you right now, go from the back side of village, there is forest you knew about, so just go from there, and then turn to north side and walk until you find a pond, once you get there, look in the map I am giving you, and remember one thing, do not search from your eyes, but from your heart!” Don’t get confused guys, I myself don’t know what’s going on, let me first understand the situation then I will explain you later! After a moment, granny handed me a bag and a rope, and planted a kiss on forehead, “I have taught you everything and now its time for you to apply. I am very proud to have such a smart, kind, beautiful grand-daughter like you, I love you.” They are serious, THEY ARE SERIOUS!!!! *AT NIGHT* I took the necessary thing, and wore the cloak, and ran away. Somehow, I cross everything, and reached till pound, but I was tired too tired to walk, I could feel my leg numb. So, I went near oak tree and sat under it, and I put my head on the ground, and my hands touched the branch and after a moment I felt land shiver, I got afraid, and I took my bag, and then…AAHHH! *CREAK* “OUCH!” *CREAK-CROOK* “AH!” Let me explain, as soon as I hold my bag, land stopped shivering, and there was no more land, and I fell down, seems like I am in a fantasy world right now. I walked a little more and then I could hear my stomach saying, “food, food!” I searched in bag for something, and found three dounts and water bottle in bag, “Thank god!” I unwrapped the donut and when I brought the food till my mouth, “Please give me that.” Huh, I looked here and there, and found nothing “hey I am not that small, you are the one who is too tall!” I looked down, and saw a dwarf I smiled, and gave him my hand so I can bring him up, “can I know your good name please?” I asked slowly. “Ayla! What is your name?” “Zella.” “Where are you going toward? I have seen such a tall girl, after such a long time.” “I uh, just a moment. There is map in my bag, let me see.” I put her down, and took my bag, and searched for it, and found, the map, which was folded, I unfolded it, and to my surprise, it was the map from the book, ‘Hidden Kingdome’ “Why do you look so surprised, Zella? Let me see what the map is.” I took her in my hand, and lifted her on my shoulder, so she could see it clearly, “WHAT THE FUCK!” “Why the fuck are you shouting in my ears.” “Do you even what it is?” “NO” “you have to cross the walls, and I don’t think they will let you in.” “why, what’s wrong in me?” “uh, okay, see once upon a time, fairies, witches, genies, ghost, humans, animals all lived together happily, after a time it was announced the queen was pregnant and expecting twins, whole town celebrated when they came to know this. When 9 months got completed, two boys were born, kingdom got confused to make whom the next king, at that time our beloved king announced, that from both of them who will be the best chivalry will get the crown. Time passed away; both grew. Prince, Jane was very kind hearted, he loved literature, and everyone, whole kingdom loved him because of his kindness, friendliness, sweetness. And on other side, Prince James, turned out to be a living human beast, he was heartless, he didn’t love the other creature, except human, and he was not kind with human too. Time passed away, and then it was the time to make a king, people voted for Prince Jane, but Prince James had his own plan, he started the fight in the court and wished for trial, and then it was the fight between Humans VS Creatures, and Prince Jane was with creatures and we won. Prince James started erupting jealousy, he wished for a war. And it happened. Between the two prince, it was a non-stop war, then a conclusion made, Prince Jane and Creatures will take other side of country, and Prince James and humans will take other side of country, a wall was built, and then Humans were on other side of the wall and we were on other!” “oh okay, But what about the old king and queen?” “That stupid, asshole Prince James, poisoned the Queen as she was with Prince Jane, he didn’t even felt guilty for his actions, and people use to says James killed the king too.” “He is our King. He made our life living hell.” *DHIK-DHIK, DHIK-DHIK, DHIK-DHIK* “FIND HER, SHE MUST HAVE RUN THIS WAY, JANE YOU ARE DEAD!” “That asshole came, Ayla, hold me tightly, we have to run!” “take your bag first!” “we don’t have time for that!” “AAAHH! DON’T RUN SO FAST ZELLA!” I ran till we didn’t reach to a tunnel. “oh god, that was close!” We walked till we reached the other side of wall, I begged and with the help of Ayla they let me in. First everyone bullied me, some hated me as I was human being, some didn’t even want to talk because of me they were have to face once again James. I met with Prince Jane, he was literally the beautiful person I have ever seen, in his kingdom women was allowed to participated in debate, women were running business like men, they were having the freedom to what to wear and what to not, children were allowed to read and learn, even if she is a girl. I told him about the way Prince James was ruling, I could see rage in his eyes. After a time, fight happened, and this time Prince James tried to kidnap me, but Jane got me, and he looked in James eyes in rage, “long time brother!” “do not call me your brother James!” “why not?” “you lost that right on the day when you killed mom!” “I didn’t kill her!” “then did I kill her?” “the poisoned I gave her, killed her!” “You are a psycho!” “aww..” “Sorry, James but I couldn’t let you ruin human life’s!” and he brought the sword and killed James there itself. I cried in happiness that time, and then once again everyone lived a happy life, and the wall collapsed.


     Grandma taught me how to count with tallies. One, two, three, four, then I cross it over marking five. I look at the chalkboard and see hundreds and hundreds of tallies. Each set represents 5 years. Every single tally mark represents a year. I'll be turning 32 in a few days,but age is just another number across the board of life. I have tons more to live. I'm sure after my birthday it will mark another tally,but life will go on. Every dreading day of my life will go on. I work at a museum. It's nothing special. For my birthday I might just quit my job, but there is someone keeping me there. He has all the blackmail on me a person could get. I'm trapped and have no way out. Well that's not true I have one way out, but that's a path I hope not to follow for a long time.

   I sit down for a moment of silence. I stare at the wall invisioning the tally board. As I look at each tally it's as if I'm looking through memories of my past. My mind gets caught on one memory a few years ago. I was plotting the biggest robbery the world would have ever seen,and I got so caught up in my scheme I didn't notice the other person standing in the room watching me plot.

     "Emma." His voice came into my mind as I remember back. His voice was softer back then. He wasn't so rough and cruel. All I wish for is to go back to that night and start over,but unfortunately the villain never gets a happy ending. "What are you doing?" I look at him,but he doesn't look at me. He knows perfectly well what I am doing. He looks over the museum's blueprints and reads my little side notes of the code I should use for each door,the location of each object I was to obtain, and how I'm going to do it.

   I don't even bother telling him what I'm doing. He walks over to me and grabs my shoulders tightly then whispers in a harsh voice "What are you doing?" He pulled out a gun. I don't know how he had one. He seemed to be the sweetest boy I had ever met,but I was wrong. Even he had a dark side. He was willing to kill for money.

   "Will, what are you planning on doing?" My voice was trembling with fear, yet my heart was filling with sadness. I didn't know this mix of emotions was even possible,but there he was proving me wrong. I knew our relationship was over after that night. He started to blackmail me. And once he started it seemed as though he couldn't stop. I have blackmail on him too,but there's something inside of me that tells me not to expose him. As I search deeper through my feelings, I realized it was love. I wish I could get him back, but all he wants is money and all I want is him.    The clock began to make its loud noise that will go on for 30 more seconds. I must have been thinking for about half an hour. I was so lost in my thoughts that I never noticed the slight creak of my backdoor opening. I didn't notice the haunting footsteps coming closer to me. I didn't even smell Will as he crept behind me. But what I did notice was his breath as he put the toxic weapon to me. And it was in that second that I said "sorry."

   I expected pain,but it never came. I expected a loud bang, but I couldn't hear anything. What I could feel was wet steaming tears dripping from my face. I never would have expected this from him, but here he was and what he said changed my life forever. He dropped the gun on the floor and fell. My heart sunk. Had he just killed himself? Had I been so terrified that I blocked out all noise? No,it couldn't be. I turned around and picked up the gun to my forehead. I couldn't live unless I was with him. I could feel the gun pressing against my head, I felt my hand shaking, and finally I heard him. A signal of life from him was all I needed,but what he said was all I wanted.    " I'm sorry." What, he's sorry? He was about to kill me, what is going on? I hate this storm of emotions.

     He got up and hugged me. It's all I've been wanting for years. I dreamed of something like this but never thought it would actually happen.       I looked over at the board,but it was gone. Every tally was wiped clean. I had a new slate. I knew now that I would be able to start over with him. We would flee the country and start over in some place far from society. It was just us two. We knew each other's secrets and no one else. We were in no trouble. We forgave each other. And that was all we needed to live our happy lives.

In that split of a second he turned me around until I was facing him. I don't know why he ever blackmailed me in the first place, after all we did love each other. But how he hurt me didn't matter now,I was finally with him again. "What happened to us?" I mean really. If we were both gold diggers then why didn't we do it together. "I was scared. I didn't know what to do. I needed the money and it seemed perfect, except for one flaw and that is...I didn't have you." But of course we were the villains in this story and we didn't get the happily ever after we desired. As he kissed me on the cheek the police busted through the door. And he whispered in my ear "I turned us in." My heart shattered at that. I finally had him,but now we are going to be separated forever. Why would he do that. I can't live like this any longer. I can't live without him again. "Goodbye Will. I took the gun and bang! The lights turned off.


Have you ever had a stare down with the grim reaper, on the brink of death not once, but twice, Crenshaw couldn't believe he'd doubled back and let karma bite him in the ass not two but three times. He was sure he had his eyes on the prize, until he found himself lying on the coach both in physical and emotional pain due to Silence. She was long gone, it was 16 weeks and two days since his last intimate encounter with her and there was still no sign of her coming back..

No phone calls, no text messages, no appearances.

He didn’t want to believe she was laid up with someone else and he had not received even a phone call or sign from his beloved twin ray counterpart.

How could she not be there for him during this time.

Projecting blame onto her for not being present, made him subject to his own guilt and insecurities backfiring on him, causing him to reflect on how he had been treating her the past two years. Not picking up the phone, texting back, lying, partying, blowing money, with other women, refusing to go on dates, or treat her right, just f****** up because of he didn’t want to acknowledge she was pregnant by him or even show concern regarding the fact he was on the verge of losing the one and only person who truly ever cared for or loved him for who he was and not for what he had or could do.

A tear formed in his eyes and one rolled down his right cheek.  How foolish had he been to not admit how he really felt about her deep down inside, even more cowardly he ran away from the passion he'd ignited and the wall he'd built between them due to his own insecurity, jealousy, and fear surrounding what love should and shouldn't be, is or wasn’t, could, should or would be, instead of just chilling and going with the flow as he had once asked her to do, To be him, and her who she was and allowed herself to be was too much for him.

He knew he didn’t want to admit to himself or anyone else what they had done or were about to do. He was in love like never before, he knew for sure their love would be able to stand the test of time.  But was that reason sufficient enough for him to keep testing her limits by keeping secrets?

Sending her through unavoidable pain and mishaps left him and her wounded in the end, which only made him feel even more defeated afterwards.  After lying there for hours, and allowing himself to daydream, days went by, and he wanted to know more about the future, fantasizIng about her love and how he remembered having his way with her made him want to call her up for a tarot reading.  He wanted nothing more than to be in her presence, in her arms, in her home, and deep in her womb. Life didn’t seem fair.

His love didn’t seem real and he knew when she pondered on things for way too long she had the opportunity to really get to know herself, him as the man she thought she needed to let go of, and the reality of the circumstances they had found themselves in. Though he had fallen in love with her, she was on the verge of marrying someone else if he didn’t speak up soon.

 In the beginning, in the back of his mind, he knew she could and would bring so much happiness, peace, love, light, and healing into his world, yet he wasn’t ready to change or embrace her. Now that she didn’t think it mattered anymore, he didn’t want to lose someone he had fought so hard to attract and keep. He didn’t want it to be over.

The pain he felt within him was nothing compared to the pain he knew she felt after being exposed to all of his lies, trickery, deception, manipulation tactics, defeat, and secrets.

In 10 months she had came into his life and shaken him to his core, so much had changed, and suddenly he felt even she knew things would never be the same.

Time was expiring. Had he not initiated the process of letting her go; God wouldn’t have brought her back from the dead. Twenty One (CXXI) Capricorn World  Can you be useful and grab the toys?

What's the point of you being here if you're not going to help?”  I dropped the box of toys on the countertop and stopped to take a quick breath.

“Damn that box was heavy,”

I used the back of my hand to wipe a little bit of sweat off my forehead.

Silence picked up the rubber duck and playfully waved it in her hand before throwing it back in the box.

“Y’all should’ve paid somebody else to do this for y’all. Where Raf ass at? I’m not even supposed to be lifting heavy stuff knowing I’m pregnant!” I tried my best not to laugh.  “How about I take a cut of your money and use that to employ someone else,"  I teased her by throwing a rainbow colored dildo the size of a horse’s penis at her.

 She almost jumped out of her skin. “Geesh,” She dropped the toy, obviously creeped out by it, “what can a woman do with something that size anyway. If a man has a wand that size, he isn't human!!!!” she shrilled. “You're right, which is why it belongs to a horse,” I replied jokingly before picking up the dildo and putting it back in the pile of other sex toys.

I loved my friend to death, but being an Aries, she could act like a spoiled brat sometimes.

 She wasn't the blame entirely, I played a part too. She could be clumsy, even a little messy and uneasy sometimes but she didn't deserve the treatment people had given her over the years. I didn’t know the day I met her, she would become one of my best friends..

Only God knows the truth of it all. “Yoo…” Raf walked into the boutique nd interrupted me before I could finish my sentence.

 “I’ll meet you on the corner of MLK, drop you off at the spot, then ditch the car. Got it?.  I smacked my teeth listening to him on the phone. He rolled his eyes, “not this again.”

“Excuse me?” shocked at his demeanor. "Be careful,” he apologized. “You chose this life. This life didn’t choose you, and I dang sure didn’t choose it for you. You knew the consequences behind it. Hell, you brought me into it, I’m just doing my job and healing too, right now my job is to protect you at all costs,” he kissed my forehead before moving to the side. He caused me to smile, but grimace at his words; the choices we made choose this life, but I couldn't believe he was trying to call me out. “I know you don't call yourself reading me,” I nudged his arm with my arm. “Nah thug, I'm just saying,” he shrugged, “It's something I'll do again if that means protecting you and my roots. Anything for the family right.” I could understand that, as a family that's what we stood on, so I nodded my head at him.

He knew what was understood didn't have to be explained.

For the most part, as a whole, we were solid.

A bond formed between two people and God that couldn't be broken. Five years after our friend’s death, we moved to Augusta, GA in hopes of us “starting over".

From there, we opened up to a whole different world, a new world, one we’d created astrally.

Being introduced to what was previously known as “The New Age World”, was the best thing for me.

It potentially changed my life, all of our lives, including my family and social circle.  I hate we had originally been sent on a dummy mission to destroy the earth and the world. My perfect husband believed his time was up, and was becoming a liability. Underground Atlanta was supposed to be used as a means of survival in the beginning, never would I have thought I would be where I am today.

The highest paid, most influential, successful black woman in Atlanta, GA.

Being the owner of several private night clubs in the US, a sexy lingerie clothing line, that included a sex toy collection; I made a name for myself last year when I signed a contract to expand Underground Atlanta across the boarder.

I had less than 2 months before I opened the new and improved Underground Atlanta, although the name would change to Love Underground in honor of Love.  I felt like the name was more fitting, especially with all the activity that transpired within the clubs, the best way to pay my respects to my dear husband.  Lord bring peace to his soul. After my first spiritual awakening, I decided to use his last name after we got married and change my first and middle name to my heavenly name, once I changed my last name to Tutt, that’s what I identified by, burying the person I was before.  I was so glad to finally be my own person and get out from under the shadow of the notorious one. I was beautiful, fierce, rich, and powerful with unlimited resources.

I simply took a risk.

A risk that has been fulfilling its purpose as intended for what today marks the fourth year.

I was extremely proud of myself.

For not only deviating a precise strategy and building a magnificent team, but also doing it completely under the radar four consecutive years.

I was shocked at how successful we were able to execute everything.

Five years ago, I would have never thought I would be here, right now, preparing to finish Co-Operation. “Silence,” He snapped me from my thoughts, “you okay? Can we talk please?” I folded my arms and nodded my head, “yeah, I’m okay. Thanks, by the way.”

“For?” he raised his eyebrow with a blank expression on his face. “For saving me,” I responded with much gratitude, “don’t think I ever told you how grateful I am.” It was true, I was very grateful.

While I made a call to the alarm company to inform them of the false alarm, I thought about what we needed to do next.

God knows we didn't need the cops snooping around our warehouse.  It would blow the entire operation, so after that incident we decided to change to a more isolated location and add more security. “Told you,” he pounded his hand against his chest, “it’s my job.”

I’ll see you later” He threw up the peace sign and walked out of Sepaga. “See you later,” I repeated back to him before he walked out of Sepaga`, the lingerie and sex store I, well we, owned..

He hopped in the 2022 Burgundy Red and Black Toyota 4Runner I bought him for his birthday with his brothers then sped off. “God keep them safe and everything according to plan,” was the silent prayer I sent above as I began restocking the store, hanging the lingerie pieces on the mannequin. Thirty minutes passed by, and my stomach began to rumble.

It was definitely time for a lunch break.  I checked the time; it was a quarter past two and decided to take a break and head across the street to the new restaurant Agape's Food And Drink that we’d opened almost a month ago.  I had been hearing a few people that came through the store and club talk about it, so I thought why not try it out.  I could smell it from across the street, whenever I came outside the store, and it smelled delicious; from the Facebook pictures I'd seen, if it tasted anything like how it looked and smelled, I couldn't wait to get ahold of the new menu.

I grabbed my keys to lock up the store, my phone and my purse. I walked out of the store, making sure to lock it behind me, before crossing the street and walking into Agape's.

Twenty Two (CXXII) Sagittarius Fool “Hi, welcome to Agape's Food And Drink, will it be to-go or can I get you a table for 1?” The host greeted me as soon as I walked through the door with a pleasant and friendly tone. I was amazed; it was beautiful inside. A one stop shop for all your food, drink, and sweet tooth needs. It was buffet style with endless selections. I couldn't wait to try the food.

“You know what,” I thought about if I wanted to eat in or take it to go, “I'll just take a seat at the bar,” making eye contact before looking over at the bar.

“Great,” the host replied in a happy tone, “please follow me,” she instructed me before leading the way. “The buffet has a variety of choices. Drink menus are at the bar, and the desserts are to your far right. If the buffet has too many options for you, and you only want something simple, here's a basic menu for you.” She handed me the tri fold menu. “I particularly like the chicken tuna salad with fresh fruit and the buffalo chicken dip with the restaurant chips. It is being offered at a discounted price this week as the owner is choosing to discontinue it, so if I was you I would definitely try it while supplies last. Your bartender and server tonight will be Kloe`. If you need anything please refer to her.” She flashed me a smile. ”I hope you enjoy your meal today, let me know if you need anything,” was the last thing she said to me before walking back to her station. “Screwdriver extra shot of orange juice,” the bartender Kloe slid a drink across the bar top to a beautiful woman. Her thick, sandy brown, curly hair was pulled back into a high bun; she had hazel green eyes and wore hoop earrings with a halter black dress. The tattoo above her right shoulder was of a rose with the phrase “For those I love I will sacrifice” written under it, instantly sticking out to me. She looked far from feminine although that’s the manner in which she presented herself.

I had only been with one female since my transition, and that was my first night attending Love Underground, but something about her beauty had me memorized and for some reason, I felt like I had to have her.

I walked up and sat two seats down from her, “Screwdriver extra shot of orange juice,” I smiled at Khloe` before pretending to read the menu.

“Coming right up,” Kloe` responded eagerly.

“What do you know about a screwdriver with an extra shot of orange juice?” the sweet innocent voice coming from the left of me made me look up from my menu. “Well, I'm not much of a drinker,” I lied, knowing I could dang well hold my liquor, “however, I like vodka and love orange juice, so I figured I couldn't go wrong with such a basic drink.” I smiled flirtatiously. The lips the innocent voice came from curled up into a smile, and she parted her lips to speak, “Hey I’m Corinthian, and you are?”,  I leaned over and extended her hand to me. “Nice to meet you Corinthian, I am Silence ,” I shook her hand,

Kloe passed me my drink, and I took a sip before pointing across the street at my store. “I own Sepaga’. The intimate boutique across the street. You should stop by sometimes. We have some limited edition items on sale by two for $22.22 get 2 for $11.11. I'm sure you would look nice in anything.” I tried to hide my thirst.

She smiled at me, “I may just do that. Check please.” She stood up and handed her debit card to Kloe`.

“How about the next round? I got this one covered.” I pulled my wallet from my purse and handed Kloe a fifty dollar bill. “Keep the change,” I told her. “Any suggestions on what I should try?” I turned my focus back to the beauty in front of me. She smirked at me, “The chicken tuna salad and fresh fruit is to die for. The buffalo chicken dip with restaurant chips is good too. So tell me Silence, will I see you again??” “Well Corinthian, if you stop by the store and check out our limited edition selection of items while our sale is going on this week I’m pretty sure you will. I’m in the store all this week; I’ll be on vacation next week,” I smiled then handed her one of my business cards. She smiled at the card then back at me, “You have yourself a great day Mrs. Tutt.”

Watching her walk away, I quickly learned the eye which mocks the father and despises the mother must let the raven in the valley watch the young eagle pick out the eye and eat it since it refuses to obey the proverbs.


All the places I know from my youth seem to have gotten smaller now that I revisit them forty years later. When I was a child, I thought my hometown Ypres, Belgium, was a big city, although it counted only a couple of ten thousand souls. Once I was old enough to go to college, I went to Ghent University, also in Belgium. Now that was something else! Ghent had a population of a couple of hundred thousand people with more than 160 different nationalities. A completely new world opened up for me. There were three movie theaters instead of only the one with two screens in Ypres. There were places to go out to where you wouldn’t accidentally bump into your parents —or somebody who knew your parents. There was always something to do, even on weekdays. Once I graduated, it was an easy decision to make. I permanently moved to Ghent and started a new life in what a real city was supposed to be —or so I thought. Then I went into business and traveled the world: San Francisco, New York, Boston, Singapore, Seoul, Hong Kong… That’s the order in which I discovered the places that brought my understanding of what qualified as a big city to the next level.

I don’t remember what made me decide to make a detour on my way home on that cold spring evening. I had flown in from San Francisco to Charles De Gaulle airport in Paris. From there, I had taken the train to the “Gare de Lille Flandres” station in the North of France. My car was parked there, ready for me to drive to Ghent, but for some reason my heart made me change my mind. Instead of driving straight home, I made a stop in the godforsaken town I was born in, making my trip at least forty minutes longer on what should have been a less than one-hour ride. “What have I lost here?” I wondered when I got out of my car. “Nothing that matters,” my mind replied. “A piece of me,” my heart tried to convince me. “Nostalgia is not for us. We should admit that we have outgrown our hometown a long time ago,” my mind urged. “We have seen wider avenues, higher towers, more impressive bridges than anything we can see here. We could have been home already if we hadn’t stopped here.” A cold shiver ran down my spine as my mind kicked at that open door, but I shook that feeling off. “Let's take a walk anyway, now that we're here,” I said in one of those rare moments of indulgence towards my heart. “Maybe we'll find that piece you claim to have lost here once.” My heart jumped up in joy. I felt how it cheerfully pumped blood through my veins to ban all chills. Fortunately, there was nobody around to see me blush. “Okay then, I’ll walk with you,” my mind gave in, “but don't expect too much from it.” Together we walked from one end of the city to the other. It barely took us twenty minutes. The center of the city had improved; the Cloth Hall dominating the Great Market looked much nicer than I remembered. The place where I had my first beer however, was permanently closed, and the movie theater had been turned into an apartment building. “I feel like a tourist,” I sighed. “A lot of things have changed in forty years. I recognize the buildings that remained in place as if I know them from an old picture book. I don’t feel connected to them anymore. I don't know if I would still feel at home here.” “That was exactly my point,” my mind said. “There’s nothing left for us here.” “We should take the scenic route back,” my heart implored. “The ramparts look really nice this time of year.” For once my heart was right. The walk around the city took us longer than the walk through the center, but the parks along the ramparts sparked a memory I failed to retrieve. Flowers were starting to bloom; buds were starting to show on trees. Nature was ready to start new life, yet I felt a frustration that I couldn't explain. “There was something about this place,” I said when we arrived back at the car, “but I can’t put my finger on it.” I looked around on the parking lot. It used to be a park where we had played as a child. Today, only an old beech tree and an old oak reminded us of what once was. “Maybe we should sit here for a moment to see of our memory comes back,” my heart suggested. “Spring is in the air; maybe it will bring something new into our life.” My mind disagreed: “It will be dark soon, and it's a long drive home after having traveled so far.” I concurred with my mind, but before we got into the car, I listened to the rustling of the beech and the oak looking down on us. I thought I heard them say something, but that must have been my imagination. I drove home regretting the time I had lost. My mind reminded me of something I had read in the Bible: “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?”

                                                                    ***

“Did you recognize him?” Beech whispered. “How could I forget him?” Oak replied with his slow voice. “His initials are carved in my skin.” “He's smaller than I remember him,” Beech observed. “It only seems that way,” Oak said after a long pause. “All of us have grown, but we have grown taller than he has.” “I remember his sweetheart.” Beech smiled while the car drove off the parking lot. “She was a beautiful girl.” “And now she's a beautiful woman,” Oak reflected. “She lives just around the corner.” “Why didn't he pay her a visit?” Beech asked. “He must have forgotten her.” “But she didn't forget him,” Beech whispered after a while. “She's different from him,” Oak confirmed. “She still comes to what once was the park they used to meet in. Occasionally, she searches for her initials on my trunk, musing about what could have been.” “Does she still carry that piece of his heart in hers?” Beech asked. “Yes, even after all those years, she does,” Oak sighed. “But that’s something he will never understand with his mind.” “Look, there she is,” Beech said. “If he had waited for ten more minutes, they could have met. Imagine what could have happened.” “Yes,” Oak pondered. “Just imagine…”


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


I remember the sunset in my office window on the final night of my career. I was thinking how thankful I was that a dirty blue-collar guy like myself had such a perfect view, that is, until the machine ended the day for me. It was attached to me. It tagged me like an animal. Back then if you wanted to drive your car, you had your phone’s GPS to tell you where to go, but if you wanted to drive a truck, the Electronic Logging Device told you where to go, where to eat, where to sleep, where to piss, and most importantly, how much money you were allowed to make. It was the beginning of my hatred towards Autonomous Vehicles, or AVs as they call it today. I had been trucking for a decade already. The freedom of the road is what attracted me to this kind of lifestyle, but as the years went on we were driving less and the trucks were driving more. I was driving down I-610, the loop, as we called it, when I got into the wreck. I left the exit onto the main road towards my stop when there was a sports car going the wrong way. The bright light of the setting sun must have distracted the driver. I had just enough time to avoid a head on collision, but not enough time to keep control of my own vehicle. After a series of alarms I never heard before blared out of my dashboard the car slammed into my side and I turned over. I remember being held on by my seat belt with the asphalt against my window while I thought about my job and the embarrassment of wiping out and spilling my payload all over the highway. I was already in constant fear of losing my job and this accident would put me over for sure. Then I remembered thinking that if it wasn’t for this idiot I wouldn’t be here bathing in fear and anxiety. Those feelings quickly turned to rage. The driver actually came out to check on me. He seemed uninjured and concerned for my well being. He asked if I was OK, and I started cursing him out about my payload before passing out. It was only when I woke up in an ambulance that I started thinking about my injuries. It turned out that I broke my right arm in several places. The surgery left a scar the shape of a long road, a tribute to that night. After they put the rod in my arm I had completely recovered within a few months, but that didn’t matter, the police report indicated that the car that ran me off the road was a new Tesla driving in autopilot. The all-powerful Elon Musk was on a pedestal in somebody’s eyes, because whatever they read in that report got me fired. After that I promised myself never to get into an autonomous vehicle. A few months later I found myself living with my adult daughter. It was difficult for me to hold down a job. I didn't have proof but I was sure that I had been black listed from every trucking company in the country. By 2021 I was able to become self-sufficient. My daughter had gotten married and I was trying my best to stay out of her new life. I disapproved at first, but her husband won me over with a Chevrolet El Camino. He allowed me to drive it and he told me, and I believed him, that I was the only one who was allowed to drive it besides himself. Not even his wife was allowed. As for my job, I drove for Uber and I was making good money, even during the pandemic. My new office was nice as well. This time it was inside of an early Prius. I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was still pinned down by the same technology that was watching me in my old truck. My miles, routes, time, and customers' opinions were being tracked the same way, but at least I had the freedom to drive as much as I wanted. I never got into an accident in that car, but I was still laid off by 2027. Those driver-less cars were a nightmare, a plague on the nation and I stood by my promise to never enter one of them. It was difficult to understand how somebody like me could get laid off by a company so dependent on the gig economy, but it turns out they washed the majority of people out in one legislative action. Their end game wasn’t about supplying a taxi service that worked well for drivers. It was all about data, food for the beast that was swallowing up the highways and side streets. I suspected it was the same for the trucking companies. There were a lot of companies like that at the time and they all lobbied the government to allow fully autonomous vehicles on the road. That level of technology had been around for decades and they just needed somebody in the white house to lead the way. The whole idea disgusted me. I found myself fighting for driver’s rights for an entire year. I needed to be useful while I lived in a makeshift apartment in my daughter’s home in Houston. Thank God I had a supportive family. The long drives to DC reminded me of my old trucking days. In that group I felt young and useful again. There were veteran truckers, taxi drivers, school bus drivers, tow truck drivers, car enthusiasts, historians, journalists, limousine drivers, crane operators, food delivery drivers, forklift drivers, and even a lady who owned a company that sold child car seats. The long roads were wonderful and nostalgic, and we only turned on autopilot when we were mandated to do so in certain states. Our opposition and our naysayers told us that the world was changing for the better, but our reply was always, for who? For me, the trip was cut short and I had to head back home. The kids were going to surprise me with news that I was going to be a grandfather, but it was overshadowed by my son-in-law’s hospitalization. He shared my love of cars and passion for driver’s rights. He was a good husband to my daughter, and would have been a good father as well. It took only a few weeks before he died of SARS. My grandson was born in 2029. I became less involved in the group as I was getting older and my daughter needed help, especially now that she had been widowed. My first gift to the baby was a toy car, just a regular matchbox. You could see the drivers wheel on the inside. When he was old enough to walk, I was able to find one of those red and yellow cozy coupes for him. I was surprised they still made them, perhaps little tykes made them for folks like me. The joy on his face when he turned the steering wheel is a fond memory. Later that year I watched the election at home when I witnessed the president that helped pass legislation to allow AVs on the roads in full force get re-elected. I knew it was only a matter of time before human drivers would become illegal. I would not allow myself to support such disruptive technology. If the world continued like it did, my grandson would never know the feeling of controlling a car like his father's Chevy. We still had it and I had been doing maintenance on it out of respect for the boy’s late father. 2045 was the year the entire United States outlawed human drivers. Many states had already done this, but Texas was the last state to do so. My grandson was going to turn 16 and he had never driven a car. I had to get him on the road before it was too late. The Chevy was calling us. It was his father’s car, and it was in peak condition regardless of its lack of use. It would be the first and only time he would be able to drive a car. I needed him to feel the purr of a gasoline engine and the weight of the brake pedal. Driving a car isn't supposed to be just going from point A to point B. It’s like mastering a mechanical beast. It was something in our blood that we needed to experience. Our ancestors took control of horses and rode them into battle with lances and bayonets. We’ve been reduced to where national leaders just press buttons to scare each other. I had hoped my grandson would feel more alive if he got the opportunity to drive at least once, and he did. The highway was long and empty. My teenage grandson was at the wheel and there was no device in this beautiful vintage Chevy that allowed us to go autopilot. The joy on his face when he wrapped his hands around that freshly oiled leather wrapped steering wheel that was so alien to his generation was the same joy I saw when he jerked around in his Little Tikes red and yellow. We were driving a piece of history, driving it down I-610, the loop, as we used to call it. When we exited the highway in our beautiful sports car I saw the truck coming at us going the wrong way. The accident happened quickly. The automated semi was able to turn in time to miss us completely but we had already lost control. I came out uninjured but my grandson was in bad shape. He was having trouble breathing so I knew something had pierced him somewhere. I found out later that it was the steering wheel itself that had broken his collarbone and crushed his rib. The safety and well-being of my grandchild was the first and only thought in my mind. There could be no anger except anger at myself. There were no other humans to stop by and check on us, except maybe the ambulance. The automated medical vehicle rolled up seemingly instantaneously. The cameras on that road must have tipped them off and sent them after us as soon as the accident happened. The ambulance wasn’t something I was used to. The front had no room for a person, as it was self-driven, but there were two young people in the back ready to receive us. The man was able to use specialized tools to remove the door and bring my grandson onto a stretcher and a woman immediately started treating him. My grandson was barely conscious as I crawled out of the vehicle unharmed. The horror of my grandson entering the automated ambulance hit me like my first accident. I had no trust for the vehicle, even if it was actively saving my grandchild’s life. It was foreign to me and I was fearful. I was an old man living in the future watching the next generation ship off to a hospital by an unreliable robot car. I had fought for years to prevent this. I found myself pulling on the stretcher in desperation. “My grandson is not going in that infernal machine!” I heard myself say it. “Sir, your grandson needs immediate treatment. You have to let him go.” The woman spoke as humanly as possible. I remember every sympathetic wrinkle in her face, too many for how young she was. “These AVs have ruined my life. He wouldn't have gotten hurt if it wasn't for those things! Get him a regular ambulance!” “Sir, this is a regular ambulance. It's the fastest way to the hospital, please let go, we have a job to do.” I let go as I tried to remember where I was. It was the same place as my first accident. I found myself on my side in my memories, cursing that Tesla for running me off the road, trying to cling on to the last of my identity as a trucker. “That damned AV semi, it ran us off the road!" "Are you riding with us sir? We should check you as well." The male EMT asked me as he held the door open with one hand and held out the other. I smacked it away. "I hate AVs! I'll never get in one. Not then, not now!" "Sir, we can't waste any more time, are you coming or not?" "It was on the wrong side of the street! Can’t you see what they’ve done?” I cried out to the EMTs. “Sir, you’re on the wrong side of the street.” He said to me in a tired voice. I looked around in realization. I was on the wrong side of the street, same place as before, same as the accident in '19. "Last chance sir or we'll have to close the doors." I was still trying to push the thought out of my head but another voice cracked through. "Grandpa… Don't leave me alone…" My response was as automatic as the highway itself. I threw away my hatred for AVs and got in one to keep my injured grandson company. The doors closed behind me by themselves. We were seated on benches and the glass front of the emergency AV gave me chills as I saw us, without bucket seats, without a steering wheel, without a dashboard even, racing down the street at unbelievable speed. It was a smooth ride as well. My grandson was trying to turn his head towards me with his new neck brace. The EMT was icing his injured shoulder and chest. The other EMT was checking my vitals. There were a few cars on the road that delayed moving for us, but most vehicles, the ones without drivers, automatically kept out of our way far ahead of my line of sight. We were 5 my minutes away from the hospital, AV time, normally 30 minutes if I had driven myself. The EMT turned to me, noticing my gray, dropped jaw. "You know, the world is changing for the better." The chants and talking points from my driver's rights days answered for me in a grumble. "Yes, but for who?" He didn't answer. I looked down at my grandson who smiled back at me, and I knew he was going to be OK.