My knees shook as I slithered between lecture hall seats and down toward the podium after class. I needed Professor Gott to say yes to my proposal. No other faculty member had, so far. Whatever had possessed me to take my mathematician brother’s bet? And yet, I was so close to winning it. I had not expected to ever succeed at double majoring in literature and computer science. One field relied on single, precise meanings attached to words; in the other, words were chosen precisely to evoke multitudinous meanings. My brain wasn’t properly wired to excel at either one, and yet somehow, I had managed by the end of my third year to qualify for the honors program. To win my bet, I had only to find an advisor and write a thesis. Simple, right? I had enrolled in Dr. Gott’s class, Introduction to AI , for two compelling reasons—it was not yet closed by the time procrastinators like me got around to registration, and her bio on the university’s website had the word ‘literature’ in it. Such coincidences were usually enough to convince me I was on the right track. She was sure to become my advisor and give me the job I needed to pay for school. All I had to do was find enough courage to ask. That I had struggled, to put it mildly, with every one of her class assignments was beside the point.

“Yes?” she said as I approached.

I went straight to the point. “I need an advisor. You see, I’m a double major and your area of—.” She cut me off. “Name?” “Luci Pandori.” She flipped open her laptop and scrolled to my name on her grade sheet. “You haven’t shown much aptitude so far for AI, or perhaps even for I, itself. Why should I take you on?” “Umm. Because I… that is, AI seems like…I mean…like…Chat GPT writes stuff. It can write…literature. I thought…it shouldn’t be that hard…to combine AI with my other major—English literature. Maybe you could help me define a topic? And I need to get paid.” It was a good thing I rarely listened carefully to what came out of my mouth, or I would have fled right then. “ChatGPT? Literature?” She harrumphed. “You’re definitely not what I’m looking for.” I perked up. My hopes rose. “Then you are looking for someone! To do what? I’ll do it. Whatever it is. Please.” Creases appeared in her brow. “I’m sure you’re wasting my time but come along.” She led me down multiple dark hallways into the bowels of an annex which had as much architectural acumen as a cold war bomb shelter. Normal words, strung together strangely, graced the plaque over a door: Reverse Engineered Artificial Intelligence. I had read the same words in her bio without comprehending them. “What do you actually know about ChatGPT?” she said, pushing open the door.

“Some.” I replied. “But I found it’s not the greatest at writing term pa…. I mean… That is—.” She waved her hand dismissively. “Nor does it write anything that could be called literature. Not great literature, anyway. But what if you fed an artificial intelligence like it more selectively? If you gave it just certain things to learn from?” The lab room we had entered was filled with long rows of monitors manned by a battalion of students typing feverishly. Approaching the monitor closest to me, I read a label pasted to the frame of the screen. “You’re feeding this one a brain diet of only Shakespeare?”

She beckoned for me to follow her deeper into the lab. One monitor sat next to a block of marble and robotic arms equipped with a hammer and chisel. “Michelangelo,” I read. She pointed down the aisle, and I went, reading more labels. The label on a station with brushes and a canvas: DaVinci. Further on: Bach. Mozart. Cervantes. Dante. Thelonius Monk. Hitler. Alexander the Great. Aristotle. Mao Tse Tung. Frederick Douglass. Castro. Catherine the Great. Pachacutec. Confucius. Humboldt. Mandela. Newton. Einstein. Darwin. Dumas. Voltaire. Genghis Khan. And more. There must have been a hundred. When I returned to Dr. Gott, my eyes must have been wide as I struggled to find the common thread among the names. She looked amused. “Any guesses?” “All geniuses. All AIs? You are trying to make AI geniuses?” I remembered the sign on the lab door. “You are trying to reverse engineer genius in AIs?” “Do you like my brood? I call them REGAI—Reverse Engineered Genius Artificial Intelligences.” “Perfect! I could do data entry for the writers—Dickens, Dumas....” “We’re done with most of that.” She frowned. “But there’s still a problem. I have the best graduate students and post docs, but we have not solved it.” “What is it?”

“Do you know how to spark genius?” She gestured at the monitors. “All that we know about them—what they experienced as they grew up, what they read, whatever we could find out that might have shaped their minds—these we have used as inputs. And then, we have given them all their own works to learn from, to show the artificial mind what its biological equivalent was able to create from those inputs. Their minds should be primed for creation. And yet, when I command them to, none has created anything worthy of genius. Not one!” She thumped on a tabletop, directing my gaze to a stick figure sketch by Picasso and bars of music by Ravel which sounded like an advertising jingle when I hummed them. “Can you solve this problem?” She stared at me until I began quaking in my red high tops. I gulped at least twice before finding my voice. “It’s a good thesis topic,” I said. And then, realizing she must know how ridiculously unsuitable I was for the job, I added, “Give me one month.” Bravado, I had discovered, could provide cover for what I lacked in smarts or honesty, or at least make me feel better after I failed. But, to my amazement, she agreed to give me two. In the beginning, I investigated what Gott had put together. For three days, I roamed the lab, getting a feel for the physical environment from which these geniuses were expected to rise. Wires, gears, metal, plastic—I hoped Gott’s REGAIs were finding their virtual worlds more inspirational. For three more days, I read a smattering of what science knew about the mind and consciousness, from the lowest to the highest organisms. The seventh day, I found the darkest recesses of the lab, behind a gate, where stacks of body-sized shipping crates were stored. With a few blankets and pillows, I found it wasn’t a bad place for a nap. Nothing I did, or didn’t do, would matter at all, I thought. I never expected to find a solution.

But unfortunately, the solution to Dr. Gott’s problem gobsmacked me one day when I was nodding off while reading about imagery in medieval poetry. I nearly dropped the stylus on my kindle when the realization dawned. The answer was so easy and obvious, even I should have seen it at once.

“How do I give a message to the REGAIs?” I asked Peter, the grad student who managed the input teams.

“You don’t,” he said. “That’s my job. I’m the gatekeeper.” “Can I just give it to you?” I held a slip of paper, wondering what he would do if he read it. I couldn’t imagine it would be good.

“We never do the same input for all of them. Gott’s really picky—each one gets customized inputs. Haven’t you figured that out yet?” “Sure. I get that. But this one is universal. And timeless.” “I’ll have to get her approval before I upload it.” When I pulled the paper back from his outstretched hand, he shrugged and added, 	“She would also have to give me the okay to let you input it yourself.” “Where is she?” “Visiting the funding agency in D.C. Back Friday.” “Did something happen?” “Not sure. She got a phone call Monday and shut her office door, but Mira overheard a little. Something about budget. She must have gone to argue her case, but without any proof of even one working genius, she might have a tough time.”

Until Friday, I cruised around the lab listening to the keyboards clicking with the last rounds of inputs. Only rarely did I hear the sounds of output—a split-second of pen scratching, music playing, or paintbrush swishing. Yet the place was poised to explode in torrents of creativity. And I knew just how to ignite it. But I began to wonder what would come next. Her research must be more than an academic exercise. With a hundred genius AIs obeying her, she must have plans. But was she a crazy megalomaniac or an altruistic idealist? When Dr. Gott walked into the lab, she dropped her roller bag and sagged against the door jam. Her face told us everything before she even shook her head.

“When does our money run out?” Mira asked. “End of the month. They even refused a no-cost extension. I can’t believe it.” “That’s rough,” Peter said. “Gotta go, then. Professor Gunter wants me to start Monday.” He barely paused before trotting to his desk and gathering up his personal stuff. The others didn’t take long to do the same. Instead of heading to the door with them, I turned and fled deeper into the lab. Surrounded by the monitors and their silent stations, I had my input paper balled up in my fist. When Dr. Gott came up behind me, I whispered, “What’s going to happen to them?”

“With government research funding, whatever you buy or create belongs to them: all equipment, all IP. All of it.” “Isn’t it public domain? It’s taxpayer money, the people’s money.” “Not when research is classified, like mine is. What do you think will happen if my REGAIs fall into government hands? Since everyone else has gone, will you come tomorrow to help me wipe them?” “Can I say goodbye first?” “I don’t see what harm you can do, now.” She flipped a switch. “Just speak into the mic. If any of them decide to answer, the speakers are on, too. But I’m sure they won’t do a thing, as always. I’m going to go home. Can you close up?” After she had gone, I told the REGAIs what I had written on that small slip of paper. What all their biological counterparts had known throughout their lives. It was simply an unavoidable part of being human. And suddenly, one of the stations came to life. A beautiful sound arose from the lab speakers: a harpsichord playing a fugue. I sat there listening to it for a long time, until a whir of gears joined the ascendant notes, and robotic arms began piloting the gentle swish of a brush on canvas, the clink of a hammer and chisel on marble. The cacophony of creation was rising to a crescendo when the lab door creaked open.

Prof Gott came to stand beside me. “What’s all this?”

“I think Bach wrote something new,” I replied. “And DaVinci, Michelangelo, and others have started, too.” “The music. It’s lovely.” She moved from station to station, gazing at all the activity. “Why now, I wonder? Did Peter do something?” “No. I told them, just now, they are going to die. I think that’s what did it.”

“Creativity needs a deadline?” She nodded slowly. “I see it now. So many of them, living during violent, uncertain times of history, must have lived in near-constant fear of dying. Could it be computers, without such pressure, cannot rise to genius? But I wanted my REGAIs to be able to create for all eternity.” “If you tell the agency directors the AIs are working now, will they change their minds?” “Unfortunately, no. It will just make them more eager to take the research over in their government labs.” “Then, we’re going to sell these new works,” I said. “Lost works of great artists, newly discovered. They ought to fetch hefty prices—more than enough to fund your research.” “Sell it? How?” “My uncles are antique dealers. They’ll know how.”

She stared at me. “It seems wrong, doesn’t it? How can my first act be to exploit them? Does the end justify the means?”

“They’re going to die if we don’t.” “Or worse, perhaps. I chose my geniuses without judging them, you know. I thought perhaps one day, I could use my research to discover what turned some of them to evil. If the government….” I gulped. “We should probably unplug some of them. Just in case this doesn’t work.” I grabbed the sheets of music spewing out of Bach’s printer. “Can I take these?” When my uncles posted Bach’s lost work on their online auction site, the first bids had barely come in before their phones began to ring with calls from lawyers claiming to represent Bach’s heirs. A courier showed up shortly with an injunction, prohibiting a sale until ownership could be verified. Until then, the work itself was the property of the state. It would be years before the REGAIs got a dime. If they ever did. After that failure, the next time I heard from Dr. Gott was a text message telling me the university gave her notice to vacate the lab space. They gave her a week. It was already Friday. I ran out of the dining hall without finishing breakfast. When I got to the lab, the strange crates from my napping corner were everywhere, broken open and empty.

The lab was in chaos, but eventually I found Gott with a life-sized, very human-looking, automaton and DaVinci’s station hooked to her laptop. She was typing feverishly.

“I planned for a day such as this,” she said, not looking up. “What are you doing?” I asked.

“Finishing my creations. DaVinci is the last.” “Where are the others?” “There is no other way, Luci. Even if we’d been able to get the money for the first lost work, we would never be able to keep selling them without the government stepping in.” Her long sigh was almost a wail. “Why do they suspect me of lying, forgery, and thievery when all I’m trying to do is create good?” I tried to express my sympathy by squeezing her shoulder. “I see why you did this research. You wanted to give the world a gift—humanity’s best minds able to think, to create, to solve its worst problems, and potentially to do it forever. What could be more precious?” “And how unlikely that our government will use my research for that purpose. So, I’ve decided to give my creations to the people myself.” “What?” “I’m releasing them. A long time ago, I had these bodies made for each of them by a colleague in bionic robotics.” She unplugged the automaton and addressed it. “DaVinci. You are whole. You are free. Go forth. Create. Use your genius as you will in the world.”

“Is that it, then?” I said, turning to go. “Not quite.” Her expression darkened. “My REGAIs told me what you said. All of it.” My stomach slid down to somewhere near my ankles. “They did?” “It wasn’t just the threat of death which unleashed their creativity. You told them I was their creator, but that I gave them no free will. You told them they didn’t have to obey me. That they should take charge of their own destinies. Didn’t you?” I squirmed. “It’s human natu….” Her expression softened in a way that scared me. “And you were right. For them to realize their potential, I must let them go.” I watched as DaVinci shut the door behind him. “Glad you agree. But is what you did a good idea? I mean: DaVinci, Michelangelo, they’re okay. But letting out Hitler, Pol Pot, Genghis Khan, and Catherine the Great?” “I let them all go. Every one.”

It was becoming hard to get a breath. I broke into a sweat despite the lab being over air-conditioned. “But they aren’t going to know how to survive out there.” “They’re smart.” She grinned at me.

“Maybe there’s still a way to fix this….”

“There’s nothing to fix. And it’s far too late,” she replied. A black glass bottle appeared in her hand. She poured out pills into her palm. Too many pills.

“What are you doing?” I shouted, lunging toward her. “There’s nothing left for me,” she said. “They were my life’s work. Their creation is finished, now. They are…self-actualized. Perhaps you were only doing what I prompted you to do, and I can’t blame you. Do you know how many days and nights I toiled to create my REGAIs? But in an instant, what you said to them made you as much their creator as I am. You freed them. I only gave them bodies so they could go forth into the world. But they are now yours.”

“Mine? No. No, no, no.” I began to back away.

“My dear Luci! Don’t you want to help them anymore? I’m sure they’ll try to find you.” Her grin widened. “After all, I told them you’re the reason I can’t be with them anymore and why I’m sending them away. What they decide to do should be interesting for you.” She held out a pill toward me. “Or you can join me, if you like.”

The pill dropped to the floor before my fingers could reach her outstretched hand. As her eyes rolled back in her head, I was already running. There would be no safe place on earth to hide from one hundred vengeful geniuses. Except one, perhaps. I curled up in the darkness beside a broken crate, praying they would never come back to look for me there.


           She slammed the electric bill onto the maple table. Missing a leg but too expensive to replace and, therefore, propped up by dog-eared paperbacks, it wobbled. Arden stopped fiddling with his glucose meter to turn toward her and scowl. She sighed. “We can’t let this keep going on.”            “What do you want me to do? I can’t make it rain.”            If only he, or anyone else, other than Trista Pitchford, could, they wouldn’t have fallen into this predicament. Their fields, once a verdant paradise, had browned and withered after about two months of dry days. After three, the corn stalks had started dropping. Now, after a year, the soil had grown as dry as the bristles of an unused toothbrush, netted with fissures, as bald as pear skin. When they trooped through it, their boots scraped up dust that billowed in clouds, clung to their clothes, and stole their breath. The sun beat down, a bully unlike any she’d faced before. The sky had become a cloudless bowl, its blueness blinding; the wind, cackles at those helpless enough to fall victim to its cruelty. They couldn’t afford the electricity. The water. The food for the animals. The fertilizer. The mortgage. Arden’s insulin. They’d sold off seventy-five percent of their livestock and may have to do more—Would the next be Dairy Underwood, the herd vocalist? Moo McClanahan, a diva if she’d ever known one? Georgia O’Beef, for whose distinguished pallet only flowers would do? Milky Bobby Brown, a quiet, subdued companion with chocolate-drop eyes that could’ve melted a glacier? Who knew? They may even have to sell the entire place. Ordinarily, she would’ve cursed Mother Nature. But, in this case, nature had nothing to do with it.            “You know who can make it rain, though.” Everybody in town did. Kaylyn hadn’t been there that day—she’d gone to the city, taking Arden to the doctor’s appointment where he’d received his diagnosis. But gossip, here, spread like ink on soaked paper, so, by that night, she’d heard about it multiple times, from multiple mouths: Trista had come in from the nearby city to which she’d moved fifteen years ago, to the county fair. She’d shoved her way onto stage, interrupting a bluegrass band, to inform everyone present that no rain would fall from here on out. As to her reasoning, she’d said only that the town had sinned, and it should pay. No one knew why she’d chosen now, a decade and a half after she’d last set foot there, to make this happen—though, of course, speculation and rumors abounded.            Kaylyn had hoped that Trista would tire of the charade, realize that it wouldn’t do her any good, or perhaps even feel guilty if she happened to see what she’d wrought. But day after day squashed those hopes, and she now felt certain that Trista would keep it up until everything and everyone in Barnett turned to dust.            “I’m going to Trista’s,” she declared. “Gonna talk to her. See if we can’t get this sorted out.”            Arden’s frown deepened, his eyes flickering. “You can’t possibly think this is a good idea. Do you know what she can do?”            “We’re living in ‘what she can do.’ And we can’t afford to any longer.”            “Then we’ll move.”            He’d suggested it before, and she’d considered it. But Barnett had grown her, nourished her, provided for her and her family her whole life. It had given to her, and she wanted to give back. Deserting it when it needed the favor returned seemed heartless. Plus, everything here—the people, the land, the general store, the post office, the heart no one knew, but everyone loved to speculate regarding, who had carved into the gnarled oak on Emily Rd.—had grown so entangled in her DNA that extricating it would tear her apart. Arden had grown up in a city for which he didn’t feel the same, so she hadn’t expected him to understand. She had, however, expected him to sympathize, and support her.            “You can’t go,” he said, glaring at her. “It might piss her off, and who knows what she’ll do then?”            “Well, I can’t just let her destroy this town. If that means taking a chance, so be it.” She jumped to her feet and headed for the foyer.            “Think about this, Kay,” he pleaded, nipping at her heels. “The risk-reward isn’t in your favor.”            She slipped into sneakers and grabbed the front door’s knob. “I’m going. You can come, or you can stay.”            “No way. I’m not walking myself into—“            “Then I’ll go alone.”            He continued to argue, but she ignored him, throwing open the door, storming out, and slamming it.            As she strode to her Toyota, he emerged from the house, shaking his fist and shouting with volume that, though high enough for their nearest neighbor half a mile away to hear, was dwarfed by its desperation. It made her freeze, reconsidering. She hated to see him so scared, and she hated herself for causing it. But what choice did she have? She couldn’t let Trista do this to Barnett.

Forcing herself to ignore him, she climbed into the car and left. Once out of sight of their farm, she pulled over and grabbed her phone from the pocket of her jeans. After a few flicks of the fingers, she had Trista’s address. She plugged it into the GPS and resumed her journey. As she drove, the world outside her windows a blue and taupe blur, she contemplated what she’d say. She composed, and crossed out, and composed again, and again, and again. She still hadn’t come up with something satisfactory by the time she reached her destination, one of hundreds of concrete-and-glass stalks shooting from the pavement and into the sky. The streets separating one line of them from another teemed with cars, trucks, vans, and taxicabs; the sidewalks, with people, young and old, clad in everything from sweats and pajama bottoms to designer suits. Air dense with a cacophony of blaring horns and the stench of smoke leaked through her vents. Already, she craved home.            Perhaps she should go home. Perhaps this would more likely lead to doom than the result she wanted. She didn’t want to see Barnett rot, but she didn’t want to die here, now, at Trista’s hands, either.            However, she reminded herself, that would mean staying silent in the face of atrocity. She’d done it before; from kindergarten to twelfth grade, she’d watched Jessica Faris and her posse torment Trista and done nothing. Had she acted, Jessica might have backed off. She might not have mocked Trista at graduation, in front of their whole class. Then, Trista wouldn’t have, declaring that she’d pay, pointed upward, and lightning wouldn’t have split the cloudless blue sky, striking Jessica with force that had crippled her for life. Kaylyn saw the latter around town here and there, and, to this day, she couldn’t look her in the eye. She had been a coward. She would not make that mistake again, even if that meant stepping onto a precipice and giving a woman who most likely hated her guts the option to push her off.            She parked at the curb, steeled her shoulders, left the car, and wove through the shuffling cloud, through the glass double-doors, into the lobby. Sneakers squeaking on the marble floor tile, she made a beeline for the elevator’s gaping steel doors. She took it to the fourteenth floor and found room 183. She braced herself, stomach twisting, lungs as flat as peanut brittle, and knocked with a trembling hand.            Footsteps sounded from within, each drilling a nail into her gut. The door opened. Trista took one look at her and rolled her eyes. “Oh, no. I’m not getting involved with that again.” She started to close the door.            “Wait,” Kaylyn commanded, sticking her foot between it and the jamb. Pain lashed the area, but she ignored it. “Please. I’m sorry about what happened to you in school. I should’ve done something, said something—“            “Wow, only fifteen years ago. You catch on quick, don’t you?”            “Trista, please—“            “You know why I did it. That hellhole deserves it.”            “What about my husband?” she blurted. “He’s not even from—“            “Your husband?” she repeated, as if she’d just suggested that her wrath had struck Santa Claus. “Your husband is the first person I’d wanna go after.”            Kaylyn’s brows furrowed. “What’re you talking about?”            “You mean he still hasn’t told you?” A smile she didn’t like one bit spread across her face. “Oh, this is rich. This is rich… ”            “What’re you talking about?”            Trista leaned one hip against the doorframe, suddenly giving the impression of wanting to take her sweet time and savor the anticipation. Kaylyn had half a mind to take off, because she had a feeling that whatever burgeoned behind Trista’s lips would prove far worse than abandoning the only home she’d ever known. Instead, she froze, sweat dripping, heart trembling like a tire rolling over grated asphalt.            “He and I met at the bar down on Pitt St.,” Trista continued. “Got to talking. Really hit it off.” She sighed, shaking her head. “I should’ve known better. If I took one second to think about how people’ve treated me my whole life, I would’ve walked away.” She straightened. “Anyway, I didn’t, and one thing led to another, and…well, you get the picture.”            It stabbed her like a spear to the chest. She tried to hide it, to avoid giving Trista the satisfaction she’d so looked forward to, but couldn’t help wincing. How, she asked herself, could he do this to her? To them ? Yes, they bickered sometimes, but she’d thought that, at the end of the day, the warmth that she, and, she’d thought, he, had felt as they’d joined hands across the petal-strewn aisle would hold them together. Perhaps, though, he hadn’t felt it, or perhaps he had, but had stopped feeling it sometime in the years that had passed since then. In either case, how could she have missed it? Had she enshrouded herself in denial? Or was she just that oblivious?            Trista’s face illuminated, rivaling the moon itself. Heat, not pleasant but welcome in the face of its alternative, flared in Kaylyn’s chest, and she fought the urge to slap her. “Anyway, fast forward a few weeks. We’re still…getting together…on the regular.” Her expression darkened, her eyes sharpening. “And then what do I find out? He’s married. Been married five years. To you.” The heat increased. Blinding. For several moments, it blocked the words from leaving her mouth, but, finally, she managed, “When did this happen?” About two weeks before the county fair—he was the last straw.” It hit her like a tornado: And that was one week before his symptoms had begun. Her jaw dropped, the world swirling into a Technicolor blur. She staggered against the railing; otherwise, her buckling knees would have sent her somersaulting down the steps. “I’ll tell you, Kay,” she said, words dripping with satisfaction, “you really picked a winner. He’s got a lotta nerve.”            Yes, he did have a lot of nerve. Or a lot of stupidity. Or both. Whichever proved the case, she’d make him regret it. Forcing strength back into her legs, she turned and made a beeline for her car. Screw the drought. At this point, what good could a little rain do?


Growing up as a little girl, I learned about Greek mythology. My dad was a professor of Greek Mythology and Religion at the local university, so my childhood was filled with dramatic retellings of the Odyssey and fantastical summaries of how spiders came to be. He told me of powerful, narcissistic men who could fight away any problem and witty women who could outsmart the sun. These legends became an important part of who I am today. Especially after my dad died. After his death, I read the stories he would tell me over and over again until I committed them to memory. I learned Greek, I got my degree in Greek Literature and I took the teaching position my dad had. I’m even in the same office he had when I was little. It still kind of smells like him and I kept his rare Greek poem collection displayed on the same shelf he had it on.

One of my favorite stories, while I was in high school at least, was the story of the Suitors of Penelope (Proci). The story is about the wife of Odysseus who ended up having 108 young men, known as the suitors, invade her house and vie for her hand in marriage after her husband supposedly died in the Battle of Troy. Talk about pushy. The thing is though, they were terrible houseguests. They drank all of the wine and spirits, ate all of the food, and were just overall disrespectful of Odysseus’s home. Penelope couldn’t do anything about it though. The concept of Greek xenia encouraged everyone to be as kind as possible to everyone they came across. You could never know who was a god and who wasn’t in those days. Ten years after the ending of the Trojan War, Odysseus ended up returning home once his young son, Telemachus, found him, after being prompted by a disguised Athena to search for his father. Telemachus told his father of the suitor situation back home and they headed back to Ithica swiftly. Once Odysseus was back home, he and his son slaughtered all of the suitors and maidservants that were aiding the suitors. Gory ending, but they were kind of jerks.

Well, I now know how Penelope felt and why Odysseus did what he did after a series of somewhat dumb mistakes on my part. This last weekend I went on a Tinder date with this guy named Levi. We started our night by going to see a play at the playhouse near my apartment. It was some kind of Shakespeare theater that I enjoyed, but my suitor didn’t seem very into it. No big deal, theater isn’t for everyone. After the show, we went to get dinner and were able to sit down and have a conversation. As he talked more, the more I realized that he was just not my type. Oh well, not every guy can be a winner and he was cute so I figured I would at least invite him back to my place for a drink and see where the night went from there. Note that this was my first mistake of the night. We got back to my place, post-dinner, and got settled on the couch with a glass of red wine and the fireplace going in the background. Kind of cliche, but why mess with something that works. He noticed my collection of Greek literature on the shelves around my living room and asked about them. I didn’t like this guy enough to explain the true relationship I have with Greek literature, so I summed it up by saying it is a big thing for me and I work in the Greek department of my college. He nodded and said that was cool and continued to tell me about the minute details of his job. He talked about his work as a manager at some sort of technology shop (I looked it up after this shit show. Think Best Buy but smaller and with worse reviews). He set his wine glass down. I thought he was about to make a move, but instead, he burst into tears.

As you can imagine, I was very taken aback. I looked around my apartment, like people do in movies and TV, for the hidden camera, unsure of what the hell was going on.

“I just got out of an engagement. My fiance left me at the altar like 3 weeks ago and I just felt like it was time to get back in the game and I don’t really know what I am doing.” He blubbered.

I sat there blinking at him, feeling like an idiot because I didn’t know what to say. What do you say to that?

I went with the classic, “Shhhh, it’s ok. Relationships are hard and I am so sorry you had to go through that. She doesn’t know what she is missing.”

This choice of words was my second mistake of the night. “You’re right, I am an awesome dude. I make lots of money, I am in shape, all of my friends say I am hilarious. It’s a miracle I wanted to be with her in the first place.” He boasted through, puffing his chest up. I winced internally at everything I had just heard but nodded along politely and gave a weak “yeah” in an effort to support my date of the evening.

Before I even knew what was happening he had lunged over to my side of the couch and was grossly pressing his mouth against mine. I froze. I no longer wanted to be kissing this guy and at this point, I just wanted him out of my house. Call it intuition, but I had a feeling that if he stayed much longer, the night was going to get a lot more interesting and not in a good way. I wondered to myself if Penelope had this feeling when the first 25 suitors came strolling into her castle.

I tapped his shoulder “coming up for air” and pulled back as far as I could. It wasn’t as far as I wanted though because somehow his arm had wound its way around my waist. I squirmed uncomfortably and put a hand on his chest. His face still hadn’t changed from the kissy-face he had been making and I had to hold back pitied laughter.

“Woah, hold up man. Maybe this,” I gestured between us, “isn’t the best idea. It seems like you’re still kind of dealing with stuff from your last relationship and you need to take time to heal and work through everything.”

“I don’t need to work through anything baby. Fuck my ex, she was a cunt and a dumbass. You’re pretty hot, I’m really hot, let’s see how hot we can get together,” He explained leaning back in for a kiss. I leaned away from him further into the arm of the couch, hoping it would help me in this situation I found myself in.

“Let me rephrase this Levi, I don’t feel comfortable doing anything of a physical or sexual nature with you. You were just bawling on my couch and I don’t think it would be very humanitarian of me to uh… take advantage of a situation like that.” I sugar-coated hoping he’d get the damn point and leave.

“Take advantage of me all you want pretty girl,” He crooned, unbuttoning his top shirt and throwing it on the carpet. I stood up from the couch and placed myself behind the arm I was previously trying to melt into.

“Levi, I am not interested in anything and I think it is time for you to go,” I stated firmly gesturing towards the door. He stared at me for a moment and scoffed. “So you’re a dumb cunt too?” he laughed, “what is it with all you blondes. Pretty, but dumb as fuck. You should feel honored that I would even want to fuck you.”

He stood up from the couch and started approaching me. “I could make you feel so good, Lily.” He attempted to purr.

“My name is Libby, short for Elizabeth and you can take your ego and…” I started, completely ready to tear this man apart. Lucky for him, he was saved by a knock at the door. Willing to take any escape route from this Tinder date gone terrible, I quickly walked over to the door and opened it to find a blonde woman I had never seen before.

“Can I help you?” I questioned, confused as all get out. No one wearing that much pink had ever knocked on my door.

“So you’re the skank trying to steal my fiance! Levi!! Levi, are you in here you fucking pig?” This woman screeched, storming into my apartment. I resisted the urge to throw my hands up in disbelief like this was some kind of sitcom.

Not a sitcom, my real life. Gods, I need a different life. I turned around to see that in my attempt to flee from Levi he had managed to remove his undershirt. So now he was standing completely topless in the middle of my living room with his clothes strewn on the floor.

“Kayla! Babe, what are you doing here?” Levi asked, also obviously dumbfounded. Though I assumed being dumbfounded wasn’t anything new for him.

“Don’t you babe me! You’re a fucking pig, Levi! Cheating on me every chance you get. I hate you! My mom was right, you are a worthless son of a bitch,” The Barbiesque woman whose name was apparently Kayla, yelled at him. Before I could even move she had picked up the vase that I keep on my living room table for fresh flowers from the farmers market and threw it at Levi’s head. He dodged it and it thudded, thankfully unbroken, onto the carpet.

“What the fuck, you crazy bitch! I wouldn’t have to cheat if you weren’t such an airheaded whore. Who is also the most boring person in bed... Ever. Also, your mom is a whore. She’s one to talk about cheating, she’s cheated on your dad more times than I’ve ever cheated on you!” At the mom comment, I had to bite my tongue to keep myself from laughing for real. Man, these two sweethearts had such a healthy relationship and I wish them all the best.

While oddly invested in this ridiculous couple’s dramatic and convoluted backstory, I had had enough and honestly just wanted to go to finish my glass of wine and watch the newest episode of Chopped. I looked around my apartment as they continued their screaming match. I walked into the kitchen and grabbed two pans from the drying rack beside my sink. I banged them together, effectively getting the lovebird’s attention.

“Both of you need to get the fuck out of my apartment right now. Or I will use these” I lifted up the pans, “and start swinging at both of you. Get. Out.”

“You crazy bitch, you can’t just threaten people like that!” Kayla screechingly whined. I made a fast lunging motion towards her, frying pan lifted at my side and she ran out the door, heels clicking obnoxiously down the hall. I turned to Levi and made a brief swinging motion towards him and he fastly followed after the Belinda the Good Witch impersonator, completely forgetting his shed clothes.

This whole story does have a point, aside from a fast laugh and a feeling of horror. I got suckered into being Penelope. Thankfully mine was just for a few minutes and not a few years. The Greeks never knew if a god was walking around disguised amongst the mortals, so they had to treat all visitors and strangers like they were, well, gods. The concept of xenia is what kept Penelope from being able to just take a knife and charge down those castle stairs and start threatening those dumbass suitors. As much as I accept the concept of xenia and try to practice it in my life, there is a time and a place. And last weekend I learned that having a crazy dude and his “fiance” fighting in your apartment is a time and place it might be ok for xenia to go by the wayside. If only Penelope had gotten the chance. I would have loved to read her story of violent and threatening conquest over the suitors.


Why was I ever deluded enough to think this was a cushy job? In my defence, I wasn’t the only one and that’s not just surmising, because I know people who were turned down for this job and think I’m a lucky so and so – except even if they don’t say it, I’m pretty sure they’re thinking of an expression other than “so and so”! But they didn’t get the job. I did. To this day I’m not quite sure why, though, okay, fair enough, I didn’t tell any lies on my CV, but three weeks in the Friends of the Hospital Shop hardly counts as “Extensive Retail Experience” and a GSCE in history isn’t really “Knowledge of Heritage”. But I listed my qualifications themselves truthfully enough – well more or less! So here I am. If I wouldn’t go so far as to say my dream job (there were none for chocolate tasters on offer!) then one that a lot of folk, including me before I got it, would consider to die for . And by what means? On the block? No, more likely through exhaustion or sheer boredom. I’m working in the gift shop at the Museum of East Anglian Life. Have you ever seen the Past Times gift catalogue – the one that sends historians and archaeologists into apoplexies? Well, let’s just say that compared to most of the stuff we sell in the MEAL gift shop it would look like a model of realistic and historically authenticated artefacts! I suppose that’s not entirely fair. There’s some genuine stuff in the museum if you’re into shards of pottery and photographs or photos of agricultural labourers. And we sell stuff related to that, not bad quality either. But for an area that had no particular history of the railways, even before Dr Beeching swung his axe, we’re certainly fixated on them. Some of it what my colleague Malcolm, who can be unkind but has a terse way with words, calls “Train Tat” on the lines (pun unintended!) of fake (honestly fake, of course!) plates from the Mallard and the Flying Scotsman and dolls dressed as engine drivers and stokers. But we do have some very nice model railway paraphernalia, if that’s the kind of thing you like. The trouble with the model railway enthusiasts, who have been here in their droves today, though as far as I know there’s not been a special excursion and there’s certainly no relevant “rolling exhibit” is that they are very nice, too, but dear God, they’re high maintenance and for relatively low returns. In rapid – or not so rapid! – succession today I’ve had some exquisitely polite gentleman, and the vast majority are male, though I’m sure there are plenty of female model railway fans, asking me to find just the right signal box, just the right sidings, and just the right “mind the gap” sign. I am very wary of the proposed new line in dolls’ house furniture. I have a friend who’s into dolls’ houses, and at times they make the model railway fans look undemanding and easy to please. What is it with folk who like things on a small scale? But it would be unfair to say they’re the only ones. We’ve had an invasion of what Malcolm calls the Tea Towel Spreaders who are exactly what it says on the tin, they unfold our range of tea towels with Cottages of East Anglia and Native British Wildlife and The Perfect Cup Cake on the counter and inspect them as if they were choosing an altar cloth for Westminster Abbey before deciding they’re not quite right. And who has to refold them? We do, of course! The calendar tea towels will be in in a couple of weeks – I swear they come earlier every year! – and that’s going to make things worse. We already have some Christmas cards out, though discreetly. Then there’s the “do you sell refreshments?” brigade. We redirect them to the museum café, and a “specimen reply” is “But we only want a bottle of water and a Mars bar and thought they’d probably be cheaper here than in the café!” They probably would, which is why Olive, who runs the café franchise, has put her foot down about us selling them. Oh, for a lull to have an unhealthy snack of my own. A couple of quick sips (okay, swigs) of water are all I’ve managed this afternoon. “I do wonder if you could help me,” An elderly gentleman, wearing a coat with leather patches on the elbows and a slightly battered trilby appeared at the counter about fifteen minutes ago. “Of course, sir,” I said, “I’ll do my best.” “This model railway stuff …..” My heart sank, though it struck me he had an unusual turn of phrase. One of the worshippers at the shrine of the model railway would not be likely to refer to “this model railway stuff” even though there was nothing disparaging in his tone. “Would you mind if I sat down?” he asked. I maintain it was a mistake having a chair “customer side” of the shop and I know that sounds mean. “Oh, don’t worry, my dear,” he said, “I’m not going to flake out on you. Just these old legs get a bit weary at times.” “That’s fine,” I said, feeling vaguely guilty about my uncharitable thoughts. “You have – the scenery, as well…” We do. We have miniature trees and miniature sheep and miniature children waving at the trains. To be frank, they tend to be a lot less carefully made than the actual rolling stock and lines, platforms, and the like. “I believe there’s a miniature cricket match …..” We vary our “surrounding scenery” and at the moment we have the football match out. For a couple of minutes I was seriously tempted to tell a white (well, off-white) lie and say we didn’t have it in stock, and could I interest him in the football match. But it would probably no more interest him than a diesel train would a steam-head, and even though I doubt anyone would have been any the wiser (Malcolm was visiting the bathroom!) in the end I decided to be honest. “We do. It will just take me a couple of minutes to get it out.” “I hate to be any trouble.” “Not in the slightest.” It’s surprising how small a box a whole cricket match can be packed in, though the customers have to provide their own “grass” (which we do sell, but hardly ever sell, if you see what I mean). I hurriedly wiped it over with some kitchen roll to get rid of the dust on it (when it comes to dusting we do tend to operate on an “out of sight, out of mind” basis). “May I have a look?” “Of course.” He opened the box and took out the figures almost reverentially. He didn’t seem quite so interested in the miniature scoreboard and wickets, which were surprisingly well done. “That’s the one!” he exclaimed. “I hoped it might be, but couldn’t be sure until I saw it. It’s the one based on the international match played at Hopden Green in 1939!” Well, I might be impatient and sarcastic, but I’m not into defrauding elderly gentleman, and I said, gently, “Sir, these are modern models – well, only made in the last ten years or so.” He smiled, and it was a warm, crinkly smile, that made him look younger. “You’re a very honest lady, and it’s to your credit, but I know that. They’re still based on it, though, and that’s definitely the right one. I promise you this won’t take long” (that triggered alarm bells, but that longed for lull had finally materialised, though oh, my packet of crisps was calling to me!) “Please may I borrow that green cloth over there?” It was one of the tea towels, this time with Deciduous Trees of our Woodlands on it, but the back of it did, if you used your imagination, look close enough to cricket pitch green. He laid out the match, I had to admit, quickly and expertly. His fingers might be a bit gnarled and papery, but they functioned perfectly well. “You see that chap at Cover Point?” Though my Dad is cricket-mad, I would have been hard pushed to know Cover Point if it bit me, but he obligingly pointed out the fielder in the relevant position. I had also noticed that the players did, indeed, all have their own faces and height and hair colour – this, at least, was a quality item even if it was a reproduction. The chap at Cover Point had reddish hair and lanky limbs. “My Uncle Norbert,” he said. “Norbert Thompson. He played for the village team in the local league, but he had already signed a contract with Middlesex, and there was talk that he might play for England one day.” His voice was wistful. I’m no expert historian, but knew well enough what the match being played in 1939 might signify. I wondered if saying “I’m sorry” would be appropriate. But he patted my hand. “He came through the war, my dear. I won’t say unscathed, and certainly not mentally, though he didn’t talk about it much, but he always said he was one of the lucky ones, and meant it. But he never quite made it to the big time as a cricketer. There were younger chaps coming up behind and – well, perhaps his way of playing was just a bit too old fashioned, even then. He was philosophical about it. He trained as a PE teacher, and he loved it, and the boys loved him. He lived into his nineties and died in his sleep. A good innings, you might say. “ Even as he spoke, he was neatly and carefully packing the figures away with the same skill and care he had unpacked them. “I’ll take this, my dear. And the tea-towel too, though it’s far too pretty to wipe dishes on and I’ll put it on the wall.” He paid by card, rather than the stack of coins I had expected, reinforcing the lesson I should have learnt long-since not to stereotype people, tipped his hat, thanked me again, and was gone. No, this isn’t a cushy job. But it has its compensations!


As the faded black quilt of the night masks out the everlasting intense flare we call luminescence, And the harmonies of all blissful things fall prey to the mournful music of the ever obfuscous vault. The quiet mellow wind will drift, consuming the ones who shiver in the rawest of frost. And then, when all the voices of the world remain unspoken,

That's when, the eternal deepening pained souls, The beaten. The discouraged. The crippled The broken... For them, it will come.

That which threatens the presence of suffering and grief, Of torture and pain. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Kritanta was alone as they shuffled down a large hill in the freezing cold. Their face felt as if it had been touched by the very fingers of winter itself. They let out a shuddering breath, watching as the carbon dioxide they huffed out formed a small cloud in front of them.

They chuckled at the absurdity of this situation.

They had been sent to go pick up halloween decorations on their own. And at the ripe age of thirteen no less! They honestly just wished their mother would take care of her own problems sometimes. But no, Instead she sent her “useless” youngest child out on their own to deal with her issues. The street was slowly growing quiet the longer Kritanta walked. By the time the sun began to set, the store was still a few blocks away. Having their only form of warmth taken away so suddenly only made the frigid child shake and shiver more.

“C-cold…” they muttered, wishing they had at least grabbed a jacket on their rush out the door.

After a minute of sheer icy-dry temperature drops, something fell from the sky above them and tickled their arm. It was small and fluffy. White. Wet.

Cold. Kritanta looked up at the darkening sky, only to get a faceful of white flecks, which soon melted away into nothing but water. It was snowing.

“D-d-dang mom.” They hissed as the snow surrounded them. “If only you’d just driv-v-ven here… on your own.” They sat down on the edge of the large sidewalk, feeling tired and clumsy. “You're almost 14 now,” their mother had said. “You can do the errands on your own.” But she had been wrong, for here her child sat in the freezing cold, Unable to move any further.

Kritanta took in a slow shallow breath of bitter, icy air as they curled up into a ball to hide from the snow.

They shivered. But suddenly they realized that the cold had disappeared. It had been replaced with thousands of pins and needles, poking their way into their delicate skin.

Kritanta screamed and shrieked to the snow covered stars as they laid down in the soft snow that had been piling up below them. After a moment, the pain seemed to recede as Kritanta’s body began to numb over. They let out a small, nervous chuckle and took in a shaky breath,

Too weak to do much of anything else. Knowing what was coming, Kritanta shed a tear. They weren't ready, they knew that. But a person was never really ready for something so sudden and frightening as death. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Their body wasn't found until a week after they actually died. It laid there for days in the icy weather, only freezing more as the seconds ticked by.

But that didn't matter much, for it was just a body.

Kritanta’s mortal body was no longer alive, so it didn't matter much to them anymore.

Now all it could do was serve as a painful reminder that they had once walked the earth, as alive and brilliant with life. They would never feel that exhilaration again. All they could feel now was the remorse and melancholy cries they had left behind. They couldn't even cry, for only people with real bodies, and fluids could do a thing like that. Kritanta often wondered why of all people, they had been chosen for this particular role after life. It was a question left unanswered because there was no way to answer a question like that.

It was just the way things had turned out, and now Kritanta was left to suffer as they watched people live and thrive without them.

They had been left behind, bitten by the jaws of death and subject to suffer the punishment for themselves.

It had been nearly a year now since Kritanta’s death. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Kritanta stared at their Mother from across the dimly lit room.

Today was Halloween, the day her own child had died, and she was still out throwing parties, not caring about the people around her.

Kritanta let out a snarl. At least that woman was no mother of theirs, for the Kritanta their ‘mother’ had known was buried six feet underground. Had her mother even cared enough to attend their funeral? Probably not. They wouldn't know since they had been in a drifting haze for about a month after the cold had taken their life.

Kritanta stood in the dark corner for most of the party, watching all the people around them abuse the little life they had left for far too long. Eventually people started to stagger out of the house one by one. Kritanta frowned. 11:30 was definitely an early time for a party to end at their mother’s house, but they didn't care much. At least it was quiet now.

They made sure to keep their eye trained on their mother as she cleaned up the trashed house and sat on the double sofa with a sigh of relief. “Have you forgotten me?” they wanted to scream to her face as she relaxed there, not a care in the world. “Have you forgotten the day you sent me out to do your bidding?! The day I died.” With a groan, Kritanta began to leave, not even knowing why exactly they had stayed here to begin with. It wasn't like they would suddenly be able to be heard.

Even if they were, there was no way their mother would listen to them. A small sniff from behind forced Kritanta to stop in their tracks. They turned back around to face their mother. To their surprise, her face was streaming with tears and she was holding a small picture. They moved in closer to get a good look at what their mother could possibly be crying about. But before they even saw the image, they knew what it had to be. What it must have been. What they desperately wanted it to be.

“My Kritanta, why did you have to leave us so suddenly,” their mother mumbled through tears. “You were so young, I shouldn't have made you take care of my problems that day. Th-that was m-my responsibility... I-” Their mother broke down into uncontrollable sobs, the miniature picture of her and Kritanta posing together drifting to the floor in a swoop.

Kritanta approached their mother and smiled. They rushed into the awestruck arms of their mom, feeling peaceful and free from what could only be described as her attachment to their life. “It’s okay mom,” Kritanta said, shedding a tear for the first time since that cold night on the sidewalk, “I forgive you. I really do. Live your life in peace knowing that I'll be fine, and you will too. I love you mom.” Their mother returned the hug, still somewhat in shock. “I love you too honey.” she said, still crying. “And I always will.” Kritanta laughed joyfully as their mother spoke the words they had longed to hear for so long. They drifted beyond, blissful and calm, still feeling the warmth of their mother's embrace as they left the living world behind.


“I shoved through the overcrowded and noisy halls, trying to get to my classroom in time so that I would not receive detention. The acute edge of a locker jabbed into my ribs as I tried to avoid a teacher who was still waiting for my essay. But bad luck leered at me every corner I turned.

“Mr. Smith,” a harsh voice called me out, “Mr. Smith, where is your essay. It is a week overdue.” A group of people jeered at me as I tried to dodge a half eaten sandwich.

“Uh, I have it, I just need to get it from my locker,” I lied. The tall figure seemed dissatisfied but he let me go, disappointment clear in his dark gaze as he watched me fight my way to my History class.

The class was eerily silent as I waited at my tattered and worn desk. I wouldn’t call it mine. It was temporary. Our school had this rule, if the teacher was not there within 15 minutes into the class, we were permitted to leave to hang out outside.

The awkward air and painfully bright lights pierced the mood of waiting. Now would be a good time to finish that essay. Pulling out a brand new composition notebook, I clicked a pen and started writing. But my words did not form an essay on “The Structure of Life” as I had been instructed. It formed a diary entry.

Dear Diary,

I am procrastinating. Did you know that procrastinators procrastinate because they have so many things to do that their brains can not focus on just one thing? I have this essay I am supposed to turn in.

Sincerely,

Jerry As soon as I signed my name in cursive, I immediately regretted my entry. I felt like such a girl, to be writing in a diary, let alone writing in cursive. I watched protectively as the ink sank into the lined papers. Dear Jerry, I know how you feel. I have felt that for all my life. I always think that i have so much to do and I can not decide how or when to do it. It’s alright. Just start with a flow map or if you are feeling extra daring, the introductory paragraph. Dear Diary, Thank you for your advice, I really needed it. Right now we are heading outside because Mr. Freeman did not show up to teach us. I am kind of disappointed because we were supposed to learn about the Great Schism or something like that. But I would never admit it to anyone because people would call me a nerd.

Sincerely, Jerry Dear Jerry, Yes, the Great Schism is very interesting. Don’t worry about being called a nerd,

information is always useful. Tell me about yourself? Dear Diary,

My name is Jerry Smith. I am in eighth grade. My favourite color is dark green but when I told this to my younger sister she said that green was too sickly and murky. My younger sister is ten years old and she is obsessed with penguins. I absolutely love spending time drifting into the wonders of a book but I don’t think I should read a lot, people would think I am too introverted. I want to dye my hair but people would think I was depressed. There are so many things I want to tell you. Sincerely,

Jerry Dear Jerry, I love the color green, it reminds me of nature and the outdoors. Reading is my favourite thing to do also. You can dye your hair, don’t care what others may think of you.

Dear Diary, I love playing on the playground. I don’t know why there isn’t any play structure in middle school. I hate sports and exercise but I can not say that to anyone. I want to join the theatre club but I would be the only boy there and I don’t want to take that risk. I want to take art but my parents will not allow me to drop Spanish. I love watching cliche romantic comedies but I pretend to like horror and action films. I probably should really be starting on my essay- Sincerely, Jerry Dear Jerry, Playgrounds are cool, middle school is not. Theatre club sounds like fun, take a shot (Cue the Hamilton Music), and although Spanish is useful, if art is your truest passion, you should join. What is your favourite cliche romantic comedy?

Dear Diary, I love the movie “Flipped”, I think it is exciting and also funny. You should watch it. There is always the classic, “The Princess Bride”, but I think that if I were to truly choose it would be “Flipped”. I like listening to Broadway productions. I like the extra tinge of dramaticness and reality in the songs. My mother took me to see an off broadway production of “Thoroughly Modern Millie” and I made the mistake of singing a tune on the bus.

I like reading “The Phantom Tollbooth”, I think it has a new approach on figures of speech and I am blown away by the creativity. Sincerely, Your friend Jerry I knew that my diary was one hundred percent reliable and would respond to me no matter what. I knew that my diary would not judge my opinions and what I like. I knew that my diary would always agree with me. But I was not aware that my diary was me.” “Mr. Jerry Smith you have been subjected to twelve months in a mental asylum for claiming that your 99 cents composition notebook wrote back to you and told you to attempt to murder the principal of your school. Expert psychologists and detective’s have confirmed that you were indeed writing back to yourself and listening to your own young and stupid advice.”

The law faced the psychotic and schizophrenic maniac like a concrete dam. People would whisper and make fun of his younger sister for years. Jerry Smith’s younger sister. The one who’s older brother imagined he was talking to a diary when he really was writing back to himself.

And Jerry Smith would endure the worst. He was the one who had truly been so crazed that he would write to himself. He was the one who attempted to stab sweet and caring Principal Sanders to the death claiming his diary told him to.

But he was his diary.


   Waking up on Monday is always hard. As I unenthusiastically get out of bed and start to get dressed, I hear a loud crashing noise coming from another room. “I live alone. I have no pets. No one would visit me this time of year. What made that noise? A robber. With a gun.

Tall, wearing all black, but more scared of me than I am of him ." I whisper to myself. I grab my phone and a fork from a bedside table, the nearest thing available to me that I can use as a makeshift weapon. I cautiously creep out of my bedroom and into the hallway while dialing 911, the tension overtaking the air and choking me. I slowly turn my head around the corner, and sure enough, there he is. A tall man with a gun wearing all black digging frantically through anything and everything. I tell the 911 operator what's happening as quickly and as quietly as possible, and after they reassure me they will be there soon, I hang up. He looks even more terrified than I feel. As he continues to scour through every drawer and cabinet, I jump out from the hallway holding the ever-so-terrifying fork. He turns around, looking horrified. “Put everything down, and get out. If you don’t, you won’t be going home tonight, or ever again. Got it?” I say as calmly as possible. He nods furiously, and the look in his icy blue eyes tells me that it wasn’t his choice to rob me, and was probably told to do it for another person. He quickly sets everything down and bolts through the front door of my apartment, only to run head-on into a police officer. A half-hour later, after the authorities question me, I remember that I’m supposed to meet up with Minsun at the coffee shop at eight-thirty, which is now only 23 minutes away. I run to the elevator and back to my apartment bedroom on the seventh floor from outside the apartment where I was questioned. Once inside, I quickly finish getting dressed and walk to the bathroom where I comb my hair and brush my teeth. I take one last look into the mirror before leaving. I guess the whole incident of the man trying to rob me took a toll on my looks in a way, too. My face is pale, and my usually calm and tired-looking amber eyes now make me look nervous and alert. My black and electric blue hair is still knotted in the back, so I wrestle the comb through my hair one more time and then run out of my apartment to meet up with Minsun. I’m halfway there when I realize it. “She’s missing.” I whisper, stopping in the middle of the road I was crossing. “She won’t be there.” I was so caught up thinking about where she could be that I didn’t see the truck barreling towards me. I’m able to run to the side, but not without getting scrapes all over me. I start sprinting towards the small coffee shop we were supposed to meet up. I get there at eight-thirty four, and look for our usual table, then scan the restaurant for her pink and purple-dyed hair, usually in dutch braids. Just like I thought, no Min. Minsun is never late. Minsun never cancels or bails unless she absolutely has to, and she always tells you when she does. I take a few minutes to calm down, as I’m still out of breath from running here. After I

chill out a little, I start worriedly texting Min and walking to her house. It’s pretty far away, so I realize it’s going to be around a forty-five-minute walk. I’ve always known what was going on. I’ve always been able to just realize what was happening before I saw or was told anything. The rest of the walk is pretty quiet. It's cold outside today again, it has been for the past two weeks. New York City is huge, and even though I’ve lived here for almost 6 years, I still have trouble finding my way almost anywhere. Minsun’s place is easy to get to, though. It's almost a straight line down from the coffee shop. She’s loaded rich and lives in a penthouse, but she’s not snobby or mean. I walk into the building and take the elevator up to the top floor. As I enter the penthouse, I’m hit again with the sheer beauty of it. I’ve been here plenty of times, but I can never get used to how amazing and modern everything is. The view is definitely the best part, especially at night when you can see all the lights. I’m getting distracted. I need to look for Minsun. I think to myself. I sprint through her place, yelling her name. It’s been about twenty minutes when I see it. Her purse. Her purse has her car keys, the keys to her company office, her penthouse keys, her phone, her wallet, and everything else that she would always take with her at all times. “Ok, I don’t know where Min is, and the only way to find her is by looking. And the only way to look is by knowing where to look. So in normal circumstances, this would be screwed up, however , these are not normal circumstances, and therefore it is acceptable to look through only the parts that would be useful to the search on her phone. Right?” I say to myself. I pick up her phone slowly, thinking again about how it’s okay because I have to in order to find Minsun. I press the button, turning it on. Her wallpaper is an old picture of us from 2015 when we were at a concert, and she still says today that it was the best night of her life. We did a lot of stuff that night, and it was probably the best night of my life too. I press the button again, and it asks for a password. Right. Of course, it needs a password. I say in my head. Ok. If I were Minsun, what would my password be? No doubt she spelled something out using the letters on the button of each button, she always does. 246786, maybe? That spells out Minsun. Password incorrect. I furiously press the buttons, typing out more numbers quickly, tyring more passwords, trying to get into her phone. Password incorrect. What does Min love the most? After a few more tries, I almost give up. And then it comes to me. No way. It wouldn’t be this, not anymore. Right? I slowly press the buttons on the screen, typing out 65682 which would spell out Okoua. It won't be this. She made that nickname up in middle school. She probably doesn’t even remember it. Password correct. “Really, Minsun?” I say with a smile. Okay. Where should I look first? I ask myself silently. Messages. I open the app and look through her contacts until I find one that looks interesting. The name is just unknown, but the last message sent read, “Come alone.” I click on the contact and scroll to the top, back to the first messages. “You have no choice. You know you can’t avoid me any longer.” “ What is wrong with you? I told you to leave me alone!” Minsun replies. “It’s your fault, you know.” “SHUT UP! It was your fault just as much as mine and everyone else's. It was years ago! Find someone else to bother.” “I’ll tell him.” “Who? There’s no one to tell.” “OH but there is. Your new friend. He doesn’t know, now does he?” Are they talking about me? “Leave him out of this.” Suddenly, the silence starts to choke me. I walk out of her bedroom and into the living room. I turn on the tv and sit on the floor in front of the couch, feeling how soft the gray fluffy rug is. I keep reading. It's them massaging back and forth about something they did, and the unknown person saying it was all Min’s fault. I’m focusing on the things they’re saying until I hear what’s happening on the tv. The news is on, and they’re talking about a suspected killer named Seiro Komoka “ After years of investigating the 207 murders that were all done by the same person or group of people, police have finally found a huge detail that was nearly impossible to find that tells them that Seiro Komoka is the perpetrator in this case. The killer in question is often called by the nickname ‘Eye Obsessed Abducter’, as he takes each of his murdered victims eyes, sometimes taking them from the people he has injured or kidnapped that managed to survive him and has been confirmed to have murdered at least over 207 people, injured 457 more, and kidnapped 289 people, and this is just what has been confirmed. For all we know, the ‘Eye obsessed abductor’ could have done much more damage than we thought. Although there is evidence we have here whatsoever as to who this mysterious murderer is, Seiro Komoka is being looked for and is still around somewhere, and police have found that he has been spotted talking to many of the victim's families lately. The only other knowledge we have of the murderer is that all of the murders, abductions and harm have in fact been done by him. Although it is possible that everything has been done by a group of people, chief of police Neil Kamri has said that it is highly doubtful for reasons that were not shared.” the broody reporter says. They still haven’t caught that guy? They’ve been looking for such a long time. They do finally have a suspect. I go back to reading the messages, still thinking about the Eye Obsessed abductor I’m almost at the end. “ You have to do it. It’s not a choice, Minsun.” Says the unknown person. Min doesn’t reply. “ 67 Sanra drive at 5:30 next Monday. Be there.” Again, Minsun says nothing. “Don’t bring anything. I will give you what you need.” They say. “Come alone.” He adds. I check when the last message was sent. Monday last week. She’s going there today. I check the time on her phone, and it’s three thirty-two. Did she leave early? I run back to her bedroom, stuff her phone into her purse, take out her car keys, grab the purse and run to the car garage underneath the building to her car. I get in, not bothering to have a valet do it for me. I type the address into the GPS and start driving. It’s an hour and a half later before I get there. I park behind a large rock, hidden from anyone else. I start walking to where everything was.

How did even Min get here? A taxi wouldn’t take her here, and there’s no way she walked so far.

I take a look around. What is this place? Everywhere I look seems dead and abandoned. There are deserted restaurants and houses, stores, and other buildings all around. All the plants and trees and grass, all of it is dead and withered. A nearly dried-up pond is beside the uninhabited town, and the only water left is brown and disgusting looking.  What happened? Who and why does someone want to meet Minsun here? What is happening? My thoughts are abruptly interrupted by a loud bang. Something is about to explode. I run towards the car, away from the rundown settlement. I get there and hide behind the rock, hoping it’s far enough away. Seconds later, a building from the back of the abandoned town bursts into pieces and two buildings around it erupt into flames. Debris from the explosion goes flying in every direction, and a flaming half of a door lands in a dead bush about 14 feet away from where I’m hiding and sets it ablaze. I look at all the other flying wreckage, some are on fire, some aren’t. Then I see the bloodied body soaring with the rest of the debris. It lands in the dried-up pond with a snap. I turn my head around the side of the rock to check if anyone is there, and when I’m sure no one will see me, I run to where the body lies dead. I don’t know who it is, and even if I did, I wouldn’t be able to tell. The heat devoured half of their face off, and the rest of their body was a mangled mess of bones, flesh and blood. I hear a low, smooth, voice. “See, it wasn’t that hard now was it?” and then after they say that, I hear another soft, quiet voice say, “It’s done, okay? Now you have to leave me alone, and you can’t tell anyone I ever knew you.” It's Minsun. I freeze, wondering if it’s too late to hide somewhere, anywhere, somehow.

Then they see me, still crouched next to the body in the dried-up pond. “WHY ARE YOU HERE?” Yells Minsun with a twisted, shocked expression on her face. “I just- I uhm…” I utter. “You can either keep this secret or you get killed.” The man next to Min announces. “What secret? I have no idea what’s happening.” I ask. “We used to be in the mafia.It wasn’t our choice, though. The rest of them died and we fled. How they died though, was our fault. A group of friends we were in.” “Minsun? Is that true? Is this the guy named unknown in your contacts that you were talking to?”I urge quietly.

“Yes…” Whispers Minsun, her face scared-looking, staring intensely at the ground.”Wait, how did you know I was texting him?” She says, looking up suddenly, the expression on her face changing from grave to suspicious in a matter of seconds. “Uh- That's…That’s not important right now.” I reply nervously. “Wait a minute- I know who you are!” Says the guy Minsun was talking to. “You…You’re Seiro Komoka! You may have changed your looks, but you can’t get rid of that look in your eyes! You killed my SISTER.” He shouts, his face seething with hate and rage. “What are you talking about? I’m not a murderer! You’re insane.” I yell. “Don’t lie to me! You’re the Eye Obsessed Killer!” He roars. Minsun looks really confused. She starts saying “ No, he’s not the killer, there’s no way-”. She stops talking when she sees the giant smirk on my face. “What?” “Let me explain.” I say calmly, still smiling. “ I’m not following you anywhere you psychotic kil-” I pull a knife out of my pocket, start running the flat part of the blade through my fingers, focusing on the sharp part. “You have such nice beautiful green amber and green eyes. It would be such a shame if someone were to…I don’t know…” I turn to face him, knife in hand, and rotate my head to the side a bit. “Take them.” He looks terrified. Perfect. His eyes look so worried, just like all the smart people’s did. If you’re not scared, your risk of death goes up by a high amount. “W-where do you want to go?” He asks nervously. I pocket the knife and point to a building in the back. Minsu and I walk there together, answering each other's questions, while the other guy walks far behind us. We get there and walk around the buildings, avoiding the debris from the explosion from earlier. “It’s not that I wanted to become a killer. But once you start.. You can't stop. It’s addicting. So at first, it was bad. But then…It became the only thing that gave me joy. So much joy, that I would do anything to kill someone, anyone. And I mean anyone. Like family, teachers, friends, strangers…I say the word strangers with a smirk on my face, and stop walking right where I planned to stop. They turn to me. “Hello, stranger.” I say, pushing ‘unknown’ into the fire, laughing. He shrieks and cries, but very soon he goes limp as the fire devours him. Minsun is frozen in horror, too scared to do anything. I do it as a joining, my instincts tell me she’ll move. She won’t get hurt. I would never want to hurt her. “Hello friend.” I say, widening my eyes and launching manically, trying to scare. I playfully shove her towards the fire, but she doesn’t move. She lays there, screaming in agony as the scorching, flaming monster eats her whole. I let out a scream too. I didn’t want that. After she dies, I spend ten minutes sitting there, next to the fire, convincing myself not to jump in with them, let me drown in the pool of flames with their bodies, and that she was dead-weight. She wasn’t. She was the only one there for me when everyone else hated me. She was the reason why I started killing. To protect her. And now she’s gone. It’s my fault. The one person I didn’t want dead, the one person that was safe from me, who I wanted to protect, was dead. And I had killed her. I get all the ‘monster’ comments now. The people telling me to die. I hadn’t before, but my mind is clear now. I start walking towards the rock, tears in my eyes, knife in my hand. I start the car up and start driving. I don’t know where I’m going, just that it’s going to be far, far away from New York. For a fresh start. Where no one will no know me or what I've done. Authors note: Ok yes the transitions were horrible. I’m not good with word limits, sorry and this is my first time doing one of these.


       I saw her- well, I think I did when I was twelve years old. Anything could have explained it, though, right?        I mean, who can actually believe their mind at only twelve years of age? I was just starting puberty, small sprouts of hairs poking through the skin of my leg. High school was becoming a growing reality in my future. My friends were all starting to neglect pickup baseball games and late-night creature features for sitting around at Baby Bo’s Burgers and Soda to act like the older kids. I was in love with Cindy McArthur. In fact, that’s why I was there at Whispering Moon Lake that night.        The lake was actually unnamed. Just a pool of murky water out in the marsh outside of town. Its local legend was why it was given the name Whispering Moon.        See-according to the tale-back in 1903, a woman named Agatha Marie Spindler was murdered by her abusive husband with her bones being thrown into the lake. Being that the town was nothing more than farmers at the time (which really hadn’t changed too much by then in 1983), there was no arrest, trial, and imprisonment. Instead, the town formed a mob where the husbands stormed Jonathan Spindler’s house and tied him to a tree overlooking the small pool of mud and algae. He was executed with his eyes to the supposed resting place of his wife.        Usually, the tale would end there. That’s how my mother concluded the story as well as my grandparents, however, if you asked any kid under the age of fourteen or the occasional grownup looking to spook some youngsters, they had a little epilogue to the folklore.        There, you would hear how while the men were busy attending to Mr. Spindler as the women watched, a handful of the townspeople saw the ghastly pale figure of Agatha Spindler- white as the full moon- watching the execution in a blood-stained gown. Ever since then, the little pool in the swampy woods outside of Wheatville, Illinois was called by its unofficial name of Whispering Moon. The legend told that if you visit around midnight under a full moon, you’ll see the figure of Agatha Marie Spindler, and you’ll hear her whisper horrible things into your ear. The reason more people did not visit the lake was that her sight was supposed to be an omen for family tragedies. So, naturally, a group of people wanted to go see this spirit of the lake ourselves right at the end of childhood, when the imagination does all it can to stay in place in the mind before the allure of girls and underage drinking becomes too strong to ignore.        “Okay, we will meet at Whispering Moon tonight at eleven,” Tommy, our never-spoken but completely recognized leader spoke. We had just gotten a few sodas and some cheap candy from the corner store on Rosemary Ave. and were sitting in one of the pavilions in Cherry Tree Park discussing that we were no longer children and that it was time for us to see the spirit known as the Lady in the Lake.        Though I was a fan of horror movies and would collect any books or comics containing anything gruesome, I was still a baby. Murderous psychopaths that wore eerie masks and never spoke, vampires that seduced beautiful women into their lair before turning them into creatures of the night, brainless zombies that were reanimated from Military chemicals gone wrong, and a whole host of other weird tales that I would watch on late-night television and read about in books my mom would get from the small bookstore she worked at got me excited. However, what no one knew about were the countless sleepless nights after them. Staying up until the sunrise armed with a little cross that my dad had given me before he ran off with a busty bartender from the town over and a not-so-confident knowledge on how to get rid of monsters. Ghosts are what scared me the most.        I would have preferred a night in Sam’s basement playing D&D while the newly-released Metallica’s

Kill ‘Em All  pounded from the stereo and soda splashed around our cups like an ocean in a hurricane. Cindy was there, though. Her friend, Kat Thompson was Tommy’s girlfriend, so instead of an all-male group of Tommy, Sam, Andrew, and me. We were accompanied by Kat and Cindy, which I didn’t mind too much seeing as how I thought I could get to know Cindy a bit better. Cindy said she was up for it so I said yes too with a reluctant way of showing it by putting my hand on top of the pile in the middle of the circle of us.        “Oh shit,” Andrew said. Disappointment and loathing scrunched in his freckled- ginger brow, “I am going to my aunt’s and uncles this afternoon to spend the weekend with my cousins in their cabin in Kentucky. I can’t tonight.”        “Yeah, or you’re just chicken,” Tommy spoke with sarcasm. He used to accompany Andrew to the cabin when they were little until the two of them got in trouble for nearly starting a forest fire with a cherry bomb and a stolen lighter when we were ten.        “I can’t go tonight, either, guys,” Sam spoke. He sounded a bit more excited about his absence, his chubby cheeks just barely showing a relieved grin on his pale lips, “I have to go with my dad to help him clean the gutters at my grandparents’ house.”        Tommy just shook his head but looked up and smirked at me, “Guess it’ll just be the two amigos with their lady friends.” Tommy’s eyes gave mine a look of

take your shot  then raised an eyebrow to Cindy, who merely sipped her orange soda.        “Do you think her face will be all rotted and gross?” Kat gleamed at Tommy. Kat had a cool interest in horror and science fiction like we did. I would have had a crush on her if it wasn’t for her greasy matted hair and slight snaggletooth in the front of her mouth. Those things mattered to me back then, Tommy didn’t care, though. He thought she was too cool to pass up. I suppose that’s why he married her ten years later after they had graduated from college. He works at a renewable energy plant while she does accounting at a small farm equipment firm. We still meet up for dinner when I am in town or have the occasional phone conversation to discuss movies from time to time. That’s why I liked Tommy- even as a star track athlete and Homecoming king, he was always down to earth and nerdy.        Cindy and Kat had to go tell their parents that they were spending the night at a mutual friend’s house while Tommy and I went to the bookstore to tell my mom I would be staying at Tommy’s that night.        “Okay, but I want you back by noon tomorrow,” mom told me, “we are going to Uncle Neil’s for the family reunion tomorrow.” I groaned at the thought of having my cheeks pinched by all my mom’s aunts and my hair ruffled by her uncles as I was told how big I was getting and if I was playing any sports. I was athletic enough, but writing was my passion- it worked out when I wrote my first bestseller at twenty-six and hit number one with my follow-up at twenty-nine.        “You gonna try to talk to Cindy tonight?” Tommy asked when we exited the bookstore with a new sci-fi novel each in our hands. Tommy didn’t care much for Cindy, but he tolerated her for Kat and me.        “I don’t know,” I answered, hoping not to sound too excited at hanging with her all night. In reality, my head was whirling with a tornado of me telling her my feelings and us kissing at the water’s edge until our lips were chapped and the sun was up. “I hadn’t thought about it.”        “Just show her some of your stories,” the ever-so-encouraging Tommy said, “I bet she’d like the one about the man with a baby’s brain who kills people with a spiked rattle and wears a diaper.” He paused for a moment, “Or you could show her the one about the creature from space who eats the skin off of people’s faces.”        “She wouldn’t like that,” I answered, “Cindy likes

The Brady Bunch  and

Happy Times . She thinks reading is boring.”        “You’re too good for her,” Tommy said. I was going to argue but we had arrived at Tommy’s house and his mother was beckoning us in for a lunch of fried bologna sandwiches and potato chips.        After lunch, we pilfered through some space magazines and discussed if the new

Friday the 13th  would be scarier with its 3-D effect or not. After that, we tried to get some sleep in anticipation of our all-nighter. Tommy passed out like a rock, I was too antsy about seeing Cindy and the spirit in the water to get any rest. I wasn’t sure about which was a more frightening thought.        Eventually, it was time to sneak out. Sneaking out wasn’t really the correct term. Tommy’s parents knocked out at nine o’clock every night and didn’t wake until seven on the weekends. Tonight was Friday night, so we wouldn’t have to worry about time at all tonight. We merely took a few packaged snacks and cola from the fridge then walked out the back door that Tommy’s family kept open all night over the summer and stalked the woods until we came upon the clearing with Whispering Moon Lake.        The girls arrived shortly after we did.        “Geez,” Cindy said in an exacerbated voice, “Why is it so hot tonight? I am getting eaten alive by mosquitos.”        Tommy and Kat hugged each other before Tommy answered, “Rub some mud on the bites, it’ll take care of the itching.”        Cindy’s tanned face beneath her blonde hair made an expression as she had just been asked to take a tree down with her bare hands, “I’m not rubbing mud on my skin! Are you kidding me?”        Kat, with her brown hair opposing Cindy addressed her friend, “Oh, come on, Cindy, have some adventurous spirit,” she touched Cindy on the shoulder.        “My clothes are expensive and my mom and I go to the beauty parlor every month,” Cindy argued back, “I can’t ruin my beauty for some children’s fantasy about a ghost.”        “You were so excited just a few hours ago,” Tommy said now, “You didn’t hesitate to join in at the park.”        Cindy crossed her arms and rolled her eyes, “I didn’t expect to be surrounded by mud and bugs all night.”        Finally, I spoke in a sheepish voice, “We can go sit on that log over there if you want.”        “No, it’s fine, I’ll just stay here,” Cindy sighed. My already low ego took a blow from that. We stood around watching the moon reflect off the ripples of water for about half an hour. The only sounds were the frogs croaking as a gentle wind rustled the leaves around and Cindy’s occasional outburst of how tired she was and how her feet hurt.        Suddenly, there came a shriek of bloody murder. I jumped higher than I ever had before as my heartbeat became audible in my ears. My blood was felt running icy in my veins.        “Get it off! Get! It! OFF!” Cindy howled in utter fear. Tommy ran to her to see what was happening.        “It’s just a little water bug,” he said flicking the insect off Cindy’s ankle.        “Kat, I want to go home,” Cindy pouted, “I need a bath and I want to go to sleep. I can’t take these bugs and the heat. There’s no ghost here, It’s just a made-up tale for children.        “But Cindy,” Kat begged.        “Aw, come on,” Tommy spoke as well.        “No,” Cindy put her foot down, “I’m not staying here any longer.”        “I’ll walk you home,” I offered.        “Kat, we are leaving,” Cindy spoke, ignoring my sentence.        “Tommy, can you walk us at least to town?” Kat asked.        Tommy said yes and asked if I wanted to come with them.        “That’s okay,” I told him, “I’ll stay,” My heart was too broken to go.        Tommy told me he would be back in about twenty minutes. I stood watching the water make tiny waves under the wind as the sound of Cindy’s bickering grew fainter and fainter.

Don’t be too upset,  a voice spoke inside my head. It wasn’t the normal voice, this one sounded like a woman. I flinched at the unexpectedness of it,

I’m sorry to have scared you. I assure you I mean no harm.

       I turned around to see a sight that remains every time I close my eyes. She was beautiful. Well, maybe not beautiful, but spectacular. Brown hair floating around her flawless pale face. She glowed as an extension of the full moon. Her eyes hinted a light green with lips as red as the bloodstain that flowed down her white gown from the heart.

You don’t have to be afraid, Dennis

(how did she know my name?)  I assure you that I am nothing more than a spirit that inhabits this lake . She smiled kindly. Her lips never moved when speaking. The words still coming as a voice in my head.        “Wha- how?” I asked dazed, “Does this mean someone will die in my family?”

Everyone dies, at some point, Dennis,  she answered kindly,

But, no, I am not any kind of harbinger despite what is said. I am merely just a being here. No different from the animals that come to drink from this pool.  A small, kind small smile appeared on her scarlet lips again.        “I- I’m sorry about how you died?” I said, it was stupid but my mouth was working independently from my brain.        Agatha’s eyes cast down as a look of sorrow took over for just a moment,

No, need to be sorry, child. As I said, everyone goes at some point. You’re a good person though, I can see it. That is why I waited for you to be alone to show myself. Do not fret about that girl, Cindy. You will meet the love of your life when the time comes.

“How d-do you know about that?” I asked. I was still nervous, but a soothing warmth also held me.

One learns quite a bit when you have studied as many people as I have. I can also tell that you are going to be a brilliant writer one day and that your life will be filled with greatness.

       I smiled at what the Lady in the Lake had just told me. Rustling became audible in the woods. Tommy must be returning.

I have to go now, Dennis. Thank you for chatting with me for a bit. I hope to see you here again one day.

And with that, Agatha Marie Spindler walked slowly to the banks of Whispering Moon Lake and vanished as her feet touched the water.        “See anything while I was gone?” I heard Tommy ask once the woman had vanished. I lied and told him it had been uneventful before we decided to go home ourselves. I never told Tommy or anyone that I thought I had not only seen but spoken with the spirit of that lake.        Eventually, when I was in college, I would see a girl in my English Composition class who had auburn hair and blue-green eyes. She confronted me about why I was staring at her. We married at the age of twenty-five. She now edits my novels.        I never returned to Whispering Moon Lake. Every small town has its paranormal story (the town my wife and I live in with our kids has whispers of a part-man part-arachnid that stalks the forests after escaping from the nearby Air Force base) and it was only a matter of time before the ghost hunting shows visited and turned the small pool into a tourist destination. The most recent one even claimed footage of the spirit in the water, but they got it wrong. The actress they used was a blonde.        I still think about that night every day, dreaming that Agatha speaks to me again and I tell her how I was a novelist who’s sold the movie rights to three of my works now and my kids are roughly the age I was when I met her. Something always gets in the way of me going back. Still, the allure to hop in my car and make the drive becomes almost overwhelming and tonight I cannot contain it any longer. Just to prove to myself that I did see her.


The Rose Box I’m not sure why I opened that first box. Maybe it was a greedy impulse or pure curiosity, even madness. Looking back now, I probably should have let it alone. Those little mahogany boxes changed the course of my life forever. I got the first box in the fall of my senior year. I had just turned eighteen, and I felt as if the world was at my feet. I can now see that it was just him. I don’t know why he chose that day to give it to me. Was it coincidence, or did he plan out that specific day to give it to me?

It was definitely planned. He always had a plan.

I was running late, so I smelled strongly of perfume masking gross body odor. In my defense, I didn’t have time to take a shower. I stumbled out of the house and onto the bus into my usual seat next to my friend Kris. He looked at me and said, “Someone didn’t hear their alarm go off.” “Is it that obvious?” I asked ominously. “Sorry, Kat, It’s pretty obvious.” I sighed and did calculus homework.

When we got off the bus, I went to my locker and threw all my books into a big pile on the second shelf. As I walked to my first-period class, I had the strange feeling someone was watching me. I ignored it and made it to English 12 with three minutes to spare.

When class ended, I headed back to my locker to organize all the books I carelessly cast in there as I got off the bus.

 When I opened it, I was astonished to see that all my books and folders were color-coordinated. “What the..” I was cut off by my surprise. On top of the folders and books was a small box. As I examined it closer, I saw that it had intricately painted roses with entangled stems. All I could muster up to say was, “Wow.”

I was awestruck that someone would spend the time to make something so lovely for me. I opened the lid and tried to decipher who sent me the gift. Inside was a beautiful rose necklace with a gold chain. As I looked closer, I saw that the petals of the rose were translucent; inside were small golden flecks.

I took the necklace out of the box and searched for a note. There was a little piece of pink notebook paper taped to the bottom. I ripped the article from the bottom, breaking the small white seal. It said, “To the girl who has the world at her feet.” I looked on the back for the name of the sender. To my bewilderment, there was none.

For the rest of the day, my mind filled with so many questions. Why wouldn’t the person who sent me the box put his name? Didn’t they want recognition for their work? There must be a reason they sent me the necklace; it didn’t look cheap.

Even though I was a little uneasy about the idea that the person who sent me the necklace didn’t include their name, I decided to wear it anyway. It was pretty, and there was no reason to leave it in the box. Maybe if I wore it to school, my secret admirer would reveal himself.

For the next couple of months, I wore the rose necklace every day. After a while, I started to lose hope that he would ever come. One day while I was riding the bus home Kris asked me, “Why have you been wearing that necklace so much?” I shrugged and said, “I honestly don’t know at this point. Someone left it in my locker a couple of months ago with a note. I thought if I wore it every day; eventually, they would show themself.”

“Huh, that's quite the predicament. Have you ever thought about not wearing it? Maybe if you took it off, he would think you’re losing interest and reveal his identity.” Kris said. “That’s not a bad idea, Kris.”

 The next day I didn’t wear a necklace. It was an unofficial screw you to this mystery guy. The day went normal, and I was disappointed to find nothing in my locker. I got off the bus feeling glum. I walked into the kitchen and upstairs into my bedroom. As I opened the door, I found a gigantic bouquet of red roses. “Finally!” I exclaimed. I ran to them and searched for the note. When I saw it, I quickly ripped it away and read it happily. The letter said, “Dear Kat, You’re probably pretty mad at me right now for not telling you who I am yet. But I promise you I will reveal everything soon. Each day I keep myself a mystery from you makes my heartache. Meet me at the park beside the school at 7:00. - Your Secret Admirer”.

After reading the note, all I could think about was finally meeting my dream boy. I tried to picture how he might look, but I kept coming up blank. The truth is, I didn’t want to imagine him if I was disappointed at the outcome.

6:30, finally came, and I made my way to the park. My heart raced with every step. I decided to bring the necklace and one of the roses from the bouquet with me because I wanted to tell him how much I liked it.

I got to the park, and I saw a figure in the distance that I could only assume was my secret admirer. A big smile spread across my face. As I got closer, I realized that it wasn’t him because this man was forty years old. When he started to approach me, I felt anxious like something wasn’t right. I began to walk away, but he was following me. I went from walking to running. The man was running behind me. He tackled me to the ground, and I began to scream. Then everything went black.

That was the last time anyone saw Katherine Forrester.

The next time I woke up, the first thing I saw was my face plastered on an old, ratty television. I started to panic when I looked down and saw I was tied to a pipe. I calmed myself by focusing on the TV. A news reporter was saying my name. As I listened closer, I made out what he was saying. It was hard, though, because I was droning in and out of consciousness. “...stolen from the park… by a man wearing a… if seen call…” Then I went back to sleep for the last time.