The loud chime of the clock rang once, twice, three, four times, each one shuddering the floor of the clocktower, and therefore, Teo. He got up, bones still clattering from the vibrations, picked up his brown leather-covered case, and ran down the winding steps of the tower, out into the crisp early autumn air. He sprinted across the cobblestone streets, short mousy hair blowing across his forehead. The afternoon sun shone, reflecting off the water, yet hardly warming up the cool London air. Leaves blew through the wind, and drivers shouted as Teo rushed in front of horse-drawn carriages, weaving his way through the 4 O’clock traffic. He waved a friendly hello at a fruit stand as he hurried by, flipping a shining coin to the vendor as he passed.

Out of breath, he arrived in front of the tall iron gates that were his destination. He stood there for a moment, pressing his back up against the gate, holding his case against his chest, bent over, breathing heavily from the exertion. The gate swung open, and he stumbled backward into the courtyard, landing on his butt, and dropping the case on the dusty ground.

“Pfft.” Teo saw Marigold standing over him laughing.

“What’s so funny?” He asked indignantly.

“You!” She giggled. Teo stood up, dusted off his pants, adjusted his suspenders, and affixed his bowtie to sit properly underneath his collar. Scowling mockingly, he punched Marigold’s arm.

“You got me all dirty!” he teased her. “Why are you all fancy anyway?” She asked, attempting to raise an eyebrow at his outfit.

“Don’t you r-” She cut Teo off, saying “Nevermind! I want to show you something!” and motioned for him to follow. Picking up his case, Teo raced after her, not wanting to be left behind. Together, they darted through the garden. Even at a glance, the garden was a sight to behold. A beautiful stone path wound through it, with garden beds on either side. They were filled with multicolored lilies, purple, pink, and orange tulips, bright carnations, and an outer ring of towering sunflowers. The air was filled with the sweet scent of nectar and sneezing, as the pollen found its way into Teo’s nose.

After rushing through the garden, Marigold led them down a dirt path Teo never remembered going on or even seeing.

“We’re almost there, come on!” She called behind her shoulder. Teo ran to catch up and nearly slammed into her as she stopped suddenly in front of what looked like a brick wall, although it was hard to tell with all the ivy covering it. “Ta da!!” Marigold gestured to the wall. “Ummmm…”

“Let me show you inside!” Marigold was bursting with excitement, so Teo just sighed, and obliged her. Peeling back the curtain of shining ivy, Marigold ran her hand along the brick wall. She stopped when she came to a brick that was slightly indented into the wall and pushed her weight against the spot. A door swung open with a squeal of rusty hinges. Teo followed her inside, intrigued by what he had just witnessed. Marigold picked up a rock, a good bit larger than her fist, and set it down in the doorway, so it would remain open just a bit.

Teo looked around in wonder,

marveling at what was before him. It was the most wondrous thing he had ever seen, with high brick walls creating a large room-like expanse, only lacking a roof. Teo estimated that it was as big, if not bigger, than his residence, in the clocktower, or at the orphanage. The ivy that scaled the tall brick walls reflected the sunlight off of its leaves. A willow stood in a corner, its branches of lush green leaves peering over the top of the walls, a woodpecker perched within its branches. The ground was covered with a spongy green moss with small footprints indented in it as if an animal had been there recently. There were flowers growing in scattered rows. There were white ones that looked like floating dancers, purple ones that grew in bunches like lilacs, and the crown jewel of it all. Coral-colored roses surrounded by their own thorns, protecting them from the rest of the world.

Next to him, Marigold’s drawn-out breath synchronized with his own, as together they breathed in the scent of this magic. They watched as a chittering squirrel scampered across the top of the walls, as a beetle munched on fallen leaves, and as the woodpecker pecked at the trunk of its tree.

“Marigold,” Teo began, somewhat sharply. “I am in awe. Truly. But I’m leaving for boarding school today! That’s why I’m dressed like this!” Marigold sighed loudly. “Teo, don’t you see? That’s why I needed to show you. Everything here-” She gestured around the garden, “Is endangered!” And once she said that something clicked for Teo. The floating dancing flowers, the purple one that resembled lilacs, and the coral roses. He had never seen them before, and now he knew why. “You’re leaving today, which is why you need to have these.” Marigold held out a fistful of small drawstring pouches, presumably from her pockets.

“Uh, what do those have to do with anything?” “They have seeds. Seeds to all of these plants. You need to take them with you and plant them somewhere at your school. Because I think this garden-” Marigold gestured around her again, “ Is the last of many of these plants.” Teo took the pouches she had held out, and together they walked back to the main house. Marigold grabbed a piece of parchment, a quill, a piece of string, and a botany book she had acquired from the library.

Looking at the book for reference, she carefully wrote down the name of each species, how they needed to be planted, and where. Marigold rolled up the parchment, tied it with the string, and handed it, along with the pouches of seeds, to Teo. Together, they walked in silence to the train station. Teo bought his ticket, and as the train pulled away, he released a seed into the wind.


The silent emptiness that now filled the room was deafening in comparison to the meager roars of the participatory and rowdy audience had offered only an hour or so before. Oscar, Clown No. 3 and Pirate No. 4 scanned the ornately dilapidated hall, taking in that emptiness and the ruin left by the participatory and rowdy audience mentioned above. “The patrons favored bananas this evening”, Oscar mumbled to himself. Half-dressed in the silky pantaloons of an oriental pirate and still donning the elaborate clown face of the penultimate and dramatic scene that epitomizes the decaying decadence of the modern theater he let loose an unscripted Jeremiad that had both the passion and the eloquence of delivery that deserved a much finer stage than from the one it had been delivered from. The curtain had fallen; the director had cued him. Oscar, Night Janitor No. 1 began to play his role with an expertise that was sorely lacking at the Grand Off-Main Theatre. Grand Off-Main, an architectural wonder combining the façade of the Palau de la Musica and it’s interesting bulging of bricks, though, to be fair, I think the joint in Barcelona was done intentionally - this messy brickwork they paired with an interior of gaudy and sumptuous marble-esque columns, hastily designed art-deco motifs and ostentatious brass and gold fixtures everywhere that smacked of false bravado and poor taste. Garishness is the word that often came to mind by the more austere theatergoers in the last days. In plain English, it was a testimony to new money; or, at least what new money looked like in the previous century.

Time had been unkind to Grand Off-Main. In its heyday it was the fashionable place to be, and everyone would promenade down to Grand Off-Main to see the some of the greats ply their trades, most for the last time. Who can forget when the stage was trod upon by that most famous, she who for reasons of libel, shall not be named, that titaness of the stage, when not forgetting not her lines, she forgot entirely which play she was performing in? As she was placed in a mechanical barber’s chair by an Americanized adaptation of Sweeney Todd, she burst into the bard’s Beatrice. As she was being toppled over backwards into a trap door the audience heard her yell out from the abyss, “He is no less than a stuffed man: but for the stuffing, well, we are all mortal”. One critic wrote that she who shall not be named, God rest her soul, “combined Shakespeare with the modern melodrama so seamlessly one forgets the centuries that gulf us from the great man himself. In her commingling of the two scripts, she captured the essence of something so transcendent, something so universal that one can’t help but…” Jack Murcell, the butcher and a patron on the night of the incident could but help and concluded the fluffy article rather laconically, “know the broad forgot which show she was in”. Jack had died only a week before young Oscar, Fruit Concessionaire No. 2 began to work at Grand Off-Main Theater.

Jack, the petit bourgeois shop owner was a member of the last generation to see the Grand Off-Main rise to heights so lofty to attract grande dames of the stage, even ones on the backend of their career looking for the perfect place to kill it. Oscar, as he advanced up the ranks and came to his own backend, had witnessed the decline. Thankfully, he was still witnessing anything at all, the decay having been granted an extra, few decades to fester by the generous endowment of the Grand Off-Main’s two most famous benefactors, younger contemporaries of the long-gone Jack Murcell, Butcher No. 1. Mrs. Featherswallow, Patron No. 1, and Ms. Zouch, Patron No. 1a, were just becoming the icons of the theater when Oscar was a young boy hawking the fruit that had later been banned from the premises as the crowds took to throwing the food rather than eating it. However, as times got worse, the sign that expressly forbade the possession of produce within the confines of the theater was often the spot where a basket of rotten fruit was stored for patrons to purchase. “Necessity is the mother of all invention,” Mr. Thomas, the unfortunate last owner of the theater used to say about the basket of fruit. Yet, though both patronesses had died some fifty-seven years ago, Mrs. Featherswallow outliving Ms. Zouch by a single day, their endowments had allowed the theater to limp on for nearly six decades, four of which were all squarely in the red.

As her dying wish, Mrs. Featherswallow had ordered her servants to roll her deathbed into the single box seat that hung over stage right, whereupon she died during a performance of  Much Ado About Nothing.

Sweeney Todd did not make an appearance that night. Death came to claim Mrs. Featherswallow at some point early in the second act. In seeing just the first act of the play, I’ll leave it to the readers to decide if she truly has the one extra visit over her great rival, who saw every show Mrs. Featherswallow did, save for the single, aforementioned act. You can easily guess what the ghost of Mrs. Featherswallow or the specter of Ms. Zouch would say about it.

The enmity between the two women was as natural as it was sadly predictable. Both were of the petit bourgeois class, not a dime of old money between them. Yet, Mrs. Featherswallow, the wife of the late Henry Featherswallow was of a third generation stock of new money, whereas Ms. Zouch, the daughter of the industrialist Conrad Zouch, a poor immigrant from Bavaria, the very embodiment of the American Myth, was only of second generation stock of new money and had no designs on a false aristocracy. Proof of this three-generation hypothesis between money and the sense of entitlement it brings sadly cannot be verified. For, though the short, squat and balloon shaped women were en vogue at the time when she would have been prime for a coupling there were no suitors for Ms. Zouch. What prevented her coupling was her fiery temper. All cowered before her, save for the angular, tall and birdlike Mrs. Featherswallow, who embodied nominative determinism long before the term was concocted in some Freudian sophistry. That said, her selection of husband, and thus surname, gives credence to the school of thought that believes incidents of nominative determinism arise out of an implicit egotism in mankind.

Mrs. Featherswallow and Ms. Zouch hated one another because they were so alike. Both were trailblazing women, remarkably independent in an era of entrenched chauvinism. Both were full of life, energy and vice. Both proclaimed that they hated all vice, except for the theater. That mutual love for the theater, especially the Grand Off-Main, was the only thing that prompted the two women to deign to give a semblance of approval to each other. Mrs. Featherswallow, with her futile aristocratic ambitions adopted a more naturally patrician air, sitting in her box seats above the riffraff, including the portly Ms. Zouch. She, like the blue bloods and their patrician forebears she so desperately wished to join by emulation, preferred to make use of the plebs below to participate by proxy rather than sully her own hands with the proffered produce. For some reason she had become peculiarly attached to pirates and strictly forbade any flinging of fruit in their direction. For all others she had a signal that would send the crowds beneath her into an orgiastic frenzy that would see whole cartons of refuse hurled upon the poor actors of the play being performed that evening.

Conversely, Ms. Zouch, far wealthier and more influential than her rival, loved to be among the people. Her seat, across the theater on stage left was in the middle of the section that now bears her name. From that vantage point she was known to have remarkable aim and could pick off any pirate she saw fit. Her devotees would follow suit, pummeling pirates, and all others deemed worthy of such reproofs, as a rule leaving clowns unmolested. The partisanship got so bad that scenes with pirates and clowns had to be written into every play to mollify the old women and their rival mobs. The tradition of these two characters being ad-hoc attached to every production survived both women to sometimes tragic, often unintentionally ironic and universally hysterical results. As he always did, Oscar, Janitor No. 1, exited stage right and worked his way up the section beneath Mrs. Featherswallow’s unoccupied box seats and through the section that was named in honor of her and her posthumous donation. Also unintentionally ironic, each of these rows of seats had various birds perched on their backs at the ends of the rows, giving the section a more polished feel than the other two in the theater. These birds predated Mrs. Featherswallow by about twenty years having been salvaged from the fires that ravaged the east end of town. The bird motif of this section of seating was fitting in the Canary’s Cage Cabaret but looked a little out of place when placed in the Grand Off-Main in her prime. Now, one merely assumes that the other two sections of seats originally had the birds as well; assuming time had seen the other birds fall off over the years, such is the state of the theater’s decline.

After finishing up sweeping her section, Oscar, Janitor No. 1 recalled a sarcastic butler role he had played a decade prior and addressed the empty box of Mrs. Featherswallow, “Fifty-four? You must have been exceptionally pleased with tonight’s performance.” He smiled and bashfully looked at the floor, rubbing his toe into the dilapidated and faded red carpet that ran between the Featherswallow section and the middle, unnamed maze of half-broken seating. “There was a pretty good pirate in this one,” he quipped to himself as much as to the absent Mrs. Featherswallow, all the while continuing to demurely dig his toe into the badly stained runner. Moving on to the center, where the worst damage by the caved-in roof had been sustained some two years prior, he found a whole bag of half-rotten bananas, each partially eaten by a drunkard who was still asleep on the ground between two rows dead center of the theater. Startled, but unphased by the common presence of some vagabond or another, Oscar prayed for the man’s soul and finished up the section before moving over into the territory of Ms. Zouch.

As he had on the other side, he acknowledged the seat of a dead woman, this time face to face rather than looking up as one must do to the aristocrats among us. In the fading gas light, one could still see where the prodigious Ms. Zouch’s seat had begun to bow in the hopes of giving her frame more space to relax, lean back and hurl a tomato with terrifying speed. “Thank God it was a busted truck of bananas and not tomatoes that Mr. Thomas came across today”, muttered Oscar, Janitor No. 1, under his breath so as to not offend the deceased.

There were far fewer bananas on the Zouch side of theater. Not much can be made of this because there could be a variety of reasons for a shier gathering of banana skins. For one, the bananas simply could have run out before most of the patrons arrived. That was a common occurrence these days. Oscar lamented a little when he considered this possibility. For another, the patrons on the Zouch side, always a bit poorer than those who sat on the Featherswallow side, may not have had the necessary capital to afford even rotten bananas, what with the inflation and all. Or still, they simply may have contributed more to the one hundred and thirty odd bananas he had cleaned up on the stage. Oscar, Philosopher of Natural Sciences No. 1, pondered on these and other possibilities for as long as he could before declaring it to be an unsolvable mystery.

With a satisfaction and pride that is difficult to articulate, Oscar swept all the banana refuse into a pile and bagged it up. He finished his duties by mopping up and turning out the lights, taking his final bow in the empty darkness. From there he descended into the bowels of the theater, where the owner let Oscar sleep on nights where there were more than three performances or whenever he was drunk and passed out in the middle section of seating, thus incapable to shooing the old janitor out into the cold. Sadly, Oscar would only reprise his roles as Clown No. 3 and Pirate No. 4 a total of four more times. He would only reprise his role as Janitor No. 1 thrice. During the final performance of that modern obscenity that included dancing oriental pirates and bull-fighting clowns, celebrating the decadence and downfall of society in an blistering commentary on sentimentality, a severely less articulate Jeremiad than the one so eloquently given by Oscar, Janitor No. 1, prior to satisfactorily cleaning up the bananas, a fire broke out on stage, swallowing up the whole old, rickety theater and killing eleven theatergoers, including the sleeping drunk who had not moved since Oscar saw him sleeping next to the pile of partially masticated bananas. Perhaps he was dead before the fire. It is now impossible to know. It was the worst loss of life in a theater for the town since the cabaret burned some seventy years prior. Worst of all, bemoaned a local newspaper the day after the blaze, “the resplendent, avian seats of the old Canary were not saved this time”.

Nearly the whole cast of that production perished in the flames as the building collapsed inwards on itself. Only two of the cast were spared from their fate. One, Marshall Betancourt, the local high school math teacher and leading character of that night’s performance, had snuck out in during one of the few scenes he was not a part of to have a cigarette. He was found looking for his lost lighter after the flames had engulfed the theater and threatened to spread into the whole block.

The other was Oscar, who witnesses swore was carried out, unconscious from the flames, by two old women, one very tall and thin, the other, short and squat. Quite a spectacle did these three make! They, according to those same witnesses, sat the disoriented, but living old man down at a safe distance from the burning building and returned to the flames, arguing the whole way, presumably about who deserves the most credit for saving the poor janitor’s life. The theater and the ramshackle homes that once surrounded it have all been torn down and a soulless strip mall has been erected in their place. Schoolchildren, much like those witnesses who saw Oscar saved from the fire, tell tales of two old women, one who is tall and birdlike, one who is short and round like a bowling ball, haunting the strip mall late at night, scowling at the suburban sprawl. I doubt the veracity of these stories though, standing as I do by my chosen adjective describing the strip mall.


Herb Goes Out In A Huff They should have seen it coming. It had been building for a long time. Still, the event shocked all who witnessed it and is still talked about in the cafeteria, around water coolers, even in the parking lot as the workforce arrives in the morning and leaves at the end of the day. In this mega-company with facilities throughout the world, “Going Postal” has been replaced with “Going Herb.” The highlight of the annual Christmas Party is “Who Gets the Herbie”?, a prestigious award bestowed upon the worker who committed the most outrageous act of employee disregard for the welfare of the company. Herb wasn’t so much a loaner as he was an outcast. No one could stand Herb. It was a good day at work if you didn’t cross paths with Herb. Rude, obnoxious, mean, nasty, offensive…and those were his good qualities. The official TOE (Time of Event) has been chronicled as 11:42 AM though many put it closer to noon. Those closest to Herb’s cubicle and still suffering from PHSD (Post Herb Stress Syndrome) aren’t even sure of the date. It was said with such volume, such anger, teetering on a primordial scream of anguish-“I quit!!” Gladys, seated in the cubicle directly across from Herb knew something was up when he suddenly executed a leopard-like leap onto his desk, ripped off his shirt and dropped his pants before announcing his resignation. For reasons unknown to anyone, Herb apparently thought his announcement would be more impactful if made in his underwear, much in the mode of Lady Godiva’s legendary ride in the buff to protest a social injustice. All present agreed that it was an attention getter. The tirade continued. “I hate this place! I hated Barnes, and I hate the new guy Jones! I hate my cubicle! I hate all of you!!” Herb’s co-workers looked on in stunned silence while many were impressed with the amount of preparation that must have gone into his departure. The anthem of the disgruntled employee “Take This Job and Shove It!” was blaring out of an I-Pad on Herb’s desk as he gyrated wildly to the music in his underpants. Vigorous twerking with imaginary figures added artistic merit to the performance. He reached down into a box and threw handfuls of shredded paper into the air while shouting “Here’s your freaking Employee Handbook assholes!” At this point Jones, the new office manager, ran into the room to investigate the commotion. Upon seeing him, Herb pulled down his shorts, bent over and shockingly delivered a full moon salute to his boss. Herb then executed an awkward, yet impressive, foot-shuffling full pirouette so everyone could get the message. It was upsetting for all present, especially for Gladys whose close proximity provided unwelcome detail. Jones clearly misunderstood the moment. " Get down from there right now! That’s an order!” " I guess you missed the first part you freaking moron! I already quit!” Jones still wasn’t getting it. “You’re fired!” Herb, showing great agility for an older man, hopped down to the floor, donned rubber gloves, and grabbed a large bucket from under his desk. As he danced around the office in his underpants shouting obscenities, he sprinkled handfuls of an unknown substance on his co-workers’ desks. The gesture caused an immediate panic as it was known that Herb’s Uncle had a small dairy farm just ten miles from the city. Everyone stampeded to the exit leaving Herb alone to finish his goodbye opus.  With each desk deposit, Herb left a note for the cubicle’s occupant. A sampling: “Marcie- Thanks so much for the twelve rejections. I hope Frankenstein shows up at your wedding, and then you and Rod rot in hell.” “Tom- Thanks for tanking my chances with Katie. I hope you rot in hell with Marcie and Rod.” “Connie- Would it have killed you to sit with me at lunch just one time? Maybe I could have warned you about eating too many chips so you wouldn’t have gotten so fat.” “Gladys- Why the hell do you think cans of deodorant kept showing up on your desk? Couldn’t you have given yourself a good squirt just one freaking time?”

“Jerry- Thanks for giving Ralph that new chair that I should have gotten. The next time you go swimming in the ocean I hope a shark bites off your wiener.” “ Mister Jones- If you think cream rises to the top, look at it this way- poop floats.” Herb dressed himself and stepped into Mr. Jones’ office to empty the remaining dried dairy farm dust and clumps onto the rug. He paused at the door, looked back to admire his work, and left. ---------- The next morning a still agitated Mr. Jones called his assistant into his office. “Thank God that jerk is gone, Jerry. I knew he was trouble the day I arrived.” “For sure. He certainly was an odd duck.” “Well, we should probably find a replacement for him as soon as possible, you know, to keep things running smoothly. What did that goof do here?”  Jerry appeared to be deep in thought. “Uh, I’m not exactly sure. We have Accounting and Sales mixed into the area. We even have a couple people in Customer Relations. I’m not exactly sure what he did.” “Let’s hope he wasn’t in Customer Relations. You’re the Assistant Office Manager, and you don’t know what he did?” “Not really. He was here when I got here seven years ago. He was kind of a loner, a real loser to tell the truth. I never had a need to deal with him. I never wanted to deal with him.” “Well, find out what his duties were. I want to put this whole Herb episode behind me as soon as possible.” ---------- “Say Ralph, Mr. Jones and I were going to start our search for a replacement for that idiot Herb. We’re not exactly sure what to put down for a job description. Maybe you could fill me in on his duties here.” Ralph looked puzzled. “Herb? Well, he was on his computer a lot. And he made a lot of phone calls. He wrote stuff down too.” “Well, was he in Accounting with you?” “I don’t think so. Ask Tom in Sales. He knows everything about this place.” ---------- “Herb? No, he wasn’t in Sales. I thought he was in Accounting.” “Are you sure? Ralph says he wasn’t in Accounting. He must have been in Sales.” “Jerry, I’m the head of Sales. I would know if Herb was in Sales.”  “Gladys, can you tell me exactly what Herb did around here?” “He bothered people, that’s what he did.” “Yeah, I know that, but what did he do for work?” “I have no idea.” “Gladys, you sat next to him for five years, and you don’t know what he did here?” “Haven’t got a clue. I tried my best to ignore him. We all did.” “Connie, did Herb ever do any work in Customer Relations?” “Oh God, lets hope not. If he did, we probably wouldn’t have any customers.” ---------- “Mr. Jones, I’ve canvassed the entire office, and no one seems to know what Herb did here.” “You’ve got to be kidding me. How are we supposed to replace him if we don’t know what he did?” “That’s a good point, sir.” “He was here for twenty-five years. How can no one know what his job was?” “That’s another good point, sir.” “Stop it with the ‘good point’ crap, Jerry. I need some help here. Do you have any ideas?” “Well, I would just call Corporate. They cut the checks. They’ll know what he did. They must have a good job description on file for Herb’s position.” “Jesus Christ, how do I call Corporate and tell them we’ve had a guy here for twenty-five years and we don’t know what he did?” “That’s a good…I mean, yeah, that would be awkward.” “Oh my God, I just remembered. A team from Corporate is coming here next week to review my first three months as Manager. They’ll probably ask about staffing. What if they ask me about the vacancy in Herb’s position?” “Yeah, that could be a problem.” “What would I tell them? Dammit! That freaking Herb is a problem even after he’s gone.” “Well, sir, there is one thing you could do.” “What’s that?” “Call Herb and ask him what he did.” “Call Herb?! Are you out of your mind?! The guy called me a floating turd!” “Actually, I think his note said ‘poop’, sir.” “Jerry, I don’t think there’s a great deal of difference between a turd and a poop.” “I guess not. I just wanted to make sure we were on the same page.” “Same page?! What the hell are you talking about?! Poop, turd, bag of shit, what difference does it make? He insulted the crap out of me.” “That’s kind of funny.” “What’s that?” “You said crap because he called you a poop.” “Not funny, Jerry.” ---------- Two days passed. Jerry and Mr. Jones tried everything they could think of, but still could not come up with anything on what Herb did during his twenty-five years with the Company. “Why are you so concerned about what he did here? He’s gone. Be thankful for that.” Most going away parties are held with the retiree in attendance. Herb’s was held the weekend after he left. It was indeed a festive occasion as the song from “The Wizard of Oz” was sung repeatedly throughout the evening, with modified lyrics. “Ding-dong, Herb is gone, Which old Herb? The wicked one, Ding-dong, The wicked Herb is gone.” A sense of peace hung over the maze of cubicles Monday morning while stress and worry still reigned in Mr. Jones’ office. “Jerry, I have an idea on this Herb thing.” “What’s that?” “Well, since I can’t call the jerk, I thought you could call him.” “Huh?” “He insulted me, compared me to a poop. I can’t call him.” “Hey, he wants a shark to bite off my wiener. That’s worse than being called a poop.” “Maybe, but you’re forgetting one thing.” “What’s that?” “I’m the boss. Do you like being the Assistant Manager and having your own office?” ---------- Ring, ring. “Hello, what do you want?” “Hi! Is this Herb?” “Who wants to know?” “Jerry, from work.” “Huh?” “Jerry, you know, the Assistant Manager.” “Oh, are you that weaselly little red haired butt-kisser?” “Uh…yeah, I guess that’s me.” “What do you want butt-boy?” “Well, we were all talking the other day, and we couldn’t quite remember what you did at the office. So, I thought I’d just give you a call and ask you…maybe, you know, I just thought you could tell me what your job description was.” “You thought wrong. Get lost, loser.” ---------- “How did it go, Jerry?” “Not so good.” “What did he tell you?” “Nothing. He wouldn’t say a thing about what he did here.” “We need a Plan B. Think, Jerry think. We’ve got two days.” “I don’t know. The guy is pretty difficult.” “Hey, I’ve got an idea.” “Am I involved in this new idea?” “Of course. You’re my right hand man. Remember the census thing a couple years ago?” “Yes…” “Well, you go to his house…” “What?!” “…and pose as a census taker. Tell him the last guy forgot to write down what he did for a living, and you just need fill in the missing information. Easy peasy, lemon squeezy.” “That’s not going to work. He’ll recognize me.” “Put on a disguise…and we’ll get you a badge so you will look official.” “The guy is a nut job. What if he shoots me?” “That’s a chance I’m willing to take.” ---------- “How did it go?” “Not so good.” “What did he say?” “He said he hates the Government and anyone who works for the Government. He wouldn’t even open the door. Then I heard a barking, snarling dog. He said if I didn’t leave he’d let the dog out, and it would rip me to shreds. So I took off running.” “That’s it?!” “Yeah, that’s it. It sounded like a really big dog, sir.” “Jerry, if you’ve got upper management ambitions, you can’t be giving up so easily. When the going gets tough, the tough get going. Looks like I’m going to have to have to come up with a Plan C myself. Jesus Christ, I have to do everything around here.” ---------- The cubicle dwellers continued to perform their tasks, unaware of the turmoil brewing in the boss’s office, and inside his head. What would he tell the review committee should they ask about the vacant position? He could just make something up about the intensive job search underway. Too risky. He could bring in his deadbeat cousin Mel and have him sit in the cubicle and look busy while the Corporate guys were there. No, someone out there would snitch. Think, Mr. Jones, think. “Jerry! Get in here.” “Yes sir.” “I have another good idea.” Jerry appeared less than enthused. “I’m sure you do, sir, What is it?” “We tell Herb we have a nice retirement gift for him, you know, like a cheap watch or a small plaque, something like that. Then…someone… takes it over to him. He’ll be appreciative of the gesture, and then that…someone… can engage him in conversation and get him talking about what he did here.” “A retirement gift for Herb? Why would we do that? Everyone hates him.” “It’s a ruse, you dope. Just to get a foot in the door and get him talking. I thought about…someone…bringing him a nice fruit basket and telling him he was the employee of the month, but he would probably see right through that.” “Probably, especially since we’ve never had an employee of the month.” “We’re agreed then. Run out and buy a moderately priced Casio and take it over to Herb’s, butter him up, get him talking. And don’t give up so easily this time. Stay with it until you get the scoop.” “I can’t go back there! His dog will kill me.” “Do you like your office, Jerry?” ---------- Knock, knock. The first response was a barking, snarling, growling dog. “Quiet down Killer! Who is it?” “It’s me, Herb…Jerry from the office.” “Butt-kisser! What the hell do you want? Oh by the way, has that shark got your wiener yet? Ha, ha, ha!” This was not making Jerry’s job any easier. “I have a nice gift for you.” “Huh? What are you talking about?” “We all pitched in and got you a nice retirement gift. Everyone gets one after twenty-five years.” “What is it?” “A pretty nice watch. I’d like to come in and give it to you, Herb. Then maybe we could chat for a bit.” “Does it give time and date?” “Yes.” “Lap times?” “Yes.” “Indigo light?” “Let me check…Yes.” “Okay, come on in.” “Uh…Herb, will I be okay with your dog?” “Oh, don’t worry about Killer. He almost never bites. Come on in.” Jerry entered slowly, cautiously. He had his eye on Killer the entire visit. It was worrisome that Killer had his eye on Jerry. “So, you’re Jerry. Yeah, I’ve seen you around the office. You’re the little brown nose who’s always trying to impress the boss. Let’s see the watch.” Jerry handed over the watch. “Here’s a small token of our appreciation for all your years of hard work.” “Yeah, it’s small alright, but I’ll take it.” “Speaking off all your hard work, just exactly what did you do at work?” “Oh, a little of this, a little of that. Probably more of this than that.” “Maybe I was a little too isolated being cooped up in my office. Could you be a little more specific?” “No, that’s about it. You better get going. Killer gets nervous if someone is here too long. We wouldn’t want him to get your wiener before that shark gets it. Ha, ha, ha.” ---------- “A little of this and a little of that?! What kind of job description is that?!” “Sorry, Boss. His damn dog was getting agitated. I had to get out of there.” “For God’s sake, Jerry, I give you a simple task, and you come up with ‘a little of this and a little of that’? I’m surrounded by nincompoops, fools and idiots. Looks like I’ll have to handle this myself!” ----------  Jerry came into work late the next morning. He was immediately summoned to Mr. Jones’ office. “Well, I solved the Herb problem.” “Great! How did you do that Mr. Jones?” “I called him last night. You were right. He wouldn’t say a word about what he did here.” “So, how did you solve the problem?” “I convinced him to come back.” “What?!! Why would you want him back?” “I was out of options, Jerry. I didn’t want to look stupid to the Corporate guys.” “Oh my God, Herb back?! And after that meltdown I’m surprised he’d even want to come back.” “Well, I had to make some concessions.” “Like what?” Just little things. Like he’ll come in an hour late every morning and leave an hour early, and an extra week of vacation. Oh, and everyone threatened to quit if they would have to sit out there with him again, so he gets his own office.” “But we don’t have an extra office.” “That’s what I wanted to talk to you about.” ---------- Jerry fumed away in his cubicle, distraught at the sight of Herb sitting with his feet up on the desk and resting comfortably in his old office. He was bombarded with Country Western tunes, and nearly rendered senseless by the foul odor emanating from his neighbor’s workspace. Even the less observant in the office could see it was only a matter of time before “Going Herb” would be replaced with “Going Jerry.”


“So, you’re definitely getting extra credit for this, right?” I said, avoiding a particularly stubborn weed whose sole life desire appeared to be mating with my shoe. Dozens of them sprouted from the improvised path we trekked; the front gate would have been an easier obstacle, but Wren wasn’t willing to risk getting caught. “Not just a measly ten points or something–we’re talking getting a full grade bump, yeah?” “That’s what Mr. Wright said.” “But doesn’t he want some sort of proof? Sure you can snap a picture, but that only proves you showed up, not that you stayed.” Wren shot me a nasty look; were that the subject of her class, she’d have no trouble breezing through. “Look, you didn’t have to tag along.” “Just making sure you get your due credit,” I said and shrugged. There was little in life I regretted; going with the flow was more than fine when it came to just about anything. Especially when it came to Wren, because she hated spontaneity, and that made it all the more entertaining. “Besides–seems a bit sketchy to be spending the night alone. I mean, it’s sketchy in the first place, but even more when it’s solo.” “Shut up.” I huffed. “No need to be rude about it.” “No, I mean it,” she said in a low tone and tugged me down by my hood. “And turn off the flashlight.” I did so with a click and pocketed it. It was one of those weak, four inch things–a five-buck Boy Scouts prize for being the quickest to set up a fire–but it was our best bet on short notice. Wren kept her fingers tangled in my hoodie until she was satisfied we were alone again. “Was probably just the birds,” I said, leaning in; “chirp, chirp–maybe a Wren?” “That stopped being funny before your first joke about it,” she said and jabbed my ribs with her elbow. “I’m sure if I asked Ronnie he’d say otherwise.” “Well, Ronnie’s words mean jack shit to me as it is. No need to have me lower my opinion of him further. Here, this way.” “You lead and I will follow,” I said magnanimously. We wound up near the eastern portion of the cemetery where an admirable cluster of trees provided a semblance of cover. Dropping her backpack to the dirt, Wren quickly set up a blanket and settled her back against the nearest tree. “Ants’ll crawl down your neck.” “And they still wouldn’t be as annoying as you.” I took her picture like that, while she had her eyes closed and she looked half-asleep. The flash went off–necessary because it was nearing eleven at night–and Wren opened her eyes to glare at me again. “Hour one,” I said and slipped my phone away before she could confiscate it. “So, what’s on the agenda? Scary stories? Party games? Crime confessions?” “I’ll admit it; when I was seven I stole Jessica’s purple hippo eraser and wrote a ransom note knowing full well the victim was already buried deep in the playground tanbark.” “That sounds like you,” I said and she beamed. “What was on the note? What kind of sick demands did you make?” “Petty ones. I wanted her juice boxes for the rest of the year–and it was already May.” “Did you get them?” “I couldn’t without revealing I was the one who wrote the note in the first place,” Wren said and shrugged. “Not the most well thought out plan.” “Well, as exhilarating as that story was, I’m still interested in the one behind Mr. Wright’s extra credit being to spend a night in a cemetery. I’m pretty sure that’s not even legal? Or advisable, at the very least.” “You’re just worming your way out of telling me your childhood crimes,” said Wren, but she turned quiet and thoughtful. “He didn’t assign that as extra credit; he won’t even know what I picked until after–which is what makes it safe for now. He’s got shitty eyesight, you know, and he gets so sick of reading essays. And since the class deals with the definition of irrationality, he decided our extra credit would be for us to face a fear of our choice. It has to be a major one, but not our biggest one, of course; I’m sure plenty of people are most afraid of death, but he’s not about to go around condoning suicide or murder.” “Not that it’d matter,” I said. “He has tenure, doesn’t he?” “I did ask him what kind of proof he wanted, and he said visual would be fine if I wanted the memory, but that it didn’t matter.” “What? So he’s just giving free points to everyone?” Wren shrugged. “He said he’d know the next time we’d come to class. That he’d just know.” “Huh,” I said, rethinking my assessment of Mr. Wright’s mental stability. Of course, my initial assessment of him overall was built from the fact that he looked like Mr. Dolittle and I liked that. “So cemeteries. Uh, you want me to hold your hand, then?” Surprisingly, Wren’s face softened. “It’s not like that. It’s an old fear, not based on things coming alive or out of the graves. It’s derived from sadness.” “Does it count as a fear, then?” I sprawled out on my back, staring up at the darkened sky. Most of the stars were hidden, or maybe just not there at all. Against the blackness, though, the moon stood out in its half arc. “Definitely a fear,” she said firmly. “And yourself? What’s your skeleton in the closet? Devil in the dark?” “Nah, I’m not afraid of anything.” Wren sputtered an incredulous laugh. “Excuse me? That’s bull, Josh, and we both know it.” “Think about it as you will,” I said mildly and nudged her foot with mine. “Say, any beers in that pack of yours?” “Because breaking into a cemetery isn’t enough for you? You really want to add public intoxication, too?” “Just a suggestion. So, you’re really planning to stay here all night?” “That’s the plan. You bored already?” “Not bored–just wondering how we’re going to fill the time for hours if we have no drinks, no games, no anything.” “So you’re bored.” Wren sighed. She looked pretty exhausted already, but it may have just been as a result of dealing with me. “You’re welcome to leave at any point.” “Do you think Marella’s would deliver here?” Wren leveled me with a dull expression. “Josh. Go home.” “I can’t! It’s only eleven-fifteen. What kind of friend would I be if I abandoned you in this cemetery?” “Fine, stay; but don’t complain!” We lapsed into quiet for some time, which neither of us minded much. I had a tendency to talk Wren’s head off on occasion, but it seemed neither the time nor place for that. Instead, I watched the sky for any indication of acknowledgement, whether that was the evincing of stars, movement of the moon, or even a UFO for all I cared. Little entertainment came, though, and eventually I turned to ask Wren some nonsensical question–only to find her head resting against her shoulder and her eyes shut. How could she possibly feel comfortable enough to fall asleep in a cemetery when it was one of her biggest fears? Maybe she was overworked, though; it was part of the reason she even opted for this extra credit from what I could tell. Normally, she was a straight A/A- student, and her C+ in Mr. Wright’s class had devastated her. Apparently it wasn’t uncommon; his teaching style was rather absurd and out-of-touch, but the class was mandatory for her major; thus, she suffered. It was painfully tempting to scare her awake, but I like to think I’m not that much of a jackass. Plus I had to piss pretty badly; at the same time, it seemed cruel to leave Wren while she was sleeping. And a little sacrilegious to take a leak potentially on someone’s grave. I contemplated my options–which was more than I usually did–and decided her seeing me struggling with piss-soaked pants was enough of a deterrent to holding it. Shuffling to my knees, I spared her one last glance and headed for the way we arrived. As expected, my flashlight was pretty useless. Still, I managed to make my way out of the cemetery and started toward a nearby bush. As I pocketed the flashlight again, the wind whistled against my ears, drawing a shiver. My hoodie wasn’t exactly Winter material, but it was the comfiest I had. I waited for the wind to pass, but it only strengthened. “Josh.” I jumped, then turned with a scowl. “Ha ha, Wren. So kind of you to sneak up on a guy with his pants half down.” Leaves rustled on the ground where no one stood. Stiffening, I turned back around to see only the bush. With a nervous titter, I cleared my throat and called, “Wren?” Nothing. Okay, so maybe I was going insane. That happened sometimes to people, right? No better time than in a cemetery at night, right? In haste, I finished relieving myself and made my way through the cemetery. Once I got back to Wren, I could wake her, relay the story, and laugh about it. She could even make fun of me, and I wouldn’t mind. The flashlight trembled in my hand and I scoffed at myself, embarrassed by how cowardly I looked. Returning seemed to take twice as long, and when I finally arrived at the familiar, crochet blanket, it sat alone. Wren’s backpack was still there, keeping it grounded against the heavy wind. Had it been her calling me at the edges of the cemetery? Maybe she’d just been pretending to sleep and planned her own scare. That didn’t seem like Wren, though. After checking behind the tree where she had once sat against, I was at a loss. There was no way I was staying here myself, though, so I pulled out my phone to text her. 01:22 where are u?? I waited for a good three minutes, desperate for so much as a ‘ read ’ indication. 01:26 wren seriously this isnt funny Shoving the phone back in my jeans’ pocket, I resolved to make another sweep of the area. I just hoped the groundskeeper hadn’t shown up for some reason and caught her; surely he would have let her take her backpack and blanket with her, though. Maybe she had left it as some sort of warning to me? Christ, I was being paranoid. There was just something… wrong about being in such a desolate, well, dead place. It made you feel too much–too alive, too disconnected, too everything. You became the outsider in your own humanity. A few branches crunched. Spinning around, I flashed the dim light at the area. “ Hey– ” The voice was in my ear. Turning in a stagger, I shot out wildly and punched. “Jesus!” Wren stumbled and clasped her hands over her face. “Josh, what the Hell!” “Shit, Wren,” I gasped, trying to ignore the throb of my left hand; I’d punched with my non-dominant hand, which meant it had been poor form. Hopefully I hadn’t broken anything–either of my own or of Wren. Dropping the flashlight into my hoodie pocket, I guided her back to the blanket. “Here, sit. Are you okay? What happened?” “I was looking for you , asshole!” As I leveled the flashlight on her face, I saw a sickly trail of blood making its way down her chin and through her shaking fingers. Her eyes were wet and pained. “I…I woke up and you were just gone . I…” At this she turned, ashamed, before uttering, “I was scared.” My own voice was hoarse. “I’m sorry. I had to take a piss.” Her laugh stung. “Right. Stupid me.” “Wren, we oughta take you to the hospital,” I said. Her whole body was trembling now, from cold or shock or both. “What if I broke your nose?” “My extra credit,” she said miserably. She did sound a little nasally. “Screw that! Mr. Wright won’t know if you stayed the whole time– trust me, Wren. You were here hours, anyway. And he’d want you to take care of your health first. Look, just–stand up. I’ll pack up the blanket. Can you hold the flashlight with one hand? It’s fine if blood gets on it.” “Josh, I can’t; I’m a shit liar, you know that. He’ll know.” “And he’ll see you have a broken nose or a black eye!” I didn’t usually get this frustrated, but the weight of fear was beginning to cling to me. At that point, you couldn’t have paid me to stay the rest of the night there. “At least let’s go back to your apartment so we can take a look in proper lighting and clean you up.” Finally relenting, Wren moved off the blanket so I could fold it up and shove it in the backpack, which I slipped over my shoulders. She handed the flashlight back to me, now slippery with the evidence of my panic. “This bites,” she said through a sigh as we walked along our path to freedom. “All this over an irrational fear, and I couldn’t even make it through the night.” “Are you kidding me? I was only here a few hours, and I’m telling you it’s definitely not irrational. In fact, I’ve decided it’s irrational not to be afraid of this place. Here, give me your hand.” “Should I be concerned at how nonchalant you are about getting my blood all over you?” “It’s–it’s for both of us,” I stuttered and clasped her hand in mine. Her fingertips were cool and her palm was warm with blood. Still, it felt a bit grounding. “Hey, Josh?” “Mm?” “Why didn’t you reply?” I spared a glance at her. “Huh? To what?” “When I asked where you were. I thought you’d left, but then a minute later you punched me in the face,” said Wren. “Wait, hold on,” I said. “When was this?” “When you shook me awake and said my name.” Once her words registered, I said, slowly, “Wren, when I say ‘now’, we’re going to run.” “What? Josh–” “Just trust me, please,” I said and she gave a tentative nod. “Now!” We ran, and she screamed.


"No! Don't use your left hand, use your right hand", pounces onto Hana's mind. She lowers her, half raised, left hand and exchanges it for her right as she picks up her coffee. "You shouldn't use your right hand, go for the left", intrudes on Hana's thoughts as she attempts to open her car door. "Don't listen to this song, skip this song", Hana tries to find music to listen to on her commute to work. "Not this one either.. damn, I really love this song though. It should be fine if I listen to this one.. no, no, let me not.", she skips another tune. Hana arrives to her job, she's established a good career as a nurse. While she is grateful to have the stable career that she has, it's never been something that she was passionate about. She enters the building with her daily routine; finish coffee, take a five minute pseudo break in the bathroom, and then greet every coworker with a wave and a slight grin. It's been seven years on the job, she loves being able to help people, but each day feels like a reduction on her happiness and sanity. "I feel like my life is controlled by three minds, two of which are forces and one is but a whisper of a whimper." On the menu for lunch today, a chicken and lettuce sandwich with a side of chips. The same meal as yesterday, and the week before, and the month before that. She sits with only the noise of her, rapidly, tapping fingers, on the table, to break the silence. She daydreams of all of the bright ideas in her head. All of the scenarios of different paths that she could've chosen to be anywhere but here. It's a reoccurring "dream", but today feels more intense. There's conviction behind it. It feels like a breaking point with a slow, quiet tension. After another "bathroom break", Hana decides to take off work early. She's feeling a little "sick". On her way home, Hana decides to pull over at an empty park. A nice, quiet, sit outside sounds pleasant. She sits and, further, reflects on her previous thoughts. "I feel like my life is controlled by three minds, two of which are forces and one is but a whisper of a whimper." Hana has long struggled with deep anxiety, which gives her a lot of nagging habits that protrude on her day-to-day tasks. She feels as if these habits, forces.. voices are outside of herself. Voices that shout over the whispers of her own voice. She often feels that bad things will happen if she doesn't take heed to her anxious feelings. Whether it's a minor inconvenience or a week altering event, something always seems to go wrong whenever she talks herself out of giving in to her anxious thoughts. Hana was raised by a single father. Loving, caring, providing. Her mother was never part of her life, she disappeared without a word when Hana was just six months old. Hana's father did everything he could to give her the tools to be successful. The two have always had vastly different personalities. Hana with her head in the clouds, her father with his feet planted, firmly, on the ground. She's always been, hyper, aware of the efforts that her father went through to provide for her. So, she promised herself that she would do everything in her power to return the favor. Be, "successful". He pushed her hard to pursue success, while neglecting her dreams, her interests. His visions were never her own, but she felt it was the minimum that she owed him for all that he's done for her. A force guiding her footsteps to prosperity. Hana realizes that she's never really been happy. Stable? Yes. But happy is somewhat of a foreign concept to her. She's become this "successful" person, her father is proud, so why can't she do what makes her happy now? "I'm going to run towards happiness", Hana speaks, gently, aloud. "You don't want to use your left hand, use your right", Hana begins to put her left hand down before firmly placing it back on the car door. Equal parts worried and excited, today is the day that she no longer gives into the anxious voice in her head. "That song I skipped earlier, yeah, I think I still want to listen to it", she cranks up the volume and sings her heart out. Hana awakes the next morning with a new found moxie. She revisits the coffee shop, giggling, as she alternates picking up the cup with whatever hand that she pleases. She makes it in to work, greeting everyone with firm handshakes and eye contact. "It feels so liberating, how have I been living the past thirty-two years this way". She even starts debating careers, is this the time to make a professional pivot? Daydreaming of every aspiration of middle school Hana, "oh, she would be so proud if I wrote that comic book. Or what about joining that orchestra?". It's looking like Hana is going to feel "sick" for a second day in a row, "You know, I've never been out of the country.. well, I've hardly been outside of my city. I've always been too worried". Hana gleefully plays hooky, again, from work as she plans out a mini road trip to a restaurant that she's want to try for years. It's about a four hour drive away, and she couldn't be happier about that. One stop to fill up her gas tank, then her drive to inner freedom begins. Someone's calling her phone, a number from work. She doesn't usually pick up on calls when she's "out sick". "Well, what the heck, we're doing things different now". She answers the phone, "Hello, you've reached Hana, I'm not sure if anyone mentioned it, but I left early due to not feeling well". A long pause. "Excuse me, could you repeat that?". A long pause. Hana speeds back to work and rushes inside, "Which room is he in?!". She was informed that her father had been admitted into the ICU. He's had a history of heart attacks. "This! This is why I have to always listen! I should have never allowed myself to get too confident!", Hana thinks as she runs to her father's room. She arrives to his room and halts before entering. "Don't use your left, use your right. No! Wait. Use your left, not your right", her left hand trembles as she slowly reaches for the door knob. She slowly approaches her father and sits beside him. She grabs his hand and holds it in stillness. "Hana, I'm sorry. I'm sorry and I'm so proud of you", he gathers the energy to speak. "I'm not proud just because of your career, I'm proud because of how strong you are. I know you didn't grow up in an ideal situation and you always held together, even when you were hurt. I'm sorry because I didn't give you an outlet for all of the things that you were feeling". Hana's eyes begin to tear up. "I'm sorry for being too goal oriented. I'm sorry for not allowing you to just be Hana. I want you to know that you don't owe me anything, I owe everything to you. For giving me a purpose. I've always had these fears, these thoughts, that something bad would happen to you if I didn't approach everything in specific ways. I allowed it to shape the way that I raised you, but I don't want that to be your life. I want you to live." Hana, now bawling, embraces her father, "Please don't have any regrets. I'll promise to not live with any, if you promise me that you won't die with any."


“Don’t you remember?” I felt so raw having to ask the words to Her. I never thought I’d show such a weak side to myself for such a small thing. But I fell hard with Her and I was always destined to be the one that needed Her more than she could ever need me. I would have been embarrassed if shame and pain didn’t overwhelm me instead, climbing up my body as I sat there on my knees with Her looking down at me, a puzzling expression that I dared to hope still hid some affection for my dark curls and small frame that loved to hug Her around Her neck despite it’s lack of comfort for either of us.

Maybe she’ll think I was being dramatic over such a simple… misunderstanding I guess it was? But it was something I had dreamed of for us. I understood she was busy so I wasn’t angry, I just missed her. All I wanted was movies and dinner on my birthday. I wanted cheap pizza and cheesy rom-coms and laughable Michael Bay action movies for one night. Something simple. And she agreed. She smiled and even promised to indulge my clingy self and give me endless cuddles until the light of the next day brought us back to responsibilities and the rift of distance I was paranoid about occurring between us.

I sat all the week before in my chair staring at the laptop on my desk, too distracted to write anything for the book my editor said needed to be completed in a timely manner. Like a little kid I fiddled with my thumb and giggled as I imagined a picturesque night with a beautiful woman who loved me.

It’s amazing how quickly happiness can be soured into disappointment.

I’ve never been good at masking my emotions, I blush profusely, and am a horrible liar. So when she walked out in a silk suit saying she would be back late and to not wait up, the confusion and fear on my face and screaming behind my eyes was as clear as day. And when she looked back at me with confusion about my hurt I found the strength to be rejected and ask because there was the smallest sliver of hope she might stay. “Don’t you remember?” I asked Silence from Her continued. “You promised we would have a night in with each other for my birthday. Remember?” “Oh. That’s today? I can’t believe I forgot. Look- I have a networking cocktail party for work. My coworker is coming to pick me up right now. I really need this, please, let’s take a rain check, okay? I’ll make it up to you. I’m sorry. ” She walked to the door, finished with my problem, cleared it up and started moving on. I was stunned, but she was right. I didn’t argue or fight back. I didn’t even cry. I just stood trying to appear anything other than dumbfounded and hurt. As she opened our front door to leave I saw Her beautiful coworker, all dressed elegantly, draped in simple jewelry, standing tall in sleek heels. And there I was sitting and looking over the back of our couch, crowded by jealousy and envy, as my self-confidence fought for its life while it withered away by the woman’s clear superiority.

The woman’s smile lit up the room and I instinctually drew my fingers to my lips, unable to stop quivering--pathetic--remembering just how crooked my teeth had become because I hadn’t been using my retainer. Drawn by curiosity, overcoming the anxiety and giving me courage, I walked up behind Her, feeling foolish as I did in only Her old oversized college sweatshirt and childish boyshort underwear with my thick lensed glasses enhancing my muddy colored eyes. I gave a shy smile to the woman, and she smiled back, the same smile one gives a child before whisking their adult away for more stimulating conversation.

I gave a small nervous laugh, “Well have a good night I guess.” I said both of them. I then turned to Her. “I might be asleep before you get back. Imma try to write a chapter or two but you know how I get when it’s late and I’m in comfy clothes.” She explained to the woman, “My girlfriend,” she introduced first. “She’s a writer.” “What kind of books do you write?” the woman inquired, turning to face me. “Romance,” I respond shyly, resisting the urge to melt away from this intimidating woman. “Well someone has got to keep the supply of romance novels flowing for middle-aged women I suppose,” the woman chuckled dryly.

An awkward silence started to form. “She always gets mad at me when I make fun of her silly romance novels,” she started. “You’re getting lucky she’s not defending her work. She’s small but can be a menace. I love her anyway though.”

A blush took control of my face. I was offended--they had both insulted what I do, what I love, what others enjoy for its “silliness.” But the words “I love her” rung in my ears, distracting me into keeping my cool. It’d been awhile since she addressed me as Her lover, the object of affection in Her life.

“Well, we better get going before everyone gets so drunk on champagne they won’t even remember our names.” The woman interrupted as I was still in a trance.

She leaned in and gave me a kiss. It was just a peck and it made me want more of Her. The romantic in me was…excited after her use of “love.” I waved them off as they left through the door leaving me in our apartment, the only lights on being the kitchen light and TV. I stood at the door awhile. I went up on my toes, letting myself feel unstable as my soft socks slowly slid on our creaky wood floors. I smiled, uncontrollably replaying Her voice saying “I love her” in my head. I danced a little and got ready for a marathon of old Buzzfeed Unsolved episodes as I ate ice cream--my birthday tradition in college and before I’d moved in with Her.

I was content, really happy even. Somewhere in my head I knew, I knew I should be angry, jealous, and worried about Her and Her coworker. But the words “I love her” were too powerful. I was put in my place, satisfied with my relationship so easily.

I opened, took a bite of my ice cream and played the episode.


       People always look at me funny when I walk into Flora’s Flower Shop. Today is no different. They also gave me the stink eye when I placed a headstone for a man when there wasn’t even a body. My husband disappeared over three years ago, though. Even if I did order the headstone a year after his disappearance, it was more for closure. I also wanted a place that I could lay flowers down for him. Not in memorial, but in hope. I think that if people can, then they will judge you for just about anything and everything you do. Unfortunately, I am judged quite a lot.             Before my husband, Peter, disappeared, he used to buy me a dozen red roses the first of every month. So, in honor of him and hopeful he’ll return, every month I buy a dozen red roses and place them at his headstone. I know there’s no body or ashes there, so talking to a headstone without anything there would be, different. So, instead I pray. I pray Peter is safe and alive. I pray he will return home one day. I also pray for strength to get me through each day I am without him.             I don’t know what happened to Peter. He was a healthy twenty-seven-year-old man with a bright future ahead. I like to tell myself that he just got scared and ran away. It’s better than the alternative of thinking he’s dead. I know that’s what everyone thinks, but I can’t. I won’t. Not only for my sanity, but also giving our daughter hope that her father will one day return home, flowers in hand.             As I stand here in front of my husband’s headstone, I wonder where he could possibly be. I wonder if he misses us as much as we miss him. I see so much of him in our daughter, April. His beautiful blue eyes, cute button nose and even his smile. I’m scared that one day she’ll ask where her daddy is, and I won’t know how to answer that. I place the dozen red roses I purchased earlier today, at my husband’s headstone, say a quick prayer, and walk away. I’ll visit again next month.

            On our wedding anniversary, I decided to leave April with my parents and visit Washington, DC. The cherry blossom trees are beautiful there around this time. Only a four-hour drive, yet I haven’t made this trip since Peter disappeared. We used to visit every year and take pictures under the cherry blossom trees. However, on this trip, I never expected to find my lost love. At first, I couldn’t believe my eyes. I even shook my head a bit, thinking I must be dreaming. It was real! I walked closer and reached out to touch his arm. As he turned around to face me, I saw another woman holding his other hand.             I believe he was just as shocked as I was. I wanted to say something, but the other woman spoke first. She called him ‘James’, which just so happens to be his middle name. I tried to convince her that his name was ‘Peter’, and he is my husband, but she insisted that he was her husband. Hearing those words caused my heart to instantly drop to my stomach. I couldn’t think of anything to convince her or to snap him out of it. They started to walk away. That is when I told him I named our daughter April. April James. The man who now calls himself James turned around and smiled. Our wedding was under the cherry blossom trees in April and Peter’s middle name is James. The woman looked confused. Honestly, that made two of us.             After countless hours of coffee and conversation, Peter had what he called a difficult decision to make. Either the love he left three years ago or the woman he left her for. Peter sat there looking back and forth at two women who loved him unconditionally. Suddenly, a thought entered my mind. As much as I wanted April to have her father back, I wanted him to come back on his own. I also wanted it to be easy, not this back-and-forth difficult decision. If he truly loved me, loved us, it would be the easiest choice ever. So, instead of waiting for him, I answered the question that would decide our future forever myself.             Leaving that diner alone and not looking back was easier than I had thought. I had always imagined finding Peter, returning home with him and we would live happily ever after. But this is real life, not a fairy tale. Which is something I had to repeat to myself a few times on the drive back home.             I never told a soul that I saw Peter that day. Not my parents, who asked constantly what happened when I went to Washington, D.C., because I came back acting different. Different good, according to them. Not the police, who still think Peter ran away. They’re not wrong, but I’m not going to be the one to tell them that. And not my job, who wonders why I decided to quit after Peter disappeared but begged for my job back three years later after a trip to D.C. Nope. Not a single soul. Maybe one day I’ll tell April, if she asks. But, then again, maybe it’s best she just doesn’t know. Sometimes, I wish I didn’t.             I no longer buy flowers for Peter’s headstone. People are starting to judge me because I’m now not buying red roses. Funny how things have flipped. After learning the truth though, I realize Peter doesn’t deserve my love. Even if it was in the form of flowers on a headstone every month. So instead of expecting him to walk through the front door with a bouquet of a dozen red roses in hand, I water the plants in my front yard and watch April play with her toys beside me. I smile and for the first time in three years, flowers are not on my mind.


Mr. Roger Auclair heard nothing but the sound of his wheelchair for months, or maybe it was years. He was a lonely man; it was his own choice. It was a long time ago when he decided to move by the sea. It was a dream he and his wife, now long gone, had. A youth-filled dream that was fulfilled unfortunately too late for her to enjoy. He wished he did things differently, but that's human fate for most of us.

Alone in his mansion, he came and went. He turned on and off the lights and stood by the window to watch the mysterious sea every morning and night. Occasionally someone would pass by, but usually, there would be seagulls and stray dogs. Autumn was a special season, windy and quiet unlike any other. You could compare it to winter, but Autumn had something special. It was the wind, the humidity, maybe the excess of rain. There was one special night, the darkest of all. On that night he felt the call; an invisible invitation coming from upstairs. It happened during one of those times he would stare at his old photographs: Remembering his wife in her wedding dress, the birth of his first child, that trip to Florida. Suddenly something woke him from his thoughts, it was one single sound. Droning, he thought he had never heard something like it before. It was as if the abyss had a voice and the nothingness had melody.

He tried to clear his ears and shook his head. As the sound continued and his curiosity grew, he steeled himself. feeling a compulsion driving him, he threw himself to the ground out from his chair. He didn't mind, he didn't feel a thing despite his age and condition. Because like half of his body, as well as half of his soul, he was already numb. He helped himself up the stairs with his hands, elbows, and arms. He dragged himself with a strength he didn't know he even possessed to reach that second floor. With every grunt, every step, he pulled himself forward. Visions of times long ago in the army flashed before his eyes. He saw himself crawling under barbed wire through mud and blood. Explosions from mortars and grenades, and the deaf ringing from the shockwave in his head... and there it was... The sound!

Shell shock is what they called it, an overwhelming shot to the nervous system. Leaving a man blank, lost, and trembling not knowing why on a conscious level. He always found it difficult to come back, mainly because he didn't want to come back at all. After all the blankness, for a moment at least, would take him away from the destruction around him. Something surely never easy to forget; the bloodbath he never asked for. Body to ground, Roger kept dragging himself up the spiral staircase. The void's emptiness continued ever louder. When he arrived at the top, sweating and shaking. He looked to one side and then the other of the hall. Following the strange noise, he reached the entrance of the old bedroom. The door was half ajar and he could see a strange violet sparkling light emitting from the room. The old man opened the door and he couldn't believe what he was seeing... A hole in the wall. A perfect black hole, swirling and spitting shadows all over the scene. There was a ghostly light that shone and fainted in front of him. Light and darkness, the two opposites dancing together. The loud continuous noise kept beckoning him like a siren's song. Roger thought to himself. ''Was this a portal going to another dimension? Should I call someone to investigate?''. He was overwhelmed by confusion. Mouth agape, he touched his chin then scratched his head. He thought it was a dream. Could it be a dream? He believed he was out of his mind. He wondered if he had a heart attack and this was his call to finally go. It was after all... The light at the end of the tunnel everyone speaks about! Although less welcoming than he would have envisioned he could feel himself being seduced by its eerie and alluring glow. He laid there on the floor staring. Time seemed irrelevant or even non-existent. Roger tried to keep a cautionary distance, but eventually, the attraction was impossible to bear any longer. As his obsession to investigate grew, he could hold it any longer. The old man touched the hole with the tip of his index finger.  Just like that, it was as if Roger Auclair vanished and the hole closed. The violet light, the deafening sound, and the lonely man who once upon some seconds lived in the mansion were all gone. It has been a long while since Roger chose the "quietest house". The house with the beach view, where all there was to be heard was the squeaky noise of his wheelchair and the sound of the waves rolling. The waves, coming and going... giving and taking, forever and ever.

It was on that darkest night when Roger and the sea became one. You see... the portal... that fantastic glowing hole... transported him to the bottom of the sea. He didn't know where he was and he didn't care much. There he was floating in this abstract space of oblivion... Where there is no air, no view, no sound, no color, only idleness, only silence, and only the void. He tried one time to scream into the guts of the ocean. While the coldness wrapped his bones, only one noiseless gasp escaped him. His lungs filled with water, his heart dry of hope, his eyes opened but he saw nothing. It was in that moment Roger ceased. His body drifted weightlessly in the cold wet darkness. Forevermore in his watery tomb bearing witness to the void he had felt all those long years without his wife, because Roger was an old lonely man... surrendering himself long ago to the inevitable. It was the darkest house, it was the deepest sea... where he locked himself and threw away the key.


Rivulets of sweat rolled down BJ’s sides, saturating his shirt. He removed his hat, pulled the shirt up, and wiped his hairless scalp. It didn’t absorb any moisture, but the motion gave some cooling relief. Pendulous drops of perspiration cascaded from his eyebrows, stinging his eyes. He wiped his face on his sleeve. “God almighty,” he said, sucking in a deep breath and breaking open his last bottle of water. He looked at his phone. “No damn service! Where the hell am I?” Sliding the phone into his back pocket, he shaded his eyes from the glare and peered along the two-lane blacktop undulating like a twisting snake in the mirage of heat bubbling from its surface. Behind him, lost in the distance, his ’80 Gremlin sat along the side of the road, having succumbed to the south-Texas heat. “I should’ve gotten rid of that piece of shit a long time ago,” he said, grinding his teeth in disgust. He bent over with his hands on his knees, staring at his glistening legs and soaked socks. “Gotta find some shelter soon or I’m going to share the same fate as the car.” With that thought firmly set in his mind, he continued to trudge toward a group of buildings wavering in the distance. Thirty minutes later, he stood before a gas station. The walls listing in surrender to the elements, the faces of the pumps cracked and crazed, 25 cents a gallon frozen in their final throes. Besides the station and its adjoining service bay, three other buildings, one on either side of the station and another across the highway, hung in similar stages of decay: broken windows, missing doors, and slumping porches. A breath of despair popped from his lips. “Shit.” He shrugged. “Well, at least I’ve got some shade,” and with that walked between the two dead pumps and through the station’s front door. Fine sand blew in through holes in the windows, spiraling into small cyclones and dying in the corners and on a table against an opposite wall. The metal walls turned the room into an oven, mitigated only by the circulation of a warm breeze. It may not have been a gas station for a while, but it had frequently been used for shelter as evidenced by the detritus strewn about the floor. A door at the rear opened into the service bay, the rolling doors closed, and all the windows covered in newspaper. An ’81 Ford pickup sat parked in the bay. The back door to the bay swung in the breeze and banged a sinister rhythm against the metal wall. A sudden urge to leave knotted BJ’s gut. He spun on his heels and into the narrowed glaring eyes of a suspicious round face. “What’re you doing here?” BJ caught the dull glint of sunlight off the cold steel stuck in the waist band of this unfriendly face’s pants. “Ah . . . I, ah . . . my car broke down about three miles from here,” his eyes fixed on the tense face, he brought his hand up and tentatively pointed toward the roadway, “that way.” He lowered his hand and stuck it in his pocket. The glare became a scowl, his brows pitching down into a deep crease above his flat nose, and he reached for the pistol, but BJ raised his hands, exposing the palms and splaying his fingers. “Look man, I don’t know what’s going on here,” his words spilled out in rapid staccato bursts, “and I don’t want to know. I’m looking for someone to fix my car and to get some water.” His heart racing, his hands began to shake. The face softened and he lowered his hands. A smile curled at the corner of his mouth as he pushed BJ’s hands down. “Nothin’ going to happen. I’m not going to shoot you, but you picked a bad time to show up.” He canted his head toward the mess that littered the floor around them and chuckled. “Not going to find any water or a mechanic around here.” Then he nodded toward the truck in the service bay. “Can’t give you a ride either.” Biting his upper lip, the face glanced at the chipped crystal of his watch. The second hand ticked off the seconds, much slower than BJ’s pulse. “Shit,” the face said, whispering. He turned to BJ. “You gotta get out of here. I got friends coming and they ain’t nice.” “Where can I go?” “Not my problem.” He walked toward a front window and pointed. “Over there. Across the road. Haul your ass over there.” Voices wafted from outside the service bay. The face strode back to the bay and looked toward the back door, “Too late asshole,” and slipped the pistol from his waistband. “Find somewhere to bury yourself or they’ll do it for you.” BJ’s heart jumped into his throat. His mouth dropped open. The face turned and clenched his teeth. “Go, you idiot or you’ll be dead!” BJ couldn’t move. The face’s eyes darted about the room and then he jabbed the muzzle of the gun toward a low cabinet in the corner. “In there!” The voices, at least three, entered the bay. BJ blinked as the face shoved him toward the cabinet and slid the door open. He pulled a shelf out and pushed BJ inside. Sliding the door shut, he dragged a chair in front of the cabinet and sat down. “Yo! Who you talking to?” “Myself.” “Yeah?” BJ peered out through a hole the cabinet’s lock once occupied. Three men stood in the doorway to the service bay. The one in the middle, talking, wore an unbuttoned sleeveless shirt over a wife-beater, sweat stained and dirty. A large, tattooed crucifix extended along the inside of his right forearm from the elbow to the wrist. “The Devil’s Man” was tattooed across his left bicep. Two men stood behind him, BJ’s gaze fixed on the long rifles slung across their chests. “Yeah,” the face said. “You’re early.” “I’m never early. You’re late.” The sleeveless shirt stepped closer to the face. The two rifles remained in the doorway.” “The truck’s empty,” another voice belonging to a fourth man said as he stepped between the rifles and into the station office. The sleeveless shirt moved closer and stopped a foot from the face. “Where’s my shit?” he said in a low, menacing drawl. “Hey, man, they’ll be here. It’s only twelve-thirty. You said one. They’ll be here at one.” BJ held his breath, squeezing his bent knees together to keep from shaking the cabinet. Something crawled up his leg and he froze. A slim beam of light penetrated the missing lock’s hole, illuminating his knees. The tingling of small feet moved up his shin. Thank God it didn’t slither, he thought. It stopped at the top of his shins. He stared at his kneecaps. Long black, hairy legs appeared in the light, touching, feeling his knees, climbing over until perched on top, two gargantuan beady eyes glistening in the light. Oh! God! A tarantula. “I’m tired of your bullshit!” the sleeveless shirt said. “You’re always late.” You give me a bad name with my customers when you make me late.” “They’re comin’. They said they’d be here at one. C’mon man. Give them time. They’ll be here.” BJ baked inside the cabinet, his breathing shallowed, but he never took his eyes off the large arachnid staring back. The sleeveless shirt laughed and raised his voice to the others. “Well, what’d ya think? Should we wait?” Before the question garnered a response, a shot pulsed in the sultry air. BJ jumped, then clamped his hands against his mouth. The tarantula raised up on its legs and hissed. BJ held his breath. The sleeveless shirt howled. “Guess not. Don’t see any reason we can’t make the exchange without him.” The chair the face had been sitting in slammed against the cabinet. The tarantula scurried down BJ’s thighs and into a pantleg of his shorts. BJ squeezed his eyes shut and strangled a mortal cry with his hands. It crawled from one side of his thigh to the other, the bristles of its hairy legs tingling against his skin. He panted, his breaths shallow and ragged. I can’t see! Where am I? The metal burned his hands. His mouth dried and his legs cramped. A wave of nausea twirled in his stomach and his head pounded. “Let’s wait out by the truck,” he heard the sleeveless shirt say and watched through the hole as they walked into the service bay. The walls closed in on BJ. He pushed against the cabinet’s door, but it wouldn’t budge. I got to get out of here! I can’t breathe! He pushed harder, unable to move it. Through the hole he saw the chair rocked up on its back legs and the face slumped in the seat, his head rolled to one side. His eyes an empty stare, blood matted his hair and ran down the side of his head. BJ pushed his back against the side of the cabinet to get more leverage against the door until a sharp sting on the inside of his thigh stopped him. Snarling through his clenched teeth, he punched his leg and said, “Get off me! Get the fuck off me!” The arachnid skittered from his pants across the floor of the cabinet and disappeared through a hole in the corner. BJ grabbed his thigh. A cramp knotted his stomach and his head spun. Visions of a thousand beady eyes crisscrossed the cabinet in front of his face. His mouth hung open and his tongue lolled over his lips as he tried to suck in a breath. In the distance, shouting voices and a volley of gunfire. Lightheaded, he rocked from side to side, shouting and banging the sides of the cabinet, then tumbled against the door and collapsed into unconsciousness. ### BJ listened. He rocked; he was on his back. Cold. Wet. Someone wailed. Voices. Distant. What are they saying? Who are you? Where am I? The vision before his eyes wavered and bent and faded. A large tarantula stood over him, all eight eyes glaring. It leaned down, close to his face and snarled, the two prominent eyes fired with anger. BJ swung at it, screaming. “Get away! Get away from me!” The fangs snapped and then the mouth impaled his arm. “God! No!” BJ swung his arm trying to free it from the spider’s grip, but it wouldn’t let go. His arm froze. He couldn’t move it. “You’re okay, sir. Easy.” “What?” He shut his eyes and shook his head. “What?” “You’re okay.” When his eyes cleared, a paramedic had a grip on one arm and an IV fed fluid into the other arm. “I am?” The paramedic nodded. “Where am I?” “On an MedEvac helicopter.” He opened the cooling blanket wrapped around BJ and put BJ’s arm inside. A machine misted the air, and a fan circulated it throughout the cabin. “You’re a lucky man.” “I am?” His leg twisted in a painful cramp. He gritted his teeth. “I don’t feel lucky.” “Well, if it wasn’t for your Gremlin, you might not’ve been.” “My Gremlin?” “Yeah. The state police found it and set out looking for you. They found you and got a drug bust in the process.” “That piece-of-shit car? Didn’t think it would ever be worth anything.” He rolled his head and looked up at the paramedic. “You know anybody that wants it?” He chuckled. “It’s junk. Cops said it was stripped. Wheels. Engine. Just scrap now.” BJ, laughing, said, “Know of any good used cars? I gotta drive another thousand miles.” “Well, that won’t be a priority. They’ll keep you in the hospital for a while. So . . . how about a drink? Water, of course.” “You know what?” “What.” “I fucking hate tarantulas.”


(Semi-Autobiographical Fiction) The bell rings, and within moments, students pour out of classroom doors. The hallway fills with the echoing sounds of laughter, shouting and squeaking sneakers. Throngs of students move in every direction, all racing against the nine-minute period break. I walk through this chaos, down the middle of the hallway. I’ve got my headphones on, listening to the latest album by INXS on my Walkman. Trying to tune out the world. I keep my eyes downward and make myself as invisible as possible. By being unremarkable, with no flashy clothing, weird piercings or punk hairstyles, I blend into the sea of conformity. Just like any other guy. It’s my survival technique. Next to my locker, two students stand on footstools. They’re fighting against the crowd, trying to tape a banner to a hallway crossbeam. Class of ‘88 Senior Prom, Saturday, March 26th The sight of it makes my chest feel heavy. Prom’s not for everybody. In the corner of my eye, I catch sight of Stacy Wilson. She’s a pretty girl with long brown hair and amber eyes. Her personality is quirky, which keeps her out of the top tier popular crowd. But she’s cute enough that most boys would love to be the subject of her affection. We’re in the school play together. Oliver the Musical. Last night, we practiced the scene where all the merchants sing about their wares for sale. I play the knife grinder, and she plays the rose merchant. It’s my favorite song in the play, with its beautiful four-part harmony. At practice, it’s easy to get caught up in the moment. I bury myself behind my open locker door and crank up the volume of my Walkman. Trying to be invisible. There’s a tap on my shoulder. I stiffen, take off my headphones and turn. “Hey Gabe.” Stacy hovers behind me, gnawing at her bottom lip, with her hands in the pockets of her acid-washed jeans. “Stacy—oh, uh—hi.” I meet her gaze for a second, then focus back at the contents of my locker. “Rehearsal was great last night, huh?” “Yep.” I nod with tight lips. “Hey—um—I was thinking.” She inches forward. “I guess—I was wondering—would you want to hang out, like after rehearsal on Friday?” “No! I mean—sorry, I can’t. I have a thing.” Really? A thing? That’s the best I can do? “Oh, okay.” She looks crestfallen. “Maybe another time, then?” “Sure, sounds great.” I shut my locker. “Gotta run to class.” I hurry away, avoiding her gaze, not wanting to see her reaction. I feel sorry for Stacy. I mean, I really do . It must have taken nerve for her to ask me out. And singing in harmony with her is magical. But I’m just not interested, and I’m not good at faking it. Maybe it’s cruel to say no so bluntly, but ultimately it would be crueler to say yes. I mean, maybe we could be friends. She could be somebody I confide in or have a laugh with. But friendship isn’t what she’s after, and I know it. After all, I’m an expert in unrequited love. The first awareness of who I really am came in 5th grade. I shared a homeroom desk with Ben Schafer with his puppy dog brown eyes and infectious smile. His goofy sense of humor matched mine perfectly. We both loved old Monty Python movies and would spend hours laughing at the dumb jokes. Every day I would be so excited to see him. Any day he was sick or missed school, I was a wreck. That affection was unrequited, of course. We were close enough friends, but my intensity made it strange. Any relationship so unbalanced is doomed to failure. Fast forward seven years, and I find myself in a sadly familiar situation. Fifth period biology. My lab partner is Tom O’Connell. With spiky brown hair, a freckled nose, and those same deep brown eyes that make my stomach do somersaults every time they look my way. But currently, the seat next to me is empty and the second bell just rang. I keep my eyes pinned to the door, sick to my stomach. David Spencer, a red-haired, loud-mouthed pain in the ass, watches me from across the aisle. “Whatcha looking for, Gabe?” He has this annoying smirk. “Nothing.” I tear my eyes away from the door and thumb through my biology textbook. “Um, hmm.” God, am I that transparent? It took me a while to accept that I’m gay. I went through all the stages of denial, but now I’m firmly in the acceptance phase. But of course I haven’t acted on it, or shared it with anybody. Coming out in high school is social suicide. Last year, Sam Eastman was outed against his will. He was a little effeminate, so even before then, he dealt with a lot of bullying and name-calling. He came out to his best friend under the bleachers at a football game. Somebody overheard, and the news spread like wildfire. The bullying got so bad, he ended up leaving the school. Last I heard, he’s doing homeschooling now. So yeah, this is a secret I’m keeping to myself. Tom comes tearing into the room, breathing hard. His backpack is hanging from one arm, and three textbooks are askew in the other. Basically, a big, adorable mess. My whole face lights up. Red-head David is watching me, and makes a little snorting laugh. He keeps quiet but his eyes clearly say, That’s what I thought. “Sorry Mr. Jacobs,” Tom says as he blows past the teacher’s desk on his way to the empty seat next to me. He shoots me a sheepish grin, walking up the aisle. “You get lost on the way to class?” I tease as he scotches behind me to get to his desk. “Girl problems. You know.” “Yeah.” I force a laugh. My smile deflates. “You see that hockey game last night?” Tom asks, as he slides into his chair. “Yeah man. That goal in the second period?” “It was sweet.” I know almost nothing about hockey. But Tom loves it, so I’m trying to learn. The first game I watched, I couldn’t even see where the puck was. A bunch of random skating and slapping of sticks until a siren goes off, and the announcer yelled GOAAAAAL! But I was getting better at watching it. “Hey, wanna catch a movie on Friday?” I ask. “Beetlejuice is supposed to be funny.” I have a job at the theater, so I get into movies for free. I use this as leverage whenever I can. “Nah, man, gotta date with Kristy.” “Oh. Nice.” My heart craters. I guess what goes around comes around. The lecture is boring. Tom has his head propped up on his arm and he keeps drifting off. It’s so cute that I can’t stop looking at him. My chest is aching. Why can’t I choose who I fall for? When the bell finally rings, we all get up to head out. Tom stops to chat with some friends and I hover around, hoping to walk with him down the hallway for a bit. David Spencer walks up to me. “Why are you just standing there?” He’s got this knowing look on his face. “Why are you so worried about what I’m doing?” I snap back. David shakes his head and walks off. I’d swear he said queer under his breath. My chest tightens and I hurry out of class, not looking back. * * * I’ve got a shift at the theater that night, taking tickets. It’s pretty slow, so my boss lets me go early. As I’m headed out of the break room, I bump into my work friend Johnny Nguyen. “Hey Gabe, party tonight. You going?” Johnny has a big grin. He’s rocking his punky look, with spiked black hair and a ripped blue jean jacket. “Sounds fun. Where’s it at?” “Jessica’s house.” His grin gets even bigger. “You know she’s got a thing for you, right?” “Oh, yeah?” I force a smile. Jessica works at the theater too, behind the concession stand. And yes , I know she has a thing for me. She’s always sending me smiles and acting flirty. “Yup. I saw her checking you out earlier. And she asked me if you were single. I told her you were perpetually single.” “Nice, thanks.” I roll my eyes. “Come to think of it, I got a test I have to study—” “Na ah. You ain’t getting outta this one. Jessica is fine , and tonight’s your chance.” Johnny shoves me forward. “I’ll drive. You need to get plastered tonight. Liquid courage.” People always confuse my lack of interest with a lack of confidence. It’s annoying but I can’t exactly correct them. So I use it as my disguise. Sure. I’m the shy one. Only problem is girls seem to dig this more. We pull up to the house-party. Music is blaring, and teenagers are a running around on the lawn. It’s even crazier inside. Drunken people pack the place. My eyes point downward, hoping to not run into Jessica. Johnny’s head snaps around. “Damn, you see that?” “What?” “You telling me you didn’t see that babe who just walked by? Man, you need to open your eyes!” “Oh. Dang.” I put on my best disappointed face. “You gotta give me a heads up next time.” Johnny just shakes his head. We weave our way through the crowd to the kitchen, where guys in letterman jackets are doing shots off the counter. Johnny grabs a red solo cup, fills it from a keg sitting in an ice bucket, and shoves it toward me. “Drink!” I take the glass and chug it. If I’m gonna make it through tonight, I’ll need it. Johnny beams at me. “There’s my man!” After another beer and two shots of something awful, my head is buzzing, taking the edge off my inhibitions. I head out to the crowd. There’s lots of people from my high school, and quite a few I don’t recognize. And then I see Jessica. She hasn’t seen me yet, so I duck into the next room. But in here is a different problem. Across the crowded room is David Spencer, the jerk from biology class. He’s chatting with two guys from the football team. David sees me and says something to them. They look my way and laugh. One of them shakes their head with a disgusted look on his face. Fuck. I run out of the room, a feeling of panic descending on me, and head downstairs. I just need to get away. But drunken teenagers fill the basement too. Down a hallway, there’s an empty, darkened room. I plop down in an overstuffed chair, hoping that here I can escape all the rumors and expectations. I sit in the chair and take deep breaths, trying to calm down. David Spencer is such an ass-hole. But then a female figure stands in the doorway. Jessica. She heads over, zigzagging a little on her way, then plops down and crams in next to me. The smell of sweet perfume and vodka wafts over. “Hey you.” She puts a sloppy finger on my chest. “I’ve been looking for you, Gabriel Fisher.” “Have you?” My heart beats faster again, but not in a sexual way. “Umm hmm.” She turns her head toward me and leans it against the chair. Our lips are inches apart. Here before me is the answer to my problems. I could go to prom. Stop the rumors that seem to be spreading. Not have to worry about coming out to my family and friends. I could have it all, and this could be the start. And all it would cost me is my happiness. The heat of her breath hits my face. Am I going through with this? To thine own self be false? Her lips just barely touch mine. Blinding light comes from above, and I shield it with my hand. Three drunken guys stand in the doorway, one with his finger on the light switch. “Oops, sorry.” “Holy shit! Jessica and Gabe finally hooked up,” another one says. I turn to Jessica with a sheepish look. But her eyes are shut. She’s passed out. I get up and head out of the room. One guy pats me on the back as I pass. “Nice job, Gabe!” So glad they’re happy. But I’m sick to my stomach, and there’s a weight baring down on my chest. I don’t make it any farther than the basement rec room. When it comes to drinking, I’m a bit of a lightweight, and the liquor has gone to my head. I stumble forward and land on an empty couch. I sit there, staring at the ceiling, thinking about what just happened. Maybe being spotted “hooking up” with her will be enough to quiet rumors for a bit. But I’d probably need to date her to make it stick. And if touching her lips felt like that much of a lie. God, I'm so sick of this shit! Before I can think further, a guy plops on the couch next to me. I recognize his face. And it’s adorable. Messy blond hair. Piercing blue eyes. Button nose. And he’s currently staring right at me, smiling. I’ve seen him a hundred times before. He’s in the play, but we don’t have any scenes together. And he’s not in any of my classes. But I might have a slight crush on him. “Jason, right? From the play?” I ask with his gaze still locked on me. I can feel my cheeks warming, and I have to avert my eyes. “Yep. Hi Gabe.” He knows my name. I work up the courage to look back at him. How can he just keep staring like that? With those tender eyes and that soft smile. “So is the rumor true?” he asks. “I dunno.” I let out a sad laugh. “Guess it depends on which rumor you’re talking about.” “This one.” And he kisses me. My whole body tingles and feels weightless. We separate, and I look into his eyes. “Yeah, it’s true.” Then go back for another kiss. Gasps surround us. And more than one homophobic epithet. But I don’t care. I’m done with the deceit. The thousand lies a day. If you don’t like it, get over it or get out of my way. This is who I am.