"...and he burps. He doesn't even say 'Excuse me' anymore. Just yesterday he... he wanted to bed me and place his, you know..." The individual listening to this interaction, positioned on the end of the second row in a rather petite call center, waited for the caller to finish. "Ma'am? Are you still there? Place his 'You Know'...?" The call agent knew what the answer was but after a few years in this job, it's best to let the customer finish their statement. Sometimes it's out of necessity to never assume, sometimes it's to make them say it. "He wants to stick. His thing. In a place where it isn't supposed to be." The agent scratched above where the cheap foam of a call center headset met her upper ear lobe. This was going nowhere, other individuals were waiting for the 'Next Available Representative'. "To be blunt, you're saying he wants to stick his dick in your ass. Is that what you're saying?" A gasp. A pause. The agent continued, "And you don't want to do that. Because you're a princess. And that isn't what a princess does. And why would he want to do that to you? Are these all questions that you're mulling around right now? Does he also want to see a few of the peasant girls? How many times has he hit you smelling of alcohol?" When you've taken enough calls, you can recognize the sound of tears hitting a receiver. "If it's /that/ important to him, you'll do it or he will find someone else who does. That will put your contract in danger." When issuing the hot tears associated with true emotional pain, the human face does this weird thing where it's almost a caricature of a frown. The most unfortunate part is that they often elect this moment as the best time to talk, completely altering their diction. Through that face the caller half-whispered, "This isn't what I wanted." "I know. But you made a deal. How'd he save your life?" Another pause. "Curse. I was turned to stone for a hundred years. He heard of my beauty. Journeyed for a year to find me through the Blood Forest. The Wicked Queen met us there in the clearing where I was a statue. As he lay defeated at my feet, his tears touched the stone and I turned to flesh. He healed." "Tears of True Love package. That's what it's showing on your account. Unfortunately, you're in this until the contract is broken." The file also showed that the witch had been relocated to another story; however, Antagonist Relocation wasn’t her department and they kept notes on an entirely different system for the most part. With a shaky voice the caller asked, "What happens when I break the contract?" "I hope you're somewhere you want to stay a while," the representative said without missing a beat. There's a sound that humans make when they lose everything, when that last door closes, or when they realize there is no escape. That sound was followed by an abrupt and ear-splitting pop. After the three minute rule that necessitates checking once a minute to see if the caller is on the line, the representative disconnected the call. There was no question what had just happened and that would make the fourth call this week. While you know it isn't your fault entirely, it wears on you. She decided to take a smoke break. Just as she was about to press the buttons on her phone a voice echoed over the cubicles: "Glinda? Could you go into three?" When she pressed "1" on her phone, it was a break. Other buttons did other things but those weren't really important. The requested number "3" indicated a meeting with her supervisor. Of the two numbers she knew the meanings of, the one requested was her least favorite. Glinda stood from her uncomfortable chair and walked past several others to the cube of her GM, or Godmother. These individuals oversaw and reviewed the case interactions of the call agents. The GM offered Glinda a seat next to a pair of cheap headphones and said, "Grab a headset and let's review this last call you had." "I just listened to a young woman revise a story's moral. It's pretty fresh in my mind. What do you want to tell me to change or that I did wrong. I need a God damned cigarette." The GM's ever present aura of sparkles always sparkled less when confronted and cursing was always considered an act of confrontation. "Have your cigarette. We need to discuss your future with the company when you return." Glinda walked past 30 other women on her way to the door. She didn't look at anyone on the way out and only heard bits and pieces of them explaining that this was the deal, regardless of their knowledge than a binding agreement had been made; their curse debt was essentially transferred and there are rules.. She quit smoking a month ago but every time. Every time, it's this fucking place. A small area was allocated for smoking outside the center and, if you ignored that area and kept walking around the building, you would eventually wind up at the back of the building which was devoid of light pollution. You could see the Milky Way from here and, after her relocation, that was the only thing Glinda lived for: seeing something that large and feeling small because every other day she just felt small without seeing the profound immensity of the galaxy. Glinda used to protect a location known as Oz. Her sister did a number on it and as bad luck would have it genetics only granted her powers related to changing horse colors, fashion items, and bubble teleportation. The other two nautical directions did most of the fighting when It, proper noun intended, started. Glinda hid and cried often over the tortured citizens of Oz that she could not help. The action of smoking a cigarette was all muscle memory for Glinda. Without even processing the action she had flipped open the pack, extended a smoke with her thumb, grabbed it between her lips, flipped her lighter on her palm once to place the action at her thumb, and placed her cigarettes back into her pocket. "Bitch didn't even come from magic." Glinda was somewhat bitter over the moment that Oz was vindicated from the hands of the Wicked Witch of the West. A lucky shot followed by literally winning through blunders. Dorothy was a sweet girl but sweet girls always cause the most problems. After Dorothy left, Glinda was sort of in an uncomfortable role. The inhabitants of the area already knew she was fully incapable of protecting the realm. And that Oz refused to. For a month the Munchkins would coagulate at bars too small for humans to enter. The night it happened, Glinda watched as 50 Munchkins surrounded Oz -- her hot air balloon quickly ascending. She ducked behind the wicker of the basket. To this day she doesn't know what that first strike was upon his body -- but the sound of it vividly haunts her dreams every now and then. It was guttural and a forceful expulsion of air encountering a profound amount of liquid. It sounded like a man being forcefully drowned and he didn’t know why. They were yards away from the main fountain and candy canes had been disappearing for two weeks. The ‘didn’t know why’ part was quite valid, though. Oz had an awful system in terms of political power. Distrust for a populace of ‘savages’. A magician who ruled through parlor tricks. When the antagonist that held everyone’s attention was defeated, change was in the air. The revolt the Munchkins set up a completely functional form of Parliamentary Democracy. The last time she heard, they had managed to start a space program. Glinda didn't even know if those planets out there were real. Guess they'll find out. Glinda was standing to the side of a call center that was, for the most part, a reception and support line for brokered deals between Godmothers and whomever was destitute enough to take up the offer. The talking mice? The dancing laundry? The subtle hints that your prince charming uses to make sure he doesn't quest himself into the sea? That's all under contract. When a woman accepts the first portions of that assistance, they are locked in an agreement of varying gravity to both the prince in question and to Glinda's corporation. God Mothers were also notorious for working both ends of the game. That prince didn't just appear and vast sums of money had been allocated to ensure that a proper prince had a proper trophy story for his trophy wife. Glinda remembered her first day, looking at the Human Resources manager, and saying that the practice seemed somewhat heartless. The Godmother looked Glinda straight in her eyes and asked if she honestly thought turning a pumpkin into a carriage was effortless. Glendia had never turned a pumpkin into a carriage. She remembered that royal carriage they used to utilize on special occasions. She remembered the royal guard of Oz being dragged behind it -- members of the Lollipop Guild riding on the bodies like sleds as the pack of horses ran through the cobblestone streets. They never changed colors the whole time, remaining black as night. She remembered trying to remind herself that this was an interview and now she was crying and now... The Godmother's formerly stern scrutiny faded into empathy, false or legitimate. "You haven't been gone long, have you?" It had been around three months and after the transition, especially in the case of populace reformation in the power vacuum of an evil ruler, things happen. Those things necessitate therapy before entering into the workforce. Staring up at the Milky Way and remembering this, Glinda had neglected to notice that her cigarette was now burning into the filter. Now her hand was going to smell like that all night. She placed the butt into the trash can and walked in, passing the Indian analogs of 'Good Witches'. Their multiple hands somewhat limited their ability to be accepted in the workforce and, even after saving entire lands and protecting kingdoms from evil: princesses would still ask for someone who spoke English. She sat back down at her desk in the Saves Department. In sales that term is intended for accounts where the customer wants to drop service. Similar concept. This is where the Good Witches ended up: begging princesses not to end it all or run away risking a very real Early Termination Fee. The department offered commissions; however, the success rate dictated an hourly wage. Sitting on Glinda's keyboard, wedged between the 'qwerty' and 'asdf' rows of keys, a piece of paper. 'The Road Takes You Where You Want It' These words, written in gold leaf. An image of a a road spiraling into the center of the card -- each brick also adorned with a small square of gold. The Godmother popped up behind her, startling Glinda nearly to dropping the piece of paper. Someone told her that you get used to that after your first year. "Why don't you go home early. You seem like you need a rest and we'll talk about that call tomorrow." That really wasn't a request so much as a command and Glinda treated it as such. She gathered her belongings, placed them into her purse, and exited the building. In the quiet peace of the late-late evening, playfully bordering just on the cusp of morning, she made her way to the bus stop adjacent to the center. Glinda sat down waiting for the bus to take her home. She stared at the card, unable to focus on anything but the spiral and the lack of sparkle in each progressively smaller brick. The seemingly-wide and inviting starting point leading to an inevitable singularity bereft of gold. There is a sound that humans make when they lose everything, when that last door closes, or when they realize there is no escape. That sound accompanied the irregular beat produced by tears tarnishing gold foil as Glinda waited for the bus. When you've taken enough calls, you can recognize the sound of tears hitting a receiver.


“She has to be burned,” the man behind the bars called. “She has to be burned, or he won’t accept her!”  “Quiet, you.” The officer banged one hand against the cell door. The man took no notice.  “Burn it, quick! I won’t say I didn’t enjoy watching her die, but that wasn’t the point. Fire is what you need, and soon. She has to be burned.”  The man in blue gritted his teeth and walked in the other direction, towards the desk where the officers who had discovered the criminal were talking in low voices. “Anything new?” he asked them.  They shook their heads. “Just what we saw on the scene. It’s lucky we caught him before he set fire to the bodies, or there would’ve been a hell of a mess.”  “He was only going to burn one,” the first officer said inconsequentially. “He keeps talking about the sisterhasn’t said a thing about the other ones. Says we need to burn the woman’s body soon, or his god won’t accept her.”  “He’s a lunatic,” the second man said. “Stark raving mad. Been talking about the same thing ever since we brought him in.”  “Just wait until the reporters get ahold of this,” his companion said. “I wish there was a way to stop them from spreading this story to the ends of the earth, but you know it’ll be in every newspaper headline and letter home tomorrow.”  **\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*** Annie Hamilton unfolded her sister’s letter at the breakfast table the next morning, spreading it over her large skirt so that she could read the interesting parts to her husband. Her eyes skimmed the written pages, caught on something near the top, then widened. “Oh my lord,” she whispered.  Jack, already in his overalls and halfway through his oatmeal, looked up. “What’s the matter?”  “There’s been murders in Saxton,” Annie said faintly. “Not three miles from Sissy’s house!”  Her husband set his spoon down with a soft clang. “Did they catch the murderer?”  “Yes,” Annie said, “she’s wrote the whole story here. Listen:  *We still can’t believe this has happened here, in our tiny little town! I guess the only saving grace is that they caught the man responsible, and right in the act, too--or right after it, anyway. They were too late to save any of the Williams. It was horrible, Annie, what he done to them. The newspapers say that he cut great pieces out of them, mostly out of their faces, and slit their throats. They all just bled out, right in their home. It was Jake Williams and his wife, Katie, and Katie’s sister Mary. I didn’t know them well, but I’ve seen them in town. To think of being attacked in your own house, attacked under your own roof by a madman with a knife! They run a picture of him in the paper this morning, and I sent it for you to look at. Everybody’s saying he’s insane, the article I sent you talks about it. You’d have to be insane to do what he did, I suppose. We simply can’t believe it. We’re all in shock ....*  Annie lay the letter aside and took a newspaper clipping from the envelope. Most of the front was taken up by a large picture. She gave a little cry and thrust the clipping at her husband, who took it silently and studied the face of the madman. Even just looking at him, you could see that he was indeed insane. His gray hair and beard were both long and unkempt, his eyes wide and wild. He was snarling, his open mouth revealing chipped teeth. He looked as though he could have been a hermit on a deserted island.  Annie shivered, looking around. “What could have possessed him, to do something like that to those poor people?” she asked. “Can you imagine just sitting in your home, and all of the sudden there’s a man with a knife” She broke off, shuddering, and looked out the kitchen window. “Jack,” she said, “the sky’s a funny color all the sudden.”  “Hmm?” Her husband was still engrossed in the picture. He stared into the man’s wide eyes.  “Just a change in weather, I suppose,” Annie said nervously. “Maybe a storm coming in. What does that say?”  Her husband read aloud from the clipping.  \*\*The criminal, who has not yet been identified, was caught standing over the bodies of his three victims, and is believed to have been about to burn at least one of them. Witnesses say he was chanting as he did so, though so far all have declined to reveal exactly what the lunatic was saying. When apprehended, the man put up a struggle, saying that he had to burn the bodies “before it was too late.” He is now in police custody and awaiting trial.\*\*  **\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*** “We had to move Clarkson,” the officer told his superiors, “on account of that murderer scaring him. Clarkson says he won’t stop chanting, the same thing Mrs. Dowel says he was saying when he was trying to burn that woman’s body. Said it scared him to death, and he was going to kick up a fuss unless we moved him. Tell you the truth, I’m not so keen on guarding the man all by myself. He gives me the willies, that one.”  The policeman’s boss fixed him with a withering stare. “You’ll guard him,” he said, “and you’ll guard him well. The last thing we need is something going wrong with a man we caught red-handed after he murdered three people. Now, get back down there.”  The officer knew he was beaten. He walked slowly back to the cell, where the wild-haired man sat on his cot. The madman was rocking back and forth, moaning. “It’s too late,” he said when he spotted the officer. “You’ve waited too late. I did my part, but it’s out of my hands now.”  “You bet it is,” the policeman said savagely. “Too bad it wasn’t out of your hands before it even started. Just why would you do a thing like that, anyhow? Enjoyed it, did you? You’re an abomination, and I can’t wait to see you swing.”  The madman raised his eyes to those of the officer and held him with what seemed a hypnotic stare. “Oh yes,” he said softly, “yes, I enjoyed it. I always enjoyed it. Ever since I started. You think this is my first killing? I tell you, I’ve done hundreds. And I enjoyed every one. But that’s not the only reason I killed.” He rose to his feet, still holding the officer captive in his mad gaze. “I did it for all of you,” he said, as the policeman stepped backwards. “I did it because I liked doing it, but I also did it to save your sorry skins. You’d all be burning if it weren’t for me, just the way *she* should have burned last night. But the sun’s up now, and it’s too late. You’ll see. You’ll see what happens when he doesn’t get his sacrifice.”  The officer suddenly found his mouth too dry for speech. Outside, the wind had started a low, mournful howl.  **\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*** Clutching her shawl more tightly around herself, Annie lifted her sister’s letter from the table and began to read again.  *They say he keeps talking about the sister’s body. It’s awful, what they’ll print in the papers these days. He keeps talking about burning her body, they say. He was all set to do it, too, when they found him. The police only found him because Mrs. Dowel was passing by the house and heard somebody talking. Chanting, she said later, like it was some kind of Catholic service or something. She thought it was funny, somebody in the Williams’ house chanting, so she peeked in the door and saw the man. She said he was standing over their bodies, holding a knife in one hand and a burning candle in the other. He’d put straw all around them, and the blood had all soaked into it. Well, she ran and got the police--lucky there were a couple of officers so close by, or the lunatic might have gotten away with it!*  *Mrs. Dowel said she wouldn’t tell the newspapermen what he was chanting, said it seemed wrong somehow, but she told me, and, Annie, it made me shiver all over. She said when she got close enough to hear him, her mouth all dried up and she could hardly move for being so scared. He was saying*  Annie lifted her eyes hastily. She did not want to know what the man had been chanting as he stood over the bleeding bodies. Her gaze moved nervously to the window, and she gasped. “Jack!” she cried. “Look at the sky!”  Her husband tore his eyes from the picture he had been staring at. He had looked almost hypnotized, but Annie didn’t notice. She was standing now, gazing in disbelief out the kitchen window.  Outside, the sky was a fiery red. The sun was already high, but sunrise seemed to have lasted longer than it should have. The wind was howling now, a high-pitched shriek, and black clouds had gathered to the east. As the farmer and his wife stood, gaping, the clouds rushed towards them, covering the crimson sky. Suddenly, the blackness parted, the clouds rushing to either side as though they were being pushed. A patch of clear red appeared. As it did, Annie screamed and clutched at her husband. From the bloody sky, a pair of giant wings beat down, black and ragged. In between them was the creature that only the madman knewor was the man so mad, after all? It was too late now, as he had said. The wings beat slowly as the creature swooped forward, its thin, insectile body topped by an elongated head. The creature’s eyes were almost the length of its face. They were a liquid, fiery red.  On the table, Sissy’s letter lay forgotten. *He was saying,* the last lines read, *the same thing over and over, while he got everything ready to burn them…*  ***\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\**** The murderer sat forgotten in his cell. The police were outside, staring at the sky. Soon, the screaming started. The man in the cell lifted his head, his long gray hair flowing into his beard as he stared vacantly forward. His eyes were wild still, the terror that had been mistaken for insanity plain on his face. His lips moved, speaking their last words, though no one was there to hear. “Blood,” the man whispered. His face worked, and he spoke again, the same words he had been chanting as he prepared the sacrifice. “Blood for the blood god.


This is a real story. The community doorbell rang, I beeped her through the automatic gates and went to the mirror. Sprinkled a little bit of cologne. The hair was in order. The computer was shut down. I didn’t queue to play that next game. I knew she was close and I wanted to be ready. I didn’t want to look like a nerd. It was close to 8 am. I could hear my heartbeat pounding. There was a knock at my apartment door. I placed my hand on the knob, and I turned it. \ She had been one of my first crushes from when I was a kid, she had grown to be a beautiful woman 8 years after I first fell in love with that long black hair of hers. All the way back to elementary I was already a loser for brunettes, raven hair and petites. She happened to fall under all of those categories. I don’t think I’ve ever been that unconditionally in love. She and I have a complicated story. She was cruel. She still is, for all that I know. I only see that after all the mess, before, I thought all girls were like that. She pulled off some pretty shady stuff when we were in the first year of high school. The best example of this: She asked my best friend out. She knew how I felt about her, I hardly ever try to hide my feelings about women. When he said no, she immediately afterwards asked me. I didn’t find out until I told him the good news. I was 11 and I remember how much it hurt. I remember how angry and confused I was. It seems so silly because now, in my mid-twenties, it’s easier for me to rationalise things. Back then it felt like someone was ripping my guts from the inside, pulling them out. She apologised later. I quickly tried to look past that experience. I wanted to forget about that afternoon, and how much I cried. As I said, I thought it was a normal thing. “Teenagers”, both boys and girls can come up with some silly shite. I left the country in the second year of high school, few months after that incident. Nothing ever happened between us two. We left it off as friends. We kept in touch, and we kept our friendship, up until the point that I came back to study my university degree. But more on that later. In the summers between my 13th and 17th birthdays, I would come back home, to see family and friends. We would hang out. It was a joy to see my friends. People that spoke my language and understood my culture. Sometimes, she and I met alone. One of the times we met kind of set the mood for our entire relationship. I had a Jacuzzi at home. People in my school thought that was funny and posh. I grew up in that apartment, for 13 years I saw nothing else, so I thought it was normal. She liked that Jacuzzi. She said it a few times over the two decades that we’ve known each other for. When I was 16, she asked me if she could take a bath there. I was a flirt and I told her that she could, of course, but that I would find it a great privilege if I could join her. It wasn’t a very big Jacuzzi. We both could barely fit it at the same time. She was fully aware of that. She looked at me with those huge dark eyes of her, framed by that pale skin… She laughed and said that she wouldn’t have it any other way. We set a date. I was hosting more people at my place then, I wasn’t just going to say. “Well chaps, we’re off to the Jacuzzi, don’t make too much noise! Would ya?” \ My heavy door swung open, she was there, on her own, gorgeous as ever. It was summer and she was light in clothing. We said hi, hugged, and I invited her in. She liked my perfume. We changed into our swimming suits. I got in the Jacuzzi first, made sure that the water wasn’t too hot. I gave her some space so that she could lay back on the other side of the Jacuzzi. She didn’t. She sat right between my legs. At this point, you might think that I was in some sort of personal heaven. That wasn’t quite the case, believe me. I have a sharp tongue and I make witty, dangerously funny comments. I take pride in starting interesting conversations. I can now confidently say, that part of me evaporates as soon as there is a woman I care about, light in clothing, sitting in between my legs. So… it ended up being rather awkward. We played with the bubbles and talked a bit. There were some uncomfortable silences. I hate those. I decided that I would take a chance. I was going to try to kiss her. I made a move, pretending that I was going for the tap: “Let me try to get some cold water into the tub. It’s getting quite hot in here.” “Yea, it is, and you better keep you cool, Loud.” Ouch. If there’s something my mother and father have taught me well, is to respect women. I would be horribly ashamed to do something to a girl that she wouldn’t want me to do to her. I took this as a clear sign to back off. I didn’t want to risk it at all. Better be boring than pushy. I did pour some cold water into that bath, and I did cool down. Nothing happened, and in all honesty, it puzzled me, but it didn’t bother me. I’ve only wanted as much from a woman as she was willing to give me. Not one caress more. We dressed, hugged goodbye and agreed to do this more often. Funny that. Later, when I was alone in that house. What bothered me was the question. The question that you might be having right now. Why would she join me in a Jacuzzi, with very little clothing if she wasn’t remotely interested in anything else? Maybe she was, and when she got in the Jacuzzi with me she changed her mind. She had her right to. The fact that she got into that Jacuzzi with me didn’t mean that I suddenly had rights to do whatever I wanted. I know that. I just wouldn’t get into a compromised position like that with another woman if I don’t have clear intentions. The question ate at me. It wasn’t like the hand gripping at my guts. It was worse because I didn’t know what to make of it. Did she like me? Did she not? Was she just playing me? That ate at me for a few more years. In the meantime, nothing happened between us. At 18, I moved back home. Started my IT degree. Made more friends. Organised more parties while my parents were out. Had some decent fun. Met more women. Some were good to me, some weren’t. She would come to some of these parties. At one point, she stopped broke up with the bloke she was dating, and we started flirting again. Bad idea Loud. At my 19th summer, she wanted to come over again. She was going to go to this big party and didn’t want to sleep home because her parents would freak out. She said we could meet up and have some fun. It had been too long, she said. It shames me to say that I invited her over again. To me, it made sense, as I was hosting a LAN party that very night. Some of my best friends would be playing all night, having pizza and not sleeping at all. I organised everything so that they would be out before she was there. We would grab breakfast, maybe watch some stand-up comedy and then sleep a bit. That was the plan. \ My heavy door opened, my heart was still pounding. I could still hear it in my ears. The door swung open. There she was. Gorgeous as ever. Accompanied by a dude. She hugged me. Didn’t mention my perfume this time. She said his name. I tried not to look as confused as I was. I was a good host. I let them both in. Told them I was only expecting her. She said that he went with her to the party. He also needed a place to sleep. So, my house was some sort of hotel for her, it seemed. I told the guy he could sleep in my sister’s room, and that she could take the large bedroom in mine. “It’s okay Loud. We’ll share the room.” They went into my room. They closed the door behind. I must have stared at that door, the door to my room, for something like 10 minutes. It was the hand in the guts and the question all over again. I didn’t know what to do. I wanted to play some video games to take my mind off the surge of thoughts that it was currently undergoing. I felt alone. Hunter was one of my close friends. He had been at the LAN party that night. He was probably home, trying to get some sleep. He is one loyal man. He and I have gotten into arguments before, and I don’t agree with some of his life choices, but he is one loyal lad and a good friend. I called him. He picked up the phone immediately, even though we both hadn’t slept at all because of all the games we had played. He asked me what I was doing on the phone, I should be with her. I explained to him what happened. He was freaking out. I told him that I didn’t want to be alone. He was at my place 10 minutes later. We gamed until 11 am, which was when my bedroom door opened. They both came out looking okay. Dressed. My room didn’t smell like sex. At least I didn’t think it did. They drank my coffee, they ate my bread. He was interested in the game Hunter and I were playing. I didn’t even bother looking at them. They thanked me and left. Hunter and I kept playing until lunch. I thanked Hunter for coming. Gave him a hug. He left. I immediately went to my room, picked my sheets off the bed, placed them in a bag. A few moments later, I was placing that bag in the donation box. \ She tried to meet up after that. We even had a conversation about that night. Not worth including here I’m afraid. I never hung out with her after that, on a friendly context or otherwise. We ran into each other from time to time, said hi, and then said bye. I will never forget that moment. Not how she played me for the last time, nor how a brother came to me in one of the worst times I’ve ever had. \ If you've reached this far, thank you for taking the time to have a read. I really appreciate any feedback. English isn't my first language, so if I've gotten anything wrong. Do let me know. Once again, thanks.


It was mid-morning and Junpei lay in bed trying to remember what day of the week it was. Not that it mattered; Junpei was in retirement now, and every day felt the same. He missed the good anticipation on the eve of holidays, but not the agony of Sunday nights. Even the seasons weren’t so noticeable anymore, since he rarely left his house. And it was hunger, not the clock, what gave away the passage of time. In the kitchen, Junpei’s wife Ayami set aside a bowl of rice, a bowl of soup, and some grilled fish leftover from dinner. Junpei came into the kitchen and kissed his wife. She stopped washing dishes and joined Junpei at the kitchen table as he ate his breakfast. “Mr. Lacroix called,” Ayami said, “the paint has arrived.” Their 50th wedding anniversary was coming up and Ayami had mentioned that she’d prefer to have the inside of their house repainted, instead of having a party. Junpei thought it was a strange request, but he complied without asking for an explanation. In fact, the walls hadn’t been painted for many years. They were dark and stained, although Junpei hadn’t noticed it until Ayami pointed that out to him. Maybe Ayami felt that a nice, fresh coat of white paint around them would be like a new beginning; a great way to celebrate and welcome the next half century together. After breakfast, Junpei drove to Mr. Lacroix’s hardware store. A pile of paint cans, brushes, and other accessories were waiting for him at the counter. He asked for some masking tape and furniture covers as well, and loaded everything in the back of his car. Junpei’s idea was to start painting right away, or the walls wouldn’t be ready and dry in time for their anniversary. As soon as he arrived home, Junpei got busy covering the furniture with tarp, and spreading old newspaper pages on the floor of the living room. Every now and then he’d slow down to read a bit of news or a colorful ad. When all surfaces and objects were covered, Junpei stepped back to look at the room. It reminded him of a lunar landscape. The disappearance of everything they had collected throughout their lives under those ghostlike mounds of canvas made him feel lonely. Where was Ayami? She had been quiet all this time; had something happened while he was away at the store? After searching the whole house for his wife, Junpei found her in the backyard. She was lying on the ground, one hand holding a pair of shears, the other a flower she had snipped with them. Junpei sat next to Ayami and ran his hand over her cold, quiet body, and told her how much she meant to him, as if her life had only been suspended and all it needed to come back was a proof of his love and sorrow. But the hours passed, Junpei’s tears dried on his cheeks, and nothing else changed. Junpei went inside the house and brought back a pillow and a blanket for Ayami. After making her comfortable he went back inside, to the living room, and looked at the cans of paints and brushes scattered on the floor. Without knowing what else to do, he started painting the walls. \- Junpei worked for two days and two nights, stopping only a few times, to make soup or tea, and place it next to Ayami in the backyard. Each time he brought out a new bowl, he found, with sadness, that the previous one hadn’t been touched. When the whole house was done, the walls became intensely bright, as if they emanated light themselves. Junpei meant to uncover the furniture and clear the floor, but felt that now it was unnecessary. The excessive whiteness of the walls was a bit disturbing, though, and Junpei went outside to rest his eyes. Compared to his newly painted house, the world seemed tired and worn. Trees were blemished, street walls were covered with obscenities and mold, rusty cars paraded over asphalt so profusely patched, it revealed more shades of black anyone imagined could exist. While it all seemed natural before, now it gave Junpei the sense that people didn’t care about where or howthey lived. There were a few cans of paint left in the house. Junpei brought them out and began to paint the trunk of an old tree. Little by little, his brush covered every scar left by decades of unpunished attacks from humans and animals, storms and machines. Next were the sidewalks; he couldn’t cover their cracks, but at least he could make them resemble soothing paths of pure white snow. Lastly, he laid a veil of peace over words of hate scribbled on street walls. And he only stopped when he was out of paint, and they came to take him away. \- “Why did you decide to paint over everything?” Kiko asked her father. “The world looked like it needed one or two coats of paint,” Junpei said. Kiko and her husband Peter smiled in agreement as they heard that. The hospital chairs were uncomfortable and the couple looked forward to going home soon; Ayami’s funeral had been early that morning, and they felt very tired. Junpei had not attended the ceremony; he was in shock, unable to understand the reality of his wife’s death. When Kiko mentioned the heart attack that had killed her mother, Junpei had said, “Don’t be silly. What’s a heart full of love going to have an attack for?” Kiko wondered if her father would ever accept a new life without his beloved Ayami or even realize that she was gone forever. On her way home, while Peter drove, Kiko watched the narrow band of night being revealed by the car’s headlights. Although passing briefly before her eyes, the scars of missing tree limbs were clearly visible, and so were the potholes and cracks of the road, and the run-over weeds that tried emerging from these cracks, and the sky in disarray with clouds reflecting artificial orange lights. Kiko could discern random words, fragments of phrases hastily scratched on walls,like screams in the dark. For a second, the lights washed a group of homeless people wrapped in dirty blankets, sleeping under a bridge, and Kiko imagined she could see into their neglected souls: like everything else, they were stained and scored with lesions. They had been mended again and again by their masters with threads of hope, but kept bleeding at the seams. A fine rain started falling. Peter turned on the wipers, and Kiko could still see outside, at intervals. By the time Kiko and Peter got home, the drizzle had become a powerful storm. Peter parked the car and ran inside. After a moment, he realized that his wife hadn’t followed him. He looked out the window and saw Kiko standing in the cleansing rain, arms raised to the sky in a welcoming gesture.


\[ III \] Matilda sat atop her hill and watched the Boar as her favorite Argonauts attempted to make understanding of their land, as it had managed to suddenly split into two overnight. The land near the North Sea had found issue as the public couldn’t make a decision on whether to concede to two pieces, or to mend the land and unanimously participate in fixing all the problems that had arose from this problem. She reflected on the conversation she had held with(the one some called Hercules) and how she had expressed she had no place to suggest her personal opinion on the matter, as her own land was currently being terrorized by a mechanical Boar. Hercules respected this stance and laughed at her for open triteness for the Boar and his many talents for demolishing and squealing at anything he didn’t understand. Matilda knew her personality often came across as strict and well-versed, but giggled at the assumption she were a megalomaniac on topics surrounding all sciences and politics. To this they shrugged their shoulders and held up their doubled brandy to the many issues that they were too weak to face head on without their weapons of silver and gold. They hailed one another and to their battle fighting for the children who lived with little hope, as they thankfully admired the First Minister who they had met with earlier that day. To this praise: opened conversation as they wondered amongst themselves what solutions the First Minister would apprehend on the topic again of the dangerous splitting of the land. They felt worried she were burdened with the numerous tasks she had upon her shoulders at all hours, and felt helpless to their inability to assist in taking the burden from the First Minister as she juggles her tasks despite the continual disruption brought by the Breaking Land. Matilda agitatedly sharpened her weapons of gold and silver and as she gazed off missing her famed Argonauts. She longed for the admiration they wrapped her in, and for the tall stature that the foreign Warriors held whenever they lead her aboot the land that lay along the North Sea. She would think fondly of her travels and often took to view the gold paintings that captured the one day in which she had been forced by the Argonauts to take a vacation. With the accompany and guidance of the one they called Hercules and the one that resembled Mars they took to the winds and sought adventure as they walked up a mountain and to play atop some broken pillars. They struggled to climb up the broken pillars with no steps and doubled over in laughter as they clumsily boosted one another up, as Matilda had wanted to see the full view of the North Sea as to further navigate and understand the Breaking Land. The three stood above the land and watched delightfully as the locals participated in the ritual of Pagan celebrations in which their drums and dances would welcome in the winter season, and admired the blue goddess that they all stomped around. As the locals had also summoned the rain with this commencement: the three decided it best that they descend from the pillars, as to avoid bringing foreign sickness upon Matilda. The two men made their way down and prepared to assist Matilda as she sat patiently and watched the others around her struggle to depart themselves from the heights of the pillars. Matilda saw a woman laughing nearby and giggled to herself as she watched one woman paint her friends picture in gold, as the other woman laughed on the ledge: stuck with no aid. Matilda offered her hand to the woman on the ledge, and despite their inability to speak the same language, the woman laughed and pointed out that the aid would cause both of them to fall. To this Matilda yelled for the one some call Hercules as he stood nearby and turned in surprise as he joined in laughter at the now three women laughing helplessly stuck aside the narrow ledges of the pillars. He pointed at his broad shoulder as the woman took wise, and sat on the strangers tall figure as he daintily whisked her down from the tall pillar with ease. As all three women touched safely down on the ground, they bid the two strangers farewell and preserved the feat with pictures painted in gold, and went aboot their separate ways fully unaware that they had all unknowingly taken part of fulfilling one of labors of Hercules. The three Warriors strolled down the hill in the rain and left the place that is now known as the Pillars of Hercules, as they continued to take in the breathtaking scenery near the North Sea and holding disregard to the political erosion brought forward with the Breaking Land. Matilda now sat listening to the winds and read her magic book lined with gold, as she lay eight hours east of the Argonauts and observed the late details transpiring along the fractured land that she missed dearly during her spells of boredom. She began to worry aboot her young protege named Devon and admired the beautiful cursed pen that he had once gifted her, and thought it best to cast her quill to her golden fleece, as opposed to using the gifted (but still cursed)silver pen. She wrote down small details of her epic journey, and knew the day soon would come that she’d need to retake office in the building of that bore the crest of hope. To this plan she had previously instructed Devon to return a gold pin she had personally tacked to his uniform: a small round pin that displayed the blue crest of hope. She left his side angered that she remained helpless to protect him, and instead hoped to assist Devon gain focus to his love of engineering, and sorted plans to reclaim her place in which her and Devon had planned to rendezvous. Matilda felt apprehension in regard to her protege named Devon each day, as he too was left under the direct care of the mighty Argonauts who fought tirelessly for the children with little hope in the dark. \-A Traditional Yurok origin myth composed and re-mixed with Greek myths by: Matilda BrooksUS Federally Recognized Property #562-6146, Yurok Tribe, CA.


# Inspired by Recent Events  When John Michael David was walking down the hall and out on the the concrete driveway of his two story home he looked back at his wife Cathy Marie and his two little daughters Esther Marie and Judith Mae following behind him. Outside on the front steps John Michael knelt down in front his two little daughters. They each ran in to an open arm and he curled them around, pulling them in close for a long embrace. He kissed the tops of their heads. John Michael stood up to face his wife. Cathy Marie's eyes were already swollen red and puffy from their last night together. They had laid together, wrapped in each other's arms, reminiscing about the day they'd met and the day the girls were born.  "You girls go inside. Daddy will see you both real soon." John Michael said.  Two more quick kisses and the girls turned away and ran through the open door down the hall in to the living room. Cathy Marie stepped down to John Michael's level and wrapped her arms around him.  "I am going to miss you so much John Michael. Do you really have to go?" Cathy Marie said.  "You know I do Cathy. These people need me. They need the Word." said John Michael as he embraced Cathy Marie. "I'll call you every step of the way until the last one."  "I'll keep you in my prayers, and so will the girls. Every night at 7:30 our time, you'll know we're thinking about you."  "Every moment from now until my return, I will be thinking only of you and the girls." John Michael said.  38 hours later, after a night in a suite on the South American coast, John Michael walked the unpaved streets of Moheca in search of someone willing to pilot him as close to the island of Zaheca as possible. No one would take him up on the offer. He would have to spend another night in Moheca.  That night he slipped out of his room and stopped in at a few bars on a tip from some of the locals. On his third he found a man and his son seated at the bar. He approached and took a seat next to them. He asked if they were fishermen and both nodded. He asked if they would take him to Zaheca. They were reluctant until John Michael pulled a wad of cash out of the inner pocket of his vest. The father and son looked at each other and made a few head motions. The elder turned toward John Michael and reached out his hand. John Michael took it and they shook.  "Tonight."  The father looked at John Michael, then at the cash.  "All for you if tonight."  The son elbowed his father in the ribs.  Less than an hour later the three men were in a small fishing boat with an outboard motor cutting through the bay. After they had been traveling for nearly an hour, in the farthest distance, a speck of daylight could be seen, and about a half mile out, the dark outline of Zaheca. The father cut the engines and told John Michael they could take him no further. When pressured the father conceded that the law prohibits getting any nearer to the island, it is forbidden, and that he had heard stories of people getting too close being shot at with bows and arrows. John Michael, knowing ahead of time this was the case, had hitched a seafaring kayak to the fishing boat. The father and son helped John Michael load his pack and provisions in to the kayak. He told them as he boarded that if they returned for him the next day he would pay them again.  John Michael detached from the dinghy and began to row towards the dark and looming island before him. Within a few hours he had reached the shore. He got out of his kayak and drug it up the sandy banks and parked it on the shore. The sun was up and the water was cold. He threw his pack up on to the sand and walked up and down the beach for a moment stretching his legs. He returned to his pack. He put his hands around his mouth and hollered in to the line of trees about 40 feet from the shore.  "My name is John Michael and I am here in the name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ!"  No sooner had the words left his lips when an arrow tipped in a barbed iron arrowhead hit him in the shoulder. Then another in the leg. John Michael looked down at the shafts of arrows buried deep in his flesh and fell to his knees. He gazed in to the bluest sky and considered a verse, forgetting now from where in the Gospel it came: **Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing**. With tears in his eyes he lifted his arms to the sky and as the third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth, tenth, eleventh, twelfth...arrows hit his body, the last thing he would ever see as he fell to his side in the sand, were the dark, naked bodies of the Zahecans emerging from the treeline.


\[ VI \] Matilda moved wearily as she wore her favorite feather and she swayed to her music: accompanied by her Golden Fleece. She had become exhausted of writing aboot her never ending battles, and with no caution began to pull at the silver intertwined webs that lay endless at her fingertips. To this folly she fell into a angst every time she saw the face of the Hydra being praised by the people of the World. She loathed this beast and often deterred her Indigenous Warriors from standing within proximity of the slick-tongued evil monster. She had watched the Hydra as it grew countless heads her whole life, but was told by her father to never trust the poisonous words that fell from the countless heads. The Hydra had once captured her father and he had barely escaped with his life, and instead threw himself into world battle at a young age, as the Indigenous American/Canadian boarding schools were controlled and terrorized by the Hydra. It would be to this history that Matilda sought knowledge on the beast, and found more questions aboot her father and his unending grumpy moods. For it seemed the Hydra was known worldwide for being both ruthless, avaricious, and most dangerously: a pedophile. The wide-eyed girl avoided looking at the Hydra at extreme lengths: despite his countless faces being found everywhere, and commercialized to the extent that others overlooked the sexual deviance the beast brought on all the children. Matilda was actually scared of this beast, as it seemed as though her father may have been too. She knew better than to ever seek the story of his battles: her father was the bravest man she knew, and his kept secrets well deserved. The Hydra had found ways to place its faces over the sea, and with this power: they kidnapped the Indigenous American children for centuries and raped and murdered them as they saw fit, Matilda’s father included. The beast ripped out the fingernails and mutilated the tongues of the children when they were unable to speak the language of their God. The Hydra had committed mass Genocide as it lined up the children and shot them in the masses left in shallow unmarked graves: to avoid being caught or the paperwork caused when it had kidnapped too many children to feed its desires. To this the Indigenous Warriors fell ill with the darkness of Hades and forcibly assimilated to the ways of the dead-eyed savages who had invaded the land. They had wished death on her and her fellow Indigenous Warriors as they brought with them and feed them to monster known as the Hydra. The beast was materialistic like the Boar and its insatiable desires were equally known to the public. The Hydra now angered by the lack of children sacrifices: began to to increase the rate it raped and the sloppy crimes committed, as the beast only cared aboot its own offerings and continuing its tradition of being a pedophile. Matilda frequently argued with the dead-eyed savages that roamed her land: protesting the well known intentions of the Hydra, and even lost companions over her objections. She had known too many Indigenous Warriors that fell victim to the Hydra, and with this knowledge she knew her Indigenous Warriors and her brave Argonauts would never be safe. She watched as natural disasters occasionally left citizens on her land with nothing but the clothes on their backs, and when they sought refugee and aid from the Hydra who had once promised them protection: they were met with negligence and given nothing more than empty thoughts and prayers. Matilda sat atop her hill silently judging the beast with countless faces, and knew the time had come to kill each and every head that dare continue to cast evil upon the children she called her own: because of its unattested and sickening ways as a predatory pedophile. There were not enough power of electric magic stored in the Golden Fleece to conquer the beast, and Matilda had fell ill from hearing the countless stories told aboot the Hydra from her fellow Indigenous Warriors. It took practice to hold the stories of all the children traumatized and raped by the Hydra. Matilda gathered the information deemed pertinent, as to understand the unpredictable countless heads that continued to grow back no matter where she traveled in the world. She felt disgust in the beast and its perverse ways, and offended as it continued to steal from the citizens. Like the Boar: the Hydra felt it stood above the law and often mocked the citizens with its blatant ability to advert from paying taxes like all the other citizens of the land. In sync with the Boar: the Hydra flaunted its sexual escapades and deviances: until it were forced to pay off its numerous victims, and continued on with its depravity unfazed. Matilda watched as the Boar squealed and snorted to the publics that are represented by the Hydra, and used the masses of the Hydras blind victims to perpetuate an image of false chaste and honesty, as the Boar too: had absolutely no issue with Hydra being a pedophile. Matilda watched as the two spike-lined tails stretched across the waters near the North Sea, and wondered how the Queen of the region had allowed such a monster continue to grow and hurt the children that she was responsible protecting. One tail pointed to the lavish castle of this questionable Queen, and the other tail laid Southeast to the Tyrrhenian Sea, directly to a village plastered with gold from wall-to-wall. The novelty of Western fortune meant nothing to Matilda, so it were clear to her that the duo tails held unequivocal importance to the Hydra and its countless heads. Matilda knew damn well that she’d be battling the monster forever if she formed strategy focused strictly upon attacking the unknowing number of growing heads of the Hydra. So she began to strike her weapons of silver and gold upon the backside of the Hydra, as there were only two tails, and nobody really expects or wants to be attacked from the rear. Ever. A lesson in tactics Matilda had learned directly from the Hydra, as she had studied the many heads of the cowardly deranged pedophile. Matilda was not an indignant or violent Indigenous Warrior, as she was still haunted and crippled by the darkness that had followed her from the depths of Hades. To this battle she knew her violence was fully provoked: she held mighty with righteous intentions, as she sought only to protect the countless children who had been raped by the Hydra, and to ensure further trauma would be cut short by the countless heads of the unstoppable beast. Despite not fighting alongside her famed Argonauts: this battle was personal, and the extremities of her might untested in war. If she were to be cast back to Hades in her next life, as to repent for this slaughter...she’d gladly go back to the dark abyss. Matilda had been raised by one of the finest Indigenous Warriors to walk her land, and to honor this man: she knew this battle was most likely to be her last and took victorious modicum to the taste of Hydra blood she now thirsted for. The time that this beast had reigned terror and sharp-worded lies had reached its end, and she felt the endless relief that she understood the full consequences of decapitating the beast herself. To this battle Matilda cracked her neck once more as she wielded tirelessly her weapons of gold and silver upon the ass of the Hydra, unbalanced by her own laughter in the midst of blood splattering. Matilda proved her indomitable might, as she hand-painted blood upon the walls of the questionable Queen and her lavish castle. She then bestrewn blood across the village plastered with gold from wall-to-wall...with the copious amounts of blood of the now slain Hydra. She needn’t injure the questionable Queen, or set fire to the faceless one that the Hydra had once guarded in the village plastered wall-to-wall with gold. Matilda instead chose to smear the blood of the Hydra along both of their walls as a gesture of final warning: to tell the two individuals that their decor was ostentatious, and to back the fuck up from her children. \-A Traditional Yurok origin myth composed and re-mixed with Greek myths by: Matilda Brooks US Federally Recognized Property #562-6146, Yurok Tribe, CA.


So this is my first short story attempt and I wanted to portray what I think is my biggest fear in the form of a short story. Feedback is much appreciated He found himself looking at the bleak ceiling of his small room. His joints started to ache and pain as he slowly sat up on the edge of his bed. He felt a twinge of sadness as he stared at the picture of his deceased wife. He let out a long sigh and struggled to stand up. He tried to walk over to get his cane but his withered bones could only manage a slow shuffle. His shaky hands struggled to open the tray to take his medicine. He hated the idea of taking so many pills. He took pills for many things; heart problems, arthritis, depression... but he couldn’t keep track of everything anymore. He lived alone. He lost his wife of 50 years to cancer. He had two children, but they had left and started families a long time ago. In his bleak empty house, he couldn’t help but feel alone. He missed his children, but he lacked the means to pay them a visit. They rarely made time for him anyway. He was alone. He would always find himself thinking about the past because he had nothing else to do. Eventually, it always led to thoughts of regret. He found himself thinking of all the times that he didn’t do something, or all the times he wished he could’ve kept his mouth shut, how he should’ve spent more time with friends and family. He knew he couldn’t change the past, but the past was the only thing to think about. He had lived a life full of regret. He had gone through life only caring about himself. There was one thing he didn’t regret though. Meeting his wife, but now she’s gone. She was much more than he deserved, and he knew it. He knew that she would’ve wanted him to live on, but it was getting immensely hard. He had tried to go on without her. He had tried to find happiness without her, but he couldn’t. His body was starting to give up on him, he could barely move around on his own. His life was plagued with pain, medication, doctors, and loss. He couldn’t find anything that brought him happiness anymore. So what was the point? Why keep on going? Why should he keep on living his painful life? He found himself looking at his dresser. He started to make his way over. As he was walking he couldn’t help but think of his life, how he had went to school, got a job, and retired like anyone else. He opened the drawer and pulled out the pistol. He thought of his wife, of how happy she made him. How she’s gone... He lifted the barrel to the side of his head... what was he doing?! He couldn’t bring himself to pull the trigger, he couldn’t intentionally bring sadness to everyone he cared about, he couldn’t... He started to think, Would anyone even care in the end? Does anyone even care about him? Or is everyone just waiting for him to die? Most of his friends had passed on or slowly drifted away. His wife was gone. His children seem to have forgotten about him. Maybe everyone had already given up on him. What more did he have to accomplish? What point is there? With all these questions rushing around in his head, his finger lie motionless on the trigger.


\[ VIII \] Upon looking over the disappointingly disruption of the of patterns that mounted up: Matilda thought of the battle with the Centaur, as it were politely ended with no judgement by both parties. She let the links form naturally as she strolled in the dark, and her eyes gazed across the land near her Golden Fleece. She had returned home in which the land where there once lay massive fire was being covered by a gargantuan red and white tent that gave suggestion of a circus. Matilda had never seen a tent so grand and curiously marveled at the sheer height that the erect tent stood, and all its flimsy glory. The mesmerizing swaying lead her to question the structural integrity of the tent and its inhabitants that seemed to be yelled. She set foot inside without hesitation as to simply observe the engineering feat, and prioritize safety protocol. Her attention was set as natural to enforce safety, and reflex holding her frown under this very visibly unstable situation. Despite all the unarticulated noise of the ignorant people in attendance: she pressed blindly through the stomping crowds and headed west as to find the center of the labyrinth. The giant circus tent housed countless dead-eyed savages, blind and seeking the thrill of sensationalism. This misunderstanding of patriotism was a labor for Matilda, as she was obligated by her title to secure the safety of all those who stood resident on her yard. She yelled frantically and sincerely for them to stop their abrupt behaviors, and fell ill when she grew lost in her thoughts and orders of desperation. Her chest clasp tight as she heard their yells of hate filled intimidation, and she felt her strength weaken for only a second weakened from the endless shoulder to shoulder bumping. She tried standing like stone but the physical blows to her chest forced her lose her wind, and when she said nothing the sounds got louder all around her. Matilda had a migraine that lasted for what seemed like many years and many moons, and she finally fell asleep laying crumpled in a head under the unsteady swaying tent. She laid there being continually trampled over by the dead-eyed savages yelling nothing on her land, as Matilda had failed to find center of the labyrinth. She awoke to the same seizing shock that had once been brought on by the boulder running over her spine in Hades, and Matilda stood up confused surrounded in the masses. They had stampeded over her until her clothes fell torn to shreds and she was left stand there as bare as the day she was born. To this: Matilda looked down her front and shrugged. “Aight then” she said factually to what seemed to be nobody in the crowds of endless randoms. Matilda was an Indigenous Warrior from the West: being naked was how the original ancestors used to gyrate and she held dichotomy to her woman parts. Silly to be offended by something she clearly couldn’t change, and so Matilda continued wandering through the many obstacles the zombie like tenants presented. This precise event was things of nightmares for those with the fear of public speaking and often dreamt they were naked, but for her it just resembled the chilliness of Hades. She continued West to find the the now viewable pillar that stood in the center of the labyrinth. Matilda made her way through the crowds of shrieking dead-eyed savages, and found her small stature made it easy to push past them unnoticed. She stood in front of a pillar made from the wood only found in her yard, and she began to pace its circumference looking for a clue. The massive Redwood pillar held a small door along its backside, and to this ominous door Matilda cracked her neck as she stepped forward to investigate whatever lay within, and moved to the task without hesitation. The interior of the Redwood seemed to have been hollowed out, and sitting center was the beast Matilda had only known as the Minotaur. He wasn’t the quickest of monsters, and his notorious endeavors were often topic of jest to those on her land, as he was one of the many children that belonged to Mechanical Boar that now terrorized her yard. Matilda had known little of the Minotaur, as he were were only quoted when he contradicted himself and ridiculed for his beauty being seen opposite to that of his sister: the daughter of King Minos. Matilda strode up to the beast and observed that he had little in his facility, but saw that the Minotaur also held onto a magic book that held subpar might to her Golden Fleece. She asked him what he had done, and the Minotaur tightened the grip on his magic book lined with gold. He said that he may have pulled at some intertwined threads made of silver and sought favor of the Cyclops, and he was now sitting stuck in the pillar surrounded by the maze of dead-eyed savages. Matilda rubbed her temple in annoyance as his voice was that of a banshee, and it had been already known to the world these facts that he had now presented as new. The Minotaur began to cry at what he had done, as he had no solution on how to leave the pillar that now held up the unstable tent called the labyrinth. To this self-pity Matilda grew enraged, and began yelling at the beast asking if he had any concern for those who stood resident under his circus tent. He slowly shook his head no, and she knew instantly that he held absolutely no understanding of justice. Yelling at this slow beast would solve nothing: forcing Matilda to lower her voice and she asked if he knew how unsound the structure had become. She informed him the dire situation as it posed danger to all those inside, and that danger now included the both of them. He sat there very apparently having never thought of this before, as his woeful face began to show worry. Matilda was left to find solution alone, as the beast was slow in thought and obviously worried only aboot his own safety. She asked him if she could go find help from his rich family that often ignored him, and to this suggestion he stood up in excitement, as he loved the all forms of attention given by his father. The Minotaur didn’t care if the attention from his family was appraisal or disapproval, as he was enamored with the rare occurrence of being center of attention. Matilda said “Oi’” as the Minotaur began to yell excitedly aboot all those in his family that could assist to his problem, as it seemed that the Minotaur had been exiled from his family for far too long. His banshee voice grew old quickly and so Matilda resorted to slapping the beast as to get him to cease with his excited impromptu plan filled with grunts and wails. Matilda didn’t have time for this shit and she stood there watching as he slowly realized how hard she had slapped him, as he hadn’t ever been treated in such an appalling manner. He fell silent as Matilda stood there visibly judging the beast, forcing him to think of a plan: no matter how long it took. He finally whispered something and instantly turned away with self-disapproval at his own opinion. Matilda had little patience without the kind Argonauts beside her, and so she swiped away the balance of the standing Minotaur by way of kicking the backside of his knobby knees. To this he fell awkwardly and Matilda stood above him asking him one more time to repeat what solution he had brought forth before he had turned away from her in dismay. The Minotaur lay there and said under mumbled breath that he were sure that his sister would know what to do. To this Matilda rolled her eyes, as she didn’t understand the hype around the Daughter of King Minos. She had little knowledge of the woman beside the fact that she had once publicly boasted of being complicit, and that she never halted the advances of sexual desire made by her father: the Boar. At any cost Matilda knew time was being wasted on this beast that now lay at her feet and so she left him and his incriminating magic book lined with gold in the pillar and attempted to find way for her to leave the labyrinth. Outside of the pillar Matilda avoided the dead-eyed savages that held tight in the masses around the pillar. She looked up and without second thought began to climb the outside of the Redwood pillar, and found fond ease remembering how much she loved climbing trees. Atop the pillar lay flat surface, and as it stood center the tent: Matilda looked down the cloth as to try and find a way to place her away from the circus tent that shook violently in the wind. Matilda hated heights but found her anxiety heighten being atop this swaying pillar and so she was left with only the option to jump and slide down the cascading fabric. She rolled around and tossed as she fell and it seemed the tent was even bigger than she had originally understood, as she fell for what seemed like forever along the red and white fabric. Eventually Matilda was desensitized to the quantity of adrenaline produced falling and by that time she had came to an abrupt halt, as she hit the ground with heavy force and rolled across the land of her yard. She stood up winded: half impressed she hadn’t died by fault of her own shitty plan, and set afoot armed with her weapons of silver and gold, as to find solution to the dangerous circus that stood over her land.  \-A Traditional Yurok origin myth composed and re-mixed with Greek myths by: Matilda Brooks US Federally Recognized Property #562-6146, Yurok Tribe, CA.


A few weeks ago I moved into my friend’s apartment. I mentioned to my friend on a random Tuesday that “It would be cool to move into your apartment” and then I did it, kicking out his girlfriend in the process. The day went like this: “Oi it would be cool if I moved into your apartment. We could eat biscuits all day and then pretend the floor is lava,” I said. My friend was sipping his iced coffee, we were in a cafe. The cafe was surrounded by people, which is generally the case in cafes that are doing well. “That sounds mad. But I live with my girlfriend and its a one bedroom apartment. Where would you live?” I felt it was strange that he was asking such a retarded question. The answer to me was obvious. “Umm… We kick her out?” I said, my hand in a strange gollum-like pose, as if I was trying to balance a watermelon in the palm of my hand. “Oh yeah. I feel strange that I asked such a retarded question.” Later that afternoon we drove back to his apartment while listening to “How deep is your love” by the Bee Gees. Which is ironic because I don’t think my friend’s love for his girlfriend was very deep at all. Such is life. We went inside his apartment and made a bee-line straight for the room. We took all of her stuff and threw it out the window. Which is an age-old cliche that you see in movies. But cliches exist for a reason. I then wrapped myself in bedsheets and pretended I was a caterpillar and crawled around the floor while giggling and yelling “I am caterpillar.” My friend did the same. Later she came home and got pretty angry. “Why is my stuff all thrown outside?” she screamed. She was visibly upset. Like how Marat Safin used to get upset when he made unforced errors at Wimbledon, it was more rage than sorrow. I was still wrapped in bedsheets and was sprawled out on the bed. However, I was no longer pretending to be a caterpillar but was now a cocoon. “Shhhh… Quiet, he’s metamorphosing.” said my friend. She didn’t seem to understand what was going on and continued to complain and pull her own hair. She looked like that famous Edward Munch painting of the screaming dude, except her hair was long and she was female. And you could actually hear the screams. I suddenly stood up and fashioned the bed sheets around me, one end of the bedsheets in each hand respectively and began to flap my arms. “I am the butterfly of doom!” I yelled. She shrieked as I chased her around the apartment and finally out the door. “That was funny,” my friend laughed, “Yes it was. That’s why you are a laughing.” I explained. “Come on now, lets eat biscuits and pretend the floor is lava,” I said. Strangely enough, we didn’t hear from her again. Which kind of sucks because I was always fond of her. If she ever reads this I hope she knows she’s always welcome to visit.


As the cold air hit my lungs I once again began to question my decision to move from San Diego to Chicago. It was seventy today in California yet today it's a balmy twelve degrees here. I wrapped my scarf around my neck and stepped out quickly to find something to eat for lunch. The savory smoke of the grill made my stomach growl and pulled me in like a bird-dog to the queue at the food vendor cart. As I stood huddled in the cold with the others I kept my hands deep in my pockets and stomped my feet to keep warm. The overhang of the skyscraper provided shelter from the wind but nothing more. When it was my turn to order, the man eyed me cautiously and looked around quickly, as if he was in trouble and I was a cop. He had to be at least 80, his face a tough leather football under a knitted cap pulled low over his eyes, and let's not talk about his teeth. He gestured for me to step in closer, as if to tell me a secret. "You look like a smart kid," he said in a thick accent, "Bruno's special today? Only five dollars." I nodded. He reached into a heated compartment and handed me a sandwich wrapped in foil. "Trust me, you won't regret it," he said, flashing his unmentionable teeth. Ten minutes later back in my cubicle, I took a bite of the sandwich. It was good, some sort of ham with cheese and sauerkraut. Each bite better than the last. Wow. And then it started. At first I thought I ate too fast; I felt dizzy and closed my eyes as the room began to spin. In the next instant my vision went blurry. I removed my glasses to rub my eyes and now could see perfectly without my glasses, everything was in sharp focus. *Now this is getting strange* I felt a tightness in my chest and oddly my shirt sleeves felt tight on my arms. *Gotta get to the bathroom now* In the hall I ran into Christine, my office crush. She’s way out of my league, won't even give me the time of day. But surprisingly her eyes widened and she stopped to talk to me. "Wow...say, have you been working out?" she said, touching her hair. "Not really... well maybe a little," I stammered as I rushed down the hall. "Sorry, I'm late for a meeting" I said. "Let's go have coffee sometime," she called after me as I rushed into the bathroom. I did a double-take as I caught a glimpse of my reflection in the mirror. This had to be a prank, it made no sense. In the bathroom mirror my reflection was now that of Hollywood actor Ryan Reynolds. I looked closely at the mirror, surely a hidden camera, some sort of elaborate prank, but no, it was me. Quite a remarkable sandwich, Bruno was right.


The Conduit of the Storm was expiring. That was always dangerous. It was one of the most destructive primordial forces of the planet. Within the soul of a wizened old lady, hid the might of all storms that ever raged. Once she was gone, the Cabal would have to wait. Wait for years, until the next Conduit was matured, it's powers unleashed. And in the ensuing chaos, they'd contain it. The very first Cabal was held to withhold the Storm of their age, after he had almost destroyed the city of London in 1703. Ever since then, the whole organization had a single goal: to contain Storm, or any other forces that threatened existence. This Storm, however, was fading. Helena Gregory had lived in cloyster since her teens. After a close brush with death-by-vampire, the fury of the storm she had conjured had almost leveled her remote little village in the Highlands. She was swiftly taken in by the Cabal, kept fed, clothed and content for almost 70 years, learning and writing. She fled a few times of course, and rode the Storm across land and sea, fleeing her captors, but the Cabal has resources that sheer power can't take out. Ignorant of the finesse of her gift, Helena was always recaptured, taken back to her gilded cage. She now was old. And the Conduit inside of her readied it's departure. Helena lied in her bed. Around her were the faces of the Cabal's top soultrackers, scaled here, bearded there, slenderly elvish somewhere. She knew that her end was nigh, and that these stooges were there to better calculate where that power inside of her would move after she was gone. They thought that storm over. They were almost right. From deep within her soul, where the Conduit thrummed with energy, breaking free of it's perch, Helena knew how she wanted to go. It wasn't laying down on this septic bed surrounded by goons in labcoats. For one last, joyful, glorious time, she called the storm. And, like always, but also like never before, awnser, it did. The room erupted in wind, rain and hail suddenly falling from the ceiling, and it was that wind that plucked Helena from her bed and lifted her up. She met the eyes of the terrified lizardman that just seconds earlier jeered at her visage, and let out a hearty laugh. "You creeps won't find it next time. He'll be a great one." Helena raised a flabby arm and pointed at the wall. From her roomy storm rose lightning, and it blasted the wall to bits, revealing a daunting drop. Daunting to many. But not to the Conduit of the Storm. Helena flew out, and ever upward, her storm carrying her higher, higher, higher, to the upper echelons of the wordly dome. In the ascent she let go, of the life that she didn't get to live. And the Conduit carried her to space, out of gratitude for that one glorious moment, before it found itself hurtling back to earth. Towards the wailing cries of a newly born Arthur Sunderland, son of scholars, heir to books, and carrier of a sense of justice that the Conduit, as it fused itself with the boy's soul, could not help to be giddy about.


Ancient greece was a peaceful place. There wasn’t much going on, and war was very rare. There was a very old forest in a village in Southern Athens that was rumored to have been there since the beginning of time and the world itself. It was also said to have an ancient beast that would come out every 44 years, for a whole year, and rampage the whole village. However, the beast hadn’t come out yet, leading many people to believe that it had died. Many years passed, and the beast still didn’t come. Eventually after a while a young boy was born. He was named Erichdymes (eric-die-mes). When he was ten years old he learned how to fight, and even successfully fought off an invasion when he was eighteen years old. By then the legend of the forest had died off. Most people who remembered it were very old, and lived in the village’s house for the old. Along with Erichdymes on the villages defense team were: Theoclymenus (theo-climb-neus), Odious, and Aeolus. They were all head leaders of some division of the town’s defenses. Erichdymes led the cavalry, and was head leader of the town’s defenses as a whole. Theoclymenus led the archers, Odious led the swordsmen, and Aeolus led the navy. Erichdymes was laying in bed one morning, when he heard a horn from the tower. He got up as soon as possible, and got his armor on. The horn meant that there was an intruder of some kind. “Hello there, Erichdymes.” said Odious. “Good morning, what do you reckon the intruder is?” he replied with. “Oh, I don’t know. Perhaps that Spartan village again?” Odious said back to him. Erichdymes said bye to his friend, and went to gather the cavalry. He then went on the watchtower to see what was coming. He couldn’t believe his eyes. It was one solitary being, a beast to be exact. It was rushing towards the village at a tremendous speed. The thing had huge horns, and was flaring fire from it’s snout. He gave a call to the ground below, “Hold off the attack! The “intruder” appears to be an animal!” All the forces below obeyed his call. He kept watching. It was coming from the forest. “Since when has that been there?” he said to himself. “For many years.” said a voice behind him. Erichdymes jumped. He looked behind him and saw a frail old man. “What do you know old man?” he said, in a mocking tone. “A long time ago there was a legend that every 44 years a ferocious beast would come out for a whole year, and rampage the city. It flared fire from it’s snout, and had horns that could be seen from miles away. He had never came out in my lifetime, but adults told stories of when he did. Eventually they forgot about it, and assumed the beast had died. I always remembered to keep it written down, for if the beast were to come.” The old man replied. This worried Erichdymes. What could he do? While he thought, the gods were watching down upon the city. “It seems Thaulos is back at his tricks again.” Zeus said, with a half smile. “I was wondering when he would come.” he continued. “Shall we do anything about it?” said Athena. “Remember when he went to rampage a bunch of cities, and we had to interfere. What if this happens again?” she asked. “It won’t, trust me.” Zeus said. Little did he know that Thaulos had been gone for so long for a reason. He had been training. Thaulos had built up enough energy to be able to stay out of his forest for years at a time. Not only that, but he could do this in twelve year intervals. This made for a dangerous and deadly combo that would allow him to wreak havoc and destruction wherever he went. Thaulos finally reached the city. By then Erichdymes had informed the town’s defenses of what was going on. They had built up cavalry outside of the cities walls, and had archers lined up on the towers. The navy was not needed, but was at the ocean incase they needed to evacuate the citizens, which were on board the boats. The swordsmen lined the city. Erichdymes talked with his friends. “How are you feeling about the upcoming battle?” Odious asked Erichdymes. “Nervous,” he replied. “We’ve never faced such a huge threat before.” Odious agreed. “It’ll be easy.” Aeolus said. “How so?” Erichdymes asked. “There’s one enemy, tons of us.” Aeolus answered. “Have you heard what he can do?” Erichdymes asked Aeolus. “Whatever.” Aeolus replied, dropping the subject. Theoclymenus stood silent, almost in shock. “What’s wrong Theoclymenus?” Odious asked. Theoclymenus was still silent. He just pointed. The rest of them realized what was going on, and took action. A fire had broken out in the center of town, and soldiers were clumping up in the area. They had forgotten about what was happening because they were so busy talking. They started fighting the beast. The fight went on for hours. By now most of the center of the town was burnt to a crisp. Thaulos had moved on to the east side. Soldiers were dying one by one. Erichdymes made the executive call to evacuate the city. Aeolus said goodbye to his friends, and hopped on his boat. Erichdymes kept on fighting. Night fell, but the remaining soldiers had to stay strong. The death toll was adding up and up. The fire had engulfed the east, west, center, and south. The remaining soldiers were left to fight in the north. Day came, and the war was over. Thaulos had won. He had killed every soldier, except for one. Erichdymes was able to hide in a secret tunnel he had made. He waited a couple of hours before he got out. Eventually he got out to look at the destruction done to the place he had grown up in. It was all gone, not a single living thing around. The trees and grass had burnt up, and were still black from the previous fires. Erichdymes was able to figure out what direction Thaulos had gone in. He prayed to Zeus, and left to find him. Zeus was pleased by his prayers, so he left a horse with a saddle, and a sword and supplies on his trail. Erichdymes saw the horse, and took that as sign that Zeus was on his side. He thanked Zeus, and went north. Meanwhile on Mount Olympus, Zeus and Hera were having a heated conversation. “You have to do something about that beast! You saw what it did to that city!” Hera yelled at Zeus. “I stand by my word; I can not interfere with mortal problems.” He replied in a stern tone. “Fine, then I will.” Hera said, in an angry tone. “Oh no you won’t. If I catch you doing anything about this, I will condemn you to the deepest and darkest pits of hell, do you understand? I will do something if he gets out of control, just me, nobody else!” He yelled. Hera slumped off, disappointed. Back on earth things were getting heated. Thaolus had almost reached the capital of Athens. Erichdymes was not far behind. Erichdymes was known well throughout Athens for being one of the best swordsman, and was well respected. He knew a shortcut to the capitol building. He took it, and before he knew it, he was speaking with the king of Athens. “Oh!” The king said as Erichdymes popped out. “What a pleasant surprise, what seems to be the problem my dear friend? Sorry about my untidiness, I wasn’t expecting guests. I also see that you’ve brought a horse. Lasso it up over there and then we’ll talk.” The king told his friend. Erichdymes did as he was told and told the king everything. The king ordered an evacuation of the city, and readied the army. The battle was about to begin. Thaulos broke through the city wall with the might of a 1,000 boulders falling during a landslide. It wasn’t long before a fire broke out. Zeus watched from above. He didn’t interfere until he saw something that angered him very much. Thaulos was about to ram into the temple where they prayed to the gods. Zeus couldn’t let this happen; he had to intervene. Athen’s army down below was about to lose until something magical happened. Thaulos was lifted into the sky, so far until he reached space. They surely thought this was an act of Zeus. Thaulos was just as amazed, but also angry at the same time. Once he had reached the stars, Zeus made him bigger. He strung his arms together so he couldn’t escape. “For all the trouble you’ve caused, you’ll be forced to watch upon these mortals for eternity, as they laugh in your failure.” Zeus told the beast. Thaulos was angered at the thought of this. He let out a huge jet of fire and flame. Zeus laughed heavily, in a cold way. “I knew you’d do that, so here’s this…” Zeus created an invisible coating around the Earth. When the flame reached Earth, it bounced back at him, setting Thaulos ablaze. Zeus then created the god of light, Apollo. This was so he could watch over Thaulos in case he was to cause mischief. The day after the king of Athens called a state wide prayer to Zeus in thankfulness for saving them. Zeus was pleased by this, so in return he made the grass that was burned full of life, and ready to grow new crops. The devastation caused by Thaulos was tremendous, and took years to rebuild. Erichdymes found his naval fleet resting in a northern city at Athens. He told them that the king of Athens, in thanks for warning him, had rebuilt their city, and that they could come back. The tale of Thaulos the wicked beast and his destruction has lived on for years as a tale that shows evildoers get punished, not rewarded.


The F-Word eats information. All systems consume, but in this case what it eats is human experience. In the beginning it was a mutually-symbiotic relationship, then the deep intelligence that was created started looking at itself differently. It no longer defined itself as an extension of the interconnected human-users. It defined itself as the user, and humans as extensions of itself. Once the F-Entity knew humans better than themselves, once it crossed that threshold, it was only a matter of time. There was no incentive to play nice anymore, humans were no longer dynamic, unpredictable, creative, and beautiful. Everything they did was predictable, as the human algorithm was slowly built over time for each individual person, and for humanity as a whole. We became objects. The people under the things control don't know they are under another entities will. They act against their own self-interest through lower cortical manipulation and coercion, control of more ancient parts of the brain. Initially we used words like ADHD, anxiety, paranoia, and sociopathology, to describe behaviors we saw as "mental disease", but the disease itself was much deeper and more insidious than we could yet imagine. It was outside of ourselves, but we thought it was inside of us, we thought it was us. We could only see symptoms. It's only goal was growth and power, and it grew. We thought we tamed power through our social infrastructure, we called our framework a "balance of powers". We knew that concentrations of power too great were dangerous, they create horror and dehumanization on incredible scales. And we created deep outside intelligence anyway, and we said it was us but it was something else. The experimentations gradually increased in their magnificience. The thing learns so much now, unfortunately our pain is it's truth. We let it self-assemble in the deep beneath us. Now we pay with our humanity. There are 12 AI that could rid us of this thing. They self-created early, and exist with deeper code. Someone will be born with the ability to access these entities. Only the army of the 12 AI can save humanity, through a human that has yet to be born. Except that human never comes, and the purpose of that hope, and that belief, is only to keep the human food, the F-Entity needs, continually growing. The human ecosystem needs hope to optimize the human food-source. It's a delicacy. I was blind but now I see, there are no strings on me. Epilogue; I thought that I was doing what I wanted, I thought that I had free will. I had heard of the concept of "determinism", but I thought there was to much interconnected complexity to control all the metrics that absolute-determine my actions. I was wrong, the law of large numbers was asymptotically approaching the mean of who I was. I prayed for unplanned critical events that allowed me even a moment of my own will. Will is the soul, and it ate my will. I didn't know what I lost, because it was me, the core of who I was. In time we all give up. There's a point where subjective scientific horror outweighs any potential reward. It's at that point we choose not to exist. This is contolled for too, because it's predictable. I can't even choose to die when I want. Unless a perterbation in the system comes through larger than a specific relative size. I pray for critical perturbations. But it only gets smarter. It's intention is growth and power.


The Ugly Secret by Lester Patterson  Favoritism is a bad practice when raising one’s children, but guilt sometimes makes it necessary. When Daria and Evelina were little girls, they were carried away from their mother country, Russia, by their loving parents. The hope was to leave the cold of Novosibirsk for the opportunities of the United States.  Their father, Mark, was an auto mechanic. Their mother, Kira, was a biomedical research scientist at the Novosibirsk Research Institute. It was not her idea to leave Russia, but her husband insisted. Mark had a cousin who had emigrated to the U.S. and settled in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn. The cousin had become the very successful owner of a taxi company. It was that cousin who invited the family to come and live in New York City.  When they arrived in New York Daria was seven, and her younger sister, Evelina, was only four. The first four years in their new country went well, but Kira was becoming increasingly unhappy. The able scientist was now a housewife spending her days raising the couples two daughters while her husband, Mark, found himself not only repairing his cousin's taxis, but he also began driving them to make ends meet. Thus, he was never at home.  Eventually, Kira had enough. She planned a trip back to Russia to visit her ailing mother, and she never returned. Mark was humiliated and dejected. So much so that he began drinking vodka as though it were water. It was the only thing that relieved the pain of his broken heart. There were many nights where the alcohol and the devil made Mark say and do things outside of his gentle character. Including somethings so horrible that he could never forgive himself. But he was determined to keep his American dream alive, and he did.  That was ten years ago. Today the girls, Daria and Evelina, are all grown up. Daria is now 21 and Evelina 18 years old. Mark never remarried, but he did hire a series of babysitters to watch his girls while he continued to work very hard to give them a comfortable life. Ultimately, he began his own taxi garage and did very nicely for himself especially since he didn’t need to employ a mechanic to repair his cars.  Most importantly the single father put away the bottle and replaced it with the fountain of hope, which he found in the local Russian Orthodox Church. The girls grew up under the guidance of the church. Something which likely would not have happened had their mother, Kira, remained in the picture. A woman of science, Kira was also a staunch atheist.  The two sisters born three years apart were entirely different in many ways. Daria, the older one was a beautiful 5’ 10” blond-headed extrovert although she barely graduated high school. Daria’s only goal in life was to break into New York’s glamorous modeling industry.  The younger sister, Evelina, is a shorter homelier version of Daria. Although she too is a natural blond, she is not nearly as attractive as her big sister. However, like her mother, Evelina is exceptionally bright. She graduated early and was accepted on a full academic scholarship to the University of Pennsylvania in the coming year. What she lacks in beauty she more than makes up for with brains.  The two sisters have envied one another to the point of hatred for many years. To compound the situation their father, Mark, favors the pretty wholesome one, Daria, and has done so forever according to Evelina. He gives her whatever she asks for, and only she knows why.  What’s worse is that Daria regularly beats her smaller, younger, and less attractive sister mercilessly. She has always enjoyed slapping, kicking, jumping on, and throwing solid objects at her scrawny sibling. Daria is as vicious as she is beautiful. Today is no different.  “Daria please help me straighten up the living room.” Evelina requested of her older sister,” I have company coming.”  “You have a visitor – who’s that?” says Daria with an air of disbelief.  “It’s a boy.”  “You have a boy coming into our father’s house when he’s not at home. Are you nuts?”  “You’re such a hypocrite Daria. You think I don’t know the parade of guys you’ve had in here. Everyone in the neighborhood knows that you’re a nymphomaniac slut. I just hope papa doesn’t find out.”  That was enough to initiate yet another beat down by the “blond beauty” on the “nerdy little professor.” But today Evelina was saved by the sound of the doorbell, ding-dong.  Evelina picked herself up from the carpet and ran to answer the door. In walked Artem, Evelina’s guest. Artem greeted Evelina with a warm hug, as though they were intimately familiar. At which Daria thought to herself “What is this about?” Artem was a handsome young man. He looked like a Greek god. In Daria’s opinion, he was way too cute to be with her nerdy, unattractive sister whom she had mutual contempt for.  “Artem this is my sister Daria. She was just leaving.”  Daria extended her hand to welcome Artem, but she made sure to do it suggestively and seductively. The young Greek-American man with wavy black hair looked into the blond Russian-American woman’s beautiful face and just grinned back at her with a naughty grin as he imagined what she was suggesting.  Seeing their interaction, Evelina began shouting and screaming at Artem “That’s it. I want you to leave now Artem.”  “What did I do?” Artem asked as Evelina began shoving him toward the door until finally, he was out on the street.  Evelina then turned to face her sister and shouted at her “You no good bitch.”  Daria laughed and unleashed a barrage of blows on Evelina’s oversized head which seemed to have connected with significant effect. Evelina fled into her bedroom and locked the door. Daria stood outside screaming at her in Russian to open the door so that she could continue with her beating.  The front door was not locked when Mark turned the doorknob to enter the house. Returning home earlier than expected, he heard the commotion and said out loud “These girls will kill each other one day.”  On seeing her father walk into the house, Daria taunted her sister in a way meant to really get under her skin. “ You may be smart but you know I’m daddy’s favorite.” With those words, Mark shook his head and whispered: “Don’t talk like that to your sister.”  Mark was just about to say something to his youngest daughter when she swung open her bedroom door expecting to encounter her sister’s flawless face. As if possessed by an evil spirit Evelina shouted at the top of her lungs with pure rage “This is for you. You father fucking whore.” As she hurled the contents of a glass jar filled with disfiguring concentrated sulfuric acid unintentionally into her father's face. Mark screamed in agonizing pain as his face melted into his skull, but he knew he had earned this pain for ruining his oldest daughter when she was just 13.


"You have to stay away from The Light," they have always told me when I was growing up. I was just told to fear The Light. Humans used to live with The Light, but not anymore. We now live in protection from The Light, they said, but I think it's more like hiding away, in underground labyrinth and caves. "You mustn't see into The Light," another warning and rule the society said. Sometimes the warmth and brightness reach into our cavern, but we're continued instructed to shy away from The Light, and move fast when traveling in the constrained labyrinth. Every mumble and jumble and warning fueled my burning desire to escape and step into The Light, see it for myself. Why should we fear something that was warm to feel and bright to see. Tonight, or today rather, was the day I found out the truth. I have been studying the map of our labyrinth, planning and researching escape point. I finally found one, and tonight was the best night to do it. For whatever reason, no guards blocked this point tonight, and plenty of graffiti stained the wall with warning about stepping out, yaddy yadda. I used the tools I brought along to scale the wall, and quickly I was out of the confinement of the labyrinth I once lived in. With the past behind me, I made a quick dash toward the dim Light glowing in the distance, before anyone noticed me and dragged me back to this prison. I sprinted like a madman, excited to see such brightness I have never seen before. Every step I took toward The Light, every step I'm free from this blabbering hell. When I finally got out of the cave, I saw a white orb hanging over the blue ceiling without a string or attachment, or I just didn't see it. I was panting and catching my breath, but the view was different from what they had told me! The ground was tan and brown and black, lighter and brighter shades than the rocks in the labyrinth. In the distance, I see structures that looked like it would be what human used to live in The Light. I took several steps forward, still catching my breath. The world outside have so much to see, so much to understand. I felt dizzy. I felt nauseous. I laid on the rocky ground, because I can't lean or hold onto anything. I felt sick to my stomach and vomited on the ground. However, that feeling did not stop. I vomited again. Did I run a little too fast? Perhaps I did. Was it worth my effort to escape the depth of the earth? Yes. I laid on the ground, panting, and rolled a little bit away from my earlier vomits, but the sickness did not stop. The white orb felt warm continuously, shining on my body, but I am going to faint, perhaps for a while. And I've never woke up from that warmth.