An ear-splitting ‘crack!’ filled the air as they hit the stone jetty. The tiny rowing boat split in two as if it were balsa wood. The black water swallowed both halves up with a reptilian slurp. Max and Steve fell backwards with a splash and found themselves neck deep in the water of the large lake. ‘Shit. That’s the spliff gone out,’ said Max. ‘Never mind the spliff,’ panicked Steve, ‘what about the boat? If we get caught, they’re going to kill us!’. The two friends waded and swam to the side of the lake and hoisted themselves on to the tennis court sized, neatly manicured lawn by the water’s edge. As they lay on their backs on the dew-soaked grass, Max and Steve realised that they were completely soaked through. They lay there breathing heavily. Drenched, shocked and shivering. Suddenly, Max was seized by paroxysms of laughter. Steve looked at him in confusion and then started laughing too. He just couldn’t help it. ‘Do you reckon they heard that up at the house?’ asked Steve. ‘Nah, not a chance’ replied Max confidently. ‘Everybody will be inside this time of night’. ‘Except for idiots like us’ laughed Steve. Max let out an amused snort in response The two friends lay there panting and laughing, gazing up at the full moon looking down on them through the fronds of the Monterey pine trees that surrounded them. They both felt the powerful warmth of eight per cent alcohol Belgian beer and brandy chasers swirling around their bodies. They had also smoked a couple of fully loaded joints of hydroponic White Widow cannabis.  They’d decided it would be a good idea to go on a post-closing time adventure in the fifty-acre estate owned by George Harrison. Now here they were. Very naughty. Very naughty indeed. The ex-Beatle’s property was surprisingly easy to get into. The perimeter walls next to the main road were only about seven feet tall and dated from Victorian times. Highly ornate with plenty of places to plant your hands and feet. All you had to do was to wait for a decent pause in the flow of traffic (which was easy after the pubs had closed). Then scramble over the wall as quickly as you could. There wasn’t even a drop on the other side because there was a small grassy bank above that sloped up about a foot and disappeared into a clump of small beech trees. ‘The lads are never going to believe this in the Tuns when we tell them about this tomorrow night,’ laughed Steve. ‘Nope’ agreed Max. ‘Shit. We’d better get out of here’, Max added, ‘We’re bloody soaked and I don’t want to catch my death. Neither do you’. ‘But let’s have another smoke first’ replied Steve. ‘OK. I’ll do the business’, said Max. ‘Good lad’, remarked Steve. Max expertly crumbled the fragrant white widow bud into a large cigarette paper. He added some moist tobacco from his pouch. Finally, Max picked up the paper and rolled the joint swiftly and smoothly. He shoved one end in his mouth and lit the other with a windproof lighter. He took a few tokes and exhaled loudly, handing the joint to Steve. The two friends lay there, propped up on their elbows, smoking and sniggering. They contemplated the magnificent lacquered wooden, Japanese-style bridge that arced across the lake. Beyond the bridge, on the opposite side of the lake, a ten-foot-tall statue of Buddha stared benevolently down upon them, a satisfied smile on his face. Both Max and Steve felt an immense sense of peace and well-being wash over them. They lay in a daze for about ten minutes. Until Max said ‘OK, we’d better make a move’. Max and Steve got to their feet, swaying unsteadily. With an intoxicated effort, they bent down to pick up their jackets, both almost losing their balance. The wind had become much stronger, and it was drying, but at the same time, freezing their soaked garments. A cloud had blown in front of the moon giving it a certain eerie, ominous quality. It made Steve experience an uneasy, queasy feeling in his stomach. Suddenly, Steve was aware of a bright flash across his peripheral vision. ‘Shit Max. Did you see that?’ he asked. ‘See what?’ asked Max. Both companions turned to look towards the main house. They saw what looked like three criss-crossing torch beams raking across the immense, immaculate lawn in their direction. Steve could swear he heard a dog barking. The main house, with its imposing mock-gothic façade, glowered down through its massive arched windows and angry turrets. They could almost swear that the house could see them. ‘Damn, they must realise someone’s in the garden!’ exclaimed Max. ‘You think?’ retorted Steve sarcastically. The torch beams suddenly veered off to the left, the way Max and Steve had entered the garden.  ‘Crap. They’re heading towards the main road’, said Max, ‘we can’t go back out that way!’  Steve’s stomach felt like it had shrunk to the size of a walnut as he offered ‘Someone told me that there’s a back gate off to the other side. That might be our only hope’ ‘I guess so too.’ said Max ‘Come on, we’d better get a move on.’. The surge of adrenaline from all this commotion charged both Max and Steve with an icy alertness. Almost cancelling out the effects of all that booze and weed. Sensibly, they decided on the opposite direction to the security detail. Setting off slowly and deliberately, the two friends picked their way up a steep pathway paved with glistening granite rocks. At the end of this path a tunnel loomed before them. As they stepped in, they noticed that it was dimly illuminated by ancient-looking, flickering electric candles. Max and Steve could vaguely make out that the walls and ceiling were covered in mock Egyptian hieroglyphs, Roman-style artwork and Freemason symbols. Momentarily forgetting their plight, Steve remarked ‘Wow this is so trippy. Let’s stay here for a bit’. ‘Christ no.’ said Max ‘Are you off your head? They’ll find us’. There was an uneasy silence. ‘Killjoy’ said Steve. They came to the end of the tunnel. Below them was a roughly five-foot drop down to another lawn which was dotted with three-foot tall concrete models of psilocybe semilanceata mushrooms. Better known as ‘magic’ mushrooms. ‘OK, let’s do this’ said Max. The pair dropped down, both bracing themselves for a heavy landing. Max landed first, springing up from a crouch as he righted himself. Steve landed a second later but lost his balance. He toppled over to his right towards one of the concrete magic mushrooms. As he put out his right hand to steady himself, his ring finger hit the top of the mushroom. He felt a sickening crack as his finger bent back agonisingly into a rather unnatural position. Steve let out a noisy howl. A gruff shout filled the air ‘Oi! Who the hell is that? Come here now!’. They could definitely hear a dog bark now. And a low snarling. ‘Run!’ said Max. They ran as fast as they could. Momentarily, Steve noticed that the pain of his broken finger was now barely perceptible with the freezing fear pulsing around his system. They saw that the household security detail was far closer than they thought. Too close. They were barely thirty yards away. With dogs. Big dogs. And now they realised they’d been spotted, as a torch beam shone blindingly in their faces. ‘Oi. Come here now you little bastards!’ an angry, gravelly voice demanded. Fortunately, the back gate loomed into view. Unfortunately, it was eight feet tall. Max reached it just ahead of Steve. With a lung-bursting jump, he managed to grab the top of the gate and lever himself over. Steve heard the crunch of gravel as Max hit the ground on the other side. As Steve grabbed the top of the gate and pulled himself up, he heard a guttural growl. He then felt a tug and noticed a dead weight hanging from the right leg of his jeans. He kicked out furiously. And felt a rip as the weight subsided. Steve heard a pitiful yelp as the Doberman hit the gravel beneath him. Steve commando rolled over the top of the gate and landed inelegantly on the concrete. On his hands and knees, he gradually looked up. He saw a pair of official-looking black boots and, beside them, a familiar looking pair of red Nike trainers. As his gaze came fully into focus, he noticed the yellow and blue Battenburg cake pattern on the Vauxhall squad car. There was no mistaking that. Max’s hands were cuffed in front of him, and he was leaning against the car wearing a deflated, downcast expression. Next to him stood a balding, overweight police officer in the familiar black uniform. He had a wry, amused look on his face. The radio tucked under his chin emitted a harsh electronic crackle. ‘Well well well. What have we got here then?’ queried the officer. ‘You two are a sight for sore eyes and no mistake’. ‘You’re nicked me old beauties!’.


A flicker of light and she appeared in some beautiful and unusual place. There was a beautiful garden around, the trees and flowers were different, but at the same time they complemented each other. The sounds of birds were heard, the sun was shining. It was so harmonious and calm there that she forgot about everything, about all her failures and achievements, did not think about the past or the future. The girl was sure that this was a dream, but she did not want to wake up. She just wanted to be and feel this moment as the most beautiful in her life. She just closed her eyes and felt her presence. This magical place gave her back to her, that girl who once dreamed and believed, who wanted to love and be loved in return. The girl looked around, at every detail, as if she was afraid to miss something very important, she looked very carefully in the hope that she would have the opportunity to return to this magical place one more time. Walking, she saw a fountain and decided to get closer. The sounds of the water were like heaven to the ears, like the most beautiful melody. She began to dance listening to the sounds of the water. Her movements were beautiful, calm and at the same time filled with bliss. There was a light, sweet emptiness in the girl's heart. Is she really happy? Feelings of happiness were foreign to her. Thoughts of past events and worries about the future simply did not give her the opportunity to enjoy the moment. Happiness was always inside, she just didn't notice it. I wonder if people always do this? Do they only appreciate when they lose? The girl spoke to herself. After a while, she wanted to return to the place where her walk began, but suddenly she saw a woman. The woman had blond hair and blue eyes, The girl asked her "where am I." The woman smiled instead of answering. Her smile fascinated and warmed the soul, and in her deep and kind eyes one could feel care and love. The girl involuntarily smiled back and said that she really likes it here. Before leaving, the woman asked her 2 questions "Were you happy?" "Have you made someone happy?" The girl thought. She was so focused on her problems and failures that she forgot about the main thing, about the meaning of life of every person, about love for herself and for others. Looking back, she realized how beautiful her life was. How much the universe loved her and cared for her. She realized that all the failures and not-so-good events that happened to her were blessings in disguise. She realized that her path began when she was in pain, when she did not know where to go, she was already on her way. She realized that everything is right exactly the way it is. That she was always in the right place for her and the experience she had that was right for her. Yes, she experienced many disappointments in her life, and this wound bled for a very long time, but this experience hardened her, made her stronger and wiser. After the girl smiled, looked at the sky and said thank you. Thank you for your love, for loving me and not leaving me alone even if I do not do very well. I am grateful for this life for every event, for the people who surround me.  Gratitude and love is all that was inside the girl. After some thought, she told the woman "If I had the opportunity, I would change everything. Only now I realized that I missed the most important thing, I realized the beauty of this world." The woman looked at her brown eyes in which there was so much regret and smiled and answered you have such an opportunity. Continue to live this wonderful life enjoying every moment and bring your inner light to others. A flicker of light and she's in the hospital. Already dawn. The feeling that the sun is not only in the sky but also in her soul. She took a notebook and began to write: “My little girl, you didn’t know what could be otherwise, didn’t know how to change your life for the better, how to survive difficulties, how to cope, where to go. You did everything you could to not back down and you did it, I'm very proud of you. But from now on, you are not alone, I am there and will help you. I will help you go through your fear. We will learn what we did not know, we will cope with everything together. We'll make all your dreams come true, I promise My little girl, know that someday all your work on yourself will be transformed into something very big. You have no idea what a happy life awaits you. Just keep going. “ Tears rolled down her cheeks from the realization that her life would no longer be the same, that she is not alone and she has support. This event became for her a springboard to a new life filled with awareness and happiness. It changed her, she became better and happier, she got closer to the girl she always dreamed of being. She already has a landmark, she knows where to go and what to look for. Is this not happiness? After such deep reflection, she set the intention, instead of complaining about the darkness, to become a light for herself and for others. The girl decided to learn how to bring positive to people around, and look at them from an expanded state, with the eyes of the soul. She made the decision to live out of trust in life and let the world take care of her. She made a decision, she can't go back, only go forward. With small steps will go as slowly as necessary so as not to stumble. But she can't go back. Ahead is a white sheet, it remains only to pave the way. Can she? Whether she will reach her aim, she does not know. But she can no longer go back, there is an abyss. Deep down, she believed that if people make a decision, they can go anywhere, but she also knew that mood swings are inevitable. She knew that there would be days when she would not believe it, there would be days along the way when she would want to turn back, when her dream would be somewhere far, far away in the future. But she believed that at that moment she would gather all her will into a fist and just take one more step. And then it turns out that if there is fog around and nothing is visible, you can get out of it if you just go.


"I'LL BE THERE IN A MINUTE!" The arriving dusk of day began to hide the barren foliage of the oncoming winter. It wasn’t a particularly good example of a day. Heavy cloud cover had hidden any hope of the sun breaking through its defensive shield. The passing of each hour, thickened the ground fog, blanketing the dead garden - that once beautifully presented the epitome of springtime bloom and summer blossom - with ghostly shapes and wildly, imaginative apparitions of hidden memories wisping through its curtain. Lies were easier to voice, these days. I’ll be right there, I won’t be long, I just need to get something from the garden , were a stalling tactic to avoid questions, accusations, and eventually, unsolicited confrontation. With nothing to look forward to in his hazy days, Steve Mannum - in the last twelve months - had lost complete control of his life. A high-flying career in corporate finance came heavily crashing down to earth after a drunken tirade at a meet-and-greet investor dinner with a top Japanese banking minister. Blaming it on nervousness was not enough to prevent Steve’s boss, Jerry, from calling a halt to their professional and personal relationship – a union that survived fifteen years of similar behaviours and embarrassments swept under the corporate rug. Steve’s ultimate dismissal helped to prevent several colleagues from resigning. They had unitedly voiced their concerns and reluctance to work with him any longer, so it was a corrective measure that cleared a dark cloud hanging over the office. However, even with the removal of Steve’s self-imposed liquid culture, the loss of a multimillion-dollar contract was too much stress for Jerry to handle, and on a subsequent business trip to Singapore, he suffered a fatal heart attack, dying alone in his hotel room – a half-eaten bag of peanuts scattered across his vested chest, each peanut symbolic of pieces of Steve he picked up throughout his numerous intoxication stunts. Upon attending Jerry’s funeral, Steve was subjected to an emotional barrage of blame from Jerry’s wife that tipped him over the edge of reason, resulting in his spiralling down into a whirlpool of self-abuse. “I SAID, I WILL BE THERE IN A MINUTE!” There was no reply. Steve had become accustomed to the silent treatment. He has no intelligible recollection of the last time he saw his wife. At some previous, inconspicuous moment; she locked herself in the spare bedroom, retreating from Steve’s drunken stupors, disgusted at the man she once loved who dismissed any suggestion that help was urgently needed to save him evaporating from this world in an alcohol-fuelled, dehydration of spirit. Now and then, he would hear her beckoning him into the house using a vocal tone he was resentfully accustomed to. It meant an ensuing argument was looming, so evasion became the priority focus. There had been other, more heart wrenching casualties along the way. Steve’s loving and caring daughter, Ashlee; had hurriedly found new accommodation as soon as she turned eighteen - just six months ago. Radio silence took place and any phone calls Steve made to her remained unanswered and ignored. In rare moments of sobriety, Steve suffered mental episodes of self-loathing, verbally abusing himself for his inner and outer failures to control his addiction. To numb the pain, he paradoxically erased the anguish by drowning his sorrows in whatever hard liquor he could find. His preferred drinking establishment was at the bottom of his garden in the self-built, wooden cubby house he once proudly built for his daughter. Nestled in the large old oak tree that had stood there for centuries, his secret stash of bourbon and tequila was sixteen rope ladder rungs up into another world that was as far away from reality that he could physically get. He could rant and blubber, dance, and sing. In his stupor of eighty-proof imbibing, life was a curse and as soon as he could down substantial quantities of his preferred tipple, equilibrium could go to hell - for whatever that meant. Steve was far from being religious, but that didn’t hold him back from praying nightly to Saint Jose and Father Jack to strike him down and end his torment. In Steve’s inebriated mind, Daddy’s girl days seemed like eons ago and was just a dissipating recollection of happier times when he would visit his daughter’s christened establishment she called, ‘ The Ritz .’ This elevated child’s playground of imagination and escape was a home away from home for ten-year-old Ashlee. It occupied her summer afternoons in the days when dolls and make-believe tea parties were a common occurrence in the Mannum household. There was Missus (sic) Goodfellow , a weathered old Victorian doll with a flickering eyelid, Margie the maid , a shy inoffensive character with short, dark curly hair; and Doctor Tran , the cross-dressing female figurine. In the age of gender identity acceptance, Ashlee welcomed all to her domain. Several other small dolls of colour and mutilation were regular guests of Ashlee’s tea parties. Bigotry and condemnation of the male/female/non-binary orientation in society had no place at Ritz teatime. Physical impairments were of no worry as discrimination in any form was outlawed. Ashlee was a progressive, intelligent young girl, sensitive to the unfairness this world sometimes presented, and more importantly to a young lady, an equal opportunity tea maker. She always played “Mother.” This was due mainly to the fact that she was the only one present that could willingly move. Her tea at these traditional gatherings, comprised of bottled spring water infused with raspberry cordial - a summer garden delight to encourage conversation that regularly involved childish gossip about the other dolls misgivings, what dresses to put on, and how to cure a headache. Doctor Tran always had an opinion on that as the good doctor was always changing clothes to suit the moment. Missus Goodfellow – on the other hand – remained aloof, silently watching and listening to every word spoken. Anything said out of place and she would often interject with the statement, ”We are not entertained!” A doll of few words, she could cut through an unhealthy topic with a stare that was interrupted with the flickering of her left eyelid – an injury sustained one day when accidentally dropped from the sixteenth rung by a clumsy nine year old. Margie the Maid would just fuss about the tree house, dusting and washing the cups between sittings; however, if anything annoyed her, she would let out a loud growling hiss – due to her talking mechanism destroyed one late summer afternoon by spilled tea that eventually rusted her metal parts. A pull on her cord would be enough to silence a room full of snakes. Harmless toy afflictions they may be, these innocuous oddities were a reminder of the good times. Their continued presence in the tree house were also a painful connection to the ache caused from reliving those memories. As he stumbled towards the oak tree, Steve downed the remnants of a bottle of bourbon, reached for the rope ladder, and started the ascent to his hidden stash. “I’m coming boys and girls,” he sang. “The party crasher is on his way.” After what seemed an eternity of struggling with the swinging ladder, losing his footing, regaining it, and cursing the rotting rope, Steve reached the summit of his quest and entered the house. To his surprise, every doll was there in attendance. As if in a moment of time past, the Ritz appeared to be open for afternoon tea. The table – adorned in a dusty cotton tablecloth - was curiously laid in preparation for just one guest. Ignoring this anomaly, Steve retrieved a bottle of tequila from under a Mexican-style blanket and quickly unscrewed the cap, gulping several long chugs from it, repeating the process twice – each, after a long intake of breath. The frigid, dark evening had set heavily upon the once beautiful garden. The rising mist had almost hidden the house from view of the oak tree. Not that it mattered. No visible light could be seen coming from the house. It was just an empty nest now. A horny owl could be heard in the distance, hooting interruptions to a fox barking for its mate in the foggy meadow beyond the garden. A light inside the tree house suddenly pierced the darkness, followed immediately by conversational echoes emanating from the same space. The Ritz – long forgotten by its young creator - was awash with sounds similar to polite laughter at a social gathering. “Who’s there?” A slumbering Steve mumbled incoherently as he slowly returned to a fragile state of consciousness. The vocal cacophony immediately died down, leaving a deathly silence. Rubbing the palm of his hand into his eyes, he squinted at the brightness of the naked electric bulb flooding the room with sixty full watts of energy. Two empty bottles of tequila clinked together, disturbed by Steve’s legs as he painfully pulled himself to an upright seating position in the cramped quarters. His temporary blurred vision scanned the room. A small table divided him from a gang of dolls of all sizes and description. Not sure of whether he was imagining it or not, they appeared to be staring at him as if waiting for instructions. A brief movement caught his eye. A flickering eyelid seemingly struggling desperately to not flick. Interrupting his full view of the doll was a normal-sized teapot, sat in the middle of the table. Steve’s awakening senses detected the aroma of… raspberry.. wafting through the musty air. “Tea.. or.. Tipple,” asked a deep, female voice. Further mocking sounds of chuckling murmured throughout the cabin. “Silly question,” another voice chimed in. Steve’s eyesight was shocked into instant 20/20 vision. Eyes wide open and darting from side to side in stunned alertness, he held his breath so he could listen more attentively. Unseen to his peripheral vision, the heads of several dolls were now turned to face Missus Goodfellow – her eyelid flickering more intensely as an uneasy tension filled the small space. Previously undetected, Doctor Tran appeared at Steve’s right side, standing on a three-pronged, wooden stool. Wearing a white coat with a miniature stethoscope dangling from its breast pocket, Tran’s larger than life moustached fluttered as exhaled breath spoke clearly. “In my preliminary prognosis, you’ve not long to live Mr. Mannum.” In terrifying disbelief, Steve backed away towards the elevated entrance to the hut, accidentally knocking an empty tequila bottle through the open entry to the small cabin. A moment’s silence was followed by the sound of glass smashing at the base of the tree. “You’ve lost the will to, you see. No job, no wife, no family.” “My wife… she’s in the house,” Steve contradicted. Doctor Tran’s mouth opened into a devilish grin before priming the calculated and roguish question… “…Is she?” Still in a state of alarm, Steve backed up further towards the entrance, then noticed that there were many more cups on the table, all filled with a pinkish liquid. “Figuratively speaking, you could have chosen tea all of your life,” reasoned Doctor Tran. “However, the choices we make define us,” Tran added. “ Your choices defined you, cost you everything that you cherished, and gained you… nothing .” Believing he was dreaming, Steve shook his head, trying to wake up. You’re not real , he thought – realising that they were all staring at him again. “You’re all dolls!” “That may be,” replied Doctor Tran…“ But, we were real in Ashlee’s eyes. Your actions forced her to leave home – without us. Who will invite us to tea now? Because of you, we have been left to rot and decay.” “I couldn’t help it,” exclaimed Steve, regretfully. “It’s a disease.” “You never asked for help.” Listening intently, was Missus Goodfellow – her eyelid flickering away. After a few moments, it abruptly stopped. “We are not entertained,” she exclaimed. The terrifying image of the Victorian doll speaking, panicked Steve. Before he could collect his thoughts, Margie the Maid sprang up into his face. “HARGH..ISS!” The lightbulb flickered like Missus Goodfellow’s eyelid and in that moment, Steve vanished. The abject startle from Margie the Maid, caused a jerk reaction, and Steve suddenly found himself in mid-air, plunging slowly backwards, sixteen rungs down towards oblivion. In real time, his freefall lasted a mere two seconds before the incandescent lantern-of-being at the back of his eyes dimmed and finally extinguished. However, in those two precious moments at journey’s end, clarity returned to tell the story he could not tell nor would not face. As a child, Steve showed great promise. Always top or near the top of his class, he displayed great aptitude for numbers and trends. His father – when sober – doted on him. His mother loved him unconditionally. When Steve was sixteen years old, he witnessed his father assault his mother in a drunken rage, resulting in a lengthy hospital stay. Not wanting to press charges, Steve’s mother absorbed the physical pain, eventually recovering to full health; however, the damaging tug to her heartstrings and her deteriorating mental state caused her to be admitted to a sanitorium for wounded angels. Steve’s father assumed responsibility for raising his son; however, his constant bouts of heavy drinking ended mercifully peaceful one night – never again would he awaken to the pain of sobriety . “Drinking is a disease,” His father would often say. “If I could stop, I would.” At eighteen years and six months, Steve enrolled himself in college and began studying to be an accountant. Throughout his days before graduation, he visited his mother weekly at her convalescent home. Unable to recover from the death of the only man she loved, she withdrew into a world of estrangement and isolation. Even the weekly visits of her son could not bring her back to cognisant responsiveness. Seeing his mother in that mental state, consumed the very core of Steve’s analytical capacity, and at one late night college party to celebrate the upcoming graduation ceremony, Steve did something he vowed never to do. He took his first taste of bourbon to drown his sorrows, then another and another until most of his days could not begin without a drink. A chain of reactions within his body’s internal chemistry, created an insatiable thirst. By the time he got his first job as an accountant, Steve was already lost in a liquid forest of intoxicating desire for false courage. Despite his well-hidden secret, Steve flourished as an accountant. In his fourth year at the firm, his forecasting models were noticed by the directors and Steve’s career as a financial analyst was born. He excelled so well that within six months, he headed up the Asia-Pacific team with access to millions of investment dollars. So proud of his accomplishments, he would continue his weekly visits – rain or shine - to see his mother and tell her about his thriving life. She would gently smile at his achievements - all the way through to meeting his future wife, and the birth of her only granddaughter. However, on the days he visited with the tainted breath of booze wafting into her nostrils, she withdrew deeper into her shell, frightened for her sons’ well-being. Taking this as an affront to his chosen happiness, Steve’s visits tapered off, rematerializing in the odd telephone call to her – followed by his own form of radio silence. Late one night – the one before his meeting with the Japanese finance minister - Steve received a phone call letting him know that his mother had died. This was the catalyst that started Steve’s transformation into a non-functioning alcoholic. It consumed him. It drove away his wife, it lost his privilege as a father, and it steered him to seeking solace in a tree house, sixteen rungs up. Two seconds is all it took to realise he could have asked for deliverance at any time. Two seconds of a whole life that had just flashed before his rapidly vanishing existence. Looking up from ground level, Steve’s final perspective was of the lightbulb casting its glow from the tree house. “I see the light,” Steve murmured. “It’s beautiful…” A few solemn, peaceful moments passed, broken by chitter-chatter . Once more amongst the tree house guests, comments regarding dress sense and gossip filled the airwaves. “Tea or Tipple?” echoed the voice of Doctor Tran. An assortment of voices chanted, “Tea, of course,” followed by relieved laughter vibrating the old oak tree’s barren branches. Next morning surfaced with clear skies, contradicting the frosty chill biting through Detective Reynolds’ wool coat. Surveying the deceased body of Steve Mannum, a white-overalled forensics officer interrupted his thoughts. “Cause of death?” asked Reynolds. “Not the fall,” was the reply.  “He missed every protruding branch on the way down. But, discovering a couple of fingernails embedded in the rope ladder, it appears in desperation, he attempted to grab onto a few rungs… unsuccessfully...” “Then what killed him?” The Forensic Officer shook his head in compelled compassion. “The alcohol level in his blood stream was over five times the legal limit for driving – let alone, climbing an unstable and swinging rope ladder while completely off his trolley... However, upon hitting the ground, his neck was violently pierced by the jagged edge of the broken tequila bottle there, severing his jugular... Unfortunately for him, he would have realised his own, sad demise… It pains me to say it but… the drink killed him .” Reynolds crouched beside Steve’s lifeless corpse. “Death by misadventure,” concluded Reynolds. Unobserved by the two men, sixteen rungs above their heads, a gang of dolls watched silently from the tree house entrance, looking down at the ground. Detective Reynolds acute sense of smell picked up a scent in the air. Sniffing energetically, a smile began to form on his lips. “I smell Raspberries.” The forensics officer interrupted. “Yes, I’ve just opened my flask. It’s herbal tea – raspberry infused. It’s hot… and it’s healthy.” Reynolds inhaled one more intake of the fruit essence before pulling a white sheet over the expired body. “Reminds me of summer...”


Twist of Fate

Sirens screamed past the window and returned a second later to shout another warning. Jamie pressed her fingers to her temples. Frame by frame, her gaze slid from the TV screen to the speckled glass. The Alabama sky crackled to life, illuminating angry puffs shifting and writhing close to the earth. Through the dots on the window, she saw debris swirl closer. In the darkened sky, a finger formed. Jamie watched in fascination as the finger reached down to touch the earth, punctuated by a brilliant flash, then slide back up again. Trees bowed low; their leaves shook like feathers, taunting the clouds above. The air outside began to moan. The pungent scent of dry earth and fish seeped inside, making her sneeze. Shivers slid down her spine, and her pulse jumped as she watched another finger tap the earth in an explosion of light.

The man on the television told her to get into a safe place. Her eyes darted around the sparse beige room with a frown. A safe place? Where do I go? She jolted when the TV man supplied an answer. 'Get in the bathtub, a hallway with no doors or windows or any closet away from exterior walls.' Jamie looked out the window once more and felt the flesh rise on her arm as the tiny hairs stood to attention. She rubbed at the electrified flesh, but it did little to soothe. The clouds, engorged with flying debris, was just close enough to make out bits of twisted metal and broken tree limbs. Something shimmered then ducked back inside the dark cloud as if afraid to show itself. She watched, mesmerized, and bit her lip. She licked the wound; the metallic taste made her gag. The spell shattered when something pounded the roof with such force Jamie thought it would splinter it like a toothpick. Her gaze shot skyward, heart hammering. Sirens yelled through the roar, swallowing her heavy breathing. Her mind wandered. I need to get gas. Maybe when the weather clears, I can go to the beach again. Is the building shaking? Oh, it's just me. Her gaze rolled around the virescent hued space looking at everything and nothing. The TV man shouts, 'Take cover now! Get a pillow or blanket and a bicycle helmet if you have it and find a closet, bathtub, or location with no windows.' Jamie jumped into action. She snatched her pillow off the unmade bed, retrieved her bicycle helmet from the closet, and called for her cat, Sophie. With her pillow hugged tightly against her chest, she clamored into the tub—her labored breaths deafening in the sudden hush. Her brows knit. She looked around her at the creamy walls of the tub. Ears pricked; Jamie peeked around the too cheerful swirls on the curtain. Birds were silent, and the wind had quieted. Unease made her belly quiver. Why is it so quiet? Sophie bolted through the bathroom door and bounded into the bathtub with a loud meow. Jamie's heart rate accelerated.

"Oh Sophie. You scared the life out of me."  Jamie pressed a hand to her chest and bent to rub between Sophies' flattened ears. The lights danced then blinked. Jamie looked up. Noise erupted around her as if the world suddenly caught up to itself. She plopped down hard in the narrow space. A roar slammed into the room; a noise like paper torn and splintering wood echoed down the hall. Jamie screamed and yanked the pillow down over her ears. Head between her knees, her eyes slammed shut, blocking the sight of Sophie huddled in her crotch. The walls shook. The wind blowing in her ears swallowed her shrieks. Please let me be okay. Please. Please. Her heart pounded against her ribs hard enough to break them. It was impossible to breathe. The air smelled of dirty rain. Glass shattered in the bedroom, making her limbs bounce. Her body vibrated from fear or the world around her; she couldn't tell. She scrunched tighter against the tub floor. Sounds of a train nearby confounded her. I didn't know there were train tracks near here. Her mind slid to the day she spent at the beach as the building rattled. The building shuddered and seemed to hold its breath as the air whistled. Something sliced Jamie’s bare shoulder—the sting made her hiss. Jamie's fingers ached from gripping the pillow. Her ears popped. She felt something bounce on the fiberglass tub beside her. What was that? The rumble swallowed her scream, making it part of the clamor around her. She felt light-headed, dizzy, barely in control of her bladder. The world calmed once more and the sound of panting filled the claustrophobic space. Unable to move, she tried to calm her racing heart. She wasn't sure how much time passed before the alarms sounded anew. Her heart began a slow crescendo once more as the wail pulsed through her bones. This time she knew the shake did not come from her. Pieces of what she could only assume were the ceiling peppered her bare flesh. Noises she could not identify surrounded her. Her lips trembled and bile rose in her throat. She swallowed hard as the world bellowed. For what seemed like hours, Jamie sat huddled under her pillow. Tears plopped onto her bare feet; her ample frame rattled beneath the downy pillow. Sophie huddled closer. Jamie felt her tiny form vibrate. She pulled the pillow edges tighter against her helmeted head. Her eyelids squished together so hard it was giving her a migraine. She didn't want to open them—was too afraid. A trembling finger released the pillow and slid into her ear then jiggled. Am I deaf? Everything seems so quiet. Her terror ratcheted up once more. Her grandmother's phrase, the calm before the storm, flittered through her foggy mind. Sofie's distressed and muffled meow made her eyes bounce open. Tears matted her fur. Her black as night tail stood out like a bottlebrush. Ears folded back, her wild green eyes darted around the biscuit colored walls of their prison, and she meowed between pants, the sound visceral.

Jamie reached down and placed a protective hand on Sophie's back. She felt her small body pulsate. A warm yellow glow on the back of her hand made her breath hitch. She snatched it away and rubbed the warmed flesh. Jamie put her hand on the outside of the pillow and tugged. She startled when something warm touched her fingers. Flinging the pillow off, Jamie looked up into the blue sky and slivers of sunshine. Lifting Sophie, she stood and stepped out of the tub and walked to the door land looked where her room used to be. A voice called out, and she peeked over the edge of the threshold and saw her neighbor and her three children. Dust covered their faces. Bright red dots speckled their arms and legs, but they were alive. She smiled down at the single mother, and an understanding passed between them. A sympathetic knowledge only those who survived could understand. Jamie sighed. I am not alone. The storm had passed. By some twist of fate, her second-story bathroom remained untouched.


Even though it had been going on for such a long time, I still couldn’t help but marvel at what was happening before me. At who was standing before me. But somehow, even after all of this, I couldn’t bring myself to think that I would’ve wanted my life to be any different. He stared at me sadly, anguish clear in his crystal blue eyes. He gazed into my eyes for a while longer, until he softly raised his hand to my face, gently caressing my cheek. “Goodbye,” he whispered.

Tears formed in my eyes, spilling over as I tried in vain to not break out sobbing. I could barely stand it - not going to him and begging him to stay. I didn’t want to say it; speaking it would make it seem all too real. But I knew that could very well be the last time I would ever see him. “Goodbye.” Somehow I managed to choke out the word, even if every fiber in my being didn’t want this to happen, for it to play out the way that it has. He smiled back at me sadly, as if he could somehow hear what I was thinking. Carefully and slowly, he pulled away from our embrace and, with one final look, walked out the door. I slumped down into my bed, trying to hold back the waterfall of tears I knew was going to come. That single word rang mercilessly in my mind. Goodbye .

“Lana. Lana? LANA!!” A voice shouted, snapping me out of my daydream. I looked around, dazed as I tried to remember where exactly I was. Jane stood in front of me, angrily snapping her fingers in front of my face. I scowled and shoved her hand out of my face, effectively ending her yelling. Jane frowned at me, most likely wondering what I was thinking about. However, even though she is my best friend, there are still some things that I cannot tell her. Some things that I cannot bear to share. She stared at me a while longer, seeming to try to get me into speaking my thoughts aloud without actually saying anything, but after a while of staring at me with no results she gave up. As well she should, for as my best friend and closest employee, Jane should know when it’s not the time to pry. She sighed off her irritation and continued with what I assume was what she was talking about before I had drifted off, listing all of the meetings that I had to attend and all of the places I needed to be. “Remember, you have an appointment at 12:30 with the CEO of Lang Enterprises, so make sure that you have all of the notes from yesterday's appointment with their ambassador. Your mother will be swinging down at 10:00 to discuss it, and remember that we have still not made a deal with Lang Enterprises so we must move carefully; we can’t afford losing their business to the Grays.” She spoke quickly, moving through my schedule that she had mapped out in her head. I flinched ever so slightly at the mention of the Grays. I couldn’t imagine her not noticing. Hopefully she just passed it on as disgust or perhaps even revulsion over my family’s most formidable business rivals. But it’s not like our family would ever say that in public. In front of other people’s eyes we were quick to assure anyone with a hint of doubt that our family was the one with the better business, the family with the upper hand. As she continued talking, I decided to release my hair from its tight bun and leave it as something more comfortable. A ponytail, perhaps.

Jane continued to prattle on and on about my schedule, but I couldn’t bring myself to listen. “Speaking of the Grays,” she said hesitantly, “Did you hear that Jason Gray got shipped off to the war?” She spoke the last part quickly, as if fearing my reaction, for my reactions have not always been pleasant when bringing up the Grays. However, she was definitely not expecting the reaction I gave. I stopped trying to pull my hair into a ponytail, dropping my hair in shock. My wavy brown hair fell down into my face, something that I do not particularly enjoy, but at that moment, absolutely nothing seemed to matter. Everything inside me just froze. “No,” I gasped, trying to remember how to breathe.

I could vaguely hear Jane calling my name, trying to snap me back into reality, but I blocked her out, knowing that I could only focus on one thing. The words that broke my heart in half. Unwanted memories started showing themselves to me, bringing me to many months in the past. I sat at the board meeting, feeling immensely annoyed as he kept speaking, talking the head of Cards for Kiddies out of lending their business to ours, and instead moving it to his family’s business. I rolled my eyes as he shook hands with the business woman, effectively sealing the deal, making sure that he saw my dramatic movement. He smirked at me, irritating me to no end, and I resisted the urge to stick my tongue out like a five year old. “Lana? Lana?” Jane sounded panicked, but the memories kept rolling past like a movie.

I sat at the bus stop with my head tucked between my knees, crying as the rain fell down on my head. I couldn’t believe it; after so many years of being with him, thinking that he was the one, all of those years down the drain. I knew that I must have looked pathetic, a 20 year old woman crying alone, in the rain at night, but I couldn’t seem to get up. I sat there sobbing until all of a sudden, the rain stopped pounding down on my head. I looked up, confused to find him, Jason Gray of all people, standing in front of me holding an umbrella over my head. He gazed at me a while longer until he sat down beside me, wrapping his arms around me as I cried.

“Lana? Lana?”

I walked with him, happily swinging our arms back and forth with our fingers intertwined. I couldn’t think of a better place to be. Then, in the middle of our walk, he stopped before the garden of roses. I stared at him, bewildered as he gently plucked one of the roses and placed it softly in my hair. He smiled at me and said, "Even the most wonderful flower has nothing on your beauty,” I gasped as he slowly got down on one knee, presenting me with the most beautiful ring I had ever seen.

The memories rushed past with even more force, until finally stopped on one of the most recent memories. And one of the most painful. I sat with him, feeling content as I dreamt of all the happy days to come. It didn’t bother me anymore, the fact that we weren’t supposed to be together. That we were supposed to hate each other, that we were supposed to be fighting every time we laid eyes on each other. However, sometimes I couldn’t help but stare at him and wonder how I could’ve gotten so lucky. I smiled at him as he turned around and gasped as I saw the expression laid out on his face. I had never seen that amount of pain on anyone’s face until that day. I hadn’t thought it was possible.

I stared at him in shock as I waited for his explanation. Tears escaped his eyes as he spoke his tale aloud. He said, “My father was not always a businessman. He was once a war hero, fighting for what was right. And he decided many years ago that I would follow in his footsteps.” I swallowed noisily, trying to shove down the lump that was forming in my throat. “He said that I would be sent off to train in the military.” I didn’t know what to do, what I could say. I tried to think of an excuse to keep him here, any excuse. But I knew that once Jason’s father made a decision, there was no changing his mind. That was what made his business such a huge success.

Suddenly, a thought occurred to me. “But there is no war. Doesn’t that mean that you don’t have to go?” He shook his head sadly. “No Lana, I still have to go. The good part is that there is no war, so all I will have to do is train. The bad part is that I will have to stay for four years.” Four years. I couldn’t believe it; it had to be a dream. However, I knew that I couldn’t have imagined the amount of agony shown on his face. “As long as you don’t get hurt.” I whispered, trying to think optimistically. That was, without a doubt, what I wanted for him. To not get hurt. I knew that that was not all that I wanted. I knew that I wanted him to say no and to stay with me. But I knew that wasn’t an option. I knew that this would be the best outcome we could possibly get.

All of a sudden I was brought back to the present, with Jane’s face hovering over me once again. Last time she was annoyed. Now she was worried. “Elana Penelope DeCreak, what is up with you today?” She asked, pulling the full name card. All I could manage to choke out were two words. “What war?” Jane frowned at me once again, now most likely feeling both worried and annoyed, but she continued to answer my question. “The Republic of Esperanto. One of the deadliest places you could ever be in. They just declared war and the USA is sending out everyone they can to fight them off, including Jason.” I could practically feel myself falling apart at the seams, tearing like a ratty old shirt. The Republic of Esperanto?! Why did that have to be the one place for him to go, the one place that my fiancé had to go. That is why I ran.

I ignored Jane shouting behind me, the heads in the office turning, wondering what was going on and ran out of the office until I finally stopped at my house. I wish I could say that I got over it, that I was strong enough to handle it. But that would be a lie. The days blurred into each other, passing by at the speed of a jet plane flying quickly across the sky. I doubt that I stayed in my house for anything less than two months. I eventually learned to block out everyone else’s voices, pleading for me to leave and to rejoin society. I knew that I would only listen to one voice, the voice that was as good as dead. I stayed there for a while until I finally fell into a routine; get up, make a quick breakfast, read on my Kindle, make lunch, read some more, make dinner, fall asleep and the next day repeat it again.

After going on like this for days on end, I finally awoke one morning to find Jane standing in my room, peering down at my once sleeping face. I screamed in terror, staring at her with the lower half of my jaw hitting the floor. She simply rolled her eyes as I continued on my yelling until she finally put her hand over my mouth. “What are you doing here?” I asked, trying to speak through her hand like a muffle over my face. She sighed. “Isn’t it obvious? You’ve been hiding out in your house for days, and your parents threatened that if you don’t come out in the next two days they will fire you. So, naturally I climbed through your window to tell you, since you didn’t have the decency to return my calls.”

Now it was my turn to sigh. I flopped back down into my bed and under the covers, ignoring another one of Jane’s famous eye rolls. “I don’t care about my job.” I grumbled. Jane groaned and before I even had time to wonder what she was doing, she shoved the sheets right off of my bed. “Hey!” I protested, sitting up once again. She acted like she didn’t hear me and stared at me seriously. “Elana Penelope DeCreak, if you don’t get out of your bed and outside in the next five minutes I am telling everyone about your secret romance with Jason Gray.” Now that caught my attention. I bolted straight up on my bed, staring incredulously into her eyes. “How do you know about that?” I asked, surprised.

She stared at me a while longer, and all of a sudden she burst out laughing. She continued laughing for such a long time until I began to feel self-conscious. “What?” I demanded, my cheeks warming red. She finally stopped laughing and looked at me for a while, wiping the tears away from her eyes. “Lani, darling, I say this with love. You are the worst secret keeper I have ever met.” My face felt like it was on fire, which only made Jane laugh ever harder. I threw one of my pillows at her, which she dodged easily, and buried my face into another one of my pillows, desperately trying to hide my embarrassment.

I tried to summon up the rest of my courage and sat back up in my bed.“You know what?” I managed. “If you came here just to make threats and to accuse me of being a bad secret keeper, which I am not, I think that you will just have to leave.” I remember that I felt very proud of myself at the time for acting so put-together, but only for my pride to crumble down as I saw my words had no effect on Jane, which was clear from the fact that she was smiling and still in my room . I frowned and opened the door to the hallway, gesturing for her to leave.

At last she stopped smiling and finally looked apologetic. “Hey, look Lani, I’m sorry. But I know what can make you feel better. All you have to do is leave the house for a bit and I’ll lead you. You don’t have to do anything except follow.” I looked at her feeling skeptical, wondering if she was joking, only to find that she was in fact telling the truth. She really wanted to show me something. I could feel my irritation slipping away until I finally sighed. “Alright,” I said resignedly. “I’ll go with you. But it’d better be something good.” I wasn’t going to forgive her that easily.

After I had gotten up and taken a shower, only because of Jane’s begging (I didn’t smell that bad Jane!), I got all dressed up with Jane as my guide. When she eventually decided that none of my clothing was good enough, she quickly left to retrieve some clothes from her house. When she returned I could barely refrain from gaping at the dress in her hands. From the stitching down to the lovely red fabric-it was absolutely gorgeous. After staring wide-eyed at the dress a while longer, I then turned my gaze to Jane curiously.

“Where could we be going where I would need to wear that? ” Jane smiled mysteriously. “You’ll see.” I rolled my eyes, but I didn’t continue to ask. After putting on the dress and letting Jane do my make-up, I slowly walked down the sidewalk in front of my house until something occurred to me and I looked back at my house shocked. This was it. I was actually leaving my house. Jane honked the horn of her car impatiently. “Come on,” she shouted. I took a deep breath and, with a final look back at the house, I walked up to Jane’s car and sat down with my legs crossed in the seat.

I gazed out of the window, watching the trees and houses fly by until we eventually stopped at a garden. Jane walked out of the car and opened the door for me, waiting for me to get out. I turned around, ready to ask what we were doing here when I saw that Jane was getting back in the car. “Where are you going?” I asked Jane as panic threatened to overtake me. I didn’t know if I could stand to be there, the place where Jason proposed when he was away, risking his life not knowing if he was going to make it back home alive. Jane registered my emotions and quickly ran over to hug me. “It’s all going to be okay,” she murmured softly. “I promise. However, you need to go there.”

I was struck by the sudden ferocity in her voice, but I knew better than to argue. Then, with one parting look, she drove away. I started walking forward, wandering through the garden until I finally stopped at the garden of roses, the exact spot where Jason had proposed. I gazed at the flowers for a while longer until I heard a quiet voice. “Hey Lana.” I whirled around in shock. It couldn’t be, it just couldn’t. But there he stood. He was definitely different; he was walking on crutches with his leg in bandages and he had a new short scar marring his cheek. However, I knew exactly who he was, no matter how different he looked. He still had his crystal blue eyes and was still as handsome as ever.

I ran forward to him and embraced him in the tightest hug I could hold, causing him to wince. “Woah there Lani, not so tight.” But he was laughing the whole time. I pulled back from him and stared into his eyes, his beautiful, beautiful eyes. “You’re back,” I whispered softly. I then wrapped my arms around his neck, kissing him for a very long time.


When the world ended 44 years ago, we were told a prophecy from below. Tearing through the molten core, the mantle, the crust, the soil, the flora, the fauna, the air, and the atmosphere, in our world that had ended, we heard the voice of that thing on the tympanum of Notre Dame, the goat headed, nameless harbinger of death, the king lower than the embers of the Earth, and it said to us, "Buy flowers in year 45."

No one imagined that the sound which came at the end of world, which prophesied, presumably, our survival, would fall on the shoulders of the florists and their consumers therein. And yet here we are, in year 44, on the cusp of 45, trying to grow nemophila and nasturtiums and alliums and the covetous rose in ground that couldn't even bear a potato or a weed.

Within the first year of the end of the world, all the wood had rotted, all the grass had died, and all mammals ceased producing milk. Pregnant women gave birth to piles of ash and died from the shock. Small children began to grow third eyes from their foreheads which saw too much, resulting in blindness.

In year two, the Great Replacement saw car engines suddenly swapped with husbands so that their spouses would wake next to the pistons of a Toyota leaking oil onto the bed spread, while their husbands lay mottled and curled under the hoods of their own obsolete vehicles. Lightbulbs were swapped with giant, silvery deposits of mercury which poisoned anyone who ever dared to turn on a light. All microwaves were replaced with condors which squawked and pecked to death the humans who foolishly entered their kitchens thinking the asinine would remain logical if nothing else.

And so now we stand on the disaster that is year 44, on the cusp of year 45, eating cans of spam and drinking mountain dew which were the only two sources of food that had survived and which had, in complete surreality, multiplied innumerably all over the world, washing up on shores and even growing from trees which had previously born fruit. How the seeds of flowers were not replaced or otherwise tampered with by the End remains a mystery, but it led us all to believe that the prophecy was literal, and that we were meant to plant them at the right time in the right way to free ourselves from the limitless capacity for the bizarre in our new, but ended, planet Earth.

Yet not a single seed would take to the soil. The End made sure of that for all other plants. But how were we to buy flowers in year 45 if there were no flowers to sell? We hadn't even gotten to how we'd pay for them yet, but that impending and inevitable catastrophe was tabled until the gardens seeded properly at the least. There were 48 hours to make these flowers grow. Will the Devil offer them to us? Will they suddenly sprout the moment we reach year 45? Will we all find ourselves with bank accounts and some semblance of normalcy, just enough that we can do as the prophecy had foretold? The Devil was not clear in his instructions and the details were inventions of the human mind, desperate for just one breath of clean air as our world spiraled through all its many possibilities of chaos. 48 hours. 47 hours. 40 hours. 35. 29. 15. The time ebbed and stalled as our panic rose. Nothing had yet grown. Nothing had yet bloomed. The prospect of buying flowers seemed more futile and absurd with each passing, aching minute. We looked at our calendars, another thing which remained somewhat normal although they appeared in unusual places (in the cans of spam, sandwiched between two slabs of concrete which appeared in bathtubs or linen closets, and so on and so on), and watched, feverishly hopeful, as night fell. Midnight came announced by our time keepers who had spent the last 44 years doing nothing but counting the seconds and minutes and hours of every day of every week of every year since the clocks stopped working the day the End began. We looked at our fruitless gardens, really just smatterings of seeds on 8x5 sections of slightly browner ash, and still not a single one had taken to the Earth.

"So what now?" A person shouted here and there around the world. We looked at our calendars again. It was Friday. The Friday after Thanksgiving. The day the world ended 45 years prior. To call the day the world ended "Black Friday" was an irony beyond words, but it stuck. It was effective. And it was all we knew to call the string of hopeless phenomena that followed. Today was Black Friday, year 45. And not a single flower had grown for us to buy.

There was a stampede of people in varying stages of malnutrition, preserved like specimens by a diet that would make any doctor before the End cringe and throw up, observed by a set of spectators sitting on lawn chairs or digging in the ash to make ash castles or just to put some manmade texture into the barren ground. Everyone was dressed to the nines of absurdity, bedecked in nonsensical amalgamations of cloth and rope and torn up newspapers from 45 years ago. And somehow this was all familiar, reminding those of us with any remaining mental faculties or memories from before the End of the mad scramble for Macy's early-bird sales, gathering every cent of our Kohls' cash and Starbucks gift cards to buy and buy and buy some more. We consumed our world like it was from a can, and trampled each other to death to get the better cut of meat, better savings on things we never needed, preparing for Jesus' birthday like His predecessor’s hoards of locusts descending on Egypt to take Pharaoh's son. Our last Black Friday was a prophetic nightmare that we assumed had been avoided by extending the sales to two weeks instead of one day and moving most of the consumption online. Trampling incidents had gone down that year, and it seemed like things were under control. But when the sun rose on the day of reckoning, the last ditch day for those Christmas sales we all participated in, we woke to a world where the stores were suddenly gone, the 50% off stickers lying comically, mockingly, along the sidewalks, peppering the parking lots with finger pointing despair.

"Where have the stores gone?" Not a single package was received, not a single confirmation email was sent, and every single Etsy seller lost all traces of their digital footprints within minutes of midnight. As the strangeness set in over the years, we had forgotten about this first tragedy of failed pseudo-Santa moments. Christmas that year was resiliently celebrated as a solemn, confusing, but optimistic affair. We had hoped it would all go back to normal someday. We figured we'd know how to adapt. This was our world after all.

But the words of the Devil were damning. The prophecy quickly scrambled our resolve, and the strangeness was completely untrackable and unfathomable horror. Our last memories of our world were spent hoarding anxious abundance for the impending holiday season. Our last thoughts were of the money we'd spent and how much such things meant to us. Call us superficial, but our world had already fallen apart in every other way — the only reliable thing we had left before the End was the power of the American dollar in a department store.

The rest of the world felt it too. Christmas was everywhere. Money was everywhere. Even places which had no concept of the proverbial "holidays" and which could not be compelled to care less than they already did about consumerist economies, were impacted by the strangeness following the world's last designated Black Friday. Grappling with the guilt, the loss, the chaos — very few human minds made it to year 45 intact. Perhaps we could have planted flowers to be bought, as foretold by the Devil, had we not all completely lost our minds 45 years prior. Perhaps that was the point all along.

Year 45’s Black Friday began and in a way, it was as grotesque as those who survived up until now recalled it being before the End. There were no cameras to capture the horror, but it would have made an easy, persistent, and proliferative oral history, stained into minds laden with fear and which ran on nothing but dregs of caffeine and salt and ghastly air quality. The noon sun rose into the sky and with it, the Devil spoke again, up from the molten core and into the atmosphere, to all of us, and he asked, "Where have all the flowers gone?". The planet went still.

The way humanity turned to each other in the aftermath of that egregious offense — with murderous looks in our eyes, having fought insanity for nearly half a century on the hope of one thing alone — was a vestige of ourselves as a species and our capacity to rise against and spot injustice faster than injustice could realize itself as unpopular. It reminded us of that last Black Friday. That for all the shame and embarrassment and rabid self-centeredness this consumerist culture forced us into, we, at heart, just wanted joy. We thought of our children and how happy they would be with the things we gave them, how much we endeavored just to see them smile. As we all struggled to put food on the table and keep roofs over our heads, all we could afford after being worked half to death on abysmal hourly wages was a Barbie for 60% off at Walmart — and dammit, that's what we were gonna get. Our desire to make someone's day, to cooperate with chaos to survive, to find joy and show our love for each other, even superficially, even in callous disregard for dignity and civility, was what our proverbial "holidays" of a now bygone era were really all about. After the End, 45 years into it, with all the trauma and the strangeness and the hopelessness and pain to boot, all we wanted was us again. The flowers were supposed to give us back to each other. But when the Devil asked where the flowers had gone, we felt all at once the aching, back-breaking truth: there were never going to be flowers in year 45.

We looked at each other. Really looked. And then turned to the Devil. We needed somewhere to direct our pain. We needed something to look at that wasn't each other, burnt by insanity and fear and betrayal. We needed something to look at that wasn't the useless seeds on the useless ground planted by our useless hands for a useless hope, stolen on Black Friday like the world was stolen half a century ago. We were naked, barely recognizable as alive, and carried the blame and the shame and the rage and the trauma of losing everything on the day we were to gain all that we were permitted to have. But our souls had been sold long ago as one does when surviving. We knew now where to point our gaze. And perhaps for the first time in the history of Heaven, the Devil looked scared.


Christmas Eve at

Luiz’s Old-Fashioned Café by Joseph Morris

Old Town, New Arantes City, Jandira, Kuat Star System 24 December 423 SF Since Jandira's Founding j Old-Earth Christmas background music combined with the comforting fragrances of garlic and oregano to greet customers entering Luiz’s Old-Fashioned

Café. A holo of a red sleigh pulled by nine reindeer hovered over the dance floor. Every few minutes, the sleigh’s sole passenger changed from the North American Santa, in his traditional heavyweight red suit, to the New Brazilian Papai Noel wearing a lightweight red silk outfit. A live evergreen-like Christmas tree decorated with shiny baubles and red and white striped peppermint candy canes graced the right corner of the broad entrance area. Brightly wrapped presents for a planned after-closing staff Christmas party lay piled at its base. To the left, a long Earth-mahogany bar with four live human bartenders catered to a crowd that came for conversation, drinks, and some of the best food in New Arantes City. Live human servers were part of the Café’s lure. Anabel Alencar-Smith sat at a small table off to one side of the main room with her soon-to-be-husband, Lucas Andrade-Oliveira. She lifted her wine glass to her lips to mask her scrutiny of her future husband. To an outsider, the two looked pretty much like a typical couple. Some might consider Lucas a little old for her but that wasn’t uncommon in the twenty-eighth century. With lifespans extending into the third decade past one hundred, a difference of fifteen or twenty years was not considered an issue. Furthermore, Lucas didn’t have a reputation as a dabbler of women, no less, younger ones. More importantly though, few would dare risk the wrath of the Patriarch of the Oliveira Family, probably the most powerful crime family in Portown, by whispering unsavory rumors about him. Anabel shrugged. In the long run, it didn’t really matter what these Humans thought of her or her relationship with Lucas. She was a Human-Pheryl Marge and eventually all these Humans would be serving her. After all, Humans were just foodstock. She recoiled at that thought. She was losing her humanity as the Merge progressed and there wasn’t anything she could do about it. < Deal with it. You’re a Merge. > Messages like this from her Pheryl half were becoming rarer as the Merging continued. Pheryl and Human were becoming inseparable. Part of the unstoppable Merge process. She gulped down what was left in the glass. For a moment it seemed like swallowing the last of her humanity.

She sighed and signaled to a live waiter for a refill. Tonight, she was playing the role of Lucas’s love and future wife. She wore what had been for centuries called that “little black dress.” Materials and style changed over time with various fashion fads but someone from the twentieth or twenty-first century would have recognized it. To keep up appearances, she had chosen a mixture of modesty and a flaunting of her feminine assets. The dress’s transparency nanos that could expose various parts of her body on command were not activated except where modesty was not betrayed. Bare shoulders exposing smooth, olive-ebony skin. A demure cleavage suggesting the size of her ample bosom without being blatant about it. A dress length emphasizing her long legs but not so short beyond what some considered as good taste. Nudity taboos were a mixed bag on Jandira. It seemed like the further you were from Portown, the greater the taboo. Undyed black hair and no contact-lens-enhanced dark eyes complemented her modest approach. This had to be an outfit befitting the future wife of a Family Patriarch. Maybe she exposed more than the recently deceased Matriarch Sylvana would have revealed, but then again, she had more assets to display. She hid a grimace from Lucas behind the refilled glass. Feeding off her Tia (aunt) Sylvana had been necessary but distasteful. Distasteful? That’s all the indignation she could muster? How far she was falling. Her task on Jandira was to engineer the collapse of the Jandiran government, but her success largely depended on the continued maturation of her Pheryl. She had left New Berwick before she was ready due to the urgency of the High Priestess’ vision of the timelines. Fortunately, here on Jandira, the Family proved quite efficient in disposing of bodies, thereby allowing her a full feeding from which her victims didn’t survive. The feedings matured her Pheryl enough to soon allow her to insert a splinter into Lucas. A splinter: a small portion of her Pheryl transferred to Lucas’ brain to ensure complete, unwavering obedience with no chance of betrayal. The splinter allowed her to monitor all of his intimate thoughts and emotions and then easily project hers to become his. Inserting a splinter into Lucas was a bit of risk because it was difficult to mask its vinegary presence in his aura, even with the new mental stealth protocols developed by the High Priestess.  Still, it would take a deep taste to get to the Pheryl essence. That is, of course, if Humans could actually taste auras. And that was the crux of the issues with High Priestess’ visions: what these Jandiran Humans were actually capable of.

Lucas dutifully smiled back at her with the look of an older man completely flattered by the attentions of a younger woman. Exactly as she wanted him to appear. She had used her Pheryl abilities to help Lucas shore up his position as the de facto head of the Family. Whereas, in the past, his critics would have had to be eliminated, her Pheryl mental abilities enabled her to change their opinion of him. Fewer bodies to be disposed of and less risk of police involvement. Even some of Lucas’ most fervent opponents now believed he was the one to lead the family. However, some were too intractable and had to be eliminated. One of those had served the dual purpose of another feeding for her.

“Lucas! Nice to see you!” a gravelly voice called out. A short, stocky man, accompanied by an older-looking portly woman, strolled to the table. Marcos Barros, Mayor of Old Town. Anabel relaxed. A Lucas ally . “Good evening, Mayor. Natália,” Lucas said, rising to take the other man’s hand while sporting a warm, artificial smile. He bowed to the Mayor’s wife and kissed the back of her hand. “You’re looking exquisite tonight, my lady. Merry Christmas to both of you.” Natália blushed. “Merry Christmas to you too, Senor Lucas.” She turned to Anabel. “And who is this?” “May I present Anabel Alencar-Smith? A recent arrival from New Brazil who has captured my heart in a short time. We plan to marry in the spring.”  “Your Honor,” she said in a put-on, uncertain voice, extending her hand to shake his.

“Your Honor? Don’t be so serious? We’re all friends here, senhorita.” Marcos took her outstretched hand and kissed it. “Recently arrived from New Brazil?” Natália asked. Anabel pretended to shrink before the older woman’s frank gaze. “Yes, senhora,” Ana replied. “From Juiz de Fora on the southern continent. You wouldn’t have heard of it. A small farming village of less than a thousand, destroyed by a failure of a dyke during a hurricane.” “And what brings you to Jandira?” “A new start, my lady.” “Why not go to one of the larger cities on New Brazil like New Brasilia? Why come to a new world?” Natália asked. Anabel shrugged. “Like I said, I wanted a new beginning.” Short for “I had some trouble on New Brazil I wanted to get away from.” Natália nodded understandingly and smiled a suitable artificial smile. “Well, my dear, if you ever need any help with introductions or to adjusting to life here, Lucas knows how to contact me.”

Anabel tasted Natália’s aura. Duplicity. No real intent to help there. “Thank you, my lady.”

“Oh, not my lady, my dear, Natália is fine.” She turned to her husband. “Let’s leave these two young people to enjoy each other. Besides, I’m hungry.” Season’s greetings were exchanged again, and the older couple turned away. As they walked toward their table, Anabel probed them again. Nothing unusual about their auras. Meeting little resistance, she pushed inward.

She tweaked Marcos’ attraction to her as a beautiful young woman to allow him to be influenced through simple flirting. A manipulation accomplished without the need for any real pressure. He would be willing to help her in the forlorn hope of bedding her. Deep down he knew he would never have the courage to take advantage even if he had the chance. The fantasies of an older man given a little push. She moved on to the woman. Natália’s comment about helping Anabel had been political fluff. Anabel located the woman’s motherly instincts and pushed gently. Natália was now firmly imprinted with Anabel. Like her husband, simple influence not requiring distraction and much pressure. Natália would take Anabel under her wing and introduce her to Old Town society. Both of the Barros had been influenced just enough to eliminate any doubts about Lucas’ new consort. They now accepted her as who she said she was. A useful night, so far. Sometime later she would “recruit” them to worship the Goddess of Pherylahn. A local congressman and his wife strolled over. Another ally. A couple at the restaurant entrance caught her attention. Jandiran Investigations Bureau (JIB) Special Agent Ruan Beça with a stunning-looking woman in her own fashionable version of a black dress clinging to his arm. Anabel scowled. She had been warned about him. She reached out to the woman and probed. His wife, Melinda .

A JIB analyst! Were they here on business? A thin tendril wafted through the restaurant. Someone was tasting the crowd! Was that the jib? No sense taking a chance. Keeping hidden was the priority, even though finding out more about his abilities would be helpful. If it was him. She pulled up a protective mental block and activated a trigger. She was simply now Anabel Ella Alencar-Smith, an innocent immigrant from a small village completely overwhelmed by the attention of a man as powerful as Lucas and feeling desperately out of place in such a fine restaurant. She knew nothing of Pheryls. And hopefully the vinegary taste of a Pheryl was masked. Old Town, New Arantes City, Jandira, Kuat Star System 24 December 423 SF Ruan stepped through the heavy wooden restaurant door, holding it open for his wife. As he followed her in, he scanned the crowd with his Portal. A brief whiff of vinegar! A Merge? So brief. An actual taste? Or just his imagination. Damn! This was supposed to a quiet, romantic Christmas Eve with his wife at his favorite restaurant. Even though the Oliveira family sometimes seemed to hold court here, that was a fact of life in Old Town, with its proximity to Portown. Besides, he occasionally picked up a tidbit of intelligence while dining here. Before he could scan again, Luiz spotted him and ambled over. “Senor Ruan, nice to have you back. Merry Christmas.” He turned and bowed to Mindi. “Senora, Merry Christmas.”

“Merry Christmas to you, too, Luiz,” Mindi replied with a broad smile lighting up her face, her chestnut brown eyes warm at seeing the old restauranteur. “Give my love and best wishes for a Merry Christmas to Adelina and little Luiz Junior.” Luiz’s face reflected Mindi’s warmth. “I will. Your table is ready.” As they were led to a table off to the side, not far from the bar, Ruan reached out through his Portal again. No vinegar and no telltale indigo in the blue and yellow human auras. The table gave Ruan ample view of the restaurant’s patrons without putting him front and center. As soon as he was seated, he tasted again. The Pheryl essence was still gone.

“Hon, what’s the matter?” Mindi whispered after they were seated. “You almost jumped out of your skin when you walked through the door.” “A wisp of vinegar,” he replied to her question.

He sighed as he regarded his wife. As a JIB special agent, it wasn’t surprising she noticed his reaction. There was nothing wrong with her security senses. She was also on the Pheryl Joint Task Force and aware of Pheryls and Portals. The two of them were adapting to his Portal and the ramifications to their relationship. She was slated to get one, but exactly when was uncertain. She was a trained interrogator and was looking forward to the help a Portal would be in verifying the veracity of a perp’s testimony. That was the one thing she was allowed to do with a Portal during an interrogation under Duke Kaiden’s

Directive . A fine balancing act between constitutional rights and security. He reached out again, an allowed cursory taste of the surrounding auras. Nothing. “Pheryl?” Mindi whispered, keeping her voice soft and unconcerned as if in a romantic exchange with her husband. “Here?” She kept her eyes locked on his.  “Nothing now, but when we entered the restaurant. It was so brief I could have been mistaken. Damn, I hate this Portal stuff.” “Why? We use it responsibly to protect this planet, and Humanity.” She grimaced at her rote recitation. “The incongruities and inconsistencies. Two wrongs never make a right,” he muttered. Surreptitiously tasting someone’s thoughts and emotions even with a warrant didn’t seem right. Even if the enemy was doing it without restrictions. “And one unanswered wrong definitely doesn’t make a right either,” she replied. “You can use your Portal to taste the crowd in this restaurant for a vinegary essence and check their auras for telltale indigo, but not go any further without a warrant. We do it by the rule of law. The Pheryl don’t. And we don’t use Portals to influence others’ thoughts.”

Yeah. She’s right. There’s no other answer to the Pheryl threat except the Portals, a gift from a billion-year-old species. As for tonight, was that vinegary essence ever really there or had he imagined it? He visually scanned the room. There was Lucas Andrade-Oliveira, head of the Oliveira Family, but that wasn’t unusual. Alongside him was Anabel Alencar-Smith. He was aware of her, a new player who had appeared out of nowhere to become Lucas’ companion and apparent lover. She had been investigated, cleared, and yet, here she was, at the same time as a whiff of a Pheryl. He wanted to taste and dive into her aura but because his scan of the room had found no anomalies, the

Directive  allowed no further action .

Anything further would require him obtain a warrant from the PISC (Portal Intelligence Surveillance Court). Ruan grimaced.

Now that he was on the Pheryl Task Force, he was dealing more with that damn classified court. He had hoped because of the high planetary security risk posed by the Pheryl,  the PISC would be more friendly toward the intelligence and police agencies, but Kai had taken the lessons from the twenty-first century and made sure it was independent and rigorous in its application of the law. That was both good and bad. Good, if you took an overarching view of the Portals and their constitutional freedoms implications. Bad, if you were a cop or security operative working in real time. A warrant was needed to taste Alencar-Smith’s aura in depth but he lacked Probable Cause. Besides, getting one on Christmas Eve? Yeah, right.  Mindi placed a hand on his. “Okay, husband, what’s going on?” He carefully used his eyes to indicate a couple at a table across in the opposite corner. “Lucas Oliveira is here with Anabel Alencar-Smith.” He stopped as the waiter walked up with a bottle of Capelli Farms Chianti. “Merry Christmas.” “Our favorite. Please tell Luis thank you.”  “The Alencar-Smith woman. I thought you did a DNA scan on her.” “Yeah. But it was a remote DNA scan of her and probably not reliable enough to check for Pheryl DNA. We have so little experience in this area,” Ruan pursed his lips. This is war, not just some criminal activity. How could he just let this go by? Alencar-Smith superficially resembled the Merge they were chasing. With disguises using DNA sculpturing how could he be sure this really wasn’t the one? But without Probable Cause he couldn’t get a warrant. He could go ahead and probe Alencar-Smith more deeply. No one would know. But if he probed and discovered she was a Pheryl, what could he do about it? He couldn’t tell anyone without admitting he violated the

Directive . He probably could find a way to secretly incriminate her. He sighed. Then was he any better than the Pheryl? Isn’t that what everyone was worried about with the Portals? The temptation? He looked over at his wife.

She took both of his hands in hers and gazed into his eyes. “Don’t do it,” she whispered. “Do it right, Ruan. We’re JIB special agents sworn to uphold the law. We can’t be like them.”

Damn the way she always seemed to read his mind .

Did she already have a Portal? It certainly seemed like it. He sighed and squeezed back. She was right. For now. She erupted into a brilliant smile that should have lit up the entire room.  “Chill out, Hon. It’s Christmas Eve. The kids are at Grandma’s. We have a res at the Planetary Empire Inn. Let’s enjoy it. I wore this dress to package my Christmas gift to you.” Her smile morphed into something more sensuous and her eyes promised a reward later that night. No need of a Portal to interpret her thoughts. She definitely wasn’t in her official special agent mode. “I wore it because it allows you to view parts of my present while it’s still wrapped. Better yet, it allows your gift to be easily unwrapped when the time is right for unwrapping.” He blushed and gulped his wine.


Content Warning: Transphobia The sterile, lemony scent of Lysol lingered in the lobby, melding with the comforting glow of the afternoon sun streaming through the sweeping exterior windows as Elias carried the box of his old dresses to the reception desk. To the left of the desk, seated at white tables surrounded by colorful chairs, a few teens scribbled in notebooks or tapped away on laptops, perhaps working on homework, though he suspected the trio crowded around one computer in the corner silently clapping each other on the back were gaming. It surprised him for a second that they would have computers. Aren’t homeless people supposed to have nothing? But then he realized maybe people donated laptops the same way he was about to donate clothes. He’d been in homeless shelters before, but never one for people his age. Every few months his family did community service together, and a few of those outings were spent serving food at one of the permanent shelters downtown or helping prep the church basement for the rotating shelter that came through every other year. Last time he had to scrub the church bathroom. His stomach tightened at the memory of the volunteer manager directing him to scrub the women’s restroom. He wasn’t allowed in the men’s room back in those days. Elias set the box as gently as he could on the reception desk, letting the weight of it slide through his fingers like a fish being released back into the water. The receptionist smiled at him. “Welcome to Youth Place,” she said with the same warmth he felt from the sun against the back of his arm. “I’m Bronwyn, my pronouns are she/her. What’s your name?” “Elias,” he said. “Elias,” she repeated, taking out a clipboard and starting to fill out a form. “Let me get Deborah, she’ll help you store your things in a locker. Are you hungry?” “Oh,” said Elias, “I’m, uh, not homeless.” He kept his voice low, feeling oddly exposed so close to the other kids. He pointed at the box. “I’m here to drop off some clothes. To donate.” Bronwyn bowed her head. “I shouldn’t have presumed.” She reached down and picked up a rather bare spiral-bound book. “Looks like someone used my last triplicate sheet. Just a sec.” She popped through the door behind the desk into a back office. A window in the wall let him watch as she rummaged around in drawers and cabinets, pausing every few seconds to glance up towards Elias and the shelter’s main entrance behind him. Elias was used to presumptions, though this was perhaps the most harmless he’d encountered. Not being allowed to clean the men’s bathroom. Not being allowed to join the boy’s swim team, or any boy’s sport. The presumptions people made based on his biology blew. When he thought he was a tomboy, people just presumed he was a guy. He liked that presumption. He didn’t like the apologies that inevitably followed when people heard his voice or his name, the name he buried because it was dead. He presumed his parents would hate him or be ashamed, so he held on to that name for too long until it felt like a rope around his neck lingering there inescapable when his mom and dad spoke it with pride of his accomplishments when teachers called it during class when best friends smiled and breathed it out loud saying hello how are you none of them realizing they made him fight for air beg for air sometimes even pray for the rope to cinch tighter. Saying he felt relieved when he finally told his parents and they embraced him, proving his presumptions unfounded, would be like saying the Milky Way was pretty. He no longer needed to fight for air. Instead, it filled him and let him proclaim his joy at the top of his lungs. Together, they packed what girl’s clothes remained in his closet into the box. He went through a phase a year or two ago where he hoped it would just go away and bought dresses and skirts and makeup. That was just a phase though, a last attempt by the world to control him, tell him he who was. His dad drove him over to Youth Place, even offered to walk in with him. But no. This was something Elias needed to do alone. They were originally going to just drop the clothes at Goodwill, but then Elias learned that almost half of people his has age without homes identified as queer, and of that a disproportionate number were trans. As soon as he heard that, he knew who he wanted to have his clothes. If he could, he would pass on more to them. Lord knows somewhere there’s a 16-year-old trans girl who could make good use out of what he bound up tight to his chest. He planned on getting top surgery as soon as he could, but it seemed like such a waste for them to just get sucked away. Couldn’t there be somewhere trans folx could just go and drop off the parts they didn’t need and swap them for the parts they did? For trade: boobs, never wanted. The door to the shelter swung open. A girl walked in, maybe a little older than him but it’s hard to tell, brown hair down to her shoulders, wearing tight jeans, a pink blouse, and a black jacket. Her face demonstrated the same skill with makeup that Elias had – novice – though he presumed she hoped to improve at it over time, while he hoped to never slather lipstick on again if he could help it. She sauntered up to the desk, smacking on a well-chewed piece of gum. “Hey,” she said. “You moving in?” Elias pointed at the cardboard box. “Well, no actually. I’m here to drop of some clothes. To donate.” “Whatchya got?” she asked, pulling open the flaps and squealing when she spotted the spirit jersey on top. Oblivious to the slight musty smell the clothes acquired sitting in the farthest reaches of his closet, she held the oversized sweater to her chest. “Oooh! She cute!” “Welcome back, Phoenix,” said Bronwyn, returning from the office with a fresh triplicate pad. “Will you be staying with us again?” Phoenix nodded, now clutching a crop top Elias couldn’t believe he ever thought was a good idea to buy. “Yeah,” she said, holding it to her chest. “Mitch tried to hit me again, so I left. And he stopped paying me.” “I’m glad you’re safe,” said Bronwyn. “Just a sec and I’ll get you checked in. You know the clothes have to go into the clothing bank, though. We need to wash them first, and you can get them from there.” “Yeah, yeah.” Phoenix put the clothes back in the box and sighed, closing the flaps. Elias noticed the crop top peeking out of her coat pocket. “There’s an old dude just sitting in a minivan outside.” “If it’s a Honda, that’s probably my dad,” said Elias. “He good to you?” asked Phoenix, studying him with piercing brown eyes. “Yeah.” His answer felt like an admission of guilt for some reason, but he wasn’t sure how else to respond. RIP! Bronwyn tore the receipt off her pad and held it out for Elias. “Thank you for your donation, Elias. And if you know anyone who needs our services, please send them our way. Everyone is welcome here.” “Even me,” said Phoenix, teeth grinding on the gum again. “It was nice to meet you,” said Elias, nodding at Bronwyn. He turned to Phoenix. “I’m glad you’re going to get the clothes.” Was that rude to say? He headed for the exit. He felt the lightness he hoped he would, having left behind that cardboard box containing the final remnants of a person that never really existed, knowing the rest of his life waited on the other side of the door, a life without pretending. A life of joy. Yet he struggled to smile as his mind lingered on Phoenix, on the inequity that grew with each step he took towards his dad waiting outside to take him home. A few moments later, Elias pulled open the door of the minivan and slid into the passenger seat. “You wanna drive, Elias?” asked his father. “You need practice.” Elias reached over and gave his father the best side hug he could across the armrest and gear shifter. “I love you dad.” His father, caught off guard by the gesture, feeling his child tremble against him, rested a hand on Elias’ arm in return. “I love you too, son.”