TW: infant death There was a mournful silence in the room. To anyone who wasn’t familiar with the usual dynamic, it may have seemed comfortable; cozy. Usually there was music. Usually Carmen would be beside Matt near the stove, and they would be dancing and laughing as they prepared their meal together. Sometimes there was wine. Sometimes there were disasters when the recipe didn’t work out as planned, or when they lost track of time and burnt the food to a charred mess. There was a fine line between caramelized and burnt.

Today Matt was at the stove by himself. He wasn’t sure that Carmen was going to want to join him today, but he set her spot anyway. He had been doing so for the past five nights. Carmen hadn’t been able to get out of bed. He felt like, even though they were partners, and even though this was their shared loss, he would never know exactly how she was feeling. All he could do was take care of her, be there for her, let her know that he loved her, and that he was mourning with her. There was a hollow feeling in his chest, and he took a deep breath to try to push it away. He tried to quiet the ache that he felt, or at least to drown it out with the busyness of day-to-day activities, like spending most of his Saturday preparing a stew from scratch.

He selected the veggies and meat at the farmers market that morning, and got the mushrooms from a collective that foraged locally. Carmen loved them -- both the mushrooms and the people in the collective who were passionate about educating people about eating locally grown, sustainable foods. Matt immersed himself in the process of scrubbing each vegetable, peeling the carrots and onions, dicing the celery, carrots, and onions. Peeling the garlic, dicing the garlic. Scrubbing the mushrooms. Breaking down and deboning the chicken. Seasoning the chicken. As he peeled, diced, chopped, sliced, and seasoned, he worked on concentrating on each individual task, not allowing himself to get swallowed up by that nagging grief. By the time the roux was developed and the stew was simmering, Matt could no longer ignore his emotions. He sat on the kitchen floor and pulled his knees up to his chest. He didn’t cry, but he did allow his shoulders to relax. He didn’t realize how much tension he was carrying.

A little under an hour later Matt got up and continued preparing dinner. Carmen took her seat at the already set table. She could hear the scraping of the spatula against the cast iron as he emptied the last of the thick stew from the cast iron pot into the ceramic serving dish. The whirr of the range hood fan must have drowned out Carmen’s footsteps because Matt hadn’t yet noticed her presence. The oven timer dinged and he pulled out some freshly baked dinner rolls. They weren’t from scratch; they were the kind that you buy frozen and then bake at home. They still created that delicious heady, freshly-baked smell.

Carmen felt her stomach growl and she let out a quick, soft, surprised gasp. She hadn’t felt like eating for days. She hadn’t felt anything for days. Matt turned away from the oven to grab a basket for the bread from the kitchen island.

“Hey,” he said, gently, when he saw Carmen. He offered her a small smile, but his eyes were sad and sympathetic. “Hey,” Carmen replied. “I made chicken stew with lots of mushrooms… One of your favourites.” “It smells great,” Carmen said, willing herself to smile. But that small allowance of emotions opened the floodgates, and her breath was released in a shaky, violent sob. Matt made sure the stove and oven were off, and knelt beside Carmen, taking her hands in his. She leaned down and pressed her forehead to his. They cried together as the dinner rolls cooled and the stew developed a film on top. Carmen slid from her chair onto the floor, and into Matt’s arms. They had been trying to start their family for years. Before they even started trying, they made sure that they were in good health, and had been watching what they eat, taking vitamins, and staying active. As the months passed they started to get concerned. After a year they went to the doctor. They were told that they just need to be patient with themselves; these things take time. They gave it another six months. Carmen tracked her cycle meticulously. She took her temperature to make sure that her body was ready. They meditated, they prayed, they tried all of the relaxation and meditation techniques, even the ones of which they were skeptical. And then finally, it worked! But at the twenty-two week ultrasound, there was no heartbeat. Eight days later, they found themselves on the kitchen floor, holding each other tightly, as if for survival, oblivious to the continuing whirr of the fan, the phone ringing, and the music that blared from the neighbours’ backyard patio. At that moment, it was just the two of them. Again.

Carmen calmed herself first. She peppered Matt’s forehead with tiny kisses and stroked his hair. “I’m so sorry,” she said, “I’m so, so sorry…” Matt wiped his face on his sleeve, “Not your fault, Carm,” he whispered. “Don’t blame yourself.”

“I don’t… I don’t feel guilty. I just feel… sad…” “Me too.” “I want to wait before we try again.” “Me too.” “I feel like I need some time.” “I know Carm. I know.” “But first?” “Yes?” “I need a good meal,” Carmen offered a slight smile. Mat nodded, “I’ll reheat the food.” “I really did smell amazing in here earlier,” Carmen said reassuringly. “Let me tell you about what happened at the farmer market!” Matt immediately felt like he may have been a little too enthusiastic in his tone, but Carmen chuckled. “Did you harass those nice mushroom gatherers again?” “I didn’t harass them! I’m genuinely curious to know if they’re only interested in food mushrooms, or, you know, other mushrooms,” Matthew laughed. “Matthew,” said Carmen, “I can’t let you out in public on your own… next Saturday, I’m coming to the market with you.” Matthew’s wide, joking grin softened. “That’d be great, Carm,” he said. “That’d be great.”


Nasrin was old enough to understand what was being discussed, even though she was in the other room with the old lamp to read by and not supposed to hear the conversation. The man had come to investigate, and after talking with her parents, confirmed what she already knew: Nasrin could use magic. This was highly valuable, and the man offered a large sum of money to take her away. He said he would take Nasrin to a school where she would learn more about her art, but Nasrin didn’t believe him. She’d already heard rumors on the street of how much was paid for the gifted. It was never for school. And she’d never see her parents again. But she knew her parents couldn’t ignore such a sum of coin. The family was starving as it was. The real surprise, Nasrin realized, was that her parents hadn’t marketed her already. Nasrin loved her parents very much, but she knew she didn’t want to go with the man. His smile was greasy and he carried too many weapons. What use did he have for so many blades, if not to lose them in a kill? She was convinced he was a bad man. For Nasrin, there wasn’t a choice except to decide for her parents. She would go. Her way. Nasrin quietly rose from where she sat at the table and walked to the window on the far side of the hovel. There was only cloth to cover it, so she unfastened the bottom and climbed out easily. There was a short drop to the ground; she could not turn back. Nasrin took a deep breath and fell to the ground. As soon as she gathered her footing, she was on the move. Growing up poor in a city such as this, Nasrin was used to crowds. She could maneuver easily through the flow of people, and soon she had made it several blocks from what she’d called home. But this wouldn’t be far enough. She had to keep going. She went to the south district, an even shabbier and more dangerous neighborhood than where her parents had staked their lives. But she knew of its secrets: the city was as magic as Nasrin herself, warped for those who could control it. She could find bubbles of space where no one would ever find her; she could hide there while she figured out what to do. By the next day, Nasrin’s hunger had grown too strongly and she hadn’t figured anything out, despite having nothing but time. She’d already been near starving, and she knew food was a problem she’d have to solve. Her mother had taught her that the southern district was no good for begging, but Nasrin didn’t want to beg anymore. She’d seen market stalls heaped with grocery goods. Why should they have so much and she so little? She settled on stealing more quickly than she had thought she would. She knew it was considered wrong, but truthfully, she had always questioned that. Now there was no one to stop her from getting the breakfast she deserved. Nasrin held up her hand and felt in the air for the tear in the bubble that would let her out on the street again. It tugged across her fingers like a fishing line with fresh meat, and she dashed through. The stalls were not far, and she was decided on the outcome. She used a sound distortion, a magic trick she’d taught herself for fun, to distract the merchant. It was easy to take the fruit, so easy she took more than she thought she could eat. She grabbed dried fish — she’d never been allowed to eat dried fish — and a loaf of bread before she was away. She heard raised voices behind her, but back in her bubble she could only crow in celebration. She had a feast before her. She ate her full, and then kept at it, until she couldn’t fit in another bite. She felt queasy from so much food, but also alight with power. On her own, she could do so much more than her parents had ever let her. A drop fell on her head, and then another. Nasrin looked up as the sky open and rain poured down. There was no shelter in her bubble, but she was too scared to leave it. She sat in the rain and felt the cold soak her through. Her parents had always found a way to shelter her from the rain. She wondered what would happen to them now. She hadn’t even said goodbye, in her resolve to leave. Would they be fine without her? Without the money the man offered, it was likely they’d continue on starving, or worse, lose what housing they had salvaged. Nasrin considered returning. She could at least explain to them her thinking. She couldn’t believe they’d try to hold her and turn her over. They loved her, and she them. She decided to go back. It was evening when the rain stopped, and Nasrin wandered back to her home district. She was still sopping wet, chilled to the bone, but the flame of resolve pushed her onward. She was surprised to find the door open and waiting. There was no one in the main room, the kitchen and communal space that dominated the home. This was where they had spoken with the man. They must be in the other room, for there were only two rooms, and they wouldn’t leave the door open if they were out. The old lamp sat on the table where she’d left it, the flame burned almost all the way out. In the dying light she saw what the man had done to her parents when he hadn’t found Nasrin.

Nasrin willed herself not to cry. She had left without saying goodbye and not the other way around, and she hated the feeling of regret. But she felt the immeasurable loss. She could never call this place home again. There were fresh clothes in a wardrobe, so Nasrin dried herself off and changed. She took a spare set of clothes, too, and threw it into a spare sack. She went back over to her parents, knelt close, and carefully removed her mother’s necklace. Something to remember them by, she thought idly, pocketing it and returning to the main room. There were a few other useful things to be found before she left for good. She could cry later, she thought. Yes, she would cry later, the next time it rained.


It was evening already, and Zeus, Apollo and Hades could not reach their seats in the balcony. They were on an official business trip to Earth to check upon the affairs of the mortals, which is not so official anymore. For them, it was a way to escape from Olympus for some time, away from the usual and the monotonous business of sitting on their thrones and yelling at each other. When Hades and Zeus came to a town, they decided to see if the new show on the road is really as good as all the mortals say. “They used to do it so much better in Athens, you know.” said Hades to Zeus as a minor conversation starting line, while they stood in a line, waiting to buy their tickets. “All of the recent dramas are equally… worthless. Nowadays, they do not even mention us, and even if they do, they make a caricature of us instead of the real us. Especially me.” said Zeus in a fit of anger, provoking a lightning bolt right next to him. Finally, when they reached the guy at the ticket counter, Hades asked for three tickets instead of two, confusing Zeus. When he asked the reason, Hades said “Well, you see, brother, Cerberus hasn’t come out since the dawn of man, and he is so bored out guarding the Underworld. So, I thought I could give him a break for the next two hours, you know.”. As a response, Zeus showed Hades the ‘No Pets Allowed’ sign. Undeterred, Hades asked the ticket counter guy if he could bring Cerberus to the theatre. When inquired about who Cerberus is, Hades darkened the room and said, “He’s the meanest, strongest, most dangerous three-headed dog guarding the Underworld from the evils of all the realms.”. Expecting scary faces and thunderous applause, Hades stood there, bringing on the lights once again. But the guy at the ticket counter simply replied, “So, sir, Cerberus is a dog. So, Cerberus is not allowed. I’m sorry. I’m sure that you would have seen the board that says ‘No Pets Allowed’ outside.”. “Some theatre. Fine. Three tickets at the balcony.” retorted Hades, and explained that the third seat is for Apollo, who is overdue for a holiday for almost two hundred years. After getting the tickets, Zeus proceeded to summon Apollo from his slumber using his lightning storm. Apollo came in a very tired God. “I was in the middle of an important work” said the Apollo while yawning. “All right, To our seats. I will take the middle seat” said Hades in unusual non-morbid enthusiasm, and the duo followed him. They went into the open theatre’s and decided to follow the directions shown by the arrows. The thing was, thanks to the four-way arrows everywhere, they went to every nook and corner of the theatre except the balcony. In the middle of the fight against their newest enemy – unclear directions, Hades grew angry and tore open the ground below him. Apollo calmed him down by playing his favorite tune, and Hades closed the hole underneath him. After an hour or so post sundown, they found their balcony and took their seats in place. They just went in time for the opening number by the Maestro. Just as they sat down, the announcer came in announced, “Welcome to the greatest stage show of the world!” to which he received an immediate backlash from Zeus who yelled “It better be!” to which Hades replied, “Or we will burn the place down!” and started to laugh. The announcer murmured “Darn hecklers” and went in. “This place is even more complicated than Minotaur’s labyrinth” quipped Apollo to his theatre mates before the first act began. It opened with a bang sound, before a guy in a tunic sang “Oh life! Oh, my life! Why? Oh, my life! Mother! Your boy is coming home!” which made Apollo shut his ears. After the opening number, Act One commenced, much to his relief. The same guy in his tunic ran up a flight of stairs in the stage and in the process, fought three soldiers in hilariously bad attires. The guy then went to meet the heroine of the play, and unlike any sane man, decided to stand on the vines adjacent to the staircase. As heroine came out of the door in the set, Hades yelled, “She is even more hideous than Medusa” to which Zeus finished “And you can’t even look at her” and laughed. For the unversed, if you look at Medusa, you turn into a stone sculpture of yourself. The conversation between the pair, in short, went like this: “Hello”, “Hello”, “I love you darling”, “No, I don’t love you, dear”, “No, I do love you more”, No I do” and so on until a point where Hades yelled, “It is so cheesy that I could dip my fries in it” and laughed. The play paused and the announcer said over the mic, “Security, evict the gentlemen from the balcony please”. Apollo intervened and apologized for the disturbance caused by his ‘Friends’. The announcer said this will the final warning and with one more sound, they will be evicted. Then the play continued, with couples’ cheesy talk going on forever, Apollo felt it too, and said the other two to sleep if they found this boring. “But, no snoring” was the request. Then the Act Two followed, where their parents find the truth and go to a wizard, where he curses the guy in the tunic, to cross three bridges which are made of something. When the guy inquired what it was made of, he got a snore as a response, not form the magician, but from Zeus, who was snoring thunderstorms. Apollo masked the sound somehow, but he wasn’t sure that he masked it well enough. Then came the third act, which made Apollo uneasy. For being the God of medicine and bringing plagues, he was unusually soft, crying for sad movies all the time. Hades and Zeus woke up, the alarm being the massive eighty men orchestra that the Maestro is composing. It involved the couple running away, with the magician fast closing in on them, wanting the girl for himself. The magician spoke some gibberish, and some men, acting as dead spirits, chase them with the thunder following them, or at least that’s what the light and sound effects seems to indicate. Hades got up asking, “Who is in charge of prosthetics, the lighting and the sound mixing? It is terrible. Pathetic”. And then, Zeus got up, yelling “I am done here.”, and started to smile like a villain. “Oh no. This is not going to end well.” Thought Apollo, as Zeus, in the top of his baritone voice, yelled “See our show!” and started to shoot storms and rains next to the acting couple, while Hades brought up the dead to chased them, as any normal God of the Dead would. The crowd panicked and ran all directions. To perfectly encapsulate the situation, Apollo played ‘The Storm’, which was originally composed by Tchaikovsky. When their own performance ended, all they could see was a burnt theatre which was deserted and filled with absolute emptiness and darkness. Seeing the obliterated stage, Apollo remarked “Well, that was dramatic”.


"Congratulations! I can't believe after all these years you're both finally going to be parents! I'm so super excited for you both." Mum was clapping her hands like a cymbal- banging monkey and uncoordinatedly jumping up and down- until she suddenly stopped dead in her tracks. "I just peed a little!” And with that - she ran out the room laughing. Half the family gathered around the lounge room hung their heads and shook them at their chests. The other half were slapping thighs and rocking back in laughter - I was one of the ones rocking back and forth. • • • “I stand here on this most precious of moments and share with you the story of our eternal love and gratefulness of our family. We welcome Henry, dear Henry…” The entire room of gathered friends and family yelled in unison “DEAR HENRY, DEAR HENRY!” Cheers roared out, tables were banged, and glasses clinked. As the ruckus dimmed, the father of the bride continued. “You all know me, and you all know I hate this standing round talking, so I think this is the perfect time to hand over to the real spokesperson of the family. Darling…would you like to continue?” She sat for a minute, tears spilling over her lids and composed herself as she moved her napkin from her lap to the table. “It was my dad, the best pop in the world, that came to us the day you were born, carrying a red pine seedling with your name and date of birth embroidered in the pink ribbon wrapped around it. We weren't sure what we were to do with the gift. I knew they grew into the most beautiful giants of trees.” "It's for her future. It's the tree that will keep on giving." His voice had been soft and sincere, and his eyes had been full of love. "I'll plant it for her and nurture it, as you shall nurture her. You'll see. They will both be wondrous and beautiful as they grow and reach for the stars.” He had told me. I asked him about the seedling, and he said he had gone to the nursery on the day we told him we would soon be calling him pop. He browsed the trees for hours until he picked the right one, the perfect one to put your name to. As you grew, so did the tree. As you learnt to walk, your tree learned to sway with the wind, and true to his word you both grew and reached for the stars. Nan made picnics for you to have under the evergreen growing branches of your tree. and when you were 6 and your tree was good and sturdy, pop hung a swing to push you in for hours. And when Nan bought you a leather-bound journal at 13 years old, you would go and sit under that tree and write your hopes and dreams in the shade of its branches. Sometimes we would see you just sitting under the tree at 16, just being there. And as you grew further and met the man you would marry, he knew the importance of that tree and proposed with moonlight shining through the leaves. “It’s been a while since you have visited your tree and although the memories will always remain, pop had one thing in mind when he bought that tree the day he found out you would be coming into this world, and that was to give you a wedding gift. You will cry tears of sadness and tears of happiness, dad would you like to do the honours?” The sturdy old man stood tall. Feet planted shoulder width apart as if he himself were a giant of the forest. The smile he shared with his daughter as she kissed him on the cheek melted every heart in the room. “I love you dad.” She whispered into his ear. He turned to the bride "My darling granddaughter, behind you, you see the all the pictures on the screen of you and your tree and all the joy and happiness you brought to not only your Mum and Dad, but to Nan and I, always. Your tree was no longer able to protect you from the bright sun or give you cover from wind and rain in the form it had grown. Your tree is your ever evolving and everlasting gift from us to you." He handed her a set of keys. "It almost shattered my heart to say goodbye to your beautiful protector, but soon you will have your own precious child and that child deserves his or her own tree. Turn to the screen our darling granddaughter, and mind not to ruin your makeup.” His eyes glistened and he lowered his head. She turned to the screen and saw a beautiful timber house. She looked at the keys and then at the house. "A house? We can't accept a house!" "Look at the background." She looked at the background on the oversized screen. The house was exactly where her tree had stood. "Grandpa! Is that my tree! You turned my tree into a house!" Tears streamed down her face. “And in the backyard, I shall plant another for your child to be, and it shall be nurtured as your tree was. It shall bring endless fond memories for all the family, and you shall be forever protected in your tree house." The old man raised a glass. "A toast to the bride and groom. May they always feel safe and secure and grow stronger together each day.” “To the bride and groom!” Glasses clinked and cheers roared out while tears were dried on napkins and sleeves and the bride and groom hugged her grandparents tightly. Nan was clapping like a cymbal-banging monkey and jumping up and down uncoordinatedly…until she stopped dead in her tracks. "Oh shoot!" Nan said to the bride. "You darn went and squeezed me too tight! I just peed a little! Faces fell to hands and people leaned back in laughter as nan went tottling off to the loo.


I’m an oil man, in broad terms. My fingers were made black from years of smut, and by the time I settled down, I could hardly remember what my real hands looked like. The dye is fading, and so am I. Perhaps it’s time. I made my start working in the Navy yard. I was nine years of age, rolling empty barrels aboard ship after ship. “Reworking material” they called it, hauling used barrels back down the coast. As a lad, there wasn’t much money in it, at first. I worked for scraps and loose change, and mercy from the men. The yard had become my home, as I hadn’t a real one elsewhere, and it was all I could do not to swipe lunches for myself. Belcamp, a tall burly man whose torso was twice my size, befriended me. He was merely a crewman with no money to his name. He owned no stock, nor did he have any prominence to speak of, and yet every day he’d sacrifice a quarter portion of his lunch to my belly. It was Belcamp who watched over me, even if I didn’t see it. And it was he who arranged my first paid position with the yard. My first dime, and my survival, I owe to a man I never truly knew. At fourteen, I managed to convince a captain to bring me aboard his ship. They were sailing for Charleston; another hoard of barrels was to be retrieved there. But afterward, they were bound for Havana. Whales were plenty in the Caribbean. So, I left home. I hadn’t left those docks in my entire life, and now I was watching them vanish into oblivion. A crewman told me it was the ‘curvature’ of the Earth. Another said it was simply smog clouding our view. It wouldn’t be until 1829 that I learned the first crewman was right. After a few years of scrubbing and some ship-laden injuries, I was an official member of the crew; the harpoon master’s right hand. If not set for sea, I apprenticed by his side, learning to craft different variations of spears and mechanics. Larger rigs had contraptions the size of stagecoaches; massive cross-bow-like machines. Ours was small and mostly handheld. When on the job, I stood by his side at nearly every instant, ready with rope and knife, able to seize any moment. It was important to have multiple shots tied and ready, six at least. Melville’s pros are theatrical, whales do not harbor grudges, at least, to my own knowledge. However, the dingy holds no salvation against a ramming white. The terror is real. The instinct to dive away weighs heavier than all the steel on Earth, yet it’s crucial to stand your ground; there is no other way to make the shot. It was during these misadventures that I lost two fingers, one on each hand. Soon after my second finger sunk into the ocean, I decided to find different work. I had drudged some long years in the whaling business and had accrued a decent sum that funded my pilgrimage home. Upon my return, I found that the city had changed since I was young. I was now one and thirty, and I intended on doing two things: starting a business and starting a family. Elisa and I had a baby girl and had taken residence downtown. I had wished for a boy, but when Abigail grew and began showing interest in my work, I took it as consolation. A few years since returning home, I used my profits to purchase my own dock and warehouse, not too far from where I had had my first job. Per her request, I took Abigail here often and put her to work. Many of my men found Abigail strange. It was unbecoming of a young woman to drudge her hands in oil, but it was her preference. I often spied some men making advances upon her. I took the liberty of firing those men. She had grown beautiful and capable, and she was under my protection, just as I was under hers. She helped me strike a deal with the city to sell our oil for city-wide street lamps, and various government-owned residences and office buildings. At the time, we were the smallest business and had a little reputation. But Abigail had made these flaws our advantage by convincing them our oil was as high a quality as our competitor, but at a lower price. Despite this lower price, the deal still brought us a profit and a good living. I lost many acquaintances during this bid, but Abigail had found love. Perhaps this is a partial reason for our success. She chose to leave my side in business and pursue political standing with her new husband, a state legislator. I was older then, still toiling away at my desk at the age of three and fifty. Elisa would ask me to retire, but I knew my hands would tremble if idle. So, I demoted myself. I stepped down as chief, leaving my business in the hands of younger men, and accepted a more leisurely position among the even younger lamplighters. They were scrappy like newspaper boys, but decent nonetheless. I hardly fit in. In the winter I’d have lunch with Elisa then head to work. I’d pick up my pail and ladle, my match and soot pouch, and my folding stool, and walk. That’s all it is. Walking. Walking, dolloping, and lighting. In all my years I had hardly the time to see the world for what it had become, but as a lamplighter, I could. The stone on the streets had turned straighter and shinier. The very lamps I lit had gotten more abundant. People’s clothes had gotten leaner, suits brighter, and dresses shorter. I, myself, hadn’t noticed such changes and realized that all my clothes at home were undoubtedly a decade out of date, at least. Regardless, my uniform for lamp lighting had no business being fashionable. It had all the business of being black and slimy, and so did my hands. I kept my position until I was forced to leave. Elisa was pleased that I kept busy, but grew ever anxious as I got older. This was reason enough to settle, but as fate would have it, I was also laid off. A man named Edison had developed a lamp fueled by ‘electricity.’ I’m told it’s the power of lightning in the palm of your hand, able to produce light that shines brighter, and lasts longer, than the oil I had furiously harvested my entire life. The discovery left me melancholy. I was amazed by this new device, yet saddened by my place in it all. The men I had served, the men who had served me, even the lamplighters I had served with, were now relics. Everything’s changing, and I hope it’s for the better. I know it is, for Elisa and me.


Alive World Blue Moon I calculated the best place to see the Blue Moon in the park and I could almost touch it, so I tried to touch it. I went through the portal and I went to the future.

There was just rubble. There was my house and solar panels and the TV playing animation which I’ve never seen. I always bring a flash drive and download all the data from the computer. I saw the portal and it closed. (story from different perspectives) Nap I went to sleep, I took a nap. In a sense I never woke up, not in the same place at least.

Each and every building was destroyed.

Everything was destroyed. I did the test or well life did it for me.

I saw a TV playing animations nonstop but no exit. I realized that this must be Alive World.

The outcome seemed clear, I would die. Then I saw smoke and a new outcome appeared. I saw my friend unable to function, she was so cold, she ate a bad animal, an evil snake. We hugged for warmth. Her campsite was very clean. It was her. I would have eaten the berries first but maybe they were both poisonous. Then once I hugged her back to health, a portal appeared and we left here with the flash drive. I had a clean bill of health but just in case my friend should get a full check-up. So I paid the Concierge doctor to figure out what is wrong. It turns out she had a severe allergy to the snake and didn’t eat the berries at all. And we became friends again but she scheduled the time spent together, we lived together but we’re nothing more than close family siblings. Come hell or high water that was us. We got a dog and we were happy. I was content with no job then, our dog died unexpectedly. Then she took a full-time Valkyrie shift.

Then she left because I was just a reminder of the dog dying. She stopped living there at all and moved to Hotel Vallahada. She was completely committed to her decision to stay in Vallahada, though I think that it was a little cut and dry for her to leave like that.

If you judged her by the look in her eyes you would automatically trust her and see that she was strong. She definitely narrowly escaped death, either way she was finished with me, no surprise visits and hang outs. She wasn’t feeling under the weather. She almost always got the best portions of brownies and cake though. If they played tug-o-war she would obviously have the upper hand. You couldn’t spot many things that went South, she never blamed things on me, but there was no parent in the situation. She never sent me on wild goose chases to find artifacts that she wasn’t sure of their existence. I hate to admit it but she’s done me a cut to the quick and I’m not happy without her.

She was always in the back of my mind. She was busy, but always made time for me. She never was on a high horse.

In the past the problem with us is she wanted to go to Alive World and I didn’t want to. We didn’t need help but our friend Simon did. If Simon is in Alive World he probably has a screw loose without us we used to live high on the hog. At the time I didn’t know where her second job was. She seemed to work a lot. I even hired a private investigator and paid a lot of money and decided that was a mistake. We both had common sense, so why did she leave me?

I made a long video of all the pictures of us, and us and Simon and her pictures she downloaded to our cloud. I watched the video everyday and wrote short stories that were best sellers in Vallahada and then she came back. I worked as a writer and she was my muse. Then I thought about incorporating animation. I soon realized she had more money than me. Her animation is wildly successful. I wondered why she didn’t tell me. I was extremely jealous, then I knew why I had an extra room punching bag. The day she told me I tried to hide my emotion. My face was weird, then she offered me a place in her company. I wasn't jealous anymore, I was happy. I accepted her back without question and she explained herself a day later fully. I showed her what happened to me one felt when you left I showed her the hours-long video and she almost cried but she never cried. She wasn't in the doldrums we were both in the pink more than normal because of recent developments.

Now we race on treadmills with mattresses behind us in case we fall.

We are not Mormon but we never drink alcohol, none of us have parents anymore. We were both important animators. Our company finally took off.

The expectations were very high.

Then she said she is working part-time for the government on satellites which as well as animation and is a Valkyrie. What I didn’t know was that she was a spy for MI5.

She passed the animation torch to me. WHen Odin promoted her I quit MI5 to be a teacher and co leader of a squadron of valkyries. I was an expert at animation. Every once in a while I wonder where Simon is. Then one day an arrow was shot with a note attached. Simon came back and then I was happier. Then it was writing on the wall, I hired simon. Then I gave him a spare room until my future wife came back. I had that revelation yesterday.

I decided to test our connection through worlds and it's been one year slow. So I called her and asked if she could set up a satellite to establish a connection from the living world which I wanted to live in. Then Simon spilled about his time in the mushroom world all alone with infinite food source candy mushrooms. Here's a sample you can eat and another we can send to a lab.Then she came back and finally used some of her vacation dates, got married, had kids and reached a whole nother level of happiness.


The couple stood watching the sunrise. Though it was a beautiful sight, this was the saddest day of their lives. She hadn't meant to fall in love on this mission. This wasn't the first time she had lived undetected among a population. Molecular camouflage was a common trait among her people. This should've been routine work. Start with the field activity, debrief afterward, and then long periods of data entry. Checking, updating, verifying, and finally cataloging it all into an immense computer database. A database that always seemed to find that one question that wasn’t answered. So she would have to go back and re-enter everything before completion! What had happened to her? Perhaps it was the long space voyages or the endless hyperspace jumps. What about the lonely cryo-sleeps or all this paperwork? Or maybe it was the returning home to no one there waiting for her that finally made the difference... ******************************************* The man had to admit that the situation was intriguing. The first girl he was ever truly "head over heels" in love with was not a girl at all! When she told him that she was an alien and had to leave, he thought she was talking about immigration troubles. He kept his thoughts to himself. It didn't matter though, because she could read his mind. At first, he thought she was just so in tune with him until he found out she could actually read minds! This certainly wasn't the one to bring home to mother... ********************************************* How could this happen to her? This sort of thing does happen, in fact, there's an entire section on it in the academy. But this sort of thing only happens to first-year cadets. It didn't happen to decorated officers on the fast track to the admiralty! Before the mission, her crew had a good laugh at her expense. They had teased her about her freedom and lack of accountability except to the ship. Who's laughing now? What would happen when the extraction team arrived this evening? They would all be able to tell that she left part of herself on this planet. But what if she didn't leave? What if she stayed with him? Who says happiness is only found among the stars? ********************************************** She spoke for the first-time midmorning, "Are you sure your government knows about me?" She asked without looking him in the face. She already knew the answer. "I'm not sure," he began, "but I saw the black helicopters outside my office window again yesterday. And those strange men keep following me. But always ducking around corners before I get a good look at them." "I must be getting sloppy," she said. She had been on far more advanced planets than this rock and hadn't been discovered. This "love thing" really throws you off your game! She was glad he couldn't read her mind. If she was found out, the consequences were clear. There could be no evidence of her presence, living or dead. The mightiest weapons these people possessed were like children's toys back home. They would be no match for her. Yet, she needed to make sure it never came to that. Earth had potential but it still had a lot of growing up to do. Exposure to technology or knowledge before a planet was ready was dangerous.  It had proved to be disastrous in too many sectors of the galaxy. Interference with underdeveloped cultures was not permitted. Well, that rule had been broken with their first kiss... ********************************************* He pondered the idea of leaving with her once again. She looked at him and shook her head sadly. He shrugged, accepting the fact that he could hide nothing from her. He had seriously considered leaving everything behind and going with her. Until that one day, she reverted to her natural state. She explained that she could breathe oxygen with little difficulty. But it was not a common element on her home world. He would have to stay encased in a spacesuit for the rest of his life away from earth! Never feeling her warm embrace again. They might as well be a billion miles apart... So, they had today. He took her to all the places he hoped she would remember about the earth, about him. They went to the zoo where she took an extreme interest in all the various species. Passersby no doubt thought she was taking selfies. What she was actually doing was digitizing genetic samples of each animal. She explained that should a catastrophic event end all life on this planet, she would be prepared. "It wouldn't be the first time I've had to repopulate a planet. Best to already have a copy of all the players, know what I mean?" She asked and he shuddered at the thought. They shared a hot dog in the park. He spent an hour explaining why this snack was different from the animals she saw playing in the park. The animals that everyone was frolicking around with and cleaning up after. She found earth customs very strange. ************************************************** The morning had turned to afternoon and the sun was high in the sky now. He exclaimed how exciting her life must be. Her mission: "to seek out new life and new civilizations." She told him it wasn't that glamourous. Traveling through space is slow and boring, even at light speed. She still finds herself speaking to her nav-computer like a small child. The same way she spoke to her father on that first trip to Alpha Centauri to see the supernova. He didn't get the reference, so she told him, "Are we there yet!" He comprehended. They truly were from different worlds. As afternoon became evening, they made no promises that she might someday return. They both understood. The chances of her returning to this sector of the galaxy within his short lifespan were, well, astronomical. As the sunset, he walked her to the rendezvous point near the lake. They said their goodbyes under the cover of darkness. Her ship erupted out of the water and he remembered what she had told him about hiding it in plain sight. He now hid behind a tree as her crew greeted her. She had explained that they would think nothing of eliminating him to keep their secret. He had promised he would never tell, and she had believed him. *********************************************** He could hear the approaching sirens and the helicopters as her ship ascended. At that speed, they would be out of the atmosphere in minutes. When the police arrived, accompanied by men in black suits and matching sunglasses, he was alone. He didn't run. He didn't even look longingly toward the sky anymore. He just stood still, smiling. Seeing the moon reflecting off the lake...


Rose always wanted to be a musician. She always found herself fascinated by VMA and MTV awards. She’d spend hours envisioning herself with a shiny and polished grammy award. If Rose can travel to the underworld and fight to the death for this dream, maybe it will be hers in waking life. So Rose takes the bait and travels to the depths of the astral realm. Her thoughts blur and her body trembles as her consciousness rises out of her body like zombies re-surging to the earth. Rose arrives at a beige hall where a set of three light brown, wooden doors glisten. The three doors signify significant years in her music career. 10 years old (5th grade), 17 years old (her sophomore year of highschool), and 19 years old (her sophomore year of college). One door leads her to a memory where puberty breaks her voice in and she utilizes new vocal tools like vibrato for the first time. Another leads to her first time performing live. The final door leads to a time where she stops singing for a plethora of reasons, depression being one of the many. Her main fight is not Beyoncé or Taylor Swift, it is her doubt. There’s a secret that will light up her path beyond one of the doors. If she picks the right door, she will succeed.

When Rose lands in the beige hall, her eyes are still adjusting to the room. The room fades into a bright yellow as her eyes settle and she gazes around and all there is is a void. There is green, black, and yellow cursive plastered on the walls in arabic. A fair skinned woman floats into the hall. Her feet are barely off the ground and she’s floating with angel wings for arms. The hall where each door is is locked. A blue screen is glowing on each door.

“There is a time where you gave up your dream and that time is behind one of these doors.” A woman with brown long hair, brown tanned skin, and ghostly eyes says. “How do you know this?” Rose asks. “Because I’m one of your angels, your dream didn’t die at one singular point in time. Each time you nurtured them and awakened to your power, you felt fear. You overcame each fear with love but there came a time where the darkness consumed you,” the woman says. “What do you mean?” Rose asks.

“Put simply…you worried that your strength could destroy more than it could heal so you avoided your gifts worrying that you would be nothing without your pain.” she says

“i don’t understand,” rose says “you won’t understand now, it’s all repressed but you will once you watch all three videos we should get started now.”

The screens turn black and begin buffering with white dashes loading in the center.

“You will watch ten second clips of these memories. They may seem distant because your body stores memories rather than your consciousness, which is why no spirit remembers when they transfer their souls into a new body.

“Are you serious?” Rose asks. "Where do dreams go?” she asks.

“Well, they flutter into the abyss. They float in the air like oxygen and attach themselves to new bodies every day. That’s why dreams are so random. We breathe dreams like how we breathe oxygen.” She says.

“Now this is very important,” the woman says. “You lost your way in one of these memories, and to acquire your dream once again, you will be required to cultivate enthusiasm, joy, gratitude, and bliss all at the same time. It sounds easy, but you do it more than you think and I’ve seen it often from you.” she says.  “I lost my dream?” Rose asks.

“Yes, you threw it away because you felt inadequate. But don’t worry, you can get it back,” the woman says, “but now the universe needs to know that you won’t do it again. The truest test of faith is distance. The universe is giving you a second chance. You’ve already done the work, but now walking through the right door will give it back.

Rose turns her head when she hears a chime in the distance. “How long do I have?” she asks. “You have an hour in earth time and 10 minutes in astral time. Which clip would you like to watch first? There’s no order you’re required to watch them in.

“I want to choose number 19,” Rose says nervously. “Good choice,” the woman says. Before it starts, I ask her name. “I’m Ivy. Poise…but ivy.” she says smiling. My eyes held no hope in the clip. The more I learned, the more sorrow I felt. People believed in me less and less. Algorithms favored me less and less. Beauty faded with age and not substantially, either. I wasn’t old either, just unpolished. Insecure. I was just me. Swallowed by life’s conducive surprises. The blue screen turns black and my body trembles as the memory consumes me. The video is playing back a hopeless recall of the aftereffects of antidepressants. My face was plump and my stomach was round beneath my shirt, pulling the top half of it up to my chest. Without delay, this memory resurfaces. I pulled a notebook out of my bin of journals and rubbed dust off of the nape of my acoustic guitar. I peeked out of my window and the sun was setting smoothly. The guitar’s body was icy against my leg. The metal strings elicited pressure into my fingertips. As I pressed down, the guitar hummed in some random alternate tuning open d I believe.

I wrote word upon word, stringing together broken sentences in harmony with c shapes up and down the fret. Scribbles were dancing across the page. After formulating a verse and a chorus, I propped up my phone against my sheets. I stared at my reflection through the phone, looking long and hard, I couldn’t tell who I was anymore, so I shut my phone off. Tears streamed down my face. After watching this clip, I wasn’t sure when I had even left my body. This had to be the death of the dream. The doubt, the insecurity, the fear of judgment, my heart felt heavy and torn.

“You okay?” Ivy asks.

“Yea, I’m alright. I just never thought I’d make it out of that time, i've come so far.” Rose says.

“How so?” Ivy asks.

“Well, I started playing guitar just a few years after I learned how to sing. Life shifted gears. My self image got so bad that I couldn’t even create in the way that felt the most fulfilling.” Rose says. “It all just felt surreal and unfair.” “Listen, Rose,” Ivy begins, “Life is going to throw obstacles at you, but it’s up to you what you’ll catch and what you’ll throw back. It’s not your fault what you went through, but it’s up to you to grow from it and plant seeds of hope in your own life. You get me?” she asks.

“Yea I guess,” Rose says solemnly. I pick the next clip, the first one, number 10. I immediately glided into the hall of my 3rd grade auditorium. The warm lowlights cast a shadow on my chorus teacher’s face. Ms. Jones.

“You remember the lyrics?” she asks softly.

“Yes” I say. “Okay, sing the bridge for me” I sing quietly but my vocal chords tremble in a way they never have before. I cover my mouth in shock.

“What was that?” I asked fearfully.

“Your voice is blossoming,” she says with a wide smile. “That’s good. It’s called vibrato. Just go with it.

“Okay,” I say. My bright burgundy choir robe drags against the dusty tiled floor. I walk up the steps, passing all the proud families and staff smiling in the distance. An applause erupts once we’re all prepped on the stage. My stage fright begins in my hands. They tremble ever so slightly and my heartbeat quickens, and the room begins to spin. I take a deep breath and try to relax. I don’t remember anything until my solo. The spotlight traces my face as I step up to the lead microphone and there I am singing the national anthem. I’m welted into the heart of fear, coldness, and bare emotion. The end of this moment is something I remember clearly. I promised myself that I would never humiliate myself in this way ever again. The love must have been real because I did this, over and over again within the span of a 10 year radius. When I get back to the hall, I find Ivy sitting cross-legged on the ground. Her legs are drifting slightly above the ground. I look down at my feet and all I see is a white skirt draped down my body, but I can’t see the legs. “How much longer do I have?” I ask.

“you to have 5 more minutes,” she says.

“Okay, let’s jump to the last clip, the one in the middle, 17.” I’m hesitant to open the last door. Ivy’s wings glow as she waits “this is it,” I whisper to myself. The door creaks open and there is a nostalgic ambience to the abyss. I walk through the darkness and my feet lead me to a high school talent show that took place during my senior year. My guitar is weightless, strapped across my shoulder. Only a few people make up the audience, and empty chairs are clustered together. A backing track begins and I play along with it. I open my mouth to sing, but I freeze instead and feel claustrophobic. My hands tremble, and eventually, the strumming slows to a stop. Sweat trickles down my forehead. The crowd is silent, confused, and their silence is deafening. I breathe remembering my 5th grade chorus teacher’s words. Whenever you feel scared, imagine you’re the only one on stage. No one else matters. With a deep breath, I clench my guitar and strum, gathering myself. I step closer to the microphone and an applause erupts in the crowd. I gasp the moment I return to the hall with ivy. Everything makes sense. “You didn’t lose your dream” she says “you just forgot that the world isn’t against you”

The truth pulls me into its suffocating embrace. Each of these moments is proof of my love for music. Love that lifted me, sustained me, and kept me. The vibrato at 10, the freeze at 17, the depression at 19. Each of these moments molded me and told one story. Each time I gave into fear, the dream slipped away. I gave up because I was afraid of myself. I was afraid to grow, to change, I was afraid of being different. There was never a singular path carved out in front of me. There was no step-by-step plan. “Exactly,” Ivy adds. “Your gift was never lost - it was just waiting for you to come back,” Ivy adds. “How do I make sure I don’t lose it this time?” i ask

“By choosing love over fear, always.” She says “if you did it before, you can do it again” ivy smiles a warm smile. “Thankyou” I say.

“Not a problem,” she says “The dream is yours, now go get it.”

I wake up in my bedroom with sunlights engulfing my entire room. My guitar is right across from my bed with a post it note taped onto it. “Go get it :)” I pick it up and harmonize with the birds chirping in the distance. As I play the strings, they sing effortlessly, for the very first time in years. 5 to be exact. I feel whole. The dream never died. It was just waiting for me to believe in it again.


The Oak Brook Public Library was shaped like a UFO.

Or maybe one of those tiny shortbread butter cookies that Potbelly Sandwich Shop puts around the straws on milkshakes.

Either way, the undulating curves of the building hid me from the lightly trafficked road out front, and the darkness of night concealed me from anyone looking through the nearby fields.

Despite my rush, my hands fumbled with the ring of keys.

I couldn’t pick out the one that opened the main door in the darkness, and I dropped the whole jumble with a metal clang.

I froze, waiting for someone to call out, but heard nothing other than the gentle chirping of crickets.

I shrugged my heavy backpack higher up on my shoulders, reached down carefully to pick up the keys, and took a deep, calming breath.

Flipping through the ring until I came to one slightly larger than the rest, I slid it smoothly into the lock.

It turned with a click. I was in. The curved glass walls provided beautiful natural light that made the various reading nooks and crannies such a pleasure during the day.

At night, they meant that I didn’t even have the luxury of turning on my flashlight without risk of being seen.

Luckily, I knew the layout of shelves in the hub and spoke format like the back of my hand.

Besides a few red LED lights on the various emergency exit signs, the moonlight that shone through the windows was all the illumination I had.

Luckily, the moon was round and full, providing just enough pale glow to outline the long circulation desk before me.

I was grateful there was no one there to watch me climb awkwardly over the wooden counter. Two low shelves backed up to the circulation desk and held books put on reserve, divided by slips of paper with the name of the patron who requested them.

I slid further along the shelves until I bumped into a metal cart full of books ready to be reshelved tomorrow morning.

Working by feel, I unzipped my oversized purse and pulled out the books I’d lugged along.

I shuffled them in among the other books. Suddenly, I heard a metallic click behind me and froze, crouched beside the cart of books.

The front door swung open, and the overhead light came on as someone flipped the master switch.

“Come out, hands where I can see them,” shouted a deep male voice.

I wondered if I could stay low and shuffle out the back door before being spotted.

It would be a 50-yard crawl, but certainly more manageable with the lights blazing down on me. “I know you’re in here,” said the man.

“You set off the motion tracking alarm.

Right now, it’s just trespassing.

Don’t make this any worse for yourself.” Damn, I thought.

It hadn’t even occurred to me that there was more security than the deadbolt on the door.

It should have.

I was in one of the wealthiest suburbs of Chicago. He had me dead to rights.

I lifted both arms in the air and slowly rose from my crouch.

The police officer was standing just inside the main entrance, one hand hovering near his belt and the other touching the radio on his shoulder.

He hit me with a hard stare as I rose that turned into a look of mild confusion. “Ma’am?

You’re the trespasser?” he asked.

“No offense, but you look like you belong in a library.” I sighed and adjusted my glasses with one shoulder since my arms were still high in the air.

“Not many sixty-year-old women breaking into libraries these days?” I joked.

“I know I do, officer.

Not just look it, either.

I belong here.

Can I put my hands down, please?” He nodded, and I relaxed.

Still looking cautious, he sauntered over to where I was standing, his eyes taking in the books, my open purse, the clutter behind the circulation desk.

Finally, when he was about six feet away with the wooden desk between us, he stopped, looking me up and down again.

“Can I see some ID?” “Of course, officer.

It’s in my bag,” I said, my voice rising a few notes at the end like I was asking for permission.” “Get it.

Slowly.” Moving as cautiously and steadily as possible, I retrieved two cards from the outside zipper pocket and placed them face up on the counter between us.

He took them both and held them between us, scanning the cards while keeping me in his line of sight.

“Myra Sokoloff?” he asked, reading the name on my driver’s license.

I nodded.

He flipped to the other card and frowned.

“Is this some sort of a joke?”

He held up my work ID and compared the tiny square headshot to my actual face. I chuckled a little but stopped when the officer didn’t join in.

“It depends on your point of view, I suppose.” “So you’re telling me I was dispatched down here to catch the head librarian trespassing in her own library?” I gave him a sheepish grin.

“I was recently hired.

Technically, I don’t start until tomorrow morning.” His eyes narrowed.

“So what brings you in tonight then?” I huffed out a laugh.

“It’s complicated.” The officer cocked an eyebrow at me. “I grew up less than a mile from here, walking distance from the old library.

I practically lived there when I wasn’t in school.

But when I turned 11, my family moved to Boston.”

I paused, collecting my thoughts, and the policeman spun his finger in a classic hurry-up gesture.

“Ma’am, I don’t have all night.

Just the Cliff Note’s version, if you please.” “Fine.

Long story short, I accidentally packed a box of library books before that move.

I’ve carried them with me for more than 40 years through maybe a dozen states until I moved back here to Oak Brook.

And I happened to stumble across the box just last night in my attic.” “The night before you started work as the new head librarian.”

He finally cracked a smile. “Exactly.

I wanted to start on the right foot.

The books had to come back.” “So you broke in here--” “Not quite.” I held up the keyring and wiggled it a bit. He smirked.

“So you snuck in here to put the books back.” “That’s pretty much it.” “Can you show them to me?” It was so much easier with the lights on.

The books were bound with cloth covers in faded primary colors.

From the sides, it was clear that the pages had yellowed slightly from age.

They stood out in sharp contrast to the colorful paperbacks on the return cart.

I removed about a dozen and stacked them atop the desk. The policeman flipped open the first one, taking stock of the buff-colored paper pocket glued inside the front cover holding a slip of lined paper with a column of stamped dates. “I always loved Anne of Green Gables,” I said upon seeing which book had ended up on top.

“I read it more times than I could count through the years.” “Well, I suppose the library will be happy to have another copy.” Shrugging, I shook my head.

“Probably not.

I suspect it’ll end up donated or in the used book sale.

That copy has been out of circulation so long; I doubt we could enter it back in the system.” “So if the library won’t keep it, why’d you bother in the first place?

What was even the point?” I blinked in surprise.

“Well, it’s the right thing to do, isn’t it?

You can’t just keep a library book forever.” The officer shook his head and flipped the cover closed.

“Ma’am, I think you’ll make an excellent new head librarian.

Have a good night.” I stood in the library, surrounded by all my books, and smiled.


 We are somewhere behind them, our vantage point two hundred meters above and to their right. We are hiding within a small grove of fir trees with tired branches all droopy with their burdens of snow. The Instructor has his back to a sheer cliff face and is quietly talking to about five others, his arms gesturing this way and that, with around a thousand metres of bounce and screaming plummet below them. We had come up the mountain to check out reports of strange activity by a group of extreme sports enthusiasts and hadn’t expected to hit the jackpot such as we had.

  The Instructor was elusive and notorious and cloaked in an alluring mysticism. He was classically handsome, tall with dark hair and the kind of charisma which history has proven can either work miracles or create a shit-storm of imbalance and suffering. He had recently come back from India and Tibet where he had studied with several renowned masters for a decade or more. There was mention of wild, esoteric practices which culminated at death in ‘Rainbow Bodies’-a rare feat attesting to the practitioner's high, enlightened state. Second to this, but still indicative of a an advanced Yogi, was when the corpse shrunk to the size of a small child, or even to the extent only hair and teeth remained to testify to a once corporeal existence. Some sources invoked Milarepa, saying the instructor had been invited into the elite ranks of his current lineage.

  Milarepa was a tenth century Tibetan Mystic who, after renouncing a life as a Black Magician, achieved such a level of otherworldly enlightenment he was commonly seen by villagers flying around the snow capped mountains, sometimes in tandem with his beautiful and equally adept consort, ‘The Sky Dancer.’ When the instructor returned he opened a meditation centre and imparted a teaching he called ‘Falling Upwards.’

  The gist of it from what I can tell, is that the only thing which stops us from ‘flying’ metaphorically and, in the advanced stages literally, is our erroneous beliefs regarding the nature of our ‘True Being.’ Who we really are-Eternal, Weightless, Omniscient Spirit-both composes the substance of matter whilst remaining ever free and independent from it. Falling upwards is the recognition of this and, according to The Instructor, a process of Deep Surrender which blesses every moment with Presence and a Yielding, Openness of Heart.

  I am a simple, easy going cop and one blessed with a beautiful wife and two great kids. I am old school which means I can eat five donuts at a time and drink you under the table and take orders without questions and, yeah, I’d willingly take a bullet for my chief, or any one of my brothers or sisters on the force.

  I know...a bit cliche'd, right? But true enough, anyway. I guess what I am saying is this guy impressed me.   In almost twenty years as a cop I have seen more death and destruction than I care to remember; gruesome accidents and domestic shootings and stabbings and terrible fires and the like and most of it gets pushed deep down and covered over by regular card nights spent tipping the whisky…and to be honest I don’t need that excuse anymore and for sometime I am carrying a flask of vodka and lime juice around to keep things nice and jolly with the odd nip or two.

  So when this guy came along I took an interest-watching him on community t.v. speaking to halls packed with wide-eyed people and he lit me up with his words and the calm and gentle way about him. If that’s all he ever did and he hadn’t ventured into all this ‘falling upwards’ stuff with the weird spheres, I wouldn’t have been placed in this situation knowing I might have to arrest the guy-with due force if it came to that. And something inside me felt sick and repulsed by the idea.

  Like, who wants to shoot Jesus?

  But I am a career cop, first and foremost and The Instructor was breaking any number of health and safety regulations as he enticed his followers into these fleshy bubble contraptions and rolled them off steep inclines and precipices. He had attracted some attention from the law-including the F.B.I-but to date he remained free as a bird with no conclusive evidence to convict him of any serious crimes.   At first it was novel and the only notoriety he received was from appearances on the local news slotted in after the weather and near the end where the cute animal stories usually appeared. Then, during its trial days, the sphere’s were intriguing and were filmed rolling gently down grassy slopes as well as the odd, beginners ski range.

  In the talks I heard him give he never mentioned the 'Falloons' or ‘Light Spheres’ as he called them. At first he only spoke about Love and Peace and the usual stuff these guys roll out as they herd up a congregation of suckers and poor, suffering fools. Later he spoke about the human nervous system and how to release traumatic contractions in the muscles and body in general. When a steady inward focus lit up areas of dark tension within the mind and body, energies trapped for eons came home into the light and were freed leaving a more refined physical and auric body. It was an alchemic process, he said, where presence contacts the dross of matter, transmuting it back into the pure, golden light of consciousness.

  There was always something enigmatic about The Instructor and rumours abounded of him disappearing from view and suddenly reappearing again within locked rooms; or levitating with a softly lit hum within full view of a room full of people. Although he was said to have an inner circle of elite students, he went to pains to instruct whoever felt drawn to him and was hiring increasingly larger halls to accomodate this need. He was gentle, peaceful, charming and yet so powerful if you looked too long into his eyes you felt like a big semi was rumbling towards you on a tight, dark road with the big, bright lights and waves of earth shaking energy.

Or so I've been told!   These were the things which, as we were about to run out into the open and possibly shoot the guy, crossed my mind in slow, frowning disapproval. I look across at my chief, his face a mask of relaxed concentration, deep in the zone like an athlete awaiting the gun’s sharp report.   ‘Chief’ I whisper, ‘let’s go!’   ‘Wait’, murmurs the chief, wait…’   I look for that little tell the chief has when he is about to order us into action; the faintest trace of a smile comes across his face and his eyes flip up and out like a horse whipped into a lurching stride. He was older than me, in his late forties, and given to outbreaks of tubbiness. He hated this sort of field work and as I regarded him I couldn’t help smiling with a great, brotherly affection.   ‘Goooo!!’ he yells and the two of us begin to run in cartoon slowness towards the instructor and his group; despite wearing snowshoes our feet and ankles disappear into the soft, heavy powder. We'd talked about this and the chief said if he or others got into a Falloon we were to shoot, but only at the instructor and wide to his right so as to avoid hitting him or those clumped to his left. The chief hoped this would spook them long enough so we could stumble forward and get to them in time.

  ‘Stop’ I yelled, ‘police.’   The instructor looked up at us and said something to the group. It came out later he said casually, ‘okay, there are four Falloons and six of us. One is mine and so may I suggest…’ at this point we could see him pointing at the group, ‘Brad, Linda and Kim perhaps?’   What we saw was, with one hundred metres to go, Brad, Linda and Kim getting into their Falloons as the remaining two ran away to the left where the mountain sloped gently down to a thicket of pine trees. The instructor, poised to enter the unusual craft, calmly watched us approaching like we were part of a children’s game of hide and seek or tag the rabbit.

  ‘Stop Police’, yelled the chief, ‘or we will fire!’   Three more laborious steps and the chief let a whizzing bullet go just to the left of The Instructor.   ‘To the right, chief’ I yelled, ‘remember?’   ‘Shit’ muttered the chief as he puffed and heaved his way forward. We were now only fifty metres away from the instructor and his Falloon. The others were within theirs and adhered to their seats presumably awaiting The Instructor to do the same. The Instructor leant against his Falloon and casually gazed up with a beaming smile towards the blue sky as if in appreciative measure of its endless possibilities.

  We were close now and I could see the spheres in some detail; they throbbed and sweated and glowed in the sun like living things; they seemed to breath and tremble slightly with a hard to describe vibrancy. The crafts-if you could call them that-were designed to withstand the extreme violence of very high drops and descents. They literally bounced down mountains, ping-ponging off huge rock walls and cliff faces and flying high through the air as they bounced and rebounded this way and that. I have seen footage of The Instructor ride one down a steep, dry river bed from about fifteen hundred metres up. He was laughing and slapping his thigh like he were riding a huge bull in a rodeo. I watched amazed as the central 'cockpit' sphere remained suspended in a motionless freeze while the two outer balls rolled in a smooth ballet of synchronic, alternating rotations. We discovered later during an autopsy of a Falloon, that they were made of hi-tech, state of the art material which The Instructor designed and produced with the help of two of his friends-one a scientist specialising in nano-technology, and the other a famous engineer. The material was soft, skin like and yet virtually puncture proof when inflated. The Instructor outsourced the construction of the Falloons via tech savvy geniuses he found on the web. The Falloons were based on the concept of ‘Chinese dolls’ and consisted of three balls of descending size with the smallest in the centre housing a clear, see through chair which held the occupant firmly to it with three interlocking straps of the same material. The seat was seamlessly joined to the floor of the inner bubble which was designed to remain still while the outer two moved in opposite directions as the force of impact was absorbed and nullified. The sphere’s entrance was sealed from the inside by the press of the second remote button-imagine if a flap of translucent skin could be welded shut-but silently and minus all the heat and sparks, that’s what it looks like. The outer ball then lifted to its optimal expansion and gave a small, quivering jolt when the process was completed.   We were close now-around thirty metres or so-when the instructor gave a small gesture of his hand and the three Falloons began to roll slowly forward towards the precipice. A wind had picked up and snow dust swirled around the spheres as, one by one, they sort of floated like hovercrafts buoyed by light towards the mountains edge.

  ‘Stop’ we yelled together, ‘or we WILL SHOOT!’   As the three spheres rolled casually down towards the plunging drop, I got a good look at the occupants and they were grinning like they were at the inching, clattering beginnings of a wild roller coaster ride. Then, as the spheres disappeared quietly over the edge, The Instructor gave his Falloon a slight nudge with the back of his heal, sending it into a slow, powdery spin in the same, terminal direction. He then performed a slick, backwards moon-dance before saluting, about facing and running towards the vast horizon of cold, blue sky into which he joyfully soared before dissapearing down, down into the stark abyss of emptiness and bright, snow reflected light.

  As he began to run the chief raised his gun but I put my hand across his arm and lowered it towards the ground. The chief gave me a look but I placed my hand on the middle of his back and just shook my head, my eyes damp with exertion and emotion. The strange thought occurred to me that all these guys were doing was just having a little fun.   When He reappeared seconds later, hovering in full lotus and gifting us with a look of such Unconditional Love…the chief, never a man given to piety, collapsed to his knees in the wet snow and prayed like falling upwards was the most holy and blessed thing one could ever aspire to do.


All the sales representatives have a healthy competition amongst themselves every month. The 2 representatives that are usually first and second are Jerry and Linda. This month, at this point, Jerry is ahead of Linda by $ 1000. Today, being the 23 rd day of the month, the quota must be met in one week’s time. The 28th day of the month has arrived. All the employees sales are listed on a chart. Jerry has reached the quota for the month. The list indicates that Linda is $ 5000 below the quota requirement for the month. She has only 2 days to match or surpass the sales quota for the month. Mr. Richard Sentinel, their boss, calls a meeting for all the sales reps. He makes an unexpected, but gratifying, announcement. “I have called this meeting to make a special announcement. The sales representative with the highest amount of sales, in dollars, this month, will be rewarded with a Caribbean Cruise that must be taken Christmas Week this year.” When the sales reps heard this news, they all clapped their hands and cheered. At the end of the month, a last-minute sale catapulted Linda $ 1000 ahead of the sales quota for the month. That means that Jerry ended up $ 1000 behind Linda in total sales for the month. When the monthly meeting is called to announce which sales representative made the most sales, in dollar amount, Mr. Sentinel announces that Linda has. “Linda, you have surpassed the sales quota for the month by $ 1000. Congratulations! I am also pleased to announce that you have won the Caribbean cruise as an added bonus to the employee of the month award.” Linda is ecstatic! She cannot believe her good fortune! She is practically packing her bags to go on the Caribbean cruise right this minute! --- It is now Friday, the end of another work week.  Something totally unexpected happens to Linda. One of her client calls with an alarming announcement. The client decides his company no longer needs the $ 5000 of merchandise they bought last month. Therefore, they are cancelling their last order. The repercussions are immediate.

It is now a fact that Linda did not exceed the sales quota for the month. Therefore, Jerry is awarded with the employee of the month award. To add insult to injury, he is also awarded the Caribbean cruise that Linda had won. This news does not sit well with Linda. She is very upset about this whole situation. Rest assured; she will not take it lying down. --- Jerry invites the 10 sales representatives to his house to celebrate his success. On the night of the party, Linda brings with her some rat poison in a bottle. She knows that Jerry has a pet dog. All the sales reps and Jerry are enjoying drinks and food at the party. Linda excuses herself. She goes to the kitchen where there is the tray for the dog food. She discretely pours the bottle of rat poison onto the food and returns to the party. Unbeknownst to her, she accidently leaves the bottle, with her name on it, next to the dog food tray, and it rolls under the kitchen counter. She returns to the party to celebrate with her colleagues. This all takes place 4 days before Christmas holidays are to take place. --- After the party is over and everybody leaves, Jerry notices something peculiar about his dog. It stops barking and eventually stops breathing. He quickly rushes with the dog to the animal hospital. The veterinarian indicates that the dog has been poisoned but still has a chance to survive. With this situation, being what it was, Jerry cannot take the Caribbean cruise. Therefore, since Linda had the second highest sales for the month, she takes the cruise in his place. The following week is both good and bad. Good for Linda because she is basking in the warm Caribbean sun. Unfortunately, it is a bad week for Jerry. That is because his dog ended up dying from food poisoning. He wondered how that happened. It certainly wasn’t a Merry Christmas for Jerry. He returned to his home dejected and heartbroken. He wondered who could have poisoned his dog’s food? He had to return to as normal as life as possible without his dog, Rex. --- When he was in the kitchen, he bent over to pick up Rex’s dog food tray. When he bent over, he saw a quick flash of light. He wondered what it was. It turned out to be a reflection of light shining off a small bottle. He extended his arm to pick up the bottle from under the counter. He took a close look at it. Upon close observation, he saw a label attached to it. The name on it was “Linda”. He was shocked, but not really surprised. He now knows who the culprit of the crime was. This called for a drastic measure. He was going to report this cruel act to his boss, Mr. Sentinel, when work resumed after Christmas holidays. --- The Christmas holidays were over. Jerry placed the bottle with Linda’s name on it, in his briefcase. The first thing he did was walk into Mr. Sentinel’s office when he got to work. “Mr. Sentinel, you have a killer working for you!”, exclaimed Jerry. Mr. Sentinel was shocked to hear these words from Jerry. “What do you mean, Jerry?”, asked Mr. Sentinel. “Linda Cross poisoned my dog’s food and Rex ended up dying.”, said Jerry. “How do you know she did it?”, asked Mr. Sentinel. “I’ve got the proof right here.”, replied Jerry. Jerry pulled the bottle out of his suitcase and handed it to Mr. Sentinel. He explained how he found the bottle, where it was located in his kitchen, and when the dog died. Mr. Sentinel is not pleased with this malicious occurrence. He summons Linda into his office with Jerry present. Linda walks into Mr. Sentinel’s office and gets nervous when she sees Jerry present too. “Happy New Year, Mr. Sentinel. What can I do for you?”, asks Linda. “Miss Cross, you undertook a malicious act against Mr. Reed. You poisoned his dog’s food and killed it.” “I would never do that!”, replied Linda. “Mr. Reed has the proof. Show her the bottle, Jerry.”, exclaimed Mr. Sentinel. Jerry showed Linda the bottle with her name on it. She was speechless. She knew she couldn’t defend herself. “You are to pack all your belongings and leave this building immediately. You are no longer an employee of this company.”, stated Mr. Sentinel. Linda left his office. She packed her belongings and left the building. --- Mr. Sentinel thanked Jerry for his candor and honesty. “Jerry, because you were honest about this act of treachery that Linda committed, I am going to reward you with the Caribbean cruise you originally won.” Jerry was over the moon. He thanked Mr. Sentinel for his kind generosity. Jerry also realized something: Revenge is a dish best served cold.


"Lights out!" the prison guard shouted. I guessed it was 8 o'clock at night. It was that or he fell asleep for sometime. After all, he did look like he just took a nap. Anyway, it was time to go to sleep, but I wasn't tired just yet. And I knew why. I'd been here in prison long enough to realize. You see, I was framed. It was January of 2019 when it all happened. I was in the bank, getting some money to pay for my daughter's soccer camp. Next thing I knew, a person with a blue backpack, just like mine, was running out of a hallway holding a gun. A robber! Police followed him. However, it took one turn of a corner to throw them off. While all of this chaos was happening, I also tried to run out of the building, but I was slower than the robber. The police saw me and arrested me right on the spot. I had one chance to explain myself after that. But I was already forced to put on the grimy orange prison suit generations of prisoners probably already wore. The police and witnesses made their points. It was time to share my side of the story. "Well...you see...," I nervously argued, "I might be the spitting image of the robber, but I'm not. Just because...well...we wore the same backpack doesn't mean we are the same person." "Oh, so you know what the robber was wearing? Suspicious, suspicious indeed," the judge said. He started to write something down. "No! Not in that way! I was running out of the bank because I was nervous. The man who I saw had a gun, after all. But the robber was faster than me and hid in the bushes before the police saw him," I tried to explain. This was true. I did see him do this. I later knew that my explanation was not enough, though. Within two days, I was in an orange suit again, behind bars. I would stay in prison for the next ten years. I knew there was no hope of getting out before my sentence was over. I grew up watching those shows where prisoners escaped their cells and stuff like that. I knew I lived in reality, though. I wasn’t stupid enough to actually believe people got out of prison that way. Most of them waited and served their sentence, like I thought I would. There was a possibility that I would be pardoned by the president, but people only get that out of shear dumb luck. Seven more years to go, I thought miserably. So, in the morning, I woke up to the piercing yell of a guard. Not very pleasant, but, then again, I’d been here for a long time, and I’m not even halfway through my sentence. One way or another, I would eventually get used to it. A guard unlocked my cell along with several others, and I headed down to breakfast. Today was my lucky day, as there was some sloppy french toast that was more toast than french. Some might call it a meager meal, but prisoners call it a miracle. Unfortunately, I was a quick eater. Instead of savoring the meal like I should have, I gorged it, finishing in a maximum of five minutes. Pleased, I unfortunately remembered I was still in prison. “Courtyard, now! Everyone! That’s right, everyone!” the guard shouted, nearly giving me a heart attack. While recovering, I made my lazy self get my butt off the bench, throw out my plate, and slowly walk to the courtyard. This was where I was confused. You know that I had been here for three years, and this is true, but I never got the purpose of the courtyard. What were you supposed to do? Workout? Play tag like kindergarteners? Maybe hide-and-seek? All of these options seemed useless. We had a gym for working-out, and I had a feeling games weren’t fit for strong-armed, six-packed, buffed prisoners. Thankfully, there were bleachers. Most of the time, I sat on them and thought. About what? Several things, mostly about my family. Back home, I had a family of five;my wife, Sandra;my two sons, Stephen and Jordan; my daughter, Melony; and I, Dan Whailord. We lived at forty-two Cherry Lane. We were all happy, the five of us together. That quickly changed when I went to prison. Of course, they knew I was innocent. They visited me every day possible. However, that wasn’t enough. I longed to go home like I used to do everyday to see a warm smile on my kids’ faces and get a group hug from all of them at once. At this, I rubbed a tear from my eye. For some reason, thinking that it would make me feel better, I kicked the fence. I didn’t get a good pain in the shins, though. Instead, I fell off-balance and hit the ground. My foot was through the fence! I wiggled my foot. It was touching free land, land not guarded 24-7 with guards carrying threatening guns. Quickly, I got back on my feet and looked around. No one saw. Acting as if nothing happened, I sat back on the bleachers. Now, I had something else besides my family to think about. I had something revolutionary to think about. I mean, could those cartoons I saw on TV when I was a kid happen to me in real life ? The thought of it gave me a tremor of excitement. Happiness flooded me. This could be my ticket to freedom. I could escape and then- “Lunchtime!” one guard announced. I had no more time to think. I got up and went to the lunchroom. I saw the food options and said, “Grilled cheese, please,” with a tone of happiness that wasn’t usually there. I gobbled down my grilled cheese just like I did with my french toast. The rest of the day went smoothly. As it went by, I had more and more time to think about my fantastic escape plan. I called it the “No More Orange Suits Plan.” I figured that I would go at the last free time, where no one decided to go to the courtyard. No one would see me. To start off my plan, I somehow managed to grab a set of clothes that weren’t orange whatsoever. Instead, I grabbed a red shirt and blue jeans. Next, I headed off to the corner of the courtyard. I looked around. No one was looking at me. I slipped through the crack and ran for it. I only stopped running when I was sure I was at least ten miles away from the site. I laid down the clothes and took off my orange suit. I replaced them with the red shirt and blue jeans. I started a fire. To fuel it, I burned the orange suit. Fire was usually a bad sign to me, but right about now, I loved it.


(CW: Mental Health, Self Harm, Gore) The water down my back begins to run cold. My fingers pruned, my back hunched, a mop of hair falls into every corner of my vision. The cheap coconut conditioner is cold and fragrant. I hear banging on the bathroom door. “Hurry it up in there.” It’s my voice. The brightness in tone had faded with time. The dwindling years on my mind, there would be no patience. Not for anyone. Especially me. Two knocks punctuate the voice of my older self. “Hurry. Up.” I never understood why I decided to be roommates with myself. We each hated it. We hated each other. The worst parts of ourselves were reflected infinitely, like two parallel mirrors. Only the reflections can leave a sink of soiled dishes. My hair is a brown matted net. The water running down my back is cold now. I turn the metal handle with my foot and the room falls silent. Like a secluded cave, moist, and lifeless, I run my burning fingers through hair made of steel wool. Like a tangled slinky, like a hastily stored set of Christmas lights, I begin to unfurl. I am waiting outside the bathroom to use the shower. My hair is silver. It is shoulder-length wet. It curls into a rounded puff. Defying gravity, it adds inches to my height. I don’t know why I spent years with it so long. It was so much work. It ate away hours. It got in the way. I am happy with where I am and comfortable with a quick 2-in-one conditioner. But a sadness weighs on me. The younger ones tell me I should cheer up. They don’t know the half of it. The scars. The aches. The unyielding sense of disappointment. It’s their fault I am like this. I don’t know why I agreed to live with them in the first place. I am furiously pounding on the door. But I don’t listen. I am shrieking. I sound like my parents. I hate that I sound like my parents. I know the younger me likes it less. But I don’t care. Not Like I used to. I ignore the frantic screams outside the bathroom. I feel a sense of pity, but I am used to it. It is still my turn in the shower. I work the conditioner through my hair. It burns my scalp. A defined sear across the back of my head. It’s not supposed to do that. I’m not supposed to have a wound there either, but it’s better than it used to be. In the bedroom over, I lay in bed. My hands are buried in the mess of hair. I am younger. I dig. I scrape. I pick. I tear. There’s a mole on the back of my head. Only I know about it. Well, I suppose the rest of my roommates know about it too. It is raw. I have never seen it behind the veil of hair, but I know it is bright red, the size of a peanut, a consistent nuisance that only I can feel. Nobody else believes me. I need to sleep. Why can’t I sleep? I want to die. I don’t want to be here. My scalp oozes. My fingers are red. I keep digging. I am even younger. A child. I got out of the shower and went to school all by myself. I am in gym class now. Hair pokes out of my head like toothbrush bristles. I am running around the gym, and it reeks of old wood polish, or wax, or whatever they used. I am behind the other children. I am falling faster behind. Breathing harder, muscles aching; I sweat. The kids are smiling and laughing. I try to catch up to them. The sweat bleeds from my scalp, it smells like coconut. I want to show them, but the burning in my lungs keeps me behind. I am off work. I am a young adult. My hair had been restrained in a tight bun for countless days. It had never been this long before. I have to drive to Oregon for Thanksgiving dinner. I will drive alone. I will wear the clothes of my dead uncle. I will leave my partner behind. My family can’t know I am queer. Not yet. But first, I will let my hair down. I will wash it. It shouldn’t take long. I approach the bathroom. The oldest of us is still waiting outside. I am not waiting. I am already in the shower. But my hair had been neglected for weeks, maybe months. I have to drive to Oregon in a few hours. I force the bathroom door open. “I’m still in here,” I say frustrated. I wish my roommates would let me shower in peace. But I was angry when I was younger. I forgive myself for that. I am off work, I am younger. I have to be in Oregon in a few short hours. I rip away the curtain exposing a hunched creature with fingers blindly feeling through hair. I lift my naked body out of the shower and drop me on the cold toilet. “I have to be in Oregon,” I say to myself. “I know,” I reply from the toilet. Cold, wet, and naked I grab my phone to distract myself as I wait. I rip away my work uniform and jump in the shower. I try to wash my hair. It is the worst it’s ever been. None of us remember how long it was. The years of growth are torn out in handfuls. Hours pass. I arrive at Thanksgiving dinner late and my hair is still tangled. Now that I left for Oregon, I got off the toilet and back into the shower. I methodically work out snags and matted strands. I slowly weave the conditioner between every hair. The strands cut against wrinkled, drenched skin. My fingers accumulate strands like a brush that feels pain. Each swipe of the hand gets caught. Each strand slices skin like razor wire. This will take a while, there is no telling how long. I get back from Oregon. I am at a specialist. He cringes at the sight of my hands. I have tried everything. He gives me two prescriptions to grow the skin back and keep it: A steroid ointment. A career change. I go to work. My job matters. We are in the middle of a pandemic. People are quitting faster than we can hire. The water is boiling, but I don’t care. My bare hands plunge into the water. There is no one left to do the work. If I am not helping others, I have no other reason to exist. I don’t work that job anymore. I am older. I am in the shower. I rub my hands together, balling up the accumulated broken strands. The ball of hair is almost cute. At school, the class works on self-portraits. I am young. I am a child. I excitedly ask the teacher if I can use my own hair. My older self, with a gray poof, gives me a trim. I bring a plastic bag of my hair and glue it to my self-portrait. My classmates are repulsed. They think it’s disgusting. They think I am disgusting. I am an adult. I am still in the shower. I don’t know how long it has been. But it has been a while. I am shivering. Heat evaporates out of my body. My back is sore from hunching over. I turn the water on in hopes of heat returning. Scalding water dapples my back. I jump forward. I slip. My body impacts. My saturated hair slaps against the wall sponging my face and coating it with cheap coconut. I yelp. I stay on the floor of the shower. I am in the kitchen. I am older but still young. I portion a batch of beans into reusable plastic lunch containers. I love beans. I smile. I hear a thump from the bathroom. I must have fallen in there. The beans can wait. I approach the bathroom. I see myself with grey hair and arms crossed waiting outside. “Am I okay in there?” I ask my older self. “Why don’t you ask the pill farm you’ve been seeing,” I say to my younger self sardonically. I really do sound like my parents. “I’m trying.” I tell my older self, “You don’t have to make it harder.” “You know, I might just leave altogether,” I say to my younger self. “You’re just going to mess it up again.” “I don’t think that’s necessarily true,” I retort to my older self. Each of myself hears a cry in the bathroom. It’s me I am younger. I ignore the jabs of my oldest self and enter the bathroom. I am on the floor of the shower. Scalding water burning my skin, I let it burn me. I stay down. I approach myself in the shower. I help myself up. I set the shower to a comfortable temperature. I begin to help myself untangle. Eventually, between the two of me, hands run cleanly through. It’s encouraging. The next pass gets caught again, but I continue to gently work out the tangles. Each pass of fingers glides with greater ease. The coconut is light and fluffy as it permeates each curl. I am almost done. At least for now. There used to be color in my hair. Then there used to be bleached strands. It had all been torn out over the years. I never got it cut. It used to be down at my ankles. After years of neglect, despite consistent growth, half was left. It is a length I will cherish and nurture. I rinse. The individual curls spring freely across my shoulders and down my back. I am smiling. I wrap myself in a towel and leave the bathroom. The oldest was no longer outside. I must have moved out. I wonder if someone else is going to move in. I let the thought pass, I did have beans to make after all.


Roach scuttled along the street, sidestepping the chunks of broken buildings and shattered glass. The pads on the bottom of his six spiny legs could have easily helped him climb the debris, but he barely had the energy to even hold his antennae up after a long day spent hunting. A long, futile day. Just more decaying bodies and dead wood, a few bits of cardboard here and there. They weren’t terrible snacks, but Roach longed for the days he scratched through the kitchen walls, stealing bits of cheese off the table. Once, he even had the pleasure of gulping up a layer of powdered sugar dusting the countertop. Roach sighed and shook the ash off his body so that he once again resembled newly minted copper. He could have sworn he smelt the sweetness. He suddenly skidded to a stop on the cracked asphalt. His antennae quivered. Roach wasn’t imagining it; there was a sweetness. He closed his eyes and inhaled. There! Roach snapped his head around. A piece of a brick with a large crack running through it sat to his left. Roach stared. There was something odd about that brick. He glanced up at the world around him. Pieces of ash rained from the heavens, covering everything in a layer of gray. Half-destroyed shops, some of them still smoking, lined the street. Only one of them had bricks, and a faded sign on its door (which hung on only one hinge) said “Bakery.” Bakery? Something tickled the back of his mind. There was a cookbook in the kitchen… “Bakery Treats for the Beginner.” His stomach rumbled. The days when the old woman opened the book were good days. Days where Roach got to enjoy sugar and vanilla, and perhaps a sprinkle of nutmeg. Days where he almost floated from the intoxicating aroma of chocolate— Chocolate. Roach widened his eyes. He returned his gaze to the brick, crawled forward, and peeked inside the crack. A crumb. A human food crumb, so tucked away inside the brick it remained untouched by the raining ash. It was the color of sand with a darker brown around the edge, and about half the size of his oval body. The smell, the color, the consistency of the particles—Roach knew exactly what morsel he had found: a chocolate chip cookie crumb. Roach almost cried. Chocolate chip cookies were his favorite snack before the nuclear blast. He remembered the last time he enjoyed one—in the kitchen when the old woman decided to bake enough cookies for the whole town. He didn’t need to eat for weeks after the feast. He was sorry the old woman got blown up with the rest of them. “You’re beautiful,” Roach whispered to the crumb, who said nothing back. He took a step forward and caressed the crumb with his antenna. She really was beautiful; she almost shimmered with the sun reflecting off the small batch of chocolate decorating her edges. Roach felt a twinge of self-consciousness at his ugly, burnt copper body. “I’m Roach,” he said to the crumb, who said nothing back. He inhaled her sweetness and shuddered; none of his friends would believe this. His friends! Roach swiveled his head to the left and right, furious with himself for being so careless. He was so close to the Fort; any one of them could smell the crumb if the right breeze swept through. He turned back to the crumb— his crumb—and a fierce wave of protectiveness washed over him. “I’ll keep you safe,” he murmured to the crumb, who said nothing back. Roach scurried around the road until he found a suitable piece of crumpled cardboard, then hurried back to his crumb. He gingerly pulled her out of the crack and wrapped her in the cardboard before setting the bundle on his back. He gave a shake. She didn’t budge. Roach spared one last glance around before scuttling away in the opposite direction of the Fort. Where to take her? The scorpions were to the north and the Grand Lake to the south. He couldn’t risk her being discovered, even if the scorpions were friends. He certainly couldn’t risk her getting soggy. He tucked the crumb more securely onto his back and began to scuttle west. Roach traveled for weeks. On clear evenings, he plucked her out of her cardboard cocoon, gently set her next to him and wrapped his antennae around her. They watched the sun paint the sky orange as it sunk below the mountaintops. On the days it rained ash particularly hard, Roach covered her in dry twigs and stood guard, coughing and sneezing as he struggled to breathe. He consumed pieces of hair and leftover sewage. She consumed nothing. They passed broken houses and demolished skyscrapers that had once towered over the streets. Roach crawled around cars and dead bodies and struggled to climb the hills. “You good back there?” Roach asked the crumb, who said nothing back. Once, she fell off of him and rolled down a steep slope. He screeched so loud he couldn’t speak for a week. The cardboard did its job spectacularly, though, and she remained in one, beautiful piece. Twice, Roach smelled a wasp buzzing near him, and he burrowed straight underground to hide his prize. Thank goodness the only survivors of the blast were the wasps and the scorpions and his kind, or Roach would be fighting a different monster every minute. Finally, a month into the journey, Roach sat inside a mountain cave with the crumb at his side. She leaned against him and together, they stared at the ashen valley spread out below them. Smoke curled from the ruins. The glow on the horizon told Roach that fires still roared in the distance. “We made it,” he whispered to the crumb, who said nothing back. He stared at her. The crust, the chocolate, the glow of dusk—he never could have imagined this. “I love you,” Roach said to the crumb, who said nothing back.