Experienced mountaineers are extremely cautious and always avoid taking unnecessary risks. Jake was not an experienced mountaineer. He had been to a few classes, of course; he wasn’t that stupid. He knew to check the harness every time, double check the knots, how to haul himself out of an icy crevasse with altitude sickness and a broken arm…that sort of thing. In fact, altitude sickness was the one thing that they’d covered on the course that had spooked him a little. High-altitude cerebral edema , they said, is what happens when fluid collects in your brain. Along with severe headache and nausea, it can also cause drowsiness, uncharacteristic behavior, and loss of consciousness. After a presentation of case studies of people suffering from altitude sickness and the traumatic events that followed, Jake had left feeling thoroughly sick himself. But that didn’t stop him making plans for his first ascent to the summit of Mount Washington. It couldn’t be that hard…could it? It certainly wasn’t an easy mountain to climb. Especially not this time of year. The most popular route to the summit was via the Tuckerman Ravine Trail, but in winter it was closed due to the risk of avalanches. Instead, he would have to take a much steeper route. Aside from the obvious hazards, there would be no facilities on the summit- which meant no public areas to rest or take shelter in a snowstorm. He didn’t expect to see anyone else up here in such freezing conditions, either. But he was prepared, with fifty pounds of the best gear he could afford, a laminated map of the route and an ton of trail mix. And anyway, he preferred these conditions. The cold heightened his senses, gave him more of a thrill. And the view would be breath-taking, of course. He set off before sunrise. The mountain loomed overhead in the semi-darkness like a schoolmaster, the morning sun a naughty toddler peeping over the horizon. He had been looking forward to and preparing for this trip for months. His friends had gone on a long trip hiking the Appalachian trail last year. They were all big on extreme sports and idolized the mountaineers in the 60s who had done it without a lot of modern age comforts. They hadn’t invited him along for reasons they wouldn’t disclose, but he suspected it was because they thought he wasn’t up to much. ‘Everyone has to start somewhere, Jakey.’ They had said, with an air one might use when talking to a child. ‘You’ll get there. You just have to keep trying. They’d said that when he’d got his first girlfriend too. He began his walk, first heading east along Tuckerman Ravine, before he turned and began to climb north. The ascent passed without incident, unless you counted several stops for sustenance, and by lunchtime he had relaxed into his own natural rhythm. He was feeling confident he would reach the summit in a few hours’ time. He stopped to catch his breath half-way up, and to take a look at the view slowly spreading out below him. The sun was finally warming his toes now and the mountain was less intimidating in the daylight. At this altitude, the snow was still fairly soft, and the gradient was relatively gentle and easy to navigate, having been explored by many other mountaineers over the years. Feeling proud of his achievement thus far, he removed some layers and even took a couple of selfies- to send to his friends, and to his mum, of course. She liked to see what he was getting up to these days. Further on, however, the route became steeper, and harder to discern from the endless wasteland of snow around him. There were invisible patches of ice, and the snow was densely packed and slippery. An experienced mountaineer would have been using crampons, or at the very least been holding their ice axe in their hand, in order to save themselves in the event of a fall. But Jake was having the time of his life, dizzy with his success, and absolutely oblivious to any danger. He’d show them! Suddenly and without warning he slipped and plunged onto his stomach. He glanced over his shoulder and was confronted by the harrowing sight of five thousand feet of snowy mountain below him, shining in the midday sun like the glorious gates of heaven. Idiot! What was he thinking?! That could’ve been it, then! He took a moment to calm himself, breathing deeply in and out a few times. Much as he hated to admit it, the sudden feeling that he might be about to slide to an icy doom had shaken his confidence a little. He was going too fast. C’mon, Jake. Just take it slow. It was time to bring out the big guns. He grappled with his rucksack for a moment to pull on his crampons- sharp, spiky casings that attached onto his boots, to give him more grip. That ought to do the trick. Tentatively, he tested one out. Immediately, his boots made firmer contact with the snow, and he heaved a sigh of relief. Reassured, he took a confident step forward, lost his balance and immediately plummeted feet first down the mountain. His mind went blank, wild with terror as the ground below rose up to meet him. He scrambled to try and roll onto his back to see where he was going and immediately regretted it. His hands grabbed desperately at the ground, fingers spread wide apart, but he was travelling too fast, he couldn’t stop…a sudden flash of memory came to him and he recalled something the alpine instructor had showed them at the ski slope…something called a self-arrest? He wasn’t carrying his ice axe! Jake, you fucking moron! Terrified now, he scrambled for a footing, attempting to dig his crampons into the snow and using his hands to try to slow his descent, frantically trying to pull the axe out of its loop, but he only succeeded in ripping open his rucksack; the contents spilled out miserably after him, like a regrettable contrail of woe. Mournfully, he covered his face and screamed. Unexpectedly, his crampons dug into something solid, and quickly slowed his fall. He had landed in a large snowdrift, up against the side of a small building. Gasping with shock, he lay on the ground, dizzy from the adrenaline. Relief and joy welled up inside him. He was saved! He would live to climb another day! He laughed in between gasps, checking himself over for injuries. Definitely a few bruises, and his hands felt raw from trying to stop himself sliding, but nothing a hot bath and a few ibuprofen wouldn’t solve- he was alive! At least his humiliating descent had been a private one. He got shakily to his feet, and gingerly checked over his pack. The axe was still lodged stubbornly in its casing (of course), but most of the contents of his pack appeared to have been strewn around the mountain, including the several pounds of trail mix he had lovingly packaged into individual sealed bags for easier consumption. His torch and compass were missing, along with the- extremely expensive -GPS altimeter watch. It took quite a lot of willpower for him not to sit back down and burst into tears right there. He’d spent all of last months’ paycheck on getting the best gear he could afford, and that watch had been the biggest purchase. Moreover, if he couldn’t find his stuff, he couldn’t continue on up the mountain, and he wouldn’t be able to get to the summit. Cold, tired, and overwhelmed, he reasoned that he wasn’t going to get any of it back this way. He would have to wait a while, and rest. He wasn’t going to risk something like that happening again. Served him right for being so foolish. He retrieved the ice axe from his rucksack and held it cautiously at his side- resisting the urge to throw it on the ground in frustration -and decided to check out whatever this building that had broken his fall was. Maybe there might be someone in there who would lend him a map, or…at the very least, it was a sheltered area to sit, warm up and calm down. As he edged carefully around the perimeter, he was surprised to find a grand wooden chalet, with a large overhanging roof sat snugly into the mountainside. It was surrounded by a small veranda, held up by twisting wooden beams that looked as though they had been hand-crafted. Colored lights twinkled in the windows, and a friendly plume of smoke rose from the chimney. Outside, a rusty old snowmobile and a cluster of tools decorated the yard, next to a small information board. ‘That was some fall you took there, dearie.’ Said a voice, startling him. An old woman was standing on the veranda, watching him with some amusement. Ah. Not so private after all. ‘Yeah.’ He stuck his chin out, trying to seem nonchalant. ‘I…er…fell.’ ‘Is this your first time on Mount Washington?’ She asked. She had a quaint little voice that sounded like butterflies. Even in his current state, he warmed to her. Jake hesitated. ‘Yeah…’ He admitted guiltily. ‘Oh dearie.’ Her face softened with sympathy. ‘I’m Audrey. Want to come inside and warm up? We’re supposed to be closed for the winter, but I couldn’t leave you out here all on your own. I’m sure Frank won’t mind. We’ve got rooms left upstairs.’ ‘Uh…sure.’ Jake tried to hide his joy. He was mightily embarrassed that she’d paid witness to his epic tumble, but he wasn’t above swallowing his pride for a mug of cocoa and the chance to warm his toes. Inside the chalet was cozy and well lit, with a roaring fire crackling merrily in the hearth. A winding staircase led to an upper landing, which presumably housed the rooms for rental use. There were plenty of places to sit, each adorned with an assortment of patchwork quilts and cushions, all of which looked to have been made by hand because they were misshapen and wonky. There was a small area by the door with spare belaying and skiing equipment, and a massive fur draped over the banister that looked like a black bear’s pelt. An ancient and somewhat rusty looking pickaxe hung over the door. A man was sitting in a rocking chair beside the fire, apparently fast asleep. As they came inside, he jolted awake, saw Jake, and his eyes went wide. ‘I found this young man outside on the mountain, Frank.’ Audrey said. ‘He was pulling off some impressive stunts.’ She tittered a little, and Jake looked at his feet. C’mon man, think of the cocoa. ‘Sorry to disturb you.’ He grinned apologetically, putting on his best performance of someone who knows what they’re doing. ‘I lost my footing up there on the mountain and dropped some of my gear-’ ‘A mountaineer!’ The man interrupted gleefully. ‘I used to be a mountaineer, you know! Back when I could still get around!’ ‘Oh! Um, that’s nice.’ Said Jake uncertainly. He hadn’t been expecting that response. ‘Yes!’ Cried the man. ‘I used to get up and down that mountain in less than an hour!’ ‘Yes dear.’ Said Audrey, smiling fondly at him. ‘Would you like some hot cocoa dearie?’ She asked Jake. Oh, mother of God, there it was. ‘Yes please.’ He responded, trying not to look too eager. As she busied herself in the kitchen, the old man fell silent again, his eyes glazed over, and he stared into the fire. Jake sat awkwardly on one of the many patchwork chairs arranged around the fire, and took off his boots. It seemed like a pleasant place to stay for the night. Maybe he could continue his journey to the summit tomorrow morning. ‘Would you like some cocoa too, Frank?’ Audrey called to him from the kitchen. ‘I remember!’ The old man suddenly spoke again, with the same gleeful enthusiasm. His eyes fell on Jake’s ice axe, lying at his feet, soaking a wet patch into the mismatched soft pile rug. ‘It was the coldest part of Winter, 1966. I was the leader- there was 6 of us, you know. We scrambled the first thousand feet and belayed the rest. It was one of the most exhilarating experiences of my life.’ Jake raised his eyebrows. Clearly this man knew a thing or two about mountaineering. ‘How did it go?’ He asked him. ‘Ahh.’ The man heaved a deep sigh, closing his eyes. ‘Things started off well, but the weather turned the day after we set off, and we got caught in a bad storm. We had to dig a hole in the snow to keep warm. And then- I fell into a crevasse!’ ‘Here you are, dearie.’ Audrey returned to give Jake the cocoa. Gratefully he bent his head to take a sip and the hot liquid scalded his tongue. He resisted the urge to take another sip.

‘It was early in the morning, and I was boiling snow for drinking water.’ Frank continued. ‘That’s what you had to do, back in those days! We didn’t have these fancy tablets or whatever you have nowadays.’ He eyed Jake suspiciously. ‘Anyway, I had gone to find a suitable patch of snow to set up my stove, and that was when I saw it- The Sasquatch!’ Jake breathed in the smell of the cocoa, enjoying the warm comfort of the mug in his hands. If this was the price of a good mug of cocoa on his raw and aching hands, he was happy to play along. ‘No way!’ He said incredulously. ‘Really?’ ‘Yes, I did!’ The old man said, nodding triumphantly. ‘I saw him! And so, naturally, I wanted to get a closer look, but as I was heading over to him, I fell into the crevasse. The rest of the team had to pull me out. And by the time they’d done it, he’d gone!’ ‘Yes dear.’ Audrey was engrossed in her knitting. Jake got the distinct impression that she wasn’t really listening. Frank lowered his voice, speaking directly to Jake now. ‘They all think I’m batty round here, you know.’ He said seriously. ‘But I get it. You youngsters think you know what’s what, think you’ve got it all figured out. But I was young once. It’s all very well throwing yourself down a mountain once in a while- but you’ve got to learn how to do it properly.’ Jake stared down into his cocoa. The memory of his missing belongings returned to his mind. He screwed up his face, imagining his friends off on their hiking trip. He had just wanted to try and do something right for once. ‘Hey, listen. Everyone messes up sometimes. Don’t worry about it.’ Frank said, rocking absent mindedly in his chair. ‘If I learnt one thing in 70 years of mountaineering, it’s that it’s better to fail and live and be able to try again.’ ‘Yeah…’ Jake mumbled miserably. The old man seemed to soften. He watched Jake carefully for a few minutes, studying his face. Then he got to his feet, knelt before the fire, and reached behind his chair, before pulling out an antique wooden chest. ‘Take a look in there.’ He said to Jake. ‘Go on.’ Curious, Jake lifted the lid. Inside was a series of artefacts, newspaper clippings, treasures he’d acquired during his time mountaineering. Jake looked at the items in wonder. It was like a time capsule of days gone by. ‘That’s me.’ Frank pointed to one of the newspaper clippings, where a young man with pimples and a goatee was grinning triumphantly back at the camera. ‘I was so arrogant back then. Not like you. I never accepted help from anyone. It wasn’t healthy.’ He reached further into the chest and scooped something out, hesitated for a moment, then quickly gave it to him. ‘I want you to have these.’ Two gleaming carabiners, engraved with the initials F.M. ‘I can’t take these.’ Jake said incredulously. ‘Please take them.’ Frank begged him. ‘I can’t go out on the slopes anymore. I want them to get used. And anyway…’ His eyes closed once more. ‘I can’t remember what day it is most of the time here anyway. I probably won’t even notice they’re missing.’ Jake smiled. ‘Oh, I’ll make sure they get used.’ Only a few weeks later, Jake was back in his mountaineering gear. His friends had invited him to ‘get some experience’, on a smaller series of slopes closer to home. He hadn’t mentioned the incident on Mount Washington to them yet. ‘We thought we’d go somewhere that’s more your skill level Jakey.’ One of them said playfully. He had smiled and laughed along with their jokes, too busy looking forward to climbing again to feel too hurt or annoyed by their comments. They all swarmed round him, making sure that his equipment was on properly and his knots were tight enough and he had everything in the right place. Jake, smiling slightly, let them check him over, feeling that he was going to be safer than everyone else put together today. ‘What’s that?’ One of them asked, pointing at his carabiner. ‘Your initials aren’t F.M.’ Jake took a deep breath, and very matter of factly told them about meeting the kind couple at the chalet on the mountain- tactfully leaving out the part where he slid several hundred feet on his butt -and the old man who had given them to him. ‘Wait.’ One of them said with a face like thunder. ‘Wait. You said his name was Frank Miller. You mean THE Frank Miller? The mountaineer from the 60s with the goatee? That one?’ ‘That’s the one.’ Jake said, trying not to feel too smug. He had a feeling he was going to enjoy this trip.


They think I did it. That we did it. Did IT. I was seven when I met Steve for the first time. He was picking up my mom for a date and I answered the door when the bell rang. He had flowers in his hand, yellow daisies mixed with the regular white ones tied with a blue ribbon. His other hand was behind his back. He said hello and “surprise, this is for you!” and held his hand out in front of me. He opened his fingers and inside there was a bracelet made with pink beads. I just stood there and whispered thank you. With a slow smile, he asked if he could come in and, turning red, I opened the door, partly hiding behind it. Mom was still upstairs, probably trying on her 20th outfit with the ones she discarded in a pile on her bed. Her lips would be bright red from the lipstick she saves for special occasions. I wished I’d brushed my hair. He came inside and went straight to the kitchen like he’d been here before. I watched him from the hall as he opened the cupboard, took out a tall glass, filled it with water and put the bouquet inside. He placed it on the small table where mom and I eat breakfast and sometimes supper. Without turning around, he said ‘now come in here and let me put this bracelet on your pretty little wrist”. Mom came down and with her fake smile and a high pitched voice and asked “what’s going on in here? Steve, I see you’ve met Lizzie”. I showed her my wrist with the new bracelet and she said “why Steve, you are just the sweetest! Lizzie, we are going out to dinner. I left you some chicken in the fridge. You can go next door to Mrs. Pratt’s if you need anything. Don’t open the door for anyone”. Before long, Steve was living with us. He would smile at me between bites of cereal at breakfast, walk past me from the bathroom as I was heading in to get ready for school. He’d be wet from the shower and only have a towel on, pat the top of my head as he walked by. He worked days and my mom worked the lunch shift, and sometimes dinner, at a restaurant in town. Steve would be there when I got home from school. He would help me with my homework and then sometime we would do things around the house for mom or go grocery shopping. Usually though, we would go outside and walk around the neighborhood. As I got older, he would teach me how to play basketball, standing behind me guiding my arm for a layup or standing close to me with his arms circled around me, guarding me. So close I could feel his breath on my face. By the time I was in middle school, I was taller than all the other girls and even some of the boys. I made the basketball team and Steve would come to all my games. Mom would come when she could. I could hear Steve cheering me on. Mom didn’t like sports very much and didn’t really understand them. I don’t think she even watched me that much or knew if we won or lost. Walking to the car, he would say “way to go Kiddo!”. Steve and I would talk about the game all the way home, He would talk about missed three point opportunities or what I could do to improve foul shots. Mom would stare out the window. I knew she felt left out but I didn’t care. Steve was my biggest supporter. I could talk to him about anything. Sometimes, when he worked overtime and had extra money, he would buy me a pair of jeans or some nail polish. Mom would say he bought me more gifts than he bought her but he would just laugh and say “come on Maggie, you know you are my special girl”. Now when I got home from school Steve would be there with a snack and a plan. We would take long drives to neighborhoods with big houses, green lawns and swing sets in the back for the kids, Some even had pools. He would say “Lizzie, work hard and you can live here someday. You can be anything you want”. He’d look at me and smile. He had a sweet smile, one that really made me feel loved, secure. If the weather was bad, we would sit on the couch and watch TV. I’d get sleepy sometimes and lay my head on his shoulder or in his lap and wake up to the door slamming loudly shut when mom came home, angry that dinner wasn’t ready. By the time I was in high school, I was still one of the tallest and still playing basketball. I was pretty confident on the court, but awkward everywhere else. My mom was an expert with her makeup and when I tried it on, I looked like a clown, One time, she caught me trying on her red lipstick and said it wasn’t my color. Actually, what she said was “ that color looks awful on you. who are you trying to impress anyway, Steve?”’. I only wear pink lip gloss now and only in school. All my friends talked about was boys. Who they thought was cute, who they liked, who they wished would ask them to the dance. I didn’t want anyone to ask me to the dance. The boys at school were so immature. They could learn a few things from Steve. He knew how to listen and didn’t try to snap my bra when I walked by. He could wipe away a tear and make you smile so quickly, you couldn’t remember why you were upset in the first place. I went to the dance with my friends. The dances were in the gym with just a few decorations and tired teachers as chaperones. It was easy to sneak in alcohol and this time, most of the boys basketball team had small bottles in their pockets. They had some respect for me because of my skills on the court so they invited my friends and I to go out to the parking lot to drink. I didn’t want to go but my friends were excited and Laurie was begging to go because she had a crush on one of the players. While they were all flirting easily, I was by myself, drinking vodka and mountain dew. No one noticed when I left to walk home. A block before I got to my house, I puked in the bushes. Steve was waiting up and could tell right away what happened. He put the stray hair that was hanging in my face gently behind my ear, grabbed my hand and led me upstairs. He gave me a glass of water and some aspirin, told me to take a quick shower and get some rest. Mom was working late he said so we could keep this between us. I woke up late the next morning with a headache like I have never had before, I went downstairs ready to thank Steve with a silent smile but he wasn’t there. Mom was at the table with a cup of coffee. She barely looked at me as I walked in. As I walked by her to get some juice out of the fridge, she grabbed my robe so hard I almost fell. She groaned “how could you? How could you take the one good thing in my life?’. I had no idea what she was talking about. She threw pictures at me and they spread across the floor. I bent to get them and as I was picking them up, I recognized the bathroom. Me as a little girl in the bathtub. Who took these? Then there were pictures of me in my bed. 8 years old, cuddling with a stuffed rabbit Steve had given me. 11 years old in one of my mothers fancy negligees I tried on and fell asleep in. Me, last night, passed out on top of the covers, naked with the towel down by my feet. Suddenly I heard my mom screaming that I disgusted her. That I had been trying to steal Steve from her since I was in middle school. She said she couldn’t blame him, the way I always tried to look older, giggle at his jokes. The sexy looks I was always giving him. “GET OUT” she screamed. “NOW”. I ran upstairs to put clothes on and as quickly as I could, stuffed a few things in my book bag and left, wondering where Steve was.


The Pegasus sky is the color of Tim Burton dreams, the texture of crunchy nightmares. This makes me happy. A trio of dragons fly by, and I stare at the girl astride the smallest of the three. She doesn’t acknowledge me. This also makes me happy. The two angels that accompany me are snorting cocaine and imploring me to “do my duty.” This makes me unhappy. I stare at the computer screen, unsure of where to go next. I have a main theme: redemption. Which may or may not be the right theme. The angels symbolize something or other. Maybe I need some sort of motif. I hear they’re all the rage right now. The sky could be a metaphor for something important, like desires or regrets or some shit like that. Metaphors are important. Ask any English teacher. Lydia doesn’t understand the title. Good. That’s the point (I tell myself). I want the reader to see what they want to see (I continue to tell myself). I sure as hell don’t have any idea what it means. I just like the title. I have no idea where to go from here, but I’m in love with the opening paragraph. The possibilities are endless. I’m giving myself several built-in Dei ex machina to work with. A cheap trick, I know, but needs must. I write, but I’m not a real writer any longer. Lydia disagrees, but she’s my wife and she loves me, so she feels justified in lying to me to make me feel better. I don’t mind that – most of the time. I mean, it’s evidence of love. Isn’t it? Has to be. She also lets me drink whiskey on the front porch while I write, not caring what the neighbors think. More evidence of love. Spare my feelings but not my liver. My daughter calls it enabling. Semantics. We don’t agree to disagree. We just disagree. I start again, despite my love for the title and the first paragraph. I’m thinking a love story might be a good second novel. Everyone likes romances, right?                                                       ************** I fell in love with “The Pegasus Sky,” and, by proxy, with its author. When I finally met her, I was taken aback. The novel, irreverent and funny, contrasted starkly with the author. She wore a severe countenance, and she was all sharp angles and hardness. I imagined that having sex with her would be like fucking a folding lawn chair. She drank champagne demurely, as if she wanted the world to know that she wasn’t an alcoholic like her father. She dressed demurely as well, just to let everyone know that she wasn’t a slut like her mother. Everything about her screamed irreproachable and unapproachable, an unassailable vessel that would never set sail beyond the pages of her writings. And then she smiled at me. A decade of living dangerously began with a flash of white teeth and curved lips. Well…no. Not happening. I’m barely able to understand why my wife stays with me, let alone creating a love story – however tenuous – between fictional characters. I’m thinking of that original first paragraph, the one that was over a decade in the making. The fantasy genre seems doable (I like dragons), but I can’t see my way through it. Like this pitiful love tale, there just doesn’t seem to be any real fodder. I blame my knowledge of literature and my job (which I don’t consider to be a career) for this because it’s easier than blaming myself. Teaching at a private university deep in the heart of Texas has taken away much of my writing time. I know it’s a bullshit excuse but I use it anyway. The fact is, I’m blocked. I know all the terms. Deus ex machina. Roman á clef . Synecdoche. Dénouement . Can’t say that it helps me much, except when marking papers. I throw out a few of these terms and the students think I’m a genius. They never argue over a grade. I was the same way when I was a student. The thing is, I start obsessing over everything. The terms – and there seems to be a billion of them – are always nagging at me. Am I using allegory? Do I have a proper inciting incident? What about dissonance, consonance, assonance. All of the ance s.  And I used the word fuck in the previous paragraph, and that’s a no-no, unless you’re J.D. Salinger or Chuck Palahniuk. Real writers. I lean back and sigh. I light a cigarette. T.S. Elliot and Hunter S. Thompson smoked when they wrote. So did William S. Burroughs, but he usually smoked weed laced with opium. Why am I thinking of authors that use their middle initials, and why is that initial S? My middle initial is R. Lydia’s middle initial is S. Maybe she should be writing my second book. I watch the neighbors go by, walking their dogs – or the dogs walking the neighbors, I’m not sure which – chatting amicably and parting as if they are lifelong friends. Hell, maybe they are. The neighborhood is devoid of kids right now because of school, but full of babies and their mothers, still pudgy from the pregnancy. Lydia knows which ones will never get their girlish figures back and which ones will hit the gym and deprive themselves of carbs so they can fit into their high school jeans again. She’s never wrong about these types of things. I tell myself I’m not procrastinating, but I know I am. A real writer would just get down to it. I bet Stephen King doesn’t sit on his front porch and hypothesize about his neighbors’ fat asses and irritating pets. Ok. WWJDD. What would Joan Didion do? Play it as it Lays? Slouch towards Bethlehem? LOLOL Good one, right? I put out my cigarette and get back to it. Horror sounds good. The title is terrific, one of my best, so I’m not giving up on that. Yeah, horror would fit the title.                                                         ************** I smell his fetid breath, feel his sweaty hands running over my body. The room is dark, but not so dark that I can’t make out the silhouette of the man who had chained me to a cold steel table. He whispers something about a Pegasus sky. It makes no sense, and I’m too terrified to care. I scream and scream, but my kidnaper just laughs. That’s when I spot the chainsaw. I’m fucked. First-person POV. That works, but she’s gotta live, right? If I go third-person omniscient, she can die horribly and then…then I have to find a different hero. What kind of hero? A gritty, street-wise woman? Tough cop? Nerdy psychological man (or woman. Shit. Another decision to make.) who sees deeply into the manifold evils of the human heart? It’s all very trite. Maybe I can get that author woman from the previous paragraph and somehow use her. I like her! My mind wanders again. Maybe I can incorporate dragons, the author woman, and a psychology nerd into one tale. Sure. And maybe Lydia will suddenly learn to cook some decent shrimp and grits. I shouldn’t complain. She’s from Minnesota, so shrimp and grits aren’t treated with the proper respect in that part of the country. She’s a hell of a graphic designer, though. She did the design for my book; that’s how I met her. She was so cute and so enamored of my novel. Said it was the best book she had ever read this side of Bleak House . She’s got a thing for plain-looking, underdog heroines. Dickens does underdogs well. The brilliant fucker. There I go again. The no-no word. Maybe if I stop thinking it, I’ll stop writing it. The thing is, I used it 231 times in The First American Angel . My editor/agent counted. Actually, I think he used a word processing feature to find out how many times I used the no-no word. That gave him plenty of time to harangue me about writing another book. He’s retired now, but the fucker would be happy to know that I’m working on it. Shit! Will no one rid me of this turbulent word? A real horror story should contain some sort of supernatural element. A killer that won’t die. A ritual that imbues otherworldly powers upon the evildoer. I mean, it may be trite and all, but people buy that shit, right? Why, I have no idea. It isn’t real literature. Proust and his recollection of madeleines is real writing, but no one reads him any longer. Everyone wants to read about hipster vampires and pretty-boy werewolves. Ughh! Or wizards at school. Or some woman solving murders in her spare time, between baking whatever bakers bake. The First American Angel made me rich. Well, rich-ish. Lydia and I got married, bought a house in a decent area of San Antonio, and immediately produced a child. Lydia was certain that it happened in the kitchen. I believe her because I made shrimp and grits for us that particular night. There’s real magic in shellfish and dried dent corn. Lydia wanted to name our daughter Desdemona. I plumped for Madison. We compromised and named her Desdemona. Everyone calls her Des. Des left for college last month. She told Lydia to “kick dad in the nuts every day until he gets another book published.” I think my daughter loves me, but she’s starting to sound like my new agent. Don’t get me wrong. I write stuff. Articles for literary magazines. I do book reviews for several newspapers. Reader’s Digest publishes me twice a year. But that isn’t genuine writing. The First American Angel was real writing, and I was a real writer. Full stop. I have Gabriel García Márquez to thank for my inspiration. Magical realism and all that. The Buendía family. Allegorical tale of man’s origin. I mean, 100 Years of Solitude had it all. But where do you go after writing your magnum opus ? Maybe I need to go Southern Gothic. Flannery O’Connor and Carson McCullers made it respectable, all that post-Civil War depression and violence. Wise Blood never got the credit it deserved. The Heart is a Lonely Hunter has been forgotten. Maybe it’s time to revive this genre, shake it up, give it a nip and a tuck, get it a little black dress and take it out for a night on the town. Uglier girls have made it to the ball, right?                                                         ************** Jenny hauled the last bucket of water for the day back to the house. She needed it for her baby and her dead mother. She would finish digging the grave tomorrow, before it got too hot and before mamma started to stink. Pegasus Sky gurgled happily, not caring that she lay next to a dead woman. Jenny fed her baby and cleaned her mother before laying down to sleep next to them. She wouldn’t be hearing her mother snore any longer, or hear her cry out for her husband. The war hadn’t taken him, but the pneumonia had. Jenny had dug that grave as well. As long as she didn’t have to dig a hole for Pegasus, she’d be fine. I need some grotesque to come along and insert himself into Jenny’s life. Evil grotesque or Godly grotesque? I need some Catholic undertones. That should be easy. I teach at a fucking Catholic university, right? You should see the campus. Mother Mary all over the place, smiling beatifically at you as you pass. I wonder what the good mother thought of Flannery and Carson. I don’t think I can do southern gothic. I’ve written one paragraph and I already want to slit my wrists. That’s sacrilegious. The Brothers on campus would be shocked if they heard me voice that particular thought. I like the Brothers. They day drink, and all four of them have a two-pack-a-day habit. All of them offer solid, practical advice about teaching, though they hadn’t taught in decades. Best of all, they’re liberal with sharing their whiskey with me. It’s expensive stuff, too. I’m thinking maybe I’m like the Brothers. I did my thing with that one novel. Maybe I should just drink good whiskey, smoke two packs a day, and sit around doing a whole lot of nothing. They seem pretty happy. However. However, I’m not. Happy, that is. I’m anxious and skittish and unsettled. I’ve been this way for twenty years. Now I’m desperate. I owe it to Lydia and Des to write another book. I just don’t know how. I make a deal with the devil. Ok, that’s a little too dramatic. I make a deal with Des.                                                       ************** I left the mountain after grandpa died, taking little with me, for there was little to take. I would go on to kill seventy-three men, all bad. I would return to the mountain in due time, the prodigal son who wasn’t a son at all but a daughter. This is how it all happened. I look at Des and shake my head. “How the hell am I supposed to work with that?” She gives me that look. The one her mother gives me when she’s exasperated with me but doesn’t want to unleash a verbal assault on my ass. “You just do it. We made a deal.” I scratch my beard. Lydia doesn’t like my beard, but Des thinks it makes me look professorial. “And stop drinking my whiskey. You’re not even twenty-one yet.” Des defies me. She pours out two fingers and mixes it with carbonated water. Lightweight. “Get to it, old man.” So I do. I left during a Pegasus sky. That’s a term only us mountain people know. When eagles are flying closer to the ground than normal, it means they spotted a small rabbit or a rattlesnake. Since it was midday, it had to be a rattlesnake. Step careful and step quiet, grandpa used to say. I shove the computer back to Des. She reads it and nods. “You’ve been obsessing over this stupid phrase for years and now, suddenly, you explain it. What gives?” I don’t know what to say to her, so I shrug. Ok, I do know how to explain it, but I won’t. Denial of one’s faults is part of the human condition. I could tell her that but she’d eye-roll me, just like her mother does. “Oh! I get it! There’s always a way to spot evil if you know the signs. Since this bad-ass chick is gonna kill all these men, she must know what to look for. That’s kind of brilliant.” “Yep.” No need to brag. I can do that later. I have these rules that grandpa taught me. Rule #11 says that when you kill, you kill quick and you kill sure. Now, I only killed rabbit and deer and squirrel and rattlesnake before I went down the mountain, but that son-of-a-bitch Russel treated me real bad so he had to be killed. “Where the hell are you going with this?” I had to ask, right? “You write your paragraphs and I’ll write mine.” She takes another sip of whiskey, just to piss me off. She succeeded. “What did he do that was so bad?” “Maybe he raped her.” Des says this matter of factly, which saddens me. It’s a reality in her world, this sort of shit. I wish I could protect her, but I can’t. Not from everything. We trade more paragraphs, arguing about each other’s work along the way. Thrust and parry. Remark and retort. Lydia watches us and smiles. Why is she so happy about Des and me arguing? The woman is clearly insane. It had to happen eventually, living with me. It took me a few months to get it, but I got it. Keeping it to myself, though.                                                   ************** Pegasus Sky became a runaway best seller. Des used the pen name Olivia du Mugne because she admired the works of Daphne du Maurier. I argued for Lillith Longtree. Something reminiscent of the old west, and very American. We compromised and used the name Olivia du Mugne. The novel made her rich. Not just rich-ish, but fuck-you rich. Ironically, we never used the word fuck in Pegasus Sky . We now write novels together, using that stupid pen name and churning out books that people snap up by the millions. We argue about every paragraph. She usually wins. I’m not a real writer, after all, and she’s my daughter. So it goes.


You look concerned, watching through the window for hours now, and more anxious than normal. That could only mean that you saw the news. It is there, isn’t it? Terrible news, absolutely, but everything would be okay, you know that. You had been planning it for so long, that there were no mistakes. You made sure of that, there would be no problem. Could you stop? Why are you packing your clothes? Improvising in this kind of conditions is not good. You do not have a backup plan, when did you decide this? Was it today? After reading the news? You were certain that you would not be discovered, ever. This was going to reach the news any time, and it is fine, you do not need to rush. So, you are thinking of running away now. Is this for real? Is that what would solve all your problems? Perhaps the fact of you gone makes you look even guiltier. On the other hand, you should not feel bad, he totally deserved it, but that is not enough in a trial, so, okay, it is completely understandable that getting the hell out of here should be the best choice, but what if it isn’t? Giving up life is never easy, that means starting over, starting from scratch, at least take some time to figure things out in a better way, make arrangements, and sell some stuff to have money… hey! Don´t look away! Consider it, at least, for your own sake. Stop! Do not cross that door, please. Think! Who saw you? Who could know about this? They will never find any evidence that links you to that man, so, why leaving? Just play dead, you know? Keep on with your life as customary, no one has to know, no one will ever know. Case closed. Period. Put that suitcase on the ground; you are not going anywhere, okay? Have some dinner, and go to bed. Just relax; do you believe that you would be still here if they know you did it? That door, that very same door would be on the floor right now if they had a clue. Yes, the fair thing to do is facing consequences and paying for what you did, but this is your life, and you did what you had to do to protect it! For sure, you have no regrets about it, you are just afraid of being caught. That is reasonable, however, frightened people use to act mindlessly and erratically and end up messing everything up, it is like returning to a crime scene, that is exactly how people are caught. Calm down, analyze every detail of that night, and really think if you could be associated to that crime. … There are not proofs, you have an alibi, nobody saw you there, you are the only one who knows, and you are the only one who can take you down. So, what is it going to be? What else could it take to convince you? Not a step further, please! Just stop already! This situation is ridiculous. You are ridiculous! You are safe here; there is no way someone ever finds out. Look at you, you are pale, you are trembling. You are hesitating. Why are you hesitating? Please stay! Please close that door! What are you doing? Don’t… … Okay, you know what? Get out! Flee! As you constantly do! My god… Such a stubborn. And stupid! You are going to be the end of yourself, don’t listen, and just do what you want then… get out… get out! Wow! Leaving town, what a great idea! Not suspicious at all! Fool! For Christ’s sake… Hey! Hey idiot! Look back, nobody is chasing you and nobody is trying to stop you from leaving town either, that is just pathetic. Could someone be more alone? Could someone be more insignificant? That’s right, you are completely invisible, so invisible that they would never know you did it, you know you will never see a day in jail, that is absolutely guaranteed, but go ahead and mess it up like everything you do. Such a pathetic loser. … … Wait… Come back. Sorry… Please come back, let’s drink some water. Sorry! You are not a loser, you are okay, you are normal… you are not insignificant, sorry, really! But please listen, whatever you do, escaping is not an option. That would put you right in the spot. Here is what you are going to do: you will continue living your life like nothing out of the ordinary had happened, keep going to work, keep the same routine, you are going to be fine, nobody suspects anything. He sure had some enemies, a lot of people despised him, it could have been anyone! And nobody saw the two of you together, you were very careful, the plan worked, right? You were very meticulous; they will not find that out. Do you see? You are safe, here. Don’t cry. Just enter the house, leave that suitcase. That’s right, come inside. Breathe! Come on, inhale, exhale, that’s right. You are calm, you have to be calm. Breathe… Let’s unpack. Eat the sandwich. You have been so worried all day that you have not even eaten anything. Is it good? Just as you like it. It is simple to know what you are thinking at this time, and it is funny, you know? You got exasperated today that it had become news, but not the day it happened… Do you see? You are not repented, you only fear of being locked. You fear the consequences but you don’t fear the deed, you don’t fear yourself, what you are capable of, and it is impossible to escape from it. Is it ironic?

It is getting exhausting that you always go through the same process. This was not the first time, and it won’t be the last. Just accept who you are, it would make things easier. Finish your meal and go to bed. Rest. Sleep tight.


Do You Believe? Arriving early for a group therapy appointment in a beautiful home on Lake Promenade, I park my car and decide to meander across a grassy patch to the water’s edge. The early evening sun caresses my shoulders as I gaze at the distant sailboats bobbing up and down on Lake Ontario. Gentle waves kiss shoreline rocks. My grief is validated, soothed, its weight somewhat lightened by a soaring seagull.            Oh, how I miss my Peter. He is absent, stolen by prostate cancer on April 15, 2012, at the age of sixty-two. I had believed we’d have more time for our karaoke dates, our mutual love of movies and food, our shared memories, and the support we provided one another when we worried about our only adult child, a son we both loved fiercely. Russell suffered with addiction and we agonized, rescued, detached, rescued yet again, and clung to each other in the midst of our powerlessness.            Now who do I lean on? Bereft, an abandoned single parent, I struggle with ongoing crises, feeling so alone.            Inhaling deeply, I turn to head back across the fresh emerald-green field toward the house where I will find some solace. It is my safe space to grieve.            Out of nowhere, a gentle male voice whispers, “If you don’t look too hard, you’ll find them.”            Find what? I stop in my tracks to look around at the empty space surrounding me. For absolutely no conscious reason, I look down at my feet, and right there, nestled next to my right sandal, are three four-leaf-clovers. I stoop in wonder, gently releasing these treasures from the soil. As I do, I flash back to my childhood, hiking with my father through High Park, occasionally squealing with delight when he spots a lucky charm and hands it to me.            I behold my three treasures. One is big, the second a medium size, the third smaller. I recall the days when Russell was a small boy and I held such high hopes for our family-of-three.            I rush into the therapy group session to show off my beautiful souvenirs, omitting the part about hearing a distinct message in my left ear. Grief can play tricks with the imagination.            Later, when I show them to my son, he cries out and declares, “They’re from Dad!” His intense mourning and escape into alcohol and drugs are a serrated knife sawing at my heart, so I refrain from dismissing my experience as mind trickery, and open my heart to possibility. I place the clovers on a white card, write WE ARE FAMILY at the top, record the date, laminate the keepsake, and put it on my fridge.            A few days later, I Google four-leaf-clovers and learn that they sometimes grow in clusters. There’s my explanation. I return to the little field and begin my hunt. To both my disappointment and, at the same time, secret elation, there are none to be found.            For the next five and a half years, I witness my son’s battle as he moves from utter despair, to surrender, to glimmers of hope in recovery, only to cycle back down into the fierce jaws of addiction.            On November 8, 2019, I come home to a door slightly ajar. The kitchen tap has been left on. There is silence when I call out. A giant centipede of terror skitters up my spine.            I gallop down the hall and find Russell lying face down. Blood trickles from his mouth, and for a crazy moment, I worry about his teeth. His teeth, for God's Sake! Reality breaks through, and I hear a distant howling as I race for the Naloxone kit and try to roll him over. He is dead weight. I call 911 and am told to get a neighbor, who helps me turn my boy over and I scream because I am too late and he has turned blue. My shrieks echo the cries of almost four decades ago during child labor.            Paramedics and police arrive. I hear the sound of the zipper on the body-bag, the heavy footfalls as they carry my baby away from me hours later, after the coroner has arrived in the early, early morning. I am flat-lined, screamed-out, for now.            Weeks later, the voice of the coroner, a faraway foghorn, emerges from the density of a grey cloud to tell me my boy has died of a fentanyl overdose.            I trudge through molasses as I try to resume routines. I have to take care of my son’s old and sick pussycat. As I pay at the counter of the pet store, I see three dimes at my feet. I am compelled to stoop over and pocket them. Two days later, a parking machine that accepts only loonies and toonies, spits out a dime. For the next month, my bathroom light flickers and hisses, like radio static. Eventually, I have to put my son’s cat to sleep when he can no longer eat or walk. After that, the bathroom light returns to normal.            Time stretches toward tomorrows as the grief attacks ever so gradually ease. In February of 2020, during a blizzard, I hear robins singing outside my kitchen window. Impossible! I peer outside to see three of them, perched on a nearby roof, fat and puffed out, drizzled in snowflakes. I love that they have visited, but worry about their survival. Robins have always been a special source of joy in early spring, and I marvel at this unusual sighting.            A "Doubting Thomasina" and One Who Believes battle within me. So, sixteen months after my son’s death, I arrange to have a reading done by a well-known psychic. He will phone me long-distance from thousands of miles away on the prearranged date.            The day arrives. I am anxious as I hear that my parents, my husband and my son are coming through. Their deaths are described with startling accuracy.            “Your son passed very suddenly. It was an accident. He didn’t feel pain. He is telling me he never meant to hurt you. It was a slip. I see him riding on the back of a dragon. He is laughing. Does this mean anything to you?”            I explain the phrase “chasing the dragon.” Opiate addicts use it to describe the horrors of withdrawal and the relentless craving for more. The psychic has never heard this expression. In a moment of clarity, I realize my son is no longer chasing or trying to slay the dragon. He is at peace.            “Now, I am being shown a flock of robins,” the psychic continues. I feel my heart open like a flower.            “Does the number fourteen mean anything?” he asks. “I am being shown this number over and over.” I draw a blank.            “What’s with the three four-leaf clovers?” he suddenly queries. I gasp. Remnants of disbelief dissipate like fallen leaves in late autumn. I tell him my story. He laughs and says, “Bingo!” The next morning, after a sleepless night of rumination about the number fourteen, I rush to look at my good-luck charm on the fridge. The date I had written on the card was June 4, 2014.            Life is full of mysteries. For myself, I have come to believe. Do you? The following is a poem dedicated to my son: The Flying Dragon Russell rides a dragon-beast. It’s big and green and scaly. He laughs because his newfound pet, Isn’t one bit scary. Instead of breathing deadly flames, This would-be monster sings, Of winning awesome video games, And other happy things. Like chocolate bars and candy-canes, Or swimming in a pool. Or jumping up and down in puddles, Acting like a fool. “You’ll never need to chase me. Climb aboard and take a ride. I’ll carry you above the clouds, And always be your Guide.”


This story is Fan Fiction even though I have used none of the characters and only one God from Rick Riordan's "Percy Jackson and the Olympians" Universe. There is at least one barely veiled reference to Camp Half-Blood and it's Director Dionysus. Enjoy the thrill of the Gods once more! And though it is only incidental and of no bearing to the story, the Protagonist is Non-Binary. =============================================== Robin sat, balanced on the top of the bus stop bench, and watched the water slowly ooze out of and around the concrete sidewalk. They smiled a little as it flowed around the feet of their perch and tried to pile up around the iron to reach up to where they sat. One of the worst things about being a mortal demigod was when you genetically picked up traits from the divine half of your DNA. As a child of the Greek God Poseidon, water loved Robin! It followed them everywhere. Slowly, inexorbitantly it would creep, flow, seep, ooze, or otherwise follow their very footsteps along the ground, loving every contact! "This wouldn't be so bad," they thought, "If it ever stopped for five minutes." Robin took advantage of the distraction the iron bench legs were giving the rising water and jumped onto the seats, ran a step, and launched themselves up to the brick retaining wall running beside the street. They had become an expert at parkour long before it had gotten a name and publicity! A few blocks spent leaping from stone to stone and quickly across the streets got them much closer to Tibbit's Grocery. As always happened when they got too near the ocean, the humidity increased as the droplets congealed right out of the air around them. Rain was bearable but there were no barriers against condensation! That was why it had been such a disaster the time they had tried to go visit kin and seek their help. Poseidon had told Robin of a half brother living at a special camp for demigod youth in New York. When they arrived, the Atlantic Ocean was so overjoyed to have them close that it rained, and seeped up, and waves rolled in till the camp was flooded by Suppertime and Dionysus had made Robin leave. Robin finally slowed their erratic sprint a half a block from the front of their favorite Mom and Pop general store. The Tibbits had run a store of some sort here for generations and they were very fond of the family. Even when Robin was traveling abroad they managed to make it here every year on Father's Day. Yes, Robin had a good relationship with their father. Robin was aware that Poseidon had many children he rarely if ever even acknowledged and it made a warm, comforting feeling in their heart despite the rain. Sure of at least five minutes before the water started gathering up out front of the store, Robin sauntered through the glass front door and gave a wide smile to the old man behind the counter. "Happy Father's Day, Mr. Tibbit. Fine weather we seem to be having today!" "It surely is," the old man responded. "It hasn't rained here in weeks and we were all getting a little parched. How you swimming along?" "Oh, about the usual; staying one step ahead of all my troubles! Can you get me a case of your best Belgian lager, please?" "So you and your Pa still keeping the tradition up, huh?" He smiled fondly at Robin to show it was affection and not nosiness that made him ask. Robin smiled back and winked. "Well that was too interesting a day to forget. It's always worth it to come down and spend an evening with the Old Man!" They dropped a generous handful of bills on the counter and hoisted the case of brown-glassed bottles to their shoulder. "I may be hanging around a while, Mr. Tibbit. See you again real soon!" and they were out the door and sloshing through no more than a few millimeters of water beginning to flow across the street. Encumbered a bit by the weight and bulk of the box they carried, it would be more difficult to keep ahead of the water as they made their way, of all places, down to an old ramshackle beach house on the coast a half mile out of town! Sitting their load on another retaining wall Robin jumped up on it themselves and slipped out of the backpack. Pulling a thin nearly meter long board out of the pack, they then put the case of beer back in and zipped it shut. They stood, placing the pack once more on their back and smiled at yet another memory of the year's journeys they were eager to tell their Father about tonight! Robin had been part of an expedition climbing Everest and K2 to clean up trash and recover the bodies of a couple of unfortunate mountaineers. At first they were delighted with how the water had often frozen solid long before it got anywhere near them. The snow around Robin was solid and could not move. Even what condensed from the breath of the folks in the climbing party froze and fell before reaching where they stood. At this altitude and temperature there was so little humidity they had been enjoying the sight of clear skies immensely! As the flow of water building up grew, Robin lept off the wall and dropped the board under their feet to hit the water surfer style. Their balance was good and it was with practiced ease Robin used the forward push of the water chasing from behind to surf the leading edge of the wave! These were good moments when the adrenaline was high and the game was afoot! The little town itself sat at the top of a rise of land which is why it had managed to survive on the coast for so long. This made it very easy for gravity to help Robin beat their pursuit and they pulled a wide right turn onto the beginning of the coast highway. Robin laughed as they picked up speed at someone in a lorry cursing them out for being so reckless in the intersection! In the lowering light Robin could see the waves out in the ocean to their left were beginning to increase in size already. It was going to be a close thing to get to the safety of Poseidon's beach house before the road was completely flooded over! They squatted a little lower on their mini surf board more as wishful thinking than actually decreasing the wind resistance by an erg. Just as they got to the place where the path cut off up to the house Robin flipped sideways and shoved the board into the mounting wave ahead and shot up and over its crest to land with practiced grace on the open veranda floor! Placing their short board in its wall rack, Robin slipped their backpack off and sat it on the small table beside an antique bottled drinks dispenser. Taking the case out of the pack, they quickly loaded the metal racks inside the cooler with twenty-two of the clinking brown bottles. Robin then packed the remaining beers over to a side table with two chairs and put them in an ice bowl conveniently and freshly set out. They turned and leaned against the rail looking out over the ocean. The view always amazed Robin. Here the waves were commanded to stay in their place and the rain had been ordered to fall only at night. Robin always wondered what power went into this one little house where the water could not seep freely in. Though the illusion made it seem old and unkempt, they saw through that glamour to the plain but sturdy construction. It had been a gift to Robin from their father after the fiasco at the demigod camp. Here they could stop. Here they could relax for a good night's sleep without worry that the water would overcome them and literally love them to death. It was but the matter of moments before Robin saw a disturbance in the waves and a gigantic pillar of water began to rise behind the breakers. It always took Robin's breath away in amazement as the huge humanoid figure emerged from the roiling waters and began to shrink, morphing as it came, until there was finally the figure of an old man, dressed in well-worn and slightly grubby rain gear, stepping foot on the land and striding up the beach to the house. Shaking off the rain gear and hanging it on a convenient hook by the door, Poseidon gathered Robin up in a firm and loving hug. "Oh, welcome home child, welcome home!" It always fascinated Robin that Poseidon manifested to them as several inches shorter than they were. "Happy Father's Day, Dad!" Breaking off the embrace with an extra tight hug Robin offered one of the brown bottles to their Divine parent. "Here's to Beer!" Robin gave the familiar traditional toast as they flicked off the bottle caps and chinked the necks together. "Here's to Beer!" the old man replied and they threw back their heads and each took a hearty swig!


“Do you think you’ll have kids?” “Ugh and potentially turn into my mom? Probably, nah.” “I mean, you turned out pretty okay.” “That’s still TBD. The effects of forced piano lessons, tutoring, and the deprivation of a social life remain to be seen,” Monica said flatly, accepting her fate. Her mother’s strict control over her life was one of the reasons they were here at Marsling MRT station where Monica could conceivably be perennially “on her way home.” “Okay, don’t judge.” “What?” Sandy’s tone turned confessional, “Once I had a thought that I would have five kids.” “Five?!” “Yeah,” Sandy confirmed with all the confidence of a young woman who had yet to wrap her head around the process of child birthing and rearing. “So, like, the eldest is always in their own category, pseudo-parent and such, kind of close but not close to everyone. And then the younger siblings can pair off so that everyone has a friend in the family.” Monica guffawed, and Sandy smiled back good-naturedly. “That’s bullshit,” Monica countered before softening. “More siblings does not equal less loneliness.” “Coming from someone with no siblings.” “And see?” Nudging Sandy’s arm, Monica smiled, “not lonely.” Sandy smiled too as another train came and left the station. The sun was beginning its descent, turning the sky into a deep orange canvas with the purple of night seeping in at the edges. From her view on the elevated platform, she could see the hawker center across the street start to fill up with the dinner crowd. Men and women claimed tables with little packets of tissue before going to stand in line at their favorite stalls. Drink vendors made their rounds, gripping three to four steins in a single hand without spilling a drop of Tiger Beer. The platform slowly repopulated. Like lemmings, students in uniforms and corporate workers in suits filed neatly off the escalator and into the waiting lines painted onto the floor of the platform. When one line became full, people obediently sought another. There was never a line a person couldn’t join. There was never a wait more than six minutes. Singapore’s orderliness and efficiency could not be beat, and nowhere was that more clear than the mass rapid transit system.

Sandy had watched these lines fill and empty, fill and empty like clockwork for the better part of the last hour, dreading the moment when she would join them. Her school uniform would ensure she blended in seamlessly, just another cog in the machine. “I don’t want to go home yet,” Monica said beside Sandy. They sat on the minimalist block placed in the center of the platform. Whether the block was for sitting or decoration, the girls couldn’t say, but it had become their spot every week when they walked from school to the station.

“Yeah,” Sandy agreed. “But the homework! When will it ever be done?” She melodramatically threw her hands up in the air. “What good is homework anyway? Like, is writing an essay about chapters 12-18 of Moby Dick really going to help me get a job in the future?” Monica, barely out of high school, was already a cynic. “I don’t know, dude. If you ever find yourself on a whaling excursion in the 19th century, you’ll regret not doing your lit homework.”

“Ha. ha. We both know half the class is just going to spark notes the chapter and end up with the same essay anyway.” Sandy grimaced. It was an accurate description of their peers and perhaps that frustrated her more than the educational shortcut itself. Their peers at the international prep school were all ladder climbers and box checkers. Take at least 5 AP classes your junior year? Check. Participate in extracurricular activities? Check? Ensure at least one is a sport, one is an art, one is academic, and one is a charity? Check, check, check, check. Do it all while maintaining a 4.0 grade point average? Check, and thank Spark Notes for the last one.

All the requirements cut them into perfect puzzle pieces, shaped with just the right knobs and sockets to fit in the larger picture of hyper competitive, achievement driven, elite college bound 17 year olds.

It was exhausting. And friends like Monica—practical, naturally intelligent—gnawed at the edges of Sandy’s spirit. For Monica, school was easy. “Ah, yes, the masses who simply regurgitate the thoughts of other people versus the few who strive for original thought.” Which do you want to be? Sandy didn’t ask. Instead, she deflected to her classmate. “Try-hards like Sarah who you know is going to bring up some obscure line in class and completely derail the whole discussion.” Monica laughed, “Exactly! What a suck up!” Sandy laughed too, masking a deep envy of Sarah whose try-hard tendencies had carried her to intellectual success. “Though I’ll give her credit where it’s due,” Monica mused, unknowingly affirming Sandy’s envy, “her point last week really changed my opinion of the chapter.” “Right! Wasn’t it just profound?” Sandy agreed.

Pursing her lips, Monica looked at her sideways. “Sarcasm?” “No, totally serious! I wish I had caught it myself.” The confession hung in the air between the two girls, an admission of effort and failure. The machine of their schooling tolerated neither. Caring was not cool; failure was rare.

But at Marsling MRT station, a place between places, caught between the puzzle of school and the weight of familial responsibilities, caring could be given room to breathe. Sandy and Monica could indulge in girlish crushes, hypothesize about the future, and exchange critiques of everything from their teachers to anime. Here, they allowed themselves to want and demand of the world. Over slurped ramen noodles and crispy pandan waffles, Sandy and Monica passed time as if it were limitless. Mountains of homework ignored, chores forgotten, they chatted as the trains came and went. Each time a train pulled up to the station, the girls’ eyes would meet. In two looks, a question was asked and answered amidst a steady stream of free dialogue. A train approached on Monica’s side of the tracks. The sky had melted from orange to purple, and the street lamps flickered on. The universe was telling them to go home, that their sojourn at the station was bordering irresponsible, that their moms would call soon, worried about them missing dinner.

Sandy’s brain began to list all the homework assignments she had and how long it would take to complete them. 60 pages of history reading, two hours. French exercises, forty-five minutes. Moby Dick essay… “I kind of want another cup noodle,” Monica said. Her invitation tempted Sandy out of her thoughts. “We could get tom yum flavor this time.” “But what about Melville! Who will write essays of his work now?” Monica melodramatically threw her hands up in the air.

Sandy laughed. Monica’s train doors closed and left without her. A new train, Sandy’s train home, approached the station.

Grinning mischievously at Monica, Sandy hedged, “We do have a free period tomorrow.” “And there’s always lunch,” Monica added. They grabbed their bags and descended the escalators for their second pre-dinner dinner. Giggling and giddy, the girls relished in their small act of rebellion, rejoiced in their irresponsibility though they both knew they’d pay for it later exchanging texts at 3am about Melville, the Civil Rights Movement, and the physics problem set due tomorrow.

On the platform above them, the trains came and went.


 When faked psychic powers make room for real ones Mr. Rasool, a fifty-year-old father of a daughter, earned his living as a healer and a fortune teller. He convinced his clients that he owned true psychic powers that could bring them a lot of positive results. He realized them by his prayers and by the participation of his clients to whom he always asked to follow his advice. If his clients didn’t obtain the desired results, he laid the blame on the latter saying that his advice wasn’t well executed. With his fake powers, many of his clients regretted the fees they paid him. If through coincidence, a few of his clients got satisfaction, he made wide publicity of that achievement to nurture his debatable popularity. His wife Anita, an office secretary, was skeptical about his intuitive knowledge. She never discussed this issue with him. As his activity was a source of income for the family, she turned a deaf ear whenever she overheard bad reviews about him.

    Once a lady brought her fifteen -year -old son to Rasool’s place. The teenager’s sleep was significantly disturbed because of repeated daily nightmares. In the mornings, he looked so tired that he was unwilling to go to school. He was examined by a doctor who prescribed him some medicines. Three days had elapsed. The medicines weren’t effective. After noting all details about him, Mr. Rasool talked softly to him.” Don’t worry. I’ll help you my boy to chase away those nightmares. Sit down. I’ll recite some prayers.” He laid his right hand on the boy’s head. He then muttered:” My lord, relieve this innocent boy of his troubled thoughts and bad dreams.” He repeated this sentence ten times. He then took a pinch of ash from a small bottle and put it on a piece of paper. He then folded and handed it to him.  He patted his shoulder and told him that he would surely get back his peaceful sleep. He assured him that if he still had nightmare that night, he should not worry. Gradually they would fade away. When he left Mr. Rasool’s place, he felt confident that he would get back his sleep. On reaching home, he recalled Mr. Rasool’s sentence and his encouraging attitude. At bedtime, he kept the ash under his pillow. He put his trust on it. With this mindset, he got a good, undisturbed sleep. He told his parents about his recovery. The next day, he got ready and went to school.

     Once two ladies came to his place. One of them had a mental problem. She thought that her neighbour, jealous of her, was resorting to evil spirits to torture her mentally and causing her to fall a prey to all kinds of diseases. The medicines prescribed to her by medical doctors couldn’t cure her. So, she turned to Rasool for a relief. After listening to her and to her neighbour, Rasool told her that he would try to do something for her. He let her know that her case was a bit difficult. He would need several sessions to drive away the spirits. In fact, the ladies were told that each session was worth sixty dollars. They agreed for the present one. He asked them to sit in front of him. He told them that he would first try to communicate with the spirits. He brought a few jars containing several spices. Every now and then, he picked up a pinch from each jar and flung it away. He muttered unintelligible words. When he had finished, he explained that he was dealing with the spirits. They were stubborn and they would leave her after two or three more sessions. The ladies paid him and went away. They never went back to him.     Mr. Rasool tried his luck using the internet. He sent e-mails to people telling them that his intuitive knowledge could be of great help to them. He wrote to one guy telling him that he had picked his name at random. He told him that his name was linked to a certain star. That one was casting a good influence upon him. He was destined to receive a big sum of money. But another star was casting a negative spell and could nullify this fortune. The only way to divert the path of that ominous star was through his special prayers. He would offer his help for a meagre sum of forty dollars. He told him not to miss that opportunity.  In this way Rasool lured the credulous people and thus earned a living. In most cases the people felt cheated and their dream was rarely realized. If he did, it was a mere coincidence. His reply to the losers was that the negative forces were too strong to curb the interference of the bad star. If the reply from the treated person was positive, he always told them that a reward from them would be welcome. He thus strove on the credibility and ignorance of the surfers. One Saturday a former client called to inform him that he had won a lottery. He gave credit to his prayers and services. This positive review triggered more e-mails reaching him from people willing either a cure for their diseases or to seize the influence of a good star to become rich. He started having more cases to deal with and his business seemed to expand. He kept intensifying his rituals and prayers and was reaping more positive results. One morning he got a call from a person who had previously informed him that he didn’t have sufficient funds to pay for his surgery. He remembered he had told the latter to wake up at five and to indulge in a two-hour prayer session. He assured the guy that he would maintain his prayer too. The client told Rasool that one of his former clients, a lottery winner, had agreed to handle all his medical expenses. He felt proud that he was no longer cheating people.

  Another client called and gave him good news about his son Rony. The latter didn’t want to go to school because he was bullied. During his visit two days ago, the boy explained that some older classmates used to pass on naughty comments on him after school. They said that he was a weakling and girlish in behavior. Mr. Rasool said: “I see you have a big strength and you are not using it. You can face them and show your mettle. Do it tomorrow. My powers will help you”. Rony reported:” When they started harassing me, I stopped and faced them furiously. This was the first time I did so. They looked confused. One of them came near and gave me a jerk. I punched him hard on the face and he fell headlong. He got up with a bleeding, swollen face. Another one came with his clenched fist. Before he could strike me, I gave him a strong kick. He too fell down. Scared, they took to their heels”. Rony’s father thanked Mr. Rasool saying that people should trust his powers because he made Rony a courageous and confident boy.      Mr. Rasool felt energized by the positive results he got from his clients. He grew confident about himself. That very morning a lady who seemed to be possessed by evil spirits was brought by her husband. She had weird looks. Her husband said that she was displaying that behavior for two days. She had assumed a different voice. She uttered things that were almost unintelligible. He got both of them seated. He closed his eyes and through a series of silent prayers he was as if making a leap into the lady’s mental landscape. He then opened his eyes after about twenty minutes, he then laid his right hand on the lady’s head and prayed. All of a sudden, the lady’s weird looks vanished. Her husband noticed that she was no longer under any bad spell. She asked her husband: “Where are we? Why have we come here? What happened to me?” He explained to her that she wasn’t feeling well. He asked her to thank Mr. Rasool who prayed for her recovery. She did so. They paid his fees and left.  Mr. Rasool was sure that something good had happened to him. He could trust his psychic powers and intuitive knowledge as they were nearing perfection. He was frank with surfers. If his intuition revealed to him that they were not going to win a lottery or to get a rich inheritance or a promotion in their jobs, he would tell the truth. In case he noticed that they would be having health problems in the coming months or years, he didn’t hesitate to tell them. Since his services were genuine, the demand for them went up and his earnings too rose consequently. He thought:” God has given me the gift of practicing real psychic powers. I take the resolve to offer my services free to the handicapped and the poor.”


“Hello there, sir. Would you mind telling me what you are doing at this here Quick-Market?”            “Buying groceries, sir. My wife wants to make a tomato soup and she ran out of bread. She wanted me to get her a loaf. Sourdough, I think, for a toastie-“            “Good to know, sir. And would you mind giving your name?”            “James Watson, sir, and my wife’s is Anna-“            “I don’t actually care about her name right now. I’m here to interview you.”            “You’re from a news station?”            “Yes, hence why I’m standing in front of a camera and am holding a microphone.”            “Oh. I just thought you were one of those hippies.”            “Mr. Watson, sir, hippies went out of style five decades ago.”            “Well I’m sorry. There’s too many of these newfangled trends; I just want my tomato-“            “Anyway, Mr. Watson, sir, if you’re fine with beginning…”            “Yes, we can start.”            Camera ON.            “Hello and welcome to the Herald Town News; my name is Philip Bell, and I am here introducing eyewitness Mr. James Watson. Mr. Watson, sir, why are you here at the QuickShop?”            “To buy a loaf of bread—I thought you didn’t care about my wife-“            Camera OFF.            “Mr. Watson, sir, please just answer the question.”            Camera ON.            “Well, my wife wants to make a pot of soup and toasties but she’s all out of bread, so I came here to get a loaf of sourdough.”            “And tell me, did you notice anything suspicious while you were shopping.”            “Yes, yes, I think I heard a girl screaming.”            “Do you know who this girl is?”            “No, no, I don’t, but I think-”            Camera OFF.            “She’s a toddler. A toddler was screaming.”            “But I’m pretty sure I saw a cashier screaming. It sounded like a cashier.”            “Cashiers don’t have a particular sound, and even if they do, I want you to say it was a toddler.”            Camera ON.            “A toddler was screaming. She’s about two-and-a-half feet tall, I think, so maybe four years old? She could just be small for her age-“            “Thank you, Mr. Watson, sir. And do you happen to know why she was screaming?”            “If you mean the cashier then yes, I think it was something with her boss.”            Camera OFF.            “What is it I told you about the cashier?”            “To not talk about her, I know, but she’s all I remember seeing. There was no toddler.”            “There was, I’m telling you. A toddler was screaming because her mother refused to buy a cookie. Say that, okay?”            Camera ON.            “This little girl wanted a cookie—chocolate-chip, if I recall correctly, or maybe oatmeal—and her mother said no, or else she would spoil her dinner. But the poor girl had her heart set on that cookie and started to cry.”            “Would your children behave this way?”            “I don’t have children.”            “Mr. Watson, sir, do you know any children?”            “Yes, I do. My wife is a teacher-“            “And would these children behave like that young girl?”            “Would they work in a grocery store? No; as my wife says, they’re all brilliant and can aspire to much more-“            Camera OFF.            “Mr. Watson, sir, repeat to me what I told you about the cashier.”            “Ignore her. She doesn’t exist.”            “Precisely. Now, would you mind continuing?”            “Okay.”            Camera ON.            “As I said, Mr. Watson, sir, would your wife’s students behave this way?”            “I do think so. Every now and then, children get cranky: it’s what they do.”            “Would you have behaved this way?”            “I don’t think so, because I know I wouldn’t have gotten any dinner at all.”            “And here enlies the problem, Herald Town. Children these days do not receive the proper punishments, resulting in improper behavior. Mr. James Watson over here did not have a behavioral problem in his youth due to his parents’ firm discipline.”            “It wasn’t my parent’s—it was my aunt.”            Camera OFF.            “Who was it that withheld your dinner, Mr. Watson, sir?”            “My aunt. My parents both got polio, back when it was bad. Before the vaccine.”            “So your aunt raised you, I take it?”            “Yes. My aunt, and sometimes my uncle, but he was at work. Trying to treat polio, actually, so I knew that the more of his time I took, the less help my parents would receive. That was flawed logic, though, because my parents didn’t-“            “Mr. Watson, sir, I’d love to hear your personal history, but not right now. We have a news story to cover. Don’t you think more parents should treat their children like your aunt did to you?”            “No, not really. I was terrified for a few years that we were poor, and when I went to college, I purely stuffed myself, and then I had to go on a weight-loss plan, and now I’m still stressed when my wife runs out of food. That’s why I’m here, buying bread-“            “Wonderful. Well, unfortunately for you, that does not fit with the thread of the story at all, so you’re going to need to say that what your aunt did to you was good after all. Understand?”            “Yes, yes, I think I do.”            Camera ON.            “Mr. Watson, sir, didn’t your aunt’s disciplinary tactics shape you into who you are today?”            “They certainly did. Now I am a completely well-adjusted adult with absolutely no lingering anxiety. In fact, I’d go so far as to call myself exceptionally honest and moral -“            Camera OFF.            “You’re laying it on too thick, Mr. Watson.”            Camera ON.            “Thanks to my aunt, I never threw a tantrum as a child. Not once. Not like that little girl.”            “So I would be correct in my connection that parents these days are too lenient?”            “If you mean the parents of that cashier’s boss, then yes, parents are too lenient. What kind of a boss would make his employee scream?”            Camera OFF.            “Mr. Watson, sir, how well did you do in school?”            “Excuse me?”            “You are obviously lacking in basic comprehension. What part of-“            “I know, I know, don’t talk about the cashier! But I heard her scream and I saw her boss right there with her, and I think it would callous of me to not be suspicious as to why he was making her scream-“            “I literally could not care less.”            Camera ON.            “Well, um…well, I guess parents are a bit too lenient with their kids.”            “ Way too lenient.”            “Yes…way too lenient. They need to be better parents.”            “’Better parents’ is right. How, Mr. Watson, sir, do you think parents can improve?”            “Well…they can improve by disciplining their kids, and to discipline their kids without being lenient…I’d say they out to be stricter. Parents need to be firm, have confidence, and resist being knocked over by anybody else.”


Psst. Hey you. Yes you. I wanted to give you a little sneak peek into my destructive mental health, if you're interested of course. So let me start out simple shall we, by using my schedule as an introduction. It goes as follow... My scheduled appointment with insomnia usually lasts from 12 AM to 3 AM every two weeks. Sometimes my appointments reschedule themselves, I personally think that it's due to the fact that I'm so very guilty of being a procrastination expert. Don't worry my multiple personalities and I were just arranging an intervention for when we're going to address my bad habit of procrastinating (we've been putting it off for 3 months now). Everytime that my insomnia episode happens my brain immediately sprints towards overthinking and turns my emotions up to the maximum. It's so loud music couldn't even block out the noise from the screeching voices of my thoughts. I was usually using this time to stress on myself. Trying to figure out why on God's green earth I couldn't sleep for the life of me because my body was definitely tired yet my mind was chock full of memories. Memories filled with anxiety, depression and a complete overdose of insecurities (for the people who don't understand, that's what you'd call my childhood or just everything up until now). The time that went by when I have my psychotic insomniac moments felt like a jail sentence. I later on took pride in it and made it my special time. Time to have mental breakdowns, cry and slowly gliding into my demons allowing them to eat away what's left of the glacier of this thing people call a heart. Don't get me wrong I do still emote and yes everytime my insomnia kicks in my thoughts immediately scream your name. That's when it starts, our memories start to echo at high frequencies throughout the mountains of my mind's prison. The echoes triggers the avalanche and it's all downhill from there. This particular type of avalanche starts in the mountains of my mind and went down to end up snowing on this organ called the heart. My melting glacier which when melted reveals a stone in the shape of a heart. The melted snow creates excess water allowing the tear ducts to burst like a dam. With all that water from crying myself to sleep and crying in my sleep it's a miracle that I haven't drowned in my own pool of tears. Don't get me wrong I'm an emotional wreck, certified in playing it off like she doesn't have feelings and a professional in crying over the dumbest things. Thing is I don't just cry over anyone or anything...but when you called it quits I was being a baby about it. Yes I know there's no point in crying over someone who doesn't want me, not to mention someone who has as much feeling as a robot. I constantly think of the could haves. I have so many questions I'm burning to ask you, but it's useless because it's not like I'll like the answer. I want to ask you if you ever really saw a future with me, if you ever pictured me as the mother of your children and if you'd stop loving me the moment that hell freezes over? Of course I'm a fool because I know robots like you don't have hearts so you don't really feel anything. Yes I do blame myself for believing you when you claimed to love me. I still wonder if your family would've liked me or if you're mother would've exploded at the site of someone as ugly as me. She'd probably prefer it if you settled down with someone more your type, like a toaster or a smart fridge. I'm so mad at your stupidity, you are the smartest, dumb person I've ever met. I've recited and prepared a speech for you, written from a dark place, spilling mad, twisted feelings, so full of fury from the time you took my love and jerked it around, broke it and threw it away. This speech will have you crying so much you might ruin your software, you might need an oil change. Better yet I'll call the fire department because my words might probably burn a hole through your hardware. I just don't know what it is or how you do it, but everytime I see you...I'm at a lost for words, my mouth doesn't know how to speak brain words. I completely freeze up. I hate that I have to keep reminding myself that it's over and that you're not coming back, you made that very clear. Eventhough my heart is waiting and my brain gets irritated by all the crashing waves and violent floods of the possibly that there could maby. By some miracle be a chance of an "Us". It's time for me to wake up and snap out of this trance. Everyone knows that happily ever after is only how fairytales end and life is definitely not a fairytale, very far from it I might add. You're just so amazing, a handsome face that could make any woman blush. A touch that would turn me to putty in your hands. Soft lips and a kiss that would any princess feel like this was the reason why she was born into this cruel world. Arms that provide comfort and safety. A personality that would have you enchanted and suck you in like a vortex. It's like I'm possessed by the power of you. Unfortunately, my high and mighty act drops dead as soon as my soul feels your presence near me. There are so many things that I want to say to you and pour my soul out to you, but how do I do that without malfunctioning your circuitry. So I'll leave my message in a bottle, open it when you learn the meaning of those rare three little words I told you or when you grow a heart. Take care of yourself my prince charming even though you haven't yet evolved from a toad, I still have faith that our fairytale is far from over.


I eat and that’s me. The cocktail shrimp tastes like wet sticks, and I swallow it. The crackers, tasteless, damned by salt, dry my mouth. Cold and dead things; I eat and that’s normal of me. I stand amongst lifelong friends I’ve seen just today. Murky faces I talk and act to like I adore them. Lapses in normality or common gestures I quickly blame on the vomit tasting Chardonnay. I play and convince others of myself. Therefore, this new self must surely be me. “You know what, Gary? You remind me of one of those gloomy, handsome heroes from the movies.” That’s cause he made himself that way. Radiohead optimism and espresso breathe, big-rimmed glasses and hand-combed hair. Even the dark spots under his eyes were done so well that no one could tell it was makeup. It just seemed on par. “Yes.” Said the Gary actor. He played it cool enough that the cliche was seen as tantalizing. The women at the New Year’s party giggled all the suspicion away he was in for fifteen minutes. And though it was not Gary’s usual role, he knew Gary could’ve been shy sometimes. Late nights out on the balcony, oh, he knew Gary had some mysterious gloom in him. Might as well cover this Gary in all of it for the New Year’s. No one looked surprised at least. “Hey, Gary! Buddy!” He turned to the man calling him to the stage. Immediately he says his lines. “Benny Baby! God, where’d that hairline go?” Benny Jalko misplaced all his hair back in high school, something Gary knew first hand! He watched it fall out starting freshman year. There were many late nights where Gary and Benny discussed this tragedy, some with tears, but now any thought of it all was pure resignation.

They joked about it often these days. Benny took the line without a beat, steering the conversation to the paleness of Gary’s skin. He assures Benny it’s just a new low iron diagnosis he received yesterday. He told Benny about the common symptoms like a bullet list from Google. The Gary actor thought of this lie from a woman he shared an Uber with. “Iron? You’re 6’6'' and ate beef tartare by the pound just last summer!” The Gary actor didn’t inhale an atom. “Well, anyway, how’s that Sarah girl doing? You going on another date?” The Gary actor hoped to hell he couldn’t see his heart stop. Who was Sarah? He thought of all he got from Gary. He searched every bit of information he accumulated of old girlfriends, hookups, even cousins. He shot in the dark, “Sarah Fencor? From sophomore math? Benny smiled like he half-decided to laugh, “Sarah Fencor? The girl who ate kimchi in class? Nah, movie Sarah. ‘Miss Most Beautiful Girl’ Sarah!” Benny would’ve felt the stinking panic coming from his supposed friend if he reached out a hand. He would’ve run screaming if he knew the truth. A thousand Xanax couldn’t make the Gary actor blink. “The Sarah you’ve been talking about everyday. You gotta be-” “I’m joking!” Benny jumped from the outburst. “Weeell, work on your standup. Or at least ditch what you got, ‘cause Miss Beautiful Sarah just came through the door!” ***** Sarah McKellen wasn’t much of a party fan. She hated the genre switches of amateur DJs. She didn’t like having to carry around little plates of finger-food (too much of a pain in the ass). And she sure-as-shit never drank enough to indulge in low inhibitions. She was too high strung to care for relaxing. “Drinking just makes me sleepy!” She shouted to her girlfriend. Whoever had the aux was playing too loud. “I'd rather just stick with water and no hangover.” The girlfriend started to spin a sequence of boy-toys and situationships, but, thank God, her knight in shining armor was across the room. Gary had been a blessing for her. Quiet and kind, Gary never fussed over much and definitely not her. She herself admitted she was set in her ways. More than one boyfriend had enough of their girlfriend preferring her way, always. But Gary didn’t mind, and if so, he made sure to make time where his own passions could be enriched alone. He was so agreeable that even Sarah started to hear her own ridiculousness. Eventually, Sarah humbled herself to even allow Gary to buy her earrings without clear hints. And although they had not made it official, an admission of intentions after a New Year’s kiss seemed too perfect to not come true. Sarah made eye contact with Gary. He’s so cute, she thought, this man is smitten with me. He looks like a deer caught in the headlines. Stunned by yours truly! She cut through the crowd, nearly spilling one guy's beer and pissing off a group of tipsy women. Not her fault she had to grind up on them to get past; the place was backed! She got to Gary, but for whatever reason he didn’t seem to think the same about the space. He was pressing his back into the people behind him. In a room with nowhere to breathe, he made himself a good two foot bubble. “What’s the matter, Gary?” She jokingly pried. “You think I’ll bite?” Gary stiffed into a manic smile. “You? Bite? That’s funny!” “How come?” … “You good, Gary?” Sarah had to shout, they stood not too far from the stereo system. The aux-guy was trying to blow the speakers on a lub-dub, heavy heartbeat rhythm club song. Sarah wished she could punch that fucker; Gary just said something she couldn’t hear. “What?” “mmm-mmphMm-uhah.” “What?” “mmm-mmphMm-uhah!” “What?!?” Gary latched his cold, leather hands onto her arms, pulling her close, bringing his lips a half a hair away from her ear. Chills radiated from his touch. Where’d his warm, caressing grip go? Dead fish scales felt more inviting. He opened his musty mouth, “I have to go to the bathroom.” And away he scuttled. ***** How could I forget? How could I- Forget? I never forget. Never, ever in all that he’s savored. He remembers the hairs on each animal he’s met, and can categorize their size, color and texture. He knows every moment leading up to panic. He’s seen dreams shattered, and the wailing that ensues. He’d never forget a Sarah or a love for her. …but what if he had? He turned the water on and left it running. With that damn loud music, no one would hear him pacing. But you can never be sure; he had to think. Prodding each gray tile, avoiding the cracks lest someone break his neck. He fumbled with his shirt buttons, tapping each three times. Had his luck finally run out? It couldn’t have. He was so, so, so sure his wish for a new life would come true. It told me so. It was my time to be someone new. Better. He turned to the mirror. He played this Gary role perfectly. He was Gary! Every freckle and cell. But that wasn’t entirely true, though. It was Gary, but deep, deep in Gary was a great facade, a fake who faked everything. Like I have no face. No face and no life. A fake with no truth. “I- I- I just want to be h-happy.” A red tear streaked down his cheek. It was wiped away in a blink. He could start over again. Find another Gary to play. One who knew no one, not a single person that could find out this fraud. “No, no no, no, NO!” A knock at the door. He doesn’t move. Whoever knocked does, they don’t knock again. He looks up at his reflection. “How could you?” The red tears flow now, smearing when he wipes. They won’t disappear. “How could you forget that BITCH?! That- That-” And then it hit him. There was never a lapse of memory. He was sure of that. He never forgot…because he never knew. Hadn’t he prodded his artistic muse, painted and edited, cut and redrew? He saw and heard a million things about what Gary was and could be. For months! For months, he worked and finally he thought it was done when he heard everything there was to know a hundredth time. “That… bastard .” He snarled. Something wriggled under Gary’s skin. His face twisted like noodles spun on a fork. He turned the lights off. “That bastard …was supposed to be me. ” ***** The ball dropped half an hour ago. There was still most of everyone dancing about, but the wind was moving the crowd to the door. Sarah hadn’t seen Gary since their brief encounter. She squeezed past the drunk party goers. Struggling to get to a hallway illuminated by a cool green LED. It was like walking into a tunnel of irradiated moss. It was otherworldly. At the center of the hallway, across from a bare wall, the bathroom door sunk into itself. A somber number played for the couples. Sarah wondered how long a man could take to poop. She knocked.

Knock. Knock. Knock. The door opened without a creak or groan. Solid black met her. “Gary? You in there?” A moment came and went. “He didn’t mention you.” He replied. Sarah stared as if a tragedy was unfolding. “He didn’t mention you! I knew I didn’t forget!” “Gary?” “No.” He gurgled. “Sarah.” He declared. Silence in the loudness, Sarah fell back into the wall and stuck. “Gary?” From the solid black appeared a green spot. It became a nose. A forehead. Cheeks. Mouth and eyes. Plain and plastic. “Gary. Gary? GARYYYy-y-y-y?!?” The face hung mute. In sound and expression. Still like a dying street lamp. Emotionless as a gray day. Sickening as spotless porcelain. Lips spread, gaped. A toothless bite bore a wide smile. Too large and wide a smile! The face fell forward.