Once upon a time, there existed a land where the woods stood tall and whispering, rivers wound like silver serpents through verdant meadows, and the earth itself seemed to sing with life. In this mystic realm, there lived a powerful king. The king’s name was King Soul. He reigned over a vast kingdom known as Wolffrin. Soul commanded an army of over ten hundred warriors and lorded over more than a hundred thousand civilians.

King Soul was a jaded man. Even in the tender years of his boyhood, he was distrustful and suspicious of everyone around him.

“You are a prince.” His father told him when he was just a lad, sitting on the man’s knee as King Benjamin spoke to him. “You will have a whole kingdom that must bow before you. They will cower in your presence, some will hold you in esteem, and perhaps a few will even bear you genuine affection. But heed my words, my cherished son; in this treacherous world, every soul has its price, every loyalty its breaking point. Trust none but yourself, for betrayal lurks within the hearts of every man, woman, and child." Soul took his father’s words to heart. He trusted no living soul, no matter how hard they tried to prove their trustworthiness to him. He did not consider even his own shadow to be completely trustworthy. When he was six, Soul became convinced his nursemaid was plotting to sneak poison into his meals. He told his father he saw in her eyes that she was power-hungry and that she would most certainly betray him. King Benjamin had her thrown in prison. When Soul was eleven, he had the stable boy executed after the cinch on his horse’s saddle went loose, and he took a spill. Soul was certain that the stable hand had made an attempt on his life.

When he was thirteen, he saw his own mother speaking to a pauper in the marketplace. He caught a snippet of their conversation in which the Queen said, “I will help you, certainly.” Soul rushed to his father. He exposed the Queen for a plot to commit treason against the kingdom. After all, what else would she have to help a man of lowly status with? The Queen strung up a story to her husband about how she’d been attempting to assist the humble man with his finances, as he was homeless and desperate. Soul saw right through her lies. He knew she had betrayal in her heart. Everyone did if given the chance.

The queen was banished. The King threatened to take her life if she ever returned to Salverto. One after the other, Soul found ways to incriminate servants and royals alike. The cooks, the knights, the wards of the castle, and even the King’s hound, who he swore up and down looked at him with malice in his eyes. On his eighteenth birthday, Soul went on a bear hunt through the forest with a handful of knights and servants, his father lying ill back at the castle. Surely, he was poisoned or spelled by a witch even! Soul thought, clicking his heels against his horse’s sweaty flank. Spartan whinnied and picked up his pace. His hoofs thundered over the forest floor. Soul kept his keen eyes scanning the forest, and his crossbow at the ready. Poor Father, he should have had the food he was to ingest tested more carefully. Alas, he would not be ill now had he taken better precautions! A bright sun hovered over the treetops. Light trickled down past the leaves and branches, and dots of gold danced over the forest floor.

Soul’s keen hunter's gaze caught a brief disturbance. A streak of brown fur flashed at the edge of his vision, stirring his blood with the thrill of the hunt. With a practiced motion, he tugged on Spartan's reins, bringing the mighty steed to a skidding halt. “Halt!” His voice boomed through the trees, a clear command that had his men pulling their horses to a stop with a symphony of nickers and hooves churning the soft, muddy earth beneath them. They all turned, following Soul's gaze into the thick underbrush. There, concealed by the foliage, was the smallest grizzly cub Soul had ever laid eyes on. Its tiny form crouched low, ears perked in fright, those big, black eyes shimmering with the sheer terror of being discovered. "Oi, Prince Soul!" piped up one of his knights. "Maybe we oughta leave this one alone. It's but a wee thing, after all." Soul's reply was dismissive. "My trophies know no size. If it's a bear, it's fair game for my collection." He knocked an arrow. “Oh… Sire, don’t-.” “Silence! Or would you prefer to acquaint yourself with the inside of our dungeon?” Soul commanded. The knight ceased his protests.

The bear cub let out a bleat. It backed further into the brush as Soul trained his weapon on it.

The cub flattened it’s ears. It’s nose twitched and it’s body was shaking. "Farewell, you scruffy little beast," he sneered, loosing the arrow with a twang. The air was split by a heart-wrenching scream, sending birds into a frenzy, their cries echoing Soul's cold triumph. Soul dismounted his horse. He sauntered over to the body. He picked it up by the scruff and inspected the pelt. The fur was soft, lighter in color than he'd expected—clearly, the pelt of a cub barely a few months old. It’ll make a fine trophy or a soft rug. Soul thought. He spun to face his men, grinning. “Now, you unsavory lot, was that worth all the fuss?” The knight who’d been warning him against shooting the cub blinked. His eyes stretched wide in alarm. “My Lord-.” “Ah, quiet. I’ve heard enough of your sniveling.” Soul waved him off. “No, Sire. Really, you must-.” Soul’s eyes narrowed.

I must do nothing! I am the prince, not this disrespectful suit of armor. He thought, enraged. “Now, listen here!” He began. “I take orders from none of you. If I want to kill a bear, no matter how young, I’ll kill that bear! Everything in this kingdom belongs to me. Understood?” The horses begin to stamp their hooves, their eyes going white rimmed with fear. The knights looked at something past Soul and they all cried out in one collective howl of urgency. “ Sire , behind you!” Soul felt something hot brush over the back of his neck. A reek like that of rotten fish filled his nostrils. Soul spun around. He came face-to-face with the enraged eyes of a grizzly bear. A bear bigger than any he'd ever seen before.

Soul stepped back, clutching his crossbow to his chest.

“You lazy ingrates. You fools!” He howled. “Do something, you useless slugs!” His knights hesitantly urged their horses closer. The bear stood up on its hind legs. It flattened its ears and growled. Soul picked up his crossbow and fired a clumsy shot. An arrow implied the bear’s broad shoulder. It gave an earth-shaking roar. The force of the scream was enough to send Soul stumbling back. He fell on his back and glanced up in time to see the bear tear the arrow clean from its shoulder and break it in half in its powerful jaws.

“By the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost!” Cried one of the knights. “This bear possesses the strength of a dragon. I’m not staying here to be torn apart!” “C-Coward!” Soul cried, gazing in horror over his shoulder as, one by one, his knights whirled their steeds around and fled. “All of you! Cowards and deserters! I’ll have your heads for this!” He whipped his head back to the beast. “And you! Do you not know who I am? Back away, you foul sack of fleas, lest you bring down the armies of Wolffrin on yourself!” The bear snarled. It didn’t seem to care about what armies he commanded. With a hiss, thebear grabbed his arm in its fangs, piercing his skin, then it flung him into a tree.

Blood poured down Soul’s tunic, and his head rang from being bashed into the trunk.

The fuzzy shape of the bear advanced on him. Soul closed his eyes, tears pouring down his cheeks. Truly, this must have been planned. He decided. Those cowards must have led me here on purpose so that this monstrous creature could do away with me. They want my power and my position, and they will stop at nothing to get it.

“Away! Away! Do not harm him.” The voice was as soothing as birdsong in the morning. Soul peeked open his eyes. A boy, no older than him, had come to stand between him and the bear. The boy had long black hair braided down his back. He wore animal skins, and there was a tattoo on one exposed shoulder. A mark of a doe deer. A Speaker. Soul sat up in amazement. Why! I’ve only ever heard of them in stories. A people who dwell in the forest from birth to death, speaking to the animals and hearing prophecies from the rains and from the mountains beyond. “I know.” The boy soothed, as the bear gave a quiet whimper, its hackles lying flat and its eyes dropping to the ground. “But he is the prince. You cannot kill him. If you did, his people would do most terrible things to you, my friend.” The bear gave a furious stamp of its foot. The Speaker touched its forehead gently with his palm. “Rest easy, great hunter.” He whispered, his fingers creasing its scalp. “Rest. Return to the woods. Know that your cub hunts in peace in the Golden Forest now.” The bear leaned into his touch. Then she turned and lumbered back into the forest.

Soul panted. He gingerly let his fingertips graze over his torn clothing, painting them scarlet with blood. “Are you gravely injured…Sire?” Soul glanced up. The Speaker was eyeing him thoughtfully. His eyes were hard, but not unkind. “Not gravely. I tell you, when I return to the castle, I shall have all those cowards hung! Truly!” Soul used the trunk of the tree to pull himself to his feet. The Speaker didn’t move. The boy watched him impassively. “You saved my life, stepping between me and that creature and daring to reason with the demon.” Soul hummed, more to himself than to the other boy. “She wasn’t…” The Speaker sighed. “She was simply hurting, Prince. She lost her baby.” “Yes, yes.” Soul waved him off. “The fact remains that you have done me a great service.” “It was my pleasure, Sire. Now, I should return home-.” “No. You must be rewarded.” Soul smiled. His father’s warnings rippled in his head, the residual swirls of stones long ago cast. For once, he ignored them. This heroic young man had saved his life! He risked his own wellbeing for Soul's sake; no one had ever come close to doing such a thing before. Not even the prince’s beloved father.

“Rewarded?” The Speaker’s eyes widened. “Oh, no. Sire, you don’t have to-.” “You shall come and live in the castle as one of the royal household. I shall give you command of a battalion, and you will be my most trusted soldier. My confident. I shall give you what I have never given one before--as it is because of you that I stand here now--my trust.”

*** In the years that followed Soul’s eighteenth birthday, changes occurred in the kingdom of Wolffrin. His father passed away a week or so after his birthday, and Soul became king. Soul, true to his word, placed the Speaker, named Kinshawn, in charge of many armies. Kinshawn became his most trusted ally, the only one besides his father to whom he ever gave his utmost trust. He confided in Kinshawn about everything.

They became more than allies. They became true friends, who would do anything for one another. The only tension within their friendship was that Kinshawn knew of Soul’s paranoia, and it troubled him deeply. “You can’t ascribe to folks qualities of evil and malicious intent that aren’t there!” He’d protest. “You can’t punish people for crimes that you’ve made up in your own head... Sire .” “I simply prevent catastrophe.” Soul would brush him off. “I act on their sinful thoughts before they can.” “Oh, Soul-.” “Enough. I’ll hear no more about this.” After his father’s death, Soul grew more suspicious and distrustful than before. Again and again, he had innocent people killed and punished on the grounds of betrayal. It got to the point where his entire kingdom not only feared him but hated him for his cruel assumptions. Every day, someone was hung. The gallows remained set up in the city square.

The prisons overflowed with starving prisoners, most of whom had done nothing to deserve confinement. Over a thousand men and women had been banished under false accusations during Soul’s reign. The people were furious and desperate. They began to plot how to get rid of their horrible king.

*** “It’s betrayal, I tell you! An outright coup!” Soul was on edge, pacing back and forth like a caged animal in the expansive, eerily silent throne room. Kinshawn stood across from him, the only one besides himself in the room. “Sire, you don’t know that for certain.” “I do!” Soul shot back, his voice tinged with a mix of fury and desperation. “One of my knights told me himself! While mingling in the marketplace, he overheard a nefarious plot whispered among a shady gathering. They boasted about planting an assassin among us—someone aiming to cut my life short.” “Soul, perhaps he misheard.” “No, Kinshawn. I know. I know the people are out to get me. They’ve slipped a traitor into my home. We must find out who it is! Perhaps one of the knights…” “Sire, don’t .” “Or, or!” Soul snapped his fingers. “Perhaps the new kennel master! I swear to you, my brother, he looked at me strangely when I passed him on my way to the stables just the other day!” “Soul, please stop.” “Or perhaps,” Soul carried on. “It was the apothecary's boy-.” “He’s a little child!”

“He had a shifty way to him!” Soul grunted. “I say, wouldn’t that be an idea too? To have a child barely out of the womb bring about my end.” The king's laughter, laced with bitterness, filled the room, morphing into something dark and foreboding. “What a cunning way to strip me of power and smear my legacy with such a humiliating defeat. Oh! You can’t trust anyone, my friend. Only you-.” “STOP!” Soul felt a sharp sting at the nape of his neck, a sensation both startling and oddly warm. A trickle of something wet slid down his skin, sending a shiver straight down his spine. Instinctively, his hand flew to his neck, his fingers brushing against the cold, smooth handle of a dagger protruding from it. “K-Kin… K-Kinshawn?” Soul whimpered, a mix of confusion and disbelief in his voice as he dropped to his knees. With effort, he turned himself around to face the direction the blow had come from. His friend was standing there, tears pouring down his face. Kinshawn stumbled forward, collapsing to his knees, and reached out, cradling Soul’s face in his hands tenderly. “I’m sorry.” He whispered, his lip trembling. “I’m so sorry. I had no other choice. You were destroying your own kingdom—the very kingdom I’ve come to love.”

Soul felt a lump in his throat, stifling his breath. Panic and disbelief gripped him. “Y- You?” He rasped. “You are the assassin the people spoke of? You betrayed… me?” Kinshawn gently wiped away a tear rolling down Soul’s cheek, a gesture filled with heartbreaking tenderness. “No, my brother.” He sniffed, shaking his head. “You betrayed yourself. By believing nothing but the worst of all those around you, you made them believe that’s all that they could be. You expected nothing but traitors and murders, so that’s what your people gave you.”

“B-B-But I l-loved… y- you… y-you were my b-brother.” Soul managed between sobs, the words barely escaping his lips. Kinshawn’s crying took on a new depth—a raw, soul-crushing sound that Soul had never heard from any man before. It was like something in him was dying with his king. “And you mine.” He murmured. “The day I saved you from the bear—though that day it was not you who I desired to save but the she-bear—you became my kin. Soul, I’m a Speaker. We’re raised to believe in the best of the world, not the worst. To show kindness and mercy to all. To give a man every chance you can before you condemn him. And don’t you see? I have given you every chance. I tried all that I knew, but something long ago hardened your heart, and I couldn’t change it.” “I-I h-hate y-you!” Soul managed to spit out, his vision going black. Kinshawn, unfazed, continued to stroke his face gently, just like he did with the bear on that fateful day years ago.

“I’m sorry you do. Because regardless of everything, I will always love you, my brother.” And with that, King Soul’s reign came to a heartbreaking close. The Kingdom of Wolffrin, which had once cowered under the shadow of a ruler consumed by paranoia, was now in the hands of a man whose heart was as vast as the kingdom he vowed to protect. A protector of man and beast alike. A man who valued trust and friendship, even when those fragile things could lead to betrayal. King Kinshawn, born a Speaker, proved a warrior through noble deeds, and crowned a king through a twist of fate and betrayal. The End


Before God and those assembled here, I solemnly pledge; To adhere to the code of ethics of the nursing profession; To co-operate faithfully with the other members of the nursing team and to carry out faithfully and to the best of my ability the instructions of the physician or the nurse who may be assigned to supervise my work; I will not do anything evil or malicious and I will not knowingly give any harmful drug or assist in malpractice. I will not reveal any confidential information that may come to my knowledge in the course of my work. And I pledge myself to do all in my power to raise the standards and prestige of the practical nursing; May my life be devoted to service and to the high ideals of the nursing profession. -

Nightingale Pledge, modernized.

 A fly on the wall or invisble spy in the intentionally darkened office at Saint Crystal’s Regional Hospital would immediately assume that Head Nurse Shannon Ashley wasted her mornings doom scrolling social media from her desk. Dark curls streaked with subtle glimmers of silver rioted from her scalp and tumbled to her shoulders softly. She held a handful of thick tendrils in her free hand, twirling absently. Her brow furrowed over narrowed hazel eyes as she collected a screen shot from her Iphone, sighed in disgust, and crossed another name off the mile long list of candidates.

She could smell and taste her breakfast smoothie from under her medical grade mask and removed it, relishing the quick break from masking.  She’d been at the hospital since six that morning, reviewing the list of nursing candidates to invite to their overflowing hospital. Since the Pandemic,  St. Crissy’s lost a large percentage of its staff to COVID diagnosis, fear of diagnosis, and refusal to vaccinate. The remaining nurses were averaging 70-hour weeks and the stress beat them mercilessly.

 She’d been at the search for weeks but she knew that no one else cared enough to be this thorough. Her needle in the haystack might be a myth in their little community. She hoped not, she herself was a needle, she reasoned. The sharpest needle there.

I’mma poke all these motherfuckers,

she thought to herself with a dry laugh. Her phone dinged, and a banner notification said that she had meetings in twenty minutes. She only had twenty minutes left.

“Twyla James, R.N.,” she repeated the name with an exaggerated drawl cultivated from a culturally colorful upbringing in the South. She grew up poor, the only white girl in her black neighborhood. She graduated high school and partied through college, barely making her Bachelors. That felt like a million years ago, but she still felt the same pride as she glanced at the photo of her, her family and best friends at her pinning ceremony. Over twenty years ago she pledged the same promise every nurse in her hospital made in their own ceremonies and she couldn’t help but wonder if anyone else heard those words.

She entered the name in the search engine from her desktop computer and a list of social media accounts under that name populated the screen. The name was common, Twyla James. She could be this Black woman holding a pair of chubby adorable twins. Maybe the Twyla James with the nosering and crop top. Shannon decided to begin her search with Black Twyla with the babies. She hoped this Twyla could be her needle.

She was not. This Twyla wasn’t even a nurse; she appeared to be a church pastor. On to Nosering Twyla.

She pressed her thumb over the picture, pulling up Nosering Twyla’s social media. She gazed up at Shannon Ashley, lips puckered, fingers up in a peace sign, puppy ears wagging. She started by looking at her profile pictures, selfies mostly of her making the same face with a different filter sporting another animal’s ears. Twyla as a kitten, bunny rabbit, devil horns. Twyla as a sparkly person with aviator glasses. Twyla liked Snapchat.

She also was not her needle. On to another Twyla.

Her thumb swiped over her profile section. Twyla’s birthday was in January.  Relationship Status: Married. Anniversary, August 4. A  masked picture of her in scrubs graced her profile picture.

Please God, let this be my needle. Her timeline looked interesting, active. Graphics with positive, affirming quotes about self love and women empowering others. Shannon Ashley giggled as she landed on a picture of Twyla and a group of women posing with their wine glasses held high, toasting an event. They looked drunk and excited to be alive. Twyla liked to party. She kept scrolling. She liked this Twyla so far.

About a week into the timeline, Shannon Ashley stops.  She found exactly what she was looking for, her turd in the punchbowl. She took her screenshot, placed a red line through Twyla James, and checked the next name on her list. Lawrence Wright.  She entered his name in the search engine and was surprised to see that he played college basketball at a west coast college. He owned profiles on every social media app but appeared to share very little about himself. Single, no children. No political views.

Promising.

Unfortunately and quickly, Lawrence also failed her test. She took the screen shot and sent it to her roommate.

“Look, another nurse calling Kyle Rittenhouse a hero,” she texted, dropping the eyeroll emoji.

“Gross,” Karin replied “How can you expect a racist sympathizer to care for a diverse population?”

“You don’t,” Replied Shannon Ashley. She dropped her phone into the pocket of her scrubs and tossed her hair. She looked at the Nightingale Pledge framed on her wall and read it softy, reminding herself that in her hospital, everyone would be taken care of, regardless of who they were.

She finished her pledge and adjusted the Black Lives Matter mask over her medical grade. She thought about the LPN she fired two weeks ago for calling a Venezuelan patient an ‘illegal.’ She recalled the surgeon who couldn’t keep his hands off of her, finally gone after a lengthy and reluctant battle from HR. Somebody had to keep the wolves out.

You’re the needle in the haystack, Shannon.

She feels her phone vibrate and looks at the screen.

“Poke those motherfuckers,” Karin’s text said, adding a needle, string, and a flexed arm.

“Duh, bitch,” Shannon Ashley replied, dropping her phone back into her pocket as she shut the door.


The first explosion shook the underground train right off its track. I had just gathered my belongings and was waiting for others to get off at the end of the line stop before stepping out onto the platform myself. Through the shock and surprise, I stupidly thought that whatever had happened, at least it was at a moment when the doors of the train were open so nobody would be trapped inside. Those few passengers who waited to be last at least had shelter when the second blast went off. That one filled the stairwell with rubble, probably the remains of what had been the station above... the fate of the other passengers who had sprinted up the stairs unknown. Only six of us emerged from the broken train cars to try to gather our wits on the now filthy platform. Six total strangers, apparently trapped within the tiled walls that had probably served as shelter for many families during the London Blitz. No one spoke for several minutes. The silence was eventually broken by a mother in drab clothing, clutching a little boy to herself. "Is it terrorists? What happened? Stay close, Tommy." Tommy looked to be around nine years old. He kept trying to pull away from his mother and looked around with wide, blue eyes, naturally astonished at the turn his ordinary day out with his mother had taken. "Don't know, love, could be world war three." The South London accented remark came from a young man, perhaps twenty, with a punk look, dressed all in black and chains. His hair was shaved close to his head and something of the gaunt contours of his face suggested heroin addiction. Just what we didn't need among us. "Is there another way out?" I ventured aloud. Underground stations usually had multiple corridors and stairways, if only to separate arriving and departing passengers. I wondered if the designers had considered emergency exits in their plans. I couldn't see any passageways that didn't involve heavy steel locked doors and the stairs were heavily blocked. That left the tunnels. "We should be patient," suggested an Asian woman with a scarf wrapped over her head. She clutched a shopping bag to herself as closely as Tommy's mother held her son. The sixth survivor, I was already referring to us as survivors in my mind, was a man with a working class look to him. Eventually my mind cleared enough to note the uniform. He was the train driver. We heard a high-pitched whine come from one of the cars and despite the odd angle of the train that made the familiar phrase, "Mind the gap" take on new meaning, the driver leapt across the two-food chasm to the rescue. He was a middle-aged black man who looked as if he was in good physical shape, despite a beginning paunch. The emaciated twenty-something girl he helped climb out of the wreckage didn't look nearly as spry. It's sometimes too easy to judge someone by appearances. Skinny jeans, a barely-there vest top, fire engine red hair tied up in two shoulder-length pony tails and heavy eyeliner that gave her a waif-like countenance in the shocked expression we probably all shared to some degree didn't elicit much confidence. I was pretty sure she would turn out to be a weak link in a survival situation, yet it was the punk guy in black who trotted over to help the train driver assist the girl across to the platform. Appearances can be deceiving. Once we were all gathered together, the initial trauma began to settle into a dreadful acceptance of our situation and we exchanged names. Tommy's mother was called Sarah. There's always a Sarah. The emaciated girl was Nicola. What else? Punk boy was Dave and the train driver was named Richard. I had to ask the Asian woman her name twice and then have her spell it. Adilah might be a popular name in some parts of London, but I'd never heard it before. I told them my name, Rachel. Yeah, there's always a Rachel too. We compared our individual familiarity with the station and discussed alternative ways out. Richard was the most knowledgeable and he actually jumped down next to the track, warning us not to follow in case the electricity was still live. He followed the tunnel a short distance and came up against another pile of rubble. The tunnel had collapsed. After he reported that result, he tried the other direction while the rest of us avoided mentioning what might have happened if the explosions had gone off just a minute later. We heard him shouting for help and for a moment I wondered if he had run into trouble, but again he returned too soon with an inauspicious report. This time he had got as far as one of the doors for the maintenance crew, but he didn't have a key and no one answered his calls. Adilah suggested we should try to be patient and wait for rescue. I wondered what was happening above ground and whether there was any rescue to come. I could tell from the expressions of my fellow survivors that I wasn't the only one to have that thought. Small talk only emphasised how little most of us had in common. After trying for a little while, Tommy announced that he was hungry. His mother didn't have any food. Richard saved the day again, volunteering a little food he had on the train. He suggested we should pool whatever we had and try to make it last, as we didn't know how long we might be trapped. What Richard retrieved from the train was obviously meant to be his lunch. He offered a sandwich, neatly cut into quarters, and apologised that it was chicken curry. He also had a banana and a thermos of tea. Tommy turned up his nose at the chicken curry sandwich. His mother wouldn't accept it either, citing a dislike for spicy food. That was when we learned that Nicola was vegan. She wasn't about to touch the sandwich or the tea, and the banana had already gone to Tommy. The rest of us each ate a quarter of the sandwich and passed around the tea, refused only by Nicola because of the milk, while Adilah unpacked her shopping bag. She had some tinned goods, beans and carrots, but no tin opener. "I can sort that," Dave volunteered. To my horror, he drew a knife that would have made Crocodile Dundee proud out of his leather boot and plunged it into the top of the can of beans, twisting it to move the thin metal out of the way as if he had done this many times before. I wouldn't be surprised if he had. He then did the same to the carrots. So much for reserving food. He placed that tin in front of Nicola, leaving the rest of us to scoop cold beans out of a jagged tin with our fingers, as we had no other implements. I watched him stroll down the platform to the overpriced vending machine full of chocolate and crisps. He turned the knife so that a round-ended pummel could be used like a hammer. I immediately saw his intent. "They alarm those vending machines" I called out to him. He turned and gave me a crooked smile. "Let them come and arrest me," he answered. He had a point. The crash of glass made me flinch, even though I had braced for it. To give him credit, Dave handed the first chocolate bar to the child. He kept one with almonds for himself, then shared out the rest of the snacks to whomever would take them. Only our vegan companion hesitated to partake, then she sort of gave a half shrug and reached for a bag of crisps and a chocolate bar that was mostly coconut. "No point holding to trivialities, my dear," Dave said to the girl. "Won't be vegan food on offer down here again, and you're too skinny to make a good meal." It took me a moment to take in his meaning. If rescue didn't come very soon, the next meal we shared together would be one of us.


authors note: Hey y'all! Hope you guys all are having a fabulous Friday. I Just wanted to say a few things before you get your read on. This is dedicated to my bestest friend EVER, Lilah Blackburn.❤❤❤ QOTD: Apple or Samsung? If you don't get all of this, don't worry there are a lot of inside jokes (like the prince's first and last name and others) so that's why. ONE WEEK TIL CHRISTMAS!!!! This was just for fun. I thought it'd be cute and I was bored. I wrote this in like an hour so it's not good. When I say creative nonfiction I mean it hasn’t happened yet, but it WILL. Im Determined. I shall WILL it into existence. PLEASE DONT KILL ME LILAH      It was a lovely Christmas Eve, the pure white snowflakes were falling, sleigh bells jingling, and the princess of Genova was not happy. Her father, Reginald, had plans to set up an arranged marriage.

”But I don't want to!” Lilah protested. ”Dear daughter, you must! It is the legacy, that on your eighteenth birthday you shall be married to a foreign prince, ” the king said. At that, the princess ran away to the wooded forests that stretched beyond the castle. Sighing, a frustrated Reginald let her daughter go, knowing she would eventually come back. Lilah flew down the hallway and out the door until she saw the forest in her hazel colored eyes. When she saw the trees she began to slow down, and breath more steadily. Lilah was not your typical talk-to-animals-and-wear-big-sparkly-dresses type of princess. She would rather be riding horses or climbing trees with the boys. She wouldn't be able to stand it if she were married to a prissy boy who thought she had to be all proper and fancy. Lilah pushed the thoughts out of her head as she made her way up the treehouse that she found upon moving to the castle. It wasn't the most beautiful or elegant, her father offered to have another one built, but Lilah rejected. The treehouse held too many memories of a young princess who would rather be outdoors than dancing in a ball. After cooling down slightly, the princess made her way back to the castle. She had just seen the clearing in the trees when, suddenly, a large blur sped past her. Upon closer inspection, she saw a boy, about her age, gripping the neck of a horse, trying to stay on. Despite his greatest efforts, Lilah could see he was slipping. She ran to the stables where she grabbed her horse, Celeste, and jumped on bareback. She had spent enough time on Celeste that she didn't need a saddle. Her legs gripped the silky bay’s sides as she urged him into a gallop. With the speed of a race car she caught up with the boy and cut off the path of his horse. The mount reared up, tossing said boy into the brush. Lilah winced as she saw him land with a thump in the thick sticker bushes.

”Ouch, ” she heard. Peering from inside the bushes was a medium-sized boy with blonde hair and braces. ”Are you alright?” she called. For a moment the boy was silent taking in the girl's beauty. Her middle-length wavy hair flowed around her shoulders and the leaves on the top of her head looked like a halo to him.

”Ye- yes, I'm quite alright thanks to you, ” he said sheepishly. ”And who might you be?” The princess asked. ”My name's Kevin Rostin, ” he responded. ”And who are you?” the princess chuckled at the strange last name. ”I’m prin-, ” Lilah paused, not wanting Kevin to know she was a princess. ”I’m Lilah, ” she said instead. ”Anyhow, what were you doing on that horse? You don't look like you know how to ride at all.” ”I don't, ” he answered honestly. ”My… Friend, said that I needed to learn to ride.” The princess shrugged. ”Alright, well I should be off.”

”Don't go!” Kevin called. ”Why not?” ”Well, I just thought we could get to know each other more. You seem really sweet an- and smart, and your beautiful, and-. Well, I should probably stop talking, ” he stuttered. The princess felt heat rise to her face and she looked away promptly. After she was in her room, Lilah spilled everything that had happened to her favorite handmaid, Abby. After she finished Abby asked, ”Well he sure seemed to like you? Do you like him?” ”No, no of course not!” Abby wiggled her eyebrows at the princess. Lilah looked away, knowing that she really did like Kevin, but knew it could never be.      The next day was Christmas, and today Lilah would meet all the princes her father had found. Not to her surprise, the princess did not like any of them. They each had the same proper attitude and tried too hard to woo the princess. At the end of each ”date”, all four of the princes proposed. And each time she curtly said ”no”. For she only had eyes for Kevin. Her father was upset that she had said no and continued to try and find princes for her. Whilst all this was going on, Kevin and Lilah we're secretly dating. She didn't even tell Abby. After a year of dating, Kevin knew he had to make his move. They were on a ride through the woods, when Kevin stopped. ”Is everything alright dear?” Lilah inquired. Without answering, he got on one knee.

”Lilah, I loved you ever since you rescued me last year. You are so much different than any other girl I hath ever met. Would you be my Lilah Rostin?” The princess’s eyes brimmed with tears as the words ”yes” escaped her lips.      After telling her handmaid the news, Abby promptly swatted her on the head before saying

”I knew it! I knew it!” and danced around like a little girl. She might be been the happiest of them all. Even the king was happy for her, and found Kevin to be a wonderful man. The soon to be queen and king lived happily ever after.


What makes a story worth reading? The title? The author? The cover of the book? The answer is none of them, it’s the hook. You get them drugged by your words and leave them starving for more, getting them addicted. Once you get them wrapped around your hand, they wouldn’t be able to resist, ‘just one more chapter’ they’ll say but in reality, they’ll end up devouring the book within hours. And today I have the chance to do just that. Hope Michaels you are this year's lucky winner! A private tour of the lunar island. Your tour date is June 11, 9:30 AM… The screeching isle. Of course, that’s not the real name, but some rumors say back when the island was operational, they would hear screams coming from them. You could hear them on the mainland, but of course, those are just rumors. No one knows what the lab that occupies the island looks like. People have tried flying drones over the island to see but it’s covered with trees and greenery.

The island was abandoned 50 years ago after a chemical leak poisoned the air. There were other tours before, they do it every few years, but no one talked about what they saw. But I’m going to change that, my story will be on every headline, I just know in my gut that there is more to the story than just a chemical leak.

…

“Hope Michaels?” A tall man asked as I approached the dock. He had wrinkled on his face and glasses; he looked like he was in his forties.

“That’s me,” I smiled. “My name is Rick Fanny I will be your tour guide for today” He shook my hand. The dock was isolated by only one boat. It was small, looked like it could hold 4 people. “Now to give you some background on the island, it was shut down 50 years ago due to a chemical leak. It was a lab that was testing vaccines and cures for certain types of illnesses, but I’m sure you already know all about that considering you are a writer, right?” “Reporter, actually. But yes, I’ve dug deep to know every little detail about this place.” “I guess you don’t need me. Might even take my job” He joked.

“Is this the only way onto the island?” I asked, this was the first time I looked at him since getting on the boat, the view was so captivating, a photograph wouldn’t have done it justice.

“I guess there is still some stuff you didn’t research. Yes, this is the only way in and out of the island, which makes it easier to spot trespassers. There is only one dock, and the rest of the island is fenced.” He answered. “You might want to get comfortable; it usually takes 45 minutes to reach the island, you’re welcome to take photos if you’d like,” he continued. “Thanks, but no camera can capture the beauty this place holds.” The sun was hitting the water at just the right angle making the whole lake sparkle. No photographer or painter would be able to mimic the alluring scenery. It’s one of the places you’d need to see in real life to believe it. “Ahh, spoken like a true writer,” He replied. “Reporter.” I corrected him but he just shrugged, not seeing the difference.

Rick turned on the radio to replace the silence. “Police are still searching for missing 12 and 10-year-old girls: Lara and Beck Stein, but there seems to be no luck.” “It’s so sad what happened to the girls, they had their whole life ahead of them.” I looked at Rick trying to strike up a conversation with him, but he just kept his gaze on the floor and turned the radio off.

Silence it is.

…

The rest of the boat ride was quiet, I wrote some notes down and Rick stared into outer space.

“Well, here we are. Please be careful getting off the boat, we don’t want you falling in” I sighed and got out of the boat with no problem. Now is when the story begins. There was a small gravel path that led you further into the island, the trees caved in on us.

No one would be able to rescue us if something happened.

We proceeded to follow the path until we were standing outside of a tall building. There were vines growing on the walls and some windows had been smashed. Inside the building, the floor was filled with dirt and mud. It’s hard to imagine that this was once a functioning laboratory where people roamed in here doing god knows what. But in a way it was beautiful, seeing nature take back what once was theirs. “This is the lobby but if you follow me, I’ll take you to the lab” You could hear his voice echo through the building. We walked further into the building until we reached a room named Laboratory 1.

“Before you could enter the lab scientist had to sterilize themselves to make sure they don’t bring any outside germs into the lab and possibly their work.” We were in a small narrow hallway that had ventilators everywhere. Once we passed, there was a room with lab coats and hazmat suits. There were desks everywhere and on them were broken petri dishes that were occupied by mold. There were needles on the floor and broken beakers everywhere. I walked toward the fridge and opened it, just like workstations there were Petri dishes in the fridge and freezer.

“Oh, sorry Hope, I have to take this phone call. Feel free to roam around just be careful of the glass. I’m going to go outside; it has the best reception” he didn’t wait for me to answer.

This was underwhelming, it looked like any other lab. I wouldn’t be able to write a story about this, there is no story here. It was just a waste of time, no wonder none of the other visitors talked about their experience.

I kicked a chair across the room in frustration but saw that it hit a small bookshelf.

Why would scientists need a bookshelf in their lab? Walking over I saw that the shelf was filled with dust, dirt, spiderwebs, and leaves. The books too, all except one, one of them was completely clean. I looked back to see if Rick was in view, he wasn’t. I pulled the book to look at it but as soon as I did, I heard a latch click.

The shelf creaked revealing it was a door, confusion and excitement took over me. Now this is a story.

Clearly, Rick didn’t want me to know about this, but I didn’t care because a reporter will do anything for their story and that’s the thought I had as I walked down the dimly lit stairs.

I quickly pulled out my notebook rushing to write down every thought that was going through my head, but they grew louder the more I walked down the stairs.

I wasn’t alone. I heard conversations through the room, but the island has been deserted, and they wouldn’t have been able to sneak in without alerting security, there’s only one way in and out.

I reached the bottom of the stairs anxious for what was waiting for me on the other side. Walking toward the double doors, they opened automatically. The electricity worked down here.

The doors flew open, and I got a glimpse of what was inside, a whole lab filled with scientists in robes. Realization hit me like a flood, the island was never abandoned. The chemical leak was a cover-up story so no one would come snooping around, who would want to explore an abandoned place if the air is poisonous? And the tours, they only did them, so they didn't raise the public’s suspicion, they showed the visitor the old lab ‘See there is no story here just a regular lab.’ I couldn’t believe my eyes; they must’ve been deceiving me.

The only thing that nagged me was the why? Why do all of this secrecy, what could they possibly have to hide? Speaking of hiding I ducked under a table so no one would see me, I looked out of place, and I knew just how to fix that.

 I slowly crept up the stairs seeing that Rick was still on his phone call. I backtracked to the entrance of the old lab and grabbed one of the lab coats making sure to get all the dust off. Not perfect but enough to blend in.

Standing in front of the door inches away from my story. Just act confident, like you belong there and didn’t just find out that this is a secret lab. Everything’s going to be fine, no one asks questions to people who look confident. I tried to reassure myself but wasn’t doing a very good job.

Clearing my throat, I held my head high and walked through. I was immediately blinded by the fluorescent lights. There were scientists everywhere varying from ones looking at microscopes, to naming petri dishes, to writing down data on a file.

This place was alive.

I saw a door with a little tag that said subjects. It had a code pad though and well I didn’t have it; I’d have to wait until someone goes in or out of there.

I pretended to look busy by intently looking at a piece of paper that was left on one of the worktables, it was a chart. A beep caught my ear. I saw the door to the subjects open and I quickly rushed over there before it closed.

“Such a crappy day” I heard someone say, I looked around realizing they were talking to me. “Oh um, yes” he looked intently into my eyes, waiting for me to spill my darkest secrets to him. They were black, you couldn’t differentiate between the pupil and the iris, it was like looking into the darkness, a darkness that everyone has inside them. I wonder what his darkness is.

He cleared his throat bringing me back to reality, I gave him a weak smile and walked through the door as he walked out. I looked back to make sure no one followed but was distracted by the noise in the room. There were cells everywhere and… people connected to IVs; they were drugged out of their minds.

“Help” one whispered, she was barely awake. But something about the girl in the cell next to her caught my attention. I recognized her, how couldn’t I, she was on every news channel. Lara Stein, she was one of the missing girls.

Looking around I saw that I recognized all of them, some of these kids went missing years ago.

Sickness fell over me, I couldn’t believe what I was seeing, and it felt like the air in my lungs had been sucked out of me. I felt useless, what could I do? I’m just one insignificant person, I won’t be able to stop this, the kids whose families are grieving them, the kids who are passed out on the cold cement floor, there was nothing I could do. Expose them, that’s how you can help, don’t stop now, you came here for a story, and you got one. These kids need you to write this story, you’re their only hope.

I swiped the tears away and took out my phone documenting everything.

“I’m here to help you, but you have to tell me what they’re doing to you” I whispered to the girl asking for help, she was the only one conscious enough for a conversation.

“Th-they’re injecting us with stuff and see if we survive.” She started profusely crying, “One of them started to bleed out of their eyes, they’re experimenting on us. I heard one of them say that-” We were interrupted by a blaring alarm, and the lights turned red, Rick must’ve realized I was gone.

“I’m going to come back to you, I promise,” I looked down at the girl with pitiful eyes. “No, no please I beg don’t leave, they’re gonna kill us all!” she started yelling. “Quite down” I hushed, but it did nothing. She kept screaming and crying, seconds later scientists burst into the room knowing I was the odd one out. I was mentally in that room with the girl, but my feet had a mind of their own, they were running, bursting through every door trying to find an exit. There were heavy footsteps following closely. I looked back to see how far they were but fell on the ground, dirt, and leaves; I was outside. I managed to find an exit. I ran to the edge of the island but was fenced in shit. I kept running along the fence until I reached the dock. Jumping on the boat, the keys were missing, Rick must still have them. I had to think of something fast. I remembered that I wrote an article about hotwiring a few months ago about how it’s criminal and found it ironic considering what I was about to do. I took two different wires and connected them hearing the vessel roar to life along with the footsteps of scientists and security guards, but I hit the gas rushing me into the water.

Looking back, I saw all of them with distressed faces, they knew they were doomed.

I’ll be back for those kids, but for now, I have a story to write.


I don’t recommend nursing a broken heart while eating a greasy calzone in a mall cafeteria. Especially

my  local mall, where you’re almost always bound to be one of two people in the entire cafeteria. The other person is the janitor, whose lack of ass and boatload of keys means his pants are hanging by a belt and a prayer. He stands in place wiping a rag over the same clean table with the same dead eyes in a perpetual frozen state since the nineteen nineties. He’s like the mosquito stuck in a sad sepia resin of capitalism’s underbelly. At least then, when you were in high school, the mall wasn’t an abandoned soul suck. At least then, you didn’t eat alone in the cafeteria. Now, you’re a forty something stuck in the same frozen time glitch sitting at the same table, feeling perverse by sinking your fingers into a meaty moist calzone and pulling out the slimy red and green peppers you hate. Like the janitor, you may not have ever left this table—at least not in spirit, and the only thing that’s changed in the last two decades is your waistline and hair color. The same Orwellian soft rock soundtrack from two decades ago lulls you into calm resignation while something in your gut simultaneously screams to be released. Orange grease drips from the corners of your mouth making you look like a sad clown. Each time you slip a limp pepper from the calzone, you think to yourself:

I deserve this. I deserve this pepper.

No, I don’t recommend your local mall for the self pity party. (Or laundromats. Those are also places you feel particularly depressed and pissed at the world.) And in the only department store that hasn’t gone under to Amazon, there’s bound to be one fluorescent light in the dressing room that flickers so hard you’re at risk of a seizure even if you don’t have epilepsy. Lady A (formerly Lady Antebellum) sings the pop country song of your people over the store’s sound system :

“… It's a quarter after one I'm a little drunk and I need you now Said I wouldn't call, but I lost all control And I need you now” Simultaneously your mind plays its own mantra on loop:

depression lies…don’t text your ex…depression lies…don’t text your ex… And you know you must be getting old because the clothes in JC Penney’s are suddenly looking cute. Last time you were here you cried in the dressing room at the sight of your thick thighs bulging out of cream colored spanks you were trying on to wear under your prom dress. It’s hard to remember that girl—the smart pubescent one with a pretty face and painful nipples; the girl trying to navigate menstruation, melancholy, and love; the girl who liked alternative music and had Plath’s

The Bell Jar dog-eared in her leather backpack.

You don’t recognize yourself on the outside anymore. You’re probably standing in the same dressing room as you did decades ago, surrounded by three walls of funhouse mirrors. But the inner reflection hasn’t changed. Your hormones are still going haywire (except now it’s perimenopause); you’re still on antidepressants; and you still have a crippling fear of abandonment.

And you still find yourself accidentally browsing in the petite section, running your hands over adorable outfits and wondering why the little blond with the Patagonia jacket is giving you concerned glances, only to realize your mistake and beeline it to your homeland where busty bald mannequins call you back with open stiff arms?—the same Amazonian mannequins whom you hip check (and apologize) because there’s not enough room for two plus sized ladies here. (Why do they put petite next to plus size? Can’t there be a buffer? A neutral zone? A gradient? Why must these two countries share a border?) “I'm all alone and I need you now Said I wouldn't call, but I lost all control And I need you now” Nope. The mall is one maladaptive coping mechanism you should really ditch. Drop that paisley polyester blouse and book it outa there; do your girl a favor and tackle that Renaissance mannequin on your way; bust an old rugby move and free that queen;  pull that fire alarm; punch a pack of pantyhose; push over the table of cropped tops and daisy dukes; hip check a rack of retinol wrinkle reducing blah blah blah; run as fast as your now-out-of-style skinny jeans will let you; and don’t get caught at the exit where the revolving door will dump you back into the hellish mental time warp of a trap that is your childhood trauma and insecure attachment personality type.

No, let the calzone-causing heartburn motivate you. Let your heart

burn . Burn rubber in the parking lot while Ms. Mannequin hangs from your passenger window. Back your car into Patagonia Girl’s Wrangler like Kathy Bates, Fried Green Tomatoes style. Peel outa there like Thelma and Louise; peel off that idea that you aren’t good enough. The only way to heal is to let that burn in your heart burn itself out. And if you could say something to that sullen girl you left in the dressing room, that 90’s child who kept a diary and dreamed of being an author, you might tell her: Learn not to measure your success in the number of miles you made it from your hometown, but by the number of times you look in the mirror and soften your gaze. And this: Keep writing. And this: Seriously though, don't text your ex. Despite aging, existential angst, and a touch of anger, your eyes still shine. You remain tender and maybe even the teeny tiniest bit hopeful about love. Because you know something that girl doesn’t yet trust:

You’re going to be okay. Heartbreak, though it may feel like a death sentence, is just fuel for the fire inside you, accelerant to keep you driving toward your truth. Stay the course. And stay away from the mall.


"Out of my way!! I'm from Guinness, out of my way!!" The cameras were crowding the bakers, swarming them as if they were sprinkles on a cupcake. They tried to get to the door, tried to sneak their way into the bakery, but the cameras were there too. Eventually, they started throwing cupcakes at the cameras. Through the power of pastry, they banished them to worlds unknown and slunk inside. "Jeez, all this over a cookie? You guys better prepare yourselves for the big day. I'd suggest bulletproof vests and beekeeper helmets. Of course, that's my preference." Maria, their best friend, as sarcastic as ever. "We'll need more than that." Stacy groaned, setting down the pounds of cookie dough, made and frozen in clumps for this purpose. "They're like leeches, every one of them." Stacy reclined in her loveseat, letting it hug her legs. "You didn't even carry half as much as I did, Stace!" Jamie dumped her share of the cookie dough on the table, then proceeded to hoist Stacy out of the chair before plopping down on it himself. "Ahh, why don't we have more of these things? We should at least have two, and then maybe get one for Stacy and you to share." He talked in a teasing way, making faces at Maria and Stacy. "What the hell, man? You don't own that chair!" Stacy tried to pull him out, but he just laid there and laughed. "If you can't pull me out of a chair, how are you supposed to cook the biggest cookie in the world?" Jamie swatted at her jokingly. "Ugh, I need to sleep. Just because we're trying to make the world's biggest cookie doesn't mean we have to be up day and night to bake." Maria was complaining again. Stacy rolled her eyes, but she knew the truth in those words. "Yeah, the paparazzi sucks, but hey, we knew that going in." Jamie had been baking since fourth grade and Maria and Stacy since fifth. None of them had planned on building the world's biggest cookie. They hadn't even been trying to make big cookies before. Once they discovered the joy of breaking a record, though, they couldn't think of anything else. "You know what? We're not answering questions tonight," Jamie declared, "but we are going to get some sleep." Maria and Stacy sighed their approval. It used to be so easy to sleep in their quaint little bakery, with the holiday smells always wafting through the air. There were cupcakes around the tables, frosted birthday cakes and gingerbread, all mingling. It was a treasure to behold. In fact, it was a wonder that the three besties hadn't eaten it all already. "G'night, guys..." Stacy mumbled a reply under her breath and then went out like a light. _______________________________________________ It was the big day. The day they had all been waiting for. The day they'd been preparing for for months. Stacy, Jamie, and Maria took turns carting out the pounds of cookie dough. Their arms sank and wilted like dead roses, but they hadn't even spread the dough out yet. "Mr. Wilkes, Mr. Wilkes! Is it true that you are responsible for all the hard work behind the projects and the girls are for show?" A conceited reporter with a microphone stuck it in Jamie's face. "What are you talking about? You saw them right now cart dough up the hill, doing the same amount of work as I am, and you have the audacity to call them accessories?" Jamie and Stacy crowded the reporter. "Why on earth would you think that?" Stacy asked, her words oozing contempt. "Well... it's... just that... You're girls... and it's a lot of... hard work..." The reporter was stumbling on his words and, upon recognizing his mistake, started stumbling on his feet to get off of the stage. "Can you believe the nerve of that guy? It was like we weren't even there to him." Maria nodded her agreement, but her main focus was spreading the dough. Her long, lanky arms flexed as she stretched it. Maria was in a hard-fought war against the dough, and the dough was losing. "Geez, Maria, I've never seen you this energetic!" Jamie was in awe of her grit. "Well, we have been working towards it for a while, so... Why wouldn't it excite me?" She talked with a gleeful skip in her voice, as if she was a kid going to Disneyland. "Guys, I want you to know that, no matter what, this experience has been amazing," Jamie spoke only once the dough was all spread out. He truly loved the women. Not as romantic objects, but as equals and friends. They had sweated and got through this together, and they would finish it together. "3... 2... 1...!" Joining hands, they pushed it into the oven and hugged. "We did it!!" Stacy was ecstatic. Jamie wasn't far behind. Maria, though, wasn't excited at all. "Guys, I don't think we did." Just then, fire rose up from the oven, exploding and sending everyone backward. Jamie and Stacy pushed through the rubble, fighting to find their friend. "Maria!! MARIA!!!" They yelled over and over again, but it was no use. She was gone. ______________________________________________ "We are called here today to commemorate the life of Maria Mendoza, a woman determined to achieve her goals against all odds and adversity." The droll of the priest's voice blurred into the background. Jamie was the only one left. He lay there, tears streaming down his once flour-covered cheeks. Stacy was gone. Maria was dead. He had no friends anymore. Only pain. Eventually, when the time came to make his speech, he forced his limbs to climb up the steps. He forced himself to face the pain. Jamie clung to that podium as if it was the only thing that kept him tethered to the Earth. When he let go, Jamie would have to find something else to hold on to. That was how pain works, though. You process it by holding on to what you can when you can. Jamie was almost out of things to hold on to. "I... was trying to make the World's biggest cookie. We were, actually, Stacy, Maria, and I. We had been friends forever, and always together. Maria was one of my favorite people in the world, and I knew she felt the same about Stacy and me. We were her family. Do... do you know what it feels like to lose your family. I lost her. I can't change that. I wish I could but I know I can't. I know that it might seem selfish that I want her back, but I do. I don't care if it's selfish, because I'm wishing it anyway. She didn't deserve this. She doesn't. I'm going to take comfort in the knowledge that she is still alive in me and Stacy, wherever Stace is right now. Unless you want to keep her memory alive, you are no relation of hers." Jamie walked off the stairs and held his breath, all the way until the ride home. He didn't... couldn't breathe. When he got back to the bakery, his eyes warmed. "What're you waiting for, Jamie, we saved you the loveseat!" Stacy was patting him on the back and munching on a cupcake. "He's not taking my spot. You may have saved him a seat but I certainly didn't." Maria was there, sarcastic as ever. "I thought you guys left me." He choked on his words, like a pill that was too big to swallow. "We'll never leave you, man. We might not be next to you or even on the same continent as you, or may even be dead. But we'll never leave you."


“We want a shrubbery!” My eyes shot wide open at those words. My now wide open eyes were greeted with the sight of a forest canopy. Twas a beautiful sight, but one wasted on one such as I, at a moment such as this. Stop that, I told myself, you sound a tad pompous.

I resolved to calm myself and my language down, but only to ratchet it down one whole tad. I knew no other way. I rubbed my head. The rubbing of my head was of little help. This action of mine was automatic and it was in response to a perceived hurting that seemed centred in my head. The hurt continued and the absent rubbing did little to assuage it. “What happened?” I asked the world around me in a voice just above a whisper. Though my voice was gentle, the words assailed my poor beleaguered head and so I groaned. The groaning had much the same effect, so I took to groaning inwardly. Where was I? I asked myself this voicelessly in an attempt to be kind to myself and my achy head.

The obvious answer to this was that I was in a wooded area, so that meant that I was in a woods, copse, forest or something of that tree-filled nature. That obvious answer did not help with the

where

of it, which was really quite frustrating. There was nothing for it, I would have to sit up. I knew before I embarked upon this endeavour that any drastic movement would hurt my already hurty head. I was correct in this knowledge, it did hurt. Through the eye blurring pain I could swear that I saw a movement on my flank. Somewhere at the very edge of my vision and perhaps at the edge of the woods. It moved swiftly and fleetingly and then it was gone. I sat there allowing my body and mind further adjustment to its new and unexpected circumstances. I thought back to a time where I knew where I was and what I was doing in order to understand how it was that I got myself to a woods only to lay down and slumber.

Before casting my mind back I reassured myself that this was a unique set of circumstances, providing reminders that I had never done anything of this nature in my entire life, except for that one time in Llandudno, but that was on tour and would always stay on tour, such was the way of the tour and all that sailed in her. I asked myself whether I had been drinking the previous night and if so, who with. Marcus was in the frame for this, or

Mr Tequila  as he liked to call himself at precarious junctures of evenings that could and would go really badly for everyone if he adopted that ridiculous persona of his. No, I didn’t have a recollection of Marcus, nor of the evil demon of booze shenanigans,

Mr Tequila . Then what? NI! Ow! That hurt! That really hurt! NI! NI! NI! I clasped my hands over my ears, but this did nothing to stop these shards of words piercing my bruised brain. I had to ride it out until the wave of Ni abated. I found myself in the foetal position and I’m not ashamed to say that I had been crying. Shrubbery? Ni? Oh Simon! You have to be careful what you wish for! Had I really? No, I told myself, that could not be. It would take nothing short of a miracle to be transported to this place. In fact, it would take a miracle and a half to be… I dismissed this crazy notion. Had I taken leave of my senses!? Despite my broken state I found my feet, which is to say I established that I did indeed still have feet, and then I stood upon them. The only thing for it was to walk. Walking would allow me to get my bearings and once I had those, I could go home, make a cup of tea and a bacon sandwich and work out what I had been up to the previous evening. Piecing together the sequence of events that led me here. Mostly, I wanted to identify the culprit. There would be someone to blame for my being here and once I knew who it was, well then I could harbour ill-will towards them and plot their downfall. Then I’d get over myself and give them a wide berth for a while, so there would be no repeat of this folly. NI! There were several more of the Ni words, but it only took the first one to lift me off my feet, send me sideways and experience a clumsy and quite heavy collision with a tree.

This was a bruising and disorienting affair, but at least I know knew where the Ni was coming from and this allowed me to plot a course in the exact opposite direction. A wise move and a necessary one, for that Ni word was very powerful indeed. I dared let my mind wander to what I knew of this Ni and also of shrubberies. In theory, somewhere in these woods were knights who were the Keepers of the Sacred Words. But that was… No. No, Simon, no! It had been a bit of fun! I was the culprit. It was me! And that awful revelation made me sink into the soft woodland floor. Each subsequent step was that bit heavier and I seemed to sink that bit deeper. I had inadvertently invoked a miracle. At least I think I had. I knew I should have binned that Ouija board when I found it. That it was hidden under a floorboard in my bedroom should have told me all I needed to know. The Post-It with a single word on it was really creepy. Enjoy! That one word, goading me and cajoling me until I got the board out and gave it a try. It bloody well haunted me. Enjoy! Still, I left the Ouija board alone for a whole year after finding it. That’s good going, is a whole year. A year to the day. 6 th  June. I wasn’t even drunk. I’d had a drink, but I wasn’t drunk. Merry was what I was. It was all coming back to me with a dire clarity. I was bored and listless, and I had that board in front of me, and I didn’t really know what to do. Didn’t know what I wanted. A blank and bored mind is most likely a dangerous thing to put in front of a source of magic. Not that I believed it was magic. Which probably didn’t help matters. I’d written the first thing that came to mind. I just wished I knew what that was. Oh, I had a very good idea of the sort of thing I had written. That wasn’t that much of a reach in the circumstances. Not with the Knights Who Say Ni in the woods behind me. Simon you bloody fool! What have you done!? SWISH! That time I saw it. In my peripheral vision again. Something big had flashed by. I was still. Hadn’t noticed that I’d stopped. Frozen more like. Scared stiff. What was that thing!? I don’t know how long I stood like that. Not the best of ideas really, but right then I was full of ideas that were not going to win awards. Thankfully I was distracted from my statue-like state by a sound, and the sound was approaching me from behind. CLOP! CLOP! CLOP! CLOP! CLOP! CLOP! CLOPPITY CLOP! The sound of approaching hooves, the hooves being the fashionable footwear of horses. I stood back from the narrow path I had been following and I watched in fascination as a small group of men came into view. The men were trotting and some of them, the less well attired of the group, were smacking coconut shells together.

“Arthur?” I said as the lead knight drew near. “King Arthur to you!” shouted another of his knights, “where’s yer manners!” I remembered myself and thought to show some deference. This was executed clumsily and I ended up curtseying to King Arthur and several of his knights. There was snickering behind Arthur, but he himself was composed and did not resort to such poor and impolite behaviour. “And who might you be?” he asked. He was looking me up and down and it was evident that he did not know what to make of me, dressed as I was in such strange garb for the times. “Simon,” I told him, “Simon Grail.” This caused an unfortunate response and led to some mild unpleasantness. I should have known, and I should have been more careful, but in my defence I was yet to fully appreciate where I was and the implications of my being there. “The Grail! The Grail! We have found the Grail! Our quest is at an end!” This was not the first time I had heard words such as these. My friends have burst into a chorus of these words as a boisterous greeting far too often for my liking, but if you fight these things it just makes them worse. So I stood there and rolled my eyes waiting for the silliness to end. It did not end. I was hoisted skywards and bourn aloft and taken from the woods. That was a silver lining of sorts. At least I was out of the woods. Or so I thought. I can be so dangerously literal at times. “Where are we going?” I asked of one of the squires who was carrying me. “To the castle on the hill!” he grinned at me with teeth that had never seen a toothbrush. They really hadn’t seen any dental care or maintenance, as opposed to whatever makeup actors use on their teeth to go full street urchin or mediaeval pleb. If I was in any doubt about this, the waft of interesting breath brought the point home loud and clear. “Oh dear,” I said out loud. “You sure you’re the Grail?” he asked me. I rolled my eyes again. “Only, I thought you’d be a cup,” he said, “or a goblet. A fancy one at that. You know, jewel encrusted,” he gave me a look up and down, “you’re a bit plain. Not fancy at all.” He shrugged, “mysterious ways and all that, I s’ppose.” “Maybe he’s got sparkly jewels in his codpiece?” chuckled another of their number. “He ain’t got a codpiece!” said another. “How disappointing!” chorused all the squires and a few of the knights.

There was a short, silence of disappointment. Then another of the squires spoke up, “it’s not like anyone would pretend to be the Grail is it?” “No, I s’ppose not!” said several of the squires. There was some chuckling at that. “What?” I asked the original squire. That squire grinned that dirty grin of his, but didn’t say anything. The grin was a bit horrid and I really didn’t like the lack of reply, but something told me it would be best to leave it all well alone. The castle on the hill was not all that far away, which was just as well as I was being jiggled and joggled all over the show and it was not at all pleasant as a form of travel. The short distance was also not a surprise. I always got the impression that the geography of the area was compact to say the least. The hill the castle was sat upon was actually a hillock. Whoever had sold the castle to the current occupants had been economical with the truth, but then I’m stating the bleeding obvious there. Estate agents are estate agents, just as sure as eggs is eggs. The drawbridge was down and the portcullis was up and we just waltzed in with no drama at all. I must say I was a bit disappointed, this wasn’t going at all as I would have imagined as I dreamed my dream and wished my wish the night before. I’d have rather have been debating what the Romans had ever done for us, or throwing a Holy Hand Grenade at a fluffy bunny with alarmingly sharp and pointy teeth. I was lowered to the ground and helped to my feet and I have to say that although the squires were a motley crew and I was in need of a cleansing bath having been man handled by them, they were caring and gentle and it was all surprisingly lovely.

I was ushered forth. “Behold! The Grail!” announced King Arthur. This was followed by a loud trumpeting. Directly in my ear. I turned and scowled at the trumpeter and so I missed what happened next having been deafened and then averted my eyes from the area the action was taking place in. When I turned back, there before me was the most beautiful woman in all of the world. She took my hand and led me away from Arthur and his knights. My luck was in! “Is that it then?” I heard one of the knights say. “Yeah, I thought there’d be more… you know…” “Ceremony?” “Yeah, that sort of thing.” “The clouds parting and the hand of God retrieving the Grail?” “Well maybe not exactly that…” “That’s exactly what he was expecting!” “Oy! Why would you say that!?” “Because that was what you were saying as we walked up the hill!” “It’s not a hill.” “What is it then?” “A hillock.” “I think we’ve all got off the point here.” “And you can shut it!” “That’s a bit rude!” “They’re shutting the door…”

The voices faded away as the door shut on King Arthur and some of the knights of the round table. I smiled and thought, just wait until I tell the lads about this. My smile faded a little. As if they’d believe me. I looked down at the hand that was holding mine and then I allowed my eyes free reign to travel up the arm and take in this amazingly beautiful woman the likes of which I had never seen before. Scratch that. I’ve seen beautiful women, but from afar. None had taken my hand and led me into a castle. This was a first in my life and I couldn’t help thinking that whatever the outcome of this hand holding and walking, this was already a highlight in the life of Simon Grail. Soon enough, we stopped at a big and solid looking wooden door. Hefty was that door. She let go of my hand and I felt a sense of loss that I probably hadn’t felt since I was little more than a babe in arms. She needed both hands to turn the big ring of a handle on the door and push the hefty door open. She turned and smiled a smile that did a multitude of things to my insides, all of which were deeply pleasant, and then she spoke. Her voice was a bit of a disappointment if I am honest. That happens sometimes. The voice doesn’t fit the person. Not one bit. It’s as though their proper voice is off having a service and they’ve got a crappy courtesy voice for the day. Just my luck. There has to be something to tarnish things in my experience. “If you will wait in here?” she said and despite the poor quality voice I would have done anything for that smile alone. I stepped onto the threshold and looked into the room beyond the hefty door. “It’s a bit dark…” I began. Then I felt a foot on my left bum cheek before I was unceremoniously thrust forth into the darkness of the room. I lay in the pitch dark in what I thought was probably the middle of the room and I sighed. Of course it was too good to be true and I had to remind myself of where I was. What I saw was not what I was going to get in a place like this. A light came into view above me. Then another and another. A host of flaming torches on a circular stone balcony above me. That face. The face of a goddess peered down at me. “Behold sisters!” she said in that mediocre voice of hers, “our miracle!” The bearers of the torches all stepped to the edge of the balcony and peered down. I counted them. Twelve sisters. Identical in appearance.

You don’t get that every day. I sensed movement to my right and I turned to see what it was that was in the room with me. The circular room with the big, hefty door. For something so big, it moved quickly. It was unfurling and as it did, I saw just how big it was, it encircled the entire room. It was huge. It was a phenomenon. It was something the likes of which no one had ever seen before. I had a terrible sinking feeling as I remembered the exact words I had spelled out on that Ouija board, and as though on cue, the sisters of the castle on the hill began to chant. “All hail, Monty!” “All hail, Monty!” Monty was the ginormous python in the room with me. Why, Simon? Why did you have to spell those words out? Words are powerful. Words are sacred, the Knights Who Say Ni knew that. If only I had appreciated the gravity of what I was embarking upon as I sat before that Ouija board and spelt out my wish.

I want to be in Monty Python. Now I was here and the miracle was happening. The great snake lunged. “Nnnn… Eeeee!” I cried. It went dark. And my wish was fulfilled, I was now in Monty Python.


I can’t even remember the Sun. ...... It had been the strangest thing when the aliens had landed, because very little actually changed. We felt them in the vibrations of the earth long before we heard them. We heard them as a low thrumming drill deep in our skulls long before we saw them. They flew in in their great grey spaceships by the thousand. Each as large as a city and perfectly cuboid, their steely surfaces glinted evilly in the sunlight as they hovered, before descending as vast metallic falcons upon their prey. Their perfectly straight edges fit against each other like roofing tiles until they seemed to create a sheet around the whole world. For the briefest moment of sheer terror, there was almost utter darkness, but it was short-lived. The soft blue-white underlights of the craft turned on, bathing the earth in their artificial glow, as great pylons extended out of the base of each ship, settling underneath them. Ramps began to filter gradually out amongst the pylons, and the aliens began to descend to their new home. There was some initial alarm on account of how similar to us they looked. As they descended from their craft in their droves, the resemblance to your average subway escalator at rush hour was uncanny. They were, on the whole, just slightly too pale to be human. Slightly too slim and slightly too tall. They all looked different from each other, as we do, but just slightly too different. Like each face was a brand new face, with no components shared. As they milled around the crowds gathered in awe, they would incline their heads and say “We come in peace” to each human they passed in turn. It took several days, probably, though they seemed tireless. Their tone would never falter nor the incline of their bow, and they left no one out. The Earth shook with the fervent refrain of “We come in peace” echoed by a billion slightly-too-human voices.

The vast majority of them had returned up their ramps into their craft when the greeting was over, and the ramps had shot up behind them. The scattered few that remained on Earth had clearly done so for a reason, and they went off their separate ways, blending in just a little too well to our way of life. The easiest way to be sure if you passed one on the street was to say “Hello” and see if you got a “We come in peace” in response, or at least it was until humans started saying that to each other for a laugh. But aside from that, nothing was any different about the way we lived our lives. We ate, we shat, and we went to work. We kissed our loved ones and grumbled about our co-workers and scoffed at the idiocy of contestants on game shows. Except there wasn't any sun. There wasn't any moon. There wasn't any night or day at all, just the same incessant ambient blue-white glare from the aliens' ships. They had completely blocked out the sky. Flags across the globe hung limp and useless, flowers wilted in their arid patches. Animals began to behave very oddly, confused by the endless light. We hardly fared any better. How do you sleep when the sky has become like a giant computer screen staring you in the face? We had become like guinea pigs in a lab, trapped under the shining lights, waiting in ignorance of what experiments lay in store for us. But nothing happened. It seemed no experiments were in store for us. Three months on, and apart from wrecking my sleep cycle and once or twice startling me in the street with a "We come in peace", the aliens have done me no harm, nor anyone else as far as I can tell. They are nothing but pleasant and courteous, if they interact with you at all. Our lives have continued just as ever they did, only now under a spotlight. It's driving me insane. They must have come here for a reason, whether "in peace" or not. Why are they parked on our planet, blocking out our sun? Most of them have stayed in their ships anyway. What business have the ones who came down here, filtering into our offices and communities? What does the sun look like? What does rain feel like on my face? A slight breeze? They've rendered our existence sterile. These are the thoughts that assail me as I come wearily into the office today. I know I look like shit, but fortunately, so does everyone else. A good night's sleep has become a long-forgotten thing. I see Bob heading towards me. He's worked here for years, almost as long as I have, but we've never been particularly chummy. He looks a little clammy, which is no big surprise. "Hi Bob." I say as I pass him, "Good weekend?" "We come in peace." I barely pause. "Haha. Good one Bob!" I laugh, adding under my breath "You freak." He's always had an odd sense of humour I could never really gel with. Shaking my head to myself, I head to my cubicle and get set for a day of mind-numbing dullness. Bob's hysterical prank proves to be by far the most interesting event of the day, and I sign off in no worse a mood than I ever am. This is obviously too good to last, however, as on the walk home I see ahead of me one of them, walking right towards me. By now, I can occasionally spot them from a mile away. The paleness is no longer such a factor as it used to be, since we're all living in the same vacuum now, but their eyes... their eyes give them away. Every human I know has the look of someone who hasn't slept properly in three months, because that's what they all are. They have black bags that leave them looking like a handless boxer. But the aliens look as pristine as the day they landed. The fuckers. "Hello!" I greet it with exaggerated exuberance, taking some petty delight in mocking it without it realising. "How fare you today, good sir?" "We came in peace". The response comes hollow and dull in the breezeless air, and hits me like a cannonball. For the first time in months, I feel something real. "Pardon me?" I stutter, sure I've misheard him, although I know that I haven't. "We came in peace". "I'm sorry?" I say incredulously. It looks up at that, and meets my eye perfectly. "We forgive you." ...... A couple of days later, the ramps come back again. The noise is unbelievable, and people are flocking out of their houses to see what all the commotion is about. As the ramps touch down, the aliens start to descend them in their billions, and I'm reminded of the day they came. They flit around us with the same dogged efficiency as before, inclining their head perfectly the same each time, and greeting each human in turn: "We came in peace". The earth shakes with the chorus, "We came in peace", and I see the other humans looking around at each other, perplexed, startled, horrified. The whole affair takes, I imagine, a few days again, although without the visible cycle of day of night, it's hard to judge, and time has become a very loosely real concept to me now. The moment each in turn is done, without ceremony, they start to return to their ships, flooding up their ramps into their cuboid metal ships like busy commuters with a place to be. As the tumultuous crowd around me gradually begins to thin, I see Bob, standing opposite me, looking me directly in the eye. Against the tin-tin-tin of their feet rapping against their ramps, the flustered muttering of the bewildered humans around me, and the ongoing mantra of "We came in peace", I hear him like a gunshot into the void, clear and crisp as bone snapping: "We came in peace. I'm sorry. We forgive you." He turns to make his long way up the nearest ramp, into the daunting vessel above us. The chorus changes around me. "We came in peace. I'm sorry. We forgive you." They all begin to chant as they take their leave. Soon the last few stragglers are making their farewells, "We came in peace. I'm sorry. We forgive you." and we are left looking around at each other, bereft. I feel no relief, only confusion and fear. The earth feels suddenly empty. The lights on the undersides of their ships go out, and we are left in perfect darkness. After the eternal ungodly sunlight of their tenure, it's the most terrifying thing I've ever known, to be suddenly robbed of my sight. But just as when they arrived, the darkness is short-lived. The lights begin to glow a deep red, and the earth is in hellish gloom. The very air looks drenched in blood. Their engines turn on in unison, and the noise is literally deafening. A monumental crash of sound and then I can't hear anything at all, only the ringing that is always in my ears, and I can't see anything, only blurry red. The earth begins to shake, and shake, incredibly. I am thrown to the ground like a ragdoll, and feel the people around me tumble too, limbless and weak. I stumble around blindly, groping at the ground as it quakes beneath me, feeling the tremors surge up my arm and seem to rattle my organs from within. My heart stutters and my head swims in protest, and I vomit spectacularly, retching my guts all over my hands. The heat begins to swell dramatically. Of course, I realise, their engines are about to propel them off the planet. And we are trapped in here, like guinea pigs in a lab. And it seems the experiment we never realised we were in is finally coming to an end. Sweltering, blind and deaf and powerless in a gloomy red inferno, I know that I am in Hell. This is where it all ends for me. And I can't even remember the Sun.