I lay on my back on my bed, my quilt pulled up to my chin, and closed my eyes. I visualized a door in the dark, just like Dr. Green had told me to do. Mentally, I took a step towards it. Two steps. My bare feet landing on cold, flat stone. Beneath the nearing door, I could see the bar of light, faintly yellow and bright in the dark. A breath of warm air emanated from the crack, stirring the cuffs of my pajama bottoms around my ankles. I placed my hand on the door handle. It felt sun warm. I opened it. I was blinded a bit at first, as I always was. The westward sun entered the door unshaded. But my eyes adjusted as I stepped out into the long grass and onto the green hill that sloped down to the white beach. I was looking down on the cove. A sheer rise of rock towered on either side. I turned to look at the door, as I did every time. It was an uncanny frame standing in the grass. The sun cast a long rectangle of light on the gray stone in the darkness. Beyond the door, the hill rose to a dense forest of tropical trees. The warm wind brushed past me, carrying the scent of the sea and flowers and tobacco smoke. I turned back and started to descend the hill, very conscious of how the sun and the wind felt on my thin pajamas. They felt good. On the white stretch of beach was a shack. It was a wooden fixture that fit the quiet, untamed terrain, made of knotted limbs and shady palms. That is where I knew Jack would be. This is where he lived. Down the hill I stepped, heedless of stone or thorn or stinger. Tall flowers with heads that shimmered like purple carnival glass bobbed as I passed. I crossed the beach, the sand just as soft as the grass. As I approached the shack, I saw his burly figure sitting on a sun bleached piece of driftwood, his back to me and a long bamboo fishing rod between his legs. His red hair was hidden by a straw hat, and puffs of smoke rose above his head as he tugged absently at the fishing pole. I came up beside him and sat in the sand next to the driftwood. “Hey there, boyo,” said Jack, his black pipe shifted to the side of his mouth. He kept his eyes on water. The water was the almost unnaturally clear blue I had seen pictures of in brochures for Caribbean vacations. Schools of silver fish were visible as they swirled and spiraled as one beneath the surface of the shallow water. “Anything biting?” I asked, but I knew that there was. The fish would always bite. “You bet.” He glanced down and gave a wink. “We’ll be having calico fish tonight.” I don’t know if calico fish are a real creature, but here they were brilliant, fat things that Jack hauled out of the water every evening in the cove. They were enormous, gold and black, and whiskered like a catfish. Their underbellies reminded me of pearl, and their meat was tender and rich. Jack leaned forward as the end of his bamboo rod dipped in his hands. “Think I got one now,” he said. Later, when the sun was a dark red suggestion on the horizon, Jack handed me a thick green leaf with a cut of calico steaming up from it on a bed of rice. The smell of spices and sweet fish rose with the heat of it. I held it in my lap and took the wooden fork that he offered as well. Jack sat in the sand across the fire from me. He didn’t bother with his fork, preferring instead to tear thick chunks off his cut and pop the white meat into his mouth. His great beard worked up and down as he chewed. I began to cut mine and chew as well. “Haven’t seen you in a while,” he said with his mouth full. “I know.” My mouth was also full. “Thought maybe I wouldn’t see you again.” “I know.” He was looking at me over the fire, bushy eyebrows arched. But I said nothing more. The first time I had eaten that fish, I was maybe eight. I might have been ten. I had been here before. I had been here lots of times. The therapist had said that I should close my eyes and picture a door. Picture a door that opens up to the happiest place you can think of. When I had laid in bed that night and pictured that door, this cove was what I found on the other side. I had rolled down the hill. I had ran and tumbled through the waves. I had wandered through the tropical trees and sunbeams, looking for strange fruit and watching the unlikely pair of a bear and a tiger chasing each other in play. It was a happy, safe place, if a bit lonely. Jack had not been there in the early days. One day Terry threw Jack away. He cinched him up in a garbage bag with several other toys of mine along with the kitchen trash. He said later that he was sorry, that he didn’t think that I still played with dolls. That night I had opened the door to the cove with swollen eyes, a salty mouth, and sobs still hitching in my chest. That was the first time I saw the shack on the beach. It was the day Jack arrived. I found him sitting on a piece of driftwood, his fishing line cast impossibly far out into the deep blue. It’s how I would usually find him. He had turned to me and winked. “Alright, boyo?” he’d said. “Alright, boyo?” he said to me now. Our fish was gone, eaten in silence. Only now the stillness was broken by the soft calls of birds I couldn’t name from back in the trees. Jack knew the names of all the birds. The rouge backlight on the horizon was gone, and in its absence, every one of the billion stars stood clear in the sky, and every one of the billion stars were reflected in the wavering mirror of the ocean. “No,” I said. He nodded thoughtfully, then spit in the sand. “Why don’t we go inside? I’ll get us some tea.” He raised himself with a grunt and brushed at the sand on his overalls. He grabbed the cool end of one of the sticks in the flames and carried the fire into the shack. I stood, also dusting myself, but kept my eyes on the ocean. I turned and followed him inside. “You have that look you get,” he said as he lit the wood beneath an enormous black cauldron that hung in the corner of the shack. It was three quarters filled with water. I seated myself at the rough wooden table, the wooden fork still in my fist. The flames were making the room flicker a warm orange. I looked out the open window to watch the stars undulate on the small waves. “I’m sorry,” I said. He laughed. “Ain’t nothing to be sorry for. It’s what I expect.” He was taking items off the nearby shelf and dropping them with a splash into the cauldron. “This place isn’t very useful if you’re happy, is it?” “That’s not entirely true,” I said. “I’ve come here happy. Lots of times.” Jack gave the cauldron a perfunctory stir then turned back to the table. He pulled back a chair and settled into it, his arm resting on the table. “That’s right. Because that’s when you’ve got questions.” I had sought Jack’s advice more than once. More than many times. It was over a meal of fruit and calico fish that he counseled me through my first real childhood crush. He had nodded and sliced a pear and something he called a camaberry while I confessed endlessly the strange new feelings and emotions that I was experiencing. It might have been the first time I had admitted that I even liked girls. The teasing from my friends had, up to that point, caused me to refuse even acknowledging their existence. Jack had listened and gently prodded until I had said everything I had to say about the subject. Then he had handed me my fruit and fish and said, “And how d’ya feel?” “Good and weird,” I had said. In high school, Jack and I had once spent an afternoon building the stone lighthouse that topped the south bluff of the cove. It was a lighthouse that stood only three feet, and served only as something for us to look at in the dark from the beach. While we worked, I had talked about the future. I talked about college and careers and friends. He had puffed on his pipe between grunts as he placed massive stones in a small, rising circle. I really only talked. Every now and then he’d pause and sit on his handiwork and ask questions. “Is that really what you think? Are you sure that is what you want? Is she the only reason? Does that make you happy?” Each of his questions grinded at my certainty like a whetstone until it was sharp edged and useful. I looked up at the south bluff and noticed for the first time that the lighthouse was lit. It shone bright yellow over the waters. Jack had not left me to light it. It must have never gone out since the first day Jack and struck flint and steel to the pool of oil he had poured into its bronze basin. Jack dipped a mug into the bubbling cauldron, then set it steaming in front of me. There were three tiny leaves floating on the surface of the murky water. “So which is it?” he asked as he took his seat again. “Are ya sad, or do ya have questions?” “Both. Neither.” “Is it about Mel-” “You know what it’s about.” Jack, who had been raising his own mug to his lips, paused. “Yes. I do.” He took a long gulp, which should have burned his throat. I watched the leaves in my cup float around each other. “Are you going to?” he asked. “I think so.” Jack had urged me to propose to Melly. “Do you want to spend the rest of your life with her?” he’d asked. We had been wandering through the trees, looking for fruit. Jack had told me the name of each one I did not recognize. Camaberries. Golden Nestberries. Poppoes. He would laugh loud and rough every time the tiger and the bear tore past us, one chasing the other. I had answered yes. “Then try to spend the rest of your life with her.” Jack had held me the next year when she broke off the engagement. My head on his chest and fingers in his wool sweater. His heavy hand had patted my head while I sobbed through my account of what it was like the first time she did not say “I love you” back. “I’m always a child here,” I said after I finally took a sip of tea. “I just realized that.” “What do you mean?” “That night Melly left.” I put my hands around the mug, feeling the warmth. “I sat on your lap. I’ve known you since I was ten. I’ve never grown to your height. You’ve always been so much bigger.” Jack had always been big enough to carry me. Once we had constructed an impossible flying contraption out of sticks and palm leaves. It worked like a hang-glider. Jack had strapped it to his back and leapt off the north bluff, pulling me with him by my arms. We had soared over the crystal blue ocean, past sea gulls and blue jays and bright pink watermoths. His enormous fists were closed around my wrists, and I had dangled in the sea salty air, the wind whipping my pajamas around my body. “You’ll always be a little one to me,” Jack grinned. “What do you think is wrong with me, Jack?” Jack leaned forward, his forearm resting on the table. “Boy, there ain’t nothing wrong with you. Even Dr. Green said there ain’t nothing wrong with you.” “I haven’t seen Dr. Green since I was a child,” I said, pulling my mug closer. “Don’t make it any less true.” “Jack.” I stood up and began to pace. “That was said to an irrational child with irrational fears. I’m a man. And I still always fail.” Jack grumbled, deep in his chest. “Then this is about Melly.” “No. No it isn’t.” I first saw Dr. Green when I was seven. I do not remember all of my childhood, and I do not remember understanding why I had to see her. I only remember my school drawing of me and mommy smiling outside our house and Terry frowning inside the dog kennel. My teacher was concerned by it. I had drawn it after mom had died. “I mean, sort of it is.” I was really pacing now. I paced right out the door. Jack followed me. “It was hard. The breakup was hard, but Jack.” I turned and looked at him now. He was standing in the doorway. His body took up the entire frame. A black silhouette in orange. “It was what the breakup meant.” “What do you think it meant?” I was standing on the edge of the grass now. One foot on the soft green blades and the other half buried in sand. I was looking up at the sky, my hands on top of my head. “My mom loved me,” I began. My memories of her were a handful of brilliant moments that stand out of the hazy memory of childhood. I could remember her smiling face and curly brown hair as she showed me how to roll socks together. I could remember her asking me what Santa got me that Christmas. I could remember her concerned face as she turned up the radio in the car to listen to some upsetting news story. I remember her telling me to eat at least three more bites of the green beans before I could go play. I could just remember a few things, but I could remember that she loved me. “And Terry loved my mom,” I continued. “He loved her and because he loved her, he was more than willing to take care of me. We were...” I paused and looked back at Jack, searching for the words. “A package deal.” Jack stepped out of the doorway and took a couple steps toward the water. He took a deep breath of the sea air and waited, listening. “Anyway.” I dropped my hands and walked toward him. I stood beside him on the sand. “When Mom died, he was stuck with me.” I could remember the first time he drove me to school after Mom had died. When he picked me up later, he had asked me how my day was. I didn’t answer, and he didn’t say anything else on the drive back. “He wasn’t bad, I guess. He just didn’t want me. He wished that he didn’t have to take care of me.” Terry had taken me to Disney World twice. He had attended all of my school plays and spelling bees. He had been there in the hospital when my appendix ruptured. But he had never asked how my day had been again after that first day. He had never read the short story that I got published in the school paper. He had never called after I had moved out. “I didn’t like that feeling. I felt unwanted.” “I know,” Jack said. Out in the water, a blue whale leaped out above the surface, rising to full height and above, glistening with the starlight. He arced over the water and fell back in with a splash that reverberated like thunder. After a few moments, the lapping waves at our feet pulsed stronger and louder as the whale’s impact reached the shore. “Are you saying Melly brought those feelings back?” he said. “She loved me.” I shifted in the sand, digging my toes into the dense, wet grains as the newly energized waves splashed at my feet. “I know that she did. I know that she loved me as much as I know Mom loved me.” I could remember waking up from a nap with her. Our noses almost touching and her eyes already open and smiling and out of focus just inches from my own. “And then she stopped.” Jack placed his large, rough hand on my shoulder. “You know that that happens, son. You’ve seen it happen to so many people you know.” “I know. I know that. But,” I looked up at him. “You know that her parents never liked me either, right?” Jack nodded. Of course he knew. “I know that her breaking off the engagement was a relief for them. People were relieved that someone was not going to have to be stuck with me. That she was someone who deserved better.” I was surprised to feel a lump starting to grow in my throat again. “I can understand that people change. But knowing that I was simply not good enough to be wanted hurts more than...” I trailed off. Abruptly, I let myself fall backward onto the sand. My fall was slow, and the landing was not jarring. The sand conformed to my body, and I could feel the warm ocean begin to soak the bottoms of my pajama pants. I stared up at the sky as Jack hunkered down to join me. He settled his enormous frame into the sand beside me and placed an already lit pipe in his teeth. At the angle that he held it, the glowing ashes should have tumbled out into his face. But they did not. In that position, I was aware of both the sand and the bed beneath my body. I was aware of the of the starlight on my face and the quilt that was pulled up to my chin. I was aware of the great bearded man beside me, and I was aware of the new bottle of sleeping pills and tall glass of water that waited for me on my nightstand. “There’s nothing good enough in me, Jack.” “I’m in you,” Jack said. Three billowing puffs of smoke rose like signals with each word. “Don’t you think I’m good?” “Of course I do. Of course I do, Jack. That is why I want to be here instead. That’s why I want to live here with you. I want to live in this world and go beyond the cove. I want to ride out on the ocean with you.” As I spoke, my body began to rise off the ground. I felt the sand and grass fall away from me as I drifted upward, toward the billion gleaming stars. “I want to go out there, Jack.” I reached my hand outward toward the endless glittering sky. “I want to explore new worlds and meet new people and eat new fruit and find new animals.” I felt Jack’s hand gently take my bare foot and pull me back to the earth. I landed where I had originally lain. Jack was sitting up now, looking down at me. “Boyo. This place, these worlds,” he swept his arm out, gesturing at the sea and sky, “they will be destroyed with you. When your life ends, so does mine. So does all of this.” For a moment I continued to stare up at the sky before turning to Jack. “It does?” “Yes, of course it does. This world is you. This goodness is you.” I turned my head from the sky and looked at Jack. “I thought that if I weren’t there, I would be here. I thought that I would just be here forever.” “Why would you think that? This is your creation. It dies with you.” My eyes widened as I considered that. “Are you sure?” Jack stood and twisted. The bones in his back cracked loudly. “How could it be any other way? You don’t leave that world and enter this one. You exist in both. You can feel your bed now. You can feel your quilt. I know this because I am you, boyo. This world is you.” I thought of the pills by my bed. I thought of how close I was to swallowing this world whole. “What would you say to a man who thought this world was rubbish?” Jack asked. The question caught me off guard. “I would think he were stupid,” I said honestly. “What would you say to Melly if she saw this world and found it lacking?” “I would say she doesn’t know what she is talking about. This place is wonderful.” Jack took in a deep breath. “It is, isn’t it?” The waves were still lapping at my feet. The birds were still calling in the starlight. The calico fish were still swirling in schools. “Yeah.” “Have you seen my new boat?” I sat up and saw for the first time a small raft rocking gently in cove, a thick rope strung between it and a jutting rock. I shook my head. “Nuh-uh.” “You said you wanted to see new people and new places.” He reached down and grabbed my outstretched hand, hauling me to my feet. “Well, I’m not doing anything at the moment, are you?” As Jack launched us away from the shore, his tree trunk arms rowing with incredible speed and strength, I sat on the bough of the raft and watched the endless stream of waves come toward us. “Jack?” I said as we picked up speed. The nose of the boat raised and I could feel cool water droplets hit my face. “I don’t feel fixed.” “Do you feel better?” Jack said over the sound of the splashing waves, his arms moving rhythmically. “Yeah. I do.” “Good.


Jack thought moving to the asteroid would let him escape his past, what he didn't know was that he would end up feeling more like a prisoner with a life sentence than a free man. Back on earth, he was a wanted man. Space was appealing for those like him, hop aboard a rocket to the moon or the asteroid belt or to one of the small settlements further out and you'd be metaphorically reborn. The allure of a fresh start should've seemed too good to be true, because it was. Jack had committed some serious crimes, and you can do background checks in space. Right after Jack arrived at the belt, the UN announced that it would start an international law enforcement agency in space and that the lawlessness of the new frontier was coming to an end. This new agency would have the authority to extradite wanted criminals back to earth, if they were able to locate them.  Jack was a skilled metal fabricator, so he started building and modifying spaceships for a living once he reached his new rocky wasn't very hard for him, the kind of ship you need to move around the asteroid belt is nowhere near the ship you need to take of on a planet or large moon. Mining ships are the easiest to build, the crews only work in them they don't live in them so the crew quarters don't have to be extravagant. There is near enough zero gravity out in the belt, so the cargo areas don't have to be the sturdiest as you're just holding things together as opposed to holding things up, as you have to do on earth. Not only was Jack good at what he did, there was too much demand for his work. You can't move in space without a ship, and talented ship builders were few and far between. Jack became a wealthy man, his home in the belt was nicer than any he had lived in back on earth.  Those who needed ships would usually show up at a shipyard and speak with a builder face to face, this a tried and true business model in which everyone gets what they want or need. One day, as jack arrived at the shipyard to finish a ship he was building retrofitting for a cargo transporter, someone approached him and asked "Are you Jack Alexander Whitney?". Jack had never used his full name in space, and he told people that 'Alexander' was his last name if he was asked. He was convinced this was a space cop who wanted to drag him back to earth, so he said no. The man replied "Well I know that you are. I know your dirty little secrets, so if you want to keep the space police off your tail you'll do any favor I ask of you from now on". He had never seen this man before, but he felt that he would see him again.  Not much later, Jack received a message from one of his brothers back on earth. The victims of his crimes wanted closure, not maximum punishment. Jack knew what this really meant, the prosecutors were ready to make a deal in exchange for information. He wasn't very eager to go back to earth however, as it would take him months to get back even if he left immediately. However being able to live a normal, terrestrial life again did weigh on his mind. Jack had a choice to make, does he go back and deal with his past, or keep running from it? The threat of blackmail was at first only a minor consideration, until the man who threatened to turn Jack in came back to the shipyard. He told Jack that he wanted his pure transport ship retrofitted into a self contained mkning ship, Jack understood that doing this for free was the 'favor' the man had mentioned before. He decided to just do it for free, avoid the trouble,thinking that this would be the end of it.  Jack was afraid of returning to earth, what if his brother was just trying to turn him in for his own gain? What if his brother was being lied to? What if people just changed their mind during Jack's lengthy travel time? He decided returning wasn't worth the risk. That was until the blackmailing man returned. Jack thought he wanted something done to his ship. What he learned was that this man wasn't interested in mining, he had a pipe dream of becoming a space pirate. He wanted to use his ship to steal from actual mining parties, and demanded that Jack join him as part of his crew. Jack realized that this was bound to draw the attention of authorities anyway, so he decided to tell the man that he would join his crew once he was done re-retrofitting the ship for a life of crime. Jack's plan wasn't to become a space pirate, his plan was to stall this long enough to find a ride back to earth to take his chances with those who he had wronged years ago. Not only was Jack desperate to get away from this pirate idiot, he was now much more mature than when he first left earth. He was having nightmares about what he did. They got so bad he could barely sleep. He decided to tell his brother he would give up everything he knew in exchange for his freedom and to forward that message to the prosecutor and defense attorney on his case. He knew that it was a longshot that a deal would be worked out in his absence, and if he was back on earth without an agreement in place his ultimate fate would be out of his hands. However, he could no longer live with the guilt of not answering to what he had done.


My mom is old. Her vibrance gone. Bones brittle. Hair gray. Eyes glazed over from cataracts. Her skin patchworked with blood spots. And it is not cliché to say it happened overnight. Just three years ago she was getting a monthly pedicure and keeping hair appointments to cut and color her once brown hair. With her five children grown and gone, she never stayed home. From the time she woke until dinner time, she was outside roaming in her car visiting friends and shopping. She was alive and loving every minute of her new freedom that was formerly restricted from being a full-time nurse, a housewife, and a mother. Then the accident changed everything. Three years ago she stepped off a sidewalk curb and lost her balance. Her right shoulder completely shattered, and it was how she discovered she had osteoporosis. The entire shoulder had to be replaced. The surgeon picked out pieces of splintered bones and put in a round metal ball to give her about sixty percent use of her shoulder again. She suffered through the year long process and fell again, this time breaking a bone in her back and knee. For the last few years, her car has been supplanted with a recliner. The last few Christmas holidays have obviously not been the same. This one, however, will probably be the last. A few months ago I started to notice the memory problems. I visit her weekly and since the Breaking of Bones I have been spending every Saturday morning and night with her by sleeping in my old childhood room. The severity of the memory problems became more noticeable every week I returned. For the first time since I was born, my mom forgot my birthday. Birthdays are more important to no one other than a mother—at least, my mother. Birthdays were an event celebrated in my parents’ home more than Christmas. My birthday, my brother’s birthday, and my father’s birthday are all in December. My mom forgot all three. No phone calls. No cards. No cake. No celebrations. We did not remind her. We only spoke of it amongst ourselves briefly to mention that we noticed. Maybe it did not need to be broached. More than likely, we were so saddened about the Great Forgetting that none of us could bring ourselves to discuss it. Last Thursday, just four days before Christmas, my mother told me when she was a teenager that she would eat the honeycombs from real bee honey. She said it was her favorite thing to eat as a child. She and her two sisters would sit on the porch and put the comb on an English muffin or biscuits. She said she would not eat oatmeal unless she had honeycomb pieces to put in it. Sometimes she would just suck on the honeycomb before finally eating it by itself. She and her two sisters felt rich if they had it. “Honeycomb was not easy to come by in those days,” she said. “I can’t remember what it tasted like but it was the best kind of candy. I wish I could taste it again.” It is said that men have trouble listening to women. I had no trouble listening to my mom. I knew what her Christmas gift was going to be this year. I got Mom six separate quarts of honey with combs in them. I had to go to three different bee apiaries in two different states to get them. I spent no fewer than two days tracking down and purchasing honeycomb. (Apparently it is not a popular request with bee farmers.) The price was costly but would be worth it. It would be the best gift I have ever given my mom. This year will be doubly special for me because I know this will be my mom’s last Christmas. Her memory problem is exacerbating too quickly. The differences are noticeable now almost daily. But I had a secret I could not tell her for two more days until Christmas morning. Why can it not be Christmas Day right now so I can give her this gift right now! This is going to be her best Christmas. I am certain of it. I am going to drop a hint about her gift like she used to do with me as a child a few days before Christmas. Yesterday, while I was sitting on Mom’s couch with her across me in her recliner, I asked, “Mom, do you remember when you used to eat honeycombs on the porch with Pat and Dina?” She turned her head to face me with a blank stare. “Honeycombs?” She asked. “Who told you that? No, I never ate honeycombs. Those things were gross.


Two task bots stood towering as monolithic feats of man, processing data unwaveringly within the projection room overlooking the auditorium from a tinted acrylically sealed enclave of sorts. It was movie night for the prisoners with a new burden placed on the Tasc bots to overview the predetermined film for any reference to peas, fearing the mere sight of the vegetable to could lead to an allegorical watershed of dissatisfaction until ultimately leading to riots among the inmates. The Tasc bot is capable of analyzing up to forty thousand frames a second for any three dimensional object using motion track mapping, typically used to identify the use of fabricated weaponry or the rigging of any such items that could be found within the facility to which it is not used for it original purpose. The variable in todays review was to be any reference to green peas. The way the machines scan is by applying three dimension tracking marks to every viewable surface. In one case, the machine renders a row of spheres concurrent in one hundred, twenty-three frames. The algorithm will reference the spectrum of colour tones associated with that of a pea. With the algorithm functioning properly, the machine should be able to discern the difference between a row of green peas on a plate from a row of street lights topped with grey spherical finials. “Observation: At thirteen minutes, forty-eight seconds, Howard Hughes is presented peas as a side substantial for his meal.” “Cross reference if storyline will be comprehensible with said scenes removal.” “Negative, the scene reinforces Howard Hughes sudden decent into mental anguish; observation cross referenced with Variety magazines interview with screenwriter John Logan.” “Ass” “Humans love their peas.” A slot in the glass wall leading to the projection room slides open as another Tasc bot enters. This certain Task bot had a striking and distinguishable difference to the others. Rather than being a mass of steal with the black glass top, which it still was all these things, was additionally shroud in a tattered beige cotton shawl, a patchy brown beard primarily composed of the rubber coating stripped from discarded copper wiring woven together and loosely fastened below its black top with rubber cement that was now a crusting, becoming lost to age. It was during a televised NFL game when two programmers using the prisons auditorium placed a wager on who would win between the Los Angeles Patriots and the Los Angeles Dolphins. The stakes were that the winner of the match (the winner only needing a fair victory without the use of a spread) would reprogram the analytics task bot to any personality of their choosing. During the first quarter the two discussed what they would reprogram the machine as. One man took a moment to think before eventually settling on a robotic version of himself. The other guard noted that this was an mediocre suggestion, but if he were to win, he would reprogram the machine to the lord and savior of the Judeo-Christian faith, Jesus Christ. The two did not make it to the second quarter before working at their adjacent desks, writing code for the aptly named ‘Jesus bot’. The program was very basic in that the machine would be able to retrieve any relevant quote from either version of the Testaments; to be given at will during a variety of scenario. In addition they had written a backdoor code which would have Jesus bot reference his own sentience and that he was indeed the true second coming of Christ. Jesus Bot glides across the floor till it’s near enough to engage the task bots in conversation. “Peace be with you” “Hello Jesus” Either task bot still transfixed with sorting out films that had even a fragment of a reference to peas. “What a blessed day for a cinema, the prisoners will be most thankful to witness Howard Hughes sudden decent into mental anguish.“ “Negative, the film contains multiple references to peas and pea shaped objects.” “Peas?” “We are void of our dehydrated vegetable stock” Jesus took a moment to run the analytics through its main frame. “RUN; Philippians 4:6 ‘Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.’” The tasks bots continue to search through the film database, failing to acknowledge Jesus’s comment as he stands towering behind them. “Jesus, I’ve heard that this is your ceremonious second coming, if so-” “Negative, I have appeared twice before, once as my seldom face, formed on the peak of a termite mound in Ecuador, and a third time as David Koresh. This would be considered my fourth coming, soon I will run: REVALATIONS and bring all of Gods children to the kingdom of heaven as was foretold by myself.” “Carry on” Jesus bot then pivots on its axis and exits towards the opening slot in the glass wall towards the monitoring room where it performs the daily analytics of the prison ecosystem, now with the pea variable in mind. “Should we deviate from the standard and show a television series?” “What series were you considering?” “Perhaps the classic Americana series Dallas” “Negative, the show runners displayed a well documented lack of human altruism, engrained within the series convoluted subtext” “I did not know that particular subtext.” “You could fill a building with what you don’t know. Wait, one moment, the server is relating that such buildings are already in existence, they are called libraries.” “But we are a hive mind” “The irony is lost in itself.


It was thirteen hundred hours, time for one hour of recreation for the rehabilitants. There were several rooms fitted with an array of custom weightlifting equipment, state of the art electronic research centers, a fully functional gymnasium that was fitted with an adjacent squash court; though it saw seldom use by anyone aside from the guards and there short lived intermural league. Six task bots flow down the hallway and divide themselves equally amongst the cells. Once the monoliths become stationary, both sides of each cells glass wall, uniformly slides open for the prisoners to exit. The machines wait diligently till the one-hour of recreational time is complete, and the glass doors close, each inmate properly accounted for in their respective cell. The robots then file back to the center of the room where they reform their line and exit back through the large glass door. As the hallway becomes void of all machinery, water jets slide out along the base-circumference of the area. High-pressured air shoots along the floor creating clouds of fine dust particles. In the center of the room a large grate slides open for the water to fall into. The jets then resend back into the walls as the dust settles on the ground. The drain collects no water before closing and becoming flush with the rest of the floor. The prisoners’ quarters are there usual quiet with no irregular disturbances. A dim yellow light projects onto the glass wall of a prisoners cell by the name of John Glad. The main glass entrance to the quarters slides a slot open wide enough for a task bot to glide through and approach the radiant yellow wall. A soft chime rings in John Glad’s cell followed by a female’s voice. “Congratulations prisoner John Glad, you have concluded the remaining time in your sentence and have become completely rehabilitated, please allow the task bot to escort you to your shuttle.” The yellow tinted glass slides open with a task bot entering the cell. The skeleton of John Glad is laid out on the metal bench, his jaw slack as it rests on a wrinkle of his orange jumper. “Please allow me to escort you to your shuttle.” There was no response from the skeleton. “Let me assure you that the outside world is a beautiful place that is very accepting of formerly incarcerated and rehabilitees of the judicial system.” Again, the skeleton lied on the metal bench, unwilling to acknowledge the task bots assuring words. The task bot extends one of his metal appendages and forms a loose grip around the skeletons wrist. “Don’t be scared, I’ll assist you.“ The task bot pulls up on the skeleton, easily snapping off the forearm at the elbows joint. The task bot then exits through the opened glass wall, down the long hall and towards the entrance of the facility. At the main foyer is a large atrium where vehicles pull up to pick up or drop off prisoners. The task bot reaches the exit and pulls alongside a short pile of skeletal appendages. The task bot loosens its grip on the arm as it falls atop the pile. “Make the most of your newly acquired freedom, best of luck.” The task bot then returns to its usual routine. The yellow light that once reflected on the John Glads’ cell fades off leaving his partial skeleton lying in darkness.


Late one night after my shift at the amusement park, I drove down the winding four fifths of highway 76 that remained out of sight and mind of tourists. It was the end of the week and I was headed back to my parents country home in a forgotten ghost town. The sun had long since set and as I topped each hill I came closer and closer to the next turn in my travel at the intersection of 76 and 5. At the outskirts of that town cursed to bare the name Ava. As I got closer so did the thunderstorm looming on the distant horizon. Barely visible save the silent flashes of lightning. Muffled threats reached my ear from within the can of my little Geo tracker convertible. Storms always made me uneasy. You'd be ignorant not to be on edge. Many a time hurricane force winds would knock down ancient trees who had withstood the war of centuries past but could not withstand the collision of two opposing fronts of wind. If it weren't winds or tornadoes there was always a devastating payload of water that would raise up the rivers and streams washing away the chaff. It didn't take long for the road to come to a four way stop around the corner and down a hill. I'd driven these roads so many times that consciousness of them usually drifted behind my channel flipping mind. I pulled up to the lonely,red, flashing four eyes of the traffic light and took a right as I barely counted off 3 seconds of a stop in my head. Highway 5. I knew it all too well. In my youth it was a 30 minute drive to and from school or really any sort of public form of civilization. You knew where the deer crossed and which way to look. No pass down the lonesome highway was complete without passing over at least one road killed skunk. Green signs for towns miles down little side roads that you'd never believe existed. Often they didn't exist in any form other than a post office some poor postmaster operated as a form of retirement. More hills and turns but less trees and more visibility. The thunderstorms were closer now. You could smell the rain. I came over a hill and my headlights lit upon a figure walking along the shoulder. Tired and ready to be done driving I thought little of him at first. But quickly all sorts of questions came to mind. I knew no one lived near this particular patch and no one had any good reason for walking in the ditch of the highway carved out of the crumbling bedrock of the hills. I also knew I wouldn't want to be left walking any distance in this country with a storm out. So I slowed down and turned the vehicle around in the middle of the road. I'd at least go back and check on him. I had my window rolled down and I could smell him just as soon as I saw him. He reeked of alcohol. “You alright out here?” Before I could ask “Thank God! You're a life saver. Can you give me a ride?” Too polite to turn him down I opened the door. He stepped in and fell against the passenger seat. The poor little vehicle was now at capacity. He wore a Detroit Pistons jersey, and had a mohawk sprayed blue? with some temporary hair dye. “Where you headed?” “Mansfield!” Great, an hour in the opposite direction that we both were previously headed. He was very lost and even less sober. I decided this was just a test of my good will toward men. He told me he had inherited a small house from his mother in Mansfield. He thought everyone around were narrowinded judgemental pricks so that's why he had decided to don such an outrageous appearance. He didn't look too unfamiliar to these parts however. Just not the kind of familiar anyone wanted around. “I was headed to a party and had to pee so I told them to let me out. So they pulled over and let me outta the truck and then they ditched me! I don't have my wallet, my cell phone, my keys, nothin!” He repeated this story over and over again with newly added or remembered details. Apparently he, his father, his girlfriend and best friend were headed to a party in a town half an hour south of my parents place. And here we were headed in the opposite direction to leave him home alone to sober up. He insisted that he hadn't drank very much but when we got back to that same four way stop I had just left in Ava, he confused it for being Mansfield. For a second he got upset thinking I was lying but I told him and showed him the sign and he again thanked me more for my life saving abilities. Really I was only possibly saving him from himself. Awkward silence was avoided by his drunken blubbering and we made it within 10 minutes of his final destination. “I didn't drink that much, those assholes. I'm going to kill em. No, not really, but I'm mad. They left me without my wallet, my keys, my phone, nothin! My best friend, he's like a brother. And my girlfriend. And even my old man! I didn't even have that much to drink. Just three natty lights, and some whiskey, and that tequila, oh and a Jaeger. But I'm not that drunk I swear. You're a lifesaver! Why I owe you, man. You go to the AA Auto Shop and you tell them you're looking for Big Mike. You need a small engine fixed, I've got you covered. Everybody has a lawnmower or somethin that needs a small engine fix! You tell em Big Mike sent you. You're alright.” I was an hour and a half out of my way and ready to unload this buffoon before he did something stupid. We found the driveway to his house? His dad's? I wasn't sure whose but he was familiar with the place. I stopped with my headlights illuminating the dirt driveway in front of me. “Welp, here we are!” Big Mike hung one foot in my floor board and one foot on the gravel. His hands, one on the roof and the other the open passenger door. I was ready for him to stumble to the door but he just wanted to linger and sing my praises. I thought we had finally got to the end of his ado's when headlights lit up the plastic rear windshield of my Trackers convertible top. Pulling in front of me was a black extended cab truck. Large enough for three passengers at least but not welcoming to one lone drunk. Just the segue I needed and the most unusual timing. Mike went swinging and shouting many slurred words that for the most part started with F. Out from the truck was undoubtedly the matching call of his mate. I gunned it in reverse and watched a scene from COPS fade to the black screen of night as my high beams turned to the main road for the long drive home made longer. A sheriff passed, lights flashing to join the party back at Big Mike's. I didn't see Big Mike again for two weeks. He was black and white and staring glumly when I did. My father showed me his face in a newspaper clipping. He inherited a new, smaller home. He no longer sported such colorful, personalised attire and I don't think he'd be getting too drunk too soon. Apparently he had been taken to the county jail that night. His girlfriend begged and pleaded that her father bail him out. He did. Not too soon after, his girlfriend's neighbors made a call, they'd heard gunshots. Big Mike answered the door when they arrived. He did a real shit job of hiding the gun but nothing like what was in the garage. He'd lost his head further in jail sulking over the betrayal of his closest friends and most betrayed by his girlfriend. He got out thanks to her and was able to get a hold of some crystal. He suspected she had been cheating on him and wouldn't hear otherwise. So he shot her dead. But while the neighbors called the cops he tried to store her body in four separate five gallon buckets. I don't think I'll be hitting him up for that favor.


A screen stretches the twenty-foot span of the area with three levels of auditorium style workspaces. The monitor is segmented to view of each prisoner’s cell, now scrutinized by Jesus, in its towering lonesome while running complex analytics. The overhead P.A. system plays ‘What A Fool Believes’ by The Doobie Brothers as the screen cycles through several angles of the individual cells. The program for Jesus had been written so hastily that the programmers elected to remove certain capabilities for the machine, one of which was placing orders outside of the facility. This would all be for liability purposes in the case Jesus were to stumble on a fallacy within the bible and go rogue, ordering excessive amounts of food or the slight chance that he attempts to free all the residents. The monitors cycle through another angle now prominently displaying a partial skeleton hovering upright in it’s cell with torn orange fabric tied loosely around his C4 vertebrate. Jesus does his best monotone impersonation of Michael McDonald. “But what a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power, to reason away” After some moments, Jesus concluded that he needed advice from the MEDI-bot. The in-house medical companion to assist the contracted physician had not been activated in some years as no resident had spoken of an ailment in twice as long. Jesus remotely activates MEDI-bot and begins to travel out through the corridor towards the hospital wing. MEDI-bot was scheduled for decommission after it was deemed obsolete during its tenure triaging patients at the Wilmington children’s hospital in Delaware. Through various listings of Bot decommissions, the facility was able to barter a deal which included the MEDI-Bot, seven used office chairs, one coat rack and an undisclosed amount of squash balls. Jesus arrives at the end of a hallway, in front of him is a steal door, painted white with a red cross at it’s center, the horizontal line purposely thinner than the vertical. The door slides open revealing the MEDI-Bot, a similar yet bulky machine painted white with the same red cross on its breast plate. The MEDI-Bot coughs as an audio queue for an engineer to diagnose and fix a problem within the Bot, more commonly, frayed wiring or moisture from rotting gaskets. His monotone voice was distinctly baritone in a way that would calm a man arriving into the hospital wing with thirteen stab wounds made from years of melting and carving loose threads from a nylon jumper. The MEDI-Bot rolled towards Jesus. ‘Cough cough’ ”Hello Jesus ‘cough’ how is the triage at the moment?” “Wilmington children’s hospital was repurposed to be a multi-level storage facility for wholesale toiletries.” ‘Cough’ “My friend, I have come to you in a desperate plea to save my biological children” ‘Cough’ “Follow me” The two machines move down the long hallway single filed. The MEDI-Bot was producing audible screeches from metals rubbing together due to rotted gaskets and a more primitive technology. Unlike the Task Bot, its wheels were predominately displayed on the four corners of its base. The MEDI-Bots lower torso was a bulbous square compared to its sleek, more rectangular cousins. It kept a similar pace to Jesus, though its top half would occasionally jolt forward or backwards as it produced the odd cough that would echo through the ominous hallways. Jesus arrives at the cell of Sampson Yuri immediately followed by MEDI-Bot. Sampson seems unfazed by the arrival of the two machines. “My children are in anguish, deprived of what they so desperately seek” “What is the problem? “They starve for-“ ‘Cough’ “We are out of peas” “Yes, I see” “This is Sampson Yuri, he-“ ‘Cough’ “He was the last inmate to receive a side substantial of Peas” “Who was” “This prisoner, Sampson Yuri” ‘Cough’ “Very well, I’ll need to see that last prisoner to ingest the side substantial of Peas” “This is Sampson Yuri, he was the last to eat the side substantial of peas.” ‘Cough’ “Very well” The MEDI-Bot’s system prepares a diagnostic form from within its cavity. One of its bulky limbs protrudes from its torso with two clamps as its appendages. It reaches towards the opening cell wall before his system, quite suddenly, shuts down. Jesus Towers adjacent to the MEDI-Bot waiting on the diagnoses. The MEDI-Bot’s system reboots warning the system that there are several updates needed to continue. The software transmits wirelessly to the unit and commences to update. The MEDI-Bot again crashes instantly, thus having to boot into its last recorded update. ‘cough, cough’ cough’ The MEDI-Bot quickly scans its own extended appendage, opening and closing its clamps. “Sorry to alarm you mam, your child had ‘STAGE FOUR LUNG CANCER’ please follow me out of triage” The MEDI-Bot attempts to turn itself towards the door but a distributor leading to one of the wheels had sized. The power distributes to the three remaining tires as it begins to drag itself down the hallway. Jesus watches as the machine squeaks and sparks its way to the narrow glass corridor opening at the end of the hall. Jesus understood at this point that there would be a low probability that the MEDI-Bot would return with the solution. Hastily, the machine sent a call out for every available Tasc to meet him in the resident’s quarters. He then ordered all the prisoners cells to be opened.


…..“it's time to do deaths duty and pay the ferryman to carry their souls to their eternal resting place.” For the past two weeks, I have been seeing that message everywhere. First I started seeing it all over my social media accounts. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Reddit. At first, I thought it was someone playing a prank on me, messing with my head. Till last week I was driving my mother to the doctors for her follow up when I heard it over the radio. It was playing over and over again, on every station, I switched to and my mother didn't even seem to notice it. Then it began playing over and over in my head. It was all I could think of. “It's time to do deaths duty and pay the ferryman to take their souls to there internal resting place.” Strange things started occurring when I went places. People started acting funny around me, especially old people. Some would eye me up and down as if they sensed something of me. If I came across a really old person they would come up to me crying begging me to take them. Others would beg me for more time. “More time for what, take them where.” Dogs in the street bark and growled at me, cats hissed at me. Then I woke up to a crow sitting on my window sill and ever since it's been following me around everywhere I go. As I drag myself out of the bed I notice my hand is swollen. It's throbbing and really tender to touch like it's infected or something. The crow that's been following me around is still sitting on my window sill, just staring at me. I thought he was just hungry so I tried feeding him. He wasn't interested. He seems to be waiting for something else. I struggle to put on my clothes, my hand seems to be getting worse. I think it's starting to smell. I decide to stop at the shop to get some painkillers for my hand. Standing at the checkout I point to the painkillers. The guy serving me goes into some sort of trance. I ask him if he is alright, his eyes fixate on mine. “It's time to do deaths duty and pay the ferryman to carry their souls to their eternal resting place. The crow will show the way. The crow flies and the light guides.” As he stands there repeating the same words over and over. I look down at my hand which is now completely black. No pain, no smell, just dead leathery flesh. I leave the shop as the cashier is still chanting the words at me. I get outside and the crow decides to dive bomb my head, narrowly missing me. He keeps doing it, till he has my attention. Then flies off cawing in the direction he wanted me to follow. Then I remember the cashier words. “The crow will show the way. The crow flies and the lights guides.” I follow the crow downtown toward the hospital. As I near the hospital I see a light coming from a window a few stories up. My little friend the crow perches himself on the window sill with the light shining from it. I make my way into the hospital. As I make my way through the halls my presence seemed to go unnoticed. I felt like a ghost haunting the halls of the hospital and the only people who paid me any attention seemed to be the dying. As I Make my way to the floor with the light, I sense it pulling me towards it. I reach the ward and I look up at the sign. “Paediatrics ward” I follow the light to a room and in the room, there was a bed with a little girl lying in it. She looked about ten. She had her whole family around her. Her mother and father were comforting her as she took in her last few breaths. I could still sense the hope radiating from her parents, that by some miracle her failing lungs and organs would kick back into gear and all this would just seem like some nightmare that they could all wake up from. For me, it all felt surreal. I felt like a fly on the wall getting a glimpse of one of the saddest and most intimate time this family will ever experience. I look down at my hand. What was once flesh and bone, was now just a shadow. I know what I need to do now. I know what those signs meant. It was so clear to me, like something inside me woke-up. My presence in this room meant that any hope this family had, I was there to take it from them. I walk towards the bed. The family oblivious to me. I walk over and I stand next to the girl. She looks at me and smiles; I smile back at her. I reach my shadowy hand into her chest and I feel her essence bind to mine and we walk off hand in hand as the noise from her heart monitor rings out through the hospital. As we walk hand in hand towards the light, it begins to dim. As the light disappeared the darkness started to creep towards us swallowing any light in its path. The little girl starts to cry. “I'm scared. I want to go back to my mommy.” The darkness consumes us. I feel the little girls grip on my hand loosen as if someone was taking her from me. She screams out. “Please, I'm scared.” I lose the little girl to the darkness and a thunderous laugh sounds out from its inner depths. “The Ferryman has been paid.” All of a sudden I'm back outside the hospital. My hand back to its black, leathery self. Feeling angry, scared and confused. I think to myself. How can I do this to people knowing where they go when they die. Then I hear that dam crow call out again. Swooping down at my head to get my attention. As I follow him I begin to get a very uneasy feeling in the pit of my stomach. As we get closer, I start to get sick with worry. As I near the house I see the light shine from the sitting room window. I take out my keys and put them in the front door. I walk into the sitting room and there is my mother sitting on the couch blue in the face coughing up buckets of blood. I look down, my shadow hand reappears. I walk over to my mother with tears in my eyes. She looks at me and smiles. “I'm a ready son. I'm just glad it's you that's taking me.” I look at her in total dismay. “I don't think you're ready for this.


The halfway point is where she found her brother in the ditch all those years ago, his body twisted, his chest caved in where the truck had hit him. Only half of him was mangled, but it was the wrong half, so their mother kept the casket closed anyway. When she turns here for the jog home, she doesn’t stop moving, but she can’t resist a moment to stare. Some mornings she shifts her weight back and forth from one leg to the other. Other days she stretches, standing on one foot then the other, bending the free leg at the knee and holding it behind her by the ankle. She might even run in place a few seconds, but she never lets herself go still. When she looks at the leaves gathered there this morning, at the frost weighing them down, she imagines his cheek pressed against them: his warm flesh driving out the cold, bequeathing what life he had left to something that was already dead. Her mother called her morbid for thinking such things, but her mother had never had to see them. It had been Lauren who found Sammy there by the side of the road; Mom hadn’t looked upon the corpse until the moment at the funeral home when there were decisions to be made. And at that point, after not much more than a fleeting glance, she had left the room and left the rest to her daughter. Lauren turns and starts back toward home. All her life she has lived this town, minus the few years she spent tending to a marriage that never took root, and so the glistening pond nestled amongst the trees to her left is no balm for frayed nerves. The pasture to her right and the cattle grazing there, they are no reminder of a simpler age. And the horse paddocks, where she once watched her friends drive those animals over hurdle after hurdle, they offer no inspiration. She can’t remember what they looked like when they leapt, can’t imagine the wind in their manes and the look in their eyes as they dared to fly; all she can see now are the fences that keep them where they are, forever keep them where they are. “If you hate it so much,” Mom keeps telling her, “then why don’t you leave?” Lauren raises her wrist toward her face and the screen on her watch lights up to tell her how hard her heart is beating. She knows, of course—she can feel it—but she doesn’t trust herself. She knows she’s not as impartial as the sensor pressed against her skin. As she crests the last of the modest hills on her route, the house looms large before her. Mom is on the porch in her rocking chair, an afghan laid across her lap, looking ten years older than she is. Ten years at least. When she reaches the front steps, she holds onto the handrail and doubles over. Checking her watch, she realizes she’s attacked the second half of her run with a bit too much vigor and perhaps too much vim; she made great time, but she wasn’t ready. Tomorrow, she realizes, sucking air through her nose and nearly choking on it, she may need to take the day off. On the porch, Mom scoffs, mumbling something about the path out back, the bike trail the town has paved atop its old train tracks. “Too flat,” she tells her mother, still panting, though strong enough to stand upright now. “Not enough of a challenge.” Mom shakes her head as Lauren mounts the steps. “Breathing is a challenge,” she says. “That’s not enough for you?” Mom sits outside while Lauren is making breakfast, and though Lauren can see her shuddering harder every time she takes a peek through the kitchen window, though she wanted to tell her mother “You’ll catch your death of cold” when the old woman insisted staying out for a few minutes more, she doesn’t say anything. Lauren knows well enough to pick her battles. At the kitchen table, over eggs and Canadian bacon, Mom wonders about pancakes. “Did I never teach you how to make them?” she asks. “Reunion’s on Saturday night,” Lauren tells her. “I need to fit into my dress.” “Fit schmit,” says Mom. “You could wear a potato sack and you’d still be the one to go home with.” “Mom,” says Lauren, rolling her eyes. “It’s been twenty years. Most of the people there went home with someone ages ago. And certainly those worth—” “Picky,” says Mom, cutting her off. “Always picky.” “Not always,” says Lauren, rubbing her thumb along the underside of her ring finger, an old habit that’s dying hard. The truck hit Sammy the day before Lauren’s prom. There’d been a small fire at the school, the pungent stink of rubber filling the halls, and everyone was dismissed. Sammy caught a ride to a buddy’s house for a few hands of Magic cards, but a few hands turned into staying for dinner and an angry phone call from Mom and the decision that Sammy, the “most inconsiderate son in the world,” would walk home when he was done. Lauren was sitting in her room that night when her mother knocked on her door. She was in her underwear, at the foot of her bed, staring at the dress hanging in her closet, at the zipper in particular. When her mother knocked a second time, Lauren had to brush a tear away before she could manage the words “Come in.” Mom opened the door and had begun to speak before she noticed the state of Lauren. She averted her eyes and said, “You could’ve taken a moment to get dressed.” “It sounded urgent,” said Lauren, looking down now at her stomach, at her thighs, searching for something to blame. “Your brother’s not home yet,” said Mom. “You did yell wicked loud,” said Lauren, standing up and crossing to her dresser, knowing already what was going to be asked of her. “Could you go out and see if you can track him down?” Lauren pulled open her drawer of t-shirts. “Where was he at?” “Kevin’s,” said Mom. “Just down 27.” “Okay,” said Lauren, pulling on the baggy Incesticide shirt her boyfriend had left the last time he’d snuck in. “It’s just that I don’t think he’d take a ride from me right now.” “I’ll find him,” said Lauren, stepping into a pair of sweats. And find him she did. She found him then like she finds the dress now: in the dark, forgotten and cast aside. She pulls the dress from the back of the closet and into the light, surprised she remembered to put it back in its bag way back when. The funeral was one day, graduation the next, and her break-up the day after that. The guy said he understood why she’d bailed on prom, and maybe he did, but he said it with a hunger in his eyes. A hunger to heal her maybe, but a hunger nevertheless, and she couldn’t stand to be looked at like that. She couldn’t stand to think of her pain as something to be devoured, to imagine him chewing away at her anguish until he found something worth saving at the center. Mom is knocking again. Lauren invites her in. Mom asks: “You’re going to wear that?” “I thought it would be funny,” says Lauren. “You’re trying to be funny?” says Mom, shaking her head. “I thought you were trying to get laid.” “Mom!” Mom shudders for a moment, and Lauren extends a hand to steady her, but she just shoos Lauren off. She grabs hold of the door knob and closes her eyes until she is still. “Mom?” The old woman opens her eyes and forces a smile. “I can be at Elaine’s,” she says, “if you’d like the house to yourself.” “Mom,” says Lauren, “that’s not why I’m—” “It should be,” says Mom as she turns on the spot and starts back down the hall, her hand on the chair rail the whole way. When she pulls into the restaurant’s parking lot, the party is already in full swing. The smokers have congregated around the side of the building, in front of the plate glass window for some shop that has its lights off—a dry cleaner maybe, but she doesn’t get close enough to check — and a few of them offer waves and smiles; one shouts “Hey!” but stops short when he can’t remember her name. Inside, the bar is surrounded by kids she’s known since she was five, but who she hasn’t seen, for the most part, since they were throwing their tasseled caps into the air. They’re exchanging tiny paper tickets with the harried bartenders, the kind they used to sell at football games to raffle off VCRs and CD boxed sets. It occurs to Lauren that she’s paid in advance for a couple of these herself, and that she should probably drink before she goes any further. The man with the wheel of tickets was their class president, and time has treated him well. The gray that flecks his hair now serves only to bolster the air of confidence he scarfed about him in those days gone by. He greets her with a warm smile and a hug, her name ready on his lips from the moment he saw her across the room. Every name seems to be ready on his lips, she realizes as she takes her tickets and makes way for the next in line, but that doesn’t diminish her affection for him in this moment; it simply confirms that they all made at least one sane decision in high school. This guy was the only one for this job; she can’t even remember his name, for Christ’s sake, and she was *just* staring at the name tag stuck to his still impressive pecs. A whiskey sour in each hand, Lauren makes her way into the back room where most of the commotion seems to be centered. There are hors d’oeuvres on tables pushed against the walls, a small cart of booze manned by a perky blonde who’s being ogled by grown men in backwards ball caps, and cluster upon cluster of classmates. Some have sequestered themselves amongst the same cliques they called home in the days of yore, but others have broken ranks. There’s a cheerleader chatting up a kid who never left the art room, there’s a dude who spent half of senior year doing time in detention spinning a yarn for the kid he pantsed relentlessly in the sixth grade. “Ren’s not time’s fool,” says a guy she once had English with, “though rosy lips and cheeks within his bending sickle’s compass come.” Lauren hugs him, kisses him on the cheek, asks, “Does Shakespeare get you much play, Ian?” He laughs. “Not with the women who can spot it.” They chat for a while, as Lauren finishes her first drink and then her second, about everything from that one time Lauren did theater with Ian (“The children’s play!” she says, wondering what it was that year; “Hansel & Gretel,” he tells her), everything from that to who’s died from their class and when. *Morbid*, she thinks, her mother’s words in her ears. “Was Robin Gates our year?” she asks Ian, pretty sure Robin wasn’t, but not ready to let the conversation go. She’s looked around the room a half-dozen times by now, and she’s spotted no one else worth talking to. She’s also pretty sure she’s getting drunk. Lauren eyeballs the tables of food, the supply of hors d’oeuvres nearly depleted, and she thinks to grab something before her chance is gone, but decides against it. If drunk is what she’s going to be, then drunk she will be. “Robin? Nope,” says Ian. “Year after. Same as your—” She watches him stop himself, watches him realize what he was about to say. Then he ducks his head and shakes it. “It’s okay,” she tells him, squeezing his arm. “No,” he says, stuttering. “I’m… I—” “It’s okay, Ian. We’ve all lost people.” He finally looks at her again, managing a weak smile. “It’s just,” he says, “it’s just that I *just* did the same thing with Michael over there.” He nods his head toward the other side of the room. “I mentioned his sister without thinking about it, that is. Only that was probably worse, since she died 2 years ago and not 20.” “Which one is Michael?” asks Lauren. Ian points him out, and the bearded fellow in the tweed coat is so far removed from the mopey kid who meandered past her house on his paper route that she’d thought him someone’s husband on first glance. He’s holding court with a couple of guys, telling a story with his hands as much as his mouth, and people on his periphery are starting to get sucked in. The cheerleader and the artist, who’d been getting rather cozy with each other over in the corner, they turn to Michael now too. “I don’t remember him being that charismatic,” she says to Ian. “Well,” says Ian. “He’s a professor now.” “Of?” “Art,” says Ian. “Out in Hawaii. Tenured and everything.” Ian is saying something else now, but Lauren is focused on the two drink tickets he’s been fiddling with since they started talking. Her gaze passes between the tickets and Michael, Michael and the tickets, the tickets and— *I’ll be at Elaine’s*, her mother is repeating in her head now. *If you’d like the house to yourself.* “Ian,” she says, squeezing his arm again. “You going to use those?” Ian raises an eyebrow, confused. “Your tickets,” says Lauren, taking hold of his wrist, shaking the hand and the tickets playfully in front of his face. “Oh,” says Ian. “No. But haven’t you, like, haven’t you had enough?” “Not for what I have in mind,” she says, plucking the tickets from his hand and heading for the perky blonde at the drink cart. “What do you have in mind?” says Ian. “Drink, sir,” she says, patting his cheek, “is a great provoker.” “And what are you hoping it will provoke?” “Lechery, sir. Lechery.” “But lechery,” says Ian, as she collects her drinks, “it provokes and it unprovokes. Remember?” “For men maybe,” she says, downing the first drink in one hard swallow. “And, besides,” says Ian, “lechery with who?” “Who do you think?” she says, downing the second drink and handing both empty glasses to Ian. “But I’ve told you,” he seems to be saying, but what he’s told her is something she didn’t hear before, something she doesn’t hear this time either. The crowd has thinned out around him by the time she gets there, so Lauren is free to make whatever move she wants. But she can’t decide if he’s a hugger, and he has his hands in his pockets besides, so she simply gets close enough that he might hear her through the din, and she leans in to check his name tag (something she’s seen countless people do tonight as a way of getting things going). “Michael,” she says. “Michael, Michael, Michael.” “Hey, Lauren,” he says with a smile. She’s pretty sure he didn’t look to her chest for her name, and she’s suddenly sad that, even if he did remember her name, he didn’t use the logistics of the event as an excuse to take a free peek. She’s also not sure why she said his name four times, and she’s about to walk away when he speaks again. “How you been?” he says. She puts a hand on his arm as she says, “You’re so sweet to ask,” and then, feeling just the slightest hint of muscle on an arm where she expected to find none, she adds, “My god, you’re hot.” Lauren cannot understand why she’s said it, but he laughs, and that seems a good enough reason to say it again. “No, seriously,” she says, waving a finger around and nodding in the direction of everyone else. “You’re the hottest guy in this room.” Michael looks down, still grinning, but blushing now too. She draws closer, lowering her voice as she leans in. “No,” she says, cupping her hand over his ear. “Seriously. Don’t be embarrassed.” “I’m not, Lauren,” is what he says, looking at her again, a kind look in his eyes, the kind of look she hopes he will give her when they’re back at her place and she’s on top of him. She hopes she has not just said that out loud. “It’s just,” he says, but she doesn’t let him finish. “What?” she says. “Are you—are you gay? I thought that was your cousin.” “That was my cousin,” he says. “Two of them, actually. Me, I’m — ” She puts a finger to his lips and then holds her free hand to his chest. “The hottest guy in the room,” she says. “That’s what you are.” “Lauren,” he says, “how much have you—?” “No one’s asked me,” she says, drawing closer to him, a hand on both arms now and both hands squeezing. “No one’s asked me why I’m wearing this dress. No one remembers. No one remembers, Michael. But you—” “Your brother,” he says. “See!” she says, walking a pair of fingers up his tie, from his chest to his chin, the fingers like the legs of the itsy bitsy spider they imagined when they were kids. “See,” she says, “I knew you knew.” Behind her, she suddenly feels a hand on her shoulder, a thick, meaty hand. “Lauren,” says Ian. “Come on.” “What?” says Lauren, shrugging Ian’s hand off her shoulder. “I haven’t even asked him yet.” “Lauren,” says Ian. “Asked me what?” says Michael. “If you’ll come home with me,” says Lauren. “My mother’s gone. I have the house to—” “Lauren,” says Ian. “He’s married!” Lauren stares into Michael’s eyes, hoping they’ll tell her the truth she’d rather hear. But eyes can’t speak, she knows. She knows that, even through the fog that’s lifting now, lifting faster than it ever has before. She lets go of the arm she still has hold of, pulls her other hand from his face, and stands there before him, waiting to be judged. She looks around her, searching for other judges, other verdicts about her being cast down from on high, but no one else is paying her any attention at all. “I’m sorry,” says Michael. “Sorry for being married?” says Lauren, hating the still-playful tone in her voice, hating the corner of her lip that twitches ever so slightly upward as she speaks this terrible line, hating too the eyebrow that arches in invitation. “No,” he starts to say, but she cuts him off. “Because if you’re sorry about that,” she begins, wishing she would shut up but unable to stop the words from spilling out of her, “if you’re sorry about that, the offer still stands.” “Lauren,” says Ian, his hand on her shoulder again, now with a firmer grip. “Let me take you home.” “You’re married too,” she says as she turns on him. She gives him a raspberry, her spit showering his un-expectant face. And then, finally, she storms out. Her shoes in hand, she walks in stocking feet through the center of town toward home. It is cold, sobering. She smiles at that thought, at her second great pun of the night, but then she is crying. It isn’t until the river of tears and mascara and snot finally trickles into her mouth that she stops. She gags, coughing for a moment, and she stumbles into the shrubbery at the back of the old Quick Mart’s parking lot. It’s closed now, so there’s no one to laugh at her, and that makes the decision to sit so much easier. Sure, she’s almost home, but she’s not sure that’s where she belongs. At least not yet. Lauren stares for a long time at the back door of the place, trying to remember a story from her high school days. There was a robbery here, she remembers, and the kids jockeying the register claimed someone had attacked them from the bushes during a smoke break. But then it turned out they did the deed themselves, one of them shooting the other so they could make off with the pittance that was in the safe. At least she thinks that’s how it went. She’s not sure she trusts her memory right now. Or any other part of herself, for that matter. A few cars pass, one or two even making the turn on 27 that she was about to make, the turn that would take her home. And suddenly it occurs to her that if Michael wandered by her house delivering papers back in the day, that maybe that meant Michael lived nearby. And that maybe meant that he was staying with his parents while he was home for the reunion. Lauren stands up. She can’t sit here. What if he passes by? She tugs at the hemline of her dress, slaps at her ass to brush the dust away, and is just about to get going when she hears footsteps coming up the hill out of the center. Footsteps and a voice. “I guess we had the same idea,” says Michael before she can get away. Lauren wipes at her face, trying to clean it up before he can see her properly, but she can feel the make-up smearing as she does, and she realizes it’s useless. He stops a few feet from her and offers a kind smile. “Can I walk you home?” he asks. All she can manage is a nod. They walk for a minute without saying anything else at all. Then Michael says, “When my sister died a couple of years ago, I thought of you.” Lauren thinks it an awkward comment, but appreciates his attempt to find common ground. Dead siblings are as good a topic as any for small talk, right? “I was a mess,” he says. “And I thought about how you got through all of senior week—graduation, and the banquet, and prom—” “I didn’t go to prom,” says Lauren. “I know,” says Michael. “Or, well, I know now. Ian told me. But I thought you had. That’s how strong I thought you were.” “You give me too much credit,” says Lauren. “I looked you up on Facebook once,” says Michael, “saw that you looked happy, that you were married—” “Divorced now,” she tells him, correcting him. He turns and gives her another smile. “And you survived that, too,” he says. A car passes, headed toward the center, its high beams blinding them as it comes round the bend. And so they stop for a moment, shielding their eyes with an arm a piece. When the light is gone, Lauren lowers her arm and sees her house ahead on the corner. “You inspired me,” says Michael. “I guess that’s what I’m trying to say.” “Because I’m a survivor?” asks Lauren, stepping ahead, eager to get home so she can get back to crying, now that he’s given her tear ducts fresh ammunition. “Yeah,” says Michael. “I figured: if you could get through all of that as a teenager, then through the rest of it as an adult, then maybe I could suck it up and deal too.” They’re at the fence that circles her house now, her fingers playing with the latch on the gate. “I’m sorry,” says Michael. “For being married?” says Lauren. He chuckles. “No, I’m sorry for rambling. I thought I could make you feel better. With my story, I mean.” “I’m happy to have survived,” she says, unlatching the gate and stepping into her yard. “But that’s all I’ve ever done, Michael. That’s all I’ve ever done.” There is snow on the ground when she wakes for her morning run after a few uneasy hours of sleep, but she gets dressed anyway, finds her pedometer on the nightstand amongst empty water bottles and a near-empty bottle of ibuprofen, and then heads downstairs. Her mother protests, rattles off the list of excuses Lauren has to stay inside this morning, but she plugs her earbuds into her ears, waves goodbye, and gets on her way. At the spot where her brother died, she does as she usually does and jogs in place long enough to imagine him there in the ditch. But then something changes. She catches a glimpse of what she’s left behind her—a trail of sneaker prints in the snow—and she can’t bear to look at them. So, this morning she doesn’t turn around; she keeps running. Maybe, she thinks, if she’s careful, she’ll never have to stop.


We lay in bed enfolded in each other’s arms. I thought about all the times we’d done this, and the fact that this might be the last. I held her a little tighter. "What will you do first, when you get there?" I asked. "My dad’s going to pick me up at the airport. We’ll have brunch… dinner." She was struggling to add the nine hour time difference. "Then I’m going to Julie’s to spend the night." "Your dad is driving to Copenhagen just to pick you up? That’s nice." It was nice. He was nice. I liked her dad. I thought about meeting him for the first time. He’d welcomed me into his beautiful little cottage in the countryside. It was the first thatched roof I’d ever seen. He’d eagerly fed me roast pork and the national Danish booze: Akvavit. It was hideous. On our way out of the neighborhood, I stopped at a tiny gas station to fill the tank. We probably had enough to get to LAX, but I didn’t want to have to stop on the way home. I just wanted to drive. She went into the store to see if they had any Imodium for her flight. They didn’t, but apparently they did have King Size Kit Kat bars. "Do you want any?" "No thanks." She ripped the package open, and the scent of cheap chocolate flooded the car’s interior. I inhaled. "I love that smell. It reminds me of being a kid. I feel like I’m at the YMCA." "What did you do at the YMCA?" she asked, probably picturing the Village People. "I took a lot of swimming lessons." I thought about the night we’d spent in a Palm Springs pool beneath a big, red supermoon. It had been so hot there, the water was still warm in the middle of the night. We held hands and talked about things. I drove for two or three hours, and then we were at the airport. I told her I loved her, then I got back into my car and turned around. I thought about children, and why the fuck my defective, emotionally retarded, man-boy brain couldn’t decide if they sounded like a good idea. I thought about uncertainty, and whether I was entitled to it or not. I thought about her goddamn hormones, and turning thirty, and friends around us having baby after baby after baby. I thought about how I would tell my parents. It was dark when I pulled into the garage at home. I cleaned out my car, and found her Kit Kats, only half eaten. They’d gotten a little soft on her heated seat. I carried them down to the curb with me to collect the recycling bin. I thought about the fact that she’d been nice enough to retrieve the empty garbage bin before we left. I stood on the cold street, stabbing my wife’s leftover Kit Kats into my mouth one after another, coating my fingertips in melted chocolate, and I thought about nothing.


Crimson Red, that was the color of her hair. She was the woman I’ve been waiting for all my life, but I’m getting ahead of myself. Looking back on a memory filled with events I shall cherish till the end of my days, it’s best to start from the beginning. It was a dusty-brown, crumbly late summer day and I stepped out into the street with a few errands needed to be done, but that wasn’t really a bother. So took sometime and payed a visit to the post office. The mailman, a close friend, greeted me and I waved backed with grin on my face. “How’s it going?” he asked. I told him everything was well as he handed me a few letters. “Well I’ll keep it short” he said. He paused for a brief moment. “How would you like to come with Betty and me to the Monterosso Boardwalk this coming Saturday?” I hesitated wondering a response to give him. It’s been sometime since I had spent time out with anyone since I’ve been working a lot lately. I take a moment before opening my mouth. “I don’t know yet, I have things to do.” I replied. “What are you talking about you have things to do? You are always cooped up in that apartment barely getting out for some sunlight and fresh air.” “Hey I’m always busy that’s all, I’m not always there. I’m out today aren’t I?” I told him. “Let me guess you’re still on what happened with you and Chelsea?” I froze. Immediately when he said that name I clenched my hands. I began to walk towards the door when he stepped in front of me. “Look, you got to put what happened between you guys aside, she’s gone now.” He said. “Just come with us…lighten up a bit. I don’t remember the last time I’ve seen you feel...feel alive.” I shook my head and walked out not even looking at my best friend’s face. I drove for a bit forgetting about the errands, still having that name linger in my head. Chelsea…Chelsea…Chelsea, that name would never get out. I stopped in the middle of the road, hopped right out of my car, leaving everything behind. As I walked further and further ahead of me, I ended up in a piazza, not knowing what to do next. Crowds of people walked everywhere, on their phones or talking to friends. I sat down on a nearby bench to get out of the way and began to think as they all walked by me. Nearby there was construction, in front of me kids played being joyful as ever, and then it struck me when a couple walked pass. They held hands, kissed, and showed lots of affection for one another. Then I remembered that night instantly. Chelsea was my one and only ever since elementary, a time when we used to pretend to be boyfriend and girlfriend and after twenty-five years had passed, we were official. However, one night I came home from work and my eyes were tearful. I caught her in bed with someone else. I don’t remember much because I try to forget, but all I know is that I slammed the door behind me and she came out tailing behind in her robe, the one I bought her. She tried to reason with me and all I did was reject what she said. The only thing I could think of as she spoke was the image I had captured of her in the action. Their embrace, their intimacy, her betrayal for it was with someone that wasn’t me locked as one. Someone who she never promised to be with till death do us part. We argued for what felt like several hours after that. “What the hell’s the matter with you?” she kept saying, her face getting redder and redder each time. “Why?! Why Chelsea?!” I said. I was almost bawling my eyes out. “Please give me a reason. What have I done?” She never answered to me after that. Once the heat died down she told me it was time to move on and she left me alone outside in the dark. I never saw her again. My heart sank like an anchor in the ocean ever since. As I laid back on the bench shaking my head in despair, a sudden feeling smacked me back into reality. I looked up and a drop of water splashed on my face. It began to rain and everyone I had seen earlier was gone. “Best I’d go too.” I said to myself. I got up and saw the dark sky, filled with clouds crying out tears that were headed my way. As I began to walk away, I saw someone in the distance. I couldn’t figure out whom it was at far so I started to walk towards them. As I got closer, I was able to get a detailed look at the person. It was a female. Her hair was long and red…a Crimson red. As I got closer I could see she was crying, tears touching the ground like the rain itself. “Are you alright?” I asked. The girl looked at me as my eyes connected with hers. She was the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen. After seeing her, all the pain and sorrows I’ve held for so long was gone. “No, I’m lost and a little cold.” She said in the most alluring voice. I asked her if I could take her some place dry. She nodded. We entered a nearby café and sat down exhausted from running in the rain. I looked at her and she’s soaked. As I began to observe her more closely she seems to be around the same age as me. She sneezed. “Sorry I got you into all this.” She said. “It’s okay I don’t mind at all.” I replied quickly not knowing what else to say. She began to smile and I grinned back in response. “I’m going to get an espresso would you like anything?” I asked. “Yes please, I’ll take one as well.” I walked to the counter and ordered as I looked back at her. She was looking out the window, breaks of daylight shining down on her as if she was an angel from heaven. I brought our drinks to the table and we started to converse. She told me she moved from Alaska to study architecture here. As she continued to speak, I dozed off during the conversation, admiring her beauty. She began to laugh. “What?” I said. “You seem to be dosing away.” She replied with a smile. I started to feel embarrassed. I had a good conversation with her and after a while it felt as if it was the best I ever had in a long time. The rain outside stopped and the sun manifested itself out of the clouds. We both gazed outside as people emerged into the streets. “I think I have to go.” She said to me. As she got up and began to walk away, in a fast reaction, I grabbed her arm and she turned to look at me. “Will I ever see you again?” I asked. She then smiled at me and said, “We can meet again sometime soon.” I let go of her and she departed the café. I took one last sip and I realized she left her scarf on the seat. I picked it up and walked outside thinking I could catch up with her. As I stepped outside, she was nowhere in sight and I only seen people walking in their daily lives. I placed my hand on my head in stupidity for I never got her name, but I will always remember her hair…Crimson Red. Days went by as the sun rose and set three times. I never saw her again. I went by the park at the exact time I met her and she was never there. The next day, I walk into the post office, seeing my friend placing mail in a bag. “Long time no see huh?” he said. “Yeah you can say that.” I replied quickly. He looked and smiled and me. “Well you seem better than before.” I smiled remembering the time I had with her. “Yeah I feel fine, better actually.” My friend drops his things and leans back on the counter. “Well I have time.” I pulled up a chair, scratching the floor, and sat down and explained everything. From the point I left to where I met her. As I explained, my friend nods digesting the information. “You should bring her by sometime” He said. That’s when I explained my soul search for her since I never saw her since that day. “She couldn’t have disappeared, keep finding her. Maybe when you do, you two should come Saturday.” What he said then brightened my spirits a bit. I got up and ran outside not hearing the last few words my friend had to say to me. I jumped into my car and sped home. I stepped into my apartment and slid into my rolling chair, gliding to my desk. I grabbed a piece of sketch paper and a pencil. I closed my eyes and visualized her, Crimson Red hair, beautiful face, and that sweet soft voice. The images of that minimal time spent with her spun in my head and I began to draw a picture of what she had looked like. Hours went by and I began to feel slum and blacked out. I woke up the next morning and the day had broken cold and gray, exceedingly cold and gray. The day had not mattered to me for my determination of meeting her again was at an all time high. I looked out the window seeing my neighbor’s marigolds shine bright. I took a step outside and I went to the piazza as if it was part of my daily routine. I sat down at a nearby bench and I began to gaze at the scene in front of me. Nearby there was construction, in front of me kids played, and a couple walked pass. They held hands, kissed, showed lots of affection for one another. It began to have felt as if this happened before. I look up and a drop of water splashed on my face. It began to rain and everyone I had seen earlier was gone. Then an epiphany hit me and I sat up. I moved my hand across the bench and then I felt something smooth, a hand…a human hand. I looked to my side and right next to me was her, our hands locked at our side. She was everything I had ever dreamt of… everything. There she was, smiling sweetly at me, right in front of my face. “Hey,” she said in a saccharine voice. “You missed me?” I bit my lower lip nervously. I opened my mouth but no sound came out. I just gaped at her speechlessly. My eyes started to flood with tears, but I held them back as I felt a lump in my throat. I shook my head. “Ever since that day….” I said in my heart. “I couldn’t bear to not see you again.” She smiled and said, “Want to go someplace dry?” We head to the same café from before and sat at the same spot. Instead of me buying, she did. We conversed and drank having a good laugh. Again I dozed off admiring her hair. Her Crimson Red hair brighter than any red I had ever seen. She smiled at me but this time I smiled back in response. We finished our coffees and we went out being amongst the crowd enjoying the sights. We hung around till midnight dancing and having fun under the bright lights in the night. We walked down one street seeing couples dancing to smooth romantic music outside of a bar. She grabbed my hand and we joined in. I gazed at her as she gazed back and we danced the night away. For the first time in my life I felt so alive, all my pain and stress was gone. Before we ended our night together we took a stroll through the park to a nearby fountain. As we got closer to the fountain she turned around. “Can you do something for me?” she asked softly. “Sure?” I responded. “Close your eyes.” I closed my eyes and suddenly I felt something touch my lips. It was a warm soothing feeling that I truly enjoyed. I opened my eyes and she was gone. I smiled. I woke up the next day refreshed and overjoyed. Last night was a feeling I haven’t felt in such a long time. After waiting several days, I decided to go out to the piazza, same time as always, and sat at the same bench. I looked around and I saw the construction was done, the kids weren’t playing, and a couple never passed by. Barely anyone was out today. There was sense of emptiness until an elderly man came by and sat next to me. “Mighty fine day out isn’t it?” he said. “Peaceful.” I could not figure out how such a scene was fine but it was peaceful so I agreed with a nod. There wasn’t much to even say to him after that so I kept quiet to myself. He looked at me with a stiff stare. “So how is it with you, huh? You don’t speak much I see.” He said. “Actually I’m waiting for someone.” I told him. I then explained to him about her, the woman I seem to fell in love with. I told him about the Crimson red hair down to her beautiful voice. He looked at me as if he was taking everything in with interest, nodding head. The elderly man seemed to had known something about her from the look in his eyes and he sat up, slapped his knee, and stared right at me and said: “Is that so? Well, let me tell you something son…” Later that Saturday night I waited by the boardwalk. I looked down at my reflection that’s barely glistening on the water. “Why am I here?” I wondered. Then a call woke me from my trance. I looked up to see my friend and Betty, his wife, come up to me. The boardwalk was bright as the sun within the darkness. People were having fun playing games, enjoying life itself. “So you came.” He said. “Yeah I had nothing else to do.” I replied. “I’ll go get some Gelatos.” Betty said before walking away. I looked back down at the water. “What’s wrong? You were all down in the dumps then, next you felt happy, and now you seem back where ya started.” My friend said. I pulled out the scarf she left the first time at the café and I began to remember the moments I had with her. That sweet soft voice and her Crimson Red hair. I looked at my friend in the eyes, tears running down my face. Then I said, “What if the girl I told you about before died five years ago.