Rain pelts the single-pane windows of the New England coffee shop. In the distance, a grey sea churns, salty spray spitting from its stormy swells. “How inappropriate to call this planet Earth when it is clearly Ocean,” a wrinkle of a man mutters from the corner table as he gazes through the warped glass. His gnarled fingers clutch a delicate cup of tea that had long gone cold, but he lifts it to his lips anyhow, indulging in its floral notes. His words hook my ears and I stand, moving from my corner of the little cafe to his. I waver there, above the only other chair at his table. He doesn’t notice. I clear my throat. Still, the old man stares out the pane, at the smoky sea and the tempest beyond. “Hello,” I say. “May I join—” The old man grunts, miffed. “Took you long enough.” “I don’t understand,” I reply, lowering into the rickety chair. The old man finally looks at me, his grim eyes as grey and stormy as the sea on the horizon. “I’ve been waiting for quite some time,” he announces. “My name is Truth. You’ve been looking for me.” “Yes,” I nod fervently, a bit in disbelief but beginning to understand. “I didn’t realize I was keeping you waiting.” “I have sat here day after day, watching you sip your coffee and click away on your keys,” Truth says, his voice weakening, “waiting for you to see me. You look out this same window as I do, watch the same sea as I do, yet you still can’t see me.” “I see you now,” I tell him. “Though, you’re not quite what I expected,” I admit, suddenly a bit sheepish. “Not very pretty, am I?” Truth asks with a smile that reveals three black, rotten teeth. “Not really,” I laugh. “Well, go on,” Truth raises his scruffy eyebrows. “Ask.” “Ask what?” “Ask me your question. But be careful—I will only answer one.” “One!” I exclaim. “You will only answer one question?” Truth smiles again. “Is that really what you want to know?” “No!” I calm myself. “No, wait. That’s not my question.” Calculating so as to be sure I don’t waste my question, I slowly utter, “One… has to wonder… why Truth himself… could only answer one question.” “Ah,” Truth leans forward over his tea cup. “All humans ultimately only have one question.” I think about this for a long while. So long, in fact, that Truth takes to looking out the window again. I watch him. Then I look out the window, too. I see the choppy waves, the power of the winds—the same sea I glance day after day. After some time, I speak, ensuring a statement is what comes from my mouth. “I want to know why you gaze at the sea so,” I tell him. “Those who understand the sea understand my lessons,” Truth says, almost too softly to hear. “They know that too much of Her—too much water—can cause death. So can too little. Water is life. And, water is death.” “Tell me more,” I beg, already craving Truth’s honey-balm words. “They know She can be strong, and can be meek. Tidal waves and rain drops. Powerful, and peaceful. Terrifying, and soothing.” He looks at me again, this time stern. “They know She holds neither preference nor bias. The sea doesn’t choose who will live, or who will die. She is passionate, and ambivalent.” “I understand,” I say, choosing my next words carefully. “There is much to learn from the sea. The same thing that gives life, also causes death.” Truth lets out a sigh, then takes another sip from his cold tea. “If nature had an economy, contradictions would be its currency.” “Natures disproves itself,” I surmise. Truth beams. “The duality of reality.” “I used to think of the sea as good,” I say. “Something beautiful and full of life. But now I’m not so sure. The sea is bad.” “Tell me,” Truth leans forward, and I do the same. “Two men journey along a road, when eventually they reach a fork. One man goes right. The other man goes left. Who is correct?” “I don’t know,” I admit. “I need more information.” “There is no more information,” Truth insists. “At least not any that matters. Who made the correct choice?” I think for a while. “I suppose… neither of them did. Or perhaps they both did.” “Yes,” Truth says. “There is no right or wrong. There are only the choices we make for ourselves.” “Then the sea,” I wonder, “is neither good, nor bad. That’s why you sit here, watching the sea—because it teaches us this.” “No,” Truth shakes his head, then shrugs. “And yes. All of existence teaches us this, not just the sea. People meet me in different places. They find me everywhere, not just here with Her. Some never find me at all,” he says, solemn. Then, with a cheeky smile, “But there’s some who can’t get rid of me.” “Nothing is right and nothing is wrong,” I mumble. “That’s a bit bleak,” I decide, and Truth laughs. “At first, perhaps,” his smile crinkles the edges of his eyes. “In time, I suspect you will find it to be freeing.” “Bleak… and freeing,” I repeat, and my eyes widen as the connection forms. “Just like the sea.” “Yes. Just like Her.” Truth leans back in his chair. “Just like everything.


This is the opening of a short story I’m submitting to magazines for publication. I would love critique, feedback or just to be blasted. I will post the rest if you guys like it…. “Runner” Three am. Sleep hid from her, peeking around the corner, sniggering as Ally Nash kicked the covers. She rolled over. Alone. Eighteen months and his half of the bed was still empty. Rob was a light sleeper in his day. Maybe he’d have gotten up and talked to her through her insomnia. Or they would have made love. She missed him and hated him. Hated being alone. Hated him for what he did. Ally looked at her running shorts and U of M hoodie, slung over the side of her laundry hamper, and knew they could soak up one more sweat. Her panties and socks were fresh from the drawer, smelling like fabric softener. Just enough to offset the day-old musk. She got dressed and swallowed a cup of water, popped in her earbuds, stepped into her shoes and walked out the door. The air felt right, a satisfying burn, deep in her lungs. Her heart thanked her for giving it a reason to be. Her knee, on the other hand, grumbled for a day off. No. Motion is the lotion. She picked up the pace and drug the gummy joint through the paces until it relented. Ally’s stride came back and her cross country coach's voice echoed from deep in her brainstem. Three steps, in breath, four steps, out breath... in your nose, out your mouth... pick up the pace! The endorphins trickled into her blood and her mind floated just above her own skull. That was the real runners high. That ancient survival mechanism, adapted to running down animals in the plains of Africa. There was no worry there. No regret. No anxiety. No fiancé with locked apps on his phone. Up there she didn’t have to live with herself. The self who couldn’t ignore her gut any longer. The girl who told herself; you’re just being paranoid, he’s a good guy, nothing is going on, don’t be like your mother. Don’t push him away. Give him his space. He’s at the gym. Out with his friends. Don’t follow him. Ally! Don’t do it. Please. Don’t look- Enough! Thank god she never gave up on running. It saved her life in high school. When dad moved out and her mom’s drinking took a turn. Ally found peace in the rhythm of her feet and the floating of her mind. Running got her medals, ribbons, articles in the newspaper, a scholarship to the U and brought her together with Rob. Rob. The bastard with a majestic stride. Perfect. Fluid. Natural. He set the pace for their college team, Captain Rob. Three hour practices followed by sex in the shower. He picked Ally over a dozen other girls and they quickly became inseparable. The happiest days of her life. SNAP! Razor-sharp teeth flashed in the dark. Ally’s heart tumbled out of rhythm and fear snatched her out of reminiscing. She leapt off the blacktop and into the road. A snarling black lab yanked at the end of its chain, barking at what it believed was an intruder to its property. Oh my god! Ally clutched her chest and sighed, relieved it was just a halfwit mutt and not some ancient demon of the shadows. Once she reigned in her pulse and verified she hadn’t wet herself, Ally Nash looped back to the sidewalk and made a mental note to avoid the dog next time she ran in the dark. The nature preserve was a mile from her front door. Her favorite trail loop gave her seven miles to work her pace and get all the sweat she needed to get through another day. As she turned away from the road, facing into the woods, Ally stopped and checked the time. Four AM. At least an hour until the sun even started to glow. She’d never run that loop in the dark. It should be empty, Ally reckoned. Nothing to worry about. Besides, if the boogeyman happened to be in there, there’s almost no chance he could run six minute miles. One thought gave her pause. Her neighbor had posted a security camera photo of a canine they thought was a wolf. Most of the amateur nature experts on Facebook decided it was a German shepherd that should have had its collar on. A few men, Area Fifty One types, believed the ears and muzzle looked like they could belong to a coyote. One commenter noted that a pair of wolves had escaped a nature preserve twenty miles to the North on the night of a vicious rainstorm and were still being pursued by the DNR.


My life is a farce. Just yesterday, my master sends me down to the swamp. He says, swim down to the bottom of the bog. Down there at the bottom, you’ll find a piece of seaweed that feels just a *little* bit different than all the other pieces. Pull that piece. Nothing will seem to happen, but something *will* happen--another piece of seaweed somewhere else will feel different now. So go find that one. And do that until all the pieces feel weird. Then pull all those seaweed pieces out, one by one. Two at a time ain’t no good. Gotta be one by one. Then line ‘em up on the shore. Wait for the hot sun to come out, the one that comes out on Thursdays. We got three suns. Cold sun, Color sun, hot sun. Gotta wait for hot sun. So hot sun comes out, dries out all the seaweed. Now it’s rigid. Except it ain’t brittle like regular seaweed gets when Hot sun does it’s thing to it. It’s fucking hard like a rock. It’s the hardest god damn thing I’ve ever felt. I’m feeling pretty good. So I ask my master, what next. What do I do with this rock hard seaweed. He tells me, okay. So take that seaweed, and you’re gonna weave a basket out of it. A basket. Okay. So a-weaving I go, and I make a nice basket. He says okay. Now buy a hot air balloon. And attach it to the basket. I tell him hey man, I made the basket too small. You didn’t tell me what the basket was for and I made it way too small, there’s no way I can sit in this if it’s a hot air balloon! He says, that’s part of the test. So I buy a hot air balloon. Attach it to this rock hard seaweed basket thing. And he says go up to the ionosphere in this thing. Fine. Okay. I barely know where the ionosphere is but I figure it's upwards. So I stand in the basket, one foot only, that’s all that fits, and I light the flame of the hot air balloon, which is hot as all hell on my head because I can’t sit down, because the basket’s too small, and I ride it up to the ionosphere. It’s starting to get real cold, even with the flame and all from the hot air balloon. I’m getting real worried that the balloon is gonna deflate, because the air’s so cold and thin. The oxygen is hella thin. It's completely inconvenient to breathe, in a way I'm loving roughly 0%. I call my master and I say okay, I’m in the damn ionosphere, what now. I did everything you asked. What do I do. He says okay. He googles something. He’s kind of trying to hide that he’s googling something but I see him do it, it’s facetime and I can see him typing something on his phone with a really puzzled look on his face. So I say it. I don’t care that he’s my master, I let him have it. “Hey man, I see you’re googling shit. You’re just making this up as you go. You don’t have anything to teach me. The only thing you’re teaching me is that you don’t know what the hell you’re doing!” So I say fuck this guy. And I lean to my left and I fall my ass out of the hot air balloon on purpose, and I’m plummeting to earth with my arms folded, because I’m pissed off and I want everyone to know it. I see the earth racing up to meet me. I’m about to hit a rocky outcropping and I’m about to cry, I’m visualizing my body breaking on those rocks and my ribs and my lungs cracking and collapsing and all my blood flying everywhere, and my hands being pulverized to dust and my eyeballs flying out of my skull and going 500 feet, and I’m weeping uncontrollably, the images are flying through my head faster than I’m even falling, and I cry out to god. And I say, “fuck you, you old bastard. You’re gonna make my fucking eyeballs fly out and my knees pop off and my feet explode on this crumby old fucking rock outcropping. You made these rocks and you made gravity and that’s why you’re the dumbest old bitch alive.” And suddenly I stop. I look down. I’m an inch from the rocks, from the rocks that were so sure to end my life, but I’m not falling. I’m levitating. I look up and there’s my master. He’s levitating me. He tells me I passed my final lesson. I was ballsy enough to call him and god a dumb old bitch. And then, I fought him in that rock outcropping, and I kicked his head clean off with my first punch. And that’s how I got to be the proprietor of this dojo here. So it’s 45 dollars for the first month, and then 90 for the rest. Yeah. We send you a bill in the mail and you mail a check. No, I’m sorry, we really don’t do direct deposit. Yeah. Sorry.


The prisoner was brought into the interrogation room by two armed guards. He was shoved down onto a steel chair as the sound of the chair scraping against the tiled floor echoed throughout the small room. Above him was a single light bulb and in front of him was a silver metal table. Across the table from the prisoner was his captor. The captor was in his dark green uniform and by the look of the insignia on his arms, he must’ve been an officer of some sort. He was leaning forward, his elbows resting on the steel table. Paperwork was in a neat pile in front of him. The captor looked tired. His uniform was unkempt and his beard was long. His eyes were worn out. “Your name is Devlin, yes?” the captor asked in a strong but understandable accent. The prisoner didn’t answer. The captor sighed. He slowly got up and walked around the table. He placed a cigarette in the prisoner’s mouth and lit it. The prisoner took a deep breath and puffed the smoke out of the side of his mouth. The captor then leaned down and uncuffed the prisoner. “Devlin, you’re free to go.” Devlin took another drag of his cigarette and leaned back in his chair. “So, I guess the war is over then?” he asked calmly. “No, not yet. But it looks like we have reached a point of inevitability.” Devlin had no reaction. He continued to smoke his cigarette. The captor sat back in his chair and removed his hat. “You have been here with us for over six months. We have deliberately kept news of the outside world from you. Now, this will take some time, but let me explain what has happened. Six months ago …” “Where are my men?” Devlin interrupted. “Sir, I’m trying to explain.” “Explain to me where my men are.” The captor looked down. “They are all gone, believed dead.” Devlin stared straight at the wall behind the captor. “About a year ago I was stationed here. This was an enviable posting. We were to protect the northern border but no invading force had been able to cross those mountains in over one thousand years. Some of the men were eager for action but me, I had already seen enough. “We had six months of no activity. We then received word that there was some movement in the mountains. I personally thought it was some bad intelligence but we sent a scouting force out anyway. And that’s when we heard that an entire division was moving towards us. “So we moved out, ready for an ambush. We carefully laid our trap and that’s when we saw your army. We heard you from miles away and when we saw you, if I’m being honest, it was a sorry sight. “I didn’t know what had happened but I assumed the arduous crossing had really taken a toll on your men. But you were a hostile enemy combatant. And we had our orders. “The rest of that encounter you are familiar with. We took your men and you, Colonel, were sequestered somewhere else. “Your men were treated fairly I assure you. We fed them, and took care of the wounded. Some of them died due to their wounds and we buried them respectfully. But there was something strange with your men. “At first I admired their discipline. But after a week we noticed something. Your men had not spoken a word. They did not speak to us which is understandable. But they did not speak to each other. Weeks went by, and then a month. “Some of your men then tried to escape. I must say, some of their methods were ingenious. While others were quite crude. It is the duty of a prisoner to try and escape captivity but in any case they were all recaptured and disciplined under the rules of the treaty.” The captor took a breath. “But then one month ago something peculiar happened. Your men began talking again. But only in whispers. At first they would whisper to each other. But then they started whispering to the guards.” Devlin twitched but his face did not betray what he already knew. “I can only assume you know what happened next. Slowly, the guards began releasing the prisoners. But not only that, they were escaping *with* the prisoners. We did what we could. We changed over the guards, increased discipline, implemented solitary confinement. But one by one they all started to escape. “We sent out search parties for them. The ones we did find were dead, guards and prisoners alike. Some we never found, only traces of them. “It finally dawned on us what was happening. Sir, you did not cross those mountains to attack us. You were running. Running from something that has killed all of your men and nearly all of mine. Running from something that would cause my soldiers enough fear for them to disobey orders and break free themselves.” The captor broke his calm demeanour and leaned forward onto the table. “Sir! Colonel Devlin. What is out there?!” Suddenly there was a thud on the outside of the interrogation room. One of the guards yelled and fired off a string of bullets before a crack was heard and the firing stopped. There was a low growl coming from the outside of the door. Devlin continued to smoke. “Can’t you see, it’s already here.


In year 2352 a cone shaped transport hovered into position outside the domed city of Powlett, Mars. On opposite sides of the vessel ‘Solar Spaceways Cruise Coach’ flashed in bold, yellow letters. Hanging in the thin air, it sprouted a disembarking tube to connect to the round, sealed dock. Outside the dome was a typical Martian landscape with rocks and dust to the horizon, and a faint blue sunset decorated the dark sky. Inside Powlett there was not much more to see. The single-story buildings were made of stone, and the only sign of life was a crowd of people loitering near the circular hatch. Yet, when the four sectioned metal seal slid open, the passengers were eagerly lined up to move in. The first one to disembark was a short, thin man with light brown skin and neatly combed black hair topping his soft, round face. Unlike the pants, shirts, and jackets of the other passengers, he wore a three-layer beige robe with four green stripes on the collar. The neutral attire marked him as a seeker of knowledge, official representatives of Earth Management, and the four stripes gave him a high rank. “Thank you for flying Solar Spaceways, Craster Krenne. Welcome to Mars,” a smooth, feminine voice spoke to him. The message was from the ship’s pilot, but she did not know him personally. There were two hundred other passengers on this shuttle from Earth, and each received the same farewell with their own name. It was not his ears that received the message, but his brain-computer. Deemed a human right in 2234, brain-computers contained a few parts of ceramic, plastic, and metal, but most of the device was grown from a person’s cells. It formed a truly personal bond that would work for no one else. Craster’s brain-computer allowed him to connect to the Solar System Information Service, or the Big Sis as it was often called. It contained the accumulated knowledge of all humanity that spread throughout the solar system, centered on Earth. With the SSIS he could communicate remotely, learn public matters, and access the machines woven throughout society. Without replying Craster passed over the threshold of the city entrance and stepped onto the dull landing platform. His brown eyes gazed over Powlett with calm confidence as he made his way to the level, stone ground. Ten yards away a line of people dressed in bright colors fashionable on Mars silently waited to fill in the empty seats. Other than the pilot’s message, only Powlett’s musty odor greeted Craster, and he could not resist the thought that it was an alien scent invading his Earth raised nostrils. On the home world he had seen holograms of Mars with beautiful people lounging and playing next to enormous sparkling swimming pools and lush green foliage. In the background a violent storm wasted its strength behind the protection of a dome. Other commercials showed majestic floating barges with smiling people mingling and enjoying every luxury off the tip of Olympus Mons. The Mars tourism trade presented it as a planet full of exhilarating spots of the finest pleasures humanity could offer, but this was not that kind of place.


I don’t own a cat. Can you call a cat a thing? You own a pet. Doesn’t this put them in the same category as your hat or scarf? You own scarves. I own quite a few myself, a whole collection of scarves, in fact. I suppose I don’t love them the way I love a pet. I had pet rats. They live only a few of years, about as long as a well-worn scarf. Rats are simple too. You keep them in a cage. You clean the cage. You own the rat. You own the cage. You what I don’t own? A cat. No one here knows who owns the cat. You would assume: doesn’t that mean it’s a stray? No, this is a well-fed cat. He just got a shiny new collar. I don’t know how anyone gets a cat to wear a collar. We’ve always had indoor/outdoor cats, and every collar we tried putting on them disappeared at some point. Maybe we didn’t get pretty enough collars. One of our cats went through more collars than the rest by far. She was more like a wolf than a cat sometimes, howling at the moon, much like this cat, which I do not own, is howling at my door. It’s funny how when a cat is yours, it’s family, but when it belongs to someone else, they own a cat. Everyone pets the mystery cat on the sidewalk, and so did I, until he followed me inside one day. I didn’t realize how horribly allergic I was to cats until I moved out of my mother’s house for college. Being able to breath was amazing. A new experience. It seemed as though I could keep breathing forever without-- How is this cat still yowling? It needs to stop for oxygen right? My cat’s voice went from a mew to a yowl as she aged. You would think there would be less breath with age, but I guess cats are different. Maybe they breath a bit easier the older they get. It occurs to me that she may have just been going deaf, which I suppose isn’t uncommon. I wonder if this cat, which I do not own, thinks I’m a poor deaf human, who will definitely open up the door. If. He. Just. Yells. Loud. Enough. I know he’s neither old nor going deaf. The first by sight. The second by the fact that every time I attempt to type, the yowling begins once again. I began typing this on my laptop, but it’s too close to the door, and not portable. So, now, I am on my phone, with its silent touchscreen keyboard, typing this on Google Docs. And yet, still, the cat howls to be granted entry. Why? I checked. My apartment’s baseboard heater, circa 1973, has come out of its less than seventy-degree-Fahrenheit slumber in the way that someone with sleep apnea is awoken at 3 a.m. which, as chance would have it, is also the time right now. I’ve turned off all the lights in the apartment, the heater crackles concerningly, and here I am, typing an essay on my phone. Perhaps, finally, the cat is gone. During the day, I like him well enough. I let him in to nap in my apartment. I leave out a bowl of water. I also get cold easily, which means it’s always warm here. I understand, I offer a very enticing place to sleep in any hour of the day or night. Cats don’t care for business hours, but I do. I thought about getting a cat, this past year. But, having had cats in the past, I know that caring for a cat is an investment. When I moved into an apartment alone, especially, I thought perhaps now was time for a cat. Thankfully, this apartment came with a cat I can own vicariously through my mystery neighbor. I just need to make sure to impress upon the cat, that I do not own a cat. I think I will try to do that tomorrow, when I let him in for a nap.


I try to be as descriptive as I can in this short time of leisure, since we're about to embark on our journy through the no man's land that lies behind our supply trench. I am writing this journal on parchment made from my own skin and with ink made out of my blood. My name is Mitten and I've been living in this hell for about 6 months now. Everyone who arrives here wakes up in one of the few dugouts with beds and every single one doesn't remember how he got here or who he is. The only form of identification is the name that's stitched on our clothing and collarbone, though we don't know if it's our own name. We fight an endless fight agains an enemy who just tries to flee from his own trench to ours. They are all mutilated, decaying or transformed into what is best describable as melted humans, probably caused by the mist that fills their side of the battlefield. One thing every enemy has in common is their lack of orifices to breathe through. Their mouths and noses are just gone. Some of them tried to rip open holes to breathe again but underneath their skin and muscles are just bones that won't allow you to breathe. They seem to be in constant agony. Constantly suffocating. Starving. Thirsty. Most of us don't want to fight but we have to. We have to stop them before they reach our frontlines because if they do, they just melt into the mud we stand in and everyone who would have been able to stop them develops some sort of dry gangrene that slowly takes over your whole body until you're just trapped in a body that can't regenerate and can't die. But the most disturbing thing about this whole ordeal is the fact that our enemies try their best to escape the horror that resides in their own trenches, knowing they will melt into a consciouss pool of mud. The first thing almost everyone tries is to kill himself with his rifle, only to live through his immortality and his inability to lose his consciousness for months on end until he regrows everything he needs to be able to move again. Those of us who lost their will to fight and can endure the unimaginable dread that grows in you if you don't fight, get carried away to the enemies lines by these winged beasts whose grotesque physique drives everyone mad who looks at them. To counteract these abductions, most of us who lost their hands and are unable to operate their rifles will have specially made iron rods rammed into their arms to be able to fight again, until their hands regrew. Every week a train comes by to supply us with ammunition and a thin broth we consider our food, so every week some of us has to go through 20km of mud and trenches, blood and organs to deliver the supplies to the front. Those of us who have lost their hands, and have yet to regrow them, get pickaxes stuck and bolted into their forearms and knees to act as some sort of mule capable of traversing the unforgiving land between the frontline and the supportline. Our day to day lives consist of sleeping for about 3 hours a day, eating our soup, trying to get rid of our illnesses like trenchfoot or typhus by amputating those parts if possible, even if that means we have to regenerate our whole body for months on end, and stopping the enemy from reaching our trenches. It is constantly dark in these lands, except for a singular, red flare that is shot up into the sky every 24 hours and acts as our sun. Most of us gave up on understanding this hell like me so I didn't even bother thinking about the origins or use of this flare. The weather is always cold and wet. At least our trenches are on the highground so most of the water that comes down goes to the enemylines. There aren't a lot of vehicles around here except for the occasional armored car that comes with the train and those flying behemoths made out of cloth and steel that float above us. They are connected to the ground by a few rope ladders. Some of us tried to climb them, most of them fell on their way up because they were too weak or it's gotten too cold for them. Those who made it up there never came back. I am currently waiting for Stiller to wake up. He thinks he found a way to escape this hell by traversing the no man's land behind us. He said that if we want to go home, we have to go back to our homeland. It's absurd but it's worth a try. He hopes we will get back to our lives again or finally die. I think we're currently in the first circle of hell and will just enter the next. I will keep this journal on my at all times but I will be unable to write in it when we go. He woke up. I hope we will finally be able to die.


We were earth’s First Fleet, sent to colonise the closest habitable planet in our galaxy. Unmanned probes were sent first, followed by landing drones. However, we would be the first humans to set foot on a planet outside of our solar system. In amongst a fleet full of scientists, pilots, engineers and soldiers I stood alone … as the entertainer. I was a pianist for the military band and had volunteered to join this expedition not out of a sense of duty or a craving for adventure. I had volunteered simply because there was nothing left for me on earth. I didn’t have many friends at all in this fleet with nearly everyone belonging to some team in one way or another. No, I stood alone. “Get up,” the drunkards would say to me, “Play us something.” Our first few hours escaping earth’s orbit was one of hopeful sadness. We knew that we had left everyone we loved behind. But this was to be a grand adventure, the greatest adventure in human history. I sat at the piano and looked out at the audience. Many were happy, drinking and having a laugh. But some were melancholy, preferring to be alone with their thoughts. My fingers began to work across the keys. I opened with a D minor, settling into an easy flowing melody. The 5th would be the natural progression giving the piece an ethereal feel. I flattened out the 6th note in the melody, finally confirming my use of the Dorian scale. The sadness in the piece could be now be felt as I moved onto another minor chord, in this instance an E minor. From here there could be only one place to move. I hit the G major chord, bringing the progression to its victorious climax. Finally I returned home to the D minor, quietly ending the piece as our fleet moved its way further from our stellar home. \*\*\* We landed on our new planet two weeks ago. That is approximately three and half weeks in earth time. This world we have named, unimaginatively in my opinion, Eden. Erroneously too as it turns out, for this world is not the earth analogue that the scientists had predicted. The temperature is significantly colder than expected considering its atmospheric composition and distance from the sun. The ground, as a consequence, is unfriendly to agriculture but for a few root vegetables. The storms are much more frequent than we had expected and although our habitations have so far remained stable we have had to reinforce them with the precious few materials we have. However, despite these hardships, the mood is one of optimism and the pioneering spirit of the great days of exploration has been reborn. The engineers tirelessly work on our buildings, the scientists eagerly survey our environment and the former soldiers have now reinvented themselves as our farmers and labourers. Each evening I play to the tired and overworked settlers. The boisterousness of the crowd is infectious and seeps through into my playing. I play an A major chord shifting next to a B major over A. Ah yes, that raised 4th removes the major scale mask revealing the Lydian scale underneath. I alternate between these two chords playing an uplifting melody over the top. However, the Lydian scale is harmonically unstable and simply cannot sustain an entire piece. I move over to the E major scale, somewhat rescuing the piece and adding a grandeur and joy to the music. The audience barely acknowledge me as my piano blends seamlessly with everyone’s merrymaking. \*\*\* Last season’s harvest has once again failed. The agony of starvation has now become a very real proposition as the news of food shortages is announced to the settlers. The response is silence as this possibility has already entered all of our minds during the last months. The storms, the unceasing relentless storms, have rendered long term colonisation impossible. This reality was one that we were all aware of when we left earth. However to face it is a much different thing entirely. The last messages to earth were sent although it will be many years before they will receive it. Finally, protocol Roanoke was implemented. We gathered inside our last undamaged habitation, most of us very weak from hunger, and listened as another storm ravaged our settlement. Slowly the oxygen was released as we waited for our eternal slumber on this alien planet. The captain asked me to play one last time, “As they did as the Titanic sank.” I didn’t know what he was referring to but I dutifully sat at my piano and began to play. My heart was sinking as I looked at the slumped people in front of me. Some were still breathing, steady and purposeful. I began my final piece by playing an F minor chord, slowly arpeggiating the notes up and down. I moved from the 5th to the flat 6th, down to the 4th and then to the 2nd. Finally I played the flat 3rd before returning to the F minor. The Aeolian mode, the most fitting scale for our current predicament. I continued to play as all breathing and movement stopped. The dead planet we found was a dead planet once more. I slumped onto my piano, the sound of dissonant notes echoing throughout our tomb. The final notes ever heard on Eden.


*By Bebe Smyth, South Sun Gazette* *“Demolition of the old New Castle technology buildings in Commerce Park West was halted today after workers discovered the skeletal remains of a human being. Crime scene investigators were called in to help identify the remains. The New Castle technology buildings were abandoned three years prior as the parent corporation made moves to consolidate properties during the last economic downturn in the technology sector. City planners had rezoned the commerce area for residential use. Demolition is slated to resume Tuesday morning.”* Fred tunneled his eyes onto the monitor, pressed hard on the power button, and leaned forward. It was 7:00am, too early for any life to be stirring about the cubicle farm. Not that he would notice anyway. The machine booted (slowly), Fred entered his access password (#1TopDog), opened the e-mail app and clicked on the first new mail, something from corporate. Fred scanned quickly the standard corporate blurb; smiley greetings from the CEO; cheery few sentences about last quarter and the company making great strides; attitude and determination of all employees was key for continued progress. In total it was a collection of snappy inspirational clichés. That was the set up. The email continued on, not enough progress; tough times; competition, and unexpected shifts in the market place. The last lines gamboled on about the value of the individual, their importance, their spirit and the need for continued commitment that will lead to future success. I’m sure of it. Then he scanned the rest of his inbox. Before him a long list of emails from conference organizers, subscriptions of interest, daily updates. But the email that he looked for, the one of highest interest to his situation, was not there. He knew the plant was closing, he just didn’t know when. Fred exhaled a silent stream of exasperation. He read on but found nothing directly addressed to him. Just a continuum of corporate spam; Meeting Minutes, production announcement, customer success stories. By eight Fred was ready to move onto the next part of his routine - which started by brewing a fresh pot of coffee. He rose slowly from his desk; it was a task to raise his head after being fixed to the screen for an hour. He had to fight against gravity, or scoliosis in order to rise up. Years of hunching over a screen had turned the heads, necks and backs of colleagues into an s shaped curve. In the past, many of those walking around, reminded him of the comical parody “walking like an Egyptian”. They were gone now, let go ahead of the final plant closing. These deformed individuals, with their feelings of importance and corporate self-worth, were gone. Too bad Fred thought as he ratcheted his ass up slowly from his cubicle. His staying power rested on keeping a low profile. As his ass finally gained space from his chair he proceeded to the coffee machine, head down, eyes averted. Eye contact with the wrong manager could be dangerous. The coffee machine stood disgustingly bleak and alone in the break room, just another reminder of corporate cost cutting measures. The corporate sponsored coffee service had stopped long ago. How long he couldn’t remember. It still really ticked him off. He grunted low, with some disgust of this poor excuse for a break room. That growling sound made him feel defiant. But it was a sound made only for himself, because Fred never openly complained. “Nope, not going down that path” he reminded himself. Rule #1 - complainers go first. Just keep your mouth shut and focus. Be steady, one step at a time, keep a low profile. It was a strategy that worked. At least the water was still free. Fred filled the coffee machine with enough water for 2 cups. Staring at the Pyrex coffee pot, looking intently at the water Fred grunted again to himself. Well maybe it’s free, but it’s not looking to good lately. Maybe the brown tint was just coffee residue from the previous millions of pots of coffee. Maybe it came like that from the faucet. Maybe it was his eyes going bad from years of staring at a computer screen. He filled the coffee filter with his own store bought coffee, clicked on the machine and waited for the brew to begin. The coffee machine gargled and perked, and the coffee aroma filled Fred’s nostrils in a most gratifying way. When all the bubbling and gargling was over and the last drops of brown fluid dripped from the machine, Fred poured his coffee, added creamer and took the first cautious sip. Ahhh. This would be the best part of his day. The caffeine jolted his body awake and cleared his head. The gratification went right to his bones. His heart fluttered and he took a deep breath. Well, no sense hanging around the coffee pot. Loitering doesn’t help your company profile. Best to take your cup and move back to the cube as quick as possible. Walking back slowly to his cube Fred heard the ominous sound of electricity beginning to fail. A hard click of relays implanted somewhere in the bowels of the building. Fred couldn’t remember if he had left open his file on competitive benchmarking and marketing analysis, a huge compendium of a report that he had been working on for over a year now. Damn, I’m going to lose work, he thought, and in the next breath he cursed the IT department because his backup power supply never came back from repair. Fred began the race back to his cube hoping to close the file before the machine came to a dead stop. A ridiculous race to catch a file before all the electricity ebbed from his machine. He scurried in a jerky motion as quickly as his gimpy legs would carry him. As he raced he could feel the palpitation in his chest growing into a full hard thump. Ignoring the thump in his chest Fred listened to the sound of things whirring to a standstill, in his head he estimating the time before shut down, quickening his pace and keeping his feet moving. I’ll just make it he thought optimistically. Fred came to his cube row as things stopped completely. Spurring himself on his gait became gangly and awkward, the last steps to his cubicle were frantic and panic stricken. He plopped down into his swivel chair, the hard thump in his chest became a giant knot and he gasped for breath. It was a knot that quickly cut off his air and made him nauseous. Fred was able to gasp a breath, but he already knew this was a heart attack. Damn this will cause a commotion. He leaned over and vomited into his waste basket. He needed help quickly. He grabbed for a desk phone, something he hadn’t used in months, but there was no dial tone. Fred sputtered, and then slumped forward onto his desk as the lights went out. Thirty minutes later, in the twilight of the deserted office building one could hear the scurrying and scratching sounds of rodents stirring. Their interest had been peaked, and shortly thereafter the mutilation began. His body was found, at least what was left of it, 2 years later, right before the old New Castle Technology building was demolished. The story was initially reported in the South Sun Gazette. A follow up story reported on the identity of the bones found, one Fred Foster a former employee of New Castle Technologies. The mystery of what Fred was still doing there remained. CSI could not provide any conclusive evidence of foul play, and could not answer the question of how the bones of Fred Foster ended up inside a building that had been vacant for almost 3 years now. New Castle Technologies did acknowledge that Fred Foster was at one time an employee of the company, but he had been terminated along with several other colleagues almost three years ago. A spokesperson for New Castle could not answer or would not comment on how Fred’s body had found it’s way back into the building. And that was the end of it. Almost. Mary Conner, a second line HR Director, remembered the New Castle building having visited the site several times. The last time was to go over the closing schedule. She didn’t remember any of the employees there and only had a vague remembrance of her counterpart on site, an older lady who was ready for retirement and just counting down the days. But her curiosity had been peaked when she saw the story in the Sun Gazette. Over the course of the next five or six weeks, Mary spent a few moments of her spare time working on her “hobby” as she called it. She pieced together these details: Prior to plant closing corporate had moved Fred to a global responsibility. However the manager in charge had been on vacation and somehow the transfer was never actually authorized. The transferring manager had been let go in the last downsizing as well, so Fred was somehow a free floating element in the corporate innards. There was no one who clearly owned the headcount of “Fred”. So Fred never did get an email. As far as corporations go, New Castle Technologies operated much in the same way as every other corporation. Whether or not someone claimed Fred as a headcount, the IT department kept providing services to a one Fred Foster and billing this to a global headcount bucket that held all the miscellaneous contractors and temps that filled jobs on an as needed basis, and as long as IT got paid it provided service, no matter where the individual sat. Their world was virtual and they had little concern for actual location. That provided at least a theory as to what Fred, or his remains might have been doing in the abandoned building. But she thought further and asked herself why someone didn’t notice a car left for days in a parking lot unattended. She hypothesized that most likely someone did notice the car in an empty parking lot. Someone who could hot wire it, chop it up and sell the parts. Mary sat pensively in her cubicle staring at her screen. She felt satisfied with this hypothesis. In her mind she had elevated herself from HR Director to CSI agent. She smirked to herself, but understood there was no way to share this victory. No one to tell. Don’t stir the pot Mary, that was her motto. She hunched over, focused on her screen, and clicked to open the next email.


*, here expanded with a longer, hopefully more disturbing, ending!* **The following materials detail the pathological progression of >!\[Redacted\]!<, hereafter referred to as Patient, and subsequent Incident. The materials are presented in chronological order.** *** *Item 1; Initial security report from* >!\[Redacted\]!<, *located in* >!\[Data Expunged\]!<. Patient arrives at 08:00, the opening time of the clinic, and begs to be sedated. Patient has wrapped their hands and feet in towels, scraps of cloth, and gauze. Patient complains of an itching sensation, and claims to have applied the wrappings to keep from harming themselves. Patient is registered and asked to wait. Security footage from the lobby shows Patient progressively growing more agitated. Patient starts pacing the room, rubbing their arms with their wrapped hands incessantly. At 08:14, Patient walks past a mirror. Upon seeing their reflection, Patient exhibits an extreme fear response. Patient screams and destroys the mirror with a nearby chair, then tries to force entrance to the wards. Security is called. Security arrives at 08:16. Patient subdued by means of sedative injection administered in the left shoulder. Patient notably extremely afraid of the syringe. Audio transcript as follows; *“No! Please, no! No needles, no knives! Break the skin, she comes in! Mother will come in! NO!”* *Patient screams incoherently for several more minutes until the sedative takes effect. Patient moved to isolation and restrained to a bed.* Report Ends. *** *Item 2; Dictation by Dr.* >!\[Redacted\]!<, >!\[Redacted\]!< *City Hospital, regarding Patient’s admittance to his care. Any mention of Patient’s name or characteristics have been redacted. Statement begins.* “Patient was admitted under sedation. Report from psych says >!\[Redacted\]!< has been exhibiting extreme paranoia, fear, and aggression whilst awake. They’d tried talking to >!\[Redacted\]!< several times over the past three days in their care, with minimal results. >!\[Redacted\]!< mostly screamed at them and begged them to take the IV out, apparently extremely afraid of needles. They referred >!\[Redacted\]!< to us when they noticed a discoloration of the skin around the PVC. Upon examination, it was discovered the skin and soft tissue around the puncture had ossified. >!\[Redacted\]!< was sedated and transferred with a suspected case of *Fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva*. Dudes who dropped her off were real jokers. Thanked me for ‘Returning the slab’ when they got their stretcher back. Morons. Examination shows two distinct spots of external ossification - shoulder, the spot they administered sedatives - and in the wrist, around the PVC. Bone’s so dense there the PVC can’t be removed. Gonna do a more thorough assessment and have a chat with >!\[Redacted\]!< when >!\[Redacted\]!< is awake.” *** *Item 3; X-rays of Patient, taken during examination.* Images reveal bone growth in locations consistent with reported injection sites. Notably, the growth appears abnormally acute. Patient’s wrist and thumb are nearly entirely ossified, and the thumb joints appear to be growing sideways, towards the index finger. Shoulder injection site displays a similarly aggressive pathology, with bone growth expanding in a web-like pattern around the injection site, with particularly acute growth in the direction of the neck. *** *Item 4; Dictation by Dr. >!\[Redacted\]!<, taken two days after recording of Item 2. Statement begins.* “Jesus. >!\[Redacted\]!< is *fucked up,* and I’m not just talking about the FOP - though at the rate things are going, it’ll kill >!\[Redacted\]!< within a week. Almost as if it is becoming more intense. The shoulder’s bad, but the thumb… It’s grown into the index finger and hand. Like the webbed fingers of a frog - only with hard, unyielding bone. What little >!\[Redacted\]!< says that is intelligible doesn’t make sense. Something about *‘The Mother’,* and *‘Being a shell’*. Jesus. At least it’ll be quick, at this rate. *** *Item 5; Security footage of patient’s hospital room, 01:32 in the morning.* Footage shows Patient attempting to sit. Patient works against their restraints with their ossified wrist for several minutes. A loud snap is heard as the bone is broken. Patient proceeds to saw through their restraints with jagged bone shards. Once free, Patient assumes a fetal position, hands on their face, fingers splayed. Patient speaks through clenched jaw - ossification has immobilised the mandible. *“I am Mother’s precious Egg. A shell for all her hopes.”* Camera feed cuts out. *** *Item 6; Photographs of Patient’s room taken upon discovery of Patient, four hours later.* Photographs show an egg-shaped structure of bone, of a consistent size to contain Patient’s body, fused to Patient’s bed. EKG and IV are still attached, entering through the “shell”. Readings indicate Patient is still alive. *** *Item 7; Security footage of Patient’s room, seven days after discovery.* A large crack appears in the egg’s shell. A torrent of blood spills out, and a brief flash of movement can be seen within. A scream is heard, and the camera feed cuts out. *** *Item 8; Recording of live news report from* >!\[Redacted\]!< *City, originally aired 23 minutes after Hatching Event recorded in item 7.* “>!\[Redacted\]!<, reporting live from outside >!\[Redacted\]!< City Hospital, where some sort of attack seems to be occurring - police are tight-lipped about the circumstances, but staff and patients are evacuating, and heavily armed police-” A shriek interrupts the report. Camera view shifts in the direction of the hospital’s upper floors. A window on floor five shatters as something flies through it. Camera view follows the object as it falls and impacts the ground. Camera focuses to reveal the object to be a body, missing its lower extremities and one arm. Reporter >!\[Redacted\]!< screams, and the recording ends. *** *Item 9; Recovered body cam footage from Officer* >!\[Redacted\]!<, *hereafter referred to by squad designation Delta. Recorded two minutes after the News Report in Item 8.* Video shows Delta, accompanied by Echo, moving room by room through the hospital. Audio transcript as follows. *“Shit, Echo, we’ve got blood. A whole trail of it.”* *“Copy, Delta. Calling it in.”* Echo confers with Squad Leader Alpha. Alpha orders Delta and Echo to follow the blood, in case there are wounded survivors. Echo confirms, and they proceed, following the trail through the corridor. Trail terminates at room #213 - the room Patient was being treated within. The door is closed. Delta motions to Echo, who nods, before moving to the door. Delta turns the door handle, and eases the door open. A roar is heard. The door smashes into Delta’s camera, cracking the lens. Delta is thrown backward by the impact and falls, camera pointed at the ceiling. Echo opens fire as a brief blur of white and red passes over Delta’s camera. A scream is heard. The gunfire ceases. Delta screams as the camera view moves again, rising several feet off the ground. A distorted entity comes into brief view, bending towards the camera. Video feed ends after 57 seconds. Delta is still screaming. *** *Item 10; Excerpt from Autopsy report of Dr.* >!\[Redacted\]!<. “Cause of death is assumed to be shock from excessive blood loss. Evidence of severe blunt force trauma, tearing with sharp implements, and crushing of the chest presumed to have been caused by mastication. Notably, teeth marks are consistent with human teeth, though several magnitudes larger. Several major organs, as well as the right arm and everything below the rib cage is missing-” Incident report ends. Location of the entity remains unknown.


We’d been sailing for a little over a day from Stetguttot Heath. A soft westerly breeze made the sailing straightforward. As of such, Alessia had taken to tying a simple rope knot around the wheel and otherwise relaxing, letting the right-angle winds push us south-east towards Talin Barier I was sitting on the two steps leading up the ship’s wheel as Alessia sat on the side of the boat, her outstretched fingers occasionally brushing the water as the boat leaned into the wind. We’d been discussing our former lives, and I had spent the better part of the last five minutes getting lost in the memories of everyone I knew on Kadear. “I miss Thomas sometimes. I wonder what he’s up to, what happened to him after I left and Kadear changed. There’s a weird ambivalence there. Missing my life and people, and yet knowing it was never real?” “Hmm hmm,” Alessia said, her eyes staring a foot or so above my head. “There must be people you miss too, from back where you’re from.” “I’ve been on the sea too long for that.” Alessia’s tone was flat and her face was frozen in place. “There must be some people. Your family at least?” I found myself letting out an awkward laugh, wanting to see her face shift. “Not really.” Nothing changed. Her whole body locked in place like a hare ready to bolt. I paused for a second, squinting. “Something wrong?” Alessia pushed herself off the taffrail and walked past me up the steps. I quickly stood up and joined her. “You see over there, that boat?” she said. On the horizon, I could make out the silhouette of a tall boat poking up against a mottled sky. “Yeah.” “Last three course changes we’ve made, they’ve copied it, exactly.” “Going the same place?” Alessia shook her head, her jaw tensing. “No. They’re following us.” “Following us?” I asked. Alessia turned and looked out to the port side of the boat, walking over to inspect an island in the distance. “Yeah. We’re being followed.” “Why?” She stopped and turned to me. “They’re pirates, Ferdinand. They want the ship, its cargo, and for us to be dead.” I felt my face go cold, the blood draining from my skin. “Pirates? Shit. Can we outrun them?” Alessia pointed at the boat. “Three sails to our two. Bigger boat. Whatever we do they will get closer bit by bit.” She walked over to the helm and ripped off the rope tied to the wheel. “Where are we going?” I asked. “That island.” Alessia pointed out to the portside. Some seven or eight kilometres away there was a large stretch of land, covered in a thick forest. “Outer Fastanet. There’s some rocks on the south side. *We* can probably sneak between them, but they can’t. Won’t escape, but it can buy us a couple of hours.” “Outer Fastanet? Never heard of it.” “It’s uninhabited. Only know it from charts.” Alessia ripped the wheel to the left and the boat turned sharply in the water. I looked out at the trailing vessel. Just as expected, it turned slightly, changing its course towards us. “So we get through the island, and then what?” I asked, feeling a lump in my throat. “We find a beach. Stop. And do everything we can to tip this in our favor. Out here, we’re screwed. On land?” She rocked her head from side to side. “I can think of a couple of things.” “Okay,” I said, trying to prepare myself for the potential fight to come. I looked at the course Alessia has set. The main bulk of the island was just to the left. To the right, a series of jagged rocks stuck out of the water. Waves crashed against them, spray shooting up into the sky. Alessia had us set on a path dead between them. “I need you to do something,” Alessia said, her eyes darting between her course and the sail above her. “Anything.” “Grab a bag. Multiple if you can. Get anything valuable. Money, equipment, anything. Grab any tools too. A saw, maybe some nails. If this goes wrong our best hope is to leave with our lives, some money, and something useful.” “The boat?” “If this goes anything but perfectly, we ain’t keeping the boat.” Alessia’s voice was harsh and firm, but I could notice it waver slightly. “Life first, tools second, money third, boat last. You understand?” “Understood.” I turned and headed down the stairs into the hull. I grabbed a couple of bags and started trying to prioritise what to take, what would be most useful if we never saw the boat again. I spent a long time holding my notes in my hands: all my travels so far, my observations, my memories. Materially they were worth nothing, but truth be told, I may have forced them into the bag had I not also been packing for Alessia. Her orders were to abandon sentimentality. The notes, my letters from home, most of my clothes - they would have to be left. I packed one bag with the money we had and what valuable items we had aboard. The other I packed with tools. A saw, nails, a few tins of food and empty water canisters. This would be it. Two bags. Two bags to hopefully save our lives. I took one last look at the small room I had been able to claim as my own. It was the greatest gift I had ever received, and over the past few weeks it had truly become a home. The small trinkets on the shelves, the way I had hung up my clothes at the far end; it was the first time I had left a signature of myself on a place other than Kadear. I looked at the room, said a silent thanks, and closed the door, for what may have been the last time. By the time I emerged on the deck we were piercing our way between the islands and the rocks to our starboard side. The sails were fully open, catching as much wind as they could. Normally, such pace through treacherous water would be considered stupid. Under the circumstances, it was a necessity. Alessia’s face squirmed and grimaced; her arms twitching and shifting with each gust of the wind as she tried to keep the boat on path. A backdraft of water from the cliffs dragged us out to sea, knocking us off course. “Shit,” Alessia muttered, as she pulled the wheel against the current. I looked over the right side, as the boat drifted towards a tower of black granite rising from the water. I held my breath as the boat steadied itself, passing within a metre of the pinnacle. We were close enough that I reached out, giving the tower a futile shove, hoping to give us an extra centimetre or two away from the danger. After another twenty minutes of sailing through the knife-like stones off the coast of Outer Fastanet, we emerged into smoother, less worrying waters. I couldn’t help but feel the tension release from me, even if, in the back of my mind, I knew we were far from danger yet. Although the other ship was nowhere to be seen, it seemed inevitable that we would see them again. The dangers we had already faced were merely to buy time. We followed the coast round, the large cliffs blotting out the sun and cutting out much of the wind as we looked for somewhere to land. Ahead, we could see a point where the sun reached out and touched the ocean - steep cliffs no longer blocking it. We steered slightly towards the shore, hoping it would prove to be an inlet. We got lucky. Quickly the towering hillside crumbled and gave way to a small beach. There was perhaps only six or seven metres of sand before a thick coniferous forest consumed the land, but it was still enough. We turned the boat towards the beach, letting the hull grip against the coarse ground. “The tide’s going out, so we don’t need to worry about an anchor,” Alessia said, letting go of the helm. “So let’s try and figure this out.” She looked at our surroundings, staring at a clearing on top of the cliffs overlooking the boat. “What’s the plan?” “Go into the cargo hold. You remember those explosives I bought on Stetguttot Heath? Go get them.” “Explosives?” “Yep. Time to make use of that purchase.” “Is this wise…?” “Right now? Nothing is.” I opened up the trapdoor to the cargo hold and headed once more into the boat. I found the equipment - a small canvas bag at the back of the ship containing wire, fuses, and four separate packs of explosives. I picked up the sack and headed back up, handing it to Alessia. “Okay. Take this,” she said, handing me two sets of wires and a detonator. “Unspool it. I want you to take one end with you, and get up on top of that cliff up there.” She pointed to the overhanging clearing some twenty metres up in the air. I traced the cliff face, spotting the ledges that I reckoned I could climb up to. “What are you going to do?” I asked. “Position these,” Alessia replied, pulling out one of the explosive packs. I jumped down off the side of the boat, and began laying out the wire along the ground towards the cliffs. “Be sure to bury that,” Alessia called out. “Try and make it less obvious.” I stopped and sighed. I redid the few steps I had already taken, lifting the sand over the wire with my shoe, ensuring it was a few centimeters deep, enough for the weight of the beach to keep it in place. At the cliff face, I once more stared at the climb ahead of me. However, after a few seconds, I had figured out a route and I began shuffling between the ledges, shimmying along any path that looked big enough to balance on. It took me the better part of twenty minutes or so, but eventually I reached a ledge at the top of the cliff. As I walked up to the overhang I looked out to sea. There, to the south, maybe an hour or so away, I could see the boat coming around the rocky outcrops. I sprinted the last few steps and pulled the wires over so that they dangled straight down to a thicket of bushes below. “I can see them,” I called out to Alessia. “We won’t have much longer.” “Okay,” she called back. “I’m about done here.” She walked over and picked up the ends of the wires I had been dragging, connecting them to another series of lines before stretching out the wires to the placed explosives. The first few were buried some four metres or so from the boat, however the last two were on the hull itself. “Won’t that damage the boat?” I called out. “That’s the idea,” she shouted back in a terse tone. “What?” “If the first lot of explosives fail, and they go for the boat, then we take the boat and them down. If we aren’t sailing away on her, then nobody is.” Her voice cut through the air like broken glass, sharp but fragile. She tied up the final wire and placed a hand on the side of the boat, pressing her palm against the grained wood. She held it for a second before she peeled herself away. “I’m going to go hide the bags in the woods and then take the long way up to you. I’ll see you in twenty, okay?” I signalled my understanding, and watched as Alessia walked off into the dense forest, immediately disappearing among the wall of green I set about tying the first of the wires to the detonator as the world returned to calm once more. I could hear the sound of the wind as it rustled past my ears and brushed against the thick branches of the trees. I watched as the waves lapped up on the thin beach. But otherwise, all was still. Half an hour later Alessia appeared from the forest and walked up the rest of the pathway to the top of the cliff. She kept low, being sure to keep herself out of eyeline from the sea. However, as she approached, she crept up to the edge of cliff, taking a peak over the side. “Well, here they come. Better get ready.” We lay down prone on the ledge, the detonator positioned just between us. A moment later we could see the boat pull into the cove, releasing its sail as it plowed into the sand further down the beach. I could see movement on the hull, as figures scurried across the deck, dropping down onto the beach on the far side. They stayed there for a minute or two - the beach, trees and sea poised, watching, waiting for the bloodshed to come. Eventually they appeared from the other side of the boat. Four of them in total. Two carried knives held out in front of them, the sunlight catching the glimmering metal surface. The other two carried thick machetes. The metal was dull, but the blade was wide and thick, enough to cause damage from impact alone. The retreating tide had left Alessia’s boat completely on dry land, and it had listed over to its port side, so that all the attackers could see was the hull. It seemed to make them cautious. Unsure of where the occupants were lurking. They skulked across the beach. Their knees crouched, their arms raised and ready to swing at a moment’s notice. But pace-by-pace they were walking towards the boat. “Come on…” Alessia muttered under her breath. “Another twenty paces, that’s all I need.” She reached out a hand, and placed it on the lever of the detonator. I could see the muscles in her forearm contract, tense, ready to be triggered. I watched the four men travel across the beach, my eyes pinpointed on where I knew the first explosive to be. As they approached the mark their pace crawled even slower. Their steps became small jittery movements, their feet dragging through the sand rather than walking across it. Their focus was consumed by the hull of the boat, waiting for it to make a move. My ears pricked briefly at the sound of rustling from the trees. At first I dismissed it as the air but the wind speed didn’t change. I turned my eyes briefly towards the top of the beach. For a moment, there was nothing. But then there was a scream, a violent roar. Men and women charged from the forest. Their skin was pale, blotchy and red, and all of it was on show. Their hair was long and messy. The men had large uncontrolled beards. Most importantly they carried in their hands, large, pointed stones. They ran at the four men. The pirates barely had time to turn before the naked attackers lunged at them. Knives and machetes were dropped from stunned arms as bodies landed on their backs against the sand. The forest people climbed on top of them, raising their hands to the air. “No, please, no!” one of the pirates screamed, as a rock came down, and snuffed out the plea, with a short thud. The rock raised once more, this time painted red, and came down again, and again. The beach was dyed with the blood of the pirates until all four were completely lifeless. In the space of less than a minute the beach had been transformed into an abattoir. The pirates I feared, now stains to be washed away by the turning tides. I looked at the corpses, the broken faces left on perfectly preserved bodies. Skulls smashed in. Eyes, noses, smiles nothing more than a pool of crimson melting into the sand. The attackers gathered around, poking the bodies, making well and truly sure they had completed their mission. Satisfied that all four victims were dead, they lifted down and picked up the bodies, slinging them over their shoulders. Then, with a relaxed walk, they carried the corpses off into the forest, the knives and machetes left behind. Once more they were cloaked by the trees. The last sign of them was some inaudible chatter among the attackers, and a joke that seemed to send a ripple of laughter through the group that bellowed from the forest.


Vincent had been confident in his abilities. He’d even trained in a private secondary school for promising mage candidates, with top marks in all subjects and an award of excellence in written conjurations. The examiners were all expecting a powerful familiar to appear before them, like a dragon, a unicorn, maybe even a powerful demon—frowned on but still not unheard of. So, as he stood over his immaculately drawn summoning circle, amber eyes squinting against the braziers billowing green smoke where moments ago, there had been roaring green and red flames, he was absolutely mortified by what had appeared in the center: a middle aged man in sweatpants and a baggy shirt, partially covered in small dark brown stains. He was squatting close the ground and smoking a cigarette that emitted an offensive, spicy odor. He took a long look around the gathering, stopping briefly on each of the examiners, scanning over the small crowd of other hopefuls, and eventually landing his gaze on Vincent. He blew an eye-watering cloud of spicy smoke at him. “Eh, yeah, alright. Why not?” He stood slowly and tamped the cigarette under his heavy boot. He ran a hand through his greasy black hair and shook out what appeared to be small bits of glass. He was shorter than Vincent and in spite of the currently shabby attire, you could imagine him working in a quiet corner shop somewhere. He had a laid-back air about him, but every mage there could sense the strain he put on the magic surrounding him. “Uhhh…” Vincent turned toward the examiners for help, but they were looking expectantly at him. He gathered himself up, squared his shoulders, and demanded imperiously, “Creature from beyond the veil, you are bound by my magic to render your services unto me. Speak your name and submit or be cast into the void!” He thought he sounded very professional there. The examiners were nodding approvingly. “Cool deal, buddy. I’m Chad. Pleased to render services unto whatever.” Chad looked around the well-kept lawn and large, white, popup pavilion. It reminded him of the sort you would see at an outdoor wedding in a picturesque field advertising rental availability for weddings and funerals. Unknown to him, but very know to the rest, after an especially large dragon summoning tore a hole in the covered amphitheater, they had moved the ceremony onto the front lawn. Past some lingering scorch marks on the grass, he could see a sign that read: Lestren University. Vincent pulled on his lapels and drew in a deep breath. He had worn his best blue suit for this. It had taken him hours to prepare, mentally and physically, for this entire ceremony. He had spent a considerable time getting his red hair to radiate just the right level of humility and confidence. “I require your full name, creature.” “Ooooh,” Chad turned back from the sign with a sneer. “I’m so sorry. How could I have been so impolite. Especially, when you have me in a…” He gestured down at the ring of runes, “magic anime circle.” He kicked at some of the sand used to draw the circle, but it didn’t budge. A dark reddish sludge coated the ground where he slid his foot. Vincent was staring furiously at this mystery man’s cocky grin, which is precisely why he didn’t notice the examiners slowly backing away. “Hmm. Neat sand,” Chad conceded. Vincent had just begun to demand his full name a second time, when Chad spoke over him, “Chadwick. Digsby.” He took out another cigarette and lit it up. “What service you looking for? Usually, people use the phone when they need some cleanup.” “You’re a janitor?” “Mmmm, sure.” He took a long drag and then let it all out suddenly with a cough. “It’s not a sex thing is it?” He waved his hands in disgust in front of him, leaving a glowing trail behind his spicy cigarette. “I don’t do that stuff—especially not for a…” He narrowed his eyes at Vincent. “How old are you?” “No! Ew! What?” Vincent’s composure dissolved for a moment. His ears started turning red and he glanced around at the examiners and his peers, now finally realizing the examiners had backed away a good twenty feet. He gritted his teeth and resolved to make it through this, ignoring the desire to wipe the sweat beading up on his brow. “No.” Chad let out a long plume of smoke. “Whoof. You had me worried there for a second.” He went back to his squatted position and closed his eyes. “I’m all ears, kiddo. How can I help?” Vincent rearranged his suit, cleared his throat, and put all his effort into ignoring everything other than “Chad” in front of him. “I require you to serve as my personal familiar, from now until the day I see fit to dismiss you in good faith.” Chad quietly smoked his cigarette and deliberated the request. He shifted his weight from one leg to the other, his jaw cocked at a perplexed angle. “Good faith…?” Vincent had thought about how he would phrase this for a long time. He didn’t want to get into anything complicated, like something that would tempt an ill-tempered familiar into looking for loopholes. Instead, he had opted for a simple command that hinged on phrasing that, he believed at least, was hard to misinterpret. Another drag of the repulsive cigarette as he mulled it over. He didn’t really know what being a familiar entailed, but… “Does this job come with free food and housing?” “Yes?” “Can I get a day off every week to relax?” “Two days, but on call?” While Chad was speaking to him, his eyes were on the examiners, now a considerable distance away. He saw one of them mouth, “What the fuck?” Ah, they figured out what kiddo had gotten himself into. He felt kind of bad for the kid but smiled at the group’s discomfort. He had a strong distaste for authority figures. “Sounds good to me, kiddo!” He clapped and smoke blew from his nose. “Yeah, don’t call me kiddo.” Vincent raised his hands, fingers tracing complicated sigils in the air, and with a flourish, completed the ceremony. “Chadwick Digsby, the binding is complete!” “Nice. Hey, I could use a shower and a new shirt, if that’s cool.” Chad looked down and gave the circle another kick. This time the lines scattered like normal sand. The ceremony finally over, Vincent could finally feel the strain it had put on him. He was drenched in sweat and wobbled back from his small personal circle. He rubbed at his eyes and muttered, “I feel sleepy.” Then, pitched over onto the grass, passed out. Chad cackled and some of the other potential students started running across the lawn in various directions. The examiners looked horrified, but they were now surrounded by powerful beings from realities far beyond this one. His favorite was the willowy looking one with a pixie. The whole effect was adorable, seething, but adorable. “You know, he didn’t say I had to let any of you live,” he growled, dramatically waving his cigarette around. They all stood there a moment, line of professional mages and a lone man in sweats. Then, Chad tossed his cigarette aside. “Naw, I’m just kidding.” He bent down and hefted up the kid. “Who wants to give us a tour?” He wiggled an unconscious Vincent mockingly at the lot of them. The one with the pixie stepped forward, muttering under her breath, “My salary isn’t high enough to deal with this kind of shit.” She gave him a venomous smile and waved her hand in the direction of the campus, “Let me show you to the dorms.” Then, abruptly turning away from him with a scowl, she stomped across the lawn. “Rad,” and he followed after, looking forward to the kid’s body count. He didn’t see any reason he would be there otherwise. He was a “cleaner” after all.


Legend tells of your ancestor, Modajo, who accidentally discovered chickens lay eggs and eggs will be delicious once fire is eventually invented so she became the first chicken subsistence farmer. Her neighbour Mike discovered likewise for cows, and for a while Modajo enjoyed her eggs and Mike enjoyed his milk since the concept of sharing was as foreign then as it is now. Watching Mike tending to his cows one day, Modajo realised cows aren't chickens therefore milk isn't egg and she caught the first ever case of curiosity. "Mike, has it occurred to you cows aren't chickens therefore milk isn't egg?" "Holy Cow!", Mike exclaimed, shocked by how he hadn't noticed this obvious fact until that moment. When he finally calmed down from bewilderment a full day later, Modajo continued. "I'll trade you a dozen eggs for a liter of milk." "What's dozen and liter?" "Random units of measurement I just made up." "I accept." And so the first barter took place, which continued each morning hence. A week later while out for a walk, Modajo happened upon a lady who had perfected the art of creating protective cocoons from leaves to wear on her feet while walking. She called them shoos for they shoo'd away painful foot blisters. Intrigued, Modajo made an offer. "Shoemaker, I’ll trade you 2 dozen eggs for a new pair of shoes." Shoemaker wasn’t impressed. "Firstly, there's something weird with how you're saying ‘shoo’ but I can't quite place it. Secondly, Papa had complications after eating eggs and I assume his condition runs in the family like our sensitive feet. We do enjoy milk though." Modajo foresaw the hassle of exchanging eggs for milk whenever she needed shoos - which would be every 2 days - so she gathered Mike, Shoemaker and several other locals for a meeting. "My People, we need something to represent the value of goods when said goods aren’t immediately available." They stared blankly at her as a cricket chirped away nearby. "This is Tito, a wholesaler," she continued, while pulling out a golden leaf. "He created these special leaves called money. One money is the equivalent of a half-dozen eggs. So Mike, a liter of milk is worth two money. And Shoemaker…" "Shoomaker," quipped Shoemaker. "Yes Shoemaker, a pair of your shoes is worth 4 money.” “Money is also the first noun in existence whose plural form is the same as its singular,” Tito added, much to the small crowd's amusement. Modajo continued explaining how she could, for example, exchange 6 dozen eggs for 12 golden leaves with Tito, spend 4 on shoes and have enough left over for two more pairs without ever involving Mike. Shoemaker could then exchange his leaves for goods of equal value with any other participant, notably Tito. The idea took off and soon the golden leaf became the standard unit of exchange. The town came to be known as Golden Leaf Village. Tito became the first wealthy person in existence. He had actually introduced himself to Modajo as a ‘hustler’ but she misheard him and he was too lazy to correct her. He stored the goods he acquired at a second home which became known as a 'store'. Unbeknownst to the others, he invented the golden leaf for nefarious reasons after discovering people like shiny things. “I’ll use this to trick people into giving me their possessions,” he thought while creating the leaves. “What’s theirs will be mine. All mine!" Hence he named the leaves ‘money’.


"How should we have it be?" The low murmur of voices closes in on us and I can feel the pressure of observance weighing down on me. The chap in front of me is grinning wide, stupid, and his eyes seem almost to push me away from him. Two guys behind him are staring me down just the same; every one is staring me down. I'm not wanted, I'm not welcome, I should just leave. "How should we have it be then?" The circle closes and here I am holding my spilt suds and a pool cue. From the back of the crowd is emanating a few obscenities, a few vulgarities, the likes of which I will not repeat now, and all the while still I sit holding my cue and suds feeling like a jerk. This brute in my front hasn't clued in yet that something inside of me is turning; something might soon explode.... I guess he'll have to figure it out throughst my willings. "How should we have it be then, eh?" The circle closes tighter and I can smell their thoughts, I can smell their sweat, it's oily and reeking of mechanic exhaust and fume. Inside my innards is welling a great beast. I am going to have it be my way I suppose, There's not any other way it can be. I will act only instinctually. I feel a muscle in my neck, I feel them all, running down my body; everything is so in tune. I am aware of even the most minute detail right now. I can process it all rationally... It would be nice if it would stay that way all night, but I can not help what I am. The Moon tonight, it will be so beautiful, I wish I was outside right now, outside away from the filthy air, outside under silver Luna's wonderful gaze. It's that time of the month for me, and it's happening now. The chap in front of me still wears that idiot's grin. The circle around me closes tighter. I am stuck. It is getting harder to keep myself composed... so why bother trying? I know I should stay away from the herd. I am supposed to protect the herd... but.... The Moon is up, I can smell it. The circle is spreading. There's a fly on the far wall, it just took flight. Oh how I feel right now! I feel wonderful, I am exuberant. Oh brothers, I feel hungry! I think this chap in front of me is going to pull the old sucker punch on Your Humble Narrator; his eyes have betrayed him, only for a second, and I can smell anxiety perfuming his alpha arrogance. He is nervous but he hasn't realized how afraid he should be yet. Slow and fumbling the bloak swings his soft wadded fist up at my teeth. I grab his hand in mine, mine is much larger and much, much harrier. His pudgy skin splits as his soft bones crumble under the bit of squeeze I put on his poor old hand and now this chap is screaming right good. I think the circle is starting to wizen up as to what's happening here. The Moon. Luna, Tulle, Salene, her many names ring in the jumbled cacophony in my head. I can feel her and hear her and smell her, the taste is burning in my throat. Oh how I want to run under her, my friend. I *woof* would love to see her... to feed under her. One of the chaps behind me is getting a little too close. I turn around to find he is holding a knife; a terrible metal *stick* it is. He doesn't stand a chance; I grab his forearm in my jaw. right easy the bone snaps, *the good stuff is in the middle of the bones.* I tear the flesh real messy, and the blood. I taste the sweet, coppery blood. It's hot. The Moon won't wait... I have to get out of here. The circle is scattering, nobody wants to watch a fight anymore. And by the way, that fly, it's on the bar, dipping it's probiscis into the *woof* beer spilt by Your Humble Narrator when that first wanker elbowed into me. There is something else too, I can smell it... like sick fire and oily smoke. It is a... gun! *WOOF*. There is a lot of yelling going on but I hear the click, like metals tapping against metals. I bolt to the sound and there's a man standing in front of me poised to shoot. As I jump my hears go deaf at the explosion from the end of the \**stick*\* and I smell the terrible cancerous fire, but my body is fine; the bullet missed me. I tear easily into his chest as I land on him, the blood is pouring out something wonderful like and covering my snout, it is beautiful, it is euphoric. The Moon is bloated in the waxing night outside and here I am in the pen killing the herd, I should be out there, out underneath Luna. It's just all the blood, it's everywhere, it smells so good hanging in the air, my friend *woof* in the air so thick I can taste it. The moon and the blood and the herd and The Hunger. *WOLF*. It's all getting too hard. Instincts are taking over *woof* my thoughts, everything is fading to gray-- *woof* \--scale. The smells in this place, it's making me dizzy, giving me a headache. And all the while here's the herd... this bloak in my front... this sheep running away... out the door. I have to get him. *WOLF*. I have to chase him under The Moon, *woof*, underneath Luna The circle is dead... the herd is murdered. *WOOF*. I am going to chase this last *WOOF* one; I'm going to wolf this little sheep down. A wolf wolfed down the whole *woof* herd! *WOLF*. He gets into his metal box and ties to drive away. But the wolf gets in and wolfs down the little sheep. The Moon is young in the night and Wolf is still hungry.


I’m going to write. “Star crossed.” Bleh! Gah! Gross! What a teenage cliché. Are you there John Green, it’s me, (insert name here). But still. I mean, it works, doesn’t it? As a description. The timing probably *could* have been worse, but it was pretty fucking bad. Who would have guessed that…after never connecting like this in my entire life, after deciding a long time ago to settle, after being more or less content, resigned to my stagnation, that someone like *you* would come into my life? It became addicting, the “what if?” What if we had met as kids? In high school? At camp? Randomly or unpredictably, before it would have been too late for both of us? I’m going to write. I tried pretty hard not to think about it at the time, to not let it sink it…just exactly what I was doing, what *we* were doing. I was just trying to live in the moment. It’s a bad (good) habit I developed in college, after struggling to pull myself out of a depression. I tried to stop living in the past or the future. I tried to just live. I even remember my friend Rev asking me about it. The change he noticed in me. I told him about Taoism. He knew what I meant before I explained it. I’m not describing this very well. But it’s not going to stop me from going on. Because: I’m going to write. Is it a good thing or a bad thing we live in different parts of the country? Probably both. Two extremes. Is it a good thing or a bad thing that we connected so deeply? Probably both as well. Actually, you know what…no. Fuck that. It WAS good. It IS good. To be seen like that. To see you like that. To have experienced it, to know that it is real, it is possible. I hope it leads to change for you. It seems like it did. It would be arrogant of me to claim to be the only catalyst for your change. But I’d like to humbly think that I played a part in it. I’m going to write. Because that’s what you were to me: a catalyst. It’s what you have to be. If I was stronger, I think we could be together. If I was weaker, I think we could be together. But I’m too damn balanced. The two extremes canceling each other out. Constant internal war breeds constant internal peace, right? Am I at peace? When we said goodbye, I was sobbing quietly in the bathroom, hoping my coworkers wouldn’t hear. It was the most emotion I have felt in years. I won’t let it be for nothing. It can’t have been nothing. It can’t have meant nothing. I know it didn’t. So: I’m going to write. I’m going to write because you saw my potential, because you wouldn’t want me to be shackled by self-doubt anymore, because you wouldn’t want me to give in to the creeping negativity gnawing at me even now. I’m going to write. And I’m not going to stop. And my first book will be dedicated to you. For Kitten. “And one fine morning…” Maybe it will happen. A book tour. A sea of faces. And there yours is. There you are. I can imagine it now. The way my heart would stop. The way my chest would tighten. I’m kidding myself. Or am I? Will the stars align again? I’m going to write. And I’m not going to stop.


When I was eleven, for a reason completely unbeknownst to me my family moved to Apopka, Florida. We lived there for one year, and then moved back to Minnesota within forty miles of Moorhead where we had lived previously. Obviously, some adult crisis or other had precipitated this bewildering experience. Whatever the problem was, Florida would surely fix it. How fitting that in the wake of my own adult crisis, I should accompany my parents on a vacation to the “Sunshine State”. When we arrived in Florida we picked up our modest rental sedan and navigated our way to my parents’ friends’ house, Dean and Cathy. As I walked into their house, the first thing I took notice of was a bottle of tequila tucked away in the corner of the kitchen. There it sat alone, unacknowledged by anyone but me, my crisis. The bottle resided in that spot for the duration of our stay, no one pulled it out, no drinks flowed. I could not tell if this was coincidental or if it was because our hosts had been made aware of my recent teetotalism, my move back into my parent’s house, my loss of my Trader Joes job, and my abandonment of my lease on my hipster coffeehouse apartment, nor did I care. Dean and Cathy had a daughter named Danielle. Danielle had been friends with my older sister fourteen years prior. Danielle was younger than my sister, she was a little chubby, she was kind of homely looking, and I believe she liked my sister more than my sister liked her. Time had been kind to Danielle as she had shed the weight and grown into her features, though her body looked as if it would easily regain the weight. This fact was also apparent by looking at her mother. We had rented a crummy townhome for the week. My bedroom lay directly beneath my parents’ bedroom, and my bed lay directly beneath my parents’ bed. That night as I lay awake, I could hear my parents above me, doing the very thing that brought me into this world twenty five years ago. In a moment like this, one turns inward "Twenty five years into this life and this is where I am?" Most of our time in the “Sunshine State” was spent indoors. Going outside would result in being broiled alive by the sun. After a few days of this stagnation, the parents decided it was time for the kids to go out on the town and arranged for us to meet up with a dating couple. I hopped into Danielle’s gray Ford Escort on the passenger’s side. Though I was not really into Danielle, being alone with her in her car seemed like a novel experience, and I worked hard to play it really cool. I had given little attention to the opposite sex over the last few years since they did not come in a bottle marked “80 proof”. We arrived at our destination, some establishment resembling an Applebee’s and met the other couple in the parking lot. I already knew the man of the couple, Russell. I had been friends with Russell as a child when we were twelve. He was the baby of the family and acted accordingly. Russell was the type of kid that always seemed to find himself in some strange disaster that left you watching incredulously. Once at a minor league baseball game, he got under a pop-fly ball and held his hands up to catch it. The ball slipped right through the diamond shaped hole of his thumbs and index fingers and broke its fall right on the tip of his pointy freckled nose, blood gushed everywhere. Time had done little to remedy Russell’s gawky appearance. He was a redhead with freckles, tall, and gangly. If you did not know of Russell’s families’ money, you may not understand why a highly attractive well-dressed woman was by his side. As the double date progressed, conversation was slow. The only time I was really engaged was when Russell’s date brought up a music video she had just seen on YouTube. As she detailed this video, I began to recognize her descriptions and interjected, “Are you talking about ‘Wuthering Heights’ by Kate Bush?” “Yes,” she replied with a shocked look on her face, “I really didn’t expect anyone to recognize such an obscure reference." Then for the next few moments we proceeded to wax poetic about Kate Bush and her unique artistic abilities. It had been a very long time since I had made this kind of connection with anyone, much less a beautiful woman. I pondered the unfortunate nature of this situation. Across from me sat a beautiful woman with whom I had made a connection. She should have been with me, but instead she was with this bore of a man. A man, that because of the umbra of my own crisis and the void of any measurable personal development, I had no chance of competing with. This of course did not stop me from fantasizing about our future life together in the moment of an instant that was just as soon discarded. For dessert, Russell took us to an Italian Ice Stand. Over half the night he had been trumpeting the deliciousness of these frozen treats. When we finally sat down with our Italian Ices, Russell was a bit disappointed that we did not seem to share his enthusiasm. He asked “What do you guys think? Are these great or what?” His date barely made a reply. "Who does this woman think she is?" I thought, "doesn’t she know that this is my childhood friend? She could be a little nicer to him." Trying to console my friend I embellished a little, “I give it an eleven out of ten.” “That’s the kind of enthusiasm I was looking for!" cheered Russell. That was the last night we spent in Florida. We boarded a plane and headed back to Minnesota: my parents, my crisis, and I. What led my parents to this place fourteen years ago I may never know, but I can't help believing that this is the wisdom they wished to impart: Problems cannot be outrun or left behind, but they can always be taken to the “Sunshine State.