THE NIGHT THAT She was going up and down the track, waiting for the train, when she heard what  more than a sound sounded rather  as  a cannon shot . A cannon shot being fired in a very high place, which was ( seemed to be) very above….of her head, aven far above the tracks, the trains, the station.  As soon as she heard that rumble, loud but dull ( deaf), it was instinctive for Angie  to look up, to look at the sky. Since that  very powerful , and yet even dull sound  came from above, from very high ( above) it could have been from an airplane. But, at least as far as she could see, there was no plane flying in the sky above there.  The sky was covered with a compact blanket of gray. Perhaps the plane that had made that sound , which, however, was not the sounds that airplanes make, was behind that blanket of gray. When  Angie, after looking up at the sky, looked down again, she started to watch ( to observe) the faces, the look ( gaze) of the other people who were  on the platform along the track, some of them still, standing or sitting, some walking up and down as she did.  But it was impossible ( for her) to meet the gaze of even one of them. Everyone, whether they were still or walking, looked down, even with their head bowed, just as they  were afraid, but even more they were annihilated by that powerful and dull sound ( rumble), which had been heard only for a few moments, which had boomed as if it were the roaring voice announcing an imminent threat, hanging over their heads, something terrible which was going to crash them all. Angie had no doubt that everyone present in the station, not only people along that platform, had heard the terrible sound looming from above. Since none of those people ( passengers) waiting along the platform (of that track) had said a word about that threatening rumble  , which everyone had to have heard, she dared to ask a young man, walking on the platform opposite her: “ Did you hear?”, while she gestured  with her head and her hand up, towards the sky. “Heard what, sorry? What should I have heard? “ the young man said, as he looked at her with a face that meant: “ But listen to this one…..For sure she is raving…..Ouch, and I’m even listening to this one here….”   “ But that sound… that rumble , which came from up there” Angie was now speaking frightened, her hand raised, her finger pointed to the sky.  “ But what sound? What rumble? I didn’t hear anything” The young man said, shrugging his shoulders. “ On, it’s impossible that you didn’t hear that….very strong sound….a sound, indeed a rumble , very loud , but even dull….as if it were a cannon shot fired at a metal barrier…..It came from up there….So I thought it was from an airplane. But I saw that there were no airplanes above here, passing in the sky…Oh, and then I wonder and wonder again : but what was it that made  that terrifying sound (rumble)? “ Anne spoke with her heart in her throat, more and more afraid. “ Eh, of course no airplane is above here…oh, and there is no rumble! At least I didn’t hear it!” The young man said, with an air of annoyance. Then Angie, running up and down, had started asking, first to individuals, whom she , anguished, approached, then addressing her question aloud, indeed screaming, to everyone:” Oh, but did you heard that menacing rumble from up there, you too, didn’t you?” And no, no one had heard that terrible sound ( rumble) . Oh, but it was impossible….she couldn’t believe it! Instead Angie thought that all those present there on the platform  denied having heard that rumble because they were frightened, indeed terrified, since they, unlike her, knew well WHAT that terrible sound meant, what it announced. Not only did they all claim not to have heard that rumble, but they started also to look at Angie with crooked looks, as if they were accusing her of something, such as the threat, the danger to them was….precisely she, who was saying, indeed shouting, she had heard that …. sound, and not the sound itself, which they kept on denying to have heard, perhaps  because they knew well it was something not to be talked about. When the train arrived  Angie, was still repeating her question, she was still looking for someone who said that yes, he too had heard that rumble from up there. But no one admitted to have heard it, and everyone  casted ( poured) on her looks full of distrust , looks that said : “Better to stay away from this one”_____Angie got on the train frightened, and during the journey she was almost always locked in the bathroom. That night Angie dreamed of a sky full of stars, with just a crescent moon. In her dream she was lying down maybe on the bed, maybe on the ground , and she saw that sky above her. Suddenly a fireball burst into the sky, scattering all the stars. That fireball  seemed to be the sun, ah, but it couldn’t be the sun, since it was night. That flaming sphere, which looked like a fiery sun, was moving towards the earth at swirling speed, it was going to fall on the earth. Angie had woken up with her heart in turmoil, she had gone at the window and had opened the window. In front of her here the starry sky appeared, like that of the dream_____there was also a thin crescent moon. But, incredible….the stars were moving, were changing their place (position). The stars of Ursa Minor were descending, approaching Arturo, the quadrilateral  of Pegasus were moving towards Vega.  All the stars were moving….they changed theit position ( place). Then they all started running, as if they were running away….Ah, but of course, they wanted  to escape, to get safety before that fireball arrived, which would disrupt them, which would destroy all them,  so Angie thought, as she still had the images of her dream in her mind.  And she couldn’t believe her eyes: in front of her, in the night sky, the stars were really moving, running. That same night, before Angie, who had fallen asleep again, woke up and thought that…it had been all a dream, even the stars she had seen moving, running in the sky, that too had been a dream, just that night, an airplane , with over one hundred passengers, which was flying in the sky she had seen when she had opened the window, had crushed into the sea. That airplane had been shot down by a missile in an air battle which had taken place in that sky, that night. Since there was no war declared, that air battle was silenced, it had not to be known that there had been ( happened). It was said that the airplane  had crushed due to a technical failure.


Have you ever spoken to the rain?

She did. She’d lift her head up, gaze at the clouds, and listen closely.

“Listen.” She’d say. “Listen to the rain.”

I'd look up at the greying clouds but hear nothing. Because the rain never spoke to me. It only spoke to her. I wish I knew what it said. What secrets they shared. I always imagined it spoke in whispers. Something so beautiful. I remember the day we sat by the lake. The trees waltzed with the wind around us. Autumn leaves broke away and swayed in twirls towards the infinite. The smell of the earth was so pungent. So pure. I stole a glance at her, sitting beside me. Eyes reaching for the sky. Her soft, silky hair flew behind her. Drips of water fell on her nose, and it made her smile. As though the rain had just shared an inside joke.

“What did it say?” I said at the time, still not getting anything.

“It said its happy we’re both here. Everybody else is leaving.”

I looked around, and realized it was true. The minute the clouds gathered, and the rain picked up; people started to leave. Families packed their lunches and headed for their cars, dragging their kids behind. An older couple snapped their umbrella open and wobbled to the parking lot, wrapped in a hug. The park stood almost empty, save for us and the bikes that drove us here.

“People don’t like getting wet.” I said.

She giggled, allowing the beads of water to dribble from her chin. “I know. It’s weird, isn’t it?”

The thunder didn’t spook her. I watched it flash in the distance, roaring its dominance. But she never flinched. Not even a little. She said that the thunder, the clouds, and the rain are one. They complemented one another. Just like she and I. Just like everything around us. The earth, the sky, the wind, the animals, the trees. Humans. We all speak to one another. Connected by a celestial bridge. “But what happens when things die?” I had asked. “Wouldn’t that break the connection? The bridge, I mean.”

She shrugged. “There is no death. You only move on to the next life. And then the next, and the next. It never ends. Life goes on.”

I didn’t understand it at the time, and honestly, I didn’t bother to inquire any further. I was satisfied with what she said. Whether it was true or not, I didn’t care. I liked the sound of it. Life goes on. It sure seemed like it did.

I remember she liked to sing. She’d make up some new songs and sing them to me on our way to school. She said the clouds helped her come up with the right words. She even proved it once. We were walking to school on a spring day when she stopped in the middle of the sidewalk and gazed up. I watched her fix her eyes on the sky’s languid movement. Silent. Everything around us was so silent. I feared that time had stopped. That we’d be stuck here forever, and I’d never hear her sing again. Then her lips moved, and she smiled. “Look,” She pointed a finger. “They look like sailing ships. The blue sky is the ocean.” I looked up, shielding my eyes from the glaring sun. “Ships? I don’t know, maybe.”

“They’re telling a story. About the fishermen at Black Bear Lake.” Her light hair swooshed over her shoulders. She stayed still, like one of those porcelain figures my mom liked to buy from a local antique shop.

“What kind of story?” I asked.

She paused, then said. “The normal kind. Fishermen came to the lake yesterday morning, opened their nets, and threw them into the waters. When the sun left, so did they.”

I didn’t know how to feel about that. It sounded a little. “Boring.” I said. “Why would the clouds tell you that?” She wasn’t offended by it. She actually giggled. “It doesn’t have to be interesting to be beautiful. The fishermen were happy to be there. They loved the big puffy cloud because it gave them cool shade when it became too hot. We’re all connected, remember?”

She later sang the song about the fishermen. The one that the clouds inspired her to sing. I can’t remember much of the words today, but I remember it went something like this:

Far out on the ocean, the fishermen pull. Far out on the ocean, the tide will roll . There were tides, seagulls, and ropes. I pictured the strings of sunlight hitting the ocean. The smell of salt and sweat. It stayed with me for days.

Until one day, months from then, I heard that song again. I remember that day so vividly. Like it was yesterday. I heard that song on the radio. It was sung by a school choir. It wasn’t exactly the same, but it was pretty close.

Far out on the ocean, the fishermen pull. Far out on the ocean, the tide will roll . I couldn’t believe it. How did they know the words? I rode my bike and raced to her house. I wanted to tell her about the radio song right away.

She beamed, joyful. “I told you! It’s the bridge. We’re all connected. They probably saw the ships in the clouds, or at least, one of them did.” Whether I believed her or not, I didn't know. But these are stories that I will hold so dear. Even though still today, I haven’t been able to hear the whispers of the rain. Every now and then, I'd lift my head up to the clouds and watch the rain go down. The sound it makes as it hits the window. Drizzling on the tall metal pipe that almost touches the sidewalk. The splashing of water behind speeding tires. The blurred orange hue of streetlights, just before the sun tucks behind the horizon. Closing a lid on a darkened sky. I try to listen. Hopeful it’ll speak to me like it did to her. But it never did. It only spoke to her.


“What!” she screamed, pushing back her chair, causing it topple with the momentum. “How can you even say that? Get rid of i t ? It’s not a piece of furniture, Silvio!”  Jen couldn’t believe the words coming out of his mouth. The man standing before her suddenly seemed like a stranger.

“How could you even think I would want this?” he snapped back. “This was supposed to be our treasure!” she yelled back, incredulously. “It would add to our beautiful life and make us.….whole.” Her flustered mind was trying to clutch at straws of reasoning but was drawing a blank. Silvio paced across the room, his eyes burning with rage. Jen couldn’t believe this was happening. Her life was falling apart. Just that morning, she’d bounced all over the doctor’s room in excitement when she’d heard the news. His outburst was completely unsettling. She watched his face, expectantly, trying to calm herself down. “Jen, tell me this isn’t serious,” he said, a steely edge in his voice. “I thought you were on the pill.” She saw the accusation in his eyes. “… I am serious…I don’t know what happened.” She walked over to his side and took his hand in hers. She wasn’t sure why he was reacting this way. He let go of her hand and took a step back. “I can’t …I don’t want a baby,” he formed the words decisively. She felt like the breath had been knocked out of her.

“Honey, we’re married now. Why wouldn’t you want kids?” she asked, as if breaking things down would make it easier to discuss. “I’ve never wanted kids,” he snapped, “How could you think I wanted this?” “You never told me!” She was yelling again. With every word he uttered, she felt the fragile fabric of their lives crack. She didn’t know how many more cracks it could take. “You never asked!” Jen was shocked at his tone. Running her hand through her auburn hair, she took a deep breath, walked back to the abandoned dining table and forced herself to sit. In a placating voice, she murmured, “How about we finish dinner and talk about this later?” She was trying to be the bigger person. She looked at him, the dim light from the street throwing shadows across his kind face which suddenly seemed unfamiliar to her. This was the man she’d fallen in love with. Six years! Her best friend since college and now her life partner. How did this fissure even happen?  “No! There is nothing to talk about. I will not have kids…ever!” His ominous response to her olive branch left her speechless. He grabbed his jacket from the couch and headed for the door. “Silvio, wait!” Jen pleaded before he could leave. “I just…. I can’t be here right now,” he called over his shoulder. As the door slammed, Jen felt her perfect life come crashing down. She stood there, staring helplessly at the retreating back of the man who suddenly seemed like a stranger to her. Unsure how long she’d been standing there, she snapped out of her reverie and looked outside. The street was empty. A villainous stray cat ambled towards the trash can in the yard, but Jen didn’t have the energy to chase it away. The argument had drained her – physically and emotionally- and she was no closer to solving the issue. She didn’t know what this incident meant. Or how they would move on from it. Pulling herself together, she headed for a hot shower hoping it would shake off the numbness that had gripped her. Once done, she came out and looked at the antique clock her grandmother had gifted them for their engagement. It was midnight. She moved to the window and peered outside, still nobody in sight. Changing into her nightgown, she walked to her bed and lay down. Sleep eluded her. She tossed and turned, memories of the evening burning through her mind. What had just happened? Where had it all gone wrong? She remembered standing in the kitchen, excited as she’d waited for Silvio to return. It was all she could do to keep from calling him the moment she’d got the news knowing he was in a meeting. She’d heard the key turn in the front door. Silvio had walked towards her and wrapped his arms around her waist, his lips finding their way to her neck causing waves of pleasure to roll down her spine. “Mmm…..how do you still do this to me?” she’d asked, half-jokingly, turning into his arms and moving in for a kiss. “You mean you thought the romance would die after 8 months of marriage?” he’d asked, feigning surprise. She remembered him teasing her as he’d nuzzled her neck, his arms holding her tight. She’d laughed. It had been 8 months already! To her, it still seemed like the first time they’d met six years ago. Silvio had convinced a classmate to drop out of Jen’s dissertation group so that he could work with her, and do a lot more than work, whenever time permitted. Even now, the effort he’d put in made her smile, a warm fuzzy feeling spreading in her stomach. She sighed. Life had been a whirlwind since then. They’d spent days together, balancing studies and later work, but always finding time to roll back into each other’s arms at the end of the night. A habit that hadn’t changed one bit …. until today , she thought despondently. They had then sat down to eat. She’d grabbed a bottle of wine, it was something they always took recourse to, either to celebrate major wins or to drown out excruciatingly disappointing days. It was the one item they religiously replenished. “You read my mind,” Silvio had said, smiling tiredly, as she poured the wine. “The meeting didn’t go as planned,” he’d continued, digging into the lasagna. “They said the pitch needed work and that they are currently unable to provide any increments due to the pandemic.” His disappointment was apparent. “I’m sorry,” Jen had whispered, knowing how much he’d been looking forward to the promotion. They’d been discussing buying a house of their own soon and he was working really hard to move up the ladder so they could do that. “But I’ve got news that will make you feel better,” she’d said, taking his hand across the table. Till then, things had been fine, she realised. He’d looked at her, catching the excitement in her voice and laughed. “I don’t know how you do it but you always have a way of brightening the bad days,” he’d murmured affectionately, planting a light kiss on her cheek. Jen had drawn in a deep breath and with excitement pumping through her, she’d blurted, “We’re pregnant!” That’s when everything began to go downhill. She felt a lump rise in her throat now. Could he really not want a baby? The sound of footsteps on the pavement outside dragged her away from her thoughts. It was him! She recognised that easy-going gait anywhere. He walked in. Jen remained in bed, unmoving. Silvio stood silently at the doorway his shadow reflecting his every move. A slight hesitation in his step, he entered the room, picked up a blanket lying on the bed and left. Jen strained her ears to catch his movements. She heard him walk into the adjacent guest room. The bed creaked as he got into it. She let out her breath. Her stomach was knotted to the point of being painful. He’d not even said goodnight ! Sitting up in bed, she tried to gather her thoughts. She walked out into the living room, grabbed a glass of water to calm her jittery nerves and moved to the guest room. Silvio sat at the writing desk, his head in his hands. The sheets on the bed lay ruffled. She realised he couldn’t sleep either. This thought brought her some comfort.

“Hey,” she said, quietly. “Hey,” he replied, unmoving. She walked over to his desk and took his face in her hands. “I’m sorry about earlier,” she apologised, pleading, looking for some sign of a truce. His blank gaze disconcerted her. “I know,” he said, “that went out of hand,” he mumbled. “Could we… maybe…?” she ventured, not sure how to broach the subject. “Listen Jen,” he said, finally looking up. She saw the pain that lay behind his eyes. He moved his hand and wrapped it round her waist, pulling her onto his lap. “I won’t change my stand on kids…” he started. The finality in his voice was like a slap to her face. She got up in surprise. “No! Please, listen.” He begged, pulling her close again. She relented. “I did not have a great childhood, Jen,” he began, sighing. This was harder than he’d expected. “Dad left at an early age and I don’t know what he was like. Maybe he was bad, maybe mom drove him away.” He looked straight at her. “All I had was my mom.” “I know,” Jen whispered, aware that his mom had been his only support till he turned fifteen and decided to make a life for himself. “My mom abused me, Jen, every single day,” he revealed, tears stinging his eyes. “She’d come home drunk most nights….and yell if the day hadn’t been good.” His voice had begun to choke. “She’d first hit me but not where you’d notice. She’d make me drop my pants and…use a belt.” Jen gasped. Why hadn’t he told her any of this before? She didn’t know how to respond. Now the tears were silently pouring down his cheeks. “But that’s not even the worst part.” “Silvio, I didn’t know,” she whispered, pulling him close. “But…” “The worst part,” he interrupted, “was what came after. Every time she hit me, she’d do it until I cried but once I did, she’d feel bad and would begin to ….to make it up. She’d start fondling me, pull me to her room and abuse me…sexually,” he whispered, his voice breaking at the last word. Jen’s eyes widened. This was a revelation she had not expected. “Oh Silvio..” she cried, tears stinging her own eyes as she buried her face in his. “Why didn’t you leave?” “Where could I go?” he asked crassly. “I had no dad, we were in a locality away from any of dad’s family. All I had was her.” He brushed the tears off his face with the back of his hand. The room had turned dark as the moon slipped behind the clouds. The darkness and the revelation added an eeriness to the whole thing. Jen waited for it all to sink in. She took a deep breath and plunged ahead, knowing it was now or never. “Babe, I didn’t know any of this and I’m sorry,” she said, looking straight into his eyes. “But you are not your mom or your dad. You will be a great father. I know it,” she said encouragingly, running a hand through his hair. He stood abruptly, almost throwing her off. She felt the hostility that exuded from him. “Do you not understand what I just said?” he yelled, a maniacal edge to his voice. His calm demeanour had disappeared. “I do…but.” “No buts!” I am not going to bring a child into this world. You need to get rid of it. I will not tolerate this bullshit anymore,” he roared, slamming his fist on the table. Before she knew what was happening, Jen raised her hand and hit him across the face. They both stood stunned. “I will not ‘get rid’ of our baby, Silvio,” Jen said, in a quiet voice. “You don’t understand….it was…horrible...,” he cried, almost begging, his anger swerving to desperation. “Oh baby, I know,” she interrupted, moving towards him. He looked helpless. Shattered. She held him tight in her arms, his body shuddering as the sobs erupted. She placed gentle kisses all over his face trying to wipe away his tears. “Baby, I’m here,” she cooed softly, realising how traumatizing his childhood must’ve been. She decided their discussion could wait another day. She held him close, kissing him soothingly on the lips as her fingers ran through his hair. As his sobs subsided, he started kissing her back, a desperate fervour in his actions. He slowly took her clothes off, carrying her into the bedroom as she held him tight, wanting him to know that she was there. As they climaxed and the tears subsided, she wrapped her arms around him and drifted off. The last words she heard before her exhausted mind gave in was Silvio whispering, “I love you, Jen. I’ll always love you.” A contented smile on her lips, she dozed off knowing everything would be alright. The next morning, Jen arose feeling much better. The sense of gloom and foreboding that had haunted her the previous night had lifted. She turned in bed and saw the empty sheets. She decided to get up and see how her husband was doing before catching a few more minutes of rest. She walked into the living room. He wasn’t there. “Honey,” she called, too sleepy to check every room. The silence struck her as odd. She walked into the kitchen. The coffee hadn’t been heated yet. She moved to the balcony. It was empty. A slight panic began at the back of her mind but she pushed it away. Her steps became frantic. She moved to the last room – the guest room. The crumpled sheets lay there just like yesterday. She noticed Silvio’s jacket and shoes were gone. Jen stood trembling, knowing intuitively that something was wrong. Had he gone out to grab something? Had something happened? She took in the empty room, an uneasy feeling in the pit of her stomach. She slowly walked to the tabletop and ran her hand over its surface, the memories of last night coming back to her. Him, sitting there, head in his hands as she slithered towards him, an apology playing in her head. Then it had spiralled and now here she was, his scent, their scent all over the room, heated memories tucked into every corner – it was all that remained. She dropped into the rosewood chair. It had been a recent splurge during an impromptu shopping spree they’d gone on two weeks ago. Her eyes settled on a small piece of paper tucked beneath a picture of them on the table. The five words scribbled there hit her with the force of a blow. I can’t do this anymore . Clutching the piece of paper to her chest, she let the sobs take over.


Why, thought Dora, clutching her glass of wine and giving polite smiles from the corner of the room, did people assume that because you were “good on the radio”, or even “a bit of a celebrity” then you were going to love a party. Dora didn’t. She hated them. Oh, she didn’t mind going round to a friend’s house, but this was another matter. It wasn’t even as if she was antisocial. She had spent most of her life working with the public, and could make conversation well enough. But right now, oh, how she longed to be back at her little cottage, with her books and her music and her cat Snowflake curled up imperiously beside her on the sofa, condescending to let her stroke him with a lazy blink of his sapphire blue eyes. Mike caught her eye and gave her what he probably thought was a reassuring look. She liked Mike. He was a nice boy. Okay, so she had reached the stage in life when she referred to men in their forties as nice boys. And he’d insisted she didn’t have to come if she didn’t want to, but she had always married her manners and she knew how much she owed him. Only a couple of minutes ago it looked as if she had forgotten her manners when she didn’t respond to someone who called her over, but it was because she’d had to think twice when they said, “Pandora.” But that was her name. She had never used it, not when she was old enough to have a say in the matter, and the people she would always have thought of as her parents supported her decision. She supposed they were rather relieved, and wished that the person who gave Coronation Day Baby her name hadn’t been quite so erudite or whimsical. But she had been found in a box and Pandora’s box had hope left in it…. still, couldn’t they have called her “Hope”? Not that she was that keen on virtue names. She’d had a schoolfriend called Faith and always thought it gave you too much to live up to. Decades later the name achieved a certain currency through Pandora Braithwaite in the Adrian Mole books, that Dora rather liked, though she supposed the first couple, at least, were aimed at a considerably younger readership. But that gave her no urge to re-adopt it. Still, it was as well someone had adopted HER! Yes, it had been midsummer, had been June, but it had also been a horribly rainy day. There had been something of a scandal about that as the Queen’s former governess wrote a magazine column and liked to make out she did it more or less live, but of course, she didn’t, and she’d made it a gloriously sunny day. As people swarmed the streets of London or gathered round the grainy black and white pictures on newly purchased television sets, in a small town on the East Coast, a baby girl was abandoned in a little shelter along the sea front. And that could have been the end of her life, even though she was wrapped in a blanket, and the shelter kept the driving rain off her head. That was where she had her first strike of amazing luck, the kind of thing the radio audience in Mike’s documentary adored. Whilst people were watching the Coronation on their grainy minuscule TV screens, a woman called Barbara Jenkins was coming home from her shift at work, and despite the weather, had decided to have a walk up the seafront to clear her mind because it had been a fraught day at work. And Barbara was a nurse. She knew what to do, and she did it, and it was confirmed at the hospital that the little girl appeared to be healthy and none the worse for her ordeal, though had it lasted much longer …. well, Barbara was the heroine of the hour. Dora often wondered why she hadn’t been called Barbara, but apparently (so various reports and reports of reports had said) she was a very self-effacing young woman and wouldn’t have thanked folk for it. Or why not Elizabeth given it was Coronation Day? But maybe that was considered just too obvious. So she was Pandora. Pandora soon to become Dora, who had now become Pandora again. She was adopted by a very nice couple in their late thirties called Janet and Bob Edmunds. Apparently there was an extremely careful vetting procedure to make sure that the prospective parents weren’t just interested in the story rather than the child. Bob was an electrician and Janet was a housewife who also did dressmaking work. From the start, Dora knew that she was adopted, or at least from as soon as she could understand. Though of course, this was decades before the Internet, information both travels quickly and embeds itself in a small town, and it was far better coming from her Mum and Dad than from anyone else. They did a grand job of it, she thought. They made sure she knew they were delighted to choose her because she was special, but her being special had nothing to do with her being abandoned in a shelter on the sea front on Coronation Day. She had a very happy childhood. She was adored and indulged, but not spoilt, and though she never quite forgot she was adopted, there were weeks and months on end when it didn’t have that much importance in her life. Yet it was the kind of thing, especially given the circumstances, that never really went away. By the time she was in her late thirties and early forties herself, it was becoming more and more acceptable for adopted children to trace their parents. Dora supposed it was good they had the right to, but some of the stories irritated her and made her feel her heckles rise on behalf of the adopted parents. She hated it when it almost seemed as if they were rejected, or at any rate downgraded, once the biological parents – or more likely, just the biological mother – were traced. Oh, she never condemned the birth parents or mother. Dora wasn’t a judgemental person, and could quite easily see, especially in less liberal times, how folk were driven to it and it didn’t make them cruel or reprehensible. But so far as she was concerned Janet was her mother, and Bob was her father. It wasn’t until both of them had passed away, and she had a chance conversation waiting in the queue at the pharmacy, that she began to wonder if perhaps it would be good to know something, after all. Someone had heard a radio programme about a baby – a boy this time – who had been abandoned on the Embankment in London, during the war, and who hadn’t begun to unearth the story of his life until he was an old man himself. It wasn’t a totally happy ending for him with all the loose ends tied up, but it was plain he hadn’t regretted it and it had enriched his life. Dora had never married. She had been engaged once but – well, best not to think about it. She knew that especially given the circumstances her parents would have liked grandchildren, but they never tried to exert any kind of pressure on her. She liked children, and was a popular and well-respected teacher, but had never had children of her own. Like her parents – like Bob and Janet – Dora had always been modest in her demands. Oh, she didn’t have a low opinion of herself or anything like that, but she didn’t like a fuss and preferred things to be low-profile. So although the programme about the Embankment Baby had been on the World Service, and had been heard all over the world, not just the UK, she made tentative enquiries at her local radio station, Radio Anglia. She was given an appointment to see a man called Mike Ellis, who apparently was responsible for “such things”. He also did the morning programme on the radio. Dora felt rather guilty as she realised that she couldn’t remember the last time she had heard it (maybe for details about what was closed and open during the freak winter weather they called The Beast from the East a few years back). It wasn’t that she had anything against it, but the Today programme on Radio Four was part of her morning routine. She tried to salve her conscience by listening to a couple of episodes, and it was fine, but in her heart of hearts she still preferred Today . Still, Mike made a good impression. He wasn’t too smarmy or too sarcastic. She found a picture of him on the Internet (she wasn’t exactly a passionate “Silver Surfer” but it had its uses) and he was well – just a pleasant looking young man in his forties. Just a nice boy …..! One trait she had inherited from both Janet and Bob, but especially the former, was a belief in what a handshake told you, and she liked Mike’s handshake. It was firm but not too firm, cool and sincere. He ushered her into a room that apparently doubled up as his office and his studio and had posters all over the wall with local scenes and slogans like Your Local Voice and Radio Anglia, the Sound of the East Coast . “Tea or coffee, Miss Edmunds?” he asked, “Or may I call you Dora?” “Coffee please, and of course you may,” (Once an English teacher, always an English teacher, she thought wryly, awarding him Brownie Points for saying may and not can . “But if you don’t mind, I prefer just Dora.” He smiled. “I can’t honestly say I blame you!” He was both easy to talk to, and a good listener, and she was fairly sure it wasn’t just a radio persona coming through. Though perhaps it was a matter of chickens and eggs! “I’m going to take a great interest in your story, Dora,” he said, “And consider it my baby – if you’ll pardon the expression!” “I might, but don’t make a habit of it!” She was surprised she felt confident enough with him to share in a joke. “Fair enough. But I’m not the expert on the subject. I want to put you in touch with a lady called Christine Franks. She’s quite an expert in matters like this, and I believe her to be totally trustworthy. If she’s getting nowhere, she’ll tell you, and – well, I might as well say it, if anything you might prefer not to know turns up, then she won’t hide it from you.” “I prefer it that way,” said Dora, truthfully enough, though in fact she supposed there were things she might prefer not to know. Dora always believed in giving people a fair chance, but had to admit that when she first met Christine, she was reminded of a doctor’s receptionist. In fact, she did bear a slight resemblance to one of the receptionists at Dora’s doctors, but it wasn’t mainly that. She seemed very efficient, but more inclined to stop you getting forward and finding things out than the opposite. But before too long she realised that she had misjudged her, and it was a sign of her integrity. “There may not be any kind of fairy tale ending,” she said. “If I ever come across as obstructive, Dora, it’s not because I’m being rambunctious, it’s out of concern.” Generally Dora was lary of people who expressed an excess of concern, but she was also very fond of the word rambunctious, so she decided to “hit the reset button” and after that the two women got on famously. One of the first steps was a DNA test, though as Dora remembered, in the corner at the party, Christine warned her that they were by no means conclusive. It was interesting without being earth-shattering. There were indications of the East of England – so probably her mother was a local girl, but also of Ireland, the Netherlands, and, weirdly, a hint of Ukrainian. The first real lead, though, didn’t come from the genetic test, but from a local person. With Dora’s agreement, her story was covered on Mike’s show, though her privacy was respected, as far as was possible. But it came from far away – from Canada, and an ex-pat who was keeping up with home by listening to Radio Anglia on the Internet. Her name was Susan Bligh, and she was the great-niece of a man who had been a local policeman in the town. Uncle Billy, as she called him, had been on patrol on coronation day, and years later had told her, when she begged for “stories” about his time in the police, told her about a woman he had seen on Coronation Day, pacing up and down the seafront, seeming in distress. “He asked her if she needed any help, but she said no, and she wasn’t drunk or causing a disturbance or anything, so there wasn’t much he could do about it, but he did say there was something haunting about her. And one thing that did stick in his mind – she was wearing a bright purple coat!” “Oh, my goodness!” Dora exclaimed, and went on to tell Susan that her favourite colour had always been purple! If Janet and Bob had let her, she’d gone through stages where she’d have worn nothing but. So that was mentioned on the show, and a response came more or less immediately. It was from someone called Lily Watkins, who was a very old lady now, nearly a hundred, but still as sharp as a button, and had been the owner of a shop in a town not far up the coast at the time. She had employed a young woman called Thelma Bradshaw, and as she said, “She was a good worker and nice manners, but I could never quite bottom her, and oh my goodness, she loved purple! But I realised that big coat she wore was to hide the fact she was in the family way. And no Mr Bradshaw in the picture, nor even a boyfriend, so far as I could see. Well – some would have just flung her out on her ear, but I didn’t. I LIKED the girl, and we can all make mistakes. I was worried when one day she just didn’t turn up, but she did send me a note, through the post, not through the door, and it said she was sorry but she had to go away for a while and she wished me all the best.” Well, that counted as progress of sorts, thought Dora, and everyone at Radio Anglia was doing their best for her and it would have been bad manners to refuse the invitation to the annual “do”. She made herself not look at her watch, realising how unfortunate it would appear if anyone saw her, remembered there was a clock on the wall and discovered that only a quarter of an hour had passed until she last looked. I will NOT play the old lady card and say I am tired or feeling under the weather, she thought, determinedly. I will make an effort. After all, not everyone was the life and soul of the party, where they? She suspected even Mike saw it as a necessary ritual rather than a delight. In fact – she looked around – was he even in the room any more. She couldn’t see him. Maybe he was just attending a call of nature – but two people emerged from the gents’ restrooms, neither of them was Mike, and though she didn’t quite know HOW she knew she did know there were only two “necessary items” as her grandmother had termed toilets! Bob and Janet had humoured her but had no time for such pretentions, and had made sure that when Dora started school she knew perfectly well to just ask if she may go to the toilet and not say she needed to see a man about a dog or anything like that. Those were the kind of little things you remembered with gratitude. Anyway, Mike was coming back into the room through another door, and he was not alone. He was leading an old lady – a VERY old lady, who made Dora feel young in comparison and who looked even more ill at ease than she was. Her first thought was that they had brought along Lily Watkins, but Dora had seen a picture of her, admittedly taken several years ago, but – well, this was an entirely different woman. And she was wearing purple. “Dora, perhaps you ought to step into the side room,” Mike said gently. She nodded and complied. This was not the kind of thing to take place in public, and it spoke volumes for Mike that he realised this. He and the very old lady retreated back into the little office, and Dora followed them. And for the first time in nearly seventy years, Thelma Bradshaw and her daughter fell into each others’ arms. Neither of them said much. There was plenty to say. But it could wait.


The year is 1937, and it is an acorn in autumn, growing on its parent's limb. A breeze rushes through the valley, snapping it off its brittle twig and sending it tumbling down to earth, landing in a fertile, nourishing cowpat, on the other side of a low wooden fence (a human marker for which stretch of featureless plain is and is not a ranch), not ten feet away from where it first grew. No one is here to witness this, save a single squirrel, collecting the acorn's siblings for winter, three branches above the branch the acorn fell from. She does not notice, or care, that it fell. The year is 1937, and the acorn has gone unnoticed for months, having been trampled and shoved below the once-soft earth by cow hooves, horses, and the leather boots of cowboys in deerskin and steel spurs. The ground is frozen now, and the acorn lies dormant in hard soil. The squirrel that unknowingly witnessed its falling searches for where she buried its siblings among pale snow, lost in the falling flakes of a coming blizzard. She will not find all of them. She will not live to see the spring. In her bones, so small and so fragile against the immensity of the world and the unforgiving cold, she knows this, and she is afraid. It is the winter of 1937, and she dies against the roots of the parent tree, the only landmark she can be sure of in the whirling chaos of the blizzard. When the storm is over, a starving fox finds her corpse, and is grateful for it. The year is 1938, and it is a minuscule shoot of green in the spring, nearly indistinguishable from the miles of grass around it. What was once a cowpat has become rich soil, and the young oak's roots grow deep and strong. A newborn calf, sleeping in the noonday sun beside his mother, does not know this. He has only lived a day and a half, and the ranchers have not discovered him yet. The year is 1938, and it is high summer. The sprout is a sapling, and is now a little taller than the surrounding grass. What will become its trunk is now too tough and woody to be chewed, and curious cows will spit out its bitter leaves. The calf born that spring now grazes beside his siblings in the herd, having been weaned, and avoids the young oak tree, nibbling the grass around it. He has tasted the leaves of the sapling before, and he knows it does not make a good meal. The year is 1938, and it has been exactly a year since the sapling fell as an acorn. The calf is growing fast, and he will be a yearling bull in six short months. The ranchers have pierced his nose in preparation for a ring, as they plan to use him to pull the plow. The parent tree, ten feet away, drops more acorns. The year is 1938, and it is deep winter. The calf has been moved into a barn with his herd, and the oak sapling, along with its parent, loses its leaves and goes dormant. The year is 1939, and it is spring again. A mated pair of robins make their nest in the parent tree's branches, a few feet higher than the place where the sapling fell from. The calf is now a yearling, and has been given to heifers several times now. He is young and strong and full of vigor, and challenges older bulls whenever he has the chance. His whole life is ahead of him, though it will be shorter than he instinctively believes it will be. The oak sapling has grown twice as tall as it was last spring, and humans take note of it now, in passing. Its presences means little to them, and so they leave it be. The year is 1939, and it is summer on the ranch once more. The young bull is now a steer, and he feels different, though he doesn't understand why. The young robins who hatched in the branches of the parent tree fly freely now, all but one of their clutch (who fell from the nest as a hatchling) still alive and singing. The young oak is nearly a grown tree now, and its parent is growing acorns early. It will not grow acorns of its own for decades yet. It is the autumn of 1939, and the oak tree is two years old. The family of robins have flown south, leaving their old nest of twigs and cow hair vacant. A hundred feet away, the young steer struggles with his handlers. The ranchers mean to sell him for the slaughter, but since his castration, he has grown to distrust them, and so he fights them with every ounce of his strength that they value so highly as meat. After hours of struggle, they loop a rope around his nose ring, and lead him with seven of his brothers to a train station miles away. That will be the last time he sees the ranch where he lived his whole life. It is the cusp of winter, in 1939, and the young steer dies hundreds of miles from home, with the smell of blood in his nostrils. Winter passes, and the young oak drops its leaves again. The year is 1940, and the family of robins have all come back for the spring - the parents of the clutch, and half the clutch from last year. They all make new homes nearby one another, and the young oak's branches are finally strong enough to hold a nest. A young robin, the son of the first mated pair, makes his nest in its branches, singing loudly for any female who might hear him. One responds, and they nest together for the spring. The year is 1940, and it is summer again. The young robin and his mate had two clutches laid in the branches of the oak tree, the first of which was eaten by a crow. The second was successful, and they flit even now from branch to branch. For the robins, this is a land of plenty, with many worms and insects for them to eat. The year is 1940, and it is autumn once again. Another squirrel seeks acorns in the branches of the parent tree. More young bulls, steers, and heifers graze nearby. More are culled from the herd, and more will be born next spring. The robins have flown south – they will return.


Sunlight floods my room. At the first break of morning, I let go a sigh of relief. I know my worries are gone for good. Well, except for the mess in the other room, but I can ignore that for now. The scent has never caused anyone in the complex to complain before. I gently tiptoe around my linoleum tile room and dress myself in a light cotton skirt and thin tank top. My nails appear to be clean, but I paint them bright red as an extra measure. What if anyone noticed the blood?

I can’t remember what I did with last night’s clothes, but surely, I would’ve been careful with them. Did I burn them? Is fire cleansing enough? The only thing I have to do is avoid the kitchen. I need to leave the apartment first. I can deal with the mess later. Later is always better. I rush out of my apartment, and I narrowly escape the disaster waiting for me in the kitchen. The usual decorative half-empty coffee mugs were nowhere to be found in my home. This is the most definitive sign he is gone. I make my way downtown, eager to greet the bodega man. He is always kind, and he is understanding when my clothes are occasionally blood-stained. He is also always excited to show me his freshest oranges. The bodega always makes the world more tangible. As I graze my fingertips along the oranges, attempting to choose the ripest, I make eye contact with a smiling man sitting at the café table next to the bodega. I look away quickly – surely it isn’t him. As my blood runs cold and my mouth dry, I recall the previous night’s events. It can’t be him. I know it can’t be him. I saw his blood flood furiously through my kitchen just last night. I put the cold metal to his neck, and I slit him from ear to ear. His corpse looked as if it had a distorted smile. I hid his heart in my floorboards. Its never-ending beat screamed of my guilt. And yet, here he is. Alive. And drinking his favorite: black coffee. Whenever he appeared in my life again, he was always accompanied by a black coffee. Sugarless. Tasteless. A drink as dark as the sinister thoughts he whispered in my ear. I first met him ten years ago, in my early 20s. He was kind, warm, at first. He made sure I knew the realities of the world, and he wanted to protect me. He used to drink his coffee with cream and sugar. I am not sure when he changed, but he is not the same man now. It can’t be him. I killed him. I have killed him hundreds of times, but I am positive this latest attempt was successful. He never screamed the way he screamed last night. Hurriedly, I choose an orange, and I make my way to pay. I can barely focus on what the bodega man is saying. The man at the café is walking towards me, and he is whispering. Just as always. He says he only wishes to protect me, and he would never bring me harm. Perhaps I should listen to him – I don’t understand how he could be so different now. I ramble to the bodega man about coffee, and I tell him how it reveals the deepest desires of the soul. I leave – I shouldn’t listen to him. I shouldn’t listen to him. He is not who he used to be. When I finally arrive at my apartment, I know I am going to have to deal with a mess. His body is still there, lying on the ground, smiling. His blood will have soaked the floor mat by now. My neighbor, Nancy, tries to speak with me as I fiddle with my keys. Nancy is not real. She has never been real. I tell myself this every day, as she always tries to convince me she isn’t like the others. I am grateful Jim doesn’t look out of his peephole. Jim has kind eyes, and he never drinks coffee of any kind, but I do not trust him. He blares circus music late into the night. He is suspicious of me. I’ve invited him over for tea before, and he always stares at the kitchen floor tiles too intently. He knows what happens in my apartment. Even through the circus music, I am positive he can hear the screams. After what feels like years of trying to open my door, the knob finally gives way. Much to my shock and dismay, someone has already cleaned up my murder scene. The body is missing. There is no blood. Just once I wish the blood would still be there after I killed him. I do not know who always cleans it up, but surely, I would remember doing such a thing. I sink into the most comfortable chair I own. There are empty black coffee mugs everywhere I look. I hate the taste of black coffee, but he doesn’t. They weren’t here this morning. He wasn’t here this morning. He strolls in moments later. Just as he always does, he places a singular chrysanthemum in a glass jar. He cups my face in his hands. “You know,” he starts, “the bodega man wanted to kill you today. That’s why I was there.” I sigh. Of course, I already knew he would tell me this. I know the bodega man would never hurt me, but he is excellent in making me nervous of the kindest people. I would rather skip the conversation tonight. There is no reason to hear his thoughts on the strangers in the street who seek to harm me. First, I sniff the chrysanthemum and place it in my breast pocket. I then stumble around my messy kitchen as he babbles, and I find my prized knife. Just like I have murdered him every single time, I slit his throat. It is comfortably familiar. His bitter, black blood seeps onto my hands. This time, I killed him in the living room. Perhaps the change in venue will yield different results. After all, they say insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Maybe tomorrow the blood will be here.


I take a sip of my coffee while turning to the next page of the newspaper. I overhear a senior woman saying to a friend, “My grandkids keep pushing me to get this thing called an app. But I can barely figure out how to text them since that’s the only way they will talk to me.”

“I know what you mean, Beatrice. My son gave me a smartphone for Christmas, and I keep missing his phone calls because I don’t know how to turn the ringer on.”

I try to tune out the conversation; it’s the same one every day, old people complaining about tech.

More people shuffle into the dining room to get breakfast, and most are using walkers. I always sit in the back of the room to eat my eggs and toast so I can enjoy my cup of coffee in peace. When the complaining gets to be too much, I reach up and take both my hearing aids out—silence at last.

I’m almost finished reading the paper when someone taps me on the shoulder. I look down to see a small boy watching me. He says something, but of course, I can’t hear him. I let out a big sigh of annoyance, hoping he will take the hint. Yet he still stands there watching me. Begrudgingly, I put my hearing aids back in and turn in my chair to see him more clearly. “What do you want?” My voice rasping, being the first time I’ve spoken this morning. “Mister, what happened to your arm?” Before I can reply I hear a woman call to him. “Bobby, what are you doing? Don’t bother the nice gentleman.” Nice? I don’t think anyone has ever called me nice before. She takes his hand and leads him away while apologizing over her shoulder. She walks over to a young teenage boy who is watching me intently. I take my hearing aids out and go back reading my newspaper.

The next morning, I decide to go to breakfast early. Hoping today will be less eventful than yesterday. I finish breakfast and reach for my paper when I feel a light tapping on my shoulder again, and it’s the young boy from yesterday standing there. “What happened to your arm?” He asks again. I look around for the woman who dragged him away, but she is nowhere in sight. “Shouldn’t you be with your mother?” I turn away, trying to dismiss him.

“It’s okay. My mother brought me to visit my grandmother.”

Whoopty doo, I think and begin to pick my paper up again when I hear him walk around my chair to stand on my left side. He pulls the chair out and sits down, only to prop himself up with his legs underneath himself. “Can you do tricks with your arm?” “Look kid, you’re bothering me and you shouldn’t talk to strangers.” “You’re not a stranger. Your name is Roger.” “How did you know that?” His eyes are fixed on my arm as he responds. “My grandmother told my mother about you.” I usually don’t care for gossip, but this little boy has piqued my interest. “And what did she say about me?” “That you’re the only old person here who doesn’t act old.” “That’s a strange thing to say about someone.” “Can I touch your arm?” He starts to reach for my arm. “Bobby, you’re being rude.” Bobby jerks his hand away, looking embarrassed. The voice belongs to the teenager I noticed yesterday. “And who might you be?” I ask. “Come on, Bobby.” He ignores my question.

“You know it’s rude not to introduce yourself when interrupting a conversation.” Annoyance flares in his eyes. Still, he doesn’t respond. Bobby is at his side, and they start to walk away. It must be a knee-jerk response because I say, “Kids these days.” The teenager stops dead in his tracks and turns around. “You have no idea what ‘kids these days’ have to deal with. More than you ever had to, old man.” This makes me chuckle. “Really? You think?” I lift my left arm, which isn’t a human arm but a prosthetic one. I reach with it and pick up my coffee mug. I lift it to my mouth and take a drink. “Yes, Bobby, I can do tricks with this arm.” Bobby smiles and comes back to the table.

I shift my focus back to the teen. “What about these?” I point to my hearing aids. “Well, you’re old; of course, you have hearing aids.” He snips. “Okay, then ask me when I lost my arm.” The teenager looks around, debating whether to take the bait. But curiosity is a powerful motivator. “Okay, when?” He asks. “I was 8.” The teen raises his eyebrows. He steps closer to the table, placing his hands on the back of the chair opposite me. “How did it happen?” “Got it caught in a piece of farming equipment.” “You were working on a farm at 8?” Bobby asks excitedly. But the teen looks unimpressed. “How do you move your fingers?” Bobby asks. “There are sensors in the stump that communicate signals from my brain to the arm.” Bobby looks impressed. “Sounds expensive,” The teen dully says. “It was. I spent all my money on it. That’s why I’m in this nursing home.” “You wasted all your money on a fake arm that can only move its fingers?” His outlandish response makes me crack a smile. “After living most of my life without my arm, it’s been nice to get it back.” “But you could be living in your house right now or on a beach somewhere.” When I look back at him, he’s now sitting in the chair, looking intensely at me as if my response will be the most important thing he’s heard in his young life. “You’re from a generation with many things on demand, but above all, you have choices. Technology has given me choices today to have things I couldn’t have before.” “What, you don’t want to go back to the good ol’ days?” He scoffs. “What good old days? Heavy, uncomfortable prosthetics that don’t do anything?” “Well, what about the…” I don’t let him finish. “It doesn’t matter what time you live in, there will be problems. I’m saying that the things we have today have fixed many of mine. I think air conditioning may be the best thing ever invented next to this arm.” “Then what’s the point of trying to be better if it’s never-ending pain and struggle?” “For the days we do solve problems, the outcomes…” I lift my prosthetic arm and hold it out to shake hands, “are well worth it. I’m Roger, and it’s nice to meet you.” The teen looks at the hand with skepticism. But slowly reaches out his hand and places it in mine. When the metal fingers gently close around his fingers, he jumps a little. Then we slowly shake hands. He looks up at me, and a smile tugs at the corner of his mouth. “It’s nice to meet you, Roger; I’m Timothy.”

“What other things can your arm do?” Bobby asks with bright eyes. “Want to watch me give someone the middle finger with it?” Both boys laugh. “Bobby, Timothy, what are you doing? I’ve been looking for you.” Their mother walks up, putting her hand on each boy’s shoulders. “I hope they haven’t been bothering you, Mister.” She looks genuinely concerned that her sons have been harassing me. “No, ma’am, you have two exceptional sons here.” Timothy looks surprised at the compliment. The mother sighs with relief. “Oh, good. Okay, let’s go say goodbye to Grandma,”

Timothy gets up and starts to walk away but abruptly turns around. “Hey, take it easy, Roger.” He holds out his closed fist. I hesitate before slowly curling my prosthetic into a closed fist and fist-bump him. “Yeah, you too, Timothy,” I say. Timothy nods and walks away.


A ragtag group of anthropomorphic cat treasure hunters finds themselves deep in the ancient pyramid that houses Cleocatra’s tomb, trying to figure out how to access the entrance of a hidden room filled with treasure. They’re led by George, who is accompanied by Dr. Bliffy the expert Purrgyptolgist, Amelia their Purrgyptian spelunking guide, and Father Joseph a priest from the Catacan. The group now walked down a long zig-zagging corridor upon steps of masterfully cut limestone. “Before we enter the chamber, I will douse each of you with this holy water to protect us from any evil spirits who may try to harm us.” said the Priest as he pulled out a flask with a cross on it.

The cats stood still as Father Joseph flicked the holy water onto each of them as they approached the entrance of Cleocatra’s chamber. Each stepped into the room with their flashlights shining about like spotlights as they licked their fur and meandered about the chamber taking in the awe-inspiring hieroglyphics.

Amelia examined the walls. “This is incredible.” “Sure is,” responded George in high spirits. “Hey Father this holy water is quite refreshing, tastes a bit like there are some holy spirits in it,” George said to the Priest with a wink. Father Joseph brought the flask to his nose and sniffed, “Hmm, yes it seems the dishwasher at the Catacan hasn't been doing the lord's work. No matter, these things are a pain to clean.” George walked up next to Amelia looking at the great hieroglyphs, “Well Dr. Bliffy now's your time to shine, what can you decipher?” “Ahhhh let me take a look at my notes,” said Dr. Bliffy, unassuredly scratching his head. “Hmmm I’m not too sure, these hieroglyphs seem to be from before antiquity, possibly the bronze age, when the Furrlistines first appeared in what's now present-day Pawlestine.” “We don't have time for a history lesson, we're about to make some, let me take a look at those notes,” said George. “Oh no, ah, they won't make much sense to someone untrained- '' George, not interested, ripped the notebook from Dr. Bliffy’s hands and then squinted. “Dr. Bliffy what the hairball is this?” George flipped around the notebook to reveal overtly sexual drawings of cat women in lingerie batting at feathers hanging from a stick. “Ah, I can explain, those are just some light doodles,” responded Dr. Bliffy pulling at his collar. George flipped through more pages as his jaw began to lower and eyes twitched, there wasn't a single Purrgyptian hieroglyphic to be found. Only sketches of cat women dressed promiscuously. “Dr. Bliffy where in the hell is your research!” shouted George, his chest rising and falling. “Alright, alright, I'm not really a Purrgyptoligist, I don't have a doctorate, I haven't been featured in the Purr York Times and I didn't go to Yale,” Bliffy responded, his ears and head dropping down in embarrassment. “But I saw your degree!” “Photoshop…” “So you lied about everything on your resume!” exclaimed George. Bliffy shrugged. “Yeah but so does everyone else, I went to Community College for marketing.” George silently unpacked this revelation in his head trying not to blow a fuse, “Could’ve paid the extra fifteen dollars for a background check. Just like my witch of a mother said, it takes a rich man to be cheap.” he muttered through his gritted teeth. “Well, now that the cat is out of the bag I do have a little bit of battery left on my phone. Maybe we could just look it up on Google?” asked Bliffy, attempting to make amends. “Bliffy I maxed out three credit cards getting us here, I got a subprime mortgage I can’t afford for a hunk a shit cookie cutter house on Long Island, alimony for two kittens.” Steam began to shoot out from George’s ears as a manic look rolled over his face. Bliffy trying to butt in, “Listen I-” “Your own mother was cleaning your litter box during the last financial crisis! Do you know anything about inflation?! Do you know how expensive milk is getting?! Or those cheap scratching posts from China! I’ve dumped half! Half my life savings into Catpto Currency and I’m losing thousands of dollars a day faster than I’m losing the love and respect of my children! Please tell me you're yanking my tail!” Bliffy looked at his feet. “I’m sorry George.” “You're sorry?!” “I don't know what to say. I watched a Ted Talk on faking it till you make it and right after I saw your ad online looking for a Purrgyptoligist and thought, hey I want to go on a free trip to Purrgypt.” George sported the look of a madman, “Bliffy you and Cleocatra are going to be sharing this tomb if we don't find her treasure.” he said with a hiss. “I’m sorry I know I'm an idiot, my horoscope said that it was time for new beginnings. I thought this would help launch my career as an influencer.” “A what?” said George, exacerbated. “An influencer, you know, making cat content for social media?” “Your generation is doomed.” said a deflated George. “You're telling me you know about Catpto Currency but not what an influencer is?” asked Bliffy in disbelief. George put his head in his paws. “I read the news, you dimwit.” There was an awkward silence among the four, “So you don't know a lick about ancient Purrgyptian hieroglyphics?” “Only what I read on Whiskerpedia,” murmured Bliffy. “Cat Whiskers Christ Bliffy!” shouted George. “Do not use the Lord's name in vain,” interjected Father Joseph scathingly. “Oh save me your judgment priest we all know you aren't all saints over there at the Catacan.” “You dare insult the Catacan!” exclaimed Father Joseph. “No, I’m just surprised the Catacan let you tag along even though no kittens were accompanying us!” responded George antagonisticly. “Oh so it's a catfight you want is it?!” shouted Father Joseph as he pulled back the sleeves of his vestment. “If you want one you got one alright!” shouted back George fashioning his claws. “Enough! We're here in the tomb of Cleocatra…illegally and if the authorities catch us we are going to Purrgyptian prison for life." The three fell silent as their eyes bulged out from their heads. "Now I don't know if the three of you know anything about Purrgyptian prison but the inmates won’t take kindly to grave robbing foreigners,” said Amelia. “What!?” exclaimed the rest of the group in unison. Amelia shrugged her shoulders matter-of-factly. “Well, I thought I’d fess up too.” “Alright Amelia, welcome to the club!” Bliffy raised out his paw enthusiastically for a high five but Amelia just glared back at the pudgy cat with disdain. “I thought you said the government sanctioned us coming down here?” asked George bewildered. “Yeah to waltz right down into Cleocatra’s tomb to steal her lost treasure?” George was now bouncing around flailing his arms. “We told them it was for an exposé on Cleocatra! That we’re part of CCNN, not that we were going to steal anything! They weren't supposed to figure that out till after the fact!” Amelia scoffed. “You think the government of Purrgypt was going to fall for that, after all that's been stolen from this country? You're more full of yourself than the British Museum, no wonder you invested half your life savings in Catpto currency.” George yelled, “Because of the security of the blockchain alright!” walking up to the old dusty walls of Cleocatra's chamber and scratching them furiously as the group watched on at his meltdown. “Think, think, think,” George said to himself looking over the hieroglyphics. “Just like Mother said, you want something done right do it yourself.” he scratched at his chin. “Ah, I hate it when she's right…maybe I shouldn't have put her in that nursing home.” “Well, we’re here and that's what's important. So any ideas?” asked Amelia. “Yeah, does anyone have catnip and something to smoke it out of?” asked George defeatedly. “Ugh,” said Father Joseph, shaking his head. The four stood around aimlessly. “Well, I'm standing in Cleocatra’s tomb, illegally, with a virgin, a Purrgyptian, and a priest. Huh, that sounds like the beginning of a joke. Well, we know there's a secret entrance here somewhere and it only opens when the correct phrase is said. Said phrase is supposed to be hidden in this room. The problem is our Purrgyptoligist isn't a Purrgyptoligist. So what could the password be?” George said to himself walking over to the tomb of Cleocatra, his brow furrowed. “Ahhh!” he slammed his paw down on the tomb, sending a puff of dust everywhere. “George look!” Amelia pointed to the tomb's lid and inscribed into the stone was a phrase. Amelia looked over it attentively. “Can you read it?” asked George. “Yes, it’s in Purrgyptian, it says, ‘From the dawn to the dusk of time, a word shared by all cats before the fall of mankind, a phrase floating around deep within all our minds…meo-'” Amelia halted putting her hands over her mouth as the hair on the groups backs stood up simultaneously. “It can't be…” murmured Father Joseph, promptly making the sign of the cross before kissing his crucifix and reciting a prayer. “It makes so much sense,” whispered George wide-eyed. Amelia lowered her paws from her mouth, “The one word that must never be said. Banned by every government across the earth. The perfect password to protect her riches from those who’d steal it.” “Well who’s going to say it?” asked Bliffy. “No one! Do you know how dangerous this could be?” snapped Father Joseph. “Not a soul has said that word since the last epoch.” “This could be part of Cleocatra’s curse. It may turn us back into animals or even worse, humans,” said Amelia. All four shivered at the idea. “If life's a dream then that’d make it a nightmare,” said Geroge staring intently at the carvings on the tomb. “But maybe the secret entrance will be revealed and we’ll all be rich.” chimed in Bliffy. George fiddled with his whiskers thinking deeply. “Well, I can't say it,” said Father Joseph. “I can't say it,” responded Amelia. Bliffy takes out his smartphone, “George if you're going to say it give me a heads up so I can get a video, this will definitely go viral but my phone is almost dead.” “I can't say it,” said George. “Why not? Think about it, we'll all be rich!” said Bliffy. “Bliffy the only thing you'll be getting rich from is settlement I’ll have to pay you after I claw apart your face.” Bliffy went silent. Then Father Joseph chimed in, “You know the church could do a lot of good with that money...and you owe me for that wine.” George turned his head with annoyance. "You said that was the altar wine and you drank half the bottle yourself, you didn't have to pay for that!" Father Joseph stuck his chin up in the air. "But the church did." “And you still owe me for bringing you down here,” said Amelia. “Right, all three of you shut it.” George scratched his head again. Thinking to himself, I can't believe my ex-wife is going to get half of this. That's almost a good enough reason to walk right on out of here but look on the bright side, I could pay off my debts, get a house on Nantucket, invest in something less volatile, get that sweet passive income, and retire. What's the worst that could happen, it's just a word. But what if I turn into a human? The thought made Geroge feel like a hairball was stuck in his throat. Ugh. I could be turned into a monster and all of these suckers would get the riches. He continued to ponder. “Unless…I got an idea,” said George. “I can't say it. But what if we all said a part of it at once? It's a four-letter word and there are four of us. We can each sound out a single letter altogether. That way none of us are actually saying it.” The other three looked around at each other and then back at George. “Well you don't make it as an influencer without taking a risk or two, I got nothing to lose, I’m in,” said Bliffy. “So am I,” said Amelia. The three looked at the priest as he turned his head upwards, “Please, have mercy on our souls.” George grinned. “I'll take the M, Amelia the E, Bliffy the O, and Father Joseph the W.''

They all nodded in nervous approval. “Right,” said Geroge, “On the count of three. One, two, three.” “M” “E” “O” “W” They all looked about the room anxiously. “Well, that was underwhelming,” Bliffy said, ending his phone's recording. “Maybe we should try again?” said George. “Do you hear that?” asked Amelia. There was a rumbling sound that grew, dirt began to fall from the ceiling and the ground shook violently. “Look!” George shouted pointing to the back wall behind the tomb which was slowly sliding into the corner of the chamber and as it opened a golden light illuminated the four. “Oh my Lord.” said the Priest who couldn't believe his eyes. “We did it,” Amelia said, mesmerized. “I did it,” said George transfixed on the golden light showering his face, a vision of him sipping on a pina colada, toes deep in the sand watching the sunset on Nantucket ran through his head. “No, no, no, no!” shouted Bliffy. The three snapped out of their respective trances and turned to look at him as he dropped to his knees, phone in hand. “I can't believe this! My phone died! This would have gone viral for sure!


 Olympus Mons Exploration Mission 15 May, 2152 Mission Sol 1 Red. That's all I see. Crimson dust swirling around the rover, painting the rocky outcrops in hues of rust and ochre. The gaping maw of the ancient volcano stretches out before us, across to the horizon. This is the day we finally explore Mons Crater, something we hope will help uncover secrets from Mars’ past.

The team consists of Dr. George Sato (geologist), Dr. Miranda Singh (botanist), Kai Saite (engineer), and Captain Renaldo Li. And I, Madelyn Kim, xenobiologist extraordinaire (well, almost), am here to be a part of history. I’m the youngest member of the team and everyone is looking at me like I’m just going to screw things up. Dr. Sato hopes this will be the key to understanding Martian water loss, while Dr. Singh and I (ever the optimist) hope to discover signs of microscopic life, or at least that life survived here at some point. Captain Li is here to protect us, and Kai is here to keep everything moving.

We’ve landed our ship on a stable outcropping about 5 clicks from the crater’s edge. The rover is taking us the rest of the way. I just hope that our climbing gear survives the descent tomorrow. I’m terrified of heights. Mission Sol 3 Sorry I didn’t update yesterday, we were busy climbing. It took longer than expected to make the descent with all the gear. The rim of the crater was much steeper than we anticipated, and there is a sandstorm off to the west that has winds whipping us everywhere. But we finally made it to the bottom and made camp. We spent the rest of the day dividing the supplies into packs that were manageable for each of us. Dr. Singh and I are the smallest, so we are carrying more of the lighter gear. We analyzed some samples of rock we had taken on the descent but found nothing unusual.

But then we found something...strange. While analyzing rock samples, the computer's sensors picked up an anomaly – a faint metallic echo embedded in the specimen that shouldn't be here. Dr. Sato brushed it off as a glitch, but he seemed unsettled. We finished our scans and excavations and decided to head back to base camp.

Maybe it was just the physical stress of the last few days and Dr. Sato’s reaction to the sample, but I couldn’t help but feel uneasy as we made camp tonight. I can’t quite put my finger on why, and I am hoping a good night’s rest will put it all in place.

Mission Sol 4 We moved deeper into the crater today. Dr. Sato took samples from several different areas and all of them had the same strange metallic glint. He started extracting some of the metal to analyze, but nothing conclusive has come back yet. We may have to wait to get back to the rover for deeper analysis.

As we scan further out into the crater, there are some anomalies to the west that we want to further explore. Dr. Sato believes there may be some lava tubes of interest to us, but it risks taking us closer to the sandstorm. While I am eager for new discoveries, something about that sandstorm makes my skin prickle. I know, I should be used to them, living on Mars and all, but this one just seems more…ominous?

Mission Sol 5 Well, shit just got real. Dr. Singh has gone missing. She had ventured off a little ways from the group, but still in radio distance. She had been on her own for about an hour, when she sent a garbled transmission that sounded panicked. We were afraid she had been injured, so we rushed to her last known location - but there was nothing. No gear. No footprints. No evidence of any disturbance. It was like she just vanished into thin air. We searched for hours, but we found no trace of her or her gear. She wouldn’t just wander off on her own, would she?

Thank God for calm, collected Captain Li. He was the one who suggested she may have fallen, hit her head, and became disoriented. He believes she has wandered away and that maybe we can find her as we go deeper into the crater. Dr. Sato and Kai have other ideas. Kai said he thought he saw something moving, but only out of the corner of his eye. He could never look at it straight on. Dr. Sato believes that the metal we are finding in the rocks is a type of alloy that had to have been made by something other than natural processes. He strongly hinted that it may have been created by an intelligent life-form, but he won’t come out and say that directly. But, we’ve been on Mars for almost 100 years and there has never been any sign of life other than ours. There’s no way it could have escaped us for this long, right? Of course, we’ve never explored this high of an elevation before either. Could there be life that can only live at this altitude here?

As a xenobiologist, I’m both excited and terrified by the thought. It’s my dream to discover a new species, but it’s also way more terrifying when it lives outside of a petri dish. Mission Sol 6 We searched as far as we dared for Dr. Singh, but found no trace of her. I had held out hope that Captain Li was correct and she had just wandered off in confusion. But even if that’s the case, she is lost to us now. I am consumed with loss, remembering her positive persistence that this mission would succeed. I remember her showing me photos of her family, and my heart breaks for them. She was a mentor to me, and without her I feel that this mission is doomed. But now, what do we do? We stayed clustered together today and didn’t stray far from camp. We took a few more samples, but found nothing of interest. Kai, who is usually brimming with energy, has been pale and listless. Dr. Sato looks like he has aged a decade and keeps searching the horizon. Even the ever-steady Captain Li has been restless and pacing. The sandstorm is moving closer now, and I am afraid the models are wrong and it may hit us. If it does - what will happen to us in the storm? I asked if we were going to turn around and abort the mission, but Captain Li decided we should move forward. I hope he’s right and that everything will be okay. Mission Sol 7 Fear hangs heavily over camp tonight, as the winds howl outside of our tent.

We resumed our normal exploration today, taking samples and examining some nearby lava tubes. But today, we found marks on one of the tubes that looked like deep claw scratches. It was unlike anything I had seen before on our planet. The winds here are high, but I don’t think that the wind could have moved anything to make those gouges. As a xenobiologist, it was my job to take measurements and document the findings. Based on my measurements, whatever made those marks had to be twice the size of a grizzly bear. …Not that I have ever seen a grizzly bear either.

Given the magnitude of this discovery, we will be camping here another night. We will decide in the morning if we should press forward to return to the ship. I’m not sure if I will be able to sleep tonight. The winds are making the strangest noises, and I keep imagining other noises buried within the wind. Perhaps the howls are from whatever made those marks.

Mission Sol 8 We are being hunted. Something else is out here - something alive and new and novel and I am petrified, because it wants to kill us all. While we were out on our morning excavation, something came and destroyed our camp. It scattered supplies and shredded our tent. Captain Li sent Dr. Sato and I back to the dig site to retrieve the supplies. While I retrieved my tools from near the claw marks, Dr. Sato was gathering his tools from further into the crater. However, when I returned to the rendezvous point, Dr. Sato was nowhere to be found.

I was paralyzed with fear. Did I risk going to look for him and getting taken myself? Or did I run? What could I do, even if I did find him? I was about half his size and there was no way I could lift him. I decided to go back for help. The three of us went back to the dig site to look, but there was nothing. Captain Li has been carrying around a grappling hook like a gun, and is now insisting that none of us can wander off alone. Someone is staying up to keep watch tonight while the others try to sleep.

We only made it two clicks back towards the edge of the crater. There is still so far to go - at least 13 more kilometers. But if we stay together, maybe we stand a chance.

Mission Sol 9 I don’t know what to do. Every time we stop to rest, we hear a kind of whirring noise, and it seems like I keep seeing movement out of the corner of my eye.

This is first contact with a non-human life form. But it is nothing like I imagined it could be. I should be thrilled, trying to learn how to communicate and studying behaviors - but instead I am running for my life. Nothing in school ever prepared me for this. Now that I think about it, they definitely should have prepared us for this. There’s a 50/50 chance of any new life form being hostile, right? Why did we just assume they would be peaceful and docile? Kai is full-on panicking now. Poor, sweet, gentle Kai. He’s so brilliant for someone so young. A few days ago (has it only been days) he was playing pranks on Dr. Sato and starting card games in our downtime. Now, he just stares off into the void, watching for whatever monster is after us and waiting for the inevitable.

Captain Li says we must keep pushing forward. We covered at least 7 clicks today, so we made good progress, but I am not sure it's enough when they are closing in. I miss home. I miss the sounds of birds chirping under the dome and the gentle click and hum of the air recyclers. I miss the familiar scent of my mother’s cooking, and the clamor on the streets outside. I can’t believe I would ever willingly leave all those comforts for this. I have to get back home.

Mission Sol 10 We are nearly at the crater wall. Captain Li forced us to stop to rest about 3 clicks out, saying we needed to ration our energy for the climb tomorrow. We’re taking a short break and then pushing the rest of the way before dusk. We are arranging our packs so that we each have our own climbing gear and we each have a copy of the data we gathered - just in case. Kai swears he saw something behind us, just now. He said it was tall and insectile and walked on long, skinny legs. I’m not sure if he’s hallucinating or not, but Captain Li wants us to get moving just in case. Mission Sol 10 (Addendum)

Kai wasn’t hallucinating. We all saw it as we had bunkered down in a particularly bad gust of wind. It looks like a 20-foot-tall spider, towering over the crater, suspended on six spindly legs. We weren’t close enough to get a great look at the end of those legs (not that I’m complaining!), but I am willing to bet they have three pronged claws that match the marks we found on the lava tube. It didn’t come to us. It seemed to know we were watching it, so it slinked off into the sandstorm. I wonder if that’s where they hide. Captain Li has us moving immediately, but I had to take time to document this - just in case I don’t make it out.

We’re sprinting the rest of the way to the crater wall now. Captain Li says it’s worth the risk to climb at night. He’s hoping that they can’t leave the crater - that they can’t climb. But I’m not so sure. We know nothing about them, other than the claw marks and the glimpse we have seen. They move so fast and stealthily, I’m not sure we stand a chance. If this is my last entry, then I hope whoever finds this journal will tell my family I loved them. In the end, I fulfilled my life dream. I discovered the first extraterrestrial life - right here on Mars. And it may come to destroy us all.

Exhibit 114b from “The History of Mars” Collection Journal recovered from a crash site approximately 20km southeast of the base of Olympus Mons. Believed to be the first expedition to the crater, the explorers were unprepared for the effects of the extreme altitude and likely suffered from hallucinations. No subsequent crew has been sent to explore this area to date.


Flashes of memories pass by. Snippets, like the perfect trailer, spoil nothing and build an insatiable desire to keep watching. It's hard to make sense of exactly what's happening, but the genuine feelings of joy wrap around me. It was filled with a warmness only comparable to that of a mother's embrace, with euphoria quickly replacing any notion of guilt and seclusion I had previously had to endure. My muscles relax, my breathing slows and my teeth unclench. I still don’t know exactly what is going on, but those thoughts don’t bother me as I am truly happy.

6 minutes left.

The flashes start to slow, the initial euphoric sensations are subdued just enough that I can see more clearly. My vision clears to the soft glow of operating lights and I’m startled by the cries of a baby. As I look around for the source of such commotion, I see I am surrounded by nurses in scrubs and a small crowd of onlookers. These onlookers, I can’t exactly recall who they are, but their faces are familiar. I know they are not threats. Hushed whispers and cries of joy are heard over the monotone buzz of the lights.

I am lifted into the air.

“It's a girl!”

The onlookers all clammer to get a better look at me. The looks on their faces were loving, and caring. Just then, my voice starts to get raspy and the irritable cries of the baby falter. I look down and I realize I was the source of the cries. I was the baby. I don’t panic, everything seems so perfect. I am confused, but any worries or concerns about being in the body of a newborn girl disappear. I savoured the attention I was given, to be

in the spotlight, to be noticed and loved. I smile and try to speak. The baby's cries ring on again.

5 minutes left.

I am in a different setting now. I see the soft glow from the sun fall past the skyline as it paints the sky a stunning blood red. I’m in a different body now, still small, maybe that of a twelve-year-old

“Mila!” I spin around, still a bit disoriented, I see a girl in front of me.

“Ah, Amy! You found me!” I’m startled at first. Those words escaped my mouth against my will. I’m giggling uncontrollably now, laughing and dancing. I know I’m supposed to be questioning as to where I am why I am in the body of a young girl, or why I can’t seem to control any of my actions. However, those thoughts don’t linger. This all feels like a dream. I don’t need to understand anything and I don’t know anything except for the fact that I’m at peace.

I rock on the swing set, the blood-red sky now waning into a dark crimson. For a second, I see a slender, hooded figure out in the field. I squint a little bit, nothing but grass and rolling hills. I am talking and laughing with this other girl. She is my friend I think. I’m not certain what we are talking about and I don’t really care. I’m just focused on enjoying this moment. This minute.

4 minutes left.

I blink. I open my eyes. I’m in a dark room with colourful lights. The music commands my body to sway. I’m older now and the euphoric feelings from earlier wear off slightly. I can think better now as I watch my body move on its own towards the dance floor. There are a lot of people, I think they are dancing. I remember I learned about dancing in one of my old textbooks. It’s a bit strange to see this many people together and talking, but again, I’m just enjoying the moment.

A thought creeps into the back of my mind, a sudden urge to hurt these people disturbs the state of peace my mind was in.

I don’t dwell on that thought for long as in the corner, I notice something out of place, something so dark, that the shadows can’t hide it. The lights dim as this thing, this figure, glides in the shadows. It’s the same one I saw on the swings, this hooded figure is much taller and thinner up close, though it is hard to make out its exact shape in the absence of light. Fear and anxiety start to creep in through the veil of joy and serenity that shielded me prior.

Where am I? Whose body am I in? Who is that hooded figure and what does he want? The lights dim further.

3 minutes left.

Stars splattered on the dark canvas of the night sky, pulsing, each trying its hardest to grab my attention. Blades of grass poke at the exposed portions of my skin. I’m supposed to be at peace here, in such a serene setting. However, I feel uneasy, questions start to flood my mind, why am I in a stranger’s body? Call it a sixth sense, but I swear I can feel the burning gaze of someone, something locked onto the back of my head.

I spin around, my eyes take a moment to focus. I was surrounded by darkness, but in front of me, there was a figure so devoid of light that it stood out even through the darkness. The darkness grew, and whatever it was moved rapidly towards me. I turned to run, but as if trying to run in a dream, my legs grew soft and I couldn't move. Petrified as fear took over, all the previous happy thoughts were flushed away. My vision grew blurry, but I could still see the dark figure making its way closer.

I close my eyes, but I can still feel its presence looming. It brought upon a chill that froze me from the inside out. My breath starts to labour, I feel its touch, a touch so cold my eyes instinctively open. I see it now. The hooded figure moves till it is an inch away from my face, my knees start to give way and as I crumple to the ground, I try to catch sight of the visage under that cloak.

I saw my own face staring back, eyes filled with anticipation and lust. My body falls onto the grass, the wind is knocked out of my lungs. I look up at the night sky, the stars have left me and the canvas is empty. I searched for the stars that once seemed so plentiful, but there was nothing.

Then there was nothing.

“Damn it!” I yell. My mind clears up from the euphoric state I was in before.

I’m back in my own body now in this damp warehouse that was burned down a couple of years ago. I look down at my latest victim, this woman died too quickly, only lasting five minutes. It’s like a drug, I am addicted to killing people. I’m no monster though, I don’t slit their arteries because I enjoy killing. No, I need to kill to survive.

You know, in this world, people like me, we are born into this world cursed with powers. I just happened to be cursed with the ability to read people’s thoughts. However, in this desolate place, people’s minds are corrupted with so much darkness, reading other’s thoughts only brings more pain. I wouldn’t be here today if I hadn’t found an escape from all this darkness.

I remember my first time, a couple of years ago. I had no reason to take my sister’s life other than the curiosity of what goes on in a person’s mind before they die. As I slit her throat and watched her leave this wretched world, I entered her mind. In her mind, the minutes before she slipped away, her thoughts were pure, full of love as if her best memories had come flashing back. I have been chasing that feeling ever since. Those few minutes of euphoria come at the cost of another’s life. I do feel guilty sometimes, but as those wretched feelings grow more intense, they only push me to kill again. These days, I am much more experienced, I know where to slit so that the victims die slower, most last seven minutes before fully dying. Of course, I still make mistakes, this woman, my latest victim, I had rushed and made my cut too deep leading to her bleeding out in just five minutes.

I wipe the drying blood on my stained jeans and look down at the mess I created. The lifeless, foggy eyes of my latest victim. Her bruised fingers as she tried to crawl away in vain. Her tear-stricken face, now gray from the loss of blood. This ghastly sight brought back the horrible guilt that chases me every second of my miserable existence. I ran out the door of that damp warehouse and onto the street, my eyes searching for my next victim.

I need to escape those thoughts. I need to kill again. My eyes lock onto a frail boy by his lonesome. Hopefully, I don’t cut too deep again.


Later, when she’s older and her bones pop when she bends down, she’ll remember this. It makes sense. It smells the same-- Nebraska isn’t so different from Missouri in the rain, and it’s the same muddy scent, even though she’s on the driveway and not in the grass right now. The smell remains the same, and it’s the smell that’ll make her remember, when she’s older, this day in the rain.

She’ll remember how the rain beats down, plastering her hair to her forehead. It will be longer by then, but for now it's short and stuck against her skin, refusing any attempt she makes to fix it. Longer wisps of her hair are also stuck to her cheeks, but that’s nothing. They’ve been there for an hour now, cemented by tears. Maybe she’s crying now-- she doesn’t know. It doesn’t matter, not with the rain. She shivers-- he took his letter jacket back when he drove away and she hadn’t thought about the cold consequences of that when she’d gotten into the car earlier. Years from now, she’ll buy her own letter jacket from a thrift store, adorned with letters she didn’t earn, although she won’t be wearing it when she thinks about how the rain felt clinging to the back of her thin shirt. It’ll be inside, in the closet next to her graduation gown, and she will wear it to the farmer’s market on the days she doesn’t snooze her alarm.

Now, though, she’s cold. She shivers.

Later, when she’s forgotten exactly which day of July this is, she’ll still recall the moments she spent considering whether or not to go inside her house. She would love to get dry, of course, but it’ll be air conditioned, which would chill her to the bone. Besides, her mom is in there, and if she goes in, her mom’ll see her pink-rimmed eyes even if the rain has done away with the tears themselves, and she knows she’ll have to explain to her mom how the love of her life is gone, and she’ll have to hear her mom, trying her best to be consoling, tell her that she’s only seventeen and she has her whole life ahead of her, as if it doesn’t feel like it’s ending now. When she remembers that part, when she’s older, it’ll bring a tiny, fond smile to her lips, but for now, it just sends her into another sob. She can tell she’s truly crying now-- her tears are so hot against her frozen cheeks, and she tilts her head up towards the sky. She feels like she’s communing with the heavens themselves, like the storm clouds can recognize one of their own and her tattered, faded soul is just the right color. When she looks back on this moment, when she’s an adult, she’ll mostly remember how one particularly tenacious raindrop flew right into her left eye.

When she’s rented her own apartment and then moved on from that apartment to the small house she’ll be living in when she remembers how she felt, devastated, on her knees in the middle of driveway, watching the end of the street as if staring will make his headlights reappear, as if he’ll admit everything was his fault and he made a mistake by letting her go, if only she keeps watching the turn of the road, she’ll sigh. When a few years have passed and this is no longer the worst day anyone in the world has ever had, she’ll think about how she let him drive away and shake her head a little-- that visibility was truly dangerous to drive in. Right now, however, she just blinks. She knew this would happen and she still put on makeup this morning-- it’s dripping down the sides of her face and smudging onto the palms of her hands when she wipes it away. She thinks the worst is over when she sticks her left hand in her pocket and pulls out a crumpled receipt for a cheap noodle dish and she feels her lip quiver all over again and when she exhales heavily, it seems deafeningly loud, despite the noise of the rain. When she’s grown a bit, and hears her own laugh in the same caliber rain just as loudly, it reminds her of the way the rain faded into a static back then too. Right now, though, she’s just aware of the way her breath hitches in her throat and how it shudders once she forces it out and how half of her nose is blocked. It’s hard to breathe, she finds, and she shivers again. The world is so grey, so empty, and so is she. It’s fitting.

Later, when she’s older, with her hands on her knees, winded both from laughing and from chasing her eight-month old chow-chow mix around her yard, she’ll think back to now, where she’s running out of sob, as if her lungs simply won’t force air anymore. Right now, her life is over, and her future is blank. She clutches her own forearms, a gesture half self-consolation and half a last-ditch attempt to stay warm. The rain refuses to let up, aggressive, overbearing, deafening. In a few years, when the rain hits her just as hard, it won’t seem painful at all. In fact, when she’s older and the rain reminds her of this moment right now, the rain will seem comforting. After all, it’ll be the same rain, the same water, and she won’t be able to help but smile at her former, younger self, who cared and loved so hard. She’ll look up at the rain, making sure not to get it in her eye, and admire the clouds-- they’re not empty, she’ll find, but full and lovely and she’ll laugh, despite herself, before scooping up the damp and muddy puppy. He’ll make a mess when she gets him inside, sure, but it’ll be worth it, she will think. She’ll walk towards her own door and think about the boy she’d loved so much, and wonder if he’ll be in town for the high school reunion in a few months. They will have become friends again, by then, and she will be happy with that. She’ll look back at the rain once before opening the door with the non-puppy-carrying hand and smile again at the memory of sitting out in the rain, on her knees in the middle of her parents’ driveway, and she’ll take a deep breath to smell that same rain smell that had surrounded her then.

But for now, she steadies her breath and shivers again. She wipes away the last of her tears and the rain-- a fruitless effort, to be sure, as more rain continues to drip on her face-- and stands. She stands, and lets the rain run down her scalp, down her spine, and she takes a breath.