Men sweated all around her, but Karen Fleiss felt the heat only as a pleasant baking sensation after the cool of the SUV. She knelt next to the exposed footer to read the letters printed there. SHAWN She smiled. The name was blocked out in a childish hand, made clumsy by the drag of wet concrete. Still obscured by dirt and washed out in the high desert sun, it was surrounded by markings she couldn’t quite make out, but which seemed to place the name at the center of an eye with spiky lashes all around. She imagined the little boy, barefoot and dirty, scratching doodles around his signature, then running off with a grin. Into the wash, into the hills and scrub, in search of further mischief while his family finished constructing their new home. These days he’d be sitting in the car with a tablet. She would have it kept, of course. The name. Gene probably figured that much out already. He’d thought to point it out to her, after all, during her morning inspection. After six months, three designers, and five blueprints, he knew her tastes. It looked a little rough to go over the fireplace, but maybe it could be incorporated into some other part of the hearth. She already had plans to reuse concrete from the demolished footer. Maybe there were more designs. It would add a nice touch. A sense of continuity. Karen loved repurposed material. “Kid could be my age by now,” Gene offered cheerfully, standing behind her. Karen did not like that thought. She had been reaching out to touch the letters. Now she dropped her hand. A fresh-faced cherub was one thing. A middle-aged man was another. Sweet kids grew into terrible adults all the time. Now she had to think about things like whether or not Shawn had a criminal record. Gene Naddler did, she knew. Just the one offense, which she’d found before hiring him. She eventually decided to overlook it, since he came so highly recommended. That’s why Karen reserved her affection for animals and children, especially animals. They, at least, stayed innocent. That’s what she told her political young niece, whenever she went on about whatever new injustice was bothering her. It’s what she told those activists always accosting her on the way into the store, looking for money. I donate to the Humane Society. That’s why she was out here. A cattle-guard between her and everybody else’s problems. No one else’s buildings fencing in her stars. No one else’s light washing them out. She loved the space. She loved the sky. And all just a 5-minute drive into the city. Jess would of course be welcome to bring her children out to run around, like Shawn, if they could all just give up their screens and their causes for a day. “I thought the house was older than that,” she said, frowning. “An addition,” Gene explained, pointing. “Older style, with a footer instead of a slab, but abutted to the original wall.” “Hmm,” she said. “I’ve got to go.” “Got everything handled here, ma’am,” he replied, then sobered. “Good luck today.” With any luck, you can beat this, the doctors had said. We're doing everything we can. She nodded but said nothing, looking back at the name with the odd symbol scrawled around it. It was smudged at one end of the eye, like it had originally been a closed shape but got spoiled at the last minute by a careless finger. She wondered if that had upset the child. She reached out to touch the place… … and stood back to study her work, the stick still dangling from a thin left hand, caked in grey. She pushed a wild hank of hair back from her forehead. Shawn did not smile. “Now this room is yours forever,” said a voice behind her. “You’re written into the foundation. You’ll go right up through the walls.” Shawn continued to stare at her name in the fading light. Gloaming, the time in-between, when everything you did mattered a little bit more. “It’ll be safe out here,” her mother promised. Would it? Shawn thought of the people back in town. She thought of their eyes. She looked back at the lights of the small city, laid out on the valley floor. She watched the windows, winking open one by one. Those eyes would follow her, eventually, even here. They’d dot every hill, climb every ravine. Her mother didn’t know that, but she did. And they would all stare. “Why did we have to come here?” Her mother did not reply. “Why don’t you ever smile?” a boy had demanded once at school, before her mother had taken her out. “Why don’t you ever look at anyone?” She thought about that boy. His voice. Something hurt behind it that she couldn’t fix. She thought about the girl down the street, who didn’t mind all that, and how Shawn used to teach her spells, until one day she stopped coming over. She thought of Ms. May, and how she had only ever tried to help. She thought about the doctors. We've done everything we can, they said. A state hospital would be best. Her mother disagreed, and here they were. They’d build the room together, she said, so Shawn would know what was in the walls. Together they mixed and laid the concrete, though it took so very long by themselves. Others would come help lay stones in the morning - friends, her mother said - but in the meantime Shawn had been able to add her own ingredients to the foundation. As it dried, they put down Shawn’s wards at each corner, the ones she’d drawn all around her old room so she could sleep. Her mother was old-fashioned, and her mother had come from another land entirely, so they also buried one shoe each near the door that would lead into the main room. After everything was done, though, she also insisted Shawn write out her name, like a normal child might do. That was fair. This way they both felt better. But now that she had done so, Shawn began to feel afraid. Her name looked so alone there on the smooth concrete. Exposed. “Sweetie?” Quickly, Shawn drew a circle and felt a little better. A curl around her name. Hugging, almost. Protecting. She thought a moment, then added the spikes. “What is that?” her mother asked. “It looks scary.” Shawn didn’t answer. It did look a little scary. Good. Why did they have to be here? She hated it. There was too much space. The sky was too big. There were too many stars. And behind them, endless black. “It’s so closed in,” her mother complained. “Your name looks like it’s in jail.” Shawn shook her head. Her name wasn’t in jail. It was safe. She felt her mother touch her arm, ever so lightly. She’d waited long enough that Shawn was expecting it and didn’t jump away. “How about this,” her mother said softly, pushing past her a little to crouch at the wet concrete. “Can we leave open a little door, at least? In case your name ever wants to come out?” Shawn hesitated. Would her name ever want to come out? “Maybe,” she said. “What did you say?” asked Gene. “Maybe we can keep the footer,” Karen lied, standing up. “You want to work it into the floor plan?” he replied, his tone carefully neutral. “We’d have to have another meeting with all the subcontractors.” Karen studied Gene a moment. In a half year of working for her, he had always been congenial. He even accepted the background check with equanimity. That was his job, but she suddenly realized he probably didn’t like her very much. Why should he? Pain in the ass rich lady always changing her mind in the middle of a project. “Or we could just go with what we’ve got,” she said, picking up her bag. “I was just thinking out loud.” Was that a look of irritation? “I’m really distracted today,” she held up a hand in apology. “I’ll leave it to you. Really. Before I know it, I’ll have a great home to die in.” “Ma’am,” he began, looking embarrassed. Karen sighed. She was making things worse. “A good place to spend some time with family before that happens,” she amended, turning back toward her vehicle. Tablets, politics, and all. Maybe.


Day -1 A day before the challenge begins. Dear Diary, Tomorrow will be the first day of my month-long challenge that I have planned for weeks. I have set a goal to wake up at 5 a.m. every morning and write a thousand words toward finishing the first draft of my romance novel. Over the past few weeks, I was torn between a few equally fascinating writing prompts, but I ultimately settled on one with the title 'A Dance in the Moonlight.' Since I usually stay up late, waking up early every morning is challenging. This will require a significant change in my sleep schedule. No more negative thoughts. I am determined to stick to my plan and complete this challenge no matter how hard it can get. I hope this experience helps me become a more disciplined writer and develop better habits in my daily life. Wish me good luck! It's quarter to midnight. Despite going to bed before 11:00, I am wide awake and unable to fall asleep. I hope I don't fail on the first day of my challenge. No more whining and no more blue light to disrupt my night's sleep. Good night. Day 1 Dear Diary, My peaceful sleep was interrupted by the piercing sound of my phone's alarm, which rang at 5 a.m., forcing me to wake up. Initially, I was tempted to hit the snooze button and fall back into a deep slumber, but I resisted the urge and stayed awake. I forced myself to get out of bed, exhausted, with heavy eyes and a foggy brain. I stumbled towards the bathroom and splashed handfuls of cold water on my face to jolt my sleepy brain cells awake. The street was peacefully quiet, interrupted only by the occasional cheerful chirping of birds welcoming the looming rising sun. I clumsily made a cup of instant coffee and headed to my dining table, which also works as my work desk. Then I powered up my laptop, created a new Word document, and typed 'A Dance in the Moonlight' at the top of the page using a large, bold font. As I sipped my coffee, I gazed at the computer screen, trying to come up with the perfect opening line. After a prolonged period of indecision, I finally wrote the first sentence but deleted it a few minutes later as it didn't sound right. At around 6:30 a.m., my mind finally decided to cooperate. By 8 a.m., I had only written around five hundred words, forming lousy sentences that didn't align with my writing style. I fell five hundred words short of my first day's goal, but it was time to prepare for work. Exhausted and discouraged by failing to write the planned thousand words, I left my home and walked toward the bus station. Day 2 Dear Diary, Since I couldn't sleep until midnight, waking up this morning was even more difficult than yesterday. Last night, I caught up with my old friends over dinner and then hit the town for drinks. Changing my routine to wake up early requires lifestyle changes and sacrifices I'm not ready to make yet. Going out at night no longer fits with my new lifestyle. Once more, with my coffee in hand, I walked up to my table and sat in front of my laptop, staring at the blank Word document. To jumpstart my creative thinking, I revisited the writing I had completed yesterday. To be completely honest, I despised every bit of the writing as if it were written by someone other than me. By 8 a.m., I had only revised my previous day's writing. However, I could expand it to a length of 800 words. When I left for work, I was 1200 words short of my goal for the second day of my challenge. Day 7 Dear Diary, It's hard to believe it's already been a week since I started this challenge. I began sleeping earlier, and waking up at 5 a.m. has undoubtedly become easier. I'm also feeling less restless at work. Yet, my writing brain willfully opposes the change. Each morning, I find myself spending a long time staring at my blank Word document, waiting for my stubborn mind to function. My writing progress over the past week was disappointing, as I only achieved writing around 3000 words, far below my intended target.

Day 15 Dear Diary, I am halfway through the challenge, and I must admit, it's becoming easier to wake up early with each passing day. Although I believe that early morning is the most productive time for writing, I can't help but feel that it doesn't work for me. I have been making little progress in my writing for the past two weeks. There may be two distinct genetic predispositions regarding sleep patterns: individuals who are naturally early risers and those who are naturally inclined to stay up late. When I think about my past, I remember taking advantage of the quiet at night to study. In college, I frequently went on late-night adventures. These memories reinforce my belief that I am naturally inclined towards a nocturnal lifestyle. I finally broke my writing block today by writing over a thousand words, precisely 1236 words, which I haven't achieved in the past two weeks. However, I'm still quite far from reaching my target goal for the fifteenth day of my challenge. Day 20 Dear Diary, Yesterday was my mother's birthday. Last night, my siblings and I treated her to a fancy restaurant and stayed out until very late. So, getting up early this morning was quite a struggle. Once my phone alarm sounded, I wanted to hit the off button and return to sleep. However, I couldn't forgive myself for failing a thirty-day challenge on its twentieth day. I left the bed an hour later than planned, and even a strong cup of coffee didn't improve my gloomy mood. I wasn't mentally prepared to sit down and write. Instead, I stayed tuned to the TV news until I departed for work. My writing productivity for today was nil. Day 30 Dear Diary, I am proud of myself for persevering and completing the thirty-day challenge. Waking up at 5 a.m. is much easier than before, but I had to sacrifice my social life to reach this point. I haven't seen most of my nocturnal friends, and if I continue this new lifestyle, I will lose them all. Although I've made some progress with my creative writing in the morning, it's still nowhere near my nighttime writing. So, this month-long trial proved this lifestyle is not for me. I am nocturnal, and waking up this early is against my nature. I'm glad I've completed my thirty-day challenge and can finally stop waking up early. Day 31 Dear Diary, My eyes popped open precisely at 5 a.m. this morning, even without setting an alarm. I gave up on trying to fall back asleep after ten minutes and got out of bed. Holding a cup of coffee, I went to my table and sat in front of my laptop. In no time and with ease, my fingers swiftly moved across the keys, effortlessly bringing words and sentences to life without burdening my creative mind. By 8 a.m., I had written nearly three thousand words and knew there was more to come. However, I had to stop to avoid being late for work. Today was my most productive writing day ever.


In the quiet town of Belmont, life tended to move at its own, unhurried pace. Main Street, lined with family-owned businesses, bore silent testimony to the passage of time. The town's calendar revolved around the school games, Sunday church services, and seasonal festivities. It was a life untouched by the capriciousness of the big cities, one that thrived on routine and familiarity. At the heart of this tranquil normality were four lifelong friends - Mark, an affable mechanic who ran the local garage, Lucy, the spirited school teacher, Peter, the town's lone postman, and Grace, the matronly cafe owner. Their lives were interwoven in the tapestry of Belmont, a friendship born out of shared school memories and countless summer afternoons. They were an inseparable quartet, each as familiar with the others' routine as their own. However, a day arrived when the rhythm of Belmont's life missed a beat. It began subtly, a slow crescendo barely noticeable. Peter forgot his mail route, a path he'd walked for the better part of two decades, while Mark found himself unable to fix a car problem he'd solved countless times before. Grace baked her famous cherry pie, but couldn't recall where she learned the recipe, and Lucy couldn't remember teaching lessons that her students clearly recalled. The strangeness didn't stop there. They began noticing the limits of their world. Attempts to drive out of Belmont were met with an inexplicable compulsion to turn around, or sudden obstacles that forced them back. Conversations began to seem eerily familiar, as though they were a script everyone knew by heart, a performance on repeat. Shared experiences abruptly ended at certain points, as if someone had cleanly snipped away parts of their memories. The small peculiarities snowballed into an avalanche of confusion. While Belmont still held its peaceful charm, the town's once comforting routine now felt more like a question, a riddle that the friends were unwittingly part of. It was this shared sense of unbelonging and the sudden anomalies in their mundane world that led them to an astonishing realization - they were starting to wake up within a reality they had always taken for granted. In the back room of Mark's old garage, cluttered with the remnants of forgotten auto parts and dust-coated equipment, sat an antiquated computer system. It was an inheritance from Mark's grandfather, a man who loved technology before it was fashionable. Over the years, the machine had become more of a relic, a testament to the past. One day, in an attempt to alleviate the disquiet that the recent anomalies had instilled, Mark powered up the computer, hoping to lose himself in the simplicity of wires and circuits. As he navigated the ancient operating system, he stumbled upon an old digital file titled, "The Tale of Belmont." Intrigued, he opened it and started reading, only to find his heart hammering in his chest. It was their lives, detailed in precise chronology. There were their conversations, word for word, their thoughts, their relationships, all chronicled as if they were mere characters in a book. The text even outlined future events, the school's annual fair, Grace's new pie recipe, Lucy's history lesson - events that were yet to occur. In disbelief, he shared his findings with Lucy, Peter, and Grace. Their initial reaction was dismissive. "It's got to be some elaborate prank," Peter scoffed, "or maybe you're writing a novel in your sleep, Mark." They laughed it off as a bizarre coincidence, a figment of their collective stress. Yet, as the days passed, the 'predictions' from the digital text started materializing, amplifying their unease. The school fair went exactly as written, Grace created her new pie without even realizing, and Lucy delivered her history lesson as per the script. The fear of an unknown observer puppeteering their lives gripped them. In a desperate attempt to debunk this unsettling narrative, they decided to defy the text. They changed plans, broke their routines, and deliberately acted out of character. If they were merely characters in a book, any deviation from the written script should be impossible. Yet, something even more astonishing happened. The text on the old computer changed. It morphed in real-time to match their new decisions, echoing their altered dialogues and actions. This realization hit them like a thunderbolt - they were indeed living in a story, but they were not bound by it. They were not just following a pre-determined script; their actions could influence it. The familiarity of their mundane existence shattered, replaced by the chilling awareness of their orchestrated reality. The lives they had led until now, the essence of their being, was it all simply part of someone's grand story? Did they exist only because someone else had written them into existence? With each passing moment, the lines between fiction and reality blurred, leaving them standing on the precipice of an uncanny revelation. The world they knew, the town they loved, and the lives they lived were merely constructs of a story, and they were the living, breathing characters. Anxiety and exhilaration commingled in their hearts as they grappled with the implications of their revelation. They were characters in a story, but they were also free, able to write their own narrative within the framework of this fictional existence. They began experimenting, testing the elasticity of their reality, pushing at its seams to understand the extent of their autonomy. They did the unthinkable, the unexpected, the uncharacteristic. Grace, known for her warmth, became aloof. Peter, the gentle soul, picked fights. Mark, the tech geek, abandoned his machines. Lucy, the history enthusiast, began ignoring her books. Each day they tested their boundaries, straying from their routine, defying their predefined roles. But the most audacious of their attempts involved trying to step beyond the physical limits of their town, a boundary they had never thought to cross before. They embarked on a journey to the edge of their known world, driving far beyond the usual scope of their existence. As their behaviours became increasingly erratic, the 'author' of their lives seemed to perceive their rebellion. In an attempt to regain control, plot twists started appearing in their narrative. An unexpected storm blocked their path out of town, forcing them to turn back. Fights escalated, resulting in situations that necessitated reconciliation. Old flames resurfaced, and unexplainable events occurred, all seemingly designed to return them to their intended path, their prescribed roles. These orchestrated interventions by the unseen 'author' became a source of both fear and defiance. They had caught the attention of their creator, and the very act of rebellion was validation of their existence beyond mere ink on a page. The climax of their resistance was met with a thrilling confrontation with the 'author', a battle of wills between the creator and the created. Their lives had become a paradox, a dance between predestination and free will, as they fought to assert their autonomy within a written narrative. The heady climax ebbed away, leaving the characters grappling with the aftermath of their audacious confrontation. The acceptance of their existence as elements of a story came not in an electrifying moment of epiphany, but rather as a creeping realization, like dawn slowly dispelling the darkness. They found themselves at a crossroads. Some, like Grace and Peter, took solace in the patterned predictability of their predestined lives. Their roles, though prescribed, had a comforting familiarity that they chose to embrace rather than reject. It was a solace tinged with resignation, a reluctant peace born from the understanding that they were mere strokes of a pen, figments of an author's imagination. Others, however, like Mark and Lucy, struggled against the constraints of their existence, the pain of their lack of autonomy a bitter pill to swallow. Their every action was now tinged with a haunting awareness of the unseen authorial hand guiding their lives. Yet they knew they couldn't rage against their reality forever. Change came, slowly but surely, as they began to understand that while they could not control who had created them or the narrative structure within which they existed, they had some degree of control over their own reactions and attitudes. They could choose to live their lives in the most authentic way possible within their confines, rather than simply acting out the parts written for them. With newfound resolve, they started to interact with their world in ways that felt true to them, regardless of the script. Their laughter was no longer hollow echoes of written dialogue, but genuine expressions of joy; their tears were not mere narrative devices but reflections of their heartfelt emotions. In acceptance, they found a semblance of freedom, their lives a testament to their resilience amidst the confounding truth of their existence. As the characters navigated the intricacies of their newfound reality, an unspoken unity blossomed amongst them. A bond formed, not merely born out of shared circumstances but from a collective acceptance of their surreal existence. They found solace in their mutual understanding, in the quiet acknowledgement of the reality that they were all ink on a page, characters crafted from the author's imagination. Through the strange twist of their existence, they stumbled upon an insight, a sliver of universal truth that transcended the confines of their literary world. They understood that even in the realm of the 'real', every individual has a limited say in the broader narrative of their life. Fate, societal norms, upbringing – there were countless factors beyond their control shaping their existence. Yet, it was their choices within those limitations that truly defined them. It was a realization that, although they were characters in a story, they too had the power to shape their narrative through their reactions, their emotions, and their decisions. They were not merely puppets dancing to the author's tune but beings capable of colour and vibrancy, breathing life into the words that shaped their world. And so, they decided to move forward. Not as mere characters bound to a predestined path, but as conscious entities capable of living within their constraints yet not entirely defined by them. The 'author' still loomed, an omnipresent force that could at any moment choose to pen a plot twist. But they chose not to let this looming presence overshadow their existence. They found ways to live, to laugh, to love within the written lines, the black ink of their existence infused with the radiant hues of their authenticity. They became more than just characters in a story. They became the story, their voices resonating within each word, each sentence, each page. Their lives continued, the spectre of the author a constant presence, but one they acknowledged without allowing it to govern their existence. Their world, once mundane, was now imbued with a peculiar profundity, a testament to their resilience and their ability to seek joy and meaning in the most unusual circumstances. As they navigated their narrative, they did so with a renewed sense of purpose. They were no longer just characters in a story but beings who had embraced their peculiar existence, turning it into a testament of the power of choice and the resilience of the spirit. The final lines of their story were yet unwritten, but they were ready to meet them, their hearts filled with the courage to live each day not as it was written for them, but as they chose to write it themselves.


He wasn't much good at waiting but walking into the office of the woman you've loved for decades unannounced wasn't a great tactic. The fact this version of Heath Breeland stood seven inches taller than the original only added to his conundrum. It would be one thing if LeeAnn recognized him and totally another to explain it.

The last time they spoke, Heath the OG made a lighthearted remark, suggesting that if he could only find a portal to a parallel universe, he'd show up at her door, flowers in one hand, hope in the other. And, in the spirit of that impossibility, LeeAnn gave her harmonic laugh and readily agreed to let him in.

Now, a week since that fateful conversation, Heath stood in the shade of a weeping willow, anxiously awaiting to capture the heart he so craved.

He remained partially hidden and cool while keeping the front door of LeeAnn's interior design business in plain view. Rechecking his watch told him only five minutes had passed since his last glance, and it would be another hour before LeeAnn closed up shop.

While his transformation would cause some difficulty in identification, LeeAnn was unmistakable. Standing nearly six feet tall, the woman was slender, strong, and elegant. Flowing blonde hair that often carried tints of bronze or twists of ginger bounced, swayed, and floated to the middle of her back. If she wore her hair up, it revealed a long, graceful neck, small ears, and a well-shaped, feminine jaw.

The centerpiece of her beauty lay in a smile that beamed warmth, kindness, and good humor, and above a delicate Nordic nose were eyes that dazzled in a yet unnamed combination of blue, green, and gold.

Heath had known LeeAnn for nearly forty years. From early childhood, laughing and playing in the innocence of youth, through their teenage years until a break caused by the arrival of adulthood and all that goes with it. In the decades since their paths diverged, Heath had yet to lay eyes on a woman as beautiful as her.

Inexplicably, the universe decided to grant his wish, and Heath hoped, maybe LeeAnn's too.

*** Being an archeologist was rarely, if ever, like scenes from Indiana Jones. During his accomplished but dull career, Heath never discovered lost cities secreting treasures guarded by booby-trapped corridors. The closest he'd come to anything like that was helping excavate the foundations of buried structures that surprised him with a few snakes and spiders.

Everything changed when he was summoned to the site of the ancient Phoenician site in Sardinia, but he wasn't on his hand and knees scooping primordial soil into a sieve when he saw it.

Adhering to the Italian fashion of shutting down work in the mid-afternoon hours, he'd taken his lunch pack and walked to a lone olive tree sitting in a hollow on the hill. Having eaten a remarkably delicious Italian tomato and cheese sandwich and enjoyed the overly sweet but addictive limoncello carbonated beverage, Heath made a headrest from his pouch, then stretched in the shade of the tree with the air warm against his skin and lulled by the rhythmic wash of the sea against the shore.

Still unaccustomed to napping midway through the day, he'd rolled over, turning his face toward the twisting bark at the base of the tree when the glow of a soft blue light caught his eye.

At first, he'd thought it was a reflection off his watch, a stone, or something else catching the sun, bouncing back a spot of the azure sea, but instead, the light seemed to be emanating from within the root structure. Being a digger, he began scratching away the earth from the tangle, and as more the light shone, the soil around began to fall deeper into a void beneath the tree. With hardly any work, the small opening grew to a chasm pulsing with a blue hue.

Before the Phoenicians settled the area, the land was home to the Nuragic, a civilization dating back to the 1900s B.C. Not much is known about those peoples despite leaving the landscape dotted with over 700 structures, including the 350 Tomba dei Gigant- Tombs of Giants , and the awe-inspiring water temple, named the Sanctuary of Santa Maria, an intricate designed subterranean well that aligned with moon phases experts declared would be hard to replicate today. The fact primitive peoples made it remains unexplained.

Heath quickly ran through his mental notes on what he knew of them and their history, but nothing about an olive tree with roots of blue light rang a bell.

He dug deeper. The hard-packed earth, a mixture of limestone and clay, began to soften until a wide swath of it sloughed away into the hole below, and now Heath could see that the blue light came from somewhere further down. The shimmering that caught his eye was a reflection bouncing off the congealed sap that clung to the root structure in great globs. The opening, large enough for him to easily slide into, left him with a choice; go or stay. Curiosity is crucial to being a successful archeologist, so he'd only faintly considered the latter.

With a final look over his shoulder, Heath grabbed his pack and slid into the abyss.

*** By the time he'd jogged across the parking lot and crossed the street, LeeAnn had locked the door behind her and strolled around the corner. An unrealistic fear of having her vanish around the turn gripped his heart.

Dressed smartly in a loose white blouse decorated with floral stitchings of pinks, purples, reds, and stems of green over top form-fitting blue slacks, LeeAnn strode along in a pair of white heels matching her shirt. With her head up and her long, wavy curls bouncing over her shoulders, the woman moved along the sidewalk with the grace and poise of a model, having forgotten the impact of her beauty on passersby.

"LeeAnn!" Heath called out between breaths as he hurried to catch up. It was a marvelous habit of hers–always greeting someone with a smile, and when she turned to address the source of her beckoning, Heath stumbled, then stopped. Standing still and gazing at her, he smiled. It had been too long since he'd laid his eyes upon her. And, as usual, he cursed under his breath, never able to process her beauty; "Lord have mercy." Her smile faded as she looked in the face of her caller. Her eyes held recognition and confusion. She took a step backward, then glanced over both shoulders to verify her surroundings before returning her gaze to the strange but familiar man standing before her. A burst of nervous laughter came from her throat as she braved a step closer, then, shaking her head, she spoke, doubting the words that left her lips.

"This isn't real. Heath?"

"Hello, LeeAnn," he replied, handing her a bouquet of exotic orchids, lilies, and roses. "Yes. It's me. Heath. I found it–the portal. It happened." “Hah-hah-ha!” She threw her back, her long neck extending and hair falling away from her ears, revealing a set of gold hoops swinging at a pendulum's pace. Clapping her hands made a crisp smack, and she responded with a robust laugh. "Nice try. He's clever, I'll admit, but this is going too far, even for him!"

Heath laughed, at her, himself, the absurdity of the situation, and the impossibility of having to explain it convincingly.

Waving a long and beautifully manicured finger at him, she replied. "And I'm a member of the Royal Family living in obscurity rather than a single mother and over-worked decorator!"

Heath stepped closer and watched LeeAnn's smile evaporate once again. She narrowed her eyes, looking him over closely.

"But. It can't be–can it? " she asked, moving a step closer to him. "Can it?" "It can't, but I promise it is. It's me. I'm real. It happened." With an avalanche of words, Heath recounted the events in Sardinia, what he found, how it happened, and how he came to see himself standing before her today, the same man, albeit much taller and slightly slimmer but with the same white in his hair, the same face and eyes.

Listening without interruption, LeeAnn erased the remaining space between them, raised a hand to his face, and finally spoke. "But how? How are you taller? How can you be different but the same?"

"From them, the Nuragic. Consequentially, they are real, living in underground cities you can't imagine. You have to see it to believe it, and in case you were wondering, the legends are true–they are giants." Looking up at him, LeeAnn ran her fingers through his thick hair, her fingertips softly brushing along his chin, then she took the flowers from his hand and giggled. "You're more handsome as a taller man."  Suddenly becoming aware of the two of them standing in the street, she dropped her hand from his face and took his hand. "Okay, this whole business requires a drink. Come with me." The fold of her fingers over his sent waves of indescribable contentment through his entire body, and Heath, having known long ago that he would go anywhere LeeAnn led him, readily followed along.

A few minutes later, the pair were seated at a table in the corner of the bistro, LeeAnn gazing with disbelief at Heath while he tried not to faint from the overwhelming joy of being in her company. It was all he could do to focus on answering her questions, of which there were many, and give answers as plainly as possible.

"So, you want me to believe you fell asleep like Snow White under an olive tree, then fell into a hole in the earth and landed amongst a lost civilization of giants in underground cities." she recounted. "Then, out of the goodness of their hearts, they gave you some magic beans to make you sprout up nearly a foot, then showed you a door where you can jump through time and space?" "Space, yes. Time, not that I know of. As far as I can tell, everything is as it was. Nothing is different except that I am here, with you, precisely how I had dreamed about a million times. And it wasn't beans, but a type of corn--I think."  Heath looked sheepish momentarily before screwing up the courage to tell her the rest. "It wasn't random; me being here, taller, and to see you," he confessed. "They asked me to tell them my dream, and my dream is you." LeeAnn looked at him quizzically. "What about you-you? The original version? What happens to him?"

Heath smiled. "That's the best part! At least, I think it is." He began to explain as best as he could understand. "He's back up top in Sardinia, scraping rocks and gathering dirt into buckets–the Nuragic exist with twin souls. Each of us has a double, one that exists as a separate entity while the other remains in the community or ventures out to discover other experiences."

LeeAnn raised the glass of Pinot Grigio and took a long drink, then set the glass back down with her impeccable French-tipped nails drumming on the stem. "And you–he, will go on living life the same way, doing the same things, thinking the same thoughts, without any knowledge of this-you running around in the world?" "That's how I understand it, yes," Heath answered, calmly trying to mask his eagerness to tell her the next piece of information gleaned from the Nuragic giants.

LeeAnn comically dropped her chin to her chest and shook her head, sending her long hair blustering about like a lion shaking his mane and then shrieking with amusement.

"What's so funny? Besides everything about this?" Heath asked, reveling in the sound of her laughter.

"OG you!" she answered. "You'd better not run into him; that guy has a very serious crush on me!"

"Hmm. Yeah. There's a rule about that," Heath answered. "The giants made it rather clear that the twin entities must never converge. Observing the other from a distance is fine, but apparently, bad things happen when you get too close." "How do you speak with them?"

"It's telepathic, as far as I can figure. Their lips move, and they hum more than annunciate, but you hear everything in your head in plain English. It's rather remarkable, really." "I bet it is," she answered. Then LeeAnn looked at Heath with serious eyes. "So, what are you going to do? Why are you here?" Heath took her hand. Light as a feather, it rested in his. "I'm here for you, LeeAnn. I said I would come. You know how I feel about you–what I want." Her eyes flared, and a beat of blush rose in her cheeks, then she drew her hand away. "You know that's not possible," she said. "What about my kids? My life? I can't just walk away and disappear. Sure, you showed up looking exactly like I wished for a time or two, but that doesn't mean I can drop my life and run away with you, even if I wanted." "You don't have to. But, if you want to take the chance, to trust me, and let me love you the way I want, in the way you deserve." Heath paused. This was the scary part, and he'd run through a thousand versions of what to say and how while he waited for her to finish her work day. He swallowed and silently prayed for the right words to come.

"We can make portals anywhere. We can manifest whatever we want. The Nuragic showed me the universe is just a system of channels tuned to different frequencies," Heath explained. "Why, you could change anything you wanted. You can try being shorter or having hair as black as coal." A mischievous smile appeared as he offered his following words. "If you wanted to know the feeling of being more curvaceous, all you have to do is think it and wink," he said, referring to LeeAnn's past complaints of being small-breasted. "Everything is possible."

 Heath reached into his pocket and pulled out a small cloth sack. Slipping off the tie, he turned the pouch over and emptied it onto the table. A gemstone the size of a walnut, rolled across the tablecloth. The nugget pulsed with blue light.

"The only requirement is that your desires be true. If you believe in what you want, it's only a matter of asking." Heath explained and clasped her hands in his. "Nothing changes here. Your kids have you, and this you continues on this path."

Heath took a gulp of air and forced himself to be vulnerable to her, the woman he'd loved as much as his other life allowed, as much as it was possible. "You can't imagine how well I could love you. I mean, I already do, but I can show you happiness. I can give you the things you've been wanting for so long. All those spaces inside of you that have ached for the kind of love I can give."

LeeAnn felt the trickle of tears running down her cheek as she sat listening to this man who had somehow stumbled onto the impossible, found the answer to the inconceivable, and bared his heart and soul–for her.

Through all the years of his unwavering attention, silly, romantic, comical affections, and unyielding declarations of admiration, he was here, presenting himself to her, having overcome the final, superficial, but concrete boundaries she had held.

All he wanted was her.

She sniffled, gave a short burst of laughter, and took her hands away from his, seizing a cloth napkin to dab her eyes. "You're going to ruin my makeup," she remarked and laughed again. But when she finished wiping her tears away and looked at him again, Heath had never seen such a beautiful face. Nodding as she spoke, her heart sent the words her mind could not find.

"I'll never understand what I've done to make you feel this way about me," she said between laughing sobs. "I've hardly given you any attention at all, and I've never led you to believe something that wasn't true. But, ok. Yes." Then a whimsical, joyous bubble of laughter broke from somewhere deep within, and she repeated the word. "Yes." Feeling like he was going to explode into a billion atoms, Heath was about to speak, but LeeAnn sprang from her chair, leaned across the table, threw her arms around his neck, and kissed him. "Now take me with you, and don't you dare break my heart!" she commanded.

Squeezing her hand, Heath looked into her dazzling, sparkling eyes and told her the truth he knew. "You are my heart."


Felix Maratosa was what one would call a man of the road.

Just like the Roger Miller tune, he was king of the road.

Haunting the ophidian 101 highway, Felix had spent his life traveling north of south like a tumbleweed traveling on the whim of the wind.

My name is Salvatore Rossini or just plain Sal owner of Sal’s Cafe just outside of Crescent City, California where we serve the best burger on the Pacific West Coast. Felix will come in about once every few weeks on his way to wherever the wind happens to be blowing.

We will sit and talk about his big adventures since we last chatted. Most of the time he talks about the lonely stretches of road where he stands with his thumb extended and facing the wind and rain blowing in from the sea. We have a few laughs and reminisce about past days when being king of the road was considered an honorable occupation.

I was once one of those kings until I met Rosa, got married and became a respectable businessman.

Still there are times when I find myself longing for my old ways.

Things have changed since the last time I stuck out my thumb or jumped into an empty boxcar. But when he told me about the house of shadows, I knew my drifting days were done.

About three months ago Felix Maratosa told me about the place up past Rio Dell.

Once Rio Dell was a popular campsite back a few decades ago when there were still real Hippies, but times change and some of the campsites were left to nature.

Up on a hill there was this farmhouse that had been left to rot and decay over time.

After a long day on the road carrying his sleeping bag, Felix saw the farmhouse and headed toward it as shelter for the night.

When you are king of the road, you are drawn to deserted places to shelter in for the night.

Even though it had appeared to have been abandoned for quite some time, the overall structure was still quite sturdy and did not seem to pose a threat of collapsing any time soon.

“What’s your name?” He heard a voice in the deepening dusk that made him turn around and when he did, there was nobody there. “Looks like one of those hobos.” Another voice commented. “Like the ones that used to come around during the Depression.”

“Yeah, yeah, they would camp up on the hill.” Yet another voice added. Under most circumstances, a rational man would continue onward, but Felix was not known to be a rational man.

After spending most of his life on the road, the rational part of his brain was just about all used up.

Beggars can't be choosers he reasoned as he opened the creaky door.

When he stepped inside the door, he noticed that there was furniture, none of it appeared to be functional, but just the presence of what was once somebody’s belongings was still quite a revelation. Most of these abandoned houses had been stripped of anything that could be useful. “Welcome.” It must be the wind he reasoned even though he clearly heard the word spoken aloud. Pulling out the eclectic battery powered lamp, he pushed the toggle and instantly the room was illuminated.

Having light is a great comfort to a king of the road, but what he saw was far from comforting.

As the light filled the dark room, the wall filled with shadows.

Normally shadows are formed when someone or something gets between the light source and the wall, but there was nothing in the room besides Felix.

He just stood there, mouth agape, staring at the shadows congregated on the wall, each of them moving without substance or form.

There was a faint hint of music that sounded like old Tin Pan Alley and it appeared that the shadows were moving to the music.

Yes, it appeared that the shadows were dancing. “Oh this gin is so rough.” A voice commented as female laughter followed. “Brewed it myself in the bathtub this afternoon.” Another voice sounded. “Who are you people?” Felix called out feeling a cold river running up his spine. “Did somebody say something?

Chet, who was that rude person?” It was a woman’s voice. “Darling, I have no clue.” A man’s voice responded.

Felix pulled out his baseball bat that he carried with him for protection and held it in his hands as if he was getting ready to hit a fastball. “This ain’t right.” He hissed, gripping the bat even tighter. “It happened so long ago.” Another disembodied voice was heard. “I mixed the gin the way I always had.” This voice sounded apologetic. “I don’t know what could have gone wrong.” “You used rat poison for fermentation, perhaps.” Each voice seemed to come from a different place in the room.

The music played on.

It was a bubbly tune right out of the Roaring Twenties. “It was an accident.”

“But when the police came, it was too late.

Most of us were deceased.” Felix swung his bat, “What are you talking about?” “Christmas party, 1925.” “Prohibition.” “We had to make our own.” “Some of us were still learning how.” “Some of us were careless.”

“Who are you people?” Felix was frantic. “All that’s left of us are these shadows on the wall. Doomed to dance the dances we did back then.”

His next swing he hit his lamp full on, knocking it across the room.

When it hit the wall, the light went out. “Now what did you do that for?” Felix could feel a breeze on his face that made him flinch. Even without the light, Felix sensed that the shadows on the wall were still there and he began to feel ill at ease. “Do you dance, handsome.” A phantom finger ran under his chin.

He jumped when he felt the eerie sensation. “Handsome?

Who are you?” He swung the bat again in the dark. “My name is Evelyn.

I was single.

I was just twenty

three.

They found me by the stairs over there.”

Felix saw the stairs even in the dark.

The steps were painted white and shown in the scant moonlight.

“The pain was terrible, you know.” Evelyn ran her finger around his ear and once again he jumped.

She had no substance.

She was nothing more than a shadow.

They were all shadows.

It was a house of shadows, but even without light they were there as if it was Christmas 1925 all over again.

“I drank a lot and threw up blood.” A voice replied in his left ear. “My name is Nick, what’s yours?”

“Felix.” He answered. “I went to Harvard, you know.” Nick chuckled. “Nick, I can’t even see you right now.” Felix gripped his bat ready to swing at Nick. “Silly chap, I am just a shadow you can’t see or strike with your bat.” He laughed, but the laugh sounded like it came from a very evil place. Felix swung his bat and shattered a lamp that was on an end table.

He doubted the lamp had been used in over fifty years.

“Someone will have to clean up that mess.” A woman said indignantly. “Where are you going?” Nick asked Felix as he picked up his bag. “Away from here.” He answered. “Don’t go.” Nick whined, “It’s been so long since we’ve had someone new join us.”

“But you are all dead.” Felix blurted out. “It’s all my fault.

I’m Oliver.

I brewed the gin.”

“Oliver, you really screwed up.” Felix opened the door. “Where will you go?” Evelyn asked, running her fingers through his greasy hair.

Felix pulled away from her.

“You can’t leave.” Someone said from across the room. “Why not?

You people are just shadows on the wall.” Felix sihed.

He was tired and the thought of facing the elements out on that deserted road where the wind blew an icy rain over everything that had no shelter. “It’s cold out there.

You don’t belong in that.” Evelyn's voice was soothing and brought Felix to a pause.

When she was alive, Felix pictured Evelyn as charming and seductive.

Nick would not be a friend of his with his Ivy League manners, but even with his upper crust etiquette, there was something endearing about the young man. Even Oliver, the one who had unintentionally killed them all from drinking his poison bathtub gin seemed like a decent sort.

“You know, a few years ago, I hung out in Haight. One of the guys cut some heroine.

Now I don’t ride the horse, but a lot of my friends did and by the morning six of them had overdosed.” Felix had never told anyone that story.

He was so ashamed, he walked out without reporting it to the authorities.

He didn’t trust them anyway, but he was always weighed down by the guilt of it all.

“You poor man.” Evelyn comforted him.

“Yeah, that’s rough.” Nick said sympathetically.

The music stopped. “Hey, look, I didn’t mean to ruin your party.” Felix bowed his head. “Our party was ruined almost a hundred years ago.” Oliver sighed heavily.

“So what’s your deal?” Felix asked. “We are what’s left of this celebration. We all planned to come out to California for the holidays to get away from our families and really kick up our heels, but now you have seen what happened to us.” Chet chuckled.

“We thought we had our whole lives ahead of us, but that did not happen.” Cindy sat on the arm of the couch next to Felix who was still holding his bag. “After the war and the epidemic, we wanted to have a blow out to celebrate our youth and vitality.” Oliver smiled or so it seemed since he was only a shadow.  “What is ironic is that most people spend their lives as shadows. They walk through their lives as only a shadow of what they were meant to be.

We were determined not to be like that, but as you can see, it didn’t work out so well for us.” Evelyn let out a small giggle. “In the end we were no better than what we tried not to be.”

“Back when we were young, we thought we’d live forever.” Chet’s voice seemed to float away in the wind. “That didn’t turn out like we planned.” Cindy nodded.

“At least here we can get together every night and relive what was taken from us.

We never expected anyone else would ever join us.” Oliver added. “Well, I have no intention of joining you.” Felix looked around the dark room and in the moonlight that was peeking through the window, he noticed the cobwebs hanging from the window frames. “My journey still continues.” “We’d ask you to take us with you, but as soon as the sun comes up we all disappear as if we never were.” Cindy said with a catch in her voice. “It reminds us of who and what we are.

Sometimes I wish that the sun wouldn't rise in the morning, but it always does.

It always does.”

Felix gave what she had said some consideration.

He had never thought about shadows before, how they can only exist if there is someone connected to them, but once the person is no longer there, neither is the shadow. Each of them had lost their substance, they were all confined to this house of shadows, a house that wasn’t meant for occupation.

“You wouldn’t mind if we continued our party?” Chet asked as the music started playing again. “There is a room upstairs.

You can close the door while we continue to dance.”

“Sure...sure.” He nodded and took his bag up the stairs, into the bedroom and then closed the door behind him. He could hear the music muffled behind the closed door.

In only a few short minutes he was asleep and dreaming strange dreams of what he had encountered.

The next morning he awoke as the sun was making its first appearance over the horizon.

He slept well, so well he had nearly forgotten the shadows from the night before.

Walking slowly down the stairs, he saw the lamp still lying shattered on the floor. Glancing at the flowery wallpaper, there was not a single shadow to be seen anywhere that resembled the silhouette of a human being other than his own. “Hello.” He waved to his own shadow feeling silly, his shadow waved back. He would leave and start walking up the road to where he saw a small greasy spoon facing the bay.

With ten dollars in his pocket, he figured he’d have enough for a good breakfast.

With any luck he’d be in the Bay area where he could panhandle some real cabbage before finding a comfortable place in the park to spend the night, but nights could be cold in San Francisco.

What did Mark Twain once say?

Oh yeah, “the coldest winter I ever had was the summer I spent in San Francisco.”

Still he would make the best of it. Before leaving he sat on the porch.

Rolling some tobacco in some rolling papers, he lit himself a cigarette before hitting the road.

It was a good omen when he saw a string of semis roll down the road.

He tossed the match and began his walk toward the road. On his first try, one of the truckers pulled over and let him in the passenger’s side of the rig.

The driver’s name was Horace and he was running coast to coast on a run of building material.

He was from Cleveland and he could not stop talking about the Indians until he rolled up to a truck stop just outside of San Francisco.

They parted ways and Felix walked the ten miles to the city. He worked a corner of Mission and 16th Street where he made some good coin and decided to find a bus to Golden Gate National Recreation Area where he bought a San Francisco Chronicle newspaper that he could use as a pillow.

When he opened his bag, a letter slipped out.

He pulled it from a yellowing envelope. Dear Felix, Thank you for coming by and spending the time with us.

It does get sort of lonely at times, but having you come join us was a real highlight to our celebration. Each of the shadows had signed the letter.

He stretched out on a bench where he could see the harbor lights.

A low fog was settling in, but there was a streetlight overhead.

Unfolding the paper, his eyes fell on an article that read, “Old House in Rio Dell

burns to the ground.”

He thought about his discarded match.

Surely as it fell the wind blew it out.

Surely.

What if it hadn’t? What if it sparked in the dry grass around the porch?

There would be no more parties. The house of shadows would no longer exist. The next morning he headed north buying a bus ticket with the money he had panhandled.

As the bus passed Rio Dell, he saw a big black spot where the house of shadows had once stood.

He knew that he was responsible for the fire.

There was nothing that could be done.

When he got to my café, I served him lunch and listened to his bizarre story.

Most of the time, I don’t put much stock in what these kings of the road tell me, but I could see in his eyes, he was telling me the truth.

I nodded a lot, but the detail to his story was so real, I knew he had seen something paranormal in that house.

Say what you will, there are some things that cannot be so easily explained, if you know what I mean.


It happened on Halloween. It was supposed to be my off day, but I ended up working a double shift because Tim and Nora both called out. They were the latest victims of a nasty stomach bug making the rounds at work, which we'd taken to calling the Panacea Plague. Tim and Nora were pharmacy technicians, so their calling out wouldn't normally affect me, but since the other two techs had just quit, Mike had no choice but to move Zach and Carla from cashier and photo to pharmacy, since they were the only cashiers with active tech licenses. From there, I suppose, he had no choice but to bombard my phone at six a.m. with frantic texts. Can you work nine to close? Frankie? Hey Frankie, just checking to see if you got my texts from earlier. Frankie?! I really wanted to tell him no. Halloween was my favorite holiday, and my daughter was finally old enough to enjoy the experience of trick-or-treating. Ever since mid-September, when the October schedule posted, I'd been anxiously awaiting what would surely be the best Halloween since I'd become a mother. If I closed my eyes tight enough, I could see it: After I dropped Lily off at daycare, I'd catch up on laundry while watching classics like Hocus Pocus and Bedknobs and Broomsticks and sneak a stash of pumpkin-shaped peanut butter cups and other premium candies before setting out a bucket of candy for trick-or-treaters. That afternoon, I'd surprise Lily's class with cupcakes for snack time, the kind from the grocery store bakery with too-tall swirls of orange and purple frosting decorated with plastic spider rings. From there, I would go home to change into more festive attire while Lily's dad Drew picked her up, took her to his condo, and helped her get into costume. Then, we'd meet in a neutral neighborhood to trick-or-treat together. As a family, for lack of a better word. But the truth was that I couldn't afford to say no to a twelve-hour shift. Not after I had lost half a week of work to my own bout of the Panacea Plague earlier this month. Being sick for three days shouldn't cause a financial crisis, but without paid sick time and a strict no-overtime policy, I just wasn't able to catch up. Late fees were rolling in, first on my credit card and then my student loans. I was getting dirty looks from the preschool director when I dropped Lily off at daycare because my portion of her tuition was late. Again. Not for the first time, I considered telling Drew how tight my finances were. I knew that he'd cover the full amount of daycare and give me whatever I needed to get caught up without batting an eye, because he'd done it before. Most recently when I was out of work for almost a month. But I didn't want to take advantage of his kindness, so I texted Mike back: Sure thing. See you at nine. I dragged myself out of bed and dug through the laundry hamper, on a quest to find the least dirty uniform shirt. I sprayed it down with Febreze, shook out the wrinkles, and hoped for the best as I tugged it over my head and tucked it into my last clean pair of khakis. After I'd gently shaken Lily awake and sent her stumbling bleary-eyed to the bathroom, I began the process of packing my lunch. After a moment of consideration, I pulled out my phone and called Drew. "Hey Frank," he said, picking up after just one ring. "Everything okay?" "Hey, Drew. Yeah, everything's fine." I cradled the phone between my ear and my shoulder, freeing up my hands to untwist the tie on the loaf of bread. "Sorry to call so early. I hope I didn't wake you." "Nah, I've been up since four." He stifled a yawn. "International sales meeting that could have absolutely been an email." "Ugh. That sounds awful." I cut a banana in half and peeled the yellow skin back so I could slice it into rounds. "I just wanted to let you know that I'm not going to be able to come trick-or-treating tonight.” I could feel Drew deflate in the silence that preceded, “What? Why not?” “Mike asked me to come in to work today. We’ve got several people out with the stomach bug again.” As I spread peanut butter on a piece of wheat bread, Lily appeared beside me and shifted her weight into my hip, a five-year-old’s halfhearted “I’m awake and not happy about it but I love you anyway” brand of hug. She’s changed out of her pajamas and dressed herself in black cat leggings and an orange dress featuring a family of ghosts. I leaned down to press a kiss to the top of her head and pointed to the table, where a fried egg and a piece of toast with jam was waiting for her. “Can’t he ask someone else?” Drew asked, sounding indignant on my behalf. “Not really. There’s no one left to ask. Everyone else is sick.” Horrified, I realized I was crying, and the choking feeling in my throat was building quickly toward a sob. “This isn’t fair.” I winced at the unusual sharpness in Drew’s voice. “I know. I’m sorry to do this so last minute.” “Don’t be sorry. I’m not upset with you ,” he said. “I’m upset for you. I know how much you’ve been looking forward to this.” “Yeah.” I swiped at my eyes, knocking hot tears off my face before they could dry and make my cheeks tight and sticky. “Maybe we should just wait until tomorrow. I know several places downtown are doing trick-or-treat events.” “No way! I don’t want her to miss out on this because of me.” “Okay.” He hesitated. “Frankie, did you tell him you’d come in because you need the money? Because if that’s it, you know I can—” “We’ve talked about this, Drew. I don’t want to take money from you unless I absolutely need to. You cover Lily’s health insurance, and most of the daycare tuition, and your mom always buys her a lot of clothes when she sizes up…” “That’s all stuff for Lily. I’m asking if you need me to do anything. I care about you too, you know,” he said, an edge to his words that wasn’t there before. I sighed and pinched the bridge of my nose. This again. The conversation we always talked around but never quite allowed ourselves to have. Drew and I were friends long before we were co-parents. We met during an early orientation week at college, the summer before freshman year, where we and eight other incoming business majors familiarized ourselves with campus, registered for classes, and debated the eternal question: to rush or not to rush? (Both of us, for the record, decided not to rush.) It didn’t take long to realize that Drew had a crush on me. While the feeling was very much mutual, neither of us seemed eager to change the nature of our outwardly platonic relationship. And then, we went to a bonfire during fall midterms our senior year and let ourselves get tipsy enough to tell each other the truth. When I found out I was pregnant a few weeks later, he told me he loved me and asked me to marry him without skipping a beat. He was certain about me, so certain it scared me. I let him down as easily as I could, arguing that our baby deserved stability. Trying to build a new romantic relationship alongside raising a child seemed like to exact opposite of stable. I always expected we'd start dating once we got our footing after Lily was born, but it never seemed like the right time. Drew...didn't feel the same way. "Frankie. Please." The way he said my name, tender and full of promise, was too much for me to bear. "Listen, I've got to scoot if I'm going to get Lily to daycare before nine. Please take lots of pictures and text them to me, okay? I know you'll have a great time." Before Drew could protest, I'd disconnected the call and shoved my phone in my pocket. "Thank God you're here," Mike said. "Go open the other register please, I'm dying here." There were three people in line, none of them with more than two items. I looked at them, then back at Mike, trying to figure out if he was joking. The look he shot me confirmed he absolutely wasn't. "Sure thing. Just let me go clock in and take care of these," I said, holding up my wallet and keys. A flicker of annoyance passed over his face. "You still haven't set up ExpressLane yet?" ExpressLane was a new feature Panacea had introduced a few months ago. Employees were encouraged to download the Panacea Partners app, log in with their employee ID, and enable automatic timeclock events. There were sensors at the main entrance, which would clock you in or out depending on whether you were going or coming in. The break room and restroom had sensors too, although Mike and the corporate HR partners who'd visited on ExpressLane launch day assured us that those would only clock us in or out if we spent more than our allotted fifteen minutes of on the clock break time. Almost everyone else had signed up that very first day, and I was the last holdout. I was weirded out by how much information the app seemed to track, and the list of permissions it requested when I opened it the first time seemed way too long for a simple timekeeping app. Why did Panacea need access to my call history, my camera roll, my contacts just to clock me in and out? I didn't mind the few extra minutes it took to walk back to the locker room and punch in my code. By the time I made it back to the front of the store, the customer queue had evaporated and Mike was waiting by the main register with a fresh cash drawer. He glared at me as I walked behind the counter. "Took you long enough." He swiped his manager card to sign out and stepped back so I could sign in and swap the drawers. Once I was finished, he handed me a price gun. "Between customers, start marking down all the Halloween stuff by fifty percent. Candy, costumes, decorations, it's all going on clearance. Should have been done yesterday, but of course it wasn't." He walked away without waiting for a response. You're welcome for coming in on my only off day, I thought as I grabbed the price gun and headed for the seasonal aisle. I was surprised by how quickly everything Halloween-related cleared out. Before I took my lunch break at two, all of the costumes and decorations were gone and the only thing that remained was a few bags of B-list candy. Their only selling points seemed to be "big" and "nut-free." I snapped a picture and texted it to Drew once I got settled in the break room. If your condo association changes their minds about trick-or-treating last minute, we still have a few bags. Let me know if you want me to set them aside for you. A response buzzed in almost immediately. Haha. I don't think I need any more Halloween candy just yet. I'm still trying to work through all the rejects Lily left at my place. I frowned. What was he talking about? Lily had done a little trick-or-treat party earlier in the week at daycare, but she'd only brought applesauce pouches and organic fruit snacks home from that. Maybe this was a joke, one that didn't translate well over texting. I laugh-reacted to Drew's message and locked my phone. Unwrapping my sandwich, I noticed in dismay that the bread had molded. Like, really molded. It wasn't something I could have easily overlooked this morning, even if I'd been distracted by the conversation with Drew. These were quarter-sized splotches, dark blue covered in fuzzy white fibers. I swallowed back my disgust and peeled the sandwich open. The slices of banana were slimy and black, just shy of completely putrefied. With a shuddering gag, I tossed the entire thing in the garbage and started scrubbing my hands clean in the sink. Mike poked his head in the break room. "Hey Frankie, you on the clock?" "Will be in a few minutes." "Good. Once you're back, I need you to help Amy update the seasonal aisle. Inventory and planograms just came in. And Frankie?" I turned to look at him over my shoulder as I turned the water off. He was peering into the garbage can with a worried expression on his face. "Yeah?" "You really need to consider setting up ExpressLane, okay?" After Amy and I finished stocking the seasonal aisle with Thanksgiving decorations, I typed out another text to Drew. Thanks again for being cool with me working on Halloween. I appreciate it. He responded with a row of puzzled-looking emoji, followed by How many times are you going to apologize for that? It's fine. Around six-thirty, once I'd finally calmed down a customer who was downright irate that we didn't yet have Christmas items out in the seasonal aisle, Mike told me he could cover for the rest of the night if I wanted to leave early. "I kind of forgot you had a kid when I asked you to work until close," he said sheepishly. "Carla just reminded me. If you want to try and make it to trick-or-treating..." Tears welled up in my eyes. "Oh my God. Mike. Thank you. This is her first time trick-or-treating, and I was really bummed to have to miss it—" He held up a hand with an expression that said, I'm a nice guy, but don't push it. "See you tomorrow." I signed out of the cash drawer and handed it over, then sped walked to the break room to get my stuff and clock out. Mike's letting me off earl y!!!!! I texted Drew. That's great , he replied. Too bad he couldn't have let his heart grow three sizes on Halloween. I frowned. What was I missing here? Drew's texts hadn't made any sense today. My stomach rumbled and I remembered it had been twelve hours since I last ate. Low blood sugar must have affected my sense of humor more than I realized. Jennifer, one of the pharmacists, was talking to Mike at the cash register when I walked back through the store and toward the main entrance. She furrowed her brow in concern when she took in my bare arms. "Don't forget your jacket, hon," she said. "It's freezing out there." "Oh, is it?" I said with a frown. "I thought the overnight low was in the seventies today. Well, I have a sweatshirt in the car." "Frankie." Mike's face was grave when I looked up at him, and a strange feeling unspooled in the pit of my stomach. "Set up ExpressLane tonight, please." "You don't have ExpressLane yet?" Jennifer's eyes widened. "Yeah, you need to do that." "Okay... Well, I'm off to trick-or-treat with my daughter. See y'all tomorrow." Before either of them could say anything else, I walked through the doors directly into a blast of sleet. "Hey Drew," I said, trying not to sound panicky as I fastened my seatbelt. "So I'm leaving work and it's crazy cold. And stormy. Not at all the weather forecast I was expecting for today. Anyway, um. My car won't crank. So if you don't mind giving me a call when you get this... Yeah. I'd appreciate it." I ended the call and rubbed my hands together, desperately wishing for a blanket, a pair of gloves, anything to help shield me from the intensifying chill. Five minutes passed, then ten, then twenty, without a return call from Drew. I picked up my phone to see if I have any missed call notifications. I didn't, but that isn't what caught my eye. At the top of the screen, plain as day, my phone reads Fri, December 18 . After several restarts, my stubborn phone would still only display the incredibly fake and not at all real date. Since Drew wasn't calling me back, I didn't see how I had any other option but to walk back inside. Mike was waiting for me just inside the door, looking remarkably more tired than he was just half an hour ago. "Hey Frankie." "Hey. So listen, this is very weird and I'm not sure if you'll believe me—" "But when you left the store, it was way too cold and your car wouldn't start and your phone told you it was December 18th?" My eyes widened. "Um. Yeah. Something like that." Mike sighed and rubbed his forehead before reaching into his pocket and handing me a card. ExpressLane Expert Line, 1-888-555-3535. "Go back out to your car and call this number. They'll tell you what to do." "But I don't use Express—" "Believe me, I know," Mike said with a weary sigh. "Just call the number, Frankie." Thank you for calling the ExpressLane Expert Line, a partner with Panacea Pharmacies Incorporated. To get started, please state your employee number or enter it on the keypad. For assistance with setting up your Panacea Partner profile, press or say 1. To report an outage or other software issue, press or say 2. For assistance with a missing timeclock event or to report delayed timeline experience due to postponed ExpressLane integration, press or say 3. "Three. Three. THREE." I could have just pressed the button, I knew that. But after everything I'd been through today (this month?), it felt so much better to shout.


“Cameras in the house?” Rhea stared at the producer in such an unflinching way one could have wondered whether her soul had left her body. Had someone looked up the word incredulous , her face might as well have defined it. “Yes,” replied the producer, calm and composed. “That’s the deal. If you want the Extras, that is.” “Of course we do!” screamed Nick, elated. All three sat in a luxurious office at the Beverly Studios administration building. “What are the extras exactly?” asked Rhea. “Five thousand dollars a week for the rest of your lives. Multiple endorsement deals with commercial products. Oh, and lifelong fame, of course.” Nick’s eyes gleamed at the prospect, while Rhea remained unconvinced. “This wasn’t in the contract,” she said. “The contract you signed was for The Great Love Search. You’ll be signing a new one for The Great Love Found. That’s the principle of a spin-off.” “It’s just…” she mumbled, glancing at Nick awkwardly. “We’re… we’re not really in love. It was all make-believe for the show, I thought you knew this.” “I do,” replied the producer. “Few contestants come to The Great Love Search for love. They do it for money and fame.” “Exactly,” said Nick. “It’s all that matters, right. C’mon Rhea, we can do this. They don’t call you Rhea the Wrecker for nothing.” “For the rest of our lives? Isn’t that a little bit extreme?” Rhea could not even admit it to herself, but love was indeed what pushed her to audition for The Great Love Search. Like many young women, she dreamed of finding a Prince Charming to warm her on the cold winter nights back in Colorado. When all conventional dating methods failed, she packed her bags and put her candidacy forward for the reality dating show hoping this would provide an environment conducive to finding the right one. What could possibly go wrong with fifteen men and fifteen women mingling together on a paradise island? Of course, things quickly spiraled out of control. Her memory drifted back to the first fight. *** Filming took place in a lavish seaside house in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. The sights defied Rhea’s wildest dreams. Amid palm trees and turquoise waves washing up on the shore, she took a long walk on the sandy beach upon landing. Colorado seemed like nothing more than a distant dream, leftover from a past life. Yet, there was this unnerving impression at the back of her mind. Something would go wrong. Rebecca provoked her on the first evening. Cleanliness mattered to Rhea: her mother always emphasized the importance of washing the dishes before going to bed. She gently reminded her roommate of the house rules regarding dishes etiquette, but the reminder was met with quite a lot of resistance. From there, the situation escalated quickly. Voices soared. Chairs flew. Knifes were pointed. “You freakin’ psychopath!” yelled Rebecca as she threw her dishes on the ground. The shattered pieces dispersed all around, one of them cutting lodging itself between Rhea’s toes. “What makes you think you can boss me around?” “Me?” replied Rhea, out of her mind. “A psychopath? When is the last time you looked at yourself in the mirror? I have to boss you around because you’re literally a five-year-old child!” She threw back the broken pieces at her rival, who ran away upstairs screaming swear words. It didn’t take long for Rhea to resonate with viewers. The editing made her look like the cast member who did everything in her power to shake up the house. Clips of her outburst went viral, and she quickly became an overnight sensation, dubbed Rhea the Wrecker. She hated the moniker with a fiery passion and avoided conflicts to the best of her ability, but Rebecca’s constant bullying exacerbated their relationship’s toxicity to unmanageable levels. All men on the island turned out to be jerks. When the prospect of love clearly became hopeless wish, Rhea sought to get voted off, but the viewers gave her immunity week after week; such was their addiction to the feud between the two women. The finale came. Nick, the last man standing, had to choose between the two sworn enemies. “This was a very difficult decision,” he said, an envelope in his hands. They all stood with the rest of the crew by the beach as the sunset flamed up the sky behind them. “At the end of the day, I had to choose a woman with whom I felt I could spend the rest of my life with, so I picked…” He opened the envelope and pulled out a picture. It was Rhea’s. She acted ecstatic, of course. First off, Rebecca had been defeated, which was an accomplishment worth celebrating in itself. Winning a house in Malibu didn’t feel bad either. Only one thing had escaped: love. The minute the cameras turned off, an indifferent Nick went back to his trailer as she watched alone the last golden rays vanishing beyond the horizon in the distance. *** Three weeks had passed since then, and a new contract lay on the desk in front of her. Nick quickly signed it, then walked out of the office. “So long girl,” he said without looking at her. “See you in Malibu.” Rhea and the producer were now alone. She looked at the contract absent-mindedly, dreaming of the cold Colorado winters. “I know how you feel,” he said. “Believe me, I hate asking people to sign away their lives.” “Then don’t.” “It’s not that easy. The executives are the ones who make the decisions around here.” “They sure make it hard to turn down, with all these Extras. The question is, are the Extras worth the price? When I moved from Colorado for the show, it never occurred to me I would never get to go back. I certainly wasn’t expecting to live with cameras in my house forever… especially not in the presence of someone like Nick.” “Interesting.” “What’s interesting? My life falling apart?” “No. I come from Colorado too. I guess we were both disenchanted by the Hollywood dream.” He swallowed nervously. All along, Rhea had the impression there was something he wanted to say but did not dare to. “You know, I never liked that nickname,” he declared. “ Rhea the Wrecker. Whoever came up with that is messed up. How about we go finish this discussion over a cup of coffee?” Rhea smiled. This was the sweetest thing someone had told her in a long time. Without even thinking about it, she picked up the contract and reduced it to a wad of paper before throwing it in a bin. “I would love to. Coffee is my favorite.”


An unexpected knock on a window mesmerised Mr Gombwe as it is unusual in any African rural setting,  in two shakes of a lambs tail, a parliament of owls alighted on roof tops and trees with a variety of muffled sounds and then there was a successive intermittent dying down of flapping wings, instilling a macabre aura in Mr Gombwe’s homestead because superstition had labelled owls to be associated with witchcraft in his society. Then in an instant, as if some director of music had signaled an eerie beat for a horror movie, the wide-eyed nocturnal birds launched a series of ear-splitting hoots. It was irksome. It was spooky. The gods might have been awakened from their slumber. It was noisome, repulsive and nauseating. The old man could not absorb the intrusion of the ‘horned’ birds, the invasion of his air space and the atmosphere they projected. Mr Gombwe looked shaken, his profile, a portrayal of a painting in progress, changed to similarly varying shades of obscure hue colours resonating the flickering flames of a dying fire. He had been so much taken aback that he could not enhance the lustre of the fire let alone speak. Being absorbed in thought, he took the form of a statue until a pair of courageous voices from without shooed the tormentors away. The voices had successfully dispelled the seeming clamour, accompanied by stone throwing and counter-spell mantras. Mrs Gombwe had also been quiet all this time but nervously fidgeting, with a twig in her hand and sitting cross legged opposite her husband, facing the fireplace and enjoying the comfort of their ramshackle hut. A heavy knock repeatedly hit their disjointed door and before they could respond, their visitors were already indoors.

As the second visitor was closing the door behind them, the first one tumbled and fell headlong behind the old man, hitting hard with his mouth on a metal tripod stool thereby breaking one of his front teeth simultaneously saving the two beer bottles he was holding in his hands. When he rose to a sitting position, holding tight to his bottles of beer, he said, ‘I appreciate the safety of my beers; how I saved the bottles from shuttering, I can’t tell, but I have them intact. That’s all that matters, the safety of our beer.’ He kissed the two bottles then spat the fragment of his broken tooth into the fire. Deafening silence ensued for a significant moment only to be dismissed by pop, fizzy and guzzling sounds. The first visitor’s demeanour seemed radical. Everybody in the hut maintained their silence in deepest amazement. The drunken fellow suddenly stopped his continuous guzzling for a moment then took an unsophisticated swig that made him belch, sending off a foul smell across the small hut. “Mr Gomwe,’ he came again, ‘I’m your beloved son though I might be as drunk as a skunk; why do I say so? You might not know me very well but I did my grade one together with your son, Cain, the one in Australia, I guess. My name is Nabal Kudakwa, I stay two villages away from here, in Masembura village. The old man, awestruck by nothing in particular but by just everything, neither affirmed nor denied knowing the stranger although he knew the village and the surname, as if humming an unfamiliar tune, stammered and mumbled, agreeing with misgiving. He was confused. Everything appeared quite unusual and he was so uncomfortable that he seemed besides himself. All he needed was a monitored recollection lest he should go haywire. ‘In my company is Jah Kento as he is popularly known by his myriad of fans in the neighbourhood. I think you know him too because of his famous drum beating skills,’ Nabal continued as he took another gulp that choked him to excess in so merciless a manner that both orifices of his digestive system treated him unfairly by letting loose. ‘Excuse me,’ he apologized but soon burst into an uproarious laughter. He daringly took another gulp and resumed, ‘Those witches we shooed away just now are nonentities. They wanted to wreck spiritual havoc at my father’s place but we nipped their intentions in the bud.’ He looked up as if he had seen something then roved his eyes across the room and held his peace by another swig. The mesmerized old man calmed his nerves, cleared his throat and began on a composed note. ‘I don’t know what all this means but something ominous has already brewed. His squinting eyes pierced the googled eyes of his wife. Though he couldn’t clearly see the erstwhile pretty eyes, it didn’t matter the least because he already knew them, he had seen them countless times, he had seen them in various expressions, he had seen them by his soul and he could easily interpret whatever they conveyed at any given time. When the old man stayed put, with his eyes fixed on his wife as if looking for answers to a whirlpool of non-verbal cues, she telepathically hove a sigh, gleaned her repositories of thought and then simply uttered, ‘Hard times are hovering above.’ Jah Kento kept his head down while he sat on a cement bench but being very close to the door. It appeared he had nothing to say. An onlooker would have described him as a man with a blank mind, passive or ignorantly indifferent to what reality depicted now. One would think he was a skeletal being devoid of a heartbeat. His soul might have traversed or travailed in the width and breadth of the universe to an extent where either proceeding or retreating was a daunting task. He was there but not really there. Only that he was in a sitting position otherwise one would have assumed him dead. Maybe he had taken one too many. Or the drumbeats were giving birth in his weary soul. All of a sudden Jah Kento whispered something to himself, jerked himself up, grabbed the handle of the door and energetically pulled it wide open as if to take in or out something the size of a double bed. He walked out hysterically leaving the door in the state he had suggested and not the way he had found it. Footsteps could be heard retreating into the gloomy night. They were continuous and regular. Nabal rose to his feet, wobbled towards the wide exit, made his way out but missed his step after the doorstep and a heavy thud followed, nonetheless neither clinking nor shuttering of glass was heard, the man loved his bottles. Whether he remained on the ground or rose and walked away, the duo could not tell because there was just silence. A fusion of silence and the nightly air apprehended the moment. Silence looked eternal. The old man froze in his entirety. His mind was under siege, enmeshed, and unable to respond in haste to the mysterious environment puzzling him. Mrs Gombwe began to tap on the floor with a twig, trying hard to suppress her thoughts, her imaginations, and her fears. She tried to cough but she didn’t have enough strength so she ended up clearing her throat. Having gathered adequate courage, she finally broke the silence, ‘Don’t you think it’s wise to check if those strangers have really gone?’ Instead of responding, he kept his eyes on the fireplace with a murderous look. His eyes looked as if they had been squeezed out of their sockets. She couldn’t bravely meet the stare when those bloodshot eyes deflected from the glowing ashes to her eyes. The gaze was weighty, she could feel it and she felt very naked. She bowed her head until she could no longer withstand the spinal strain and began to surreptitiously raise her head to see if the wild stare was still scanning her being. It seemed like the spirit of an owl, that continually opens wide the eyes, had entered him. He appeared not to blink whatsoever. ‘Did you hear what I’ve just said?’ She mustered the audacity to make those eyes blink or close up if they wouldn’t pop out. Her fear had stretched to the limits. She was like a cornered cat which could only get away through a head on with its tormentor. Out of rage, the old man forcefully stamped on the floor with his walking stick, rose to his feet, and slouched towards the doorway. It was now darker in the hut than it appeared outside, the fact being that the fire had almost died down; as the old man strolled, she trailed the three tier sound emanating from his dragging feet and the poking sound of his walking stick, until he presented himself as a two-dimensional torso in the doorway. He stood there, undecided on whether to proceed or to retreat, so to speak. The old man moved out of the doorway and his wife could hear his footsteps fusing into the silent night. An hour passed; the old man had not returned. Mrs Gombwe revived the fire as she waited for him but there wasn’t any least sound hinting footsteps. She called out but her voice disintegrated away into the hollow night. When another hour had passed, she walked out to the gate, to the fowl run, cattle pen, into the toilet, the old man was nowhere near. Confused, she walked back into their hut only to find the two strangers by the fireplace, drinking like fish. She cried out loudly as she turned on her heels. Her panic-stricken voice abruptly filled the air much to the disturbance of neighbours who quickly equipped themselves with axes and knobkerries and came to investigate the hysteria. When neighbours got to her place, she wasn’t there, the strangers had also disappeared but her screams continued in the direction of the woods. The worried neighbours took their dogs and pursued the phenomenon. There was pandemonium throughout the night as more villagers joined in the chase and search, with the screaming voice intensifying but getting elusive all the time. As luck would have it, a few villagers identified three figures running towards the river in the wee hours of the morning, the screaming figure being held side by side. A furore by the villagers shook the woods. There was a sudden increase of speed, galloping, clamouring, and an intensified rustling of leaves. All the effort couldn’t stop the figures from progressing to the river. Robust young men began to vehemently fling their weapons towards the relentless figures. The frantic shriek by one of the figures wouldn’t stop until the three figures plunged into the deep-end of the river. Silence enforced itself upon all the villagers; a thunderous lightning struck and a short-bearded man was seen on the edges of the water and he said, ‘This is what happens to you when you break the rules of the game. I did great things for this family.’ Another streak of lightning dismissed the crowd into a tumultuous divergence.


Welcome, new employee, to the Spatial Parcel and Communication Exchange Office, or S.P.A.C.E. Office, for short. Here at S.P.A.C.E. Office, we take pride in what we do. This isn’t just some post office from the pre-Space Age, where parcels only had to move across land and water of a single planet in order to reach its destination, but rather across alternate realities, cosmic layers, universes, and even realms. With technology advanced and relations between dimensions the best they’ve been in eons, our employees’ jobs of ensuring correspondence between planes of existence arrive at the correct place, as well as the correct time, is vital. The first topic we need to cover is employee relations, as this adjustment can be a little shocking for new employees at first. Regardless of what dimension your existence stems from, everyone here works together like one big family. So, I will ask now that if you have any pre-existing prejudices, you leave them at the portal when you arrive for your shift. Here at S.P.A.C.E. Office, we ask that everyone show respect for every xenotypes’ individual needs. We will review a few of the most prevalent examples here, but don’t worry, you will learn more along the way as you meet your coworkers and spend some time out on the job. The first race we will talk about are the Mutelaloth. Humanoid in structure, they lack any facial features or known organs that provide methods of communication. Please be rest assured that they can, in fact, see. Or perhaps not see but are able to perceive the world around them in a way that one might correlate to having sight. When you converse with the Mutelaloth, please be sure to only ask questions that can be answered with a nod or shake of their head. Asking open-ended questions can sometimes lead to an uncomfortable exchange and challenge working relations, which we of course would rather avoid. The next lifeform to discuss are the Gala’guthic’alar, or the Gala for short. We have found that these large individuals tend to be one of the hardest for new employees to build working relations with. Here at S.P.A.C.E. Office, we encourage camaraderie and teamwork. Unless you are working near a Gala. They are not hostile, so please do not panic. However, they are very independent workers, and can sometimes come across as aggressive if they find someone is in their way of completing their task. Having hundreds of tentacle-like appendages covering their sizable bodies, it can be easy to find oneself in their way and tangled in their limbs. We have had a few medical mishaps in the past but have developed a lasting working plan for these individuals. As long as you stay out of their way, there should be no problems. Lastly, you may find yourself quite often in the presence of a spectral being called a Poltigoth. These beings can be a little difficult to spot at times, and really you will only notice their presence at the edge of your peripherals. Our recommendation is that if you see slight movement that may initially cause you to panic, please remain calm. Poltigoths come from what humans once referred to as the “afterlife”, which was really just another plane of existence that they simply didn’t understand at the time. As you are human, you may have an instinctual fear upon sensing their presence. I can promise that with time and exposure, you will learn to adapt to these shades. If you have further questions about your soon-to-be coworkers, we have many in-person and virtual courses available where you can learn all about the culture, customs, and dimensions of the diverse employees that make up S.P.A.C.E. Office. Next, let us discuss departments and divisions. As new dimensions establish contact and species find their way to our staff, all relevant departments here at S.P.A.C.E. Office undergo an in-depth evaluation to ensure everyone is working in a department and division that they are most suited to and where they are able to put forth the most of their potential. That is not to say that departmental shifts are not possible. Everyone possesses unique talents, even within their own communities. If you feel that you are better suited to work in a different department or division of S.P.A.C.E. Office, there are many opportunities to transfer. Our goal here is to not only ensure that parcels and communications are successfully signed, sealed, and delivered, but that our employees are happy and taken care of. Employees won’t stay if they aren’t happy, and if there are no employees, there is no S.P.A.C.E. Office. Next, let us discuss liberty policies. As a S.P.A.C.E. Office employee, you are eligible to one of three different employment plans. First, our facility has the means to host living quarters and everyday essentials for nearly every life-form we employ. As a human, we have our Blue Planet Abode, modeled to represent a 21 st Century New York from the planet of Earth. We also have a few sub-abodes to accommodate the outer planets and systems. The working hours for those who choose to live on-site are a constant rotation of 6-Galactic Standard Hours (hereafter referred to simply as “hours”) of work, 18-hours of liberty, with 24-hours of extended liberty following five work rotations. During those 24 hours, you are welcome to travel and portal-cross as you please, as long as you have returned in time for your next shift. The second employment option we offer is a three-month rotating cycle. For a period of three-months, you will reside in the Blue Planet Abode and work a cycle of 10-hours, with 12-hours of liberty between. Again, you will have 24-hours of extended liberty after five work cycles. After your three months have been completed, you are free to return to your home dimension, or a dimension of your choosing, for a three-month rest period, before repeating this cycle. Our last option tends to be the most popular. Similar to the first option where you reside in the Blue Planet Abode and work 6-hour shifts. However, instead of residing in employee housing, you are responsible for securing your own housing in a dimension of your choosing and portal-crossing back to S.P.A.C.E. Office for your shift. Now that we have gone over the basics, it is time to head over to our Public Relations office to speak with an advisor and find the right department for you! Remember, here at S.P.A.C.E. Office, your happiness and well-being are very important to us. We value our employees and hope that you, in turn, will value the work you do here. If you have any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to reach out to our XR, or Xeno-Resources, department at any time. Welcome to S.P.A.C.E. Office, new employee, and we look forward to your many years within our family!