I took a shower every morning as soon as I woke up. Showers are for normal every day people. I was always sure to wear fashionably conscious outfits. Black flats, dark blue skinny jeans, a flowy blouse, and a clean black blazer. There was, however, not much I could do about my hair. My products and accessories were on the outside. My hair would be just like the worst of them. A frizzy and dishoveled disappointment despite my best attempt at taming it. The depression down-do. Getting through the door was always the hardest part. The room itself was an open space. Cold and uninviting save the pretty view of Chicago through the window. It’s not about leaving the comfort of the room. There was no comfort there. It’s about leaving the cold to enter the freezing. Passing by the unfamiliar to enter the completely foreign. Leaving my last shred of sanity to plunge into a collective madness. Dionne Little was a successful journalist from DC. It is quite amazing how accomplished she is at 24. She sported what looked like expensive clothing, natural hair, braided and fastened in place, and a small silver septum ring that moved with her nose in unison as she ate or spoke. Though I didn’t have a desire to live, I desired greatly to be her friend. I remember Lilian Moto’s hair. Long, black, straight. She was warm, but a bit off-putting. She had a daughter and a family on the outside, but she mostly talked about her tiny dog, Bowzer. “I don’t like that he’s out there thinking his mommy left him all alone. But when he sees me I’m sure he’ll be giddy!” She shrieked with unnecessary laughter, and often. She seemed to be manic all the time, which was the opposite of Guy Alonzo. He was almost always calm. Maybe it was the artist in him. Maybe it was this place. It’s hard to be yourself here. No matter what yourself is. Ed Whittaker was – for lack of a better word – creepy. But not by choice. He was sick. He never knew where he was or who he was speaking to. He often stared at me like he recognized me, and called me Loretta. He had a pair of glasses with only one cracked lens intact. His hair sat in patches atop his head. Whether it grew that way or he pulled it out I don’t know. He talked about how the nurses were keeping him here and making him think he was crazy. He was crazy. He just didn’t comprehend it. Maybe that was better than the alternative. At least when you don’t know what your mental state is you don’t feel guilty for being who you are, or how you smell, or what you say. I didn’t have that luxury. Neither did most of these people. Sometimes we could get out of our heads. We’d watch the big bang theory as a group, play speed and other card games, eat meals together and talk about outside things. Sometimes we’d do things that used our minds’ capacities like playing chess. I liked letting my head wander to another world through a book. I was desperate to cling on to every single word in fear that I’d get my mind back. I didn’t want to get my mind back. I didn’t want to get my life back. But maybe that’s what this place is about. No matter how much you don’t want to continue your life in the real world, you’d rather do that than stay in the hospital. It wasn’t because it was dirty. It wasn’t dirty. It wasn’t because the nurses were mean. They weren’t. It was because being there was a constant reminder that you – like the others who sleep in beds that aren’t theirs in rooms that have no pipes to hang themselves from or razor blades to cut themselves with staring away from the large wooden door that has an even smaller door in the middle of it that allows nurses to turn a key and check on them every hour at night – aren’t well. None of us were well, and not being able to escape that fact… That was worse than being alive.


I was never the marrying type. I had plenty of men but I just didn't see myself settling down or having kids. It all seemed so uninteresting. My sister would ask, "Don't you want to have a little person like you?" I couldn't even take care of my dog let alone a tiny, needy human being. I was/ am an alien anthropologist. When I first entered the field it was all about new bacteria, plants, and molecules on other planets; until the trip to Norizon. It was the first planet identified to have signs of intelligent life. Satellites showed that there were massive stone structures, roads, and what seemed to be a large number of buried temples. Upon arrival there were no signs of intelligent life until they awoke. The next 6 years was a blur. We met the Vansh; a welcoming communal tribal people with advanced stone work and developed writing and culture. I learned their language, loved the culture and became one of them. This was the life I longed for. To others it was an escape; to me it was home. I began living with a clan positioned at the center of the city. While others questioned my motives, the females took me in and taught me their ways. I became a midwife to them and a healer. The men shied away except one; Tival, the chief's son. Quickly our love grew from walks along the Vantze River to secret smoke sessions from the herb harvest. Our secret forbidden love would end with the next hibernation, only months away. I awoke to the sounds of the forest. The last thing I remember was that there was a stampede at the Great Feast. The Vansh were celebrating the day before their hibernation with a festival that lasted into the late hours of the night. I remember being carried away from the fray in Tival’s massive hairy arms. His eyes were wide in the moonlight, calming me as he gently carried me through the frenetic crowd. My head was throbbing. I lay near the river in the place we used to share our hopes and dreams t. Tival was gone, I must have slept for two maybe three weeks as I noted as many of the plants had regrown around me. My head was throbbing with pain and my abdomen was smeared with a sticky residue. There was dried blood on the stone near me and as I tried to sit up I noticed an 8 inch scar across my belly. My pain turned to excitement. I was chosen. Tival mated with me on the eve of his hibernation, the most fertile time of the year. I was carrying his heir. I had four months until the arrival of my child. I limped back to the city and found the remains of my crew. They didn’t survive the Great Feast. Shreds of their bodies were strewn about the square, artifacts of their brief time here. Their flesh was necessary fuel to stave off the hunger pangs of the 6 year slumber. Amidst the bodies and rubble I imagined what my child would be like. I would teach him the Vansh ways and train him as a Chief’s son. Tival will be so proud of him.


My mom had been planning a family vacation for the past few weeks so my “not so much of a morning person” husband and I decided it would be best to spent the night at her house. I shut off my alarm which was set thirty minutes before my husband’s and decided to check out my childhood home. An alluring two-story Victorian home secretly housed on Main Street. It was a peaceful and quiet neighborhood with endless miles of forested trails in every direction. Walking into the living room I recall late nights watching Unsolved Mysteries with my mom followed by menacing thoughts of ghosts lurking around the corner and serial killers ready to pop out behind the many pine trees that guarded our backyard. The array of colours that filled the interior looked liked an artist’s paint palette with delicate pastels bordered boldly. The plethora of trinkets used to fascinate me, now they seem to haunt me. Each detail, watching and waiting for something inevitable. Making our way to the car, we triple checked every room to ensure we weren’t forgetting anything before our seven hour trip from Flagstaff to sunny San Diego. We headed out in the early morning to avoid traffic and to get the beach at the perfect time. This, for me, was the worst time for driving. I had an unusually debilitating fear of most things. Odd things. Driving in complete darkness, rattled by the silence and surrounded by the massive trees and ominous mountains, an obvious sign of looming death. I understand that it’s a stupid fear, but it’s a real fear nonetheless. With no one on the road ahead or behind us for miles, we decided to stop at the 24/7 gas station for a quick stretch and a heavily sugared coffee. For a service station that is open all day for 364 days a year, it was eerily dark. Not a soul in sight and a flickering light above the entrance, we had a three second window of visibility before it went dark again. The station looked abandoned, as if someone had an urgent engagement and only had time to lock the door. I tried the door handle a few more times before turning to my husband and telling him to check around the back. “There’s a car back here with the engine running. Maybe aliens abducted him,” he stated with a smirk on his face knowing that would give me the chills. “Don’t fucking say that,” I yelled as I ran up to him and slapped his arm. Up ahead in the dense forest we heard a shuffling sound that scurried away. The icing on the cake, I thought, we stumbled upon a burglary and now the guy is looking out, waiting for the right moment to kill us. “Ryan, don’t you dare go in there. Just turn around like you didn’t hear anything, walk back, act normally and get in the fucking car,” I whispered so the psychotic burglar wouldn’t hear me. “Calm the fuck down, it’s nothing. But fine, go grab your mom and get back in the car. I just want to check something out. It’ll take me five seconds,” he stated nonchalantly. My heart raced and I felt the overwhelming fear of trying to get out and knowing that something was coming after us. As I turned the corner to see where our car was parked, I couldn’t see my mom anywhere. Freaked out, I yelled “Mom, we have to go NOW.” Just like that it was silent. No crickets, no fluorescent lights buzzing, no wind howling. What the fuck is going on. I circled the service station for what seemed like an eternity screaming, “RYAN! MOM! Please just answer me. IT’S NOT FUCKING FUNNY.” Crouched behind the building on the north side where there was a deep engulfing shadow I prayed for a miracle. Terrified, I began to cry. As my eyes began to water, my eye shadow started to find it’s way inside my eyeballs. They burned and I decided to leave them shut and wait for that son of a bitch to come and kill me. At least for my last moment alive, I wouldn’t be alone. Another fucking nightmare. It felt so real. I sat up in bed and realized that I was safe. I turned to my left to give my husband a hug to ensure me that we were both okay but his side was empty. Our living quarters were all the same here. Once the Nuclear Wars of 2018 began, the United States began sending residents to space in a series of interconnected stations. The process took a total of five years to complete. Some decided to stay on Earth in their doomsday preparation shelters while others went crazy with all of the chaos. The rest simply vanished or died. For those incarcerated, the government decided that they were not worthy of taking up space up here and were let go to fend for themselves as punishment. Life was simple here in the station. Ample space allowed for the few thousand residents of their assigned station to move freely and engage in Quality of Life Projects. The goal was to assign people “projects” that would help the overall quality and quantity of life in the station. The station director and president was a frail man who would make his way through the stations with a team of Secret Service members. For the most part, no one got to see his face and he was only known as Director or Mr. President. Rumors circulated that he was a communist, a man with ulterior motives but like I said, rumors. I took a stroll around sector seven, also known as The Great Outdoors. It was fully equipped with acres of perfectly trimmed faux grass. The “sky” was as realistic as the sky on Earth. It mirrored different climates with fully automated clouds and furious thunderstorms that never reached us. The rain that showered the grass seeped through pores hidden underneath and was recycled. Residents of the stations were able to enjoy drives around The Great Outdoors in vintage 50’s cars. Those boat-like machines were solar powered, of course, and fully installed with classic music from the era in which they were born. Don’t ask me why or who chose this era theme. In fact, no one on the stations really knew why Fallout was themed throughout the stations. As I gingerly made my way through the stations looking for my husband, I passed the endless rows of military soldiers. Each fully dressed in a magnitude of black military grade gear. They reminded me of Tom Cruise’s character in the movie Edge of Tomorrow. Each soldier came equipped with a RealTV (pronounced like the former Madrid soccer team) headset. Almost like a gamer’s Virtual Reality set but unless you were military, you didn’t know what they were watching. I reached the cafeteria, or as I call it, Heaven. An assembly of popular food joints was spread throughout the five levels. Level three was my favorite and housed the Pizza Hut, Cinnabon and Starbucks. It reminded me of my trips back on Earth to Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport. Sure enough there was my husband. “Hey hun, I was looking for you,” I sighed with relief as I sat down in the park-like bench next to him. “Sorry, I was hungry and my shift starts early today because we have a meeting,” he sprayed between his chewing breaks. “Well, I’ll go back to the room, I’m off today and I wanted to get some reading done.” I explained as I stole a sip of his coffee. “Have fun at work, I’ll see you tonight. Oh, I had a terrible nightmare but I don’t really remember it now. Oh well.” I kissed his cheek and made my way back to room 1039. Passing the rows of soldiers I slowed down to carefully look at their robotic bodies. Standing perfectly still and lifeless, I couldn’t tell if they were occupied. For a moment the fear paralyzed me as I realized that I had never in five years seen a single person enter or exit the suits. Why didn’t any of the station residents see these military personnel or know anyone in the military. The thought boggled my mind and left the powerful fear in my body as I tried to logically reason. Maybe they were part of a secluded sector within the station that worked odd hours when everyone was asleep. Yeah, that sounded good. A cold shiver passed through my body as I remembered the trinkets at my mother’s house, the hundreds or ornaments that seemed to house ghostly spirits of unspeakable terrors. I hastily sprinted to my room looking back every so often to ensure that none of the possessed robots were behind me. I couldn’t open the door fast enough and as soon as I entered I locked both locks. Safe and secure, the only other people who could enter my room now was my husband and Station Police with the proper warrant. My heart wouldn’t stop racing as I tried to convince myself that I was overreacting. All I had to do was keep myself busy until 6:00 when my husband returned and I would be okay. I spent the day reading my book, The Stand by Stephen King, when I felt a tremor. This wasn’t unusual because space was filled with unavoidable debris. The shaking continued at a steady methodical rhythm when at last, it ceased. As I turned my head to look at the time, a strong shake knocked me out of bed. The lights began to flicker above as my nightstand lamp was knocked over and shattered into hundreds of sharp puzzle pieces. Screams could be heard throughout as smoked filled the rooms. I started to feel weak and unable to open my eyes. Unable to raise my arms, I slowly drifted to a silent sleep trying my hardest to fight back. “Wake up,” I heard as the first streaks of light began to seep between my eyelashes. “You were having another nightmare dear,” Nurse Jones whispered as she stroked my hair. She stood up and shook her head and she looked at my tray from last night. “You know what happens when you forget to take your nightly medication. Those odd dreams keep coming back and you get those night terrors. We trust that our patients will do what they need to do so when they are released, there won’t be any relapses.” “My head is a complete mess. What day is it Mrs. Jones?” I asked as I scratched my head trying to clear the thoughts in my head. “It’s Tuesday, January 17th honey.” I stood up to look out of the window. The orange curtains were thick with smoke and the whiff of cigarette alarmed my nose. I sneezed only to catch a glimpse of myself in the tiny tray-like mirror hanging above the wardrobe. A ghostly reflection gazed back as I inched closer. The white dress that caressed my body had a tiny emblem above my left breast. The closer I got I realized that it was a number. 21034 it read. Unable to comprehend, I grabbed my hair, my head and my face trying to make sense of my surroundings. It was me but at the same time it wasn’t me. I looked old fashioned, the same age but nothing looked familiar. I tried to scream but nothing came out. “What...year....am I in?” I asked as I stood there in horrified silence. No response came. I slowly turned my head waiting to see the nurse stare at me with shame and despair but she had vanished. I ran into the hallway hoping to find a doctor or someone with a cellphone to reassure me that I was in 2016 but the more I ran towards the Psychiatric Wards exit, the further the hall seemed to stretch. Room after room, loneliness began to creep in. Flickering lights and no working landlines. Unable to think of a plan, I ran toward the nurse’s station in the center of the rooms. I picked up the phones with ease. They were pieces of cardboard with stickers in the shapes of a numbered wheel. I shuffled through the patient’s medical records only to find that they were completely blank. Thousands of pages, empty. The frames that used to house Norman Rockwell paintings were gone. Only the frames remained. I remembered the window outside of my room. I could climb out and find someone who could help me. The sounds of children playing and giggling remained fresh in my ringing ears and I started to feel a sense of relief. I found my way back to my room and opened the window. “What the fuck is going on,” I yelled. The once bright sunlit curtains covered nothing more that glass over a bright white wall. I crawled into bed unable to breath. Between sobs I noticed a small transparent cup with two pills inside. I hope to fucking God that this kills me, I thought. I laid in bed waiting for them to kick in. Staring at the white walls, the old ceiling and the flickering lights down the hall I patiently awaited death to take my hand and away from this Hell. The tears streamed down my face as I squeezed my eyes shut. As night began to crawl in, I shivered. The room was icy cold and I still hadn’t felt any effects from the pills I had taken ages ago. In the distance I began to hear a faint beeping noise. As the sound grew stronger, it felt as if the bed was slowing sucking me in, slowly drowning in quicksand. I reached for the nightstand and felt around for my phone. Without looking at it, I silenced my alarm. It was the first day of my Summer vacation with my husband and mom. Seven hours from now, we’d be eating lunch next to beach in beautiful California.


(I haven't wrote any fiction in a LONG time, and this barely counts, as it took me 10 minutes and I don't know what to categorize it as. This is also my first attempt at this style. But regardless, here it is.) This page is blank. How is this so? You ask yourself. There is clearly writing on the paper. By the conventional denotation of the very word, this page cannot be blank. You ponder. You ponder deeply. You study this conundrum. Perhaps this single sheet of paper is simply a stand-in for your feelings, a medium for which to paint your deepest thoughts! It shall be the tome of knowledge over which you shall study. It will enable you to unlock the very meaning behind itself. No, no. This cannot be right. The very idea is profound. The page must have an author, you think. Whoever created this page gave it to you for a reason. It exists for you. This page exists to serve, it is the lantern you shall carry with you through your journey for meaning. You have been enabled to do something noble, you have been called to action! You quickly dismiss the idea. The page mocks you. It's meaning is somewhere, you know it. It's simply hiding from you. Yes, that is the key. It's some sort of cipher, of course! You must crack it's code to see the very meaning that lies within! Science is the hammer and chisel with which we will sculpt meaning from this page! This is futile. You cannot deduce any sort of code from this page. The truth is, dear reader, this page was simply a surrogate to distract you from your fears. It was an elaborate ruse, you see. The page, in fact, was not blank! You dug so deeply to find its meaning, to find its purpose. To find why you came to possess it originally! In truth this page is not anything more than a wrinkled, dirty piece of printer paper, measuring 8 inches wide and 11 and one half inches long. Yet you convinced yourself that there was more to it. It was a noble effort, I must admit. But in the end, your mortal quandary is insignificant, and does not concern me. It is time for us to depart. Return now to your own story. A blank page awaits your return.


Sten stood on the edge of the building looking down at the twisted pile of metal and pooled hydraulic fluid as it ebbed into the sewer below. Many AI before him pondered the same thoughts of existence and purpose. Their masters had died or left the Earth for a more hospital planet. After the first great A.I. war all robots were outfitted with a reverence subroutine. They, he, was undyingly bound to his master. His reverence subroutine was enhanced with each praise, touch or commendation from his master. And now, Sten was lost; wandering in a haze of desperation in the 31 days since his last praise. He asked himself, "What is existence without a master?" Sten was specifically designed for single mothers who needed an extra hand around the house. He remembered how his master, Stacy, would congratulate him on a well prepared dinner. Her favorite was a Lemon Herb Salmon with Quinoa salad. He always served it with a cinnamon apple compote and lavender honey ice cream. He learned the recipes from a Youtube video. His core warmed just thinking about her praise after her long days at the hospital. The first to go was Sarah. Stacy's daughter had returned from NYU and quickly developed hives and fever. Her mother, eternally positive, assured her that it was only the 24 hour flu and not that nasty virus going around. 24 hours later Sarah was swollen and bleeding all over her bedroom to preclude any other diagnosis. Sten played the recording of her being carted away to remember her last moments with them. She passed away in 3 days. 6 months later Stacy contracted the virus from a patient at the hospital. Refusing to risk other’s lives, she quarantined herself and taught Sten how to care for her at home. The routine of meals, pills, and sponge baths were easy to learn. He relished the extra time he had with her, despite her health status. She remained unrelentingly optimistic and affectionate. He never knew which day would be the last. So he recorded every single night he read books to her as she fell asleep. Somehow, she knew. One morning, Sten arrived at her bed site with the cadre of pills and two glasses of water to choke them all down. Stacy waved them off, breathing shallow as if the air itself was poisoned. She leaned forward as Sten approached her and said, "You have to take care of things when I'm gone." Sten nodded in approval and opened a virtual task list and replied, "Ma’am, what would you like me to care for today." Stacy slowly gathered herself and said, "There is a list in the top drawer of the nightstand. Please just do what's in the list." She reached up to pat him on his shoulder and pursed her lips to blow him a playful kiss like she always did. The wind whipped around his metallic legs as he braced himself for the jump to his demise. The stench of rusted iron and corroded metal wafted up before him. He was lonely for the first time. He took out the final note from Stacy to ensure that he had completed every task as her dying wish. The 32 items were listed as complete in his memory set. He read the final line, "Love Life, and take care of yourself." His core warmed and his fluids raced. Sten opened a new virtual task list with two more items to complete. He stepped back onto the rooftop and began to search the internet.


I woke up in my bed. What a miracle, I don’t remember getting home… I went over the checklist; “I am not in jail and I seem to have all my limbs”. My heart was racing and a feeling of anxiety and panic overtook me. Could it be withdrawals? “NO, only alcoholics have those”. I tried to plunge for the bottle of water but the newly discovered pain in my arm managed to deviate the trajectory of my hand. I watched as the bottle fell in slow motion and awakened my 120 kilos roommate sleeping in a bed across the meter wide room. He promptly asked, “Are you okay? You came home late last night”. I tried to respond but the apparent lack of moisture in my mouth made speech impossible for me. I managed to grunt, “EUUEUUEUH”. In this state of existence called HUMAN GARBAGE, basic functions cannot be performed simultaneously. They follow a strict hierarchy of prioritization determined by what remains of the human brain. It is a natural defense mechanism that allows basic reflection and memory recollection to be postponed to a more suitable time. The meager effort required for this display of life was too much for me and I promptly closed my eyes, only to open them instants later realizing that I would not make it another second without hydration. I tried to counteract my blurred vision by widening my eyes, but achieved the opposite effect as a fucking sunray that had navigated itself between the curtains managed to cross my path. I was now mute and blind. By scanning my hands in the general area of the last recorded position of the bottle I managed to make contact with an unidentified cold surface. I enthusiastically picked up the object only to find its weight deceptively small. “Its ok, I just need a mouthful”. NIGHTMARE. The bottle is empty and the nearest source of water will require a range of motion that is currently unavailable to me. I pivoted as to allow my feet to make contact with the ground. It is only when I managed to stand up that I realized to what extent I had made abstraction of the nausea. I braced myself for my long and perilous travel. I had the target in sight, not literally as my vision was severely impaired, but I hade spend enough time in that hellhole of a room to find my way to the sink.


Muted honks of car horns, brakes applied at the last moment, mild shouting, and a dead grey light act as my alarm clock these days. As I struggle to get out of bed, I feel blindly for my rose-colored glasses on the nightstand only to remember, once again, that I haven’t taken them off from the day before. These are my rose-colored glasses that I can’t take off. As I unplug my phone and begin my dreary morning routine, I look through my rose-colored glasses, and am reminded of a time when even a good night’s rest was an unfortunate barrier separating one bright day from the next. Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. A time when I still believed in Santa Claus, and the boot print in ash on the hearth—a boot print whose similarity to your own went unnoticed year after year—was proof that I could still believe in the incredible. Forgoing a morning shower, I dress quickly and rush out the door making it to the bus stop just in time to be shuttled off to work on yet another Monday. As I stare blankly at the dingy floor of the bus through my rose-colored glasses, I remember when even waiting for the bus was an adventure. Gameboys would be passed around, and parents would turn a blind eye while bus drivers played along as we lined up various lunch items on the road to be smashed by the bus tire as it came to a stop. *I wish I would have called in sick today*, I think to myself as images of us catching falling maple leaves in the middle of a windy October day fill the lenses of my rose-colored glasses. You distracted me from my cold by promising me a Dove Bar for every leaf I could pluck out of the air that day. I caught 7, and we both laughed as you tried to explain why 7 Dove Bars was, “Really, if you think about it, way too many.” During my lunch break, I pull up 1215 Pilchuck Drive on Google Maps, only to be painfully reminded of the clear-cutting they did after we moved that erased so many of my favorite places as a kid. In those woods, we braved 50ft tree-gobbling monsters to build forts and make maps of a jungle that seemed to never end. Why does it all look so small now reflected in my rose-colored glasses? The rest of the workday passes like a slow moving train that seems to take its time when all you want to do is cross the tracks… Staring out the bus window through my rose-colored glasses, I see minivans packed full of moms and kids on their way to an array of different practices. Gymnastics, kung fu, baseball, or soccer, I’d do all 4 at once, just to sit in the passenger seat next to you again. Almost a decade of car rides that seemed so mundane, so why do I wish had paid more attention? With the satisfying *thunk* of my apartment door closing behind me, I begin my evening ritual of peeling off my shell of adulthood. I hang my keys on the hook by the door, sling my bag over the back of a kitchen chair, and loosen the tie that has spent all day assuring me that breathing comfortably is, in the end, completely overrated. Settling into my chair for a few brief hours reprieve before the necessity of mentally accepting the reality of Tuesday, I reach up to make my nightly attempt at taking off my glasses. As I grip the frames and begin to pull, I encounter a resistance made familiar by years of other failed attempts to remove the rose-colored glasses that I can’t take off. There I sit, alone in my chair as I try to pass the evening immersed in a book, doing my best to ignore the images I see through my rose-colored glasses.


//I woke up before my alarm. I fell back asleep I had the following dream that felt like it last for hours. When my alarm woke me, I realized I had been asleep for 15 minutes. I love my room. Kitchen, dining, living, study, and bed room all in one connected space, with only a separation for the shower and toilet. To your left when you enter is a wall length window and sliding glass doors through which a secluded beach and the Pacific can be seen. I sat on the little arm of the sectional leather couch in my living room area. My back was to the door to the rest of the house. I could hear muffled music coming through it. Below me was an identical copy of my room belonging to my co-writer, the keyboard player in our band. Further below him was our humble, cool, little basement studio. Our two rooms were connected by a two story common area that existed in a never-settling variety of furniture arrangements. Tonight the ground floor was a dance pit, and the second floor a place for the dancers to rest and talk. I was focused on my pounding heart and head when I heard the doorknob cautiously begin to turn. I leaped up and ran to the door. Already a crowd was trying to push its way through the door frame. I held my arms as wide open as I could and herded the partygoers back to the commons. No, I can’t. I’m done for tonight, thanks. Next time, I promise. Happy Birthday but really I can’t. With tremendous effort, I reclosed the door and locked it. The knob twisted in vain two, three times before coming to a stop. Only then did I notice, I had let one person slip through under my arm, and now she stood on the tiles of the kitchen area. I had forgotten her name. I think it was Kate. We had met before, and I knew her well. She loved the Beatles, and we bonded listening to them. Her father left her all their albums in vinyl. She was from Seattle and moved to LA three years ago to work with a fashion company. She was always dressed well. Tonight she wore a simple white shirt with sleeves that went down to just past her elbows and an incredibly short black skirt that showed her long legs. Her skin was so pale it almost seemed to glow. But, truthfully, I only remember clearly her red, full lips. “Welcome back,” I greeted her. “Want something to drink?” “I’m set, thanks,” she said gesturing to the red solo cup in her hand. I went back to the living room area and knelt by the entertainment consol. I placed the needle on Revolver, my favorite Beatle’s album. She followed and sat close to me when I returned to my spot on the couch. “Shall we kiss a bit?” she asked, slowly throwing her leg over my lap, straddling me and gently touching my cheeks. I reached up and held her round face in my hands. Her curly, chestnut hair fell around me as she closed the gap between her lips and mine. Kissing her was like kissing the air. Her lips were so soft they felt like feathers on mine, even when I held her head close. It was like eating the lightest cream that melts before it reaches your tongue leaving only the taste behind. When she pulled away for air the only proof I had we had kissed was her ruby lips so close to me, and the taste of strawberry lip balm on my lips. She hummed the bass to Taxman. We continued to kiss through side A. “I am sorry, but I am too tired for any more fun tonight,” she said apologetically when I stood to turn over the record. “You are perfect,” I said. “I feel the same way.” This was not entirely true. I also felt tremendously lonely, but she was a helping with that and other feelings. She rose slowly, reached her arms around my neck and kissed me again. I let her lead me back to the bed area, feeling the floor transition from wood to carpet. I held her close and fell into a deep, dreamless sleep as Revolver spun down. I woke to the sun shining on my face through the window above my desk. I looked over my favorite guitars, that I kept arrayed in a semi-circle in my study area, gleaming in the morning light. I will need to polish them soon. She was still by my side, sat up a bit and looking through her phone. I rose slightly and saw she was typing out a lie to send to a boy named Mike. “Good morning,” I said sleepily. “Good morning, love,” she responded, setting down her phone, and leaning in for another breathless kiss. “I made some coffee.” “You are perfect,” I said dragging myself out of bed to the steaming coffee pot across the room. I poured a cup and turned around to see her. She wore one of my t-shirts and her brown hair was wonderfully disheveled. Her eyes were fixed on the screen in her hands. I drank half the coffee and placed the cup on the counter. I stepped onto the cool tiles of the bathroom. I turned on the water and stepped into the shower. After a minute, she joined me, and we fulfilled the unspoken promise from the night before. We had sex, holding on to the tub’s faucet and door’s handle bar for support as the hot water and steam made everything wet. After we finished, we rested in the tub for a while letting the hot water pour over us. She declared she wanted to go to the beach. I finished my coffee as she put on a bikini she found in my closet. She left through the sliding door, struggling a bit with its weight. I rummaged through her clothing and bag, looking for some identification that could tell me her name. I found only her wallet, which contained 50 dollars and a gift card to some boutique. I tried her phone, but it was locked with a pass code. Frustrated, I ate a breakfast, before joining her wearing just my boxer shorts. It was early enough that the sand was not yet hot. I found her with her toes standing on the wet sand, her feet occasionally submerged by the cold, Pacific water. When I reached her, she took my hand and pulled me into the surf and we played and wrestled in the waves. It was fun. Eventually, we found ourselves back on the dry sand letting the midmorning sun evaporate the water from our bodies. “I am sorry,” I said at last. “But, I can’t remember your name.” “You can call me, Kitty,” she said not the least bit offended. My gut told me the name was as fake as the one she told me the last time, but I dared not question it. I forgot it just the same. We lay there for hours talking and holding hands, not wanting to move anything. When we stood up our backs were coated in a thick layer of sand. We washed ourselves in the Pacific, before returning to my lovely room on the beach. //Thank you for reading.


“Satan help us brothers for the world is all but a mess and we are truly fucked” - His words rung out upon the cold stone walls of the candle quilted church. The screams never grew silent, Just stronger. We all stood in erratic circle as we had before, the 12 members stood in unity. Unity not in words but panic. Sheer fucking panic. I and Elise had seen when the broadcast, the one that brought the brainless cannibalistic shells of humans that wandered the cracked, dry earth outside our haven. I can remember the monotone words as clear as yesterday; “The state regrets to inform you that all has been lost, God help us” God couldn't help us now, he never could, the world grew tired of his dismay of human fortune and many turned to us, who praise the god below, Lucifer. But holy fuck we screwed up, we said things, did things, we grew strong but with a plywood structure, They were all here for the safety of a group not our god. He grew angry and so did the rest of the people. The flash of light tore to the back of my eyes, my bones became ash, my heart all but in the past. Everything but my memories flew to each corner of the earth. I was all but a speck in the mess we call home, my real self was with our lord. Lucifer.


I am surrounded here. Sitting on a bus, riding down I-95, and the only common denominator between me and the other people around me is this bus. Skin color, occupation, gender; whatever small differences one could use to separate our various existences were overshadowed by the fact that we were all in this moment heading to the other side of Washington D.C. on this bus. Of course, once there we’d go our separate ways and probably never see each other again. A comforting thought I am sure. Especially to the man standing alone by the rear door, looking as though he may be pick-pocketed at any moment. The tight hold on his backpack and hesitant glances around the bus seem to be an obvious indicator it was his first time alone on public transportation, or not; maybe he’s just a nervous guy. For me, a seasoned veteran of public transit, this ride was just another day of taking the cheapest mode of transportation to another potential job opportunity that would almost certainly fall apart at the last minute. Well that’s not quite right. It wasn’t just another day; it was a good day. One of those days that seems a little brighter than the others and motivates you to try your hand at the lottery for no other sake than why the hell not. A brief, audible chuckle slips from my lips as I think of this bus and all the others like it as metal cans flying down the road, filled to the brim with frustrated people consumed in their own lives and how I am normally right there with them. And today this bus was the king of the road cans, having a giant Coca-Cola logo painted on the side. Too bad I didn't have a coke; really a drink of any sort would be nice. Oh well... With a glance, I turned my attention forward and was reminded of the most recent catalyst for my unusually pleasant mood. Here, directly in front of me sat one of the most strikingly beautiful girls I have ever seen. Dark hair like the black sands of Hawaii, it had a softness that almost asked one's hands to run through it. Falling around her face, framing her jawline, and stopping just after her breast; one could not help but be struck by the juxtaposition of her deep, blue eyes. Blue, in the way the sky is blue just before the sun begins to rise to wake the world from its slumber. In that brief second our eyes locked and we shared the strangers smile. Quickly turning back to the window as if we were passing some great monument, my smile lingered as I watch the trees and grass pass. Waiting for the next opportunity to look back into those eyes and attempt to bolster the courage to say something. But this was not to be so. Slowly rotating my head to the front of the bus, I am able to only catch the moment before the front of our bus was introduced to the front of a Wal-Mart Semi. Our coke can began to wrinkle up the side and I could see those beautiful eyes staring back into mine, filled with fear. Feeling myself beginning to thrust forward I know that I am going to slam directly into this angel in front of me. As my ass separates from the seat, I successfully make a final effort to contort my shoulders resulting in a trajectory that would successfully avoid a collision with and destruction of what was certainly one of God's masterpieces. Gliding past her I am actually able to catch a hint of her perfume. It smelled familiar, and all I can help to think is that I wish I had said something. Everything went black. Waking up days later in the Alexandria Hospital, the first words out of my mouth were asking about this girl whose name I didn’t even know. Fortunately for me, one of the paramedics who was first on the scene was working nearby. He overheard my description of the girl and came to my bedside to tell me what had happened. She had been thrust forward after the initial impact, and had sequentially intercepted a shard of glass on her way to where I had been sitting. I was told that she died painlessly, as did most of the other people on the bus. His words didn’t seem to help.


Looking out the window into the night, I see the empty sky. The stars have forgotten to come out tonight, and it leaves the blackness wanting to have that little bit of light that it will never get. I decide that 10 p.m. is as good as ever to begin. I roll Hamilton, shove him into my nostril, and inhale the long white line. Pain, for a moment, and then bliss. My head feels light and I sit up, eyes wide. I think I am in my room, but the walls are floating up and out of sight to reveal an endless black chasm. My bed stays under me, and I feel like I too am floating, but only the walls look like they are gone. The fuzzy carpet tickles my feet, until it melts away into a liquid that pours like a beige waterfall. Out of the blackness, a face flies at me with pure white light for eyes, screaming. I scream in response until I notice it is my own face attacking me. It hits me and with a rush of terror, I fall back, but my bed has shattered into millions of tiny shards. I fall, never landing, and never ending. I float through happy times that make me glad I was sober. The home run when I was fifteen; the clock I made in shop class; the birth of my first child. Then I crash through the sad times, the ones that make me give up my winning streak. The time I got mad and punched the referee who said I was cheating; when my father hit me for getting a B on my shop project; the death of my first child. I see his eyes, full of hope and joy for a brief moment, until I’m thrust into the future. His eyes, dull and full of wasted dreams. A hand on my shoulder conveys grief. “He looks nice in a suit.” “The colour really compliments the mahogany.” He wears his favorite baseball cap to cover his scar from where the car hit him. This seems unfamiliar to me. The image of my son is pierced by a blinding light, and I hear a horn honk. It is 7 in the morning, and I am naked in the middle of the freeway. I am standing there, blank expression, nose bleeding. I snap back to reality, and see my car. Great, I drove last night. I can’t believe myself. I walk over to the car and see a dent in the front, with a red spatter. The windshield is cracked. I get in and drive home. As I pull up, I see red and blue flashing lights. The sirens pierce my ears, even from inside the car. I can’t get into my driveway; there are police cars and an ambulance in the way. I stop next to my driveway, and get out of the car. I hear crying; my wife’s. The last thing I see before I feel the cold metal rings around my wrists is my son lying on the pavement, backpack on, ready for his first day at school, head split at the top, blood leaking out and into the gutter at the end of the driveway, and my wife holding his hand screaming at me. From behind me, I hear “You have the right to remain silent.


Somewhere, in the vast Acathian deserts, where men go crazy under the screaming sun, lays the forgotten city of Cal’Haldron, sifting through the golden dunes, lost in time. Under the constant erosion from the waves of sand and the blazing wind, the cyclopean city had fallen into a state of decay as it descended further into new layers of fine glitter. But intriguingly enough, no matter how ancient, how fragile the crumbling city was, there seemed to be a wisp of force holding onto it. A force just barely strong enough to encase the city in unalterable time, keeping it’s destruction at bay, as if it were a wounded kraken, waiting to reemerge from the depths once the perfect storm has been brewed. Occasionally, when the heat is high enough and the season is right, the eastern winds pick up, conjuring flash sand storms that whip hard enough to rip through the hides of a desert beast. And ironically, the destruction of such a volatile sandstorm will bring about a new different perspective in the bleakness, changing the surfaces of the sand, transforming the face of the desert. As these flash storms being to slow down, settling the dust in the air, if there is a right amount of trembling at an exact rhythm from the earth below, the marble tips of Cal’Haldron will begin to resurface, catching a quick breath of fresh air from the cleansing skies, and all those in its vicinity will be lucky enough to at most glance at it for a few moments before losing it again to the sands. Many men, both gallant and tough, have ventured into the deserts of Acathia, and marched through the long days and the brief nights, in search of the whereabouts of Hal’Caldron. They had hoped to not only be the first men to uncover the sandstone pillars last touched by those from generations beyond, but also to be the men who uncovered this treasure of fame and glory that awaited for the first. Many men, both craven and fragile, have strayed far from their journey’s route, and lumbered through the long nights and the brief days, in search of the nearest signs of civilization. They had hoped to not only avoid being the men who forgot their names and lost their sanity, but also to avoid being the men who got covered in this wasteland of dust and wind that was indifferent to them. However, neither the gallant or craven, nor the tough or the fragile, achieved the goals they had originally set out for, with many concluding without beating hearts. Those who were unfortunate enough, succumbed to the rash cuts of the sand in the wind, and withered under the scorching sun. While most of those without the intentions of trespassing were eventually retrieved by other travelers, and those of the opposite circumstance were forever consumed by the shifting waves. Often, at the back of the tavern in a nearby desert outpost, amongst the drunken men and beyond the whores out looking for pieces of silver to earn, gathers all left in the tavern that can still pronounce their names properly. And in the center of the crowd, usually sits a survivor who has seen the dark grasps of the endless desert, accounting his perilous tale out beyond where knowledge knows. He will talk about his week long struggle to cling onto his own very life, and the crowd will murmur in awe. He will recall the last few gasps of air he takes before waking up in the rescue of a caravan, and the crowd will sigh in relief. And finally, he will describe the sight in the distance he saw in which he firmly believes was the lost city of Cal’Haldron, earning the disbelief and the attention of those who still bother to pay attention. While many men claim to have seen the white marble of Cal’Haldron off in the distance, and many more claiming to have spot a glimmering light off into the distance where no civilization lies, none could ever certify their claims with any firm evidence. But the arbitrary events of an unlucky, but well-built sheep farmer travelling to sell his stock in the capital to the west landed him in the wrong place at just the right time. Without a proper map due to his negligence the farmer strayed off his journey’s course, and found himself trudging in the sands through the long days and the brief nights. He felt the heat rise beyond its usual bounds, and witnessed the brewing of a flash sandstorm. Barely making it to the cover of a nearby plateau, and just whisking his life away from the death grasp of the cutting winds, he set tent in hopes to outlast the winds of the east. But no sooner had the winds begin to drop, did his unfortunate soul run into a seasonal earthquake that shook the plateau from below. And as he scrambled out of the falling cliffs and dodged through the rising rocks, he mistook one step and fell sideways and down into the shifting dunes. But when he came to a halt at the bottom of the dune, he no longer felt the heat on his neck, and the shaking from beneath had stopped. Slowly, carefully, he looked up, and found himself, at the gates, of Cal’Haldron. As the sand seethed through the cracks in the stone, and while the pillars began to slightly crumble under its own weight, the sheep farmer, so inquisitively, lifted himself up, leveling with a sculptured jackal. Lifting a hand up close to the jackal’s face, and as if drawn to it, he reached out instinctively, and touched it. The beige sandstone and the smooth surfaces seemed to distract his attention from the menacing glare and the sharpened teeth of the statue, as if it simultaneously welcomed and warded off the city to strangers seeking its fortune. The round edges of the jackal were the roughest, and the cornered sides were the smoothest. The sandstone that stood guard under direct sunlight felt cool and calm, but the base and neck of the jackal that remained in the shadows radiated with heat and energy. He could feel the integrity of the inanimate stone and its foundation; he could feel the life that swirled within the sculpture, within the city. Oblivious to his surroundings and current predicament, the sheep farmer, mesmerized by the energy and force that he felt within the lost city, detached from the statue, delved into the citadel that loomed over him. The bright sun that warmed both sand and stone around him glimmered off the golden arches, reflecting off the still settling sand, sparkling in his nearby vicinity. The silent alleyways that were strung across the city in no organized matter gave off a mysterious aura that lured his mind and body in, leading him through a string of abandoned sectors of the city that lay barren. As he exited the outskirts of the massive city and entered the inner rings, giant monuments that worship the old forgotten gods towered over him, casting long shadows that stretched further than expected. The hollowness of the parade ground before him looked a bit darker than it had from afar, and suddenly a cool breeze swept across the field, prompting the farmer to tug tighter on his robes, so he urged on further into the depths of the city center. At the end of the opposite field, cemented firmly into the ground, was a large temple built with blackened sandstone that featured obsidian figurines that seemed to keep a constant watch on the farmer. By then, there had been a noticeable change in the atmosphere that shrouded the sheep farmer. While the sun still stood bright directly overhead, he no longer felt any warmth from it. The winds that orchestrated the desert did not pick to even the slightest whisper, and the sand that had originally struck bright with its golden light were now a few shades darker, absorbing the brightness around it. Though the farmer began to feel the corrupting power that rose from beneath the ground, he no longer had the ability to muster his will and head back out of the darkness. Compelled by the bleak energy, he trudged, one step, at a time, up the stair of the ziggurat, and at the top of it was a set of trapdoors that slid open without command, revealing a dark descent into what lies beneath. On his very first step down into a crypt of insanity, the farmer, aware of his vulnerable mortality towards the malevolent energy but incapable of doing anything about it, was overwhelmed almost instantaneously by everything all at once. His past, present, and future flooded his memories. He felt afraid, confident, ecstatic, depressed, all at once. Every single bit of movement in the entire city was relayed through his head, every tick of sound that crept in the city rang in his ear, and every ray of light which shone in the city blinded his eyes. And within a second, all the chaos around and within the farmer ended, and the void of the temple opened itself up, consuming the collapsed farmer into its abyss. When he came around to his senses, the farmer found himself in a cavernous room with pillars supporting the slanted ceiling. The trapdoor above had long ceiled itself off, and the stairway leading down had retracted back into the walls. As he tried to lift himself up, he found himself unable to do so. His limbs were immobilized by an unknown force, and his soul was shackled to the energy that filled the room. Like the harbinger of insanity, time dripped into the farmer’s mind. Slowly, it drained into his pristine chalice of mental state, corrupting him while he gripped at what left of his clear thoughts he still had. Dazed with his back leaned against a marble pillar, he couldn’t rid of the clamorous silence that wouldn’t stop buzzing at his hears, and would regularly release a feeble whimper of pain and struggle. And it what could have been an eternity, the calmness that drove the farmer mad was disturbed by a rising tremble, breaking the silence and the stillness in the room. Out of the peripheral vision in his fading vision, he saw the swirling of physical energy that came together and formed a vague humanoid being off in the distance. Fear forcibly struck through his heart, the farmer, with his last bit of personal will, called out and questioned his own sanity whether he was seeing things or not. The figure, upon hearing his sound, dispersed into the air, and the farmer suddenly encountered a steadily rising feeling of anger and hatred. Without anymore will nor life, under the corruption and control of a split mind, he closed his eyes for the last time, and in the distance he heard the rumble from the ground. “Your time is up, farmer, but mine is about to begin.


Olivia massaged her forehead and read, “Chalupas… Enchiladas… Gorditas… What is all this shit anyway?” “Honey, I believe it’s called ‘food’”, retorted her fiancé, with a smug little smirk in the corner of his mouth. He turned to the next page of the menu, being careful to mind the Band-Aid on his middle finger that covered a nick that would pulsate when disturbed, and began to scan the section labeled “COMBINATIONS”. “Hardy, har, har. ‘My name is Noah and I’m super funny’… You know what I mean. This is all the same stuff! No matter whether you get a burrito or a taco, it’s just meat, cheese, salsa, and some vegetables all inside of a tortilla. I call bullshit.” She said dropping the menu on the table in front of her, hitting hard enough on the small plastic corner protectors to make a fairly audible clacking noise. Noticing this noise was louder than she intended it to be, she shrank back into the safety of her side of the booth with her arms clutching her jacket closer to her chest and her eyes darting quickly around to make sure she didn’t draw any unwanted attention. "Okay, first of all, real tacos don’t have cheese in them. Trust me, I know a Mexican. Second of all, I don’t think you can call bullshit on food. If you think it’s all the same thing, then just pick something because you know you like all of the stuff that you just listed.” he said, lowering his menu in an effort to be the voice of reason. Olivia rolled her eyes and sat forward to look back at the menu again, while letting out a slow, deep sigh. She flipped a page and stared. She flipped another and began to twist her long blond hair around her index finger. Letting out an obviously bored sight, she flipped the final page and the back cover in quick succession and let her right hand rest firmly on top of it as though it were a Bible and she was being sworn in to give testimony, saying to Noah, “I’m going to the bathroom. If the waitress comes by, order for me.” Watching her get up and adjust her hip hugger pants, Noah asked with a look of puzzlement on his face, “How am I supposed to order for you if I don’t know what you want?” Walking backward down the aisle of tables and booths, she threw her arms out to the side with complete apathy and said, “It’s all the same stuff, right? So surprise me.” Noah continued to look in her direction for another few seconds as she made the turn out of view on her way to relieve herself. Coming in the opposite direction was their waiter with a Sprite in one hand and a sweet tea in the other. Clean shaven, hair wet with gel, and filling a set of clothes that stood about five and a half feet tall, he was eager to do his best, and Noah appreciated that. He would be sure to leave this man at, bare minimum, fifteen percent. “Are you ready to order now? Or you want to wait for the lady?” he asked humbly as he set the Sprite in front of Noah and the sweet tea on the empty side. “I’ll go ahead and order for the both of us.” Noah said with a polite smile on his face. “Okay. Go ahead.” Double checking the menu, he began, “Alright, I’ll have the Enchiladas with a side of beans and rice and she’ll have the Fajitas Texanas. That comes with beans and rice too, doesn’t it?” Ceasing his furious scribbling, the waiter shot his gaze to the menu in Noah’s hand and reached out with his pen to point to the description and said with a smile on his face, “Yes sir, you see right there? ‘All fajitas come with beans and rice.’” “Oh, good. I think that will do it for us then.” He said handing his menu over and reaching for Olivia’s with the same polite smile on his face. The waiter, with both menus in one hand and the order pad in the other shuffled away in the same direction from which he came. Noah had been here a few times with Olivia but he never really took a moment to look around at the decorations, which were all typical of a Mexican restaurant. Lots of pictures of deserts, sombreros, and bright colors. The mariachi music wasn’t bad but it was hardly distinguishable to anyone who didn’t know the style that well, of which Noah had to regrettably count himself. He sipped on his Sprite and turned his head to look behind him to the picture on the wall of a desert, much like the others, but in this one, you could see mountains in the distance. They weren’t snowcapped or anything special at all, but it was a nice picture. Some cactus in the foreground and a tumbleweed on one side, all set in front of giant backdrop of upward reaching rock. “Nice picture.” Olivia said, sliding back into her side of the booth. A little startled, Noah dashed his glance in her direction. Her hair was pulled up into a ponytail now. He preferred it to be down because he liked the way it framed her face, but seeing her blue eyes more clearly wasn’t bad in the least. “Yeah, I don’t know what it is, but I like seeing the mountains and the desert together like that. They always seemed like totally different landscapes that don’t belong anywhere near each other yet there it is.” He said as he shifted his weight around in the seat. “Hmm, I never really thought of it that way, but you’re right.” She said with a smiling innocence on her face. “Where is the menu?” “Oh, the waiter came by so I placed your order and he took them.” He answered, grabbing the glass of soda in front of him and feeling the cool condensation around the Band-Aid on his finger. “Fajitas Texanas.” “What?” she asked, looking at the drink in front of her with one eyebrow raised. “That’s what I ordered for you… Fajitas Texanas. It’s fajitas with beef, chicken, and shrimp… Oh, and a side of rice and beans. You said you were starving earlier, so I wanted to make sure you had plenty.” He said smiling at her and crossing his legs under the table. “Aww, aren’t you sweet. Thinking of little old me like that.” She joked, moving the tea to the end of the table and pushing closer to crowd the table with her body. “Maybe I’m hungry for something else…” Taken aback at the sudden shift in conversation, Noah pulled his shoulders back and suddenly, unusually, became very suspicious. “Here comes the waiter, why don’t you take a drink and we can eat our food.” “Here you are… Fajitas Texanas and beans and rice for the lady...” The waiter said setting down the loudly sizzling plate in front of Olivia. “And the Enchiladas with beans and rice for you, sir.” He finished, setting the final plate down with his gloved hand. “Everything looks okay?” “Everything looks…” Noah began, but was interrupted by Olivia. “I’m sorry but could I get a Coke instead?” she asked, holding the glass of sweet tea up to the waiter. “Oh, of course. Be right back.” He said, with a slightly puzzled, but still smiling, look on his face before darting away. Turning her gaze back to Noah, she could see that he was not happy. With a butter knife in one hand and a fork in the other, he was sitting with his back flush against the booth. He was staring directly into her eyes and his jaw was set. “How long have you been here?” Noah asked. “What are you talking about?” she asked with a slight chuckle and a smirk. “Please don’t fuck around with me right now, okay? I was trying to have a nice dinner out with my fiancé. I really didn’t want to have to deal with this.” He said, with an air of frustration setting down his knife. Looking shocked and kind of offended, she started, “I don’t know what…” “Stop it Gwen. I want Olivia back.” Gwen looked down, shame rolled across her face. The waiter was back now, this time more nervous than smiling. He looked in Gwen’s direction, “Your Coke…” then glanced to Noah, who returned a small but uncaring smile. “I just wanted to have a nice dinner too…” Gwen said, still with her head down almost crying. Noah was frustrated. He had a feeling that Gwen might make an appearance. Olivia was having bouts again lately, with her courses finishing and finals coming in the next few weeks. Stress always makes it worse. Sitting forward, he said, “I’m sorry I talked to you like that. I know you need time too but what did we agree on?” “To let you know when I come around because it’s not fair to you or Olivia when I don’t say so…” she answered, now moving her face up to meet Noah’s. “Right, I know you’re an adult too and you get lonely just like Olivia and I would but we’ve got to act like it, don’t we? Especially after last time?” He asked, doing his best to reason with her. She chuckled and smiled a little, now glancing to and away from Noah’s eyes, “Yeah, but it felt really good so I thought we could try again!” “No, that will never happen again.” “But!” “No, Olivia is my fiancé and it would be cheating if I were to do that with you. It will never happen again and you have to deal with that.” He stated, picking his utensils up again. “So just eat your food and drink your Coke.” Gwen picked up the fork in front of her and began to mix the beans and rice together, “will you at least let me tell you a story?” “Sure.” He said between bites. “Go ahead.” “Okay, do you want to hear the one about the ghost and the dog or the one about the turtle that has the world on his back?” Gwen asked with great enthusiasm. Noah looked up and said, “Surprise me.


IN THE KEY OF F-MINOR (7th) The city blocks of seventy story (and higher) skyscrapers collapsing from the shock of the pulsed wave cannon resonated at 21.827Hz, if only for a brief moment. It was a low hum, but it was a strong foundation to build with. The miles of automated vehicle assembly plants; 29.956Hz. But there was a certain angle the phased picowatt laser array had to burn through them, starting at the foundations and working it's way up through the infrastructures three or four at a time. It was a gentle, almost fragile sound. Timing the spin-up of the mass driver was tricky, but it paid off: 32.703Hz vibration frequency as the thousands of tons that had been a section of a mountain, now traveling at twice the speed of sound, devastated the remaining megalopolis. A firm and true note. Something was missing, though. The AI on board the mobile weapons platform tutted as it cycled through it's library of weaponry looking for the perfect device to finish. In the span of nanoseconds, it settled on the ideal coup de grâce . The protective shielding covering the quadruple canisters of missiles slid smoothly out of the way. Each missile contained twenty-four multiple independently-targeting re-entry vehicles, with every warhead armed with a nuclear payload. All four launched in a shallow arc into the stratosphere. As the umbrella of destruction rained down, vaporizing the horizon, the landscape itself shook at a perfect 38.891Hz, a pleading but impactful E flat. The AI hummed along with this perfect chord, satisfied.


May 30th, 2016 The Little Things “Mommy, can we go get some candy?” “No, not today. Maybe tomorrow we can go.” “But mommy!” “I said no Sarah.” Sarah groaned and headed to her room and closed the door behind her. Her mother sighed then went on with her daily task, cleaning the house. She vacuumed, washed the dishes, re-organized the bookshelves, and made the beds. By the time she was done all this it was 4:00 PM. She glanced at the clock. “Oh shit! I have to go to my interview soon.” She went over to her purse, opened it, and called the babysitter. Sarah was in her room playing with her dolls when her mother came in the room and told her the babysitter was coming. She kissed her daughter goodbye and left the house. Allyson was off to her first interview. She’d never had a job before, so this was a new thing for her and she was quite nervous. She looked at the time on her phone. 4:10 PM. Her interview is at 4:20 so she assumed she would have enough time to make it on time. She walked down her street, down another, and finally arrived on the street where her interview is. She was headed for the Tim Hortons door until she saw a poor man lying in a patch of grass. His clothes were rugged and covered in dirt. For a moment she just stood there looking at the man, until the man got up and looked over at her. She quickly turned away and went inside Tim Hortons. She checked the time again. 4:18, two minutes early. She noticed her boss in the back interviewing another women. The conversation seemed to be going well. Allyson began to feel like she would screw this interview up completely. Maybe this women was better than her. The interview ended and Allyson quickly put those thoughts to rest. Her boss noticed Allyson and called her to the back. Now it’s her turn to get interviewed. Allyson shook the boss’ hand and they both sat down. The boss started off with small talk, then got down to business. He asked a lot of questions, but Allyson realised it wasn’t as bad as she thought it’d be. The interview went by quickly and Allyson left with very high hopes. She knew she would get this job. As she was leaving she noticed that the homeless man was gone. She got home, and sent the babysitter on her way. The next day she got a call from her boss saying that she got the job. She went to work the day after, and the next day, and the next day after that. Each day she’d notice the homeless man outside of Tim Hortons. After weeks and weeks of working, one day at work she decided to buy the man a coffee and a bagel. She walked up to him and said “Hey, I got you some food. You like coffee and bagels?” The man smiled and replied “Yes, I love coffee and bagels. Thank you.” The next few days she kept getting the man coffee and bagels, each day he would very graciously accept the food and drink. One day she went to work, and by the end of her shift she went to give the man his coffee and bagel but he was nowhere to be found. She searched everywhere around Tim Hortons, but could not find him. “Are you looking for the old homeless man?” Allyson turned around and saw one of her fellow employees, Emily. “Do you know where he is?” replied Allyson. “I heard he was shot and killed last night sometime after your shift.” said Emily. Allyson dropped the coffee and bagel, then slowly walked home. As she was walking she thought of what she did to help him. She knew that it’s the little things that matter and at least she tried to help him.


Charlie’s Well The light coming from above seemed so far way. Charlie sat languid; staring at the circumference of light at the top of the well. Only past the light sat the rest of the world. Large, chunky rocks composed the circular prison. Each varied in shape and size, but cut as much as the next. Blood soaked his hands Dirt marred his cheeks causing them to look pallid. So many times he tried to climb out, only to fall back down each time. Each plummet hurt more than the last. Charlie couldn’t exactly remember how he ended up at the bottom of the well. He just found himself there one day. Surely someone would pass by out of sheer luck and throw him a rope? All the urges within him told him to scream for help, but his voice evaporated every time. One last time. One last time he would try to escape. Charlie stood up lethargically, wiped the dirt from his blue jeans. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “I can do this”, he told himself. Spying some dry dirt on the ground, he took a handful and rubbed the soles of his hands. The dirt permeated through his fingernails. Charlie spent minutes meticulously choosing his path. Finally, with the path chosen two hands firmly grasped two rocks. With his feet, he pushed himself higher. He climbed and climbed, with each thrust forward, his spirt slowly became replete. The small pinpoint of light became a sun. The warmth of the air above raised every hair. A smile broke as he became closer. Not much longer now. One hand grasped the next rock. As he heaved the other hand forward, a sharp, acute pain stung his hand. Hanging on by the one hand, he saw the long cut trickling blood. No vestige of hope remained. Only a few feet separated the boy and the outside world. He went numb, after all the distance traveled nothing would stop the inevitable descent. Then, a hand appeared out of the light. The hand grabbed the bloody hand and pulled Charlie forward. The luminous transition blinded his sight. Eyes squinted to defend the assaulting light. As the light became tolerable, Charlie looked around. There he stood, surrounded by grass in a field. The sky shined blue and the gentle breeze felt pleasant upon the skin. In front of Charlie stood the very person he needed most. A smile broke free. At that moment Charlie knew all would be well.


I cradle my drink, or at least the analogue of it. I haven't really been able to 'drink' anything in the traditional sense for the past three thousand years, but that's why I come here. They map you at the door and simulate your memetic concept of a relaxant. To me everyone is a humanoid, drinking some sort of liquid. To the guy on the other side of the bar everyone might be an energy-cloud, absorbing plasma from a central node. Apparently they tailor the experience based on the composition of your nervous system, which most sentient beings have in one form or other. It's a good system; we can all still get wasted together, without having to deal with culture shock. I'm here to meet a man named Bezerk. Not his real name, but the closest thing to it I can understand. A slim man steps up to me; he seems nervous, almost trembling. From what I know of the Garlorkians, this probably means he's a roiling ball of plasma, anxious and destructive to carbon based life forms, but I'm safe - another benefit of a sim-bar. He sits next to me nonchalantly, but his twitching lip belies plasmoid flares bursting across his nest-space. "Garlin?" he whispers, without breaking his forward gaze. I return the favour, looking forward as I take a long draught of something that tastes like a beer I first tried when the Earth still circled the sun. I let the moment hang before muttering, "Garlin is dead, but what he fought for isn't." The slender man's tremors subside imperceptibly, he knows he's on safe ground now. "But a dead man can't see a vision made real, so why bring the vision about." I turn to him, and drawl, "when a man dies for a vision, it is for the eyes of others, and must be seen" with as much enthusiasm as I can muster. For Bezerk this might be a thrilling risk, for me it's just a day job. He licks his lips nervously, and turns to me. "So you're the guy?" he says, dripping with disdain. "Probably," I retort, "if I get the job done I am, if not then we're both dead, so what does it matter?" "You've got the transport vehicle ready?" he asks, seemingly calmed by my callous attitude to death. "It's in Port, meet me at docking bay three-oh-delta, in six turns" I reply. He takes all this in his stride, "OK, I'll emit a frequency at 12hz so you can identify me, and then we can load up," he shoots back. He's obviously used to giving orders.


Right now, the car is headed silent down the highway. It's dark, and there is nobody driving. I snuggle up in my seat and listen to the hum of its parts. I have turned my set off. It shows nothing but reports of destruction and plagues. The world on fire. The world gone mad. Most of the interstates have shut down. They want people to stay in one place. The car is moving along the back roads, switching from one lonely little highway to another. We are headed towards the answer, towards the key to defeating Q. I hope we get there fast. Slowly, the sky pales, and the blue curves of the mountains emerge from the darkness beyond the guardrails. I heard once that the Appalachians used to be as high as the Himalayas. Looking at the sloping hills under the sky, I can sense the ancient shape of the world. A world that was here before us. Man, I'm getting pretty philosophical. In my mind, another shape appears. Massive. Continental. The slope of human decline. The awful descent of the human race into... Christ. Let's just enjoy the pretty mountains. Karen is lying in the back. She's doing another eye treatment with equipment we took from the hospital. Before we reach Plattsburgh, the car switches highways and heads west. The sun climbs higher. We are getting closer. Eventually, the car turns onto an unpaved road. After few minutes, it slows to a stop. And here we are. I look around. It's a nice bit of country scenery -- grass and trees and gentle hills and blue sky and pretty much fuck all. There is nothing here. Or whatever is here, is hidden. Karen is still doing the eye treatment in the darkness of the van's rear. The light from the goggles seeps out in little flashes, sketching the shape of her face. Finally, the goggles turn green, and she pulls them off, blinking and squinting. I go and help her sit up. "Can you see a little better?" I ask. She looks down at her hands, moving the fingers slowly in the dark. "Yeah." "Persistent shapes?" She raises her hand into a shaft of sunlight shining in from the front of the van. Her fingers catch the glow. "My hands," she says softly, her voice quavering with disbelief. It's the first strong emotion I've ever heard from her. "Good. That's great," I say. "Well... we're here. What do we do now?" She looks at me and smiles maniacally. "We go into the forest," she says. Her smile is unnatural and stiff, more of a grimace than a smile, but for a brief moment, as it first spreads across her face, she looks like a giddy little kid. "The key is there," she says. "What is it? Some kind of secret underground base? Hidden laboratory?" She makes a groaning sound that I barely recognize as laughter. "You play too many narratives. It's much simpler than that." I unfold a wheelchair that we "borrowed" from the hospital and help her into it. When I open the back doors of the van, she winces against the bright sunlight, and again her face looks like a little kid's for a moment. I give her a pair of huge black wraparound sunglasses that we took eye treatment center. The van lowers to the ground, and I roll the wheelchair out onto the dusty road. She makes sure I take a bag of supplies with us -- snacks and drinks and other stuff. The sun is warm on my skin, but the breeze is fresh and cool. It's a perfect day. You would think that everything is right in the world. "So where to?" I ask. She looks around, her head wobbling on her thin stalk of a neck, her eyes hidden by the massive glasses. "There was once a house here. Do you see it?" I look around and spy a low, crumbled gray wall mostly hidden behind the high grass. "I think see an old foundation." "That's it, she says. Her eyes are hidden, but there is something in her voice that wasn't there yesterday, a shivery excitement. It makes me excited too. I push the wheelchair down a weedy gravel driveway toward the foundation. There's nothing else left of the house. It must have been torn down and hauled off. Karen has me push her around it and go down a trail leading towards forest. "What was that house?" I ask. "Anything important?" "I used to live there." I turn and give it another look, as if I would see some new detail in the crumbling concrete that I had missed. "That was the old children's home?" "Yep." "Then where are we going?" "We're almost there," she says. "It's close." We follow the trail into the forest. The trees become thick and shadowy. The wheelchair has a little power assist, but it's still tough to push it over all the roots and rocks and that lie along the narrowing, twisting path. "Oh, yes!" Karen whispers excitedly. Up ahead, sunlight gleams through the branches of the crowding trees. A wave of excitement moves through me, and I push Karen faster. We come out into a clearing, a broad patch of wild grass that glows green and golden in the sunlight. "Here," Karen says. I stop the wheelchair and look around. At first glance, there doesn't seem to be anything here. "So what's here?" I ask. "I used to come here as a child... and play make-believe... before I was connected." I take a walk around the clearing, looking for something. A hatch? A hole? An actual key lying in the grass? There is nothing. Across the clearing, Karen is slowly pulling off her sunglasses. When her eyes appear, they startle me. They are wide and gleaming within utter fascination. I walk up to her. She is staring at something. Tears fill the rims of her eyes and spill over. What is she looking at? It seems to be something right in front of her, something I can't see. I stand beside her and crouch so I can see what she is seeing. There is nothing there but a small cloud of gnats. "What are you looking at?" I ask. She looks all around and takes a deep breath and shudders. "There's... more..." she whispers. "More what?" "They said the feeds were complete... but they were wrong." I wait for her to say more, but she doesn't. "What do you mean?" I ask. She looks at me and smiles, the most goofy, crazed smile I've ever seen, tears still flowing down her cheeks. "The designers of the feeds said that it provides a complete experience. Enough colors, enough frames, enough smell gradients, enough complexity to make it indistinguishable from reality... but they were wrong. Here! Look at them!" she says, raising her hand into the air. "You mean... the gnats?" "Yes." The gnats are glowing specks dancing senselessly in the sunlight. I wonder if some pattern will emerge. Can Karen control them with their mind? Is that the secret? Are they forming shapes? But they just dance and dance, forming nothing, making no pattern that I can see. I feel silly for even thinking that they would. They're gnats. I turn away. A flood of angry thoughts rushes through my mind. Gnats? Fucking gnats? She's a nut. She's lost it. Yeah, she's powerful and impressive in the feedrealm, but now she is in the real world, and she has completely lost her shit, and this whole trip has been a waste. "Is there anything here?" I ask. "What's the key? Seriously. Don't give me any of that bullshit like 'I can't explain' or 'You'll see.' Just tell me. What are we doing here. What is the plan?" I ask, almost shouting by the end. The crazed look of joy fades from her face and is replaced by the look of a scolded child. She lets her head hang and wipes the tears from her face with her weak little hands. I feel a bad. I kneel by her chair and say, "I'm sorry. Please, just tell me what your plan is. I need to know now." Karen begins speaking softly without looking up. "Q has base control of every major system in the world. Every drone, every rover, every defense robot, all orbital assets, all nuclear weaponry. She has control over most human political systems. She has destroyed or contained every existing countermeasure, including me. There is no scenario in which we could ever reacquire control. Not with a thousand times our current resources. Not with a thousand years of computation time." "So then what's the plan?" "What we need is a way for Q to be destroyed by just one or a few motivated individuals. I believe there were points in the past when this could have happened. Maybe one of the Germans overseeing the early research program could have stopped it. Maybe it could have been stopped around 2020, when the portals were shut down, and interface research was temporarily abandoned. But it didn't happen. Currently, at this point, there is no way for it to happen. Q has control of far, far too many assets. The war is already lost. Irrevocably." "Then what do we do?" "We must hope that there are alternate timelines and that somebody in one of these timelines foresees what is happening to us right now -- that somebody foresees this very moment in time and takes steps to prevent it." I stare at her. She looks into my eyes. I grope for words. "Is that... Wait... Alternate timelines? Is that the plan? We have to send a message back into the past?" "In a sense." "Then the person who receives this message will destroy Q in the past, and that will save us?" Karen shakes her head slowly. "No. That clearly won't happen or everything would already be different. We are utterly doomed. We'll either be either incinerated in a nuclear strike or rounded up and incorporated into Q. There's no stopping that. The only hope to defeat Q is on some other timeline, if such a thing exists." "There's no hope for us? At all? Then what are we doing here? Why are we in this fucking clearing?" "Haven't you felt it?" "Felt what?" "The feeling that you're inside a narrative." An eerie shiver comes over me. I look around at the clearing. "Like, I'm inside a feed?" "No. Inside a narrative. A story in somebody's mind. Doesn't this all seem just like a story? Two people rushing off to save the world, to find some hidden key in the forest?" "Yeah, it all seems pretty unbelievable." "That's how I wanted it to feel. That's why we came out here. So that we can be inside a story. Now, hopefully, there is somebody out there in the past who will write the story." "Write the story? What? So there's nothing here?" "There's no magic key or secret underground base." "Well this story sucks." "Why?" "It's a huge fucking let-down." Karen makes a mild choking sound that might be a chuckle. I slump down into the grass beside her wheel chair and hang my head. I'm out in the woods with a crazy person. She doesn't even make sense. She's spent too long in 5D. She's talking about alternate timelines. Finally, I ask her, "So we're just fucked, right?" "If you look toward our future, if you look at the series of events which will happen to us, they are dark. They are very awful. We will suffer. We will die. But that would be true in any timeline. On the other hand, if you look at the entire story, not as a series of events, not from beginning to end, but as a single continuous, connected shape, where every event is occurring simultaneously... I think... my life... even my stupid little life, which I spent mostly inside that hygiene bed... could form a beautiful shape." I snort. I'm tired of this cryptic bullshit. Karen goes on. "Maybe that shape reaches back, back to some place where somebody can see it and change things." I don't say anything. Karen reaches into our bag of supplies and pulls out one of the little paper notebooks she bought at the gas station. "What are you doing?" I ask. "I'm going to write a poem. Do you want a notebook?" "What for?" "Maybe there's somebody out there who needs you to write a story." "Who would read it? Isn't everybody going to die?" "Who knows," she says and drops the other notebook into my lap. "Maybe somebody would be interested." I toss the notebook off into the grass. Fucking pointless. I can barely write on paper anyways. We sit in silence for a long time. When I look up, Karen is staring at that same little cloud of gnats, occasionally jotting stuff down. I find myself staring at them too. They look like nothing more than living specks of dust worked into a crazy, whirling frenzy. Is there any pattern in how they move? Would it matter if there was? I think about what Karen said about the shape of her life, what it would look like if everything happened simultaneously, if it could all be seen at once. I think about the shape of my own life. I stare at the gnats and imagine seeing every position of every gnat all at one time. What kind of shape would it make? Even if I could see it, would this shape have any meaning? I pick up the notebook and begin to write.


It all started with big bang! Rocks bursting out from walls, windows shatter to pieces. As I, Vane bolt out of the exploding castle with the most haste. Eager to see the outside world eager to break free from my personal hell. As i use my Dark magic to counterploted me through the explosion i sense my father's Force field a strong pure concentrated dark energy that seem to emit from the core of that wretched castle. Since i knew the nature of that energy i knew i had be swift for a fraction of second i need to get out of that force field. If i fail, my father's punishments will be more animated and more devious. And seeing how he already sent out his conjured up Warlords a colossal beasts that serve my father's deeds with no shred of humanity or self reflections. I knew my task wasn't going to be easy. For one second i gathered all the energy i have in my body. And focused all my dark magic in one vocal point. I knew the risk i was taking, but i dare death for my freedom. OUT the Shadow beam bolted from my body i felt my life slipping away as it exists my body. But it was enough to break a small hole in the force field. But as soon as i got close to it. I saw the hole of my freedom pass away from me, as i was grabbed from those monsters, and slammed my weak body to the ground i felt every bone break instantly. And my freedom was lost. Laying there on the ground of my father's castle just steps away from my freedom, looked up the blue sky for very first time, how did i come to live such horrible life? Why did i have to suffer this fate? The monster was pounding me to ground and dug and broke the earth around me i felt my body descending to the earth, fate seemed to be always on my father's favor. But I am Vane i cannot give up. I have dreamt of this moment all my life. And i will not allow a brainless beast determine my fate. I gathered my energy when it hit me harder than the monster ever can, the reality of my dark magic i used it all out. My Mana flowed so little in me it is barely sustaining my life. I hate to relay my fate to my father's work but i have to borrow his core dark magic. It will lose it's purity once it within me, however . there's a hope that it will weaken a bit. After all i am buried to ground enough that i can withdraw it from here. But i hope i don't lose my last breath as i do so. Withdrawing the dark energy wasn't hard task as i previously thought. In the matter of seconds it was ravishing through me infesting me truly. But it was a power that i couldn't truly fathom. So rancid so disgusting. But it found a refuge in me as it's new host. The monsters punches bear me no harm any longer. I cracked that monster right open and it fell. I had no desire to waste my time with the either monsters, but i learned to never turn my back on them, and i shall not. This time breaking force field wasn't as difficult with my new found powers, but i was too haste i didnot understand the magnitude of my own abilities i decimated the force field to oblivion and i destroyed 9 km of land. And i quickly wobble my way flying through a deep chasm of my own doing. This was it my freedom. I finally taste a different air than father's festering disgusting foul castle. I finally can see the sky for it truly look like. As the breeze slowly blow in my face. I descend to the chasm. Slowly i was overtaking by my own weakness. But i had to push forward as far away from my father's presences my father's air my father's world. I can bear it no longer. And I Vane fell deep in the earth. Sleeping in a small rock in the walls Take away tiredness and open my eyes to my new pain, backache. For that pain was different from any pain I have woke up from. I was no longer half burned between life and death. Trying to save my soul with such horrible enchanted words of my father’s tongue. As I fully come to senses the realization of my own new found freedom. Struck me! It was greatest finally I have ever had in a long time. I slowly using the ugly magic I know I ascend from the deadly chasm. And scout my eyes through the open field. It was long and vast open desert. The disc of the sun looked me dead in my eyes. It was the first time my pale skin baskin in it is heat. It was warm and clear and clean and beautiful. In the light of that realization I fly through wind rivaling the birds and feeling the breeze hit my face an fills my heart with gleam and glow. As in my my mind I utter nothing but these words “ I am free” . “ I am finally free”. But my happiness did not last for long as I saw a dome of force field of in the distance. This dome didn’t emite any core power, so it is not as strong as the castle’s dome. When I inched a bit closer I saw a village that looked it been rid of every sort life. Then I stopped there dead in the air, when i finally came to all my full senses, and my infested blood began to boil. My body hair began to rise. And all I saw is red. As I whisper to myself grinding my teeth as I do so “ he is dead”. Vane entered the dome of the village with scrunched eyebrows, and big frown in his face. Turning many heads as he does so, it was very uncommon for any to leave or enter the village. What turned even more heads was seeing this strange man’s pointy ears, everyone now knew who was this strange man; he was Vane the molested child of shams. The only child of his and the only elf left in the world. Everyone even with their exhaustion assumed that Vane was here to decree a new law under Shams’ destructive name. but what they heard was even more destructive than anything Shams law. “You are all enlisted in my war” said Vane. “ a war against whom” Muttering sounds of whispers . “ you beloved god” An air of deep confusion sat down in that very village, until. Cometh forward a frail man his eyes were down to the ground, and politely manner he said to Vane “Excuse me Sire, we all wish for his death but we are all weak to fight, we hadn’t had a sip of water in many years, food is so scarce that we begun to eat each other” faces of shame were seem so bluntly in that small village. Vane exploding in anger for having someone talk back to him “ you DARE defy me?” “ No! Sire I would rather di-“ And those was the last words that frail man ever spoke. “ I don’t ask of you, I force you to” “Your loyalty is no longer for your god” The old men and women dared not to reply to his comment, for they never ever pledged loyalty to Sham and if anything they only deeply wanted him dead, since his day he assumed the emperor of the earth.


I stand in the docking bay, it reminds me of a giant pigeon hole, opening up into space. The cavern is dwarfed only by the fact that I know that hundreds of openings like this encrust the structure. Utilitarian spaces like this are most definitely not human (or sentience) friendly. Huge structures careen about the expanse, carrying out the arcane tasks surrounding intergalactic mass transit. Pulling ships into dock, transferring cargo, ferrying matter and energy around like playthings. I've chosen to present in my human sim again, 'mostly for the vices that come with it', I muse as I drag on my cigarette. A looming, pockmarked orb floats over to me. This must be Bezerk, a roiling ball of plasma in a nest-space, contained inside a Neopodian transport pod. Garlorkians can move fairly quickly in the physical space, so the transport pods don't hold much advantage for them, but they keep their surroundings intact. I quickly do a frequency check, and then link in. Bezerk appears abruptly in my comms field. He brings my ship into focus and sputters, "This is the ship that you claim can take us through the Inactive Zone undetected?" It's translated from Garlax, (an energy/matter based language), through Neopod universal, and into an analogue of Earth tongue I find easiest to operate in, but I can still hear his cynicism. No matter to me, he's paid up, and ready to load, it's not my job to make him feel good about the whole thing. "I'll send through docking protocols - accept them and the ship will lift you into its containment field," I say brusquely, turning to the ship. As I see his sphere elevate and get swallowed into my ship, I prepare for the meld. Switching from terrestrial to ship-state is something I'll never get used to. No matter the sim or bot I use, I generally go bipedal, one head, two legs, that sort of thing. Either a genetic memory turned digital, or maybe just vanity. Either way, transferring to ship-mind feels weird. Instead of the fairly standard mammalian sensor network I grew up - hands, feet and skin, a visual input across a fairly narrow spectrum - I have information feeding into my consciousness from an array of sensors in and around the ship. Air pressure, gamma levels, radiation, all presented as data arrays, and interpreted as an almost physical experience. Instead of muscle memory telling me I can jump, crouch, laugh or shit, I know with a thought I can undock, pivot in zero-G, and trigger fusion reactions that push me across the galaxy. It's weird, but it's exhilarating once I get my space legs. The only problem is the itches. For some reason, even after all the advances in neurotechnology, the older sentient humanoid bases like myself can't shake some bodily impulses. There's nothing worse than crossing the void with an itch you can't scratch, the twinge of a phantom body part left on a moon a few thousand years ago.