The sun is upside down. Or is it? It is a rather peculiar sight for some people. But for them, it is a completely normal, everyday sight. When everything is already upside down, the definition of said word for them is (of course) different. Ume sits with her knees bent, her eyes are completely set on such a magnificent view: the sun leaving its work hours for the day and setting himself into a deep, deep slumber. After the longest day of the year, the sun clearly deserves its leave. It is slowly moving upwards, tainting the sky vermilion beneath it. In this side of the world—even though no residents in this small town knows exactly where they are, somehow the sun rises downwards and sets upwards. There is this urban legend circulating amongst the community that once, there was this man who accidently ( yes, you read that correctly) flipped this town upside down by offering a God an upside down fish dish at a summer festival. The God went into a rage upon the visible fish skin and curses the town with a sun that orbits the other way around. What an urban legend. Ume smiles to herself and stands up. Brushing off her aching heels and twitching shoulders, she then walks slowly towards her final destination of her summer trip: The Town Plaza. This town of her objective, no one knows exactly where that is. Even more unusual, nobody knows how this town looks like. There is no single person on earth has ever been into said town. It's a mystery, yet Ume believes that such conundrum would be a very breathtaking place embraced by mother nature: naturally enchanting, secluded, a jewel in discover. Perfect for a summer stop, right? A pair of curious eyes wanders around, savoring wonderful view of a hill clothed by grass, decorated by rocks. Bamboos and another skyscraping trees that she can't totally name are towering over her small figure. Summer winds are brushing her raven locks gently. Her ears take on a faint sound of a flowing water, indicating a spring nearby. Unconsciously, her steps guide her to said water. And what meets her vision is rather... unbelievable. How bizarre, she mutters to herself. What do you think she sees? In front of her flows a very, very clear spring water through a river. Rocks were sprawled across the river and fishes are dancing in them. What is so peculiar, you think? The water flows backwards. Backwards. Or perhaps, upwards . She can see it clearly with her own pupils, that a nearby waterfall is... flowing upwards towards its water source. And the fishes... The Kois, and Goldfishes (she convinces herself that they are, indeed, Kois and Goldfishes) are pulling out some Michael Jackson stuffs because they are swimming backwards! How is this even explainable? I thought the sun setting upwards is already as mystifying as that urban legend , she thinks. Well, The God referred in that questionable urban legend definitely has a few screw loose. Nothing, nothing can be more absurd than this... right? Or so she thinks. She decides to just snaps out of it and continues her journey. Maybe that is just a fragment of her imagination. Or maybe—Ume assumes, The God once goes into a human school to learn and gets a solid twenty points on physics and fails. Then, he proceeds to make sure that law of physics are banished from this side of the earth. Or perhaps, This Mighty Powerful God Who Hates Upside Down Fish has a terrible break up history with another God that creates physics. Yes, that totally makes sense. Maybe He got cheated on by that Physic God. This kind of thing is very common in Godly world, right? Right? Ume stands still for a good two minutes, convincing herself and her countless doubts that this town she is visiting is just another regular inhabited town in her destination list. Her worn out camel carrier has seen enough different cultures and architectures, various skin tones of various people, numerous money currencies and numerous ways to spend them, but none of those can explain what she is seeing as now. Such a peculiarly scenic sight to see. How uncanny that The God who is behind all of these masterpieces is such a frivolous figure to begin with. There is no time to lose. I have to move forward to the plaza before it gets dark, Ume whispered under her breath. Soon after, she starts jogging her way throughout a very bristly pavement to north. It is—apparently, her lucky day. She arrives in less than ten minutes of jogging at a colossal gate painted purple. Lights are surrounding the gate and the walls around it, emitting a very blinding warm toned glow reflected across the walls. Sounds of fireworks and cheers can be heard as clear as spring water, dragonflies soar across the sky above her dark hair. Enchanted by the dragonflies, she starts to lift her dirty high boots off the ground and heads off towards the gate. But, before she can sees what's behind the gate, a guard with ivory hair came into her line of sight. He towers over her for a good two heads or so. "Uh... good evening?" Ume says to him, trying to be as civil as possible. The guard seems to be observing her for a solid minute before replying with a distant expression, " Uoy era ohw? " HAH!? Ume screamed—internally. "I'm sorry, w-what?" " Ereh uoy sgnirb tahw? " sneers the guard, looking at her with more venom in his pupils. "Apologize, I really don't understand your language and I am not from here. Can you speak English?" " Tsiruot a rof ecalp on si siht, uoy llet tsum I ," he clicks his tongue before continuing. " Niaga thgilyad eht ees reven lliw... ereh emac ohw enoyna. " He manages to move aside and looks away. Ume takes it as a sign that she is allowed to proceed further into the gate. She smiles to him before expressing a genuine gratitude to the ivory haired guy and sprints inside. What she misses behind her back was the guard moonwalking back to his original post. This is it, she thinks to herself, excited. I will be the first one who post a publication about this interesting town for sure! Can't imagine the money I will make when they rea- Her thoughts stop in just a mater of seconds. She freezes on her spot, eyes shrinking on scenery that lies ahead. Her shoulder drops, words being taken away from her tongue. She could not believe herself. Her emerald eyes are moving back and forth from a person to another. What she doesn't expect is to have everyone— literally everyone's eyes on her. Every single person in front of her is looking directly at her. Yet, Ume can't decide between looking at the abundant amount of people, walking backwards, circling a gargantuan burning statue, or to look at a lofty waterfall in the background which has its bloody water flowing upwards. But, no matter how hard she tries to utter any words of greeting for her watchers, nothing manages to get out of her pierced lips. This is not right. Something about this just... feels off. Should I run? Ume snaps out of her thoughts when a middle aged woman in floral scarlet gown approaches her (moonwalking, of course) with torch in her hands. The woman in red is all smiley and wrinkly. "Oot ydal lufituaeb a hcus. Ereh evah ew luos evarb a tahw." Ume keeps thinking, she feels like she can understand the words somehow. Her brain went into a spree of Chloe Ting's work out routine trying to decipher those words. " Oot uoy ot remmus Yppah . Niap tuohtiw... eid uoy erus ekam lliw ew. Emit fo dog ythgim ruo ot decifircas uoy evah s'tel, neht! " Shit, it dawns on her. She should've known. She should've fled. They are talking backwards.


It was a day like no other. January first, 2038. New year, new me. At least until the Incinerators came. Let me organize this story in a way that will be the most gratifying. I don’t get to tell stories often, and I don’t want to bore anyone. Space. The beginning and ending of the trudge of life. Life, that ever-expanding, ever-fruitful bending of a straitened reality. Never showing anything. Always learning. The science of space travel had just turned 10 years old. In our short jaunt through space, we colonized all the planets of our solar system. Even Jupiter. Do you have any idea how hard it is to land on gas? That’s what she said. It was a brave new time. We had created a new form of energy. It turns out that the human sperm and egg, when put into a supercollider, produce a form of energy so potent that it can hardly be contained. They called it Banging, after the Big Bang theory. It was supposed that such a collision could have begun the universe, or some such other. Goodness gracious, do I digress. We had colonized the entire solar system in less than ten years, and as soon as we reached the “used to be” planet, Pluto, something that had mocked us for millennia with its icy deserts. Suddenly, there was a jolt out into the heavens. We stood at the edge of our solar system, realizing that we were way out of our depth and that whatever was coming wouldn’t be waiting for autographs. Storytelling is one of the great arts. It’s difficult to put into coherent words the terror, the frustration, the fear that the Incinerators brought to bear upon such a small, relatively backward race. We still hadn’t figured out how to make bullets work in zero gravity. Our only way of killing someone was to take their helmet off and hope they would suffocate. But the incinerators were different. They breathed carbon monoxide natively, and oxygen. Some sort of ungodly take on amphibians. We’ll get to why they’re called “The Incinerators” in a minute. But suffice it to say that we weren’t happy about our new foe, nor had we even contemplated the vastness of space or its potential pitfalls. What kind of problems had we created for ourselves? How much pain had we caused? The first ship to go down was Admadames at the far edge of the solar system. It was my ship. I had just started captaining it ten days before it was struck out of space, leaving only debris and an unrelenting zeal for revenge. My first instinct was to go down with the ship. Perhaps death in space wasn’t something so terrible after all. But I had experience. Plus, those medallions on my uniform were pure gold. Very hard to replace. I escaped with my life, but I’ll never forget the dangers of war in space. A war is not so much a measure of life’s fleeting quality as it is a test of patience. Everyone wants to have their say, but they won’t. Only a person – a being – with a clear voice and a positive mental attitude will ultimately have the last word. We fought. Our principal weapons were just toys to them – to the Incinerators.  We fought like crazy, but we couldn’t make them stop. They kicked us out of Jupiter with a garbled shout. We were routed from Uranus, home of the Pixie Pavilion and the largest human cohort outside of Earth. The pain we felt. The evil did not triumph for long. It was at this time in 2041 that we made our stand. In only three years we went from having the whole solar system to having less than when we started. All told, only about 73% of the Earth was still ours by the time the Incinerators got here. There was no way out. My commanding officer, General Perimedes of the Space Shock Force, told me that this would be our chance. I commanded the remaining forces of the Human Space Fleet, but I was becoming increasingly worried. I never knew that one planet could lose that many ships. That many cadets. After multiple attempts on my own life, as well as the lives of my direct reports, I decided to go on the offensive. Using the highest security clearance available, my cohort and I developed a plan that would “Shock” the Incinerators into ultimate surrender. This was not some chicken scratch plan written on the back of a dairy box, but a well-thought-out and effective plan that had both a high chance of succeeding and little in the way of downsides. If all went well, we would have defeated these “space gremlins” and gotten back on track to achieve our goal. The crazy thing about all of this that I’m saying to you is that it was never my plan to be in the military, much less the savior of all we hold dear, the savior of humanity. I was a young peacenik and conscientious objector who wanted to be a visual artist. Painters, they called us. Always slinging paint. I had covered enough canvasses to lace the Great Wall of China, but I found that something was missing. Then, there was space. The great inventor, Dareth Musk, had just concocted a special chemical that would successfully carry humanity on an adventure that no one even thought possible. I was the one who was called. I did my duty, often without recognition, without comfort. It was the most painful, and yet most exhilarating experience I’ve ever had. So many great things happened, some terrible. When humanity finally made its stand, it didn’t look to the outside world that we even knew what we were doing. The plebes, so focused on Saturday night TV. Even at that time, most had no idea of the fight involved. We mounted our weapons and took heed. No one could stop us because we were determined to bring the fight to them. We were the ones that had the most to lose, who had lost the most, who wanted the most. It was at the Battle of Baf Matex that it all came into being. We had already had some success kicking the Incinerators off the surface of the planet, but they were swarming. Our special weapon, the Dynamo Complex, had been in development for a few months and was ready to go. The Incinerators, as powerful as they seemed, didn’t know what to do. They fell, and we entered the immortal, permanent sky.


please wait little, it’s heavy precipitation, we will be quick little later” was phone's machine answer. Many times seen outside window, It struck to go to Couriers Office ,send the work to  head office ,myself .Whole scenario was dark and dull. Presenting hilarious look.. “Hallo, anybody here ". said little louder ,but no answer . On side of table, an old man lied unconscious ,cash drawer opened wide. Terror took me . Light flashed on windows, It was my car’s lights. “Oh my Gosh, ran out side, my car was missing. some staff members came in haste , picked up old man for side room , doctor examined and half an hour later old man stepped to life.He Episoded, three lads of twenty ,wearing jeans and jacket, taken cash and fled away.” Officer, my car also been taken “wailed me .We had done a haul”oohooooo, the three muggers were great excited about..“Better in disguise.There is no police patrolling yet". Oscar said with great happiness. .” Jaffer,drive carefully, it’s precipitation”, Cried Watson." Don’t worry before dawn we would be far away “.Replied Jaffer heroically.”I’m little worried about old cashier, got hit badly in head,”. Jaffer said little contentedly. , “Be a man, don’t think about him,think about your self, police must be there and would searching us every where .“Added Oscar. Three some Sitting in front seat of the car. “Where is Money bag”?. Watson inquired . "Back seat,” and Oscar jumped back seat to count the cash. Started counting. He screamed” small boy here! “What? “.Both said loudly. Car halt in the woods. Lovely cute little boy, wrapped tightly, presenting a smile.” Hurry up throw him in wood” Oscar yelled .He would be died soon.this is inhuman “.Expressed Watson .”what you have done,stealing money hitting a man, is human act" Oscar said it with great disturbing voice." I have a quick solution, I will shoot him.”.Jaffer barked”.”Ah don’t do that, it’s a cute boy “again Watson interrupted." I think it’s his fate".Oscar angrily said." Nevertheless are you deciding his fate"?. Saying this ,Watson gave him a strong fist.”Ah, you start fighting,police would come in a while and we would be caught .“said Jaffer scarcely .Oscar took out a gun and tried to kill the boy.Watson swiftly jumped towards boy and pushed him other side.Bullet missed." Boy is also cripple, wearing prosthetic”. Pointed Watson.” "you stay with boy we are moving “ saying this they rushed to wards car and drove away. NOW !…..there was a boy ,Watson and the precipitation.  Watson saw a dim light in the middle of the woods.He marched towards that way .It was a small hut. Door was ajar. He dared inside. “Watson, I knew you would come!'.'.. ? In the dim light he saw shadow of girl.Watson quickly put the boy on a little bed."Who is there" Watson asked scarcely.” "Julie".Replied came from the dim light."I thought you were no more"Watson getting close and touched her and hugged her tightly in his arms and started kissing his face madly."Are you married ?”Julie asked with severe fright.."No, “Watson replied abruptly." Did you kidnap him ??”Julie inquired frightened."No,no,I just saved his life" “Watson became emotional. “It’s good you are alive, How do you came here" ? Watson became distressed. “My brothers threw me in the river but the old fisherman saved my life, I’m since living with him. “Julie replied sadly.Watson kissed her again ."My life is in doldrums,I won’t take you”.Watson heavy heartedly said. “No, I would go with you, ”Julie’s voice over loaded .Watson agreed but he attained his fate, he also found taking Julie is not wise decision, it’s all endangering.But he picked up boy and Julie accompanied him. I was very perturbed and my husband was also very angry “Those bastdards would kill him and would cut into pieces !“.My husband with a great loud angry voice said. "Why did you bring him ?"he again asked me in anger. “How could I leave him,I thought in little while we would be home.” l answered. What shall I do now.? There is no shelter,the boy is shivering, should go to the police,Splash of ideas were knocking Watson’s mind. Watson decided to go to the police and hand over this boy to them. “What’s your name ? but the boy didn’t answer. How old are you ??”Watson again asked.He with his fingers showed he is six. They smiled with them selves.Julie carried him in her arms but he was very heavy. hold his finger and asked him to take some steps,the boy took some steps and fallen down.Very strange,this boy neither walk nor talk,what kind of life is he carrying .?Julie thought.After a little while sat for rest. It was horrified darkness and didn’t ’know how were they continuing? Watson felt some thing very strong touching body, It was a rail track and due to darkness they couldn’t see the track.Julie was also tired and dozy. . She saw a rail bogey approaching them and some men were running after the bogey. She became swift and pushed Watson to the other side of the track ,she also jumped.Literally, the boogies were all gathered there for auction bid ,next week .One of its bogey slipped down and started rolling. Watson and Julie were indeed very tired and worried. It was nearly dawn, passing through Couriers office ,Police were there, Watson stepped in .All became alert. Watson handed boy to officer  .” "Did You kidnap him"? No ,we didn’t know, this boy was lying in the back seat of the car. “Watson replied with confident."Where are the rest two?Officer asked."I don’t know, they left us and ran away."Watson replied simple." Who is she? She is my fiancée found it accidentally”.My husband came close to Watson and gave a blow on his face.” Yes, he is the one”. The old cashier cried. " a great drama being created, to get sympathy from the parents of the boy .How it could be possible that they ran away and You came to hand over the boy to us ”.My husband shrieked badly. On the spur of the moment,boy enchanted towards Watson “Mama, this man been kind to me ,he saw my prosthetic , pity on me,He had saved me from the muggers”. Watson and Julie were just watching him with great amazement. “Excuse me, Lady ,this boy was unable performing normal but now he’s doing perfectly well ”Watson asked very humbly. The lady smiled and replied” Rehearsing from the last twenty days and making him up for the upcoming stage show on Television serial next week ",The kidnapped”. Meantime phone rang, Investigation officer been informed that the two muggers Oscar and Jaffer been  killed in an encounter and stolen money recovered .The officer took out handcuff..Julie was very silently watching all the scene. Tears came in her eyes’. I came forward towards Watson and said “Julie is my responsibility till your restoration”. The End. Muggers.


I looked up at the old iron sign dangling over the entrance by a single rusty chain. It had lost a few letters over the past hundred and fifty years or so. Now the words “Memori Cemete” swayed back and forth with the occasional squeal of ancient metal. “You sure we want to go in?” I asked, looking over at William who stood beside me with his hands in the pockets of his well-worn slacks. “I think we have to.” The dusty shoulders of William’s jacket seemed to bounce with his shrug. “Only choice we have left.” “But we haven’t tried…” I started to say. “We’ve tried everything, Frank,” William interrupted me, and I let him. “You’re right,” I conceded, knowing he was. We were out of options. No other choice. Dead end, if that’s not too ironic to say. “I’m just tired, Frank.” He looked over at me then, and I could see it in his pale eyes. “Well, let’s just call it weariness.” He gave me that broken, half smile of his before looking back into the darkness in front of us. “We’ve traveled together a lot,” he said, and I could hear the weariness of which he spoke. “Before and after.” I simply nodded and let his words hang in the night air for a while. “Let’s go a bit farther then,” I said finally, nodding toward the entrance. I picked up the shovel I’d rested against my leg and started walking. William followed suit a second later. “Been a while since we were here last,” I said, trying to fill the silence. “Sign’s a bit more run down than I recall.” William looked up only briefly as we walked between the tall stone pillars that held the rusty old sign. He didn’t say anything as we passed the first of the wide stones standing in the overgrown lawn. He simply shook his head sadly and dragged his feet along the rocky, weed-covered path. Several gnarled, elderly trees grew beside the path and I near stumbled over the many roots protruding from the ground. “It’s all really gone downhill,” I observed as we passed more stones. Some had fallen over, and more than a few lay broken and half-covered with grass and soil. The writing on many was so worn or dirt encrusted that I could barely read them. I tried to straighten my jacket as we walked, fastening it with the one remaining button. I wondered if William and I looked as unkempt as the cemetery. “You remember where they are?” I asked, unsure myself as to where we were going. I looked off into the darkness on either side of us, and across the many faces of those worn and broken tombstones. “They’re just ahead here, up on the right,” William said, nodding in that direction. We both came to a stop at the edge of the path, and I followed his gaze. It was dark, and the standing stones seemed even older, if that was possible. “You really think it’ll work?” I asked, looking over at William. “That shaman said it should,” he answered, continuing to gaze into the darkness. “But if it doesn’t, we just keep going, I guess.” I could hear the fear of hopelessness in his voice. I didn’t bring up that the old man had never tried it before, and had no proof that it would work. William knew it all as well as I. “Let’s go then,” I said, and together we stepped off the path and into the tall grasses. Our destination was only a few dozen paces away, and we soon stopped before a pair of ancient and worn stones. The writing on each was faded but readable. The names, I knew, and the dates, so long ago. “Died of influenza,” I read, “1919.” Both stones held the same epitaph. “It’s 2020 this year, right William?” He only nodded. Neither of us spoke as we pushed our shovels into the ground. The soil was hard but forgiving as we worked our way down one scoopful at a time over the next two hours. William’s shovel hit wood first and I heard him scraping away for a few minutes before I, too, struck the lid of the coffin. Several minutes later, we stood together, looking down into the fresh pair of deep holes. “Why do you think they did it?” I asked, not for the first time. I looked again at the stones and the names there. “What would you have done, Frank?” William asked. “They’d lost so much that I just don’t think they could stand to lose any more.” “It’s happening again, you know,” I said. “It is,” William replied. “I just hope today’s generation don’t try what our families did” He stood there, hands in his pockets like they so often were when he was lost in thought. “Do you think it’ll work?” I asked again after a minute of silence. “I hope so, Frank.” “Alright, William, after you,” I said, turning to the hole he had dug. “It’s my job to get you there first.” “But, how will you…” William started. “I’ll figure it out,” I interrupted. “Don’t worry about me.” I put a hand on his shoulder as I spoke. “It’s time to go, William.” I helped William climb back into the hole. The lid of the coffin was open, though half of it was broken and splintered. I could see that the once-white silk of the interior was rotten and covered with a century’s worth of dirt. The casket I had unearthed was in a similar condition. He looked up at me as he lay down in the empty coffin. “Goodbye William,” I said simply. “Goodbye Frank,” he said. “You’ve been a great big brother.” With that, William pulled the lid closed. I could still see his face through the broken half of the coffin as I began to shovel the dirt back on top. Somehow, I knew it had worked. I knew that William was finally at rest again. I looked over at the headstones as I worked at refilling the hole. The names “Willaim Henry Northcott” and “Franklin Edmund Northcott” stared back at me. If I could have cried I would have, but there had been no tears for many years. More than a century, actually. We’d taken ill at the same time, my brother William and me. And we’d died side by side within hours of each other. The Spanish Flu had taken so many, even before we’d gotten sick. Our wifes and children had somehow been spared, but not so our parents and countless others. How our families had brought us back, we never found out. We both woke in our coffins and had to dig ourselves out. When we finally made our way back to our families, they were shocked that whatever they had done had worked. But, it had been too long, our bodies were too far decayed. William and I spent the next century as far from people as we could. But we were tired and ready for the end. So we found a wise man who told us a way. I turned to my own grave and looked down at my coffin. It wouldn’t be easy, but I could do it. I could pull the dirt down on top and follow William back to rest. “There! Zombie!” I turned at the shout. “Get it!” Six men were running toward me holding lights. Some held hatchets or machetes. I heard a gunshot and felt something hit me in the arm. I felt no pain, had no loss of motion. I took one last look at the mob before turning to flee. None of them were wearing masks and I felt sorry for the lot of them. Would they, too, end up with their names on a broken stone in an overgrown cemetery? My foot caught the edge of a root before I’d taken a single step. I felt like I was falling forever when I landed hard in my coffin. The lid slammed closed on top of me and I looked up through the splinted hole. I began to panic as the dirt I’d inadvertently knocked loose spilled into my grave, covering my coffin. As I closed my eyes, I heard voices somewhere in the distance. William’s, my wife’s, my children’s. All there, all calling me to rest.


“Sign and date, please,” the vendor said, handing me a clipboard with a piece of paper fluttering in the cold January wind. I signed my name slowly, trying to sort out the date in my head. How many nights had it been since I cooked that pathetic Christmas dinner over the tiny stove plugged into the cigarette lighter of the car? Ten? It was at least the 3 rd then. Or maybe the 4 th ? I stared blankly at the wall stacked thinly with the canned goods I longed to buy. I gazed at a particularly perfect jar of jam, willing it to give me answer. “It’s the 7 th ,” the vendor said, growing impatient and wanting to tend to paying customers queueing behind me. I felt so exposed. I scribbled 7 and realized today was, in fact, January 7 th : the day we’d brought Jonah home exactly two years ago. I returned the clipboard in exchange for a tiny paper bag labeled adult +2 . I thanked him for my rations: tortillas, a tin of taco beans, and a large can of pears, and returned to the comfort of the reliable old car that was serving as our home during the interlude. I was thankful to be back inside the car, protected. It wasn’t as cold as it had been, so I drove us down to the docks and popped the tailgate down so the boys could get some fresh air and I could appreciate the change of scenery. I wrapped their legs in wool blankets, Noah nodded passively, half-asleep, and Ethan cuddled into him, clearly freezing. The lingering warm air was departing with the sun faster than I’d anticpated, so I removed my gloves and put over his tiny hands. “Oh, Ethan.” I looked at his sweet face and tried not to cry. This isn’t the world I had planned to bring him into.

Two years ago, everything was normal. The nights were exhausting because I was awake caring for baby Ethan and his toddler brother, Noah, who wouldn’t slept through the night, but the days were full of love. They each had their own room. We lived at home with cell phones and tablets and running water and enough warm beds for all of us. My partner, Erin, was still with us. And there were no robots to worry about. Everything was different now. None of my sci-fi reading prepared me for this particular apocalypse. It was an us verses them scenario and the robots were winning. I felt guilty since I associated all of the changes with Jonah: the robot dog we adopted two years ago. That’s when things first felt abnormal.

Erin had offered a solution for all of us: a tiny robotic dog named Jonah. And maybe if I hadn’t been so exhausted and overwhelmed, I would have had the forethought to say no, but I couldn’t. Mostly because she had been part of the prototype team developing the robotic companions, and I knew she was delighted to finally bring one home. She said it was to help me, to be the second parent that she couldn’t be, and I believed that. But it was clearly also incredibly exciting to her to know that our boys would be some of the first in the world to grow up alongside a robot. And I think her excitement clouded her judgement. Because she’d run the experiments. She knew the risks. But she disregarded them. Noah was uneasy around the robot at first. Jonah the dog was neither alive nor a toy, so he wasn’t sure how to interact with it. But baby Ethan, on the other hand, loved him without even a grain of caution. Their connection was immediate. He relied on Jonah for everything, and Jonah knew his mannerisms and anticipated every cry – providing comfort and companionship in a way that I couldn’t. I guess, in hindsight, I resented Jonah from the beginning. Unlike my infallible human self, Jonah had endless patience. He wasn’t impacted by fatigue or annoyed by hair pulling or spit up, he just showed up and cared for baby Ethan as if he was his own. Their relationship always made me a bit uncomfortable, if I’m being honest. And he drew distance between me and Erin, too. Erin came home from work wanting to know what Jonah did, what behaviors did Jonah learn, Jonah was her baby and I didn’t like that my baby had an intrinsic attachment to this machine that was just that – an object – to the rest of us. I tried to give the robot up a few times, and I swear it knew. Of course it did. It was always listening and learning and accommodating, even to our most private conversations late at night. And so he stayed. Eventually, I grew to recognize Jonah for what he was: a tool to help me. He learned to fetch discarded pacifiers, warm blankets, and even watch Ethan in the tub. I wouldn’t trust Noah – a four-year-old – to mind his baby brother, but I felt safe leaving him for a moment or two because Jonah was there with hyperactive reflex moves. If Ethan were to fall, Jonah could pull him up out of the water faster than I could – a point that had been proven when Jonah gripped my arm with his teeth. But I never felt alone in the house with Jonah there, for better or worse. “If it’s too much, you can turn him off.” Erin showed me. “Just hold this button for thirty seconds, and then flip the switch. See? He’s off.” I watched in fascination as this forever hovering creature became an inanimate object. I felt better knowing that I had that option, it gave me a sense of control. I thought about using the off switch often, but I rarely actually did. For one thing, I didn’t like to touch it. Jonah was always there, hovering. Helping to fold laundry. Picking up food scraps, but never ingesting them like a real dog, just moving things together into a disgusting pile that it would signal for me to clean up. Then the news stories started. Live-in robotic companions, like Jonah, were a little too good at picking up human mannerisms and learning commands, and some of the newer prototypes were being trained to fight and coerced harm others. Then the raids happened, and since Erin was a target, we were asked to leave, for her protection and ours. We were supposed to move to a protected sanctuary for at-risk humans, but. We could have brought Jonah with us to be rehabilitated off-site, but I knew transporting him would make us a target, so Erin suggested we switch him off and store him in the laundry room the night we left. She assured me, “He’ll remember us this way. And when things are safe and we’re back, he’ll pick up right where you left off. Whether it’s two weeks or two years, to him, it will be tomorrow.” And that seemed like enough. Except, I forgot to switch him off. I didn’t realize right away. I was thrilled for the break, and I felt so much comfort in imagining him as an inanimate object in a cupboard. I only remembered days later when we were a thousand miles away sleeping safely in a hotel room in route to the sanctuary. There, the guilt plagued me. I never told the boys, of course, but I haunted myself with the thought of him suffering alone every night, and I felt a tremendous amount of guilt. I had an explanation. I’d had trouble finding the switch. I didn’t like to pick him up or touch him, so I meant to ask Noah to do it. I knew he’d be able to take care of it effortlessly, but I forgot to ask him. And for a split moment I considered bringing Jonah with us, despite the risk, but the chaos and fear clouded my thoughts and once we were all safely in the car, I just drove. Then reports of abandoned robot companions began surfacing on the radio and I was terrified. Their actions were more damaging and destructive than thought possible and they were seeking revenge on the people who had hurt them. Erin called in from her research unit, reminding us that we had nothing to worry about because we had always treated Jonah the robot dog with love and respect. I knew I needed to tell her but I couldn’t, I just took her advice to “keep driving – stay away from all of this” so I drove the kids back to the tiny beach town where I’d grown up on the east coast. I wanted to give them a piece of my childhood, and the refugee site would give us daily rations until we could get back. I thought it was the best solution for the time-being, but it was winter, and it was crowded and supplies and spaces were limited, so it was all horrible.

I spent hours driving around to keep the kids warm. We spent evenings at the refugee center or at a campsite, or by the docks. I tried to push the memory of Jonah abandoned in the laundry room away from my mind, but it found me on long stretches of quiet road and again almost every night. When I thought of him there, alone waiting and suffering, the pit in my stomach grew and grew. Unable to sleep with no desire to eat, he would just wait, in patience, but for how long? I tried to convince myself that it was okay. He’s not alive, I reminded himself. Not he, it. It’s not alive. It’s just a robot. And it has everything it needs in the laundry room jail cell. What I didn’t know is that all the time it was learning. The same way it had learned about compassion and gentleness from growing up with Ethan, now it was learning about abandonment and defeat. It learned about longing and missing. It learned how to cry and sob. It cried a lot. He, not it. And it’s been a year. It’s been a year . I thought about the date, again, white I warmed taco beans over the tiny heater. I felt excited for a new flavor, but also worried it would be too spicy for Noah. These are the things you worry about in the same breath when it comes to kids: their life and safety and well-being and then also spice level of the rationed taco beans. Both boys turned up their noses at the tortillas, but they ate them, earnestly. They knew it’s all we had, and that broke me. We’ll do something special tomorrow , I thought. We I spent the day collecting cans to turn into the recycling center until I had twelve dollars worth, just enough for a pizza. The boys were delighted with the thought. I didn’t realize when I placed the order was this particular delivery service was employing rescued robot dogs: giving them a renewed sense of purpose, and rehabilitating them to exist safely in the community. Had I known, I wouldn’t have risked it. The pizza delivery driver stopped ahead of the road block, the space separating us in our protected oasis from the outside world. A joyful robotic dog ran toward us with the pizza box in his mouth. For a short moment I was unnerved by this until I remembered that these robots are rehabilitated and that robot dogs don’t produce slobber. But as it drew closer, I became increasingly uneasy for another reason: I knew this dog. He recognized Ethan right away. Jonah the robot dog dropped the pizza in the back of the car, as instructed, and then leaned into Ethan lovingly – his presence alone causing Ethan to cry out and laugh and gasp for breath all at once. Of course he remembered. The confused driver called out to Jonah to return to the van he knew his name but Jonah stayed exactly where he was, frozen in time and encapsulated in the hug he’d craved for well over a year now. And they both looked at me: the baby and the baby dog, and saw me for who I was, the mother who had abandoned them both, in a sense. The deep pain I’d felt was briefly replaced with a sense of relief in realizing that Jonah was okay, after all. He hadn’t been forever locked in the laundry room jail cell. But then the sinking feeling of guilt crept in. He had been suffering. He, not it. He needed to be rescued and rehabilitated. He was okay now, but for a while, he was not. “Is that Jonah?” Noah asked, passively, when he realized. And I didn’t know what to say. He wasn’t ours anymore. He still loved Ethan, clearly. And Noah. He cuddled them both, but I couldn’t even pet him. He wanted my blood.

After a third whistle from the delivery van, Jonah hopped up and departed, but not after clipping my ankle aggressively with his sharp teeth on his way out. How were they so sharp? Bastard dog I muttered. We ate the pizza, by the docks, but a deep sadness hung over all of us. I resented Jonah for ruining the otherwise sweetest evening we’d had in months. I resented him for ruining everything. I felt infected with resurfaced guilt and imagined another rogue robot running toward me, crashed into the car, biting my leg and aggressively gnawing at my shoe. I shook him off and realized there was nothing there. We left, traumatized. Later, while carrying Ethan out of the public bathroom, two dogs snipped at my heels like it was a planned attack. How did they get here? But then they were gone again. I wasn’t sure if I’d imagined them. I didn’t realize at first, and wouldn’t for weeks, but he’d marked all of us. Jonah the Robot Dog had lovingly designated Noah and Ethan as safe, but he made me a target. I thought about going to the authorities, but there was no way for me to explain this without confessing what I’d done. And then I’d be a criminal, responsible for contributing to the uprising. I couldn’t turn myself in. Instead, I live out this quarantine fiercely afraid of imaginary robot dogs lurking around corners. Now I’m always bracing for the worse. For a while I was afraid a robot dog was going to lock me out of the car, or lock me in a small bathroom, or keep me away from my kids the same way I kept Jonah away from his. But then I realized I already was feeling paranoia, fear, and abandonment. I had already been locked in. This safe rescue sanctuary for humans, it’s just my own laundry room jail cell.


I'd never seen Kelly so restless. Chocolate bars and jelly beans sat comfortably in a bowl right under the light of the little jack o'lantern we carved together. She looked beautiful under its light as well. That's why I loved looking at her while she stood outside. She smiled just like an angel. Her white hand softly picked a chocolate and slipped it in every kid's bag. She then asked, with the most enchanting voice, "What's your favorite color?". She would then proceed to take a jelly bean of the color they said and hand it to them. She would make a great mother, wouldn't she? She kept running back and forth from the bathroom to the kitchen, occasionally running to the door to give the children their treats. Her make up was almost done. She was turning herself into a vampire for the party later. She'd never told me she was into those kind of things. In fact I didn't even know she liked to party. Not like I'd ever let her go if she told me that. Especially dressed like that. Her dress was a disaster! It was long, but it had a slit from the bottom up to her thigh. It was also quite revealing on the chest. She rushed to the bathroom again, and started working on concealing the bruises on her neck. "Thank God the kids didn't notice." she muttered. Her face flinched in pain with every touch. I'd never seen her in so much pain. Well, it's not like she would allow herself to be weak in front of me. She came back in the kitchen and looked at my face. I don't know if she could tell I was looking at her, but she locked her eyes on mine. She approached me and touched my hand. "Come on..." she said softly. "I know it's a bit much for you, but you have to be proud for me. I'm finally owning my body, you know!". She walked backwards and sat herself on the kitchen counter. "The first time I'm dressing up for myself and not for you." she giggled. The doorbell rang. She was gone again. After that, she headed to the bathroom again. I was glad she didn't come in the kitchen again. Whenever she talks to me it feels like everything becomes real.` I don't like it when things become real. I prefer it like this. A silent movie. A pretty girl, my lovely Kelly, making herself beautiful, dancing between the door, the kitchen and the bathroom as if she lived in a big musical. I didn't mind standing here and watching it. I think this was the first time I'd ever seen her so happy. She looked powerful. She looked... free. She came into the kitchen one last time that night. She crouched over my immobile naked body, and ran her fingers over the slit on my neck. She then wiped it on her soft lips, staining them with my warm blood. The blood which had almost dried out. The blood which had stopped running through my body a couple of hours ago. She winked. "A touch of realism." she whispered in my ear. She got up and walked towards the door with steps that felt like they were part of a choreographed routine. She reached the door and took her keys. "Goodbye, you controlling, abusive fuck!" she shouted, slammed the door, and left. I was alone now. They say when you die, you have to follow the light. I don't think it's the same for everyone, though. Because, I saw no light. I tried to follow Kelly, my figurative light, but I soon found out I couldn't move past our garden. I was trapped in our house. She didn't come back alone. She brought a friend. A male friend. They made love. It was much more passionate, much more intense than anything we used to do. She buried me in our garden the next morning. She brought him home again the next day. If I still had my eyes I guess I would be crying right now, I thought. A couple of days later Kelly sold the house. It was lonely down there. I kept thinking of her in her vampire costume. Maybe I shouldn't have been so harsh on her. I was quite disappointed at the fact that no one looked for me. Especially my dad. I followed in his steps, followed his advice. I lived like he wanted me to. It was the reason I got killed. And after everything, he never looked for me. These days I keep looking for people to blame. My father, and how he treated my mother. Kelly, how she left me here alone, how she cheated on me. My mother, for abandoning me. Even my friends, for never calling me out on my abusive behavior. It didn't take long for me to realize I was just projecting my flaws on other people. Not once were I ever thankful for the people in my life. It's too late to think about that at this point. I have no "thank you"s or "I love you"s left. Now I'm down here, rotting. It's lonely. I wonder if anyone else is going to ever buy this house. I wonder if I'll ever get to "live" another Halloween. My blood doesn't run anymore. It can't help anyone finish their vampire costume. I doubt I'll ever see a more beautiful vampire though. A more beautiful smile, handing out candy. A more beautiful silhouette opening her legs wide to another man in our bed. I did try to make my presence known. With a lot of effort I can move small things like paper towels or pillow cases. So, next Halloween, I'll be at least able to say "trick or... trick". It's not much but I'm tied here. And if that scares people away from this house, that's even better. It's mine now. A house of memories. My mind, just like this house, was left haunted by visions of an ideal life. Visions of me.


Truce

By

Tim Shuman

The smell of gunpowder, death, and fresh earth fought in the air like the two armies engaged in the great civil struggle.

The slaughter was halted by Christmas. As the ranking NCO Dooley had been tasked by the Captain to inform the lieutenant that terms for the truce had been negotiated and that he was to send someone to recover the Union dead.

“Begging the Lieutenant’s pardon, but I have an important message from th—” Before Dooley could deliver the message, Lieutenant Cain burst out of the tent and lashed Dooley’s cheek with a riding crop.

Dooley punched him, dislocating his jaw.

Cain collapsed faster than the tent that the small Black girl knocked over coming out the other end as she ran, trying to rearrange her knickers. The Captain pronounced Dooley’s punishment for assaulting an officer.

Recovery detail. So it was, Dooley found himself on Christmas Eve, looking for dead Union soldiers on what had been yesterday’s battlefield.

The full moon gave a brilliant, but ghastly aspect to the landscape.

He entered a clearing, fires smoldering around the edges. Scavengers fed on the human and animal carrion and scattered at his approach.

A shattered tree sent spiked roots high into the air where a union soldier hung, impaled, the man reaching toward the moon.

In his other hand he held the bloody and mottled hair of an impaled confederate soldier, who had thrust his bayonet into the Yankee’s arm, conjoining them in a macabre minuet.

His soldier’s instinct had kept him alive during some of the war’s bloodiest days; the rifle butt hit his shoulder, and he heard the click of a hammer being cocked on a confederate weapon—behind him.

He turned, dropped to a kneeling position and struggled to get his rifle into firing position.

He looked up, staring into the barrel of a large caliber Confederate weapon.

“Yuh know ah could’a kilt yuh already.”

The soldier drawled. He nodded to the two corpses stuck on the tree roots above them. “If’n ah wanted you dead you’d be talkin’ to ‘em two and old gooseberry hisself right naow.

We both know we under a flag of truce, so why don’t you put down your rifle and we’ll reckon how we’ll get those two fools down from n’ere.” “You first.” “Yuh know Yank, for a man staring up into ole Delilah’s mouth you’re mighty demandin’. We can stand here the next 23 hours, the truce will expire, and I’ll shoot you then; or you can put down yer gun and we can do what we was sent here to do, go back to our units and celebrate Christmas, so’s we can go back to killin’ each other after the truce is over.”

Look Yank, unless yer army’s a lot different different’n mine, you must’a pissed in someone’s grits to git on this duty in the first place, so why don’t we put down the guns, do what we gotta do and git back to camp. Ah’m gonna count to three naow and we’re both gonna put down these guns.

Ready?

One-two-three . . .” The Confederate soldier lowered his weapon on an enemy for the first time since the war started and looked the man straight in his eyes. Dooley stared back and saw in the Reb’s eyes, what he had seen in his own shaving mirror every day: fatigue, doubt, morbidity and a belly-full of death.

He relaxed and let the muzzle of his rifle drop to the ground. When he looked up he saw a dirty, calloused hand extended. He held out his own grubby hand.

“Name’s Dooley.

Prefer it to Yank.” “Mine’s Immanuel, but call me Hick.”

He glanced at Dooley’s deformed hand and asked, “We do ‘at thar?” He jerked his hand loose. “Yes!

Let’s just get this done.” Each retrieved his pack mule and buckboard.

Dooley said, “I’ll climb up there and let my man down, you help me lower him to the ground, then I’ll help you do the same.” “Suits me.” He climbed the roots, ran a line under the corpse and secured it to a higher root, braced his back against the huge root-ball, and pushed on the man’s shoulders with his feet.

He felt the body move and heard the sickening, sucking sound of flesh, congealed blood and sinew pulling free from the spike of the root.

The body plummeted, dragging Dooley and the remains, crushing Hick in a tangle of arms, legs and gore.

The rifle with the fixed bayonet followed and slashed Hick’s shoulder.

Hick heaved the bodies away and stood clutching his upper arm. Dooley pulled himself out of the tangle of dead limbs and saw Hick, tearing equipment out of his pack, the blood pouring from the wound in his shoulder.

The items from his satchel piled up at his feet. Hick pulled a metal flask from the pack and took a long swig, then splashed it on the seeping gash.

Holding out the flask, he commanded Dooley, “Hold this!”

Hick struggled to wrap a bandage around his arm. Dooley capped the flask, then took the bandage from Hick and wrapped his enemy’s arm. “You’re probably going to want to keep some pressure on that.” “Ah go through two years’a fahghtin’ with nary a scratch and git wounded by a dead Reb and patched up by a damn Yankee. If that don’t beat all. Long as you got hold’a my bottle why don’t you have a little snort.

S’good fer what ails ‘ya.” Dooley took a deep swallow and coughed-gut punched.

Hick grinned and added, “N’if nuthin’ ails ‘ya, ‘s’good fer ‘at too.

Ya’anna pass that back to me?

I could stand some nummin’.”

Dooley hit the bottle again.

 “We got ‘em down aw’ight.”

Hick said as he shoved the fallen items back into his kit bag.

He scanned the clearing, rendered blue-white in the moonlight.

Hanging his head, he chuckled, “’Mine eyes have seen the glory . . . "

Dooly picked up the words, “’He  has  loosed  the  fateful lightning’ . . .’”

Hick hawked and spat.

“An he don’t seem partic’lar ‘bout who’s in the way.”

Gazing at a smoldering tree, he asked.

D’ja ever

wonder whose side God is on in all this?”

The Confederate drew long and deep from the flask, and handed it to Dooley.

Hick indicated the clearing with a nod of his head and said, “His truth is marchin’ on.” Dooley closed his eyes and drank Hick’s moonshine. “ Poor York. He was always cuttin’ up, makin’ us laugh. He was a fool. In war, it’s not a fool and his money is parted.”

Dooley fell silent. He asked Hick.

“What’d you do to wind up out here?” “They charged me with desertion.

I didn't though.

My baby was sick.

Had the ‘monia. I as’t for leave, we knew the damn Yankees, no ‘fence, was’nt close and nothin’ was gonna happen for weeks.

They brought me back an’ the bastard cap’n threatened to shoot me hisself if’n it happened again.

He’d do it too.

I got the recovery detail till some other id’jit does some dumb thang.

How ‘bout you?” “My lieutenant was . . . Having his way with a Negro woma—girl.”

As the liquor chased its way through the two men’s brains they slumped into exhaustion and stupor.

Scavengers returned to feed on the decaying flesh of the fallen, the white light of the moon cut through the leafless trees and across the field of battle, the remaining branches casting ghastly shadows across the clearing like the arms of great Titans, the top branches reaching heavenward as if to rip the moon from the sky.

Dooley once believed the words of his country’s battle hymn and saw their cause as righteous in the eyes of God. Was there reward or retribution when Christian slaughtered Christian?

“ Mine eyes have seen the glory .” Dooley wondered at the two creatures within him.

The affectionate young man who had won the heart of a girl with tender words and soft kisses.

And the other. The savage living within him, who in battle was possessed of a pagan spirit: shooting, stabbing, choking, biting, beating.

Anything to gain an edge and preserve the empty shell his body had become, to live to fight another day.

Dooley wondered which man he was?

He gazed at Hick and he knew in his warrior’s heart that the Reb had done the same or worse and would not have survived to perform the gruesome task at hand if he had not.

An odd kinship was woven in the web of war.

He understood, too, if they were to meet in battle, there would be no doubt of the outcome.

He would shoot Hick, or Hick would shoot him. A soldier frozen in indecision in a battle is no longer a soldier, but a target.

Dooley knew he wouldn’t be a target.

Not for this enemy.

Not for his friends.

Not for his love back home.

Not even to save his immortal soul.

If they met in battle he knew he would kill Hick.

He knew the beast within would prevail. There would be time enough to reclaim his soul later. Hick bumped his leg with the bottle and Dooley jumped. “Easy,” Hick reassured. “It’s conscience gnawin’ at ‘ya ain’t it?”

Hick breathed deep the night air and closed his eyes.

“Sometimes I git to hurtin’ so bad inside, I’m actually am glad when the dysentery come on, cuz’ it eases my mind of the things I done.

The pain I got on the inside, when I got the dysentery, takes away the hurt I feel, when I think about all these years of killin’.

This hooch is killin’ me, but my conscience is takin’ away my soul a day at the time. It looks like you could use it more than me. Finish it off.”

Dooley drained the flask. Hick spoke again.

“We better finish pickin’ up these bodies, or the truce’ll expire and we’ll wind up havin’ to shoot each other.” The two men gathered and loaded the bodies. When they finished their task, they exchanged hometowns, knowing the odds of surviving were minimal.

Hick and Dooley, now numb with exhaustion, cold, and bad whiskey, looked at each other in awkward silence. Turning to go, Dooley led the mule toward the Union encampment, and heard.

“Hey, cusin’” Dooley turned as Hick thrust out his hand.

“Wish me Happy Birthday.”

He said flashing a half-a-mouthful of teeth. “Wha-’”

“It’s after midnight, wish me happy birthday.” “You were born on Christmas?” “Yep.” Dooley shook his head, noticed it was starting to throb and with a snorting laugh held out his damaged hand, “Happy Birthday Reb.”

Hick pumped Dooley’s arm. “Hope I see you again.” Dooley answered, “But I pray not here.”

Dooley gazed at their fingers, stained with the same blood, the same mud caked beneath jagged fingernails, the same scars large and small which are the souvenirs of war covering their weathered skin, and he knew in that instant he had more in common with that man than anyone else on Earth.

The warrior in him was repelled and instinctively bade him let go; instead he reached over with his other hand, placed it atop Hick’s said, “Take care cousin.”

Hick laughed a real laugh for the first time, “Get the hell out of here Yank ‘afore I shoot y’ fer bein’ so sentimental.”

Dooley crossed the clearing and another branch flared.

In the flash he spied a glint of brass and bent to retrieve it.

It was a small oval leather frame with the picture of a petite, nearly chinless girl wearing a melancholy smile.

He turned it over and on the back it said in a frail scrawl, “To Immanuel . . . Come home soon . . . Love Delilah.”

He turned, but Hick had vanished in the smoke.

The truce held and the men from both the Northern and Southern camps could hear the others singing hymns on Christmas morning.

The week after Christmas passed as the armies jockeyed for position for the upcoming battle. The Rebs were exploiting the breach in the line, and the combat broke down into hand-to-hand.

Dooley found cover behind a fallen tree. Lieutenant Cain spied him and ordered him to rejoin the Union center. Amid heavy fire Dooley dashed to cover and ducked behind a tree as a .50 caliber slug smashed into the wood sending pin sized splinters into his neck and face. Dooley wiped the blood out of his eyes with his sleeve.

Cain burst into their cover and screamed, “They’re regrouping. Double time, back to the center. Go!

GO!! ” They stumbled up a hill, the crest obscured by fingers of underbrush, and straight into the muzzles of twelve surprised Confederates. The Rebs held the high ground, but the Yanks had superior numbers as they stared at each other through the tattered patch of underbrush. They stood in shocked immobility as Cain came blustering up the hill, and screamed, “Fire!”

When nothing happened, he screamed again, louder, cursing and drawing his pistol.

“FIRE!”

What paralyzed Dooley were the eyes he was staring into of the man  atop the hill.

He thought Hick had aged gravely in the days since he had seen him.

He saw Hick’s lips move and heard him speak, as a voice in his head, as his own rifle sprang to his shoulder,

“Get down!”

Shots erupted around Dooley, but he stood fixed, gazing at Hick.

Behind him he heard Cain’s infernal screaming.

“Fire!!

Dammit, I said FIRE!!”

Dooley pitched forward and heard the bedlam roar of musket-fire explode above and beside him and felt the dead weight of a body land on his back.

By the time he pulled himself from the heap of dead flesh, the Rebel line had either fallen or fled and Hick was nowhere to be seen.

He stood, ready to fire.

Dooley looked down at the corpse that had fallen on him and recognized Lieutenant Cain’s uniform, but little else. He turned away. York’s brother came panting up to Dooley, “Cain was about to shoot you in the back till you fell and that Reb shot him.” Enemy and ally were juxtaposed in the mayhem of battle. He resolved to kill no more.

He requested, and received, duty as a medical assistant in the field hospitals, a duty shunned even more than combat by most soldiers, but Dooley knew he could do some good, and he did.

At the war’s end he was discharged to go home and carry on with his life. Dooley knew he had an obligation, and as he returned home, he stopped at the post office of Murfreesboro, Tennessee.

He asked if the postmaster knew where to find a man by the name of Hick. The postmaster was understandably reluctant to give Dooley the information. Dooley showed him the picture he meant to return to Hick. The postmaster directed Dooley to a ramshackle cabin where he met a scared, gaunt woman holding a two-year-old baby.

Dooley tried to sound as deferential as possible and asked almost inaudibly. “Is Hick around?” Her fear changed to pain. She winced and said, “Hick is dead.”

Dooley replayed the encounter with Hick to her, hoping she would see everything, and spare them both the pain of him explaining how her husband’s enemy stood before her while Hick lay cold, in a lump of Georgia clay. He told her the story.

How Hick could have killed him, sharing moonshine, finding the picture and Hick’s lifesaving warning a week later. He expected an emotional thank you.

“You are a lunatic.”

Her eyes widened and flooded and she struggled to slam the door.

He jammed his foot in the way and pulled the photograph he had so carefully protected and jammed it through the opening.

He felt the resistance on the door relax as she took the picture then heard the sound of sobbing from the other side. Dooley sat on the ramshackle porch.

In a few moments she emerged, wiping her nose on her sleeve.

The baby, abdomen distended, had joined her crying and continued to squall.

She bounced him on her scrawny hip and apologized for the noise.

“What’s the baby been eating?”

She gazed at the child, “Mashed peanuts, when he’ll take ‘em.”

“I’m sorry to hear about Hick.

He was a good man.” She hung her head and bit her lip as he continued.

“He saved my life and . . .”  	“Mr. Dooley, what you say ain’t possible.

See, Hick died of dysentery three days after Christmas ‘at year, an’ you said ‘yall tangled in Jan’yary?

It ain’t makin’ sance.” Dooley stood dumbfounded, gazing into the hovel. Dooley replayed the skirmish in his mind over and over, and each time there was Hick, screaming his warning in his mind, cutting through the insane roar of musket fire. And he realized . . . she was right.

Hick had not been there.

Could not have been there.

But the part of Hick that was pure, and had shed the horrific warrior within had warned Dooley and he dove to the ground and Cain had been slain while trying to shoot him in the back.

The screaming of the starving child stopped, and calm settled over him.

He understood his obligation. He returned to the store and gave the owner a twenty-dollar gold piece.

It was half of all he owned and he gave it gladly.

“Send food and whatever they need for the girl and her baby for a month, I’ll send more as soon as I can.

They are never to starve again.” “He‘uz a good man,” The old man said.

Dooley turned back to the merchant. “The best I’ve ever known.”

He left the store, turned his face to the North and began his long journey home.


Max came from a very religious family, but the beliefs that his parents held so dearly were not such that he wanted to claim as his own. They were both deemed ‘survivors’ of a residential school that was run by strict Christian missionaries who strived to drive the Indigenous beliefs out of the hearts and minds of their students. That had worked with his parents, but not many others of their generation. They were regular church-goers who had forced him as a child to attend church services at least twice a week.

One Friday, when Max turned sixteen, they told him that it was time for him to exercise his choice as a young man as to what his religion would be. While he reckoned that they believed that he would make a choice that followed their beliefs, he was still rather surprised that they would let him choose on his own. There were people in the community that lived according to the ‘old ways’ as his parents called it, clearly speaking of something that they did not fully understand. There was one old man in particular, who lived on the outskirts of the reserve, an Elder, whom Max knew that other people would go to for knowledge about their traditional culture. He was not known by his ‘colonial name’ of John Harvey. No one called him that. People simply called him Maskwa, which meant ‘bear’ in the traditional language.

So, on Saturday, Max went to see him, bringing tobacco as a gift, as he had seen people do that when they wanted to learn something from an Elder. Maskwa gave Max instructions as to what he needed to do to find his religion.

Max Tells His Parents a Lie Not long before supper time, Max came home to tell his parents that he was going to his friend Jim’s place for supper and to stay for a few days. This was not a usual practice with him, so they wondered about it. Still, they said nothing about it, didn’t ask him any questions. They knew that Jim’s family were Christians. And they knew that Max did not like to explain to them why he did what he did. Max quickly gathered up a knapsack full of stuff, strapped it on, and left with only a short ‘goodbye’. After he was gone, they noticed that he had left his cell phone behind. This too was unusual. The next morning, it being Sunday, Max’s mother Mary called Jim’s place to see whether he would be going to church with them. While he didn’t often do that these days, in his parents’ hopeful minds, there was always a possibility that he would.  When she called, she spoke with Jim’s mother, who told her that Max had not had supper with them, and that he wasn’t staying with them. Max’s parents became worried. They knew so many stories about Indigenous youth, even some of the kids in their community, who started taking drugs, then disappeared or died. When they went to church that morning, their prayers were for the safety of their son. Max on his Own Max was on his own in the woods. He had never fasted before, but it was what Maskwa had told him to do. Now he had gone over a day without eating. He felt that all his senses were incredibly vivid.  Maskwa had told a story to him of how he had gone on a vision quest when he was about Max’s age, and has ‘seen his future’, as Maskwa put it..  Max wasn’t sure about whether or not he would have a vision.  And what could it say about his future? It was morning now, and although he had slept little the night before, he felt wide awake. He was glad that he had been able to find the spot that Maskwa had told him about – at a curve of the river, where there were a few fallen trees with their roots sticking out. After describing the place, Maskwa told Max that the young man’s grandfather had been a carver of figures of small animals. His parents hadn’t told him much about his dad’s father, who died when Max was too young to get to know him. Max had long admired the carved figures that were around the home, but never was told and never had asked who had carved them.  After Maskwa had told Max about this essentially invisible grandfather, he handed him a knife, saying ‘See what you can do with this.’ Max had thought that strange at the time. But having nothing else to do, and to distract him from his hunger and his wondering whether he would have a vision, he cut off some roots. Then he started carving, with no particular shape or object in mind for him to form. It occupied his mind and was kind of fun. He was just enjoying the process, something of a surprise to him. The next morning, he felt his senses enhanced even more. As he sat down on a log, beginning, before he began to carve, he heard something, a kind of rustling in the bush. He would swear that he could smell it as well, the pungent smell of fur. At first, when he looked, he saw nothing. Then he saw a black object that he could gradually recognize as a bear cub. In one of the few words that he knew in the traditional language of his people, it was called maskosis (‘little bear’). He could see it clearly now. It seemed to be looking directly into his eyes, like it was trying to read his mind. It kind of unnerved Max, so he closed his eyes for a few seconds. When he opened them again, the bear cub was gone. But the sight of the maskosis filled his mind. It gave him an idea. He would try to carve a figure of the little one. He worked and he worked at it, with the picture in his mind guiding him along the way. When he completed his carving, he was happy with what he saw in front of him. That would be the first. He carved two more that day, all guided by the mental picture of the maskosis. Feeling a sense of completion, late in the afternoon he headed to Maskwa’s place. The Elder gifted him with a great smile when he saw the little carved bear cubs. Max gave him the first one he had done. Then Maskwa said to him, “Your new name will be Maskosis. Now go to your parents and tell them what has happened to you over the last few days.” Max’s Parents and Their Concern            Max’s parents had grown more and more worried as the time passed without their seeing or hearing from their son. He had been listless and lost over the last few months, and they were concerned that his life had held no direction. That was why they had told him that it was time for him to find his religion.            Then he appeared, a smile on his face, and two objects in his hands. They were happy to see him when he arrived back home. They could even see that a change had taken place, a change for the better.            Max handed them the remaining two carved bear cubs. His father, Michael said, “You have inherited your grandfather’s skill”. Max could not remember the last time he had heard his father speak of his own father. The couple were initially very quiet and somewhat straight-faced when he told them of what he had been doing, and why. It was a practice that had been harshly condemned at the residential school that they both had attended. But Mary, after thinking of the opening lines from one of her favourite hymns, faced her husband and mouthed without speaking: “God works in a mysterious way, his wonders to perform”. She then turned to her son and said, “It appears that you have found your religion in the ways of our ancestors. It has done you good. But that does not mean that you can’t go to church with us some Sundays. There we will call you Max, but we will use the name that Maskwa gave you, Maskosis, when you are carving here at home. It is your God-given gift.”

Top of Form


It was a chilly morning for the 9th District. The sun has yet to come up and the streets were still lit up by the streetlights. Amy, a 14-year old girl, was walking with her pet puppy's leash on hand. 5 a.m. walks was their thing ever since day 1. Amy was admiring the morning sky when she felt that their movements were growing slow. "Kei, come here, boy," she called out to the dog. However, the said pet kept on walking, somehow weakly. After a few more sluggish steps, Kei seemed to have fell. Amy rushed to his aid in panic. "Kei! Kei! Wake up! What's wrong?" she shook his body but he didn't budge. "Excuse me, may I help?" A voice surprised Amy as she turned back to see a man in his early 30's, wearing a lab coat. "My dog suddenly fainted! What should I do?!" she cried in despair. "My clinic is nearby, why don't we bring him there?" he offered as he picked up the fainted pup and walked towards a certain direction. Amy followed without any hesitation because her dog's health is her current priority.

After a few strolls, they arrived in a small building which seemed to be a veterinary clinic. The man laid Kei on the table and began examining him.

"Sir, are you a veterinarian?" Amy asked.

"Oh, right. I haven't introduced myself. My name is Toby Lee, and yes, I am a veterinarian." "Thank, God we bumped into you. So, how's my Kei doing, doc?" "Hmm, I'm still not sure yet, but I may be able to treat him properly once he wakes up," the man answered as he kept on examining the girl's pet. "Oh, would you look at that, he's gaining consciousness." "Kei!" Amy called and ran to her dog's face. "Okay miss, when was the last time your dog ate?" the doctor asked. Before she could answer, the dog barked loudly. The doctor stood up, fetched a bowl of water and laid it near the dog. Then, Kei immediately drank from the bowl. "I think it was last night when he ate some biscuits as late snacks," the girl answered. "Haha! What an adorable dog you have. He was just thirsty and probably fainted due to dehydration. You didn't give him a drink before you took a walk earlier?" "Now that you mention it, I haven't," the girl responded while looking back to a few minutes before her current situation. "Well, now that he's all filled up, you can continue your morning stroll," the doctor said as he led the puppy down from the table. "Umm, I don't have a lot, but how much do I owe you, doc?" the girl asked. The doctor could see that the girl really didn't have much. He might've saw her somewhere before. After all, 9th District is a small village. "Thank you so much, doctor!!" the girl grinned at him while she ran off waving with her dog. "Aah, what a cute puppy indeed," the man muttered to himself as he saw the girl off. The sun was now slowly rising and the residents can now hear the birds chirping. Well, except Dr. Toby Lee. Unlike any other villager in the 9th District, or probably the whole world, he could understand all animal languages.

When normal people hear birds chirping, what Toby hears is something along the lines of "Ah, good morning, world! Another day of chirping away!" That's why he became a veterinarian.

When Amy's puppy was barking earlier, the doctor actually heard, "Ah, I'm so parched. I haven't drank a drop of water since last night." That's why Dr. Lee immediately got him water to drink. This was such a small ability, but as an animal person, it really sparked joy within him. Whenever he would visit a zoo back in his childhood, his eyes would glimmer as he could hear and understand what the animals are saying. He once heard a dolphin saying "Look at me! Look at me!" and young Toby just glued his eyes on the sight. Maybe this ability was also the reason why his business as a veterinarian was skyrocketing. He had 9.8 ratings, he doesn't overcharge, and gives really accurate diagnosis. He is the dream veterinarian every pet owner could ask for. Once, a rival wanted to sabotage him and sent over an undercover trying to poison the doctor with a venomous snake. To his rival's dismay, Dr. Lee was able to tame the snake and even warm up to him. To an animal's eyes, he is the best owner they could ask for. However, even though he loves and can understand animals, and animals want and would love to be with him, he can't. Why, you ask? Because his wife is allergic to animals. That's right.

Even though the great Doctor Toby Lee is the epitome of an "animal's best guardian", his wife can't stop sneezing when there's a fur baby within 5 meters. It really made the doctor sad, but he really loved his former high school girlfriend, now wife, so he chose to involve himself in veterinary instead. The doctor's thoughts were interrupted as his phone rang. Without looking at the caller ID, he answered it. "Hello?" he started. "Hey, honey," he could hear his wife's voice from the other line.

"Yes, darling?" "Nothing. I just thought you might be spacing out and lost track of time and didn't se your alarm, but it's time for you to open your clinic," he glanced at his watch to see that his wife was right. "Oh my, you're right. You see, as I walked to the clinic, there was this girl who was walking her dog and her dog fainted so it just made me remember a lot of things. Anyway, I gotta go now. Bye, I love you." "I love you too," then, the call was ended by a beep. The doctor then got up and opened his clinic and flipped the sign that now says "open". "GOOD MORNING BOTH PETS AND OWNERS! THE LEE ANIMAL CLINIC IS NOW OPEN FOR BUSINESS!"


      “Hand me another bag of flour,” I said. My hand was out, waiting to feel the weight of the bag.            Nothing. “Okay, PLEASE hand me another bag of flour,” I said, this time with my palm up and my fingers wagging in anticipation.            “Anna, that was the last bag,” said Layla, my best friend, and eighth-grade science partner.

           “How can that be the last bag? I counted 6 bags this morning. The dough is too runny, we need more flour,” I said with panic in my voice. “I’ll call your Mom and see if she can go to the store and get us more. My Mom is at work for a few more hours,” Layla said wiping her hands with a clean towel. That was Layla, always on top of it, and that was just how we all liked it. Layla and I were at our school, working on our junior high science fair project that was due next month. We were experimenting with different kinds of flour to see how they changed the consistency and flavor of the five recipes we had selected to experiment with. We were using basic recipes for chocolate chip cookies, blueberry muffins, devil’s food cake, golden cupcakes, and pound cake and things weren’t going so well. “Your Mom is on her way,” Layla said as she hung up the phone. When we picked the food card during class we thought it was going to be easy, but it had turned out to be everything but that. “We should just throw all of this in one giant bowl and make one giant cake,” I said, frustrated with the consistency of the cake I was working on. “Where are the instructions for the science fair?” Layla asked. “In my backpack,” I told her. Layla pulled out the instructions for the science fair and started reading. “It says here to come up with a unique project that shows the correlation between food and science,” Layla said. We were doing that, but it wasn’t working out in our favor. “What if we make a giant cookie and talk about the science behind the ingredients combining and the heating process to cook it. We could use three or four different size cookies to show our results,” I said. “That actually sounds like a better idea than the one we are working on,” said Layla, wiping flour off of her face.            “How much did the world’s largest cookie weigh?” I asked. Layla pulled out her phone and looked it up on the internet. “Baked in May 2003, the cookie was 102 feet wide and weighed more than 40,000 pounds,” Layla read from the site. “How are we going to afford all of the ingredients for that cookie?” I asked. “Why don’t we build a small-scale model of an outdoor oven and bake cookies in it for the science fair and we can start a fundraiser to gather money to help us build a real giant cookie using our outdoor oven concept,” Layla said. And that is how the idea for the giant cookie started. The next day we presented our proposal to our science teacher Mr. Higgins. He thought it was a fantastic idea and asked us if the whole class could be involved. We of course said yes. Mr. Higgins said we would have a class meeting the following day to discuss the project and start assigning job duties to everyone in the class. He told Layla and me to put together a list of stuff we thought we needed and he would talk with us before class.            That night after dinner, Layla and I sat down at the kitchen table at my house and started putting together the list of items Mr. Higgins had asked for.           Things weren’t going very well. “Layla, they used over 12,000 pounds of flour to make that giant cookie, and they only raised $20,000 that day selling cookie slices. A 50-pound bag of all-purpose baking flour costs, let's just say, twenty dollars. Three hundred bags of flour, which is what we will need to make a bigger cookie, will cost us about six thousand dollars. I don’t think our class is going to be able to pull this off,” I said, trying to be realistic.            “You are right, Anna. This cookie is getting bigger than we can manage, we need a new plan to present to Mr. Higgins. I was just reading up on the original giant cookie and it took them over six months of experimenting just to get the heat and circulation to the right levels in a smaller ten-foot test oven. We don’t have that kind of time or money,” Layla said.            What were we going to do? Time was running out and we needed some ideas and we needed them fast. I really liked the idea of making a giant cookie and so did Layla. Winning an award would be fun but being in the Guinness Book of World Records would be a chance in a lifetime for our class.            “I have an idea. What if we get the bakery that beat the record to help promote and sponsor our project?” I asked Layla.            “They are in North Carolina, we are in California, I don’t think that is a good partnership. I do understand where you are going with this, Anna,” Layla told me.            “Then we need something else,” I said, starting to get frustrated.            “How about we break the record for the tallest homemade cookie tower? That one looks like our class can do it. The previous winner stacked 48 homemade chocolate chip cookies to create a tower. Why don’t each of our classmates make individual towers and then we could have two records, the largest cookie tower and the largest number of cookie towers created by a group at once,” Layla said.            “If we bake them ourselves then they will all be the same size,” I said, smiling at Layla.            “How is that going to work with our science fair project?” Layla asked.            “I’ve got it, we will make chocolate chip cookies using different types of flour and we will discuss the similarities and differences of each,” I offered.

“How about consistency, thickness, the stability of the cookie when baked, flavor differences, color differences, baking times for each type, oh and baking temperatures, how well they stack into a tower, how high of a tower we can make based on the type of flour,...” “Whoa, Layla, I think that will be plenty. Let’s make a list of those ideas before we forget them,” I said quickly. “...and then we discuss why the cookies did what they did,” Layla said, finishing her original thought. “Hey, Mom, what do you think about this idea we have for the science fair?” I asked.

My Mom was loading the dishwasher. “I think it is a great idea, Anna. When I was in school kids did volcanoes and solar systems for their projects. It is nice to see that they want you to figure out the connection between your topic and science. I just wish my teachers had come up with such a great challenge. Your Dad and I will be happy to help you in any way you need,” she told us. It was perfect. Now to present the idea to Mr. Higgins. Our class was sure to win an award for breaking the giant cookie record, even if it was for a giant cookie tower. The End.


Celeste She was sleeping, sleeping in her mind. She was alone. No one loved her, no one knew she existed. All she had were the stars.

Celeste sat on the cliff, overlooking the ocean. The waves were pounding against the rocks, frothing up like spittle. She pretended the cliff was hers, that it was hidden by the scraggly trees.

But it wasn’t her own. Sometimes she saw the grass matted down by footsteps. Or saw a glimpse of russet hair. Celeste wanted to see who the fascinating russet hair belonged to. She had pale blonde hair the precise color of cream, and she wore it long.

Celeste glanced up and inhaled the smell of salt. The smell reminded her of the way her mother smelled. Celeste was young, in her teens, but she was alone.

Her family was gone. And the only memory she had of the way her mother was was the vague smell of salt, and a smiling face.

She was safe here. They wouldn’t find her here. Like they found the rest of her loved ones.

Celeste couldn’t stop seeing the red rain, the way it splattered on the tiles of her home. Celeste lost herself in the stars, her only escape.

Her crimson dress flowed out around her, thick and velvety.

Leonardo Nobody notices him. They all think he’s ugly. He wishes he had someone to talk to.

Leonardo hovered at the treeline, staring at the ethereal figure on the cliff. He’d seen glimpses of her every now and then. She was so beautiful, and she’d never notice him. Leonardo took off his sneakers and crept over to her, the soft grass not making a single noise. She almost looked like a dream, but she was real. Her sloping nose and high cheekbones. Leonardo worked up the nerve to say “Hello.”

Celeste Is it them? Are they here for me? Will I become the red rain? Celeste turned to look, and it was a short, russet-haired boy. He looked around her age. “Who are you?” she said, words spilling out of her mouth faster then she could fathom.

“Leonardo.” the boy whispered.

Celeste sat up, poised to run. The boy was cute, but she knew enough not to trust appearances. “Who are you?” Leonardo’s voice startled her.

“My name is Celeste.” she said, running a hand in the grass.

Without another sound, she ran away. Leonardo Of course. She ran away. He was ugly, with his ugly hair and all that. Why would such a beautiful girl look at him?

Celeste was beautiful, with that thick blonde hair and elfish features. One thing stumped him. It was 2018, who wore those types of clothes and talked like that? He wondered if she had been born in the wrong time period.

It was amazing how fast Celeste ran, one second she was there in the inky blackness, and the next she was disappearing into the woods.

Leonardo fell asleep there, as he often did, and woke up just before dawn. He rubbed the sleep from his eyes, looking at the translucent blue horizon that signaled the sun was waiting to come up.

A shift in the sand. Leonardo felt a presence behind him. He turned around, expecting to see Celeste and instead seeing a hooded black figure. Multiple hooded black figures. There were about six. One of them held out a long, curved knife. “Hello there sir.” he said coldly, taking a step towards Leonardo.

Leonardo wanted to scream, but he was afraid. Suddenly a white blur in the treeline caught his eye. Celeste.

Celeste They are here. Those who stilled her loved one’s hands. Made their eyes unseeing. Splattered the floors with bright red rain. The Mafia.

Celeste didn’t know how she escaped. She remembered her lover telling her to run. Celeste closed her eyes briefly. She remembered her pushing Celeste towards the window. Her round green eyes were terrified. Celeste knew she didn’t know why they were being targeted. The girl with the green eyes wasn’t her first love, but her first kiss, her first girlfriend.

Celeste opened her eyes. She saw Leonardo on the grass, his hair ruffled. She couldn’t tell anyone how she feeled. It wasn’t safe.

But they already knew. They already knew she watched him. She had to run. “No.” Celeste whispered. She had to save him.

She stepped out silently, walking towards them. She knew underneath they wore bright red lipstick, the precise color of blood. Red rain. Regardless of their gender.

In an instant, one of them grabbed Leonardo. “NO!” she yelled, grabbing the one who held him. “Let him go, I beg! Please, he is as innocent as the stars!”

Another grabbed her around the waist. Leonardo turned to stare and struggled harder. The one holding Celeste said “Ah, but the stars are not so innocent, are they? They see everything, even when we can’t see them, when the sun clouds them from view.” He held a knife to her throat and pulled off his mask.

Leonardo He can’t let them hurt her. They could’ve been friends, if they’d had more time.

The man was ugly, with a gold tooth and a broad face. He had stubble on his chin. And his lips were a striking red, the color of a rose. He talked in the same way Celeste did.

Suddenly, he heard a soft patter-patter . A horse made entirely of clouds erupted from the north of the sky and cantered towards them. It was beautiful, the most beautiful thing Leonardo had ever seen.

Besides Celeste.

The thought surprised him. But he knew it to be true.

The horse, who Celeste called out to as “Utara!”

Utara whinnied and rushed towards the attackers. They dispersed and ran, dropping them both to the ground. The horse merged back with the sky.

Celeste lay motionless in the grass, and Leonardo hurried over to her.

Her face was pale, motionless. Her lips were cracked, and she stared up at Leonardo. “Those were the ones who killed everyone I loved. I’ve traveled through time to reach here, to where I thought was safe.” she explained, pulling a canteen from her thick dress. It was gold today, and yesterday it had been a deep crimson. She drank from it and sat up. “Energy draught.” she explained. “Can I help you? Bring them down?” Leonardo asked, sitting next to her.

She smiled, kissing his cheek. “Yes. I think you can, friend.”


Lilly needed more medicine, in fact a better medicine that could save her dying mother, no twelve-year-old girl should watch cancer slowly take a woman from this earth. Many doctors from England and America had tried their best to save Ceilia’s life but time was running out and Lilly had to find another way. Most nights she’d pray for help.

Kissing her sleeping mother goodbye, Lilly stepped out of their house and into a cold morning in London, the sky was as blue as her eyes and the sun shone its golden hue upon her face. One particular ray of light seemed to flicker like a beacon, beckoning her to follow its path. She paced forward, oblivious to everything else, she continued towards the ray of sunlight. Just before her foot stepped into the beam, she stopped and glanced all around her. There was nobody in sight, and she continued onwards, allowing the ray of light to swathe her entire body. And then. Like a magician saying hocus pocus.

Lilly was gone. * For a split second Lilly was in complete darkness and utter silence, like she was floating in space. And then, she felt the familiar hardness of land beneath her feet in the form of cobbled pathing stones. This place didn’t look like earth. That was soon confirmed when she looked to the crimson sky and saw a violet sun and the clouds were orange too. In the distance beyond the purple haze, tall obelisks lined the horizon, and beyond those were even taller buildings like skyscrapers that she’d always wanted to visit in New York.

Following the narrow cobbled pathway, she came upon a large courtyard where alien-looking Pedlars and Hawkers offered wares and goods to busy-bodies that were nothing like humankind.

“Welcome… welcome I’m so glad you came,” said a thing, that was tall with long Langley legs and purple rubbery skin that had a face resembling a blobfish with eyes like coal. “Welcome to the galactic marketplace, I am Vweltar." “Where is this place and why am I here?” Asked Lilly. “You are here my dear because you have chosen to come. Welcome to the planet Belgorr. There is a lot of business to discuss, please follow me.”

"No I must return

home, my mother needs medication. Please… please send me home, I have to save her. I have come here by mistake." "All in good time my dear, but first please follow me."

* Lilly followed Vweltar into the hall of the caucus, where a concourse of aliens was seated at a round table. The room fell silent as this earthly looking being approached the table. “My delegates please welcome Lilly from the planet earth,” announced Vweltar. A cacophony of chirps and crackles and squeals resembling the alien’s language made sense to Lilly, thanks to the universal translator that Vweltar had placed around her neck. They were all intrigued by her beauty and were asking if she was for sale. Vweltar intercepted their debates and stringently informed his delegates that no sale was taking place today. “Please tell me why I’m here?” Exclaimed Lilly. Vweltar jumped back in astonishment at the ferocious sound that had blasted towards him. And the aliens muted themselves as their gazes fixed on the little girl. A tall alien stood from his chair, his skin was satin black with the appearance of looking wet, his teeth were jagged like alabaster stalactites, and his fiery red eyes were compelling as Lilly couldn’t help but listen. “I am Zukar and you are among the Belgorrians of Belgorr. We have been watching your planet for quite some time and we must do a trade deal with the people of your planet.” “But what has this got to do with me?” Asked Lilly. “Vweltar I insist that you show me how to get home I must find a way to help my mum.” “Well that is why you are here Lilly,” replied Zukar. “It’s just not your mother you have to save, the entire existence of the human race depends on you.” * Lilly glanced at her wristwatch, according to it, she'd been gone for less than ten minutes. But it'd felt like a whole day, the purple sun had set just moments ago, yet, when she'd arrived it hadn't long risen.

Was she a prisoner here? A slave to the Belgorrians. What could these monstrous creatures from outer space, want from earth? Vweltar took hold of her hand and led her off, she dug her heels in and further demanded answers. They fell silent as they watched a screaming girl get dragged away. "Where are you taking me?" Exclaimed Lilly, flailing her legs. "We are preparing you for the marketplace, where you'll participate in the

galactic trade." "I don't want to, I have to go home." "That's precisely what you have to do," began Vweltar. "Return home to then arrive back here on Belgorr with something to trade, but make it good. Or, the Belgorrians will feast upon the inhabitants of your world." “Are you saying they’ll eat all the human beings?” “Yes.” “That means they’re gonna eat my mum and my brother! My entire family and friends!” “Lilly, follow the cobbled path in which you came and, when you get to the shimmering pool of light — step into it and you’ll be home. But don’t forget to return in two days,” said Vweltar. * Humans was on the dinner menu, knowone of this world would believe her that humans was sought of as a delicacy — a cuisine that couldn’t be untried, unless, she suddenly thought, a better dish of delight and flavour could sate the Belgorrians appetite.

Were they just carnivores or just herbivores or a bit of both? she cussed herself for not asking. But what she did do was take a wild guess that they were raw flesh eaters and had never tried cooked meat with seasonings and spices.

“They would like a stew with all the trimmings and flavourings possible,” Lilly said aloud, as she walked home. She’d made stew before, at school in her cooking lesson. The recipe was somewhere in her bedroom but, the one vital ingredient she didn’t have, only her grandmother knew how to make dumplings that was worth putting in a stew. Lilly jumped on her ten-speed and peddled as fast as her legs would go, bound for her grandmother’s home, she cussed at the slow-moving traffic as she weaved in and out of the cars and got blasted at by the horns of angry drivers. That didn’t phase her, she continued, if these drivers knew what was at stake, they’d thank her. Grandma was not home. “Where are you?” she frantically said, searching for the recipe book. Nothing in the kitchen draws, she moved on to the living room, nothing there either. Next she tried the dining room, no luck there either.

She sprung over to the ottoman and pulled the lid up to a mass of books and sheets of paper, somewhere in that pile had to be the saviour of mankind. * On Lilly’s arrival back, Vweltar was eagerly waiting but disappointment became evident as she’d returned empty handed. She raised a reassuring hand to Vweltar’s countenance and then glanced over her shoulder. Appearing from out of the shimmering pool were cows — a dozen of them, all pulling carts, loaded with vegetables. “In the name of Belgorria, what an earth is all this?” Expressed Vweltar. “I noticed at the galactic marketplace there is never any food to trade with the punters, well… in this instance, the aliens. So I’m gonna knock-up a feast that I hope will be to Zukar and the Belgorrians liking,” said Lilly. "I had to do a lot of groveling to the farmers to let me have all this for free."

“You think that sustenance will be worth trading?” “When they see how good it is, they’ll learn that they don’t have to travel the universe eradicating all forms of life from planet to planet. "What are these creatures?" "They're cows." * All through the painstaking process of preparing the ingredients, Lilly's mind was still back on earth. What if her mother awakened and called her to find she wasn't there, what was she to do? But at least the nurse would be there to comfort her. With the help from some aliens known as the Ghelaks — no doubt in Lilly's mind they were as savage as the Belgorrians — they'd come close to devouring the cow and the other eleven that grazed in the field, but Lilly had kept them in order. "Vweltar, why are there so many different alien species residing on this planet?" Asked Lilly, inquisitively. "I thought you would have guessed by now. Belgorr is a trading outpost, it's the biggest marketplace in the universe. And you are now the fifth species to join." "I haven't joined anything Vweltar, I've been lured here against my will." "I was put in the same predicament when I was lured here. Zukar treats my people like fodder, we only breed now for that reason," said Vweltar. "I tried to make a trade but he declined." "What was your trade offer?" “Bloodvime, it’s the liquid that surrounds the land and flows through the tribituries, just like the oceans and rivers on your planet.” “That sounds disgusting, what would Zukar want with that?” “My planet is a living creature, it can replenish its bloodvime, it even has healing properties. But it turned out to be poisonous to them." * The contents within the large cauldron was simmering nicely, the pleasant smell that wafted from it began to draw a crowd around Lilly’s stall. “Come and try my space cuisine stew,” Lilly called.

Sellers and buyers alike crowded around her cauldron, and watched as Lilly, stirred the beef chunks and the vegetables and dumplings. A Ghalek arrived and offered a trade for some stew. "What have you to trade with sir?" Asked Lilly. "I hear your mother is not well, a sip of this bloodvime will banish the evil that resides within her." Lilly grab the largest bowl she had and served the Ghalek a double portion, and took the canteen of bloodvime in exchange. "Before any trade can take place, I must try this space cuisine of yours, " said Zukar. Lilly proffered the steaming hot bowl to Zukar and to his delight from the pleasant aroma that filled his nostrils, he poured the lot down in one gulp. And then, like a train's chimney, he belched copious amounts of steam. "This is good, really good," said Zukar, nodding his head. "The people of your earth are no longer worth fodder to us. You must keep us in supply of your space cuisine. You can now make the trade." "Thank you Zukar. I have to return home first with the bloodvime, so my mother can be well again." "Well of course," he replied. * "Lilly, where are you taking me, I've only just got my strength back?" "I'm so glad you're alive and well mother, we have some cooking to do. And I think you won't mind where we have to go." "Where are we going?" "I won't spoil it but, it's a place you would've thought never existed."