"Please just try to get here. The kids are asking what's going on and I don't want to tell them alone." "I'm trying, my love. I made it out of the city before the warning went live, I should be there in the next 20 minutes. I love you." "I love you too." So many things were going through his mind. There was so much he wanted to accomplish. So many places he wanted to see. Now, all he wanted was to be home with his family. Driving never seemed to go by so slowly. Every mile felt like a hundred and the surrounding were just a blur. He had driven these roads countless times and auto pilot had fully taken over. The only thoughts going through his head were the stories his father used to tell him. "Son, there is a gift that our family is blessed with. Once, and only once, we can freeze everything around us. Time will stand still for all but us. We are free to move and free to think, but eventually it must end and return to normal. Many in our family have decided to forget about the gift entirely but it is my responsibility to tell you that this power is innately yours, should you choose to use it." As a child he asked, "Did you use yours father?" Smiling his father said, "I did my son." "What did you do?" A tear formed in his eye as he said, "I extended the happiest moment of my life. I will say no more than that." Shivers ran through the man as he turned his focus back to driving. He was entering the neighborhood which was full of frantic activity. People loading cars, others breaking down outside, some already catatonic in acceptance of the inevitable. Trying to ignore the horror of awareness on peoples faces, he took the final turn before coming up to his home. His wife ran out to greet him and embraced him in a deep hug, tears in her eyes. "I thought you weren't going to make it, I thought I would never see you again." "I'm here. I'm so sorry. Where are the children?" "Inside. I had to tell Simon, but Tucker and Lucy don't know. Simon is helping me keep them calm, but I don't know if it's really sunk in yet." "Ok, let's go inside." Tears freely flowing, his wife followed him as he entered their house and went to find their kids. "Daddy!" Lucy was the first to greet her father. He had always loved his daughter with a fierce love that could only be matched by the love he had for his wife. His sons he loved equally but his daughter was a much more jealous love. He would stay with her in his arms forever if she let him. "Hello princess! I'm so glad to see you!" Tears began forming in his eyes. "Daddy why are you crying?" she said touching her small hands to his face. Wiping the tears away he said, "Nothing sweetheart. I just am so glad to see you. Where are your brothers?" "They are outside looking through the telescope." "Well let's go find them. I have something I need to tell all of you." "Okay" Leading her father by the hand, she took him outside to her brothers, his wife following closely behind holding his other hand. "Dad!" The boys said in unison. Both rushing over to embrace their father. Simon was looking at his father with a knowing stare. A frantic pleading to his eyes that was never there before. It made him feel sick. "Lets sit down, your mother and I have something we want to tell you." He checked his watch before sitting down and looked at his wife, who gave him a small nod. It was 12:37, they had 4 minutes. "Simon, Tucker, Lucy, there is something I need to tell you. Something has happened. We are going to have to leave here soon. I'm not sure where we are going, but whatever happens just relax and wait for us to come get you. Your mother and I *will* come and find you. No matter how long it takes, we will find you. Simon began crying. Trying to console his eldest he said, "It's ok Son, I need you to be brave for your brother and sister. We are all here and anything that happens we will face it together." Sniffling, Simon said, "o-okay." "Your mother and I love you all so much. A father could not ask for a more beautiful daughter, or more brave sons. We only have a short time but I wanted you to know that whatever happens, your mother and I love you more than anything." He looked to his wife, who was still crying and embraced her in a kiss. The salt from her tears was all he could taste but he didn't notice anything but the softness of her lips and the fullness in his heart of the love for her. "Come here you guys." Wrapping his arms around all of them he checked his watch once again, 12:40, it was nearly time. He turned to his wife and set his head against hers, "carry them, I will meet you there." With those words, he froze time. He broke down for the first few moments. Crying for his family and what he knew he had to do. The sobs were so deep it made his body ache, and he lay on the ground in despair. Knowing that he had to save his family from the terror he must face, he pulled out the gun from his belt. Time unfroze and he saw their bodies beside him, still embracing one another. His sorrow was beyond words, and his grief too immense to measure. Crying and grieving, he looked up as the asteroid began to descend. He first felt the heat, the unbearable heat. Clutching his head everything became blurry and his hearing was only a loud hum that was growing until deafening. Screaming from the heat and pain, he dropped to his knees and the last thing he saw was darkness closing in.


I didn’t even believe that the stories were true until I saw my Grandpa’s head explode. I was young, although I don’t know what age--I asked him a question, something about spiders. I saw his face contort, scared, knowing what could happen...but he couldn’t resist reaching for his illegal encyclopedia to answer me. All it took was a few seconds of concentrated reading. I watched his head swell, and then there was a sound like a beach ball being stabbed, and another sound like a cannonball smashing a brick wall, and then the pink, white, and red contents of his head were covering me and every wall of his study, and I was crying, and my parents ran in and picked me up and brought me to a big building with white walls that they never told me the name of. I sustained a significant amount of facial trauma from various pieces of his skull (surprisingly heavy and sharp), and I was permanently, illegally referred to as “Dented Girl” by several of the other kids in the Nothing Building (naming things was strictly forbidden--but of course the cruelty of children respects no law). My parents told me to do my best to forget what the inside of a human head looked like but that was pretty much out of the question. The only thing my parents really explained to me about the whole thing was that I was lucky to be alive. Hundreds of people died from skull explosions yearly, the exact causes varying from throat lacerations from sharp pieces of bone to shock-induced heart attacks. Standard practice was to never be in the same room as anyone who could be absorbing any sort of information. This was pithily expressed through the slogan: “*If they’re learnin’, start your legs-a-churnin’!”* This was the only thing we learned in Nothing Building, as was its design. The only thing they taught you there was the name and the slogan--everything else was as boring as possible. It didn’t always used to be like this--human beings didn’t have to avoid knowledge and information like the plague just to get a chance to breed, to sit around in ignorance all day staring at plain white walls, wishing their skull would burst just to stop the boredom. There are millions of books (now banned or burned or chucked in the ocean, on account of how many people they kill) that tell of a world where humans spent their whole lives pursuing knowledge without fear, where humanity’s whole *purpose* was to gain information and share it with others and remember it and build off of it and grow. Then sometime, somehow, a few hundred years ago, things got all switched up and a finite limit was mysteriously set on every human being who was born after the year 2035-- absorb enough information, be it facts or colors or words or places or names, and Boom. Your head explodes, *forcefully*\--and no one knows why, or who, or what did this to everyone. Multiple efforts have been made to quantify the exact amount of information that makes you burst, but most of the studies have just resulted in the researchers’ own cranium-shrapnel destroying all of their work before they reach any sort of conclusion. Anyway-- Colleges, schools, employee training centers, everything that could teach anyone *anything* was shut down, and every aspect of human life was stripped down to its barest essential. All that mattered now was living long enough to produce offspring and to take care of them and survive. The human race stagnated completely, and there seems to be no hope of ever moving forward. People just don't have the capacity to figure out a way forward anymore. Three hundred years of ignorance. There are hundreds of theories about why humanity had this deadly learning limiter placed on it. Some people think we hit some sort of evolutionary boundary--the world became too dense and complex, and our brains rebelled against us, sick of absorbing so much insane information day after day, and they explosively forced us back into being simple, base animals. Some people think this has made us happier, that the human race’s biggest mistake was pursuing knowledge and growth. These people are also stupid, on account of never learning anything. Not their fault--but the truth. Others think that there’s some sort of shadow government, installing knowledge-sensitive explosives in every citizen’s brain, so that the populace can never be informed, and they can bask in the wealth of the world forever without any fear of an educated citizenry rising up against them. The theory most people came to accept that this was simply the intervention of God--like the Tower of Babel, God reached down and stopped us before we reached him. But I don’t think that theory’s right. I don't think any of them are. I’ve done research--despite what I know it’ll do to me. I’m not sure how much information it takes to pop a head, but I think I've finally found a fair amount of proof that supports one idea *why*. I’ve had to focus my research on one very particular area, for obvious reasons. I wanted to give proper exposition before my thesis, for readers who are hopefully reading this in the far future when everything is better--but before I get into that I'll say a few words on myself, to establish trust. Some book I read said it's important that the reader trust the writer when attempting to write a persuasive paper. So. My name's Penelope Evans. I gave myself that name after a researcher who wrote one of the few unburned books I've found--some book about bugs. Funny enough, it answered the question I asked my Grandpa a long time ago. I don’t know how old I am--measuring time was done away with a long time ago. I just know I look much younger than everyone I know and I feel so much older and I know that I’m going to die very, very soon. I’ve read as many books as I could get my hands on, I’ve seen new things every day--I've been so careless with my life because I just want to find the *answer*. I want to get humanity out of this 300-year rut. I’ve of course never been loved or had anyone talk to me for any period of time since I was a kid--I’m far too reckless with learning and people know to *get those legs a’ churnin’,* so to speak. They’re right to. It just feels so *unfair.* I dedicate my life to trying to fix humanity and all I get is loneliness and death. I want to say before I start that I don’t think I’m better than all the people who do the standard societal pipeline of nameless childhood to ten years in the Nothing Building staring at the ceiling until they hit puberty, onto motherhood and fatherhood to death at 80. They’re good and they’re necessary and they’re probably a lot happier than me. I'm sorry. I know I'm stalling. Now that it’s time to actually say what I have to say I realize I’m terrified to. . I’m so afraid that I'll start writing my theory on why everything is like this now and it'll spark some thought or insight and I’ll die before I finish and I'll paint this tiny basement I'm writing in with pink and white and red just like Grandpa. I can feel how close I am to popping. I wanted to wait until I had absorbed nearly my limit of information so I could have the vocabulary and experience and wisdom to write this *perfectly* but now I’m so scared that I went too far. I wish I could forget *anything.* I just need to finish this, God. I need to finish this. This is all I have. This is all I’ve been allowed to choose for myself. Excuse me for writing my thoughts but I feel that I have only a little time left and I would rather have my readers know what happened then leave them in ignorance. My head hurts so bad. No one ever tells you that your head hurts this much before it happens and now that I know that I am one piece of information closer. Fuck. Shit. I'm sorry. I need to get back on track. There are so many things I wish I could say now that I know this is the last thing I’ll ever write. There are so many things I wish I could have done. I wish I had never learned anything. All it’s given me is a yearning for everything I’ll never have. I'm sorry, reader. I need to say what I told you I was going to say otherwise I've just wasted your time. Please know I wrote this with the best of intentions. Sorry. Of course *now*, as I feel my head stretching and screaming, I realize my theory on why this all is happening is clearly, ridiculously wrong. How horrible is it that one has to be knowledgeable to know that ignorance is really bliss? I wish I could go back. I wish I could be new again. I'm sorry. My hypothesis was going to be that humans became this way because we were scared of what we could become--I thought we were so close to pure enlightenment through learning that we somehow violently regressed, just before we touched the sky of human knowledge and achievement and *figured it all out*, you know? I thought we just couldn’t let ourselves win. Humanity's always been locked in a struggle for meaning and maybe we got so close and we stopped ourselves because we were afraid of what might lie on the other side of *finally knowing the answer.* I had so many sources and quotes that I felt pointed to this...so much data… I literally lost my life for this. I thought I could find the answer if I just looked hard enough. I thought there had to be an answer. God damn it. I'm really sorry. Now the only thing I see, after my life of looking, is that my knowledge has confused me completely. I don’t think ignorance is the answer. I don’t. I don’t. But I don’t know what is. I don’t think knowledge is, either. Maybe God did do this to everyone. Maybe he was right to do this.


I guess I should’ve known it was coming to an end when I walked into my living room that day. I guess, to an extent, we both knew it was coming to an end. First sign of trouble was the fact that the light in my study was the only one turned on in the house, meaning the only place she could be is the one place she hated. I had been arriving late from work the last couple of weeks, but I guess I just drove slowly to avoid being in the same house as her. But even as I say this, a part of me still loved her, even if things had been a little rough this last year. But this day felt different, today something was about to change, I knew it as I got out of my driveway in the morning and I know it as I go in at night. I guess I should’ve known it was coming to an end when I woke up and he had already left for work. Not a “goodbye honey” or even a note explaining why he had to leave for work early. I went about my day as I usually did, had breakfast alone, took care of the garden and worked on my novel. Had lunch and took a nap in the afternoon. Today was different and I didn’t know if I could place why. I decided to visit his study and read a couple of the things he was working on. After all, I was sure that his late arrivals at home didn’t mean he was off with some mistress, he wasn’t like that. There must've been something in his mind that made him act distant, an inch of loneliness that his eyes practically yelled. As I got through the garage door, I knew what was coming so I neglected my usual greeting. No “Honey I’m home” or light whistling. I just took off my shoes, left my briefcase and my jacket in a living room sofa and poured two glasses of Merlot. I sighed and walked towards my study. The door was closed and I debated whether I should open it or not, maybe something wasn’t going to happen at all. Maybe we could both continue with this facade. I was lying to myself and it was time to face the music. With an ever-deeper sigh I propped the door open with my arms. I heard the keys jangling and I knew he wasn’t going to immediately come here. I heard his briefcase and jacket hit the sofa, he was coming in without shoes, he never did like using them indoors. I heard he also opened the pantry, probably to pour himself, or both of us, a drink. Whether it would be whiskey, gin or wine I couldn’t guess. I had no idea if he shared the same ill-fated thoughts as I did, perhaps he did and this would be a lot easier than I imagined. If he didn’t, well if he didn’t, I’ll deal with it later. “A little help here” I said with a fake joyous voice, as if pretending to joke. She faked surprise to see me come in at the same time I faked surprise at her being in the room she so despised. She was sitting in the carpeted floor, but with a quick action she stood up, opened the door and I handed her one glass of wine. She closed the door behind me and sat back down on the carpet. I sat in a leather chair which I use for work. We stared at each other, glass in hand, and for what seemed like an eternity didn’t say a single word. I thought the spark we had had at some point was still alive when he came in. He always found a way to make me laugh. But this time his lies were obvious. He knew the jig was up. He knew something was wrong. His undone blue tie, pearl white shirt and black slacks were all but a mask of relaxation hiding the deep realization that was happening within. I sat up to help him with the door and sat back down into the carpet, amongst thrown away documents, a couple of pens and coffee stains. He sat in his old, torn a little to be honest, leather chair. We stared, both at the wine and at each other, we knew something was wrong, and neither of us wanted to be the first one to address the elephant in the room. I was the one that broke first, she had always had some power over me, I just couldn’t resist it, watching her suffer broke me as well. “-Look, I know you feel something’s wrong, I feel it too” “-I guess there is something wrong, if we both feel it” “-I guess so”. Another awkward silence followed. “-Honey…” I said inquisitively. “Do you love me?” “-Just what kind of question is that?” She responded brashly “Of course I love you”. “-Then what is going on? Right here, right now, what are we doing, and why did we pick today to do it” “-I… don’t know”. We both took a sip of the wine cup and stared at the floor. Her brunette hair had always mesmerized me, but there was something that made me stare at the mahogany desk instead. Turns out he was the one to start the conversation. The last conversation we might have when we could honestly say that we loved each other. His first question though kind off threw me off. He had never been the insecure type, he could be sweet, but I’m sure that if he asked me if I loved him, he must have a reason to doubt it. As for the second question I honestly did not know. “-Maybe it’s time we both laid down all our cards and figure out what were doing, with all this” I made a superhuman effort to avoid an impromptu voice crack and took another sip of my cup. “-Well, as far as I know” he answered with his smug courtroom voice “We love each other, have always loved each other and will always love each other” “-Is that the truth? or is that the truth you want to prove to yourself” I could tell she was hurting; she was unusually aggressive in her responses and had taken a defensive stance in her arguments. “-I thought it was our truth, the truth that we believed in” “-Well, I have no idea what truth you have been believing in this last few weeks, you always get home late, now, I know you’re not cheating on me so what’s going on, I also know you don’t get off work that late so why don’t you want to be here”. This last response hit me hard. I wasn’t sure what to say, my legs felt like jelly and I couldn’t focus enough to take a sip of my wine. “-Well what about you?” I managed to put up a wall “I’ve been practically living with a ghost, you never say anything to me, always working on your novel, you even pretend to be asleep when I go to bed” He was right, there was no use hiding it, I didn’t have an answer for his accusations. I didn’t have anything else left to go on so I couldn’t throw anything else at him either. “-Well perhaps were done then, perhaps these last years have been a farse and its time we own up to it” I said, the shadow of a tear had begun to form in my eye. “-Well this farse is everything I have” he raised his voice, an unusual behavior, but it wasn’t out of anger it was out of pain. “and it is everything you’re ever going to get” Truth is I didn’t want to lose her, it was partly true what I said, she was everything I had. The mere prospect of a separation, living alone again, terrified me. If she could tell I felt alone right now, how bad would it get if I lost her. “-Well perhaps…” she said softly “-Perhaps what” I laid down the pressure. “-This might be something we can fix” she said again, now with a cracked voice, I could see tears falling on the documents below her beautiful eyes, and I was praying that she wouldn’t see the ones hitting my shirt. “Fix what love, we can’t even tell what’s wrong and we want to go out of our way to fix it”. There was such a long silence after that, between sniffles and sobs, that we both manage to finish our cups of wine, he had always had good taste for it. “-Do you remember the last time we danced?” I asked him, not sure what kind of answer I was waiting for. “-Of course, but that was so long ago, you’re going to have to remind me how to do it properly honey” a short chuckle followed his answer “-Well I also did last time, you’ve never been that good of a dancer” She stood up and I could admire her beauty. On cue I also stood up, my socks rubbing against the carpet. That embrace had been everything I had ever hoped for or ever needed. The study was a ball room, the carpet marble floor, her sweater a dress and my shirt and slacks a tuxedo and cufflinks. I held her tight against my chest, kissed her forehead and began to lead. Had a few missteps here and there but she didn’t seem to care. Her hair smelled like roses and her steps were angelical. At one point we stopped, I held her chin in my hand and stared into her eyes. “-Not yet darling, I want to keep dancing” she said and without saying a word I obliged. And just like that we danced. Both of us, as one. Whatever spark had been there once will probably never bee reignited. But in that moment, as the both of us danced it was like going back to where everything was fine. We both agreed to keep dancing. But to this day I don’t have the answer if we did out of love, out of fear that if we ever stopped, me just might never dance again.


My room is a pale cube, carpeted, with a metre-wide intrusion on one wall from the box around the chimney flue. There's a stretched out radiator that runs under the only window, for about five feet, it's a squat and dusty thing that goes too hot. When the air turns colder and thicker in the late evening, the radiator expands and my beechwood desk tightens up, and they both clack at each other, right as I'm getting hypnagogic.  Last night, having plainly over-drunk from a bottle of red wine (that was on the turn anyway, if that's an excuse), I schlepped up the staircase and fell on to the bed. I passed out over the covers, still dressed. I had spilled red wine on my shirt, and my trousers were unbuttoned at the waist where the top button had started to come loose. The clacking of the radiator at the desk must have woken me, and the desk's creaking replies kept me awake long enough to sit up in hot frustration. Still being on top of the sheets, I went to stand up to take off my trousers and button-down shirt. As I shifted off the bed and planted my feet on the carpet, something about the give in the mattress gave me pause. I had the impression there was a weight on the bed behind me, and pause turned to cold panic: Something person-sized is on my bed. The mattress was clearly bearing the heft of another body.  I sat with my spine like a rod, too terrified to turn and look. A long minute passed, as I considered why I hadn't just spun around and looked straight away. The weight hadn't startled me so much as willed me to freeze. Eventually, I found courage enough to stand up, slowly. I had the childish thought that if I went about normally, then nothing could possibly be wrong. Having got up to take off my clothes, that's what I did. I removed my trousers and shirt and left them in a heap on the floor. Now underdressed for a paranormal experience, but not necessarily for anything unwelcome-but-human, I turned around at slow speed.  I cannot fully describe the character of an out-of-body experience. If I had to try, I would draw a line between seeing myself in the mirror, seeing a picture of myself from the side, and seeing myself on an old home video, from one sensation to the other, in a straight upward path from left to right. On this graph of experiencing myself outside my own skin, what I saw on my bed was way out to the right, way above a home video. I am lying on the bed. I am standing next to the bed. I am so convinced that I am standing next to the bed that I start to doubt it's me lying on the bed, asleep, unmoving. Now my out-of-body experience is an out-of-self one. I am something else.  In the division of my standing self from my sleeping counterpart, the sleeping person becomes alien to me, even hateful. I walk around the bed to its foot, with my back to the chimney wall. I stare at my unjoined twin, and as I stare I start to drain, and my eyelids snap together. Right as I feel like I'm going to pass out, with my back pushed up against the cold wall, I open my eyes again. The body, the copy, is sat up, staring back at me. We stay locked on each other for some time, neither moving, neither saying a word. I'm getting drained again, and my eyes shut all at once.  I woke up to morning light and a wide headache, fully clothed, over the covers. I was myself again, completely. The picture of what had happened in the night came back softly, dream-like at first, and then as the complete nightmare. But the horror came back in double parts. In one part, I had felt a shadow move about my bed, and settle at the foot of it. The dreadful, unknowable thing stared me down, even as I sat up to stare back at it. It had been something outside of a dream, it was more of a hallucination, if not something real and awful. The other part was more of a cloud than the solid memory of the first. It was definitely more nightmare than truth. I had been outside of myself, and become something else. I had undressed, turned to the bed, and seen my body sundered from my knowing mind. I had reared up against the chimney wall and stared my old body in the eye until I fell unconscious.  Struggling to put the memory and the nightmare together, but also unable to fully tell them apart, I start to haul myself up and off the bed. I plant my feet on the carpet. On the floor are a pair of trousers with a broken button, and a wine-stained button-down shirt, identical to the ones I am still wearing, left in a heap.


The hangover stank. It was the worst one in a culmination of bad ones, one so impossibly foul and rotten that there was no way to drink it off. Green to the gills and as a dry as a badger’s chuff. Unreasonably dehydrated, yet unable to keep down any liquids. It was in this sorry state I got onto the bus. You’d think the marathon of cigarettes would’ve taken away my sense of taste and smell, but all they’d done was dry around the taste bud, leaving it intact and ready to analyse the putrid, acrid rank that passed for my breath. I could smell myself, smell my fingers, each one yellowed, stained and honking so thoroughly of tar I imagined they were emitting cartoon stink lines. Cold sweat dripped down my back as my paranoid heart thundered off key to the march of some inhuman drum. I could smell these people. I could taste them. The stale body odour, the cheap aftershave, the violent perfume. It lingered and rolled into a triumvirate which also added cheap greasy food and fresh farts to the roster. I took my seat, as the sunlight blasted through the thick reinforced windows and dust burst from within the faded seat padding in a cascade of dead skin cells and anonymous fibres. I sucked it in through my flaring nostrils to stem the wave of terror that had gripped my scalp and muttered, ‘still alive.’ An aging female wart with an array of skintags sat across from me, berating and scolding what I took to be her fat grandson who had chocolate all over his hands, shirt and face. She was smacking and nipping the boy and seeming to get a kick out’ve his feeble and sticky protests to stop. I swallowed down some vomit which if spat out would’ve eaten away the upholstery on the chair in front. Two teenagers sat in the two seats in front, one in each and talked loudly of half forgotten football games and girls in their year they’d give it to. One of the pair, covered in what seemed to be a mosaic of acne and third degree burns craned his neck to see if anyone else was listening to him talking about sniffing his cousin’s knickers, when, as he twisted his neck, an evil looking spot burst from the tension and flecked his collar in residue of puss and blood. I could swear I heard it explode. My chances of recovery from this nightmare were now painfully slim. I put my sweating head into my stinking hands and ran my fingers through my hair. I felt like an ashtray, and spasms began to violently grip me around the spine as I shivered and quaked in this cesspit of anxiety and loathing. I promised God I would get my head together and sort myself out if He would only deliver me from this wretched place. I swore I’d change, as I watched clear fluids run from the little pervert’s neck and stain his shirt collar a translucent colour of orange. Suddenly, the bus driver stopped. The engine had failed and smoke was cascading from the front of the bus as he bade us wretches off the bus and onto the street. As I got off, I looked up and saw an off-license, it’s neon lights emitting a lonely but enchanting buzz, echoing me inside with all the warmth of a mother’s embrace. It was then, I concluded, that the Lord does certainly move in mysterious ways, as walked inside and stared into the fluorescent light.


# Gummy Worms When I heard the news about his death, I decided to go to the nearest sweet shop down the street to buy gummy worms. It was raining outside, but I didn’t take an umbrella, nor did I wear boots. I forgot that my sneakers had holes in them, thus it was inevitable that they got soaked along with my socks. At the sweet shop, the lady asked how much gummy worms I wanted. “A lot.” I answered. “And a lot is how much?” she chuckled. “A whole pack or less?” With a straight face I asked her to show me what a whole pack looked like and how much it cost. It cost $10 dollars. It didn’t need much thinking, I took half. On my way back to the apartment, I couldn’t help but notice the earthworms that appeared on the ground and pavement. I was reminded of the time when I had a drastic fear of earthworms. I remembered having to go to classes once on a rainy day and there had been many earthworms on the pavement that day. I cried with each step I took and the earthworms I came across. The bigger the earthworm, the louder my cries. I was pained the most by those that had been stepped on and those who had half of their body squashed and the other half struggling desperately to move. But why was I afraid of earthworms, you might ask. You see, it goes way back to my childhood home which had a mild infestation of millipedes. These harmless creatures presented themselves as frequent visitors of the household, most especially the bathrooms. On one pleasant day, seemingly after taking a pleasant shower, I met with a rather unpleasant situation. I had failed to notice the abnormally large millipede the size of an adult’s middle finger but longer than the average, taking a stroll right along the entrance of the bathroom. I accidentally stepped on the other half of its body, its exoskeleton giving off a cracking sound as it broke underneath my heel, and I knew I had committed a crime destined to haunt me for as long as I lived. I didn’t have to look at the ordeal for I already knew what had occurred. I can’t say what happened next because this is where my memory begins to fail me. I can only guess that my lack of memory could be due to my losing consciousness a few seconds after the ordeal. Or perhaps I screamed out my whole essence until there was nothing left. This trauma of some sort has been with me since then and served as the foundation of my fear of not only worms or millipedes but helpless miniature creatures in general. I was afraid of accidentally killing them. I was brought back to the present upon noticing a rather big earthworm before me. As I walked over it I hoped that no one would accidentally step on him. Why did earthworms have to come out of the surface anyways? Finally, I arrived at my apartment. I sat on my work desk, turned on my PC, opened the pack of gummy worms and was ready to begin work. But on hearing the news of his death, I realized I’d lost my appetite.


Ieder looked up at his mother, a massive 15-foot dragon that towered over him. As much as he hated it, she was leaving him behind. “Now remember what me and Baba taught you.” Ieder looked up and nodded silently. “Be nice to the others. It’s best not to grieve their mothers” Nod. “Don’t bare your claws or teeth, for danger it brings.” Nod. “Never swing your tail or open your wings.” Nod. “And finally, don’t…” Ieder sighed, “Point my horns at anyone.” “Very good.” Ieder’s mother smirked before taking a step back as she opened her wings and checked around her to ensure no one would get struck by her flaps. Then, she lifted off. Ieder, a child baby-blue dragon, was left alone. Along with other children. Some the same, some different. As he turned and looked behind him, he saw multitudes of children. Some dragon, like him, some human, some elf, some centaur. He wondered how he was going to fit in. \~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~ All the children were being gathered up, and Ieder thought- hoped they would be split into their species groups for classes. He always heard about the other species, and was taught to be nice and helpful. At the same time, he felt that since dragons grew to be the biggest-est. He sat on his haunches at a desk, told to do so by a teacher. Somehow, they were having a lot a lot of trouble with other teachers, and were all told to sit, be still, and make friends. Ieder only saw one other dragon in the room and she was sitting on the other side, already chatting up with a girl centaur. Ew, Ieder thought. He continued to look around at the walls, covered in bright paper. They all hadmarks on them that Ieder thought was writing that they would read. In front of him was a human child, blond hair pulled up into two trees on both sides of her head. A white shirt with rainbow striped on the sleeves sat on her shoulders. They were the only two sitting at a group of bright white desks with thick round legs. At the other desks though were also groups of two, three, or four kids. “What’s that on your head?” The human looked up, and saw Ieder staring straight at her. She didn’t seem scared. Her eyes seemed huge through the thick glass frames sitting on her nose. Ieder’s dad told him about theses. Sometimes, centaurs and humans had trouble seeing, so these magical tiny windows helped them see, but that never made sense to Ieder. “Um, my head?” Ieder, the proud dragon repeated. “Yes. What’s those two ‘horns’?” The human reached up and felt her hair sprouts. “Ponytails, I think.” “Huh,” a centaur child said from a nearby table. The human pointed to her hair sprouts again, “These are ponytails.” The centaur huffed, “You can’t say that; you’re not a pony!” The human kid blurted out, “Neither are you!” The centaur started, but then grew quiet, and continued talking with the other students. The human continued with what she was doing. In front of her were colored sticks, paper, and something Ieder hought looked like a pink water bottle. The dragon looked down and saw her leaving coloured marks on the paper. As he looked harder, all he saw was bright blue smudges. “So you’re a human.” The human looked at herself, then her arms, then back at Ieder, “No, I’m a kid.” Wow, she’s dumb, this is gonna be easy. Ieder looked at the teachers in the room, still talking with each other. He got up onto all fours, then walked over to the human’s side of the desks. “Can you fly? Like super high?” The girl replied, “No,” she continued making marks on the paper with the colored rods. “Can you?” Ieder didn’t want to say he wasn’t allowed to fly. Not yet. “Yea, I flew a million feet high once.” The kid only said, “I once flew on a place once. I got to be above the clouds too. But I got sick easy. It wasn’t fun.” Ieder realized flying wasn’t amazing her. “I have scales. If something hits me, I don’t get hurt.” The kid looked over, and said, “Doesn’t that make it hard for you to put on clothes?” Ieder sat on his haunches, “Why would I do that?” The human kid said, “I mean, what if you get cold? What happens?” Ieder remembered the time he was standing too close to a cold section at the meat market. His mom and dad had to breathe fire on him to let him move. He felt so scared being stuck, and unable to move. Normally, grown-up dragons can handle cold better, dragons his age weren’t able to, and it can get dangerous. Something about warm versus cold-blooded things. “I have horns. I can hurt anyone.” Ieder quickly quieted down as he saw an elf teacher look over, probably hearing what he said. Ieder smiled, and quickly played innocent. The teacher continued talking with the other teachers. The girl spoke again. “They don’t look sharp.” It was true. Ieder and his mother had to file down their horns and claws. Mother had to do it for work, and Ieder had to start getting used to it two months before school started. The first time hurt in a funny way, like hound spiders crawling up his back. Ieder was about to ask another question, when he saw the paper again. It looked familiar. Like… “Who’s that?” The human held up the paper, with the blue blob, the black strokes coming out the top, and the light brown dots near the top. “It’s you.” Ieder couldn’t talk. He saw how the human tried to draw his blue body, his black horns, and his brown eyes. He took a deep breath, then jumped when the girl swung the paper away. “Don’t burn it!” Ieder felt bad for trying to show the human up, “I wasn’t. I wanted to say… it looks cool.” The human girl got out another piece of paper, “Want to try? Here’s your crayons.” Ieder did want to try, but he looked at the humans hands. They looked like thin twigs on a rock, moving away from each other like swaying trees. He looked at his own hand, and saw what looked pudgy and short compared to the human’s. He tried to open them and close them, and spread them, but he could barely spread them. And he couldn’t control them one-by-one like the human could. They looked like bear paws. They were paws. Not hands. In front of him was a chair, and on the desk was some paper and colored rods, er. crayons. He moved the chair and got up on his haunches and placed his front paws on the desk. He saw a red colored crayon on the table and reached out his right hand to pick it up. No matter how much he pushed his hands into the desk, the crayon would rise up a bit, then fall. He tried both hands, using the dull, filed claws to pick it up. He got the crayon cradled in his claws, but when he moved one hand to grip it, it fell to the desk again. “Need help?” the human asked. “No.” Ieder was getting frustrated with the stick, until the human grabbed his hand. “Does it hurt if I do this?” She slid her fingers between his, and spread them slightly. “No.” he watched as she took the crayon and slid it between the spread fingers. She let the fingers on his paw slide shut around the crayon, then Ieder took over and tightened his grip. “I’m Heather.” With one hand with the crayon, and another on the paper, he began marking on the paper. “I’m Ieder,” he said One lines became two became four, which became a rough mess on the paper. Ieder dropped the crayon on the desk, “I can’t do this!” Heather looked over, gazing at his mess. “Oh, wow… that’s- a byootiful- thiiiiing.” It took some strength in him to not start to cry. Dragons don’t cry. Remember what Baba said. “Practice, practice, practice.” Huh? “Practice helped me get to the drawings I have.” Ieder looked at the drawing Heather already seemed to be wrapping up. Heather reached out to the pink water bottle sitting on her desk and put it in front of Ieder, past the paper. “Use the red crayon. Draw that.” Ieder got to work. He saw the rectangular shape of the bottle, and made an outline. Then with less care than he had for the outline, he drew in the shape of the bottle. Somehow, he was pressing down so hard, the crayon broke. Heather looked up again through her thick glasses. “Yea, I broke them too.” She was about to start again, then she gazed at the dragon. “What was your name again?” “Ieder.” “Nice to meet you, Ieder.


I’m guessing no one ever really reads this, one or two cops probably read it as evidence, maybe if someone finds this before my body. Well if you’re unlucky enough to be reading this I have some bad news, there’s a body floating somewhere in the lake. I guess the best place to start would be who I am, then later I can explain why and how I got here. In 1994 two people in their early 20’s met at a Real Mccoy concert, they smoked some pot and talked about space aliens, Bryan was of the belief that space aliens not only existed, but had visited our planet Earth on numerous occasions, Amanda was of the belief that space aliens didn’t really matter, and that she’d rather ponder over the mysteries in Bryan’s pants. They made love under the stars, which is a very strange thing to do if you believe in space aliens, especially if you believe those aliens often research our planet with very strong telescopes, which of course, Bryan believed. Afterwards Amanda lit a cigarette and told Bryan that while she liked him a lot, she would have to skip town soon, she was a novelist on an adventure, and this little town in Texas was not where the universe was calling her. Amanda had always been a believer that the universe had a plan for each of us, which in retrospect made it particularly strange that she didn’t believe in space aliens. Bryan was of course saddened by the fact that this beautiful girl would be leaving soon, but he knew he was in no position to adventure with her, he’d just landed a new job at a company that built airplanes, and he’d been taking classes at the local university. Bryan’s life was in that little Texas town, and he was ready to settle down, he’d leave the adventuring for another day. I am not Bryan, and if you’re reading this before you find my body you should know I’m not Amanda either, while I do have her eyes and nose, there’s a rather distinct difference in what we have between our legs, presumably I got that from Bryan. I’ve never been a huge fan of overly suspenseful non fiction, so I’ll just tell you now, Amanda’s book was brilliant, Bryan became a spaceship engineer, and they never met again. Oh and they managed to create a fucking monster. My mother died when I was 15, which I found rather depressing, she’d finished her novel a few months before and was in the process of publishing, when a routine trip to the doctor’s ended badly. You’ve heard that story before, to sum it up quickly, there was a whole lot of crying, surgery, and chemo. After she died the publishing company sent me a very nice gift basket and a letter apologizing but mentioning that they would not be publishing my mother’s book, she was too unknown to publish post-mortem. Before she passed away my mother gave me an address, my father, she told me, lived in a small town in Texas, he built airplanes, liked the real Mccoy, but thought their album Space Invaders was a bit derivative, and spent most nights looking for space invaders of his own. I threw the address away of course, I hadn’t needed this man yet, and he clearly had better things to do than raise me. Unfortunately some social workers got a hold on the address and had different plans. A week after my mother’s funeral I was on a bus from Kentucky to Texas. In my defense, I had just gone through a very traumatic event, found out my father didn’t know I existed, and met twin babies that were my new half brothers, it was a stressful time, but I treated the last of my family like shit for the next three years. I should’ve helped with the babies, I should’ve gotten a job, or at the very least helped around the house, instead I spent every day getting high and doing nothing important. I ruined their marriage, my dad claimed it wasn’t my fault, and of course they both played their parts but I have a feeling it’s a lot easier to raise somebody else’s bastard if he isn’t selling pot to the neighbor’s kids. After the divorce my dad and I moved into a small apartment, he saw the twins most weekends, but I never really found much of a point in it. I graduated highschool and had good enough grades to get into a small university an hour from my father’s apartment. On the last day I spent in that apartment we shared a 6 pack and my dad told me the story of how he met my mother, it was short enough to include in my suicide note. We both apologized, I forgave him, it wasn’t his fault my mother never told him I existed, and he’d stayed by my side while I destroyed his life. “Where to next?” I asked him right before we went to bed. “I guess maybe it’s my turn for an adventure.” We saw each other a few times after that. College was fine for me, I followed in my father’s footsteps and went into the sciences, I spent five years in that place and managed to walk out with a degree in Computer Science. I had friends there, met girls, and finally did a little more with myself than just smoking weed. My fifth and final year at university was when I started to see the signs. It started like radio static, like voices were talking very far away and while the noise was carried to me, the words were lost on the journey. I ignored it for a while, nothing more than stress and partying too much.I went to the doctor after the first time I made out a full sentence; “Rape that girl, make her bleed.” A minor case of paranoid schizophrenia, Thiothixene, one pill a day, and weekly therapy, that’s what they told me it would cost to get the voices to shut up. It worked for another year, and I managed to graduate and get a job validating software, a job anyone could do just fine after a lobotomy. I didn’t make many friends after college, I spent two years at the same job and went out with my coworkers only a handful of times. There was one girl at work I was obsessed with, Jolene, a gorgeous woman only a year my senior. Jolene worked in our accounting department, she was smart, funny, and cute. Oh and I’m using the past tense because her body is wrapped in a blanket in the trunk of my car. I didn’t mean to kill her, neither did the voices, at least I don’t think they did, but Jolene stumbled upon my secret and she wanted to leave and she was going to leave and tell everyone and the voices said if I didn’t stop her she would tell them and she wanted to leave so I took the bottle in my hand and I wasn’t thinking but I hit her with the bottle but I hit her too hard. I didn’t want to hurt her. She kept breathing for a while, I watched her chest rise and fall for a few minutes, but she was leaking. Blood dripped from her head and her blond hair slowly stained crimson as it clumped together. I wanted to call an ambulance, I wanted to save her, but they told me not to, they said if we did we’d be locked up tortured there, hurt, raped, beat, killed for what we did. I tried to reason with them, “But if she lives they can’t be that mad at me, they’ll help they won’t hurt me!” Then there was a booming laughter drowning in the static of my brain, the volume turned as high as it could go. The voice screamed to me, cackling all the while, “No one will care about this girl, but for what’s on your computer they’ll kill you.” What is on my computer was put there by someone else, someone using my hands to press the keys, but another person all together. I wasn’t the one making the decision and I didn’t even know it was there until tonight, honest. Well some of it I knew about, the adults, that was the secret she found out, the reason I hit her, but the other stuff I swear was news to me. I know it was all wrong. I knew it all along, but I guess I just thought no one would really be hurt, it was just for me. But Jolene had been hurt, she was terrified when she saw herself on my computer, fully nude and bent in a submissive position, an intimate photo taken by a lover long ago and still backed up to his Google account. She asked me how I’d gotten it and I lied, told her he’d sent it to me unprompted and for no reason. Of course she didn’t believe me, maybe if I’d been a better liar she’d still be breathing. And that’s when the radio static demanded I “Stop her! Before she sees everyone else!” Then there was an argument, a bottle, a leaky head, and a slow rhythmic breathing fading away. I stole her nudes, and others, and set up hidden cameras, it was wrong but I couldn’t stop myself, but this, this was so much worse, but it wasn’t me, the voices did it, not me. Now some poor girl lay dead in my trunk because of them, all because of the voices that never shut up. The voices weren’t content ruining my life alone, they had to drag everyone else down with me. I am the outlet, I cause all of this suffering. I am proof God either doesn’t exist, or is the world’s biggest asshole, a real loving God would have killed me the day I was born. My mother would’ve finished her book years earlier, she’d die happy as a published author, my father would be happily married, Jolene would walk into work tomorrow, and the twins, the things the voices made me do to them. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. They’re screaming at me even now. They want me to stop, to make myself throw up. “Cut up the body, hide it here. Run! Escape!” They won’t stop yelling things like this to me, it makes me think they’ll die with me.The thought of them dying is all that keeps me moving now. I’m nearly paralyzed with fear but I’ll keep going I can still bring some good to the world, if only by stopping my own evil. I’m sorry, I’m scared, I don’t want to die, but I’ll die for you, for the good of all of you. I finished the bottle of Thiothixene and washed it down with some bourbon, nice stuff from Kentucky, from home, from a time before the voices, before I was afraid, before I was a monster. I’m leaving the notebook here on the dock, thank you for reading this. If there’s a God in heaven I’ll tell him off for all of you. For now I think I’ll go float into the lake for one last swim. The stars are beautiful tonight, I’ll look out towards them and watch for space aliens. Goodnight. I’m so sorry.


“Jeez, it is darker than I thought," Kim pointed out. Duke shrugged. "Eh, it's fine. Not that bad out." The conversation, which might as well not be a conversation but an exchange of two sentences, just suddenly stopped as the two teens continued down the trail. Kim, a dark brown haired girl, bit her lip in thought. "I still can't shake the feeling of what happened at the gas station once we arrived..." She wasn't wrong. Before they went on this trip down the trail, they stopped at the nearby gas station for something quick to eat on their trip. However, things were kind of in dismay. The place was trashed and messy, looking like a great majority of the shelves were ransacked. Luckily, the owner was there to greet them and apologize for the mess. He said something had broken in and trashed the place, catching it on camera and showing them it, seeing a large shadow dash away into the nearby woods. Before the two teens left though, they questioned what he thought it was, he replied that he didn't know, before pointing out that it left hell of a mark, pointing to the center of the store, revealing a large and violent scratches and scars in the floor of the gas station. Whatever it was, it was angry. Angry and hungry for whatever it could find in the gas station before fleeing. So, before heading out to the same woods for their planned hike, they purchased some cheap burritos from the place and bid him goodbye and good luck on cleaning up the mess. And now, here they were, walking down the same trail of where the supposed robber was. Great idea, don't you think? Duke, the jacket wearing 18 year old, shrugged. "Yeah, it was a pretty big mess." "A shelving unit was knocked down to the floor. Aren't those things suppose to be bolted to the floor?" Kim asked. "Uhm..." Duke tilted his head in a ponder. "Well, either it wasn't bolted or whatever bear or large animal broke in and managed to knock it down, breaking the bolts." Kim shook her head, adjusting the strap of her bag on her shoulder. " I can't get the picture of what he saw on the cameras out of my head either... Let alone know that it ran off into the direction we are currently going." "Well, just relax. I know the guy at the station said that whatever broke in ran down here but I have a feeling he was exaggerating what he saw." "I don't know... that claw mark on the floor looked pretty real..." she pointed out. Duke shrugged again. "Could have just been a really detailed stain from something spilled during the ransack" "I don't know... it was pretty embedded into the floor." she protested. Silence grew between the two before Duke lifted his head up to the glowing moon before facing back forward, the two still continuing down the trail. "And to your response to you saying that it's dark... it really isn't" Kim sighed. "I know... it just feels it." Kim didn't even get a chance to finish her sentence before a loud rustle of leaves intervened. Duke stopped, extending an arm out in front of her, "Wait, stop." he said, halting her in place. The noise grew louder, more violent. The crunching and rustling of the forest was loud and ear piercing. Kim stepped back before Duke followed, taking a cautious step back. Then, the noise stopped, and an unfamiliar sight emerged. "Hello?" said the female. In a struck of relief, Duke and Kim relax. Their tensed muscles loosening to calm down. "Sorry, I didn't scare you, d-did I?" she suddenly asks, her voice shaking. Kim jumps in response to her sudden question. "Oh, i-it's fine! We were just hiking." Duke nodded. "Yeah. You didn't scare us too bad." After those words, Duke couldn't help but to examine the girls appearance. She looked young, about teenager with black hair. However, she didn't look like she was in good shape. Her clothing, shirt and jeans were withered and dirty, they looked like they were snagged on some really sharp tree branches then tugged to cause the deep gashes and rips. Her jeans weren't any better. The knees were ripped open but Duke couldn't tell if that was the design, or if they were actually ripped open. Kim raised a brow at the teens current state. She was shaky and was acting timid. "You don't look good. Are you lost?" she asked. The girl lifted her head to her in response. "N-No. I-I'm fine...fine enough to be on my feet." Duke just now realized that the toes of her shoes looked like they were blown open, revealing her bare feet inside or what could remain of the socks if they weren't blown open as well and he just couldn't see it. "You sure? It looks like you were attacked." The girl's body began to shudder, as did her voice in response to his question. "I'm fine, trust me." That seems like a lie, both to Duke and Kim. She was shaking, obviously frightened and failing at hiding it. Duke leaned closer to his friend and quietly whispered into her ear. He made sure that the stranger wasn't looking, but she was hugging herself and looking down to the forest floor. A look of unsure on her face. "She could have been attacked by whatever took on the gas station..." he softly whispered to Kim. The stranger suddenly lifted her head. "I-I'm Angela." she said. Duke quickly leaned back and straightened up, pointing to himself with his thumb then to Kim. "Duke, and this is Kim." Kim sweetly smiled as she lifted her hand in a stiff wave as Duke stuffed his hands into his jacket pockets. Angela nodded. "Nice to meet you... s-sorry I look kind of messy." Kim raised a brow, concern growing on her face."What happened?" " I-It's nothing too important. What are you two doing out here anyway?" she replied. Kim adjusted the strap of her bag over her shoulder. "We're out on a hiking trip. We arrived a little later than we thought." Angela nodded in response before her gentle look faded, dropping and being replaced with heavy concern once again. Duke saw her expression leave her as his own concern lifted. "You sure that you don't need a ride to town? We are fine taking you to a hospital." "Oh no, I'm fine." she softly replied. "Just a little hungry," she then spoke. "Haven't eaten anything all day..." Duke straightened. "Oh, uh..." he reached into Kim's bag who just allowed it. Angela raised a brow as Duke pushed away what occupants were inside his friends bag. He then found it. He grabbed one of the large wrapped burritos. "We bought some burritos before we came out here," he said, pulling it fully out of Kim's bag and began unwrapping the white paper around it. "Here, you can have mine, I wasn't really looking forward to it anyway." Angela's eyes widen in awe at the decent looking wrapped sandwich before her as Duke extended an arm out to her for her to have it. Kim smiled to her. Suddenly, Angela flinched. Her eyes widened even bigger like they were in shock. Her back straightened in a recline like she has just seen something horrific. Then, her pupils pulled into slits. Her jaw drops to reveal her incisors growing out longer and more sharp, extending and cracking, sounding painful before they shaped into forms of what could be fangs. Duke and Kim's hopeful expression immediately left them and was instead replaced with noticeable confusion, then fear and wide eyes as Duke carefully drew his arm back.. Angela's legs then shuddered before they seemed to give out on holding her weight, and she dropped to her hands and knees. Angela's once pale skin began to be overtaken by a dark sickly gray color. Duke and Kim, confused yet concerned at the sight, recline a little back as Angela's hair falls to her face and her back arches upwards as she shudders alarmingly. Awful cracks came from her as the atmosphere suddenly felt foreboding. A non-human noise left her, sounding all too similar to animalistic growling and strained groans. Duke and Kim wince and flinch, expressions shifting more fearful as Angela's visible arms and revealing skin is overtaken by thick fine nearly black fur. Her hair extending longer and down her back in a thick flowing mane. Her legs shifting and cracking into an animalistic shape. Her fingers extending out into razor claws. Suddenly the reason why the toes of her shoes looked like they were blown open finally made sense. Her toes bulked out to large paws as sharp, eagle talon like claws pierced out of them. It didn't take Duke long to realize what was happening and why she looked so damaged and ruined when they first met her. She's changing. Changing into something that was not human. Duke turned to Kim with an easily identifiable look of dread. "Kim, we need to move, now!" he demanded. Angela's ears extend and slim out to shape pointed. Her eyes glow a deadly orange, easily able to cut through the darkness of the night as her head shape shifts, a muzzle extending out as her nostrils pulled to slits and whatever human remaining features just suddenly vanished. A thick large appendage of fur grew from the base of her spine, waving left and right behind the once human creature. It looked like a tail. She then begins to rise, from out of the hands and knees of the crouch to standing. Duke and Kim recline back as the horrid shadow of the once human girl loomed over them, revealing just how massive and tall this thing has grown in size. A startled gasp escaped Kim and an unnerved whimper from Duke. The monstrous creature expressed its arms out, throwing its head back, and gave a beastly roar, almost like a howl. The two teens froze up at the towering creature before it's triumphant roar ended and it dropped back down to a crouch, slamming a palm into the earth and extending the other arm out, exposing the now large bulky humanoid hands and sharp claws. It's horrid eyes examining them as the skin around it's face tightened, baring its razor teeth as it's lips quivered in a snarl! Even in the crouched stance this thing was still huge! "KIM!" Duke roared! The ravenous beast that was Angela, pounced! Duke grunted from the tackle of the monster! Kim finally snapped out of her freeze. She screamed as she turned to them, seeing the horrid sight! Duke screamed as he was pinned to the forest floor. The horrid creature straddled over him and thrashing it's head violently on him! Duke screamed from the attack of the monster! Kim's screams followed as she watched in horror, unable to do a single thing! Duke screamed in pain and horror as the monster was violently sinking its teeth into his flesh and haphazardly thrashing! It's head then lurched back before throwing itself back into him for seconds, wrapping it's jaws around his neck! Duke screamed, pressing his hands against its shoulders in an attempt to push it away! One of his hands balled into a fist before hitting it's shoulders with it, but his attack was in vain as it didn't even flinch. Then, the creature jerked it's head. A horrid snap filled the air and Duke's screams suddenly halted. His flailing fist at the creatures shoulder slowed before stopping, going limp and dropping to the forest floor. Kim's breathing was harsh and unsteady. Her hands over her mouth. Her trembling legs trying their best to back her away but she was too focused at the creature straddled over what could possibly be now her deceased friend. The strap over her shoulder slid off. Her bag dropped to the trail ground as her eyes glossed. She turned her head to the bag she has dropped. Then, a growl. Kim lifted her head back to the scene. It looked over its shoulder to her with wide, unsteady eyes nailed to her person. The snarl was big as it's hands pressed against the trail floor beside Duke's body as it crawled it's way off of him, not breaking the stare before fully turning to her and beginning to stand up. Kim dissoriently began to stumble back. She then screamed as the monstrous creature pounced at her, smacking her to the ground from an extended out arm! Kim grunted as she was thrown to her back on the forest floor. She lifted her head in a lean forward to the empty forest before her. Her breathing shuddered as the beast circled around her on all fours shuffling into view, all while keeping its nose pointed to her and not breaking the stare. A terrified whimper left Kim as her assailant straddled over her body, snarling wildly at her, it's face so close to hers that she could feel it's hot and humid breath. The monster then roared, followed with the terror filled screams of Kim as its jaws snapped around her neck, as the noises of the intense struggle and attack echoed in the open, and soon to be quiet forest.


Deep, from the waters An unyielding force swims ashore Broken, born anew The Samurai walks through the tall grass, it is a lonely, still night. The kind of still that watches patiently from the shadows. Finally, he is greeted with the wind, which howls through the shaking branches of sakura and silver grass. His love so close now, he walks. The air was once clear Then leaves changed their color There is no return In the quiet open of night he ponders his being, which quick draw will be his last? He has cut his way through the land, a Ronin demon, rumors of his mutilation sweep the land like the wind that caresses him now, an unchained bringer of death. However, the demon’s blade is a myth, and myths are something fate is no stranger to proving. He takes a deep breath as the wind now calms to a breeze; so soft you can hear the blades of silver grass speak to the earth, and the branches of sakura crack and twist in gnarled life. One moment too soon Or hesitation, too late One moment is fate The Samurai walks so straight. His straw hat sitting atop his head, as if to shield his eyes from the wind’s calls and visions of death. Bushido is not a code, nor a moral, it is a way of life. The Hagakure. The way of Bushido is not to serve a master, truly , it is to serve a purpose, that purpose is honor. The death that lurks every corner for Samurai is not a nightmare, rather, a dream. One wishes to wake from a nightmare, but a dream is just a walk that every man must make. In the mist it calls The one true knowledge of man Heart disconnects mind The body always heeds to the begging of the heart. There is only one who waits for him, maybe two. Once a warrior, now the Demon’s Blade, soon maybe a farmer. Fate whispers in the breeze, preparing him through the whistles and howls of the branches that guide his path. His destination now days away from the weeks of travel, excitement is not an emotion a Samurai knows, he walks. So careless it loves The sakura's soft shadow A heart drowns in it Suddenly a figure approaches, It has been waiting. It has heard the tall tale of a demon, a ronin coward. The Samurai demon stops walking to stare into the figure while it finishes it’s speech. It is Hatori Musashi, a ronin as well, from the Ashika prefecture, Musashi does not believe in such stories. But how could any of this concern the Demon? We learn in the storm That the rain is a blessing Disguised as a flood The Samurai Demon says nothing. Instead, he speaks through the resting of his hand upon the handle of his blade, the Demon’s blade. In the moonlight between silvergrass and sakura, while the breeze whispers lies in the Demons ear; in the ancient times, when men made their name by their resolve. The two, now still and quiet as the night that surrounds them, look into each other. The wind counts the moments until a decision is made, life… or death… Waiting for the first move. Then, it’s over in an instant, they both draw. The Demon, in lightning speed, attempts a slash but misses. The figure moves in a way of absolution, then swiftly stabs the Demon... deep, to the handle. The wind stops completely, the silver grass stands straight, and the sakura dare not loosen a petal. No more to ponder, they stand for a moment, sword thrusted through a Demon’s heart. The wind begins to blow a new name, and the petals loosen their grip. The figure finally removes his katana from the Demon’s body. Trying his best to stand, the Demon falls on his back. In the moonlight, between silver grass and sakura, the Demon struggles through his final breaths as petals of love gently cover him, a final gift.


I remember that the room smelled of death. Not in a sickly way, but like dust; like sadness. And it didn’t just stay in your room, as I wished it would, but it filled the whole house, seeping through the hallway into my bedroom as well. Even when I tried to open my windows, get the fresh air from three stories up, the smell of your death mixed with the breeze and made it smell like dust; like sadness. It made me sick, the way stagnant air does, or the way the cat dandruff at Grandpa’s house did.  And of course, you slept through most of it.  I thought about wearing a mask indoors in those first days that they shut us inside. Of course, back then - in the first few months of the lockdown - the official reccomendation had been to not wear a mask (If only we had known!). I tried to put one on, an old N95 mask, that I had lying around. I nearly choked. The air just got harder to breathe, but it was still the same air, stagnant and sickly. I cursed the windows of our apartment for being so large and opening so little.  I brought plants into your room thinking it would cheer you up. You smiled when I brought them in, a soft murmur of thanks. Your hair was grey, like a Grandmother’s hair, except you weren’t a grandmother: you were just my mom and I was just your son. People say we have the same face, except back then, yours was fragile and tired. I tried my best to ignore the smell, the aura of death, pulling up a wooden chair, the one that had been in your room for as long as I could remember, and sat down next to your bed. I held each plant up to you, one at a time. “This is a succulent. They’re all the rage now among young people because you don’t have to water them very much.” I looked down: “James gave it to me.” “James? What a sweet boy. You don’t still talk to him, do you?” “Mom...” “Alright, then.” “You can grow succulents by cutting off parts of the stem and replanting them. Isn’t that cool?” “Why would you want more of the same succulent?” you said, confused and a little amused. “Maybe so we could have two. One for each room. Then I could have one in my room and you could have one in here.” “No, that would be a waste of pots. There are other plants.” “Alright then.” I reached down and held up another pot. “This one is a Bird’s Nest Fern. It needs to be watered and pruned all the time. If it doesn’t get enough sunlight, it’ll die immediately. Super high maintenance.” “What a stupid plant. I can’t imagine how it survived before humans decided to care for it.” You said, and it made me smile a bit. After holding them up to you, and hearing your opinions on all of them, I set the five plants - another succulent, a jade plant, and some lucky bamboo - on your great big windowsill that looked out to the sky. Did I ever tell you that you were a great interior decorator? I think that’s what you should’ve done, instead of going out and getting your doctorate to work with kids. I loved the creaminess of our apartment. The tasteful simplicity of the plain wooden furniture. Minimal photos too. I liked that: not being able to see myself, or that it was just the two of us in the family. I was always jealous of your room. I had always wanted a faded pink comforter, just like yours, but I had always been too afraid to ask. Your queen bed, giving the perfect view of the window: I wanted that too. I wanted tasteful simplicity in my life. Adding the plants to your room made me happy: a minor improvement to an already beautiful room; the greens of the plants fit the creamy walls and made the room feel a little bit less pale.  I didn’t realize how hard it would be to water them once I left them in your room.  During that time, I wandered around the apartment, silently drifting from room to room - all of them bathed in the same warm sunlight - constantly checking my phone. I’m sure everyone else was too, except for you. The virus didn’t mean much to you, given that you hadn’t left the apartment or your bed in weeks anyway, but I wanted to get outside so badly. I wanted fresh air, and to get away from death, but I didn’t, because I knew if I caught the virus, you’d die even faster and in pain. Maybe it was the silence that got to me. It made the air feel so much more still without the constant hum of engines or the honking of cars outside. There were no voices to make their way into our house from the street, and barely any footsteps either. In the apartment, it was just you, me, and the low hum of the refrigerator that reminded me of the time Grandpa died.  When you were asleep, I’d come in with my tiny watering pot and spray bottle. I’d only come in when you were asleep, which was hard to tell a lot of the time since being asleep and awake was more-or-less the same for you. I’d skirt around your door, peeking in sideways, listening for the rustle of covers. You’d be lying there, eyes closed. Just when I’d think you were asleep, one foot in the room, you’d say out loud: “Daniel? Is that you?” knowing perfectly well that it was. I shuffled into the room, uncomfortably, “Hey mom.” After a pause, I said, “Would you like to see videos that Davis sent me? They’re videos of downtown. Times Square is empty right now.” You weren’t interested, but you pretended you were: “The Governor has mandated the lockdown, right?” “Yeah. All non-essential services are closed.” “What counts as essential?” “Supermarkets, doctor’s offices, banks, gardening…” “Gardening?” “Yup, gardening.” “Just let the plants die,” you said with a snort. Then, after a pause, you corrected yourself: “Well, not these plants Daniel. Not the ones in my room.”  Those weeks were claustrophobic, but they also felt timeless. How do you explain to friends that you’re stuck inside with your dying mother who seems to have no intention of dying or getting better? Or that you’re deathly afraid of the future where your mom doesn’t exist? I think our days kind of fell into a routine because I honestly don’t know how many days passed. You’d sleep, and I’d try to find ways to entertain myself. The only time I’d go into your room would be to water the plants or bring you food or water. Instead, I listened to music. I read books. I tried to write some poems (thank God you never read them), but no matter how long I occupied myself for, it would still be daytime, and sunlight would still be shining through the windows. I’d give up then, and spend the rest of the day studying how that light entered the room. Where it landed on the floor fascinated me: I liked how it warmed the parts it landed on and how the rays reflected off the wood. Then I’d make you some food, almost always soup.  The plants began to thrive. You seemed to like that. A little bit of life in a room that had the air of death. I tried to get birds to sit out on your windowsill so that you’d have something to watch and so that I wouldn’t feel so bad avoiding you. I set seeds and bits of food out on the windowsill, but the only birds that came were pigeons that would fly away as soon as they had finished eating. I should have known - that only the pigeons in New York City would come - but then again, I was twenty-two and what did I know about the world? You slept through most of the bird feedings anyways. “Daniel?” “Yes?” I said, bent over by the windowsill. “Did you ever watch that movie, that one about the gay, black man in Florida?” “No, what’s it called?” I said, slightly amused and knowing perfectly well that she meant *Moonlight*. “I don’t know. It’s about a gay, black man in Florida. I think Miami.” “Mom, just because I’m gay doesn’t mean that I have to watch every gay movie out there.” “Alright. Well I want to watch it.” That night, I sat in your room with you, with me in the chair I always sat in, you buried underneath faded pink covers, and we watched *Moonlight* on my laptop. I felt a sly smile from you when Kevin and Chiron kissed but pretended not to notice. “The movie was boring.” “I liked it a lot.” “That’s just because you’re gay.” “No, I thought it was thoughtful.” “And I thought it was boring.”  No one knew that you were dying really. You and I were alike in that we didn’t have many friends. Anyways, they couldn’t have come over at the time: you must’ve picked the worst time to die, just when no one could leave their house to watch you. The only audience you had was me and the plants and the pigeons, and the pigeons and I didn’t want to watch.  I remember when Grandpa died, in the hospital, surrounded by nurses and doctors with the lights dimmed down. There was that periodic beeping and also the sound of his breath. I sat in the corner: he was hooked up to wires and tubes all over his body, held alive only by the forced expansion and compression of an external lung. I had looked away as a kid.  Anyways.  I remember that the day that you died, while I watered the plants, you asked me, “Daniel, have you ever fallen in love?” You caught me off guard. It was the most sensitive question you had ever asked me. I told you that I think I had before. “That’s good. That’s good,” you murmured, in silent contemplation. You smiled a bit. Then you said, louder, “Was it James?” “No, it wasn’t James.” “Maybe you should fall in love with James. He’s a great gay boy.” “Mom!” I left the room, embarrassed. What I didn’t tell you then was that my heart had been broken and that I didn’t think I would ever be able to love again. That I was afraid that no one would ever be right for me. I remember reading stories where death brings about a particular candor: people confessing their deepest secrets to each other, and I wish it had been the same for us because there were so many things I wanted to tell you. I wish I told you what it felt like growing up without a dad or any siblings. That I used to feel like maybe if a dad had taught me how to change the oil in a car, or maybe if a sibling had taught me how to wrestle or fight, I wouldn’t have felt so defenseless and helpless all the time. But you taught me softness and sweetness, and how to treat people kindly. I wish I told you how I graduated high school without ever going to the cafeteria because if I had sat with the girls, I would have been laughed at for sitting with the girls, and if I sat with the boys, I would have been laughed at for being a boy who should have been sitting with the girls. But I got to sit down with you every night instead. And I wish I told you how upset I felt every time you scared those delinquent boys off with your wittiness and your motherly gaze. But I know that you just wanted the best for me, and maybe you were right: those boys weren't right for me anyway.  So thanks, you did your best.  That afternoon, I slipped into your room silently while you were sleeping, not to water the plants, not to bring you food, but just because you were in there. The air was so still and the room so pleasantly warm. I watched you sleep for a while, in that chair that I always sat in. Then, I got up and lay down next to you on the bed, above the covers. We formed two parallel lines, one on top of the covers, one buried beneath, but still pointed in the same direction, always together. Staring up at the ceiling, I studied the room from the angle you had become so accustomed to. In the corner of the ceiling, there was a single cobweb. I imagined its maker was beautiful and delicate. I imagined myself, being beautiful and delicate. Then I studied the way the light illuminated the room, watching, as the sun seemed to creep up the opposite wall. I fell asleep like that.  I dreamed the most beautiful dream. It was filled with abstraction and light. You were there too, in the form of a ball of warmth and sunlight. We were in a garden, plants sprouting up from the wet soil, and I held you close to my heart.  When I woke up, the sun was setting and a thin layer of dust had blanketed the floor and you had died.  Mom.  Mother.  Fast forward four years. When I look back now, I think about how you acted in that bed and how you never talked about how you were dying. I realize that all the small talk - all the little prods you gave me - were all meant to make it easier on me. Because you knew. You knew that I was just a boy, afraid of death, and locked in an apartment with his dying mother: God, I was afraid. Given the irony of the situation, you must’ve been howling on the inside!  Mother.  I’ll always wish I told you everything I had the chance to, but hopefully, this is a start. It took me a while, but I’m a man now, moving out of his apartment that he and his mother called home for so long. And he’s taking the plants with him; his mom was never a fan of them anyway. So I’m in my car - your car - driving out to California, and maybe you’ll always be dying out east, but I'm moving out west to write poems and stories. They’re going to be beautiful, just like you were. I take in a deep breath and the air feels fresh and pure.  I can’t wait to tell you about the people I’ve yet to meet and the memories I’ve yet to make.


‘Fuckin’ bastard!’ screamed Anto. Today just wasn’t his day, and the last 730 hadn’t been either. ‘Wassa matter with ye?’ hollered Anto’s Da, Fergal, ‘Quit that fuckin’ bellowin’ or I’ll come up there an’ give ye somethin’ te yell about!’ ‘Fuckin’ aul bastard, fuckin’ sittin’ there in his fuckin’ chair thinkin’ he’s got it all fuckin’ figured out, the big fat ballix.’ Anto’d been filling in his CV, and was just done tweaking his meagre GCSE results into more promising grades when the laptop crashed, along with a whole morning’s worth of effort. Ever since his arrest for drunk driving things had gone steadily from bad to worse. He’d been nicked one night picking his girlfriend up from the local bar where she was having a girl’s night out. It’d been him and Big Crick, and he’d only sat down to three beer when the phone had gone. Caoimhe’d fallen out with her mates, they’d gotten into it over Niamh’s new boyfriend and Caoimhe had called him a drug dealer, which the fucker was, but that’d not stopped Niamh from trying to empty a bottle of Gallo’s white all over her head. Anto’d long harboured the suspicion it was those two having at it what alerted the PSNI as they’d pulled him over barely a mile down the road. That’d led to rows, Caoimhe had accused him of putting her in danger, and Anto had argued that she was responsible, as she was meant to get a taxi, but after the fight insisted he come instead. ‘Sure wasn’t ‘at not me night off? Can’t a man sit down an’ have a wee swall wey his mate and be left in peace?!’ He’d lost that row, and worse rows followed after he lost his job, being unable to drive to work. He got banned for a year and ordered to go to a therapist to discuss his relationship with alcohol, plus do 200 hours community service. The community service was rough, he’d be sent over to East Belfast to scrub the racist graffiti off the walls of a house of a black family which had been targeted by the local paramilitaries. Anto avoided the East at all costs. Apart from seeing his mate Marty in Short Strand the place was a no go for a fella called ‘Anthony Patrick Joseph O’Hara’. He’d taken to drinking more, especially before the community work where he brought a half bottle of vodka and kept it in his back pocket. Sure, he reckoned, if yer gonna get death threats for having to scrub off other racist death threats, you may as well do it absolutely rotten. The therapy appointments were worse yet. He’d have to sit there and get grilled on his drinking, which he knew had increased, but had only done so in response to the situation in which he now found himself. ‘Have ye ever told someone yer not an alky?’ He’d screamed at Caoimhe one night after they’d argued over his loss of income, ‘Well, the more ye fuckin’ try te tell ‘em yer not one, the more ye fuckin’ sound like one!’ Soon after they lost the flat, Anto’d been unable to pay his half of the rent, and the social wouldn’t cover it. Caoimhe’d moved back in with her Ma and they’d stopped speaking. They broke up soon after. Anto found he couldn’t look at her anymore, and the drink was turning him nastier than a dose of watery shite. He was forced to move back into his old room with his Ma, Da, brother and two sisters. There was no room in the house, and the room he shared with his 19 year old brother Michael was barely fit for a child, let alone two grown men. His drinking continued unabated, and the drugs too. He’d not touched them for years, but there was no reason now not to bang in a load of coke and gobble up a few tabs. Plus, Feeney Rubberlips from down the street had some good gear on offer, and he’d sort ye out on tick too. Anto had existed in this state for last year and a half, he’d continued trying to seek work, but each rejection justified another trip to the offie, and put him in the mind for a fat line. However, on the jobsite he’d noticed a job he was definitely qualified for, it was even better than the one he’d lost. More pay, more benefits and what’s more, it was in walking distance from his house. The sort of thing that could get him back on his feet, maybe get Caoimhe back, and definitely lead him to getting out his Ma’s house and away from getting his head melted to fuck every single night. ‘Awh fuck Da, am on applyin’ for this here job an’ the laptop’s shat itself. Fucker wiped me applications n’all.’ ‘Well why the good fuck are ye fuckin’ yelpin’ ta me ‘bout it, ye born in a barn?Jesus Christ wee lad shut yer fuckin’ hole! An’ here, yer Ma wants ye down the laundrette to pick up the washin’. It’s down Lonergan’s, all paid for, the washer’s onna fritz again.’ ‘Fuck sake’ muttered Anto, getting his coat and heading out the door. ‘Ma better have stuck my fuckin’ jeans in there. Paid good money for them n’all afore Michael went an’ spilt his whole fuckin’ dinner on me, fuck sake.’ He arrived, got the clothes and headed straight back home to finish the CV, he looked and his jeans and shirts were there too. ‘Thank fuck for somethin’ today’ he thought, as sat back down again and flicked open the laptop. Halfway through the CV and application form he got bored, and noticed his jeans were still warm from the press. He swiftly got changed into them, his legs embracing the heat. The fit felt a little off, but he thought sure they always do, always a wee bit tighter after a good wash. Anto breezed through the form, and re-wrote his CV, remembering courses he’d been on that were applicable and training certificates he had but had forgotten he’d earned. All in all, the application seemed to look good he thought, he even felt bothered enough to write a cover letter telling them just how he was the man for the job. A ‘Digital Marketing Executive’, he could see it now. The past two years would be a memory. Hell, he’d even tell them about the conviction if it came up and point out how his therapy had cured him. He’d be able to spin it around, they’d maybe even think it was funny. Anto the full-time mad bastard. Anto the Pintman, nicked for only three beer. After all he thought, why let the truth get in the way of a good story! Crick rang him up that evening, he said he’d found a hundred notes in a baggy on the ground down Cupar street. ‘Mon me n’ you’ll getta wee swall on, out for a rake of pints and we’ll hit up Rubberlips for summa ‘at good stuff. None of that cut shite.’ ‘Fuckin’ right!’ answered Anto, he’d have a good one tonight. After all, how often is it ye find notes lying about round the West? And no doubt no fucker’s gonna be raising a stink either as it was likely dodgy in the first place. After changing shirts, and brushing his nuggets, Anto met Crick at 8pm down McEnaney’s opposite the cemetery, and the lads swiftly proceeded to commence wineing and bineing as the culchies are so aft of saying. Soon they were joined by Marty, Wee Steeker and Bonzo who’d sourced the gear and brought a bag of workerman’s glue for desert amongst the tombstones. When Anto awoke the next morning, fully clothed, he found he still had a full memory of the previous night, plus £20 unspent. He’d gotten a girl’s number last night, and he could remember getting with her before she left. What made it even better was that he still felt pissed, so he didn’t even have a hangover to deal with yet. On checking his phone to see if the number had all the digits he saw he’d been called five times that morning by a number he didn’t recognise. It wasn’t the girl’s either as he’d saved hers under ‘Fuckin’ Ride’. He phoned the number and a woman answered. ‘Hello, this is Anthony O’Hara, I’ve got a number of missed calls from you and I was just ringing up to see why.’ ‘Oh! Mr. O’Hara, so glad you rang us back! We’ve be trying all morning! My name’s Sarah Waters, we’re ringing you back about your application yesterday. We think you’d be a great candidate and we’re actually having online interviews this morning if you’re still keen on the position?’ ‘Umm oh, aye, woah, I wasn’t expecting that, I’ve slept in a wee bit this morning, it was a friend’s birthday last night, em, what time are the interviews at?’ ‘We can fit you in in about an hour if that suits, we’re sorry about the short notice, but we really are very eager to get this position filled as soon as we can!’ ‘Aye, sure, no bother that’s grand. I’ll send you my Skype now, and we can speak in an hour! Thanks again, I wasn’t expecting this, it’s really appreciated!’ ‘No problem at all, we’ll contact you in an hour Anthony, and good luck!’ Hanging up the phone Anto felt strangely calm. In the past he’d be shitin’ bricks and peeling the scalp off himself with anxiety, but for some reason, today he just felt as confident as ever, and he knew what he needed to do. The old laptop took 20 minutes to load up, but everything else got up and running without a hitch. Anto went to the bathroom, pissed, brushed his teeth, threw some water on his face and decided against a shower. He opted instead to reapply some wax to his hair, and put in some eyedrops, as his eyes were as red as strawberries. With ten minutes to go he put on a new shirt, but left the jeans, after all, he’d be sitting down. He could even talk to them with his knob hanging out the fly, but he decided against that. Then the call came, he answered every question, made good natured jokes, and asked more questions back. He explained the gap in his employment, he’d been caring for his Granny (dead 10 years) and he’d been helping his mate out in his landscape gardening business on the side (selling some of Crick’s homegrown weed to teenagers). When the call ended he felt great, positive for the first time in years. Everything he’d gone through could now be put right. All his education (first one in the family at University for Digital Media) would finally be put to use, and his bad luck would finally come to an end. Anto decided on a long, hot shower before he went downstairs to tell his Ma n’ Da. They’d be glad to hear it, and it’d get them off his back for the day too. Fighting for the bathroom was always a constant in the O’Hara house, but as he walked onto the landing it was free, and even better, it didn’t stink of his Da’s arse! ‘I left the immersion on so there’s plenty of hot water there son’ shouted Anto’s Ma. ‘Fuckin’ A’ thought Anto, ‘This day’s goin’ grand!’ However, upon getting undressed and emptying the pockets of his jeans Anto found something he didn’t recognise. A faded and wrinkled receipt for a hammer and some nails from Brannigan’s Hardware. ‘The fuck?’ said Anto, as he looked at the label of the jeans and found they said ‘C. N. Toner’. ‘Huh? What the fuck, these here aren’t my fuckin’ jeans!’ ‘FUCKIN’ BASTARDS!! The cunts have gone an’ fuckin’ gimme some o’r cunt’s jeans. Who the fuck’s Toner, n’ why’s the cunt still labelling his fuckin’ jeans like a fuckin’ child?’ Anto’d spent good money on his jeans, they were his favourite pair and now he began to realise why they felt a bit tighter. He had no idea how he hadn’t clocked it until now, they were even a different shade of denim. This sort of thing always pissed Anto off no end, as a child he’d lost it when his Ma had lost his favourite Celtic top and then tried to replace it with the newer version. It had lost everything he’d loved about it, the old 1993-94 away design, the fit, the smell, the feel. He felt his hangover coming on with a vengeance. ‘What da fuck’ve I been playin’ at? What’d I say to thoseuns for the job?’ He couldn’t remember, it was all a blur. He’d probably been rambling, off his nut, he’d fucked it now, he’d made a fool of himself. Anto began to feel very strange, his skin felt clammy, even as he was under the hot water, he didn’t feel clean, everytime he closed his eyes he kept imagining he’d lost his hands and instead they just ended in conical points. He’d overdone it this time, he was going to die. He tried switching to cold but images just flooded his head of when he was in Donegal as a child and his Da had scared him shitless with tales of the Kelpie, and then afterwards pushed him into a pool of water in the bog. He could see the mad water horse now and he stumbled and fell out’ve the shower gasping for air. He dressed quickly, in his own clothes now, and headed downstairs. His sister’s were watching Love Island and the inane Essex accents were making him nauseous. ‘How could any cunt sound like ‘at?’ He screamed at them, as he went back to his room to lie down. His brother was in the room, playing his music, shite homemade techno that he thought sounded sweet, but Anto just didn’t have it in him to say was shite. He lay down, got under the covers, put his head under the pillow and lay there until he fell into a sweaty and fitful sleep. He dreamed off everything the previous day, dreamed of Caoimhe, and the other girl he’d got with, dreamed of Big Crick and the feed of pints. Dreamed of that cunt Toner and how he’d had such a good day and night in another fella’s jeans. He woke up to his phone ringing and felt sick. ‘Hello, is this Anthony?’ ‘Yeah it is, who’s speaking?’ ‘Hi Anthony, this is Sarah again, Sarah Waters, I just wanted to let you know that we were absolutely delighted with your interview and we’d like to offer you the position. When would you like to start?’ ‘Awh, I’m sorry, I cant...’ ‘Anthony?’ ‘Look, I cant, I’m not interested. Alright? It was all a fuckin’ lie, now fuck off.’ ‘Excuse me, is this you Anthony? I’m very confused!’ ‘Well this here won’t be confusin’ ye, get te fuck, and shut yer fat fuckin’ hole or I’ll come round there and bate the ballix out the lotta yiz, YIZ FUCKIN’ CUNTS!’ He hung up, turned his phone off and rolled over to go back to sleep. There was no way he’d’ve been able to accept that job. Not after the circumstances. It was all fake, it was all wrong.


Hi, this is my first piece of writing in about 5 years, so i would love any comments / feedback! This was inspired by a painting by Jonathan Viner : "Watchdog" \ The wind nipped at her hair and slapped the midnight strands across her face as she looked up at the façade of the decaying building. Once imposing, its panes now rattled, cowering at the threat of the yelping wind. One of the windows lay in a shattered heap at the bottom of the stairs, a jailer no more. The mutts quivered a little around her ankles. They whimpered as she approached the steps, their mangy bodies shaking as they braced themselves against the wind outside and the frost that threatened to grab them by the scruffs of their necks into its hollow bowels. She was taller now, but under the arch of that roof she did not feel a day older. Hers was not the home that bore witness to her growth. No walls lovingly etched with names and numbers in a line, a ruler of memories warmly awaiting her return. Hers was the home that bore witness, and the walls were scarred with the marks of objects flung. Plates, a chair, a little girl. Her mutt yelped a little as she pushed open a creaking door. She held her breath, but the decay and rot muffled her face, worming its mouldy way into her pores, entangling itself into her hair. Her eyes searched the ceiling for that elephant-shaped patch. The elephant had offered neither comfort nor warmth. Its companionship came alive solely in the head of the little girl as she lay in her bed, legs entangled in the threadbare blanket she had owned all her life. She had often lain there, tracing Ele’s shape through the curtain of tears that eventually did dry up. She couldn’t remember, now, the conversations they had. Perhaps they were nothing. Perhaps her soul had once been bared, and Ele now, with her bloated snout and misshapen leg, would forever hold. Perhaps when the men finally came with sledgehammers and the walls crumbled, Ele would finally take the memories of that broken little girl and let them turn into dust. Perhaps she could stay until the sledgehammers came. How fitting it would be, to shatter in that room, with that room. That thought first flitted in the edges of her mind, then slithered in, demanding an immediate answer. Yes, why couldn’t she stay? These walls were her only sanctuary, so many years ago. These walls held her, kept her. These walls were the only one who ever knew her. The wind howled through the broken window and pierced through her reverie. She took one last look around the box that used to own her. She was not the same girl who left that room so many years ago. She who had cowered and trembled, whose existence was witnessed only by Ele and those cold uncaring walls, had left those walls behind many years ago. She has a name now, and a home with one of its walls lovingly etched with names and numbers in a line. There is an elephant in that home too, in a room painted sunshine yellow and plastered with pictures of animals. That room knows laughter, and its elephant holds no secrets. The door creaked behind her as she stepped across the threshold of the house she was leaving behind for the last time. Her hounds softly padded around her, their paws thudding reassuringly on the ground. Plumes of dust danced around their paws as they paced ahead of her, their protective presence enveloping the woman who had emerged. The wind caressed her hair and the sun warmed the crown of her raven hair as she looked away from the façade of the dying building. Her home awaited.