Wendy flicked the switch on the kettle for her second cup of tea of the day as she drew on her third cigarette. Exhaling the smoke in a long stream, she wrapped her arm around her waist and shivered as she surveyed the whiteout through the small kitchen window. From the fields adjoining the garden to the hills beyond, there was nothing but snow. Half closing her eyes against the glare, she searched the distant slopes for signs the farmer had brought his sheep in for shelter. There had been little warning of a bad weather system enveloping the area. An eery silence fell along with the fat, fluffy flakes. Wendy thought they would settle, and they had. Not like the light snow that is here and gone in a day. The kind she preferred. These flakes and surrounding white countryside made for a handsome picture, but it was not welcome. Nothing stirred among the bushes that lined the icicle clad garden fence. No birds. She hadn’t seen the brave little squirrel for at least two days and even the neighbour’s cat had left no evidence it had walked across her patio. Wendy opened the door of the cupboard above the steaming kettle. This time of year, she made sure there were ample provisions. At least a week’s supply of tinned soups and baked beans stared back at her. Their labels facing forward, like a row of soldiers, waiting, ready to spring into action as soon as the command was given. A full cupboard and a full fridge helped Wendy feel secure should the snowstorm linger. She poured some milk from a large carton over her tea bag. Cup and cigarette in hand, Wendy ambled through to the lounge. She looked at the grey cushion on the chair at the dining table. The exposed stuffing at each corner did little to awaken her enthusiasm. But she sank onto it. A blank sheet of paper sat in her vintage Remington typewriter. It had been there for over twenty-four hours. She lifted her hands. Fingers hovering over the keys. She began typing. It was a cold and windy day. Wendy leaned forward on her elbows, placed her head in her hands and rubbed her forehead. “This is impossible.” Sighing, she began again… The clouds hung heavily in the dark sky. “It just won’t work.” Wendy yanked the paper from the typewriter, screwed it into a ball and threw it across the room at the pile of scrunched up sheets in the corner. She mumbled to herself as she rubbed her palms over her eyes. Leaning an arm on the desk, she dragged a ream of thin white typewriting paper toward her and pulled out a single sheet. With precision, she fed the paper between the black rubber rollers of the typewriter, straightened it up and let out a long breath. She lit another cigarette, blew smoke up toward the ceiling, sighed, and walked over to the window. The snow was still falling. Sauntering back into the kitchen, she made herself a hot chocolate drink in her favourite mug. The yellow one with the smiley face. At least that might cheer her up a bit, she thought, and give her some inspiration for her latest novel. Hugging the cup of soothing liquid, she strolled over to the bay window at the front of the cottage and peered out. The blizzard they recently forecast on the tv had begun. She could barely see across the road to the row of cottages that lined Main Street. Cupping her hands around the smiley face, she sipped the soothing hot chocolate. Suddenly Wendy noticed something dark in the gutter near her garden gate. She thought it was a large, black plastic sack the gale had blown down the street. It writhed in the strong wind. Wendy’s face flushed, and she gasped as she realized it was a person out there in the cold. They must have fallen over in the snow. Wendy stumbled in her oversized fluffy slippers as she raced to the front door. She almost spilled the liquid as she set the cup down on the side table and quickly stubbed out her cigarette in the ashtray. Groaning through gritted teeth, she pushed her feet into her rubber boots, rammed her woollen jumper clad arms into her quilted coat and fumbled for the zip. A powerful gust of wind blew some feathery snowflakes into the hallway as she opened the front door and then fought to slam it up behind her. Tapping her pocket to make sure she had her house keys, she cautiously stomped through the snow to the motionless figure lying in the gutter. Wendy turned her back to the gale force wind, straddled her legs to steady herself, and bent over the figure, trying to get a glimpse of the face that lay in the deep snow. She hoped the person wasn’t dead. Frozen stiff from the arctic conditions. “Are you all right?” She called above the howling wind. Barely audible groans rumbled up from the black bundle as it began moving, exposing a white and grey face with sunken steel grey eyes and purple lips. Wendy stood aghast. She judged the woman to be in her early fifties. A stranger she’d not seen before in these parts. What on earth was she doing out in this weather? Surely, she wasn’t a walker, not today of all days. Wendy bent down, grabbed the woman’s elbow and heaved her up. “Let me help you. You must come inside. Are you hurt? I’ll make you a cup of tea and get you warm and dry.” Wendy kept her arm around the back of the woman as they trudged through the deep snow back to the house. They did not speak. They needed all their energy to battle against the wind. Once inside, Wendy shook off her boots and hurried to the kitchen in her stockinged feet. She brought back some old newspapers and lay them on the floor inside the door. Then helped the shivering woman take off her shoes. Nurse’s shoes, Wendy thought as she placed them side by side on the newspaper next to the radiator. Wendy’s jaw dropped open as she helped the woman take off her black woollen coat, revealing a navy-blue nurse’s uniform. What on earth was a nurse doing in the village in this weather? Wendy waved her arm toward the open door in the hallway. “Come and sit down in the lounge. You’ll be warm in there.” With faltering steps, the woman edged toward the fireside seat. She paused for a moment hunched over, clutching one hand to her chest, her other hand resting its fingertips on the chair’s arm. Then she collapsed into the deep cushions. “I’ll fetch you some towels to dry yourself with and a blanket.” Wendy scurried off upstairs and brought back two white bath towels and a red tartan blanket. “Here, dry your hair and wrap this blanket around your legs.” The woman spoke between chattering teeth. “Thank you. I’m so cold.” “Pardon me for asking, but you’re a nurse, aren’t you?” Wendy pointed to her uniform. “That I am.” “I thought the doctor’s surgery at the far end of the village had closed and moved to Epperton a couple of miles away.” “I don’t work at the surgery. I work at The Priory. Nights only.” “But surely that’s been closed for years, and the back half is almost derelict.” “They’ll never close it as long as I work there.” Said the woman as she slumped back in the chair and wrapped the tartan blanket tightly around her legs. “Ah well, I could have sworn it was closed and abandoned. I’ve never seen anyone going in or out whenever I’ve walked down that end of the village. Mind you, I mostly go in the other direction these days.” Wendy shrugged as she headed for the kitchen. “I’ll make us both a cup of tea. How do you like yours?” ”Black, no sugar, thank you.” Wendy flicked the kettle switch and took a second cup and two tea bags from the cupboard. Her brow furrowed as she turned her head to watch the stranger in her lounge. The woman was dabbing her long black curls with the towel. Wendy shook her head, trying to picture people going in and out of the priory. Admittedly, her daily walks rarely took her to that end of the village, so she could be mistaken. A glance out the kitchen window showed the snow to be falling even heavier now and the trees in the field beyond were bent sideways. Lost in thought, Wendy made two cups of tea. The sound of the downstairs toilet flushing made her look up. She peeped around the door of the lounge; the armchair was empty. The two towels and blanket neatly stacked on the arm of the chair. Wendy shuffled down the hallway in her oversized fluffy slippers and noticed the toilet door was open and the woman not in there. One toilet roll balanced precariously on the edge of the washbasin. Wendy put it back in the small wicker basket on the shelf. The hand towel hung limply over the rail. She ran her fingers down the edges and straightened it out. Confused at what was going on, she turned and looked up the hall. There was only one pair of boots on the newspaper. Hers. No black shoes. What on earth does she think she’s doing going back out in this weather? She hasn’t even waited for her cup of tea and it’s getting dark now. Wendy let out a long sigh as she rammed her feet back into her boots, put on her coat, pulled up the zip and checked that her front door keys were in her pocket. Has the woman got no sense? She must be mad to venture out in this weather. I’ll have to make sure she’s safe. Wendy opened the front door as a blast of freezing cold air scattered more snowflakes down the hallway. There was nothing for it but to fight the wind. Wendy followed the set of footprints that pointed in The Priory’s direction. It was getting darker by the minute, but the snow sparkled beneath the lights dotted along Main Street. Wendy wanted to do her best and make sure the woman had got to work safely. She trudged on, but it was hard going. The icy flakes almost blinded her as they stung her eyes. Even though it was sub-zero temperatures, the mere effort of traipsing through the deep snow made Wendy hot beneath her padded coat and she pulled her zip down a quarter of an inch so that she could breathe more easily. She calculated it to be about one hundred metres from her little cottage to The Priory, but it seemed to take forever in the biting wind. Breathless, she reached The Priory. The footprints stopped in front of the tall wrought-iron gates. Maybe the nurse could not get in. Maybe the gates were frozen shut because of the blizzard. Wendy grabbed the gates with her mittened hands and shook them. The sound of metal on metal echoed around her. The gates did not surrender. No lights shone from the windows of the building. The only illumination was the old lamppost shining its ghostly yellow glow over the sparkling snow. The trees bending in the wind cast weird shadows on the grey walls of The Priory. Wendy peered through the slits her eyes had made against the stinging snowflakes. She tried walking toward the right of the building, clinging close to the high stone wall, but a blast of snow filled wind pushed her back. Either the woman had not gone that way, or the snow had covered her prints. Wendy decided it was too much trying to battle against the storm. The place looked as deserted as she thought it was. There was no way the nurse or anyone could be working in there tonight. Wendy stood over the one set of prints before the gate. There were no others to her right and none to her left. Cold and confused, she turned and headed for home. She had not been trudging for more than two minutes when she realised hers was the only set of footprints in the snow. There was only one set leading from her cottage to The Priory and she was putting each heavy foot in those same prints on the way back home. Breathing heavily, Wendy put her key in the lock and the door blew open, followed by a small blast of snow that danced around the hallway. She pulled off her boots and placed them on the newspaper alongside what was now two small puddles of melting snow. She poked her head around the door of the lounge. The two towels and blankets were still there, neatly piled on the arm of the chair. The toilet door was closed. Wendy tapped on it. “Are you in there?” Only half expecting a reply she opened it. The tap was running. Wendy turned it off. Her frozen face looked back at her from the square mirror above the basin. Today’s events made no sense. She hung her coat up by the front door, put on her floppy slippers, and sauntered into the kitchen, where she flicked the switch of the kettle and lit a cigarette. Blowing the smoke through rounded lips, she leaned her back against the counter and gazed out the window. The light from the kitchen shone on the glittery white wilderness outside. The wind was still bending the trees. Nothing had changed. Wendy put her cigarette on the side of the ashtray and hurried to the lounge. She opened her laptop and typed in The Priory, Ullerton Village. A page came up that clearly stated The Priory had closed in 1968 - the same date on the maker’s mark of her Remington typewriter. Furrows appeared on her brow. How many times had she stared at that date when wracking her brains for something to write about? Wendy flicked off her fluffy slippers and ran into the kitchen, picked up her cup of tea and cigarette and hurried back to her typewriter. She glanced at the date 1968, that had been staring back at her all these years. She lined up the sheet of thin typewriting paper with the side margins. Her fingers hovered above the black keys with silver lettering. It was as if they were too frightened to begin typing. As if they weren’t sure what words would appear on the paper. Then suddenly, as her fingers touched the keys, they seemed to take on a life of their own. Effortlessly, she typed away. A familiar clickety-click sound as the keys bounced back and forth. Wendy’s fingertips plonked away. There was a blizzard blowing outside. Mary sipped her tea and smoked her cigarette as she looked out the window. In the distance, a small dark figure emerged from the mist that surrounded The Priory……….


Have you ever wondered what if? It could be what if I took one job over another? What if I didn’t go on that amazing trip? What if I was still single? It could be what if I didn’t get married? What if I caught the later train instead of the earlier one? OK with the last one today I knew if that was the case I would be very late to work. Those two little words in a question…what if? Carry so much power. So much for the imagination to mull over and create endless possibilities. I always wonder if once our lives are over and we are in heaven (or what other place anyone would believe in) that they show us our lives in a show reel and we get to choose the path not taken and seen what would have happened. I have found myself over the years wondering, what if, over many things until today. Today that question, in one of its forms, was answered.

Some of my colleagues and I were at the local restaurant that was a mix of an ‘all you can eat buffet or order a meal instead’ establishment, we frequent and waiting in line to order some lunch. I couldn’t decide what to choose as the menu looked so good! “So Debbie, what are you having?” asked my chief investigator Mike, breaking through my indecision. “I dunno Mikey…” “Don’t call me that, you know I hate being called like a kid!”

“Sorry…uh Mike,” I apologised as I shoved him in jest, “I couldn’t resist. The steaks look really good.” At that point it was our turn to order and Mike ordered the sirloin steak with chips and salad. Not a bad idea…when it was my turn to order. “I’ll have what he’s having but well done please and the same table…oh and I’ll have a chocolate mousse for desert as well.” “Dessert is ordered separately.” retorted the prepubescent teen (they call them tweens now right or something like that? I’m getting old) wishing she could emulate Robert Smith of the Cure but was failing miserably because she wished she was born 50 instead of 15 years ago. “OK I’ll order that later, thanks.” Jessica, Jasmine and Judy (the 3J’s we like to call them) had just joined us as well and were able to add their order to our table much to the chagrin of others waiting in line behind us. “Wha?” Judy said to an older lady as she tusked at them, “I was here before you and I had to pee. We all did. Wha? You don’t pee?” Yes my colleagues are charming. That’s what I love about this bunch, they make work more interesting and fun. As I walked towards our table, I looked up and that was when I saw…him. He hadn’t changed a bit…OK he’s about 30 years older than when I last saw him but he hadn’t changed a bit. The last time I saw him was at the beach party held after our last day of high school.

He smiled at me that brilliant smile he always had and waved me over.

“Uh guys I’m just going to say hello to an old friend I’ll be a sec yeah? Let me know when my food arrives.” “Sure Deb,” piped up Jasmine, “who are ya seeing?” By then I was about five meters away from his table with a wide and nervous smile on my face. I could have sworn my heart had stopped if I couldn’t feel it racing. He got up and opened his arms, “Debbie? Oh my God! Debbie! I can’t believe it is you!” “Hi Paul! Wow! It’s been ages.” And he gave me the biggest, warmest hug. He felt and smelled just like he did all those years ago. At which point so many memories came flashing back. “Please sit down.” Paul gestured to the empty chair at his table. “Oh thank you but I’m here with colleagues, friends actually… and lunch is coming…” “Please I insist. My wife will be here shortly but I’d love to catch up and for you to meet her too.” A wife. Wow…I tell you if I wasn’t happily married myself I would be sad with jealousy.

“OK sure…wow it’s been so long…” I started, “OK answer these questions as you know they are cheesy but standard when you see someone from school. How long have you been married? Any kids? And what are you doing with yourself these days?” I had to ask. I had to know. The question on my tongue that I didn’t ask was lingering in the air. I could tell he could feel it too. The proverbial elephant in the room. He laughed, “Oh Deb…you haven’t changed…always asking the hard questions in life.. Always to the point.” “Yes well you were the bad boy…and I the good girl remember?” I laughed. “You weren’t always a good girl…” he replied tongue in cheek, his eyes smiling. “Shhhh I have a reputation to uphold still.” He kept smiling and looking deep into my eyes. I swear my heart was racing. He still had that effect over me? “I’ve been married for 10 years. I have three boys, 8, 6 and 4 years of age. Two dogs, a cat and three parrots. We just moved back into the area and I work as an accountant now.” I did a double take. “An accountant?!” “I know a far cry from the movie star I was aspiring to be but hey life happens. I still do local theatre when I can to keep the passion alive but yeah…crunching numbers is my thing now. My wife Marina and I have our own accounting firm too. My turn. What about you? Go!” “Oh…I uh…am married for 15 years, two kids, a pigeon pair, 13 and 11 years old and the main source of my grey hair. I am a barrister now. My husband is a gardener and he loves it. Just as well we are in different fields or we’d always be arguing.” I giggled with nerves. My goodness I am a married and grown woman! Why am I feeling like a nervous teenager again? Oh that’s right…that question. “Barrister! I remember you wanted to get into law school. Good for you!” “Thanks…” I looked down at the napkin I was fidgeting with nervously. “Yeah it has it’s moments but I love it. I have a great team that work for me and we’re having lunch out today for a treat. They are sitting over there.” I gestured towards Mike and the 3J’s. They were grinning and staring at us. Great…explaining this would be interesting. “Nice…it’s so good to see you Deb. I mean you haven’t changed at all. I can’t believe it’s been so long since we graduated hey?” “Yes…30 years…it’s gone fast…” “It sure has Deb, it sure has…” Then silence. He caught my gaze for what seemed like an eternity. As if time stood still…we looked straight into each others eyes answering questions of what has passed unasked. Knowing that if things were different, we may be sitting here having a conversation with a different context. Sure it felt like a day hadn’t passed since I last saw Paul and I loved that. It reassured me we were kindred spirits but time had passed and he wasn’t in my life. I wasn’t in his either. I just had to ask…oh for heavens sake I ruthlessly stare down hardened murderers in court and put them in jail or worse, why can’t I ask him? Right, I’m going to bite the bullet. “Paul I have to ask. What happened? We were high school sweethearts. We had dreams of our own and some them for us to live together. I have realised them with someone else, my husband Gregory. I love him, don’t get me wrong, I’m not fishing or anything and I wouldn’t go back in time to change anything…and I feel you wouldn’t either with Marina but I have to ask…after the beach party we swore we’d keep in touch and meet five years later at the same spot. We swore that we’d let each other go to chase our dreams and if we felt inclined we’d meet again but not leave the other hanging. We’d find a way to get in touch even if we didn’t feel the same way about each other. Wow we were quite mature for our time huh?” Paul kept staring into my eyes, “We sure were…” “Where were you then?” I did it. I asked. “I was there. I waited. Where were you?” He kept my gaze and didn’t break it all this time from the when the moment set in. “I was there…I saw you from afar but I couldn’t go through with it. I was in a bad place in my life and I chickened out. I’m so very sorry.” Then he looked down at his hands. I didn’t know what to say. I felt the rejection of that moment of so long ago fall away only to be replaced with a unrelenting sense of unspeakable cowardice. I couldn’t answer him. I just kept looking at him. “You see I’d gone travelling, tried the Hollywood thing which bombed. My father got sick and I had to come back to take care of him. It was then I realised I couldn’t go back to acting and I felt like I’d failed you.” “What? No…” I started, “caring for ones parents is a noble thing. Not many people do that especially in some cultures. Are your parents OK?” “My father passed 15 years ago and my mother soon after from a broken heart. They loved each other very much.” So did we Paul. So did we… “I’m so sorry to hear that. I really am. And sorry I was so blunt. I just had to know. I have always wondered and from time to time ask myself what if? What if we did meet again that day?” At that point he met my eyes square again. “I think the same thing too a lot at times. Yes I love my wife, my kids and my life dearly. I too wonder as well…” And there the proverbial elephant in the room that many feel but don’t see, felt like it was finally visible. It felt like the elephant got it’s answer and walked out of the room. The air felt lighter again but I had to get away. “Well, I better get back to my colleagues. It was lovely to see you…” I got up slowly to make my escape this time around. “Since you’re back in the area, don’t be a stranger. I would love it if we could be friends like we used to be.” Never have sillier words escaped my mouth. Could you be friends again with all that hanging from the past? “Sounds great! It was lovely to see you again too. I don’t know where Marina is, she’s running late but hey we should catch up with our families yeah? Get to know everyone.” “Sounds lovely! Wow yes it was great to see you again. I better go. Take care yeah?” At the point he grabbed me and gave me another hug. This time it wasn’t a happy warm hug. It was one that said goodbye. “Yes you too. Bye Debbie.” “Bye Paul.” When he let me go I turned and walked with a fake smile on my face back to my colleagues. “Who was that hunk-o-spunk?” piped up Jessica. “Oh and old high school friend.” I replied as I sat, glad that my meal had arrived and I could focus on that rather than look any of them in the eye. “Just a friend?” asked Mike. “Just a good old friend.” I replied before putting a juicy bite of my meal in my mouth hoping that would stop the questions. I felt sad. Sad for what could have been not what was. Sad yet relieved that the question was answered. Was I mourning the loss of a dream? Perhaps but I was glad that I got a second chance. A chance to put a ghost of questions from the past to rest. A chance to be grateful again for how things turned out. Maybe things are meant to be as they are meant to be and we don’t need to wonder but appreciate what we have, right here. Right now. No need to wonder anymore…


TW: blood, police brutality, violence. Xavier had ironed his black and sleek trousers that morning, by himself, smoking to the Rolling Stones. He had put extra care in choosing his outfit because in those clothes he would have died. In fact, over the black pants, he had a white shirt, candid like a soft cloud, that smelled like fabric softener, a dark jacket that fit him perfectly and made him look less muscular. He had even folded a red and white tissue to put in his pocket. Then, he had hid seven knives, a bomb, two razors and a pair of gloves covered in rubber under all that. Hoping nobody would have recognized a traitor of the crown, he went out in the open, the freezing air of December cutting his cheeks. Using a fake electronic ID code, he opened the metal building’s door. A few dozens of officers who would have happily tortured him didn’t even give him a glance. When the glossy blue doors opened, he entered the elevator. He was glad he was alone. That way, he was sure none of the King’s soldiers  would have seen him get down at floor 280. He stood with his hands clasped in front of his body, unmoving, looking directly into his metallic reflection. The light was blue, inside the palace. His heart was racing in his chest, so painfully he had trouble breathing. He knew whatever he was going to see in floor 280 would have hurt him. Another reason why he had asked Kaneka to go alone on the mission inside the palace, was that he didn’t want any of the boys to see that he was anxious. Of course, since the day he had rebelled against the King, he had known he had lost the opportunity to live peacefully. On floor 280, he was going to meet Tara again. The first time he had seen her, she was wearing a neon miniskirt and sending thousands of volts throw the bodies of a couple of the King’s guards. She had let them plummet at her feet, grabbed Xavier’s coat and yanked him out of the battle into a tiny alley. Her black hair was tied in two braids, and her eyes, instead of being radioactive blue as he expected, where just dark. “You are human. With powers.” “Yeah, not a robot. Now,” Tara had said, putting a gun in his hand, “let’s get out of here, alright?” The last one standing of his group of rebels, he had allied with her. Together, they had gone back into the square where neon billboards made the night as bright as day and the King soldiers shot their power weapons. At dawn, she, covered in scratches, bloody cuts, and with her hands still sparking electricity, had ripped the last guard off of him. Tara had laughed a very brief, tired laugh. Her big lips had bent a little, and she hadn’t taken her eyes away from his as she cleaned the blood on her mouth with the back of her hand. “You need to watch out for yourself or you’ll break.” Xavier hadn’t been able to reply. He felt the same electricity in his veins. His heart raced in front of her, as if he had found something precious and long lost. Then, she had taken him back to headquarters, and reported the win. Kaneka had half-smiled to him, and he had felt like he had just ended the King’s tyranny. Tara had walked with him, talking until they reached his room. Then, she had given him one electric bullet to put in his gun. It was bright in the dark, like a deadly diamond or something else beautiful made to kill. “We’re a great team,” he had told her, his voice no more than a murmur. “Come to me if you need help,” she had replied. But Tara hadn’t resisted in the living world for a long time. She had disappeared again. Xavier had gone visiting her, once, when the voices about her running away again started circulating. When he had arrived in front of her apartment, he had let out a small, shallow sigh, and then had sunk his hands in his jacket. The cold, dry wind moved the rubbles on the floor. The place didn’t exist anymore, and so the furniture. He was sure she couldn’t have lived there without a bed, a fridge, or at least a teleport platform to come and go freely. But even if those things had actually been there before, now everything was gone. All that was left of her were rocks on a street that nobody visited. That day, he had told Kaneka. She had kept staring at the hologram that portrayed the King’s palace’s entrance door, and had told him, batting her eyes slowly, that Everyone dies, if they don’t watch out. So he had. And in a couple of months of research on Tara, the King, and the electricity resources he had found three game-changing pieces of news. First. The City consumed as much electricity as the whole country of Taiwan. Second. The ways to get electricity fast and easy had all already been burnt and converted into volts centuries before. Third. The King needed the people to stay calm and nice to him, if he didn’t want to die lynched. Fourth. Tara was a natural source of electricity. All of these were clues that led only to one possible outcome, the most realistic scenario, which coincided with the worst one. Xavier had had to come to terms with the fact that the King had kidnapped Tara to use her as a reactor. He had told Kaneka. And while she had immediately widened her eyes at the thought that Tara was in the King’s palace, too close and subjected to him not to spit out what the rebels were doing, Xavier could only think about the little lightning in her fingers. He had seen them, once, in their beauty and not in their deadliness. Xavier and Tara were sitting on the headquarters’ roof. The night was shiny and bright like a crystal, blue and black and full of city lights. Her feet dangled in the void. He was scared to death of her, who always looked like she had done something more dangerous than what she was facing, and of the height. She had smiled like a fox to the City and spit on the ground. Her saliva made a jump of a few hundred feet. “We will own this place.” Freezing, with his legs against his chest, he had muttered something that meant he agreed with her. She had chuckled and given him her hoodie. He hadn’t put it on. She had sighed. “God of electric sheep, Xavier.” He had put it on. After his head had popped out of the fabric, he had noticed that thin, blue wires where shining around her fingers. She was playing with them, letting the energy sting her skin. She laughed, her small lightning cracked. He looked at her a little scared, but feeling safer on that roof with her than he had felt in his room in the headquarters, manned 24/7. She had closed her hand. “You know what’s worse than being wanted dead, Xavier?” She had said his name, but her eyes were on the City’s blue skyline. He hadn’t said anything. “Being wanted alive.” The elevator reached floor 8 and stopped abruptly. Under his breath, he muttered to himself: “What the fuck?” The lights went off, the temperature seemed to drop. He tried to touch the buttons, but even if they were clicking under his fingers, nothing happened. “Come on.” He took a deep breath. The sign said he was on floor 279, so close to her. “What the hell are you doing, Tara?” He put his hands on the cold metal and waited. He tried to calm himself. Xavier was scared of small places, because they reminded him of when the guards had imprisoned him for stealing water from the nobleman’s table. Somewhere, his skin still carried the long, slender wounds of their clawed gloves and the electric shots that they sent through his body. Later on, when he had joined the rebels, Heko had stared at him like he was Jesus resurrected. “Sweet Jupiter,” he had said, in his monochromatic tone, “how are you alive?” He didn’t know. He only remembered his young skin breaking under their gloves and being dragged out and thrown in a dirty street. Now, Xavier reminded himself that he was fully clothed and armed like a fucking soldier from World War IV. He also started thinking that they had killed Tara. Or she had tried to escape and they had decided to execute her. No, this was stupid. The whole City would have stopped breathing, food would have gone bad, people wouldn’t have been able to work, the King himself would have been just a kid in silk sitting on a bed in a small room in a silent palace. And all the doors of the prisons would have been open. Xavier got up from the wall and tried to open the gate of the elevator. He slipped his fingers in the small cranny between the two metal panels and pulled. His muscles flexed, he got closer to apply more strength, but nothing happened. He let himself sink on the floor. The metal box moved slightly. In the dark, he began seeing a starry sky. His father had told him that before the world was completely urbanized, in certain parts of the globe you could see the galaxy. He had shown him pictures of the stars, and Xavier had started drawing them. There, curled up with his knives pressing against his ribcage, he counted and named each of them under his breath. He reminded himself of his humanity, that he was a beating heart, even if nearly everything in the world was a metallic machine, even if the door of the elevator was pressing against his body and trapping him in. When he started feeling breathless, he got to his feet. There was violet and blue in front of him, just like the day he had got into the rebels’ group. Kaneka was a woman all black and red, and was taking clothes off him. His face was masked and he could only see reality in spots. He felt the last piece of fabric been thrown away. “He’s shaking. How can he fucking go killing a King if he shakes in front of you , Kaneka?” Heko’s voice had made him go red. Xavier had heard Kaneka close, very close to him. “He’s a boy who bends only in front of who he knows actually rules. Now, kneel.” He had obeyed. And she had beaten him and he hadn’t said a word. She had put him in the dark and let him starve and choke. And after ten days, his skin was just as thick as she had wanted. Perhaps, he thought to himself in the dark, to beat a bad thing, you had to become worse. Some do. Some are Kaneka. Some don’t, like Tara, and run and fight and disappear. But in an elevator where you’re alone and the source of life of the City is gone, you need to set your priorities straight. It was at that point, that he started hearing the explosions. It was like fireworks going off. Xavier backed off, chuckling. His breath came in short and shallow. His head was spinning. He prayed to a God he knew was dead and asked them to please, let her enemies die horribly . A fierce song started playing in his head and he was one with the dark. The smoke started coming in the elevator slowly and he breathed it. He didn’t know about it until he was dying. But at that point he could do nothing. He just sat down and waited. He prayed again to that God to let him find peace somewhere else, even if the afterlife was a joke. Then, the doors opened. A blade of light cut his face gently. He took in a long, pure, soft breath, and let himself relax. Out of the elevator, an angel was coming with the smell of burnt metal and blood. She knelt to carry him out. “You’re okay.” Tara laughed. Her chest vibrated. “We’re both still alive. Disappointing.”


HOME HELP Ann Martin Trigger Warning: Self-harm By the time Ellie went to make them a cup of tea, Marian knew she would get the job. Interview? Hardly. Two strangers talking through tears. It was hardly a job either. Ssix hours a week light housework. But it would serve its purpose, which was to give her something to think about, something to pour into the emptiness. A quick scan of the room while Ellie Roberts was in the kitchen told Marian a lot. Furniture good, but shabby. Carpet ditto and with the kind of indelible stains that come with small children. A plastic crate in the corner filled with a colourful jumble of toys. A Sesame Street book half under the couch. That hurt. A wedding photograph in a frame on the coffee table that she gazed at for longer. Ellie younger, but with the same soft, dark hair and eyes under a pearl coronet and a billow of white tulle. She was gazing up at her new husband not just with love, but sheer, raw adoration. And why not? Hugh Grant boyish, with his hair slightly rumpled and a grin on his face as though he’d won first prize in a lottery. Nice couple. Happy couple. Ellie came in and set down a tray on the small table before sitting herself back down to face Marian. Tea-party niceties were observed, tentative attempts were made at connection “Milk? Sugar? I’m sorry, I thought we had biscuits, but the children seem to have finished them.”  Ellie’s voice, too, was soft. A gentle, slightly nervous woman with shy, searching eyes. Searching for what?? Searching for something she might just have found? “That’s fine. I try not to nibble between meals. I have serious issues with the size of my hips, these days.” Marian smiled, much easier at seeming at ease, but possibly only because she was some thirty years older. She gave Ellie her cue to begin. “So, you want someone to come in three mornings a week?” Ellie nodded. “Yes, I don’t get a lot of spare time during the week and the little I do have, I want to give to my children.” Her eyes went to the wedding photograph. “Chris died just over a year ago. Cancer. So it’s important that…” Tears pooled, her voice thickened, wobbled and stopped. “Of course,” said Marian. It was a long time since she had needed to speak to anyone this tenderly. “I know what you mean. My husband died twenty eight years ago, when our daughter was six. She became everything. I had to love her enough for both of us.” Ellie picked up the incongruously cheerful red teapot and began to pour, her fingers gripping firmly and an equal grip on her voice, but the tears got away.  “I don’t know what I’d do without my mother. She’s my one true angel. My lifeline” She paused and groped at a box of tissues, wiping her eyes and blowing her nose. “Sorry, sorry. I do try not to do this.”  A gulp of air and she went on rapidly. “I drop the children off to her at the unearthly hour of seven am, so that I can be at work by eight. That way I can finish at four. My boss is very kind. Mum takes Layla to kindergarten and then looks after Joey for the day. She picks Layla up at three and I’m at her place by five. It’s not perfect, but we do our best.” “We always do our best, don’t we?” said Marian. “It’s all we can do.” As tentative as it had seemed when she applied, she now really wanted this little job. “Tell me about your children.” “Layla is five and Joey’s two,” said Ellie. “I would have had them here today, but Mum has taken them to a puppet show in the Botanical Gardens. I told her she didn’t need to, with it being Saturday and she’s had them all week. But she wanted to. Well, you know what grandmothers are.” Oh yes, Marian knows. Grandmothers are women who get bruised in the heart. Women who give those hearts completely and unconditionally to children who are theirs, but not theirs. Then comes the karate chop to that heart when their only daughter gets a job in some world away city and takes the grandchild with her. It could be forever and the pain in the wounded heart never seems to grow less. Now the tear-mist was her own.  “Can you start tomorrow?” That was sudden. . Ellie was brisk now, taking charge, spelling out the arrangement. “I can give you a key right away. I’m afraid our paths won’t cross very often, but just come in at about nine and do whatever you think needs to be done. You don’t have to worry about the children’s laundry, I take that to Mum. There’s a Chinese ginger jar on the hall table, I’ll leave your money in there on a Friday. Cash is ok, isn’t it?” It was all so simple arrangement and so right. Just a few hours a week when she wasn’t alone at home, yearning for the child that she’d cared for every day for three years. When Jessica had found herself pregnant and then kicked the father out of her life, Marian had struggled with it all. But not for long. With Jessica keen to get her Masters, who else but her mother to give the devotion and support she’d always given? Who else but Grandma to look after baby Bryn? It had been so beautiful, so good. Just the three of them. It had filled Marian up in a way she hadn’t been filled since Jessica was born. It had been so good and she was missing it so desperately now it was gone. Incey Wincey Spider and blown kisses on Zoom could never be the same. Even though she so readily took on working for Ellie Roberts, she wasn’t prepared for the blows that would bruise her heart afresh. The primitive, love-filled drawings fixed with magnets to the fridge. Mummy and Layla and Joey. Love you Mummy, Granny in the park, each one labelled in an adult hand, Layla K1.

The Beatrix Potter decorated bedroom with baby animal mobiles. The cot stripped down to the waterproof under-sheet after an accident in the night (she would gladly have washed the sheets).  A small, balled up, inside-out sock under a single bed. Sticky finger marks on the wall beside a high chair. Pooh Bear and Piglet tableware in the dishwasher. A blue tortoise stool to help short legs reach the toilet seat. The unmistakeable smell of baby talc. Photos by Ellie’s bed. The husband, alive, still rumpled, still grinning. Two small painted faces; a fairy princess and a pirate. It hurt, but it was somehow a healing hurt.  Therapy to cure an addiction.  By the time she’d been cleaning that house for three weeks, she knew that she needed to keep on coming. She knew, in fact, that she needed more. She needed to meet those children, to hold them in her arms, bury her face in their hair and soak herself through and through with the very feel and sound and smell of them. She hadn’t seen Ellie in person since her interview, but there had been notes – sometimes even smiley-face notes – and her money had always been in an envelope in the ginger jar. That wasn’t enough, so Marian devised a plan. It was a simple plan, just a tin of home-baked cupcakes iced with kitten faces. A little gift delivered on a Saturday.

I knew you wouldn’t mind. Another cup of tea together and then the offer. “I do know you have your mother, but if for any reason you ever need someone else … a sitter….”  After all, she and Ellie had already connected, bonded even, over tea and tears. It would be ok. It would be good. So why an ambulance? But there it was outside Ellie’s gate, one medic closing the doors, another starting up the engine. By the time she had parked, they were speeding down the street. Marian struggled with her seatbelt. Fumbled with the door of her car. Finally made it to the gate. She wasn’t the only one. Greedily inquisitive spectators were already gathered to mull and murmur and stare. Marian grasped the arm of a woman with fuchsia pink hair, leopard-skin pants, tattooed breasts and a cigarette poised between fingernails that matched the hair. “What happened?” Marian could hear her own voice, thin and cracked. “What? The woman looked at her with eyes black-rimmed and turquoise lidded  but not unkind. “Tablets, love,” she said with a smoker’s rasp. “Sleeping pills. She’ll be ok. But only because I saw her bedroom light still on at ten this morning. Gut feeling, you know.  Then she wouldn’t answer her door.’ She gave a half grimace, half grin. “Pays sometimes to have nosy neighbours!” Blowing smoke sideways, to miss Marian’s face,   “I’ve seen you, haven’t I, coming and going? She wasn’t expecting you today, that’s for sure! ” The woman went on, happy to tell her story anew. “I did keep half an eye on her after her husband buggered off with that woman from his office. He was an arsehole, that one.  I knew that the first time I met him. You can always tell. But she thought his arsehole was the sole source of the world’s solar energy. I tried to be a friend after he left her, but it wasn’t what she wanted. He’d tried to hit onto me once when I asked them round to my place for Christmas drinks and I think she picked it up. Anyway, she wouldn’t have a bar of me.” She waved her cigarette towards the bunch of neighbours who now felt free to comment as loudly and speculatively as they liked about the woman whose gate they were gathered around. “Wouldn’t have anything to do with any of us. She had her mum though, and they were very close. I think with her mum still there, she might have pulled through. But when her mom died a couple of months ago, well, I worried something like this might happen.” Marian felt her legs trembling, her face go white and cold. Stiff and clumsy mouth didn’t want to form the words. “B.but... the children.... What about the children?” The woman spluttered on her cigarette, then dropped it to the ground and stomped on it as though it was a venomous insect. She stared at Marian “Children?” she wheezed. “What do 'ya mean? Ellie doesn’t have any children.” Marian got back into her car. She sat for a long time and gazed down the street. Then she began to weep. On and on she loudly wept and wailed, for all the hurts she knew about and for those she did not, for things that happen and things that don’t, for things that are stolen and things that are lost. For everything.  When there were no more tears, when her eyes were stinging, puffed and raw and she couldn’t breathe through her nose, she wound down her window and called out to anyone who would answer. “Where have they taken her? Do you know where she’s gone?”


“Where am I?” The white painted room with a bright white light blinded him momentarily. “What can you tell us about the pill Necrophilam?” a voice edged with steel threw the question at him. Her face was hard to make out against the blinding light which created a halo around her head. “What?” he asked her. “What is that?” “Ok. Let’s try this again. Do you know of the compounds moxizypin and edenovora?” she asked. He tried to think but the headache made it all but impossible. “What?” Without showing any visible signs of exasperation she repeated the question. It started coming back to him in bits and pieces. “Yes. I might. They are a -a sort of painkiller. Where am I? What is the point of this?” “So now you remember Necrophilam?” And at that moment everything crashed back into his memory sending a sheer jolt of pain through the left side of his scalp. Before he realized anything, he was crouching on the white floor, writhing with pain. “I need a medic in here.” she shouted into a microphone hanging at the lapel of her coat. He woke up again, and again found himself sitting in that blinding white room facing her. “I remember.” This was all that he could manage to get out. She kept staring at him. “Necrophilam is a combination medicine of moxizypin and edenovora. Acting together they can block any and all pain from reaching the brain.” He explained. "After your discovery of the compounds what did you propose them for, Mr. Gill?” she asked. “To provide painless deaths to terminally ill patients.” “Wouldn’t you say that a painless death is a coward’s choice? A cop out, so to speak!” Her penetrating gaze drilled into him. He could now sense some sort of hostility in her voice. “I’m sorry, did I do something wrong? Are you with the government?” he asked. She continued staring at him relentlessly. “And where the hell am I?” This time he shouted. “That’s not important. Do you know what happens to someone who overdoses on Necrophilam?” “What? An overdose? Why does that matter? It’s given to someone on deathbed. Why should it matter?” “During the discoveries of moxizypin and edenovora, did you test subjects for overdose?” “I tested on patients who would die anyway. And how do you test for overdose on the dead!” “Yes. Maybe that’s true considering the limitations. Let me show you something.” She got up from her seat and led him toward and then out the door. The corridors were as white as that of the room. She led him down winding windowless corridors. There was no one in sight. At the end of one of such corridors lay a gray metal door. She opened the heavy door and led him through it. “These are called pods. Simple enough to remember.” she said, indicating at the white beds covered by transparent glass panes and attached to a lot of monitors and associated machinery. One of them was empty and the other one was occupied by a strangely familiar man seemingly in a deep state of sleep. “Would you please lie down in the empty pod?” she asked him gently. For the first time time since this thing began he sensed a reluctance in her voice. “Why?” he asked suspiciously. “We need to run some tests on you. Specifically regarding your past.” “Just ask me.” “We do not know how reliable you conscious memories are at this point of time.” “What does that mean?” He could feel his heart pumping rapidly, head throbbing and hands shaking What does she mean by that? Is this an experiment? Was he the lab rat? “Listen to me. I will not do anything unless you tell me what’s going on. I demand some answers and I want them now.” he said through gritted teeth and tightened lips. She let out an exasperated sigh. He realized she was on the point of telling him everything, teetering on the edge about the consequences of the explanations. She let out another long sigh and said, “I can’t tell you everything right now but maybe I can tell you something about the tests. But you need to promise me you won’t ask further questions until the tests are done.” He nodded in agreement and she began. “This pod,” she gestured toward the empty one, “is multi-functional. In this test, I will stimulate the temporal lobe of your brain, specifically the hippocampus and the amygdala. At this point we can only access memories that have left a deep footprint in your brain, memories that illicit a strong emotional response in you. You will experience them again, and I will experience them along with you. Whatever you see in those memories, I’ll be able to see the same in these monitors." “How is this real. How does this machine exist?” he mumbled, half to himself he realized. He made his voice firmer, an illusion of strength that he did not have, and said, “And what if I say no to being prodded for traumatic memories?” “Someone very close to you will die.” she said coldly, almost stating a fact. “Don’t you dare threaten me woman!” he roared, his voice cracking under the strain. “Calm down, Mr. Gill. It’s not a threat. I’ll explain later. Please. Help us with the tests. Trust me.” How he could ever trust a woman who had just threatened murder and whom he had met only minutes ago were not the things Adam Gill thought about. Behind her cold steely voice there was a hidden urgency this time, a pleading. The woman, however her external appearance might be, was shaken to her very core. Adam suddenly had a feeling of impending doom. “Ok.” he finally replied, “but after the test I want clear answers or I won’t cooperate. Whatever the consequences might be.” She nodded. He opened the glass pane covering of the empty pod and got into it, laying on his back, trying to find a comfortable position. She closed the cover of the pod and went to the adjacent control panel and pressed the switch. He was eleven. Billy Rutherford stared at him with venom eyes. Billy was about to punch him in the empty school locker room, thus gifting him with a scar that he would have to bear under his lip for the rest of his life. He kept eyeing the half shut door of the locker room. A way out. He was forty two. He had just discovered moxizypin and edenovora - the alchemist’s gold. Painless death. A way out. He was twenty one. His mother lay on the hospital bed, heavily sedated. She opened her eyes, looking directly into his. “Help me, Adam”, she croaked out, pleading with him. On that day, he had seen pain in her mother’s eyes. Pain in death. He kept eyeing the half shut door of the ward. A way out. He was forty. Dorothy and him were engaged in their evening shouting matches. Nick lay on the cradle just beside the dining table, lying there, screaming his lungs out. While shouting Adam frequently glanced at his briefcase containing the divorce papers. A way out. The machine buzzed him back to life, zapping him with an electric shock that brought him out of his revere. The woman turned her revolving chair back toward him, looking at him with puzzled expressions. “I don’t know why they decided to bring you out. I - I don’t think you’ll be able to help.” she stated blandly. She stood up, opened up the pod and helped him to the adjacent chair. Adam felt tired. Adam felt ashamed at his memories. He was not the noble hero he had thought he was. He had not realized it until this very moment. He always kept a way out, a back-up net, never fully committing, never standing up in the face of adversity. “I really will appreciate some honesty.” Adam said, anger now out of his voice, replaced by resignation. “Ok. Can you tell me the year when you discovered Necrophilam?” she asked. “Yes. 2025.” “Yes. And can you tell me the present year?” “I don-don’t k-know. I can’t remember very well. How did I get here?” “Yes, that is expected. Don’t worry. Now. The honesty that you asked for.” she said, dry washing her hands against the cold air conditioning. “After you published your paper on Necrophilam, the government hijacked your research. You were arrested for trespassing, breaking and entering and vandalism of government property because you tried to retrieve you research. They wanted to silence you but you were too valuable to kill, a goose capable of giving golden eggs to them in future. So they kept your consciousness alive with neural networks that I can’t even begin to explain. Your body was kept alive for forty years in suspended animation. You were brought out thirty seven minute ago.” she finished glancing at her watch. Adam’s head was spinning. Suspended animation! It existed. It was not just a theory. It piqued his interest. “So what happened to Necrophilam?” “Nothing.” she continued. “The government could not conjure up a military use for the pill at the time and eventually it was declassified and released commercially in the markets. That’s where our problems began.” “Problems?” “Yes. Suicide rates sky-rocketed. Mass apathy, depression, people choosing death over seemingly simple life problems. You took away the consequence to leading a life. Life always resulted in death before the pill. It was inevitable and painful. Necrophilam rendered the concept of death just a mere option.” “Jesus Christ!” “ He would’ve thanked you for your pill though.” she smiled a little, the first time she had done so. “Anyway, so the pill was eventually discontinued in open markets and reserved only for patients whose deaths were judged ‘more painful’ than others. And the government kept using the pill secretly, giving it to agents who might die in the field of action. That man”, she said pointing at the man lying in the other pod, “is one such agent. Somehow, he overdosed on Necrophilam but did not die.” “How?” Adam asked, perplexed. “We do not know but we intend to find out. There may be something else as well that we need to learn from him. A piece of information that he was able to retrieve from his mission.” “What information?” “We do not know and even if we had known, we wouldn’t have disclosed that to you.” she said blandly but sternly. “So how do I factor in all this?” “I don’t know whether you will be of any help. Your memories reveal that you are not a strong man, someone willing to face up —” “Excuse me! Are you calling me a bloody wimp?” “No, Mr. Gill. I’m simply stating your test report.” “So what would you have done had you not seen my memories?” “Our FMRI scans show that the agent can still feel pain, if not anything else. We would’ve killed you - without Necrophilam - and connect the right networks between the two of you to somehow jump start his brain back up. Our previous tests with pain show promising results.” “Hell no! You are not killing me today miss.” he bellowed, his voice echoing around the walls of the empty lab. “Why, Mr.Gill? Your only other option is to lay locked in the numbness of the suspended animation. Oh right. I forgot. That’s your way out, isn’t it?” That struck a chord with him. “You poked at me back in the other room, called me a coward. Let me give you a piece of advice. Cowards survive longer in this world.” “Anyway,” she brushed past his anger and said to him, “we can’t kill you without your consent and you are not the man that would choose anyone else’s life over his own. So, experiment terminated. Let’s take you back to the immersion chamber.” she said staring for the door. “Wait.” She stopped, looking back toward him. “Yes or no Mr. Gill?” Adam sat there staring at the agent lying in the other pod. What did he have to live for? He had no family. Dorothy would probably be dead by now, Nick almost forty-five. He did not know where Nick was. He was a man out of time, a soul kept functional enough to bear fruits for others. There was only numbness of the suspended animation. He kept on staring at the man. Ever so slowly, like a feather floating down to ground from a great height, a revelation dawned on him. The agent had his mother’s features. “I know,” he began, “that there are probably a hundred things that you cannot tell me. At least tell me this. What is that man’s name?” His voice left him almost in a whisper, a shadow of a sound. The woman kept staring at him. Then she made her decision. “Nicholas Gill.” These two words crashed down on him. Nick. His Nick. He had abandoned him once before. “Can you guarantee that he will live if I agree to go through?” The woman, now beside Nick’s pod, placed her hand on the glass pane covering, sighed and said, “No. But your neurons have the best chance of yielding a positive result. They are genetically compatible.” When Adam sat there, seemingly transfixed on Nick’s face, the woman said, “It’s an experiment Mr. Gill. All we can do is try.” Try. The word floated in his head. He had to try. He could’ve tried to punch Billy back blow for blow. Billy had not been a big kid. He could’ve tried to be at his mother’s side when she had died. He could’ve tried to accommodate with Dorothy, tried to make his marriage work. He could’ve tried to be by Nick during his childhood. He could’ve tried……… “Where do I sign?” Adam said, having made up his mind. All legalities taken care of, he lay there in the other pod, wires protruding out of the skull cap around his head, connecting his firing neurons to the wires and skull cap around Nick. “We can’t even give you anesthesia. You need to feel the pain.” The woman switched the system on, electric current flowing though the wires into Adam’s brain. He screamed alright. The man who discovered Necrophilam died, screaming at death, screaming in pain. The gray metal door remained closed. There was no way out.


It’s over. The time is up.  I have to face this. My heart should be racing but somehow it isn’t. My mind still can’t make sense out of all of this. This was not supposed to be happening. I wish this wasn’t happening. I know what the answer is, but I don’t want to. I want to go back in time. I want to be wrong. I need all of this to be just part of a nightmare. I need to wake up with my heart out of my chest and try to calm myself down to sleep. I want to be safe in my bed. The timer sets of again. We are still facing each other. None of us has the guts to check the result. The shop has never been this quiet. Time has never been slower. I feel my body start to tremble. My heart’s finally assuming control of itself and it’s making me feel reality. I want to be wrong. I so want to be wrong.

I stop looking at her and guide my eyes to the sink. Anyone could enter the bathroom at this point. But they won’t. The tension and the cold air are more than enough to prevent them from coming in. Nothing has changed but I know I won’t be the same person that walked in here. I don’t have a smile on my face anymore. My hand nervously takes everything that was on top of it. I can’t seem to make my hand act normal. I can’t seem to act normal.

I wish I had done everything to prevent this, but I didn’t. Once again, I let others control me. I’ve been warned so many times… Why can’t I just listen? Why can’t I just know what’s best for me? I never do; and people love that. I just wish I could ignore the bad choices. The problem with thinking that bad things never happen to us is that at some point they do. I know I’ll continue to be the same girl, making the same stupid mistakes, letting myself get too comfortable until something really bad happens to me. I think now is my turn on being the bad choice’s girl. I so want to be wrong. My eyes look down. The white stick is glowing against the black marble. I can’t pretend I’m not seeing it. My hand starts to squeeze my coat tighter as I gain courage to look at the result. I can feel the temperature drop. My breath is freezing cold, and my body is so empty I can barely pull up the strength to think. One, two lines. Two lines. I stop. My heart stops. I can't move. Air stopped entering me a long while ago. Breathe in. Breathe out. The world starts to spin, my legs start to push me to the ground. I can’t seem to make my eyes stop moving trying to make sense of all of this. Two lines. My eyes start to swell. I grab the box and toss the paper outside. I’ve never read this quickly. I need to know I’m wrong, that this doesn’t mean what I think. I’m wrong, please tell me I’m wrong. I reach the bottom. It means positive. I’m pregnant. Lia's talking to me, trying to calm me down. Her eyes are wide open, her hands can’t stop running all over the place trying to pack everything. Occasionally she looks at me making sure I haven’t ran. I don’t really know why I haven’t already. My legs are still not responding to my commands. They’ve taken control and are now making me stay here and face my mistakes, face reality.

“We’re late for class.” I interrupt her. Her eyes are even bigger than they were before. Her arms stopped what they were doing. I can clearly see the confusion in her eyes. She remembers to blink, still trying to make out what I’ve just said. I grab my stuff and run. My legs finally give me back control.

The sun is falling near the horizon. Pink ink starts to be drawn in the sky, fading away to orange as we move away from the shore. I can feel the fresh, calm wind touching my face. My hands are tight against my face. Hours have gone by since the result, the only thing I’ve done is run for my secret place. This small beach has been my safe haven for a couple months now. It’s the only place where I can actually think. I know my mind is made up, I can’t go through a pregnancy, I can’t be a teen mom. I grab my phone and make an appointment for next week; this will all be over soon. Everything will go back normal soon. Everything has to go back to normal. I’ve been living in my own nightmares lately. I have three days to make a decision. I can’t focus on anything else. My whole life has been put on pause. I just wish I had the button to unpause it. I want to go back to those summer nights. Hanging on the beach, meeting new people every day… The laughing, the smiles, the tears... I wish I could be there right now... Meeting Andrew for the first time again. Feeling my heart fill with love and needs. I want to go back to the time where I was so nervous to have my first time and how he was able to calm me down and make me feel safe, like I had never felt. The sneak-ins, the nights out, the times where we ran away from everyone just to have some moments by ourselves. How we one day stumbled across a hidden beach, and how quickly we made it ours. Our safe space. I want to feel loved again. I never again want to feel the pain of seeing him do the things I thought were ours to that other girl. To feel the hurt of seeing her as happy as I were, knowing that I could never step up to her. To feel the betrayal of, after all that time, finally realizing that I was just some younger girl for his stupid boning list. To feel the tears streaming down my face and not knowing how I would ever be able to stop them. I’ve been dreaming about those nights lately. Having our history unravel all over again in my brain, with all the emotions and feelings. But, as I image our history over and over again, the happiness and the love slowly become disgust and anxiety. The more I dream the more reality finds its way to sneak in and destroy all the happiness I still have in me. I want to go back to those times. I’m at the doctor’s office. The cold air is almost as stabbing as it was in the store that day. Knowing my life will change the moment I enter that door is hard. Very hard. My heart has not stopped racing since the result came back positive. I’m so tired. I just want this all to be over. To go back to being the teenager I am meant to be. To not be worried with what clothes I’m going to wear to try to hide my belly. It’s hideous, I know. No one would know even if they saw it. But I would. I haven’t been able to look myself in the mirror for months knowing there might be a baby there, especially now that I know there is. I can’t face myself. “Emma Smith, room 6.”

I step up. I feel like everyone is staring at me as if they know what I’m about to do. I feel so small right now. My steps have never been quicker, and my head lower. I can’t face people’s opinions on how young and irresponsible I must be. The doctor’s smiling behind her desk. She’s probably the first person to actually make me feel secure about all of this, to make me feel like I do have a choice and that I’m not less of a person by putting me in this situation. Her compelling eyes remind me of Andrew’s. How safe I felt under those eyes, those arms. I just want to go back to them. To change our history and make him stay. To have us have our happy ending. To have me have my happy endi--

Tu-tum tu-tum tu-tum My heart stops. My eyes are as wide as they can be. I can’t seem to breathe. That’s a heartbeat. I look down. This thing has a heartbeat! My body’s freezing cold on the inside. I look at the mirror and all I see is tears. There’s someone inside me. I’m growing someone. There’s a heartbeat. This bump inside me is alive!

 	I get up and dressed. How can I take life away from him? Or her? This is a baby, a person. How am I supposed to decide if she deserves to live? I can’t do that. I don’t have what it takes to stop that heartbeat. That beautiful sound…. This has the power to change everything. How can I make a decision like that?

I ask for the pill. I made a decision already. I can’t change right now. I just have to take it. I’ll be normal again. This baby will never have the life he or she deserves anyway. At least one of us will have the chance to have what we deserve. I deserve to be happy, to be free, to be a teen. I deserve to make mistakes and be able to learn from them. I shouldn’t have to live with my mistakes for the rest of my life. This baby doesn’t deserve to be born like this. Who would want to be born like this? Growing up with a mother that doesn’t even know who she is and how to take care of herself. How could I even do that? The diaper’s, the doctor’s appointments, dealing with people’s opinions… I’m too young to be judged like that. I know I need to be the bigger person now. I need to grow up and decide what’s best for me. I need to finally put myself first despite who I may hurt.

Two weeks have gone by since the doctor’s appointment. Time has slipped through my fingertips really fast. I no longer have a rash on my throat. I finally can eat without feeling like I’m about to throw up every second. Smells have been less intense lately, but I still can’t stand coffee. You have no idea what I would give to be able to have a cup of coffee these days. As I think about it, it’s impressive how much has changed in nearly a month. I managed to call Andrew and tell him what I had been going through. I was surprised that he even picked up, but the speed at which he hung up was definitely something to remember.  I’m better off alone. I knew that already, and I’m ok with that.  I now know that’s way more than enough. To have myself is to have the world.

The soft wind is lightly touching my face like the way it did that Tuesday afternoon. This river has not changed since that day. The eagles are still trying to catch up with the waves, trying to find some fish underneath the water. The sun is still at sunset changing its colors from pink to red. The clouds are still moving softly, making me aware of the time passing. Calming me from the anxiety and uncertainty my life has been lately.

The sun starts to sink into the water. The sky becomes blue and starts to darken in a matter of seconds. The heat is left behind. I love warm afternoons. Being able to watch the sunset at the beach and have the time to absorb it all. I no longer miss those summer nights though. I’d much rather have these times by myself, not having to deal with people’s expectations, finally being the real me.

 	My fingers start to play with the pill, feeling every edge and surface. I look down at my hand. Today’s the last day I can take it. I always liked dramatic exits like those we see in the movies. And I finally have the chance to have my own. My brain is still amazed by the size and power contained in this. And I love how easily that power can be transferred into me. I have the power now. Breathe in. Breathe out. Freedom. I am enough. I close my hand. I’ve never had this much power. I want my life to be normal again. And I know that with this it will finally be. I get up. The sand is still warm from all those hours of heat. I bring the pill to where the sun used to be. I take a deep breath. My life’s changing and I’m so proud of who I have become. I raise my hand up high and toss it. The pill starts to fly, slowly making its way into the sky and diving rapidly into those waters. I’m free! I’m not how I was supposed to be.  But I know I have my whole life to figure out what that is. Me and my child, together.  	I start to make my way back to my house leaving the beach behind. I don’t need it anymore. My life is full, and this is just the beginning of something that I know will be what was always meant to be. The day turns into night and the waves start to speed up covering all the sand. The clouds go back to their usual rush and the wind brings back the staggering cold we are all used to. I’ve pressed the unpause button. It’s over. My life is about to start.


“Everything is changing, I really mean it this time.” She was looking at me with that spark in her eyes she always had when she assumed a new persona. This time, it was some sort of 80’s glam metal retro look. She’d grown out her hair like Bon Jovi and started wearing a ratty torn-up white muscle shirt that showed off those goddamn biceps I could never break free from.

“From now on, everything will be about you, babe,” She had a pleading, hopeful tone to her voice. She really believed in herself. Then again, she always did. I just smiled and looked away, thinking about how many times she’d said that. all superstars are like that I suppose. Always changing, adapting, evolving. I think the one thing that never changes is that they never stay the same.

“You mean everything, Ava?” “I’m past giving up on you. I need you more than anything, and I’m not throwing our love away this time. Please baby,” She reached in to grab my hand, her rough calloused fingers weaving their way around mine. “Stay with me.” Damn it, why is she so good at this? I fall for it every time, but god when she talks like that, it’s like I can see her heart. I can feel how genuine she is, and all I want is to reach in and touch her again. It’s like I’m her fucking dog, always coming back whenever she says my name. But I just can't help it. Jesus Christ, if she were an ocean, I’d drown in her every day she graced the shore.

“I’ve never left,” I bit my lip, my stomach filling with the nervous pit it always did when I came back to her. At this point, it's more fear than excitement. But still, I hope. Still, I feel like she’s changed this time, that she's gonna make good this time. Her blue eyes spark even brighter, and she shone that smile that consumed your entire being in a flood of euphoria.

“You’ve always known how to make me the happiest girl on earth,” she said, practically wrapping my heart in linen lace, and binding me even closer to her. “You’d better get out there,” I told her. “They're expecting you” She fell into a nervous frenzy as she looked down at the watch on her wrist. “Shit! Your right,” she grabbed the letterman jacket she had laying on her table and ran over to give me a deep, intense kiss before pulling back. “I love you more than anything, Cathy” “I know you do, sweetheart,” I said with a laugh, “I know you do.” She lingered in the doorway for a second, doing a quick scan of me before smiling and running out to the soundcheck.

What the hell did I just rope myself into? Sure, those flirty little expressions of hers are fun now, but things will just fall apart. They always somehow fall apart again. I walk over to the little mini fridge in the corner of the room and look inside. There are a couple of bottles of chardonnay that probably cost a couple hundred a pop. I find a glass in a cupboard in the room, and sit back down on the leather couch that I was on earlier She used to drink shit like this all the time. When she had first gotten big, she’d wear these nice, tailored suits. She’d slick back her hair, and go for a real refined butch look. Even on stage, she’d be sipping chardonnay from an ornate crystal glass, which she’d keep perched on the piano.

That was the first time she’d cheated on me. To be fair, she had no idea how to handle all the stress of actually keeping up with her image. She was refined on stage, but behind the scenes, she was falling apart. Backstage, she didn’t even bother with the chardonnay, just downing vodka and popping Adderall to try and calm and energize herself, desperately looking for some sort of balance. And so I guess when the piano player tried to reach out to her, and bring her out of that solitude, it was only natural to start spiraling into more intimate ways of comforting each other.

It was the piano player who told me the morning after. She was a pretty decent girl, after all. She felt I deserved to know how big of a mistake they’d made, and she was right of course. So I called up Ava and told her I knew. We came to a pretty quick agreement that the relationship wasn’t going to be able to function anymore. So we broke up She had a few phases while we were apart that first time. It was the longest we’d stayed broken up, so I honestly forget some of what they were. I think at one point she wore a lot of leather and had a lot of neon lights, and she might have gone steampunk for a bit too. But I remember what she looked like when she showed up at my door for the first time in close to a year and a half. She had on skinny jeans and a simple white blouse. Her hair was grown out long, and she’d done a full face of makeup. Honestly, she looked straight, which was a little strange to see. She said that she just wasn’t happy without me. All she wanted was to come back to me, to be mine plain and simple. She’d said something pretty similar to what she’d said tonight. That from now on, it would all be for me. Every song, album, and concert would all be to me. And after almost an hour and a half, I said yes.

That same cycle would keep repeating for years. She’d cheat on me, we’d break up, then get back together again.

I came back to the comfortable leather couch I sat on, the sweet cold taste of the wine rolling into my throat. There’s a feeling. It’s not quite a high, more of a deep contentment, that comes whenever I’m around Ava. When she’s there, every emotion stills. It feels like everything will be alright, like there's this equilibrium. But then she leaves, and you realize how unbalanced being around her is. Maybe it’s something in her cologne, or some way she moves, but she lulls me into a trance. And once she’s left, the hallucination rots away, showing the beautiful decadent world she put me into is built on garbage and rats. I get this sort of pit in my stomach, the realization that I put my all into her again, and that I'm left empty once she’s gone. I put the wine back down on the table with a sigh. I shouldn’t do this again. I’ve been through it enough to know what to expect. I’ve lost money, health, and friends on loving Ava. I need to stop it now before things get bad again. I need to start making choices that sting again, so I can do what's right for both of us. The right thing to do right now would be to leave. To block and erase her number and never see her again. Build a life somewhere else, find someone who can stay devoted to me, and focus on building a life that isn’t centered on someone else. It’s wrong for me to only feel fulfilled, to only have equilibrium when she’s near me.

Instead, I get up to go watch her. I don’t want to hurt her, so she at least deserves to hear from me that I can’t stay. After all, I need to be firm and rational, not cruel and cold. And I might as well watch her perform one last time, and enjoy being near her for just a bit longer. It’s not always heartache and pain. I make it to the front row just as the lights go down. People start cheering, and it's a big crowd. They fill out the entire 2000 seats of the theater. A voice starts to introduce the band, and then the lights turn on, illuminating them as they start in on one of their new songs, hard and fast. She’s at the front jumping and singing energetically into the mic. Then after minutes of build-up, she starts into an intense guitar solo, her fingers moving swiftly and deftly across her fender like it’s the natural thing for her to do. The song finally ends with a crash, and the crowd erupts again. She takes a minute to bask in the applause, her arms raised in triumph, that ensnaring smile plastered on her face. She egg’s them on, waving her arms to ask for more when the cheering lulls, greeted with an even louder cacophony of screaming. She’s a performer, after all, it's only natural that she’s good at this, at turning the entire room on. She gets back closer to the mic again and says: “Thank you! I love you all so, so much. But I want to take a little break, and dedicate this next one to my beautiful, kind, long-suffering girlfriend. It’s a slower song, tell me if y’all know High Enough by Damn Yankees”

A few scattered bits of cheering came from the audience as one of her bandmates starts in on a soft melody on an acoustic guitar. She starts singing, with her eyes closed and the mic next to her face like it's something holy. God damn, this is going to hurt like hell. I try to distract myself every time she looks towards me in the stands. I awkwardly try to avoid eye contact, looking at anything else other than her. But my heart drops when the music does because I know what's coming.

“ Don’t say goodnight, say your gonna stay forever…” her voice drops into an emotional quiver at that last part, and I can’t help but look back up at her. She’s staring right at me, and there's this horrific shining in her glistening blue eyes as she starts in on her guitar. “ Can you take me high enough? To fly me over, yesterday…” She starts in on the chorus, and it physically pains me to feel how much I still love her, each note sending daggers down my spine. I can’t do this again, I can’t let it happen again. She’s too inconsistent. She only relies on emotion, that's the reason I can't break free from her. I can't give in tonight, or we’ll never break this god-forsaken cycle. “ Can you take me high enough? ” it’s that second high note that unravels me. It’s such a pure, unfiltered feeling in her voice that she almost sends us all into tears. I look at her, and I don’t see any of the trouble from the past. All I see is the dorky girl I fell for all those years ago, who smoked too much and played music like the gods delivered it to her. And it was then I knew. She was the Phantom to my Christine, capturing me again in her song, leading me back down into the catacombs of our love. There was no way I could escape from her. Frankly, I didn’t know that I wanted to leave. Change can be great sometimes. But some things can never change.


   Jim Roberts thought about the Church. He thought of when he and his wife had joined. That had been many years ago, when their children were small. He remembered that she had always been more active than him, "She seemed to change from being a teacher in Relief Society to being a teacher in Primary nearly every year." He wondered why he had never been as active, just a Home Teacher, who did not always visit his families, and sometimes a class president or librarian. He thought, "My job often kept me busy, but I made sure I always took my family to Church each week, and the children to Primary." He remembered having a car full of excited children, going on some outing or other. "Perhaps if I had been more active, things would have turned out differently for our children. Perhaps Mark would have gone on a mission, instead of joining the merchant navy, and as for Laura..." He did not want to think about Laura. He tried to think what he liked best about the Church. They had lived in London then.

"Well, whenever there was a choir, I was always there. I always went to the practices, whatever time they decided to have them, and I enjoyed singing in Sacrament. Yes, I think that is what I liked best, and I was more active in the choir than my wife." Then he thought about her.    Again he remembered when he and his wife were baptised. "I was so keen then, we both were. A Golden Couple the missionaries called us. It was so exciting. We kept discovering new things, and finding answers to all our questions. All those questions we used to ask ! But there was always such a logical answer, and each answer made us think of a new question. Eventually we ran out of questions, and then the excitement faded. I suppose that was when I started to become inactive. I never found that excitement again. I suppose when you have asked all the questions, and you have all the answers, there is nothing more to learn.

But my wife had the same questions, so how did she keep active ? Was it because she was always a teacher ? Perhaps she liked answering other people's questions. Maybe I would have stayed active if I had been a teacher too. Ah well, it is too late, I am inactive now. It has taken a long time, five, ten, maybe twenty years, and it is only when you stop going to Church that it shows." He thought about his wife again. "She never complained. She said it was God's will. I knew she was in a lot of pain, especially at the end, but she always smiled. She still had that smile when I saw her face for the last time."    Now he lived in Manchester with his daughter, Laura. "Oh, Laura," he thought, "how I wished, how I hoped and prayed for you. I saw you growing up, and I saw those little choices of yours, each one so innocent, but each one leading you a little farther from the Church. I knew the Church was the best thing for you, but what could I do ? As you grew older I could no longer make you do things, I could only try to advise you, and then at last there was nothing I could do to change your mind. A woman in love listens to no one. Your husband is a good man and I am grateful that you both want me to live with you. He has a good job, he treats you well, and you have two very nice girls, but there is nothing spiritual in your lives.

You need the Church, and your children need the Church, they both need Primary and Ruth ought to be starting in Young Women soon." He thought for a while and then decided, "I need a plan to get Laura and her children going to Church." That night Jim had an idea.    He had often seen the missionaries with a stall in the centre of Manchester. He had always taken a good look at what they were doing, but he had always made sure he kept far enough away so that none of them would speak to him. He heard the missionaries asking people the Golden Question.

"I know the answers," he thought. "I could give those young missionaries a hard time if I really wanted to." He saw people writing things in their diaries, "Appointments for missionary discussions," he guessed. He remembered the excitement of having the missionaries visiting him.

   Next time he saw the missionaries in town, he asked them what they were doing. He pretended he had not heard of the Church, and asked if they could tell him sonmething about it. After a few minutes the missionaries had arranged a teaching appointment. When Jim got home he told Laura that the missionaries would come, and he thought, "I do not want Laura to tell the missionaries that I was a member in London." He knew that Laura and her husband had an argument recently, so he suggested that the missionaries did not meet Laura, in case this made things worse with her husband.    The missionaries came and taught the first discussion. They were very impressed with Jim. "You are so good," they said.    The missionaries invited Jim to Church, and Jim thought, "Perhaps I will get the old excitement back." Jim was careful to hide his feelings as he went to Church for the first time in several years, and he was careful to make some mistakes so that no one would guess he had been a member before. He thought, "It has been too long. I should have continued to go to Church after my wife died. That was no excuse to stay away."    The missionaries said, "We noticed that you like our hymns." Jim said that he liked singing, and he asked why there was no choir. The missionaries arranged to have the ward choir re-started.    After a few weeks Jim was baptized, but he was disappointed that he did not feel the excitement of his first baptism. However, it was good to be called "Brother Roberts" again, and he was pleased that Laura's husband let him take the girls to Primary.

   He was called to lead the music in Priesthood. There was no piano to set the pitch, so he took his harmonica. He became popular with his harmonica, and was always asked to play something at firesides.    One evening he went to a Stake meeting with Brother and Sister Jones.

It was late as they drove home, so Jim played some hymn tunes on his harmonica to keep them all awake.

   When Brother and Sister Jones got home, they talked about Brother Roberts. "It's amazing," said Brother Jones. "sometimes new members take ages to really get used to Church ways, but Brother Roberts has picked things up so quickly. You heard all those hymns he was playing on his harmonica. We ought to sing those hymns more often."    "Yes," said Sister Jones, and then she shouted, "I've got it ! He's not a new member. Don't you realise ? Some of those tunes were from the old Hymn Book."


As was usual on a Tuesday night, William had stayed behind in the cafe after closing time to sort through the leftover croissants and tarts. He yawned as he took one of the last trays out of the display cabinet, carrying it around the register and placing it on one of the last free tables. Every week, an hour after closing, Will opened the doors of his cafe to the homeless. He glanced up at the clock and saw that he had only a few minutes until the first of these needy people would turn up at the door. Once the door was propped open with the small wooden doorstop, he turned to make his way back to the register. Her bark of a laugh was the first thing that he noticed, and he felt himself tense as he recognised it instantly. Judging by the volume, she couldn’t be more than a block up the street. Sally . Sally was erratic, spontaneous, and difficult to predict; William had never enjoyed being anywhere near her. Sure, he

could empathise with her situation , in the same sort of way you have to feel sorry for homeless people, especially those with mental illnesses. Sally loudly rejected authority, was filled to the brim with paranoia, and flourished her individuality in a way that would have always drawn unwanted stares by those around her. She was physically unkempt, with wild unbrushed hair that had heavy matting throughout the back. She wore torn, dirty clothes that were likely once beautiful, but had been worn way too many times to ever be considered so again. Even from the distance between Sally and the cafe, William could hear her spouting the same nonsense about the afterlife and the god-damn  key  that she always spoke of when she was near him; Will couldn’t explain why, but she just rubbed him up the entirely wrong way. He felt his shoulders begin to tense up and the beginnings of irritation prickling behind his eyes. Perhaps the worst part of it all was that she always came to the cafe when there was no one else around. She was always here first, right as he was opening for the night. No one else ever seemed to even notice she was

there, certainly no one else ever talked to her, but William could sense her a mile away. Sally loudly announced her arrival with a boisterous “Good EVENING, William!” as she side-stepped through the door with a dramatic wave of a skinny hand. Her oversized rings clacked loudly against her long beaded necklace as she moved her hands in front of her; it was like she was forever conducting for an invisible orchestra that only she could see. “Good evening, Sally” William grimaced and tried to be as polite as possible. “I hope you ar-” “Have you taken a second to reconsider my proposal, William?” Sally interrupted him while bypassing the food and drink laid out, coming to a stop just a little too close to the counter. “What are you talking about, Sally?” William tried to stay calm, but he knew

exactly  what she was talking about; Sally went on about the same thing every single time she saw him. “The KEY my dear boy. You need to give me your EXPRESS permission to leave YOU the key!” Sally smiled widely as she threw her head back to inspect the ceiling. William frowned while inspecting the visible flecks of dirt on her neck. Now,

normally  William would play along with Sally for a little bit. He’d playfully ask her what key she was talking about, and every answer was as mysterious and non-sensical as the last. They’d go around in circles, both dancing around the point before more of the unhoused customers would arrive, and William was excused to go and help them. Then, as quickly as she had arrived, Sally would usually seemingly disappear into thin air. But tonight, he had just

had enough . He didn’t have it in him to pretend to be nice. He didn’t want to be patient, he didn’t want to be kind to this woman who

reeked;

he didn’t want to dance today. Today had been long enough; he had countless rude customers just going at him non-stop and his reserves were just utterly and completely depleted. “Sally,

please . If you go on with this fucking bull about the key today, I’m going to ask you to leave. I don’t want to hear it.” he stated firmly. Sally’s normally happy disposition suddenly went cold and calculating. It was as though someone flicked her insanity switch to 'off'. “You have no idea what this is all about William. I need you to take it. Take the key.” She said darkly. Her usual spark of mischievousness was completely gone, and she spoke softly and quietly. William noticed several other homeless people enter behind Sally, and he gave them a small wave and smile as they helped themselves to the food and drinks on offer. He leaned toward Sally. "But that's exactly the thing , Sally. You've never told me what it's all about, you just go on about me needing to agree with you and just take the key off your hands" he said softly but firmly. He let out a short exhale of a laugh. "I'm not taking it. I'm not even going to talk about it anymore, I've entertained you for long enough". Sally’s long fingers were holding the edge of the counter so tight that they started to go white. When William looked up to meet her eyes, there was a look there he had never seen before. Desperation ? “Please, William. PLEASE take this key. You don’t need to know what it means yet, my boy, but you will learn in -” "No, Sally." Sally's speaking sped up as she appeared to get more and more frantic. Her long arms extended and she tried to grab onto his shirt with her bony fingers, but William stood upright and leaned away. William slammed his hands down on the counter. “NO!” he yelled, spittle flying from his mouth. He noted how quiet the cafe had suddenly become. He felt the concerned eyes from across the room looking at him and Sally. William waved an apology to the other patrons, flashing a quick smile screaming I'm okay before he glared at Sally and whispered, “you need to leave. Now. I’m not asking again”. Sally’s shoulders fell slightly. “Fine,” she spat. “I’ll leave you alone. But I WILL leave this here, because your life depends on it”. William heard a small

clink  as an old, ornate key was placed on the counter. Sally slid it towards him slowly, maintaining eye contact through a look of what could only be described as pure hatred, then retreated from the counter. With a loud and angry sigh, William opened the register drawer and threw the mystery key inside. As he took one loud, shaking breath, he looked up to see where Sally had gone; just as he expected, she had vanished. “Good riddance” William muttered under his breath, running a hand through his hair as Joe, an old man with a kind smile approached the register. “Are you feeling alright, son?” Joe asked, his eyes twinkling as he looked at William with what he could only describe as fatherly concern. William hesitated. “Oh, I’m okay, Joe, just had a bit of an argument with Sally about something, that’s all”. Joe looked visibly startled. “Sally? You don’t mean-” he waved his hands about in front of his face in a crude impression of Sally’s erratic hand gestures. “ that  Sally, do you?” William nodded. Joe went quiet. He motioned to William to come closer, and whispered, “she died a year ago, William. She’s long gone.” William felt like his stomach was going to drop all the way to his feet. He blinked stupidly at Joe, painfully aware that his mouth was gaping open and closed like a fish. He opened the register once more, and picked up the key; it burned like fire in his hands. Joe smiled at him gently, reassuringly. "Are you sure you're okay, William? You look like you've seen a ghost". Before William could formulate a response, he felt long, bony fingers grabbing onto his shoulder. Out of the corner of his eye, William saw familiar ornate rings, and a familiar smell prickled his nostrils. Then that bark of a laugh; loud , unmistakable . "Well, William, that was dramatic".