Meredith couldn’t help but think the Carnival of Mirrors lacked something essential: the mirrors. She stood by the edge of the crowd, her small hand tightly gripping her mother’s. ‘If you get lost in here, mija, there’ll be no chance of you finding your way back to me,’

her mother had told her before coming. There were no gentle, sugarcoated warnings with Meredith’s mother. She didn’t reassure her by saying she’d look for her if they were separated, or give Meredith false promises of them reuniting again should something happen. No, it was always Meredith’s responsibility to hold on to her mother’s hand. She was the one that couldn’t get lost because she was the one who was too young to know what to do on her own. Meredith held her breath and tightened her grip on her mother’s hand as they entered the crowd. At first, the sheer size and amount of adults bumping into one another as they passed was nerve-racking. The oppressive heat of the sun and the proximity of the crowd made her feel like she was suffocating. But as she grew used to it, her fear of separation began to dissipate, and she started looking around her surroundings in amazement. The bright colours and movement of the people and attractions at the carnival were almost dizzying. Meredith dragged her mother from tent to tent, wanting to see it all. After they had stopped to buy cotton candy and popcorn at a stand and seen just about everything hidden within every decorated tent—from seers who communed with the dead and glimpsed the future, to graceful acrobats dancing through the air, to lions, zebras, elephants, and other exotic animals—Meredith came to a sudden halt among the crowd. Her mother looked down at her in concern. " Qué pasa, mija ?" she asked. "Didn't you say this was called the Carnival of Mirrors, mami ?" Meredith inquired, puzzled. "Yes, I did." "But we've not seen a single one!" Meredith protested. Meredith's mother smiled down at her. It was the kind of smile she used to give her whenever she thought Meredith was asking the right questions. "Ah, you're right," her mother said. "But that's because we've yet to go into the most important tent in this whole carnival." Meredith let herself be guided by her mother's hand into an enormous tent at the far end of the carnival. The outside of it was made of deep purple velvet material; the flaps concealing Meredith's view of what lay inside. As they neared the tent, she thought she saw a flash of silver. Once they were inside, however, Meredith realized she had seen a reflection, for the interior of the tent was covered almost entirely in mirrors. It seemed as if all four walls were made out of glass, and there were even a few mirrors positioned in the tent's roof, giving Meredith the impression of standing at the center of a giant mirrorball. She turned in a circle, overwhelmed by the bewildering sight of the smooth glass surfaces, clear as cool water, and the reflections splashing through them. The littlest movement caused a rippling effect as it was caught by every mirror around her, seeming to multiply it tenfold. Meredith grinned at the fifteen versions of herself in the mirrors. As surreal as the tent was, however, there were surprisingly not many people inside. Meredith and her mother made up two of a grand total of five people in the mirror tent. "If it's called the Carnival of Mirrors, and this is its main attraction, how come there aren't more people here?" Meredith asked. She could see fifteen pairs of her mother's brown eyes looking down at her as she answered, "You ever wondered why they're called mirrors, Mer?" Meredith shook her head. "The Spanish word, espejo ," her mother went on, "comes from the Latin word specere, which means ' mirar '—to look. Mirar sounds quite a lot like 'mirror,' doesn't it?" Meredith nodded. "Well, there you have it," her mother said with finality. "There I have what?" Meredith asked indignantly. Her mother hadn't even come close to answering her question. Meredith told her as much. "Most people don't look . They see, but they don't look. You can tell them something is called the Carnival of Mirrors, and then distract them with acts and games and food, and they'll never question it. Never question why it has that name and yet there's not a single mirror in sight. Only those who look for them, who make it to the very end of the carnival, find the mirrors." Her mother smiled at her in approval. Meredith smiled back. * Meredith came out of the tent feeling very pleased with herself for having looked for the mirrors. She was so pleased in fact, that she didn't notice the crowd thicken as she and her mother made their way back to the chaos of the main road. The heat of the day had made Meredith's hand sweaty and slippery in her mother's grip. All it took was for Meredith to stop paying attention to where she was stepping for half a second, and she tripped, ever so slightly. She didn't fall to the ground, but it was enough for her to finally lose her hold on her mother's hand. The crowd came in like a tide between them, drawing them apart faster and more forcefully than Meredith would have thought possible. In an instant, she was drowning in a sea of people. She shouted for her mother, and she could see her mother's lips in the distance, forming her name. But Meredith could not hear her, and her mother didn't seem to be able to hear her either. A single phrase starting repeating itself over and over in Meredith's mind. It took her a moment to listen to it and identify what it was. " ...y me oyes desde lejos, y mi voz no te toca. " 'You hear me from afar but my voice doesn't touch you.' It was the line of a poem by Pablo Neruda that her mother liked to quote at her whenever she knew Meredith wasn't paying attention. But in reality, it was a love poem. Her mother had read the entire poem to her once, and though she had explained, Meredith hadn't really understood it. She understood that line, though. It was about two people being physically near enough that they could hear each other, but too distanced at the same time to really listen or be reached. The last Meredith saw of her mother was her dark brown hair disappearing into the crowd. Alone and frightened, she looked around trying to find an opening from the multitude of people. Meredith's breathing was hitched and her cheeks were wet with tears. Some adults glanced at her curiously but none stopped to help. She didn't know what she would have said if they had. Her mother didn't have a phone and Meredith didn't have any other relatives. All she had was her mother. Eventually, she gave up and stopped wandering around. Staying in one place seemed safer; all she had to do was wait for her mom to find her. Meredith sat on a bench outside a seer's tent and thought of what her mother would say when she came. " Qué te dije, mija? Te dije que no me sueltes la mano, porque te ibas a perder. Sabes lo peligroso que es que una niña de tu edad este sola en un sitio con tanta gente? Te pudieron haber raptado.. ." She'd be furious, so she would switch entirely into Spanish. Meredith would feel terrible but would take the scolding eagerly if all it meant was that her mother was there to shout at her. Her heart beating furiously with the terrifying helplessness of being lost and alone in the world, Meredith waited. *** Years passed and she's back at the Carnival of Mirrors. It's not quite as grand as she remembered it. She recalled there being colour and life and finesse that was lacking now. The crowd is pitiful in its size; she wonders how the separation even happened that day. How small must she have been to have been so helpless against a tide as weak as the one she was in front of now? Maybe there had been more people back then. Maybe, like all things lose their charm, the carnival had too. She never did find her mother. After that day, wandering around from foster home to foster home, she had never felt like she belonged anywhere again. She had been fluent in Spanish at some point. Now it tasted like foreign food in her mouth. The only word she did remember, after all these years, was ' mirar .' That's what brought her back to the carnival. On that very last day, her mother had told her that to find something, you had to look for it. Some people don't even know they're supposed to be looking. But after that day, she decided to never stop searching and questioning. She looks for everything since. Now, she looks for answers. The tent, to her surprise, is still velvet, still purple, and still tall. She braces herself for the inevitable disappointment that will come as a result of childhood illusion and the unreliability of memory. But as she goes inside the tent, she's surprised at the fact that she finds it every bit as fascinating as she did the first time. Unlike everything else outside, the mirrors haven't suffered from time and decay. They're as smooth and pristine as they were back then. The thing that's changed is her. She doesn't feel joy at seeing her multiplied reflection now, but doubt. The little girl she was when she was last here wouldn't recognize the person she had become. She didn't think that was a good thing. "It's called the Carnival of Mirrors because most people come to find themselves in their reflections," a voice says from behind her; as if reading her thoughts. She doesn't have to turn around to see the speaker; she can see her in the mirror. The woman is nearing her fifties, the same age her mother would be by now. She has greying brown hair and kind brown eyes. "That's not what I've heard," Meredith replies. "It's called the Carnival of Mirrors because it forces you to look for things and not just see them." She turns around to look at the woman. The woman smiles warmly at her. It's the kind of smile she used to give her whenever she thought Meredith was giving the right answer.


TW: eating disorders Peony looked more beautiful than ever, stepping out of the house in her bright green bell bottoms and a tight white blouse revealing her warm, sun-kissed chest. Emmett was always excited to visit her during the summer, but what Emmett didn’t love was the amount of bags Peony wheeled behind her, as though she wasn’t pulling a thousand pounds of luggage down her driveway. Well, it was her driveway, and the gaudy ‘For Sale: SOLD!’ sign didn’t seem to help make this fact any less apparent.

“Your girlfriend is about to transform into a Cali chick, how about that?” Peony laughed, kissing Emmett on the cheek and hurling her entire life into his van. Emmett smiled as she jumped in, noticing how she didn’t even take a second look back at her old house.  It belonged to no one anymore, a tiny cottage with white trim and pink shutters where Peony had lived since she was ten. It was empty; no more ripped corduroy couch sitting in the middle of the living room. Her height marks had been scrubbed off the wall and the scratched up interior was restored to a dull eggshell color. It even smelled empty, the odor of a willowy plant no longer sneaking its way through the kitchen, no more old opened books from the large shelves revealing a comforting, grainy aroma. Even Peony’s bright blue bed was gone, the one Emmett and Peony had both lost their virginity on. Emmett had moved to California with his mom a year ago, yet the image of Peony sitting cross-legged on her desk chair and singing drunk into her curling iron was one scene he didn’t expect to never see again. “You okay?” Emmett asked, meeting Peony’s eyes that were hidden under her favorite pair of square-shaped sunglasses.

“If moving in with your boyfriend to the sunniest state in America means not being okay, then I don’t know what is, love.”

“Where do you think all the furniture went? You know, after it got sold.”

Emmett hit a speed bump then, yet Peony’s body never moved in her seatbelt. “Don’t know, don’t care. All I know is that I solemnly thank those people, as they are the sole reason that I am not in debt.”

“Peony--” “We have two thousand miles to think about it, Em.” And they did. Two days of driving, in fact, that wasn’t starting off strong. The two day drive beforehand to Peony’s was nerve-wracking, as Emmett spent most of his time eating Taco Bell and trying not to rehearse what he was going to say to Peony for the one millionth time:

Baby, I’m so sorry.

I know, we’ll get through this together, I promise.

It’s okay your dad’s dead, he was a dick anyway. Passing their favorite pizzeria in town, Emmett moved his mouth to say the words, “Damn, I’m really gonna miss that place” but no noise came out. Emmett caught himself before he began, reminiscing to himself, remembering Peony’s stinky breath after they would share a garlic knot;

she would always purposely kiss him straight on the mouth just for him to taste it.

“So, how much do your friends know about me? What am I getting myself into at this cool new high school?” Peony cut through the music as they made their way out of the state, gripping Emmett’s thigh tightly. He thought about how to answer this.

In Emmett’s mind, Peony would always be beautiful, her skin dipped in honey, traceable curves that outlined her body and deep dimples in her cheeks, with perfect breasts that rose like soft, evenly baked bread. Her fingers always had hardened calluses on them from playing her guitar, her lips always in a sweet, convincing smile that may or may not have almost stopped the palpitations of Emmett’s heart a couple of times in the public gaze of the hallways and in the privacy of the bed. Yet the Peony he was able to see through a stranger’s eyes was someone he no longer recognized: dark bags drooped under her glassy eyes, her face puffy and her body grotesquely skinny under her thin clothes, the summer sun forcing her not to hide herself in a hoodie. Her voice came out scratchy, a low croak emitting from her throat like it usually did most mornings over coffee, yet now she couldn’t seem to shake the sound.

“They’re stoked to meet you.” His friends hardly knew about her.

            “If I found out that you have a secret San Diego girl awaiting your arrival, Emmett, I will be mortified.” “No secret San Diego girl besides you, baby.”

Peony smiled at that, staring out the window.

He remembered the first time she had jumped into his car when they had been freshmen, the beautifully weird girl choosing to take a ride home from him on the last day of school, the one who never shut up about the sunshine and made her own earrings out of bent metal from the school’s workshop and never bothered to put on a bra.

“Woah, this thing is awesome,” Peony laughed, and had flicked her fingers on Emmett’s Hula girl bobblehead and had traced the etchings on the patterned seat covers. “Eh, it’s nothing really,” he remembered saying, wanting to take those words back and eat them whole after looking at Peony in the passenger’s seat.

“This is the coolest car I’ve ever been in,” she breathed, not breaking eye contact with Emmett as he almost swerved into a mailbox. He wasn’t sure why he said yes to taking Peony home when she randomly approached him in the parking lot. He could only assume it was because he could see her nipples through her tank top; but, he’d be lying if he said he hadn’t noticed the pink chipped paint that covered her arms or the sweet smell of the pottery room still lingering in her scent.

“Hey, really, you don’t gotta hype me up or anything. I’m sure you do cool shit all the time,” Emmett shot back. “My dad works a lot, and I don’t have a car, so not really.” “Oh. Why’d you ask for a ride?” “Because I thought you were pretty.” Emmett remembered the way he almost stopped breathing then, his hands numb on the steering wheel and oblivious to the stop sign in front of him. “Oh,” he said back.

“What are you thinking about?” Peony asked while the sun started to go down, her legs crossed on the seat, how she sat in every chair. Her thigh scared Emmett to grip while he drove, too afraid he’d hold onto her too tightly until he felt bone.

“How about you?” “Just wondering what the smoothie joints are like up there. Is that a weird thing to think about? Of all the things that’s going on, to wonder where I can still get my favorite kiwi juice?” “No,” Emmett tried to laugh, which seemed to turn into a choke. “There’s lots of places, I promise.” This was followed by an empty silence.

“This is the most awkward reunion we’ve had in a long time,” Peony said back. “You’re not talking to me.” Emmett regretted saying the words, felt his speedometer pushing fifty, sixty, seventy, waiting for an annoyed response or a worn out huff from her, yet nothing came. He felt as though he was driving back to California alone again. “I know.”

“Pe-” “Do you remember the day before you moved away?” Peony snapped.

“Yeah.” Emmett truly did remember that day. They set up a little picnic by the lake, eating Peony’s most favorite weird vegan food and making out on top of the blanket, sucking face so hard as though it may or may not have been the last day they ever got to see each other ever again.

“I was gonna break up with you.” “Oh,” Emmett said. He was now doing eighty, his foot pressing so hard onto the gas pedal that the sole of his foot throbbed in pain.

“Well, if you didn’t already know, I didn’t go through with it.” Emmett’s mind was racing again. He was not prepared for this conversation in any way shape or form; the idea of a breakup on the way to California, this type of talk on the way to Peony moving into his house with his mother. It was supposed to be far from the agenda. “Peony, did I-” “Pull over,” she commanded, the pastures around them turning pitch black, the country road foreboding, but not enough not to do what Peony instructed.

When the van was pulled over, he barely had time to process that Peony’s seatbelt was unsnapped from her waist, her large lips hitting his face, her protruding cheek bones seeming to clank up against his own. His large hands were around her body once again, his palms curved into the exact shape he was accustomed to feeling when holding her in his arms, yet all he felt was how hard her ribcage seemed to have become, how banged up her body looked in the moonlight. Every time Emmett kissed her neck Peony winced, every time he hugged her back she squirmed, every light touch became an accidental hard tap that Emmett deemed unfair to continue to inflict on her.

“So, are you going to kiss me, or what?” Peony asked, wearing a bright blue bikini she had knitted herself to the beach, her skin even hotter than the bonfire that burned right next to them.

All summer the two of them had struggled to get past first base, but that night Peony had downed a hard seltzer and the two of them were surrounded by even hornier highschoolers such as themselves. “Is there spinach in my teeth or something? Spinach is my favorite snack, you know.” “Oh, please,” Emmett rolled his eyes while Peony planted a kiss right on the side of his mouth, which made Emmett practically do a flip off the log they were sitting on, knee to knee. Her lips were just as perfect to kiss as he imagined they would be after staring at those pillowy wonders for over a month. Emmett felt as though Peony fit into the dips of his own body nicely, his mouth perfectly made for her own, and from then on, the rest of the school year seemed to agree: Peony and Emmett were undeniably unshakeable.

Emmett gathered what was left of Peony’s face back into his palms and planted a kiss on the side of her mouth once again. “You’re allowed to not be okay.”

“I just never thought he’d die, not now, not ever.” Peony half-laughed, meeting Emmett’s eyes again, watching her face unharden as he adjusted to the darkness. “He loved you.”

“He could’ve stuck around a little longer.” “I could have, too.” “Well, you’re still here, trying to nurse your grieving, anorexic girlfriend back to health.” “That's fine with me. Besides, I want to be the one to dump you down the road, anway.”

She snorted at that, the chirping crickets no match for her eruption of laughs, as Emmett reached for her body, yearning to hold her so close that both of their beings meshed into one of their own. She was fleeting far away from him and Emmett refused to let go.

“McDonald’s Egg McMuffins are literally a heaven sent gift from God,” Peony laughed that next morning after they both fell asleep into a sweaty heap into the back of the van. She ordered three muffins and a chocolate milk, Emmett refusing to watch the primal way she seemd to be shoveling down her breakfast.

“I can’t believe you’re eating animal products,” he teased as they travelled down a mountain, the hot summer air seeming to be no match for his broken AC.

“I can’t believe you let me stop and eat there.” Peony snorted again, her mouth full of bread and buttery goodness. “I can’t believe you’re coming back to California with me,” Emmett said back.

“I can’t believe I get to see your mom.” “I can’t believe I get to see your boobs.” “Emmett, what the hell! I can’t believe you’re such a perv--” “I can’t believe you didn’t take that as a compliment.” “I can’t believe I let you drive me all this way already….”


TW: abuse, stalking The farmhouse on the hill was a lonely place. It had once been a bustling farm. Many years hence. Now however, the dark stone building stood like a headstone in the hills. Alone. There were still chickens. A handful of sheep. One old belligerent mare. And a barn cat of midnight black. And, if you believed the rumours, a solitary witch. A thriving herb garden. A brackish pond with geese in the summer. The house itself was as old as the hills. Still standing by some act of nature. The stones used to build its spine fossilised relics of a time before time.

When the roof had begun to leak three years prior, the nearby village of Merthyrbryn had pitched in to help fix it. The road leading to the front door, though twisting and narrow, was well-kept and well-travelled. There was even electricity now. And solar panels on the roof. As Laura Edgecroft edged her uncle’s old jeep up the winding road to the farmhouse, she was forced to sit basically folded in half to see the road in front of her. She didn’t want to drive through animal muck. With Uncle Harold’s bum hip, she’d be the one cleaning it up. Finally, she eased it to a stop in front of the old front door. The crunch of gravel beneath her trainers as she hopped out. She could hear the distant ruckus of chickens, the noisy yodelling of sheep and the sharp consonant blare of geese. It smelled exactly how she’d expected it to. Like earth, grass and manure.

Walking to the boot of the jeep, she pulled out the old crate filled with groceries. She’d agreed to do this favour for her uncle. Apparently the greengrocer didn’t do deliveries that far up in the hills — and now that she’d braved those winding tightropes Laura knew why — and Uncle Harold had been fetching them up for the woman who lived here. Angharad Llewelyn. A name that her uncle had very kindly repeated a few times on first utterance. Welsh was not a language she knew or a pronunciation style she was familiar with.

Armed with her crate, she cast around, a little uncertain, and slowly began to draw closer to the farmhouse. That’s what they called it in town too. The Farmhouse. Like it was the only one, regardless of the fact that their little village was nestled in a quilt of quaint farms all with their own farmhouses.

A shadow moved across an upstairs window. A crow flew away from the roof with a caw. The front door opened and Laura took a hasty step backwards. A young woman in her mid-twenties stood there. Wild red hair tumbled in dizzy spirals around her shoulders. Skin pale as milk. Freckles kissing every hint of exposed skin on her neck and shoulders. She wore an ACDC t-shirt and a long floaty skirt that she had tucked hastily into a pair of bright yellow wellies. A human daffodil.

‘You’re not Harold,’ she said, her accent thick with the lyrical flow of the valleys. She folded her arms. Her eyes — a light blue that was almost too faint to even be called blue — ran over Laura appraisingly.

Laura had the sudden urge to cover her eye and check her sleeves were pulled down. Those eyes were a physical presence on her skin.

‘Um, yeah I’m his niece,’ Laura said, holding out the heavy crate, ‘just helping him out while he rests up after his surgery.’ ’That’s an odd name,’ the woman commented, tongue in cheek. She took the crate easily, hefting it under one arm like it didn’t weigh a tonne. ‘Mine’s Angharad.’ Laura bit her tongue to avoid answering in kind, but the smile in those eyes suggested that Angharad already knew what she was struggling not to say. ‘I’m Laura.’ ‘Come on in, Laura,’ Angharad said, shoving the door open with her hip and disappearing into the farmhouse. By the time Laura had even processed wanting to refuse, Angharad had disappeared into the farmhouse. People didn’t invite you into their houses in London, not if they didn’t know you. And now she was left with two options. Go inside this stranger’s house, or leave and be the rudest version of herself. Laura stepped inside. The roofs were low and made of vast wooden beams. As she followed her ears and nose down the corridor to the kitchen, an itch began between her shoulder blades. She looked over her shoulder. Just the innocuous front door. A coat stand, a side-table for keys. She rubbed the back of her neck and shook off the feeling, stepping into the kitchen. Jars upon jars lined every conceivable surface of the claustrophobic kitchen. Full of different jams. Blackcurrant. Strawberry. Rosehip. Raspberry. A smothering of fruit. The room was warm, steamy and cosy. The decor outdated but preserved with loving reverence.

Dried herbs were trussed up in one corner. Glass jars full of assorted herbs, spices and other earthly ingredients lined the shelves of her bustling pantry. A black cat yowled at her from its basket next to the Aga stove. A chicken ran through the room and out into the mudroom, making a break for the back garden.

Angharad had already cleared out the crate and was refilling it with jams. A loaf of bread. Cloudy cider. As if sensing the question, Angharad began to explain. ‘I like to give Harold a little something to say thank you for the trip.’ ‘That’s kind of you.’ Angharad shook her head. ‘Not really. You pay for a service however you’re able.’ Laura, who had unconsciously decided to be nosy, turned around a glass jar so she could more clearly read the handwritten label. ‘Does this say nightshade?’ Angharad smiled. ‘Probably.’ Laura stopped touching the jar and rubbed her hands on the backs of her jeans. ‘ Why do you have a poisonous flower?’ ‘Same reason I have knives,’ she answered cheerfully, ‘you never know when they might come in handy. Speaking of which, wait here for a sec.’ Laura watched her sprint away, heard her feet rush around upstairs. She looked around at the chaos. Made eye contact with the cat. The cat that refused to blink or look away. As she was beginning to question her sanity, Angharad reappeared. ‘Here,’ she held out an orange square. Laura took it, realising it was a little plastic square of orange face paint. ‘What’s this for?’ ‘Colour correction, it will reduce the appearance of the purple,’ Angharad answered lightly, ‘before you put on your foundation. It’ll help.’ And she tapped the corner of her left eye with a knowing look. A faint sheen of sweat covered Laura’s body as her heart tried to escape her chest. She fought valiantly to avoid breathing like she’d just run a marathon. ‘I-I don’t—‘ ‘Just take it,’ Angharad interrupted, waving her away. There was no pity there, Laura realised, just understanding.

She shoved it into her pocket. ’Thanks.’ ‘I put some cider in for you too,’ Angharad said, holding out the crate, ‘pear cider. You’ll like it.’ Laura took the crate and was grateful that Angharad continued to support the crate until she had stopped shaking. ‘Thanks.’ ‘Come back any time you need something,’ Angharad said, her eyes blue mirrors, ‘but beware the nighttime.’ Laura snorted out a laugh. ‘Did you just tell me to beware the nighttime?’ Angharad made claws with her fingers and cackled. ‘Got to keep up appearances.’ ‘You know about the rumours?’ Angharad smiled revealing a pronounced gap between her front two teeth. ‘Who said they were rumours?’

*** One week later, as Laura pulled up to the farmhouse again, she came bearing cleaned glass jars, a crate full of food, and her first short-sleeved shirt of the summer. Her arms were clear of the echoes of the past, though she was still using the face paint.

As she climbed out of the jeep, she almost fell over. The black cat had run directly underfoot, like a snare trap. Now she sat on the roof of the jeep, staring down at her condescendingly. Laura blinked at the cat and the cat blinked back. ‘Right.’ She went around to the boot and pulled the crate out, hefting it up against her chest before heading towards the farmhouse, all under the watchful, managerial gaze of the black cat. As she got to the door, she half expected it to open again and for Angharad to spill out. Unfortunately, only one of those things happened. The door slowly opened. A shiver shot down her spine like a cold predatory finger. But the house beckoned onwards, and the cat that had wrapped its way lovingly around her ankles was pulling her in. Shaking her head, she walked inside. Following the sounds and smells into the kitchen again. Less glass jars this time. Jam making had ceased. But there was an older woman sat at the kitchen table with a doll in her hands. The doll seemed to be made of a twisted piece of coarse fabric. As she sniffled, Angharad pressed a handkerchief into her hands.

‘Hello Laura,’ she said cheerfully, patting the lady’s shoulder. ‘Have you met Agatha Jones?’ The lady from the post office. ‘Um, yeah. Is everything okay? Maybe I should just go—’ Agatha stood in a flurry. ’No, no. Just, I just need to freshen myself up. Thank you, Angharad.’ Clutching the doll, she made a shuffle for the bathroom and locked the door. Laura turned her back on the sounds of crying. ’She’ll be alright,’ Angharad said, taking the crate and beginning to unpack the groceries. ’She just needed a little push.’ ‘A push?’ Angharad nodded. She was wearing shorts that had clearly once been jeans, the hems were completely uneven. ’She needs to reconnect with her daughter, so I gave her a little push.’ Laura felt her phone buzz against her hip. Dread curdled her belly. ‘Are you really a witch?’ Angharad gave her a sharp look. The contact electrifying her blood and buzzing in her belly, chasing away the dread.

‘Do you need me to be?’ Laura was saved from having to answer by the timely reentry of Mrs Jones. She folded Angharad into a big hug, blew her nose noisily, and headed off before Laura could offer her a lift, leaving the two women alone in Angharad’s kitchen.

The phone buzzed against her hip again. This time she pulled it out, checking the screen in case it was uncle Harold. The number she’d committed to memory illuminated her screen. Her eyes glanced over the first few inflammatory words of the text before she shoved it back into her pocket. The room swam around her for a moment, and she became aware of hands on her elbows. The scent of persimmons flooded her senses as Angharad walked her backwards to the bench. Her knees hit it and buckled, but Angharad kept hold of her elbows and lowered her gently. She felt hands, calloused and gentle, against her cheeks, and she looked up to see Angharad staring down at her. She was blurry. Retroactively, she realised her eyes were full of tears.

‘You’re safe here,’ Angharad said. Her certainty was like a boulder. Unmoving. Unconquerable. Steadfast. Completely certain.

Laura nodded, entranced faintly by this person brimming with confidence. So unshakable. She’d never met anyone like her. Was this why people called her a witch? This magical ephemeral assuredness that pulsed through her veins. That filled the kitchen. That smelled like persimmon.

Angharad dropped her hands from Laura’s face, gripping her shoulders instead. ‘Do you want to talk about it?’ About the broken silence of the night? The shattered safety of her bed? The crushed dignity of her mind? The wearing down of her body and her selfhood? Or about the night she left. About how she had fled London. Left behind her life and her friends — his friends — her home — his home. His life. The one he’d trapped her inside. Could she tell this gentle stranger any of that? She opened her mouth. To try. To shout. To deny. And cried. One a solitary tear broke the dam, the others came pouring out through that crack in her edifice. Until she was fighting to breathe as her chest heaved and her hands shook and her throat closed. Angharad sat beside her on the bench, pulling her down into a protective cocoon of her arms. Made soothing noises in her throat and stroked her hair. Rocking her gently. She waited.

Eventually, the dam was empty, and she subsided into gentle embarrassed hiccups. She pulled away from Angharad, feeling the blood rush to her cheeks. ‘I’m so sorry.’ ‘Don’t be sorry,’ Angharad answered lightly, eyes pouring over Laura’s face as if she could read her thoughts that way. ‘Be greedy, come on, this time I want you to choose what cider you want to try.’ Grateful for the change of topic, and the knowing air around Angharad, Laura chose her cider without question. She shuffled out of the farmhouse, feeling like a freshly birthed fawn; wet and sticky and vulnerable. ‘If you ever need me, you know where I am.’ And with that offer hanging around her neck like a talisman, Laura got back into the jeep feeling warmer.

*** ‘I’m outside bitch. Come out or I’m coming in.’ The text lit up her screen like a flare. She stopped in the hallway between the kitchen and the living room. Staring at it like a deer in headlights. It was seven. Uncle Harold wasn’t due back for another hour. She had never been so alone. The house that had been her bolthole became a snare. The phone chirped again and she slapped a hand over her mouth. A picture of the front of Uncle Harold’s house.

Mind racing, she considered the police. But, this rural, it would be a good twenty minutes before anyone arrived. The nearest neighbours were all also at bingo. The only place left… She looked at the backdoor. The farmhouse was just beyond the hill if you ran through the field. Much closer than anything else. But she’d be bringing danger to Angharad. The sound of fists hitting the front door was like a starter’s pistol. She bolted before she had thought about it and was out of the door and halfway across the field beyond by the time she heard the front door cave in. Darkness enveloped her like a co-conspirator, and she ran headlong into it and into the silence as she heard him screaming behind her. Heard his big galumphing footsteps as he chased her down. Fear made her faster, and soon she crested the hill, sprinting up the winding road to the farmhouse as blood pounded through her veins. Urging her further, further.

She yanked the front door open and fell inside the quiet house. It was dark, the shadows consuming the front room, curling around the bannister, snaking into the empty kitchen. Empty. She scrambled to her feet. ‘Angharad!’ The panic in her voice cracked through the silence. Footsteps on the landing above her drew her gaze upwards as relief fell around her like a cloak.

The door buckled inwards like a cardboard fort in a thunderstorm. Jeremy filled the doorway, eyes wild and brandishing Angharad’s pitchfork. Turned to face him, Laura held out one forestalling hand and took a panicked step backwards. Her ankles hit the wooden stairs and she tumbled back onto her bottom, the stairs striking her lower back. She covered her head with her hands.

Waiting for the blow. Laura dared open her eyes into slits, looked up at Jeremy. He stood over her, the pitchfork clutched overhead in white-knuckled hands, but he wasn’t looking at her. He stared open-mouthed, wide-eyed at the top of the stairs. Laura looked up. Shadows had crept up the stairs, coalesced at the very top. They curled around Angharad’s ankles, up her calves, drifted around her wrists and shoulders like a mantle. She was looking down at Jeremy with her lip curled. Cold and ruthless.

She floated down the stairs, not moving her limbs as the shadows drew her inexorably downwards. She came to a stop just beyond Laura’s prone body, her feet gently touching the threadbare rug. Jeremy took several horrified steps backwards. ‘W-what are you?’ Angharad smiled. ‘I’m the witch at the top of the hill. People come to me for help,’ she gestured to Laura with one pale hand, ‘or for punishment.’

She pointed at Jeremy. The shadows, which had moved like docile smoke, hardened under her command, bursting forwards from the closed-off places of the farmhouse. Like crazed dogs. They savaged Jeremy, forcing him down onto his back and holding him there as he screamed like a frightened schoolboy. Angharad came over him, crouching on his chest. She wrapped one claw-like hand into his hair and pulled so he was forced to look up into her face. Laura couldn’t see what Jeremy saw, but she did smell the tell-tale scent of ammonia. Angharad laughed, low and cruel. ‘Do you know what these shadows are?’ A terrified gurgle that might have been an answer escaped his chest. ‘They’re all that’s left of the bad men who came to my farmhouse,’ she said, ‘if you don’t want that to happen to you too, I suggest your run, Jeremy.’ She stood and moved away from him, a smile back on her face that contained too many teeth. Jeremy managed to scramble up and out of the farmhouse, down the path, screaming as he fled into the night with nightmares at his heels.

Light returned to the farmhouse as the shadows retreated, satiated. Angharad closed the door and came to kneel down at Laura’s side. Laura scanned her face, eyes wide and panicked. There was no hint of monstrosity any more, just that same kind smile. And the smell of persimmon. ‘Would you like some tea?’


“I’ve had it. It’s time someone did something about this. And it looks like it’s up to me.” I had seen it happen once too often. There had to be a line drawn. “Yeah, so what are you going to do? Come on; you keep saying you’ll do something about it and never do. You just let it go every time.”

My disheveled husband of forty-three years doesn’t even look at me as he says it. I roll my eyes, but not where he can see me. He would just laugh. And I’m unsure what I might do if he did that. What happened to that adorable long-haired hippie I fell in love with?  I suppose it could have had something to do with what we were smoking then. I could use a doobie right now. Nope, got to keep my eye on the prize. Not a prize, a duty. Someone has to do it. Make a statement. Some of that good ole stubborn determination. My grandson thinks we’re all talk and don’t know what’s going on. We can see what’s going on.

I have to wait until dark. Nothing in the light of day would do. I certainly didn’t want to go to jail for the evil that others do. It’s simply unforgivable that some people have no respect for others and would be so callous in their actions. I intend to do something about it. It’s time. Let’s draw the line. It’s becoming cloudy outside. That’s good; it will be dark sooner, dark enough, anyway. My once long-haired hippie, now bald, pot-bellied, muscles gone to shit husband, is asleep in his well-worn Lazy-boy. I can be out and done and back before he knows I’m gone. I’m not sure he would care. Over the past few decades, he has lost his attraction for making things right. Not me. Not this time. It’s time for a reckoning.

It took forever for the street lights to come on; it’s dark enough now. Easing the truck down the driveway with lights off proved effortless. Only turning them on when I reached the main highway was simple. Okay, now I must think this through and not make any mistakes. I have my map with me. I suppose it is good that I’m a few more weeks from retirement. The job at the DMV has helped to make this plan much easier to accomplish. My list is on the seat beside me. A quick stop at the corner market, load up, and then I’m ready. Only four stops. There could be more later; I’ll take care of them when the time comes. Good old hubby never could understand the notes I made.

The market isn’t crowded; the same street lights have been out for the past few months. It’s almost like the universe is telling me, ‘do it, do it, do it.’ Who am I to argue with the universe? The truck is full; I have all I need. Patting my front pocket, I assure myself, yes, I’m ready. And dammit, I’m gonna make a difference tonight! I feel almost happy. It’s so good to be doing something, even if it is against the law. I’ll be doing someone a load of good. Maybe a lot of someones. Who’s to know? It’s one of those things that you can never really tell what benefits there are; you just know that the detriments will apply to the bad, bad people. I understand, yes, I do, that there are levels of badness. A little bad, then a little bit badder, and then the baddest. These fall into the baddest, mainly because it’s the same bad people every time. They’re going to learn this time.

Turning the radio on in the truck – thank god for Alexa – Bob Seger and his Silver Bullet Band are rocking out “Old Time Rock and Roll.” I relax as I make my way to my first stop. Lights are on inside, but it is noisy. There will be no tell-tell signs that I am here. The laughter and television will cover any sound. I almost hope there is an alarm, but no, there is not.

Fifteen minutes later, I’m done. Oh yeah, I do want a picture. Taking out my phone, I make a few clicks.  The next stop is tricky; there is no noise to cover my progress. I’ll come back to this one later, perhaps make it my last stop. The next two stops are as simple as the first. Typical jerks. Proclaiming ignorance of their evil deeds, going on about dinner and homework and television.

The last one. Still quiet. Lights are on; my approach will be tricky. There is a garage, unlike the other three. Perhaps easier, maybe not. It needs to be done. My little town will not go the way of the bigger ones. I’ve heard about them. Tens of hundreds of them. The mayhem. Not here, no, not here.

Just a few pics, and I’m done. I hear a car pulling into the driveway. Not good; if they open the garage door…I slide under the car just as the door begins to rise. Someone running, yelling for those inside the house. I slide out and run down the driveway, away from the yelling and outside lights. The truck is out of sight, around the next corner.

I don’t breathe again until I’m driving home. Pulling off my stocking cap, I laugh. Oh, it felt good. And it will feel even better when I post those pictures for all the world to see. Once again, on the side of luck, I have a grandson who doesn’t know I was paying close attention when he demonstrated incognito postings. I might be old; I’m not dumb.

Bald hippie husband stands at the open refrigerator door as I walk in, gulping milk from the carton. Great. No cereal for me tomorrow.

“Where you been?” I took a chance. “Just brought the trash bin in from the road.” “Hmm. I’m headed up to bed; you coming?” He didn’t offer that he had been looking for me. He likely didn’t even know I had been gone.

“I’ll be up in a few,” I replied. I had my laptop open on the table before I heard the water running from upstairs. He wouldn’t be back down. It only took me a few minutes to load the pictures and release them to the world. My next trip down the road would not encounter the same problems as before. I had eradicated those, as evidenced in the photos. Four cars, all four expensive cars. Dinged and dented, windshield broken, and the culprit which I had stolen – yes, stolen! – from the market, super-glued – with the super-duper kind (I checked it out) onto the hood of each car. A cart, well-used, rusting in various spots, wheels resting on the broken wipers and fancy hood ornaments, not removed easily, if at all. And a large sign on each one: PUT THE DAMN CART IN THE CART CORRAL, YOU DISRESPECTFUL IDIOT!


Dave Maddison pulled his coat collar up to warm his neck as he walked down rain-sodden Oxford Street in London’s West End. It was Halloween and under his raincoat, he was dressed as Superman on his way to a Singles fancy dress party. His satin cape fluttered in the early evening breeze, draped outside his coat to prevent it from creasing and looking cheap, as he ignored the snickering of passers-by - unaware of the effect the rain had on his exposed cape. What had started as a light flapping of the blue cape, had transformed into the drag of a heavy towel-like material pulling tightly at his neck. As he passed by the large windows of Selfridges department store, he caught a glimpse of his reflection in the glass showing how stretched the cape had become, so he decided to detach it from his neck and carry it instead. Taking temporary shelter under the main entrance to the store, he took off his coat to unzip the cape, wringed it out, then started to put his coat back on when a voice interrupted him. “Trick or treat, mister?” Dave looked toward the direction of the voice and was surprised to see a young boy dressed in a similar Superman costume holding up a plastic bucket in the shape of a pumpkin. Unaccustomed to being approached by a child in the street, Dave looked around for the boy’s parents but didn’t see anyone showing the remotest of interest in the child. “Where’s your parents?” Dave enquired in a friendly manner, but the boy answered the question with another question. “What’s the costume you’re wearing?” “What!? Oh, it’s Superman.” “Just like mine,” the boy gleefully stated. “Yes… the mini version,” Dave jokingly pointed out. “What’s wrong with your cape?” “It got all wet in the rain.” “What rain?” The boy curiously asked. Dave looked out toward the entrance to the store. The street was dry and dull. Nothing like the reflective wet surface he was walking on just moments ago. Shaking off his confusion, Dave shrugged his shoulders. “It must have stopped.” “Hasn’t rained here in years,” the boy vehemently clarified. “This is London, England, young man. It’s always raining.” “You’re funny, mister. We’re in London, Texas, and it’s as dry as a bone, my dad always says.” “Hey, I’m from London, Texas,” Dave exclaimed before an uneasy tremor shook his legs. “…Where is your dad and… or your mom?” “Dad’s away working and Mom’s… Gone.” “Gone where?” “To be with Jesus…” “Wait… You’re out here on your own?” “No… I’m with you…” Dave was abruptly startled by the loud and almost deafening wail of a siren as a police car sped recklessly past the store entrance. A common sound around the West End of London – day and night. When he turned back to resume his conversation, the boy was no longer there. Worried about the safety of a child alone on the streets of a big city, Dave rushed back out onto the pavement, frantically looking up and down Oxford Street, but could not see any trace of him. What Dave did notice though, was the curious reflection on the ground of traffic lights, streetlamps, and the brightly lit shop windows. It was like a scene from a painting - normally found on sale at an IKEA store or a cheap art shop. However, what Dave noticed the most as he felt a chill beginning to form on his neck - was that it was raining. Police sirens continued to wail up and down Oxford Street as Dave headed in an Eastwardly direction toward Bond Street. Sometimes, the sirens seemed to be next to him – other times, in the distance. He inwardly joked about there being a donut sale on somewhere and the cops didn’t want to miss out. However, he quickly dismissed the joke as a form of bigotry against authority. Personally, he had no quarrel with the upholders of law. They were just doing their job trying to apprehend criminals and protect most of the populace against harm. “ Sure, weren’t they just normal people like everyone else ,” he would muse in his best Irish accent – even though he had no connection to anything Irish. “ Eating, sleeping, drinking, loving, and breathing life like we all do, begorrah!” As a young boy, he had been heavily influenced by re-runs of Adam West’s Batman TV series. Dave often professed to have learned his Irish accent watching the character, Chief O’Hara – Commissioner Gordon’s right-hand man. Texas born and raised, Dave considered Britain and Ireland to be the “Auld Countries.” His youthful lack of geographic knowhow placed all the Auld Countries into the same category of people talking funny, so he found great amusement in trying to copy their accents – something he found entertaining in adult life – especially, in the middle of a serious business meeting at work. Whenever he found discussions tedious and boring, the accents came out to play. Jesting aside, Dave’s easy-going attitude endeared him to his work colleagues at his IT consulting company, so his bizarre impromptu behaviour was overlooked in a way that someone would ignore a child trying to interrupt an adult conversation. Although he tried to be likeable, he was too quirky for female colleagues to want to get to know, so single life had become the accustomed norm with him. It was no surprise then, that when the opportunity to attend a Singles party presented itself, Dave eagerly accepted the invitation. In reality, it was a paid entry to an online announcement. To Dave, it was a personal invite that brought a little pleasure to his lonely life. “ Click here for the best Halloween party in town ,” the pop-up ad announced. “ The best DJs, top music, and best door prizes, raffles, and costume competition. Sponsored by iDateOnline.com. Places limited. Book Now! ” Without hesitation, Dave had clicked the button sending him to the payment page, entered his details, paid the entry fee, then printed out his entrance ticket. “ David …” trailed a whisper from the small alleyway between the two buildings next to him. “Don’t get fooled by anyone at that party.” Stopping to gaze through the misting rain, Dave thought he saw the identifiable outline of a woman standing in the alleyway. “Especially the girls,” the voice continued. “If you ask me, you’re throwing away good money on cheap thrills.” “Sorry…? Hello?” Dave attempted to engage the voice. “They’ll try to entice you with sex…” “Mom…!? Is that you?” “Why don’t you find a nice Texas church girl and settle down?” The voice suggested - as it trailed off into the dark shadows of the passageway. As if that wasn’t disconcerting enough, directly behind him, a gruff male voice bellowed, “Why don’t you leave the boy alone, woman! Let him sow his wild oats - like I did - before you go settling him down into abject misery. Let him be a real man… You are a real man, aren’t you David, my boy? You’re not just a figment of your imagination, are you?” Turning to defiantly confront the voice, a curious scene transfixed his gaze upon it. A typical vintage red London Double-Decker bus silently glided past him. The Conductor, who curiously resembled Cliff Richard – England’s answer to Elvis - leant out from the open rear entry, tightly clasping onto the vertical rail singing, “ We’re all going on a Summer holiday, no more worries for a week or two .” But this oddity was not the thing that caught Dave’s attention. It was the passengers seated on both decks of one of London’s most iconic modes of public transport. They were all dressed as clowns, and all were emotionlessly staring straight back at him, making him feel quite uncomfortable. The sudden tooting sound of an old car horn broke the clowns’ hypnotic hold of him, drawing his attention toward the driver’s cab, where another clown with big red hair and an evil smile also stared at him - while continuing to blindly drive forward. “You are a real man, aren’t you, David?” The clown’s menacing voice carried through the damp night air before another ear-piercing police siren jolted Dave out of his temporary trance. Bewilderedly surveying his surroundings, caused a sense of abandonment to spread through Dave’s mind. In a swift change of scenery, he found himself window watching outside a Walmart store in the USA, observing bizarrely dressed shoppers inside, lining up at the checkout counters. However, something else felt different. The air was hot and humid, and his memory recollected a Déjà Vu moment of something about to happen. Dazed and confused, he stood trying to get his bearings, slightly bewildered as to where he was. “You ok, son?” A man’s voice kindly enquired as he repetitively tapped his walking cane on the ground. “Are you lost?” Dave took a cautious step away from the old man’s towering presence over him. Looking up at the man’s weathered face, he truthfully answered the question. “My Mom’s inside,” Dave instinctively replied while shaking his head. “I’m waiting for her to come out.” “Why’d she leave you out here all alone?” “She always does when she needs to shop in a hurry. Says I’ll only slow her down.” “Is that so...?” The old man’s bottom jaw pushed upwards in a disbelieving expression as he pondered Dave’s explanation. “How old are you son?” “I don’t know… Twenty-seven, I think.” “You think…!? Hell fire, son! Your momma not teach you numbers?” “I know my numbers!” Dave snootily retorted. “Do you?” Taken aback by the boy’s arrogant attitude, the old man lifted his cane, pointing it at Dave. “Where you from?” “…London…” “Huh, you don’t say… Well, that makes sense. You got no Walmart down there, do you…? Just a one-horse stretch of highway on its way to south of the border… Well, this here is Brady Lake, Texas, and we expect a certain politeness from our country-folk visitors… London, Texas, huh? I’d expect that kind of attitude from the people of your town’s namesake in England… How’s your geography, son? You do know your atlas, don’t you?” “None of your business,” Dave impatiently replied. “Well, I see your momma never taught you no manners, young man. You’d be wise to show some respect to older folk, coz someday you’ll be just like me. A bent over, crippled fuddy-duddy with nuthin’ better to do but stick your nose into other people’s business – just for conversation.” “I ain’t never getting old!” Dave defiantly bleated. The old man smiled at the young upstart stood before him in his Superman costume - a passing thought of what kind of upbringing this kid is getting , travelling through his head. “Well, you’re on your own now, young man. Your momma just sprinted out the door carrying what appears to be… a painting and an armful of clothes. Looks like she’s forgotten about her precocious little Superboy.” Dave quickly swivelled to see his mother disappearing into the sparsely-lit parking lot, headed for a beat-up old car at the far end of the property. “You best use your faster-than-a-speeding-bullet powers and fly away to your momma’s loving arms, now… Go on… Scoot, before that overweight excuse for a security guard catches his breath…” Without hesitation, Dave turned to scurry away after his mother. “It’s a long walk home to your London, Texas,” the old man shouted into the distance, while mumbling to himself as he shuffled off into the store. “Open twenty-four hours. I figure most folks in here are taking advantage of the all-day cool air. We’re in for a thunderstorm, I’d say. I can feel it in my old brittle bones… Yesireebob , lightning will surely strike tonight...” As Dave ran as fast as his legs could take him, a surprising heavy shower of cool rain abruptly splattered his face, causing him to stand still. Suddenly realising he was back on Oxford Street in the middle of Oxford Circus with traffic passing both sides of him, he headed to the dry shelter of a nearby shoe shop’s covered entrance. Out of breath, he slumped to the floor against a wall, placed his cape in front of him, and with knees up, cradled his head between his hands. Trying to make sense of everything that had just transpired, his private evaluation was cut short by the sound of several coins clicking as they dropped onto his cape. “Down on your luck, mate?” An English accent interrupted. “Are you real?” Dave innocently asked without looking up. “As real as they come, mate.” “Where am I?” “You’re sitting in the entrance to the Nike store.” “No, I mean, what is this place…? Who do you see?” “…Well, if it weren’t bleeding Halloween, I’d say you look like a nutter. But, I can genuinely see Superman in trouble, and we superheroes must stick together, yes?” Raising his head, Dave took in the tall man’s appearance. Covered from head to toe in a black costume, the tall, dark stranger loomed over him – his black cape fluttering in the rainy breeze. “Lucky for you,” the Dark knight added. “I’m in the business of saving people, and you look like you need saving… Reggie is the name, but you can call me… Batman.” Reggie extended a hand that Dave weakly shook. “Dave…” “No, mate. Tonight you are Superman. Now, tell me what troubles you.” “…I think my mother has died…” “Thinking’s not the same as actual…” “…She’s died, yes… She’s dead...” Dave affirmed. “Sorry to hear that, mate. Was it unexpected?” “She got shot by a security guard.” “My goodness. That’s very sad… How did it happen?” “She was shoplifting from a Walmart store back home in Texas… There was a guard. He was too fat to chase her, so he pulled out his gun and shot her in the back.” “Jesus, mate. I’m so sorry for you. What did she steal to deserve such horrible treatment?” “Some clothes, I think… and a framed print of a colourful rainy night in London – with a bus packed with circus clowns.” Perplexed, Reggie cocked his head to one side, remembering something. “That’s weird and funny at the same time… No offence, mate. The circus is in town. I saw them earlier driving around in a chartered double-decker. The old Route Master bus - if I’m not mistaken. Full of clowns. Even the driver was dressed as one.” “…I’m not going crazy, then? You saw them?” “…Twice!” Feeling an overwhelming surge of sadness and joy pass through him, Dave burst out crying and laughing at the same time. “That’s alright, mate. You let it out,” Reggie consoled him. “Let it all out…” Wiping his sodden face, Dave got to his feet, handed back the coins to Reggie, and nodded his appreciation. “When did you receive the news about your mum?” “…Fifteen years ago.” Surprised at the passage of time since Dave’s mother’s passing, Reggie took a moment to sum up the situation. “…and you were there, weren’t you…” Dave’s lips tightened like he was stifling another crying outburst – preventing him from verbally responding, so he just shook his head instead. “What about your dad? Is he still around?” “I lost touch with him years ago. He drives Greyhound buses across the country, so he’s never in one spot for too long.” “…It’s grief, mate. What you are feeling… A powerful force. It’s like a container holding all the emotions associated with the sense of loss. Denial, frustration, anger, seeking God, guilt, despair, and depression and finally resignation… They are all phases of grief. I suspect you’re at the latter stage of it.” Dave looked into Reggie’s eyes, searching for answers from his newfound oracle. “How do you know so much about me?” Dave asked, with a hesitant feeling of trepidation – not yet sure of what was real or not. “I’m Batman, mate. I’ve seen a lot of things on some of the darkest nights in the city… I’m also a grief counsellor. I come out here every evening in search of lost souls looking for clarity. Just so happens there’s a special Halloween group meeting tonight. Free tea, biscuits, and candy for all who attend… Why don’t you come along? There’s a nice big bar of comforting chocolate for the best costume…” “I was heading to a fancy dress party,” said Dave, reluctantly. “Not that one for Singles, advertised on the Internet… the what’s it called…?” “iDateOnline.com,” Dave interjected. “Yes, that’s the one! Tell you a secret… I bought a dodgy ticket as well… Ah, that brought a smile to your face didn’t it…” Dave bashfully acknowledged the lightening of the moment by bowing his head and kicking at a spot on the ground. “Look, tell you what… Our meeting starts in ten minutes. What say, you come along and join in. Most meetings last one hour. Plenty of time for Superman and Batman to get to the singles bash, yes?” An agreeing nod from Dave lit up Reggie’s face – who, triumphantly struck the spread-leg pose of a superhero gluing both hands to his hips, before reciting the iconic 1940s Superman cartoon series introduction. “It’s a bird, It’s a plane, it’s…?” Dave quickly joined in with, “For truth, justice, and the American way…” “…Ohhh, they’ve updated that motto, Man of Steel,” interrupted Reggie. “…and it’s so appropriate for this moment,” he teased. “They have?” Muttered Dave incredulously. “Indeed, they have, mate.” “Well, what is it?” Asked Dave excitedly. “It is now…” Reggie began with a preposition as he placed a friendly hand upon Dave’s shoulder, then launched into a short soliloquy. “… For Truth, Justice, and a Better Tomorrow … How cool is that, hey Superman?” “Yeah, that’s cool, Batman,” Dave replied with a tone of solidarity ringing in his voice. “…For a better tomorrow, one can only hope…”


"This is the house where he wrote 'Hound of the Baskervilles',” Samara's mother said as they stepped through the door. How the mighty are fallen, Samara thought. The house was now a visitor's centre, selling pencils inscribed with the town's name that broke within minutes of buying, along with leaflets of local history, walks, and the prison that cast a shadow over the town from its outskirts. Samara was pulled instantly to the shelf where copies of 'Hound of the Baskervilles' were displayed in multiple languages. She picked up a German copy and turned it over, trying to translate the blurb using the German she'd learnt last year. “Hound of the Baskervilles... of the... 'Baskervilles' again... Why is normal German so hard? ” She put the book back on the shelf. “Over here.” Samara followed the sound of her sister's voice, and found her standing in front of a 7ft plastic statue of Sherlock Holmes. The statue was wearing a dressing gown, smoking a pipe, and also wearing... The deerstalker cap. Samara was constantly puzzled as to why Holmes was often portrayed with it; None of the original stories had ever mentioned a deerstalker specifically. Her sister was still surveying the statue when Samara discovered a small video-room. The walls and floor were black, and the only things in the room were large steps to sit on and a screen. Samara sat down to watch. “The Hound was inspired by the local folklore of the nearby forest, Wistman's Wood, said to be home to the Wist Hounds. No local walker ever ventures to these woods at night for fear of the legendary Hounds,” the video said. Samara's mother called her away to look at something else, but she returned a few minutes later. “ - rocks where Arthur Conan Doyle often sat to write his stories.” Samara vowed silently that if they ever came back, she would bring her notebook and pen and find those rocks. Then, she thought, she would write the best story she'd ever written. The ghost of the famous author would be there, helping her, writing with her. When she reunited with her family at the front desk, she carefully refrained from mentioning the idea to her sister. 'Just the kind of silly thing you would think of,' she could imagine her sister saying. Samara thought of the 'Sherlock Shelf' back at her house, with her two oldest books – One containing the 4 Holmes novels, spine broken and pages falling out from use, the other holding all 56 Holmes short stories, front cover broken off, back cover holding on by a thread. When asked which moors inspired the Grimpen Mire, the woman at the front desk showed them a map and pointed to the Fox Moors. The family thanked her and left. As they drove out of the town, Samara bombarded her family with Sherlockian facts. "Did you know that Sherlock never actually said 'elementary"? In any of the stories?" She said, wriggling in her seat. "Did you know that Arthur Conan Doyle got sick of him after the first few stories and eventually decided to kill him off? But the public and the Strand Magazine wouldn't have it so - Sherlock Holmes was brought back from the dead!" Samara's sister tried counting on her fingers how many times she had heard each fact. She soon ran out of fingers. "Did you know that -" Samara stopped dead as they came out through the tunnel of trees, onto the moors. "The great Grimpen More," she whispered. "A false step yonder means death to man or beast." The moors stretched for miles ahead of them, growing and shrinking into hills and valleys, bare and hauntingly beautiful. Rocks lay scattered across the flatlands and ferns dotted the hills ahead. It seemed as if they were the only living things on the vast, unchanging moors. Everything ahead was clay-red with dead, brittle ferns, islands of green grass and rocks sprouting from the fertile ground. "Did you know," continued Samara, in awe of her surroundings but desperate to get in one more fact before they parked, "that 53% of people who were asked if Sherlock Holmes was real or fictional said 'real'?" The road ran passed a large square of trees, perfectly bordered – too perfect for nature alone to receive credit, the only trees on the moor apart from one. One singular tree standing all alone, rocks surrounding it that looked just right for sitting on. Maybe the old moor people sat there at night to tell their children stories under the stars, Samara thought. She already fervently believed in the moor people, as much as she believed in the spirit of Conan Doyle that still haunted the place where they had lived. The car slowed down and Samara took off her seatbelt, opening the door before the engine was off. She had seen something and was determined to get to it before her sister. It was a sheep's skull. "I've found something and I'm keeping it!" Samara shouted to her parents. "What is it?" "The head of a dead animal," she laughed. The skull was barely damaged. A little cracked, a little holey (Samara could hear herself making the usual corny holy joke in the car on the way back), but otherwise in good condition. She picked it up, wondering if there was space in her backpack for it. She decided to keep in her hands until they went back home. It would crack more if she put it in her backpack. Samara looked up. Intent on reaching the sheep's head (her sheep's head, she laughed), she had entirely ignored her surroundings. Now she paid attention. Around them were stone houses. Some were in good shape, with walls higher a little higher than Samara and obvious doorways, but some were little more than piles of rock. The limestone mortar that would've kept the walls together had long rotted away, and what was left were simply stones piled on top of one another, the highest on the piles toppling precariously. Stone walls encircled the houses protectively. Once, they might've towered over the inhabitants, making them feel safe and secure, deterring intruders and ill-wishers. Now they had crumbled, and as Samara stepped over them she thought again, how the mighty are fallen. This is the house where the family lived , she continued to fantasize. Coming to another, smaller house next to it, enclosed by the same set of walls - No, this family was a big one. They were split between these two houses. She noticed the grass inside, completely flat where the sheep would have often slept. It had an aesthetic cleanness about it. Running to the top of her hill, Samara looked over the wide moors. She traced the stone walls along the surrounding landscape with her finger until it disappeared over a hill in the distance and didn't return. In the valley, Samara had thought she knew what she would feel when she reached the top. She would be Queen of the Moors, surveying her land from above. But here, she shivered at the thought. The moors were wild and free, and that was made them beautiful. They had no queen, no owner. Except, perhaps, the spirit of the famous author whose presence Samara felt with every breath.


Sean the Squirrel looked down into his small paws at the big ripe chestnut clasped between them, a proud cheeky grin spreading across his face pushing his cheeks up and making his eyes crescent moons. Placing the nut on the pile of other nuts stacked in a corner of his home Sean felt satisfaction spread through him. Winter could come now. As if hearing this a pattering started outside, thick drops of rain falling to the ground in a heightening tempo. The Squirrel walked over to the opening of his cave and pushed one of the big leaves away with his front paw looking out, he shivered as a cold wind blew, through raindrops blasting in his face making him drop his ears and scowl before promptly putting the leaf back in place and with harrumph shaking himself to be rid of the wetness covering his fur . He then preceded to illuminate the cave by giving the in a wood container held fireflies a deceased snake as incentive. Thus, casting the small cave almost completely filled with chestnuts in a greenish warm light and causing a soft humming noise to appear in the background. Sean was about begin his winter rest feeling sated. Laying down Infront of his pile of chestnuts he rolled up in a baseball like form, folding his fluffy tail around himself. Just as his eyes began to flutter close ha let out a mighty yawn showing his big front teeth. Just as he was slipping from a soft daze into a deep slumber, he heard a loud knock on his front leaves. A loud voice muffled by the winding weather outside was heard, “Heloooooouuu anyouuune at houuuumeeeee?”. Sean’s eye popped open at this before he indignantly turned around, so that his back was facing his leaf door and whichever rude visitor which did not know to leave a squirrel to its winter slumber.

Once more a knock appeared shortly followed by the voice calling “Helllooouuuu , I said, I said Hellllooouuuuuu?”. Once more Sean purposely ignored the intruder and with his paws pulled his small ears down as to muffle the penetrating shrill voice of however desired entrance to his abode. The next time the voice called and his ears did not survey as ear muffler he also put his feet over his hand holding his ears, by the fourth time he had buried himself into his chestnuts and wished upon sleep so that he might ignore whoever was rapping so rudely at his leaf. Here there was a prolonged silence in which Sean made himself confutable amidst the chestnuts and once more closed his eyes in order for slumber to endow itself upon him. When suddenly once more the loud shrill voice calls out “Helloouuuuuuuuu, its couuulllld´, I said, yes I said Its couuuulllllddddd” The startled squirrel shot upright forgetting that he was borrowed in a pile of chestnuts, making resounding Bonks ring out in the small cave as chestnut after chestnut fell upon his head. Sean’s before widened eyes promptly narrowed to slits, a small crease forming between his eyebrows, a livid frown contouring his face into a grim countenance. Puffing out his chest and clenching his small paws into round fists he stalked towards the Leaf being knocked against. Opening the door wide he bellowed “Whaaat?” Sean yelled in a mocking tone “What, What What?” he continued. The squirrel standing outside his cave drenched in rain, left paw still raised to once more knock looked at him in surprise before catching himself and asking in a rather timid voice “IT´s cold, I said, yes I said It´s cold...? Can I not come, yes, I asked Can’t I come in? Just till the rain stoops I said just till the rain stops?”. Sean, taking in the lanky big squirrel Infront of him, figured he didn’t look ice he would die so he plainly stated “no” before swiftly slamming the leaf back in place pivoting around on his feet made his way back to his former resting place. When he once more looked back at the front leaf, he saw the dark silhouette of the squirrel curled together from the cold now shivering, the rain must have seeped through his coat thought Sean, he felt a pang of sympathy before hastily pushing it to the side, thinking the godamn squirrel should have just built a lair in the summer, then he would not have to annoy innocent, hardworking tree civilians such as himself, he certainly did not malnourished or sick, as such he could take care of himself. With these thoughts in mind, he made to go back to sleep in his comfy tree cave. Shortly, once more before his mind could drift into slumber, there was a sneeze, snapping both eyes, a vein could be seen pulsing above his eyebrow’s, he shot up stalked over to the leaf ripped it open and yelled “come in come in make yourself at fucking home”. The drenched squirrel outside walked in with a happy, “Why thank you kind sir- I say kind sir” and quickly stomped over on its small paws to the fire burning in a corner chimney. Now that the stranger of a squirrel was illuminated, Sean could see him more clearly. Full cheeks and wrinkle free squished doe like eyes made for a round youthful face sitting on a rather scrawny body, with too big, clumsy looking paws connected to stick like arms and legs, wet fur hugging the squirrel’s thin frame. A nuisance Sean deduced in conclusion, as he stood rather hostile near his chestnuts, you never knew after all…

After the foreign squirrel had warmed up a bit and his fur had begun to fritz, he turned to Sean with a gleeful smile Eyes squishing up even more before widening in apparent want at the stack of chestnuts behind Sean. “NO absolutely not” declared Sean, “I let you into my home, no more”. “Please I said Please kind sir just one it has been so awfully long day, so awfully long I said” begged the squirrel putting his hands together in mock prayer. Looking at the pitiful being before him even old Sean felt a semblance of empathy, after some back and forth between his conscience and his frugal self he compromised by giving the scrawny squirrel half a chestnut. He himself of course ate the other half. The strange Squirrel had of course taken the half of a chestnut with great gratitude, opting to sit down near the fire and start munching, Sean opted to once more sit Infront of his pile of chestnuts and after a few distrusting glances started slowly eating his piece of the chestnut in a much more dignified manner. After having eaten for some time the Stranger of a squirrel, who Sean had now dubbed balloon head, due to his gravely mismatched proportions, started talking… a lot. Sean being a squirrel of little words did his best to ignore this, in his opinion great annoyance, happily chatting away. After a while there was a penetrating question that kept popping up at the forefront of his mind, so interrupting the yapping balloon head he questioned, “why do you always repeat what you said?”. The strange squirrel looked at him in astound silence for a minute before cheerfully answering: “Ma Mama birthed a full litter you see, so I had a lot of siblings- a lot of siblings I said, as a middle child you got to say everything thrice- everything thrice I said. Just to be heard, yep, just to be heard”. Sean after hearing this in a more annoyed manner rather stated than said: “If you have so many siblings why could you not stay at one of their home´s?” and get on their nerves he added in his mind. The question, as the older squirrel came to notice he would very much regret asking, as Balloon head now started into a whole, obviously over- exaggerated story about how he was chased by a fox, almost got eaten, then got lost, barely avoided becoming a living ice cubicle and lastly had found Sean’s house in an old tree. “Thought no one was home, I did-I said yes, I did, was about to give up till you opened the door, I said till you opened the door” the scrawny squirrel stated in-between munches of the chestnut. Great, thought Sean, had I just waited a tad bit longer, deciding he had conversed quite enough with this foreign squirrel he left to return to bed and resume his well-deserved sleep. As he was about to lay down, the younger squirrel still sitting next to the fire, empty half of a chestnut next to him carefully asked: “do you not have any Family sir, I as- Sean interrupted him with a sharp “no” breaching the topic no further he laid down, back to the stranger an closed his eyes, ready to sleep. “Sorry, I said I said I´m sorry” came a sullen reply. Ignoring the stranger lying 3 meters away, Sean tried to desperately fall asleep. But in the wake of old repressed memories, he found sleep did not wish to grant him passage into the thick, dark, out of- reach oblivion of his dreams. Perhaps it was the warm enclave of his home lit by the comfortably crackling fire in correlation with the rough storm waging war on mother earth outside. Or maybe it was the fact that he for the first time in years had held a, if not very one sided, conversation with another living being for more than a few seconds. Perhaps it was none of the above an in a moment of forgotten rationality followed by intense emotions he, said very quietly “I do not have any living relatives”. The younger squirrels’ eyes popped open at the voice of his reluctant host. Happy that he was finally talking to him he sat upright looking at the back his companion he mindfully asked, “How? I asked How?”.  “Winter” was all Sean said before once more trying to close his eyes, knowing that even a naïve squirrel such as balloon head, would understand the threat of a cold, cruel winter after all he himself had almost fallen victim to it. When the storm passed and the cold winter sun, shone on the white snowy forest ground, early in the muddy morning the scrawny, young squirrel left the home he had resided in for a night. Of course, not before leaving a note scribbled in the empty shell of half a chestnut announcing that he was to retrieve his stuff from his sibling home before coming back and moving in, haven chosen Sean as his new roommate. Sean none the wiser slept for tree day and nights having been deprived from his sleep on that stormy night, and when he woke up, he woke up to the sound of knocking on his door followed by a sing song voice yelling, “I´m baaackkk, I said-I saiddddd, I´m backkkkk”


The first time I saw the Well-Dressed-Gentleman, he was just walking, no,

strolling  down St. Marks wearing this perfectly creased three-piece-charcoal-gray-suit, bowler hat, and an umbrella (it was not raining). There was a silver pocket watch and fob on his vest, and his black wingtips were buffed to an immaculate shine, reflecting the afternoon sun as they made a rhythmic  click-clack-click-clack  on the pavement, and his umbrella dangled languidly from the crook of his elbow as his hand rested in the pocket of his suit jacket and the other hand held up an old and well-worn book. Needless to say, the hand was gloved. I didn’t see the Well-Dressed-Man’s face at all.

Thing was, I only saw him for, like, a second or two before he turned a corner and disappeared. My immediate instinct was to follow him, but I thought better of it, cause, ya know, I don’t have a dungeon/torture room in my basement. I don’t even have a basement, cause, I mean, who can afford a basement in New York? Anyway, you get my point. I’m not some creepy stalker-guy. I know I kinda come off like one in this story, but I promise you, I’m not, even though that is probably exactly what a creepy stalker guy would say. Anyway , the Well-Dressed-Gentleman turned the corner in a jaunty fashion and, just like that, he was gone. And I was sad. I don’t know why. At least, I didn’t at the time. But I was suddenly very sad, which wasn’t really anything new. I’m kinda low-key sad most of the time. Melancholic one might say, if one were a 19 th  century dilettante.  I saw him again in Central Park on a Saturday. He was walking, no,

strolling  along the lake, this time with a polished black cane, a black long coat (it was July), and a black fedora. He looked like a perfect silhouette, tall and lanky, sans the pocket watch and fob, gold this time, dangling from his vest, and his bright red tie.

Again, I did not get a good look at his face, but I knew it was him, not just from his shape or the way he moved, though both were incredibly distinct, but the way his clothes hung off of him, as if they were living extensions of his body.  The swish of the long coat behind him was like a cat’s tail. So obviously, I found myself staring. Again. But this time he looked back at me.  But I still didn’t see his face, because I immediately looked away and kept looking away until the click-clacking of his shined black shoes faded in the distance. Once more, I was taken with a sense of melancholy.  Once more, I didn’t know why. Or at least I couldn’t articulate it.

Then I saw him again. It was winter. There was snow. Fresh, white, shimmering snow against an inky black sky. And so, as a matter of course, I found myself in my favorite café/bar (at least my favorite when it’s winter and there’s fresh white snow against an inky black sky; I also have a favorite café/bar for Fall and Summer, respectively).

The place was sparse, dimly lit, and quiet, and every now and again I saw the shadowy flicker of mice scurrying along the wall out of the corner of my eye.  Then he walked, no

strolled  in. He wore a wool coat (black), and a cream-colored scarf over yet another three-piece suit, this one a deep crimson with pinstripes, and a pair of shined red oxfords to match. The pocket watch he chose for today was neither silver nor gold but bejeweled in an ornate pattern like a tiny mosaic. His hat was a beret this time (also black).

He sat on the couch opposite me, by the fireplace, and I saw his face. Not his eyes, though.  His eyes were hidden by a pair of round wireframe sunglasses that reflected the flames of the fire, creating a somewhat demonic look. Now, contrary to what you might expect, he was not an especially handsome individual.  Not ugly either. I mean… he was almost handsome, but his face was just a bit too long, his chin a touch to sharp, what he was was interesting looking.  Perhaps that’s why he dressed the way he did. He was pale. Very pale, which was only accentuated by the deep red and black of his clothing. As I took him in, I had completely forgotten that I was staring at him, and I was surprised to find him looking back at me. More surprised still that I didn’t look away this time. In fact, I nodded. My nod was returned.

Now what?

Neither of us looked away and went back to their business, which would have been the natural thing to do in such a situation. It was like a game of chicken now.  Had he recognized me from before the way I recognized him? I didn’t know. I still don’t know. As he looked at me, I was suddenly struck by a crushing wave of self-consciousness. Surely, this man, this living silhouette, this Well-Dressed-Gentleman who stood before me,  surely he must have been sizing me up behind those green tinted glasses, starting with my barely-held-together sneakers with the flapping soles, soaking wet from the slush and snow, working his way up to my frayed ill-fitting blue jeans, and finally my stained T-shirt with the holes along the stretched out collar and faded threadbare jacket. Surely this man, this Well-Dressed-Gentleman of New York, was judging me, me and my complete and utter lack of care, effort, or concern. Judging me and my slouched beanbag posture. I could only imagine the sheer unfiltered contempt in his hidden eyes. Still, for whatever reason, I didn’t look away. I held the gaze. Let him judge.

Eventually, the moment passed. I sipped my drink (a dark stout) and he sipped his (a port), and we read our respective books. I was reading a book of short stories by one of my favorite authors, all of which I had read many times before, and he was reading the same well-worn old book I saw him reading back in the Spring. I glanced at the cover:

Leaves of Grass .  We made periodic eye contact, followed by nods acknowledging one another’s presence, then we went back to sipping and reading as the fire crackled and the mice scurried along the shadows. Then the Well-Dressed-Gentleman got up. I looked at him. He didn’t move, didn’t leave, just stood there. I soon realized that he was waiting.  For me. I stood up.  The Gentleman didn’t wait any longer, but walked out the door. I followed. It was snowing and fat fluffy wet snowflakes clung to me as I followed the Gentlemen, who kept a steady pace, five or six feet in front of me.  Neither of us spoke, but just walked, me and this dark silhouette, like a shadow, moving through a twisting pitch-black tunnel of brick, wind, and snow, throwing only the slightest backward glance in my direction every now and again, not even breaking his stride.  He turned a corner, ducking into an alleyway. Here I stopped.

I peered in and saw the Well-Dressed-Gentleman standing about twenty feet off, illuminated only by the faintest glow of the streetlight behind me and the white glow of the full moon above, half bathed in darkness, his perfectly round sunglasses glinting.  For the life of me, I don’t know what possessed me to ignore every ounce of common sense and self-preservation and follow him into that alleyway, but follow him I did, lowering my head and shouldering through the bitter howling blast of the concrete wind-tunnel.  I followed him around another corner, and another, and another as we made our way down the twisting urban labyrinth, till we came to a rusted metal gate, covered in ivy. The Well-Dressed-Gentleman fished in his deep pocket and produced a long thin skeleton key. He unlocked the gate and opened it with a long, painful

crrrreeeaaaak  that shot through my ears and set my teeth grinding.  Then, saying not a word, the Well-Dressed-Gentleman slipped through the gate of the back entrance (to what I did not know). I hesitated, but followed, making my way through an immense garden of dead and gnarled plants covered in snow, which made them look like strange abstract sculptures. This was the first time in my impromptu journey that I took my eyes off the Gentlemen, lost in the surrealness of where I was and what I was doing. SLAM!!! I immediately whirled around and saw the Well-Dressed-Gentleman standing by an open cellar door. He then opened the second cellar door and let it drop. SLAM!!! He stooped low as he went down the cellar. For a third time I hesitated, thinking to myself: “Is this how I’m going to die?” I mean, that was a distinct possibility, was it not? But for reasons that to this day remain unclear…. yeah, I went down that cellar in that strange back-alley garden in Greenwich. You’re Goddamn right I did. As I walked down the dark, narrow stairway, towards an old green wooden door, I heard the muffled sound of… violin music.  I reached the bottom of the stairway. The doorknob was an antique, glass with an ornate design, and felt cool in my hand.

Now as I turned that knob, I can’t say for sure exactly what I was expecting to find on the other side of that door. Could’ve been any number of things, really: torture room, fight club, sex cult, society of vampires, Christian fundamentalists, etc. But one thing I was absolutely not expecting to find was a secret underground fashion boutique. Much like the Tardis, it was bigger inside.

The cavernous underground room stretched on for what had to have been several city blocks. There was an immense fireplace, gilded lantern sconces on the walls, Victorian molding along the ceiling and hardwood floors, highbacked crimson leather armchairs, dark green walls, and a high, high ceiling. And clothes.  So many clothes; men’s and women’s clothes draped on antique department store mannequins in all manner of casual poses; suits, tuxedos, blazers, cocktail dresses, swing dresses, trench coats, leather gloves, high boots, pill box hats, scarves, shawls, wraps, vests, and vales; tweed, wool, cloth, and corduroy; trousers, chinos, jodhpurs, and capri’s; Oxfords, Derby’s, Loafers, and straps; florals and sequins and slips, and on and on and on and on, all lovingly, immaculately, painstakingly tailored, sewn, and cut; an elegant drawing room soiree frozen in time. Oh, and that violin music I mentioned earlier, that wasn’t a recording played on a Victrola (which would have been in keeping with the overall vibe of the place), but a violinist in a sleek black evening gown standing off in the corner. I suddenly jumped when I saw a ruffle of movement out of the corner of my eye only to realize that mingling amongst the wooden mannequins were other people, all dressed to the nines, many swirling drinks in their hands, walking, no,

strolling

down the aisles of clothing on display, lovingly caressing the material. Some were dancing, slow and close, all around me, smiling pleasantly. I admit that, for a moment or two, I had to ask myself if this was an Overlook Hotel type of scenario. It was all so surreal, yet all so comforting and joyful.

And the Well-Dressed-Gentleman? I had forgotten all about him until he stepped forward, as if out of thin air, smiling now. More than ever, I felt deeply, glaringly inadequate. What was I, but a blight on the beauty and elegance of that room and those people? And those clothes.  Those divine and glorious clothes. I wanted to disappear, but I stood frozen as the Well-Dressed-Gentleman of New York stood before me and removed his tinted glasses. His eyes were as pale as his face, gray and sad, like an overcast sky.

He placed a slender, delicate hand on my shoulder and said, “Welcome, my friend. I can see that you are kindred spirit.” I was surprised to find that his voice was a rich baritone that didn’t quite match his face or frame. Everything about the Gentleman was just a bit incongruous. Yet this made him no less appealing. If anything, it made him more so. I glanced down at my clothes (if they could even be called that), embarrassed.  The Gentleman smiled warmly and gently guided me through the maze of vintage clothes, down a hallway, and through a large set of double doors into a great circular room of dark oak with a Cheval mirror in the center. Wrapped around me were more clothes, just as beautiful as the ones adorning the mannequins in the front room, clothes of every conceivable style, design, vintage, and combination, with row after row of shoes to match, a glass cabinet display of pocket watches, and dressers stocked with smoothest socks I’ve ever felt.  I turned to the Well-Dressed-Gentleman, who stood at attention, holding his beret. It was the first time I had seen him without a hat and so the first time I noticed that his hair was completely white, the very color of the fresh fallen snow outside, and for the life me, I could not guess at how old he was. In fact, I’d say he was…. ageless. “Please,” said the Gentleman. “Do take your time.” I smiled, still embarrassed, and told the Gentleman: “Thank you. But I couldn’t possibly pay for any of this.” The Gentleman’s smile widened and his eyes gleamed. “Oh but you misunderstand, my friend.” “I do?” I said. “This is not a store.” “It isn’t?” I said. The Gentleman shook his head with a chuckle. “No. This is my private collection.” “You’re joking,” I said. “Not a bit of it,” said the Gentleman. “You see, I much prefer to share my darlings that they may live and breathe than horde them away in a dark closet in which to collect dust and be eaten by moths. You will join us in the ballroom, will you not?” “Ballroom?” I repeated. Again, the Gentleman chuckled. “Find something that speaks to you. Something that calls to you.” With that, he left me alone with the clothes. Something that spoke and called to me? I shrugged and began my search. I’ve never much liked clothes shopping, nor particularly cared about what I pulled from the rack, and so one might think that the situation I found myself in would have found me standing frozen and gawking. But I wasn’t in that massive closet a second before something did indeed call to me.  I snatched up a bright red dress shirt, and a black jacket, vest, and slacks, along with a black leather belt with a gold buckle and a blindingly shiny pair of black oxford shoes. I inspected myself in the mirror for a moment before removing the jacket and returning it to the rack from whence it came.

I looked at myself again, appraisingly. Yes. Yes, this was more like it.

This was more like.


Strange shadows flickered in the empty streets after the New York skyline lowered. The neon lights tripped on, one after the other as the city sky glittered in land born stars.

It was a late evening in Spring and I had just started off as a writer at Vogue Magazine this month. The leaves crumbled under my heel as I walked downtown. The shops were closing down, and the mannequins stooped at me from shop fronts in ghastly glares of the new fashionable era. A large billboard of Jennifer Aniston-my favorite, hung right in front of my apartment. I was a huge fan. I looked up at it and smiled to myself as I worked my way up the stairway. It was an exhausting day at work. So many written assignments due and clarifications for all the more you need. My article was published yesterday and so it was a little rejoicing at the local club with my gang before we dispersed off for the evening.

I threw my coat over the telephone chair and the keys in the holder and flicked the lights on. I had a quick wash and came back to grab up on some dinner and wine before heading to get some sleep in. I switched on the television and sat down with the bowl of spaghetti and wine.

I soothed into the comfort and watched as I gulped a mouth full with saucy threads still blobbing out of the mouth. I took the glass and swirled it in and took a sip of the delicate red wine.

I was at a gala. The name read it at a far corner. I looked down the railing at the red carpet. It was one streaming with reporters on one side and all known on the other. How could this be. Could this be any more real? The biggest stars of Hollywood were just flowing in. Oh my goodness! Who thought where this job could lead me to. They were filling into the hall across the red carpet. Posing and glowing as they entered. And here I was just staring and standing glass in my hand- swirling.

Why swirl champagne?

I just stood watching as long as I can. Then looked around to the most appropriate figure out and approach stance.

Suddenly I feel myself being pushed to the center and then a round of applause. I never know what I was being applauded for as I cannot hear right. I feel myself in extreme awe of excitement and also my heart pumping out in a sudden blood chase. Just as the glasses raise and applauds rise again, all different stars come at me, hugging me and sending me into fireworks of excitement as I recognize each one by one with their genuine congratulations. Right now, I am blushing in the middle of a hall I don’t know, surrounded by my list of I-love-them-so-much but they-never-know-me prominent people all glancing and smiling as if they knew me forever. I keep on swirling and smiling. My heart out in my hand. Then suddenly I see her. There she stands in one of my favorite colored dresses by a prominent designer whose name I don’t recall suddenly. Ms. Aniston standing in the center of the hall giving all her love to her friends and all knowns. Wow! That’s how she looks, I just couldn’t believe my eyes. And the next second she is walking towards me. I feel myself stargazed. I’ve never seen her before and now she was right there in front of me, smiling and sending her lovely wave as she makes her way through the crowds towards me. The first time ever and I am in bits and pieces and my hand starts shaking. Tears are gathering in my eyes; I just feel a blobbing in the eyes. She walks over, ‘Hi! so nice to meet you! I was awaiting my turn’ She says as she hugs me out.

I am lost in words as I gaze at her. I smile so hard that my face muscles ache. ‘You are an angel in heaven! You look so beautiful in person! I just can’t believe meeting you! Wow! You are so beautiful...’I continue as she keeps patting me in appreciation and asking me more. Words keep flowing out as we converse and I suddenly ‘I am your greatest fan’ -She raises her brow and smiles ‘I know’ My glass slips and crashes. Suddenly, I feel my hands wet and I jerk forward. I open my eyes slowly. I feel tears streaming down my face and my mouth agape. The lights keep me blinking a few seconds, before I realize I’m looking at the ceiling. I am at the apartment, and my hand are wet. I straighten up and look around. A glass lies shattered at my feet, and I smell wine in my hands. A half-eaten bowl of spaghetti lies on the sofa next to me and the television is blaring in details of a gala. I strain my eyes and there she was on TV waving at the crowds as she enters the hall on the red carpet. I was there just now. She was wearing the same dress I saw. I look around once again. It was half past eleven. I am at the apartment. I am dreaming. It was just a dream. I smile. I get up and clean up the mess I’ve made and after watching the telecast for a few minutes I switch it off once and for all. I make up my bed, brush my teeth and look at the New York skyline once again before getting behind the sheets. I just met my favorite star all even in a dream. I check on some writing for the next day, before I shut my laptop. I shut my eyes. A loud blaring sends me off. I clap my hands to knock it off. My mom, suddenly appears shouting in high pitch, ‘Get up! you are late to college!’ I look up at the ceiling. The fan keeps rotating with a creak. I look around. Where am I? The room is different from how I slept in. I walk in towards the window.

I look out. No New York skyline anymore. I look back at the room. Good senses start pouring back and I slap myself. What was that? I look in the mirror and here I was back. This was real after all. What a long day it was. What a New York dream. I smile. One inside another. I recall Inception. And I smile once more. I finally had my dreams come live in a dream. And then… ‘College’- I was late for college.