Once, there lived an old farmer who spent most of his time ploughing the field ensuring good cultivation of crops with every single precautions he possibly could have taken, so that the possibility of crops being harmed by any insects was suppressed to its least magnitude. His motives behind the hard work he did everyday in bright and extremely hot conditions set by the sunlight, were not for his own sake, but for both the grandchildren of his, who were the only members he was left with in his family. The old man worked without any procrastination just to feed both of his loved ones. He didn't want his grandchildren to ever experience the feeling of not being able to feed themselves, unlike him - himself who spent his youth in search for food and barely got something because of some kind people who didn't discriminate between rich and poor. The grandchildren on the other hand, considered him a fool for working too much and they had a prejudice of generation which led them to have a brain filled with errors, discrimination and hatred. They often behaved rudely with the old man like they didn't even care if the old man took a relieved breath or not, and unfortunately the old man was too kind to scold them, so the only thing he did in response was the act of leaving or sit quietly as tears ran down his eyes in despair, but even though he faced this kind of plight, he never backed down from working and ensuring good health for his grand children. Not only was he treated like nothing, but also he had no-one to share his emotions and feel respected, except his good-old friend, Raman, who also was a farmer. Whenever, the old man faced rudeness and mischief of the grandchildren, Raman scolded the children, if possible, and then to cheer up the old man's mood, Raman took him to his (Raman's) house, so that both of them can appreciate the delicious food cooked by Raman's sister, who used to make the food with pure affection and cautions. Several years after, came a time when Raman left his best- friend, sister, and the unholy land of Earth, to permanently take his position in heaven. The old man was really sad about his loss of friendship and brotherhood shown by the most kind friend he ever met, Raman. On the other side, Raman's sister started to live her life with constant tears shredding from her eyes and her soul. Now considering the situation, the old man became in charge of an additional person, Raman's sister, whom he started taking care, and giving equal amount of affection towards her, just like his grandchildren. He took the responsibility, but the bones were too weak to hold his commitment, and eventually, the old man started to experience problems in his health, resulting him to only exist, and nothing else except that. The mischievous grandchildren didn't seem to have changed their views and they behaved the same way they always did. Seeing this, the one and only person who cared about the old man made her mission to collect as many edibles as she can. She worked in the fields and begged other people for food but the only things she gained was one person's food, and nothing. She tried convincing the children who were now in their youth, to help her collect food but they instantly denied it. The food which was collected by her everyday, was always taken from her by the cruel children to satisfy their own hunger regardless of the old man's health. The poor woman couldn't keep up with the increasing depth in the ill condition of the old man, and as a result, they both died one after the other, in a short period of time, but maybe that was not that bad after all, because at that point, casualties became casual to them. After the death of both, the grandchildren always fought each other to decide who would collect food which was like spending the whole day in planning what to do that same day. Then, they unwillingly started working together in the fields, and not even within 5 days, they understood what a drag it was to always stay in the field with the shining sun-rays pointing directly towards their eyes. They understood how difficult time their grandfather had in his lifetime and they extremely regretted their behaviour with a disappointment they felt in themselves, and they started to appreciate the greatness of their grandfather, his friend Raman, and Raman's sister, but does their undying love even matter after the death of all the great people they started cherishing now? of course not.


#Welcome to the Micro Monday Challenge! Hello writers! Welcome to Micro Monday! I am excited to present you all with a chance to sharpen those micro-fic skills. What is micro-fic? I’m glad you asked! Micro-fiction is generally defined as a complete story (hook, plot, conflict, and some type of resolution) written in 300 words or less. For this exercise, it needs to be at least 100 words. However, less words doesn’t mean less of a story. The key to micro-fic is to make careful word and phrase choices so that you can paint a vivid picture for your reader. Less words means each word does more! Each week, I’ll give you a single constraint or jumping-off point to get your minds working. It might be an image, a theme word, a sentence, or a simple writing prompt. You’re free to interpret the prompt how you like as long as you follow the post and subreddit rules. Please read the entire post before submitting. And remember, feedback matters!   *** #This week’s challenge: **** This week’s challenge is to use the above image as *inspiration* for your story. You may interpret the image any way you like, as long as the connection is clear and you follow all sub and post rules. You do not have to use the entire image. You can use any part you like (i.e. the colors, the subject, the setting, etc.).   ***   #Last Week There were so many great stories on the thread this week, as is every week. First, I would like to highlight u/Poelarizing and u/Thetallerestpaul for the wonderful feedback they provided on so many of the stories on the thread. Each of you went above and beyond and I really love to see that. Now, story spotlights! - - Submitted by u/stranger_loves - An immortal faces the reality of his choices. - - Submitted by u/mattswritingaccount - A story about saying goodbye.   ***   #How It Works: - **Submit one story between 100-300 words** in the comments below, by the following Sunday at midnight, EST. Use to check your word count. The title is not counted in your final word count. Stories under 100 words will be disqualified from being spotlit. - **I will take nominations for your favorites each week via a message on reddit or discord.** Each Monday, I will spotlight two deserving stories from the previous week that I think really stood out. I will take all nominations you make into consideration. But please remember, this is not a contest. - **Come back throughout the week, upvote your favorites and leave them a comment with some feedback.** While it’s not a requirement, I encourage everyone to read the other stories on the thread and leave feedback. I will take all of this into consideration when making my selections each week. - **Please be respectful and civil in all feedback and discussion.** We welcome writers of all skill levels and experience here, as we’re all here to improve and sharpen our skills. - If you have any questions, feel free to ask them on the stickied comment on this thread or through modmail. - And most of all, be creative and have fun!   ***   ###Subreddit News - Try your hand at serial writing with - You can now post serials to r/Shortstories, outside of Serial Sunday.


Many had seen her face, few heard her voice, and none knew her name. The Woman drifted about like a nomad — never in one place for too long, and if one looked away for only a moment, there was a chance she would be gone. A vanishing act with no smoke or mirrors. A bicycle without handlebars. A joke with no punchline. Her days consisted of wandering around downtown engrossed in her own world. A typical morning for her began with jumping jacks and yoga poses in the park’s grass as the sun beamed brightly overhead. Dressed in stained, tattered clothing that indicated her homelessness, her morning workouts often earned curious stares from the elderly men dueling at the chess tables and annoyed grimaces from the soccer moms that spent more time on their phones than watching their children on the playground. It was hard to pinpoint the Woman’s age. Based on her appearance, the best estimate was that she was somewhere between thirty and forty-five years old. She may have actually been younger; though the lines and creases on her face signified the hard life she had lived, her eyes, which shone like two big spotlights of warmth and humility, gave her an impression of youth. She had tried mingling with some of the other local wanders in the past, which led to mixed results. The best being her brief friendship with an elderly woman named Mildred two summers ago. Mildred, known as the town’s “Crazy Cat Lady,” suffered from mental illness, as did the Woman herself and the bulk of the area’s homeless population. To those close to her, Mildred was sweeter than a birthday cake. Thanks to her being friendly with the owner of a small coffee shop, she received a cup of coffee and a warm croissant free of charge once a week. Mildred always made sure to share the croissant evenly; one half for Amethyst, her tabby cat, and the other one going to the Woman. Mildred’s behavior was dependent on both the time of day and whether she had Amethyst by her side. During daylight, with her feline companion in tow, she acted as a delightful grandmother, seemingly unaware (or unbothered) of her station in life. However, if her cat was out of sight or once the sun had gone down, Dr. Jekyll morphed into Mr. Hyde. The kindly grandmother would suddenly become a toxic witch. She would shout at vehicles that drove past. She would travel to the parts of downtown that saw heavy late-night foot traffic, such as the Entertainment District, to harass tourists. Once, on the eve of Valentine’s Day, Mildred traveled down there and caused a scene so bad that the Woman had to calm her down and pull the old lady aside. Mildred had been knocking over trash cans and hurling their spilled contents at pedestrians along with some expletives sprinkled in. “FUCK CUPID, AND FUCK YOU TOO, YOU STUPID WHORE!” was one of the lines she had yelled. The target of that insult was a little girl no older than six years old. One morning, after having spent the night sleeping under an overpass with Mildred and a few of the other wanderers, the Woman woke up to the sound of screams. Her eyes flashed open, darted around, and then she saw what had happened: Mildred’s cat Amethyst was lying in the middle of the street — dead — with its eyes rolled into the back of its head, tire marks across its belly, and its mouth wide open, as if it was screaming, the expression on its face frozen stiff like a fly trapped in a chunk of ancient amber. “Look what they did! LOOK WHAT THEY DID!” Mildred shouted, cradling the dead feline in her arms like an infant and pushing it near the Woman’s face to show her the horror. The Woman gagged. She could hear the animal’s bones cracking with each movement Mildred made. Eventually, she and the other wanderers were able to calm Mildred down long enough to get her out of the street and to give her feline friend a proper burial. Later that same night, the Woman was lying down in the same spot as before, under the overpass. Neither her nor any of the other wanderers had seen Mildred since the moment they buried her cat earlier in the day. They figured she was somewhere mourning in private. The Woman stayed awake for as long she could, fighting against her heavy eyelids. She wanted to make sure Mildred returned to her safely but eventually lost the battle with Mr. Sandman and drifted off to sleep. “I’ll be with you soon, sweetie! I promise!” The phrase was yelled over and over again. The screams reverberated throughout the area underneath the overpass, occasionally muffled by the semis driving on the bridge overhead, stirring people out of their tents and sleeping bags, and rousing the Woman from her slumber. Her eyes flung open and she sat up in a panic, scanning the area for the source of the commotion. Her head jerked around like a frightened crow until she saw the scene: Mildred, her hands, face and clothes covered in dirt, handcuffed to a stretcher and being hauled into the back of an ambulance. “No!” shouted the Woman. She got up and raced toward the vehicle. The Woman tried to get into the ambulance with Mildred but was held back by a paramedic and two police officers. She tried desperately to reach out to her, to grab her hand. Mildred reached back. The handcuffs hissed along the railing. The women's fingertips inches from each other. "They're trying to lock me away! You have to stop them!" Mildred pleaded. "Amethyst lives, I know it! Please, dear, you have to stop these bastards! You have to st--" The doors slammed shut. "Crazy old broad," muttered one of the officers. "Tried to dig up a dead cat. The hell's the matter with people these days?" He turned around and addressed the Woman. "Most likely, your friend's gonna be taking a trip up north to the crazy house. You wanna see her, you're gonna have to see her there." He left without a parting word and drove off into the night with his partner. The Woman stood in shock. Motionless. Her eyes watched the flashing lights on the ambulance and cruiser fade into the distance, the pulse of their rhythmic dance disappearing behind the looming shadows and towering buildings. After that incident, the Woman was scarred for life. She would bond with no one else ever again. Already a person of few words, her speech further whittled down to little more than murmurs and grunts. Yet still, whenever possible, she expressed her care for humanity. She once did it by putting a Band-Aid on a child who had scraped his knee after he fell off the swing set at the park. Another time, she managed to revive a fellow wanderer who was in the grips of an overdose by performing CPR on him until the paramedics showed up and took him to the hospital. And always, she would pick up any trash that had been littered in the park to keep it clean and spotless. The park authorities never failed to show their appreciation, making sure to provide her with bottled water and bags of chips to snack on whenever they could. Over time, she became known around town as the “Good Samaritan.” Thanks to her positive impact, people in the city even started treating the rest of the city’s homeless population with more compassion. The indignant scoffs and clutching of purses gave way to a spare dollar here, a bag of pretzels there and words of encouragement. As of now, roughly a year later, it appears that the Woman has vanished. Odds are, she may have met a tragic end, but one should have hope that she has simply wandered into another city to shine some light into a gray, dim metropolis. Wherever she is, one can be sure that none in the area know the Woman’s name, age, or origin. Almost certainly, most have seen her face. And few — if any — have ever heard her speak. But all, should they encounter her, will come to know her spirit.


While I realize many people may disagree with me, especially those unlucky few who have had both their arms and legs eaten, I don’t think anyone would deny that I have a certain amount of authority—an expertise, if you will—on the topic at hand, and therefore feel absolutely confident in my conviction that the worst thing about getting attacked by a shark is that everyone starts to see you as That Guy Who Got Attacked By A Shark. May, 2011. I’m getting a beer at my old neighborhood bar with some friends from high school. Phil. Karen. Faye. Pee Pants. I think we’re going to reminisce about the good old times, like when Pee Pants nearly got hypothermia because he peed his pants on the chairlift and tried to ski down a double black diamond and knocked himself unconscious after a failed backflip off a mogul, but no, they want me to lift up my flannel shirt so they can all ogle at the waning moon shape of negative space where the shark bit off a chunk of my torso. I let them ooh and aah for a couple minutes, but when they start to run their fingers down the jagged bite mark in my skin, I pull down my shirt and try to change the subject by asking Phil about the Instagram post I saw of him riding an elephant in Thailand. No one seems to hear me. Karen, who thinks she’s some sort of animal behavior expert because she watched a lot of Discovery Channel after drinking her way out of a job as a ferris wheel operator, starts giving me advice about how, like, I should have punched the shark or something. And before I can tell her that I’ll keep that in mind for my next shark attack, I hear Faye ask me this really pointed question like, “Well, were you provoking the shark?” And while I am tempted to remind this self-proclaimed animal rights activist of the times she, not once, not twice, but on three separate occasions dumped a bag of cat food on the floor when she couldn’t find a sitter for Mango before she left for Burning Man, I hold my tongue. I take a deep breath. And I tell her no, I was just snorkeling, and she goes, “Hmmm,” like that. “Hmmm.” And then, as she lifts her beer to her lips, she mutters, “Well, imagine if someone tried to snorkel into your home.” So I point out that she didn’t have anything critical to say about Phil riding elephants in Thailand, but Faye just gives me this wide-eyed look of horror, not about the brutality of taming elephants, but rather because she thinks I’m suggesting Phil might have hurt one of the elephant’s backs by sitting on it. Granted, Phil did just lose a bunch of weight, and he’s a little sensitive about it. “Are you okay?” Faye asks me. “Of course he’s okay,” Pee Pants says. “You can’t keep Shark Attack down for long.” “Ha!” Phil says. “Ha! Yes!” And he points at me.“Shark Attack!” “Shark Attack!” Karen says. “Shark Attack!” Faye says. And I smile and drink my beer and act like I’m totally cool with being the new Pee Pants, but the whole time, I’m thinking, My name is not Shark Attack. My name is Jerry. ... A few days later, I’m opening a Tinder account, and I write a bio that goes something like: My name is Jerry. I’m a grammy-award-winning saxophonist. I like hiking, saxophone, and brunch. You can catch me at the top of a mountain, playing saxophone and eating a poached egg and a waffle. The first couple messages aren’t promising. “Hypothetically, if we were to get married, and I wanted to take a cruise, would you feel comfortable getting on and off the ship, like, if we made sure to blindfold you as you walked down the gangway?” Or, “Let’s say we get married and buy a home where the master bathroom is in the exact opposite corner of the house and three stories removed from the TV room. Would you be okay with me taking a bath while you watch TV—granted that we take all the necessary precautions you won’t get triggered by the sound of sloshing water—or do you think the mere thought of a human submerged in liquid would send you into a flashback?” Finally, I meet a girl who says, “I love saxophone!” And I say, “Great. Your bio says you don’t pay attention to the news.” “Nope.” “And you don’t have social media?” “Nope.” “Ever read a tweet?” “I don’t know what that is.” “And you love saxophone?” “Love it.” Her name is Wendy. So I invite Wendy to a Dodgers game and we get garlic fries and do the wave and drink margaritas and yell at Cardinals fans and don’t talk at all about how I got six of my ribs pulled out of my flesh by a twenty-five-foot-long great white shark in Hanalei Bay. It is easily the best date I have had since the shark attack. Then, in the seventh inning, it all goes south. We sit down after singing Take Me Out To The Ball Game, and I put my arm around her and she snuggles up next to me, and just as I’m leaning in to ask if she wants to go with me to this falafel festival in Venice Beach on Thursday, this guy comes on the loudspeaker and asks everyone to stand if they are a veteran. And some people stand, and we start clapping, and eventually they sit down, and the clapping ends, and I lean toward Wendy to ask her about the falafel festival when the guy comes back on the loudspeaker and says, “Ladies and Gentlemen, if you have been attacked by a shark, please stand so we can honor you.” So I sit back and sip my beer and act like everyone else, looking around to see if anyone is standing. And no one is standing up, so the guy on the loudspeaker goes, “Hmm, are we sure no one here has been attacked by a shark?” And I’m shoveling garlic fries in my mouth at this point, shaking my head, not trying to make a big scene or anything, but internally feeling a little frustrated by this guy’s persistence, and silently hoping he’ll shut his mouth and get back on the organ. But he doesn’t. He goes, “Really? No one has suffered any injuries at the mouth of an aquatic animal? No one has had any bones crunched in the jaws of a macropredatory beast? No one at this baseball game has ever been mauled by a prehistoric killing machine?” “Nope,” I say out loud. I’m looking over the railing, waiting for the game to get going again, but all the players are looking up into the stands from the dugout, waiting for someone to stand up so we can all honor them. And Wendy crosses her arms and purses her lips and says, “I just don’t understand why anyone would swim in the ocean. We have so many bodies of water reserved just for humans: pools, public pools, man-made lakes.” She turns to me. “Did you know that Scandinavians don’t swim in the ocean in Scandinavia? Why can’t Americans be more like the Scandinavians? Hmmm?” And I stand up and start shuffling down the aisle while everyone in Dodger stadium cheers and applauds for me. Wendy chases after me, but I’m quite fast on account of being ten pounds lighter after having six of my ribs, a kidney, an eighth of my liver, and some indeterminable portion of my heart (as well as a small section of my ankle, which actually slows me down a little, but I digress) torn out of my chest and oblique area with eighteen thousand Newtons of bite force, and I manage to drive out of the parking lot before she can catch up with me. Over the next week, I do a lot of musician-grade heroin. I don’t pick up my phone. When I finally check my voicemail, I listen to messages like: “Shark Attack, it’s Faye. Pee Pants is dead. Call me back.” Or “Jerry, it’s your agent. I know you’ve never been a fan of getting attacked by sharks, but I think you owe it to all the shark attack victims out there to start making music about getting attacked by sharks. All right? Listen to me, Jer. Imagine a child: young, innocent, impressionable, recovering in the hospital after a savage hammerhead shark attack, watching music videos on YouTube, and he doesn’t see a single saxophonist that has been attacked by a shark. All his favorite artists like Lil Xan and—I don’t know who the youths are listening to these days—but the point is that all the musicians have intact limbs and heads and torsos and not a single bite mark. Don’t you think you owe it to that kid to get back up on stage? Yes? No? Call me.” Or, “Shark Attack, it’s Faye again. Where the hell are you? Pee Pants’ funeral is tomorrow. Call me back.” Or, “Hey, Jerry, it’s Wendy. Give me a call when you get a chance.” Or, “Are you kidding me, Shark Attack? We buried Pee Pants without you.” So I pack my bags—figuratively speaking. I don’t actually have to pack any bags, because I’m flying to Hawaii, and when you’re planning on committing suicide by shark attack, you don’t have to pack anything; you can just wear your swim trunks on the plane. But it’s kind of cold in LA on the day I’m supposed to leave, so I wear my swim trunks under my jeans, kind of like when I forget to do laundry, and run out of boxers, and have to wear swim trunks, but that’s all beside the point. The point is that I’m going back to Hawaii, and this time, I’m not coming back. On the way to the airport, I decide to stop by Pee Pants’ grave. It turns out he’s buried in this kind of dumpy cemetery with brown grass and dead leaves everywhere, but I tough it out, and hike over to his plot, and kneel down next to it and set down a bouquet of flowers, and read his headstone, which says something like, “Steve ‘Pee Pants’ something. Nineteen-eighty-something to last week.” And just as I get up to leave, I hear this voice behind me say, “Doesn’t really matter what they put on your headstone, does it?” And I turn around and realize it’s Pee Pants’ mom. “I’m so sorry about Pee Pants,” I say. And she grits her teeth and balls her hands into fists and says, “His name is Steve.” And then we hug and get coffee and catch up, and I tell her all about the hellhole I’ve been in ever since I got attacked by a shark, and she lowers her head and looks kind of sad and I think she’s going to tell me how sorry she feels for me, but instead she grabs my arm and gives it a little shake and says, “I’m just so glad you’re all right.” And I laugh and say, “Yeah, yep, uh huh.” And she goes, “No, really. Do you know how many times this week I’ve had to explain what heli-skiing is?” And she kind of studies my face and the way I’m slowly nodding at her and she says, “Really? You haven’t heard of it? It’s when you jump out of a helicopter and ski down the mountain. At least, you’re supposed to ski down the mountain.” And I say, “Right, right.” And she sighs and says, “Just be happy you aren’t remembered for something like that.” And I ask her if she was listening to anything I just told her. I’m That Guy Who Got Attacked By A Shark, remember? And she says, “You’re still kicking aren’t you? You’re still breathing air. Your heart is still beating. That shark hasn’t dragged you down to the bottom of the ocean yet, has it?” And I say, “No.” And she says, “That’s the spirit,” and takes out an urn and hands it to me. “What’s this?” I say as I take it. She shrugs. “Steve’s father wanted to bury Steve. I wanted to cremate him. So we split him.” So I drive to Wendy’s house and knock on her door, and when she opens it, I kiss her like I’ve never kissed anyone in my life. I tell her I want to swim in the ocean again. And she looks a little sad and says this isn’t going to work out. So I catch my flight to Hawaii, and this little old lady sitting next to me on the plane asks me what I’m going to do in Oahu, and I hold up an urn and tell her I’m spreading the ashes of the upper half of my friend Steve’s body in the ocean. And she asks me who Steve was, and I tell her he was this really great skier who loved remote backcountry terrain, old Mustangs, making crop circles, golden retrievers, and Phil’s sister. I also tell her he was chopped in half by a helicopter propeller. And she says, “That’s nice,” but it’s okay because I’m pretty sure she tuned out before I said that last part. And then she tells me she has a granddaughter who is about my age. “Has she ever heard of a grammy-award-winning saxophonist named Jerry Wiles?” I ask her. The old lady kind of squints at me and says, “Jerry who?” And I say, “What about swimming in the ocean? How does she feel about that?” And the little old lady says she isn’t too sure of her granddaughter’s opinion of ocean swimming. So I ask her if she’s aware of her granddaughter holding any strong prejudices against people who get attacked by sharks, and the little old lady says she isn’t aware of any such prejudices in her granddaughter. So I sit back and kind of smile, and the little old lady writes down her granddaughter’s number on a paper napkin and gives it to me. And I fold up the napkin and put it in my pocket even though I have absolutely no intention of texting some random old lady’s granddaughter. And then I hold the urn full of Steve’s ashes a little tighter to my chest, and look out the window at an ocean full of eight-hundred pound beasts that want to eat me alive, and I think to myself, “Not today. Not today.” ... The guy sitting next to me at the bar lifts his chin off his hand, revealing a knuckled imprint on his jawline. He blinks a couple times. “That was a story,” he says as he turns his attention to his beer, which is still full. I’m killing the last of mine when he squints at me and says, “So you’re telling me that Steve’s mom buried only his legs?” And I tell him, “No, Steve’s dad buried his legs. Steve’s mom burned Steve’s top half.” The guy nods and hunches back over his beer. I’m starting to think I might have wasted my story on this guy when he says, “You know, I’d already heard of you. Before you told me all this.” And I go, “Yeah?” And he says, “Yeah. I wasn’t a big saxophone guy until I heard Sidestroke to Shore.” He chuckles and shakes his head. “You lit up the world on that one, Jerry.” The compliment is bittersweet. “I wrote that after I got attacked by—” “By a shark. I know that now,” he says, and puts a hand on my shoulder. His wrist is covered in tattoos. “But I didn’t know that when I listened to it. All I knew was that you were in pain.” He slaps some folded up bills on the bar and stands up. While he puts on his jacket he says, “That whole record got me through prison.” Then he pats me on the shoulder and walks out of the bar. I sit in silence for a half hour before I pay my tab and leave. It takes me another half hour to swing by my house to pick up my saxophone on the way to the cemetery. The full moon makes it easy to find Steve’s grave. And even though it’s a chilly night, I don’t hesitate to rip my shirt off and toss it into the wind. I put my sax in my mouth and start playing Sidestroke to Shore with a passion I haven’t felt since I penned it, and right when I get to the chorus, I arch my back and belt the notes at the stars, letting the moonlight shine through the jagged emptiness in my side and land on the grave of Steve’s legs.


If you were a sailor, a real one, would you rather die on the open ocean, in an immense storm, tossed around by waves bigger than houses, fighting stoically against the fiercest of mother nature’s outbursts, dying the death of a man, they would one day make a movie about? Or would you rather sit on a quiet little stream, and sink due to an unnoticed, tiny lack in your sloop’s bottom and drown because the cabin door was jammed? Martin would certainly take the latter, and if he had the luxury of free choice, would order the day on the stream to be sunny, pleasantly warm but not too hot and his favorite, mellow song, leisurely pouring out of the radio. How he hated excitement and clamor and the feeling of unsteadiness, wasn’t easy to express. Why in god’s name had he become a sailor then and not a clerk at a bank or a porter or a librarian? Because Martin had grown up under the impression that certain things were desirable and desirability, in a general sense, was more important than personal happiness. He was, after all, a man. And men were sailors or boxers or at least the clerk’s boss at the bank. He hadn’t the athleticism to prevail in a boxing ring and not the administrative cunning to be a leading figure in business and so it had been the open sea. When enlisting, he had felt sick and when entering the ship for the first time, he had thrown up, three times on deck, in violent pursuit of the railing. This had made him the universal laughing stock at first, and once they had all realised that his soul was pure, he had become everybody’s little brother, that deserved to be teased in a loving way but sheltered and protected from any real harm. His first three weeks on sea had been hell and worse than that. He had believed to die everyday but when this constant sensation had reached its pinnacle, and he had actually believed, in his heart, that he would die from his misery, it had suddenly vanished, from one moment to the next. This, not in any way foreseen, change of his constitution, had thrown him into a fit of exultation that had caused him to hit his head and drop overboard. Unconscious and half drowned he had been fished up and revived by resounding laughter, sniffing salt and liquor. The day was as beautiful as one could imagine it. A clear blue sky, sprinkled here and there with snow white clouds. The sea was a calm, vast, blue carpet, the ripples made by the ship, the only perceptible movement, stirring the surface. Martin was leaning on the railing. The time at sea had made his skin richly tan and his black hair fell in one impenetrable mass down to his shoulders. He was almost alone on deck, everybody else dozing in their cabins, because the day was an off-day. But since his newly found strength and tolerance for the conditions at sea, which had not wavered, only increased since the unexpected onset, he spent as much time as possible gazing at the horizon, thinking of all the secrets and romances and unseen places that lay hidden beyond. He would write a book. He was collecting more than enough material, being surrounded by the ocean and the people who were mad enough to make it their home. Everyday he saw something that would make a good sentence or a good passage or sometimes a good entire book. He always noted ideas and instances down on his hand sized notebook, which he carried around at all times. ‘Little poet’ had his peers called him. Most of them were charmingly unfamiliar with any type of literature. But some of the crew, like lost wanderers, were surprisingly well read. Tim Bucky for example, a short but broad fellow with a bald head and little, round spectacles who was responsible for some part of the machinery. He was a long established part of the crew and the contrary of what you would expect him to be at first glance. With his scrutinizing eyes, the rapid way of moving his short, thick body, his low and hurried way to speak, you’d always expect him to be part of some conspiracy. But when you sat down with him to speak and he began telling about his two sons, the love for his wife, the way he broke down every time he had to leave them or how much he enjoyed poetry and classic prose, it was impossible to not perceive his company as an enriching experience. One evening Martin and Tim had pulled up two chairs to the railing and were watching the sun sink down behind the ocean line. They had talked extensively about the craft of writing, disagreeing vigorously about what postmodernism had done to it. They ended up agreeing to disagree, Martin passionately disavowing anything postmodern, with a youthful generalization, while Tim, cool headedly granted postmodernism its raison d'etre. Tim had read more, knew more, found Martin’s agitation amusing but was in no way patronizing and instead wanted to give Martin every opportunity to test his standpoint against another one, refine his arguments and broaden his horizon. Tim was, and had been, assuming the role of Martin’s benevolent big brother and Martin, though prone to become heated in argument and discussion, knew that and checked himself multiple times in the course of the evening. “I can’t wait to get home.” Tim said after they had finished their discussion. “I have been gone for too long. Missed too much. Billy is probably becoming taller than me now.” he smiled melancholy when he said it. “You miss them a lot, don’t you?” Martin asked, knowing the answer but wanting to give Tim another opportunity to talk about it because talking was therapy and on the ocean among none but rough men, there weren’t many chances to talk and less chances to talk about your pain. “I miss them more than I could express in a dozen books.” Tim replied. Then he turned his head and said “But I got you to take care of now.” Martin laughed. “We’ll be home soon.” he said and Tim, for a moment, seemed relieved that someone else had spoken these words. Martin was sure that they were on Tim’s mind at all times. He nodded and then repeated dreamily “Yeah, we’ll be home soon.” and then he went on “Martin, I don’t know if this was my last voyage.” And though Martin was in no way surprised to hear Tim say it, it nonetheless stung. He knew that his life was on a ship for years to come and he also knew that in these years, Tim’s presence, as a friend and a mentor, would have been a great comfort. “I’ll come and visit you, every time I am on land.” Martin said. “You have to.” Tim said. You’d like my boys and Mary as well. She is an amazing cook.” They shook hands upon that and said good night. They were roused, like everybody else on the ship, with the first violent shiver, in the middle of the night, that a foreboding wave sent through it, from bottom to chimney. Nobody thought anything of it. A wave on the ocean, what was there to fear, what was there to even think? The second wave, stronger than the first one, making things drop, made them sit up. Far removed, still, from anything resembling concern, some of them cracked jokes and laid back down, demonstratively turning around, as if to show the ocean that he had to bring more to make them so much as notice. But he brought more and they lifted the blinds of the portholes and found the ocean in a commotion that promised to become vicious. Seasoned sailors have seen storms and terrible storms but always, even for the most experienced of them, a boisterous ocean is a frightening sight, and those of them who have truly seen many storms, who have nothing left to prove, to themselves or their peers, admit their fear. It was the first time Martin saw waves this high or rain this hard or heard the wind howl that loud. You had the feeling that all forces of nature had conspired against them and now brought the onslaught. It would get bad, was the general tenor. The equivalent of “Brace for impact.” on a plane, except that impact on the ocean lasted longer. Nervous glances were exchanged. Some attempts to still joke around were soon choked and muted by the booming thunder and with every increasingly lonely joke that soon ceased to be voiced entirely, the sea became a bit more violent. Martin’s old fear of the ocean was revived. He felt like he had felt on his first day. And suddenly no desire was bigger than to be on solid ground, in a warm bed or in the arms of his mother. He had felt home and welcome on the ocean for a short two months. This feeling had abandoned him now. He was the unwelcome visitor and the ocean finally made that clear. Why was he here? The question was raging inside his head. Why wasn’t he in a bank at his job as a clerk? The ship was lifted high up and came crashing down. The oldest ones, the roghest ones, the ones in the crew you wanted to have by your side in a fight for your life, had turned pale and mute. Where there had been the universal, mocking denial of any danger, was silence. Many of them sat with glassy eyes. The panic took full control of Martin. There was no escape. Utterly trapped they were in their floating, iron cell and all they could do was pray. Where was Tim? Tim’s presence would help. He wanted to ask Tim if he had seen such a storm before. If he was confident they would survive. He wanted to hear a story about his children or his wife, wanted to hear him say that he couldn’t wait to see them soon. Tim was surely confident right now, Martin believed. He would be concerned but reasonably so. Were they sinking? Were they taking water? Hadn’t they lain higher before the storm? Like a maniac, Martin hastened to one of the portholes. He only saw heaving foam, striking against the glass as if in an attempt to burst it open. “I see you Martin.” the ocean said. “You can’t hide and there is no way to go and watch me break your little ship in half.” Martin shuddered. Why did people go to sea? Were they mad? Why had nobody told him about this? He suddenly felt anger arising in him against the captain and the ship comapnie’s office. They had made him sign a waiver. They had known it and hadn’t cared. The bored secretary who had asked him in, when he had been nervous and fidgety, had known about the awaiting doom and now lay on her couch, in front of the TV, safe and sound. He felt the hot tears on his cheeks. He wanted to be with Tim right now. They were ordered to stay inside their cabins and Tim, Martin knew, was employed down at the machines. At the height of his emotional racket he succumbed. He stopped fighting. He seized to resist. He sunk down on his bunk. His two cabin mates had been quiet this whole time. Ronny had started his seafaring life together with Martin, had signed up on the same day, had stepped on deck, for the first time, on the same day. He had suffered at first but not nearly as violently as Martin. Toby was a bit older but not a veteran. He was fearless however, had nothing to lose back at home, had become one with the ship, one with sea and gave the impression, at all times, that he was fine with death. There is no comfort to be found in the presence of a person like this, should he be the calmest man on earth, in the most dangerous situation. Martin lay there, the ship tossed around by waves as big as houses, a storm they would one day make a movie about. He held on when he was about to fall, shook all over when the ship made signs of capsizing. It was the worst storm any of them had ever seen, and later they would all say, even the captain, that they could not believe the ship was still floating. It all lasted five hours. The storm abated almost as suddenly as it had come. They all noticed it at the same time. It was a careful opening of the blinds, a timid look outside. A first smile and then a nervous laugh. No one trusted it at first. They had the universal idea that the storm played a trick on them. Wanted to grant them a little hope before crushing them finally and entirely. But when the first ray of morning sunlight pierced the pitch black sky, they all drew a deep breath and the tight grips on the crosses and bibles and bunk-beds loosened. Martin awoke, as from a trance. He sat up, breathed deeply, covered his face in his palms. He was shaking but it was the tension leaving him. It was the last nervous tremble and the weakness that follows a great relief. He wanted to sleep. He had never been this exhausted before. He first realized that Toby had moved when the other sat down on Martin’s bunk beside him. In an unexpected gesture, Toby lay a hand on Martin’s shoulder. “I almost shit my pants as well.” he said half jokingly but with the intent to offer some sincerity. “I am not made for this.” Martin said but he laughed and Toby laughed and Ronny laughed as well. “Nobody is made for this sort of thing.” Ronny said. There was the unspoken, unnamed and greatly increased unity between three men who had, together, come uncomfortably close to an early death. Who had seen the certainty of sinking into the endless depths of the ocean pass over each other’s faces “I thought I would be ready for anything out here.” Toby said. “I really did. But I don’t think I am.” Martin regarded his cabin mate, thoughtfully. “Does something to you.” Ronny said and they all agreed. They knew that they had been inaugurated in a seafaring man’s secret. And they would certainly never forget their first and in any of their lives, most violent storm. Years later, Martin would feel the tingling sensation that had, by force, been stamped into his memory, of being lifted up by the waves, the way a feather would be lifted up by a gust of wind.


Beyond all of the stories you might hear passed or told, you may always take comfort in the idea that perhaps they are not real. I am going to quickly take away that one comfort that you have clung to. What I tell you, nay, what I rave to you is the utter truth. Perhaps that should make it more than a story, but a warning. A warning, to never look upon the stars. A short amount of backstory before I begin in earnest. I always had peculiar dreams, but oftentimes the worst moments were before I went to sleep. The time where I sat in that darkness and thoughts raced faster than your mind. These thoughts are a benign experience to a person. Perhaps it was a prior experience, or maybe you had too much electronic time before bed. Easily explained, easily dismissed. Well, until one fateful night which will live as I live. It began as most things do in the night. A moment of delirium there, a spectacular display of your mind over here, but most importantly was the thoughts. You know the thoughts I speak, the half-formed ones that sit on your waking tongue. Aye, I believe that all of you do know of what I speak. I remember these times like a blur, as when the countryside became a single conglomerate of green and browns on long road trips. These thoughts hardly mean anything, but I remember it so unbelievably clearly still.  The world became quiet. Utterly quiet. This was an odd thing to me because I had tinnitus, so these moments of true quiet were a welcomed moment. Something to be welcomed as a dear old friend comes to visit before a long journey they don't intend to come back from. A thought startled me then, thought about the stars. I remember writing it down, and I will transpose it here.  " The stars, when they are so close. When the sky is so low you can hear the crackling of the fires, like the crickets at night or the gulls above the ocean. You can't reach for them, because it is something we can't reach, only something to aspire to reach. "  Well, I had that thought. It was a half-thought, not given very much time to formulate in one's head. More of something that you believed without reason than something that you didn't believe with reason. It was shortly after that I felt that I should try, really try, to grab one of the stars. I concentrated. I lay down upon my bed, and I had never been so comfortable before. I took one of my hands and stretched it out from my shoulder to as far as I could extend it into the air in front of me. I imagined myself in that place with the stars. I suppose you could call it space if you were a romantic.  Then I gripped one of the stars, closed in a fist that my hand had formed around it. I dragged it down out of the sky, and then I opened my hand. It was the most trembling of moments. The light was blinding, yet my eyes did not close. I was alone in that darkness, a floating form in a vast empty space. In my hands lay a star, one plucked out of the sky. I looked upon it, and let the light flow over me. It was the most unbelievably expansive moment of my life. It felt as if it lasted hours, but it could have been no more than a moment. No more than a moment was all it took. I cried then, the first time in a decade. It was not a trembling beast, nor some alien entity, it was myself.  It was everything I had done, my sin's laid bare to myself. For a while, I cried and shook inconceivably, and yet I found myself laughing. Laughing because this was it, the truth. The truth I sought about myself so much, and it was laid in front of me. At that moment I hated myself but found an acceptance as well. It gave me strength. Yet it was a strength given, not taken. I resolved to make myself a better person, for I could not live with what I had done. I fell asleep shortly after, although I could give you no exact time. I found that upon waking I felt good, great even. It was the best sleep I had had in years.  Yet time stands still for no man, least of all. The next day, I had risen. I felt good. I continued on, resolving to be a better person. I failed spectacularly and shortly fell into old habits. I was lazy, and overall not a good person in my most private of moments. Then I felt what it really was, it was not some blessing. It was a curse, a penance. It spoke against your nature and gave you goals beyond what you could achieve. It drives you mad, to know what you want so desperately, and to know that you have not the strength to do it. Oh yes, completely and utterly mad.  Thus events lead us here. The present. I feel it calling, always. A desire to look upon the star once more and see judgment. Yet I am scared too. I have phrased it many a time differently but when it comes down to it, I am just scared. I am scared because I know what that Star is. It's a door, a door to madness. I have the keys to it, and I can't get rid of them. It calls to me, not in some schizophrenic voice way, but it's there. In a way, it's comforting. I can leave everything behind, with just a turn of a nob.  You may question the horror in this story. You may sit down and state your beliefs, but of this I remind you. You no longer have the comfort of maybe, perhaps, it was all a story. You forfeited that when you read this story. That is the horror of it, that no matter what you think, you are a witness. You will imagine that star eventually, and it will change you. Some of you sooner than others. By telling you, I have damned you. I am sorry, and that is truthful.  Now, I am on the edge. I take deep breaths, my hands move deftly on the keyboard. My room smells of old socks, the hallway of filthy water. My screen is slightly too bright and puts a strain on my eyes. The lower of my back aches slightly because of how I have been sitting. The one light in my room is off. The room is deathly quiet.  The light is off because I am going to look upon the star again tonight.


Submitted for Reedsy Prompt #74, "Write a story that takes place across ten seconds." One. BANG! Willow crumples on to the flagstones. I can see her arm laid about above her head, the grey linen sleeve slowly dyeing red with blood. She decided not to jump. I’m not surprised. She was always skittish, hesitant; she didn’t have what it takes. Not like me. Two. No bang, instead a strange, visceral scream; involuntary. Aspen jumped. Again, I could have predicted this. She was Oak’s deputy and she’d done most of the legwork for our plan; mapping routes, figuring out where we could tunnel, where we could climb and where we could run. It was Aspen who constantly reminded us that this was the likely outcome of the plan. “It might work,” she said, leaning over the small table where we were all crowded on top of each other, sipping weak coffee. “We could go down in history as the liberators of our people, but it’s not likely.” Her face hardened ferociously. “More likely than not, we’ll spend a week in prison while the country takes bets on which of us will be brave enough to leap from the peak and which of us won’t.” Willow whimpered when Aspen said it. Three. BANG. Linden didn’t jump. I am surprised now. He had seemed so ardent when we were trekking through the Molling Pass, knee deep in snow. “I’ll never let them waste lead on me.” But he did. Maybe he didn’t decide in time. You only had one second. I had been practicing. I could take three rapid breaths in one second. One to steel myself for what I was about to do, one to fuel my muscles to jump, one to make sure I was gone before they fired. Four. No bang. Elm had jumped. All the bookies knew she would. Besides Oak, she was the one among us most favored to leap. Our faces spread over the centerfold of the newspaper in two even rows; five on top, five on the bottom. Our names, ages, hometowns, what we were arrested with; all information used by gamblers to inform their guesses about our fate. Elm’s scream was deep, distorting as she fell further. I listen for as long as I can, but then, Five. No bang. Oak. Our leader. The shame if he hadn’t jumped would have been unbearable for his family. People who lead rebellions but don’t jump are never spoken of, their families considered cursed. They're pushed to the edges of their villages and forced to live off of the pity of old women. I know Aspen and Oak told us again and again that we were likely to get caught and that we weren’t likely to succeed, but Oak assured us that it was the *duty* of our people to try to overthrow the Helvarians; that we must ensure they never sleep peacefully for fear we might come in the night and slit their throats. We were a morality tale Helvarian mothers told their children to get them to behave: \*Listen to your mother for the Dendronians will come for you in the night. Put that down now or I’ll send you to the Dendronians. "\*And", Oak said, "Maybe this time it will work." I don’t hear Oak hit the bottom. You can never hear them hit the bottom, it’s too far away. At some point the scream just fades. That’s how the myth started among my people that revolutionaries who stay true fly; that they leap from the peak and fly away into glory. A memory hits me hard, so strange for this to come to me now. I was six or seven, playing in the woods with my friend, Juniper. “They don’t *really* fly you know. The bottom is just too far away for us to hear them hit.” He was sneering at me. “That’s not true! They do fly. My daddy flew!” “Well my uncle met somebody on the clean up crew. He said they rappel down the side of the peak and remove stuff from the bodies like gold teeth, valuable hair, that kind of thing.” “You’re a liar!” I yelled, throwing a pebble at him. “Then how come no one ever *sees* them fly away into glory? Wouldn’t we see them flying up into the air?” I ran to my mother in hysterics. “You told me daddy flew! You said he was a hero! Juniper told me they just smash on the rocks.” I wept so hard I couldn’t breathe. “Don’t listen to Juniper, my sweet. He’s a silly boy. Come here.” She pulled me to her lap and brought my head to her chest. She rubbed her hand up and down my back before stopping abruptly, patting my shoulder blades, making a confused face. She pulled my tunic back and peeked down the collar. “What are these?” She patted the space on my back between my arms once again. I tried to turn my face around, this way and that, to look at my own back. “What mom? What is it?” I started to frantically whack beneath my neck. “Wing buds. I can feel them here. If the time comes and you’re very brave, your wings will pop out of here and you’ll fly right to your daddy.” “Do you mean it, mommy?” “I do.” Later on I realized, with a laugh, that she was just touching my shoulder blades, nothing more. Sometimes, when we were teenagers, my friends and I would debate whether we’d teach our children about the wings or whether we’d be cool and skeptical forever. What hung in the air like a toxic cloud in those conversations was whether we’d ever get to have children. Would we survive the Helvarians coming to the village every spring to decide who would come with them to work as ‘servants’ (slaves)? Would they find us hidden in old logs and briar bushes, where hopeful parents would sometimes hide their children from the Helvarians, usually in vain? Would we die in a rebellion? Or would we survive in place until we were twenty-five, just to watch the Helvarians come for our friends, children, grandchildren, year after year? The blood flowing from Aspen and Linden is making its way down the line now. It will be at my feet soon. Six. BANG. Ash. She didn’t jump. What had the bookies bet on her? My time is coming so soon. What will I think about when I plunge to the ground? Maybe I’ll imagine my mother, or meeting my father. I will be happy if the last thing I see is my father’s face smiling at me. *I’m so proud of you.* But now I’m imagining my first, and only, kiss. Oh no, I hope the last thing I remember isn’t Mahogany. Damnit, I can’t remember the lineup now, who’s next? Seven. No bang, heaving scream. Who was seven? I went through the lineup in my head a thousand times, easily, in the last few days. Aspen, Willow, Elm, Linden... no wait, it was Willow, Aspen, Linden, or was Elm next. Oak was number five. How am I forgetting? I have so little time left to remember. Eight. BANG. I can see his torso hit the ground in my peripheral vision; Alder. He only joined us because he knew that if the Helvarian guards came for him, and they probably would, they would torture him. Better to hedge his bets with us; no one believed he would jump when the time came. I wonder why people can’t bring themselves to jump? They *know* they are going to die. There’s no hope either way, why not die with pride? But it’s as though some animal part of us hopes that, if we choose to stay put, our fate may be different than the fates of all our forebears, who either soared into oblivion over the peak, or else were shot. If we move our heads they’ll shoot us, so I’m limited to moving my eyes. This is something I’ve been practicing the past week, stretching my eyes as far as I can while my head stays still; I used the reflection off of a dank puddle in the prison floor to do it. I can see, now, stretching my eyes as far left as possible, the steam rising off of Alder’s blood. Seeing the blood reminds me that seven was Spruce. All I can remember of Spruce is her eyes; grey green. Nine. I can feel Cedar jumping; catch his dirt-covered feet leaving the ground. The blood is pumping so hard in my ears that I can’t hear his screaming. Cedar was handsome; big and tall and dark. Sometimes at night, when we were sharing some of the four blankets we had between the ten of us, I’d curl up next to Cedar and imagine I wasn’t on my way to Allhaven to try to overthrow the Helvarian government; assassinate the Magistrate, shoot the guards and kidnap the children of the Senators until they met our demands. I’d imagine that we were two lovers laying in bed together, sleeping in after a long night, legs entwined, perfectly at peace. Ten. It comes so quickly for me I almost miss my chance. The old priest that the Helvarians had sent in to try to get us to confess and recant told us the ten seconds would feel like an eternity; something about the brain drawing out time, like in dreams. *Fractal divisions*. *Distortion of senses*. *The psychology of it*. He told us it would be agony, that we’d defecate ourselves or collapse weeping and disgrace ourselves, but we knew that nothing is more disgraceful for a Dendronian than capitulation. And so we all remained silent until he sprinkled us with driftwood ash and wished us a pleasant journey into the underworld. Now ten seconds felt impossibly fast, thrice as fast as I’d been counting all week. I take the biggest breath I can muster. My brain sends the signal to my feet to jump; a burst of power from my heels to the balls of my feet, up to my knees. My thighs plunge down for leverage and the momentum is back down to the balls of my feet again, pushing back up, and off I fly. I see my bare toes arched above me in the sky as I fall, the grey linen uniform madly flapping in the wind. Everything is a green-blue blur. I’m trying to summon my father. I want to see his face before I hit the rocks below. “Cypress,” he says, smiling into my face. “I’m so proud of you.” And at that moment I spread out my arms, as if to embrace him, and the wings that I’d always known deep down, even in the height of my cynicism, were there, burst forth, ripping open the linen cloth. They catch a draft of air and carry me off into the golden horizon.


"We can't afford that." Despite the promises, she heard the sentence again, and to amplify the injury it did anyway, she heard it right in front of the salesman, who had patiently shown them the twenty three thousand dollar leather couch. She thought she saw in the eyes of the salesman, the worst, the most humiliating and insulting of all emotions, pity. Though it was just a flash and though after all, Camilla could still somewhat rely on being much wealthier than this neat and inconspicuous man, it nonetheless ruined her day and her mood. Being pitied by an ordinary. Wordless she turned around, stuck her nose up in the air and left, stomping her heels on the marble floor. William looked after her then made a brief, explanatory gesture in the salesman's direction, whose friendly manner, William thought, couldn't hide a sort of commiseration, which half amused and half angered him. Though Camilla's temper at times would run wild and ruin an afternoon, William was certain that his wife possessed countless times the beauty and ability for societal grace than whomever the man in front of him shared a marital bed with. "Shall we reserve the couch for you, in case you reconsider?" the salesman asked. "Yeah, do that." William answered. "It is reserved for two weeks." "Thanks." said William, knowing that in two weeks, nothing about his financial situation would have changed and they would never come back to buy the couch. And then when money was coming in, and who knew when that would be, for the disgrace, they would shun this expensive and exclusive furniture store. So William was aware, he would never see the salesman again and thus was even less anxious than before to display any excess courtesy. William Stephenson was a man who couldn't help but reflect his inner workings onto the world around him. Three prosperous years of ascent in the banking sector had left his environment under the impression to be dealing with a man of constant, mellow satisfaction. The last year, where this ascent had come to an involuntary halt had left William many days agitated and short fused. Where there had been good manners and an unobtrusive interest in the people he encountered, were now a more or less concealed indifference and a certain uncivilness. The latter was inherited from his late grandfather, who had become known, in the elderly days, for an offensive and intended lack of good breeding, which had seemed like an attempt to alienate the most amount of people possible before his death and William, until this day, suspected the old man of having had a thievish joy in it. William turned around and left and gave no response to the "Good day, sir." The salesman thought nothing in particular of William and Camilla. He was too much of a professional and dealt with too many moody snobs, to do that, or to take any of their behaviour personally. He was rearranging the cushions of the couch with stoic, butler-like neatness when the entrance door shut behind William. He found Camilla in the car, browsing through a clothes catalog and he, in a burst of impatience yanked it out of her hand and only a piece of the page she had been holding remained there. "Asshole." she muttered and crossed her arms and looked out of the window. She carelessly dropped the snippet from her hand to the floor and William turned to her and said "Pick that up." "What?" she returned indignantly, in theatrical disbelief. "Pick it up." he repeated. "Pick it up or you walk home but you won't be littering my goddamn car." he wasn't in the mood to fight and wanted to make a definite, indisputable point. But Camilla, when she was defiant, always made it her mission to show William how little she took him seriously. She just chuckled, took the snippet up, ripped it in half, and dropped both pieces to the floor again. William got out of the car and was at her door before she could lock it from the inside. He yanked it open and she gave a shriek when he seized her arm. He began pulling and her shriek enlarged to a hysterical scream which attracted attention all around and even from the little, neat, butler of a salesman inside the furniture store, who was as far as a monk removed from any nosiness or gossip. Foaming, William let go of her arm and shut the door and cast a challenging glance around. But as this glance was reflected in one or two witnessing faces of men, and he was in no more of a mood to fight with them than with his wife, he got back into the car and drove off and for a while they both said nothing. Their drive home, from downtown back into the upper suburbs, was forty minutes. Camilla switched on the radio and William switched it off again directly. She rolled the window down and he rolled it up again. And condescendingly, trying everything to sound bored by these antics, she said "Really? How old are you William?" and as he didn't respond she added, more to herself, "That might be illegal." "You know what's illegal?" he returned "Embarrassing everybody who is with you by acting like a damn spoiled child." "Oh, Willy…" she said sarcastically but as he stopped the car, almost making it an emergency stop and drove on to the parking lane, she sat up straight, aware to have crossed the line. “Get out.” he said. “No.” Camilla said. “You get out of the car, now.” “I am sorry, William, can we please just go home?” “Get out.” “You can’t throw me out. Please. Just let us go home and then we order food and tonight all will be forgotten and tomorrow we will laugh about our silliness.” William pulled the key out of the ignition, opened his door and stepped outside. It was a beautiful day. The snowwhite clouds painted manifold shapes on a richly blue canvas. He took a deep breath and realized at once how tired he was and how much in need of tranquility. He looked to the left and right and then crossed the street, where on the other side he spotted a small book store. He saw himself now, finding momentary peace between the bookshelves, maybe opening one or two and reading a few pages, smelling the young paper and new ink. Way too long he hadn’t found the time to read because his weekends were usually spent now on brunches and then dinners with Camilla’s friends or boring, exhausting and meaningless shopping sprees. Not for the first time, he noticed how much Camilla’s shallow interests were mercilessly consuming his time and energy. He had, for this briefest interval, in his joyful expectancy of the little world of peace, almost forgotten his car behind him, in which Camilla was still sitting. The moment he laid his palm on the book store’s door handle, Camilla’s voice, screaming after him, served as a painful reminder. “William!” she screamed. But he overcame the moment of hesitation and despite her protest, entered and pulled the door shut and was embraced by the pleasant silence he had anticipated. The place was like a mellow dream, like every book store, a secluded, little, parallel world co existing, in a state of perfect harmony, next to all the rush and the din. As a child and a youth, William had done nothing rather than reading and had there been a career path, making him an underpaid man whose only purpose was reading books, he would have taken it without hesitation. But then there had been college and then some years later, half through connections and half through headless dedication, he had ended up in banking. There he forfeited, each day, mirth and mind, occupied solely with the soulless shifting of money and it weighed on him heavier than he would have admitted. He was grandly paid but they had promised him a promotion, a huge leap for his career a while back and in anticipation of that, he had begun living above his income, significantly propelled by Camilla and her longing for luxury and the upper class. Then they had withdrawn their offer and postponed William’s promotion until an unknown point in time. They were contractually obligated to give him the promotion sooner or later but they could and would do it at their discretion. Something that William was content with but also something, a narrow mind as Camilla’s, clouded by status conscious egotism wasn’t able to grasp. A fairly young woman, who had, in her upbringing, never experienced a delay in the gratification of her wishes, she had grown up to be under the constant impression, that the world’s purpose was her own entertainment. It became harder and harder for William to conceal his wife’s raging character flaws from his own scrutiny and the day where he finally had to acknowledge and face them approached inexorably. He traversed the rows of books with long, slow strides and the carpet absorbed every noise his steps would have made. He was looking for the section with english classics and soon found it and stood before it. It was like he was revisiting a familiar place of his childhood and the memories overwhelmed his comprehension. There they were, his havens, the sites of his childhood fancy, neatly placed, shoulder to shoulder, ready to invite and to welcome and supply every seeking soul with all of life’s endless possibilities. He picked out one of the books, some Fitzgerald, and couldn’t help but feel that the story of his own life was sometimes inspired by a recent reading of this virtuoso. He picked another one, a Dickens book and was transported back to his grandpa’s fireside, the most sheltered place of his childhood where he had devoured the stories of Copperfield and Pip. As so often, when the greatest pleasure, and even passion, invokes the wildest fancy, there came ideas into William’s head as to never go back. Never go back to Camilla or banking. For a moment he was sure he could find a job as a librarian or open his own book store, easily. For a moment he was sure, the only thing separating him from this dream of a life, forever surrounded by books, was a bit of courage that he yet needed to muster. For this brief interval of wandering thoughts, all of the economic sacrifice that came with a life as this, seemed negligible, even thinking of it appeared like a petty by-product of a spoiled and weakened mind. He took the two books he had opened, and a few others, with him to the counter. There he waited a moment before a young woman of maybe twenty two came out of the back room. William had inhibitions to start a conversation not related to their business transaction, as one usually has around strangers. But the vehemence of his inner workings, simply rendered it inevitable. And when he had paid, after the usual, small-talking friendliness, he said “Could I ask you another question?” “Sure.” the young woman replied. “Has it always been your dream to work in a bookstore?” At this moment, so entirely taken up by his imaginations, the only possible reason, in his mind, for anybody, to work in a bookstore, or own one, was a higher calling, a purpose and a life’s passion for literature and the written word. The young woman however looked at him in amused disbelief as to say ‘Are you kidding me?’ but as he didn’t waver and in earnest waited for a reply, she said “Oh, no. my dream?” she repeated the word as if she had to make sure that she had understood it correctly. “How much money do you think I make?” William was taken aback and found the question endlessly chastening. It was like a rude awakening from his romantic fantasizing. He was at once brought back to reality. A reality in which money was important. In which you needed to do things like banking in order to make it. And one in which not every bookstore owner or employee was part of a detached society which held the key to happiness without it. The young woman repeated the question but William was sullen now and unwilling to answer it. The world waiting for him outside of the bookstore had materialized again, returning from its brief repression, and him living in it, without a quick way for escape, was inevitable. It was a world in which Camilla would nag him about a new couch and about dinner with her boring, empty friends, in the course of which, William knew, he would become more boring and more empty himself because you are guilty by association when it comes to shallow stupidity. “Goodbye.” William said. “The answer is not a lot.” said the young woman, who was now, judging by William’s rudeness, under the impression that his question about her dream had been a mocking, ironic one. William was in no mood to further engage with her. Deep down, he did not like himself when he was unfriendly but there were moments in which he couldn’t help himself.


I spoke to Perdita for maybe another ten minutes or so, however I remembered little of the conversation. I tried to talk about her life and the life of the blue-clothed workers, but my mind was far too distracted to process any of it all. Tamsyn had a sister. Malcolm had another daughter. The revelation itself was not what haunted me, but the responsibility of knowing. On the slow walk back to the home, my mind went back and forth as to whether I should tell Malcolm and Tamsyn. I either stayed quiet and left them in ignorance or became a messenger of turmoil. The journey back to the house felt like a blur. I seemed to simply arrive back. My body on autopilot while my brain weighed the decision to be made. I walked through the door and into the living room where I kept my things. “How was the trip?” I turned to find Tamsyn standing behind me. I hadn't noticed her entering the room, and the moment of reorientation left me awkwardly hesitating. “It… it was good. Thank you for letting me go.” She stared at my face for a few seconds, trying to read me. Eventually, she succeeded. “You saw her didn’t you?” I wondered for a moment if I should deny it. But even that moment of contemplation meant it was too late. I nodded. “You knew she was there?” “I suspected,” she replied. She walked into the room and fell heavily on an armchair. She sat with her eyes facing the floor, clasping her hands tightly together. “I only saw her once. About four years back. It was evening and... I was walking through the town when I caught the glimpse of what was like looking into a mirror. But the sun was setting, there were shadows across her face, and I was fifteen, you know, at that age where you’re never quite sure what you can trust? But…” she looked up to me with a grimmaced smile, “I never forgot.” “So you never told Malcolm that he has another daughter?” She shook her head. I looked at the walls around us; all the portraits that kept watch over the home. All those years of history that Malcolm had purposefully hung up on display. “What do you think he would do if he found out?” I asked. She shrugged. I wasn’t quite sure how to respond myself, so we both sat in the silence for a few minutes. We were interrupted by the door opening and Malcolm bounding into the room with bluster. His eyes scanned our sullen faces. “What’s up with you two? You both look like death.” He chuckled with a large grin, that he seemed to assume would be contagious. I looked to Tamsyn to see what she would do. I don’t know if I was simply too cowardly to decide on the right course of action myself, or if I was right in deciding that it was Tamsyn’s decision to make. But I stayed quiet, waiting for Tamsyn to decide. Eventually the silence cracked. “Dad. Ferdinand went to the blue settlement by the northern cliffs today.” He tutted and with a quick nod walked into the room and sat down beside his daughter. “Well, I did warn you Ferdinand that it would be a disappointing experience. It’s not a jovial place over there…” “That’s not the point,” Tamsyn interrupted. “He…” She paused and closed her eyes. “When mum died. Did they ever tell you anything?” Malcolm’s eyes widened. “No.” “Did they even tell you anything about me?” She scrunched her eyelids tighter, fighting back the tear that threatened to leak. “You know the rules. They never tell you anything. For all I knew you died too. Why do you ask?” Malcolm’s eyes turned to me. “Ferdinand what did you do today to upset her so much?” I was trying to remain an observer in the room, and the sudden switching of the focus to me caught me off guard. I mustered some panicked muttering about it not being about me before Tamsyn interrupted. “I have a sister,” Tamsyn interrupted. “You have another daughter.” “How could you possibly know that?” Malcolm spluttered, with another laugh. “We’re twins. She’s a spitting image of me.” “You saw her?” Malcolm asked, his teeth gritted. Tamsyn’s eyes retreated to the cieling. Her voice was broken. “Once. I thought I did. Years back. But Ferdinand met her today.” Once more Malcolm’s eyes returned their gaze directly at me. That large round frame that usually seemed content and larger than life suddenly appeared dominating and threatening. “This true?” “Yes.” “And she is definitely my daughter. They look identical?” The words came quick and pointed. “She’s maybe a tiny bit paler. Her face a bit thinner…” “So it might be a coincidence,” Malcolm interrupted. “No” I returned the interruption, mustering some commitment. “Tamsyn is correct... She is your daughter. Definitely.” “I have a daughter who is a blue?” Malcolm kept his eyes fixed on mine. I nodded. He stood up and paced across the living room. “I have a daughter who is a blue?” he raised his face to the sky and asked. “She’s the same age as Tamsyn. She works at the settlement, so she barely leaves there. That’s probably why you’ve never seen her.” I don’t know why I thought more information may help, but somehow it was my instinct to try and fill the void. “We can’t have a blue in the family,” Malcolm muttered to himself. “Was this not always a possibility?” I asked. I immediately regretted pushing back, but as much as the revelation had shocked me too, everyone on this island had to know that the blues comprised of family. “I only had one daughter,” Malcolm replied, a renewed bite to his voice. “But, you must have had brothers or sisters, or uncles or aunts.” “Never.” Malcolm snarled. His frame seemed to grow wider as he stood over me. I felt I was only a question away from physical violence, so I kept silent. He retreated, muttering to himself. “There not in the family if they are a blue. They’re… they’re something else.” Tamsyn stood, and walked over to her father, placing a hand on his back. “Dad, come sit down. We’re going to have to think about this…” “No.” He shook his bowed head. I watched his broad chest breathe in and out, trying to vent off the emotion bubbling within. The breaths became more stuttered as the pressure built until his eyes winced, and broken words fell from his lips. “I need to go.” Malcolm marched out the room. I stood and went to follow him, but Tamsyn raised an arm between me and the doorway. “Let him go,” she said. “Give him some space.” I listened to the front door slam and through the window watched Malcolm march down the road towards the town. Both Tamsyn and I expected him to return fairly soon, but a few hours passed with no sign. The day had given way to night. The warmth had been drained from the air, and even inside it felt bitterly cold. Tamsyn kept watch by the window, waiting for her father to return. I tried my best to comfort her, repeating mantras that he would be home soon, that she had no reason to fear. However she couldn’t help but continue staring out the window, waiting. “Do you have any idea where he might have gone?” I asked. “He likes the western side of the island, says the dramatic cliffs are more beautiful. Maybe he went there. Or he might have gone for a drink at someone’s house. Or…” She trailed off. “Where?” I asked. “He’s gone to see for himself,” she shrugged. “You think he would do that?” “I don’t know,” she said, turning to me, her cheeks visibly damp. I am not quite sure how much time passed, but at some point, I fell asleep. I woke with my head dropped awkwardly on my chest, to the frenetic sound of Tamsyn’s voice. “He’s back. He’s here.” It took a few seconds for my mind to understand the message, and a few more for my eyes to open. However, my slow arrival to consciousness was interrupted as I heard Tamsyn shout, “What have you done?” The force of the shriek brought me into the room with a sudden jolt and I reflexively jumped to my feet. I looked to the doorway as Tamsyn walked in still shouting. “You can’t do this. Do you have any idea what they’ll do?” She was followed by a silent Malcolm, and then, by a very confused-looking Perdita. Malcolm dragged his new daughter into the room, his hand gripped around the loose fabric of her sleeve, exposing just how skinny the limb beneath was. “I am not letting my daughter be a blue,” he said. “You can’t decide that. You know that” Tamsyn pleaded, trying to get her father to look at her. Perdita’s small frame sat down on the chair where I had been. Her eyes instinctually remained lowered in deference. “They will find out,” Tamsyn shouted at her father. “Dad, you can’t do this.” “What would you have me do?” He shouted raising him arms to the air. “I don’t know,” she screeched, before quickly becoming more subdued. The next line was little more than a whisper. “I don’t know.” Malcolm took a deep breath before returning to face Perdita. “You can sleep in my room tonight. I will sleep down here with Ferdinand. Ferdinand, I’m sorry you find yourself in this situation, but we will have to make do.” I nodded. I only had one more night after this before my arranged pick up with Alessia. “Perdita, come, I’ll show you to your room,” Malcolm said. He left, and led his newfound daughter up the stairs. Tamsyn sat, slumped on the sofa. I walked over and sat beside her. “What do you think will happen?” I asked. “I don’t think this has ever happened before. Not in my lifetime anyway,” Tamsyn said. “But… they will find out. They will come.


Briana was a beautiful lass with nut-brown hair and wide blue eyes. She sang a tune to herself as she strolled through the emerald green hills of the country. Following the road, she neared the Sweeney's farmhouse. A loud crash sounded in the distance, followed by a chuckle and a high-pitched squeal. Briana ran into the barn to investigate. Angus Sweeney's arms wrapped around a creature the size of a chicken. It was a wee fellow in a green suit with a red buckled hat and boots. "You're going to drop all your gold if you want to be set free," grumbled Angus. "Oi!" yelled Briana. Angus dropped the leprechaun in surprise, and the creature flashed behind a hay bale. "Bria, you just cost me a fortune. I hope yer happy," Angus' crossed his massive arms and pouted in silence. "What did the little man do to deserve to be jostled so?" "He has all the gold, mountains of wealth. You only need to catch them." Briana folded her arms. "So you capture them against their will until they drop coins? Sounds like robbery to me." "They're not human**.** They're Sidhe." "That doesn't make it right," sighed Briana, shaking her head. Angus rolled his eyes and stormed out of the barn. "I didn't come here to be nagged by a woman. I have important work to do." He huffed and plodded out of the barn. By the bale of hay where the leprechaun was hiding, Briana saw a tiny shoe. It was the most exquisite little thing she laid eyes on. The leather was as soft as butter, and the buckles shone of pure gold in the broken sunlight. "Tank you very much, my lady," he whispered. The little fellow came out of hiding and kissed her hand and bowed. "For rescuing me, I owe ye one wish. " Briana thought for a moment and handed him back the shoe he was working on. "I want to learn how to make shoes like that," she said. The leprechaun raised an eyebrow. "To teach a human such a task would take ages. I can offer you gold, a handsome husband, land, or a mansion." "If I learn how to make shoes as thus, I will earn my old gold. I can buy the land and mansion myself and won't need a husband, no matter how handsome he is." The leprechaun sighed and shook his head. "Very well, woman. We meet at daybreak past the green hill with the stone circle. Your days will be long, and your toil will be great. I wish you had asked for something else." "You are Sidhe. You must keep your bargain." "As I shall," said the little man before vanishing. Briana woke by the cocks crow the next dawn. She packed herself a small lunch and headed past town toward the fairy mound. Underneath the hill, she found a tiny workshop. "Hello?" she called. The little man came out of the shop and snapped his fingers, and Briana shrank to his size. "You kept your promise and came at dawn," he said, putting a corn-cob pipe in his mouth. "I work on a farm. Waking up early is nothing to me." He nodded and led her into his workshop. There was a bench full of little shoes and a hearth with a little pot cooking over the flame. They had a meal of porridge and tea in complete silence. "Tank you for the food, but I want to start the lessons now," said Briana. "Well, you can start by soaking the hides." He pointed his hand toward a mountain of rabbit pelts." "The leather is from rabbits?" asked Briana. "How else would it get so soft? The hides need to be soaked and cleaned. Now ye best get to it." Briana lifted the pelts and soaked them in a small peat bog. She dredged the heavy skins from the drink and squeezed them dry. She took a little round knife and skinned off the fur and flesh. The leprechaun came by and picked through all the hides. He tossed them into the bog after finding one solitary hair on the leather. Briana took a deep breath and soaked the skins again. She wrung and scraped the hides for a week, only stopping for meals of rabbit stew, brown bread, and tea. She slept short nights in a thatched bed. Eventually, after the cool spring breezes turned into the beating summer sun, the hides felt like silk under her hands. The leprechaun came back and checked the leather and nodded in approval. "I didn't tink yea had it in you. Now we make the sole." The following day, he took her to a patch of forest with an enormous oak log. Briana spent the next week sawing the log into planks. She carved the wood into soles and sanded them smooth. The leprechaun would inspect the soles and throw the ones that were too splintery into the fire. Her hands were rough and full of splinters. But as her hands grew rougher, the soles grew smoother. The leprechaun came to the working mill with the soles and inspected them once more. He whistled as he saw the number of soles lying before him. "Aye lass, these look fine. Yer next task is the fitting and sewing." As the summer sun turned to the crisp wind of autumn, Briana learned how to fit the leather to the sole and hammer the shoes together. She painstakingly fit each piece over the sole and hammered it to the wood. Once again, the leprechaun would inspect the shoes and threw the ill-fitted ones into the fire. As the warm colors of fall turned to the frost of winter, the **l**eather fit the soles exquisitely. "Last, I shall teach you how to make the buckles." He led her toward a large pot of gold coins. He showed her how to melt the coins using tiny bellows, the coals' heat fending off the chill of winter. After they melted the coins, she would cast the slurry into molds. When it cooled, Briana would polish the gold until her arms ached, and it still **didn't** shine enough for the leprechaun. It wasn't until the frozen ground thawed back to spring did she had the buckles polished to perfection. In that year, Briana had helped the little man makes dozens of shoes. She now knew the craft of cobbling and could go back to the world of man. The leprechaun looked at Briana with a forlorn expression as she left the workshop. His debt paid for. He let her take all the shoes that she had made. All the times he had thrown the shoes into the fire or griped at her, she did not get angry or lash out. At worst, she would sigh and begin the same task again. He wished her well and drank a glass of ale the same size he was. Briana grew to normal size as she returned to town. She sold the shoes for a handsome price and opened her own shop. She worked day and night tirelessly to keep her shelves stocked. Rabbit pelts were a bit too small for humans, so she did her best with the skin of a stag. She couldn't reasonably afford gold buckles but could buy the best brass and polish it to a blinding shine. Instead of giant oaks, she settled on good cork. Her hands became rough and her slight frame filled out with muscle. Her face was still comely, and her chestnut hair was still silken, and her blue eyes were bright. Briana relished in her work and sang the most beautiful songs. Angus Sweeney was now town mayor, and Briana's craft and beauty caught his eye. He swaggered into her shop and plucked one shoe off the wall. "I had thought you were a goner when you left town a year ago. It was as if you vanished. All of us thought the Sidhe had taken you." "I went to them of my free will. One of the little folk owed me a bargain," Briana looked around her shop. "It looks like l succeeded." "I think you'd be happier as me, wife, " said Angus, his broad shoulders blocking her door. "I tink not, I earned everything here, not to have it ripped away by some bully." "You'll have all the riches and never have to work again in your life." "I earned this right to work. I have honed my craft for a year straight. I belong to no man," she spat. "You did not learn this talent by natural means. You've consorted with fairies, and the devil touches you." Angus grabbed Briana and dragged her into the street to the courthouse. "As mayor, I accuse this woman of witchcraft!" Angus threw Briana into a small cell and locked the door. She curled up into a ball and cried through the night on the cold stone floor. They called the priest to town the next morning. The people who had been in awe of her shoes the week before now reveled in the burning of her shop. The mayor dragged her to a river, and the priest tied her hands together. "If she sinks, then the Lord and will forgive her in heaven," said the priest as he threw Briana into the rushing stream. Before she could sink, a giant green salmon swam up to her and led her to the shallows. It used its colossal tail to knock to safety on the rocky bank. "The woman consorts with the fairies. She is not of God's creation," said Angus, pointing at her. Briana refused to let tears fall as they brought her to the pyre. They tied her to a stake. Before the townsfolk could light the stack of firewood, a bright green light dazzled everyone. When the townsfolk rubbed the sting from their eyes, Briana had vanished. She was underground by the most beautiful palace she had ever seen. Walls carved out of crystal met shining silver doors and windows. By the gate stood the most beautiful man she had ever seen. He had copper hair and eyes of emerald green. His ears came to a point. He wore a beautiful green cloak fastened by a gleaming gold buckle. "I owe you my life," said Briana. "I thought this would happen if I taught you. The crafts of the Sidhe weren't meant for man. They are so often lost to jealousy and greed." "Do I know you, sir?" asked Briana, her head tilting toward the side. "I know you. I saw you every day in my shop for a year. I know your rough hands and your calm temper. You could be a swan or a salmon, and I'd know who you are, Briana." "You're the leprechaun," said Briana, her mouth falling open. "Aye." "I cannot thank you enough, Mr. Leprechaun." "Call me Lugh." "I still owe you me life, Lugh" said, Briana. "Then you'll agree to marry me and be my queen. It's been lonely since ya left." Lugh knelt before Briana. "But you taught me how to make all those shoes," she said. "You worked your fingers to the bone day and night to make those shoes. I trust you more than any woman I've ever known to help me run my kingdom. I love you, and it's been so quiet since you left." Briana kissed him and took his hand as Lugh led her to his crystal castle. The locals to this day can hear the sounds of little hammers when they walk near the low hill with the yew trees and stone circle.


Sat at my computer desk in a steady stream of daylight, my stomach growled. It was another day in lockdown with no food in the house. "See you in a bit alright?" The shout came from the porch, followed shorty by the slamming front door and crunch of the keyhole. I hope he's quick, I thought as my stomach growled again. "Bloody lockdown. Can't do anything anymore." I text my girlfriend in frustration. "I know it sucks, seeing you this weekend tho <3 <3" I entered the lobby again and matched into a fresh game; anything to distract myself from the relentless boredom while I waited for my flatmate to return with the Subway. It was the middle of the second game when I heard the bathroom door close and the metal latch slide. I lifted up the headphones from my ears, "Yo, you back?" I called through my bedroom door. No answer. "Yo!" I yelled. "James?" Still nothing. I figured he'd probably come back for a quick piss and left again. Ignoring me while in a rush was something he did all the time so I didn't think much of it. I stuck my headphones back in and resumed my game. About half an hour and a few games later, I got the urge to piss; this morning's coffee going through me. I finished my current game and did a desperate walk across the hall to the bathroom. I tried the handle: locked. "James, are you there?" Surely he couldn't still be in there. "JAMES!" I yelled. Still no answer. Just to double check it was actually locked, I twisted the handle again. Yeah, it was. Had he passed out? "JAMES!" I screamed again. I was about to shoulder barge the door when something stopped me; an idea that made me shudder and back away slightly. What if it wasn't James? That would explain the no answering, and the getting home early. I very quietly tiptoed into the kitchen and pulled a knife from the wooden stand, returning a moment later with it out front. Was there really a stranger in the house? I asked myself. What if James is in some kind of medical trouble? Either way, I needed to find out. I pressed my cheek to the wood and tried to listen. When I heard no sound, I kicked the door. Then I leant back for some leg space and kicked it again, as hard as I could. The panels bended and bulged, but breaking down a door was apparently a lot harder than in the movies. Nevertheless, I kept kicking. Something strange stirred up inside of me. I don't know whether it was the boredom, the hunger, lockdown, isolation, the situation, general daily frustration, or something else, but something awakened within me; a sudden bloodlust that was ready for a fight and didn't care about the possible danger. Adrenaline coursed through my veins as my foot smashed into the flimsy wooden panels. I was ready to slice whatever was on the other side of this door into tiny pieces. After many dozen kicks the lock was dangling down from the handle with a two inch opening. I was about to give it the final push, when I hear the front door open and my flatmate's voice calling upstairs, "I'm back!" His voice brought me to my senses and I suddenly turned and ran downstairs, ushering him out. "We need to call the police." I explained. "There's a stranger in the bathroom." "I have something to tell you as well." My flatmate said with a glint in his eye. "Chloe couldn't wait for the weekend so she wanted to surprise you. I knew she was coming down today and I told her to hide in the bathroom. I thought it would be funny." I looked down at the large kitchen knife still in my hand, feeling the weight of my chest as it moved up and down, trying not to imagine what I could have done to my girlfriend had the door been just a little weaker.