Henry Brasater has taught at various colleges and universities, including Cairo University as a Fulbright Senior Lecturer.
Brasater’s stories are published in ezines, print anthologies and magazines. His published novellas are:Nandana, Gnome on Pig Productions, (in press for 2016); Nondum, Dead Guns Press, 2014; and Upheaval, Spanking Pulp Press, 2013. His nonfiction book, A. E. van Vogt: Science Fantasy’s Icon, is available from Booklocker.

5:20 TO NULL by Henry Brasater

    Barking came from inside the barn.
    “Baldwin!” Frieda Achziger yelled as she ran up the earthen ramp leading to open double doors of her father’s barn.  “I’ve been looking for you!  You naughty doggie!”  
She heard Baldwin screech, then whine.  
“What are you getting into now?” 
 Frieda repeatedly called out as she ran here and there on the large barn’s first floor. “Where are you, Baldwin?”   She stopped short. No matter how hard she tried, her legs and feet would move no farther. 
Frieda stared at Baldwin.  The little schnauzer was enveloped by a blue-colored glow in a horse stall corner. Her dog had his front paws up on an edge of the glow.  He briskly opened and closed his mouth.  Frieda could not hear his barking.
Within the blue light a fluctuating face appeared. It was a type of face that she had never seen before in all of her six years. She watched, spellbound.
“Do you know how to tell your earth time?” came a soothing voice in her mind. She knew the pulsating face in the blue glow was speaking to her without opening its mouth. 
‘I can tell one, two, three o’clock, four, five, six, and seven.’  She wasn’t certain whether she said that aloud, or thought it.  Frieda went on. ‘I get out of school at three o’clock. I eat supper at six o’clock. I…I get a little mixed up about time after seven o’clock. I have to be told when to brush my teeth and when to go to bed. I don’t know how to tell time after seven o’clock.’  She stopped. Her words ran together. This was a problem she had. “You’re jabbering, dear,” one or another of her elders would occasionally tell her. She was not certain what “jabbering” meant. It seemed to be something that older folks did not care to hear from children. 
Frieda heard the voice again.  “I have transported enough little creatures like you.  Being in an empathetic and sympathetic mood, I will divulge a decision that I have made. At 5:20 Eastern Time this afternoon, all living things on earth will be erased.  The game must be tweaked, before I start it again.”  
With wrinkled brow, Frieda pondered being called a ‘creature.’  Aren’t creatures evil things that go bump in the night, according to one of her story books?  And, she was still trying to connect the word “erased” to herself. Sounds of erasers screeching over blackboards at school, was all that came to her mind. 
The voice went on:  “According to your time, 5:20 is about a minute from now. Are you not afraid?”
“Afraid?” Frieda asked/thought. She knew the word. She was often afraid of people, places and things.
“Yes. Do you not want to run to your mommy?  Your daddy?  Your…someone, and hold tightly to them?  It’s what Homo sapiens frequently do, when they are perplexed, fearful, and not in control of a situation.” 
She did not understand everything that the voice said. She fixated on Baldwin, wagging his tail and apparently barking within the blue light.  “What about Baldwin?”
“I’m taking him with me, to where I…er…live.”
Frieda continued concentrating on the word, “erased.”   
Then…she was. 
And Baldwin barked from interstellar space.                                                      
END

I have always asked myself "What if?" Through my writing, I get the opportunity to share that question with everyone.
I have always been a fan of Science Fiction and stories of the human condition. My favorite authors (currently) are Robert Heinlien,Ray Bradbury, Philip K. Dick, and Cormac Mc Carthy.
Currently reading: The Martian (Andy Weir) and Seveneves ( Neal Stephenson)
I live on a quiet street in Naugatuck, CT with my wife Jamie, and our freakishly large cats.

HARD RAINS by George Bouton
Chapter One
         Leonard stared out the window and wished that it would rain. Not a gentle rain, but a real rain. A violent driving rain that bent the treetops. A storm with thunder that shook your bones and threatened to tear the world and everyone in it apart.
     He sipped his tea and kept still. He listened for the sound of raindrops tapping outside, he heard nothing. The branches outside his window gently swayed back and forth.
     Standing from his kitchen table, he ticked off a checklist in his head: what he had, what he needed, and what he needed to do that day. He stepped out the door. He was met with a weak breeze that pushed against him like a tired child. He moved faster to the end of his street, he had four minutes to catch the transport going to AIM station #1013.
     The transport shuddered a bit, its vibrations smoothed out with the increase of its speed as he sat. He chose not to listen to the chatter on the information channel, but rather watch houses and buildings and landscapes pass by, the lawns vibrant and green. Many years had passed since he had seen red appear on the leaves of maples or sumac, telling of the onset of fall, and approaching winter.
     In fact, there were no seasons anymore. One benign month passed into the next without incident. Dr. Molina had seen to that, although he probably had no way of knowing it when he discovered the depletion of the ozone layer. At that time he was viewed skeptically but some years later he would be lauded for his discovery, and released a chain of events that changed things forever.

     Twenty years ago in Helsinki, a group of scientists had gathered to address the situation of global warming.Destructive weather had been exponentially increasing, and became the elephant in the room. Mudslides swallowed cars and homes in California, typhoons tore apart villages in the Philippines. Deep snows fell in Africa and droughts were being recorded in the Amazon. A forum of the top minds of the nations planned, plotted and argued over models and projections and collected data from key sources around the world. After a massive amount of time and work they arrived at their conclusion, a new intermediary had to be created to marginalize the loss of the earth's ozone layer.

A few years earlier in the United States, The HAARP project had been created. Designed as an experiment in working with the earth's ionosphere, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency had built the high power radio frequency transmitter in Alaska, with the goal of finding the results of firing radio waves into the ionosphere and exciting areas of it with the waves. After a time suspicions and even conspiracy theories grew from the clandestine nature of the facility's work. Then, just as mysteriously as HAARP had been brought into existence, it was mothballed. However, where the Department of Defense saw a wall, the scientists of Helsinki saw a window.
     It was Roly Gerlitz who saw the potential in the dubious Alaska program, and flew there immediately with a small team of engineers to meet with the former heads of the HAARP program, and discuss its nature. Within several days Roly had a working knowledge of HAARP. Within several weeks he had infected his team with the program's potential. Within several months Roly and his team were communicated to the world at the U.N. council on climate change, and in several years copies of the facility were operating in many major continents.
     What Roly had discovered was where the Department of defense had been kicking holes in the sky, all you really needed was a love tap.
 
Chapter 2
There was trepidation at the onset. Naturally no one wants to get something this large wrong, but fortune had smiled upon Roly and the team. Within six months there were no longer any destructive weather patterns detected. In fact, after the newly named Guerlitz project went online, there were no destructive storms, period.

         But Roly's vision did not stop there. If bad weather could be halted, why couldn't good weather be generated? Why couldn't there be a fertile green Death valley, or a Sahara grasslands? The possibilities were endless, and the Guerlitz project was able to fulfill those curiosities and distill what was only the optimum conditions for every region.
     This is what landed Leonard in his current position. In the pre-Guerlitz days His was a family of farmers. Their productivity in yields stretched back generations from the one expanse of land they worked season after season without fail. Theirs was a life of skill and intuition, sweat and blood married with the soil to grow as the crops did every season. There was a unique memory and tradition in it.
     Post-Guerlitz was the hand that slammed that almanac closed for good. If people all over the world could grow crops, there was no longer a need for skills which Leonard had expertise. Apples could be grown in India just as easily as they could in Connecticut. Corn could be raised in Iowa and Scotland alike. Agrarians protested Guerlitz, but when the clamor died down they knew the change was inevitable. 

     Still Leonard couldn't dismiss the finger of memory that poked him. The birds no longer migrated. There was no longer the sight of new shoots pushing through dense warming earth early in the year. Did bears even hibernate anymore? He couldn't think of everything that had changed. Maybe he shouldn't, he thought.

     A low hum rose from the transport, Leonard intuitively knew that it was slowing down to stop at AIM1013. Doors slid open, and his fellow workers joined him in filing out towards the large building. Walking along the chain link fence, he looked out to the transmitter array. A long, wide swath of hundreds of transmitter poles, their transformers humming nearby. He wondered how much rice could grow in that space, or how many cattle it could sustain. It was that finger of memory poking him again.

     "Yo, Len!" Someone shouted behind him, it was Matt, from Aggregation.

"Did you watch Houseboat Pirates last night? Man it was crazy!"

     Matt asked him this every Thursday morning without fail, and it always made him feel twitchy. "Houseboat Pirates? Really? Who thinks this shit up?" He wanted to say, but Matt was a kind person and really just wanted to share what he liked. 

     "Damn, I had meant to, I had to configure the house battery's output, took me all night, almost." Leonard said. It was a lie, and maybe Matt knew it too, but he didn't want to be rude.

     " You gotta see it man, it was crazy when the boat went - well, I don't wanna ruin it for you." Matt said, stepping up to the security checkpoint. Matt, just like Leonard and everyone else at AIM1013 showed their I.d. badge, stepped on a platform, and was scanned. This was to avoid anyone sneaking in or out with weapons, programs, or anything else that AIM1013 thought should not be entering or exiting their facility. Leonard passed through security's scrutiny, and walked on.

     "I'll try to check it out tonight." Leonard said to Matt as he turned from the main hall down towards environmentals. 

Another lie.

Chapter Three
     Environmentals was what Leonard had been selected for in lieu of his lifestyle as a farmer. After all, there were plenty of windows, floors and walls that needed cleaning, and Leonard wasn't exactly qualified for tuning frequencies on arrays. Not that he couldn't have learned, or at least been given the opportunity to try. When the announcement had come that a Guerlitz facility had been completed nearby, and new ways to earn a living had been allocated to people like him, he applied, and was shuttled down the long hall to Environmentals and handed a mop. This after having refitted the operating system on the family tractor, realigning the dish on the barn to better the yield speed, and even splicing a few seedlings to make an entirely better crop. When asked what he did previously he had said "farmer", and they stamped stupid on his head and walked him off. 

In a way it really pissed him off, but in other ways he enjoyed the fact that he had access to anywhere in the facility via his position. Hell, if Leonard can wipe down a monitor screen, why should anyone else do it? This was the thinking that led him into many a strange thing, like the co-workers in Atmosphere Mapping fucking on the break room table, or the "closed room" discussions in administration. He had even seen one of the techs shooting up in the server room. Of course his eyes never saw these things, at least that was the covenant he held with the majority of guilty souls in the facility.

His favorite room was central control. He likened it to the old mission control rooms at NASA with their rows of stations, and several gigantic screens showing the progress of other facilities nearby and abroad. Most times the techs there wouldn't give him a second glance as he glided through. He would note about each one as he traveled, likening it to his own zoo:
Station 1: Richard was drinking again last night, he reeks of it.
Station 2: Lisa is still flirting with the guy across the room.
Station 3: Paul needs to stop that nasty nosepicking habit of his.

And so on as he traveled, leaving the room cleaner in his wake.

In time Leonard gleaned how many of the stations worked as well. How Geographers mapped and scheduled areas of land. How Meteorologists assessed conditions of atmosphere in the sky. Aggregation determined the frequency of waves applied to the ionosphere, and Energy Metrics calculated averages of previous applications, dictating future ones. Every day these components and their techs communicated and operated in cohesion to the given end. It was amazing the amount of information that could be learned from simply observing on a regular basis. There were advantages to being an invisible element of the facility.

Leonard particularly liked to visit the control center after sunset, when the techs had left and the room was vacant, with each station placed on automatic. Leonard would put his feet up at a random station and watch the flat screen monitors feeding real time information on the progression of the sun across the earth. Various stations would light up as they crossed from the twilight band into full sun, relaying the temperature, and any variances that needed to be adjusted from the previous evening. Leonard became annoyed when he struggled to remember what the earth looked like before, how storms, clouds, and the jet stream danced around the face of the globe. Now there was a meticulous and manicured landscape, the fingers of technology sunk deep into the earth and sky. Now every day was perfect and bucolic, the fangs of the beast removed.

Chapter Four
     Leonard unknotted himself awake on his day off. The earned hangover slapped a dull heavy sack against his forehead. Drinking sometimes helped him sleep, pulling him into a syrupy pool of apathy from his life. Many other evenings he would stay awake, rarely getting more than a few hours of rest before being compelled to rise from bed to try and distract himself from that finger poking his memories. Memories of apple festivals in the fall. Recollections of the spring and the fading layer of snow.
     Back then Leonard would wake before sunrise with his grandfather and begin the tasks of the day. Sending the horses out to pasture, feeding and caring for the barnyard, maintaining machinery and crops. He remembered how all of this work would leave the pair dirty and exhausted, but satisfied with the accomplishments of the day.

     Always tied to these thoughts was the intuitive haunting of when the visitor came to their farm. The stranger had a smoothness to him. He wore a suit, his mannerisms and hands cleaner than a fresh sheet of office paper. Grandpa had been called from the field to speak with this man. Leonard remained at the tractor and watched his grandfather's conversation with the man in the suit, gathering meaning by his gestures from afar. When his grandfather returned to the tractor his look was the same, but Leonard felt the rage boiling through his skin as hot as the sun on their backs.
     From that moment an invisible hand began to peel away a gossamer layer of their lives one slow day at a time. Farm equipment was sold, animals were trucked off, belongings were packed and moved.All the time Leonard watched his grandfather wither inside behind a stoic mask. The crops withered as well, and two weeks before The family was to leave the farm for good, Leonard discovered his grandfather hanging from a beam in the barn. Leonard's grandmother, already worn sinewy and thin from a life on the farm finally found her breaking point that morning, and had resigned herself to the caring hands of her sister. Leonard was left with a cashier's check and a shadow on his soul.

      Drinking, distraction, work, repeat. This is the repetition that Leonard endured since eminent domain had taken their farm, and Guerlitz had taken the skies. He swallowed more tablets of ibuprofen and washed it down with coffee. He had no intention of continuing in this vein, it was pulling his mind and body in impossibly exhausting directions, a twisting coil of rope that crackled and popped in his head.

He left his home and took the next transport headed downtown. The pills he had taken finally helping to release the fist squeezing in his forehead ,he watched through the window as suburb gave way to city, and finally to downtown. Leonard stepped off of the transport and it roared away, leaving him feeling compromised in the grit and garbage of downtown. In the noonday sun people traveled here and there, leaned against storefronts and shouted down sidewalks. Leonard took to his task and studied the storefronts as he walked. The one he sought was near, as best his estimations could manufacture. After two blocks he found the store, and stepped inside.

To be continued

​Jeff Sullins works in the software industry by day and attempts to keep up with two young children the rest of the time. A former musician, game designer, and programmer, he's begun to explore the strange new world of fiction writing.

Lynn’s Escape by Jeff Sullins (fantasy story)

Lynn huddled inside a doorway belonging to one of the shops lining 16th Street. It had been a cold fall night and a chill lingered as the sun rose. The filthy remnant of an old comforter, one of his few possessions, lay draped over his head and shoulders. The blanket was tattered and stained, but it warmed him enough to keep from freezing.

He knew he'd have to get up and move from the door before long now that people began to appear along the street. His type weren't welcome around the businesses here--wouldn't want to scare off customers looking for bagels on their way to desk jobs.

Yet still he sat. Sometimes when he'd been in a spot awhile he simply lacked the motivation to do anything--even something so small as getting up and shambling off. It wasn't as though he had somewhere to be, after all. Then he noticed two women coming down the sidewalk in his direction.

They leaned towards each other, whispering. They stared at him, and while they whispered Lynn knew they'd judged him--convicted him with their thoughts. His face was smeared with grime, a mark of his life on the streets. His dark hair was lanky and greasy, and a scruffy beard covered his face and neck. The women must have been wondering how they could avoid him--this smelly heap--as they walked by. Perhaps they feared he would ask for a handout. 

He had long since grown used to humiliating stares, but he was tired. Tired of the injustice of being seen as trash. Tired of being cursed at and told, "get a job." Tired of people with no understanding of what being homeless was like. And tired of people like these two women clutching warm cups of coffee, avoiding his eyes as they drew close and passed him by.

A whim took him.  He lurched to his feet yelling, "Gahhh!" He roared a nonsensical string of syllables, whatever came to his lips.  

The women jumped in surprise. One of them spilled her coffee, he noted with petty glee. Clutching the comforter around his head and shoulders, he hurried behind them down the sidewalk. 

The women walked faster and faster. He continued close behind. Finally, they dropped their coffee cups and broke into a run, letting out squeals of fear. 

Lynn stopped, not pursuing. He'd had no plans to hurt them, of course. But for a moment part of him wanted to scream, "I am here! I am not a piece of litter you can ignore!" He'd acted on that with little thought.

The pair crossed an intersection and turned, then were soon gone from his sight. It didn't matter. Nothing mattered. He felt no satisfaction from what he'd done, nor any remorse. It was simply the start of another pointless day of survival. He had nothing but boredom ahead of him. Still, he should probably get going somewhere.

As he turned away from the intersection, he noticed a figure standing across the street. It appeared to be a man dressed in a long black peacoat, with a somewhat military look. He had a scarf wrapped tightly around the lower portion of his face. Something about him held Lynn's attention. He was still and intent, like a bird of prey waiting for a mouse to run past its gaze.

Was the man watching him?  

#

Feeling hungry, Lynn went exploring in the alley behind a corner coffee shop nearby.  Shop employees would sometimes toss stale muffins and cookies into a dumpster there, and he could score a quick meal if he arrived early.  

This time someone else had gotten there first.

Jorge was elbows deep in the dumpster, rooting around and muttering to himself.  Lynn encountered him from time to time, but calling him a friend would be an overstatement. They were more like cellmates, or sailors stranded on the same desert island. 

Jorge was shorter than Lynn, bordering on pudgy. He, like Lynn, knew quite a bit about surviving on the street. "Hey Lynn," he said. "Ain't found much yet worth havin', but you can help look if ya want."

Lynn gave a grunt for a reply.  He stood and watched Jorge for a minute or two, then moved up beside him to peer inside the dumpster.

Jorge looked over his shoulder at him.  "Didn't see you at the shelter last night. Got pretty cold."

Lynn shrugged. He disliked the shelter. It wasn't the bed bugs or the lice that bothered him, really.  It wasn't the cramped and overcrowded conditions, either, or the staff. In fact, the staff seemed to genuinely care about people like himself. If Lynn could believe good people existed in the world, they'd probably be a lot like the people working at the shelter.

What he disliked was the expectation that he conform to rules. Keeping a schedule, being told what he could or could not do--these were things that drove him away. In some ways it felt like being in jail. Of course, once it got cold enough in winter, he'd have no choice but to go there. But for now, he could still stand to rough it. 

Jorge turned back to the dumpster. "You in some kinda mood? Just not gonna talk, eh? Ok.  Here, wanna split this?" He pulled a large cranberry muffin from the dumpster. It looked stiff and dry, but mostly edible.

Lynn nodded and accepted half of the muffin, then slumped to the ground, resting his shoulders against the alley wall. He bit off a hunk, then chewed in silence for a moment.  

He fished a butter packet out of his pocket. He'd filched a handful of them from a sandwich shop earlier in the week before the manager chased him off. He tossed it up to Jorge, and asked, "Ever see a man wearing a black jacket standing around out here?  Watching, maybe like a cop?"

Jorge snatched the butter packet. His expression changed, becoming nervous. "Yeah. No. I dunno. I seen a lot that'd make a guy crazy, y'know? Maybe I saw that, or maybe you did. Don't change nuthin'. Leave me alone!" Jorge shuffled off, offended.

Lynn eyed him as he left. Sometimes Jorge was like that. Not all there upstairs. Plenty of guys were that way out here. 

The way Lynn saw it, some folks on the street were just passing through. They'd be here a few months, maybe a year, and then find their way out. But guys like Jorge and Lynn, they never found a way out. At least, not this side of the grave.  Many were addicts, or crazy, or both. Lynn was not an addict. The jury was still out on crazy.

He thought more about the man in the black jacket while he finished his muffin. If the man had been a cop, then something would have happened by now. Since it hadn't, there was probably nothing to worry about. Still, he couldn't stop thinking about him. Maybe it was just the novelty of having a mystery to consider that left him preoccupied.

#

Two days later, Lynn went wandering further from the city center. He made his way to an area of small, grassy, roadside hills where he sometimes napped under scrawny evergreens.  He could pass the time there watching people without being harassed. He would sit and stare at the traffic as it went by, or observe fresh-faced youths coming and going on the nearby community college campus. Watching let him feel... not happy, but perhaps less bored. Nothing made him feel happy.

He found a spot where he could settle back, propped on one elbow. The grass was thick with dandelions even this late in the year. He pulled some up from the ground nearest him and chewed the yellow flowers while he watched passing cars and students. The taste was bitter and earthy, but he hardly noticed.

He spent more and more time reflecting as he'd gotten older, though he no longer knew his age for certain. He remembered being kicked out of his mother's home at age 16 after a fight with her boyfriend. He'd had no family or friends to turn to, and had been on the street ever since. Surviving. 

Survival became easier over the years. Once expectations fell low enough, and goals and hope were gone, it became a simple matter of settling into a miserable routine.  Boredom was as much a companion to him now as hunger. It stalked him like a relentless shadow.

He'd tried a few times to climb out of this life when he was younger. Each time he eventually fell back onto the streets. He'd lose what jobs he could find, or get in a fight with the wrong person, or make some other mistake. When his hope died, it took a measure of his pain with it. There was a numb comfort in having nothing left to lose.

Not for the first time, he looked down at the traffic with a different thought. There was another way out--an escape from his misery that no job loss could snatch back from him. He could pick out a large truck, or maybe a van or a bus, and throw himself in front of it as it sped along. It would work best at night, of course, so the driver would have less chance to react. He could do it. He let his eyes wander, selecting a likely spot along the sidewalk where he could launch the attempt...

He closed his eyes. That was not the way out for him. Not yet. He didn't know why. Maybe it was fear? Whatever the cause, Lynn had always decided to stick with his life, such as it was.

Opening his eyes again, he sighed and turned his body, leaning on his other elbow. This brought a change to his field of view and showed him a different busy street. And there, on the other side of it, was the man in the black peacoat.

He still wore the scarf, and once again stood straight and still, facing him. 

_This time I'm sure! He's watching me!_ Lynn sat up, finding his arms cramped and stiff. He groaned, turning the sound into a growl, and got to his feet. He was going over there to talk to the man and find out what he wanted.

Traffic was steady as he walked down the small hill.  When he reached the sidewalk bordering the road, a city bus came to a stop in front of him. It blocked his view while it sat motionless, waiting for a traffic light. Minutes passed while the smell of diesel exhaust suffused the air around him. 

At last the flow of traffic resumed and the bus moved on. The man across the street was gone. Lynn spun around, cursing, but saw no sign of him. 

It began to rain.

He spent more and more time reflecting as he'd gotten older, though he no longer knew his age for certain. He remembered being kicked out of his mother's home at age 16 after a fight with her boyfriend. He'd had no family or friends to turn to, and had been on the street ever since. Surviving. 

Survival became easier over the years. Once expectations fell low enough, and goals and hope were gone, it became a simple matter of settling into a miserable routine.  Boredom was as much a companion to him now as hunger. It stalked him like a relentless shadow.

He'd tried a few times to climb out of this life when he was younger. Each time he eventually fell back onto the streets. He'd lose what jobs he could find, or get in a fight with the wrong person, or make some other mistake. When his hope died, it took a measure of his pain with it. There was a numb comfort in having nothing left to lose.

Not for the first time, he looked down at the traffic with a different thought. There was another way out--an escape from his misery that no job loss could snatch back from him. He could pick out a large truck, or maybe a van or a bus, and throw himself in front of it as it sped along. It would work best at night, of course, so the driver would have less chance to react. He could do it. He let his eyes wander, selecting a likely spot along the sidewalk where he could launch the attempt...

He closed his eyes. That was not the way out for him. Not yet. He didn't know why. Maybe it was fear? Whatever the cause, Lynn had always decided to stick with his life, such as it was.

Opening his eyes again, he sighed and turned his body, leaning on his other elbow. This brought a change to his field of view and showed him a different busy street. And there, on the other side of it, was the man in the black peacoat.

He still wore the scarf, and once again stood straight and still, facing him. 

_This time I'm sure! He's watching me!_ Lynn sat up, finding his arms cramped and stiff. He groaned, turning the sound into a growl, and got to his feet. He was going over there to talk to the man and find out what he wanted.

Traffic was steady as he walked down the small hill.  When he reached the sidewalk bordering the road, a city bus came to a stop in front of him. It blocked his view while it sat motionless, waiting for a traffic light. Minutes passed while the smell of diesel exhaust suffused the air around him. 

At last the flow of traffic resumed and the bus moved on. The man across the street was gone. Lynn spun around, cursing, but saw no sign of him. 

It began to rain.

#

The rain was not heavy, but it would eventually soak him enough that he could become dangerously cold. His blanket would provide little protection once sodden, and he had no rain gear.

He was still avoiding the shelter and didn't feel like returning to the alleys of 16th Street, so he headed down Speer Boulevard as the sun set. He descended an embankment, coming up beneath a bridge. The span of concrete carried the roadway over a drainage canal and bike path. During the day it was busy with cyclists, but it was deserted now.

A chill had already settled into his thin frame, and he huddled against the concrete. It was neither warm nor cozy, but was out of the wetness for the moment. It looked like he was in store for a long night, so he situated his blanket around himself. There was probably another hour of dim evening light left before darkness fell.

A young man in a soaked tee-shirt stumbled into view beneath the bridge. He looked in his late teens, and had a thin build. He was drenched. He made his way under the bridge with unexpected slowness and a lost look on his face. The teenager huddled against the concrete as Lynn had, clutching his legs with shivering arms.

The rain was coming down harder now, energized by a gusty wind. Lightning flashes cast periodic shadows under the bridge.

Lynn watched him for a moment. One of his rules for survival had always been, "take care of yourself first, because nobody else will." But as he looked at the shivering young man hunched a few yards from him, he recalled his own youth. He couldn't help remembering what it had been like all those years ago, when he had first found himself with nowhere to go and nobody to turn to. This young man was like a ghost from his own past.

He scrubbed his face with his palms, knowing he would soon regret what he was about to do.

Rising to a crouch, he hobbled over to the young man. "Hey. Hey, you ok?" He looked the boy in the eyes, and saw dilated pupils. _He's on something_, Lynn realized.

"Cold," was his reply, in a near whisper.

With a sigh, Lynn draped his blanket over the young man, settling it over his head and shoulders. Lynn had gone cold before, and he had the experience to do what he needed to survive. This kid did not, and though he knew it was crazy, Lynn had to help.

The kid made a gagging sound and became more alert. "Dude, this thing smells like someone puked on a dead dog." He made no move to push the blanket off, though.

Lynn pushed himself back up against the concrete, hugging his knees to preserve warmth. In a low voice, he said, "This is no place for you, kid."

"Gimme a break, man. I'll clear outta' here after the rain stops, ok?" He dropped his head down, covering his face with his arms.

"No, I don't mean under this bridge. I mean out here. The street. It's no place for you. This ain't no life. You gotta get out." He looked at him, imagining a reflection of himself from long ago. He raised his voice. "You gotta go to someone who'll take you in. And if there's nobody, you gotta get to the shelter. They'll help you. Help you get out. You gotta do it, you gotta get help!" He had shouted the last, surprising himself. 

A third voice spoke, sounding strangely familiar though somewhat muffled. "Do you deserve help?"

Lynn whipped his head around at the sound.  There, standing just under the bridge, stood the man in the black coat. His hair and scarf moved only slightly, as though unperturbed by the wind. The scarf still covered much of his face.

The man spoke again, "Does he deserve help? Or do you, Lynn?"

"Who the hell are you and how do you know my name?" A lightning flash briefly illuminated the man, revealing a puzzling detail. His clothes were dry. Lynn stared, dumbfounded. He blinked and shook his head, shaken. How could it be?

"Do you deserve it?" The man's voice came from behind his scarf, but was clear nonetheless.

Enraged, Lynn pounded his fist against the ground. "Yes! Yes, damn you!"

"Why?"

A quick series of lightning strikes, near enough that the thunder was shockingly loud, scoured rational thought from Lynn's mind for a moment. When it was over, the man was gone. Lynn stood, banging his head on concrete above him, then ran to the edge of the bridge and looked out. Rain pelted him in the face as he searched the night for any sign of the man. Finally, shivering, he gave up and withdrew. He hunched back against the concrete, wet and cold. 

#

Hours later, in what must have been the middle of the night, Lynn started awake from an uncomfortable sleep. His own shivering had woken him. He felt a sickly chill and an ache in his legs. Fever?

The rain had spent its fury and the air was still. He looked over at the young man sharing the bridge with him and saw that he was sleeping. He looked relatively comfortable now. 

Lynn shivered, freezing. He thought about taking back the blanket, but decided against it. Instead he climbed to his feet with a groan, stretching out a cramp in his calf. He looked out into the dark, lit by streetlights and an occasional passing vehicle. He walked out from under the bridge and hiked up the embankment to the road. 

He couldn't go to the shelter--they wouldn't be letting people in at this hour. Instead he made his way towards the campus light-rail station. If security saw him they'd run him off, but it was worth a try.

When he arrived at the station the clock read just after one in the morning. Another train would be through in 15 minutes. There were a couple of benches, slick with old rain. Lynn curled up to wait, wondering if he'd be seen.

When the train pulled up he looked up and down the cars, selecting one that was empty. He boarded the train, sitting as far from any door as possible. The car was heated and dry. He spent the rest of the night traveling from station to station, switching lines a couple of times to avoid trouble.

#

He was exhausted and weak with fever when the sun finally rose. He'd left the trains behind as they began to fill with the day's commuters. He walked, in a daze, to the shelter. When he arrived, he pushed his way through the front door into the receiving area. 

"Lynn! Sweet Mother of Mercy you look like a corpse!" Sarah, one of the shelter's regular staff, rushed over to him. "Let me get you to the clinic." She was a heavyset woman with brown hair and compassionate eyes. As long as Lynn could remember, Sarah had always been here.

"No, I don't want the clinic. Can I just have a blanket?" He held up his hands to fend her off and nearly fell as he lost his balance. "I've lost my blanket is all."

Sarah eyed him doubtfully. Finally she reached a decision and left him, heading into a back room. She returned a minute later with two coarse blankets. "Take these," she said. "I know there's no use in asking, but... when are you going to come in out of the cold, Lynn?" She looked up at him, her face a mix of emotions. 

Lynn didn't know how to answer, so he just shook his head, then turned and left the reception area. 

#

Three days passed before he saw the young man from the bridge again. Lynn was walking down Blake Street late in the afternoon, past an area that had a row of decorative shrubs and planted trees. He would sometimes stop and get a drink there from the sprinkler heads that watered the landscaping. He was still feverish, and had developed a hacking cough deep in his chest.

The young man was with several others who couldn't have been more than teens, seated beneath an ornamental tree. They were laughing and passing around a joint. The smell was fairly strong. It was legal to possess marijuana in the city now, but not to smoke it openly. Still, the new laws brought young people seeking a high from all around.

Lynn was about to walk on by, but decided instead to approach them. He did not normally seek out conversation with people, having long ago come to believe that it was best avoided. He felt foolish. Why would he seek to connect with someone now? He hadn't cared to try in many years. Yet, surprised and feeling almost as though he were watching himself from a distance, he opened his mouth. "Hey," he said. "Remember me? From the bridge? Did you get some help, kid?"  

The young man got up and walked toward him slowly. Without warning, he lunged and shoved him. Lynn was unprepared and fell to the ground, landing awkwardly on his tailbone.

"Stay away from me!" The young man spat on him, cursing and landing several vicious kicks to his abdomen. Lynn was too weak to get up, and certainly unable to do anything to stop the assault. He curled into a fetal position and waited for it to end, coughing and moaning.

Eventually the blows ceased and Lynn uncurled, raising his head to look around. The youths were gone. He crawled into a sitting position, struggling with several sharp pains in his midsection. 

After a few minutes' rest, he crawled to the nearest tree and used it to help lever himself to a standing position. It hurt, but he managed it. No sense hanging around.

He resumed a shuffling walk down Blake Street, stopping regularly to lean over and cough.

#

He had intended to hang around the baseball stadium that night looking for castoff food or handouts after the game. After the beating, however, he no longer felt up to it. 

Instead he walked as long as he could before collapsing, well after sunset, into an alley filled with dumpsters. He crawled between two, midway down the alley, then wrapped his new blankets about himself. He was wracked with coughs frequently now, made worse by lancing pain in his chest. After one lengthy series of hacking coughs he noticed a salty, metallic taste in his mouth. He looked down at himself, short of breath. There was blood on his blanket.

He was miserable, hurt, and sick. Maybe very sick. He thought about going to the shelter. Even if he had the strength to travel tonight, though, it was too late. Maybe tomorrow. 

He suspected, though, that tomorrow he would change his mind and decide not to go. Assuming he made it through the night at all. It had been a long time since he felt this bad. And he wasn't young anymore.

He lay down on his side, his face pressed against the grimy pavement of the alley. His breath came in painful wheezes, and he vainly sought sleep as frequent coughs shook him. 

He rolled onto his back, looking up at the sky. He watched as clouds passed in front of the stars.

"Please, don't let it rain," he whispered. He didn't know who he was asking, but he asked anyway.

Minutes passed, or maybe hours. His breathing grew calmer, but more shallow as well. He felt himself weakening, but the pain seemed farther away, too, so he didn't mind.

A face, wrapped in a scarf, appeared over him. The man in the black peacoat was there, kneeling over him. In a soft voice he asked, "Do you deserve help, Lynn?" Lynn could see his mouth moving behind the scarf.

Lynn thought for the span of a few breaths, then speaking barely more than a whisper, answered, "Yes."

The man inched closer, so that Lynn imagined he could feel his breath on him if not for the scarf covering his mouth. He spoke again, slow and soft, "But your own choices have led you here. Isn't this what you deserve? Tell me. Why do you deserve help?" The man leaned even closer. "Why?"

Lynn's frustration boiled inside him. He had endured more than should be asked of anyone. And here was this stranger, following him, kicking him while he was down? It was too much. With all the strength he had left, he heaved himself forward and tore the scarf from the man. Though it felt like jagged glass ripping his lungs, he screamed a reply, "Because I'm a human being!"

He stared at the man kneeling over him, his face now uncovered. His own face stared back at him. It was clean-shaven and free of street grime, but he knew it. This was what he would look like, had he lived a different life. 

The man looked down at him, nodding and smiling. "That's right." He held out his hand toward him.

Lynn looked at the outstretched hand, then with staring eyes studied the face. His face. He saw there the potential of roads not taken. A life that could have been. Choices that were never made. In those eyes were feelings he had never known, people he had never met. 

Lynn took his hand.